.
"But," said I, with astonishment, "how would the human race continue ?" "But what is the use of its continuing ?" he rejoined, vehemently.
"What! What is the use?
But then we should not exist." "And why is it necessary that we should exist ?" "Why, to live, to be sure." "And why live?
The Schopenhauers, the Hartmanns, and all the Buddhists, say that the greatest happiness is Nirvana, Non-Life; and they are right in this sense,--that human happiness is coincident with the annihilation of 'Self.' Only they do not express themselves well.

They say that Humanity should annihilate itself to avoid its sufferings, that its object should be to destroy itself.

Now the object of Humanity cannot be to avoid sufferings by annihilation, since suffering is the result of activity.

The object of activity cannot consist in suppressing its consequences.

The object of Man, as of Humanity, is happiness, and, to attain it, Humanity has a law which it must carry out.