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In the present day it has acquired a new importance 2 Its exact meaning. It does not question the fact of human happiness 3 But the nature of happiness, and the permanence of its basis 4 For what we call the higher happiness is essentially a complex thing 5 We cannot be sure that all its elements are permanent 7 Without certain of its elements it has been declared by the wisest men to be valueless 8 And it is precisely the elements in question that modern thought is eliminating 11 It is contended that they have often been eliminated before; and that yet the worth of life has not suffered 13 But this contention is entirely false. They were never before eliminated as modern thought is eliminating them now 17 The present age can find no genuine parallels in the past 19 Its position is made peculiar by three facts 19 Firstly, by the existence of Christianity 19 Secondly, the insignificance to which science has reduced the earth 23 Thirdly, the intense self-consciousness that has been developed in the modern world 25 It is often said that a parallel to our present case is to be found in Buddhism 27 But this is absolutely false. Buddhist positivism is the exact reverse of Western positivism 29 In short, the life-problem of our day is distinctly a new and an as yet unanswered one 31

CHAPTER II.
MORALITY AND THE PRIZE OF LIFE.

The worth the positive school claim for life, is essentially a moral worth	33
As its most celebrated exponents explicitly tell us	34
This means that life contains some special prize, to which morality is the only road	34
And the value of life depends on the value of this prize	35
J. S. Mill, G. Eliot, and Professor Huxley admit that this is a correct way of stating the case	36
But all this language as it stands at present is too vague to be of any use to us	38
The prize in question is to be won in this life, if anywhere; and must therefore be more or less describable	39
What then is it?	40
Unless it is describable it cannot be a moral end at all	41
As a consideration of the raison d'être of all moral systems will show us	42
The value