It follows from this that a man should never try to purchase pleasure at the cost of pain, or even at the risk of incurring it; to do so is to pay what is positive and real, for what is negative and illusory; while there is a net profit in sacrificing pleasure for the sake of avoiding pain.  In either case it is a matter of indifference whether the pain follows the pleasure or precedes it.  While it is a complete inversion of the natural order to try and turn this scene of misery into a garden of pleasure, to aim at joy and pleasure rather than at the greatest possible freedom from pain—­and yet how many do it!—­there is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.  The fool rushes after the pleasures of life and finds himself their dupe; the wise man avoids its evils; and even if, notwithstanding his precautions, he falls into misfortunes, that is the fault of fate, not of his own folly.  As far as he is successful in his endeavors, he cannot be said to have lived a life of illusion; for the evils which he shuns are very real.  Even if he goes too far out of his way to avoid evils, and makes an unnecessary sacrifice of pleasure, he is, in reality, not the worse off for that; for all pleasures are chimerical, and to mourn for having lost any of them is a frivolous, and even ridiculous proceeding.

The failure to recognize this truth—­a failure promoted by optimistic ideas—­is the source of much unhappiness.  In moments free from pain, our restless wishes present, as it were in a mirror, the image of a happiness that has no counterpart in reality, seducing us to follow it; in doing so we bring pain upon ourselves, and that is something undeniably real.  Afterwards, we come to look with regret upon that lost state of painlessness; it is a paradise which we have gambled away; it is no longer with us, and we long in vain to undo what has been done.

One might well fancy that these visions of wishes fulfilled were the work of some evil spirit, conjured up in order to entice us away from that painless state which forms our highest happiness.

A careless youth may think that the world is meant to be enjoyed, as though it were the abode of some real or positive happiness, which only those fail to attain who are not clever enough to overcome the difficulties that lie in the way.  This false notion takes a stronger hold on him when he comes to read poetry and romance, and to be deceived by outward show—­the hypocrisy that characterizes the world from beginning to end; on which I shall have something to say presently.  The result is that his life is the more or less deliberate pursuit of positive happiness; and happiness he takes to be equivalent to a series of definite pleasures.  In seeking for these pleasures he encounters danger—­a fact which should not be forgotten.  He hunts for game that does not exist; and so he ends by suffering some very real and positive misfortune—­pain, distress, sickness, loss, care, poverty, shame, and all the thousand ills of life.  Too late he discovers the trick that has been played upon him.