time vanishes, and the whole of life looks incredibly short.  Nay, there are occasional moments in old age when we can scarcely believe that we are so advanced in years, or that the long past lying behind us has had any real existence—­a feeling which is mainly due to the circumstance that the present always seems fixed and immovable as we look at it.  These and similar mental phenomena are ultimately to be traced to the fact that it is not our nature in itself, but only the outward presentation of it, that lies in time, and that the present is the point of contact between the world as subject and the world as object.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Translator’s Note.—­By this remark Schopenhauer means that will, which, as he argues, forms the inner reality underlying all the phenomena of life and nature, is not in itself affected by time; but that, on the other hand, time is necessary for the objectification of the will, for the will as presented in the passing phenomena of the world.  Time is thus definable as the condition of change, and the present time as the only point of contact between reality and appearance.]

Again, why is it that in youth we can see no end to the years that seem to lie before us?  Because we are obliged to find room for all the things we hope to attain in life.  We cram the years so full of projects that if we were to try and carry them all out, death would come prematurely though we reached the age of Methuselah.

Another reason why life looks so long when we are young, is that we are apt to measure its length by the few years we have already lived.  In those early years things are new to us, and so they appear important; we dwell upon them after they have happened and often call them to mind; and thus in youth life seems replete with incident, and therefore of long duration.

Sometimes we credit ourselves with a longing to be in some distant spot, whereas, in truth, we are only longing to have the time back again which we spent there—­days when we were younger and fresher than we are now.  In those moments Time mocks us by wearing the mask of space; and if we travel to the spot, we can see how much we have been deceived.

There are two ways of reaching a great age, both of which presuppose a sound constitution as a conditio sine qua non.  They may be illustrated by two lamps, one of which burns a long time with very little oil, because it has a very thin wick; and the other just as long, though it has a very thick one, because there is plenty of oil to feed it.  Here, the oil is the vital energy, and the difference in the wick is the manifold way in which the vital energy is used.