THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD

Through the

Gates of Gold*

A FRAGMENT OF THOUGHT

PROLOGUE

Every man has a philosophy of life of his own, except the true philosopher.  The most ignorant boor has some conception of his object in living, and definite ideas as to the easiest and wisest way of attaining that object.  The man of the world is often, unconsciously to himself, a philosopher of the first rank.  He deals with his life on principles of the clearest character, and refuses to let his position be shattered by chance disaster.  The man of thought and imagination has less certainty, and finds himself continually unable to formulate his ideas on that subject most profoundly interesting to human nature,—­human life itself.  The true philosopher is the one who would lay no claim to the name whatever, who has discovered that the mystery of life is unapproachable by ordinary thought, just as the true scientist confesses his complete ignorance of the principles which lie behind science.

Whether there is any mode of thought or any effort of the mind which will enable a man to grasp the great principles that evidently exist as causes in human life, is a question no ordinary thinker can determine.  Yet the dim consciousness that there is cause behind the effects we see, that there is order ruling the chaos and sublime harmony pervading the discords, haunts the eager souls of the earth, and makes them long for vision of the unseen and knowledge of the unknowable.

Why long and look for that which is beyond all hope until the inner eyes are opened?  Why not piece together the fragments that we have, at hand, and see whether from them some shape cannot be given to the vast puzzle?

CHAPTER I

THE SEARCH FOR PLEASURE

I

We are all acquainted with that stern thing called misery, which pursues man, and strangely enough, as it seems at first, pursues him with no vague or uncertain method, but with a positive and unbroken pertinacity.  Its presence is not absolutely continuous, else man must cease to live; but its pertinacity is without any break.  There is always the shadowy form of despair standing behind man ready to touch him with its terrible finger if for too long he finds himself content.  What has given this ghastly shape the right to haunt us from the hour we are born until the hour we die?  What has given it the right to stand always at our door, keeping that door ajar with its impalpable yet plainly horrible hand, ready to enter at the moment it sees fit?  The greatest philosopher that ever lived succumbs before it at last; and he only is a philosopher, in any sane sense, who recognises the fact that it is irresistible, and knows that like all other men he must suffer soon