God is, then, the personalization of the All; He is the eternal and infinite Consciousness of the Universe—­Consciousness taken captive by matter and struggling to free himself from it.  We personalize the All in order to save ourselves from Nothingness; and the only mystery really mysterious is the mystery of suffering.

Suffering is the path of consciousness, and by it living beings arrive at the possession of self-consciousness.  For to possess consciousness of oneself, to possess personality, is to know oneself and to feel oneself distinct from other beings, and this feeling of distinction is only reached through an act of collision, through suffering more or less severe, through the sense of one’s own limits.  Consciousness of oneself is simply consciousness of one’s own limitation.  I feel myself when I feel that I am not others; to know and to feel the extent of my being is to know at what point I cease to be, the point beyond which I no longer am.

And how do we know that we exist if we do not suffer, little or much?  How can we turn upon ourselves, acquire reflective consciousness, save by suffering?  When we enjoy ourselves we forget ourselves, forget that we exist; we pass over into another, an alien being, we alienate ourselves.  And we become centred in ourselves again, we return to ourselves, only by suffering.

           Nessun maggior dolore
    che ricordarsi del tempo felice
    nella miseria

are the words that Dante puts into the mouth of Francesca da Rimini (Inferno, v., 121-123); but if there is no greater sorrow than the recollection in adversity of happy bygone days, there is, on the other hand, no pleasure in remembering adversity in days of prosperity.

“The bitterest sorrow that man can know is to aspire to do much and to achieve nothing” (polla phroneoita medenos chrateein)—­so Herodotus relates that a Persian said to a Theban at a banquet (book ix., chap. xvi.).  And it is true.  With knowledge and desire we can embrace everything, or almost everything; with the will nothing, or almost nothing.  And contemplation is not happiness—­no! not if this contemplation implies impotence.  And out of this collision between our knowledge and our power pity arises.

We pity what is like ourselves, and the greater and clearer our sense of its likeness with ourselves, the greater our pity.  And if we may say that this likeness provokes our pity, it may also be maintained that it is our reservoir of pity, eager to diffuse itself over everything, that makes us discover the likeness of things with ourselves, the common bond that unites us with them in suffering.