--tua scienza
Che vuol, quanto la cosa e piu perfetta
Piu senta 'l bene, e cosi la doglienza.

So Buddhism declares that existence in itself implies effort,
pain and sorrow; and, the higher the creature, the more it
suffers. The common clay enjoys little and suffers little. Sum up
the whole and distribute the mass: the result will be an average;
and the beggar is, on the whole, happy as the prince. Why, then,
asks the objector, does man ever strive and struggle to change,
to rise; a struggle which involves the idea of improving his
condition? The Haji answers, "Because such is the Law under which
man is born: it may be fierce as famine, cruel as the grave, but
man must obey it with blind obedience." He does not enter into
the question whether life is worth living, whether man should
elect to be born. Yet his Eastern pessimism, which contrasts so
sharply with the optimism of the West, re-echoes the lines:

--a life,
With large results so little rife,
Though bearable seems hardly worth
This pomp of words, this pain of birth.

Life, whatever may be its consequence, is built upon a basis of
sorrow. Literature, the voice of humanity, and the verdict of
mankind proclaim that all existence is a state of sadness. The
"physicians of the Soul" would save her melancholy from
degenerating into despair by doses of steadfast belief in the
presence of God, in the assurance of Immortality, and in visions