Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/16

 strength and his talent. His world begins to come tumbling about his ears. He plunges into philosophy; and he comes up gasping; and he asks himself whether life is worth living, and, if so, for what purpose.

Under the influence of Tolstoy and such writers, I used while still in college to go about among my class-mates and puzzle them somewhat and amuse them a good deal by asking them whether life was worth living. The question had never occurred to them. When I presented it, they mostly replied that they took it for granted that it was. And there they dropped the matter. They didn't care to discuss it. Well, I myself have long since dropped that question, too. I take it for granted that life is worth living, because practically every one acts upon the assumption that it is. But the settlement of that question gave birth to another question which I have been putting to my friends and acquaintances ever since. It, too, is a kind of Tolstoyan question. That is to say, it probes inquisitively into the foundation and underpinning of our daily conduct. It is this: "Assuming that life is worth living, what are its durable satisfactions?"

I think that is a useful question and quite in line with our modern ideas of efficiency. Before you can make any sort of intelligent working plan for your life, you must answer it. If you don't face it and answer it, you soon discover that you are not living economically. You find that you are wasting your