"We began this chapter with the question whether the being or the not-being of the present world deserves the preference, and have been obliged to answer this question, after conscientious consideration, thus, that all secular existence brings with it more pain than pleasure. As cause of this disproportion we have seen those moments collected under (1.) in the first stage of the illusion, which bring it about that all volition must necessarily be attended by more pain than pleasure, that thus all volition is foolish and irrational. Even then the only possible result was clearly to be perceived; the whole subsequent inquiry was merely the empirical inductive proof of the correctness of that consequence, which we certainly could not omit if we were to proceed surely."
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trans. William Chatterton Coupland, Routledge (2010), pp. 704-705
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eduard_von_Hartmann
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