Note 59 — Chapter XXV
John Clark Murray translation
The love of life, that is, the instinct of self-preservation, seems rather to increase than to decrease with the diminution or uncertainty of the means of living, inasmuch as man is thereby spurred to greater activity, which developes a stronger consciousness of life. Only this want must not have reached its maximum; for the necessary result of that is despair, that is a conviction of the impossibility of preserving life, and consequently a desire to put an end to it. Thus every passion, and therefore also the love of life, is increased by the obstacles which come in the way of its gratification: only these obstacles must not make the gratification of the passions impossible, else despair is the result.