THE MANUAL

...the fleeting existence of all species of beings, when he compels me to seek and to hope for the happiness for which I hunger, can he have forgotten the object of this final need common to all my species? By what shall I recognize the path that leads to it? It seems to me that I must thrive in proportion as I approach it, and wither in proportion as I stray from it, since animate beings, just like plants, cannot reach the end The "end" refers to the telos—the ultimate purpose or flourishing state of a living thing. for which they were created by moving away from their soil, their climate, and the regimen suited to the nature of their being.

VI.

I PERCEIVED that all those with whom I lived were distracting themselves The original French "s’étourdissoient" implies a frantic state of numbing one's mind to avoid facing reality. and groaning; I understood that they expected happiness from some future event; but that, no matter what occurred, happiness never arrived, because no one thought to study the nature of their being, and the nature of the good we are compelled to seek. They electrified one another with deceptions and errors; and I saw that the common man who, reasoning according to THE FEELING OF THE LAWS OF OUR BEING, came closer to it than such