I dedicate this book to all those human beings, who, like myself, have come under the spell of that will-o'-the-wisp, Die Ferne, the disappearing and fading Beyond, and who, like myself again, are doomed sooner or later to see the folly of their quest, Die Ferne receding meanwhile farther and farther away from their vision. "It is the way of the World," says the Philosopher. That my fellow dupes in the fruitless chase may all become sweet-natured philosophers in the end, is my earnest wish and prayer.