The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

may gratify this feeling through his work, but for
men and women who have no exceptional gifts, the
only way to do so is through children. Those who
have allowed their procreative impulses to
become atrophied have separated themselves from
the stream of life, and in so doing have run a grave
risk of becoming desiccated. For them, unless they
are exceptionally impersonal, death ends all. The
world that shall come after them does not concern
them, and because of this their doings appear to
themselves trivial and unimportant. To the man or
woman who has children and grandchildren and
loves them with a natural affection, the future is
important, at any rate to the limit of their lives, not
only through morality or through an effort of
imagination, but naturally and instinctively. And
the man whose interests have been stretched to this
extent beyond his personal life is likely to be able
to stretch then still further. Like Abraham, he will
derive satisfaction from the thought that his seed
are to inherit the promised land even if this is not
to happen for many generations. And through such
feelings he is saved from the sense of futility which