What Mallock deals with in this book is a question which may well strike many, at first sight, as a question that has no serious meaning, or not at any rate for the sane and healthy mind. He attempts to inquire, not sentimentally, but with all calmness and sobriety, into the true value of this human life of ours, as tried by those tests of reality which the modern world is accepting, and to ask dispassionately if it be really worth the living.