Dostoevsky’s realism, as considered in the first part of the book, does not offer a comforting picture of humanity. Human life is arbitrary, full of suffering and evil. The world is not created to the advantage of humanity and is resilient to rational attempts to shape it to man’s satisfaction. Rational capacities to discover or create meaning in life are inadequate in a world that seems determined to thwart them. The highest ideals cannot be achieved no matter how strong-willed human beings are. Rarely do human beings even climb close to these summits. What we continue to find more often is that the pursuit of noble ideals turns into the realization of their opposites.