evolved at the expense of lower forms of life, who have sacrificed their lives for him, belongs to the literature of rhetorical pessimism. Even James thoughtlessly falls into this error. When you and I, for instance, realize how many innocent beasts have had to suffer in cattle-cars and slaughter-pens and lay down their lives that we might grow up, all fattened and clad, to sit together here in comfort and carry on this discourse, it does, indeed, put our relation to the universe in a more solemn light. "Does not," as a young Amherst philosopher (Xenos Clark, now dead) once wrote, "the acceptance of a happy life upon such terms involve a point of honor?" Are we not bound to take some suffering upon ourselves, to do some self-denying service with our lives, in return for all those lives upon which ours are built? To hear this question is to answer it in but one possible way, if one have a normally constituted heart. Something similar to this is often heard from the vegetarian who will eat no meat because it involves the death of innocent animals. He forgets that, if all the American people should refrain from eating meat, the millions of fat cattle, sheep, and hogs on our farms and ranches would not be bred at all. As it is, their lives, from the animal point of view, are the happiest possible. They are sheltered from all the dangers that constantly threaten wild animals. Regular and unlimited food is provided without their effort. They are free from pain and disease. They have no fear of death, and while death indeed comes, it comes to all animals, and to the wild animals in a much more painful form, perhaps after desperate battle or flight, perhaps after weeks of starvation. The vegetarian may possibly urge hygienic but not humanitarian motives. Pessimism Pessimism in philosophy is the doctrine that life is essentially evil, that there is more pain in the world than pleasure, more evil than good. It is not difficult to make many of us believe this, because pain and evil, being the exception rather than the rule, attract our attention. Pain indicates abnormal function, and is therefore exceptional in normal life. Moral evil indicates a departure from those rules of conduct which experience has shown to be necessary for social welfare. Since social groups usually survive and prosper, moral evil must be the exception rather than the rule. Arthur Schopenhauer, a talented German philosopher of the nineteenth century, has been called the prince of pessimists. He attempted a logical proof that this is the worst possible world. The Will is the fundamental reality. The "will-to-live" is forever urging us on, blindly seeking satisfaction which is never attained, or, if attained, is succeeded by new desire. Life is eternal striving, a desire for the unrealized. Hence life is full of unsatisfied longing, full of misery and suffering. This is the worst possible world, for if the evil forces which prey upon us were any worse than they are, we could not survive.1 The fallacies in Schopenhauer's reasoning are not difficult to detect. He says that all life is suffering, because it is all striving, and striving is suffering. Life is by no means all striving, though striving accompanies it. But that striving is suffering is not true; it may be and usually is quite the opposite. Successful striving may be counted as life's greatest joy; striving that is not successful is still a pleasure. Great is the joy of the vision of a coveted goal; greater still the joy of trying to attain it; and great is the satisfaction of having attained it. joy in trying, and what right have we to normal? More often we succeed than fail. and so are more impressed by the failures. the pessimistic or optimistic attitude depends much upon the emotional reaction of the individual, and it is easy to confirm either the philosophy of despair or the philosophy of joy by seizing upon, emphasizing, and exaggerating either the sorrows or the joys of life. Schopenhauer himself was a genius, and genius is often associated with psychopathic traits. Such traits, indeed, abounded in his family history, sometimes in extreme forms. Even if we fail, there is Schopenhauer's other argument - designed to prove that this is the worst possible world from the fact that, if the evils in it were 1 Arthur Schopenhauer was born in 1788 and died in 1860. His principal work is called The World as Will and Idea. It is a work of high literary and philosophical merit, and has become a classic in philosophy. For Schopenhauer's pessimism, the student should read vol. III, chap. XLVI, "On the Vanity and Suffering of Life." any worse than they are, we could not survive · is also misleading. Theoretically it is true that if the environment in which any animal species lives were different from what it is, that species would be different. Each species is adjusted to its environment. Hence in a way it is true that if the world were either worse or better than it is, we should not survive; we should be modified to meet the new conditions. Practically, of course, our human environment might be much worse or better than it is without leading to our destruction. The causes of pessimism Pessimism may be considered as a disease, its causes diagnosed and its cure prescribed. It was formerly said to be due to a defective liver, but is now attributed to a failure of the endocrine glands to function. It becomes chronic and the cure is difficult. Perhaps something of this kind ailed Carlyle. It is related that he was once walking with Leigh Hunt, who called his attention to the beauty of the stars and the grandeur of the heavens, but Carlyle said, "Eh, it's a sad sight!" Melancholia represents an extreme form of the complaint, when, owing to pathological nervous conditions, everything, even the singing of the birds in the spring, is tinged with an unspeakable sadness. Often it takes lesser forms, and is then sometimes due to a lack of proper balance between the sensory and motor functions of the nervous system. Man is naturally and physiologically an actor, a doer. Stimulus is followed normally by response; and if for any reason no adequate motor outlet is possible, a pathological condition follows, leading perhaps to some degree of melancholy. College and university students sometimes pass through such a period of forced inaction, spending four years in taking in and assimilating material, but being forced to bide their time for action and achievement. Athletics and extra-curricular activities of all kinds then act as a kind of catharsis, purifying the mind from these disorders, but sometimes at too great a cost, since valuable opportunities for study may be lost, or health impaired. Students who must have a lot of extra-curricular activities in order to keep from getting pessimistic no doubt suffer a certain handicap in future life. Those who can keep the cobwebs out of their brains while they lay in a stock of useful knowledge and disciplinary thinking will perhaps be the ones who forge ahead in the end, provided only physical health is not sacrificed. There are other causes why young people are often pessimistic. The vast enthusiasms and idealisms of adolescent years are often quenched and dimmed when the first real contact comes with life. Disillusionment and disappointment follow, sometimes with thoughts of suicide. David Starr Jordan puts it in this way: The joys of life have been a thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part of a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speeches made up for us centuries before we were born." The new power of manhood and womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As our own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it, so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic. Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass through a period of pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation caught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find expression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned down his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that took the starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth," says Zangwill, "says bitter things about life which Life would have winced to hear had it been alive." With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its expression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair!1 With the time for action all this pessimism may disappear. Another cause for pessimism is found in the attempt to fill our lives with unearned joys. These abound in a civilization like ours when a highly organized and wealthy society showers upon us comforts and conveniences which we have not earned. Wealth which is inherited, not earned, sometimes has a similar effect upon individuals. Work cures pessimism of this kind, especially creative and constructive work. The latest gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. "Know thyself:" long enough has that poor "self" of thine tormented thee; 1 David Starr Jordan, The Philosophy of Despair, pp. 13, 14. thou wilt never get to "know" it, I believe! Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual: Know what thou canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan It has been written, "an endless significance lies in work;" a man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the man himself first ceases to be jungle and foul unwholesome desert thereby. Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day-worker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free valour against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame!1 Yes, no doubt this is true of creative and constructive work. You and I, if we have found our work, are happy. But what about the drudgery of the industrial laborer, or the uninteresting housework dragging out through the long hours, or the perpetual thumping of a typewriter? I suppose that the most confirmed optimist would not undertake to show that in the half million years of human history which have elapsed thus far there might not be periods when the human species has gone astray in its manner of living. When a great many people want a great many things to satisfy their ever increasing demands, somebody will have to work hard to provide these things. Whether we have gone astray in our manner of living since the discovery of coal, iron, and oil has revolutionized society, whether our present industrial system is a boon or a curse, whether this system might be modified so that creative labor could be substituted for drudgery, or whether the hours of labor might be so reduced that all men could find a real joy of life in the eight or ten hours of leisure which might then be provided, are questions not belonging here. But I would suggest that even this problem might be solved if only a part of that amazing inventive power of thought which has produced the airplane and the wireless telephone should be 1 Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (Harper and Brothers), p. 197. |