THE VALUE OF LIFE

(OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM)

A counterpart of the question concerning the purpose and function

of life (cp. pp. 190 ff.) is the question concerning its value. We

meet here with two mutually opposed views, and between them with all

conceivable attempts at compromise. One view says that this world is

the best conceivable which could exist at all, and that to live and act

in it is a good of inestimable value. Everything that exists displays

harmonious and purposive co-operation and is worthy of admiration. Even

what is apparently bad and evil may, from a higher point of view,

be seen to be a good, for it represents an agreeable contrast with

the good. We are the more able to appreciate the good when it is

clearly contrasted with evil. Moreover, evil is not genuinely real;

it is only that we perceive as evil a lesser degree of good. Evil is

the absence of good, it has no positive import of its own.

The other view maintains that life is full of misery and

agony. Everywhere pain outweighs pleasure, sorrow outweighs

joy. Existence is a burden, and non-existence would, from every point

of view, be preferable to existence.

The chief representatives of the former view, i.e., Optimism, are

Shaftesbury and Leibnitz; the chief representatives of the second,

i.e., Pessimism, are Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann.

Leibnitz says the world is the best of all possible worlds. A better

one is impossible. For God is good and wise. A good God wills to

create the best possible world, a wise God knows which is the best

possible. He is able to distinguish the best from all other and worse

possibilities. Only an evil or an unwise God would be able to create

a world worse than the best possible.

Whoever starts from this point of view will find it easy to lay down

the direction which human action must follow, in order to make its

contribution to the greatest good of the universe. All that man need do

will be to find out the counsels of God and to act in accordance with

them. If he knows what God's purposes are concerning the world and the

human race, he will be able, for his part, to do what is right. And

he will be happy in the feeling that he is adding his share to all

the other good in the world. From this optimistic standpoint, then,

life is worth living. It is such as to stimulate us to co-operate with,

and enter into, it.

Quite different is the picture Schopenhauer paints. He thinks of

ultimate reality not as an all-wise and all-beneficent being, but

as blind striving or will. Eternal striving, ceaseless craving for

satisfaction which yet is ever beyond reach, these are the fundamental

characteristics of all will. For as soon as we have attained what we

want, a fresh need springs up, and so on. Satisfaction, when it occurs,

endures always only for an infinitesimal time. The whole rest of our

lives is unsatisfied craving, i.e., discontent and suffering. When at

last blind craving is dulled, every definite content is gone from our

lives. Existence is filled with nothing but an endless ennui. Hence

the best we can do is to throttle all desires and needs within us

and exterminate the will. Schopenhauer's Pessimism leads to complete

inactivity; its moral aim is universal idleness.

By a very different argument Von Hartmann attempts to establish

Pessimism and to make use of it for Ethics. He attempts, in keeping

with the fashion of our age, to base his world-view on experience. By

observation of life he hopes to discover whether there is more pain or

more pleasure in the world. He passes in review before the tribunal of

reason whatever men consider to be happiness and a good, in order to

show that all apparent satisfaction turns out, on closer inspection,

to be nothing but illusion. It is illusion when we believe that in

health, youth, freedom, sufficient income, love (sexual satisfaction),

pity, friendship and family life, honour, reputation, glory, power,

religious edification, pursuit of science and of art, hope of a life

after death, participation in the advancement of civilisation--that

in all these we have sources of happiness and satisfaction. Soberly

considered, every enjoyment brings much more evil and misery than

pleasure into the world. The disagreeableness of "the morning after"

is always greater than the agreeableness of intoxication. Pain far

outweighs pleasure in the world. No man, even though relatively the

happiest, would, if asked, wish to live through this miserable life

a second time. Now, since Hartmann does not deny the presence of an

ideal factor (wisdom) in the world, but, on the contrary, grants to it

equal rights with blind striving (will), he can attribute the creation

of the world to his Absolute Being only on condition that He makes

the pain in the world subserve a world-purpose that is wise. But the

pain of created beings is nothing but God's pain itself, for the life

of Nature as a whole is identical with the life of God. An All-wise

Being can aim only at release from pain, and since all existence is

pain, at release from existence. Hence the purpose of the creation

of the world is to transform existence into the non-existence which

is so much better. The world-process is nothing but a continuous

battle against God's pain, a battle which ends with the annihilation

of all existence. The moral life for men, therefore, will consist in

taking part in the annihilation of existence. The reason why God has

created the world is that through the world he may free himself from

his infinite pain. The world must be regarded, "as it were, as an

itching eruption on the Absolute," by means of which the unconscious

healing power of the Absolute rids itself of an inward disease; or

it may be regarded "as a painful drawing-plaster which the All-One

applies to itself in order first to divert the inner pain outwards,

and then to get rid of it altogether." Human beings are members of the

world. In their sufferings God suffers. He has created them in order

to split up in them his infinite pain. The pain which each one of us

suffers is but a drop in the infinite ocean of God's pain (Hartmann,

Phänomenologie des Sittlichen Bewusstseins, pp. 866 ff.).

It is man's duty to permeate his whole being with the recognition

that the pursuit of individual satisfaction (Egoism) is a folly, and

that he ought to be guided solely by the task of assisting in the

redemption of God by unselfish service of the world-process. Thus,

in contrast with the Pessimism of Schopenhauer, that of Von Hartmann

leads us to devoted activity in a sublime cause.

But what of the claim that this view is based on experience?

To strive after satisfaction means that our activity reaches out beyond

the actual content of our lives. A creature is hungry, i.e., it desires

satiety, when its organic functions demand for their continuation the

supply of fresh life-materials in the form of nourishment. The pursuit

of honour consists in that a man does not regard what he personally

does or leaves undone as valuable unless it is endorsed by the approval

of others from without. The striving for knowledge arises when a man

is not content with the world which he sees, hears, etc., so long

as he has not understood it. The fulfilment of the striving causes

pleasure in the individual who strives, failure causes pain. It is

important here to observe that pleasure and pain are attached only to

the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of my striving. The striving itself

is by no means to be regarded as a pain. Hence, if we find that,

in the very moment in which a striving is fulfilled, at once a new

striving arises, this is no ground for saying that pleasure has given

birth to pain, because enjoyment in every case gives rise to a desire

for its repetition, or for a fresh pleasure. I can speak of pain only

when desire runs up against the impossibility of fulfilment. Even

when an enjoyment that I have had causes in me the desire for the

experience of a greater, more subtle, and more exotic pleasure, I

have no right to speak of this desire as a pain caused by the previous

pleasure until the means fail me to gain the greater and more subtle

pleasure. I have no right to regard pleasure as the cause of pain

unless pain follows on pleasure as its consequence by natural law,

e.g., when a woman's sexual pleasure is followed by the suffering of

child-birth and the cares of nursing. If striving caused pain, then the

removal of striving ought to be accompanied by pleasure. But the very

reverse is true. To have no striving in one's life causes boredom,

and boredom is always accompanied by displeasure. Now, since it may

be a long time before a striving meets with fulfilment, and since,

in the interval, it is content with the hope of fulfilment, we must

acknowledge that there is no connection in principle between pain

and striving, but that pain depends solely on the non-fulfilment of

the striving. Schopenhauer, then, is wrong, in any case, in regarding

desire or striving (will) as being in principle the source of pain.

In truth, the very reverse of this is correct. Striving (desire) is in

itself pleasurable. Who does not know the pleasure which is caused by

the hope of a remote but intensely desired enjoyment? This pleasure

is the companion of all labour, the results of which will be enjoyed

by us only in the future. It is a pleasure which is wholly independent

of the attainment of the end. For when the aim has been attained, the

pleasure of satisfaction is added as a fresh thrill to the pleasure

of striving. If anyone were to argue that the pain caused by the

non-attainment of an aim is increased by the pain of disappointed

hope, and that thus, in the end, the pain of non-fulfilment will

still always outweigh the utmost possible pleasure of fulfilment, we

shall have to reply that the reverse may be the case, and that the

recollection of past pleasure at a time of unsatisfied desire will

as often mitigate the displeasure of non-satisfaction. Whoever at the

moment when his hopes suffer shipwreck exclaims, "I have done my part,"

proves thereby my assertion. The blessed feeling of having willed the

best within one's powers is ignored by all who make every unsatisfied

desire an occasion for asserting that, not only has the pleasure of

fulfilment been lost, but that the enjoyment of the striving itself

has been destroyed.

The satisfaction of a desire causes pleasure and its non-satisfaction

causes pain. But we have no right to infer from this fact that pleasure

is nothing but the satisfaction of a desire, and pain nothing but

its non-satisfaction. Both pleasure and pain may be experienced

without being the consequence of desire. All illness is pain not

preceded by any desire. If anyone were to maintain that illness is

unsatisfied desire for health, he would commit the error of regarding

the inevitable and unconscious wish not to fall ill as a positive

desire. When some one receives a legacy from a rich relative of whose

existence he had not the faintest idea, he experiences a pleasure

without having felt any preceding desire.

Hence, if we set out to inquire whether the balance is on the side

of pleasure or of pain, we must allow in our calculation for the

pleasure of striving, the pleasure of the satisfaction of striving,

and the pleasure which comes to us without any striving whatever. On

the debit side we shall have to enter the displeasure of boredom,

the displeasure of unfulfilled striving, and, lastly, the displeasure

which comes to us without any striving on our part. Under this last

heading we shall have to put also the displeasure caused by work that

has been forced upon us, not chosen by ourselves.

This leads us to the question, What is the right method for striking

the balance between the credit and the debit columns? Eduard von

Hartmann asserts that reason holds the scales. It is true that he

says (Philosophie des Unbewussten, 7th edition, vol. ii. p. 290):

"Pain and pleasure exist only in so far as they are actually being

felt." It follows that there can be no standard for pleasure other than

the subjective standard of feeling. I must feel whether the sum of my

disagreeable feelings, contrasted with my agreeable feelings, results

in me in a balance of pleasure or of pain. But, notwithstanding this,

Von Hartmann maintains that "though the value of the life of every

being can be set down only according to its own subjective measure,

yet it follows by no means that every being is able to compute the

correct algebraic sum of all the feelings of its life--or, in other

words, that its total estimate of its own life, with regard to its

subjective feelings, should be correct." But this means that rational

estimation of feelings is reinstated as the standard of value. [12]

It is because Von Hartmann holds this view that he thinks it necessary,

in order to arrive at a correct valuation of life, to clear out of

the way those factors which falsify our judgment about the balance

of pleasure and of pain. He tries to do this in two ways: first,

by showing that our desire (instinct, will) operates as a disturbing

factor in the sober estimation of feeling-values; e.g., whereas we

ought to judge that sexual enjoyment is a source of evil, we are

beguiled by the fact that the sexual instinct is very strong in us,

into pretending to experience a pleasure which does not occur in

the alleged intensity at all. We are bent on indulging ourselves,

hence we do not acknowledge to ourselves that the indulgence makes

us suffer. Secondly, Von Hartmann subjects feelings to a criticism

designed to show, that the objects to which our feelings attach

themselves reveal themselves as illusions when examined by reason,

and that our feelings are destroyed from the moment that our constantly

growing insight sees through the illusions.

Von Hartmann, then, conceives the matter as follows. Suppose an

ambitious man wants to determine clearly whether, up to the moment of

his inquiry, there has been a surplus of pleasure or of pain in his

life. He has to eliminate two sources of error that may affect his

judgment. Being ambitious, this fundamental feature of his character

will make him see all the pleasures of the public recognition of

his achievements larger than they are, and all the insults suffered

through rebuffs smaller than they are. At the time when he suffered

the rebuffs he felt the insults just because he is ambitious, but

in recollection they appear to him in a milder light, whereas the

pleasures of recognition to which he is so much more susceptible

leave a far deeper impression. Undeniably, it is a real benefit to an

ambitious man that it should be so, for the deception diminishes his

pain in the moment of self-analysis. But, none the less, it falsifies

his judgments. The sufferings which he now reviews as through a veil

were actually experienced by him in all their intensity. Hence he

enters them at a wrong valuation on the debit side of his account. In

order to arrive at a correct estimate, an ambitious man would have to

lay aside his ambition for the time of his inquiry. He would have to

review his past life without any distorting glasses before his mind's

eye, else he will resemble a merchant who, in making up his books,

enters among the items on the credit side his own zeal in business.

But Von Hartmann goes even further. He says the ambitious man must

make clear to himself that the public recognition which he craves

is not worth having. By himself, or with the guidance of others,

he must attain the insight that rational beings cannot attach any

value to recognition by others, seeing that "in all matters which are

not vital questions of development, or which have not been definitely

settled by science," it is always as certain as anything can be "that

the majority is wrong and the minority right." "Whoever makes ambition

the lode-star of his life puts the happiness of his life at the mercy

of so fallible a judgment" (Philosophie des Unbewussten, vol. ii,

p. 332). If the ambitious man acknowledges all this to himself, he

is bound to regard all the achievements of his ambition as illusions,

including even the feelings which attach themselves to the satisfaction

of his ambitious desires. This is the reason why Von Hartmann says

that we must also strike out of the balance-sheet of our life-values

whatever is seen to be illusory in our feelings of pleasure. What

remains after that represents the sum-total of pleasure in life,

and this sum is so small compared with the sum-total of pain that

life is no enjoyment and non-existence preferable to existence.

But whilst it is immediately evident that the interference of the

instinct of ambition produces self-deception in striking the balance

of pleasures and thus leads to a false result, we must none the less

challenge what Von Hartmann says concerning the illusory character of

the objects to which pleasure is attached. For the elimination, from

the credit-side of life, of all pleasurable feelings which accompany

actual or supposed illusions would positively falsify the balance

of pleasure and of pain. An ambitious man has genuinely enjoyed the

acclamations of the multitude, irrespective of whether subsequently

he himself, or some other person, recognises that this acclamation is

an illusion. The pleasure, once enjoyed, is not one whit diminished by

such recognition. Consequently the elimination of all these "illusory"

feelings from life's balance, so far from making our judgment about

our feelings more correct, actually cancels out of life feelings

which were genuinely there.

And why are these feelings to be eliminated? He who has them derives

pleasure from them; he who has overcome them, gains through the

experience of self-conquest (not through the vain emotion: What a

noble fellow I am! but through the objective sources of pleasure which

lie in the self-conquest) a pleasure which is, indeed, spiritualised,

but none the less valuable for that. If we strike feelings from the

credit side of pleasure in our account, on the ground that they

are attached to objects which turn out to have been illusory, we

make the value of life dependent, not on the quantity, but on the

quality of pleasure, and this, in turn, on the value of the objects

which cause the pleasure. But if I am to determine the value of life

only by the quantity of pleasure or pain which it brings, I have no

right to presuppose something else by which first to determine the

positive or negative value of pleasure. If I say I want to compare

quantity of pleasure and quantity of pain, in order to see which is

greater, I am bound to bring into my account all pleasures and pains

in their actual intensities, regardless of whether they are based on

illusions or not. If I credit a pleasure which rests on an illusion

with a lesser value for life than one which can justify itself before

the tribunal of reason, I make the value of life dependent on factors

other than mere quantity of pleasure.

Whoever, like Eduard von Hartmann, puts down pleasure as less valuable

when it is attached to a worthless object, is like a merchant who

enters the considerable profits of a toy-factory at only one-quarter

of their real value on the ground that the factory produces nothing

but playthings for children.

If the point is simply to weigh quantity of pleasure against quantity

of pain, we ought to leave the illusory character of the objects of

some pleasures entirely out of account.

The method, then, which Von Hartmann recommends, viz., rational

criticism of the quantities of pleasure and pain produced by life,

has taught us so far how we are to get the data for our calculation,

i.e., what we are to put down on the one side of our account and what

on the other. But how are we to make the actual calculation? Is reason

able also to strike the balance?

A merchant makes a miscalculation when the gain calculated by him does

not balance with the profits which he has demonstrably enjoyed from his

business or is still expecting to enjoy. Similarly, the philosopher

will undoubtedly have made a mistake in his estimate, if he cannot

demonstrate in actual feeling the surplus of pleasure or, as the case

may be, of pain which his manipulation of the account may have yielded.

For the present I shall not criticise the calculations of those

Pessimists who support their estimate of the value of the world by

an appeal to reason. But if we are to decide whether to carry on the

business of life or not, we shall demand first to be shown where the

alleged balance of pain is to be found.

Here we touch the point where reason is not in a position by itself

to determine the surplus of pleasure or of pain, but where it must

exhibit this surplus in life as something actually felt. For man

reaches reality not through concepts by themselves, but through the

interpenetration of concepts and percepts (and feelings are percepts)

which thinking brings about (cp. pp. 82 ff.). A merchant will give

up his business only when the loss of goods, as calculated by his

accountant, is actually confirmed by the facts. If the facts do not

bear out the calculation, he asks his accountant to check the account

once more. That is exactly what a man will do in the business of

life. If a philosopher wants to prove to him that the pain is far

greater than the pleasure, but that he does not feel it so, then he

will reply: "You have made a mistake in your theorisings; repeat

your analysis once more." But if there comes a time in a business

when the losses are really so great that the firm's credit no longer

suffices to satisfy the creditors, bankruptcy results, even though

the merchant may avoid keeping himself informed by careful accounts

about the state of his affairs. Similarly, supposing the quantity

of pain in a man's life became at any time so great that no hope

(credit) of future pleasure could help him to get over the pain,

the bankruptcy of life's business would inevitably follow.

Now the number of those who commit suicide is relatively small compared

with the number of those who live bravely on. Only very few men give up

the business of life because of the pain involved. What follows? Either

that it is untrue to say that the quantity of pain is greater than

the quantity of pleasure, or that we do not make the continuation of

life dependent on the quantity of felt pleasure or pain.

In a very curious way, Eduard von Hartmann's Pessimism, having

concluded that life is valueless because it contains a surplus of pain,

yet affirms the necessity of going on with life. This necessity lies

in the fact that the world-purpose mentioned above (p. 216) can be

achieved only by the ceaseless, devoted labour of human beings. But

so long as men still pursue their egoistical appetites they are unfit

for this devoted labour. It is not until experience and reason have

convinced them that the pleasures which Egoism pursues are incapable

of attainment, that they give themselves up to their proper task. In

this way the pessimistic conviction is offered as the fountain of

unselfishness. An education based on Pessimism is to exterminate

Egoism by convincing it of the hopelessness of achieving its aims.

According to this view, then, the striving for pleasure is

fundamentally inherent in human nature. It is only through the insight

into the impossibility of satisfaction that this striving abdicates

in favour of the higher tasks of humanity.

It is, however, impossible to say of this ethical theory, which

expects from the establishment of Pessimism a devotion to unselfish

ends in life, that it really overcomes Egoism in the proper sense of

the word. The moral ideas are said not to be strong enough to dominate

the will until man has learnt that the selfish striving after pleasure

cannot lead to any satisfaction. Man, whose selfishness desires the

grapes of pleasure, finds them sour because he cannot attain them,

and so he turns his back on them and devotes himself to an unselfish

life. Moral ideals, then, according to the opinion of Pessimists,

are too weak to overcome Egoism, but they establish their kingdom

on the territory which previous recognition of the hopelessness of

Egoism has cleared for them.

If men by nature strive after pleasure but are unable to attain it,

it follows that annihilation of existence and salvation through

non-existence are the only rational ends. And if we accept the view

that the real bearer of the pain of the world is God, it follows that

the task of men consists in helping to bring about the salvation of

God. To commit suicide does not advance, but hinders, the realisation

of this aim. God must rationally be conceived as having created men

for the sole purpose of bringing about his salvation through their

action, else would creation be purposeless. Every one of us has to

perform his own definite task in the general work of salvation. If he

withdraws from the task by suicide, another has to do the work which

was intended for him. Somebody else must bear in his stead the agony

of existence. And since in every being it is, at bottom, God who is

the ultimate bearer of all pain, it follows that to commit suicide

does not in the least diminish the quantity of God's pain, but rather

imposes upon God the additional difficulty of providing a substitute.

This whole theory presupposes that pleasure is the standard of value

for life. Now life manifests itself through a number of instincts

(needs). If the value of life depended on its producing more pleasure

than pain, an instinct would have to be called valueless which brought

to its owner a balance of pain. Let us, if you please, inspect instinct

and pleasure, in order to see whether the former can be measured by

the latter. And lest we give rise to the suspicion that life does not

begin for us below the sphere of the "aristocrats of the intellect," we

shall begin our examination with a "purely animal" need, viz., hunger.

Hunger arises when our organs are unable to continue functioning

without a fresh supply of food. What a hungry man desires, in the

first instance, is to have his hunger stilled. As soon as the supply

of nourishment has reached the point where hunger ceases, everything

has been attained that the food-instinct craves. The pleasure which is

connected with satiety consists, to begin with, in the removal of the

pain which is caused by hunger. But to the mere food-instinct there

is added a further need. For man does not merely desire to restore,

by the consumption of food, the disturbance in the functioning of his

organs, or to get rid of the pain of hunger, but he seeks to effect

this to the accompaniment of pleasurable sensations of taste. When

he feels hungry, and is within half an hour of a meal to which he

looks forward with pleasure, he avoids spoiling his enjoyment of the

better food by taking inferior food which might satisfy his hunger

sooner. He needs hunger in order to get the full enjoyment out of

his meal. Thus hunger becomes for him at the same time a cause of

pleasure. Supposing all the hunger in the world could be satisfied,

we should get the total quantity of pleasure which we owe to the

existence of the desire for nourishment. But we should still have to

add the additional pleasure which gourmets gain by cultivating the

sensibility of their taste-nerves beyond the common measure.

The greatest conceivable value of this quantity of pleasure would be

reached, if no need remained unsatisfied which was in any way connected

with this kind of pleasure, and if with the smooth of pleasure we

had not at the same time to take a certain amount of the rough of pain.

Modern Science holds the view that Nature produces more life than it

can maintain, i.e., that Nature also produces more hunger than it is

able to satisfy. The surplus of life thus produced is condemned to a

painful death in the struggle for existence. Granted that the needs

of life are, at every moment of the world-process, greater than the

available means of satisfaction, and that the enjoyment of life is

correspondingly diminished, yet such enjoyment as actually occurs is

not one whit reduced thereby. Wherever a desire is satisfied, there

the corresponding quantity of pleasure exists, even though in the

creature itself which desires, or in its fellow-creatures, there are

a large number of unsatisfied instincts. What is diminished is, not

the quantity, but the "value" of the enjoyment of life. If only a part

of the needs of a living creature find satisfaction, it experiences

still a corresponding pleasure. This pleasure is inferior in value in

proportion as it is inadequate to the total demand of life within a

given group of desires. We might represent this value as a fraction,

the numerator of which is the actually experienced pleasure, whilst the

denominator is the sum-total of needs. This fraction has the value 1

when the numerator and the denominator are equal, i.e., when all needs

are also satisfied. The fraction becomes greater than 1 when a creature

experiences more pleasure than its desires demand. It becomes smaller

than 1 when the quantity of pleasure falls short of the sum-total

of desires. But the fraction can never have the value 0 so long as

the numerator has any value at all, however small. If a man were to

make up the account before his death and to distribute in imagination

over the whole of life the quantity belonging to a particular instinct

(e.g., hunger), as well as the demands of this instinct, then the total

pleasure which he has experienced might have only a very small value,

but this value would never become altogether nil. If the quantity of

pleasure remains constant, then with every increase in the needs of

the creature the value of the pleasure diminishes. The same is true for

the totality of life in Nature. The greater the number of creatures in

proportion to those which are able fully to satisfy their instincts,

the smaller is the average pleasure-value of life. The cheques on

life's pleasure which are drawn in our favour in the form of our

instincts, become increasingly less valuable in proportion as we

cannot expect to cash them at their full face value. Suppose I get

enough to eat on three days and am then compelled to go hungry for

another three days, the actual pleasure on the three days of eating is

not thereby diminished. But I have now to think of it as distributed

over six days, and this reduces its "value" for my food-instinct by

half. The same applies to the quantity of pleasure as measured by the

degree of my need. Suppose I have hunger enough for two sandwiches

and can only get one, the pleasure which this one gives me has only

half the value it would have had if the eating of it had stilled my

hunger. This is the way in which we determine the value of a pleasure

in life. We determine it by the needs of life. Our desires supply the

measure; pleasure is what is measured. The pleasure of stilling hunger

has value only because hunger exists, and it has determinate value

through the proportion which it bears to the intensity of the hunger.

Unfulfilled demands of our life throw their shadow even upon fulfilled

desires, and thus detract from the value of pleasurable hours. But we

may speak also of the present value of a feeling of pleasure. This

value is the smaller, the more insignificant the pleasure is in

proportion to the duration and intensity of our desire.

A quantity of pleasure has its full value for us when its duration and

degree exactly coincide with our desire. A quantity of pleasure which

is smaller than our desire diminishes the value of the pleasure. A

quantity which is greater produces a surplus which has not been

demanded and which is felt as pleasure only so long as, whilst

enjoying the pleasure, we can correspondingly increase the intensity

of our desire. If we are not able to keep pace in the increase of

our desire with the increase in pleasure, then pleasure turns into

displeasure. The object which would otherwise satisfy us, when it

assails us unbidden makes us suffer. This proves that pleasure has

value for us only so long as we have desires by which to measure

it. An excess of pleasurable feeling turns into pain. This may be

observed especially in those men whose desire for a given kind of

pleasure is very small. In people whose desire for food is dulled,

eating easily produces nausea. This again shows that desire is the

measure of value for pleasure.

Now Pessimism might reply that an unsatisfied desire for food produces,

not only the pain of a lost enjoyment, but also positive ills, agony,

and misery in the world. It appeals for confirmation to the untold

misery of all who are harassed by anxieties about food, and to the

vast amount of pain which for these unfortunates results indirectly

from their lack of food. And if it wants to extend its assertion also

to non-human nature, it can point to the agonies of animals which,

in certain seasons, die from lack of food. Concerning all these evils

the Pessimist maintains that they far outweigh the quantity of pleasure

which the food-instinct brings into the world.

There is no doubt that it is possible to compare pleasure and pain

one with another, and determine the surplus of the one or the other

as we determine commercial gain or loss. But if Pessimists think that

a surplus on the side of pain is a ground for inferring that life is

valueless, they fall into the mistake of making a calculation which

in actual life is never made.

Our desire, in any given case, is directed to a particular object. The

value of the pleasure of satisfaction, as we have seen, will be the

greater in proportion as the quantity of the pleasure is greater

relatively to the intensity of our desire. [13] It depends, further,

on this intensity how large a quantity of pain we are willing to

bear in order to gain the pleasure. We compare the quantity of pain,

not with the quantity of pleasure, but with the intensity of our

desire. He who finds great pleasure in eating will, by reason of his

pleasure in better times, be more easily able to bear a period of

hunger than one who does not derive pleasure from the satisfaction

of the instinct for food. A woman who wants a child compares the

pleasures resulting from the possession of a child, not with the

quantities of pain due to pregnancy, birth, nursing, etc., but with

her desire for the possession of the child.

We never aim at a certain quantity of pleasure in the abstract,

but at concrete satisfaction of a perfectly determinate kind. When

we are aiming at a definite object or a definite sensation, it

will not satisfy us to be offered some other object or some other

sensation, even though they give the same amount of pleasure. If we

desire satisfaction of hunger, we cannot substitute for the pleasure

which this satisfaction would bring a pleasure equally great but

produced by a walk. Only if our desire were, quite generally, for

a certain quantity of pleasure, would it have to die away at once

if this pleasure were unattainable except at the price of an even

greater quantity of pain. But because we desire a determinate kind of

satisfaction, we experience the pleasure of realisation even when,

along with it, we have to bear an even greater pain. The instincts

of living beings tend in a determinate direction and aim at concrete

objects, and it is just for this reason that it is impossible, in our

calculations, to set down as an equivalent factor the quantities of

pain which we have to bear in the pursuit of our object. Provided the

desire is sufficiently intense to be still to some degree in existence

even after having overcome the pain--however great that pain, taken

in the abstract, may be--the pleasure of satisfaction may still be

enjoyed to its full extent. The desire, therefore, does not measure

the pain directly against the pleasure which we attain, but indirectly

by measuring the pain (proportionately) against its own intensity. The

question is not whether the pleasure to be gained is greater than the

pain, but whether the desire for the object at which we aim is greater

than the inhibitory effect of the pain which we have to face. If

the inhibition is greater than the desire, the latter yields to the

inevitable, slackens, and ceases to strive. But inasmuch as we strive

after a determinate kind of satisfaction, the pleasure we gain thereby

acquires an importance which makes it possible, once satisfaction has

been attained, to allow in our calculation for the inevitable pain

only in so far as it has diminished the intensity of our desire. If

I am passionately fond of beautiful views, I never calculate the

amount of pleasure which the view from the mountain-top gives me as

compared directly with the pain of the toilsome ascent and descent;

but I reflect whether, after having overcome all difficulties, my

desire for the view will still be sufficiently intense. Thus pleasure

and pain can be made commensurate only mediately through the intensity

of the desire. Hence the question is not at all whether there is a

surplus of pleasure or of pain, but whether the desire for pleasure

is sufficiently intense to overcome the pain.

A proof for the accuracy of this view is to be found in the fact,

that we put a higher value on pleasure when it has to be purchased

at the price of great pain than when it simply falls into our lap

like a gift from heaven. When sufferings and agonies have toned down

our desire and yet after all our aim is attained, then the pleasure

is all the greater in proportion to the intensity of the desire that

has survived. Now it is just this proportion which, as I have shown

(p. 233), represents the value of the pleasure. A further proof is to

be found in the fact that all living creatures (including men) develop

their instincts as long as they are able to bear the opposition of

pains and agonies. The struggle for existence is but a consequence

of this fact. All living creatures strive to expand, and only those

abandon the struggle whose desires are throttled by the overwhelming

magnitude of the difficulties with which they meet. Every living

creature seeks food until sheer lack of food destroys its life. Man,

too, does not turn his hand against himself until, rightly or wrongly,

he believes that he cannot attain those aims in life which alone

seem to him worth striving for. So long as he still believes in

the possibility of attaining what he thinks worth striving for, he

will battle against all pains and miseries. Philosophy would have to

convince man that striving is rational only when pleasure outweighs

pain, for it is his nature to strive for the attainment of the objects

which he desires, so long as he can bear the inevitable incidental

pain, however great that may be. Such a philosophy, however, would be

mistaken, because it would make the human will dependent on a factor

(the surplus of pleasure over pain) which, at first, is wholly foreign

to man's point of view. The original measure of his will is his desire,

and desire asserts itself as long as it can. If I am compelled,

in purchasing a certain quantity of apples, to take twice as many

rotten ones as sound ones--because the seller wishes to clear out his

stock--I shall not hesitate a moment to take the bad apples as well,

if I put so high a value on the smaller quantity of good apples that

I am prepared, in addition to the purchase price, to bear also the

expense for the transportation of the rotten goods. This example

illustrates the relation between the quantities of pleasure and of

pain which are caused by a given instinct. I determine the value of

the good apples, not by subtracting the sum of the good from that of

the bad ones, but by the fact that, in spite of the presence of the

bad ones, I still attach a value to the good ones.

Just as I leave out of account the bad apples in the enjoyment of

the good ones, so I surrender myself to the satisfaction of a desire

after having shaken off the inevitable pains.

Supposing even Pessimism were in the right with its assertion that the

world contains more pain than pleasure, it would nevertheless have no

influence upon the will, for living beings would still strive after

such pleasure as remains. The empirical proof that pain overbalances

pleasure is indeed effective for showing up the futility of that

school of philosophy, which looks for the value of life in a surplus

of pleasure (Eudæmonism), but not for exhibiting the will, as such, as

irrational. For the will is not set upon a surplus of pleasure, but on

whatever quantity of pleasure remains after subtracting the pain. This

remaining pleasure still appears always as an object worth pursuing.

An attempt has been made to refute Pessimism by asserting that it is

impossible to determine by calculation the surplus of pleasure or

of pain in the world. The possibility of every calculation depends

on our being able to compare the things to be calculated in respect

of their quantity. Every pain and every pleasure has a definite

quantity (intensity and duration). Further, we can compare pleasurable

feelings of different kinds one with another, at least approximately,

with regard to their intensity. We know whether we derive more

pleasure from a good cigar or from a good joke. No objection can be

raised against the comparability of different pleasures and pains

in respect of their intensity. The thinker who sets himself the

task of determining the surplus of pleasure or pain in the world,

starts from presuppositions which are undeniably legitimate. It is

possible to maintain that the Pessimistic results are false, but

it is not possible to doubt that quantities of pleasure and pain

can be scientifically estimated, and that the surplus of the one

or the other can thereby be determined. It is incorrect, however,

to assert that from this calculation any conclusions can be drawn

for the human will. The cases in which we really make the value of

our activity dependent on whether pleasure or pain shows a surplus,

are those in which the objects towards which our activity is directed

are indifferent to us. If it is a question whether, after the day's

work, I am to amuse myself by a game or by light conversation, and

if I am totally indifferent what I do so long as it amuses me, then I

simply ask myself: What gives me the greatest surplus of pleasure? And

I abandon the activity altogether if the scales incline towards the

side of displeasure. If we are buying a toy for a child we consider,

in selecting, what will give him the greatest pleasure, but in all

other cases we are not determined exclusively by considerations of

the balance of pleasure.

Hence, if Pessimistic thinkers believe that they are preparing

the ground for an unselfish devotion to the work of civilisation,

by demonstrating that there is a greater quantity of pain than of

pleasure in life, they forget altogether that the human will is so

constituted that it cannot be influenced by this knowledge. The whole

striving of men is directed towards the greatest possible satisfaction

that is attainable after overcoming all difficulties. The hope of this

satisfaction is the basis of all human activity. The work of every

single individual and the whole achievement of civilisation have

their roots in this hope. The Pessimistic theory of Ethics thinks

it necessary to represent the pursuit of pleasure as impossible,

in order that man may devote himself to his proper moral tasks. But

these moral tasks are nothing but the concrete natural and spiritual

instincts; and he strives to satisfy these notwithstanding all

incidental pain. The pursuit of pleasure, then, which the Pessimist

sets himself to eradicate is nowhere to be found. But the tasks which

man has to fulfil are fulfilled by him because from his very nature

he wills to fulfil them. The Pessimistic system of Ethics maintains

that a man cannot devote himself to what he recognises as his task

in life until he has first given up the desire for pleasure. But no

system of Ethics can ever invent other tasks than the realisation of

those satisfactions which human desires demand, and the fulfilment of

man's moral ideas. No Ethical theory can deprive him of the pleasure

which he experiences in the realisation of what he desires. When

the Pessimist says, "Do not strive after pleasure, for pleasure is

unattainable; strive instead after what you recognise to be your task,"

we must reply that it is human nature to strive to do one's tasks,

and that philosophy has gone astray in inventing the principle that man

strives for nothing but pleasure. He aims at the satisfaction of what

his nature demands, and the attainment of this satisfaction is to him

a pleasure. Pessimistic Ethics, in demanding that we should strive,

not after pleasure, but after the realisation of what we recognise as

our task, lays its finger on the very thing which man wills in virtue

of his own nature. There is no need for man to be turned inside out by

philosophy, there is no need for him to discard his nature, in order

to be moral. Morality means striving for an end so long as the pain

connected with this striving does not inhibit the desire for the end

altogether; and this is the essence of all genuine will. Ethics is not

founded on the eradication of all desire for pleasure, in order that,

in its place, bloodless moral ideas may set up their rule where no

strong desire for pleasure stands in their way, but it is based on

the strong will, sustained by ideal intuitions, which attains its

end even when the path to it is full of thorns.

Moral ideals have their root in the moral imagination of man. Their

realisation depends on the desire for them being sufficiently intense

to overcome pains and agonies. They are man's own intuitions. In them

his spirit braces itself to action. They are what he wills, because

their realisation is his highest pleasure. He needs no Ethical theory

first to forbid him to strive for pleasure and then to prescribe

to him what he shall strive for. He will, of himself, strive for

moral ideals provided his moral imagination is sufficiently active

to inspire him with the intuitions, which give strength to his will

to overcome all resistance.

If a man strives towards sublimely great ideals, it is because they are

the content of his will, and because their realisation will bring him

an enjoyment compared with which the pleasure which inferior spirits

draw from the satisfaction of their commonplace needs is a mere

nothing. Idealists delight in translating their ideals into reality.

Anyone who wants to eradicate the pleasure which the fulfilment of

human desires brings, will have first to degrade man to the position

of a slave who does not act because he wills, but because he must. For

the attainment of the object of will gives pleasure. What we call the

good is not what a man must do, but what he wills to do when he unfolds

the fulness of his nature. Anyone who does not acknowledge this must

deprive man of all the objects of his will, and then prescribe to

him from without what he is to make the content of his will.

Man values the satisfaction of a desire because the desire springs

from his own nature. What he attains is valuable because it is the

object of his will. If we deny any value to the ends which men do

will, then we shall have to look for the ends that are valuable among

objects which men do not will.

A system of Ethics, then, which is built up on Pessimism has its root

in the contempt for man's moral imagination. Only he who does not

consider the individual human mind capable of determining for itself

the content of its striving, can look for the sum and substance of

will in the craving for pleasure. A man without imagination does not

create moral ideas; they must be imparted to him. Physical nature

sees to it that he seeks the satisfaction of his lower desires; but

for the development of the whole man the desires which have their

origin in the spirit are fully as necessary. Only those who believe

that man has no such spiritual desires at all can maintain that they

must be imparted to him from without. On that view it will also be

correct to say that it is man's duty to do what he does not will to

do. Every Ethical system which demands of man that he should suppress

his will in order to fulfil tasks which he does not will, works, not

with the whole man, but with a stunted being who lacks the faculty

of spiritual desires. For a man who has been harmoniously developed,

the so-called ideas of the Good lie, not without, but within the

range of his will. Moral action consists, not in the extirpation

of one's individual will, but in the fullest development of human

nature. To regard moral ideals as attainable only on condition that

man destroys his individual will, is to ignore the fact that these

ideals are as much rooted in man's will as the satisfaction of the

so-called animal instincts.

It cannot be denied that the views here outlined may easily be

misunderstood. Immature youths without any moral imagination like to

look upon the instincts of their half-developed natures as the full

substance of humanity, and reject all moral ideas which they have

not themselves originated, in order that they may "live themselves

out" without restriction. But it goes without saying that a theory

which holds for a fully developed man does not hold for half-developed

boys. Anyone who still requires to be brought by education to the point

where his moral nature breaks through the shell of his lower passions,

cannot expect to be measured by the same standard as a mature man. But

it was not my intention to set down what a half-fledged youth requires

to be taught, but the essential nature of a mature man. My intention

was to demonstrate the possibility of freedom, which becomes manifest,

not in actions physically or psychically determined, but in actions

sustained; by spiritual intuitions.

Every mature man is the maker of his own value. He does not aim at

pleasure, which comes to him as a gift of grace on the part of Nature

or of the Creator; nor does he live for the sake of what he recognises

as duty, after he has put away from him the desire for pleasure. He

acts as he wills, that is, in accordance with his moral intuitions;

and he finds in the attainment of what he wills the true enjoyment of

life. He determines the value of his life by measuring his attainments

against his aims. An Ethical system which puts "ought" in the place of

"will," duty in the place of inclination, is consistent in determining

the value of man by the ratio between the demands of duty and his

actual achievements. It applies to man a measure that is external to

his own nature. The view which I have here developed points man back

to himself. It recognises as the true value of life nothing except

what each individual regards as such by the measure of his own will. A

value of life which the individual does not recognise is as little

acknowledged by my views as a purpose of life which does not spring

from the value thus recognised. My view looks upon the individual as

his own master and the assessor of his own value.