PESSIMISM
134. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PESSIMIST.--With philosophy in general this
volume has little to do; but as pessimism is not the doctrine of normal
men generally, but is apt to be identified in our minds with the
teachings of certain of its leading exponents, it may be well to give, in
briefest outline, the type of reasonings upon which the pessimist may
take his stand.
Schopenhauer held that the one World-Will, which manifests itself in all
nature, inorganic and organic, and is identical with the will of which
each man is conscious in himself, is a "will to live." When the World-
Will becomes conscious, as it does in man, the will to live is
consciously asserted. But the will to live is essentially blind and
unreasoning, or it would not do anything so stupid as to will life of any
sort. He writes:
"Only a blind will, no seeing will, could place itself in the position in
which we behold ourselves. A seeing will would rather have soon made the
calculation that the business did not cover the cost; for such a mighty
effort and struggle, with the straining of all the powers, under constant
care, anxiety and want, and with the inevitable destruction of every
individual life, finds no compensation in the ephemeral existence itself,
which is so obtained, and which passes into nothing in our hands."
[Footnote: _The World as Will and Idea_, translated by HALDANE and
KEMP, London, 1896. _On the Vanity and Suffering of Life_. Volume
III, p. 390.]
The basis of all will, says Schopenhauer, is need, deficiency, and,
hence, pain. He dwells at length upon the misery of life, and the
desirability of a release from life. The refuge of suicide at once
suggests itself, but is rejected by Schopenhauer on the ground that the
destruction of the individual cannot prevent the One Will from
manifesting itself in other individuals. Curiously enough he appears to
approve of suicide by starvation, as indicating a renunciation of the
will to live. But his general recommendation is asceticism, renunciation
of the striving for pleasure, the voluntary acceptance of pain. Through
this the Will is to be taught to apprehend its own nature, and, thus, to
deny itself. How a general asceticism on our part will rob the one
universal Will, revealed in the mineral, vegetable and animal worlds, of
its nature, and still its strivings, the great pessimist does not
indicate.
At this point, von Hartmann, who may fairly be called Schopenhauer's
pupil, takes up the tale. He suggests that it is conceivable that a
universal negation of the will may be obtained, if the preponderating
part of the actual World-Will should come to be contained in the
conscious minds that resolve to will no more. This he thinks may
neutralize the whole, and put an end to existence, which is unavoidably
an evil, and implies a preponderance of pain. [Footnote: _Philosophy of
the Unconscious_, "Metaphysic of the Unconscious," chapter xiv.]
135. COMMENT ON THE ETHICS OF PESSIMISM.--On the metaphysics of the
pessimists I shall make no comment save that there appears to be here
sufficient vagueness to satisfy the most poetical of minds. But the
following points in the ethics of pessimism should be noted:
(1) Pleasure and pain are made the measure of the desirability or
undesirability of existence.
(2) It is assumed that pleasure and pain are measurable; and that they
may be quantitatively balanced against one another in such a way that
this or that mixture of them may be declared by an enlightened man to be,
on the whole, desirable or the reverse.
(3) It is claimed that the balance must necessarily incline to the side
of pain, and hence, that life is not worth living.
(4) It follows from all this that it is our duty to aim, not necessarily
directly, but in some manner, at least, at the destruction of life
everywhere.
(5) I beg the reader to observe that the above doctrine rests upon
assumptions which seem to be made without due consideration. Thus:
(a) It is by no means to be assumed without question that pleasure and
pain alone are the measure of the desirable. They are not the only things
actually desired; and, if we assert that they alone are desirable, we
fall back upon a dubious intuition.
(6) The quantitative relations of pleasures and pains are legitimate
subjects of dispute, as we have seen in earlier chapters in this volume.
When is one pleasure twice as great as another? How can we know that
three pleasures counterbalance a pain? Is it by the mere fact that we
_will_ as we do, in a given instance? Then how prove that we will as
we do, because of the equivalence of the pleasure to the pain?
(c) Who shall decide for us whether life is--not desired, it is
admittedly that, as a rule,--but, also, _desirable_?
May the man who denies it rest his assertion upon such general
considerations as that satisfaction presupposes desire, and that desire
implies a lack, and, hence, pain? The famous author of "Utopia" pointed
out long ago that the pains of hunger begin before the pleasure of
eating, and only die when it does. Shall we, then, regard a hearty
appetite as a curse, to be mitigated but not wholly neutralized by a
series of good dinners?
To be sure, the pessimists do not depend wholly upon such general
arguments, but point out in great detail that there is much suffering in
the world, and that the fulfillment of desire, when it is attained, often
results in disillusionment. But the fact remains that life, such as it
is, is desired by men and other creatures generally; desired not as an
exception, and under a misapprehension, but, as a rule, even by the
enlightened and the far-seeing.
Is not the desirable what is desired by the rational will? We have seen
that the rational social will does not aim at the suppression of desires
generally, but only at the suppression of such desires as interfere with
broader satisfactions. Viewed from this stand-point, the pessimist's
"denial of the will to live" appears as an expression of the accidental
or irrational will. It is not an expression of the nature of man, but of
the nature of the pessimist.
(6) It is, perhaps, worth while to point out that there is nothing to
prevent a given pessimist from being an intuitionist, an egoist, a
utilitarian (of a sort), or an adherent of one of the other schools above
discussed. He may assume intuitively that life is undesirable; in view of
its undesirability he may act, either taking himself alone into
consideration, or including his neighbor; he may invoke the doctrine of
evolution; he may even, if he chooses, call it self-realization to
annihilate himself, for he may argue that a will that comes to clear
consciousness must see that it must be its own undoing. It is hardly
necessary to point out, however, that the pessimist, as such, should not
be in any wise confounded with the moralists discussed in the five
chapters preceding.