IS LIFE AN AFFLICTION?
In very stately words, that were typical of him who uttered them,
Emerson said, "I do not wish to be amused;" and turned therewith a
figurative back on the enticements of the commonplace.
Broadly speaking, the sentiment that prompted this expression is common
to all individual men. The so-called allurements and charms of the
world are attractive to the vulgar, but not to the thinker, and whether
the thinker be a Trappist or a comedian, he will, if called to account,
express himself in a manner equally frank.
For sentiments of this description neither orthodoxy nor pessimism is
to blame. They are merely the resultants of the obvious and the true;
they leap into being in every intelligent mind. The holiday crowd on
its way to the Derby, to Coney Island, the Lido, or to any one of the
other thousand places of popular resort, causes even the ordinary
observer to wonder why it is that he cannot go too, and enjoy himself
with the same boisterous good humor which palpitates all about him; he
thinks at first that he has some fibre lacking, some incapacity for
that enjoyment which has in so large a measure been given to others;
but little by little the conviction breaks upon him that he has a fibre
more, and that it is the others who lack the finer perceptions with
which he is burdened.
That the others are to be envied, and he to be pitied, there can be no
manner of doubt, but all the same the fact that he is unable to take
part in popular amusements steadfastly remains; and while the matter of
the extra fibre is more or less reassuring, it is not always perfectly
satisfactory, and he then begins to look about for the reason. If to
his power of observation there be added also a receptive mind and an
introspective eye, it will be unnecessary for him to have ever heard of
M. Renan to become gradually aware that he is the victim of a gigantic
swindle. In common with many others, he has somehow imagined that the
world was a broad and fertile plain, with here and there a barren
tract. It is impossible for him to give any reason for this fancy; "In
the world ye shall have tribulation," is the explicit warning of the
Founder of Christianity, and to this warning all creeds, save that of
the early Hellenists, concur. It did not, therefore, come from any
religious teaching, nor, for that matter, from any philosophy. Still
the impression, however vague it may seem when analyzed, has none the
less been with him, as with all others, the reason being simply that he
grew up with it as he may have grown up with fairy tales, and it is not
until his aspirations stumble over facts that he begins to see that
life, instead of being the pleasant land flowing with milk and honey,
which he had imagined, is in reality something entirely different.
These deductions, of course, need not follow because a man finds that
he is more or less indifferent to every form of entertainment, from a
king's revel to a walking-match; but they may follow of any man who has
begun to dislike the propinquity of the average, and to feel that where
the crowd find amusement there will be nothing but weariness and
vexation of spirit for him. Under such circumstances he is an
instinctive pessimist, and one who needs but little theoretic
instruction to learn that he, as all others, has been made use of, and
cheated to boot. The others, it is true, are, generally speaking,
unaware of the deception that has been practiced on them; they have, it
may be, a few faint suspicions that something has gone wrong somewhere,
but even in uttermost depression the untutored look upon their
misfortunes as purely individual, and unshared by the world at large.
Of the universality of suffering, of the fact, as John Stuart Mill has
put it, that there is no happiness for nineteen twentieths of the
world's inhabitants, few have any conception or idea. They look, it may
be, over their garden wall, and, hearing their neighbor grumble, they
think that, being cross-grained and ill-tempered, his life is not one
of unalloyed delight. But their vision extends no further. They do not
see the sorrow that has no words, nor do they hear the silent knell of
irrecoverable though unuttered hopes, "the toil of heart, and knees,
and hands." Of all these things they know nothing; household worries,
and those of their neighbor and his wife, circle their existence. If
they are not contented themselves, then happiness is but a question of
distance. Another street, or another town, or another country holds it,
and if the change is made, the old story remains to be repeated.
There are those, too, who from dyspepsia, torpidity of the liver, or
general crankiness of disposition, are inclined to take a gloomy view
of all things; then there is a temperamental pessimism which displays
itself in outbursts of indignation against the sorrows of life, and in
frantic struggles with destiny and the meshes of personal existence;
there is also the sullen pessimism of despair noticeable in the quiet
folding of hands, and which with tearless eyes awaits death without
complaint; then there are those who complain and sulk, who torment
themselves and others, and who have neither the spunk to struggle nor
the grace to be resigned,--this is the "_forme miserable_;" there is
also a haphazard pessimism which comes of an unevenness of disposition,
and which asserts itself on a rainy day, or when stocks are down;
another is the accidental type, the man who, with loss of wife, child,
or mistress, settles himself in a dreary misanthropy; finally, there is
hypochondria, which belongs solely to pathology.
In none of these categories do the victims have any suspicion that a
philosophical significance is attached to their suffering. Curiously
enough, however, it is from one or from all of these different classes
that the ordinary acceptation of pessimism is derived; it is these
forms that are met with in every-day life and literature, and yet it is
precisely with these types, that spring from the disposition and
temperament of the individual who exhibits them, that scientific
pessimism has nothing to do. It ignores them entirely.
Broadly stated, scientific pessimism in its most advanced form rests on
a denial that happiness in any form ever has been or ever will be
obtained, either by the individual as a unit or by the world as a
whole; and this for the reason that life is not considered as a
pleasant gift made to us for our pleasure; on the contrary, it is a
duty which must be performed by sheer force of labor,--a task which in
greater matters, as in small, brings in its train a misery which is
general, an effort which is ceaseless, and a tension of mind and body
which is extreme, and often unbearable. Work, torment, pain, and misery
are held to be the unavoidable lot of nearly every one, and the work,
torment, pain, and misery of life are considered as necessary to
mankind as the keel to the ship. Indeed, were it otherwise, were
wishes, when formed, fulfilled, in what manner would the time be
employed? Imagine the earth to be a fairyland where all grows of
itself, where birds fly roasted to the spit, and where each would find
his heart's best love wreathed with orange flowers to greet his coming;
what would the result be? Some would bore themselves to death, some
would cut their throats, while others would quarrel, assassinate, and
cause generally more suffering than is in the present state of affairs
actually imposed upon them. Pain is not the accident, but the necessary
and inevitable concomitant of life; and the attractiveness of the
promise "that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee," is, in consequence, somewhat impaired.
Nor, according to scientific pessimism, is there any possibility that
happiness will be obtained in a future life. In this there is no
atheism, though the arguments that follow may seem to savor of the
agnostic.
As has been seen, pleasures are, as a rule, indirect, being cessations
or alleviations of pain. If it be taken for granted that in a future
life there will be no pain, the difficulty is not overcome, but rather
increased by the fact of the rapid exhaustion of nervous susceptibility
to pleasure. Furthermore, as without brain there is no consciousness,
it will not be illogical to suppose that every spirit must be provided
with such an apparatus; in which case the psychological laws in the
other life must be strictly analogous to those of early experience. The
deduction follows of itself,--there, too, must be pain and sorrow.
To this it may be objected that in a future life there need be no
question either of pain or pleasure, and that the ransomed soul will,
in contemplation, or love, or the practice of morality, be too refined
to be susceptible to any sensations of a grosser nature.
To all this advanced pessimism has a ready answer: first, there can be
no morality, for where there is no body and no property it is
impossible to injure another; second, there can be no love, for every
form of love, from the highest to the lowest, rests on the basis of
sensibility; when, therefore, after the abstraction of shape, voice,
features, and all bodily actions that are manifested through the medium
of the brain, nothing but an unsubstantial shadow remains, what is
there left to love? third, there can be no contemplation, for in a
state of clairvoyance contemplation is certainly useless.
In these arguments pessimism, it may be noted, does not deny the
possibility of future existence; it denies merely the possibility of
future happiness; and its logic, of course, can in no wise affect the
position of those who hold that man is unable to conceive or imagine
anything of that which is, or is not to be.
From a religious standpoint advanced pessimism teaches that the misery
of life is immedicable, and strips away every illusion with which it
has been hitherto enveloped; it offers, it is true, no hope that a
future felicity will be the recompense of present suffering, and if in
this way it ignores any question of reward and punishment, it does not
for that reason necessarily open a gate to license and immorality; on
the contrary, pessimism stands firmly to the first principle of the
best ethics, and holds that men shall do good without the wish to be
rewarded, and abstain from evil without the fear of being punished.
In regard to what follows death, it recognizes in the individual but
the aspiration to be liberated from the task of coöperating in
evolution, the desire to be replunged in the Universal Spirit, and the
wish to disappear therein as the raindrop disappears in the ocean, or
as the flame of the lamp is extinguished in the wind. In other words,
it does not aim at mere happiness, but at peace and at rest; and
meanwhile, until the hour of deliverance is at hand, it does not acquit
the individual of any of the obligations that he owes to society, nor
of one that is due to himself. In short, the creed as it stands is one
of charity and good-will to all men; and, apart from its denial of
future happiness, it does not in its ethics differ in any respect from
the sublime teachings of the Christian faith.
It seems trite to say that we are passing through a transition period,
for all things seem to point to a coming change; still, whatever
alterations time may bring in its train, it is difficult to affirm that
the belief here set forth is to be the religion of the future, _n'est
pas prophète qui veut_; in any event, it is easy to prove that
pessimism is not a religion of the past. Its very youth militates most
against it; and while it may outgrow this defect, yet it has other
objectionable features which to the average mind are equally
unassuring: to begin with it is essentially iconoclastic; wherever it
rears its head, it does so amid a swirl of vanishing illusions and a
totter and crash of superstition. There are few, however, that part
placidly with these possessions; illusions are relinquished grudgingly,
and as for superstitions,--a wise man has said, Are they not hopes? It
would seem, then, that in showing the futility of any quest of
happiness here or hereafter, this doctrine, if received at all, will
have performed a very thankless task. Indeed, it is this reason, if no
other, that will cause it for some time to come to be regarded with
distrust and dislike. The masses are conservative, and their
conservatism usually holds them one or two centuries in arrears of
advancing thought; and even putting the masses out of the question, one
has to be very hospitable to receive truth at all times as a welcome
guest, for truth is certainly very naked and uncompromising; we love to
sigh for it, Béranger said, and, it may be added, most of us stop
there.
Pessimism, moreover, seemingly takes, and gives nothing in return; but
if it is examined more closely it will be found that its very
melancholy transforms itself into a consolation which, if relatively
restricted, is none the less valuable. Taubert, one of its most
vigorous expounders, says, "Not only does it carry the imagination far
beyond the actual suffering to which every one is condemned, and in
this manner shield us from manifold deceptions, but it even increases
such pleasures as life still holds, and doubles their intensity. For
pessimism, while showing that each joy is an illusion, leaves pleasure
where it found it, and simply incloses it in a black border, from
which, in greater relief, it shines more brightly than before."
Another objection which has been advanced against pessimism is that it
is a creed of quietist inactivity. Such, however, it can no longer be
considered; for if it be viewed in the light of its recent
developments, it will be found to be above all other beliefs the one
most directly interested in the progress of evolution. Pessimism, it
may be remembered, came into general notice not more than twenty-five
years ago; at that time it aroused in certain quarters a horrified
dislike, in others it was welcomed with passionate approval; books and
articles were written for and against it in much the same manner that
books and articles leaped into print in defense and abuse of the theory
generally connected with Darwin's name. Since then the tumult has
gradually calmed down; on the one hand pessimism is accepted as a fact;
on the other new expositors, less dogmatic than their great
predecessor, and with an equipment of a quarter of a century's advance
in knowledge, prune the original doctrine, and strengthen it with fresh
and vigorous thought. Among these, and directly after Hartmann,
Taubert takes the highest rank. This writer recognizes the truth of
Schopenhauer's theory that progress brings with it a clearer
consciousness of the misery of existence and the illusion of happiness,
but at the same time much emphasis is laid on the possibility of
triumphing over this misery through a subjugation of the selfish
propensities. It is in this way, Taubert considers, that peace may be
attained, or at least the burden of life noticeably diminished.
The bleakness in which Hartmann lodged the Unconscious is through this
treatment rendered, if not comfortable, at least inhabitable. But while
in this manner Taubert plays the upholsterer, another exponent wanders
through the shadowy terraces of thought, and in so doing looks about
him with the grim suavity of a sheriff seeking a convenient spot on
which to clap a bill of sale. This writer, Julius Bahnsen, is best
known through his "Philosophy of History,"[10] and a recent
publication, "The Tragic as the World's First Law," whose repulsively
attractive title sent a fresh ripple eddying through the seas of
literature. In these works the extreme of pessimism may be said to have
been reached, for not only does their author vie with Schopenhauer in
representing the world as a ceaseless torment which the Absolute has
imposed on itself, but he goes a step further, and in denying that
there is any finality even immanent in Nature, asserts that the order
of phenomena is utterly illogical. It may be remembered that the one
pure delight which Schopenhauer admitted was that of intellectual
contemplation:--
"That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened."
But from Bahnsen's standpoint, inasmuch as the universe is totally
lacking in order or harmonious design, since it is but the dim
cavernous abode of unrelated phenomena and forms, the pleasure which
Schopenhauer admitted, so far from causing enjoyment, is simply a
source of anguish to the intelligent and reflective mind. Even the hope
of final annihilation, which Schopenhauer suggested and Hartmann
planned, has brought to him but cold comfort. He puts it aside as a
pleasant and idle dream. To him the misery of the world is permanent
and unalterable, and the universe nothing but Will rending itself in
eternal self-partition and unending torment.
Beyond this it is difficult to go; few have cared to go even so far,
and the bravado and vagaries of this doctrine have not been such as to
cause anything more than a success of curiosity. Indeed, Bahnsen's
views have been mentioned here simply as being a part of the history,
though not of the development of advanced pessimism, and they may now
very properly be relegated to the night to which they belong.
To sum up, then, what has gone before, the modern pessimist is a
Buddhist who has strayed from the Orient, and who in his exodus has
left behind him all his fantastic shackles, and has brought with him,
together with ethical laws, only the cardinal tenet, "Life is evil."
Broadly considered, the difference between the two creeds is not
important. The Buddhist aspires to a universal nothingness, and the
pessimist to the moment when in the face of Nature he may cry:--
"Oh! quelle immense joie, après tant de souffrance!
À travers les débris, par-dessus les charniers,
Pouvoir enfin jeter ce cri de délivrance--
'Plus d'hommes sous le ciel! Nous sommes les derniers!'"
Beyond this difference, the main principles of the two beliefs vary
only with the longitude. The old, yet still infant East demands a
fable, to which the young yet practical West turns an inattentive ear.
Eliminate palingenesis, and the steps by which Nirvâna is attained, and
the two creeds are to all intents and purposes precisely the same.
Of the two, Buddhism is, of course, the stronger; it appeals more to
the imagination and less to facts; indeed, numerically speaking, its
strength is greater than that of any other belief. According to the
most recent statistics the world holds about 8,000,000 Jews,
100,000,000 Mohammedans, 130,000,000 Brahmins, 370,000,000 Christians,
and 480,000,000 Buddhists, the remainder being pagans, positivists,
agnostics and atheists. Within the last few years Buddhism has spread
into Russia, and from there into Germany, England, and the United
States, and wherever it spreads it paves in its passing the way for
pessimism. The number of pessimists it is of course impossible to
compute: instinctive pessimists abound everywhere, but however limited
the number of theoretic pessimists may be, their literature at least is
daily increasing. For the last twenty years, it may safely be said that
not a month has gone by unmarked by some fresh contribution; and the
most recent developments of French and German literature show that the
countless arguments, pleas, and replies which the subject has called
forth have brought, instead of exhaustion, a new and expanded vigor.
The most violent opposition that pessimism has had to face has come,
curiously enough, from the Socialists. For the Socialists, while
pessimists as to the present, have optimistic views for the future.
Their cry is not against the misery of the world, but against the
capital that produces it. The artisan, they say, is smothered by the
produce of his own hands: the more he produces, the more he increases
the capital that is choking him down. In time, Marx says, there will
exist only a few magnates face to face with a huge enslaved population;
and as wealth increases in geometric proportion so will poverty, and
with it the exasperation of the multitude. Then the explosion is to
come, and Socialism to begin its sway. Now Socialism does not, as is
generally supposed, preach community of goods; it preaches simply
community of profits, and the abolition of capital as a productive
agent. When the explosion comes, therefore, the Socialists propose to
turn the state into one vast and comprehensive guild, to which all
productive capital, land, and factories shall appertain. The right of
inheritance of personal property, it may be noted, will be retained;
and this for a variety of reasons, of which the most satisfactory seems
to be that such a right serves as an incentive to economy and activity.
Money may be saved and descend, but it is not to be allowed the power
of generation.
It will be readily understood, even from this brief summary, that such
a doctrine as Hartmann's, which is chiefly concerned in disproving the
value of every aspect of progress, was certain to call out many replies
from those who see a vast area for the expansion of human comfort and
happiness in the future developments of social life.
To these replies the pessimists have but one rejoinder, and that is
that any hope of the expansion of happiness is an illusion. And is it
an illusion? Simple Mrs. Winthrop said, "If us as knows so little can
see a bit o' good and rights, we may be sure as there's a good and a
rights better nor what we knows of." But then Mrs. Winthrop was
admittedly simple, and her views in consequence are hardly those of the
seer. From an endæmonist standpoint, the world does not seem to be
much better off now than it was two or three thousand years ago; there
are even some who think it has retrograded, and who turn to the
civilization of Greece and Rome with longing regret; and this,
notwithstanding the fact that from the peace and splendor of these
nations cries of distress have descended to us which are fully as acute
as any that have been uttered in recent years. Truly, to the student of
history each epoch brings its own shudder. There have been
ameliorations in one way and pacifications in another, but misery looms
in tireless constancy through it all. Each year a fresh discovery seems
to point to still better things in the future, but progress is as
undeniably the chimera of the present century as the resurrection of
the dead was that of the tenth; each age has its own, for no matter to
what degree of perfection industry may arrive, and to whatever heights
progress may ascend, it must yet touch some final goal, and meanwhile
pessimism holds that with expanding intelligence there will come,
little by little, the fixed and immutable knowledge that of all perfect
things which the earth contains misery is the most complete.
To question whether life is an affliction seems, from the facts and
arguments already presented, to be somewhat unnecessary. The answer
appears in a measure to be a foregone conclusion. Yet, if the question
be examined without bias and without prejudice the issue is not only
doubtful, but difficult to ascertain. If in any intelligent community
the matter were put to vote by acclamation, the decision would
undoubtedly be in the negative; and that for a variety of reasons,
first and foremost of which is that ninety and nine out of a hundred
persons are led by the thread of external appearance, and whatever
their private beliefs may be, they still wish their neighbors to think
that they at least have no cause to complain.
It is this desire to appear well in the eyes of others that makes what
is termed the shabby-genteel, and which prevents so many proud yet
vulgar minds from avowing their true position. Indeed, there are few
who, save to an intimate, have the courage to acknowledge that they are
miserable; there is at work within them the same instinct that compels
the wounded animal to seek the depths of the bushes in which to die.
People generally are ashamed of grief, and turn to hide a tear as the
sensitive turn from an accident in the street, and veil their eyes from
deformity. Moreover, it is largely customary to mock at the melancholy;
and in good society it is an unwritten law that every one shall bring a
certain quota of contentment and gayety, or else remain in chambered
solitude.
Added to this, and beyond the insatiable desire to appear serene and
successful in the eyes of others, there is the terrible dread of
seeming to be cheated and outwitted of that which is apparently a
universal birthright; and, according to a general conception, there is
the same sort of moral baseness evidenced in an unuttered yet visible
appeal for sympathy, as that which is at work in the beggar's
outstretched palm. Many, it is true, there are who drop the furtive
coin, but the world at large passes with averted stare. "There is work
for all," is a common saying, and for the infirm there are hospitals
and institutions; "What, then, is the use of giving?" it is queried,
and the answer follows, "They who ask for alms are frauds." If the alms
be taken to stand for sympathy, the frauds will be found to be few and
far between; for, if each man and woman who has arrived at the age of
reason, at that age, in fact, which is not such as is set by the
statute, but which each individual case makes for itself; if each one
should have his heart first wrung dry and then dissected, there would
be such an expanse and prodigality of sorrow discovered as would defy
an index and put a library to shame.
If the tendency of current literature is examined, it will be found to
point very nearly the same way. In earlier days the novel ended with
the union of two young people, and the curtain fell on a tableau of
awaited happiness. Nowadays, however, as the French phrase goes, we
have changed all that. Realistic fiction is a picture of life as it is,
and not, as was formerly the case, a picture of life as we want it.
Probably the strongest and most typical romance of recent American
authors is "The Portrait of a Lady;" and this picture of a thoroughbred
girl, awake to the highest possibilities of life, ends not only in her
entire disenchantment, but also, if I have understood Mr. James aright,
in her utter degradation. In that very elaborate novel, "Daniel
Deronda," the moral drawn is not dissimilar, and yet its author stood
at the head of English fiction.
In French literature, the same influence is even more noticeably at
work. It is the fashion to abuse Zola, and to say that his works are
obscene; so they are, and so is the life that he depicts, but his
descriptions are true to the letter; and the gaunt and wanton misery
which he described in "l'Assommoir" is not, to my thinking, such as one
need blush over, but rather such as might well cause tears. The work
which those princes of literature, the Goncourts and Daudet, have
performed, has been prepared, as one may say, with pens pricked in
sorrow. "Germanie Lacerteux," "la Fille Eliza," "Chérie," "Jack," the
"Nabab," and the "Évangéliste," are but one long-drawn-out cry of
variegated yet self-same agony. In this respect Tourguénieff was well
up to the age, as is also Spielhagen, who is very generally considered
to be the best of German novelists.
The splendid wickedness of mediæval Italy has done little to inspire
her modern authors. The romances most abundant there are cheap
translations from the French. De Amicis, the most popular native
writer, and one whose name is familiar to every one as a traveler in
Gautier's footsteps, has written but few stories, of which the best,
however, "Manuel Menendez," is the incarnation of the soul of
tragedy.[11]
Less recently, Stendhal, Balzac and Flaubert have harped the same note
of accentuated despair; Musset has sung songs that would make a statue
weep, and Baudelaire seems to have supped sorrow with a long spoon. In
brief, the testimony of all purely modern writers amounts pretty much
to the same thing; life to them seems an affliction.
This, of course, it may do without altering its value to others; let
any one, for instance, go to a well-nurtured and refined girl of
eighteen and tell her that life is an affliction, and she will look
upon her informant as a retailer of trumpery paradox. And at eighteen
what a festival is life! To one splendid in beauty and rich in hope how
magnificent it all seems; what unexplored yet inviting countries extend
about the horizon! winter is a kiss that tingles, and summer a warm
caress; everything, even to death, holds its promise. And then picture
her as she will be at eighty, without an illusion left, and turning her
tired eyes each way in search of rest.
Life is not an affliction to those who are, and who can remain young;
there are some who, without any waters of youth, remain so until age
has sapped the foundation of their being; and it is from such as they
that the greatest cheer is obtained. But to those who live, so to
speak, in the thick of the fight, who see hope after hope fall with a
crash, and illusion after illusion vanish into still air; to the
intelligent, to the observer, and especially to him who is forced
against his will to struggle in the van, life is an affliction, a
mishap, a calamity, and sometimes a curse.
That there are many such is proven by the statistics which the daily
papers afford; and could one play Asmodeus, and look into the secret
lives of all men, the evidence obtainable would in its baldness seem
hideously undesirable. The degrees of sensitiveness, however, and the
ability or inability to support suffering, vary admittedly with the
individual. There are men who rise from an insult refreshed; there are
many to whom an injury is a tonic and pain a stimulant; and there is
even a greater number whose sensibilities are so dull that what is
torture to another is barely a twinge to them.
It was the melancholy privilege of the writer to assist, a short time
since, at an operation performed in a German hospital. A common soldier
had been thrown from a horse with such force that his elbow was
dislocated; in the _Klinik_ he put his uninjured arm around a post, and
then let the surgeon pull on a strap which had been fastened to the
other, until the joint was once more in position. His arm was then
bandaged, and he was told to return in a fortnight. On his second visit
the bandage was removed, and the surgeon, after a violent effort, moved
the stiffened joint backwards and forwards. During both operations,
the only noticeable evidence of pain was a slight contraction of the
upper lip, while the general expression of his face was that of a calm
as stolid as is required of the soldier when in the presence of his
superior. To such an one as he life is no more an affliction than it is
to the turtle.
Then, there are those to whom life is the amusing dream of an hour, who
flit through existence in loops of yellow light, who find pleasure in
all things, and are careless of the morrow; and these, perhaps, above
all others, are the most to be envied. It is such natures as theirs
that are usually met with in ordinary fiction, and which are so
singularly infrequent in real life. In fancy they are evoked with ease,
and yet somehow they do not seem to bear the stamp which experience has
set upon the real. That there are such natures it is, of course, absurd
to deny, but to affirm that they are persistent types is scarcely in
accordance with facts. There are, for instance, many young people who
enter life with a prodigality of supposition which is certainly lavish;
they see that others are smiling, and that life, even to its outskirts,
presents an appearance of pleasing serenity. The supposition which they
foster, that a percentage of happiness will be allotted to them, is
then not unreasonable; on the contrary, it is very natural; but as far
as the expectation goes, we are, most of us, very well aware that it
holds its own but for a short space of time.
This fact, while self-evident, is not always satisfactorily explained;
indeed, the reason why so many become disappointed with life is,
perhaps, explainable only on psychological grounds. By all means the
most important rôle throughout the entire length and breadth of
humanity is that which is played by thought. Its influence is as
noticeable in a bakeshop as in the overthrow of an empire; yet, in
spite of the results which are constantly springing from it, it was
Rousseau's opinion that "l'homme qui pense est un animal dépravé."
Balzac caught at this theme, and wrung from it its most severe
deductions. To him it was a dissolvent of greater or less activity,
according to the nature of the individual in whom it worked. Others
have considered it to be the corrosive acid of existence, and the
mainspring of every misfortune; all this it may or may not be, but that
at least it is the prime factor of disenchantment is evidenced by such
an every-day instance as that man, as a rule, and with but few
exceptions, pictures in advance the pleasures and sensations which the
future seems to hold, and yet when the pictured future becomes the
actual present the disproportion between fact and fancy is so great
that it results, in nine cases out of ten, in a complete insolvency.
After one or more bankruptcies of this description the individual very
generally finds that he has had enough, so to speak, and lets hope ever
after alone, whereupon disillusionment steps in and takes its place.
It is thought, then, that does the mischief; or to be more exact, it
is the inability to maintain an equilibrium between the real and the
ideal; that is, in the majority of cases, the cause of disenchantment.
To this it may be also added that it is because every one is so well
organized for misfortune that such a small amount of open revolt is
encountered. When it does appear, it is, as a rule, presented by such
thinkers as have been mentioned in the course of these pages, who,
through their assertion of the undeniable awake the dislike and
animosity of those who have not yet had their fill of proceedings in
bankruptcy, and still hope to find life a pleasant thing well worth the
living.
It may be said in conclusion, and without any attempt at the
discursive, that the moral atmosphere of the present century is charged
with three distinct disturbances,--the waning of religious belief, the
insatiable demand for intense sensations, and the increasing number of
those who live uncompanied, and walk abroad in solitude. That each of
these three effects is due to one and the self-same cause is well-nigh
unquestionable. The immense nausea that is spreading through all lands
and literature is at work on the simple faith, the contented lives, and
joyous good-fellowship of earlier days, and in its results it brings
with it the signs and portents of a forthcoming though undetermined
upheaval. Jean Paul said that we care for life, not because it is
beautiful, but because we should care for it; whence follows the oft
repeated yet hollow reasoning,--since we love life it must be
beautiful; and it is from a series of deductions not dissimilar that
the majority of those who are as yet unaffected by that which after all
may be but a passing change still cling resolutely to the possibility
of earthly happiness.
Out of a hundred intelligent Anglo-Saxons there are seldom two who
think precisely alike on any given subject, be that subject what it
may,--art, politics, literature, or religion. Indeed, there is but one
faith common to all, and that is custom. It is not, however, customary
to discuss a subject such as that which is treated in these pages; and
it is, as a rule, considered just as bad form to question the value of
life as it is to touch upon matters of an indelicate or repulsive
nature.
It is, perhaps, for this latter reason, as also in view of the great
difference of expressed opinion on all topics, that in England, and
especially in America, so little is said on this subject, which for
many years past has been of interest to the rest of the thinking world,
and which each year is gaining in strength and significance. What its
final solution will be is, of course, uncertain. Schopenhauer
recommended absolute chastity as the means to the great goal, and
Hartmann has vaguely suggested a universal denial of the will to live;
more recently, M. Renan has hazarded the supposition that in the
advance of science some one might discover a force capable of blowing
the planet to atoms, and which, if successfully handled, would, of
course, annihilate pain. But these ideas, however practicable or
impracticable they may be in the future, are for the moment merely
theories; the world is not yet ripe for a supreme quietus, and in the
mean time the worth of life may still be questioned.
The question, then, as to whether life is valuable, valueless, or an
affliction can, with regard to the individual, be answered only after a
consideration of the different circumstances attendant on each
particular case; but, broadly speaking, and disregarding its necessary
exceptions, life may be said to be always valuable to the obtuse, often
valueless to the sensitive; while to him who commiserates with all
mankind, and sympathizes with everything that is, life never appears
otherwise than as an immense and terrible affliction.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: _Zur Philosophie der Geschichte, u. s. w._ Carl Duncker,
Berlin; also _Das Tragische als Weltgesetz, u. s. w._ Lauenburg.]
[Footnote 11: An admirable translation (the work of Professor Charles
Carroll, of New York) of this romance appeared a few years ago in
_Harper's Monthly_.]
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Transcriber's Notes
Pages 50-51: Changed "othwise" to "otherwise."
(although the common herd think oth-[end of page] wise,)
Page 65: Retained "Vossiche," but possibly a typo for "Vossische."
(Lindner, the editor of the "Vossiche Zeitung,")
Page 164: Changed "fastastic" to "fantastic."
(to the average German must seem fastastic,)
Page 176: Changed "negaitve" to "negative."
(the purely negaitve character of pleasure.)
Page 231: Retained "uncompanied," but possibly a typo for
"unaccompanied."
(increasing number of those who live uncompanied,)
Ad Page 5: Added [?] to missing price.
(O. B. Frothingham. Life of W. H. Channing. Cr. 8vo, $ )
End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of Disenchantment, by Edgar Saltus