{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4754/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4754","id":"gutenberg_4754","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4754","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Pessimism","Philosophy"],"text":"Produced by David A. Schwan.  HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Philosophy of Despair\n\n\n\nby\n\nDavid Starr Jordan\n\n\n\n\n  To\n  John Maxson Stillman\n  In Token of Good Cheer\n\n\n\n\n  A darkening sky and a whitening sea,\n  And the wind in the palm trees tall;\n  Soon or late comes a call for me,\n  Down from the mountain or up from the sea,\n  Then let me lie where I fall.\n\n  And a friend may write--for friends there be,\n  On a stone from the gray sea wall,\n  \"Jungle and town and reef and sea--\n  I loved God's Earth and His Earth loved me,\n  Taken for all in all.\"\n\n\n\nToday is your day and mine, the only day we have, the day in which we\nplay our part. What our part may signify in the great whole, we may not\nunderstand, but we are here to play it, and now is our time. This we\nknow, it is a part of action, not of whining. It is a part of love, not\ncynicism. It is for us to express love in terms of human helpfulness.\nThis we know, for we have learned from sad experience that any other\ncourse of life leads toward decay and waste.\n\n\n\n\nThe Philosophy of Despair\n\n\n\nThe Bubbles of Saki.\n\n\nFrom Fitzgerald's exquisite version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, I\ntake the following quatrains which may serve as a text for what I have\nto say:\n\n  So when the angel of the darker Drink\n  At last shall find you by the river-brink,\n  And offering you his cup, invite your Soul\n  Forth to your lips to quaff, you shall not shrink.\n\n  Why, if the soul can fling the Dust aside,\n  And naked on the air of Heaven ride,\n  Wert not a shame--wert not a shame for him\n  In this clay carcase crippled to abide?\n\n  'Tis but a tent where takes his one-day's rest\n  A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;\n  The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash\n  Strikes, and prepares it for another guest.\n\n  And fear not lest Existence, closing your\n  Account, and mine, shall know the like no more;\n  The Eternal Saki from that bowl hath pour'd\n  Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour.\n\n  When you and I behind the veil are past,\n  Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last,\n  Which of our coming and departure heeds\n  As the Sev'n Seas shall heed a pebble-cast.\n\n  A moment's halt--a momentary taste\n  Of Being from the Well amid the waste,\n  And lo!--the phantom caravan has reach'd\n  The Nothing it set out from--O, make haste!\n\n  * * *\n\n  There was the door to which I found no key;\n  There was the veil through which I could not see:\n  Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee\n  There was--and then no more of Thee and Me.\n\n  * * *\n\n  Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd\n  Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust\n  Like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn\n  Are scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust.\n\n  With them the seed of wisdom did I sow,\n  And with my own hand wrought to make it grow\n  And this was all the harvest that I reap'd--\n  \"I come like water, and like wind I go.\"\n\n  * * *\n\n  Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspire\n  To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire,\n  Would we not shatter it to bits--and then\n  Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire!\n\n  Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--\n  How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;\n  How oft hereafter rising look for us\n  Through this same garden--and for one in vain!\n\n  And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass\n  Among the guests, star-scattered on the grass,\n  And in your blissful errand reach the spot\n  Where I made one--turn down an empty glass!\n\n  * * *\n\nAnd, again, in another poem from Carmen Silva's Roumanian folk-songs:\n\n  Hopeless.\n\n  Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me,\n  Then said the mist: \"I weep for the lost sun.\"\n\n  We sat beneath our tent;\n  Then he that hath no hope drew near us there,\n  And sat him down by us.\n  We asked him: \"Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?\"\n  And he made answer: \"I have seen them all.\"\n  And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt,\n  Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart,\n  Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart--\n  The heart was gone.\n  And yet he trembled not, the while we looked,\n  And sought the heart, the heart that was not there.\n  He let us look. And he that had no hope\n  Smiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs.\n  Then we did envy him, that he could sing\n  Without a heart to suffer what he sang.\n  And when he went, he cast his cloak about him,\n  And those that met him, they could never guess\n  How that his shirt was torn about the heart,\n  And that his breast was pierced above the heart,\n  And that the heart was gone.\n\n  I gazed into the mist, and fear came on me,\n  Then said the mist: \"I weep for the lost sun.\"\n\nThis poem of Omar and of Fitzgerald is perhaps our best expression of\nthe sadness and the grandeur of insoluble problems. It is the sweetness\nof philosophical sorrow which has no kinship with misery or distress. In\nthe strains of the saddest music the soul finds the keenest delight. The\nsame sweet, sorrowful pleasure is felt in the play of the mind about the\nriddles which it cannot solve.\n\nIn the presence of the infinite problem of life, the voice of Science is\ndumb, for Science is the coordinate and corrected expression of human\nexperience, and human experience must stop with the limitations of human\nlife. Man was not present \"When the foundations of the Earth were laid,\"\nand beyond the certainty that they were laid in wisdom and power, man\ncan say little about them. Man finds in the economy of nature \"no trace\nof a beginning; no prospect of an end!\" He may feel sure, with Hutton,\nthat \"time is as long as space is wide.\" But he cannot conceive of space\nas actually without limit, nor can he imagine any limiting conditions.\nHe cannot think of a period before time began, nor of a state in which\ntime shall be no more. The mind fails before the idea of time's eternal\ncontinuity. So time becomes to man merely the sequence of the earthly\nevents in which he and his ancestors have taken part. Even thus limited\nit is sadly immortal, while man's stay on the earth is but of \"few days\nand full of trouble.\" \"Oh, but the long, long while this world shall\nlast!\" or as the grim humorist puts it, \"we shall be a long time dead.\"\n\nThough the meaning of time, space, existence lies beyond our reach, yet\nsome sort of solution of the infinite problem the human heart demands.\nWe find in life a power for action, limited though this power may be.\nLife is action, and action is impossible if devoid of motive or hope.\n\nIt is my purpose here to indicate some part of the answer of Science to\nthe Philosophy of Despair. Direct reply Science has none. We cannot\nargue against a singer or a poet. The poet sings of what he feels, but\nScience speaks only of what we know. We feel infinity, but we cannot\nknow it, for to the highest human wisdom the ultimate truths of the\nuniverse are no nearer than to the child. Science knows no ultimate\ntruths. These are beyond the reach of man, and all that man knows must\nbe stated in terms of his experience. But as to human experience and\nconduct, Science has a word to say.\n\nTherefore Science can speak of the causes and results of Pessimism. It\ncan touch the practical side of the riddle of life by asking certain\nquestions, the answers to which lie within the province of human\nexperience. Among these are the following:\n\nWhy is there a \"Philosophy of Despair?\"\n\nCan Despair be wrought into healthful life?\n\nIn what part of the Universe are you and what are you doing?\n\nPersonal despair or discouragement may rise from failure of strength or\nfailure of plans. This is a matter of every-day occurrence. The \"best\nlaid schemes o' mice and men\" generally go wrong, no doubt, but this\nfact has little to do with the Philosophy of Pessimism. It is natural\nfor mice and men to try again and to gain wisdom from failures. \"By the\nembers of loss we count our gains.\"\n\nThe Pessimism of Youth we may first consider: In the transition from\nchildhood to manhood great changes take place in the nervous system.\nThere is for a time a period of confusion, in which the nerve cells are\nacquiring new powers and new relations. This is followed by a time of\njoy and exuberance, a sense of a new life in a new world, a feeling of\nnew power and adequacy, the thought that life is richer and better worth\nliving than the child could have supposed.\n\nTo this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have been\na thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part\nof a cut-and-dried program, \"performing actions and reciting speeches\nmade up for us centuries before we were born.\" The new power of manhood\nand womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As\nour own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it,\nso does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic.\nVery few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass\nthrough a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation\ncaught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find\nexpression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned\ndown his collar in sympathy with the \"conspicuous loneliness\" that took\nthe starch out of the collar of Byron. \"The youth,\" says Zangwill,\n\"says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear had\nit been alive.\" With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its\nexpression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair.\n\nThis adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mood\ndisappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanishes\nwith the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad of\nthe drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuous\nlife. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome.\n\nBut if action is impossible, the mood remains. And here arises the\ndespair of the highly educated. The purpose of knowledge is action. But\nto refuse action is to secure time for the acquisition of more\nknowledge. It is written in the very structure of the brain that each\nimpression of the senses must bring with it the impulse to act. To\nresist this impulse is in turn to destroy it and to substitute a dull\nsoul-ache in its place. \"Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and the\nexperience of all the ages brings only despair if it cannot be wrought\ninto life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the\nmain element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others has\nbeen uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures which\narise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire for\nmore intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirst\nfor these comes ever deeper discouragement.\n\nAt the best, the tendency of large knowledge, not vitalized by practical\nexperience, is to spend itself in cynical criticism, in futile efforts\nto tear down without feeling the higher obligation to build up. For it\nis the essence of this form of Pessimism to feel that there is nothing\non earth worth the trouble of building. The real is only a \"sneering\ncomment\" on the ideal, and man's life is too short to make any action\nworth while.\n\n  \"With her the seed of Wisdom did I sow,\n  And with mine own hands wrought to make it grow;\n  And this is all the harvest that I reap'd,\n  'I come like water, and like wind I go.'\"\n\nOne of the few things that we may know in life is this, that it is\nimpossible for man to know anything absolutely. The power of reasoning\nis a mere \"by-product in the process of Evolution.\" It is but an\ninstrument to help out the confusion of the senses, and it is\nconditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which it\ndeals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason is\npowerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculative\nphilosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intensely\npractical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediate\npurposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature of\nthe infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If we\ncannot \"reach the heart of reality\" by reason, what indeed can we reach?\nWhat right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe\nnothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything?\nEvery man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In\nthe Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the\ncourse of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us.\nOur parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is\nindeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue to\nthose who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose that\nany man is in any degree \"the arbiter of his own destiny\" is pure\nillusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against our\nwill we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, \"on\na steep incline, where we can veer but little to the left or right\";\nwhichever way we move we fall finally to the very bottom. The fires we\nkindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. The\nriver sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by our\nefforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we find\nourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we may\ndescribe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement.\n\nTo the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mere\nillusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fit\nitself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for\nthe same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under\nthe rare conditions in which life is not destroyed.\n\nIn such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. If\nwe are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall\nnever begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our\nhand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To reach\nfor the ultimate end of action is never to begin to act.\n\nDeeper and more worthy of respect is the sadness of science. The effort\n\"to see things as they really are,\" to get out of all make-believe and\nto secure that \"absolute veracity of thought\" without which sound action\nis impossible does not always lead to hopefulness.\n\nThere is much to discourage in human history,--in the facts of human\nlife. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He is\nignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairs\nbear the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in the\nprevalence of destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilization\nis dissolved in the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest or\ncommercial greed be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death.\nIts essential feature is the slaughter of the young, the brave, the\nambitious, the hopeful, leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged to\nperpetuate the race. Thus all militant, nations become decadent ones.\nThus the glory of Rome, her conquests and her splendor of achievement,\nleft the Romans at home a nation of cowards, and such they are to this\nday. For those who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of the\nslaves, scullions, the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Roman\nglory could not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all that\nis worthy in the works of man.\n\nThat there seems no way out of this is the cause of the sullen despair\nof so many scholars of Continental Europe. The millennium is not in\nsight. It is farther away than fifty years ago. The future is narrowing\ndown and men do not care to forecast it. It is enough to grasp what we\nmay of the present. We hear \"the ring of the hammer on the scaffold.\"\n\"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.\" \"The sad kings,\" in\nWatson's phrase, can only pile up fuel for their own destruction, and\nthe failure of force will release the unholy brood which force has\ncaused to develop. The winds of freedom are tainted by sulphurous\nexhalations. In all our merry-making we find with Ibsen that \"there is a\ncorpse on board.\" The mask is falling only to show the Death's head\nthere concealed. Aristocracy, Democracy, Anarchy, Empire, the history of\npolitics, is the eternal round of the Dance of Death.\n\nWhen we look at human nature in detail we find more of animal than of\nangel, and the \"veracity of thought and action,\" which is the choicest\ngift of Science, is lost in the happy-go-lucky movement of the human\nmob. \"To see things as they really are\" is the purpose of the philosophy\nof Pessimism in the hands of its worthiest exponents. But we know what\nis, and that alone, even were such knowledge possible, is not to know\nthe truth. The higher wisdom seeks to find the forces at work to produce\nthat which now is. The present time is the meeting time of forces; the\npresent fact their temporary product. To the philosophy of Evolution,\n\"every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities.\" Each meanest fact\nis the product of the world-forces that lie behind it; each meanest man\nthe resultant of the vast powers, alive in human nature, struggling\nsince life began. And these forces, omnipotent and eternal, will never\ncease their work.\n\nTo the philosophy of Pessimism, the child is a mere human larva, weak,\nperverse, disagreeable, the heir of mortality, with all manner of\n\"defects of doubt and taints of blood,\" gathered in the long experience\nof its wretched parentage.\n\nIn the more hopeful view of Evolution the child exists for its\npossibilities. The huge forces within have thrown it to the surface of\ntime. They will push it onward to development, which may not be much in\nthe individual case, but beyond it all lie the possibilities of its\nrace. Inherent in it is the power to rise, to form its own environment,\nto stand at last superior to the blind forces by which the human will\nwas made. With this thought is sure to come, in some degree, the\ncertainty that the heart of the Universe is sound, that though there be\nso many of us in the world, each must have his place, and each at last\n\"be somehow needful to infinity.\" We can see that each least creature\nhas its need for being. The present justifies the past. It is the\ntranscendent future which renders the commonplace present possible.\n\n  The \"dragons of the prime,\n  That tore each other in the slime,\"\n\nlived and fought that we their descendants may realize ourselves in\n\"lives made beautiful and sweet,\" through all unlikeness to dragons. It\nwas necessary that every foot of soil in Europe should be crimsoned by\nblood, wantonly shed, to bring the relative peace and tolerance of the\ncivilization of Europe today. It always \"needs that offense must come\"\nto bring about the better condition in which each particular offense\nshall be done away. For the evolution of life is not in straight lines\nfrom lower to higher things, but runs rather in wavering spirals. It is\nthe resultant of stress and storm. The evil and failure which darken the\npresent are necessary to the illumination of the future. Time is long.\n\"God tosses back to man his failures\" one by one, and gives him time and\nstrength to try again.\n\nAccording to Schopenhauer, we move across the stage of life stung by\nappetite and goaded by desire, in pain unceasing, the sole respite from\npain, the instant in which desire is lost in satisfaction. To do away\nwith desire is to destroy pain, but it also destroys existence. Desire\nis lost where the \"mouth is stopped with dust,\" and with death only\ncomes relief from pain.\n\nThus the Pessimist tells us that \"the only reality in life is pain.\" But\nsurely this is not the truth. He who knows no reality save appetite has\nnever known life at all. The realities in life are love and action; not\ndesire, but the exercise of our appointed functions.\n\nAction follows sensation. The more we have to do the more accurate must\nbe our sensations, the greater the hold environment has upon us. Broader\nactivities demand better knowledge of our surroundings. Greater\nsensitiveness to external things means greater capacity for pain, hence\ngreater suffering, when the natural channels of effort are closed. Thus\narises the hope for nothingness in which many sensitive souls have\nindulged. With no surroundings at all, or with environment that never\nvaries, there could be no sense-perception. To see nothing, to feel\nnothing--there could be no demand for action. With no failure of action\nthere could be no weariness. From the varied environment of earthly life\nspring, through adaptation, the varied powers and varied sensibilities,\nsusceptibilities to joy and pain as well as the rest. The greater the\nsensitiveness the greater the capacity for suffering. Hence the\n\"quenching of desire,\" the \"turning toward Nirvana, the desire to\nescape from the hideous bustle of a world in which we are able to take\nno part, is a natural impulse with the soul which feels but cannot or\nwill not act.\n\n  \"Can it be, O Christ in Heaven,\n  That the highest suffer most,\n  That the strongest wander farthest\n  And most hopelessly are lost?--\n\n  That the mark of rank in Nature\n  Is capacity for pain,\n  And the anguish of the singer\n  Marks the sweetness of the strain?\n\nThat this must be so rests in the very nature of things. The most\nperfect instrument is one most easily thrown out of adjustment. The most\nhighly developed organism is the most exactly fitted to its functions,\nthe one most deeply injured when these functions are altered or\nsuppressed.\n\nMan's sensations and power to act must go together. Man can know nothing\nthat he cannot somehow weave into action. If he fails to do this in one\nform or another, it is through limitations he has placed on himself. Man\ncannot suffer for lack of \"more worlds to conquer,\" because his power to\nconquer worlds is the product of his own 'past life and his own past\nneeds. To weave knowledge into action is the antidote for ennui. To\nplan, to hope, to do, to accomplish the full measure of our powers,\nwhatever they may be, is to turn away from Nirvana to real life. A\nuseful man, a helpful man, an active man in any sense, even though his,\nactivity be misdirected or harmful, is always a hopeful man.\n\nThe feeling that \"the only reality in life is pain,\" is the sign not of\nphilosophical acuteness but of bodily under-vitalization. The nervous\nsystem is too feeble for the body it has to move. To act is to make the\nenvironment your servant. Its pressure is no longer pain but joy. The\nconcessions which life has made to time and space are the source of\nlife's glory and power.\n\nThe function of the nervous system is to carry from the environment to\nthe brain the impressions of truth, that action may be true and safe.\nPain and pleasure are both incidental to sound action. The one drives,\nthe other coaxes us toward the path of wisdom. If pain is in excess of\njoy in our experience, it is because we have wandered from the path of\nnormal activity. By right-doing, we mean that action which makes for\n\"abundance of life,\" and abundance of life means fulness of joy. \"Though\nlife be sad, yet there's joy in the living it\" was the word of the\nancient Greeks, \"who ever with a frolic welcome took the Thunder and the\nSunshine.\"\n\nThe life of man is dynamic, not static; not a condition but a movement.\n\"Not enjoyment and not sorrow\" is its end or justification. It is a rush\nof forces, an evolution towards greater activities and higher\nadjustment, the growth of a stability which shall be ever more unstable.\nThis onward motion is recognized in the pessimistic philosophy of Von\nHartmann, as a movement towards ever greater possibilities of pain. With\nhim life is \"the supreme blunder of the blind unconscious force\" which\ncreated man and developed him as the prey of ever-increasing suffering.\n\nBut the power to enjoy has grown in like degree, and both joy and pain\nare subordinated to the power to act. The human will, the power to do,\nis the real end of the stress and struggle of the ages. However limited\nits individual action, the will finds its place among the gigantic\nfactors in the evolution of life. It is not the present, but the\nultimate, which is truth. Not the unstable and temporary fact but the\nboundless clashing forces which endlessly throw truths to the surface.\n\nAnother source of Pessimism is the reaction from unearned pleasures and\nfrom spurious joys. It is the business of the senses to translate\nrealities, to tell the truth about us in terms of human experience.\nEvery real pleasure has its cost in some form of nervous activity. What\nwe get we must earn, if it is to be really ours. Long ago, in the\ninfancy of civilization, man learned that there were drugs in Nature,\ncell products of the growth or transformation of \"our brother organisms,\nthe plants,\" by whose agency pain was turned to pleasure. By the aid of\nthese outside influences he could clear \"today of past regrets and\nfuture fears,\" and strike out from the sad \"calendar unborn tomorrow and\ndead yesterday.\"\n\nThat the joys thus produced had no real objective existence, man was not\nlong in finding out, and it soon appeared that for each subjective\npleasure which had no foundation in action, there was a subjective\nsorrow, likewise unrelated to external things.\n\nBut that the pains more than balanced the joys, and that the indulgence\nin unearned deceptions destroyed sooner or later all capacity for\nenjoyment, man learned more slowly.\n\nThe joys of wine, of opium, of tobacco and of all kindred drugs are mere\ntricks upon the nervous system. In greater or less degree they destroy\nits power to tell the truth, and in proportion as they have seemed to\nbring subjective happiness, so do they bring at last subjective horror\nand disgust. And this utter soul-weariness of drugs has found its way\ninto literature as the expression of Pessimism.\n\n\"The City of the Dreadful Night,\" for example, does not find its\ninspiration in the misery of selfish, rushing, crowded London. It is the\neffect of brandy on the sensitive mind of an exquisitive poet. Not the\nworld, but the poet, lies in the \"dreadful night\" of self-inflicted\ninsomnia. Wherever these subjective nerve influences find expression in\nliterature it is either in an infinite sadness, or in hopeless gloom.\nJames Thompson says in the \"City of the Dreadful Night\":\n\n  \"The city is of night but not of sleep;\n  There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain.\n  The pitiless hours like years and ages creep--\n  A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain\n  Of thought and consciousness which never ceases,\n  Or which some moment's stupor but increases.\"\n\n  * * *\n\n  \"This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake,\n  Wounded and slow and very venomous.\"\n\n  * * *\n\n  'Lo, as thus prostrate in the dust I write\n  My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears--\n  But why evoke the spectres of black night\n  To blot the sunshine of exultant years!\n\n  \"Because a cold rage seizes one at times\n  To show the bitter, old and wrinkled truth,\n  Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles\n  False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth.\"\n\nAll this, alas, is the inevitable physical outcome of the attempt to--\n\n  \"Divorce old, barren Reason from my house\n  To take the daughter of the vine to spouse.\"\n\nAll subjective happiness due to nerve stimulation is of the nature of\nmania. In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will be\nfollowed by its subjective reaction, the \"Nuit Blanche,\" the \"dark brown\ntaste,\" by the experience of \"the difference in the morning.\" The only\nmelancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce.\nIt is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activity\nand vitiates life.\n\nThere are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorder\nof nerve. Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, we\nshall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism. In fact,\ncheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather the\nexpression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes. Most of the\nphilosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of the\nunattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequent\nflow of good health. Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulness\nwhen both sermons and arguments fail.\n\nFor a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health. It is\nas natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it. Pessimism\narises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves. It is a\nsymptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind.\n\nThere is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over and\nabove all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them. But the\nmelancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcotic\nor stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys.\n\"Liver complaint,\" says Zangwill, \"is the Prometheus myth done into\nmodern English.\" Already historical criticism has shown that the Bloody\nAssizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of vice\nand cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves. It is natural\nthat degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust. But whatever\nthe causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy in\nnervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought into\nsound and helpful life. To live effectively implies the belief that life\nis worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for a\nmoment doubted this.\n\nSuch an expression as \"worth living\" has in fact no real meaning. To act\nand to love are the twin functions of the human body and soul. To refuse\nthese functions is to make one's self incapable of them. It is in a\nsense to die while the body is still alive. To refuse these functions is\nto make misery out of existence, and a life of ennui is doubtless not\n\"worth living.\"\n\nThe philosophy of life is its working hypothesis of action. To hold that\nall effort is futile, that all knowledge is illusion, and that no result\nof the human will is worth the pain of calling it into action, is to cut\nthe nerve of effectiveness. In proportion as one really believes this,\nhe becomes a cumberer of the ground. It was said of Oscar McCulloch, an\nearnest student of human life, that \"in whatever part of God's universe\nhe finds himself, he will be a hopeful man, looking forward and not\nbackward, looking upward and not downward, always ready to lend a\nhelping hand, and not afraid to die.\"\n\nOf like spirit was Robert Louis Stevenson:\n\n  \"Glad did I live and gladly die,\n  And I laid me down with a will.\"\n\nIt is through men of this type that the work of civilization has been\naccomplished, \"men of present valor, stalwart, brave iconoclasts.\" They\nwere men who were content with the order of the universe as it is, and\nseek only to place their own actions in harmony with this order. They\nhave no complaints to urge against \"the goodness and severity of God,\"\nnor any futile wish \"to remould it nearer to the heart's desire.\" The\n\"Fanaticism for Veracity\" is satisfied with what is. Not the ultimate\ntruth which is God's alone, but the highest attainable truth, is the aim\nof Science, and to translate Science into Virtue is the goal of\ncivilization.\n\nThe third question which Science may ask is the direct one. In what part\nof the universe are you, and what are you doing? Thoreau says that\n\"there is no hope for you unless this bit of sod under your feet is the\nsweetest to you in this world--in any world.\" Why not? Nowhere is the\nsky so blue, the grass so green, the sunshine so bright, the shade so\nwelcome, as right here, now, today. No other blue sky, nor bright\nsunshine, nor welcome shade exists for you. Other skies are bright to\nother men. They have been bright in the past and so will they be again,\nbut yours are here and now. Today is your day and mine, the only day we\nhave, the day in which we play our part. What our part may signify in\nthe great whole we may not understand, but we are here to play it, and\nnow is the time. This we know, it is a part of action, not of whining.\nIt is a part of love, not cynicism. It is for us to express love in\nterms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sad\nexperience that any other course of life leads toward decay and waste.\n\nWhat, then, are you doing under these blue skies? The thing you do\nshould be for you the most important thing in the world. If you could do\nsomething better than you are doing now, everything considered, why are\nyou not doing it?\n\nIf every one did the very best he knew, most of the problems of human\nlife would be already settled. If each one did the best he knew, he\nwould be on the highway to greater knowledge, and therefore still better\naction. The redemption of the world is waiting only for each man to\n\"lend a hand.\"\n\nIt does not matter if the greatest thing for you to do be not in itself\ngreat. The best preparation for greatness comes in doing faithfully the\nlittle things that lie nearest. The nearest is the greatest in most\nhuman lives.\n\nEven washing one's own face may be the greatest present duty. The\nascetics of the past, who scorned cleanliness in the search for\ngodliness, became, sometimes, neither clean nor holy. For want of a\nclean face they lost their souls.\n\nIt was Agassiz's strength that he knew the value of today. Never were\nsuch bright skies as arched above him; nowhere else were such charming\nassociates, such budding students, such secrets of nature fresh to his\nhand. His was the buoyant strength of the man who can look the stars in\nthe face because he does his part in the Universe as well as they do\ntheirs. It is the fresh, unspoiled confidence of the natural man, who\nfinds the world a world of action and joy, and time all too short for\nthe fulness of life which it demands. When Agassiz died, \"the best\nfriend that ever student had,\" the students of Harvard \"laid a wreath of\nlaurel on his bier, and their manly voices sang a requiem, for he had\nbeen a student all his life long, and when he died he was younger than\nany of them.\"\n\nOptimism in life is a good working hypothesis, if by optimism we mean\nthe open-eyed faith that force exerted is never lost. Much that calls\nitself faith is only the blindness of self-satisfaction.\n\nWhat if there are so many of us in the ranks of humanity? What if the\nindividual be lost in the mass as a pebble cast into the Seven Seas?\nWould you choose a world so small as to leave room for only you and your\nsatellites? Would you ask for problems of life so tame that even you\ncould grasp them? Would you choose a fibreless Universe to be \"remoulded\nnearer to the heart's desire,\" in place of the wild, tough, virile,\nman-making environment from which the Attraction of Gravitation lets\nnone of us escape?\n\nIt is not that \"I come like water and like wind I go.\" I am here today,\nand the moment and the place are real, and my will is itself one of the\nfates that make and unmake all things. \"Every meanest day is the\nconflux of two eternities,\" and in this center of all time and space for\nthe moment it is I that stand. Great is Eternity, but it is made up of\ntime. Could we blot out one day in the midst of time, Eternity could be\nno more. The feebleness of man has its place within the infinite\nOmnipotence.\n\nIt is a question not of hope or despair, but of truth, not of optimism\nnor of Pessimism, but of wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to do next;\nvirtue is doing it. Religion is the heart impulse that turns toward the\nbest and highest course of action. \"It was my duty to have loved the\nhighest. What does that demand? What have I to do next? Not in infinity,\nwhere we can do nothing, but here, today, the greatest day that ever\nwas, for it alone is mine!\n\nWhat matter is it that time does not end with us? Neither with us does\nhistory begin. An Emperor of China once decreed that nothing should be\nbefore him, that all history should begin with him. But he could go no\nfarther than his own decree. Who are you that would be Emperor of China?\n\n  \"The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured\n  Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour.\"\n\nWhy not? Should life stop with you? What have you done that you should\nmark the end of time? If you have played your part in the procession of\nbubbles, all is well, though the best you can do is to leave the world a\nlittle better for the next that follows.\n\nIf you have not made life a little richer and its conditions a little\nmore just by your living you have not touched the world. You are indeed\na bubble. If some kind friend somewhere \"turn down an empty glass,\" it\nwill be the best monument you deserve. But to have had a friend is to\nleave the glass not wholly empty, for life is justified in love as well\nas in action.\n\nThe words of Omar need to be read with the rising inflection, and they\nbecome the expression of exultant hopefulness.\n\n  \"The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured\n  Millions of bubbles and shall pour!\"\n\nSmall though we are the story is not all told when we are dead. The huge\nprocession goes on and shall go on, till the secret of the grand\nsymphony of life is reached.\n\n  \"A single note in the Eternal Song\n  A perfect Singer hath had need for me.\"\n\n  * * *\n\n  \"I do rejoice that when of Thee and Me\n  Men speak no longer, yet not less but more\n  The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill\n  And ever fairer, clearer bubbles pour.\"\n\nIn the same way we must read with the rising inflection the lines of\nTennyson:\n\n  \"I falter when I firmly trod,\n  And falling with my weight of cares,\n  Upon the World's great altar-stairs\n  That slope through darkness, up to god!\"\n\nRead these words with courage, and with the upward turn of the voice at\nthe end. It is no longer in the darkness that we falter. The great\naltar-stairs of which no man knows the beginning nor the end, do not\nspring from the mire nor end in the mists. They \"slope through darkness\nup to God,\" and no one could ask a stronger expression of that robust\noptimism which must be the mainspring of successful life.","title":"The Philosophy of Despair","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":6891}