good in some shape lies within man's reach. At least, they all resolve the summum bonum into something compassable by human volition and effort. Theoretically, therefore, they alike lean to a moderate type of optimism; and in any case they implicitly meet one aspect of pessimism by pointing out what they conceive to be the real sources of happiness as distinguished from the illusory ones, and by exposing to view the causes of human misery which lie in their own breasts.1 One may even go further and maintain that in the main Greek moralists encouraged a cheerful and hopeful view of life by emphasizing the certain attainability of the good they severally set up for human pursuit. This may be seen by comparing the teaching of the Stoics and of Epicurus. The former by placing the ideal end in a life of virtue gave to man a proud sense of superiority to external circumstance. They encouraged him to think that good is secured to him through his own internal resources, and that accordingly all men are equally well off with respect to the conditions of true happiness. On the other hand, Epicurus is no less concerned to bring his ideal of a pleasurable life within easy reach of the average man. This is clearly recognisable in the importance attached to the mere absence of pain as a prime condition of happiness; in the stress laid on the reduction of all unnecessary desires; in the elevation 1 This ethical corrective to pessimism may be met with in more popular Greek writers, as in the lines of Pindar: ̓Αεὶ τἂν ποσὶν ὄντα παρατρεχόμεθα μάταιοι Cf. the well-known lines of Goethe: 'Willst du immer weiter schweifen Sieh das Gute liegt so nah.' of the mental pleasures (including those of memory) above the bodily; and finally, in the emphatic ascription of life's chief miseries to illusory and exaggerated hopes. Yet though on the whole Greek moral teaching thus presented a cheering and stimulating view of life and its possibilities, it must be admitted that the asceticism common both to the Cynics and to the Stoics proved to be incompatible with a cheerful and friendly view of life; and, as we have seen, the Stoics were wont to indulge in the most dreary tones of pessimistic complaint. The belief in an ideal of happiness into which none of the simple daily pleasures were allowed to enter was found to be too difficult to be consistently maintained, and the practical result was a despair of happiness in any shape. Again, while the ethical doctrines of Socrates and Plato make in the main for optimism, these teachers are wont to broach ideas of a clearly pessimistic cast. Of these I would single out the doctrine that pleasure-at least, in most cases -presupposes a state of pain. This supposition, as we shall see by and by, is taken up and made exceedingly prominent in the modern systems of pessimism. The optimism which we thus find predominant in Greek ethics reappears in the cosmological and theological ideas of the same thinkers. In Plato especially, who was an optimist to the core, these features are very strongly marked. They are discoverable in his conception of God and of his relation to the Ideas; in his view of evil as confined to the phenomenal world and as arising from the imperfection of In the 'Philebus' the intensest sensations of pleasure are said to be thus conditioned; in the "Republic" it is the philosopher's intellectual pleasure alone which is bound to no conditioning pain (see Zeller's 'Plato and the Older Academy,' p. 186 seq.). the world as a copy of the Ideas; in his theory that the creation of the world was effected by Intelligence persuading necessity to be fashioned according to excellence1; and in his notion of a future and perfect state for the soul. It may be said, indeed, that these ideas constitute a system of optimism which has hardly been surpassed even by the most favourable interpretations of Christian theology. In Aristotle, who is far less imaginative and poetical than his predecessor, the optimistic traits are less warm and brilliant still they are distinctly present. We find, for example, plainly set forth the idea that the world is the work of intelligence acting on matter. So, too, there meet us the notion of purpose in the world,2 and the view of terrestrial objects as an ascending series of living beings in which matter is more and more dominated by form. It is to be added that with Aristotle the soul, or at least the rational part of it, is conceived to be immortal.3 Finally, in the theology of the Stoics we find a no less. distinct theoretical basis of optimism. The supreme government of the world is in the hands of a good and wise God. According to Epictetus, God is even the father of men. The mystery of the existence of evil on this theory is distinctly 1 Plato distinctly tells us that the Creator (demiurgus) was free from envy (a quality commonly ascribed to the gods), and, being good, willed that the world should become as like to himself as possible (návra ὅτι μάλιστα ἐβουλήθη γενέσθαι παραπλήσια ἑαυτῷ, Timmus, p. 29 Ε). 2 ὁ θεὸς καὶ ἡ φύσις οὐδὲν μάτην ποιοῦσιν, ‘De Calo, i. 4. The action of the spontaneous and accidental, τὸ αὐτόματον (of which ἡ τύχη is a species), plays too subordinate a part to affect the general character of Aristotle's Weltanschauung. 3 Strictly speaking it is only the vous roinrikóc as distinguished from the vous TalηTikós which possesses substantial and eternal existence. This idea is vaguely defined, and as Ueberweg points out, there is ample room for the more naturalistic and pantheistic, and the more spiritualistic and theistic interpretation which were afterwards given of it. THE ALEXANDRINE SCHOOLS. 45 recognised and dealt with. Thus it is argued that God is the author of all things except wickedness, and that the very nature of good supposes its contrast evil, and that after all what we call evil may not be evil. True life is to be sought in a merging of self in the universal order, which is a perfect harmony. Although the Stoics are a little undecided as to the immortality of the soul in its individual state, they at least teach that it will persist as absorbed in the Divine essence-an idea which, I have observed, is fitted to give a final attribute of worth and completeness to human existence. In the later developments of Greek philosophy in Alexandria, there meets us a more distinct trace of a pessimistic view of the world. The several inquiries into the certitude of human belief had ended in scepticism. Moreover, in many of the best Greek minds, happiness had become so bound up with the exercise of the intellect in the contemplation of truth, that this sceptical abandonment of the search after absolute truth naturally tended to a pessimistic view of existence. This mode of thought reaches definite expression in the doctrines of the Neo-Platonic and the NeoPythagorean Schools. According to this mystical teaching truth is wholly unattainable by reason. It can only be very faintly intuited in the extraordinary and momentary states of spiritual rapture or ecstasy in which the individual soul loses its personality and becomes absorbed in the Infinite Spirit. Happiness cannot be realised in this present life; only faint glimpses of it are enjoyed in the brief moments of ecstasy. It will, however, be fully reached after death, when the soul will quit this frail and pitiable individuality to be absorbed in the being of the Infinite.' To die is thus 1 G. H. Lewes. no loss, but pure gain. It is the beginning of true life; and the dying Plotinus is said to have answered friendly inquiries by exclaiming 'I am struggling to liberate the divinity within me.' Here, then, we have, as in Indian philosophy, distinct asceticism, or, to use Mr. Lewes's words, 'a moral suicide,' as the outcome of speculative dogma. In relation to the present life this doctrine is thoroughly pessimistic. It pronounces earthly good to be an illusion, and counsels men to a renunciation of all pursuit of present happiness. Yet when measured by the modern form of pessimism, it will be seen to contain an optimistic element as well. It not only saves men from absolute despair, but it rouses them to an intense passion of hope by its doctrine of a future union with the Divine. Tragic though it be on a first view, it leads up to a final pacification. If less joyous than the optimism which embraces the present life, it stands out as a final triumph of glad faith against the pessimism which denies the possibility of happiness both now and hereafter. Passing by the Roman philosophy, which is little more than a repetition of Greek ideas, we come to Christian theology. Here we may observe some of the same features that met us in the Alexandrian mysticism, by which, indeed, this theology was so profoundly influenced. To the Christian the world is evil and full of misery, and our present life a wandering in a strange country. Nothing attainable here can yield the human spirit true satisfaction. Real and perfect bliss is postponed to a future state. So far the view of the world seems to be pessimistic. Yet Christianity avoids the asceticism of India and of Alexandria. It does so by the doctrine that evil is not a permanent and indestructible ingredient of existence. Evil did not arise, as in the |