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ULTIMATUM OF PESSIMISM

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THE

ULTIMATUM OF PESSIMISM

AN ETHICAL STUDY

BY

JAMES WILLIAM BARLOW, M.A.

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE

B 829 326

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THE ULTIMATUM OF PESSIMISM.

1. THE question concerning the Worth of Life-Is Life Worthy, or Worthless, or worse than Worthless? -occupies in Ethics a position in some respects similar to that of the Personality of God in scientific Theology. This latter science is not, indeed, altogether abolished when, instead of the expression 'Divine Person,' we substitute such forms as 'Integral of Creation,' or 'Stream of Tendency;' but the structures raised upon such different bases bear small resemblance to each other, and Theology really becomes an equivocal term. Similarly in Ethics, we may lay down the proposition that Life is worse than worthless, and we can build on this postulate a science of morals. But there is obviously a strong presumption that the precepts of life and conduct deducible from such a view of man's position in the universe, must differ considerably from those which follow from the opposite and more cheerful philosophical creed which tells us that life is ẞwróv, not ἀβίωτον.

For example, it would certainly appear that, once we have admitted, as an axiom, the inevitable misery of life in every form, the propriety of the simultaneous

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