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I must not forget to allude to one of the most interesting forms of this reaction from the prevailing systems of pessimism. Hartmann, as we have seen, is concerned to disprove the value of the social and industrial, as of the other aspects of progress. Such a doctrine was certain to evoke replies from some of the many practical minds of the day, which see, in the future developments of social life, an indefinite area of expansion of human comfort and happiness. The most important illustration of this direction known to me, is the work of Herr Dühring, entitled Der Werth des Lebens.' This writer is spoken of by Herr Vaihinger in an interesting work entitled 'Hartmann, Dühring, und Lange,' as the first methodic optimist.' This is, perhaps, a slight exaggeration, since Shaftesbury and Hartley, Condorcet and Godwin, also had their methods. Dühring emphasises the law of change or transition of mental state as a condition of any continued feeling, and thus seeks to justify the need of pain as a sine quâ non of pleasure. He also argues that the disagreeable in life is a valuable and necessary stimulus to the attainment of good. His most interesting speculations, however, refer to the future condition of mankind after certain social changes have been effected. Dühring is 'a glowing socialist.' All evil in his view (as in that of the Revolutionists) arises from alterable social circumstances, and he is confident that the industrial regeneration of society will result in another golden age of happy

content.

Old Faith and the New.' He thinks it is to be disposed of in a very easy way. Every true philosophy,' he says, ' is necessarily optimistic, as otherwise she hews down the branch on which she herself is sitting.' How is this? If the world is bad, the pessimist's thought of it as a part of it is bad also, and so the world becomes good.' This reads like solemn trifling. The pessimist's thought may be bad as an action, and yet true as an affirmation.

As the last word on this momentous question, I would quote the opinion of the late Professor Lange, whose 'Geschichte des Materialismus' (soon I hope to be accessible to English readers) constitutes one of the most able philosophic works of recent times.1

Lange seeks to mediate in a philosophic spirit between optimism and pessimism. Optimism is a spontaneous ideal creation of the mind through a synthesis of emotion. It is in a sense a fiction; yet it must be held to as an ideal which our feelings compel us to frame. On the other hand, pessimism, which is the product of cool reflection, exists only as a contrast to optimism. It is the negation of the optimistic ideal through an assemblage of facts.2 Thus optimism and pessimism are not two extremes which have to be reconciled. They are two equally justified and irreconcilable modes of viewing existence. This view of the matter seems to rob optimism, at least, of logical truth. It may be true in the sense of answering to permanent human desires; but it is untrue as an expression of actual facts. Lange has written on social and industrial questions, and seems to have held a position midway between the laissez faire optimists and the more despairing Malthusians. Like J. S. Mill, he takes a hopeful view of the future industrial interests of society, which he considers must be re-shaped according to some scheme of socialism. Communism,' he

1 Lange's views on pessimism and its relation to optimism are to be found in the second edition of his 'Geschichte des Materialismus,' book ii. part iv. chap. iv. Der Standpunkt des Ideals.'

2 The optimist praises the harmony which he himself has projected into the world. The pessimist, on the other side, is right in a thousand instances; and yet there could be no pessimism at all without the natural ideal-image which we carry in us. It is the contrast with this which first makes reality bad' ('Geschichte,' vol. ii. p. 541).

says,

is a supplementary principle to the political economy of egoism.'1

1 'J. S. Mill's Ansichten über die sociale Frage.' A curious illustration of a neutral position in relation to optimism and pessimism is to be met with in a theory of pleasure and pain put forward by the late Léon Dumont in his Theorie Scientifique de la Sensibilité.' Pleasure being said to be but the subjective aspect of the composition or integration of forces, pain that of their disintegration or dispersion, and all modes of force having their subjective side, it seems to follow, according to M. Dumont, that the whole amounts of pleasure and pain in the universe must be exactly equal.

L

CHAPTER VI.

A NEARER DEFINITION OF THE PROBLEM.

WE have now reached the end of our historical sketch. We have traced the rise of the earliest instinctive forms of optimism and pessimism, though we have not as yet gone very deeply into the nature of the impulses which underlie these beliefs. Out of these vague, ill-defined conceptions of life as good or ill, we have watched the reasoning mind shape to itself definite propositions, and set reasons for its affirmations both in experience and in the region of the supra-sensible and the transcendental. And we have seen by how many diverse methods, especially in the case of optimism, these reasoners have sought to establish their final estimate of life.

In the face of these conflicting views, the reader will be ready to ask whether there is any means of comparing their respective merits with the object of arriving at an approximately correct opinion on the subject. I think that such a critical comparison will be found to be possible within certain limits to be defined presently. In conducting this inquiry, it will be necessary to examine first of all the grounds put forward for the reasoned forms of the beliefs in question. After this we shall need to look again at the instinctive forms of these beliefs with the view of inspecting

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their psychological sources, and of pointing out the bearing of these on the question of the objective truth of the propositions put forward.

The first limitation I would impose on our problem is that in judging of the worth of the world we are to use the standard of human and other sensibilities concerned. That is to say the goodness or badness of the world is to be taken in the sense that on the whole the world is productive of happiness or of misery to its conscious tenants. This restriction may, no doubt, be thought very arbitrary, and opponents of modern pessimism have commonly tried to turn their enemies' position by placing worth in something other than feeling. I do not purpose to discuss fully here the question whether any definition of worth is ultimately tenable which has no reference to the feelings of conscious minds. It will be conceded that these feelings form one well-marked ground of value, and the fact that modern pessimism has explicitly rested the question on this issue makes it highly desirable to confine ourselves to this view of the problem.

The objection to making feeling, or pleasure and pain, the exclusive standard of worth in things, whether in human conduct or in external objects, arises, I conceive, very largely from the associations which belong to the word pleasure as employed in common discourse. It is an undeniable fact that the popular mind distinguishes between pleasure and other things esteemed good; for example, virtue. Pleasure, in fact, as conceived by the non-philosophical person, refers to certain orders of pleasure only, that is to say, to the intenser and more exciting enjoyments which

1 See a full and able discussion of this question in Mr. Sidgwick's 'Methods of Ethics,' book i. ch. ix. and book iii. ch. xiv.