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A calm EVALUAHON Of
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A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF
PESSIMISM

presented by

FRANCIS MICHAEL DONAHUE

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A.THESIS
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MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Philosophy

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ACICIOITLEDGIERT

The writer is deeply indebted to Professor John Martin
DeHaan, Head of the Department of Philosophy, who gave generously
of his time and was a constant source of guidance and inspiration
throughout the preparation of this study. His kindness in grant-
ing me permission to study the manuscript of his forthcoming Intro-

duction to PhilOSOphy,‘A Call to Reflection, has been most helpful.

 

Grateful acknowledgpent is due to Dr. Lewis Kenneth Zerby,
Assistant Professor of Philosophy for carefully reading the manu-
script and offering invaluable counsel and assistance in its organ-

ization and revision.

I am also rrateful to Dr. Raymond M. Gonso, Assistant Professor

k)

of Philosophy for his helpful suggestions for its revision.

Sudh an acknowledgment cannot adequately express my indebtedp
ness to them for their unfailing encouragement, critical appraisal

an generous aid in this work.

COZITEL'

A
a:

I THE HISTORY OF PESSIMISfi l
Pessimism Defined 3
Pessimism in Ancient Religions 8
modern philosophies of Pessimisn 20
II ETHICS Ann PESSIxIsn 37
The Meaning; of Good "8
Useful Good '0
True Good 1.11
Apparent Good 1’2
Life per se as a Value '6
Scholastic View of Life 50
Sd‘xoperfiiauer's View of Life 50
Suicide 53
LeOpardi's Pessimistic View 58
Consciousness as Value bl
Nirvana, the Denial of the Value _
of Consciousness 61+
Voluntarism as Value 65
Value of Pleasure and Pain 69
Material Goods as Value 8
Moral Good as Value 8
II METAPHYSIGAL PESSIMISH 89
The Hindu Outlook 89
The Buddhist Outlook 91
The Hebrew Outlook 95
Christ, the Pessimi st 8
Roman Catholicism and.Pessimism 10h
The Calvinistic Outlook 108
IV TEE PROBLEM OF EVIL 113
rEhe Hedonistic Paradox 118
Joseph de Iiaistre's View 120
Kinds of Evil 122
Value of Sickness and Physical Ills 1214»
V COKCEUSION: PESSILIISEJ III THE 3mm}: 131
Argmwnts for Pessimism . 133
rI'he Golden Llean 135

BIBLIOGRAPHY 137

CKAPTER I

THE HISTORY OF PESSIXISL

Diogenes of old went about the streets of Athens, lantern in
hand, searching for an honest man, fully convinced in his own mind
that he would never find that for which he searched. If philosophi-
cal pessimists had a patron saint, I believe Diogenes would qualify
for the honor. Like him, philos0phical pessimists of all ages have
gone searching for truth, pleasure, honor, courage, and immortality,
fully confident in their own.minds that they would find only suspicion,
fear, arrogance, treachery and eventual annihilation. Even the Opti-
mist Nietzsche deplored the surplus of defective, sickly, suffering,
degraded individuals among men and stated that the successful man is

always the exception, the "rare exception."

Turning back the pages of history, pessimists have felt that
civilization has but provided a.veneer of artificiality for man's
basic and incurable evils, which are the result of his essentially
corrupt human nature. Rousseau declared that human evils follow
the spread of the arts and sciences and grow in proportion as cult-
ure advances; yet he is considered an Optimist. He points to the
examples of Egypt, Greece and Rome and to their eventual decline
and decomposition as civilization advanced within them. It is his
belief that science and art corrupt morals since they had their
birth in corruption and seek its perpetuation. .Astronomy, he said,
was born in superstition; oratory springs from ambition, hatred,

flattery and deceit; geometry from avarice; physics, from vain curi-

DJ

osity. The result of a civilization founded upon such corruption,
he reasoned, becomes more dangerous and breeds more serious evils
the longer it is perpetuated.until eventually it brings about its

own destruction.

Philosophical pessimism, like many other things, is both old
and new. Before our era the pessimistic spirit deeply colored the
Buddhist vision of life; and the Hebrew Prophet, a sad and disillusion-
ed man, looked forth upon a world full of weariness, a world where all
was vanity and a striving after phantoms. hen are influenced by their
moods, and they color with them the wider world around them. Under the
influence of sorrow, suffering, and disappointment, the optimist becomes
for the time being a pessimist, and finds life unprofitable. Thus it
was with Eartin Luther, the protagonist of faith; in the end he confessed
that he was utterly weary of life and he prayed that the Lord would come
and bear him into eternity. If the judgements we pass on our own ex-
perience reflect our mood, the same is also true when we pass judgement
on the larger experience of men. .A man struggling with poverty and

sickness is inclined to think poorly of life in general.

The philosophical pessimist is, of course, well aware that if he
is to argue his case convincingly, he must do so on wider grounds than
those of his personal feeling or emotion. But is it possible to justify
pessimism by drawing up a calculus of pleasures and pains, and by show-
ing that on the scales the pains and disappointments and sorrows of life

are far in excess of the pleasures, satisfactions and joys? The diffi-

culties are innumerable, of course, in such an effort. Pessimism is not

KN

all of one color nor of one kind. There is a need to distinguish

between ontolo3fical pessimism and continpent pessim1s1, while con-

 

 

tin3ent pew1 1a imay oe sue-divided into three tj'pes, namely:

materialistic contin3ent_pessimism, li 1t ea continjent jessimism,

 

and unlimited contin3 ent pessimism. There is also another type

 

of pessimism which I shall call psvcholo3ical pessimism, and it

 

is not to be included, strictly speakin3 , among the philosophical
types. In direct opposition to these types of philOSOphical pessi-
mism there are related types of Optimism and it is with a philosOp her

of ontolO3 ical optimic £1, St. Thomas Aquinas, that we shall deal in

some of our treatment of the subject of life, per se, as a value.

Briefly defining the types of pessimism, we find tliat ont0103ical
pessimism is an outlook which re3ards oein3, per se, as evil. Philo-
SOphers, (such as Buddha, SchOpenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann) con—
sider existence, re 3ardless of con tinL3 ent factors, as necessarily
evil. It would be far better that man should not exist, than to live
in even the best of earthly cond Hi0 us, for the ont0103ical pessimist
claims that the evils in life far exceed the 300d. It is not merely
a contin3ent fact that evil triumphs over 300d, but it is in the very

nature of thin3s that this should necessarily be the case.

Contingent pessimisz, with its three sub-types, holds that being,
per se, does not po sess value, but oecomes ei 1er 300d or bad, depend-
ing upon circumstances; it is contin3ent upon external and personal

actors. It does not look uoon bein3, per se, as evil but being in
a certain state or condition of sufferin3 or evil may be undesirable.

.The first sub-type, materialistic contin3ent pessimism is the philosophy

of those who do not belie

rectification or compens
ialistic contin3ent pessi
of being. It
concerned with ev1

a

a.practical issue, for

a tion in an a: ter—li

e. ph ilo scuph i 0°

ve in iziuortality and have no hepe for a

f"

8. Death to the mater-

as
C.

mist is looked upon finality and cessation

1.
LIL

to observe let the materialist is seldom

prool em but views it rather as

concern with the problem of evil presupposes

a belief in a deity, as we shall indie ate later in the chapter on The
roblem of Evil. Lucretius, the Epicurean, is one philosopher who held

 

this type of pessimism.
tingent pessimism, which
an immortal existence aft

its works

and pomp as evil,

The second sub—type is that of limited con-

-r

is accepted by th

‘bose who while believing in

er death, vet consider the world with all of
J

transitory and detrimental to man's eter—

nal happiness. There are many ex nples of philosophers who have held

to this fonn of pessimism, chief y, Christ, Job, Ecclesiastes, Calvin
and Tolstoy and it is typical of monastic institutions w1ich strive

to help men and women escape the wickedness of the world, overcome its
bla ndisl mients and work out their eternal salvation. The third sub—type
is that of unlimited contin3ent pessir1ism, which posits a totally 3loomy

outlook of Ce lief in immo

an after-life are evil; man should therefore seek Kirval

of

“Hamlet " ,

pessimism with which we are concerned

includes

street who does not conce

tricacies of the nature of

finds it and stru“‘les with it or is defeated by it.

this sort of pessimism is contained in the passa3e from Shane

which will be dealt with in Chapter II

scepticism and cynicism, as states of mind,

rtality but believes that both this world and

One example
spere's
The last type of

C
u

s psych0103ical pe simism which

of the man-in-the-

‘

rn himself greatly with the ph ilosophical in-

evil, but merely re003nizes ev1l when he

Giacomo Leopardi

U1

exemplifies this type in his talian poetry.

Voltaire, in a psych0103ical pessimistic vein, states the

usual outlook of this type of pessimist:

"I am a puny part of the er=at whole.

Yes: but all animals condemned to live,

All sentient thin3s, born by the same stern law,
Suffer like me, and like me also die.

....the whole World in every member groans,

All born for tornent and for mutual death.
1 o'er this ghastly haos you would say

The ills of each make up the good of all!

What blessedness! And as, with quaki.3 voice,
Hortal and pitiful ye cry, 'All's Well,‘

The universe belies you, and your heart

Refutes a hundred times your mind's conceit...
What is the verdict of the vaster mind?

Silence: the book of fate is closed to us.

Kan is a stranger to his own research;
He knows not whence he comes, nor Whither goes.
Tormented atoms in a bed of mud,

Devoured by death, a mockin3 of fate;

But thinking atoms, whose far-seeing eyes,

Guided by thou3hts, have measured the faint stars.
Our being mingles with he iifinite;

Ourselves we never see, or come to know.

This world, this theatre of pride and wrong,
Swarms with sick fools who talk of happiness...."

:C‘

I
.‘An

f-

Ue may wonder at the causes of pessimism. hany philosophers,
Schopenhauer among them, have regarded selfishness as basic to a
phiIOSOphy of gloom. Schopenhauer holds that selfishness is both
normal and universal, but the evil that results from it may be beyond
all comprehension. The egoist, he feels, is bent upon his own ends
and does not hesitate to strike down all who Oppose him; but cruel

spitefulness leads men to do harm to others for the pure joy of seeing

 

 

1. Selected works of Voltaire, London, 1911, pp. 3-5.

others suffer. Cali3ula wished that the whole world had but a

sin3le neck so that he mi3ht sever it with one blow.

While selfishness may us one of he causes of pessimism,
Professor BeEaan asks if other causes might not be found in some

physical ailment or in one deficiency of the 3lands. He concludes

m

after some studv of the point that while some pe essin Hi wt may have
glandular disturbances, it is not the cause of pessimism in all cases
for there have certainly been philosophers who have espoused the

cause of pessimism who have not suffered from any sucn deficiency.

1

In the manuscript of his forthcomin3 tooL, "A Call to Reflection,"

he writes:

"While it is true that a certain type of depression,
called 'Involutional nelancholia,‘ is associated with
the decrease in wl ndula ractivity, which normally
occurs after middle a3e, the fact is the In 0st of the
gree ter Tessiri ts 3ave symptoms of their gloomy stre.in
in tieir ee .rly youth, or he d already died long before
they could possibly heve been afflicted with 'Involut-
ionql melancholia.‘ Inadequate factual knowledge often
produces faulty thinkin3. Even if it could be demonstrated
thet all vi ctir s of 'myzedema' (caused by a markedly under—
active thyroid) were pessimists, you could st ill not con-
clude that if Bvron was a pessimist he must have lied 'my-
:zedema.’ Such thini :in3 ~ mould be a clear—cut example of
that type of falls-cy which 103icians call the 'undistriruted
middle.'"

Pee sin nism has arisen in different countries and at difi erent
tirnes, thou3h e veys mder similar conditions end we may presume
that it implies the operation of similar causes, general and personal.
he find it emer3in3 wherever greet wealth, luxury, "id refinement

alonr side of want, fami1ne,s1c23essand the sava3e mood the t

these arouse in men. It belongs to times when the forces tha work

 

l DeHeen, John h., "A Call to Reflection", a forthcomin3 Introduction
to Philosophy.

 

for evil overpower the individual will and undertake to commend
masses of men. Thus a totalitarian re3ime, bein3 contemptuous

1‘ ‘1‘ 1- .. I. ‘, w' a r (K I.‘ l . -- ‘ . ‘- 4 1 p q . J-
01 no intolli once 01 tne mass 5 and ess1m1st1c 01 the ao1lity

hj

of the common man to secure his own 300d, imposes a dictatorial
form of 3overnment upon him. The philos0phy of me1's ability to

govern himself 1s an extremely Optimistic one.

1ne phi10s0p1w1;f3loom also sprin3s from the feelin3, Wh ether
in a fee or in many minds, niich slay be described as an attitude
either of desit ondency or of despair, or the contempt of life. I
annot conceive of it as a perfectly normal or healthy feelin3.
A.man does not ask, "Is life worth living?" unless he feels that

he has reason to doubt that it is. Ordinarily, a man lives his

[0

life, or he may try to live it, worthily, and to fill it with uch
worth as he himself possesses. It is the men who despairs of life

who feels it to be a burden and QUEStiLnS whether it be worth while

to 30 throu311 with it.

Among the types of Hellenic philosol ahy there is one which
closely resembles pessimism, thou 3h it was the o,posite of pessimism
in many respects. This is Cynicisn, a belief marked not so much by
a contempt for life in th abstract as a contempt for men who did not
live worthily. It believed that life was good, and that it beca"
bad only when its accidents were taken for its essence. ID believed
in a law that bound all men to be virtuous; and it deSpised those who

claimed to be 300d men, yet did not obey the law. In marv ways it

bore a close resemblance to Stoicism, which also seems to have a

01

pessimistic strain. The Cynic, in h1s scorn of those wh made the
accessories into the essence of life, tended to disyense with even

what was 300d in these, and to despise refinement as xvell as the lure
uries in whi h it ima3ined it seem y and prOper to be clothed, in

order the t th e nakedness of the natural man might not be hidc er -.

The protest of the Cynic was a “a inst the conventiona habits, the
veneer of civ1mlizetion, whidh su3 we sted the shameful and stimulated

the sordid they were professedly used to conceal, “y attemptin3 to live
as a oaroarian. Thus the element of pessimism in his thou t was due
to the clearness with which he saw the evil in existing tendencies,
societies, characters and persons. However, so far was he from i“en
ifying the hypocricy which he hated with the whole of being which he

loved, that he conceived of evil as a contradiction of that law of

ri3ht and duty or virtue which was the highest of all la

In the realm of reli3ious thought there have been pessimistic

nhilosoohies, principally the Buddhist and the Hiniu, but there are

also certain pes Csinistic asxects to the Christian reli ious position.
Not only are there pessimistic strains in the teachings of hrist Him-
s=lf, but in some of the religious interpretations of the Christian
religion there have developed clearly pessim11stic characteristics. We
merely mention some of them here, for they will be tre ated in greater
detail in a later pait of this work. Early Oriental and Occidental
monasticism was clearly a limited contingent pessimism; Calvinism,

while 1.anifestin3 elements of limited contin3ent pessimism also cone

tained e‘tain strains of unlimited con tingent pessimism in that it

0
’3

held some rxen to es eternallv damned and no eifort on tiieir part would

change their fate.

y V .

A few words about the pessimism of Buddhisn and the Indian
religious positions might be useful here since thev form the basis
of mucn of the philosophy of Arthur SchOpenhauer. Gotama Buddha,

(MS 3.0.) was one of the principal originators of the Vedic or
Nyaya philosophy. He was deified by his successors who also wrote
down his sayings and transmitted them to posterity. There are no
extant Writing of Buddha.himself, just as Christ, Confucius, Zoro-
aster .nd other religious founders did not write the scriptures
which eventually became the guide and touch-stone of their resoective
religious followings. According to Buddha” happiness is attained in
freedom which can only be acquired throuri knowledge. This freedom
consists in a state of total self-negation. Buddha looking out over
the world saw only evil and universal misery. He compared the ideal
state which man longs for with the very real and ever present lust,
covetousness, pride, anger and woe that results from man's selfi-h

r for satisfaction. Ken's misery, he held, is the result of

Q

raSpin

0‘}

1

51
m

too great concern with his own needs, or what he considers his
needs. Only through a process of emancipation from this concern for
self, a process which would eventually lead to Nirvana or Arhatship,
could man be freed of the never—satisfied will that goads him on,
never satisfied, never resting. The similarity of this Buddhist con-

cept of the supression of will to the philosophic pessimism of Schop-

enhauer, is immediately aowarent.

4.44

In Brahmenic India pessimism is fundamental to the religious
concept. All finite existence is burdened with evil. The source

of evil is generally given as ignorance in Brahmanic writings and

10
as desire or tr irst for external thing s in Buddhistic writings.

4L

But since e: :istence to the Brahman is evil and inextricably bound
up with woe and misery and insatiable desires. and since the Brahman
religion holds to the belief in reincarnation so that a.man can only

look forward to a succession of xistences in similar woe and misery,

ighest good. This exemplifies

'J

non-being is looked upon as the 2
ontological pessimism since to the Brahman being per se is evil,

and the highest form of good is not to be.

The Roman poet-philo sOpher Lucretius 98-55 3.0.) is an
example of a materialistic contingent pessilnist, for he affirmed
that everything which exi st s in the universe is ultimately of the

same sort as those things which are called material. While he

did not deny the existence of the gods, he did hold that they were
not concerned with man and his problems. In his poem, "De Rerum
Nature," he sets forth the ethics of Epicurus and the physics of
Democritus as what a soul-searching and disillusioned man needed
to be calm in facing life and death. It is a passage from this
work of Lucretius that Schopenhauer used as the Shibboleth to end
his lectures:

"Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque pericles
Deg itur hoc aevi quodcumquest'"

Moving on to the Hiddle Ages we find that the asceticism of
that time had certain principles and features in common with pessi-
mism. It held the world too unclean to be a fit dwelling place for
a.man of God; therefore, a.place to be forsa“en by him who was inter-

ested in saving his soul. The existing order of society was conceived

 

1 "De Rerum Nature". II. 15 sq.. " In whe t d: rlmess of life, in what
great perils, do we Spend our years, few as they are!"

ll
of as evil, and it was thought better that the good man should take
himself out of that order than endanger his own soul by remaining
within it. On the metaphysical side it was a doctrine of salvation,
but on the material and social side it was a doctrine of annihilation,
so far at least,as its attitude signified that the world was so bad
that the pious man could neither desire its continuance, nor do anything
to promote it. It was in this last respect that it agreed with pessi-
mism, for it conceived secular society as so under the power of evil

that the happiest thing for it was to pass away and perish.

The asceticism of the Middle.Ages held that the interest derived
from a maintenance of our physical life as well as the interest result-
ing from the maintenance of the life of the entire community are not
ends pursued for themselves, but stages and necessary means toward the
attainment of man's true end. But, when these stages and means are
accepted as true ends and are pursued as such by the will of the free
individual that is ignorant of his ultimate and true end, under sudh
misconception of truth, it was held, the pursued ends are to be charact-
erized as false, while those who are so foolish as to pursue them are
to be considered vain and deluded. If the will of man, the medieval
philos0pher argued, having remained ignorant of his true end, pursues

the secondary and material ends, he is necessarily deluded, labors in

vain, and fails to achieve either peace, happiness or salvation.

SchOpenhauer further enunciates the importance of the will in
pessimism for he regards will as that which is the most immediate

in consciousness. Commenting upon this, Radoslav Tsanoff explains:

"Will....is prior to the subject-object dualism; and like

12

a magic Spell, it unlocks to us the inmost being of

all nature. It germinates in the plant; through it

the crystal is formed and the magnetic needle turns

to the North; it is manifest in chemical affinities,

in repulsion and attraction, decomposition and com-
bination, coheasion, gravitation. All these are dif-
ferent only in their phenomenal existence, but in their
inner nature are identical. Organic or inorganic,
conscious or unconscious, as the case may be, the will
ever presses for its fulfilment, meeting impact with
resistance, adapting means to ends, responding to stim-
ulii, seeking the gratification of instincts, acting

on motives, on purpose, loving, hating, hOping, fearing,
scorning, envying, enthusing, aspiring. Here is a telee
elegy prior to and more ultimate than intelligence."

In any attempt to understand the pessimism of Schopenhauer, it
is important that we understand something of his peculiar psychology,
for his writings are his protest gainst the world as he saw it. In
evaluating a system we must ever remember its author's personal equat-
ion, take into consideration his character and.his intellectual and
ethical qualities. This is especially so in attempting to understand

the brilliant, many-sided "high-priest" of pessimism, - Arthur SchOpen—

hauer.

From his youth he evidenced a keen interest in philos0phy and
especially of the pessimistic thought that was to make him worldr
renowned. But there was an objectivity about his thinking and he
sought the counsel of those who might possibly be able to lead him
in his search for the answer to the riddles that perplexed him. He
went to Berlin and became a.pupil of Fichte, the successor of Kant,
but soon tired of the "language of unintelligibility" Fichte affected.

In comparing Fichte with Plato and Kant, whom Schopenhauer had studied

1 Tsanoff, Radoslale., The Nature of Evil,_The Hacmillan Co., hew
York, 1931, p. 28%.

n
‘

assiduously, the Berlin professor appeared a mere pedant. or
schelling he had scant praise, calling him a montebanh; while

Hegel's philOSOphy appeared to him to be a "crystalized syllOSism;

it is an abracadabra, a puff of bombast, and a wish-wash of phrases,“
and all the verbiage led only to confusion and to impossible contra»
dictions. Finding no intellect worthy of his attention in his own
'time he turned back to.Aristotle and Spinoza, to Rabelais and Mont—
aigne. It was also about this time that he began to devote more seri-
ous study to the ancient Indian schools of thought, the Eimamsa and

Vedanta, Sankhya.and YOga, Nyaya and Vaisesika and those of Buddhism

and Jainisn.

‘

Philos0phical pessimism has been described as "the sense of
evil turned into a theory of being and formulated in a law for the
regulation and conduct of life." 1 Certainly, it has been found
earlier in the Orient than in the western world. In the East, pessi-
mism was given philOSOphical eXpression in Buddhism, not in the pepue
lar Buddhistic religion, but in the eclectic Buddhist school of thinke
ers. On reading Schopenhauer and then studying the Buddhist and Hindu
writings, it becomes immediately apparent that the German philOSOpher
was profoundly influenced by them. The following passage, spoken by
Buddha, might have been written by SchOpenhauer, so perfectly does it

seem to express his passionate spiri :

"If we live today, it is because we have in some past
existence accumulated the merit that calls for reward,
or the demerit that cries for punishment. In order to

 

l Fairbairn, A.M., The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, The
hacmillan Co., flew York, 1902, p. 117.

escape from being we must escape equally from merit

and demerit; but to do this we cannot live among.men,

where we must do the things which entitle to penalty

or reward. We must retire from the world and culti~ate

the suppression of the very desire to live, the surrender
of the capability to act, the quenching of the thirst that
by goading us into action, binds by merit or demerit to

the wheel of life. Yhen we have ceased to desire, we shall
cease to will, cease to act, or to lose merit." I:

 

 

 

To Buddha (and to SchOpenhauer) existence in its very essence
seemed to be sorrow; sorrow for misery that had been in the past, or
was, or would be, endured by all mortal men who groaned and labored
and thirsted after satisfaction. SchOpenhauer was tremendously in-
fluenced by the Kantian philosophy but the basis of much of his pessi-
mism is distinctly oriental. With the Buddhist and the Brahmin, he
shares the belief that in every life there is an indestructible prin-
ciple. He gives the name of Will to the force which Indian philOSOphers

believe is resurrected with man in each of his successive reincarnations.

In noting Schopenhauer's indebtedness to Immanuel Kant, it seems
only fair to clarify his relation to that great philosopher. It is
true that SchOpenhauer gained much inspiration and stimulation from
a study of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," but Kant advanced to
the threshold of a truth he dared not enunciate if he would retain a
logical conformity to his own philosophy, for in his doctrine of the
inscrutibility of the noumenal world, he sets bounds to his own inquiry.

The ultimate metaphysical reality he called Ding_an sich, the thinqhin-

 

itself, but he had no explanation to offer beyond postulating the theory.
But Schopenhauer was bound by no Kantian periphery of the phenomenal

world, he dared to define the Ding an sich. He defined the incomprehens-

 

 

1 Carlson, J.F., The Writings of Buddhism, hurray Co., London, 1908, p. 16.

"We

ible as H111,“ Kent's thingrin-itself. the ultimate of reality.

 

According to SchOpenhauer it is neither mind nor matter, and while

he does not attempt to explain it, he descrioes its work'ngs and
character as unceasingly impelling, driving, grasping. It is the
most immediate part of our consciousness and only upon our recogb

nition of this Will as the dynamic force of our existence, can we

learn in some measure to control our individual destinies.

Schopenhauer explains that Will is not a.moral will but the
will-to-live. Our dissatisfaction and frustration results from
the perception of the clash of our will-to—live with other things
and w th other wills. But the striving and reaching of the Will
is doomed to failure of final attainment and herein lies the heart
of Schopenhauer's pessimism - for the will is evidenced in man in
the form of desire and desire according to Schopenhauer is insatiable,
and indestructible. Future generations of human beings, he says,
who may differ from us in habits and customs, will yet be impelled
onward from conception through the embryotic stages to birth to ad-
olescence, maturity, senility and death. The individual man is like
a leaf on a tree, which, when autumn comes, deplores the fact that it
must fall, envious of the new foilage that will take its place in the
spring. Where does this force come from that impells each generation
of men, or leaves, or animals onward from birth to death? SchOpenhauer
bids us to see that it is the same hidden force that is deathless, the

Will-to—live. It is the one invariable, identical and equal force in

 

existence. Will is want and desire and consequently is basic to pain,
for pain, he states, is nothing more than not-having — from the desire

I.

to have. Unsatisfied desire is painful, whether it is for objective

wealth, health, love, glory or in ortalit;r. Pleasure is the

’J
CD
9
r J
‘9
5
H
:1:
H
E
g.
0
H)

ECClOHS a"

desire, out satis

U)
{0
('1'
Ho
6’)
F')
[.3
O
C
H.
O
:3
O
F I)

more infreouent occurance than dissatisfaction. Pain then, is

the positive aspect of reality vilile pleasure and good are nothin3
more than the momentary absence of pain and evil. Schooenhauer

felt that desire last lon3 and its demands are inf Hit while satis-

H

13 ct ion of desire is short and scantily measured out:

"It is essentially all the sauna whether 1e pursue or flee,
fear injury or seek enjoyment, the care for the constant
demands of the will, in whatever form it me v be, continu-
ally occupies and sways the consciousness; but without
peace no true well-oein3 is possible. The subject of will-
ing is tlrus constantly stretched on the revolvin3 wheel of
Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the D .aids, is the
everhlon3in3 Tantalus."

According to SchOp enhauer, the Will, which may be described

as the pr’n ciple of ausation, is more a motivated than a mechanical

.~

force° it is one and universal, lies outside t1me and space, yet is

7
ever 031°Ctlf"lfl“ its elf in the things that arise within time and
space. Will, he considered as inseparable from the person, distribu-
ted t111ou3hout the whole organism, and actin3 in it and throu3h it;
4L‘ vv: . L' A ~ -u n‘_' J
the or3enism is the incorporated will. It is tnere101e because 01

this Will that we live, and willing is livinc. We create life, he

held, by willin3 to live.

It is the ultimate reality Will which causes the stones to fall
to the earth, the pieces of iron to cling to the magnet or the sun to
draw the moisture into the clouds. It is this same Will which attracts

or impells the moth to circle the flw .e and causes man to seek food,

 

l SchOpenhauer,.Arthur, The World as Will and Idea, trans. by Haldane
and Kemp, Vol. III, p. 253.

17
to seek to 3overn nations or to
crave tlie affection of others. But the existence wxieh the Will
stru3 g3led to realize ras mise er5; it mes sorrow and would end in
death. Schopenhauer conceived of the e1aborate and marni
works of creation as bein3 without system of intelli enee or a
mechanical order. IIe sr1iC tlat if creation as we know it, life
as we possess or under 30 it, were the work of a conscious creator,
then he was the greatest of all wron3-doers! He must have been an
ill-advised God, who could make no oetter Sport than to objectify
his will into so lean and hun3: r5 a world. Schopelhauer, therefore,
denied corseious°~1ess to the creator for he could not conceive of

‘1 O

xistenee that was mis m' as havin been divinely desi3ned, or its
desi3ner would have been 3ui ty of an unpardonable crime, far worse

than the sum of d1 human evi il, which would but have its or i3 in in

he divine se diam.

It vzas Schopenhe uer's contention that this world is so evil

that no world would 1a ve been better; it is some 3 that mi3ht
better never have been. What then re s to be done with this un-
ate miscreancy? SchOpenhauer sincerel" believed that he
had "iven the answer to the question of the a3es - since the world
could not be mended, it on ht to be brou3ht to an end, for the only

to escape from sorrow was by escapin3 from existence. There1ore,
in} is works he pre meh a doctrine of resi3nation or abdication of the

had its ori3in in will, by extinction of the will

it would be possible to bri1n3 about he extinction of bein3. Peace from

c1-

}. a
pJ
CD

insatiable drive of the will comes when will is denied and renounced.

}—J
01

”A
‘

He never tires o= pointinr out the futility of the endlec

3
craving after what is essentially miserable and unsatisfyin3.
Individuals are essentially selfish and coldly ruthless in their
dealin3s with others. no matter how the; mey seek to cover their
selfi 1ne ss by the veneer of culture and manners. It is the hypo-
crisy of men and of nations that SchoPenhauer ridicules; thei:
endless wars raged on the pretence of benefitin3 the common man,

‘9 V O

the aacniavellian pretences of the rulers tho misled the stunid

masse , the inconsistency of men calling themselves Christians

U)

and followers of a Prince of Peace while th- y n rder their fellow

their consciences by ration—

Ho
:3
01

men, shielding their pride and salv

(D
’1

alizing that if tile ey did not kill they would be killed. Homo
honini lupus! Hor does he offer any Rousseaun consolation that men
was not always so areda tory for in his original state man was noble

and free. He will have none of this - his pes Li1ism is thorough-

:fi

r

going and complete! man's existence, he felt, he salv.a;s been charact-

I"

erized by exploitation, greed, cor1uption and misery and this condition

null continue to exist ner ownia specnla saec ‘crrm:
w

"To this world, to this scene of tormented and aaonized
bein who only continue to exist Dy devourin3 ea 1

(as,

other, in which, therefore, every avenous beast is

the livin3 3‘ave of thousanc.s of others, nd its sell-
raintene1ce is a hs.in of . ainful ceeths ent in which
the canecity for feelin3 pal n increases with knowled3e
and therefore reaches its Lid est de3ree in man, a de3ree
which is the hi- her the more intelli3ent man is; to this

world it has been sought to apply the system of ontnnisn,
1d demonstrate to us that it is the nest of all possible
worlds. The absurdity is 3laring.“

 

1 Ibid., p. 392.

13

In his essay on The ani.. o: 1*istCTCC, S1hO'
corgeres the stru33les of men to the teamin: movements 0: "in—
fusoria" when viewed throu3h a microsco-
f cheese, all of which a33ear to bustle about with
ea3 ern es and pur; se, *ut which to the
and ridiculous. In the microscope of our 0"rn consciousness,

1

xistence We live seems so lar3e and important out Schenenh.1er

says that an individual existence is but an indivisihle point drann

out and er lar fed by the l nses f Time and Syace.

‘he will in re_ation to a philos enhy of pessimism has three
fundanental ends, (1) the percenal or carnal interest, (2) the
public or social interest, (3) the metaphysical interest in the

soul, and the larger problems of rezlit 3!. These three funda 1ental

erests have as the cause of their existence three primary desires

H-
¥ })

of the soul, that is, the desire for l e, the desire :or power, and
the desire for knowledge, which are develoged successively one after
the other as man matures. .ne main
power and knowledge, 'herefore, a consciousness of the lack of thes

qual’t ie arouses a des1re to acquire them, - the will reaches out

H’-

to achieve these thin3s which it conceives as necessary for its satisf-
action. The livin3 man is sustained in life throu321 the power and
knowled3e he mossesses. He is conscious that he lives well or badly
xrithin a sr.eci fie d period of time; that he possesses a small and not

a great amount of strength; and th 1at sknovledre is quite limited

and his i3norance colossal. As a result of his consciousness of this

 

1. Schopenhauer, Arthur, Essays, ed. T. Bailey, Saunders, Wiley Book
. ‘n
Compe.y, flew Yorx, l9h2, p. 2%.

lack, there 3roxs \ithin h n the desire to acguire the thinvs he
does not possess, nd t1 eg‘ seem 300d, desirable to him. From a
consciousness of tl1e mi: erablenes and brevity of life there grows
in man the desire to live sell and lens; from a consciousness of
weakness there syrin3s the desire to be able to accomplish all that
f

he wills; while from a consciousness o i3norance there comes the

g

as isre to learn and know every thi113unlmom1.

By means of the p1ursical world, the \.'il.l, aided by whatever
insi3ht the intellect provides, seeks to satisfy the {esire of a
‘y and lenxtbv lize; by means of the moral world of human society
it seeks to s atisfv the desire for power; while bv near.s o? a search

for the ori3inal source of all thin3s , the Prime Cousa, it seeks to

 

attain compassion and the absexzce of desire. Hen turns his 3aze to
the stars, reaching out for tile en lik a tin" child, and when he fails

to touch with h1s fin3 ers the infinity beyond, he sulks and grows

despondent and lessim istic.

.A 3lance into history reveals to us others of the more prominent

philcsoyhers of pessimism, amon3 them Giacomo LeOpardi, EQu rd von

{‘7

Eartmei r. and Tolstoy. A brief mention of pessimistic elements in
the writings of Rousseau will also be made, alon3 with mention of

Voltaire's strains of pes s1rmim1

Jean Jacques Rousseau taujht that reason is not an infallible
guide to truth and more.l conduct but in the really imgortant questions
of life man should depend upon his etiotion and instincts for he held
that the lens of nature are the only infallible guides. He denounced

the "thinking man“ as a depraved animel and extolled the life of the

21

‘

savage. In his campaign to lead maziinn a "oacl: to nature“ he loomed

1.-

upon the origin of nrivate property as the primary source of human

|>

sufferinp and misery. In explanation of this position he states:

"The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, could
think of saying, This is nine, and found peoyle single enough
to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. How
many cri in s, wars, murders, miseries, and horrors would not
have been s_pared to the human race by one who, plucking up
tlie stakes, or filling in the trench, should h3ve called out
to his fellows: Beware of listenin ng to this imoo ter; you are
undone if you forget that the earth belongs to no one, and

that its fruits are for all."

 

So thoroughly did he feel that western civilization was decadent
and that mankind had degenerated into aoys1al stnuidity that he re-
marked that if he were to be a Eigritian Chieftain ruling a native
tribe of COfIN11 telv uncivilized savages, he sould have the first
Euroyean mi ssi ionary or aLHvoc te of the ideas of occidental civilizar

O Q 0 C 2
tion hanged upon entering hlS lands.

Living in tlze same era was the inmort: l Voltaire who once wrote
to Rousseau that ofter ree ding his work it caused him to feel like
walking on all fours, for Roussea u had0 tated thct man closely ajproach-

ed the brute. This does not mean that Voltaire was any more Optimistic
of man's ability to rise above his brutish nature for he too deSpised
the "StUU1lld masses" and felt that they were like dumb oxen fit only

for the y he, whip and fodder. Yet, desy it ethis despairing outlook

concerning nan, Voltaire spared no com13assion in his efforts to amelior-

 

l. Rousseau, Oeuvres, Vol. I, p. 551; transl. in Xorley,"Rousseau".
2. Tsanoff, Radoslav, The Nature of Evil, The Macmillan Co., H.Y.,
/
1931: P- 150-

 

ate the condition of those who suffered oppression, nor did he

O'.

rance alone. his letters, filled with

T?
‘

confine his efforts to
biting barbs of wit and sarcasm, reached into all parts of the

world to voice his protest against the cruel treatment of an

individual or a minority.

While Voltaire's Candide is an insolent parody on Optimism
he does show that the sufferings of men touched him, whether these
sufferings were caused by the forces of nature or by man's inhumanity
to his fellows. An earthquake at Lisbon stirred him almost as much
as though his closest friends had been involved, and one must respect
him the more for the passion he shows, for the indisiation with which

he rejects the idea that eternal law can ius

cents.

But France has never been a stronghold of pessimism and Voltaire's
Candide was regarded as something novel. It is true that Frenchmen
are often cynical in their indifference but he always seems to retain
his taste for life and but seldom sinks into the depths of despair.
Death is not the timely-topic for morbid discussion in France that it
was in Germany. French literature, while lawless and sensational
enough in some respects, looked upon life with a smile or a laugh,
but seldom with a jeer or a grimace of scorn. Troubadours and trons
veres raised their voices in song to their dhatelaine in words of
love and occasionally boastfully of their prowess. Rabelais wrote
with a laugh that often approached tears but the French generally,

had little time for the morbid.

 

l Saltus, Edgar, The Philosophy of Disenchantment, Brentano 00.,
1885, pp. 8-0.

n)
K»:

While not ess ntially a.philosopher, though his writings
preach a gospel of negation and pessimism, the Italian Count
Giacomo LeOpardi, (179 1837) is an example of a psychological
pessimist. He lived one of the most distressing xistences among
men of genius. Almost blind, hunchbacked, suffering digestive ills,
asthma” neurasthenia, dropsy, inflammation of the lungs and the humil-
iation of poverty, this stepchild of Fortune wrote some of the most
beautiful of all Italian verse, and the pessimistic creed.he taught

always seems sublime, deepite the depths of gloom to which it descends.

Leopardi anticipated the criticism of posterity which would lay
his pessimism to the account of his infirmity of body. In 1332 he
wrote to a friend protesting against those who would attribute his
pessimism to his poor health:

"Before dying I shall protest against this weak and
vulgar notion, and beg my readers, instead of blaming
my illnesses to turn to the disposal of my observations
and reasonings."

Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the unhappiness
pof his early childhood, the long days spent in veritable seclusion
in his father's library, the lack of parental affection, the ridicule
of the townspeople of Recanati, the town where the Palazzo LeOpardi
had stood for many years, and the hereditary tendency toward rickets
and nervous infirmities that afflicted the Leopardi family - all
contributed to his gloom state of mind and influenced his writings.
_The wonder is that his genius overcame these infirmities and that he

was able to become the foremost writer of Italy during his time and

 

l Epistolario, Vol. II, p. #79. Cf. Hjalmar Hahl, Les tendances
morales dans l'oeuvre de Giacomo LeOpardi, Helsingforé, 1896, p. 1h.

 

that in the midst of his sufferings and despair he was yet able to
write lyrically about love and life. Beneath it all there is the

pessimistic strain, of course, but there is a dark beauty about it

.Q

nonetheless. In one of his works, Zioaldone, Leopardi expresses his

pessimism:

“Works of genius have this peculiarity that, even when
they represent the nothingness of things, even :hen they
clearly demonstrate and make us feel the inevitable un-
happiness of life, vhen they express the most terrible
moods of despair, yet to a great mind, even though it may
be in a state of extreme depression, disillusionment,
blankness, ennui, and weariness of life, or in the bitter-
est and most paralyzing misfortunes (whether with reference
to deep and strong feelings or to anything else), they
always serve as a consolation, rekindle enthusiasm; and
though they treat of and represent no other subject than
death, they restore to such a.mind, at least momentarily,
that life which it had lost....And the very knowledge of
the irreparable vanity and falseness of everything beauti-
ful and great is in itself a certain beauty and greatness
which fills the soul, when this knowledge is found in works
of genius. The very contemplation of nothingncss is a
hing in these works which seems to enlarge the soul of
the reader, to exalt it and satisf‘ it with itself and
its own despair." 1

Leopardi turned with disgust from the present in which he found
himself and sought refuge in classical antiquity, in the writings
of.Homer and the Latin poets. He was terrified to find himself in
the midst of nothingness and he despaired at the thought that amid
this futility he himself was nothing. Like Rousseau he blames civ-
ilization with its veneer of hypocricy and selfishness for the misery
of man, - if only man had been permitted to remain in his original

state he could have escaped the bitter disillusionment of a fictitious

 

\ o . s
l Leopardi, Giacomo, Zibaldong, Vol. I, pp. 349 ff. edited with Introd—
uction and notes and a.Verse-Translation in the metres of the Original,
by Geoffrey L. Bickersteth, Cambridge University Press, 1923.

modern culture. He saw in the Gospel a pesshnistic other-worldly

attitude of Christ Who had said that His kingdom "is not of this world."

In the brightness of the dreams of youth, a young man may look
into the future with hope and Optimism, reaching for the pleasures,
the glories, the greatness that he can build for himself. But LeOpardi
warns him that his dream is but an illusion that will soon pass and in
its place there will be the grim reality of the evil and nothingness
of life. “Men regard life as Italian husbands do their wives: they
must needs believe them faithful, although they know them to be other-

wise." 1

LeOpardi does not accept an absolutistic concept of ethics in
his Zibaldone for he writes that values are relative and that good
is merely a matter of custom and mores. Truth and knowledge he des-
paired of and called them “unnatural and baneful to man." Even the
concept of an infinite God must be dissipated in the cold light of
his pessimism, and with it all belief in immortality, for he regards

all hOpe of eternal glory a myth men no longer even laugh at.

As a final indictment of the world and existence, this lyrical
pessimist makes a statement in the concluding volume of Zibaldone:
"All is evil. That is, all which exists is evil; that all things'
exist, is an evil...." 3 There is no infinite, only plodding, evil,

evanescent man and the ruthless nature which encompasses him.

 

l LeOpardi, op. cit., p.351.
2 Tsanoff, Radoslav, The Nature of Evil, p. 235.
3 LeOpardi, op. cit., p. 10“.

PO
0\

Despite his perplexity with life and his ready admission that

he nor any man may ever comprehend the awful mystery of its futility,

(O

LeOpardi holds onto life and seeks to live it fully, finding in it

mystery a challenge to spur men on to achievement - this is the para-

|
.L

b

dox of his philosophy, that he believes all effort futile, yet he
would not have any man cease asoirin“ if man has within him the evil

genius that will not rest, the insatiable will of which SdhOpenhauer

.

writes. Commenting upon this aspect of Leopardi's pessimism, Francesco

J.

de Sanctis writes:

"LeOpardi produces the contrary efiect of that which he
intends. Hot believing in progress, he makes you desire
it; not believing in liberty, he makes you love it. He
calls love and glory and virtue illusions, and kindles
in your breast an endless desire for them. You cannot
leave him without first wishing to pull yourself together
and be purified, in order not to have to blush in his
presence. He is a sceptic and makes you a believer; and
while he sees no possibility of a less dismal future for
our native land, he rouses in your breast an ardent love
for it and fires your heart for noble deeds. He has so
low an estimate of human nature, and his own soul lofty,
gentle and pure, honors and ennobles it...."

Like many another philos0pher, LeOpardi turns to contemplation,
to intuition and imagination as a haven of rest to which we might

return occaionally to find surcease from the unending struggle in

a life of evil, to help him attain nobility amidst the ignoble.

In the 5? axy of pessimistic philOSOphers, Karl Robert Eduard
von Hartmann, like SchOpenhauer, xemplifies ontological pessimism,
and his philos0phy might be considered a logical continuation of

Schopenhauer's position. Born in 18H2 in Germany, Hartmann's child-

 

l Sanctis, Francesco de, Saggi Critici, 30 edition, pp. 297 f.

hood, as different from that of Leopardi or Sdhopenhauer, vas a
very happy one. In fact, looking into his early and later life,

it would be difficult to find any personal frustration or tragedy
to which his pesshnistic strain mirnt be attributed. Perhaps it

is the result of his sensitive nature and his keen penetration

into the problems of existence, rather than any personal suffering,
that developed.his pessimism. In fact, it is legendary that the
common saying among his friends and aquaintances in Berlin was,

"If you want to see really contented and happy faces, then go to

the house of the pessimists, the von Hartmanns."

Von Hartmann's early training was sporadic and unspectacular.
He disliked university regimentation and the type of life of the
students but strangely enough did not rebell against the roughness
and discipline of army life, for he entered the army and served
until an accilent to his knee made it necessary for him to retire
once more to private life, at the age of twenty-two. He suffered
no serious impairment to his health, however, and there is no evi-
dence that the rheumatism which eventually develOped hindered him

in living a full life.

He married the famous Agnes Taubert, herself an ardent pessi-
mist and authoress of the work Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner.
After her death in 1877, Hartmann married again and seems to have
been just as fortunate in the choice of his second wife, as he had
been of his first. Indeed, since his family life was so happy, one

must attribute the following statement on the trials ud tribulations

D.)
O)

of married life to his keeness of observation:

"Family happiness is even in n ormal circumstances
uncertain. Either husband or wife is not of much
account, or they are not quite suited to each other,
or th e marria3e is c11ildless, o1 el.se yields so rich
a crop of cl ildi en that daily care visits the home,
or efforts to prevent too many births poison conju3al
happiness, or the illnesses of ;a rents or children
cast a shadow over the home, or the parents must need
bewail the loss of he very children who seem dearest,
or else the werry over some blind, dea_-mute, imbecile,
epileptic, or otherWise sickly or inv alid c ild emoitters
their joy in the others. If the children grovr up, then
therschool-.vor1ies over lary or un3ifted children wei 3h
over the parents more than over the children, s.d per-
haps there is a li3ht-minded, 300d—for-nothin3 among
them. Should the hildren all fare well, then suddenly

he mother dies, and leaves her husband to worry how
with stran3e help he can bring up the children, or else
the father himself passes frfm the home circle and leaves
the family in sudden need.“

In true Schopenhauerian style, Hartmann follows, in thought,
the life struggle of man from the first moment of life to the
grim defeat of death and he finds only unadulterated wickedness,
misery and evil of every sort. Like Schopenhauer, he finds life's
good of brief duration and mixed with evil. He cannot conceive of
a pure 300d, for aW1op tin3 some of He 3el's dirlectic, he feels that
every 3ood cont: ins within its elf the seed of future evil. Thus
a man mi311t enjoy eating or drinking or pleasure of any sensual

sort, but his oys 1n experi “c13these goods are shortlived,

1
U
for they soon turn into re3ret, shame or diS3ust. Even antic ciiated
pleasures rarely meas re up to one' s ex1ectations or if they do,

they are of sucl1 slort dur:tion that the loss of them brings with

it new desires that cannot be fulfilled or satisfied.

 

1 Von Hartmann, Eduard, Grundriss der Axiolorie oder Yert v5 gun3plehre,
p- 59.

’1'
5n

'1‘ r- ., r): -~r A .~ v . -,v . ‘ . n . 5‘ ‘
”Hat -1, 1 mann re lly ace -1 plish: 11 vas a. nyo. 1u1sation 01 the

.. 11-? "‘ ‘1 -1 ‘.,.. 1 “ ”. 1.. ,_ ‘ ‘.1.._,' ,5 ‘,
Hosovnic s stens o; nonopennauer and he el, and 1nsp1reu DJ

[—4

acneilinr he sou3nt to overcome irrationalism and rationalism my

and idea. 11eUr1conscious, he claimed, 3enerates all values in
a philosophical sy tem w.i 1 avoids what he considered the error
of subjecti e monistic izealism and phenomenalism by means of

the solution he believed he had evolved, - transcendental realism.

In a manner somewhat reminiscent of Plato and Aristotle, thou3h
certainly not a3reein3 with them in the 103ical roral consequences
of the civisio11 nortmcnn rec03n'zes three positions of moral develOp-
ment: the realm of Nature, which includes animals and man in his
natural state; the realm of1' .orrfil y, which includes man in a state

of adherence to moral principles or standards of et ics, consciously

followed; and lastly, the realm of the super—moral. Each of these

three realms contribute toward the true end of the Universe. tan,
in his natural state, best tends oaard t21e rezlization of his own

destiny and the supreme end of the Universe by followin3 his instincts,
rather thou onv conscious dr've, for the Unconscious is the only un—
errin3 guide for those who do not possess moral ins i3ht. A more 1 bein3,
however, would best promote the true end of the Universe by bein3 moral.
Both the 300d and the evil man, accordin3 to Ho Hr monn' s philoso:1hy,
promote the end of the Universe, thou3n the morally good man promotes
it more. If the moral man does evil, he retards the true end of he
Universe which will be attained, but not soon as if he would refrain

1

Fl

Iron doing evil.

 

1 “a 1:.) 4- ' —. , 1 'A Q - A“ T . .1
l Rasndall, nast1n3s, 119 -neory of seed a1a Erilj Cnforu Press,
/'

‘ ‘1 -7
lonuon, 192%, pp. 27u—'{o.

Hartmann explains his whilosOpny of the Unconscious by

"”1e worl H°l€t3 only of a sum 0; activities or W111-
acts of the Unconscious, and the e30 c1nsists 01 another
sun 0: activities or 1ill-acts of the Unconscious. Only
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Eertnann felt the world-drama to be one of tragedy. As
men becomes conscious he knows of the rain and the misery that
abounds universe 13. With regard to hni>1ntss, he holds that
there are three fonts of illusions: (l) the illusion the. under
certain circumstances happiness is chl‘cole in 01; present state
on ecrtn- (2) the illusion tht hegpiness can be realized in a futtze

state; (3) the illusion thdt napji iness till be discovered in the
march of progress through the cor.1in3 centuries. Only when eocn of
these three elm “h s1e been dispelled universally, Enrtmann

believed, will the world be ready for its great quietus

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In drawing up the De ilFL sheet 01 liie, Her menn differs
from SchOpenheuer on the question of the purely no“: :tive Chara-cter

of pleasure. That pleasure is at times a neeative condition, as in

the cessation of pain, he willingly admits, but from his Viceroint
it is something else besides. It may be eitiiei positiwe, altnor~~

derived from £1 illusion, es in love; or re: as in art and science.
fievertheless, the r‘ecowinence Oi pain over pleasure seems to be
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L7

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9 x.)
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SS and vein SC {3‘ TOP...

We now turn to Russia which in the late 1850's was in e seething
state of turmoil with Opposition brewing to the reactionary reQime of

Eicholes I. Peesznt serfdom no longer seemed to answer one needs 0

tLe geople. vestonol fel1 and witL it passel mucL of the Rursian

"‘ 'I 1 war“ 'TF(
1 lsenoff, Tne nature of Ev1l, pp. gay-gnu.

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one ranted to make changes enu improvements - to turn thin s unside

down.

fir-{'1

Count Leo Tolstoy, who has ho‘n on An ust 23, logo, wrote oiling

these troubled times and as he grew older his rm 1t 1110s exercised a
great inflrence not only upon Russian t'wo ht, but u10n the rest of
the world. It may not be preper to sjeak of a To stoyan "yhilOSOph.C£'
system" but certainly his pessimistic i‘eologies reflect Quite accu r.

ately something of the gloom and passivity of the Rus€1an nontLlitv;
it m1 it oe szid that 'Iolstowr has verbalizel the pessinistic philOSO*

Tolstoy had every educational advantere Curin; his youth. His

mother died ' Zen he was almost two years old, but on the family estate

of Yasnaya Polyana, the young Tolstoy received affectionate care from

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One of his favor te Cnestles as a child was to search for a creen
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hidway in his lifetime, Tolstoy found himself adrizt in a sea of

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was repelled by the worldly theologians and by the leer ed of his day.
He turned to the poor, siuole, u11lettered folk, nil rims, monxs, sect-
arians and Ieasants for a solution to his problem. He was driven to
thou Jhts of suicide, but eventually acce;1ted the beliefs of the humble
peOple of Russia who had "iven him an inssi slit into the understanding of
the meaninr of life. Like them, he felt that he must li"e "godly",

and that he must ren01 Luce all the plea sures of life, humole him sel
suffer and be merciful. For a time he cs.refully ooserved the fasts
e-nd prescriptions of the Russian Orthodox Chuich but in the end

had to con:ess that belief in Orthodoxy was inpossiole for him. He
\.'ondered thy the priests of his own Church considered the beliefs of
all other C11istians heretical. he felt that the conflicting inter-
oretations of d1e erious chura es, had nullified the teacnings of
Christ Who had ;1 MC wi ed to unite all in one 181th are love and that

they had L t succeed.ed in destroying what religion had sought to

create.

Tolstoy' solution was to acceft the liter 1 crzin; of non-

Fron the Sermon on the

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core of Christ's teaching, and if n cc» iced mould link reli ion
to man's daily life. He saw clearly all their far-reachirg im-
plications. For a "(In tho rczuses to swear an oath cannot take

any fart in the offices of civi government or serve in the armv;

the complete observance of the commandment "resist not him that

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tion, law courts, police and prisons, as Well as all forcible
restraints of man by man; and adherence to "love y ur enemies!"

Would mean the end of all wars. But he in ally realized, as he sait-

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that man is we: h and in aye ble of a strict obse-rance of such pre-
cepts as "do not ’13ry" or "Do not lu st“, and to abstain from
anger and lust as much as possible, he admitted, was perhans all

1

that our depraved a11im al natures would allow. He regarded man's

selfishness as the root of evil.

What then could be the solution if man lives amidst the
Vic :edness and corruption Tolstoy found on all sides? Has the
solution to Withdraw into a hopeless longing for a Rousseauen

state 01 man's ori3inal blessedness? Or silould a defe atist at

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be adOpted, - the world is evil and man can do noth n3 to radicallv

iolstoy felt that the solution must be one, not only for all
men to be able to follow, but one which he lzi elf could immediately
put into practice. He anticipated something of the Ru mi.n Communist

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or harxian tWIeor of aoendonin3 the d sn onest practice of accepting

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unearned increment, of 32inin3 any lezm fit that is not directly
and couple clv e6111ed by oneself. he ccndenntd the evil in man

which caused him to resort to violence, er103 :.nce, lust, exploit—

ation of the humble and the poor, and the 3rcs in3 for power.

Juch of his feeling of dee air over civil ization and its

evils is contained in his wo"h Pram“

"Peeple say to me, 'uell, Lyof Hi- olaevitch, as far
as preaching 3oes, you p1each; out how about your
meetice?' The question is a perfectly natural one;
it is alW'"s put to me, and it alwty shuts my mouth.
Condezzn 19, if you c.100se.- but condemn 13g, and not
the path which I am followin 3....If I know the road
home, and if I 30 along it drunk, and staggering from
side to side, does that prove that the road is not
the right one? Do not yourselves confuse and mislead
me, and then rejoice over it and cry, 'Look at him!
He says he is 30in13 ho:..e, an” he is floundering in
the swamp!' Ky he:1t is bre 'Lin3‘ with despair be-
ceuse we have all lost the road; and while I struggle
tith all my strength to find it, and keep in it, you
nstead of pitying me When I go astrev , cry triumph,
antly, 'sees He is in the s.”r-..p with us!" 1

Tolstoy saw clearly the evil in the world, and to him it

seemed more pervasive than any temporary good that mi3ht be

found. K: h of his ‘espair over civilization evolved into a

thorou3h3oin3 pessimism of a limited contingent type. The
world is evil, he felt; Inan he s no alternative but to make the
nest of a very b2 d situation and the best way to do this is to

follow the Gospel teaching.

Fundamental to each of the foregoing types of pess1mism
there has been clearly evident certain value-judgements concernin3

the nature of good and evil. In the attempt to arrive at an under-

 

l Tolstoy, Psvma, Vol. I, pp. 1M2 ff.; transl. in Hcvelock Ellis,
"The New Spiri ," 1890, p. 225, quoted by Tsanoff, hature of L'il,
n. 170

standing of pessinicn it is necessary to ahe into consideration

the types of ethics which give rise to such a despairing attitude.
It will also prove useful to investigate certain philosOphiccl
positions, such as those of St. Thomas Aquinas, Nicolai Hartmann
and H. Noldin, S.J. on the value of life per se; the value of
consciousness and the importance given to Kirvana and non-being
as Opposed to this value; the evaluation of pleasure and of pain;
voluntaris: as a vlaue with the renunciation of will as its anti-
hesis; and lastly the value placed upon both material and moral
goods as things men seek in their Quest for the satisfying and
the lasting in existence. I shall attempt to clarify the meaning

1 some of its aspects in What follows.

(‘11

of eood an

CEAPTER II

ETHICS AL' PESSIXI&

Frederick Xietzsche, in his work The Genea103y of horals

 

states that man in the ancient past has called "300d"
things which were useful to him and while eventually he for3ot

the ori3in of the value-theory, there develOped a habit of

pra lS in3 certain thin3s as 3ood or evil. Good, ancient man

q

thou3ht, was associated with good peOple, and he thought of
good people as the intellectually and socially elite. In

his comment upon this, Nietzsche writes:

“The real homestead of t11e concept '3ood' is sou3ht
1d located in the wron3 place; the jud3ement “good'

did not ori 3inate a110n3 tlm se to whom 3oodness was
shown.1£uch rather has it been the 300d themselves,
that is, the aristocratic, the powerful, the high-

stationed, the hi3h-minded, who have felt that they
themselves \:ere 300d, and that their actio1'1s were

300d, that is to say of the first o1der, in contra-
distinction to all the low, the low—minded, the vul3ar,
and the plebian. It wa s out of this pathos of distance
th at they first arro3ated the ri3ht to create v dues
for their own profit, and to coin the names of such
values....The pathos of nobility and distance, as I
1ave said, the chronic and despotic esprit de corps
and fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race
coming into association with a meaner race, an 'under
race', this is the ori3in of the antithesis of 300d
and bad."

In the case of the above quotation from Nietzsche, ethics
or the a::iolQ ical jud3.ement is determined sociolO3ically, by a

consensus of Opinions of the "best" people. There is no absolute

standard of ethics in such a system, instead the ste.ndard shifts

 

1 Nietzsche, Frederick, The Geneal_3y of Horals Modern Library
Edition, hen York, pp. DEM-635.

depending upon the formulated Opinions of a group of individuals

who 30 no further than their own actions, setting themselves and

heir activities as the "good."

Nietzsche is a naturalistic perfectionist who bases his eth cs
upon a Darwinian concept of evolution. here natural survival in
the Darwinian sense, however, does not satisfy Eietzsche for he
believes that the true nature of man is manifested in the will-to-
nower. Since the will-tO-power is to be considered good, those
thjn3s which contribute to the will-to—power are to be considered

as good also, while those which frustrate or inhibit it are evil.

But what is "300d"? How are men to know what is 300d and
what is evil? From a merely cursory investi3ation it becomes

apparent that "good" has a number of meanin3s, some of which I

0

will attempt to discuss. If to the Optimist things seem good

while to the pessimist these same things may seem evil, there

must be a wide variation in axiOlO31cal jud3ement. Why does the

"good" of one man become the "evil" of another? Is the difference

intrinsic or extrinsic?

In its widest sense, good is defined by many philOSOphers,
principally by the Scholastics, as that which is apprOpriate to

‘

thin3, and in a more restricted sense as that whicn is the object

9)

of the striving of a thing. Goodness is subject, therefore, to

many distinctions.

Good is often referred to entitatively. Entitative good or

good in the order of being is every reality that has actuality,

esse, or xistence. This is St. Thomas Aquinas' view and it is
accepted by the Neo-Scholastics of our own time. Entitative good

is also called transcendental good beca‘se it transcends every class
of being and is co xtentive with being in itself. It is also described
by saying that a thi-g is good by reason of the fact that it exists
since existence itself, Aguinas holds, regardless of contingent facts,
is better than non~existence. Likewise, the very fact of existence,
the Scholastic argues, implies a certain perfection which makes it
desirable, at least. to itself. 1 In this sense being and good become
interchangeable tends. Often, persons dying of some incurable lisease,
the Scholastic would point out, even though death is imminent and the
dying persons are racked with pain and can survey an ex'stence that
offers a superabundance of suffering and misery, will cling to life

no matter how disagreeable it might be, for it is difficult to regard

non-being as a good.

On the other hand, there are philOSOphers who, like the Brahman,
hold that non-being is the highest good and they hepe only for eventual
annihilation and nothingness to be freed from a disagreeable succession
of earthly existences. The suicide prefers non-being to his present
disagreeable state of being. Suicide as the denial of life per se as

a.value will be discussed in another part of this chapter.

'3
‘-

Another type of good is that called Natural Good. This good is

defined as the fulness of all that is necessary for the perfection of

l Buddhists, of course, hold that the very fact of existence implies
an evil.
2 The Bonum Naturals mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas l-E, XVIII, l,c.

 

ho

a being's mode of existence. This goodness exists securdum Quid in

 

a being that lacks some perfection, for then it is only good in so
far as the perfections it has are concerned. Commenting upon this

type of good, A.C. Ewing writes:

"then I talk of somebodv's good, I may only mean what

will satisfy his desires. But I may also mean what

is 'really to his good', as when I say that it is not to

a man's good to have everything lit he wants, and the

tw meanings shade into each other so that it is

difficult to tell which is intenled. This is becaus
{3

fied is for one's real good, provided they are not posit-
'vely inmoral desires. To say that something is for a
man's good is to say that it will directly or indirectly
result in a part of his life being better in some way
(not necessarily hedonistically) than would otherwise be
the case without a counterbalancing loss somewhere else
in his life."

Thus when the pessimist reduces good and evil to pleasure and

ain, or to self-denial and self-assertion, or to primitive and

to

H.

c vilized conditions of life, value is mistakenly treated as good-
in-itself and as residing in specific things or aspects or condit-
ions. If the pessimist adopts the subjectivist viewpoint that
moral and aesthetic values represent the subjective feelings and
reactions of individual minds and have no status independent of
such reactions, it seems inevitable that he should become so ego-

centric that he regards himself and his desires as the criteria of

good and.evil.

Carrying the analysis of the meaning of good still further,
there appears a form of good which we can call the Useful Good or

the Good of Utilitv. Ewing calls this Good as a means, and it is

 

 

1 Ewing, A.C., The Definition of Good, The liacmillan 00.. 19W, pp.
lie-113.

1:1

7

desired as a means to some end. An instance of such good would be
the desire for food or its us as a means of conserving the strength
of the body. This goodness might also be desired for its own sake,
because it is in conformity with right reason to want it, as for
example, the desire for virtue, and inasmuch as this would be the
means of bringing about the haipiness of the individual this good

can also be construed as bonum utile. By an extension of this prin-

 

ciple of utility, those things which are inefficient or do not serve
a.means to desirable ends, while they may not be intrinsically evil,
do produce bad effects. Ewing classifies disease and natural catast-
rOphes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, etc. as being bad in this sense,
though certainly they are not evil intrinsically. The pessimist is
inclined to regard these natural calamities as completely evil, with-

out differentiating between intrinsic or extrinsic value.

We mir t go deeper into this investigation of good by clarifying

Subjective Good and Objective Good; True Good and Apparent Good. Brief-

 

 

ly, subjective good is that which i1heres in an individual while object-
ive good is that which is the object of his faculties. According to

St. Thomas, the objective good for man is ultimately the Infinite God.
Therefore, God could never be the subjective good of man since the
Infinite cannot inhere in him. hen can only possess God in a finite

manne I".

In commenting upon True Good, or as he calls it, Goodein-itself,

 

Ewing states that for him this means simply "good itself" as distinguisa—
ed from good as a means, and that it is goodness in its primary sense

‘71 r-

and not merely because of its utilitv. He does not feel Duct True Good

and Useful Good are exclusive terms for an object can be both
"good-in-itself" and "goodrforbsomething" at the same time. In

contradis tincti on to True Good, Apparent Good is that which is in

 

self evil, but is apprehended under the "“‘eurcnces of good, as

theft, revenge, etc..

Evil has just as many variations and types. cwing divides

a into ten categories

' bi

"'Bad' mav mean (1) unpleasant; (2) contrary to that

we desire; (3) inefficient in fulfilling certain pur—
poses, whether these are themselves good, bad or in-
different; (:)I productive of something intrinsically

evil; (Z ) in ficiently made; (3) intrinsically bed.

in Loore' s sense as applied to particulars; 7) ultimx ately
bad as applied to particulars; (8) as applied to Qualities,
such as to make what has it bad in the sixth or seventh
sense; (9) morzfilir bad as applied to actions; (10) morally
bad as applied to persons. — vil is synonrxous with b-d
except that it is not customarily used unless the degree
of badness is very seriowi s, and it could not, I thi1fi:
correctly be applied to tvllat is consid ered bad only1
senses 1,2,3, or 5, except as a apiece of slen=' Itn
has therefore, unlike 23%, no purely ne tural_ist sense
at all." 2

Of especial importance to philosonhers, Ewinw feels, is the
.. .. .L - s.)
concept of evil as intrinsically bad when applied to particulars,
and ultima ely bad as applied to particulars. These two alone

Q

cannot be defined, that is, be reduced to any terms used in the

natur l sciences and are not dependent upon general approval. Such

approval would be merely a contingent accident.

Hume in considering the problem of what kinds of thin

 

1 Ibid., p. 11M.
2 Ibid., p. 117.

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the fact that they are the objects of this emotion?" In attemptin
to solve the problex he holds that this question can be settled only

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ralization.

‘11

tion followed by an empirical gen

Those thin s which generally merit the approval of men are divified

into 'wo classes: "Tlose which are i1zn ediately pleasant either to

tne1r possessor or to other men; and those vhich are useful, i.e.,
ultimately and indirectly produ t've of nleasure, either to their

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nos s_ssor or to other men.“ 1 E: inc feels that everything that 031

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Commenting upon Zumc‘ theory, Borad points out that this

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ldtlvltuul's m7011070010.]. state. unat Lame mi ht hav sair is

that the emotion of CIPTOV81 as called forth by things which we

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consider good depend upon that i hr 1 ieved by the observer to be
'nmediately pleasant or useful. Because unhappiness is dis pleasing
to men, most men feel Lisannroval for those things ww1i 41 they believe

to be unplee cent or which might contribute to h man misery. But such
approval or chi 1uroval does not alter the fact that a thing may be

good or e1ril inuep enden tly of m 4'1 s avprovcl or €Lis1v.p1r0"al of it.

The mere fact that thousands or millions of men approve an act, such

 

 

l Broad, C.D., Five Types of Ethical Theory, harcourt, Brace and Co.,
flew York 61d London, 13 O, p. 37.

2 Ibid. p. 89.

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inuicntion that conscious Hill has gainsi soznet ’;iin3 more harmonious

and satisfyii; than what has gone before. The feeling 0;

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ion or approval, are mental states this: secs-me desi;able alld we strive

has.

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tOWurL vise..io iLIOSCI t11i1135> mile“. ueCun.e the OJJeCuS Oi VCzlLZE-

. ‘

gur3 :erts
on be defined by a thinking individual as ends or objects of strivin3.
then We think of value we think of satisfaction in tne result of a

processor activity; mien we think of end 7e think of the process it-

self 1 vin3 to its 3oal. It seems that the end gives stimu

.J

i"ection to endeavor “hile valire inzicates hat the endeavor nas
been satisfactorilv completed. Certainly the bare notion of activity
does not connote value but activity is expressed in terms of feeling
and the differences of feeling or emotion in response to an external

~ 5

fimulus are the celuti ions whicn 3ive rise to elementary valies.

If we (LCCS t the definition of ethical science as the law of
kno led 3e of good throU3h which men is able to so
and. att in h papines: :, then it mould seer. that the ri 3:1t res son of
ethics is not diff e1 rent from that of logic, "ut the some rid ident-
ical right reason should be found in ooth branches of plilosophy.
In each science the so"e rig3 M1 reason reflects the different out—
ard color and es3ect of the known object; for 103ic, throu3h ri3ht

reason, c03nizes valiuity; mhile ethics

4.

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reason co 3ni izes Good. logic air. at the ac.uisition of formal vel-

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stencr, while ethics aims at the use and oen efit to
De uerived -rom what is known. There must be an interrelation be-
tween the two, logic an& ethics. In both these scienc*s, ri3ht

q

reason is the one and ide nticol safe low throu:n.v&i h both the

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is well to cons_her thetner tne nessinist in his uniolo- iccl

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end the latter oeceuse it oromotes e§3arent instead of actual 3001.

.nile lo3ic wa3es a relentless battle grainst sowhistsy cni Celzsion,
ethics is bitterly Opposin3 hypocrisy and iecei - that is, those
thin3s which apnea to be good while thev are in reclit" and, or

those which anoear to as evil but are in fLCb 300d. In this bottle

103ic must oecome the ally of ethics ens or 1e ccm reinforce the other.

has the pessimist confused or illO3ical theories of value on

some of the most important proolems of existence? Is ; 3nilty o-

"J
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I

muddlec and confused thinkin3 in his ethical views? I believe that
he does often commit one error of ar3unent. .As we look into the
fol wins ethical proolems it secones apgerent that there is a wide

wiver 3encc between the valuationsl concepts of he different positions.

to be to deteinine which oositions are ethically

*********

One of the most persistent problems facing the pessimist an.
the ontimist elige is the question of life per so, as e.velue or

non—value. There are :hilOSOpanS which hold life as the most el ementrr"

 

.V Y..’
"—hall 80., lSeo, pp. 7-3.

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ell re.etion to ethichl vulue, wit onlJ

that View thich is mo1e rest icted in that it re3erd° 1118 as the
ontolo 3ical Oasis of an individual, znc onsequently of the moral

hein3 and carrier of value,

used uyon

A:- - "\~ 1 . f
or3enism as physical

rfr'lr)
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Licolai Hartmann (1

upon life a.velue in the

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is not only an
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carrier.

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) an ontological Optimist,

following terms:

1

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men, is a

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inture

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in the
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alt death es a disvelue.

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griev-

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one 1054.811213

 

Eertnenn, hicolei,
pp. 131-132.

The Llecsnillen Co., lien Yor-:, l‘

11-

Work for its pro ection. He goints to the ancient r«'o~exve men
ielt for those thirgs that are natural and to the revulsion from
all that seemed to be a violation of the due order of ne‘
murder would be a disvclue because it unnaturelly violL

fl. "fi‘fl L .-J- —.-<- , J. ". ‘- < . ,‘ . . .9 —~ - ’- Pl' .- 2 -' ‘ '-. u «no-‘-
Ilqixt uO COnbLinl’L. 8-..].S «31108, ulSuCtSE’. "would Sc! lOuaah 1.1.1.”:L1 LLS 11.441,“

,0

ural and undesirable because it tlrcete nLd. to shorten life. In the

f‘! o - ‘ 9 Q —- Q o o A
vnristien etnos and 1n tne Old uestmxent tradition, er“ act 01 a

sexual natuz e Ti;ich was done with the deliberate intention of difeat-
. . o ‘ q n n
in; or preventing co nceot ion, onen1sm,l sonomy,“ or any :ozm CI

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contraception 7&8 look ed u: on es unneture 0l in tna

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accomplished the defeat of procreation.

3

« ~ « L.~ , ‘- I'. .
AE‘I ‘.-1~l811 COILte:LL-n) U¢-(«uU "I$—lle

P1 4

the individual is be ilt u on the health of the emotional life, the

community r:s ts u; on the health of the racial ins

finch of “he idea of Mood as that which is heelt 11V or conducive
to the well-bein“ of the human body and consequen -y to the rrolonr-
ation of life, is to De found in ancient plilOSOrllieS, chiefly among
the stoics and Enicuretns and also in some degree in Platonic ethics.
Nor T10u1.d oess1riis ts disevree with this conception, generally speehin
for pessimists above all other people seem to unctersten tre value of
health, life, beauty, goodness, etc., but their desrnir is that these
things, while they are good and desirable, cannot be achievel, or
possess so -for lon . They look upon the good and desirable things
as chimeras that if they seem to be grasped fade before 7e can know

the pleasure we had anticioated from having them. So: e me ' diS¢5ree

with me when I say that the pessimist is above all others in his

 

1 Gen. rfixviii, 9.
2 Gen. xviii and x'x.

-o
\J'

reco;nition of values as good and desirable, but I thi.h that the

writings of pessimists :ive more stress to the desir oility of the

good things of life than the jourials of tie 0;:tiuists. It is the
oeautv the loss of ife or its shortness, the paucity of
moments of aesthetic pleasure and the feeling that there is no

stability except in evil that helps produce a pessimist.- Uith

#-

he soul of an optinis t the pessimist yearns for beauty and good

1e yearns he rem lLWC s and overemphasizes

3
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a Iinite way. He yearns for infinity but his vision sees only

finitude.

|._J

r se is a.value is

{I}

Closely related to the view that ife p
the belief of sore pliilosophers t1 Lat health becomes the highest
good. Hartmann calls this "an unju fia‘ble extension of bio-

logical value beyond its limits, a false anal 3y between soul

and body, an ethical neturalism." l

The emphasis on the value of life per se, invests the physical
part of man with a sacred character which soon takes on a Spiritual
importance, so that soon the two, the spiritual and th physical,
become identified. Thus, according to the Roman Catholic viewpoint,
it becomes mortally sinful for a physician to perform a cre.iotomy
even if by so doing he preserves the life of the mother, for the

Roman Church regards the life of the fetus as sacred and inviolable

 

l Hartmann, Nicolai, 0p. cit., p. 132.

from the moment of conception.

U}

asing their position upon the philosOphy of St. Thomas
Aquinas, Roman Catholic apolosists hold that fro n1 revela ion
is known that temporal life is a time of preparation, during

which man merits or fails to merit eternal life. Therefore,

according to this view, it is held that every I1an is ooli _;ed

to secure for himself those thin; s which are nece sary for the

preservation of life and health, and in time of sickness to
resort to the use of medicines and the help of physicians to
restore health. Those who refuse to t ‘:e the ordir ary means

of preserving and perpetuating life are considered guilty of

So pena nier, however, looks upon existence as a ve.nity ard

50

points to the wide aulf between infinite time and space as contrast-

5-)

ed with the finite nature of human life. He says that time is

merely the infinite condition in which finite man pends his brief

span of life and then ceases to exist - alwavs "oecoming vithout

 

1 "Hon licet occidere infantem in utero matris, etsi nullum aliud
suppetat medium servandi matrem, adeo ut operatione omissa mater

et infans perituri sint: est enim directa occisio innocentis,

more in: antis intendatur tamquam medium ad servan dam matrem...
decisionis haec esse videtur, a) hon potest affirmari per cranio—
tomiam e: :erceri actionem, ex qua aeque immediate duplex procedit
effectus, alter bOIlus, alter malus; sed ipsa potius est actio,
directe occidit UrOlL m ad servandam matrem: directa antem occisio
innocentis semper es t 11 licita, etsi solum sit acceleratio mortis

certo secuturae. 0) Infans non 1wote t considerari ut aggressor
obiective iniustus: ipse enim non ponit actionem obiective iniustam

C'LUTI

D.atio

quae

cum utens iure suo atque ex naturali rerum cursu matri sit causa
mortis, ideoque potius con .arencds sit homini peste infecto aliosoue

~11

 

 

 

 

inficie nti, guam iniusto a5 ressori. Di énitas enim personee nt-C‘:e,
uze finem unicum hecet Deum, impedit...... Ius in vitar.' suam net 10
alteri ita cedere potest, ut unquam directam sui occisionem licite
permittere queat." Holdin, E. S.J. De Praeceptis Dei at E0 cclesi iae,
Frederick Pustet Co., Ratisbonc, 1926, Quaestio quinta, pp. 329-330.

2 Ibid. p. 311

ever Bein3.“ He points out the fat1ity of life per se, in the

be3innin3 of his essay on gge Vanity of 3313;

 

" A.man finds himself, to his 3reet as We ishLen U, suddenly
existin? 3, after thousa116.s and thousands years of non-
existence: he lives for a vr:1ile; and Uien, a gain, comes
an equally long period when he mu st exist no more. 1he
heart rebels a3ainst his, an feels that it cannot be
true. The crudest intellect anrot speculate on such a
subject without havin3 a presentiment that Time is some-
thing Ideal in its nature.... Ofe every event in our life
we can say onlJ for one moment tr at it is; for ever alter,
that it was. Every evening we are poorer 03 a dag. It
might, perhn ps, make us sad to see how rapidly our short
span of time ebos aw'v: if it were not that in the furthest
depths of our bein3 we are secretly conscious of our share
in the e::haustible sprin3 of eternityr so that we can al.ays
hepe to find life in it a3ain....Je are like a man runnin3
downhill, v.ho cannot keep on his le3; s unle he runs on,
and will inevitabl; fall if he steps; or a3ain lice a pol e
balanced on the tip of one's fin3er; or liLe a planet,
whi J1 would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to "hfrry
forward on its wa'. Unrest is the me.rk of eizis ence.’

There is an undercurrent throu3h the essay on The Vgnity of
Existence and a careful stufly of it shows clearly that Schopenhauer
placed hi311 value on the 3oods of lif.e, and upon life itself as a
300d. "hen he w1Wi es that "every evenin3 we are poorer by a day,"
he very clearly states that we lose something of value, somethin3
that renders us poorer and less fortunate in possessing a good than
we were at the be3innin3 of that da". Here he able, he would st0p
the course of Time so that life mi3ht be lived endlessly. Certainly,
he valies lif e, even thou3h he re3ards it as an ontolO3ical carrier
of miser‘ ml evil. Otherwise, why would he regret its speedy un-
vinding, Ht fleetin3 pa .ssa3e that "makes us sad to see how rapidly

‘5

our short span 01 time ebbs away?"

 

1 Schopenhauer,.A., Op. Cit., in the sect ion Studies in.Pess1mism, pp.
181-200

\‘7
FJ

Yet, Schopenhauer considers life to be some kind of mistake.
He reminds us tlat men is a complex creature of desires and in-
stincts which are hard to wtisfy and that even satisfactian its 1
brin3s with it no real pleasure - only a state of boredom. Does life
per se, have any value for SchOQenhauer? He thinks not, for viewing
man‘s disappointments "nd states of boredom he concludes
"This is direct proo: that existence he s no reazl valu
in itself; for what is boredom out the feeling f the
emptiness of life? If life - the craving for Which is
the very essence of our being - were possessed of any
positive intrinsic value there would be no such thin3
as boredom at all; mere existence would sati. fy us in
itself, and we would want for nothing."
Wlfli e SchOpenhauer loo}:s upon life as of value only if it is
a life in which he can find satisfaction, rest, peace and ple.—sure,-
Scholastic philosoPhers look'upon life as 300d because it is a 1218
of Opportunity to merit ete..m l salvation. In this view, pain and

disappointment and misery can be turr ed into things of real value

for by them man may advance himself spiritually.

SchoPenhaner's emphasis on the hedonistic form as more import~
ant and of greater va l‘ie tlian life per se, implies an argument some-
wh t as follows: Nothing is good or bad in itself, not even life.
The only thing that is intrinsically good is happiness, the only
thing intrinsically bad unhappiness. All other things and actions
are determined in their 3oodness and badness by their instrumental
relation to the production of happiness, peace of nir d, security and
satiety. But opposed to this philosOPE v, .hi:h seens to lead so

asilv to conti n ent pe “Si ism, there is the Forzu dist view, of which

 

’40

the Thonist and nee-sodolastic fosit ons are good examples. This

"l

J.

philos0phy holds that at least some things and acts are inherentlv
right or wrong, good or bad. In this particu ar case, liie itself

c.

1er it be because God gave life

”1"-
H

is an absolute good or value. wiet

‘
f

and that gift confers an absolute value, or whether it is, so to

n

sreaL, in the nature of things, "a law of nature“, the good of lire
is intrinsic or absolute. From this follovs the obligation to main-
tain life at all costs (an obligation which has generally been con-

sidered as absolute in medical ethics) and refusal to maintain life

is a violation of that obligation.

In contradistinction to the view that life per se is a value,
there are those philosophies which wholly or partially reject this
view. Schopenhauer, while condoning suicide holds that the ground
of all evil and uffering is man's insatiate will-to-live. He does

ot hold that the object of the desire is evil, but that the frust-

:3

*5

C‘-
H.

on of the desire is. SchOpenhauer does not suggest that mass

a

fi
5.1.

cide is the solution to the problem of evil. He is far too loge
ical to su33est anything so fruitless as that. Suicide, far from
being a denial of the will-to-live, is an affirmation of it. The
suicide does not take his life simply because he does not value
life; he ends his life because he wants to live a life of happiness
and what he does not want are the misery and trials attendant on his
particular existence. Schopenhauer regards suicide not as a crime,
but merely as a.mistake, and.no moral guilt attaches to it:

"In my chief work (Die Welt als sine und Vorstellung)

I have explained the only valid reason existing against
suicide on the score of morality. It is this: that

y

 

suicide thwarts the attainment of the hi3hest moral
aim by the fact that, for a real release from this
world of ise ry, it substitutes one the is merely
apparent. But from a sisters to a ggiLe 's a far
cry; and it is as a crL: e that t‘1 :1e clerd: ' of Christ-

endom wish us to re 3ard

SuiCl‘18.

Schopenhauer himself etplains suicide by sayin3 that "just
because the suicide cannot give‘up w1 illi 1mg, he 3ives up li ring. " 2
But suicide deieats its own pu pose for while it abolishes the

individual,
and pain and will with it.

as the ray to be rid of the pangs

should not be denied but the cr av

which atrives .fter illusory Joys

what it is and once perceived it

continue to live, but

pounding, drivin3 force of the will.
rest, peace and des ireless quiet.

will-lessness to be achieved?

templation and music, as the twin

and peace.

In his m jor work, Schopenhauer hol

life an indestructible principle.

not abolish the race;

SChOpen1

strive to (1'

Schop enhauer sigge st s art 1

the species continues,

1auer doe not recommend suicide

9S

and torments of life. Life itself

ines of th will an the will itself

and pleasures should be known for

should be annihilated. Man should

‘\-Iv

dell within h1nse f the persistent,

If he succeeds he will find

But how is this blessed peace and
stic con-

keys to unlock the joys 0f serenity

g

as in every

S

1his belief he shares wita the

 

Buddhist, the Brahmin, the ancient Dr“id 1d the early Sc ut1hav1an,
historically speakin3, the doctrine is so old that it mi3ht be con-
sidered to be wi liout genealoaf. It i closely a lied to the teach—
in3 0: metenpsychosis. Schopenhauer 3ives thei u.me of Will to that
l SchOpenhauer, Essays, 0p. cit., p. 29.

2 SchOpenhauer, Shh tliche uerhe, edited by Paul Deussen, Vol. II,,

 

p. M72.

r."

J)

cens iilered to re esurrect

Ho
(0

force vision, in Indian .1-.ilo.-:;ofl1;r,

with man across success1ve lives, and with which the horror of

ulterior existences rea.mgears. He holds that tile will-to-live
advances to consciousness anC eventually reaches the point Where

it can decide be MW£8H its continuance or abolition. If, therefore,
in the generations to come the appetite ior death has been so hi3h—
ly cultivated, and compassion is so generally :rzct ceu 1, that a
Widespread and united pity is felt for all thin3s, then throu h

C a

8 “cc icisu a state of indiiference will be produced in which the

1

subject and he Object d sapieir and. the world will be delivered

from pain, misery, evil and frustration. And so it is that Schop-

fl

enhauer 1e els tn.w beJOfld SUiCiLB, waicn is not a 311ilosOphic

a palliative, is found in art and disinteres
the other, a specific, in asceticism or absolute chastity. Were

chastity universn , it would drain the source 01 humanitJ, and

'1. vv ~~1‘: -.~I~-~- -q o «'9 M .4. 91h ."‘ J-‘n-fi .\. :‘A-‘L 7‘!“ '_’_‘_\fl 0—4“ p
10911:]. 110.11.; leg.'_1\t)€g~r, ;O- 1.1. 1.1.1.3. 1;, 911:, 111J42'uv 1.1g1nl..:_;guc1blon Ol

die out , tile K'I‘Bg.:’:er rel Al 8 Ct. 1011 S F:O uld T‘a SS 8:1!1.0{f.

In a recent survey conducted at three members of the Chica3o
Psycli1t ric Institute, intervi,uin3 lOO peoyle who had unsuccess1ully
attempted suicide, it was fovnd the 90 were inst itu
asylums for the insane and another 26 were found to require pJJc11l ric
care.1 The report states hat in an avera"e year, L2,CCO peeple in
the United States commit 11iciie while an additional 100,000 make an

r 0" - -- 1 ..fi . ~ . ‘n Ar: fl. - Y T“ “ N La.‘ “ ‘5 . “$- .
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Lhen We have shuffled ff tsis mortal coil,
Just "ive us 3
not 2.1:--2es c5132-: 1
For £10 would bee.r th- whips ann scorns of tire,
Che oppressor's Wrong, the proud man's contuxcly,
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Kith a Dare bod.:in? who would fardels bear.

To grant and sweat under a weary life,

:nt that the arcal of SOI we hing after death,
e u.uiscover' d coniitry from shes. tours

Lo traveller returns ,p‘zzle: th. will

AL; '. .Lzes us ‘:.t1-er oer. t e i ls We have.

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Thus onexesjere has expressed the incecision and the doubt
that asse ils those w; find this life hard to bear, ent fear that
the next mzy oe just as unbeere.ol e or even more so. There are
those V.ho, while lacking the courage or t1 e weakness to to

their own life in an effort to escape this Gorl d's ills, ye

hose for an en] to consciousness in an afterlife. In his lyric1eg,

Leogsrdi profs sees his preference for the utterly unoonsci ocs life
of the ginestra, a tin" :lo-er thct blo ms n th e vol can'c slepes

f his native Italy. Pessimism, confronted with what it consiéers

the utter evil of life, longs to lose the faculty which mules reasoned
refle ctio- upon existence' woes a fossiuility, for without conscious—
ness, ”tn could sink into tie euli m1 n in which pain and 8V1 l \ould we

A.n‘ A

meanin"less to him. ther )gilo.s onhers however, nCVC rewarded con-

sciousness as a r331 *nlue, one of the highest in the human realm of

 

l Shrkespere, KC: et, Act III, Scene 1, "Ihe Works of William Sheke-
. . -?_--- . Y ‘1' u n - >
spe “e, " ecitec o; n.G. Clarz, halcyon Ewen se, “e. York, lSeO, yy.

f

bk; IC-Ck': l

0.1.
values.
Nicolai Hrrt1enn asserts thut the eninel nature in we is
faced “g; the fact that t1ere is within hiz-1 souet211n3 superior UO
his snip lit He holds that the uncons_ciou$ness of an aninzl is
a “dull, obscure lif a blind hetiening," and the ”above this
cert Dec:"round in man rises the 'light' 0* concsiousness the
eein3, the knoring life '1 Conscious.es8, .e h lC , is on a
level vith th, ejiritual nature of man and out of consciousness
rises the world of emotions and out of it sprin3s the evaluat-
’ mind. The peculiar en mi sis belongh
without a Lmo. mi erticip-

Ab teniercy and ettituce oi
un1eelin3, unemotional

3to value is ulvon consciousness are
inking,
here

in
etine in thin3s, man would an unth
unvaluing ocin 3; alive, but not knowing of 1is own existence.
existence, then, titiout consciousness, would be of little or no
value, eccoi ding to Esrtn enn and others nno no u irilar views.
ken to mean 11y knowled3e D the
forms whicn are

Con ciousness must not be to.
Hurtnenn holds t there are otne

underste
more penetreti
"There are 0t-er ferns of experience union reacn teener,
to vwich indeed potentially tne whole inn ner world 0 the
life of the soul sten6.s Open. In1.erd beholdin3s of this
kind, ouelitatively differenti ted feeling, however non-
logicnl it .J be, is a consciousn. s of eQuel value and
ull of content, it is a form of

it is f
tnou'n1 not transmutaole into the l

comfureliension, al—
e of concepts' 2

, op. cit., p. l

l Eartnann, Hicol
2 Ibid. p. 13M.

62

The value of consciousness, Hartmann hol‘s, increases with

the degree of its deve10pment. 3y develo:ment he means the am-

 

ount of its penetration, insight, perspicacity, not only in a
subjective realm of ideas but also in an objective reflection of
the outer world around us and gives a deeper meaning to the given
or sensa, a meaning which cannot be the product of the real. Con-

sciousness adds a deeper meaning to thin_s perceived than what

might be termed the mere ontological basis of reality.

From this, according to Hartmann, there evolves a new and
higher metaphysical definition of man. He is the one who eval-
uates, nor is this to be misunderstood as meaning a narrow sort
of valuational subjectivism. In his evaluation man does not give

alue to things, but rather they are given to him and through his
consciousness he is aware of them. Consciousness assumes an added
worth when it is reflected that man can no more create conscious-
1888 than he can create human life. Han, however, has the ability
to "enhance its energy and heighten its worth" by education, train-
ing and other types of mental activity which tend to deve10p con»
sciousness - "these are enterprises for consciousness in conscious-

ness itself and they require constructive work by it upon itself." 1

One might reflect that possibly the pessimist, judged by Hart-
mann's theory, either nisdirects his consciousness or fails to de-
velop it prOperly, so that like the ~aye of a searchlight it penet-
rates on y partially into the gloom and does not succeed in dispell-

ing the phantasmagoria, which upon closer and more penetrating obser-

 

-1 Ibid. pp. 136—137.

f-y

vation would no longer appear to be the hob—gobblins imagined. Is
the pessimist plarued with short-sightedness or "short—consciousness?”

Would his pessimism disuuuear if he were to have a more highly develOped

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One answer is given by Julius Bahnsen (lSjOhlSSl) who sees the
world as irremediably involved in evil and he contends that no amount
of "enlightenment“ or conscious knowledre could possibly improve our
understanding of conditions. The highest :isdom would only show that
the evils of he world are more serious and far-reaching than we had
formerly imagined. It is a deep penetrating consciousness that reveals
that man's dream of {ell-being is merely an illusion. Bahnsen denies
the possibility of disuroving the reality of unceasing strife, of the

"war of all a:ainst all" and of the utter futility of existence.

x-J

The "Philos0pher of the Unconscious", Karl Robert Eduard von
Hartmann, referred to earlier in this work, describes himself as
a eudaemonolOSical pessimist and a teleolo;ical—evolutionistic
Optimist, and while he is clearly to be classified among pessimists,
more specifically among ontological pessimists, it would be unfair
not to admit that there are traits of Optimism in his work. While
he regards the pursuit of happiness as futile and foredoomed, yet

attain its goals even though these woa.s are

s)

he feels that life ca:

9

tragic ones. While he agrees with Schopenhauer that the satisfac.ions
to be der'ved from life are very few and of tragically short duration,
he does recognize positive satisfactions. As man's intelligence mat-
. . ~~ v ’- ‘\ IMF 'L . '1' l, 'r- r‘ ('3 1“} "D ‘ "‘
ures, as his consciousness beeches hore PBLEtlfiblné, he passes tnioubh
1e disillusionment of the

es of development: the first is t

hope for individual attainment of happiness in this life: the second

$3

is the dissipation of the are 1m of inuortalit;, and more especially
of the vain hOpe of a pers nal 1m101talit'° and the tliird and. fina
stage in the process 0: diSillESicflflSflt is he modern belief and
trust in "pr03ress", throu3h the utilization of the s iences. Con—
cerning the last "illusion" Hart:.1a.n su3gested that modern man is
even non be3innin3 to reedi se, in true pessimistic pashion, that
modern science is but a Pied Piper whose ple s:1nt-voiced flute
leads but to cis appointzient and disillusionment. Ur .derlying all

of man' s woe is the Unconscious, accordin3 to Hartmonn, - the Un-
conscious whi n in its later develOpment becomes consciousness.

The only solution to the problem of the insatiable Unconscious,
accordin3 to Hartmann, would be the fantastic plan of activelv
promot13 the cause of civilization, of en1i3htenment and witl
missionary zeal disse:.inatin3 pe am. ,As man became better
educated and saw the hopelessness of existence, humanity would

then be in a position to 3ive common assent to vote the world

out of existence.

As an antithesis of the valuation of consciousness there

1.

stands the Buddhis Sb philosophy of Nirvana. To the Brahmin, while
th 1ere is alaays the hOpe of absorption in the Universal Spirit, life
itself is looked upon with disdain as a re3rettable accident. But

in Buddhism, pessimism is the beginning, as it is the end.

To the Buddhist, there is real ty neither in the future nor

.L

in the past. To him rue knowled3e consists in the perception of

.L

the nothingness of all thin3s and in the desire to escape from the

evil of existence into the absolute freedom from the bonda3e of the

1 1

intelli3ence. It is the Buddhist philoso:.hv the metempS"cn
continues to take place until eventiellv Nirva 1a is achiever. -nere
es throuri which a soul must pass before it at
.t‘ J

Nirvana, or absolute extinction: -irsc, when the soul learns to be

severe with itself but compassio11ate t ward otherS' second, is the
‘ 3

 

sta3e where j1ud3ehent ceases; in the tEi rd sta3 e va3ue sentiments of
satisfaction derived from intellectual perfection is eli.m u1a teda

in the fourth and la st state, consciousness of identity is lost. Here

q

Kirvana be3ins. Four11i3her st% es a1e passed be fore the soul finally

ac1m1 ves the loss of even t11e perception of nothin3. when Death is

0‘
'4‘

e of the soul throu3h the cycles

eaL fimn"3amemh
of birth and death, has been achieved and the soul attains mohsa or
liberation from the effects of karma, then accordin3 to the Buddhist,

the universe will evolve into a mt te of unconscious rest. Unconscious-

ness, therefore, is the sunnun bonum of the Buddhist philos Ophy and

 

it entails the denial of the very value many Western philOSOphers con-

‘er the most important, being. Budh‘wi an brou3ht he premise of the

cf

88

Ho
P3.

817188?

01

nplete and unequivocal ann‘1ilation of self with 11 i
and evils. while Budmllism is an on90103ical pessimism, oeli Win
that this life and any exi tence or series of existences after death
are alike undesirable and evil, yet, it offers a certain cheer, for

a soul mev eventually win peace through.total annihilation.

CW!

The next ""1010: 3ical position to as considered is Voluntarisn
and its antithesis, the denial or renunciation of will as value.

In scholastic philosophv by Voluntarism is meant that view which

defends d1e vill as havin3 the hi””est position and di3nity in the

2

t
fi
(1

Q 0 w I a _ ‘ T‘ I u
hierarcny of man's faculties. ecotus, tie firQnCIScan monx

proceeded to a criticue of rational knowledge. Rational knowled;e,

of necessit" reneral and abstract, must fail of exhaust'veness,
because it LOGS not grasp the concrete individual character of things.
ize human will, Scotus pointed out, limits huncn knowledge, in
it directs our inte lectuel attention upon certain abstract characters

to the neglect of others. Cnlv the infinite will of God can wholly

0

7‘

comprehend nature. There is a familiar rin o: Kantianisn in Duns

' 4. .-. ° .- ,. .H ,. J- '4. "4. .2.--” a, ' ,.
IntellQCu or onsc10uSness ireSents o it. at. In mes Aquines,

who is a rationalist rather than a voluntarist, calls it the rat-

ionrl appetite and holds that ere Wi 1 moves the intellect.
The object of the will, ace rain; to some of the Scholastics,

is the good. There is only one necessity in the will and that is

that the will must always have good as its object; even When the

g

will elects to do evil, the evil is made to seem good. Tne School-

men hold the will to be free in its actions and contend that it

-.

out

V

could not be deterrined unless there were srme universal good,
since no such universel good is to be found objectively in the world,

the will cannot be determined. Freedln of the Will, then is considered

as a distinct value by a number of philosOphers.

Eicolai Hertnann nroerenu J ecceo

/
- a.

— ‘ .. ' ". .‘.. -'.‘ J-” ..,_° '1 ‘ 4-, 1. J.‘ ,. ' .r' '1
conCernin; tie :reeuom oi the mill. LC states that an thlVluual

')

differs from every other ki;d of beizg in that he is not forcefl or

.0 an", i .5‘ .1.“
3 -~:‘ liteli m1“

y

.I.

either accept or to reject the good. I: a being is not thQPilnPd,
he CODtQHLS, the.u it must b: iree to select food or to og;o;e it,
otherwise value woul'l rest oowcrless in an ideal Le"on d, Titb mo

tou Jiing upon life at any tangible point. T‘ut man nossesses this

soeci:l Porer of nositive iecision. Earthenn holds that even if

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there has been so many and va“ieC attemots to give meta:
proof to the freedom of the will attests to its value. To renounce

the freedom of the will would be tantamount to renunciation of

n

Freedom of will, how ver, is not an unallo;ed.value Ior it
carries with it the oossibility of abuse. Ricnes and power can
be abusel, and similarilv freed on of choice can lea“ to the sel-
ection of evil in place oi good. Hartmann SQ s that freedom of

will is a value n15 up to a ce tain point and begond this 1

becomes a disvalue. Just as a person first e caraule o; nearing
#99 v.2 .. -"‘" 1" H ’7‘“ "“1 ' :LW'?”.'IL q ‘L 1 '7 "1’1 :- acorn";
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Schonenhauer has been creCited tit

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we must combine internal snu ezzt n nal e: :2e erience. "e do tulS by means

 

Y- ‘vo ‘ '4. — 7 ‘lrrt-
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the .ccofirzninant or sign of he

A

ate 01 consciousness may be a part of any

value, but not the value in its entiretv. For hedonis m it oeCOues

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:1

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cation or criterion of the 300d, without reference to that which pro-
‘uces the feelin3 cannot be considered as equal to value. By extract—
ing pleasurnole feelin3 from a type of conduct, we cannot set up the
feeling as an adequate criterion of the good. Professor Ur man has

summed up the critic1sm of the inadequacy of hedonisn in the followin3

 

H

Hartmann, fiicolai, 0p. cit., pp. 160—162.

2 Urban, nilour 3., “filcrnentnls 0: Ethics, Henry Holt Co., Ken'York,
1930, pp. 31-02.

Cf. Reshdall, op. cit., pp. BY-El for a.fuller C.is cu ssion of the
comme nsure bility of values

 

KN

P“ ,. —' ,. 11-. . ° 1.x, .. .1. M‘-
"-.1e 11 #117698 owe-or”; is the “lost 1.1.»: .19.
.s.‘ 3 , .7 .‘. l. -1 - ...‘ ,_ ° .. -1" .-.
enjlession oi the teleolc11Cel Vie.' o; no
I t 0 fl ’ A " f a v3 P'r.‘ r‘"- J _ f.
the naolve iorL in thich lany reasonin13on h:ans “nu onus

(
v" '0 j ‘q“ ‘_ I 7‘ I .-. 3
-1nos e33ress1on. In all 3iooho111td, 1t “1

ll C“1.tinue
to be the idiom in 7hich most men 17ill express their
cor ception of the 300d. hen will continue to out th
gyrsuit of bagpiness aron :3the hum 113hts Pare1.‘.ts

 

will continue to Lian 10r thelr aii
when they mean their hi3 host Welfare. X's-'hen men thus
sneak, shall We sag, 'no, you meen not h13niness
self-realization?' That would be penantic, as it we" d
be f, when men said of the sun that it rises and sets,
re hould insist in correcti13 the vernacular terms of

the results of our more ana.ytical hnowleu3e. "
portant thing is to know that the sun does not real X
rise and set. Even more important is it to know that
man's highest 300d is not heaviness.

m F“

It must be admitted tiat it is in oss iole to dispense with
the iiea of pleasur and hagnines ss as values but it is important

to realiz t11at ole: wsur is not the whole of the ideal life, but

Ho
c!-
0

only an element or an aspect of If pleasure becomes a more

ho

criterion then we mi3ht as Well urre people to taste the forbidden

fruit and ju Md 8 :or themselves, thu311411n u1mor.lity and crir e a

Ch

necessary condition of virtue. The ideal or the good life is an

ultima.te conce; tion which hardly admits of any further clarificat-

F4)
*4.

ion or de nition; about all t'e can 6.0 is to ste te 1hat are the

90 toward its composition. Hapoines ss and pleasure

elements that 3
are assuredly anon3 these elements, "*t it 1s erroneous to suppose
them to be the whole of it. St. Thomas AQu inas in his Sunma contra

Ger tile es afiirms that haopiness hoes not cons 1st in bocily pleasures,
in Worldly honors, in wealth, power nor even in acts of the moral

virtues, but does ultimately consist in contemg lating God. Commenting

upon the errors of a ohllosoo.' of heoonism, he w1ites:

 

l Urgan, 0p. cit., p. 93.

1as been shorn th at accordin3 to nature's order

t l
eleesare is for tile s:.l:e of Opere tion, end not con-
versely. Therefore, if an onera tion be not the ul-
timete end, the consequent 31- e can n- ither be

tb e ulti"ate end, nor accor .51 -v the ultimate end.
Low it is manifest that tW1 Operations which are
followed by (carnal) pleesures....are not the last
enc; for there re directed to certs in me a1i1est end_s;
eating, for instance, to the preservation of the oody,
and carnal intercourse to the 003ettin3 of children.
1here1ore, the aforesaid pleasures are not the last
end, nor do they accomgeny the last end. Therefore,
happiness does not consist in them....The hi3hest perk
fection of man cannot c011 Hi t in his bein3 united to
thin3s 1 wer than hixnself (ca*nal) pleasures consist
in man's bein3u *1ited throu3h his senses to thin3.s
beneanlilir.1, nz.nely certain sensible thin3s. Theref01e

we mus t not assign1‘1aopiness to such oleasure." 1

J.

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d‘.
’1

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We recoil instinctively 1r on pain as a matter of xperi nce.
Generally it is an unattracfit'e subject. But accordin3 to the pessi-
mist, pain looms large in life, and is more often found than yleasure,

which most ness mi mi sts re3 ard as an illusion. The world, in short,

.L

.L

symbolizes pain, even from the fire 0 noemnt when man becomes conscious

O
H)
5-;

:is e: stence. Pessimists have been q uicl: to look upon pain as an
evil, but there are some 1n1losooner° who re3erd it as productive of
value, thou3n pain, in itself, may be an indifferent thing. If pain be
looked uyon from a purely naturalist viewPoint, as destructive of men's
health aid mental neace, by a slowly deteriorating effect upon nerve
and brain, it is regarded as a natur .l evil. But the auestion with
.hich we are here concerned is niether or not it has any ethical value.
Let the psych0103ists define pain and tell us What it is, if t1 ey are

able. our concern here will be with 1ts axiologicel status

Pain as a.value is distinct from pain as a sensation. In the

 

HJ

p—J

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13

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.

l Aquinas, St. T Senna Contra Gentiles, in "Easic Writings of
St. -nomes A nines," iancom house, new York, Vol. II, p. 52, ed. by
"1
Anton C. Pegis, lSeL.

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vnsation, without value:

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view of Schopenhauer, pain

"However varied the for1 .s that human 1M€ppiness and
misery may take, leadin3 man to seek ti e one and
shun the other, the meteiial basis of it all is
bodily pleasure or bodily oain. This basis is
very restricted: it is simply health, food, protect-
ion from wet and cold, the satisfaction of the sex-
ual instinct; or else t11e absence of these thin3s.
Consequently, as fa as real physical pleasure is
concerned, the man is not better off than the brute,
except in so far as the hi3her possibilities of his
nervous system make him more sensitive to every kind
of pleasure, but also, it must be remembered to every
kind of pain."

 

Looking upon pain as nothin3 more than sensa ion, accepting it
in a purely naturalistic way, it is easy to understand how such a
theory mi3ht lead to pes simisrn it vie ens the physiolO3ical phenom ena
of pain and 300s no further, failing to inquire cui bono? It is
much like allowing an aborigine from Tierra del Fue3o to witness
the pain experienced oy a pa 1tient in a dentist's chair. He under-

1..

stands nothing of the purpose, nothin of Uhe benefit to be derived

from experiencin3 the pain as a.means to an enl. He sees only the

wri thin3, agoniz in3 individual suffering excrutiatin3 pain at the
hands of a whit mrobed dentist. Le must come back once more to the

content ion that the pessimist allow his conscious penetration to

so so far and then stoos short of complete understandin: of value.
E.) .. 1‘ U

There is a.ver" special sort of value in suffering pain, accord—
in3 to Nicolai Hart . The knowled3e or rec03nition of this value

was notr made by ancient man nor is it to be found even in modern hedon—

istic phi ilosop W11 es whici re ard pain as an evil. Christianity has 3ivon

 

l SchOpenhauer, Essevs, op. ci

a rec03nition to the sunlimet in3 and liberat'nv efzects of nain
in the expiatory sufferin

mann comnentin3 upon this, sz; 83

“I11e ve due of suiierin3
glance at the corresno
ive on t wi t
the impossi

”

i . '.
ndinr disvclue ray prove ins
e incanacity to suf'
;rief and hi isfortuie, coll-

ap°e unde1 . in3, a sinkin3,
the lowerin3 of the him an be in3, a brittleness and inner
inelasticity. When dire misfortune has passed away, it
leaves the man who is incapable of suffering broken,
morally warped, disfi3ured, weakened; he can no lon3er
stand up, he has seen deu:_3ed in his fundamenta worth.

For him s11ferin3 is, in fact, only a disvalui. On the

other hand, one who has a capacity for sufferin3 is
stren3thened in it. His power 0: endirez1ce, his humanity,
his moral Bein3, grows under it. His su1ferin3 is of

value, for his reaction is the reverse of that 01 the
fra3ile and despondin3 (zessinistic) nan.
pos itive, ssertive reaction 0: the man unfier the bu
of s adverse fate, under the external pO‘UeI‘ a3ains t w“.
h's own actiV1tyca1not prevail.

This is cl 9211;; an ex oriation of a weakness of one of the
pessimistic positions, for Hartmann calls attention to the lack of

more. and nhvsical eta nina on the part of the fra ile and despondin3

.0

man, which is character1stic of many oessinists, especially 01 the
materialistic cor t1n3 ent pessimist, who in his disbelief in innort-

ality, looks upon existence in this world as the be3 innin3' and the

end and fines it evil and ful of pain.

In clee r—cut contrast to Hartmann's position that sufierin3

is a value, the ant 3'1 03rapiical v.0rk of W. Somerset had nan, which

something of an 330103ia.3ro vita sua, or an "autobio3r phy of

H.
U)

 

 

Qw- _ _ 9|- . O
l nartnann, hi colai, op. Cl

cf‘

03 p. 1390

T?

a mind," takes a different View 0: suzzerin; and its V( lie. In his

earlier years, haugham studied at St. Thomas's Hospital in London
and spent a year of internship in the anbeth slums, Witnessing every
itiné of huzm.n misery and Weakness. He feels himself par rticularlv

quali fi 1ed as the result of fi1ese excerience to make tiiis comment

on t21e value of suffering:

" Here I Wa s in contact with what most wanted, ii in

Ie
the raw...I saw how men died, I saw how t1 e core p ain.
I saw that h0pe looked like, fear and reli 1e ; I saw the
dark lines that desgaxir drew on a face; I s: w coura *e
and stea .fa tness. I saw faith shine in the eyes of those
who trusts ed in what I c uld only think was an illusion
and I sax-v the 55119111312: that made a man {Test the pro-
gnosis of death with an ironic 301 :9 because he r? s too
proud to let those about him see the terror of his soul.
At that time (a time to most people of suf icient ease,
when pe ace seemed certain and prosperity secure) ther
was a school of W1 iters who enlarged upon the moral v:lue

0”
.0
.L

of suffering. -he" claiued that it was salutary. They
claimed that it increased sympathy and enhanced the senr
sibilities. They cl iraed that it opened to the spirit

avenues of oeaut;r and enabled it to get into touch

he mystical l-in"dom of God. They claimed that it

' me ned the chcmr cter, purified it from its human

5 s a md Drought to him she did not avoid but sought
i a more perfect happiness. Several books on these lines
had a great success and the i rauthors, who lived in com-
for teole houses, had three meals a dav and were in robust
health, gained much re eputation. I set down in my note-
books, not once or twice, but in a dozen places, the facts
that Ii 1ad seen. I knew that suffering did not ennoble;
it deg aded. It made men selfish, mean, petty and sus-
picious. It absorbed them in small things. It did not
*ahe them more than men; it made them less than men; and

I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our
on 71 e“*ferixg s, but by the sufferings of others."

A

The zessimist, of course, see as duly aware o: the fact that
if he hopes to make a plausible case for his theories, it must be
done objectivelv and not merely upon the grounds of his subjective

sensations and feelin Conseque ntl;, he atte.r pts to xvei‘h tie

 

1'” n ' 1c, ‘__ _~ _ “1 .V. M , , .fi _‘ .__ '.
l avauol‘chm, II. S’).l€3I‘S€t, Tne ScLuInlii‘) LP, Pen::ul_'n 500.68, Illa. ’ 1.6”»? YOI‘IZ,
\, r \ x, \ ,_
1940, pp. 4H-43.

 

‘J
l

J.

' " " I." R “' . 't- . 4‘." ' —\ 1‘» . «1 "r I . ‘ ~ A - .
pleasu1es 0: all s tezce a3a1nst the pains. when he has done tdlS
IL

b0 his satisfaction he solemnly pronounces that sain is far in

6)" n N r‘ ' ‘ :‘u L F7: " ‘2' ' F'I - u -‘ 3- l ‘."| ‘r‘ " ' 'I. s ' ‘ - - 0*
enccss o: ileasuie. JUU slat is the connon measu1e J1 union clone—

that 1s without nrOOI. Kor is it always true that

- -¢ -. ,- y‘ . -\ a "a (-1 ‘r .— w: .5. -1 . 4“ v '\ 9-9 4-, ‘ r1 ‘— ‘
Juile pleas11e lS I.€Telg’ an aJSCuCG o1 pain, 1or we has that there

are many pl eesu res Vii J1 are certsinlv positive and it would tah

a CO ”811 raole amount of pessimistic in3enuity to disp “ove it.
. ‘ ‘ 0
Pain is out one pa rt of the comglex proolem o: evil, a problem

which has teu- zed man' 5 re- 3011in3 powers for countless cent ries. It
will be worthrhi e to 3ive some consice ratio n to an amplification of

the problem of evil in a later part f this work under a separate

chatter.

We now turn to a valuatioxial consideration of met e iil good.
By material good I mean the several stages or classes of material

with the lowest, t31ose Wiich are us :1 as means

to a.moie of existence for a particular person s ch as money, land,
and similar material possessions: nd eventrating to higher stages

‘ a
I

suca as eiuca sion, law, he: lth, and me1tal 801 lit 13s or Special

(9
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0’
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:5.
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(D
{:11

skills in arts or sciences. Katerial 300d might w

under the classification of bonum "tile for it is usually ”esired

 

as a nee s to a material end, and we may consider it as elu‘insic

ce as an instrument in pro-

Ho

for it erives its oei11fron its serv

J.

motin3 or sustainin3 some more ultimate 300d cn:i fir' 'ally some ul—

"5
HI
:5

ti1a te s3ood and fin JLly some ultir1e t: o. rrinsie 300d. It is

a.

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83

Parker goes on to state that laws and civil disciplines are
needed when man's moral sense breaks down and he acts from motives
other than "community love.“ In a vein that would have won the

approval of Schopenhauer, Parker castigates the "double standard"

or dichotomy of morality in vogue tods‘. In our modern civilization
a child is tarsht an absolute ethical system of truthfulness, altru-
ism, perfect chastity while he sees a completely different morality
practiced by his elders. Friends may be allowed certain liberties

and departures from moral codes, while enemies are severely criticized
and condemned for even the slightest departure; a young person soon
learns that what he is taught is not meant to be practiced totally.
Parker contends that this gives rise to duplicity and hypocricy of
preaching one thing and practicing another. He points to the wide
divergence between the moral standards of the New Testament regarding
divorce and the general modern practice; the ascetic ideal of renunr
ciation and.non-resistance as opposed to the “practical” morality of
the Western world with its wars and subjection of minority peOples.

He places the blame for much of the vitiating of every rationalistic
and utOpian view of human nature and the social order upon the exist-
ence of hate among individuals and among nations. For Parker, harmony

is considered the supreme value.

While Parker may criticize the modern duplicity in morality, he
does not equate his "community love" with Sdhopenhauer's "compassion."
According to Schopenhauer, it is pity which is the base of every action
that has a true moral value. He states that the soundest and surest

guarantee of morality is a compassionate sympathy that unites us with

everything that lives. Who possesses compassion, he contends, will

be incapable of causing the slightest harm to any one and will cause
him to be magnanimous, forgiving, just and charitable. In brief, com-
passion is considered by Schopenhauer as the spontaneous product of

nature universally known.

The idea. hat pervades the subject of compassion in SchOpenhauer's
philosophy is that love is sympathy and all love which is not sympathy
is selfishness. This would not necessarily eliminate a combination of
the two for the selfishness of enjoying the presence of a friend would
not xclude a participation in his joys or sorrows. SchOpe hauer re-
duces every human action to one, or sometimes to two, or at the most
three motives: the first is selfishness, which seeks its own welfare;
the second is the perversity or viciousness which attacks the welfare
of others; and the third is compassion, which seeks their good. The
egoist has but one sincere desire, and that is the greatest possible
amount of personal well-being. To preserve his existence, to free it
from pain and privation, and even to possess every delight that he is
capable of imagining, such is his end and aim. Anything that might
stand in the way of his achieving these ends is considered as an enemy
or as evil, So far as possible, he would like to possess everything,
enjoy everything, dominate everything and when he finds this impossible
he turns upon the world and denounces it as an evil illusion. The
strange part of Schopenhauer's philosophy is that while he embraces so
deep a pessimistic view of man and his capabilities, he could yet form-
ulate this exalted.philosophy of compassion which seems so optimistic
of man's abilities to rise above his own baser nature. How strange

that the philos0pher who wrote the following passage could yet propose

85

and believe possible the compassion of another part of his works:

"Let even the youth be instructed betimes that in this
masquerade (of life) the apples are of war, the flowers
of silk, the fish of pasteboard, and that all things,
yes, all things‘- are toys and trifles; and.that of two
men whom he may see earnestly engaged in business, one

is supplying spurious goods and the other paying for
them in false coin. But there are more serious reflect-
ions to be made, and worse things to be recorded. Man

is at bottom a savage, horrible beast. We know it, E?-
only in the business of taming and restraining.him which
we call civilization. Hence it is that we are terrified
if now and then his nature breaks out. Wherever and When-
ever the locks and chains of law and order fall off and
give place to anar ‘1, he shows himself for what he is.
A.hundred records, old and new, produce the conviction
that in his unrelenting cruelt man is in no way inferior
to the tiger and the hyaena.”

Yet, in the same essay. a few pages earlier he proposes compassion
among these "savage, horrible beasts":

"I am inclined to lay down the following rule: When you
come into contact with a.man, no matter whom, do not
attempt an objective appreciation of him according to
his worth and dignity.....but fix your attention only
upon his sufferings, his needs, his anxieties, his pains.
Then you will always feel your kinship with.him; you
will sympathize with him; and instead of hatred or bone
tempt you will experience the commiseration that alone
is the peace to which the Gospel calls us. The way to
keep down hatred and contempt is certainly not to look
for a.man's alleged 'dignity', but, on the contrary,
to regard him as an object of pity.“ 2

Man should be ready to sacrifice himself at all times for the
common good, Schopenhauer held. This involves a transition from
virtue to asceticism. When he has achieved this ascetic status,
it then no longer suffices for him to love others as himself; there

arises within him a.horror of the kernel and essence of the world,

which recognizably is full of misery, and of which his own is an

 

1 SchOpenhauer, op. cit., pp. 14-15, (Essay on Human Nature)
2. Schopenhauer, Ibid., p. 3

expression, and therefore derring the nature that is in him, and
ceasing to will anything, he gives himself up to complete indifferent-
ism to all things. But such indifferentism is clearly incompatible

with compassion which must be anything but indifferent.

Thus far we have considered life per se as a value and discussed
the views of such philosophers as Nicolai Hartmann, St. Thomas Aguinas,
Schopenhauer, Leopardi and others on this problem and its development
into views on suicide and other forms of killing. We have also surveyed
the views of Eduard von Hartmann and Julius Bahnsen on consciousness
as a value as Opposed to the Buddhist and SchOpenhauerian view of
Nirvana as the summum bonum. Pleasure and pain, the value of the will,
material goods and moral values have also been discussed. In most cases,
extreme views on each subject have been investigated, while the most
acceptable philOSOphy would undoubtedly lie somewhere between the two
:idely divergent views of ontolOSical and contingent Opt'mism and pessi-
mism. An example of one extreme is the discussion of life per se as a
value. There are many instances of human life coming into existence
in the most deformed conditions, without consciousness, without mobility,
without the barest essentials for its own preservation. Many philos0phers
will contend that it were better for all concerned that such life should
not exist and that it is without value per 59. Some ethical philos0phers
would contend that it would not be morally wrong to deliberately end
such a life rather than to permit it to be a burden to itself and to
others, for the mere fact of life, without the goods that go with it,
is not considered by them a.value. Thus human life becomes cheap, as
it was in ancient Rome and in modern totalitarian states where a man's

life is worth no more than the value of his services to the state. In

87

ancient Rome, the offspring had no assurance that its life would be
protected. The fate of the Child was entirely a andoned to the dis-
cretion of the author of his days. When a child was born, he 7a

laid at the feet of the father. If the latter took him up into his

arms, he was permitted to live; hence the expression: suscioere lib-

A

n o

2322.‘ to life up the Children. If, on the contrary, the father left
the child lying upon the ground, the helpless child was strangled or
thrown into the public sewers, or exposed in the public squares, and
there left to perish from hunger. Infanticide was universally ad-
mitted and practiced among the pre-Christian nations. Tertullian
must have been absolutely certain of not being contradicted when he
rebuked the p sans of his day for this deed. Quintilian, the Roman
rhetorician (a. A.D. 118'), declares the "to 1:111 a man is often a

crime, but to kill one's own children is often a very fine action."

Euthenasia, which denies life as a.value per se, is receiving
pOpular support today from those who accept a "jungle philOSOphy"
of the survival of the fittest, or whose emotions run away with
their right reason and cause them to seek to justify killing the

incurable. Such a.philosophy must be included among the material-

istic systems .

The problem of suffering and the value of sickness and physics
ills will be studied in greater detail in the chapter on the Problem
of Evil. Suffice it to say here that pessimism views many of the
events of life as with a nagnifying glass, which discloses the evils,
while overlooking or minimizing the good. In his ouest for knowledge

4»

the pessimist finds tha he cannot comprehend the infinitude of reality

with his finite mind, and like a.petulant child he sulks and grows

despondent.

89

CHAPTEB.III

METAPFYSICAL PESSIMISM

Havin“ co onsidered many of the ethical problems involvinc
{3 .L :3
a pessimistic philosophy, it ma r be pro_ fits ole to investi3ate
the pessimistic aspects in certain of the 3reat reli3ions. In

"FO

this chapter we will consicier the nindu, Buddhist and Christian
philos0phies. Under the survey of Christian philosoihies, it
ill be well to view certain pessimistic tr rai Ht in the life of
Christ Himself, in Roman and Greek Catholic monasticism, and
finally in the Calvinistic teachin3 s of the rejection of worldli-

ness and predes tine tion.

As a creed, pessiri1sm.found its birthplace on the banks of
the Gan3es or fa ar back in the lands of Kepaul. The history of
pess1m1sm is, as we have said before, as old as c1v1lized 1:1q
Both as a.mood and as a pl Milo ophy it is more native to the East
han to the West. In the East it has had its completest expression.
The astral religion of the ancient Chaldeans thou3dt of the world
as ruled by gods who were actually identified with the planets. They
rules the universe almos st mechanically. While their immediate intent-
ions were sometimes discernible, their ultimate purposes were inscru-
table. For the Chaldeans, religion implied no otherworldly signific-
ance; one did not resign himself to calamities in th -is life in order
to be justified or saved in the next. The Chaldeans had no interest in
a life to come. Submission might bring certain earthly rewards, but
in general, as hey conceived it, it was not a means to an end at all.

It was rather the expression of an attitude of despair and gloom, of

9O

humility in the face of mysteries that could not be understood.
Compared with the gods, who dwelt in the stars and 3uided the
destinies of the earth, man wa a lowly creature, sunk in iniquity
and vileness and hardly even worthy of approaching the gods. The

consciousne

U)

s of sin already present in the Babylonian and Assyr'an
religions now reached a sta3e of almost patholO3ical intensity. In
the hymns the sons of men were compared to prisoners, bound hand and
foot, lan3uishin3 in darkness. Their misery is increased by the fact
their their evil nature has prompted them to sin unwittingly.l Never

..
Fl

.arued as so hOpelessly depraved, nor had reli3~

before had men been re;
ion been burdened with so gloomy a view of life. Curiously enou3h, the
pessimism of the Chaldeans does not seem to have affected their moral-
ity very much. So far as the evidence goes, they indulged in no rigors
of asceticism. They did not mortify the flesh, nor did they practice

self-denial. Apparently they took it for granted that man could not

avoid sinning, no matter how hard he tried.

A similar pessimistic view of existence is held by Brahmanic

Q Q

India which holds that evil is inherent in

7

ll finite existence and

P-

miser1 and suffering are looked.upon as an integral part of man's
life on earth. The doctrine of reincarnation doons man to a long
series of rebirths to repent and atone for sins committed in past
existences. If his life in his present existence is morally 300d,

t will have a beneficial result 11 s me future life, but he has no

Ho

assurance that it will be in the existence immediately following

upon his present one. The only way to salvation and peace is to

.L

 

l Jastrow, horris, The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, Phila.,
1351, p. 217.

91

cease existing‘- hirvana. The philosopher of the Unanishads look

.1»

upon all finite existence as unreal, as an illusion that deceives

man. But man's plight 18 no illusion! He cannot escape the miseries

that accompany his journ y throu3h a lon3 series of metemesy hoses.

.—

It is individual e- ist ence that is evil“ “1d all 0 dier evils proceed

irom this primary one. Clearly this is ontolo3ical pes51zian.

Buddhism is close y allied to Hinduism and Budda himself arose
out of the ancient Indian religion. After the time of the early Up-

anishads and the be innin3 of B the ethics of the two great

religions was, so far as formal pronouncement goes, almost identical,
as may be shown by the circumstances that the main sins are arranged
in the same cate.~ories and cornprise the same subjects. Thus, the

law book of Manu incorporates the Buddhistic 3roup of sins of thou3ht,
speech and deed in inverted order. The rule given in the Buddhist
Mahasudassana Sutta is one that wouldb aye appealed equs_ lly to the
Brahman: "Do not kill, do not steal, do not be sensual, do not lie,

do not drink int xicants; and eat as you have been accustomed to

eat." There is, of course, alin.ys the reli3ious difference between
the two bodies, the Brahman believes in the sacredness of tradition, in
an immort.l soul yet accordin3: to the Upanishads, Hirva na is 100'1 :ed
upon as the sunmum bonum; while the Buddhist iconoclast tramples upon
tradition, denies the immortality of the soul or the self, and mocking

at the notion of the Brahman's Supreme Spirit, rejects these teachings.

Siddhartha Sahyarmuni Gautama, which translated into English,
means: autama.who belon3s to the Sahye.tribe and who reached the

3pal of perfection, was born of a1 ancient Indian prince five 0 nturies

 

fl

before Christ. His earlv lize as a young prince was all too happy
and all too unreal in its splendor. At nineteen he married his
cousin Yasodhara. But the brilliance of his marriage was darker ed
by the shadow of disappointment, for his wife was childless. He
began to brood, and made up his mi uto eranine mo re closely the

sorrows of life. Why, he asked himself, is the 31ft of life even

'5

at its best like a counterieit jewel given to us by a stingy 30d?
Why must even the hap Hie t existence be full of the flaws of un-

failin3 misery and unfulfilled hOpes? Was life worth the living

9 Q

Amon3 the le3ends told about him is the one of the event .7.1icn
apparently decided him in his determination to search for truth.
While drivin3 one day with his servant he met an a3ed man bent and
broken by the wei3 ht of 1.is years. Gautama turned awq v in horror.
But his servant .nispered, "This, my prince is the way of life."

1 -9

And before he could absorb the Shock of this discovery, the prince
came upon a b M‘ar covered wi th the sores of leprosy. "This, too,
is the may of life." said the servant. Ga utama drove on, ponderin3
deeply on what he had seen. And finally, he came upon a naked corpse,
swollen, discolored and rotting in the sun. "This," said the servant,
"is the end of life.“ Having been brought face to face with the misery
O
of life, Gautama decided to do sciethin3 about what he had seen. He
Questioned wanl erin3 monks and men of 3reat learning, asking them to
tell him about the indignities and the deception of the world. In
his search for truth, he lei°t his pleasures and his palace and set

out to find the answers to the problems that beset him. Gradually,

his new philosophy evolved.

Gautama tau3ht the joy, not of pessession, but of renunciation.
This doctrine of renunciation lies at the very toot of the secret of
life, he believed. Human existence represents the soul's journey
from earth to heaven. But this journey, he declared, is a successive

m13ration of the soul through many bodies. Only he who has learned

to subordinate his little personal self to the lar3er self of humanity
is read1 at last to end his veary pilgrima3e from life to life and

to enter into the Nirvana of eternal rest and nothin3ness. In pessi-
mistic strain, Gautama looked upon existence and all of reation as
evil. Nirvana, according to Buddha's doctrine, is the complete exp
tinction of all bodily desire, - the only possible way for man to
have surcease from the eternal striving and frustration that is the
lot of mortals. It is easy to understand, comparing this doctrine
to that of Schopenhauer, how the latter conceived his pessimistic
philosophy. Faced with much the same questions that had confronted
Gautama centuries before, SchOpenhauer found a kindred spirit in
Buddha and readily accepted his doctrines. The German philosopher
found in Buddhism the religious version of his philos0phy and the
doctrine of deliverance from the insatiable driving force within

the self thidh formed a major part of Buddhistic -hilosophy was
readily accepted by Schopenhauer. He embraced the Buddhist doctrine
that the ego is the source of selfishness and only by suppressing.

the ego is it possible for man to be freed from the illusions that

breed the evil of e3oism.

In one sense Buddha.may be regarded as continuing Brahmanism
rather than reacting sharply against it. The Vedanta philOSOphy

had already proclaimed a message of deliverance from the illusions

of this earthly experience through knonledge. And Buddha's own
gospel was a message of deliverance from the illusions and snares
of sense through the enlightenment of which he was the prophet.

But while this is so, Buddha silently yet firmly set aside much
that was important in the then existing Brahmanism. The system

of caste he treated as valueless, and the Brahmanical theology
seemed to him futile. The elaborate order of sacrifices he judged
to be unnecessary as well as cruel; and self-torture he considered
vain. To Gautame the secret of man's sorrow and suffering, and

of nis redemption likewise, lay within himself. The way of wisdom
lay in recognizing the fact of suffering, in knowing its origin and
extinction, and the path which led to its extinction. Like Schopen-
hauer centuries later, Buddha believed that the remedy for a world
laboring in pain, lay in the overcoming of man's insatiable desire,
the suppression of the will to live, and casting away he chains of

sense.

Though we must admit that there is much that is fine and grac-
ious in Buddhism, it has its defects when judged in comparison with
Christianity, which disqualify it from attaining the universality

at which it aims. There is an eudaemonistic element in Buddhism which

expresses itself in the dread of misery and suffering, as if suffering

were always an evil to be avoided. The Buddhist practices the virtues
of kindness and compassion toward suffering fellow mortals, but he
does so in order that he may discipline and perfect himself in the
task of extinguishing d sire, not to ameliorate conditions in the
world around him. Consequently, his creed is a creed without hope

or inspiration. He will die to every desire for all are alike vain

and empty - illusions that deceive a man. Certainly the pessimistic

Spirit deeply colors the Buddhist vision of life.

Schopenhauer's philos0phical system owes its being to external
causes, at least in part, for it was the product of two tendencies,
as specifically German, and the other distinctly Oriental. The
German tendency supplied his thought with its philosophic groundwork,
but the Oriental, though it came from an East that was little under-
stood in Schopenhauer's day, gave the impulse that built into a system
of pessimism the principles he had inherited. Certainly, schopenhauer
was greatly influenced by Immanuel Kant and by Fichte, but the impetus
which determined the cirection he took was given, largely, by Buddha.
But from Buddha Schopenhauer learned the central theme that the will,
which was the essence of the ego, because the symbol of the universal
cause - it was the root alike of individual and universal life; this
universal will to live, as everywhere distributed, was a.passion for
being, a struggle to live, a yearning toward realization; but this
passion was blind, except as its end was being and the maintenance

of being.

Turning from Buddhistic pessimism we enter upon a study of the
ancient HebreW'philosophies, eSpecially the writings in the Book of
Job and the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. While the
Hebrew philos0phers were not brilliant metaphysicians and constructed
no great theories of the universe, they did concern themselves with
most of the problems relating to the life and destiny of man. The
Hebrew philOSOpli, while containing Optimistic portions is yet largely

pessimistic and it is two of the pessimistic writers with which we shall

96

concern ourselves here, with the caution that they are not represent-

ative of F brew thought generally.

As philosophers the Hebrews were able to stand with the Chinese,
Hindu and Egyptian thinkers and while they never attained the great-
ness of the Greek seekers after wisdom, they were more advanced in

their philosophy than most other peOples in the pre—Hellenic era.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is supposedly written by King Solomon.
Basically, its philosophy preposes doctrines of determinism, mechanism,
scepticism and pessimism. t holds that knowledge of ultimate things
is impossible and that there is no evidence of any soul or any life
after death. All living things are made of dust and will return to
the dust from whence they came, "vanity of vanities, saith the Preach-
er, vanity of vanities; all is vanity...I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and.vexation
of spirit." 1 Fame, riches, extravagant pleasures are regarded as
snares and delusions in the end. .Although wisdom is better than
folly, even it is not a sure key to happiness, for an increase in
knowledge brings a keener awareness of suffering. Man and beast
alike suffer the same ignominy of death; the rich man who has prop-
erty and servants to do his will and satisfy his every desire, look?
ing at his position can but conclude that "all is vanity under the
sun." Finding that all existence is futile what is Ecclesiastes to
do? He would enjoy the things of life and since there is the possi-
bility of a judgement after death, he would keep on he safe side

and obey the commandments. Tsanoff comments upon this by saying:

 

 

l Ecclesiastes, Ch. 1; 2 and 1M.

97

"So the mind that had started a dirge of sceptical-cynical weariness
ends, or is made to end, on a note of cautious piety. It is a politic

conclusion of a calculating philosop.y of life." 1

The Book of Job likewise provides an example of limited contingent
pessimism. The Book is a drama of the tragic struggle between man and
fate. Its central theme is the problem of evil, how it can be that the
righteous suffer while the eyes of the wicked stand out with fatness.
Job, the main character, is a man of unimpeadhable virtue, suddenly
overtaken by a series of disasters - he is deprived of his prOperty,
his children are killed, and.his own body is afflicted with a dread—
ful disease. At first he accepts all this with resignation but as
his troubles become more and.more grievous he curses the day of his

birth and pravs for death.

Job enters into a lengthy discussion with his friends over the
problem of evil. His friends are inclined to view suffering in the
usual Hebraic way‘- as a punishment from God for past sins. But this
does not satisfy Job. Despair weighs heavily upon him and he decides
that God is an all-powerful Spirit of Evil, who destroys without mercy
and without purpose. In his misery he appeals to God to reveal Him-
self and His ways to him. The answer he receives convinces Job of
his own insignificance and.of the power and glory of God, but there
is no solution offered for the problem of evil and the Deity makes
no effort to refute the pessimism of Job. The same note of weariness
and cosmic disenchantment pervades the Book of Job and Ecclesiastes

as well.

 

1 Tsanoff, Nature of Evil, 1). 36.

In a direct continuation, since much of he New Testament
is based upon the Old, is the philosophy of Christ. LeOpardi
continually stressed the pessimistic strain in the philosOphy
of Jesus, returning time and time again to the fact that Jesus
reCOgnized the natural and miserable proclivity of man toward
evil and by calling it "the World" emphasized the wide difference
"H,

between Spiritual or supernatural virtue and worldly nature: m

{ingdom is not of this world."

Schopenhauer commenting upon what he considered the pessimism

in the New Testament says:

'The New Testament must be in some way traceable to
an Indian source: its ethical system, its ascetic
view of morality, is pessimism, and its Avatar, are
all thoroughly Indian....the view taken by Christ-
ianity in common with Buddhism (is) the world can
no longer be looked at in the light of Jewish Opt-
imism, which found 'all things very good': nay, in
the Christian schemeg’the devil is named as its
Prince or Ruler, 5/6”wa T071 (03744.00 rat/7'00,”
(John: 12,33)

To Schopenhauer, Christ is the symbol or personification of the

negation of the will to live.

Nietzsche, however, takes an opposite view and lays many
of the evils of the world at the feet of Christ, and blames Him

for the misery, suffering, incompetence, etc., in the world today:

"This Jesus of H.2areth, the incarnate gospel of love,
this 'Redeemer' bringing salvation and victory to the
poor, the sick, the sinful - was he not really tempt-
ation in its most sinister and irresistible form, tempt-
ation to take the tortuous path to those very Jewish
values and those very Jewish ideals.“

 

1. SchOpenhaner, Essays, "The Christian System", 0p. cit.,,PP- 92-93-
2 Nietzsche, Frederick, The Geneaology of Morals, Modern Library,
New York, p. 9+5.

99

There have been varied views 0 the aha acter of Christ; the
Roman Catholic view of the helpless Babe of Bethlehem and the Infant
of Prague Who draws all men to Himself by His simplicity, His help-
lessness and His humaneness, yet possessing infinitude, power and
divinity; there is the Protestant concept, relying upon the Medieval
reformers, who have made a reformer of Christ, comparable to John
the Baptist; the philosophers of the scholastic era have stressed
th wetaphysical aspects of His character, while Protestantism has
stressed the moralistic aspects. Protestant ChristolOgists, despite
their evident sincerity, seem inclined to expect Christ to advance
the cause of their party and they are forced to view Jesus in their

own narrow way. Man has made Christ in the image and likeness of man.

Even in the realm of art, there has been a wide variety of im-
pressions of Christ, apparently creating a Christ to suit the ideals
of the particular age or philos0phy of the time or place. The ihons
of the Eastern Orthodox Church have a gothic weariness and angularity
about them, giving an almost cadaverous appearance to their images 01
Christ. Michelangelo gives Him a muscular appearance while Raphael
makes Him fleshy. .About many of the paintings and works of sculpture
there is an effeminate quality about Christ, a quality of weakness
and supineness; other artists depict Him as a terrible avenger, a
mighty and powerful judge; while the Spanish artists give to Him a
Quality of suffering, - to them Christ appears all mangled, bruised,

bleeding and dying.

In the midst of all this confusion concerning the real character

of Christ, vriters such as Leopardi and Schopenhauer point to the

100
pessimism of Christ. They deplore the effort of those who attribute
to Christ the Optimistic characteristics of human thinkin3, pointin3
out tlat Optimism is but a poor medicine for the Christ Who was immers—
ed in 3rief and fully alive to the contradictions of life. Optimism,
they point out, means that one must be so uncritical as to accept life
and the universe at the face-value and that Christ refused to take all
things for granted. Optimism of this sort would imply a blindness to

the existence of the remote and the ideal.

t is easy to point out, from a study of the Gospel narratives,
that Christ did not preach a 3ospel of success, as so commonly underb
stood in worldly terms. 1 He gave no praise to those who tried to solve
the problems of this world by any method of exteriorization. He preach-
ed to the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the world-veary to prepare
them for eternity, "Ky Kingdom is not of this world!" But miristians
have metamorphosized Christianity and its pessimi u of the verity of
this world. Occidente;l Christianity is able to accept Christ and His
Gos 381 today only oec.use men have Chang ed it, overlooked its true
meaning and minimized its mes sa3e of contempt for the things of earthly
e} :istence. How else could Protestant and Catholic accept the Sermon

on the Hount with its philos0phy of non-resistance and non-resentment?

 

1 Bruce Barton in his book, 'Tne hen Hobo“v Knows" ta”es a contrary
view, the t Christ was a successful business executive and a shrewd
advertising and puolicity mana3er, Whose ability in business and
social relations was responsible for the relatively swift spread
of Christianity. The book was written, we mi3ht recall, in an era
when business and "success“ in financial enterprises almost became
a reli3ion with many America us. R .H. Tasney, in his book, ‘Heli 3ion
and the Rise of Capitalism, ” (Pen3uin Book 3, Inc. N.Y., 19L?) dis-
cusses the influence of Calvinism on western thou3ht and the pos si-
bility that Calvinism exercised a lar3e influence on the western
striviL3 ior material success, as a sign of predestination ori3inally,
and later this attitude became habitual, even after its reli; ious
ori3in and motivation was for3otten.

101

How else could modern Christians ignore the counsel to seek no
treasure in the finite order, fear not those who kill only the body,
fear not to cut Off the hand or pluck out the eye, if they Offend
the interior spirit, hate the life of sense and love the life of
spirit? 1 Certainly these are evidence of the transvaluation of
values effected by the limited contingent pessimism of Christ. In
His pessimism of worldly values, Christ insisted upon the supremacy
of the inner soul and denounced the attempts to subju3ate the soul
to material ends. He stressed the nothinqness of worldly glory,
wealth, power and pleasure, "For what doth it profit a man if he
gains the rmole world yet suffers the loss of his immortal soul?"
Weighed in the balance, the world is made to appear of little value
when compared with the value of but one soul. Christ decides against
the Optimism which places man in the world as a thing among things,
and decides for a pessimism which drives the soul be h into itself,
for He wa anxious to be loyal to the soul and to eternity and thus

He repudiates the world, rejects it as unworthy of the soul.

Yet, Jesus was not lacking in a sense of metaphysical or moral
responsibility when He rejected the material order of things in both
nature and humanity. On the contrary, when He was permitted to in-
dulge His own interpretation of things and persons, He showed extra-

ordinary appreciation of the spectacle which was passing before Him.

 

1 Dr. Paul HonigSheim of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
at Michigan State College has pointed out in his lectures that the
philOSOphies of the world's great religious leaders are soon changed
by their followers when religion becomes bureaucratic and men become
unwilling to form their lives according to the purity of the master's
teaching. They grow insistent upon minimizing the more severe doct-
rines, accepting only those that meet with more pOpular approval.
It is usually the small sect that insists upOn preserving the purer
forms Of the creed, for example, the Mennonites, Quakers, Old Catholics,
and certain religious orders in the Roman Church.

102

In His limited contingent pessimism, He found it necessary to proceed f
from the soul, from tile self outm Ltoward the world and the social

state; in doin this Christ was ever discontented with the way in

1‘
5

“

"iich the tliings of nature and th e subjects of the state had been

orsanized into artific1al svstezs. Elie perception of birds and

1

flowers, of children and simple people pleased Him and won His approval,
l i
but He became indi51ant at the nJoocricv,.nd formalism of legalistic
/
/

/

groups Within the Jewish religion.

In His pessimism, Christ upheld tile noole di wslty to the
world. It was the idea of he north of the soul which.served Jesus
in brin5in5 aoout the emancipation of the human self from the thin5s
of the world. The soul has an intrinsic value which 5ives it di5ni v;
from this position of di5nity, the soul cannot be displaced by any hing
in the outside world. In the morale of Christ, one must hate the
things of the world. True, Hi sGospel rm s a Gospel of Love, but
love of neighbor is even cleansed of its humai aspect of love and
lust for He expanded them into ideals of non-resistance and non-resent-
ment,ahd the highest type of love was that based upon a sense of duty,
not merely upon emotion. To Jesus these ideals seemed obvious but to
the modern "Christian" non-resistance and non-resentment are either
ignored, watere d— down or casuistically rele5- ated to the works to be

done by saints or the chosen few.

Christ was anxious to put an end to the bandyin5 about of the
terms good and band. In order to make Himi elf unders tood.he showed
His disoaorov l of the couuonly a.ccepted values. He had no desire

to place the seal of His approval upon those Who v.'ere in the position

103

of earthly greatness. Thus, He dismissed Caesar with a witticism
concerning the Caesarian image on the coin, called Herod a fox,
and treated Pontius Pilate with silence. Parties came in for

a .

similar condemnation. Pharisaism was suomitted to the most strident
form of crit'cism by Him Who showed His scorn by avoiding Scribes
and Pharisees and consorting with Publicans and sinners. Christ
condemned the social order so dear to the hearts of the Pharisees
and He accused them of making the outside of the cup Cleo while
the interior was filled with rottenness and corruption. There is
no thought of the meliorism peculiar to "social Christianity" -

no ideal of "civic ri5hteousness;“ there is nothing but pessimistic
condemnation of the morality of mediocrity. Christ's limited con-
tingent pessimism is strong and virile in the face of wars and
death and sickness and corruption, - "let not your hearts be troub—
led," - "Blessed are they who suffer persecution," - "Come to he

all ye who labor and are heavily burdened and I will 5ive you rest,"

but His peace is not the sort of peace the world might give.

It was this pessimistic view of the world that led early mystics
to leave the worldly pursuits of other men and seek refuge in deserts
or caves, where 'n the practice of austerities, they could bring under
subjection the driving will to live and the desire for material things.
Christian ascetics have regarded the world as evil; as filled with temp—
tations that can bring destruction to the soul, and they avoided all
worldly contacts, insofar as this was possible. They strove to be {£3
the world, but not 9: it." Indicative of this pessimistic outlook is

the beast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga that he had never looked into the

eyes of his mother for fear that he mi5ht be led to entertain impure

1014

thoughts. then Christian motherhood is regarded as evil, pessimism

of a deep dye is certainly evident.

In most Christian monastic communities, members are forbidden
to own any prOperty, even the clothing on their backs, in order to
avoid worldly contacts as much as possible. To subdue the flesh,
they are urged to practice penance and plvsical discipline. All
great religions have praised asceticism, and in consequence it we
not difficult for Schopenhauer to cite, in support of his theory
that chastity is the best alternative to suicide, a number of texts
from the 5nostics, the early fathers of the church, the mystics and
the Quietists, together with pertinent extracts from the Bible and
the sacred books of the Orient. Beyond suicide, Which is not a phil-
osophic solution, there are but two remedies for the misery of life,
SchOpenhauer felt. One of these remedies, a palliative, is found
in art and disinterested contemplation; the other, i asceticism or
absolute chastity. He felt that if chastity were universal, it would
drain the source of humanity anC pain would disappear, for if man is
the highest manifestation of Will, if he were to die out, the weaker
reflections would pass away. But while chastity for the ascetic is
a.means to the exaltation of personal purity and the renunciation of
worldly pleasures, to SchOpenhauer, the value of asceticism consists
in the fact that it could lead to deliverance; it can prepare the world
for the annihilation of pain and misery. SchOpenhauer did not indicate
how all men are to be p rS'aded to embrace a life of celibacy, nor how
all women are to be convinced that their greatest service to mazkind

would be to refuse to bear children. However, it is not the province

of philosophy to prOpose how this should be done.

105

medieval asceticism as practiced in monasteries and convents
had certain features in common with pessimism. It thought, as did
the early coenobites and hermits, that the world was wrong, too
unclean to be a fit home for a holy person; therefore, a.place to

be forsaken if a man would save his own soul. The existina order of

Q

'4-

society was conce ved as evil, and it was thought better that the

good man should take himself out of that order than endanger his

soul by remaining within it. "Flee from the wiCkedness of the world!"-

became the hue and cry of the medieval ascetic. On its personal side,

this was a doctrine of salvation, and is limited contingent pessimism,
t on its social side it was a doctrine of annihilation, so far at

least as its attitude signified that the world was so bad that the

pious could neither desire its continuance, nor do anything to pro-

mote it. It was in this latter aspect that it agreed with pessimism,

for it conceived secula society as so under the power of evil that

the happiest thing for it was to pass away and perish.

This tendency is typical of tie lessimistic mood that is never

very remote from any of us. The first impulse of a man who is ang_y

m

it the emptiness and unrealities of human life, is t

O
"5
93
2
(D
9.)
ch
Ho
d
E"
U)

all vanity and vexation of spirit. And in the burst of first fervor
in his n w—found Spiritual belief, man is inclined to forsake a world
ésidi is absorbed in the enjoyment of temporal things and to retire
to a solitude where he may cultivate his fears and where, from a safe
distance, he may watch the march to destruction of those who are too
blind to see. Or he may consider it his destiny to devote his life

to prayer for those who are so engrossed in material things. This

type of contingent pessimism looks upon the world as filled with evil,

106

but longs for immortality where there will be a rectification or
compensation for the miseries endured in this life. t clearly takes
its cue from Christ Who urged His disciples to leave father and mother
and wife and.all things, to follow Him. The idea of an evil world
brought about by man's wilful selfishness, and.the consequent advocacy
of the rejection of worldliness and the denial of self as essentials
of godliness, Characterize the medieval conception of life. One exp
ample of such disdain of the world and human life is the work of Pope
Innocent III, in which he quotes Ecclesiastes and Job in his attempt
to show the utter'vanity of existence and the worthlessness and futil-
ity of man's life on earth. One passage will illustrate the possi-
mism of the work:
"Han is made of dust, of mud, of ashes; verse yet, of
the foulest seed; conceived in the itch of the flesh,
in the heat of passion, in the stench of lust; and
worse, in the depths of sin; born to labor, to dolor,
to horror; more miserable still, to death. He acts
wickedly, offending God, offending his neighbor, offend-
ing himself; he acts infamously, polluting; fame, pollut-
ing conscience, polluting character; he acts vainly,
neglecting the useful, neglecting the necessa . He is
food for fire ever blasing and burning unguenched; food
for worms, ever gnawing and eating without end; a mass
of putrescence, ever noisome and horribly foul."
It belongs to the medieval mind to substitute physical contin-
ence for chastity, and to believe that the former is a practical
aim and a.virtue, whereas it is often a disease. Catholic educators
often leave youth in false conscience, suffering them to regard as
unchaste and sinful things that are perfectly inevitable and quite

normal. The very conception of "angelic purity" (a much used phrase

in pious books) is misleading. ,Angels were (speaking the language of

 

l Innocent III, Pope, De Contemptu Mundi, sive De hiseria Conditionis
Humanae, highs, "Patrologia.Latina,"7Vol. CCXVII, Paris, 1889, pp.

107

concepts) sexless, passionless, and an ideal put before humans as
attainable which does not make allowance for human passion and the
physiology of sex is, to say the least, unsound. Catholic phiIOSOphy
of sex, based as it is upon medieval anatomical studies, does not take
into account the part which the secretions of the sex glands play in
the organism as a whole. Nor does it adapt itself to the findings of
science to the effect that without sexelife full emotional, mental,
and physical maturity is impossible. Such an ethical system gives to
youth the vision of sex as a kind of devil within his loins, bent
upon his destruction, implacably hostile to his welfare. He comes to
regard himself as conceived in evil and born in iniquity. fter a
life of weary struggle he discovers that in itself, sex is no more
demoniacal than digestion or reSpiration; or he becomes despondeut
and pessimistic at his repeated failures to live the "angelic life“

enjoined upon monastics.

One of the contributing factors in the devclOpment of a.philo—
sophy such as that of POpe Innocent III mentioned above, is the teach-
ing of the Roman Church that marital intercourse, no matter how holily
performed is still looked upon with suspicion as potentially unbecoming,
and displeasing to God, for pious couples are warned to abstain before
receiving Communion. Greek Catholic priests, who are duly married
according to the Eastern rite and discipline, are supposed to "abstain"
for three days before they celebrate mass. After childbirth, a Catholic
woman must be "churched", that is, ritually purified, as though she
were in some way spiritually contaminated by the experience she had

undergone in giving birth to her child. In fact, in the mind of the

(mindwgf the Church, sex whether lawfully indulged in or not, whether

1

involuntarily (and therefore sinlessly) experienced, as in sleep,
or voluntarily and sinfully experienced, always contaminates more
or less. Only little children who know no sex are perfectly pure

1 What are pen-

and acceptable and.holy in the eyes of the Church.
itents to conclude from such advice but that sex-phobia is a virtue,
and asexuality an ideal? Certainly these attitudes lead to a pessi-
mistic outlook on life, magnifying into enormous evil, perfectly

. i

natural acts whicn are ethically moral and good.

Catholicism, however, is not alone in inculcating a pessimistic
attitude of contempt for the world and despair of man's ability to
refrain from evil. Calvinism, with its doctrine of predestination
has done much to cause men to look gloomily at life here and hereafter,

and question its worth by calling into doubt cosmic justice. The
Spiritual revolution thus engendered took as its Shibboleth the

phrase, "contemptus muhdi amor Christi.’l

npo, the will of man is ever

A

According to St. Augustine of Hi
perverse and prone to evil, helpless except for God's grace. Calvin
accepted and stressed this Augustinian concept and rejected all forms
of sacramentalism, holding that no matter what a man does or may not
do he is unable to merit his salvation. man is helpless in working
out his own salvation and even for the elect, there would be no sal-
vation but for God's grace, gratuitously given. Calvinistic absolute
predestinarianism held the man's fall from original grace was a con-

seQuence of God's decree of reprobation. It affirmed that God does not

1 Freud would criticize this view that it is possible for even small
children to be asexual, for he contends that sex plays a very im-
portant part even in the develOpment of infants.

109

nave a true vill to save all mankind but merely the elect and that
salvation or damnation depends on the will of God alone, irreSpective
of the action of the free will of the saved or the damned, or of their

forseen merits or demerits.

Though Calvin stressed the necessity to continue working and
conforming to the will of God by living a moral life, even though no
man could know for certain whether he was destined for heaven or hell,
this doctrine certainly leads men to doubt the beneficence of God and
makes them pessimistic of their own abilities to contribute toward
their eternal salvation. It leaves the dilemma of undeserved suffering
unanswered. We will deal with this problem in the next Chapter on the
Problem of Evil. Are natural catastrOphes, floods, hurricanes, epi-
demics and all the ills to which mankind is heir the consequence of
Adam's sin? If so, does an Eternally Beneficent God lovingly elect
some undeserving mortals to happiness and damn others, both in this
life and in eternity to atone for the inherited consequences of.Adam's

fall in which they had no part?

Calvin preached a doctrine of renunciation of the world and all
citizens of Geneva were compelled to tame an oath of confession to
the Protestant faith. Showy dress was forbidden and overseers went
from house to house to report on the morals of the peeple and to con-
vince themselves that the laws were being carried out. Three men were
imprisoned for laughing during one of Calvin's sermons. Dancing was
banned as evil. Taverns were closed and in the approved "refreshment
houses" the customer was obliged to say grace before and after meals.

Because of his extreme pessimism concerning man's ability to avoid evil,

alvin had established a police system to enforce morality.

110

Arnold J. Toynbee sums up the pessimism of the Calvinistic
philOSOphy as follows:

"The disillusioned.predestinarian who has been taught
by harsh experience that his God is not, after all,
on his side is condemned to arrive at the devastating
conclusion that he and his fellowhhomunculi are

'But helpless pieces in the game He plays
Upon this dheQuer—board of nights and days,
Hither and thither moves and hacks and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays.'“ l
Calvinism is a.philos0phy of determinism. Opposed to it is
the doctrine held by the Scholastics and others of free will as
the capability of self-determination. We know the fact of free
will by direct consciousness, just as we know our own identity.
We believe that we can freely guide our own thoughts, selecting,
if we choose, the least attractive. We believe that when two
alternative courses of action lie before us, we can freely del-

iberate upon their respective merits, reflecting, inquiring, and

examining the reasons for each side.

Spinoza, however, holds to a philos0phy of determinism in
contradiction to this Scholastic position. In his hpistles he
says that if a stone which has been projected through the air
had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its
own free will. But Spinoza denied that either the stone or a
philos0pher possess free will for he places freedom not in "free
decision but in free necessity." He holds that every "individual
thing is necessarily determined by some external cause to exist

and Operate in a fixed and determinate manner." 2

 

1 Toynbee, Arnold J., A.Study of History, Oxford University Press,
New York, 191:7, p. 1450 with the quotation from the Rubaiyat. .

2 Spinoza, Baruch, The Philoscphy of Spinoza. Letter LXII. trans. QY
Pal-1.1:. Elwes, Tudor Publishing Co., N.Y., pp. 395—398.

111

The moral consciousness of mankind, in Opposition to the
Calvinistic teachings, points to the freedom of man. The sense
of moral obligation is written in every man's heart; it is as
certain as the uniformity of nature. Man believes that he is
absolutely free to avoid evil and to choose good. But the deteIh

minist will tell us that these beliefs are mere illusions.

The evil that perplexes the pessimist, is not merely physical
evil, however, but moral evil as well. Crime, vice, sin, the lusts
that in their search for pleasure make pain, the passions, and the
brutalities that make men desolate, are the evils that create despair,
for they do not inflict mere physical suffering, but devestate man's
soul. There is small consolation in the belief that God.has no pleas-
ure in the death of the wicked, but wills that all men should be saved,

for the Question arises, - Why then is His will so impotent?

Our perplexity is further increased when we ponder the fact that
Theism creates the so-called problem of evil. If men did not believe
in. a good God, or if they had not the disposition that this belief has
created in humanity, they would not feel this Question of evil to be so
insoluble a mystery. .A man who believes in mechanical necessity, or a
fixed fate, will accept every fact of life, including its evil, but then
his conscience will not be burdened, nor will he be perplexed, as if he
believes in a free and good God. For where there is no choice there can
be no morality, and where there is no morality there can be no responsi-
bility nor condemnation. But if a man believes that there is a powerful
and righteous God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, he is, in the

very degree that he is thoughtful, certain to be perplexed by the problem

112

that will rise time and time again, "‘.‘.'hy has He permitted evil to
ad st?" It is with this Problem of Evil that we shall be concerned

in the following dapter.

113

CHAPTER Iv

THE PROB i OF EVIL

hilos0phy has no more difficult or obstinate question for the
consideration of its votaries than that connected with the origin
and the existence of evil. It takes no keen intellect or perspic—
acious spirit to discern the presence of evil, and both Optimist
and pessimist have sought a solution to the problem. If man believes
that there is an omnipotent and just Deity; in the course of his
contemplation on the events of life, he will be confronted by the
question of how this God could allow evil to exist. And as man
dwells on this paradox, he reasons somewhat as follows: 'God, being
all-powerful, either could.have prevented evil from existing in the
world, and would not prevent it; or He desired to prevent it, but
did not possess the power to do so. If I embrace the first alter-
native I must conclude that while He is omnipotent, He is not per-
fectly Good; and if I embrace the second alternative, I must con—
clude that while He may be a God of perfect Goodness, He is a being
of imperfect power. But either conclusion leaves me with a proposit-
ion which denies the perfection of God, for I must conclude that a
perfectly good being would not have permitted so much evil in a world

He created.‘

Symbolically, the problem may be expressed in the following

a,

reductio ad aosurdum type of argument:

 

Let G 'God
0 =omnipotence
J =justice
E -evi1

111;

Then G -—)o and J
o as
J —-——>E'

o and J ———)E and E‘

G *-‘,'O and J

G‘-—-)E and E'

 

G!

The presence of evil thus forms one of the most serious prob-
lems confronting a man who would believe in a personal God. Opti-

.ite of the evil found in it,

uh

mism, conceives existence as good in -
wh‘le pessimism as a philos0phy gives expression to the belief that
life is undesirable, hateful, or purposeless because of its evils.
Thus both pessimist and optimist concern themselves with the prob-

lem of evil: the Pess'mist seeks to learn the answer to the Quest-
ion of the ultimate nature of evil and how best to escape it, - while
the optimist ponders the paradox of why a fundamen ally good and perf-
ect world should include evil and how best to adjust to it and mini-

mize it.

As has been said before, the problem of evil arises only in a
theistic philosOphy. In atheistic philosophy, there is no "problem"
of evil, for the philos0pher who rejects the belief in the existence of
a God is not concerned with moral purpose or final causes in a cosmic
sense, but merely with the fact of the existence of evil; he does not
0 u N n o q o 1 9‘ v4 a 3|
give praise or olame Ior things as me finds them to any transcendent

beiiv His concern with evil is an empirical one, for he believes

to.

115

hat when evil is found, it reS“ ts from an arre Sement inimical

to human values, or a maladjustment to purely material thin.s.

Since Immanuel Kent's CritiQue of Pure Reason, philos0phers
have almost been compelled, if they would rise above the narrowh
ness of dolmatism, to orush aside purely me 5rd ysical speculations

a1d concern themselves with analytical, linzuistic, lo pical and em-

i-ations, leavinr pure speculation to speculative

U

pirical inves
scientists, and it is in accord nee with this attitude of Kent tlm

I shall attempt to concern myself primarily with 51h at is known, leeyb
in; he theolOgians to s: Mecul ate about the problem of evil and its
possible solution. I do not deny that metaphysics is a legitimate
field of philosophical endeavor. I simply state that the problem

of evil is a transcendental one and philOSOphy should not attempt

.L

to prOpose a dojnatic solution to theC Hue tion of its me ure.

It is understandable to see how Giacomo LeOpardi turned to
grim des air of the goods of life by the time he had reached nine-
teen years of age for he felt thatl 11s happiness he d been wrecked
by ill health which deprived him of one of his greatest joys, that
of engag -ing in study; almost blind, hemmed in on almost every side
by restrictions and parental objections to his hopes and dreams, he
regs rded himse elf as merely bidding his time until he would 11nd re-
lease in deatl. Any adeguate study of his pessimism must take into
account his own unhappy life, for certainly the jud e 1ent he passes

on life was not an impersonal one, but a result of 11is own tra3ic

experience.

Philo of Ale:r.ndria an ontolo;ical pessimist, writing in a

mystic-reli3ious tradition, is clearly pessimistic in his attitude

5 inextr icably bound up

He

toward existence for he felt that evil
with every man‘s life. Lhe soul, tied down to the body with all
of its propensities toward evil, is never free. He felt that life,

which is the ont0103ical ‘as1s for an individual's existence, is also

the medium of evil. It is only by asceticism and a denial of world-

liness, that man can rise above the evils of the world.

‘\ 0

Clearly, many pn110s0p11ers in studying life and its varied
moral problems will agree with p ssimists in their acco" ts or
descriptions of the evils that exist. Even the most pronounced
Optimist would not deny the existence of the lon 3 lists of physical and
moral evils of which Schopenhauer writes. F w men ccn live in the
world and not be deeply touched by its sufferings, by man's selfish-
ness toward man, by the seeming injustice of morally evil men gain-
in; wealth and honor and r1any other me aterial goods while men of

good moral character often suffer a plenitude of ills and material

evils.

In our own time it was an occasion of perplexity to many that
a totalitarian nation, e.g. Nazi Germany, often appeared to thrive
on injustice a.d evil while nations 1.hich professed Christian and
democratic principles were often beset with evils that threatened
their very existence. For a time England seemed to be going down
in defeat while Germa.ny rode mater over one EurOpea n country after
another. Deepotism, which according to many value judgements is an
evil, apparently increases, t.'hile democracy (which of course can be

variously defined and has been apgalied to (we crioe ever;: extreme form

117

of government from the most dictatorial to the most d mocratic) must
struggle to preserve itself against the onslaughts of elements seek-

n: its destruction.

“x

Fl-
L

own, ror dictatorial governments are extremely pessimistic of the

f the people of a nation to govern themselves. They annot

{‘3
O
H.
H
H.
C+
k:
0

J.

regard the ponulace as intelligezt enough to choose the good, nor

possessed of sufficient character to resis the enticements of demap
gosy; while the pepulace, deSpairing of their own ability to preserve

peace 0 find security, look with Optimism to the dictator for leader-

H

h ‘ a

snip. Th problem 01 the violat'o ignts of men to govern

t5
0
H)
(P
r. .
H
(D
'1

themselves is clearly a moral proolem. So is the question of discrim-

ination against minority rroups, the question of war, the question of

a)

1

state seizure of property of individuals, and the whole gamut of sini-
lar problems which are raised in discussing the relative value of one

form of government over another.

There is little or no problem of evil for man in the lower levels
of culture. The presence of evil in his environment is accepted with-
out asking whether such a condition could have been avoided. The nai
and pressing concern is to overcome or evade the evils which threaten
him in his struggle for existence, but for the existence of evil in
general, or for trying to understand its causes or its relation to
mankind in general, he has no great concern. The growth of reflection,

the formation of the idea of a worldpsystem and a social order, provoked

a study into the origin and meaning of evil within this order.

In primitive cultures material evils are exclusively dealt with,

118

and the religion which is thought to deliver from these 1s conceived

q . I o L

in a.naterial fashion. There 15 no areas difficulty for the savage

_)

to eXplain dle reason for the e::istence of the evils that beset him.

He simply reasons that the goods and evils of life have their corresp-
onding sources in the pir it world; and if there are beneficient spirits
who are able and willing to help man, there are also evil spirits to

J

those hostile actionn rbe traced the evils that ems suffers. In
man's early develOpment there is little difficulty with the problem

of evil, for man spealcs of evils rather than of evil and.he has little

difficulty unders tandinr it. he simply imputes evil to evil gods.
But with a monotheistic religion, and the idea of a personal and ozini-
potent Deity who is considered to possess the attributes of perfection,

the proolem of evil comes into existence.

Even the materialist is faced with t’n e hedonistic paradox. If

he embraces a hedonistic philosophy, holding that the only good is

‘I

pleasure and one ought always to seek it, he is confronted with ne
fact that wlienever pleasure itself is the object sought it cannot be
found. Human nature is such that pleasure normally arises as an
accomp minent of satisfaction of desire for an end ex :cept when that
end is pleasure itself. Paradoxically, the way to attain pleasure

is not to seek for it, but for something else which when found will
have yielded pleas‘re through the finding. And similarly, one should
m.

iot seek to av moidn p-in, but only actions which produce pain. inere

is a psycholo; ice.l reason for this. leasure normally follows upon

A

the sat 'i: 3fc;ction of desires. But the pursuit or pleasure, for its
.0

own sake, means the deliberate stimulation 01 the instir ctive and

sensuous tendencies that underlie these desires, and such deliberate

119

stimulation results inevitc oly in satiety and the dm lling of our

0 stimuli. 1here is a great WlSdOH in rec03nizing,

Fl)
H

sens1tivit uy
as did Epicurus, he truth that what we call happiness is a by-
product of a ri ah and fully lived e: :istence, and to tuin from

life itself to its by-products brings with it dtime tely disillus-

ionment and pes w1.ism.

If we define a paradox as an Opinion or an event that appears
self—contran He tory, 1e undeserved su11er1n s of the innocent is
pared xical. "hen we view the relation of Yahveh to His peeple,
the problem of evil becomes especially perplexing in later Hebrew
thought. What explanation can be given for th apparently undeser-

veE sufferine of rifiiteous men? This is the central problem in th

‘LA

Book of Job as Tsanoff indicates:

"If, with Job's three friends, we judge the t affliction is
always puni hment for sin, we reason a3 ainst plain and ab-
undrm at experience in men' s lives. If, with Satan, we spec~
ulate that God brin n3s calamity to men in order to test their

rirhteousness, we mev be mel1~n1ng God, Whose omnipotence
would scarcely seem to rec lire, or His perfect goodness to
permit, any uch experiments at good men's expense. But
Satan's ques tion me; yet be the decisive one:'Doth Job fear
God for nought?‘ Though the tragedy of Job remains in his
anguished search for a theodicy, for a view of God‘s treat—
ment of him that would not reflect on God's unwavering just-
ice, yet Job's own un shaken moral resolution reveals that
he does not serve God for nou~et. Unable to grasp a new
view of God nor yet to fbandon th‘ e old one, he holds fast

to his rig hteousness."
We should face the fact, I believe, based upon empirical obser»
vation, that prosperity is not always the lot of the wicked, and misery
always the portion of the good, as some pessimists so falselv generalize.

Ilany :;ood.pe0ple enjoy hee.lth, wealth, social and political preeminence,

l Tsanoff, horel Ideals of Our Civilization, E.P. Dutton Co., 19MB,
P

120

while nary wicked people suffer sickness, poverty, diS5race, imprison-
ment aid painful death. Happiness is not always to be measured by
mere externals. Poverty does not always mean suffering, nor does
wealth always insure happiness. It would be interesting to know the
ratio of suicides among the wealthy as compared wi h that among the
middle-income and lower-income groups. It would not be surprisina
to learn that the number of suicides among the wealthv was as larse
or even larger preportionately, than the n‘nber of uicidal deaths

among the lower income groups.

One of the answers to the problem of why a just God.permits
innocent men and women to suffer ruin and every sort of evil, and
why wicked men often seem to prosper, has been given by Joseph de
Maistre (lYBM-lSZl) a.French philosopher of the romanticist school.
He reasoned that God had established certain necessary relations
between the natural and the moral order. This life is a tine of
trial, during which a man must prove himself worthy of the eternal
happiness that God metes out to those who serve Hit. The sufferings
of the good, therefore, are to be regarded as punishment for sin.

De Maistre held that this punishment was meant for mankind, not
specifically for any individual. Just as soldiers may not all die

in battle but all are yet there to die, so all men are subject to
certain ailments which may not afflict every man. Should man expect
a.miracle in return for his goodness of life, demanding that the just
man drink poison with no ill effects, or the wicked man, because he
is wicked, should be struck dead by the remedy that should normally
heal his body? God does reward and punish, with perfect justice, de

haistre contended, but not in such haste as to disrupt the natural

order which He has established. Not all prosperity is divine blessing,
nor all suffering a punishment for sin. This answer I cannot accept
as satisfactory, however, for as long as one innocent pprson, out of
all the worldls millions, bears injustice, misery and other evils,

the problem still remains unanswered.

Catholicism, which de Maistre sought to revive in eirhteenth
century France” does not pretend to give an adequate solution to the
problem of evil. Her philosophers and theologians consider it a
mystery not to be understood in man's earthly existence. But Catholi-

J.

cism condemns, in no uncertain terms, what she considers false solut-
ions to the problem of evil; the dualism of ancient Zoroastrianism,
which taught the existence of two equal principles, a good and a bad,
combating continually against each other; the fundamental pessimism

of schopenhauer and.Von Hartmann, which declared the world too evil

to be the product of a good God; the metaphysical Optimism of a Leib—
niz, which held that this evil-stained universe was the best of all
absolutely possible worlds; the will-to-power Optimism of Kietzsche
which denounced Christianity as a slave moralitv. TheolOgians contend
that God certainly does not intend physical evils for their own sake,
for an Infinitely Intelligent God cannot mistakenly apprehend evil as
good, and an Infinitely Good God cannot take pleasure in the misery and

ferings of His creatures.

.9

SILL

Gandhi, the Hindu mystic, commenting upon the problem of suffering
stated that it is the mark f the human tribe, an eternal law. The
mother suffers so that her child may live. Life comes out of death;

the condition of wheat growing is that the seed grain should perish.

122

No country has ever risen without being purified through the fire
of suffering; progress is to be measured by the amount of suffering
undergone, the purer the suffering, the greater is the progress.
But Gandhi makes God the author of evil;

" I cannot account for the existence of evil by any
rational method. To want to do so is to be co-equal
with God. I am therefore, humble enough to rec03nize
evil as such, and I call God long-suffering and pat-
ient precisely because He permits evil in the world.

I know that He has no evil in Himself, and yet if
there is evil He is the author of it and vet untouched
d
by it."
Let us consider evil as of two kinds: evil that may be suffered
and evil that may be done. The evil that mav be suffered we will call
physical evil; that whi h may be done, moral evil. Actually, it may

be impossible to disjoin the two, but for our present discussion we

will consider them separately, for they belonr to distinct categories,

‘3

physical evil may be cons1dered incidental, occasional or relative and
we might term it negative or privative. Moral evil, on the other hand,
is positive and is actual rather than relative. Taken in a large sense
of embracing the historv of a peeple or the collective fortunes of a
race, physical evil may be endured or suffered either by the innocent
or by the guilty, and its being and function may be, in both cases,

equally natural and necessary.

Physical evil 2 may be divided into three classes: First, those
shidh arise from man's relation to nature and nature's to man: Second,

‘ 0

those which are native to his own being: Third, those inflicted upon him

 

by inflicted upon him by his fellow man, whether ancestors or contemp-

oraries.

 

1 Quoted in John Gunther's book, Inside Asia, Harper &2Bros., 1939, p.367.

2 For much of data I am indebted to Professor DeHaan for ermission to
follow the material in his forthcoming boox,.A Call to eflection.

 

123

To the first class belong those evils whidh result from the dest-
ructive forces of nature; storm, hurricane, earthquake etc.. The
terrible disasters caused by Japanese earthquakes or a South Pacific
tidal—wave raise m- v doubts as to the wisdom or goodness of God and
are more damaging than the scepticism of the eighteenth century philo-
sophers. When nature fails to respond to the work of man, famines
result. Droughts, insect invasion, and soil-erosion may destroy man's
efforts to provide himself with food. then man neglects nature, and
refuses to obey her laws, pestilence and epidemics of disease follow

with death in a.hundred forms of slow or swift certainty.

It is important that in considering natural or physical evils
we hesitate before deciding that nature acts alone. We should consider
just how far nature is reSponsible and how far man may be held to blame
in the evils that develop. The number of evils caused by man's own
ignorance or deliberate violation of natural laws constitutes an ends
less series. Soil-erosion often results from man's greed or his lazi-
ness; pestilences are usually man's fault; accidents are usually ere

plicable in terms of man's own failure to exercise caution.

Even the natural forces which often work to man's disaster, can
be turned into his most beneficent aids if he will but study and master
them, and the more man studies the secrets of nature the greater the
mastery he attains. We cannot but marvel wzen we reflect how man has
arnessed the forces of nature and set limits upon its destructive pow—
er. But before he an control these forces, he must learn obedience
to natural laws. Much of civilization is the result of this educative

process, man learning to obey the laws of nature and then in turn com-

manding nature by obeying her own laws.

By imitating the methods of nature and by calculating her forces,
man has learned how to navigate upon the seas of earth; to fly the
sky-lanes; to sow and reap the harvest. The awful power of a bolt of
lightening and the surge of mighty rivers have been harnessed and turn-
ed to man's use, to light his cities and to provide heat and p wer to

1

add to his comfort and to lessen his labors.

It cannot be denied, however, that nature can also inflict suffer-
ing on ma.. But these sufferings have also helped to educate him so
that he has become more humane. He has learned that he must help his
fellow men who suffer at nature's hands. When pestilence comes, or
when shipwreck or disaster strikes, man is able to brave nature's
wrath because, knowing her amful power and the fear that she can strike
into the hearts of those she smites, man can brave danger in pity for
those who are threatened. Famine has taught man to share his goods
with those less fortunate and it is only the most perverted and self-
iSh who will refuse aid to those who bear nature's wrath. In medieval
times pestilence was dreadful, for it aroused, by the fear of contagr
ion and the horror of death, the fiercest passions that can burn in
man's breast, but the more men have penetrated into nature's secrets,
the more they have learned their community of interests and that u.at
affects their neighbor can easily affect them for no man can isolate
himself entirely from the society in which he moves. No man is ever
completely isolated but is always a group member, and as such he is
affected by the group and in turn originates action to them. Nature
has indeed been here a great educator in human pity and helpfulness;
the very suffering he has inflicted has disciplined man and turned

him to compassiOn. The people who enslaved the negro learned through

125

the penal consefluences tiat followed to thems lves from their own
act the humanity of the men they had enslaveL. fie slowly discover

he men who dis-

F!)

that the secrets of nature are not the property 0

covered tlem, but of the whole race. I must cunit, however, that

this poses but a feeble answer to the problem.

In the second class, the evils that are native to man‘s own

being, we can include thirst, desire, hunger, birth pangs and death

H

struggle and through all of man's earthly existence the insatiab e

yearning for happiness and peace. One of the greatest frustrations

('1‘

man experiences is the result of his knowledge the his life is so
brief, - many of the lower animals live longer on earth than he does,
and such inanimate objects as stones 2 d trees and brooks endure long-
er on the face of the earth than his short span. Death seems man's
greatest ignominy, - to know that one day the body which houses our
inner being must be placed beneath the earth and become the food of

worms, a thing to rot and decay until nothing but a handful of dust

that can be scattered by a gust of breeze remains, - this is the most

(

1‘

painful sting of mortality. Death strikes not only the individual

who e life is ended, but it toudhes with its pall of gloom and lonli-

U)

ness innocent and helpless lives that would otherwise probably be

appy. Is not death the greatest irony of mortal existence? What man,
whether he looks to an eternity or whether he regards death as the
complete and absolute end of his being, can await with calmness and
equanimity the certain approach of the hour of his own demise? But

is death an evil?

To those philosophers who do not regard life per se as a.value,

death cannot be a disvalue, for if they refuse to recognise life as

‘

a good, then death, which is the natural ending of that life, cannot

be re3arded as evil. Schopenhauer regards existence as an evil, yet he
bemoans tile fact that "every evening we are poorer by a day." Should
he not have said that we are "ridher" as each day passes, for with the
passing of each day man approaches the end of life, which to the pee si—
mist is so unpleasant and undesirable, bringing man closer to SchOpen-

hauers hope and dream, Nirvana.

But let us consider, empirically, if death has brought any values
with it; I will not even attempt to prove thatd ath is not an evil -
let tliose who look ulon it as good defend their own proposition. While
deaths per se is evil, if we accept life per se as good, for it is the
privation of existence or at least of the ontological base or carrier
of other goods, it must be admit ted that it has acCentm ted certain
v Jues that man mirit otherwise i3nore Death gives a new meaning to
life; time takes on a new value; affection, because of its brevity
takes on a nobler aspect; and the simplest things of life stand out
in oold relie e1 as bein3 good. A man who expects that the nex t m's
sunrise will be his last, but who suddenly receives a reprieve at the
last moment, can treasure such simple things as the morning dew on the
grass, or the smell of newamown he‘, or the glory of an autumn sunset,
whereas, all his life long he may have looked upon these thin3s as
commonplace or without value. The pe miaist finds life boring and dull,
either because of neurotic or other physiological conditions, or because
he anticipates economic hardships bece .use of over—population, mechani-
aation, or rampant utilitarianism; or he may hold a despairing attitude
because of lack of religious faith which usually turns a.man's attention

L

from his present woes to a.hone for future amelioration.

127

Death can breathe into life a sgirit out or which all tra 3ic
and heroic thin3s can come, and it can add a glory and grandeur to life
that will give it new meaniz 3. Even the thoug 1t of the loss that
death brings to those who must remain behind, touches with tenderness
all the relations of life, for before loss can be felt, possession
must first have been felt. Hi3§1t it not be true that those who love
the livin3 feel life to De the more va uaole oecaus e it is so trans-

itory? Death does no injustice to the individual because no man is

exempt from it.

We turn our consideration to the third class of evils, those
men s"ffers from his fellowhm an. Serious reflection will serve to
convince the ooserver that these are indeed infinitely va1ster, darker
and more terrible the- the s*tu ferin3 s man suffers from the hand of
nature. Greed, vanity, lust, ambition and ne3lect are just as devast-

I

ature' s evils. When the atom bomb blasted the life

to
P1
1
e
1
O
H)
:3
I"1

at1n3 a
out of hiroshima in an 11stant of hell and pain, it was man's inhuman-
ity to man, not any act of nature, that brought thiseyil into existence.

And no amount of rationali ation or casuistry can ever justify the

sla 3hter of innocent beings in time of war, for war is never just,
unless it is permis aole to do positive evil that a problematic and
highly controversial "good" may result. has any direct act of nature,
in her most deva statin3 fury equaled the evil that man's own greed for
territory,\ trealth, po 7er and political and economic dominance has forced
upon mankind! While these th n3< s may be physical in form, they are

ethical in their si3n11ficance and in their conseQuences.

J.

”9 mi_ht enumerate other evils of a 1331021 Htur that are

128

ihilicted on men.by man; evils that result from the relations of the
sexes; evils that Sprin3 from the social constitution an) civil re-
lations of man as he is organized into communities, states and nations;

evils that develOp out of man's need to work that he might live, and

the economic and industrial complications that result from this need.

Chile it must be admitted that mankind has not yet learned the

ways to live at peace and in concord with his fellowhman, it must be

admitted that the 3rowth in civilization may be measured by the limit-
ations tEat lave been progressively laid upon his power to harm others.
The sense of the harm man could do to man has possessed the individual
conscience with fear, and has armed the social conscience with all its

sanCtions and almost all its terrors. But while evil and pain do exist,

they do have a purpose.

It is this problem that has occupied the attention of Moritz
Schlick who proposes that he calls "the lav of contrast." .As he has
formulated it, this porposition states that "neverhending c‘tates of
pleasure could not be felt as such (thus really would not be such)
unless they were interrupted by pain: as, for example, the Pytha3oreaus
supposed that we did not hear the music of the spheres, solely because
they sounded a continuous monotone." 1 He continues to develop this

dea as follows:

Ho

"......even thou3h here we cannot offer a proof, it
still seems to be a fact of experience (I am of course
not altogether sure of it) that the most profound joys
of life are actually not possible unless, previously,
3rave feelings of pain have been experienced. It seems

 

l Schlich, 3., Problems of Ethics. Prentice-Hall. H'Y" 19

 

129

that the soul reguires then in order to become
receptive of the sublinest pleasures....A life

"Ifinr

such as the modest poet fibrike placed for:
Wollest nit Freuden
Und sollest mit Leiden
Mich nicht fibers hfltten!
- dooh in der Mitten
Liegt Holdes Bescheiden....

could not be truly great, not because it lacked
the deepest suffering, but because of the absence
of the greatest joys, the path to which seems

indeed to lead only through pain."

Contending that the value of suffering was unknown to the

ancients, Eicolai Hartmann states that when judged from the point
of view of the hedonist, suffering and pain must be considered
t03ether as evil, and that Christianity is largely responsible
for the view of suffering as producing an elevating and liberat-
ing effect. Hartmann writes that suffering leaves the man in-
capable of suffering “broken, warped morally, disfigured and
weakened" and that for him suffering is a disvlaue. But for the
man who has a capacity to suffer, his power of endurance, his

"humanity" and his morality grow under it:

"Suffering is the energy-test of a moral being,
the load—test of his elasticity. hot only is
there no prostration, but suffering also leads
to no more resistance, or endurance or moral

elf-assertion; there is much rather an actual

liberation, an awakening of a deeper moral power

- a might of a.hi3her order, as compared with
that of activity. For exactly when all activity
is destroyed, then sgrength sets in, the positive

ability to suffer."

In facing the problem of evil and attempting to give an

 

1 Ibid., pp. l35§136
2 Hartz'.1ann, Nicolai, op. cit., pp. 139-1140.

answer to the Question, "How an it be possible that a good and
onnipotent Deity allows evil to exist in the worlC.?", St. Tho.t1as Acui—

q

nas holds that evil has no direct cause, but only an accidental

4.

cause; that evil "which consists in the lefecu of action is always
caused by the defect of the agent." 1 But, Aquinas argues, since God

is perfect, He cannot be the cause of evil. He contends that God did
not intend physical evils for their own sake, for an Infinitely Intell-
i pent God neces 11y loves His own goodness. han's service is a free
service; he is not a mere automaton or slave. The freedom of the will
that man possesses necessarily involves the possibility of evil. Creat-
ures by their very existence involve evil, as shadows are involved

by the existence of objects that intercept the light of the sun. There-
fore, even an Omnipotent God could not exclude evil from creation,

though He is not its direct c uuse. While these contentions tend to
1i; Hte the burden of divine responsibility for moral evil, it does

not completely solve the mystery of its presence in the world. The

problem of evil still remains unsolved by the Scholastic writers.

arena v

COHCLUSICH: P3333 II SI.I I THE BALANCE

It is common enough to characterize pessimism as an
error and therefore as a philosophy to be assiduously avoi Me ,
as though it were a thing of evil. If we are objective in our
evaluation of pessimism as a philosoghy, we must admit that it
certainly has elements of worth. It takes a serious view of the
vils of life, and that is a.matter on which too serious a.view
is hardlv possible. There is something admirable in nor al in
nation againSt sufferin3 and ev vil and in the protest against many
of the admittedly ineQuitable events of life Then too, we should
rec03nize thct a pessimist like SchOpenhauer has not simply inC Mu
ing his own cynical mood, nor merely initatin3 the ideologies of
the Orient, but representing a deep underlying philos0phy of his
time. Our idea of the necessity of things, our belief in physical

law 31d order, and the 1nexorable connection between cause and effect,

has seriously affected our view of life and of evil.

It would be an error to ignore the fact that there is little

q

anpiness for a lar e part of the world's inhabitants toCov. Few

,.

{3‘

peOple have the keenness of ins1i3ht or he moral sensitivity to realize
that evils abound. ,A shallow and superficial optimism in national and
international conditions toC ay may be the worst possible philosOphy

for a people who hope to live in freedom, eq:ality and justice

As Professor DeHaan has observed,1 there are other things to

 

1 In the chapter on The Problem of Evil, in his forthcoming book.

be said for the pessimistic philosophy: frus retiozl is usrally
more keenly felt than satisfaction; there are more numerous desires

tbs saticfa ctiozms man has the tendency to idealize things, rather

than facing reality, and this often results in Lisillusionment; m3
often reaps the rewards of his labors when it is too late for him
to enjoy them suf‘1icient y. Admitted; , these facts are often to
be found in even the most pleasant life, ye et evil usually merges

into good, - pe miiiszi often turns to Optimism. Somerset haugham
has ooserved t1 lat it is a mistake to characteriz men as being of

one nature or temperament, and it would be wrong to imagine that

a pessimist is never Optimistic, or an Optimist ever pessimistic:

"”he normal is w113t you find but rarely. The normal

is an ideal. It is a picture that one fabricates of
the avera e c.m -‘acteristics of men, and to find them
all in a single man is hardly to be expected....this
(is) a false pi ture...sclfi3s1ness and kindlines s,
id.ealism and. sensuality, vanity, slmrness, disinterest-
edness, courage, laziness, nervousness, oos tina , and
diffidence, they can all exist in a single person and
form a.plausible harmony....I suppose it is a natural
prepossession of mankind to take peOple as though they
were homogeneous. It is evidently less trouble to make
up one‘s mind about a man one way or the other and dis-
miss suspense with the phrase, hgfs one of the best or
he's a dirty do.. It is disconcerting to find that the
saviour of his country may be stingy or that the poet
who has Opened new horizons to our consciousness may

be a snob."

 

Certainly, the se 11s is true of pes simists, unless they are

pathological; it is uncommon to find philosophers who will accept

the extremest type of pessimism, and even the philosophical Optimist,

may in some aspects tend toward pessimism. While Christianity has
a dism 1 view of the phenomenal world because of ori 3inzl sin, it

also ultimately emerges as optimistic. As Tsanoff comments on the

 

. all
1 La gham, op. Clto. PP- ho_49

"‘1 O

pessimism of SchOpenhauer, “it is a mystery of good, and its

solution demands a thoroughgoing revision of his metaphysics and
cosmology. Deeper and more ultimate than Schopenhauer‘s pessimism

is his doctrine of salvation." 1,As has been stated previously, under
the influence of sorrow, suffering, and disappointment, the optimist

becomes for the time being a.pessimist, and finds life unprofitable.

The endeavor to justify pessimism by drawing up a calculus of
pleasures and pains, and by showing that on the balance the pains
are far in excess of the pleasures, is not successf‘ . The difficult—
ies in the way of formulating such a calculus are impossible to sur-
mount. Nor will it help matters to venture on the generalization that
pain is the positive element, and that pleasure merely denotes the
absence of pain. Psychologically, this theory is false. Many pleas-
ures are certainly positive. In this respect, Schopenhauer errs, for
every human being has experience of weariness and suffering; but there
are few who cannot set over against this times of great hag;iness,
hours of satisfaction with tasks being completed. Heed does not
necessarily mean misery; and there ma* be a pleasure in satisfying wants
although the satisfaction is not final and complete. Usually, it is
not desire that makes men unhappy, but desire for the wrong things
and people do not become pessimistic because they have hoped and striven,
but because they have done so in vain. Schopenhauer attempts to just-
ify his pessimism by pointing to the Spectre of endless desire. But
We have only to ask ourselves whether human beings would enjoy a.hi§her
d gree of well-being were there nothing left to desire, to see the

error. A human life devoid of striving and aspiration would not be

 

l Tsanoff, The Nature of Evil, pp. 301 -302.

 

Q

great or good, - it would be mean and brutisn.

r]
U)
1
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O
i- l)
P i)
H.
0‘)
Ho
L5
0
(3
d
O
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P.
d.
H o
0
w

to this last view and takes a "grad-

atioaal view of evil" and holds that there is no coming to terms
with it. But he finds that pessimism may have an Opposite effect

than that anticipated:

"The only view of the world that might justify pessimistic
despair would be a view that perceived no evil in it, no-
thing perverse, nothing lower to surmount or overcome, and
therefore nothing higher to challenge our endeavor: no
problem, no task, no hazard of defeat or frustration: dull,
placid monotony! There is a reported saying of Machiavelli:
'The worst misfortune in life is not sickness, nor poverty,
nor grief; but tediousness.' Pessimistic philosophy... may
have the reverse effect of that intended by the pessimist:
it may be a goad to the sluggish. Evil and the perception of
it are conditions for’heroic recognition and pursuit of
Value, be it truth, beauty, goodness; for 'powers subjected
to no strain...atrophy and eventually disappear.‘ In this
sense evil is always only relative to good; but paradoxically,
if we refuse to perceive and resist it as evil, then it be-
comes evil absolute and utterly damns the very man who makes
his peace with it."

The pure Optimist steadily regards the other side of the picture
and minimizes the evils of life. That there are evils he cannot deny,
but suffering he thinks, is easily outweighed in the scale of happi-
ness. There are several considerations, however, which the Optimist
overlooks. For one thing it is not by any means clear, that the era
perienced feeling of happiness increases sdth civilization. To us
the life of the savage seems short and brutish, but the savage him-
self does not feel it to be so, and he is probably as happy in his
own way as the civilized man in his wax. heither would willingly
change places with the other. We must also remember that while

advancing civilization enables man to satisfy we.ts which, at an

 

h N ‘ ‘ ‘
l Tsanorf, The dature of Evil, pp. LOO-401

 

135

earlier and ruder sta3e, he could not do, it does not follow that
this means a net increase in huian happiness. rO3ress in civil-
ization creates new desires calling for satisfaction, and modern

man is made m1s able and frustrated by the absence of some luxury

or comfort which his ancestors were perfectly content to do vithout.
With all the at tempts at meliorism, the sufferin3s caused by Op1ression,
so familiar in the ancient and medieval world, have not been banished
from modern society - they have merely taken on new forms. When riot
and anarchy break loose in a civilized community today, we catch a
glimpse of the primitive passions that slumber not far beneath the
"prOper" appearing surface of society. Consciousness of these things

should m&”e us wary of exuberant Optimism.

What then is the solution to the problems posed by the pessimist,
if solution there be? C,.n I hOpe to give an anSt er to the riddle of
the ages when such great minds as the Hebrew prOphets, Christian apolo-
gists, medieval Scholastics, Schopenhauer, Taubert, von Hartmann, Leo-

H

pardi and hosts Of others have failed to provide a sati “I ctory sol ution?
To attempt to do so would indeed be intri b1ing , but to presu axe to clai
any original and satisfactory solution would be presumptious and fool-
hardy. I can but point to a philosopher who seems (to me at lea st) to
come closest to providing a solution, - Aristotle. While there is no
evidence that Aristotle himself would.apply his "Golden Mean“ to the
conflict bet veen Pessimism and Optimism, I would like to propose that

it betsed to avoid the extremes of thought, which like extremes in

virtue or vice, lead to an unbalanced and unhappy life. The extremes

of pessimism and of Opti..ism oot11 seem inadeQuate and fail to view

1136

Truth seems to stand some-

existence in all of its varied aspects.
where between these two extremes, and an application of Aristotle's

"Golden Mean" appears most satisfactory.

********#*

BIBLIOGRAPHY

137

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