willing. The perfect or well-rounded man is not one in whom the intellectual faculties are developed at the expense of the emotional and volitional elements, but one who knows, feels, and wills in a normal manner. Besides, it cannot be said that we know nothing and can know nothing, nor can it be said that we are growing more ignorant in the course of history. We may not be able to discover the ultimate essences of things, or to solve all the riddles of existence, but our knowledge is sufficient to guide us in the practical affairs of life. We are gaining a deeper insight into the workings of nature, and our power over the world is increasing in consequence. The wonderful progress that has been made in modern technics is undoubtedly due to our improved knowledge of the laws of the physical universe, and it is safe to predict that we shall make even greater advances along these lines in the future. But we have learned from experience in all departments of life, and are doing our work much better than it has been done in the past, and succeeding generations will most likely improve upon our methods.

5. Emotional Pessimism. is also open to criticism.

This form of pessimism Let us see. Pleasure or happiness is the highest good. Life does not procure it for us; hence life is not good. But pleasure is

not the end of life, as we have already pointed out; pleasure or happiness is a means to a higher end and a part of that end. However, let us waive this point,

and examine the other statement, the one that life yields more pain than pleasure. There are two possible ways of arguing for the truth of this assertion. We must either show, by reference to experience, that the world is a vale of tears, which would give us an inductive proof; or we must prove on a priori grounds that life cannot possibly be happy, that human nature and the very universe itself are so constituted as to preclude the possibility of such a thing.

(1) Now, I ask, can either proof be furnished? Pessimists are fond of telling us that life yields a surplus of pain, that the balance is on the pain side of the ledger. But it is impossible to make the necessary calculations in this field. Take your own individual existence. Can you say that a particular pain is more painful than a particular pleasure is pleasurable? Then can you add up the different pleasures and pains which you have experienced during a single day or hour of your life, and compare the results? And can you, in like manner, compute the pleasures and pains of your entire life, and say that your pains exceed your pleasures? And if you cannot give a safe estimate of the pleasures and pains of your own life, with which you are reasonably familiar, how can you make the calculations for others, and for the entire race, and say that they suffer more than they enjoy? How can you say that the amount of pleasure realized by one individual is counterbalanced or exceeded by the pain suffered by another?

(2) The great German pessimist, Schopenhauer, attempts to prove deductively, from the nature of man's will, that life yields more pains than pleasures. Life consists of blind cravings which are painful so long as they are not satisfied. When I desire a thing and do not get it, I am miserable; when I get it I am satisfied for a moment, and then desire something else, and am miserable again. I am never permanently satisfied; I am constantly yearning for something I do not possess; there is a worm in every flower. "Every human life oscillates between desire and fulfilment. Wishes are by their very nature painful; their realization soon sates us; the goal was but an illusion; possession takes away the desire, but the wish reappears under a new form; if not, emptiness, hollowness, ennui, Langeweile, results, which is as much of a torture as want.”1 I go on hoping for better things day in, day out, but they never come. One illusion merely gives way to another. I keep on longing and longing until the angel of death takes pity on me and folds me under his wing. Each particular day brings me nearer to the grave, the awful end of it all. Touchstone is right when he soliloquizes :—

"It is ten o'clock.

Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;

And after an hour more 'twill be eleven;

1 Schopenhauer's Works, Frauenstädt's edition, The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I, p. 370.

And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe;
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale!"

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We are like shipwrecked mariners who struggle and struggle to save their wearied bodies from the terrible waves, only to be engulfed in them at last.1 “The life of most men," says Schopenhauer, "is but a continuous struggle for existence, a struggle which they are bound to lose at last.2" Every breath we draw is a protest against the Death which is constantly threatening us, and against which we are fighting every second. But Death must conquer after all, for we are his by birth, and he simply plays with his prey a little while before devouring it. We, however, take great pains to prolong our lives as far as we can, just as we blow soap-bubbles as long and as large as possible, though we know with absolute certainty that they must break at last." In an old poem by William Drummond a similar thought is expressed :

"This life which seems so fair,

Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,

Who chase it everywhere

And strive who can most motion it bequeath.

And though it sometimes seem of its own might
Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light.

1 The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I, p. 369. ·

2 Ib., p. 368.

3 Ib., p. 367.

- But in that pomp it doth not long appear; For when 'tis most admired, in a thought,

Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought."

Another proof of the futility of life is this: Happiness is a purely negative quantity. It can never be realized except by the satisfaction of a desire. With the satisfaction of the desire, however, the desire itself, and with it the pleasure, ceases. Hence the satisfaction of desire or happiness can mean nothing but liberation from pain or want.1 To quote Schopenhauer again : "We feel pain, but not painlessness; we feel care, but not freedom from care; fear, but not security. We feel the wish as we feel hunger and thirst; but as soon as it is fulfilled, it is much the same as with the agreeable morsel, which, the very moment it is swallowed, ceases to exist for our sensibility. We miss painfully our pleasures and joys as soon as they fail us; but pains are not immediately missed even when they leave us, after tarrying long with us, but at most we remember them voluntarily by means of reflection. For only pain and want can be felt positively, and so announce themselves as something really present; happiness, on the contrary, is simply negative. Accordingly, we do not appreciate the three greatest goods of life, health, youth, and freedom, as long as we possess them, but only after we have lost them; for these also are negations. That certain days of our life were happy ones, we recog

1 The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I, p. 376.