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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4754-8.txt b/4754-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46349c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/4754-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1163 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of Despair, by David Starr Jordan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Philosophy of Despair + +Author: David Starr Jordan + +Posting Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #4754] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 12, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR *** + + + + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +The Philosophy of Despair + + + +by + +David Starr Jordan + + + + + To + John Maxson Stillman + In Token of Good Cheer + + + + + A darkening sky and a whitening sea, + And the wind in the palm trees tall; + Soon or late comes a call for me, + Down from the mountain or up from the sea, + Then let me lie where I fall. + + And a friend may write--for friends there be, + On a stone from the gray sea wall, + "Jungle and town and reef and sea-- + I loved God's Earth and His Earth loved me, + Taken for all in all." + + + +Today is your day and mine, the only day we have, the day in which we +play our part. What our part may signify in the great whole, we may not +understand, but we are here to play it, and now is our time. This we +know, it is a part of action, not of whining. It is a part of love, not +cynicism. It is for us to express love in terms of human helpfulness. +This we know, for we have learned from sad experience that any other +course of life leads toward decay and waste. + + + + +The Philosophy of Despair + + + +The Bubbles of Sáki. + + +From Fitzgerald's exquisite version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, I +take the following quatrains which may serve as a text for what I have +to say: + + So when the angel of the darker Drink + At last shall find you by the river-brink, + And offering you his cup, invite your Soul + Forth to your lips to quaff, you shall not shrink. + + Why, if the soul can fling the Dust aside, + And naked on the air of Heaven ride, + Wert not a shame--wert not a shame for him + In this clay carcase crippled to abide? + + 'Tis but a tent where takes his one-day's rest + A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; + The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrásh + Strikes, and prepares it for another guest. + + And fear not lest Existence, closing your + Account, and mine, shall know the like no more; + The Eternal Sáki from that bowl hath pour'd + Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour. + + When you and I behind the veil are past, + Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last, + Which of our coming and departure heeds + As the Sev'n Seas shall heed a pebble-cast. + + A moment's halt--a momentary taste + Of Being from the Well amid the waste, + And lo!--the phantom caravan has reach'd + The Nothing it set out from--O, make haste! + + * * * + + There was the door to which I found no key; + There was the veil through which I could not see: + Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee + There was--and then no more of Thee and Me. + + * * * + + Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd + Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust + Like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn + Are scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust. + + With them the seed of wisdom did I sow, + And with my own hand wrought to make it grow + And this was all the harvest that I reap'd-- + "I come like water, and like wind I go." + + * * * + + Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspire + To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire, + Would we not shatter it to bits--and then + Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire! + + Yon rising Moon that looks for us again-- + How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; + How oft hereafter rising look for us + Through this same garden--and for one in vain! + + And when like her, O Sáki, you shall pass + Among the guests, star-scattered on the grass, + And in your blissful errand reach the spot + Where I made one--turn down an empty glass! + + * * * + +And, again, in another poem from Carmen Silva's Roumanian folk-songs: + + Hopeless. + + Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me, + Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun." + + We sat beneath our tent; + Then he that hath no hope drew near us there, + And sat him down by us. + We asked him: "Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?" + And he made answer: "I have seen them all." + And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt, + Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart, + Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart-- + The heart was gone. + And yet he trembled not, the while we looked, + And sought the heart, the heart that was not there. + He let us look. And he that had no hope + Smiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs. + Then we did envy him, that he could sing + Without a heart to suffer what he sang. + And when he went, he cast his cloak about him, + And those that met him, they could never guess + How that his shirt was torn about the heart, + And that his breast was pierced above the heart, + And that the heart was gone. + + I gazed into the mist, and fear came on me, + Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun." + +This poem of Omar and of Fitzgerald is perhaps our best expression of +the sadness and the grandeur of insoluble problems. It is the sweetness +of philosophical sorrow which has no kinship with misery or distress. In +the strains of the saddest music the soul finds the keenest delight. The +same sweet, sorrowful pleasure is felt in the play of the mind about the +riddles which it cannot solve. + +In the presence of the infinite problem of life, the voice of Science is +dumb, for Science is the coördinate and corrected expression of human +experience, and human experience must stop with the limitations of human +life. Man was not present "When the foundations of the Earth were laid," +and beyond the certainty that they were laid in wisdom and power, man +can say little about them. Man finds in the economy of nature "no trace +of a beginning; no prospect of an end!" He may feel sure, with Hutton, +that "time is as long as space is wide." But he cannot conceive of space +as actually without limit, nor can he imagine any limiting conditions. +He cannot think of a period before time began, nor of a state in which +time shall be no more. The mind fails before the idea of time's eternal +continuity. So time becomes to man merely the sequence of the earthly +events in which he and his ancestors have taken part. Even thus limited +it is sadly immortal, while man's stay on the earth is but of "few days +and full of trouble." "Oh, but the long, long while this world shall +last!" or as the grim humorist puts it, "we shall be a long time dead." + +Though the meaning of time, space, existence lies beyond our reach, yet +some sort of solution of the infinite problem the human heart demands. +We find in life a power for action, limited though this power may be. +Life is action, and action is impossible if devoid of motive or hope. + +It is my purpose here to indicate some part of the answer of Science to +the Philosophy of Despair. Direct reply Science has none. We cannot +argue against a singer or a poet. The poet sings of what he feels, but +Science speaks only of what we know. We feel infinity, but we cannot +know it, for to the highest human wisdom the ultimate truths of the +universe are no nearer than to the child. Science knows no ultimate +truths. These are beyond the reach of man, and all that man knows must +be stated in terms of his experience. But as to human experience and +conduct, Science has a word to say. + +Therefore Science can speak of the causes and results of Pessimism. It +can touch the practical side of the riddle of life by asking certain +questions, the answers to which lie within the province of human +experience. Among these are the following: + +Why is there a "Philosophy of Despair?" + +Can Despair be wrought into healthful life? + +In what part of the Universe are you and what are you doing? + +Personal despair or discouragement may rise from failure of strength or +failure of plans. This is a matter of every-day occurrence. The "best +laid schemes o' mice and men" generally go wrong, no doubt, but this +fact has little to do with the Philosophy of Pessimism. It is natural +for mice and men to try again and to gain wisdom from failures. "By the +embers of loss we count our gains." + +The Pessimism of Youth we may first consider: In the transition from +childhood to manhood great changes take place in the nervous system. +There is for a time a period of confusion, in which the nerve cells are +acquiring new powers and new relations. This is followed by a time of +joy and exuberance, a sense of a new life in a new world, a feeling of +new power and adequacy, the thought that life is richer and better worth +living than the child could have supposed. + +To this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have been +a thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part +of a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speeches +made up for us centuries before we were born." The new power of manhood +and womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As +our own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it, +so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic. +Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass +through a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation +caught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find +expression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned +down his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that took +the starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth," says Zangwill, +"says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear had +it been alive." With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its +expression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair. + +This adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mood +disappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanishes +with the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad of +the drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuous +life. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome. + +But if action is impossible, the mood remains. And here arises the +despair of the highly educated. The purpose of knowledge is action. But +to refuse action is to secure time for the acquisition of more +knowledge. It is written in the very structure of the brain that each +impression of the senses must bring with it the impulse to act. To +resist this impulse is in turn to destroy it and to substitute a dull +soul-ache in its place. "Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and the +experience of all the ages brings only despair if it cannot be wrought +into life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the +main element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others has +been uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures which +arise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire for +more intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirst +for these comes ever deeper discouragement. + +At the best, the tendency of large knowledge, not vitalized by practical +experience, is to spend itself in cynical criticism, in futile efforts +to tear down without feeling the higher obligation to build up. For it +is the essence of this form of Pessimism to feel that there is nothing +on earth worth the trouble of building. The real is only a "sneering +comment" on the ideal, and man's life is too short to make any action +worth while. + + "With her the seed of Wisdom did I sow, + And with mine own hands wrought to make it grow; + And this is all the harvest that I reap'd, + 'I come like water, and like wind I go.'" + +One of the few things that we may know in life is this, that it is +impossible for man to know anything absolutely. The power of reasoning +is a mere "by-product in the process of Evolution." It is but an +instrument to help out the confusion of the senses, and it is +conditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which it +deals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason is +powerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculative +philosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intensely +practical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediate +purposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature of +the infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If we +cannot "reach the heart of reality" by reason, what indeed can we reach? +What right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe +nothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything? +Every man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In +the Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the +course of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us. +Our parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is +indeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue to +those who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose that +any man is in any degree "the arbiter of his own destiny" is pure +illusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against our +will we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, "on +a steep incline, where we can veer but little to the left or right"; +whichever way we move we fall finally to the very bottom. The fires we +kindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. The +river sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by our +efforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we find +ourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we may +describe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement. + +To the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mere +illusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fit +itself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for +the same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under +the rare conditions in which life is not destroyed. + +In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. If +we are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall +never begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our +hand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To reach +for the ultimate end of action is never to begin to act. + +Deeper and more worthy of respect is the sadness of science. The effort +"to see things as they really are," to get out of all make-believe and +to secure that "absolute veracity of thought" without which sound action +is impossible does not always lead to hopefulness. + +There is much to discourage in human history,--in the facts of human +life. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He is +ignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairs +bear the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in the +prevalence of destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilization +is dissolved in the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest or +commercial greed be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death. +Its essential feature is the slaughter of the young, the brave, the +ambitious, the hopeful, leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged to +perpetuate the race. Thus all militant, nations become decadent ones. +Thus the glory of Rome, her conquests and her splendor of achievement, +left the Romans at home a nation of cowards, and such they are to this +day. For those who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of the +slaves, scullions, the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Roman +glory could not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all that +is worthy in the works of man. + +That there seems no way out of this is the cause of the sullen despair +of so many scholars of Continental Europe. The millennium is not in +sight. It is farther away than fifty years ago. The future is narrowing +down and men do not care to forecast it. It is enough to grasp what we +may of the present. We hear "the ring of the hammer on the scaffold." +"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." "The sad kings," in +Watson's phrase, can only pile up fuel for their own destruction, and +the failure of force will release the unholy brood which force has +caused to develop. The winds of freedom are tainted by sulphurous +exhalations. In all our merry-making we find with Ibsen that "there is a +corpse on board." The mask is falling only to show the Death's head +there concealed. Aristocracy, Democracy, Anarchy, Empire, the history of +politics, is the eternal round of the Dance of Death. + +When we look at human nature in detail we find more of animal than of +angel, and the "veracity of thought and action," which is the choicest +gift of Science, is lost in the happy-go-lucky movement of the human +mob. "To see things as they really are" is the purpose of the philosophy +of Pessimism in the hands of its worthiest exponents. But we know what +is, and that alone, even were such knowledge possible, is not to know +the truth. The higher wisdom seeks to find the forces at work to produce +that which now is. The present time is the meeting time of forces; the +present fact their temporary product. To the philosophy of Evolution, +"every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities." Each meanest fact +is the product of the world-forces that lie behind it; each meanest man +the resultant of the vast powers, alive in human nature, struggling +since life began. And these forces, omnipotent and eternal, will never +cease their work. + +To the philosophy of Pessimism, the child is a mere human larva, weak, +perverse, disagreeable, the heir of mortality, with all manner of +"defects of doubt and taints of blood," gathered in the long experience +of its wretched parentage. + +In the more hopeful view of Evolution the child exists for its +possibilities. The huge forces within have thrown it to the surface of +time. They will push it onward to development, which may not be much in +the individual case, but beyond it all lie the possibilities of its +race. Inherent in it is the power to rise, to form its own environment, +to stand at last superior to the blind forces by which the human will +was made. With this thought is sure to come, in some degree, the +certainty that the heart of the Universe is sound, that though there be +so many of us in the world, each must have his place, and each at last +"be somehow needful to infinity." We can see that each least creature +has its need for being. The present justifies the past. It is the +transcendent future which renders the commonplace present possible. + + The "dragons of the prime, + That tore each other in the slime," + +lived and fought that we their descendants may realize ourselves in +"lives made beautiful and sweet," through all unlikeness to dragons. It +was necessary that every foot of soil in Europe should be crimsoned by +blood, wantonly shed, to bring the relative peace and tolerance of the +civilization of Europe today. It always "needs that offense must come" +to bring about the better condition in which each particular offense +shall be done away. For the evolution of life is not in straight lines +from lower to higher things, but runs rather in wavering spirals. It is +the resultant of stress and storm. The evil and failure which darken the +present are necessary to the illumination of the future. Time is long. +"God tosses back to man his failures" one by one, and gives him time and +strength to try again. + +According to Schopenhauer, we move across the stage of life stung by +appetite and goaded by desire, in pain unceasing, the sole respite from +pain, the instant in which desire is lost in satisfaction. To do away +with desire is to destroy pain, but it also destroys existence. Desire +is lost where the "mouth is stopped with dust," and with death only +comes relief from pain. + +Thus the Pessimist tells us that "the only reality in life is pain." But +surely this is not the truth. He who knows no reality save appetite has +never known life at all. The realities in life are love and action; not +desire, but the exercise of our appointed functions. + +Action follows sensation. The more we have to do the more accurate must +be our sensations, the greater the hold environment has upon us. Broader +activities demand better knowledge of our surroundings. Greater +sensitiveness to external things means greater capacity for pain, hence +greater suffering, when the natural channels of effort are closed. Thus +arises the hope for nothingness in which many sensitive souls have +indulged. With no surroundings at all, or with environment that never +varies, there could be no sense-perception. To see nothing, to feel +nothing--there could be no demand for action. With no failure of action +there could be no weariness. From the varied environment of earthly life +spring, through adaptation, the varied powers and varied sensibilities, +susceptibilities to joy and pain as well as the rest. The greater the +sensitiveness the greater the capacity for suffering. Hence the +"quenching of desire," the "turning toward Nirvana, the desire to +escape from the hideous bustle of a world in which we are able to take +no part, is a natural impulse with the soul which feels but cannot or +will not act. + + "Can it be, O Christ in Heaven, + That the highest suffer most, + That the strongest wander farthest + And most hopelessly are lost?-- + + That the mark of rank in Nature + Is capacity for pain, + And the anguish of the singer + Marks the sweetness of the strain? + +That this must be so rests in the very nature of things. The most +perfect instrument is one most easily thrown out of adjustment. The most +highly developed organism is the most exactly fitted to its functions, +the one most deeply injured when these functions are altered or +suppressed. + +Man's sensations and power to act must go together. Man can know nothing +that he cannot somehow weave into action. If he fails to do this in one +form or another, it is through limitations he has placed on himself. Man +cannot suffer for lack of "more worlds to conquer," because his power to +conquer worlds is the product of his own 'past life and his own past +needs. To weave knowledge into action is the antidote for ennui. To +plan, to hope, to do, to accomplish the full measure of our powers, +whatever they may be, is to turn away from Nirvana to real life. A +useful man, a helpful man, an active man in any sense, even though his, +activity be misdirected or harmful, is always a hopeful man. + +The feeling that "the only reality in life is pain," is the sign not of +philosophical acuteness but of bodily under-vitalization. The nervous +system is too feeble for the body it has to move. To act is to make the +environment your servant. Its pressure is no longer pain but joy. The +concessions which life has made to time and space are the source of +life's glory and power. + +The function of the nervous system is to carry from the environment to +the brain the impressions of truth, that action may be true and safe. +Pain and pleasure are both incidental to sound action. The one drives, +the other coaxes us toward the path of wisdom. If pain is in excess of +joy in our experience, it is because we have wandered from the path of +normal activity. By right-doing, we mean that action which makes for +"abundance of life," and abundance of life means fulness of joy. "Though +life be sad, yet there's joy in the living it" was the word of the +ancient Greeks, "who ever with a frolic welcome took the Thunder and the +Sunshine." + +The life of man is dynamic, not static; not a condition but a movement. +"Not enjoyment and not sorrow" is its end or justification. It is a rush +of forces, an evolution towards greater activities and higher +adjustment, the growth of a stability which shall be ever more unstable. +This onward motion is recognized in the pessimistic philosophy of Von +Hartmann, as a movement towards ever greater possibilities of pain. With +him life is "the supreme blunder of the blind unconscious force" which +created man and developed him as the prey of ever-increasing suffering. + +But the power to enjoy has grown in like degree, and both joy and pain +are subordinated to the power to act. The human will, the power to do, +is the real end of the stress and struggle of the ages. However limited +its individual action, the will finds its place among the gigantic +factors in the evolution of life. It is not the present, but the +ultimate, which is truth. Not the unstable and temporary fact but the +boundless clashing forces which endlessly throw truths to the surface. + +Another source of Pessimism is the reaction from unearned pleasures and +from spurious joys. It is the business of the senses to translate +realities, to tell the truth about us in terms of human experience. +Every real pleasure has its cost in some form of nervous activity. What +we get we must earn, if it is to be really ours. Long ago, in the +infancy of civilization, man learned that there were drugs in Nature, +cell products of the growth or transformation of "our brother organisms, +the plants," by whose agency pain was turned to pleasure. By the aid of +these outside influences he could clear "today of past regrets and +future fears," and strike out from the sad "calendar unborn tomorrow and +dead yesterday." + +That the joys thus produced had no real objective existence, man was not +long in finding out, and it soon appeared that for each subjective +pleasure which had no foundation in action, there was a subjective +sorrow, likewise unrelated to external things. + +But that the pains more than balanced the joys, and that the indulgence +in unearned deceptions destroyed sooner or later all capacity for +enjoyment, man learned more slowly. + +The joys of wine, of opium, of tobacco and of all kindred drugs are mere +tricks upon the nervous system. In greater or less degree they destroy +its power to tell the truth, and in proportion as they have seemed to +bring subjective happiness, so do they bring at last subjective horror +and disgust. And this utter soul-weariness of drugs has found its way +into literature as the expression of Pessimism. + +"The City of the Dreadful Night," for example, does not find its +inspiration in the misery of selfish, rushing, crowded London. It is the +effect of brandy on the sensitive mind of an exquisitive poet. Not the +world, but the poet, lies in the "dreadful night" of self-inflicted +insomnia. Wherever these subjective nerve influences find expression in +literature it is either in an infinite sadness, or in hopeless gloom. +James Thompson says in the "City of the Dreadful Night": + + "The city is of night but not of sleep; + There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain. + The pitiless hours like years and ages creep-- + A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain + Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, + Or which some moment's stupor but increases." + + * * * + + "This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, + Wounded and slow and very venomous." + + * * * + + 'Lo, as thus prostrate in the dust I write + My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears-- + But why evoke the spectres of black night + To blot the sunshine of exultant years! + + "Because a cold rage seizes one at times + To show the bitter, old and wrinkled truth, + Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles + False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth." + +All this, alas, is the inevitable physical outcome of the attempt to-- + + "Divorce old, barren Reason from my house + To take the daughter of the vine to spouse." + +All subjective happiness due to nerve stimulation is of the nature of +mania. In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will be +followed by its subjective reaction, the "Nuit Blanche," the "dark brown +taste," by the experience of "the difference in the morning." The only +melancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce. +It is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activity +and vitiates life. + +There are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorder +of nerve. Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, we +shall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism. In fact, +cheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather the +expression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes. Most of the +philosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of the +unattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequent +flow of good health. Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulness +when both sermons and arguments fail. + +For a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health. It is +as natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it. Pessimism +arises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves. It is a +symptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind. + +There is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over and +above all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them. But the +melancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcotic +or stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys. +"Liver complaint," says Zangwill, "is the Prometheus myth done into +modern English." Already historical criticism has shown that the Bloody +Assizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of vice +and cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves. It is natural +that degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust. But whatever +the causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy in +nervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought into +sound and helpful life. To live effectively implies the belief that life +is worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for a +moment doubted this. + +Such an expression as "worth living" has in fact no real meaning. To act +and to love are the twin functions of the human body and soul. To refuse +these functions is to make one's self incapable of them. It is in a +sense to die while the body is still alive. To refuse these functions is +to make misery out of existence, and a life of ennui is doubtless not +"worth living." + +The philosophy of life is its working hypothesis of action. To hold that +all effort is futile, that all knowledge is illusion, and that no result +of the human will is worth the pain of calling it into action, is to cut +the nerve of effectiveness. In proportion as one really believes this, +he becomes a cumberer of the ground. It was said of Oscar McCulloch, an +earnest student of human life, that "in whatever part of God's universe +he finds himself, he will be a hopeful man, looking forward and not +backward, looking upward and not downward, always ready to lend a +helping hand, and not afraid to die." + +Of like spirit was Robert Louis Stevenson: + + "Glad did I live and gladly die, + And I laid me down with a will." + +It is through men of this type that the work of civilization has been +accomplished, "men of present valor, stalwart, brave iconoclasts." They +were men who were content with the order of the universe as it is, and +seek only to place their own actions in harmony with this order. They +have no complaints to urge against "the goodness and severity of God," +nor any futile wish "to remould it nearer to the heart's desire." The +"Fanaticism for Veracity" is satisfied with what is. Not the ultimate +truth which is God's alone, but the highest attainable truth, is the aim +of Science, and to translate Science into Virtue is the goal of +civilization. + +The third question which Science may ask is the direct one. In what part +of the universe are you, and what are you doing? Thoreau says that +"there is no hope for you unless this bit of sod under your feet is the +sweetest to you in this world--in any world." Why not? Nowhere is the +sky so blue, the grass so green, the sunshine so bright, the shade so +welcome, as right here, now, today. No other blue sky, nor bright +sunshine, nor welcome shade exists for you. Other skies are bright to +other men. They have been bright in the past and so will they be again, +but yours are here and now. Today is your day and mine, the only day we +have, the day in which we play our part. What our part may signify in +the great whole we may not understand, but we are here to play it, and +now is the time. This we know, it is a part of action, not of whining. +It is a part of love, not cynicism. It is for us to express love in +terms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sad +experience that any other course of life leads toward decay and waste. + +What, then, are you doing under these blue skies? The thing you do +should be for you the most important thing in the world. If you could do +something better than you are doing now, everything considered, why are +you not doing it? + +If every one did the very best he knew, most of the problems of human +life would be already settled. If each one did the best he knew, he +would be on the highway to greater knowledge, and therefore still better +action. The redemption of the world is waiting only for each man to +"lend a hand." + +It does not matter if the greatest thing for you to do be not in itself +great. The best preparation for greatness comes in doing faithfully the +little things that lie nearest. The nearest is the greatest in most +human lives. + +Even washing one's own face may be the greatest present duty. The +ascetics of the past, who scorned cleanliness in the search for +godliness, became, sometimes, neither clean nor holy. For want of a +clean face they lost their souls. + +It was Agassiz's strength that he knew the value of today. Never were +such bright skies as arched above him; nowhere else were such charming +associates, such budding students, such secrets of nature fresh to his +hand. His was the buoyant strength of the man who can look the stars in +the face because he does his part in the Universe as well as they do +theirs. It is the fresh, unspoiled confidence of the natural man, who +finds the world a world of action and joy, and time all too short for +the fulness of life which it demands. When Agassiz died, "the best +friend that ever student had," the students of Harvard "laid a wreath of +laurel on his bier, and their manly voices sang a requiem, for he had +been a student all his life long, and when he died he was younger than +any of them." + +Optimism in life is a good working hypothesis, if by optimism we mean +the open-eyed faith that force exerted is never lost. Much that calls +itself faith is only the blindness of self-satisfaction. + +What if there are so many of us in the ranks of humanity? What if the +individual be lost in the mass as a pebble cast into the Seven Seas? +Would you choose a world so small as to leave room for only you and your +satellites? Would you ask for problems of life so tame that even you +could grasp them? Would you choose a fibreless Universe to be "remoulded +nearer to the heart's desire," in place of the wild, tough, virile, +man-making environment from which the Attraction of Gravitation lets +none of us escape? + +It is not that "I come like water and like wind I go." I am here today, +and the moment and the place are real, and my will is itself one of the +fates that make and unmake all things. "Every meanest day is the +conflux of two eternities," and in this center of all time and space for +the moment it is I that stand. Great is Eternity, but it is made up of +time. Could we blot out one day in the midst of time, Eternity could be +no more. The feebleness of man has its place within the infinite +Omnipotence. + +It is a question not of hope or despair, but of truth, not of optimism +nor of Pessimism, but of wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to do next; +virtue is doing it. Religion is the heart impulse that turns toward the +best and highest course of action. "It was my duty to have loved the +highest. What does that demand? What have I to do next? Not in infinity, +where we can do nothing, but here, today, the greatest day that ever +was, for it alone is mine! + +What matter is it that time does not end with us? Neither with us does +history begin. An Emperor of China once decreed that nothing should be +before him, that all history should begin with him. But he could go no +farther than his own decree. Who are you that would be Emperor of China? + + "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured + Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour." + +Why not? Should life stop with you? What have you done that you should +mark the end of time? If you have played your part in the procession of +bubbles, all is well, though the best you can do is to leave the world a +little better for the next that follows. + +If you have not made life a little richer and its conditions a little +more just by your living you have not touched the world. You are indeed +a bubble. If some kind friend somewhere "turn down an empty glass," it +will be the best monument you deserve. But to have had a friend is to +leave the glass not wholly empty, for life is justified in love as well +as in action. + +The words of Omar need to be read with the rising inflection, and they +become the expression of exultant hopefulness. + + "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured + Millions of bubbles and shall pour!" + +Small though we are the story is not all told when we are dead. The huge +procession goes on and shall go on, till the secret of the grand +symphony of life is reached. + + "A single note in the Eternal Song + A perfect Singer hath had need for me." + + * * * + + "I do rejoice that when of Thee and Me + Men speak no longer, yet not less but more + The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill + And ever fairer, clearer bubbles pour." + +In the same way we must read with the rising inflection the lines of +Tennyson: + + "I falter when I firmly trod, + And falling with my weight of cares, + Upon the World's great altar-stairs + That slope through darkness, up to god!" + +Read these words with courage, and with the upward turn of the voice at +the end. It is no longer in the darkness that we falter. The great +altar-stairs of which no man knows the beginning nor the end, do not +spring from the mire nor end in the mists. They "slope through darkness +up to God," and no one could ask a stronger expression of that robust +optimism which must be the mainspring of successful life. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of Despair, by David Starr Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR *** + +***** This file should be named 4754-8.txt or 4754-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/5/4754/ + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Philosophy of Despair + +Author: David Starr Jordan + +Posting Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #4754] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 12, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR *** + + + + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The Philosophy of Despair +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +David Starr Jordan +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + To<BR> + John Maxson Stillman<BR> + In Token of Good Cheer<BR> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + A darkening sky and a whitening sea,<BR> + And the wind in the palm trees tall;<BR> + Soon or late comes a call for me,<BR> + Down from the mountain or up from the sea,<BR> + Then let me lie where I fall.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + And a friend may write—for friends there be,<BR> + On a stone from the gray sea wall,<BR> + "Jungle and town and reef and sea—<BR> + I loved God's Earth and His Earth loved me,<BR> + Taken for all in all."<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P> +Today is your day and mine, the only day we have, the day in which we +play our part. What our part may signify in the great whole, we may not +understand, but we are here to play it, and now is our time. This we +know, it is a part of action, not of whining. It is a part of love, not +cynicism. It is for us to express love in terms of human helpfulness. +This we know, for we have learned from sad experience that any other +course of life leads toward decay and waste. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +The Philosophy of Despair +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Bubbles of Sáki. +</H3> + +<P> +From Fitzgerald's exquisite version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, I +take the following quatrains which may serve as a text for what I have +to say: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + So when the angel of the darker Drink<BR> + At last shall find you by the river-brink,<BR> + And offering you his cup, invite your Soul<BR> + Forth to your lips to quaff, you shall not shrink.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Why, if the soul can fling the Dust aside,<BR> + And naked on the air of Heaven ride,<BR> + Wert not a shame—wert not a shame for him<BR> + In this clay carcase crippled to abide?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'Tis but a tent where takes his one-day's rest<BR> + A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;<BR> + The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrásh<BR> + Strikes, and prepares it for another guest.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + And fear not lest Existence, closing your<BR> + Account, and mine, shall know the like no more;<BR> + The Eternal Sáki from that bowl hath pour'd<BR> + Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + When you and I behind the veil are past,<BR> + Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last,<BR> + Which of our coming and departure heeds<BR> + As the Sev'n Seas shall heed a pebble-cast.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + A moment's halt—a momentary taste<BR> + Of Being from the Well amid the waste,<BR> + And lo!—the phantom caravan has reach'd<BR> + The Nothing it set out from—O, make haste!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + There was the door to which I found no key;<BR> + There was the veil through which I could not see:<BR> + Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee<BR> + There was—and then no more of Thee and Me.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd<BR> + Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust<BR> + Like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn<BR> + Are scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + With them the seed of wisdom did I sow,<BR> + And with my own hand wrought to make it grow<BR> + And this was all the harvest that I reap'd—<BR> + "I come like water, and like wind I go."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspire<BR> + To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire,<BR> + Would we not shatter it to bits—and then<BR> + Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Yon rising Moon that looks for us again—<BR> + How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;<BR> + How oft hereafter rising look for us<BR> + Through this same garden—and for one in vain!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + And when like her, O Sáki, you shall pass<BR> + Among the guests, star-scattered on the grass,<BR> + And in your blissful errand reach the spot<BR> + Where I made one—turn down an empty glass!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P> +And, again, in another poem from Carmen Silva's Roumanian folk-songs: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Hopeless.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me,<BR> + Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + We sat beneath our tent;<BR> + Then he that hath no hope drew near us there,<BR> + And sat him down by us.<BR> + We asked him: "Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?"<BR> + And he made answer: "I have seen them all."<BR> + And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt,<BR> + Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart,<BR> + Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart—<BR> + The heart was gone.<BR> + And yet he trembled not, the while we looked,<BR> + And sought the heart, the heart that was not there.<BR> + He let us look. And he that had no hope<BR> + Smiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs.<BR> + Then we did envy him, that he could sing<BR> + Without a heart to suffer what he sang.<BR> + And when he went, he cast his cloak about him,<BR> + And those that met him, they could never guess<BR> + How that his shirt was torn about the heart,<BR> + And that his breast was pierced above the heart,<BR> + And that the heart was gone.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + I gazed into the mist, and fear came on me,<BR> + Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +This poem of Omar and of Fitzgerald is perhaps our best expression of +the sadness and the grandeur of insoluble problems. It is the sweetness +of philosophical sorrow which has no kinship with misery or distress. In +the strains of the saddest music the soul finds the keenest delight. The +same sweet, sorrowful pleasure is felt in the play of the mind about the +riddles which it cannot solve. +</P> + +<P> +In the presence of the infinite problem of life, the voice of Science is +dumb, for Science is the coördinate and corrected expression of human +experience, and human experience must stop with the limitations of human +life. Man was not present "When the foundations of the Earth were laid," +and beyond the certainty that they were laid in wisdom and power, man +can say little about them. Man finds in the economy of nature "no trace +of a beginning; no prospect of an end!" He may feel sure, with Hutton, +that "time is as long as space is wide." But he cannot conceive of space +as actually without limit, nor can he imagine any limiting conditions. +He cannot think of a period before time began, nor of a state in which +time shall be no more. The mind fails before the idea of time's eternal +continuity. So time becomes to man merely the sequence of the earthly +events in which he and his ancestors have taken part. Even thus limited +it is sadly immortal, while man's stay on the earth is but of "few days +and full of trouble." "Oh, but the long, long while this world shall +last!" or as the grim humorist puts it, "we shall be a long time dead." +</P> + +<P> +Though the meaning of time, space, existence lies beyond our reach, yet +some sort of solution of the infinite problem the human heart demands. +We find in life a power for action, limited though this power may be. +Life is action, and action is impossible if devoid of motive or hope. +</P> + +<P> +It is my purpose here to indicate some part of the answer of Science to +the Philosophy of Despair. Direct reply Science has none. We cannot +argue against a singer or a poet. The poet sings of what he feels, but +Science speaks only of what we know. We feel infinity, but we cannot +know it, for to the highest human wisdom the ultimate truths of the +universe are no nearer than to the child. Science knows no ultimate +truths. These are beyond the reach of man, and all that man knows must +be stated in terms of his experience. But as to human experience and +conduct, Science has a word to say. +</P> + +<P> +Therefore Science can speak of the causes and results of Pessimism. It +can touch the practical side of the riddle of life by asking certain +questions, the answers to which lie within the province of human +experience. Among these are the following: +</P> + +<P> +Why is there a "Philosophy of Despair?" +</P> + +<P> +Can Despair be wrought into healthful life? +</P> + +<P> +In what part of the Universe are you and what are you doing? +</P> + +<P> +Personal despair or discouragement may rise from failure of strength or +failure of plans. This is a matter of every-day occurrence. The "best +laid schemes o' mice and men" generally go wrong, no doubt, but this +fact has little to do with the Philosophy of Pessimism. It is natural +for mice and men to try again and to gain wisdom from failures. "By the +embers of loss we count our gains." +</P> + +<P> +The Pessimism of Youth we may first consider: In the transition from +childhood to manhood great changes take place in the nervous system. +There is for a time a period of confusion, in which the nerve cells are +acquiring new powers and new relations. This is followed by a time of +joy and exuberance, a sense of a new life in a new world, a feeling of +new power and adequacy, the thought that life is richer and better worth +living than the child could have supposed. +</P> + +<P> +To this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have been +a thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part +of a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speeches +made up for us centuries before we were born." The new power of manhood +and womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As +our own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it, +so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic. +Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass +through a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation +caught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find +expression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned +down his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that took +the starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth," says Zangwill, +"says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear had +it been alive." With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its +expression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair. +</P> + +<P> +This adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mood +disappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanishes +with the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad of +the drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuous +life. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome. +</P> + +<P> +But if action is impossible, the mood remains. And here arises the +despair of the highly educated. The purpose of knowledge is action. But +to refuse action is to secure time for the acquisition of more +knowledge. It is written in the very structure of the brain that each +impression of the senses must bring with it the impulse to act. To +resist this impulse is in turn to destroy it and to substitute a dull +soul-ache in its place. "Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and the +experience of all the ages brings only despair if it cannot be wrought +into life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the +main element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others has +been uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures which +arise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire for +more intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirst +for these comes ever deeper discouragement. +</P> + +<P> +At the best, the tendency of large knowledge, not vitalized by practical +experience, is to spend itself in cynical criticism, in futile efforts +to tear down without feeling the higher obligation to build up. For it +is the essence of this form of Pessimism to feel that there is nothing +on earth worth the trouble of building. The real is only a "sneering +comment" on the ideal, and man's life is too short to make any action +worth while. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "With her the seed of Wisdom did I sow,<BR> + And with mine own hands wrought to make it grow;<BR> + And this is all the harvest that I reap'd,<BR> + 'I come like water, and like wind I go.'"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +One of the few things that we may know in life is this, that it is +impossible for man to know anything absolutely. The power of reasoning +is a mere "by-product in the process of Evolution." It is but an +instrument to help out the confusion of the senses, and it is +conditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which it +deals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason is +powerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculative +philosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intensely +practical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediate +purposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature of +the infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If we +cannot "reach the heart of reality" by reason, what indeed can we reach? +What right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe +nothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything? +Every man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In +the Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the +course of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us. +Our parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is +indeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue to +those who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose that +any man is in any degree "the arbiter of his own destiny" is pure +illusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against our +will we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, "on +a steep incline, where we can veer but little to the left or right"; +whichever way we move we fall finally to the very bottom. The fires we +kindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. The +river sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by our +efforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we find +ourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we may +describe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement. +</P> + +<P> +To the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mere +illusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fit +itself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for +the same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under +the rare conditions in which life is not destroyed. +</P> + +<P> +In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. If +we are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall +never begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our +hand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To reach +for the ultimate end of action is never to begin to act. +</P> + +<P> +Deeper and more worthy of respect is the sadness of science. The effort +"to see things as they really are," to get out of all make-believe and +to secure that "absolute veracity of thought" without which sound action +is impossible does not always lead to hopefulness. +</P> + +<P> +There is much to discourage in human history,—in the facts of human +life. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He is +ignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairs +bear the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in the +prevalence of destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilization +is dissolved in the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest or +commercial greed be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death. +Its essential feature is the slaughter of the young, the brave, the +ambitious, the hopeful, leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged to +perpetuate the race. Thus all militant, nations become decadent ones. +Thus the glory of Rome, her conquests and her splendor of achievement, +left the Romans at home a nation of cowards, and such they are to this +day. For those who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of the +slaves, scullions, the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Roman +glory could not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all that +is worthy in the works of man. +</P> + +<P> +That there seems no way out of this is the cause of the sullen despair +of so many scholars of Continental Europe. The millennium is not in +sight. It is farther away than fifty years ago. The future is narrowing +down and men do not care to forecast it. It is enough to grasp what we +may of the present. We hear "the ring of the hammer on the scaffold." +"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." "The sad kings," in +Watson's phrase, can only pile up fuel for their own destruction, and +the failure of force will release the unholy brood which force has +caused to develop. The winds of freedom are tainted by sulphurous +exhalations. In all our merry-making we find with Ibsen that "there is a +corpse on board." The mask is falling only to show the Death's head +there concealed. Aristocracy, Democracy, Anarchy, Empire, the history of +politics, is the eternal round of the Dance of Death. +</P> + +<P> +When we look at human nature in detail we find more of animal than of +angel, and the "veracity of thought and action," which is the choicest +gift of Science, is lost in the happy-go-lucky movement of the human +mob. "To see things as they really are" is the purpose of the philosophy +of Pessimism in the hands of its worthiest exponents. But we know what +is, and that alone, even were such knowledge possible, is not to know +the truth. The higher wisdom seeks to find the forces at work to produce +that which now is. The present time is the meeting time of forces; the +present fact their temporary product. To the philosophy of Evolution, +"every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities." Each meanest fact +is the product of the world-forces that lie behind it; each meanest man +the resultant of the vast powers, alive in human nature, struggling +since life began. And these forces, omnipotent and eternal, will never +cease their work. +</P> + +<P> +To the philosophy of Pessimism, the child is a mere human larva, weak, +perverse, disagreeable, the heir of mortality, with all manner of +"defects of doubt and taints of blood," gathered in the long experience +of its wretched parentage. +</P> + +<P> +In the more hopeful view of Evolution the child exists for its +possibilities. The huge forces within have thrown it to the surface of +time. They will push it onward to development, which may not be much in +the individual case, but beyond it all lie the possibilities of its +race. Inherent in it is the power to rise, to form its own environment, +to stand at last superior to the blind forces by which the human will +was made. With this thought is sure to come, in some degree, the +certainty that the heart of the Universe is sound, that though there be +so many of us in the world, each must have his place, and each at last +"be somehow needful to infinity." We can see that each least creature +has its need for being. The present justifies the past. It is the +transcendent future which renders the commonplace present possible. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The "dragons of the prime,<BR> + That tore each other in the slime,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +lived and fought that we their descendants may realize ourselves in +"lives made beautiful and sweet," through all unlikeness to dragons. It +was necessary that every foot of soil in Europe should be crimsoned by +blood, wantonly shed, to bring the relative peace and tolerance of the +civilization of Europe today. It always "needs that offense must come" +to bring about the better condition in which each particular offense +shall be done away. For the evolution of life is not in straight lines +from lower to higher things, but runs rather in wavering spirals. It is +the resultant of stress and storm. The evil and failure which darken the +present are necessary to the illumination of the future. Time is long. +"God tosses back to man his failures" one by one, and gives him time and +strength to try again. +</P> + +<P> +According to Schopenhauer, we move across the stage of life stung by +appetite and goaded by desire, in pain unceasing, the sole respite from +pain, the instant in which desire is lost in satisfaction. To do away +with desire is to destroy pain, but it also destroys existence. Desire +is lost where the "mouth is stopped with dust," and with death only +comes relief from pain. +</P> + +<P> +Thus the Pessimist tells us that "the only reality in life is pain." But +surely this is not the truth. He who knows no reality save appetite has +never known life at all. The realities in life are love and action; not +desire, but the exercise of our appointed functions. +</P> + +<P> +Action follows sensation. The more we have to do the more accurate must +be our sensations, the greater the hold environment has upon us. Broader +activities demand better knowledge of our surroundings. Greater +sensitiveness to external things means greater capacity for pain, hence +greater suffering, when the natural channels of effort are closed. Thus +arises the hope for nothingness in which many sensitive souls have +indulged. With no surroundings at all, or with environment that never +varies, there could be no sense-perception. To see nothing, to feel +nothing—there could be no demand for action. With no failure of action +there could be no weariness. From the varied environment of earthly life +spring, through adaptation, the varied powers and varied sensibilities, +susceptibilities to joy and pain as well as the rest. The greater the +sensitiveness the greater the capacity for suffering. Hence the +"quenching of desire," the "turning toward Nirvana, the desire to +escape from the hideous bustle of a world in which we are able to take +no part, is a natural impulse with the soul which feels but cannot or +will not act. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Can it be, O Christ in Heaven,<BR> + That the highest suffer most,<BR> + That the strongest wander farthest<BR> + And most hopelessly are lost?—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + That the mark of rank in Nature<BR> + Is capacity for pain,<BR> + And the anguish of the singer<BR> + Marks the sweetness of the strain?<BR> +</P> + +<P> +That this must be so rests in the very nature of things. The most +perfect instrument is one most easily thrown out of adjustment. The most +highly developed organism is the most exactly fitted to its functions, +the one most deeply injured when these functions are altered or +suppressed. +</P> + +<P> +Man's sensations and power to act must go together. Man can know nothing +that he cannot somehow weave into action. If he fails to do this in one +form or another, it is through limitations he has placed on himself. Man +cannot suffer for lack of "more worlds to conquer," because his power to +conquer worlds is the product of his own 'past life and his own past +needs. To weave knowledge into action is the antidote for ennui. To +plan, to hope, to do, to accomplish the full measure of our powers, +whatever they may be, is to turn away from Nirvana to real life. A +useful man, a helpful man, an active man in any sense, even though his, +activity be misdirected or harmful, is always a hopeful man. +</P> + +<P> +The feeling that "the only reality in life is pain," is the sign not of +philosophical acuteness but of bodily under-vitalization. The nervous +system is too feeble for the body it has to move. To act is to make the +environment your servant. Its pressure is no longer pain but joy. The +concessions which life has made to time and space are the source of +life's glory and power. +</P> + +<P> +The function of the nervous system is to carry from the environment to +the brain the impressions of truth, that action may be true and safe. +Pain and pleasure are both incidental to sound action. The one drives, +the other coaxes us toward the path of wisdom. If pain is in excess of +joy in our experience, it is because we have wandered from the path of +normal activity. By right-doing, we mean that action which makes for +"abundance of life," and abundance of life means fulness of joy. "Though +life be sad, yet there's joy in the living it" was the word of the +ancient Greeks, "who ever with a frolic welcome took the Thunder and the +Sunshine." +</P> + +<P> +The life of man is dynamic, not static; not a condition but a movement. +"Not enjoyment and not sorrow" is its end or justification. It is a rush +of forces, an evolution towards greater activities and higher +adjustment, the growth of a stability which shall be ever more unstable. +This onward motion is recognized in the pessimistic philosophy of Von +Hartmann, as a movement towards ever greater possibilities of pain. With +him life is "the supreme blunder of the blind unconscious force" which +created man and developed him as the prey of ever-increasing suffering. +</P> + +<P> +But the power to enjoy has grown in like degree, and both joy and pain +are subordinated to the power to act. The human will, the power to do, +is the real end of the stress and struggle of the ages. However limited +its individual action, the will finds its place among the gigantic +factors in the evolution of life. It is not the present, but the +ultimate, which is truth. Not the unstable and temporary fact but the +boundless clashing forces which endlessly throw truths to the surface. +</P> + +<P> +Another source of Pessimism is the reaction from unearned pleasures and +from spurious joys. It is the business of the senses to translate +realities, to tell the truth about us in terms of human experience. +Every real pleasure has its cost in some form of nervous activity. What +we get we must earn, if it is to be really ours. Long ago, in the +infancy of civilization, man learned that there were drugs in Nature, +cell products of the growth or transformation of "our brother organisms, +the plants," by whose agency pain was turned to pleasure. By the aid of +these outside influences he could clear "today of past regrets and +future fears," and strike out from the sad "calendar unborn tomorrow and +dead yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +That the joys thus produced had no real objective existence, man was not +long in finding out, and it soon appeared that for each subjective +pleasure which had no foundation in action, there was a subjective +sorrow, likewise unrelated to external things. +</P> + +<P> +But that the pains more than balanced the joys, and that the indulgence +in unearned deceptions destroyed sooner or later all capacity for +enjoyment, man learned more slowly. +</P> + +<P> +The joys of wine, of opium, of tobacco and of all kindred drugs are mere +tricks upon the nervous system. In greater or less degree they destroy +its power to tell the truth, and in proportion as they have seemed to +bring subjective happiness, so do they bring at last subjective horror +and disgust. And this utter soul-weariness of drugs has found its way +into literature as the expression of Pessimism. +</P> + +<P> +"The City of the Dreadful Night," for example, does not find its +inspiration in the misery of selfish, rushing, crowded London. It is the +effect of brandy on the sensitive mind of an exquisitive poet. Not the +world, but the poet, lies in the "dreadful night" of self-inflicted +insomnia. Wherever these subjective nerve influences find expression in +literature it is either in an infinite sadness, or in hopeless gloom. +James Thompson says in the "City of the Dreadful Night": +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "The city is of night but not of sleep;<BR> + There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain.<BR> + The pitiless hours like years and ages creep—<BR> + A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain<BR> + Of thought and consciousness which never ceases,<BR> + Or which some moment's stupor but increases."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake,<BR> + Wounded and slow and very venomous."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'Lo, as thus prostrate in the dust I write<BR> + My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears—<BR> + But why evoke the spectres of black night<BR> + To blot the sunshine of exultant years!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Because a cold rage seizes one at times<BR> + To show the bitter, old and wrinkled truth,<BR> + Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles<BR> + False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +All this, alas, is the inevitable physical outcome of the attempt to— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Divorce old, barren Reason from my house<BR> + To take the daughter of the vine to spouse."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +All subjective happiness due to nerve stimulation is of the nature of +mania. In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will be +followed by its subjective reaction, the "Nuit Blanche," the "dark brown +taste," by the experience of "the difference in the morning." The only +melancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce. +It is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activity +and vitiates life. +</P> + +<P> +There are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorder +of nerve. Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, we +shall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism. In fact, +cheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather the +expression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes. Most of the +philosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of the +unattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequent +flow of good health. Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulness +when both sermons and arguments fail. +</P> + +<P> +For a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health. It is +as natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it. Pessimism +arises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves. It is a +symptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind. +</P> + +<P> +There is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over and +above all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them. But the +melancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcotic +or stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys. +"Liver complaint," says Zangwill, "is the Prometheus myth done into +modern English." Already historical criticism has shown that the Bloody +Assizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of vice +and cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves. It is natural +that degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust. But whatever +the causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy in +nervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought into +sound and helpful life. To live effectively implies the belief that life +is worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for a +moment doubted this. +</P> + +<P> +Such an expression as "worth living" has in fact no real meaning. To act +and to love are the twin functions of the human body and soul. To refuse +these functions is to make one's self incapable of them. It is in a +sense to die while the body is still alive. To refuse these functions is +to make misery out of existence, and a life of ennui is doubtless not +"worth living." +</P> + +<P> +The philosophy of life is its working hypothesis of action. To hold that +all effort is futile, that all knowledge is illusion, and that no result +of the human will is worth the pain of calling it into action, is to cut +the nerve of effectiveness. In proportion as one really believes this, +he becomes a cumberer of the ground. It was said of Oscar McCulloch, an +earnest student of human life, that "in whatever part of God's universe +he finds himself, he will be a hopeful man, looking forward and not +backward, looking upward and not downward, always ready to lend a +helping hand, and not afraid to die." +</P> + +<P> +Of like spirit was Robert Louis Stevenson: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Glad did I live and gladly die,<BR> + And I laid me down with a will."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +It is through men of this type that the work of civilization has been +accomplished, "men of present valor, stalwart, brave iconoclasts." They +were men who were content with the order of the universe as it is, and +seek only to place their own actions in harmony with this order. They +have no complaints to urge against "the goodness and severity of God," +nor any futile wish "to remould it nearer to the heart's desire." The +"Fanaticism for Veracity" is satisfied with what is. Not the ultimate +truth which is God's alone, but the highest attainable truth, is the aim +of Science, and to translate Science into Virtue is the goal of +civilization. +</P> + +<P> +The third question which Science may ask is the direct one. In what part +of the universe are you, and what are you doing? Thoreau says that +"there is no hope for you unless this bit of sod under your feet is the +sweetest to you in this world—in any world." Why not? Nowhere is the +sky so blue, the grass so green, the sunshine so bright, the shade so +welcome, as right here, now, today. No other blue sky, nor bright +sunshine, nor welcome shade exists for you. Other skies are bright to +other men. They have been bright in the past and so will they be again, +but yours are here and now. Today is your day and mine, the only day we +have, the day in which we play our part. What our part may signify in +the great whole we may not understand, but we are here to play it, and +now is the time. This we know, it is a part of action, not of whining. +It is a part of love, not cynicism. It is for us to express love in +terms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sad +experience that any other course of life leads toward decay and waste. +</P> + +<P> +What, then, are you doing under these blue skies? The thing you do +should be for you the most important thing in the world. If you could do +something better than you are doing now, everything considered, why are +you not doing it? +</P> + +<P> +If every one did the very best he knew, most of the problems of human +life would be already settled. If each one did the best he knew, he +would be on the highway to greater knowledge, and therefore still better +action. The redemption of the world is waiting only for each man to +"lend a hand." +</P> + +<P> +It does not matter if the greatest thing for you to do be not in itself +great. The best preparation for greatness comes in doing faithfully the +little things that lie nearest. The nearest is the greatest in most +human lives. +</P> + +<P> +Even washing one's own face may be the greatest present duty. The +ascetics of the past, who scorned cleanliness in the search for +godliness, became, sometimes, neither clean nor holy. For want of a +clean face they lost their souls. +</P> + +<P> +It was Agassiz's strength that he knew the value of today. Never were +such bright skies as arched above him; nowhere else were such charming +associates, such budding students, such secrets of nature fresh to his +hand. His was the buoyant strength of the man who can look the stars in +the face because he does his part in the Universe as well as they do +theirs. It is the fresh, unspoiled confidence of the natural man, who +finds the world a world of action and joy, and time all too short for +the fulness of life which it demands. When Agassiz died, "the best +friend that ever student had," the students of Harvard "laid a wreath of +laurel on his bier, and their manly voices sang a requiem, for he had +been a student all his life long, and when he died he was younger than +any of them." +</P> + +<P> +Optimism in life is a good working hypothesis, if by optimism we mean +the open-eyed faith that force exerted is never lost. Much that calls +itself faith is only the blindness of self-satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +What if there are so many of us in the ranks of humanity? What if the +individual be lost in the mass as a pebble cast into the Seven Seas? +Would you choose a world so small as to leave room for only you and your +satellites? Would you ask for problems of life so tame that even you +could grasp them? Would you choose a fibreless Universe to be "remoulded +nearer to the heart's desire," in place of the wild, tough, virile, +man-making environment from which the Attraction of Gravitation lets +none of us escape? +</P> + +<P> +It is not that "I come like water and like wind I go." I am here today, +and the moment and the place are real, and my will is itself one of the +fates that make and unmake all things. "Every meanest day is the +conflux of two eternities," and in this center of all time and space for +the moment it is I that stand. Great is Eternity, but it is made up of +time. Could we blot out one day in the midst of time, Eternity could be +no more. The feebleness of man has its place within the infinite +Omnipotence. +</P> + +<P> +It is a question not of hope or despair, but of truth, not of optimism +nor of Pessimism, but of wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to do next; +virtue is doing it. Religion is the heart impulse that turns toward the +best and highest course of action. "It was my duty to have loved the +highest. What does that demand? What have I to do next? Not in infinity, +where we can do nothing, but here, today, the greatest day that ever +was, for it alone is mine! +</P> + +<P> +What matter is it that time does not end with us? Neither with us does +history begin. An Emperor of China once decreed that nothing should be +before him, that all history should begin with him. But he could go no +farther than his own decree. Who are you that would be Emperor of China? +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured<BR> + Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Why not? Should life stop with you? What have you done that you should +mark the end of time? If you have played your part in the procession of +bubbles, all is well, though the best you can do is to leave the world a +little better for the next that follows. +</P> + +<P> +If you have not made life a little richer and its conditions a little +more just by your living you have not touched the world. You are indeed +a bubble. If some kind friend somewhere "turn down an empty glass," it +will be the best monument you deserve. But to have had a friend is to +leave the glass not wholly empty, for life is justified in love as well +as in action. +</P> + +<P> +The words of Omar need to be read with the rising inflection, and they +become the expression of exultant hopefulness. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured<BR> + Millions of bubbles and shall pour!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Small though we are the story is not all told when we are dead. The huge +procession goes on and shall go on, till the secret of the grand +symphony of life is reached. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "A single note in the Eternal Song<BR> + A perfect Singer hath had need for me."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "I do rejoice that when of Thee and Me<BR> + Men speak no longer, yet not less but more<BR> + The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill<BR> + And ever fairer, clearer bubbles pour."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +In the same way we must read with the rising inflection the lines of +Tennyson: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "I falter when I firmly trod,<BR> + And falling with my weight of cares,<BR> + Upon the World's great altar-stairs<BR> + That slope through darkness, up to god!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Read these words with courage, and with the upward turn of the voice at +the end. It is no longer in the darkness that we falter. The great +altar-stairs of which no man knows the beginning nor the end, do not +spring from the mire nor end in the mists. They "slope through darkness +up to God," and no one could ask a stronger expression of that robust +optimism which must be the mainspring of successful life. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of Despair, by David Starr Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR *** + +***** This file should be named 4754-h.htm or 4754-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/5/4754/ + +Produced by David A. Schwan. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Philosophy of Despair + +Author: David Starr Jordan + +Posting Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #4754] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 12, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR *** + + + + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +The Philosophy of Despair + + + +by + +David Starr Jordan + + + + + To + John Maxson Stillman + In Token of Good Cheer + + + + + A darkening sky and a whitening sea, + And the wind in the palm trees tall; + Soon or late comes a call for me, + Down from the mountain or up from the sea, + Then let me lie where I fall. + + And a friend may write--for friends there be, + On a stone from the gray sea wall, + "Jungle and town and reef and sea-- + I loved God's Earth and His Earth loved me, + Taken for all in all." + + + +Today is your day and mine, the only day we have, the day in which we +play our part. What our part may signify in the great whole, we may not +understand, but we are here to play it, and now is our time. This we +know, it is a part of action, not of whining. It is a part of love, not +cynicism. It is for us to express love in terms of human helpfulness. +This we know, for we have learned from sad experience that any other +course of life leads toward decay and waste. + + + + +The Philosophy of Despair + + + +The Bubbles of Saki. + + +From Fitzgerald's exquisite version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, I +take the following quatrains which may serve as a text for what I have +to say: + + So when the angel of the darker Drink + At last shall find you by the river-brink, + And offering you his cup, invite your Soul + Forth to your lips to quaff, you shall not shrink. + + Why, if the soul can fling the Dust aside, + And naked on the air of Heaven ride, + Wert not a shame--wert not a shame for him + In this clay carcase crippled to abide? + + 'Tis but a tent where takes his one-day's rest + A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; + The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash + Strikes, and prepares it for another guest. + + And fear not lest Existence, closing your + Account, and mine, shall know the like no more; + The Eternal Saki from that bowl hath pour'd + Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour. + + When you and I behind the veil are past, + Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last, + Which of our coming and departure heeds + As the Sev'n Seas shall heed a pebble-cast. + + A moment's halt--a momentary taste + Of Being from the Well amid the waste, + And lo!--the phantom caravan has reach'd + The Nothing it set out from--O, make haste! + + * * * + + There was the door to which I found no key; + There was the veil through which I could not see: + Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee + There was--and then no more of Thee and Me. + + * * * + + Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd + Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust + Like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn + Are scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust. + + With them the seed of wisdom did I sow, + And with my own hand wrought to make it grow + And this was all the harvest that I reap'd-- + "I come like water, and like wind I go." + + * * * + + Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspire + To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire, + Would we not shatter it to bits--and then + Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire! + + Yon rising Moon that looks for us again-- + How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; + How oft hereafter rising look for us + Through this same garden--and for one in vain! + + And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass + Among the guests, star-scattered on the grass, + And in your blissful errand reach the spot + Where I made one--turn down an empty glass! + + * * * + +And, again, in another poem from Carmen Silva's Roumanian folk-songs: + + Hopeless. + + Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me, + Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun." + + We sat beneath our tent; + Then he that hath no hope drew near us there, + And sat him down by us. + We asked him: "Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?" + And he made answer: "I have seen them all." + And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt, + Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart, + Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart-- + The heart was gone. + And yet he trembled not, the while we looked, + And sought the heart, the heart that was not there. + He let us look. And he that had no hope + Smiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs. + Then we did envy him, that he could sing + Without a heart to suffer what he sang. + And when he went, he cast his cloak about him, + And those that met him, they could never guess + How that his shirt was torn about the heart, + And that his breast was pierced above the heart, + And that the heart was gone. + + I gazed into the mist, and fear came on me, + Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun." + +This poem of Omar and of Fitzgerald is perhaps our best expression of +the sadness and the grandeur of insoluble problems. It is the sweetness +of philosophical sorrow which has no kinship with misery or distress. In +the strains of the saddest music the soul finds the keenest delight. The +same sweet, sorrowful pleasure is felt in the play of the mind about the +riddles which it cannot solve. + +In the presence of the infinite problem of life, the voice of Science is +dumb, for Science is the coordinate and corrected expression of human +experience, and human experience must stop with the limitations of human +life. Man was not present "When the foundations of the Earth were laid," +and beyond the certainty that they were laid in wisdom and power, man +can say little about them. Man finds in the economy of nature "no trace +of a beginning; no prospect of an end!" He may feel sure, with Hutton, +that "time is as long as space is wide." But he cannot conceive of space +as actually without limit, nor can he imagine any limiting conditions. +He cannot think of a period before time began, nor of a state in which +time shall be no more. The mind fails before the idea of time's eternal +continuity. So time becomes to man merely the sequence of the earthly +events in which he and his ancestors have taken part. Even thus limited +it is sadly immortal, while man's stay on the earth is but of "few days +and full of trouble." "Oh, but the long, long while this world shall +last!" or as the grim humorist puts it, "we shall be a long time dead." + +Though the meaning of time, space, existence lies beyond our reach, yet +some sort of solution of the infinite problem the human heart demands. +We find in life a power for action, limited though this power may be. +Life is action, and action is impossible if devoid of motive or hope. + +It is my purpose here to indicate some part of the answer of Science to +the Philosophy of Despair. Direct reply Science has none. We cannot +argue against a singer or a poet. The poet sings of what he feels, but +Science speaks only of what we know. We feel infinity, but we cannot +know it, for to the highest human wisdom the ultimate truths of the +universe are no nearer than to the child. Science knows no ultimate +truths. These are beyond the reach of man, and all that man knows must +be stated in terms of his experience. But as to human experience and +conduct, Science has a word to say. + +Therefore Science can speak of the causes and results of Pessimism. It +can touch the practical side of the riddle of life by asking certain +questions, the answers to which lie within the province of human +experience. Among these are the following: + +Why is there a "Philosophy of Despair?" + +Can Despair be wrought into healthful life? + +In what part of the Universe are you and what are you doing? + +Personal despair or discouragement may rise from failure of strength or +failure of plans. This is a matter of every-day occurrence. The "best +laid schemes o' mice and men" generally go wrong, no doubt, but this +fact has little to do with the Philosophy of Pessimism. It is natural +for mice and men to try again and to gain wisdom from failures. "By the +embers of loss we count our gains." + +The Pessimism of Youth we may first consider: In the transition from +childhood to manhood great changes take place in the nervous system. +There is for a time a period of confusion, in which the nerve cells are +acquiring new powers and new relations. This is followed by a time of +joy and exuberance, a sense of a new life in a new world, a feeling of +new power and adequacy, the thought that life is richer and better worth +living than the child could have supposed. + +To this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have been +a thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part +of a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speeches +made up for us centuries before we were born." The new power of manhood +and womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As +our own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it, +so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic. +Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass +through a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation +caught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find +expression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned +down his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that took +the starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth," says Zangwill, +"says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear had +it been alive." With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its +expression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair. + +This adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mood +disappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanishes +with the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad of +the drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuous +life. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome. + +But if action is impossible, the mood remains. And here arises the +despair of the highly educated. The purpose of knowledge is action. But +to refuse action is to secure time for the acquisition of more +knowledge. It is written in the very structure of the brain that each +impression of the senses must bring with it the impulse to act. To +resist this impulse is in turn to destroy it and to substitute a dull +soul-ache in its place. "Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and the +experience of all the ages brings only despair if it cannot be wrought +into life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the +main element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others has +been uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures which +arise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire for +more intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirst +for these comes ever deeper discouragement. + +At the best, the tendency of large knowledge, not vitalized by practical +experience, is to spend itself in cynical criticism, in futile efforts +to tear down without feeling the higher obligation to build up. For it +is the essence of this form of Pessimism to feel that there is nothing +on earth worth the trouble of building. The real is only a "sneering +comment" on the ideal, and man's life is too short to make any action +worth while. + + "With her the seed of Wisdom did I sow, + And with mine own hands wrought to make it grow; + And this is all the harvest that I reap'd, + 'I come like water, and like wind I go.'" + +One of the few things that we may know in life is this, that it is +impossible for man to know anything absolutely. The power of reasoning +is a mere "by-product in the process of Evolution." It is but an +instrument to help out the confusion of the senses, and it is +conditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which it +deals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason is +powerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculative +philosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intensely +practical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediate +purposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature of +the infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If we +cannot "reach the heart of reality" by reason, what indeed can we reach? +What right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe +nothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything? +Every man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In +the Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the +course of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us. +Our parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is +indeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue to +those who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose that +any man is in any degree "the arbiter of his own destiny" is pure +illusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against our +will we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, "on +a steep incline, where we can veer but little to the left or right"; +whichever way we move we fall finally to the very bottom. The fires we +kindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. The +river sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by our +efforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we find +ourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we may +describe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement. + +To the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mere +illusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fit +itself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for +the same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under +the rare conditions in which life is not destroyed. + +In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. If +we are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall +never begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our +hand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To reach +for the ultimate end of action is never to begin to act. + +Deeper and more worthy of respect is the sadness of science. The effort +"to see things as they really are," to get out of all make-believe and +to secure that "absolute veracity of thought" without which sound action +is impossible does not always lead to hopefulness. + +There is much to discourage in human history,--in the facts of human +life. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He is +ignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairs +bear the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in the +prevalence of destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilization +is dissolved in the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest or +commercial greed be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death. +Its essential feature is the slaughter of the young, the brave, the +ambitious, the hopeful, leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged to +perpetuate the race. Thus all militant, nations become decadent ones. +Thus the glory of Rome, her conquests and her splendor of achievement, +left the Romans at home a nation of cowards, and such they are to this +day. For those who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of the +slaves, scullions, the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Roman +glory could not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all that +is worthy in the works of man. + +That there seems no way out of this is the cause of the sullen despair +of so many scholars of Continental Europe. The millennium is not in +sight. It is farther away than fifty years ago. The future is narrowing +down and men do not care to forecast it. It is enough to grasp what we +may of the present. We hear "the ring of the hammer on the scaffold." +"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." "The sad kings," in +Watson's phrase, can only pile up fuel for their own destruction, and +the failure of force will release the unholy brood which force has +caused to develop. The winds of freedom are tainted by sulphurous +exhalations. In all our merry-making we find with Ibsen that "there is a +corpse on board." The mask is falling only to show the Death's head +there concealed. Aristocracy, Democracy, Anarchy, Empire, the history of +politics, is the eternal round of the Dance of Death. + +When we look at human nature in detail we find more of animal than of +angel, and the "veracity of thought and action," which is the choicest +gift of Science, is lost in the happy-go-lucky movement of the human +mob. "To see things as they really are" is the purpose of the philosophy +of Pessimism in the hands of its worthiest exponents. But we know what +is, and that alone, even were such knowledge possible, is not to know +the truth. The higher wisdom seeks to find the forces at work to produce +that which now is. The present time is the meeting time of forces; the +present fact their temporary product. To the philosophy of Evolution, +"every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities." Each meanest fact +is the product of the world-forces that lie behind it; each meanest man +the resultant of the vast powers, alive in human nature, struggling +since life began. And these forces, omnipotent and eternal, will never +cease their work. + +To the philosophy of Pessimism, the child is a mere human larva, weak, +perverse, disagreeable, the heir of mortality, with all manner of +"defects of doubt and taints of blood," gathered in the long experience +of its wretched parentage. + +In the more hopeful view of Evolution the child exists for its +possibilities. The huge forces within have thrown it to the surface of +time. They will push it onward to development, which may not be much in +the individual case, but beyond it all lie the possibilities of its +race. Inherent in it is the power to rise, to form its own environment, +to stand at last superior to the blind forces by which the human will +was made. With this thought is sure to come, in some degree, the +certainty that the heart of the Universe is sound, that though there be +so many of us in the world, each must have his place, and each at last +"be somehow needful to infinity." We can see that each least creature +has its need for being. The present justifies the past. It is the +transcendent future which renders the commonplace present possible. + + The "dragons of the prime, + That tore each other in the slime," + +lived and fought that we their descendants may realize ourselves in +"lives made beautiful and sweet," through all unlikeness to dragons. It +was necessary that every foot of soil in Europe should be crimsoned by +blood, wantonly shed, to bring the relative peace and tolerance of the +civilization of Europe today. It always "needs that offense must come" +to bring about the better condition in which each particular offense +shall be done away. For the evolution of life is not in straight lines +from lower to higher things, but runs rather in wavering spirals. It is +the resultant of stress and storm. The evil and failure which darken the +present are necessary to the illumination of the future. Time is long. +"God tosses back to man his failures" one by one, and gives him time and +strength to try again. + +According to Schopenhauer, we move across the stage of life stung by +appetite and goaded by desire, in pain unceasing, the sole respite from +pain, the instant in which desire is lost in satisfaction. To do away +with desire is to destroy pain, but it also destroys existence. Desire +is lost where the "mouth is stopped with dust," and with death only +comes relief from pain. + +Thus the Pessimist tells us that "the only reality in life is pain." But +surely this is not the truth. He who knows no reality save appetite has +never known life at all. The realities in life are love and action; not +desire, but the exercise of our appointed functions. + +Action follows sensation. The more we have to do the more accurate must +be our sensations, the greater the hold environment has upon us. Broader +activities demand better knowledge of our surroundings. Greater +sensitiveness to external things means greater capacity for pain, hence +greater suffering, when the natural channels of effort are closed. Thus +arises the hope for nothingness in which many sensitive souls have +indulged. With no surroundings at all, or with environment that never +varies, there could be no sense-perception. To see nothing, to feel +nothing--there could be no demand for action. With no failure of action +there could be no weariness. From the varied environment of earthly life +spring, through adaptation, the varied powers and varied sensibilities, +susceptibilities to joy and pain as well as the rest. The greater the +sensitiveness the greater the capacity for suffering. Hence the +"quenching of desire," the "turning toward Nirvana, the desire to +escape from the hideous bustle of a world in which we are able to take +no part, is a natural impulse with the soul which feels but cannot or +will not act. + + "Can it be, O Christ in Heaven, + That the highest suffer most, + That the strongest wander farthest + And most hopelessly are lost?-- + + That the mark of rank in Nature + Is capacity for pain, + And the anguish of the singer + Marks the sweetness of the strain? + +That this must be so rests in the very nature of things. The most +perfect instrument is one most easily thrown out of adjustment. The most +highly developed organism is the most exactly fitted to its functions, +the one most deeply injured when these functions are altered or +suppressed. + +Man's sensations and power to act must go together. Man can know nothing +that he cannot somehow weave into action. If he fails to do this in one +form or another, it is through limitations he has placed on himself. Man +cannot suffer for lack of "more worlds to conquer," because his power to +conquer worlds is the product of his own 'past life and his own past +needs. To weave knowledge into action is the antidote for ennui. To +plan, to hope, to do, to accomplish the full measure of our powers, +whatever they may be, is to turn away from Nirvana to real life. A +useful man, a helpful man, an active man in any sense, even though his, +activity be misdirected or harmful, is always a hopeful man. + +The feeling that "the only reality in life is pain," is the sign not of +philosophical acuteness but of bodily under-vitalization. The nervous +system is too feeble for the body it has to move. To act is to make the +environment your servant. Its pressure is no longer pain but joy. The +concessions which life has made to time and space are the source of +life's glory and power. + +The function of the nervous system is to carry from the environment to +the brain the impressions of truth, that action may be true and safe. +Pain and pleasure are both incidental to sound action. The one drives, +the other coaxes us toward the path of wisdom. If pain is in excess of +joy in our experience, it is because we have wandered from the path of +normal activity. By right-doing, we mean that action which makes for +"abundance of life," and abundance of life means fulness of joy. "Though +life be sad, yet there's joy in the living it" was the word of the +ancient Greeks, "who ever with a frolic welcome took the Thunder and the +Sunshine." + +The life of man is dynamic, not static; not a condition but a movement. +"Not enjoyment and not sorrow" is its end or justification. It is a rush +of forces, an evolution towards greater activities and higher +adjustment, the growth of a stability which shall be ever more unstable. +This onward motion is recognized in the pessimistic philosophy of Von +Hartmann, as a movement towards ever greater possibilities of pain. With +him life is "the supreme blunder of the blind unconscious force" which +created man and developed him as the prey of ever-increasing suffering. + +But the power to enjoy has grown in like degree, and both joy and pain +are subordinated to the power to act. The human will, the power to do, +is the real end of the stress and struggle of the ages. However limited +its individual action, the will finds its place among the gigantic +factors in the evolution of life. It is not the present, but the +ultimate, which is truth. Not the unstable and temporary fact but the +boundless clashing forces which endlessly throw truths to the surface. + +Another source of Pessimism is the reaction from unearned pleasures and +from spurious joys. It is the business of the senses to translate +realities, to tell the truth about us in terms of human experience. +Every real pleasure has its cost in some form of nervous activity. What +we get we must earn, if it is to be really ours. Long ago, in the +infancy of civilization, man learned that there were drugs in Nature, +cell products of the growth or transformation of "our brother organisms, +the plants," by whose agency pain was turned to pleasure. By the aid of +these outside influences he could clear "today of past regrets and +future fears," and strike out from the sad "calendar unborn tomorrow and +dead yesterday." + +That the joys thus produced had no real objective existence, man was not +long in finding out, and it soon appeared that for each subjective +pleasure which had no foundation in action, there was a subjective +sorrow, likewise unrelated to external things. + +But that the pains more than balanced the joys, and that the indulgence +in unearned deceptions destroyed sooner or later all capacity for +enjoyment, man learned more slowly. + +The joys of wine, of opium, of tobacco and of all kindred drugs are mere +tricks upon the nervous system. In greater or less degree they destroy +its power to tell the truth, and in proportion as they have seemed to +bring subjective happiness, so do they bring at last subjective horror +and disgust. And this utter soul-weariness of drugs has found its way +into literature as the expression of Pessimism. + +"The City of the Dreadful Night," for example, does not find its +inspiration in the misery of selfish, rushing, crowded London. It is the +effect of brandy on the sensitive mind of an exquisitive poet. Not the +world, but the poet, lies in the "dreadful night" of self-inflicted +insomnia. Wherever these subjective nerve influences find expression in +literature it is either in an infinite sadness, or in hopeless gloom. +James Thompson says in the "City of the Dreadful Night": + + "The city is of night but not of sleep; + There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain. + The pitiless hours like years and ages creep-- + A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain + Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, + Or which some moment's stupor but increases." + + * * * + + "This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, + Wounded and slow and very venomous." + + * * * + + 'Lo, as thus prostrate in the dust I write + My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears-- + But why evoke the spectres of black night + To blot the sunshine of exultant years! + + "Because a cold rage seizes one at times + To show the bitter, old and wrinkled truth, + Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles + False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth." + +All this, alas, is the inevitable physical outcome of the attempt to-- + + "Divorce old, barren Reason from my house + To take the daughter of the vine to spouse." + +All subjective happiness due to nerve stimulation is of the nature of +mania. In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will be +followed by its subjective reaction, the "Nuit Blanche," the "dark brown +taste," by the experience of "the difference in the morning." The only +melancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce. +It is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activity +and vitiates life. + +There are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorder +of nerve. Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, we +shall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism. In fact, +cheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather the +expression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes. Most of the +philosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of the +unattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequent +flow of good health. Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulness +when both sermons and arguments fail. + +For a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health. It is +as natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it. Pessimism +arises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves. It is a +symptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind. + +There is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over and +above all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them. But the +melancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcotic +or stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys. +"Liver complaint," says Zangwill, "is the Prometheus myth done into +modern English." Already historical criticism has shown that the Bloody +Assizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of vice +and cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves. It is natural +that degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust. But whatever +the causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy in +nervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought into +sound and helpful life. To live effectively implies the belief that life +is worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for a +moment doubted this. + +Such an expression as "worth living" has in fact no real meaning. To act +and to love are the twin functions of the human body and soul. To refuse +these functions is to make one's self incapable of them. It is in a +sense to die while the body is still alive. To refuse these functions is +to make misery out of existence, and a life of ennui is doubtless not +"worth living." + +The philosophy of life is its working hypothesis of action. To hold that +all effort is futile, that all knowledge is illusion, and that no result +of the human will is worth the pain of calling it into action, is to cut +the nerve of effectiveness. In proportion as one really believes this, +he becomes a cumberer of the ground. It was said of Oscar McCulloch, an +earnest student of human life, that "in whatever part of God's universe +he finds himself, he will be a hopeful man, looking forward and not +backward, looking upward and not downward, always ready to lend a +helping hand, and not afraid to die." + +Of like spirit was Robert Louis Stevenson: + + "Glad did I live and gladly die, + And I laid me down with a will." + +It is through men of this type that the work of civilization has been +accomplished, "men of present valor, stalwart, brave iconoclasts." They +were men who were content with the order of the universe as it is, and +seek only to place their own actions in harmony with this order. They +have no complaints to urge against "the goodness and severity of God," +nor any futile wish "to remould it nearer to the heart's desire." The +"Fanaticism for Veracity" is satisfied with what is. Not the ultimate +truth which is God's alone, but the highest attainable truth, is the aim +of Science, and to translate Science into Virtue is the goal of +civilization. + +The third question which Science may ask is the direct one. In what part +of the universe are you, and what are you doing? Thoreau says that +"there is no hope for you unless this bit of sod under your feet is the +sweetest to you in this world--in any world." Why not? Nowhere is the +sky so blue, the grass so green, the sunshine so bright, the shade so +welcome, as right here, now, today. No other blue sky, nor bright +sunshine, nor welcome shade exists for you. Other skies are bright to +other men. They have been bright in the past and so will they be again, +but yours are here and now. Today is your day and mine, the only day we +have, the day in which we play our part. What our part may signify in +the great whole we may not understand, but we are here to play it, and +now is the time. This we know, it is a part of action, not of whining. +It is a part of love, not cynicism. It is for us to express love in +terms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sad +experience that any other course of life leads toward decay and waste. + +What, then, are you doing under these blue skies? The thing you do +should be for you the most important thing in the world. If you could do +something better than you are doing now, everything considered, why are +you not doing it? + +If every one did the very best he knew, most of the problems of human +life would be already settled. If each one did the best he knew, he +would be on the highway to greater knowledge, and therefore still better +action. The redemption of the world is waiting only for each man to +"lend a hand." + +It does not matter if the greatest thing for you to do be not in itself +great. The best preparation for greatness comes in doing faithfully the +little things that lie nearest. The nearest is the greatest in most +human lives. + +Even washing one's own face may be the greatest present duty. The +ascetics of the past, who scorned cleanliness in the search for +godliness, became, sometimes, neither clean nor holy. For want of a +clean face they lost their souls. + +It was Agassiz's strength that he knew the value of today. Never were +such bright skies as arched above him; nowhere else were such charming +associates, such budding students, such secrets of nature fresh to his +hand. His was the buoyant strength of the man who can look the stars in +the face because he does his part in the Universe as well as they do +theirs. It is the fresh, unspoiled confidence of the natural man, who +finds the world a world of action and joy, and time all too short for +the fulness of life which it demands. When Agassiz died, "the best +friend that ever student had," the students of Harvard "laid a wreath of +laurel on his bier, and their manly voices sang a requiem, for he had +been a student all his life long, and when he died he was younger than +any of them." + +Optimism in life is a good working hypothesis, if by optimism we mean +the open-eyed faith that force exerted is never lost. Much that calls +itself faith is only the blindness of self-satisfaction. + +What if there are so many of us in the ranks of humanity? What if the +individual be lost in the mass as a pebble cast into the Seven Seas? +Would you choose a world so small as to leave room for only you and your +satellites? Would you ask for problems of life so tame that even you +could grasp them? Would you choose a fibreless Universe to be "remoulded +nearer to the heart's desire," in place of the wild, tough, virile, +man-making environment from which the Attraction of Gravitation lets +none of us escape? + +It is not that "I come like water and like wind I go." I am here today, +and the moment and the place are real, and my will is itself one of the +fates that make and unmake all things. "Every meanest day is the +conflux of two eternities," and in this center of all time and space for +the moment it is I that stand. Great is Eternity, but it is made up of +time. Could we blot out one day in the midst of time, Eternity could be +no more. The feebleness of man has its place within the infinite +Omnipotence. + +It is a question not of hope or despair, but of truth, not of optimism +nor of Pessimism, but of wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to do next; +virtue is doing it. Religion is the heart impulse that turns toward the +best and highest course of action. "It was my duty to have loved the +highest. What does that demand? What have I to do next? Not in infinity, +where we can do nothing, but here, today, the greatest day that ever +was, for it alone is mine! + +What matter is it that time does not end with us? Neither with us does +history begin. An Emperor of China once decreed that nothing should be +before him, that all history should begin with him. But he could go no +farther than his own decree. Who are you that would be Emperor of China? + + "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured + Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour." + +Why not? Should life stop with you? What have you done that you should +mark the end of time? If you have played your part in the procession of +bubbles, all is well, though the best you can do is to leave the world a +little better for the next that follows. + +If you have not made life a little richer and its conditions a little +more just by your living you have not touched the world. You are indeed +a bubble. If some kind friend somewhere "turn down an empty glass," it +will be the best monument you deserve. But to have had a friend is to +leave the glass not wholly empty, for life is justified in love as well +as in action. + +The words of Omar need to be read with the rising inflection, and they +become the expression of exultant hopefulness. + + "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured + Millions of bubbles and shall pour!" + +Small though we are the story is not all told when we are dead. The huge +procession goes on and shall go on, till the secret of the grand +symphony of life is reached. + + "A single note in the Eternal Song + A perfect Singer hath had need for me." + + * * * + + "I do rejoice that when of Thee and Me + Men speak no longer, yet not less but more + The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill + And ever fairer, clearer bubbles pour." + +In the same way we must read with the rising inflection the lines of +Tennyson: + + "I falter when I firmly trod, + And falling with my weight of cares, + Upon the World's great altar-stairs + That slope through darkness, up to god!" + +Read these words with courage, and with the upward turn of the voice at +the end. It is no longer in the darkness that we falter. The great +altar-stairs of which no man knows the beginning nor the end, do not +spring from the mire nor end in the mists. They "slope through darkness +up to God," and no one could ask a stronger expression of that robust +optimism which must be the mainspring of successful life. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of Despair, by David Starr Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR *** + +***** This file should be named 4754.txt or 4754.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/5/4754/ + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Schwan, davidsch@earthlink.net. + + + +The Philosophy of Despair + + + +by David Starr Jordan + + + + +To +John Maxson Stillman + +In Token of Good Cheer + + + +A darkening sky and a whitening sea, +And the wind in the palm trees tall; +Soon or late comes a call for me, +Down from the mountain or up from the sea, +Then let me lie where I fall. + +And a friend may write - for friends there be, +On a stone from the gray sea wall, +"Jungle and town and reef and sea - +I loved God's Earth and His Earth loved me, +Taken for all in all." + + + +Today is your day and mine, the only day we have, the day in which we +play our part. What our part may signify in the great whole, we may not +understand, but we are here to play it, and now is our time. This we +know, it is a part of action, not of whining. It is a part of love, not +cynicism. It is for us to express love in terms of human helpfulness. +This we know, for we have learned from sad experience that any other +course of life leads toward decay and waste. + + + +The Philosophy of Despair + + + +The Bubbles of Sáki. + + + +From Fitzgerald's exquisite version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, I +take the following quatrains which may serve as a text for what I have +to say: + +So when the angel of the darker Drink +At last shall find you by the river-brink, +And offering you his cup, invite your Soul +Forth to your lips to quaff, you shall not shrink. + +Why, if the soul can fling the Dust aside, +And naked on the air of Heaven ride, +Wert not a shame - wert not a shame for him +In this clay carcase crippled to abide? + +'Tis but a tent where takes his one-day's rest +A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; +The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrásh +Strikes, and prepares it for another guest. + +And fear not lest Existence, closing your +Account, and mine, shall know the like no more; +The Eternal Sáki from that bowl hath pour'd +Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour. + +When you and I behind the veil are past, +Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last, +Which of our coming and departure heeds +As the Sev'n Seas shall heed a pebble-cast. + +A moment's halt - a momentary taste +Of Being from the Well amid the waste, +And lo! - the phantom caravan has reach'd +The Nothing it set out from - O, make haste! + +* * * + +There was the door to which I found no key; +There was the veil through which I could not see: +Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee +There was - and then no more of Thee and Me. + +* * * + +Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd +Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust +Like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn +Are scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust. + +With them the seed of wisdom did I sow, +And with my own hand wrought to make it grow +And this was all the harvest that I reap'd - +"I come like water, and like wind I go." + +* * * + +Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspire +To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire, +Would we not shatter it to bits - and then +Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire! + +Yon rising Moon that looks for us again - +How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; +How oft hereafter rising look for us +Through this same garden - and for one in vain! + +And when like her, O Sáki, you shall pass +Among the guests, star-scattered on the grass, +And in your blissful errand reach the spot +Where I made one - turn down an empty glass! + +* * * + +And, again, in another poem from Carmen Silva's Roumanian folk-songs: + +Hopeless. + +Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me, +Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun." + +We sat beneath our tent; +Then he that hath no hope drew near us there, +And sat him down by us. +We asked him: "Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?" +And he made answer: "I have seen them all." +And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt, +Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart, +Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart - +The heart was gone. +And yet he trembled not, the while we looked, +And sought the heart, the heart that was not there. +He let us look. And he that had no hope +Smiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs. +Then we did envy him, that he could sing +Without a heart to suffer what he sang. +And when he went, he cast his cloak about him, +And those that met him, they could never guess +How that his shirt was torn about the heart, +And that his breast was pierced above the heart, +And that the heart was gone. + +I gazed into the mist, and fear came on me, +Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun." + +This poem of Omar and of Fitzgerald is perhaps our best expression of +the sadness and the grandeur of insoluble problems. It is the sweetness +of philosophical sorrow which has no kinship with misery or distress. In +the strains of the saddest music the soul finds the keenest delight. The +same sweet, sorrowful pleasure is felt in the play of the mind about the +riddles which it cannot solve. + +In the presence of the infinite problem of life, the voice of Science is +dumb, for Science is the coördinate and corrected expression of human +experience, and human experience must stop with the limitations of human +life. Man was not present "When the foundations of the Earth were laid," +and beyond the certainty that they were laid in wisdom and power, man +can say little about them. Man finds in the economy of nature "no trace +of a beginning; no prospect of an end!" He may feel sure, with Hutton, +that "time is as long as space is wide." But he cannot conceive of space +as actually without limit, nor can he imagine any limiting conditions. +He cannot think of a period before time began, nor of a state in which +time shall be no more. The mind fails before the idea of time's eternal +continuity. So time becomes to man merely the sequence of the earthly +events in which he and his ancestors have taken part. Even thus limited +it is sadly immortal, while man's stay on the earth is but of "few days +and full of trouble." "Oh, but the long, long while this world shall +last!" or as the grim humorist puts it, "we shall be a long time dead." + +Though the meaning of time, space, existence lies beyond our reach, yet +some sort of solution of the infinite problem the human heart demands. +We find in life a power for action, limited though this power may be. +Life is action, and action is impossible if devoid of motive or hope. + +It is my purpose here to indicate some part of the answer of Science to +the Philosophy of Despair. Direct reply Science has none. We cannot +argue against a singer or a poet. The poet sings of what he feels, but +Science speaks only of what we know. We feel infinity, but we cannot +know it, for to the highest human wisdom the ultimate truths of the +universe are no nearer than to the child. Science knows no ultimate +truths. These are beyond the reach of man, and all that man knows must +be stated in terms of his experience. But as to human experience and +conduct, Science has a word to say. + +Therefore Science can speak of the causes and results of Pessimism. It +can touch the practical side of the riddle of life by asking certain +questions, the answers to which lie within the province of human +experience. Among these are the following: + +Why is there a "Philosophy of Despair?" + +Can Despair be wrought into healthful life? + +In what part of the Universe are you and what are you doing? + +Personal despair or discouragement may rise from failure of strength or +failure of plans. This is a matter of every-day occurrence. The "best +laid schemes o' mice and men " generally go wrong, no doubt, but this +fact has little to do with the Philosophy of Pessimism. It is natural +for mice and men to try again and to gain wisdom from failures. By the +embers of loss we count our gains." + +The Pessimism of Youth we may first consider: In the transition from +childhood to manhood great changes take place in the nervous system. +There is for a time a period of confusion, in which the nerve cells are +acquiring new powers and new relations. This is followed by a time of +joy and exuberance, a sense of a new life in a new world, a feeling of +new power and adequacy, the thought that life is richer and better worth +living than the child could have supposed. + +To this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have been +a thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part +of a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speeches +made up for us centuries before we were born." The new power of manhood +and womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As +our own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it, +so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic. +Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass +through a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation +caught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find +expression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned +down his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that took +the starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth," says Zangwill, +says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear had +it been alive." With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its +expression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair. + +This adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mood +disappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanishes +with the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad of +the drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuous +life. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome. + +But if action is impossible, the mood remains. And here arises the +despair of the highly educated. The purpose of knowledge is action. But +to refuse action is to secure time for the acquisition of more +knowledge. It is written in the very structure of the brain that each +impression of the senses must bring with it the impulse to act. To +resist this impulse is in turn to destroy it and to substitute a dull +soul-ache in its place. "Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and the +experience of all the ages brings only despair if it cannot be wrought +into life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the +main element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others has +been uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures which +arise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire for +more intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirst +for these comes ever deeper discouragement. + +At the best, the tendency of large knowledge, not vitalized by practical +experience, is to spend itself in cynical criticism, in futile efforts +to tear down without feeling the higher obligation to build up. For it +is the essence of this form of Pessimism to feel that there is nothing +on earth worth the trouble of building. The real is only a "sneering +comment" on the ideal, and man's life is too short to make any action +worth while. + +"With her the seed of Wisdom did I sow, +And with mine own hands wrought to make it grow; +And this is all the harvest that I reap'd, +'I come like water, and like wind I go.'" + +One of the few things that we may know in life is this, that it is +impossible for man to know anything absolutely. The power of reasoning +is a mere "by-product in the process of Evolution." It is but an +instrument to help out the confusion of the senses, and it is +conditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which it +deals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason is +powerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculative +philosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intensely +practical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediate +purposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature of +the infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If we +cannot "reach the heart of reality" by reason, what indeed can we reach? +What right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe +nothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything? +Every man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In +the Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the +course of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us. +Our parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is +indeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue to +those who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose that +any man is in any degree "the arbiter of his own destiny" is pure +illusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against our +will we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, "on +a steep incline, where we can veer but little to the left or right"; +whichever way we move we fall finally to the very bottom. The fires we +kindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. The +river sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by our +efforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we find +ourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we may +describe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement. + +To the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mere +illusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fit +itself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for +the same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under +the rare conditions in which life is not destroyed. + +In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. If +we are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall +never begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our +hand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To reach +for the ultimate end of action is never to begin to act. + +Deeper and more worthy of respect is the sadness of science. The effort +"to see things as they really are," to get out of all make-believe and +to secure that "absolute veracity of thought" without which sound action +is impossible does not always lead to hopefulness. + +There is much to discourage in human history, - in the facts of human +life. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He is +ignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairs +bear the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in the +prevalence of destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilization +is dissolved in the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest or +commercial greed be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death. +Its essential feature is the slaughter of the young, the brave, the +ambitious, the hopeful, leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged to +perpetuate the race. Thus all militant, nations become decadent ones. +Thus the glory of Rome, her conquests and her splendor of achievement, +left the Romans at home a nation of cowards, and such they are to this +day. For those who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of the +slaves, scullions, the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Roman +glory could not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all that +is worthy in the works of man. + +That there seems no way out of this is the cause of the sullen despair +of so many scholars of Continental Europe. The millennium is not in +sight. It is farther away than fifty years ago. The future is narrowing +down and men do not care to forecast it. It is enough to grasp what we +may of the present. We hear "the ring of the hammer on the scaffold." +"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." "The sad kings," in +Watson's phrase, can only pile up fuel for their own destruction, and +the failure of force will release the unholy brood which force has +caused to develop. The winds of freedom are tainted by sulphurous +exhalations. In all our merry-making we find with Ibsen that "there is a +corpse on board." The mask is falling only to show the Death's head +there concealed. Aristocracy, Democracy, Anarchy, Empire, the history of +politics, is the eternal round of the Dance of Death. + +When we look at human nature in detail we find more of animal than of +angel, and the "veracity of thought and action," which is the choicest +gift of Science, is lost in the happy-go-lucky movement of the human +mob. "To see things as they really are" is the purpose of the philosophy +of Pessimism in the hands of its worthiest exponents. But we know what +is, and that alone, even were such knowledge possible, is not to know +the truth. The higher wisdom seeks to find the forces at work to produce +that which now is. The present time is the meeting time of forces; the +present fact their temporary product. To the philosophy of Evolution, +"every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities." Each meanest fact +is the product of the world-forces that lie behind it; each meanest man +the resultant of the vast powers, alive in human nature, struggling +since life began. And these forces, omnipotent and eternal, will never +cease their work. + +To the philosophy of Pessimism, the child is a mere human larva, weak, +perverse, disagreeable, the heir of mortality, with all manner of +"defects of doubt and taints of blood," gathered in the long experience +of its wretched parentage. + +In the more hopeful view of Evolution the child exists for its +possibilities. The huge forces within have thrown it to the surface of +time. They will push it onward to development, which may not be much in +the individual case, but beyond it all lie the possibilities of its +race. Inherent in it is the power to rise, to form its own environment, +to stand at last superior to the blind forces by which the human will +was made. With this thought is sure to come, in some degree, the +certainty that the heart of the Universe is sound, that though there be +so many of us in the world, each must have his place, and each at last +"be somehow needful to infinity." We can see that each least creature +has its need for being. The present justifies the past. It is the +transcendent future which renders the commonplace present possible. + +The "dragons of the prime, +That tore each other in the slime," + +lived and fought that we their descendants may realize ourselves in +"lives made beautiful and sweet," through all unlikeness to dragons. It +was necessary that every foot of soil in Europe should be crimsoned by +blood, wantonly shed, to bring the relative peace and tolerance of the +civilization of Europe today. It always "needs that offense must come" +to bring about the better condition in which each particular offense +shall be done away. For the evolution of life is not in straight lines +from lower to higher things, but runs rather in wavering spirals. It is +the resultant of stress and storm. The evil and failure which darken the +present are necessary to the illumination of the future. Time is long. +"God tosses back to man his failures" one by one, and gives him time and +strength to try again. + +According to Schopenhauer, we move across the stage of life stung by +appetite and goaded by desire, in pain unceasing, the sole respite from +pain, the instant in which desire is lost in satisfaction. To do away +with desire is to destroy pain, but it also destroys existence. Desire +is lost where the "mouth is stopped with dust," and with death only +comes relief from pain. + +Thus the Pessimist tells us that "the only reality in life is pain." But +surely this is not the truth. He who knows no reality save appetite has +never known life at all. The realities in life are love and action; not +desire, but the exercise of our appointed functions. + +Action follows sensation. The more we have to do the more accurate must +be our sensations, the greater the hold environment has upon us. Broader +activities demand better knowledge of our surroundings. Greater +sensitiveness to external things means greater capacity for pain, hence +greater suffering, when the natural channels of effort are closed. Thus +arises the hope for nothingness in which many sensitive souls have +indulged. With no surroundings at all, or with environment that never +varies, there could be no sense-perception. To see nothing, to feel +nothing - there could be no demand for action. With no failure of action +there could be no weariness. From the varied environment of earthly life +spring, through adaptation, the varied powers and varied sensibilities, +susceptibilities to joy and pain as well as the rest. The greater the +sensitiveness the greater the capacity for suffering. Hence the +"quenching of desire," the "turning toward Nirvana, the, desire to +escape from the hideous bustle of a world in which we are able to take +no part, is a natural impulse with the soul which feels but cannot or +will not act. + +"Can it be, O Christ in Heaven, +That the highest suffer most, +That the strongest wander farthest +And most hopelessly are lost? - + +That the mark of rank in Nature +Is capacity for pain, +And the anguish of the singer +Marks the sweetness of the strain? + +That this must be so rests in the very nature of things. The most +perfect instrument is one most easily thrown out of adjustment. The most +highly developed organism is the most exactly fitted to its functions, +the one most deeply injured when these functions are altered or +suppressed. + +Man's sensations and power to act must go together. Man can know nothing +that he cannot somehow weave into action. If he fails to do this in one +form or another, it is through limitations he has placed on himself. Man +cannot suffer for lack of "more worlds to conquer," because his power to +conquer worlds is the product of his own 'past life and his own past +needs. To weave knowledge into action is the antidote for ennui. To +plan, to hope, to do, to accomplish the full measure of our powers, +whatever they may be, is to turn away from Nirvana to real life. A +useful man, a helpful man, an active man in any sense, even though his, +activity be misdirected or harmful, is always a hopeful man. + +The feeling that "the only reality in life is pain," is the sign not of +philosophical acuteness but of bodily under-vitalization. The nervous +system is too feeble for the body it has to move. To act is to make the +environment your servant. Its pressure is no longer pain but joy. The +concessions which life has made to time and space are the source of +life's glory and power. + +The function of the nervous system is to carry from the environment to +the brain the impressions of truth, that action may be true and safe. +Pain and pleasure are both incidental to sound action. The one drives, +the other coaxes us toward the path of wisdom. If pain is in excess of +joy in our experience, it is because we have wandered from the path of +normal activity. By right-doing, we mean that action which makes for +"abundance of life," and abundance of life means fulness of joy. "Though +life be sad, yet there's joy in the living it" was the word of the +ancient Greeks, "who ever with a frolic welcome took the Thunder and the +Sunshine." + +The life of man is dynamic, not static; not a condition but a movement. +"Not enjoyment and not sorrow" is its end or justification. It is a rush +of forces, an evolution towards greater activities and higher +adjustment, the growth of a stability which shall be ever more unstable. +This onward motion is recognized in the pessimistic philosophy of Von +Hartmann, as a movement towards ever greater possibilities of pain. With +him life is "the supreme blunder of the blind unconscious force" which +created man and developed him as the prey of ever-increasing suffering. + +But the power to enjoy has grown in like degree, and both joy and pain +are subordinated to the power to act. The human will, the power to do, +is the real end of the stress and struggle of the ages. However limited +its individual action, the will finds its place among the gigantic +factors in the evolution of life. It is not the present, but the +ultimate, which is truth. Not the unstable and temporary fact but the +boundless clashing forces which endlessly throw truths to the surface. + +Another source of Pessimism is the reaction from unearned pleasures and +from spurious joys. It is the business of the senses to translate +realities, to tell the truth about us in terms of human experience. +Every real pleasure has its cost in some form of nervous activity. What +we get we must earn, if it is to be really ours. Long ago, in the +infancy of civilization, man learned that there were drugs in Nature, +cell products of the growth or transformation of "our brother organisms, +the plants," by whose agency pain was turned to pleasure. By the aid of +these outside influences he could clear "today of past regrets and +future fears," and strike out from the sad "calendar unborn tomorrow and +dead yesterday." + +That the joys thus produced had no real objective existence, man was not +long in finding out, and it soon appeared that for each subjective +pleasure which had no foundation in action, there was a subjective +sorrow, likewise unrelated to external things. + +But that the pains more than balanced the joys, and that the indulgence +in unearned deceptions destroyed sooner or later all capacity for +enjoyment, man learned more slowly. + +The joys of wine, of opium, of tobacco and of all kindred drugs are mere +tricks upon the nervous system. In greater or less degree they destroy +its power to tell the truth, and in proportion as they have seemed to +bring subjective happiness, so do they bring at last subjective horror +and disgust. And this utter soul-weariness of drugs has found its way +into literature as the expression of Pessimism. + +"The City of the Dreadful Night," for example, does not find its +inspiration in the misery of selfish, rushing, crowded London. It is the +effect of brandy on the sensitive mind of an exquisitive poet. Not the +world, but the poet, lies in the "dreadful night" of self-inflicted +insomnia. Wherever these subjective nerve influences find expression in +literature it is either in an infinite sadness, or in hopeless gloom. +James Thompson says in the "City of the Dreadful Night": + +"The city is of night but not of sleep; +There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain. +The pitiless hours like years and ages creep - +A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain +Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, +Or which some moment's stupor but increases." + +* * * + +"This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, +Wounded and slow and very venomous." + +* * * + +'Lo, as thus prostrate in the dust I write +My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears - +But why evoke the spectres of black night +To blot the sunshine of exultant years! + +"Because a cold rage seizes one at times +To show the bitter, old and wrinkled truth, +Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles +False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth." + +All this, alas, is the inevitable physical outcome of the attempt to - + +"Divorce old, barren Reason from my house +To take the daughter of the vine to spouse." + +All subjective happiness due to nerve stimulation is of the nature of +mania. In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will be +followed by its subjective reaction, the "Nuit Blanche," the "dark brown +taste," by the experience of "the difference in the morning." The only +melancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce. +It is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activity +and vitiates life. + +There are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorder +of nerve. Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, we +shall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism. In fact, +cheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather the +expression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes. Most of the +philosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of the +unattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequent +flow of good health. Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulness +when both sermons and arguments fail. + +For a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health. It is +as natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it. Pessimism +arises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves. It is a +symptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind. + +There is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over and +above all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them. But the +melancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcotic +or stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys. +"Liver complaint," says Zangwill, "is the Prometheus myth done into +modern English." Already historical criticism has shown that the Bloody +Assizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of vice +and cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves. It is natural +that degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust. But whatever +the causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy in +nervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought into +sound and helpful life. To live effectively implies the belief that life +is worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for a +moment doubted this. + +Such an expression as "worth living" has in fact no real meaning. To act +and to love are the twin functions of the human body and soul. To refuse +these functions is to make one's self incapable of them. It is in a +sense to die while the body is still alive. To refuse these functions is +to make misery out of existence, and a life of ennui is doubtless not +"worth living." + +The philosophy of life is its working hypothesis of action. To hold that +all effort is futile, that all knowledge is illusion, and that no result +of the human will is worth the pain of calling it into action, is to cut +the nerve of effectiveness. In proportion as one really believes this, +he becomes a cumberer of the ground. It was said of Oscar McCulloch, an +earnest student of human life, that "in whatever part of God's universe +he finds himself, he will be a hopeful man, looking forward and not +backward, looking upward and not downward, always ready to lend a +helping hand, and not afraid to die." + +Of like spirit was Robert Louis Stevenson: + +"Glad did I live and gladly die, +And I laid me down with a will." + +It is through men of this type that the work of civilization has been +accomplished, "men of present valor, stalwart, brave iconoclasts." They +were men who were content with the order of the universe as it is, and +seek only to place their own actions in harmony with this order. They +have no complaints to urge against "the goodness and severity of God," +nor any futile wish "to remould it nearer to the heart's desire." The +"Fanaticism for Veracity" is satisfied with what is. Not the ultimate +truth which is God's alone, but the highest attainable truth, is the aim +of Science, and to translate Science into Virtue is the goal of +civilization. + +The third question which Science may ask is the direct one. In what part +of the universe are you, and what are you doing? Thoreau says that +"there is no hope for you unless this bit of sod under your feet is the +sweetest to you in this world - in any world." Why not? Nowhere is the +sky so blue, the grass so green, the sunshine so bright, the shade so +welcome, as right here, now, today. No other blue sky, nor bright +sunshine, nor welcome shade exists for you. Other skies are bright to +other men. They have been bright in the past and so will they be again, +but yours are here and now. Today is your day and mine, the only day we +have, the day in which we play our part. What our part may signify in +the great whole we may not understand, but we are here to play it, and +now is the time. This we know, it is a part of action, not of whining. +It is a part of love, not cynicism. It is for us to express love in +terms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sad +experience that any other course of life leads toward decay and waste. + +What, then, are you doing under these blue skies? The thing you do +should be for you the most important thing in the world. If you could do +something better than you are doing now, everything considered, why are +you not doing it? + +If every one did the very best he knew, most of the problems of human +life would be already settled. If each one did the best he knew, he +would be on the highway to greater knowledge, and therefore still better +action. The redemption of the world is waiting only for each man to +"lend a hand." + +It does not matter if the greatest thing for you to do be not in itself +great. The best preparation for greatness comes in doing faithfully the +little things that lie nearest. The nearest is the greatest in most +human lives. + +Even washing one's own face may be the greatest present duty. The +ascetics of the past, who scorned cleanliness in the search for +godliness, became, sometimes, neither clean nor holy. For want of a +clean face they lost their souls. + +It was Agassiz's strength that he knew the value of today. Never were +such bright skies as arched above him; nowhere else were such charming +associates, such budding students, such secrets of nature fresh to his +hand. His was the buoyant strength of the man who can look the stars in +the face because he does his part in the Universe as well as they do +theirs. It is the fresh, unspoiled confidence of the natural man, who +finds the world a world of action and joy, and time all too short for +the fulness of life which it demands. When Agassiz died, "the best +friend that ever student had," the students of Harvard "laid a wreath of +laurel on his bier, and their manly voices sang a requiem, for he had +been a student all his life long, and when he died he was younger than +any of them." + +Optimism in life is a good working hypothesis, if by optimism we mean +the open-eyed faith that force exerted is never lost. Much that calls +itself faith is only the blindness of self-satisfaction. + +What if there are so many of us in the ranks of humanity? What if the +individual be lost in the mass as a pebble cast into the Seven Seas? +Would you choose a world so small as to leave room for only you and your +satellites? Would you ask for problems of life so tame that even you +could grasp them? Would you choose a fibreless Universe to be "remoulded +nearer to the heart's desire," in place of the wild, tough, virile, +man-making environment from which the Attraction of Gravitation lets +none of us escape? + +It is not that "I come like water and like wind I go." I am here today, +and the moment and the place are real, and my will is itself one of the +fates that make and unmake all things. "Every meanest day is the +conflux of two eternities," and in this center of all time and space for +the moment it is I that stand. Great is Eternity, but it is made up of +time. Could we blot out one day in the midst of time, Eternity could be +no more. The feebleness of man has its place within the infinite +Omnipotence. + +It is a question not of hope or despair, but of truth, not of optimism +nor of Pessimism, but of wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to do next; +virtue is doing it. Religion is the heart impulse that turns toward the +best and highest course of action. "It was my duty to have loved the +highest. What does that demand? What have I to do next? Not in infinity, +where we can do nothing, but here, today, the greatest day that ever +was, for it alone is mine! + +What matter is it that time does not end with us? Neither with us does +history begin. An Emperor of China once decreed that nothing should be +before him, that all history should begin with him. But he could go no +farther than his own decree. Who are you that would be Emperor of China? + +"The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured +Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour." + +Why not? Should life stop with you? What have you done that you should +mark the end of time? If you have played your part in the procession of +bubbles, all is well, though the best you can do is to leave the world a +little better for the next that follows. + +If you have not made life a little richer and its conditions a little +more just by your living you have not touched the world. You are indeed +a bubble. If some kind friend somewhere "turn down an empty glass," it +will be the best monument you deserve. But to have had a friend is to +leave the glass not wholly empty, for life is justified in love as well +as in action. + +The words of Omar need to be read with the rising inflection, and they +become the expression of exultant hopefulness. + +"The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured +Millions of bubbles and shall pour!" + +Small though we are the story is not all told when we are dead. The huge +procession goes on and shall go on, till the secret of the grand +symphony of life is reached. + +"A single note in the Eternal Song +A perfect Singer hath had need for me." + +* * * + +"I do rejoice that when of Thee and Me +Men speak no longer, yet not less but more +The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill +And ever fairer, clearer bubbles pour." + +In the same way we must read with the rising inflection the lines of +Tennyson: + +"I falter when I firmly trod, +And falling with my weight of cares, +Upon the World's great altar-stairs +That slope through darkness, up to god!" + +Read these words with courage, and with the upward turn of the voice at +the end. It is no longer in the darkness that we falter. The great +altar-stairs of which no man knows the beginning nor the end, do not +spring from the mire nor end in the mists. They "slope through darkness +up to God," and no one could ask a stronger expression of that robust +optimism which must be the mainspring of successful life. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR *** + +This file should be named phdes10.txt or phdes10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, phdes11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, phdes10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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