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this might be proved true of epochs, its application to individuals carries greater conviction. Similar ages do not occur so frequently as similar men, and the particular is more easily understood than the general. Even the happiest times have seldom lacked a Diogenes. The long roll of history furnishes a succession of thinkers, saints, and poets, for whom the prevalence of pain and sin was an insoluble or overwhelming mystery. The writer of Job, whose "days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope," and the author of Ecclesiastes, who saw no profit under the sun," had a fellow plaintiff-a contemporary, perhaps-in the farther East. Kapila, the Brahmin evolution philosopher, announced that "the complete cessation of pain, which is of three kinds, is the complete end of man.” At a later time, and under widely different conditions, Stoic and Epicurean optimism gave way beneath the pressure of circumstances. Suicide ended the wise man's quest for freedom. Once more, Gnosticism, concurring in the Platonic notion that matter is necessarily accompanied by evil, gave birth to the curious doctrine of God's fall. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, because the Creator, by his very act of creation, committed sin. Manichæism and Augustinianism, each in its own way sought to explain or to eliminate evil. The dualism of medieval civilization was largely due to a protest against the world and the ills inseparable from it. And its implied conclusion, that "if creation was a blunder, procreation is a crime," strangely foretold some of the latest pessimistic deductions. But, cull illustrations as one may, the heart affliction and pitiful ancertainty on which despondency battens, did not assert themselves unmistakably till the eighteenth century was nearing its dramatic close.

"CURSE God, and die." "Pity God -who is a miserable devil-and live to les sen his eternal wretchedness. Startling as they may appear, these conclusions of modern Pessimism are no products of capricious self-dissatisfaction. They do not necessarily bear witness to broken ideals, to adverse fortunes, or to embittered lives. They are rather the results of matured reflection upon the graver problems of metaphysics, ethics, and religion. "The still sad music of humanity" has indeed lost none of its sadness, but it is no longer still. Suggestion or motif now dominates accompaniment, and the recurring wail of isolated melancholy has swelled into an inharmoniously harmonious symphony of despair. The importance of contemporary Pessimism is partly to be gauged by the assurance with which its professors advance it as a working theory of the world. Schopenhauer supposed that he had superseded Kant, but Hartmann regards his "Philosophy of the Unconscious" as the last word of speculation. All that is valuable in Hegel and the idealists, no less than in Kant and Schopenhauer, is there brought to a unity. Nor are his co-workers-Bahnsen, Du Prel, Mailänder, and Preuss, to name no others-less confident. Pessimism, in short, has not merely a history, and a bizarre theosophy, it puts in a claim to be the system of the universe. A modest pretension, some one will say. Yet it is not entirely devoid of reason. Moreover, as a system, Pessimism commits itself to certain definite issues, and the advantage of knowing that by these it must stand or fall is obvious. History is the best witness to the reasonableness of Pessimism. conceivably be shown, that in the development of civilization there are periods when the apparent contradiction inherent in things imperiously commands attention. The joyousness of pre-Socratic Greece or of Elizabethan England is seldom of long duration. One generation accepts life as a fact, the next must needs frame a theory of it. Loss of contentment usually accompanies reflection, and then heart-searchings arise. Nudity is without shame when it attracts no attention. But while

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Rousseau was the herald of a widespread movement. His 66 Reveries' reveal a mental state through which many have since passed. Sensibility become morbid, egoism determined to be self-sustained, nature willing itself unnatural, these were his birthright and his legacy. Proclaiming himself the best

of men, Rousseau deemed himself the most miserable. Yet he put forth no effort to discover his own contribution to his despair. It is easy to set about reforming the universe, but reformation, like charity, begins at home. Self-sophistication, with its attendant vanity, constitute Rousseau's importance as the initiator of the Byronic school. The individualism of the French Revolution was beforehand with it in him. His sorrow and self. praise, his broken-hearted peace, and his greed of that approval which the world did not then know how to give, formed the insoluble contradictions of his life. Continually looking for himself in the wrong place, as it were, he as constantly found that he was in bondage to the 'gêne and subjection which were insupportable to him." Little wonder that he waxed wroth with the world, and struggled to deliver himself from ill by striving to annul irritating, but inevitable, limitations of human life. He would have lost his significance bad he been able to make Leopardi's confession: "I perceived that the more I isolated myself from men, and confined me to my own little sphere, the less I succeeded in protecting myself from the discomforts and sufferings of the outer world." Rousseau was either too introspective, or not introspective enough, to apprehend this. The French Revolution, which but embodied his doctrines in practice, was scarce well over, its wild dreams of an unobtainable freedom had hardly been dispelled, ere the disease of the age began to reassert itself, not indeed with fresh symptoms, but for new causes. Byron in England, Leopardi in Italy, De Musset, Baudelaire, Gautier and Leconte de Lisle in France, Heine in Germany, Lenau in Hungary, Poushkin in Russia, bore witness to widespread disillusionment and unrest. The hoped-for heaven upon earth could be found no where, and these writers gave utterance to the universal disappointment. Differences among them there certainly were, from the self-obtrusion of Byron to the impersonality of Leconte de Lisle. But one and all protest against the cruel barriers to intellectual satisfaction inseparable from man's finite nature. The studied impassibility, which so many now deem essential to art, especially to literary art, is only another phase of Byron's implora eterna quiete. I hope that whosoever may survive me,

and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the fortress of the Adriatic, will have those two words, and no more, put over me'Implora Pace.'" Statuesque impassibility amid human woes, and the peace of the tomb, are impracticable ideals. Born of the so-called unintelligible, they reduce not one whit the unintelligibility of things. Sentimental Pessimism, whether in Ferrara seventy years ago, or in Paris to-day, seeks to assuage grief by the grievous. Impassibility is without pity, and the peace of death is no anodyne for the sorrow of life. The Pessimisin of the poets was not only unreasoned, but also subjective. Each writer gave expression to his own dissatisfaction, and sought relief for himself after the manner which best pleased him. But "the sadness which clings to all finite life" was then so universally felt as to demand a more systematic explanation. Byron and Leopardi were ill at ease; so were many others everywhere. The high-strung sensibility of the genius is racked by unavoidable evils; but does not talent go unrewarded, and is not hunger the laborer's lot? Pessimism, in short, is as reasonable for society at large as for a few of its more gifted members-that is, it has objective no less than subjective validity; as such it cannot be compassed or mitigated by poetical caprice. A system is now necessary. If pain is not to reduce the world to moral and spiritual impotence, a reasoned account of it must be forthcoming. Leopardi's Icelander was opportunely devoured by a couple of famishing lions immediately after he had put his inconvenient question to Nature. The question still remained, and Schopenhauer was the first to attempt a systematic reply.

But since that which is destroyed suffers, and that which is born from its destruction also suffers in due course, and finally is in its turn destroyed, would you enlighten me on one point, about which hitherto no philosopher has satisfied me? For whose pleasure and service is this wretched life. of the world maintained by the suffering and death of all the beings which compose it?" A theory of the ultimate reality of the universe is indispensable to the solution of this problem, and Schopenhauer was the first to formulate it on the given premises.

Now Schopenhauer, being a philosopher, was affected by the speculations of previ

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ous thinkers, as were none of his poetic contemporaries. No doubt he lived throughout the storm and stress" period, and gave its weltschmerz formal expression. But his thought, as distinguished from his standpoint, was largely determined by Kant. Add Indian rationalisın, as formulated by Kapila, Plato, medieval mysticism, and Schelling, and the main elements in his system are enumerated. Its peculiar doctrines were drawn from these sources; the diffused discontent, which found voice in the poets, called it forth; its aim was the diagnosis of misery and the prescription of a cure; reasoned Pessimism was its result. Schopenhauer professedly set out from the point where Kant stopped. In this he only followed his pet aversions, Fichte and Hegel. He saw, with characteristic acuteness, that Kant's system, rigorously interpreted, had finally explained reality neither on the side of things nor on that of thought. The unknowable "thing-in-itself," which actually exists, but is beyond man's ken, and the equally unknowable self," which remains over and above all such manifestations of it as are given in imagination, memory, perception, and the like-these, as Schopenhauer said, are inexplicable residua for Kant. Accordingly he proceeded to attempt their explanation. The world, he would seem to have reasoned, is unquestionably a mere succession of representations conjured up by the intellect. But are my activities as a thinking being exhausted in such represuch representations? Have I no other faculties It is in the direction indicated by these questions that he seeks the way to the absolutely real. Continuous energizing, Continuous energizing, unwearied effort to assert himself is, he concludes, the ultimate in every man's nature. The thinker is not a mere machine for grinding out phenomenal representations, he is far rather a subject who wills. Will, the persistent and impelling power in all acts, is thus that ego beyond experience which Kant failed to explain. The fact that I exist is consequent upon the fact that I will. I am I, because I will. So the unknowable "I" of Kant is abolished. Nor is this all. Will is not only indirectly cognized through the intellect, but is directly known in bodily movements, which are its manifestations. "The body is the objectification of the will." This doctrine enables Schopenhauer to remove another difficulty; for, he can constitute

body the link between subjective personality-which is all compact of will-and the outer "thing-in-itself." If my body be my will, then by an obvious analogy the phenomena represented to me are each of them revelations of a Will. As my being is ultimately grounded on will, so too is theirs. Like me, they are will, both phenomenally and actually. Thus, by an easy transition, the elimination of the transcendental ego" leads to the removal of the troublesome "thing-in-itself." Finally, by another convenient analogy, it is concluded that Will is the ultimate reality of the universe as a whole. If my body be identical with my will, and if all bodies be simply wills-and "all that we grasp offers resistance, because it has its own will that must be subdued "-then Will is the substratum of the universe. Phenomenal nature, including man, is therefore the visible manifestation of a Will.

Whatever reality it may have proceeds directly from this all-essential volition. The mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are different only in degree, in kind they are homogeneous. "There is not a smaller part of Will in the stone and a larger part in man, for the relation of part and whole belongs exclusively to space, and has no significance when we transcend this form of perception. The more and the less have only reference to the manifestation, that is, the visibility, the objectifying, of Will. Of this there is a higher grade in the plant than in the stone, in the animal a higher than in the plant; indeed, there are as many gradations in the Will's emergence into visibility as exist between the dimmest light of dawn and the brightest sunlight, between the loudest sound and the faintest echo."

How then does this Will necessitate pessimistic conclusions regarding the present life? Schopenhauer reversed the doctrines of previous thinkers, and especially of Kant. According to a general consensus of opinion, in which Socrates, Augustine, Duns Scotus, Kant, Schelling, and Hegel join, Will is a particular case of self-consciousness. It is the faculty which presides over practical or moral life, just as intellect directs subjective thought. At the same time, there could be no Will without consciousness. Willing is but the outer side of thinking. The individual who acts must will; he need not will in order to contemplate. But were he unable

to contemplate, he could neither will nor act. Schopenhauer, on the contrary, regards the primal Will as an impersonal and unconscious force. Its one positive characteristic is that it is pregnant with undistinguishable desire. Like water in a reservoir, it would burst the dam if it could, and aimlessly realize its latent energy by rushing anywhere. Accordingly, Will is neither God nor devil, it contains no principle, nor is it subject to any law. It is a diffused potentiality, ready to take every direction for the sake of actualization, yet unable of itself to choose one. From this unconscious Something, Schopenhauer leaps to self-conscious man, to conscious animal, to living vegetable. Darkly striving Will first reveals itself we are not told how-in the guises of mechanical force and chemical affinity. Then, still more inexplicably, it speeds from the sphere of dead matter into that of living beings.

"And vaguely in the pregnant deep,

Clasped by the glowing arms of light,
From an eternity of sleep

in man.

Within unfathomed gulfs of night, A pulse stirred in the plastic slime, Responsive to the rhythm of Time." Like Aristotle's "soul," Will follows the ascending scale of plant, brute, and human life, attaining self-consciousness at length The grandiose sweep of Schopenhauer's demonstration is fascinating. But it constantly suggests a difficulty. According to the theory, Will cannot manifest itself except under causal direction. Notwithstanding, Will is all from the beginning, there is nothing external to it. Whence, then, its motive to definite revelation? Here Schopenhauer falls back upon Platonic mysticism, upon the mythological and unsatisfactory part of Plato's philosophy. As it rises from lower objectivity, in gravitation, to higher, in organism and self-consciousness, Will is causally directed in each operation by archetypal ideas. Behind the imperfect phenomena known in the world are pure ideas. These correspond to the objects, and constitute their real perfection. Man's body, for example, is a manifestation of Will; therefore it is a mere idea, as it is only the mode in which the Will represents itself in the view of the intellect." It is unnecessary to do more than draw attention to the vicious reasoning involved here. Idea, as Schopenhauer

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very rightly points out, is a product of intellect, but intellect, he continues, is produced by the brain; and brain is a revelation of Will directed by idea! The contradiction is obvious, and vitiates the entire argument. tire argument. Will is postulated as the sole original reality, yet it is attended by other realities, the abstract Platonic ideas. Schopenhauer's ontological scheme presupposes this contradictory doctrine, and is in turn the basis of his practical philosophy. By a species of ecstasy-a negation of the limits of reason, that is, of personality-artistic genius is able for a moment to identify itself with the archetypal idea, and thus to escape from the dominion of Will. Such supreme moments are few, and their fruition is only for the select. Yet they constitute the one joy of human life. Cancel them, and this would be absolutely the worst of all possible worlds. Will, the ultimately real, is essentially fraught with pain and every sort of imperfection, because in its ceaseless and frantic effort to find perfect expression it is ever baffled. Man's greatest crime is that he was born," said Calderon. And Schopenhauer, for the reason indicated, cordially endorsed the cheerful sentiment. In being born every individual of his own free act commits the unpardonable offence. He ought not to be born. For, reality or perfection is beyond the bounds of time. Man, the individual, is perfect, so be that he never becomes an individual-that he remains absorbed in the Will's eternal past. perfection attaching to true reality flies forever at the moment of birth. Life itself is an unreality, the supposititious past of the individual is a myth, and the same may be said, not only of his future, but also of that of mankind. Immortality is an illusion, because to gain perfection man must divest himself of his own selfhood, and be received back again into the unconscious reality of Will, where nothing is distinguishable. Thus existence, by the very fact that it is, is the most fearful of evils. Life, seeing that it possesses no inherent value, is worth living only in so far as it furnishes opportunity for regeneration by the extinction of self. "Curse God"

The

who is so constituted that he must have your existence, and that without incurring one iota of responsibility for its inevitable. evil. "Curse God"-who can do nothing to redeem you from the sin into which