I.
It is in fact in such skepticism as this that one finds the real power and meaning of most genuine modern Pessimism. Not so much in the hopelessness of our efforts to reach our ideals once chosen as in our perpetual hesitation or unsteadiness in the choice of ideals, we most frequently find the deepest ground for pessimistic despair. Choose an ideal, and you have at least your part to play in the world. The game may seem worth the trouble; for far off as may be what you seek, there is the delight and the earnestness of free self-surrender to a great aim. But pessimism is almost inevitable if you have been long trying to find an ideal to which you can devote yourself, and if you have failed in your quest. Therefore those advocates of pessimism are most formidable who dwell less upon the ills of life, as bare facts, and more upon the aimlessness of life. Von Hartmann, therefore, to whom pessimism is more the supposed result of a process of summation, and thus is a belief that the sum of pains in life overbalances the sum of pleasures, produces little effect upon us by his balance-sheet. But Schopenhauer, who dwelt not only upon the balance-sheet, but still more upon the fundamental fact that life is restless and aimless, — he is nearer to success in his pessimistic efforts. It is here that one finds also the true strength of Schopenhauer’s model, the Buddhistic despair of life. Choose your aim in life, says in effect Buddhism, let it be wife or child, wealth or fame or power, and still your aim is only
