OPTIMISM (Lat. optimus, best) the name given to the doctrine of those philosophers and divines who hold that dm existing order of things, whatever may be its seeMing imperfections of detail, is nevertheless, as a whole, the most perfect or the best which could have been created, or which it is possible to conceive. Some of the advocates of optimism content themselves with maintaining the absolute position, that although God was not by arty means bound to create the most perfect order of things, yet the existing order is de facto the best: others contend, in addition, that the perfection and wisdom of almighty God necessarily require that his creation should be the most perfect which it is possible to conceive. The philosophical discussions of which this controversy is the development are as old as philosophy itself, and form the groundwork of all the systems, physical as well as moral, whether of the Oriental or of the Greek philosophy; of Dual ism, Parsism. and of the Christian Gnosticism and Manicheism in the east; and in the west, of the Ionian, the Eleatic, the Atomistic; no less than of the later and more familiar, Stoic, Peripatetic, and Platonistic schools. In the philosophical writing.; of the fathers, of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and alcove all of Augustine, the problem of the seem ing mixture of good and evil in the world is the great subject of inquiry, and through all the subtleties of the mediaeval schools it continued to hold an important and promi nent place. But the full development of the optimistic theory as at philosophical sys tem was reserved for the celebrated Leibnitz (q.v.). It forms the subject of his most elaborate work, entitled Theodiera, the main thesis of which may 1w briefly stated to be —that among all the systems which presented themselves to the influite intelligence of God, as possible, God selected and created, in the existing universe, the best and most perfect, physically as well as morally. The Theorlicen, published in 1700. was designed
to meet the sceptical theories of Bayle, by showing not only that the existence of evil, moral and physical, is not incompatible with the general pefection of the created uni verse, but that God, as all-wise, all-powerful, and all-perfect, has chosen out of all pos sible creation the best and most perfect; that had another more perfect creation been present to the divine intelligence, God's wisdom would have required of him to select it; and that if another, even equally perfect, had been possible, there would not have been any sufficient determining motive for the creation of the present world. The details of the controversial part of the system would be out of place in this work. IL will he enough to say that the existence of evil, both moral and physical, is explained as a neces sary consequence of the finiteness of created beings; and it is contended that in the balance of good and evil in the existing constitution of things, the preponderance of the former is greater that in any other conceivable creation. The great argument of the optimists is the following: If the present universe he not the best that is possible, it must be either because God following: not know of the (supposed) better universe, or because was not able to create that better one, or was not to create it. Now every one of these hypotheses is irreconcilable with the attributes of God: the first, with his omnis-1 &nee; the second, with his omnipotence; and the third, with his goodness. See Leib nitz, Theodieea; Bainneister's Historia de Mundo Optima. The view of the universe diametrically opposed to optimism is pessimism (pessintus, worst), and has of late been! frequently maintained: see Sully's Pessimism (1877).