PESSIMISM (from Lat. • pessimus, worst). The doctrine that life is or tenths to become whol ly undesirable, or that the world is essentially evil. It is thus contrasted with optimism, which teaches that the world is essentially good, and with meliorism, which maintains that the world is constantly becoming better and life more en durable.
Pessimism is characteristically a mental atti tude toward life rather than a philosophical doc trine, its significance is ethical rather than metaphysical. It never appears, however, except as a consequence of reflection and so of a certain amount of intellectual enlightenment. Most com monly it is the outgrowth of a consciousness of 1111111;111 impotence, and especially of the inade quacy of human effort in the struggle for ideal attainment. Where pessimism is based upon metaphysics, the world is usually conceived to be governed by blind necessity and human life to be a toy of fate. Accordingly the doctrine is most commonly maintained by those who hold a pan theistic conception of the universe, as the Orien tals. or by those who conceive it as wholly determined by mechanical laws or as wholly materialistic. Optimism, on the other hand, is a necessary corollary of belief in a beneficent God. and so is characteristic of theistic religions. (See LEIBNITZ for the argument.) At the same time there is a purely empirical pc-ssimism—the denial that human life per se is worth while—which is compatible with any cosmological conception, whether theistic o• not. Such a pessimism is that of the author of Ecclesiastes, and such a pes simism is the implied basis of Christian ascet icism, by which physical life is valued only as a discipline for a more worthy existence.
Historically, philosophical pessimism has been of two leading types. Perhaps the most ancient is the pessimism of India, the essential character of which is the denial of the value of life on the ground that its pains overbalance its pleasures and progressively tend to do so with the growth of desire. This doctrine does not appear in the Vedic hymns; for these belonged to time restless, active period of the history of the Aryans in In dia. and activity is little compatible with pessi mistic theory; but it early developed with Brahmanistie pantheism, and attained its full growth in Buddhism (q.v.). The salient fea tures of 'Indian pessimism are: first, the assertion that life is predominantly painful; second, the notion that conscious evolution is dominated by growing desire and growing failure to attain satis faction; and, third, the conception of Nirvana, o• annihilation of individual consciousness as an ultimate relief from the fever of living.
In contrast to this Oriental pessimism stands the Greek type. This was faintly foreshadowed by the Platonic doctrine of the impotence of the material world in its efforts to attain the perfect gond embodied in the divine ideas. Plato himself was saved from pessimism by the very vividness of his idealism; but with the philosophers who followed him the ethical problem became para mount and the problem of the existence of evil and the fact of human insufficiency were poig nantly recognized. Epicurus (q.v.) is the typical Greek pessimist. his doctrine differing from the Oriental in that it denied the excellence of life in general and rather for its failure to achieve the good than for its mere painfulness. Ilk practical doctrine, however—to make the best out of life by a temperate hedonism—speedily de generated among his followers into a rough and ready sensuality. The most metaphysical and
thorough-going of Greek pessimists was Prochas (q.v.), who taught that the whole evolution of the world is away from the divine or good.
lint there was little congenial to pessimism in the exuberant paganism about the ancient :Nledi terranean; the classic peoples were too heartily in love with life. With the Tent onie Aryans the case was different. A gloomy fatalism was early eb:a•aeto-istic of their myth and mood, and though the Northman looked forward to eventual annihilation in the cataclysmic contention of liagnarok. the 'twilight of the gods.' rather than through passive absorption. his ultimate concep tion varied little from that of the Brahman. And the Teutonic point of view seems to have dominated mediaeval Europe. giving it that ascetic pessimism which Christianity made empirieal lathe• than ultimate. In modern times, however, pessimism has reasserted itself, largely under the influence of scientific determinism. The notion that the world is governed by invariable laws and conserves now but material elements has seemed to argue the defeat of the commonest human ex pectations. The pessimistic reaction has ap peared most strongly in poets, as occasionally in Tennyson, for example, but notably in the Italian Leopardi (q.v.) and in James Thomson, the author of The City of Dreadful Night. In philosophy Sehopenhaner and Hartmann (qq. v.) are the chief exponents of modern pessi mism. The pessimism of the former is the result of his philosophic creed and is curiously eclectic in its origin. Sehopenhauer as a follower of Kant believed that the world is a creation of ex perience to be idealistically interpreted; but ac cording to his interpretation the creating power is a blind, uneasy, hapless-tending will, while in telligence is a suffering consequence of the will's activity. The painfulness of conscious life lie endeavored to establish upon empirical, psycho logical grounds, and this feature of his pes simism is plainly Oriental in source. His fur ther doctrine, however—that final escape from the misery of existence is to be attained through pure intelligence defeating the blind energy of the will by overcoming desire—seems to be allied not only to Brahmanism, but also to the Platonic doctrine of escape to the world of divine ideas and the Spinozistie theory of immortality through the soul's identification with eternal verities. (See PLATO; SPINOZA. ) SV110110111/111er'S Ilartmaim, carried the doefrine fur ther by arguing that time evolution of conscious ness from an unconscious universe must ultimate ly result in an intelligence so acutely powerful that it should not only put an end to individual consciousness and desire, but compel the whole world's suicide.
It is but fair to state that pessimism is not necessarily a result of deterministic metaphysics, no• yet of pantheism. Herbert Spencer's melio rism teaches that the world is compelled to evolve desirable existence. and. halm', that its essential activity is one of betterment; while Nietzsche, originally a disciple of Schopenhauer, finds opti mistic inspiration in the Darwinian struggle for existence with its promise of time evolution of finer types of being; the necessity for pain he recognizes, but counts it of small import in com parison.
Consult: Sully, PessiiniAni: .1 History and a rriAteisin (London. 1877) ; Schopenhatmer. The World as Will and Idea (Eng. trans.. limy, 1SF.3 S(;) ; You Hartmann. The Philosophy of the r conscious (Eng. trans.. ib., 1.1) ; Saltus, The Anatomy of Yegation 18,86).