The Nature of Man: Studies in Optimistic Philosophy

In the midst of these glowing visions, however, Seneca is assailed by dark and gloomy thoughts. " Yes," he cried, " all that is must perish ; death comes to every living thing. Every day, every hour, reveals to man the coming of death ; there is always some new lesson to remind him of the fragility he had forgotten, and from a dream of eternity to turn his thoughts to the grave." These heights and depths of spirit led Seneca towards a new theory in which he gave a final expression of his views on the great problem of human existence. " All beings pass through definite stages ; they mv.st be born, grow and die. The stars that we see revolving above us, the earth on which we are carelessly scattered and which seems to us so solid ; all is threatened and all will come to an end. Old age comes on everything ; although the period is very different, the same end comes to everything. Everything that now is will cease to be ; but for all that the world will not perish ; it will dissolve. Dissolution is destruction for us. As a matter of fact we think of things only as they concern ourselves ; our degenerate soul, incapable of detach- ing itself from the body, sees nothing beyond that ; none the less we should endure the idea of the death of ourselves and of those near to us with a greater fortitude were we to realise that nature is a constant routine of birth and death, that all composite bodies must dissolve, that the dissolved substances re-form, and that the creative power of God displays itself in this cycle of change throughout the uni- verse." From such a final conception of the universe he draws the consolation : " A great soul should know how to obey God and submit willingly to the order of the uni- verse. If it be not for a b( tter life that we are to quit this life, if not to find a home in the skies more tranquil and more brilliant, our souls, free from suffering, will return to the spirit that gave them birth and will mingle in the great all."

In other words, abandoning the image of life after death that played so consoling a part in primitive beliefs, philo- sophy became content to advocate resignation to the inevitable laws of nature, and to console itself with the promise of a vague return to some universal, eternal principle. The conceptions of the Stoics, especially in the form presented by Seneca, found an ardent and brilliant exponent in Marcus Aurelius, whose " Thoughts " are known to all the world. He had much to say of the problem of death and of the attitude of the philosopher towards it. " Death," said Marcus Aurelius, " like birth, is one of nature's mys- teries. In the two are present the same elements : in the one case in the phase of combination, in the other in that of dissolution." In death " there is nothing repugnant to the essence of an intelligent being, nor to the general plan of our nature." But his ideas on death were vague. " Death may perhaps be a dispersal or resolution into atoms, or an annihilation in the sense of extinction or deplacement." " Alexander of Macedon and his mule-driver were reduced at death to the same condition, that is to say they returned alike to the originating principle of the juniverse, or one and and the other were scattered as atoms."

Although he was definitely a deist, Marcus Aurelius was undecided as to the immortality of the soul. " If souls have not disappeared," he said, " how can the air contain the eternal generations of them ? " " Remember well," he said in another place, " that that feeble and composite creature, your soul, will one day resolve into its atoms ; the faint spark of life will be extinguished, or be assigned to some other dwelling-place." Clearly enough, there was no consoling hope of a future life to be derived from these halting dubieties. It was needful to replace by some other anodyne the belief that for so long had brought comfort to poor humanity.

Marcus Aurelius tried to counteract the fear of death by the following reflection : " To fear death is to fear either being deprived of all feeling or being subjected to some other kind of feeling. But, if we are deprived of all feeling, we shall have no evil to fear • if we are to find new kinds of sensations, our existence will be different, but still existence." However, he probably realised the weakness of such a consolation, for he tried to link the problem of death with the general principles of human conduct.

As I mentioned in the first chapter of this volume, Marcus Aurelius, like many of the philosophers of antiquity, held the view that man ought to live according to the dictates of human nature. The theory recurs again and again in his " Thoughts." " The fig tree lives according to its kind, the dog like the dog, bees like bees, and man like man." He expresses this view still more emphatically in the following words : " Man must live in conformity with the laws of his nature." " No one will prevent you from living according to the laws of nature, and nothing can happen to you that is not in accordance with nature's universal law." " Neither hand nor foot can do that which is contrary to the laws of nature, because the foot can only fulfil the functions of the foot, and the hand those of the hand. Similarly with man, to behave as a man is not to defy nature's laws, because it is only fulfilling the functions of man. And that which is not against nature cannot be evil."

Being full of this theory, Marcus Aurelius applied it to death, which, being a natural phenomenon, was to be accepted without protest. " For, after all, nature forges the links and nature breaks them. Is she about to sever them ? Very well, let us then say farewell as if we were taking lea .*e of our friends, but let there be no tearing of the heart strings, and let us go willingly, and so avoid being dragged away. This, too, is in accordance with the laws of nature."

"Philosophy," according to Marcus Aurelius, "is to await death peacefully, and to regard it as merely the dissolution ol the elements which compose the human frame. Such is the law of nature, and whatever is in conformity with nature is not evil." Death, being a phenomenon in conformity with nature, must be submitted to. " Do not abuse death," advises Marcus Aurelius, " but accept it with resignation, as being in accordance with the will of nature. Da we not pass on from infancy to youth, grow up, and become- tall and attain manhood ? Do not our teeth come, our beards grow, and our hair turn white ? If we marry, do we not beget chil dren ? Are not all such events in their due season, and the work of nature ? Death comes through the same agency. It therefore behoves a wise man to approach death with neither anger, repugnance, nor contempt, but to await it like any other operation of nature." Resignation, then, is what this form of philosophy amounts to. Not only must death be accepted as inevitable when it comes after a long life, but even if it surprise us at an unexpected time. " He who dies after reaching the uttermost limits of human life," says Marcus Aurelius, " has reached no further than he who comes to a premature end. It is the same in the end, whether there are a hundred years to look back upon, or whether there are only three."

In his book on Marcus Aurelius, Renan * compares his philosophy of resignation with the Nirvana of the Bud- dhists. " Like Jesus, £akya-Mouni, Socrates, Francis of Assisi, and three or four other wise men, Marcus Aurelius was victor over death. He could laugh at it, because it had no longer any meaning for him." But, just as the theories of Buddha became transformed into a religion which promised the immortality of the soul, and as Nir- vana gave way to the Paradise of the Easterns with its delights, so the sceptical resignation of ancient philosophy was vanquished by Christianity with its promises of a future life and immortality.

Thus, in the course of the centuries, philosophy has been drowned in the floods of sentiment and of religious notions, and it has been a labour of Sisyphus to restore reason to humanity. There is the less need to follow the stages of this resurrection, as, in the end, they come to little. For !ong, phr.osophical systems set themselves the task of sup- porting the dogmas of religion by arguments independent of divine revelation. The gods were replaced by philo- sophy or by matter, and an effort -was made to- solve the eternal and disquieting problem of death by proving the immortality of the soul.

The philosophers of the early renaissance of human thought accepted the chief religious dogmas as established truth. Plotin regarded the immortality of the soul as a self-evident truth that required no proof He argued against a resurrection of the body, but accepted the trans- migration of souls. Although Spinoza had given up the conception of the immortality of the soul in the ordinary sense, he accepted the Aristotelian idea that " the human spirit could not be destroyed absolutely with the body, but left some eternal remnant." Death, in his view, was a kind of eternal li'e, a merging with the absolute, a return to the immortal and universal substance.

Philosophers have exhausted themselves in the study of the foundations of human knowledge with the sole object of demonstrating the truth of religious dogmas. In spite of his scepticism, Kant tried to prove the genuineness of human knowledge, and to found on that a conviction of the future :ife and of the existence of God. Fichte set himself the same task, but he was forced to recognise that " immortality cannot be deduced from natural phenomena," and that it " is supernatural." " Although we cannot understand the possibility of eternal life, it sti'l may- be possible, for it transcends human knowledge." Hege reached a pantheistic conclusion and believed in the human soul being re-absorbed by the absolute.

These idealistic systems, when they reached their final point, provoked a reaction consisting in the rejection of all formulas based on speculation. They were succeeded by a dogmatic materialism, which in its turn gave place to a sceptical positivism, or rather to a form of agnosticism. Granted the impossibility of belief in the immortality of the soul or in eternal life in any shape, the philosophy regard- ing death was reduced to the stoical idea that our end is in harmony with the laws of nature, and that it must there- fore be accepted without protest. Resignation, therefore, in the fullest sense of the word, became the watchword of human wisdom.

It was only to be expected that certain courageous and independent thinkers should not agree with this conclu- sion, and attempt to discover some other solution of the great problem absorbing mankind. Thence arose pessimism, the philosophic theory which became so prevalent during the last century, and which claims so many adherents in the present day. Pessimism, like belief in the immortality of the soul and the advocacy of resignation to the evils which beset humanity, is the product of the East, and India was probably its nursery. A pessimistic view of life is a salient feature of Brahminism, but Buddhism develops even more

fully the doctrine that everything of this world is evi1. That " life is made up of suffering is the inexhaustible theme which, whether in the shape of philosophical argument, or in the more attractive form of poetry, the Buddhist Scrip- tures din ceaselessly in our ears.* In Europe, the lyrical poets introduced the pessimistic conception of the world, attracted by its emotional appeal. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Byron struck this sad note, and expressed the view in the clearest fashion, that if we weighed our hours of joy against our days of pain, we should perceive clearly that whatever our life had been it were better not have been. In the following lines his conception of life is apparent : —

" Our life is a false nature, — 'tis not in The harmony of things, this hard decree, This uneradicable taint of sin, This boundless Upas, this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be The skies, which rain their plagues on men like dew — Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — And, worse, the woes we see not — which throbs through The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new." In chap. vi. I showed that Byron was haunted by a fear of death which ultimately led him to a recognition of the instinctive character of the fee ing. He, however, like the other pessimistic poets (Leopardi), did not regard the world as being merely part of a universal system, and it was left to philosophy to come to this conclusion.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Schopen- hauer endeavoured to give a presentation of a pessimistic theory, borrowed from Hindoo religions and from the views oi contemporary poets, in the form of a rational pmlosopnv. * Oldenberg, loc. cit. p. 215. He develooed a conception of life according to which " exist- ence is to be regarded as something one is better without, as a kind of mistake which should be remedied when recog- nised." * According to Schopenhauer existence is wrong, and results from the gratification of unrestrained desire. " If an attempt be made to realise the amount of misery, pain, and evil of all kinds, that the sun shines upon in its daily course, it will be seen how much better it would be were the earth to exhibit as few phenomena of life as the moon, and if the surface of the earth were in a similarly crystall.sed condition. Human life might equally be inter- preted as a useless disturbance of the exquisite tranquillity of nothingness," the meaning of the disturbance being wrapped in impenetrable mystery.f

This melancholy state of life was the result of the cosmic process, which has created so much evil, and which finally evolved the human species, capable of feeling and appre- ciating to the full the pain of the world. The lower animals he regards as happier than man, their senses being less fully developed, and being unconscious of the worst aspects of their existence. In man, pleasure is purely a negation, whereas the sensation of pain is passive, contemplation, a human monopoly, rendering suffering still more unbear- able. " Man's capacity for pain increases far more with the passage of time than does his capacity for enjoyment, and is especially increased by his foreknowledge of death. Animals only fear death from instinct, without having any real knowledge of it, and without having the prospect of it alwa}^ before their eyes, as is the case with human beings." J Schopenhauer was convinced that happiness should not be regarded as the aim if life. " The greatest mistake we

can make," he said in his principal work,* "is to imagine that we are placed here to be happy." " So long as we con- tinue in this erroneous view which optimistic doctrines serve to foster, the world will continue to seem a mass of contradictions to us." " It would be nearer the truth to regard pain as the aim of life rather than pleasure." " The destiny of all human existence seems to be suffering. Life is wrapped about with evil, and cannot be protected from it. Life, at its very beginning, is signalised by tears, its course is fundamentally tragic, and still more tragic is its end. It is impossible to ignore that all this is meant to be." " Death is the real goal of life. Its attainment brings a solu- tion of all that has gone before."

The prospect and expectation of death, being products of reason, are experienced by men and not by animals. " Only in the case of humanity is the will capable of renouncing and withdrawing from life." What is the answer to all these contradictions and the explanation of a cosmic process which on the one hand leads but to death, and on the other hand develops the intelligence so as to enable it to fear and dread the inevitable end ? Is the solution to be found in belief in the immor- tality of the soul, supported as it is not only by nearly every form of religion, but by numerous systems of philosophy ? Schopenhauer devotes many pages to the discussion of this question. He neither supports the doctrine of the resur- rection of the body, nor the immortality of the conscious soul. "Just as the individual has no memory of pre-natal existence, so after death he will remember nothing of his present life." f " Those who regard birth as the actual beginning of man's life must necessarily face death as final,

the two being parallel. No man can therefore regard him- self as immortal without forfeiting his belief in his own birth. Birth and death have the same origin and the same signi- ficance. They represent but one line, extending in opposite directions. If birth implies an origin from nothingness, then death must be complete annihilation." * There is no such thing as individual immortality. But, according to Schopenhauer, to desire such immortality would merely be to advocate " the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake. Each individual existence is a definite mistake, a blunder, something that would better not have been, and the object of existence should be to end it." f

But if man, as an individual, is mortal, "death only takes away what was given by birth, that is to say, the principle by which death itself became possible." $ " Consciousness ceases at death, but the cause which produced that con- sciousness persists ; life comes to an end, but not the principle which became manifest by life." § What then is this immortal principle ? It is the idea of the species or genus. Men or dogs, as individuals, perish in due course, but the human species or the canine species, the man " idea " or the dog " idea," endures. Here Scho- penhauer reverted to the conception of Spinoza, who, indeed, denied the immortality of the soul, but none the less believed in the immortality of the principle of life. This ever- lasting principle, according to Schopenhauer, is the will in its widest and most metaphysical sense, while, on the other hand, the mortal soul is the reason, a product of the functions of the brain.

The eternal principle of life cannot be defined, because " we cannot pass outside the limits of our consciousness. And thus the problem of what it is in itself cannot be resolved." * Schopenhauer himself recognises that this solution of the problem is not satisfactory from the point of view of those who desire reassurance of their immortality. " But," he continues, " it is better than nothing, for those who dread death from the point of view of absolute annihilation should not despise the certainty of the persistence of the most vital principle of life." f He further remarks that it must be remembered that nature is interested only in the preservation of the species, being indifferent to the individual. We ourselves being only a part of nature ought to further its plans. " If we wish to attain to a wider knowledge of nature, we must place ourselves more in sym- pathy with it, and regard life and death indifferently." J Schopenhauer himself feels that his theories and arguments are unsatisfactory. When he had reached the full develop- ment of his doctrine, he admitted that it was negative in character, and that it ended in negation. It spoke only of what it had to deny and of what ought to be abandoned. It was obliged to regard as nothingness all that could be acquired in the future. As a consolation, he added that he meant relative nothingness, and not absolute nothingness.

As an ultimate aim, there remained nothing but abroga- tion of the will to live, and thus misery and wretchedness, which are the inseparable accompaniments of human life, led to resignation. As our life is no more than a succession of misfortunes, and as, according to Schopenhauer, death is the plain con- clusion of philosophy, the end of the individual life must be pleasant. As a general rule, he said, the death of a well- regulated life is calm and peaceful. But the privilege of

dying willingly, with joy and delight, is reserved for him who has learned resignation, and has abolished and aban- doned his will to live. For such an one would be willing to die in reality, not merely in appearance, and would neither desire nor claim a personal immortality. He would give up readily the existence that we know. Whatever may replace that existence is nothing from the point of view of individuality. The Buddhistic faith called the position attained by him who had given up the will to live, Nirvana, or nothingness." *

The natural deduction from this pessimistic doctrine of Schopenhauer would be to abolish the will to live by abolishing our individual life by suicide. But such is not the advice of the philosopher. He is far, however, from agreeing with those who regard suicide as criminal.! He merely does not admit that it solves the question. " He who commits suicide destroys the individual only, and not the species." " Suicide is the voluntary destruction of a solitary phenomenon, without in the smallest degree affect- ing the system as a whole." |

The will to live manifesting itself, according to Schopen- hauer, by the creation of new individuals, the philosopher would naturally, in accordance with his views of life, abstain from bringing others into ilic world. Schopenhauer lived and died a bachelor, and, so far as I am aware, had no chil- dern. On the other hand, convinced that the solution of life's problem did not lie in suicide, lie clung tenaciously to life. Having relinquished a belief in the immortality of the soul, he fell back upon a belief in the persistence of some ultimate principle, apart from conscious life, and held that in resig- nation and desire for annihilation (Nirvana, according to

his interpretation of the Buddhist doctrines) lay the true consolation for all the evils of human existence. For a long time Schopenhauer's views found no echo in the opinions of other thinkers. Later, however, they became more and more widely diffused, and philosophic pessimism became quite fashionable. Those who did not adopt the metaphysical principles of Schopenhauer's philosophy agreed with his views on life and on the impossibility of happiness.

Exactly half a century after the publication of Schopen- hauer's principal work,* another German philosopher, E. Hartmann,f went a step further in the same direc- tion. Without agreeing wholly with his metaphysics, he shared Schopenhauer's views on the impossibility of regard- ing happiness as the true aim of existence. In order to demonstrate this theory, he examined the three phases of illusion through which mankind passes. He held that, in the first phase, people imagined happiness to be attainable during the present life. However, all that have been regarded as the sources of joy — youth, health, desire, conjugal love, family love, glory, etc. — end in disillusion. Love itself is especially submitted to Hartmann's implacable criticism. According to him, there can be no question but that "love causes far more suffering than pleasure to those concerned. "| " It cannot be doubted," he says, " that reason would prompt a total abstention from love," and, as a means to this end, he recommends " the extinction of sexual desire by castration, if that could be relied upon to destroy desire." § That, according to Hartmann, " is the only possible means of securing the happiness of the individual." It is at the

sacrifice of his personal happiness that man permits himself to love, and so abets the evolution of the cosmic process When they have become convinced of the impossibility of obtaining happiness in this world, people persuade them- selves that it may be obtained after death in a transcendental life in another world. This, however, is only a second phase of illusion, and is based upon faith in life after death and eternity. It is certain, however, that the individuality of the organic body as well as that of the mind is only a delusion which ceases with death." * Hartmann says in conclusion that " it is therefore plain that the hope of the immortality of the individual soul is also a mere illusion. And thus the chief support of the Christian promises is cut away ; for men are devoted to their dear selves, and take little interest in a future happiness in which they themselves are to have no share." f

Being disillusioned regarding the possibility of obtaining happiness in this world, or in a future state, humanity falls back upon a third illusion. Firmly convinced that the aim of life is true happiness, man concluded that it was only attainable in some future state of the cosmic process. This hypothesis is based upon belief in a sytsem of progressive development. " This," declares Hartmann, " is yet another mistake. Humanity may progress as much as it likes," he says, " but it will never succeed in suppressing or even diminishing the greatest evils which beset it : disease, old age, dependence on the wishes or the power of others, misery and discontent. Notwithstanding the new remedies which are discovered, the number of diseases, especially those of a chronic nature which are so trying, continues to increase at a rate that medicine cannot keep pace with. Joyous youth will always constitute a small portion of * Loc. cit. p. 603. t Loc. cit. p. 606.