1 64 HUMANISM ix 



judgments of Value, does not the question What is life 

 worth ? become the most ultimate of all ? Thus, with 

 respect to this question, Optimism and Pessimism seem 

 to supply the sole alternatives ; nor does it seem feasible 

 still further to reduce their multiplicity to unity by 

 alleging any formal ground for subordinating Pessimism 

 to Optimism. For, as we have seen, the same ideals 

 which, while they are regarded as attainable, confer Value 

 upon existence, once they are despaired of, plunge us 

 into irremediable Pessimism. The most that can be said 

 is that just as in logical judgments negation results from 

 the failure of an affirmation, just as scepticism springs 

 from a painfully achieved distrust of knowledge, so 

 Pessimism is always secondary, and results from the 

 breakdown of some optimistic scheme of Value. But 

 even so it would seem to follow that Pessimism must be 

 theoretically possible so long as such a scheme of Value 

 can be felt to be inadequate and rejected ; that is, so 

 long as there persists a breach between the ideal and the 

 actual. 



What, then, is the practical conclusion to which the 

 argument conducts us ? It has vindicated for the 

 question of Pessimism a position of paramount theoretic 

 importance which would entail a far more serious 

 treatment than is generally accorded to it in the teaching 

 of Philosophy. And in view of the vast accumulations of 

 of unco-ordinated and uncorrelated knowledge which 

 Philosophy has in these days to think over and digest, in 

 order that mankind may not utterly lose its bearings in 

 the cosmos, philosophers may well shrink from taking up 

 the burden of a problem of such magnitude and difficulty 

 as that of Pessimism. But even if Philosophy could 

 renounce its task of giving a rational account of every 

 phase of experience, I should yet hesitate to hold that its 

 acceptance of this problem would be pure loss, or in the 

 end would prove detrimental to its true interests. To 

 assume responsibility is potentially to acquire power, and 

 no question is better calculated than this of Pessimism to 

 make Philosophy a power in human life, for none can 



