PESSIMISM 



PESTALOZZI 



85 



that the lot of life is one; my life is the same as 

 that in the plant or the planet, and there is, as 

 matters at present stand, not the least fear that 

 the ' will to live ' will die out with the death of my 

 life in quietism, agnosticism, and mysticism. 



To the metaphysic of pessimism we may also 

 ay : ( 1 ) That it is not necessary to have a theory 

 of the world in order to make action possible : no 

 one lives because he chooses to live, but because 

 he must, and this apart from the question whether 

 a theory of life is attainable or already attained. 

 (2) That the value of life cannot be measured 

 altogether by the expectations or equations of 

 the individual as to his own happiness, and that 

 therefore pessimism is overthrown with the rejec- 

 tion of empirical Hedonism or the theory of 

 ethical conduct that makes happiness the end 

 of life. (3) Pessimism has done good in show- 

 ing up the illusions to which an acceptance of 

 the Hedonistic or the Epicurean ethic leads in 

 theory and practice ; it might be held in fact to 

 give a negative account of man's perfection as 

 consisting not in happiness for happiness' sake, but 

 in the pursuit of ends which are absolutely real, 

 apart from man's desire or aversion to them : to 

 the self-seeking self everything is foreign and nega- 

 tive, and also to the perfection-seeking self the 

 ends of appetite and desire are illusory. The 

 various forms of pessimism the practical, the bio- 

 logical, the sociological, the poetical, are all of 

 value as provisional accounte of the ethical end. 

 The unconditioned sympathy with all forms of life 

 inculcated in modem pessimism is a valuable con- 

 tribution to ethical theory and history, although 

 of course it is not exactly original to pessimism. 

 (4) The world which Schopenhauer and Hartinami 

 theoretically conceive of is a world which baffles 

 the individual, because in the first instance it 

 appears to them that the world is incomprehen- 

 sible. Both, in fact, tend to erect our ignorance of 

 the world into a positive principle the Uncon- 

 scious ; but this is an old metaphysical fallacy. 

 The world which the individual does know i.e. the 

 small sphere of it lie knows U not a sphere in which 

 he cannot realise himself, but in Kantian language 

 a moral kingdom ; it will liaffle him if he is only 

 bent on his own happiness. Thus it has been 

 indicated how in a sense the pessimists are not to 

 be held down to an Epicurean theory of morals, 

 although they take their start from that. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. Schopenhauer'* chief work is the 

 World at Will and Idea (Eng. trans. 3 vols. 1883 86). 

 His ethic is contained chiefly in the fourth book, on the 

 Assertion and Denial of the Will to Live. The appendices 

 contain many exceedingly readable ai^^^^id presenta- 

 tions of the main points of big syste^^^R so do many 

 of the sections of the Parcrya wnd Pa^ffomena, which 

 have a high literary value. See translations of these in 

 Mr T. B. Saunders's ' Schopenhauer 'series i(1890 et teq.). 

 Hartmann's views are expounded in Philosophy of the 

 Uncontcumt, which is also translated into English ( 1884 ). 

 An admirable short account of his system for the laic 

 mind is that of Dr A. Drews (Ed. v. Hartmann't Philo- 

 mphie, 1890). E. Wallace's account of pessimism in the 

 Westminster Review (1876) is eminently instructive, and 

 has chief reference to Hartmann. An introductory 

 treatise is also that of A. Taubert, Der Pesrimitmut und 

 - <iner (1873). Mr Hully's Pttiimism (1877) is an 

 admirable and careful psychological criticism of pessim- 

 ism, and contains a good historical sketch. In it there is 

 a list of pessimistic literature. As an introduction to 

 pewimiim some account of Leibnitz's philosophy ought to 

 be read, and after it Voltaire's vigorous and drastic criti- 

 cism of the same in Candidr ; the latter will help one to 

 understand what Schopenhauer ineal.t when he called 

 optimum a ' wicked and otiose shallow philosophy.' 

 The religions aspect of pessimism is touched on in an 

 eawv in Seth and Haldane's Kumyi in Philosophical 

 m (1883), and also in Professor Tulloch's Modern 

 Thtirriet ( 1884 ). 



Pestalozzi, JOHANN HEINRICH, educational 

 theorist, was born at Zurich, 12th January 1745. 

 Eccentric, quixotic, eager to be an adjuster of 

 social wrongs from his youth, he sought to realise 

 his aims through educating the young. He shares 

 with Rousseau, whose tlmtte greatly influenced his 

 mind, the honour of conceiving a method which is 

 the corner-stone of all sound theories of primary 

 education. From his day onward two ideas of 

 education co-existed the older one, applicable to 

 the children of the classes ; his, applicable to the 

 children of the masses ; the former being in many 

 ways improved by an encroachment of the latter 

 upon its traditional domain. Pestalozzi, living 

 during the period of the French Revolution and 

 the wars of Napoleon, found in his disturbed 

 country, in the misery inflicted by war, oppor- 

 tunity for the display of self-sacrifice, devotion 

 to the oppressed, and that unselfish love of the 

 children of the very poor which especially distin- 

 guished him. Illiterate, ill-dressed, a bad speaker, 

 and a bad manager, Pestalozzi was unfit for the 

 everyday business of life, and all his undertakings 

 resulted in practical failure, though rousing the 

 admiration of Europe, and calling forth down to 

 the present day in many countries, more especially 

 in Germany, a crowd of disciples, who have carried 

 out the principles of their master with great 

 enthusiasm. Although he was totally unable to 

 cope with the world, Pestalozzi's personality was 

 instinct with a loving sensibility ; he awoke men to 

 a sense of responsibility to childhood, and ushered 

 the 19th century upon the stage of history as the 

 educational age par excellence. 



His life is soon told. Believing justly in the 

 moralising virtue of agricultural occupations and 

 rural environment, he chose a farm upon which to 

 dwell with his collected waifs and strays as a 

 father among his own. The farm Neuhoi, in the 

 canton Aargau, stranded on a faulty domestic 

 economy after a five years' struggle ( 1780). Pesta- 

 lozzi withdrew then from practical life, to think out 

 the educational problem. His Evening Hours of 

 a Hermit was the first fruit of his meditations, and 

 develops the following thoughts : before undertak- 

 ing to educate man, learn to know him ; the method 

 whereby to educate man should be founded upon 

 his own nature ; in his nature are hidden the forces 

 tliat draw out his faculties, exercise them ; exercise, 

 the instrument of education, connects the wants of 

 our nature with the objects that satisfy them ; to 

 rejoice in the fullness of your strength, make your 

 education answer to your needs and to the inner 

 call of your soul. Then came a social novel, Leon- 

 ard and Gertrude, in four volumes. The former is 

 a drunken stone-mason, the latter his wife, and a 

 good one ; the scene, a village given over to corrup- 

 tion. At last the minister, the schoolmaster, Ger- 

 trude with a few peasant-women, set about the 

 reform of the village. This story created much 

 attention, and was followed by a long period of 

 literary activity on the part of its author. In 1798 

 he plunged into action again by opening his orphan 

 school at Stanz. The picture he there makes of a 

 moneyless, helpless, homeless lover of children, 

 gathering homeless, helpless, children around him 

 in an old convent in a township ruined by war, and 

 set upon by a hostile and ignorant peasantry, is a 

 noble and pathetic picture. But times and men 

 proved too hard for Pestalozzi. At the end of 

 eight months this establishment was broken up. 



He next wended his steps to the people's school 

 at Berthoud (Burgdorf), in canton Berne, only to 

 be ejected from his subordinate position there, at 

 the age of fifty-five, by the jealous and bigoted 

 senior master. He knew then the bitterest pangs of 

 poverty, and had even to keep away from church 

 for want of clothes. In partnership with others, and 



