I08 £SSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



anguish, its outlook was despair. And all the facts 

 of existence, from wheresoever taken in the ascend- 

 ing levels of consciousness, confirmed but too darkly 

 this haggard prophecy of a priori thought : every- 

 where the overplus of pain, everywhere illusion dis- 

 pelled in disappointment. There was, and could be, 

 but one avenue of escape — death and oblivion. 



Upon this fact rose the whole structure of ethics. 

 The " whole duty of man " was simply : Suppress 

 the will to live. All moral feeling was summarised 

 in Pity, and all moral action in ascetic living, to the 

 end that, the tone of life being perpetually lowered, 

 the Will might slowly sink into quiescence, and so 

 life itself at last fade out into the repose and silence 

 of annihilation. 



Such was the philosophy, no doubt at bottom 

 theoretically hollow, but still wearing on its surface 

 a certain tragic fascination, that stirred Hartmann 

 to attempt a new composition of similar tone on 

 the ancient theme of Man. In the minds of Scho- 

 penhauer and Hartmann, let it be noted in passing, 

 the philosophic problem takes for its leading ques- 

 tion a phase of Kant's "What may I hope for.!*" 

 The chief concern for them is. What is life all 

 worth } They are both possessed by a profound 

 sense of the misery of existence ; but while, under 

 Schopenhauer's treatment, the pessimistic strain 

 seems to sound out only at the close, and appears 



