DEATH 



the other regards it as the worst, of all possible worlds. 

 This pessimistic conception has found expression in the 

 oldest and most popular religions of Asia, Brahmanism 

 and Buddhism. Both these Hindoo religions were 

 orginally pessimistic, and at the same time atheistic 

 and idealistic. Schopenhauer especially pointed out 

 this, declaring that they were the most perfect of all 

 religions, and importing their leading ideas into his own 

 system. He considers it " a glaring absurdity to attempt 

 to prove this miserable world the best of all possible 

 ones — this cock-pit of tortured and suffering beings, who 

 can only survive by destroying one another, in which 

 the capacity for pain grows with knowledge, and so 

 reaches its height in man. Truly optimism cuts so 

 sorry a figure in this theatre of sin, suffering, and death 

 that we should have to regard it as a piece of sarcasm if 

 Hume had not given us an explanation of its origin (the 

 wish to flatter God and hope for some result from it). 

 To the palpable sophistry of Leibnitz, who would prove 

 this world the best of all possible, we can oppose a strict 

 and honest proof that it is the worst of all possible." 

 However, neither Schopenhauer nor the most important 

 of modem pessimists, Edward Hartmann, has drawn the 

 strict practical conclusion from pessimism. That would 

 be to deny the will to live, and put an end to suffering by 

 suicide. 



The mention of suicide as the logical consequence of 

 pessimism may serve as an occasion to glance at the 

 curious and contradictory views that are expressed about 

 it. There are few problems of life (apart from immor- 

 tality and the freedom of the will) on which such absurd 

 and contradictory things have been said even down to 

 our own time. The theist who regards life as a gift of 

 God may hesitate to reject or return it — although the 

 offering of one's self as a victim for other men is consid- 

 ered a high virtue. Most educated people still look upon 



III 



