94 SCEPTICISM. 



science Is increase of sorrow, and that he that 

 multiplies knowledge, multiplies misery. In the 

 end it also is vanity and vexation of spirit. 



Thus, just as Agnosticism could explain and 

 justify itself only by passing into- Scepticism, so 

 Scepticism is compelled to deny that knowledge 

 works on pessimistic grounds. 



And secondly, as Agnosticism passed into Scep- 

 ticism, so Scepticism develops, into Pessimism by 

 internal forces. Pessimism is the proper emotional 

 reflex of intellectual scepticism. We may indeed 

 think the world evil without thinking it unknowable, 

 but we can hardly think it good, if it be unknow- 

 able. Not only can we not approve of a nature of 

 things which renders the satisfaction of our knowing 

 faculty impossible, but we must feel that a scheme 

 of things which contains such elaborate provision 

 for deceiving us, is likely to display similar per- 

 versity throughout. And the sense of an all-pervad- 

 ing perversity of things is the root of Pessimism. 



Thus, in passing into Pessimism the negation of 

 philosophy reaches its ultimate resting-place in the 

 unfathomed chaos where the powers of darkness 

 and disorder engulf the Cosmos. 



