ICO PESSIMISM. 



ance of the hedonistic basis was the surest way of 

 carrying the war into the enemy's country. 



For hedonism is the chief stronghold of optimism : 

 the most obvious defence of Hfe is on the ground 

 of its happiness. Indeed, if we neglect for the 

 moment metaphysical possibilities, life can hardly 

 be pronounced a success from any other point of 

 view. Can it seriously be asserted that the present 

 race of men deserve to live because of their good- 

 ness, or of their wisdom, or of their beauty ? Would 

 not any impartial man with a decently high stand- 

 ard in these respects, if he were armed with 

 omnipotence for an hour, destroy the whole race 

 with a destruction more utter than that which over- 

 took the Cities of the Plain, lest he should leave 

 daughters of Lot among the favoured few ? Or 

 shall it be said that any present or probable satis- 

 faction of the moral, intellectual and aesthetic 

 activities of average man makes his life w^orth 

 living ? Surely if our life is not on the average 

 good because it is happy and pleasant, it cannot be 

 seen to be very good because it is virtuous, beauti- 

 ful or wise. 



Optimists then are well-advised to defend the 

 value of life on the ground of its pleasure-value, 

 for if the defence breaks down here, the resistance 

 will be a mere pretence elsewhere. The optimist 

 and not the pessimist is the real hedonist, for the 

 latter's condemnation of life rests on the conscious- 

 ness of too many evils for him to base it on a single 

 class : he is too deeply absorbed in the endless 

 spectacle of Evil to have the leisure specially to! 

 bewail the hedonistic imperfections of life, the' 

 brevity and illusoriness of pleasure. 



§ 4. We must consider then the claims of life to 



