I I 2 PESSIMISM. 



§ 13. Taking next the material conditions of 

 life, it is undeniable that many ameliorations of the 

 lot of man have taken place within our knowledge. 

 But material progress is not in itself a cure of the 

 miseries of the soul ; on the contrary, it alone 

 renders possible that growth of sensitiveness and 

 reflection which makes men conscious pessimists. 

 So it is not surprising that the chief prophets of Pes- 

 simism should have arisen amongst those who from 

 a coarsely material point of view had less to com- 

 plain of than their fellows. Nor Is it surprising that 

 an age pre-eminent for its material progress should 

 be also an age pre-eminent for its spiritual misery. 

 For how can railways, telegraphs and telephones 

 make men happy ? To be deprived of their con- 

 veniences would doubtless be pain acutely felt and 

 indignantly resented ; but when the first joy of novel 

 discovery is past, their possession is no source of 

 positive pleasure. 



§ 14. But even If it be admitted that material 

 progress, unlike the evolution of the bodily organ- 

 ism, has In Itself brought a surplus of pleasure, it 

 cannot be considered in abstraction, apart from its 

 indirect effect upon social conditions. And if these 

 are taken into consideration, it appears that every 

 new luxury generates a thousand new wants In 

 those who possess it, a thousand ignoble ambitions 

 in those who may hope to do so, a thousand hateful 

 jealousies In those who behold It beyond their reach. 

 The happiness of the unsophisticated savage was 

 not wholly created by the vivid imaginations of 

 eighteenth century theorists : it Is a theory, to some 

 extent at least, borne out by the customary pro- 

 cedure of introducing civilization among savages. 

 Savages have comparatively few wants they cannot 



