PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 207 



beyond the individual's testimony to his own case. His 

 testimony to his own experience of the worth of life is 

 more to be relied upon than any system of philosophy, 

 which argues him miserable on a priori principles or 

 general grounds, in spite of his protest. It is useless to 

 .say that he is under an illusion. The agreeable illusion 

 is part of the pleasure he feels ; he thinks his life, on the 

 whole, enjoyable; he would live it over again; and he 

 would gladly accept another hereafter, only just as good 

 as the present. And so far from consciousness being 

 necessarily an evil, are there not times in the life of all 

 when the content and essence of consciousness is itself 

 perfect felicity ; moments when we have seemed to hold 

 happiness in our hands, which we would scarce have 

 exchanged with the angel ; hours of felicity so full 

 that we have asked ourselves could we desire more or 

 higher bliss ? Have not most of us, at some time of 

 our lives, felt what Othello, in a moment of overjoyed 

 consciousness, expresses : 



My soul hath her content so absolute, 

 That not another comfort like to this 

 Succeeds in unknown fate ? * 



But the possibility of even a moment of such happiness 

 destroys the pessimist argument, that life must be an 

 evil, because consciousness is always a want, and there- 

 fore a pain. 



Such is the pessimist syllogism : all Want is pain ; the 

 essence of consciousness is a want ; therefore conscious 

 life is an evil. But consciousness, as we have already 

 shown, is not merely a want; it is frequently also a 



* Othello, Act II. Scene i. See also in same scene, where he speaks 

 farther to the same point : 



I cannot speak enough of this content, 

 It stops me here ; it is too much of joy. 



