The Philosophy of Despair

There was the door to which I found no key; There was the veil through which I could not see: Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was--and then no more of Thee and Me.

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust Like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn Are scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust.

With them the seed of wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand wrought to make it grow And this was all the harvest that I reap'd-- "I come like water, and like wind I go."

Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits--and then Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire!

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again-- How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same garden--and for one in vain!

And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass Among the guests, star-scattered on the grass, And in your blissful errand reach the spot Where I made one--turn down an empty glass!

We sat beneath our tent; Then he that hath no hope drew near us there, And sat him down by us. We asked him: "Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?" And he made answer: "I have seen them all." And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt, Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart, Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart-- The heart was gone. And yet he trembled not, the while we looked, And sought the heart, the heart that was not there. He let us look. And he that had no hope Smiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs. Then we did envy him, that he could sing Without a heart to suffer what he sang. And when he went, he cast his cloak about him, And those that met him, they could never guess How that his shirt was torn about the heart, And that his breast was pierced above the heart, And that the heart was gone.

I gazed into the mist, and fear came on me, Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun."

This poem of Omar and of Fitzgerald is perhaps our best expression of the sadness and the grandeur of insoluble problems. It is the sweetness of philosophical sorrow which has no kinship with misery or distress. In the strains of the saddest music the soul finds the keenest delight. The same sweet, sorrowful pleasure is felt in the play of the mind about the riddles which it cannot solve.

In the presence of the infinite problem of life, the voice of Science is dumb, for Science is the coordinate and corrected expression of human experience, and human experience must stop with the limitations of human life. Man was not present "When the foundations of the Earth were laid," and beyond the certainty that they were laid in wisdom and power, man can say little about them. Man finds in the economy of nature "no trace of a beginning; no prospect of an end!" He may feel sure, with Hutton, that "time is as long as space is wide." But he cannot conceive of space as actually without limit, nor can he imagine any limiting conditions. He cannot think of a period before time began, nor of a state in which time shall be no more. The mind fails before the idea of time's eternal continuity. So time becomes to man merely the sequence of the earthly events in which he and his ancestors have taken part. Even thus limited it is sadly immortal, while man's stay on the earth is but of "few days and full of trouble." "Oh, but the long, long while this world shall last!" or as the grim humorist puts it, "we shall be a long time dead."

Though the meaning of time, space, existence lies beyond our reach, yet some sort of solution of the infinite problem the human heart demands. We find in life a power for action, limited though this power may be. Life is action, and action is impossible if devoid of motive or hope.

It is my purpose here to indicate some part of the answer of Science to the Philosophy of Despair. Direct reply Science has none. We cannot argue against a singer or a poet. The poet sings of what he feels, but Science speaks only of what we know. We feel infinity, but we cannot know it, for to the highest human wisdom the ultimate truths of the universe are no nearer than to the child. Science knows no ultimate truths. These are beyond the reach of man, and all that man knows must be stated in terms of his experience. But as to human experience and conduct, Science has a word to say.

Therefore Science can speak of the causes and results of Pessimism. It can touch the practical side of the riddle of life by asking certain questions, the answers to which lie within the province of human experience. Among these are the following:

Why is there a "Philosophy of Despair?"

Can Despair be wrought into healthful life?

In what part of the Universe are you and what are you doing?

Personal despair or discouragement may rise from failure of strength or failure of plans. This is a matter of every-day occurrence. The "best laid schemes o' mice and men" generally go wrong, no doubt, but this fact has little to do with the Philosophy of Pessimism. It is natural for mice and men to try again and to gain wisdom from failures. "By the embers of loss we count our gains."

The Pessimism of Youth we may first consider: In the transition from childhood to manhood great changes take place in the nervous system. There is for a time a period of confusion, in which the nerve cells are acquiring new powers and new relations. This is followed by a time of joy and exuberance, a sense of a new life in a new world, a feeling of new power and adequacy, the thought that life is richer and better worth living than the child could have supposed.

To this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have been a thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part of a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speeches made up for us centuries before we were born." The new power of manhood and womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As our own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it, so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic. Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass through a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation caught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find expression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned down his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that took the starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth," says Zangwill, "says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear had it been alive." With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its expression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair.

This adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mood disappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanishes with the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad of the drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuous life. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome.

But if action is impossible, the mood remains. And here arises the despair of the highly educated. The purpose of knowledge is action. But to refuse action is to secure time for the acquisition of more knowledge. It is written in the very structure of the brain that each impression of the senses must bring with it the impulse to act. To resist this impulse is in turn to destroy it and to substitute a dull soul-ache in its place. "Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and the experience of all the ages brings only despair if it cannot be wrought into life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is the main element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others has been uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures which arise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire for more intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirst for these comes ever deeper discouragement.

At the best, the tendency of large knowledge, not vitalized by practical experience, is to spend itself in cynical criticism, in futile efforts to tear down without feeling the higher obligation to build up. For it is the essence of this form of Pessimism to feel that there is nothing on earth worth the trouble of building. The real is only a "sneering comment" on the ideal, and man's life is too short to make any action worth while.

"With her the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hands wrought to make it grow; And this is all the harvest that I reap'd, 'I come like water, and like wind I go.'"

One of the few things that we may know in life is this, that it is impossible for man to know anything absolutely. The power of reasoning is a mere "by-product in the process of Evolution." It is but an instrument to help out the confusion of the senses, and it is conditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which it deals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason is powerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculative philosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intensely practical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediate purposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature of the infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If we cannot "reach the heart of reality" by reason, what indeed can we reach? What right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe nothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything? Every man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In the Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the course of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us. Our parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is indeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue to those who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose that any man is in any degree "the arbiter of his own destiny" is pure illusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against our will we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, "on a steep incline, where we can veer but little to the left or right"; whichever way we move we fall finally to the very bottom. The fires we kindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. The river sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by our efforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we find ourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we may describe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement.