Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/146

 134 unhappy lot, which it prevents, would multiply their misery and render life intolerable. But we are here considering its effect upon society, and it is easy to show that it is bad. It breeds stagnation and stifles progress. It yields contentment and contentment means inaction. Strange as it may sound, just as the only healthy state of the intellect is doubt, so the only healthy state of the feelings is discontent. This of course assumes that there is something to doubt and something to improve, but there has never been an age when error did not stalk abroad or when misery was not the lot of the greater part of mankind.

The phase of optimism which most concerns the question of the relation of society to the universe is that unreasoned belief which I have called the "anthropocentric theory." The idea that man is in any sense a favorite of nature is false and highly prejudicial to the progress of correct conceptions in social science. It may be called collective optimism, and results in social stagnation, just as personal optimism results in individual stagnation. The extreme opposite of optimism is pessimism. It differs from it as much in its origin and nature as it does in its character as a belief. While optimism is wholly unreasoned and springs from the feelings, pessimism is exclusively a product of reason and resides in the intellect. Optimism is that hope that "springs eternal in the human breast" and defies the hard facts of existence. Pessimism recognizes the facts and coldly chokes every hope at its birth. But pessimism is also false, first because many hopes are realized, and secondly, because the representation in the present of the good anticipated in the future is itself a good at least of secondary order.

What then is man's true relation to the universe? Is there a true mental attitude that lies between these two false attitudes? There certainly is. It is not a belief or a creed; it is the simple recognition of the truth. The truth is that nature is neither friendly nor hostile to man; neither favors him nor discriminates against him. Nature is not endowed with any moral attributes.