Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/537

 Ul^ILITARIAN ECONOMICS 523

In our western civilization, as already remarked, the great majority even of the well-informed, and practically all of the lower classes, are optimistic. The former do not reflect upon their condition, and the latter simply struggle to exist. Neither ask what existence means. A few of both classes find it unbear- able and try, often successfully, to put an end to it, but these only incur the contempt of the rest. A number even smaller than that of the suicides do reflect, not so much upon their own condition as upon that of others, and, finding it generally bad, declare that there is no rational ground for existence. These are called "pessimists" and are held in still greater execration than the suicides.

But this state of things is not universal. It is peculiar to western peoples, and quite a different one prevails in the East. At least the bulk of the teachings of oriental nations is pessi- mistic, and even the lower classes are represented as generally regarding life as an evil and annihilation as a blessing which they hope to attain. It is true that it is difficult to ascertain the real state of things in those countries, compelled, as we mostly are, to depend upon the interpretations of men of the West, who show by their conflicting reports that they are incapable of thoroughly assimilating the oriental spirit. I am, therefore, pre- pared to believe that, in the lower ranks at least, there is also a preponderance of optimism in the East.

But to show that there is everywhere a basis for pessimism it is only necessary to point to the wide prevalence of asceticism throughout Christendom. Christianity may have simply averted a universal pessimism by introducing the conception of a future compensation for present evils. Mohammedanism does the same, and wherever these faiths prevail asceticism takes the place of pessimism. Asceticism in all its forms recognizes the same truth that pessimism asserts, viz., that affairs, in this world at least, are bad. Christianity openly teaches this, and the burden of its texts, its hymns, and its sermons is the worthless- ness of mundane things. All its austerities are based on this idea, and the self-denial, mortification, penance, and puritanism,