Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/295

 OPTIMISM

263

OPTIMISM

literary t'orm, and of Christian charity. But the gen- eral marshalling of his arguments is not so good as is the development of each by itself. His allegorical in- terpretations are far-fetched; but those of Parmenian were evidently yet more extravagant. An appendix contained an important do.ssier of documents which had apparently been collected by some Catholic con- troversialist between 330 and 347 (see Donatists). This collection was already mutilated when it was copied by the scribe of the only MS. which has pre- served it, and that MS. is incomplete, so that we have to deplore the loss of a great part of this first-rate ma- terial for the early history of Donatism. We can tell what has been lost by the citations made by Optatus himself and by Augustine.

St. Optatus has apparently never received any ec- clesiastical cultus; but his name was inserted in the Roman Martyrology on the fourth of June, though it is quite unknown to all the ancient Martyrologies and calendars. The eililio princeps was by Cochteus (Mainz, 1549). More MSS. were used by Balduinus (Paris, 1563 and 1569), whose text was frequently re- printed in the seventeenth century. Dupin's edition includes a history of the Donatists and a geography of Africa (Paris, 1700 — ); it is reprinted in Gallandi and in Migne (P. L., XI). The best edition is that of Ziwsa (C.S.E.L., XXVI, Vienna, 1S93), with descrip- tion of the MSS.

TiLLEMON'T, Memoires, VI ; Dupin's preface; Phillott in Did. Christ. Bioo.,a.v.;BA.RDE-snEWEliiilKirchenlex., 3.V.; Harnack ID Reali^ncijk., 3 v.; Paucker and Ronsch on the Latin of Optatus in Zeitschr. fur die Oestcrr. Gymnas., XXXV, 1S84; on the ap- pended documents, Volter, Seeck, Duchesne (see Donatists).

John Chapman.

Optimism (Latin optitnus, best) may be understood as a metaphysical theory, or as an emotional disposi- tion. The term became current in the early part of the eighteenth century to designate the Leibnizian doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds. The antithesis of optimism is pessimism (q. v). Be- tween these extremes there are all shades of opinion, so that it is at times hard to classify philosophers. Those, however, are to be classed as optimists who maintain that the world is on the whole good and beautiful, and that man can attain to a state of true happiness and perfection either in this world or in the next, and those who do not are pessimists. The term optimism as thus extended would also include "meUorism", a word first used in print by Sully to designate the theory of those who hold that things are, indeed, bad, but that they can be better, and that it is in our power to increase the happiness and wel- fare of mankind.

As an emotional disposition optimism is the ten- dency to look upon the bright and hopeful side of life, whereas pessimism gives a dark colouring to every event and closes the vistas of hope. The emotional disposition is one that depends upon internal organic conditions rather than external good fortune. To what extent the emotional disposition has influenced theopin- ion of philosophers cannot be decided off-hand. It has no doubt been a factor, but not always the only or even the decisive factor. A list of optimists will show that in general the greater minds have taken the hopeful view of life. As optimists are to be reckoned: Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, St. Augustine, St. Thomas and the Scholastics, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel (sought to unite optimism and pessimism), Lotze, Wundt.

It has been held by some that the Old Testament is optimistic, and the New Testament pessimistic. The evidence brought forward for this theory is found mainly in the passages of the Old Testament which point to the rewards of the present life, and those in the New which call attention to the transitoriness of all human joys. This view is too narrow, and is not correct. Optimism as a philosophical term means that

the universe as a whole is good and that man's ulti- mate destiny is one of happiness. The Old Testament is optimistic because of such passages as the following: "And God saw all things that he had made, and they were very good" (Gen., i, 31). Even in Eccl. we read, "He hath made all things good in their time" (iii, 11). The New Testament is optimistic because it shows that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to come. If optimism and pessimism are to be taken as emotional dispositions, either one or the other may e.xist in the ascetic or the profligate. It cannot be argued that the doctrine of Our Lord was pessimistic because He taught asceticism and celibacy. For as a rule ascetics and celibates have been and are, as a matter of fact, disposed to look upon the bright side of hfe. They surely believe that it is better to live than not to live, that the world which God has made is good and beautiful, and that man's destiny is eternal bliss.

As typical metaphysical exponents of optimism one may mention the extreme position of Leibniz, and the more moderate doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Leibniz looked upon the series of possible worlds as actually infinite. This entire series must have passed as it were, through the mind of the All-Good and Omniscient God. In spite of the fact that the series is infinite. He must have seen that one of its members was supremely perfect. Each one of these series strives to be realized in proportion to its perfection. Under such circumstances, it is impossible that a less per- fect world should come into being. Since, further- more, the wisdom and goodness of God are infinite, it is necessary that the world that proceeds from His intellect and will should be the best possible one that under any circumstances can exist. Only one such world is possible, and therefore God chooses the best. The very fact of the world's existence makes it metaphysically certain that it is the very best possible. [See Leibniz, IX, 137, subsection (4) Op- timism.] This argument might seem con\ancing, if one overlooks the fact of the evil in the world. The world as it is, Leibniz maintained, with all its evil, is better than a world without any evil. For the physical evil of the universe only serves to set off by contrast the beauty and glory of the good. As to moral evil, it is a negation and therefore cannot be looked upon as a real object of the Divine Will. Its presence, therefore, does not conflict with the holiness of the Divine decrees by which the world was ordained. Furthermore, since a morally evil being is only a less perfect creature, the absolutely perfect series of beings in order to contain all possible perfection, must, by necessity, contain the less as well as the more per- fect. For if the series contained no beings lacking in moral perfection, it would be a shortened series, and therefore lacking in the types of less perfect beings.

Against the extreme optimism of Leibniz, one might say that God is not necessitated to choose the best of all i)ossible worlds, because this is in itself an im- possibility. Whatever exists besides God, is finite. Hcfwci'u the finite and the infinite there is always a field of indi'linite extent. And since the finite cannot becuuK' infinite, simply because the created can never be uncreated, it therefore follows that whatever exists, besides God, is, and always will be, limited. If so, no matter what may exist, something better could be conceived and brought into being by God. An abso- lutely best possible world would, therefore, seem to be a contradiction in terms and impossible even by the Omnipotence of God, who can bring into being all and only that which is intrinsically possible. If, then, one should take the words "doing the best possible" as meaning creating something than which nothing better is possible, no world coulrl be the best possible. But there is another sense in which the words may be