Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/810

 PESSINUS

742

PESTALOZZI

indix-idual judgment. Moreover, the rccognitioi\ of such an absoUite standard itself provides an aljsohite satisfaction, arising from action in accordance with it, which cannot exist in the absence of such recogni- tion, and which is only travestied by Schopenhauer's pseudo-mystical delight in contemplating the "kernel of things", or by von Hartmann's personal adoption of the assumed "ends" of the unconscious.

Thus the Christian law of duty gives to action, in itself possil)ly quite the reverse of pleasurable, a value far outweighing that of the satisfaction arising from any .'specific jjlcasure, whether sensuous or intellectual. The inevitable Christian tendency to depreciate sat- isfacliun arising from pleasure as against the per- formance of duty has caused Christianity to be clas- sified as a system of Pessimism. This is, for example, the ^•iew taken of it by Schopenhauer, who declares that "Optimism is irreconcilable with Christianity", and that true Christianity has throughout that ascetic fundamental character which his philosophy explains
 * is the denial of the will to live.

^'on Ilartmann, in like manner, rejecting as myth- ical the foundation of the Christian Faith and its hope of the hereafter, takes its historical and only important content to be the doctrine that "this earthly vale of tears has in itself no value whatever, but that, on the contrary, the earthly life is composed of tribulation and daily torment." It can hardly be disputed that the Christian view of life in itself is scarcely less pessi- mistic than that of Schopenhauer or Hartmann ; and its pains are regarded as essentially characteristic of its present condition, due to the initial misdirection of human free-will. No estimate of the essential painfulness of human life could well exceed that of the Imitatio Christi" (see, e. g., Ill, xx). But the out- look is profoundly modified by the introduction of the "eternal values" which are the special province of Christianity. The unhappiness of the world is coun- terbalanced by the satisfaction which arises from a peaceful conscience, and a sense of harmony between individual action and eternal law; faith and love con- tribute an element of joy to life which cannot be de- stroyed, and may even be enhanced, by temporal sufTering; and in some cases at least the delights of supernatural mystical contemplation reduce merely natural pain and pleasure to comparative insignifi- cance.

ScHOPENHAiTER, The World a.s Will and Idea, tr. Haldane and Kemp (London, 1.S86): von Hartmann. The Philosophy of the Unconscious, tr. Coupland (London. 1893) ; Beneke, Neue (rrundlegung zut Meiaphysik (Berlin, 1S22) ; Duhring, Dct Werth des Lebens (Leipzig, 1881); Mainlander, Phitosophie der Erla- eunff (Berlin, 1886); Challemei^Lacour, Etudes et reflexions d^un pessimiste (Paris, 1901) ; Card, Le pessimisme au XIX' sitcle (Paris, 1878) ; Pierens-Gevaert, La tristesse contemporaine (Paris, 1899); James, The Will to Believe (Philadelphia, 1896); Idem, Pragmatism: lecture VIII (London, 1897); Sully, Pessi- mism (London, 1901) ; Schiller, The Relation of Pessimism to Ultimate Philoaophi, in Inlrmnlinnal Journal of Ethics, VIII (1897); Renocvuh, \ ■, ,.. '^lixme in La eril. philos. (,IST2); Wenlet, Aspects / l.iindon, 1894); Mallock, 7s

Life Worth lAvinn ' ' i Tm; Munsterberg, T/fC .E/ernai

Values (Boston, I'm*', Mi i. ii mkoff, The Prolongation of Life (tr. London, 1907J.

A. B. Sharpe.

Pesslnus (TTitratrnvs), titular see of Galatia Se- cund.-i. I 'cs.'^indnle, on t lie southern slope of Mt.Dindy- mus and I lie left bank of the Sangarius, was an ancient city, having commercial but chiefly religious im- portance, owing to the cult of Cybele under the title of Agdistis, whose statue, or rather a stone suppo.sed to represent her, wa.s considered to have fallen from heaven. The Galli, priests of the temple, flourished under the As.syrians, I^ydiaiLs, and Persians. The city pa.ssed to the kings of Pergamus, one of whom rebuilt the temple; about 27S n. c. it became the capital of the Toli.stoboii, one of the three Gallic tribes which founded the Kingdom of Galatia. As early as 204 n. c. the Pomans .sent an embas.sy to procure the statue which they placed in the temple of Victory on the

Palatine, but the cult of the goddess continued. In 189 B. c. the Galli sent an embassy to the consul Man- lius, encamped on the banks of the Sangarius, and later Julian the Apostate made a i)ilgrimage lo Pes- .sinus. Under the Romans the city declined. After Constaiiline it was the metropolis of Galatia Sccunda or Saliilaris. Ten bishops are known: Demetrius, the fri<iiil :uiii defender of St. John Chrysostom, who died in exile; l'i\is, present at the Council of Rphesus (431); Theiictistus, at Chalcedon (451); Acaeius, at Con- stantinople (.536); George, about (iOO; John, at Con- stantinople (692); Gregory, at Nicasa (787); Eustra- tius, at Constantinople (879) ; Nicholas, present at the Council of Con.stantinople (10.54), at which Michael C:i'rulariu8 proclaimed the rupture with Home. The "Xdtil i:e i'|iiscopatuum" mention the .see uiit il the mid- dle of the fourteenth century. The ruins of a theatre, the temples of Cybele and of ^Esculapius are at Bala Hissar, nine or ten miles from Sivri Hissar, chief town of the caza of the vilayet of Angora. Some Christian inscriptions have been discovered.

Le Quien, Oriens Christ., I, 489; Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman geog., a. v.; Bibl. des auteurs anciens; Hamilton, /?e- searchcs, I 438, seq.; Leake, Asia Minor, 82 seq.; Texier, Asit mineure, 473-9; Pebrot, Galatie et Bithynie, 207 seq.

S. P^TRIDfes.

Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism. — Johann Hein-

riih I'cst:di)zzi, one iif (lie grratcst pioneers of modern educatinn, b. at Zurii'h, Switzerland, 12 January, 1746; d. at Brugg, 17 February, 1827. Descended from a Calvinist family and destined to become a preacher, Pestalozzi abandoned this project for the study of law. He was greatly influenced by Rous- seau's "Social Contract" and "Eraile", and tried to carry into practice some of that author's ideas. He first took up farming at Neuhof (New Farm), but failed through lack of practical talent. He then gathered at Neuhof (1774) waifs and castaways, who were to work in his spinning-mill and to receive in turn some industrial and moral training. Unbusiness- like methods led to financial difficulties and the closing of the establishment in 1780. Evil days then followed for Pestalozzi and his heroic wife who had sacrificed all her property for his schemes ; sometimes they lacked bread and fuel, and illness added to their sufTering. Sympathizing with the poor peasantry, Pcst:iliizzi developed a plan for elevating their condition through education. In 1781 appeared his "Lienhard und Gertrud", a simple story which shows how a village was regenerated through the efforts of a good pas- tor, an able magistrate, a zealous teacher, and chiefly through the influence of Gertrude, a perfect wife and mother, who becomes the Good Samaritan of the village. This book, eagerly read wherever German was understood, made its author famous. In 1798 Pestalozzi determined to become a schoolmaster him- self. The village of Stanz had been burnt by the French soldiers, and many children wandered about destitute, ex-posed to physical and moral ruin. Pesta- lozzi was made the head of an institution at Stanz in which the orphans were to be trained. When, in the following year, the French army needed the build- ing for a hospital, the orphans' school came to a sud- den end.

Pestalozzi then opened a school in the Castle of Burgdorf, and there laboured zealously from 1799 to 1804, though hampered by jealousies and misunder- standings. With this institution he connected a normal school, the first in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland; the Catholics already possessed one, in the monastery of St. Urban, Canton of Lucerne. -At Burgdorf Pe.stolazzi wrote "Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt" (How Ciertrude Teaches her Chihlrcn), which, bel tcr (han any other of his books, explains his educa- tional aims and methods. When sent to Paris .xs one of the Swi.ss delegates, he tried to interest the First Consul in his educational work, but Napoleon dc-