Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/422

 P. MAINLANDER, DIE PHILOSOPHIE DEE ERLUSUNG. 421 torical argument. And if it is said that Mainlander's own pessi- mistic conclusion depends ultimately not on any argument of this kind but on temperament, it may be replied that any other con- clusion depends on temperament in just the same way ; that sub- jective reflection is in the end the only possible criterion of the worth or worthlessness of life. Apart from the view that may be taken of Mainlander's attempted proof of his pessimism, there does not seem to be any ground for the unfavourable inference that might be drawn from Prof. Wundt's incidental remark. The theoretical basis of the system, as a whole, cannot be said to show any want of rigorous logical connexion. The Philosophy of Redemption opens with the unconciliatory announcement that the author has been the first to establish atheism scientifically. The doctrine that Mainlander calls atheism is a theory of the emanation of the universe from a " pre-mundane unity " that no longer exists. " God is dead, and his death was the life of the world." The atheistic character of this theory, as the author understands it, consists in its not admitting any "real unity " now existent ." in the world," but only a " collective unity " of "real individuals". The individual beings that compose the world are not absolutely independent, but "semi-independent". Their connexion with one another and their being constrained as by an external power proceeds from their having once been parts of the pre-mundane unity. This connexion of things is, as it were, a "divine breath" blowing through the world from the "dead godhead". All things have their origin in what may be called anthropomorphically the " will " of the absolute being that existed before the world to annihilate itself, an end which could only be attained by the " becoming " of actual existence. From the primitive act of the no longer existing unity springs the total movement or "fate of the world," which makes it as if the collec- tive unity now alone existing were " a simple unity with a single movement '' to annihilation. The real beings that make up the world are "forces," manifest- ing themselves objectively in motion, subjectively as " individual wills". For Schopenhauer these w r ere manifestations of a " will to live " ; and it is true that in the animal kingdom, and still more in man, will has the appearance of being an effort to persist in a specific mode of life. In physics, too, the law of the " conserva- tion of force " (Erhaltung der Kraft) is the expression of a will to live. But when we go deeper, the will to live is seen to be always "the phenomenon of the will to die ''. The more profound law of the " weakening of force " (Schwachung der Kraft) is still manifest, not only in molecular movements as viewed directly by physics, but in the cycles of animal and vegetable life. Again, in geology, it is manifest in the gradual dwarfing of all living forms. In the evolution of organisms, however, the will to die becomes more and more masked under the appearance of the will to live. Life, the means, has come to be preferred to death, the end. Nevertheless, in the struggle of organisms to maintain them-