Page:The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892).djvu/255

Rh thought, a vital, yes, even a religious assurance, which will make you thank God, that, as we tried to suggest by a phrase quoted in an earlier lecture, the very ice and cold, the very frost and snow, of philosophy praise and magnify him forever. In short, my attitude towards pessimism is one that, some years ago, in an article written for a Harvard College journal, I tried to express in words suggested by the then current accusation that too many Harvard students of ability were accustomed to pose as pessimists. If I quote now my former words, it is only because the right bearing towards such matters seems to me so simple that when I try to express it, I am troubled with a poverty of phrases, and have to fall back on oft repeated formulae, for which perhaps some defiant interjection, hurled into the face of our common enemy, namely, the inner spiritual sluggishness wherewith a man is so easily beset, would be the best embodiment. But, at all events, these were my poor words: —

“One hears nowadays, very often, of youthful pessimism, prevalent, for instance, among certain clever college students. When I hear of these things, I do not always regret them. On the contrary, I think that the best man is the one who can see the truth of pessimism, can absorb and transcend that truth, and can be nevertheless an optimist, not by virtue of his failure to recognize the evil of life, but by virtue of his readiness to take part in the struggle against this evil. Therefore, I am often glad when I hear of this spread of pessimistic ideas among studious but undeveloped youth. For, I say to myself, if these men are brave men, their sense of the evil that hinders our human life will some day arouse them to fight this evil in dead earnest, while if they are not brave men, optimism can be of no service to cowards. But in any case I like to suggest to such brave and pessimistic youth where the solution of their problem must lie. It surely cannot lie in any romantic dream of a pure and innocent world,