tion in every fresh piece of evidence which tended to show that things are beyond the grasp of human knowledge. And his satisfaction might be so keen that no unprejudiced observer would hesitate to say that he found life worth living precisely because of its inscrutability. As illustration, one may point to the history of Greek scepticism. No one who has read its literature extensively can avoid the conclusion that the conditions described were here exactly fulfilled, and that to men like Aenesidemus and Sextus Empiricus life had value very largely in proportion to their supposed ability to vindicate the agnostic position. But when one feels
"the burden of the mystery
Of all this unintelligible world,"
then, indeed, will the same view drive him to despair!
There are also many conditions under which the exploitation of the ugly affords keen satisfaction. Consider the jealous artist or the literary critic who finds this element in the work of his rival, or the caricaturist who fastens with keen delight upon what is ugly in the features of his victim. While this mood lasts, the judgment that things are ugly will not make one pessimistic. The ugly is just what is wanted to induce the optimistic tone. The belief that beauty is unattained will drive one to Pessimism only when the longing for the beautiful and the abhorrence of the ugly produce suffering. So, too, with moral badness. It is never merely the intellectual apprehension that goodness is unrealized, but the felt pain and regret and sorrow involved, that induce despair.
My criticism, let it be observed, is not directed against the statement of the objective or ideational grounds of Pessimism. Such a statement is indispensable to any adequate treatment of the subject. But I am protesting against setting down the peculiarly subjective and affective element of feeling, i.e., unhappiness—which must exist in every conceivable ground of Pessimism—as an element coördinate with the objective, ideational elements, and thus by implication excluding it from these. This is a procedure which leads only to confusion, and obscures alike the truth and error of Hedonism.
