The Philosophy of Despair | Page 4

infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of
man. If we cannot "reach the heart of reality" by reason, what indeed
can we reach? What right have we to know or to believe? And if we
can know or believe nothing, what should we try to do? And how
indeed can we do anything? Every man's fate is determined by his
heredity and his environment. In the Arab proverb he is born with his
fate bound to his neck. In the course of life we must do that which has
been already cut out for us. Our parts were laid for us long before we
appeared to take them. He is indeed a strong man who can vary the cast
or give a different cue to those who follow. Nature is no respecter of
persons, and to suppose that any man is in any degree "the arbiter of his
own destiny" is pure illusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our
will. Against our will we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as
has been said, "on a steep incline, where we can veer but little to the
left or right"; whichever way we move we fall finally to the very
bottom. The fires we kindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish
before our eyes. The river sinks in the sands of the desert. The character
we form by our efforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be
spared we find ourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way
we turn we may describe the course of life in metaphors of
discouragement.
To the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mere
illusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fit
itself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for the
same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under the
rare conditions in which life is not destroyed.
In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy.
If we are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall
never begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our
hand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To
reach for the ultimate end of action is never to begin to act.
Deeper and more worthy of respect is the sadness of science. The effort
"to see things as they really are," to get out of all make-believe and to

secure that "absolute veracity of thought" without which sound action
is impossible does not always lead to hopefulness.
There is much to discourage in human history, - in the facts of human
life. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He is
ignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairs bear
the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in the prevalence of
destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilization is dissolved in
the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest or commercial greed
be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death. Its essential feature
is the slaughter of the young, the brave, the ambitious, the hopeful,
leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged to perpetuate the race.
Thus all militant, nations become decadent ones. Thus the glory of
Rome, her conquests and her splendor of achievement, left the Romans
at home a nation of cowards, and such they are to this day. For those
who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of the slaves, scullions,
the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Roman glory could
not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all that is worthy in
the works of man.
That there seems no way out of this is the cause of the sullen despair of
so many scholars of Continental Europe. The millennium is not in sight.
It is farther away than fifty years ago. The future is narrowing down
and men do not care to forecast it. It is enough to grasp what we may of
the present. We hear "the ring of the hammer on the scaffold." "Let us
eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." "The sad kings," in Watson's
phrase, can only pile up fuel for their own destruction, and the failure
of force will release the unholy brood which force has caused to
develop. The winds of freedom are tainted by sulphurous exhalations.
In all our merry-making we find with Ibsen that "there is a corpse on
board." The mask is falling only to show the Death's head there
concealed. Aristocracy, Democracy, Anarchy, Empire, the history of
politics, is the eternal round of the Dance of Death.
When we look at