The Philosophy of Despair | Page 7

of selfish, rushing, crowded London. It is the effect of brandy on the sensitive mind of an exquisitive poet. Not the world, but the poet, lies in the "dreadful night" of self-inflicted insomnia. Wherever these subjective nerve influences find expression in literature it is either in an infinite sadness, or in hopeless gloom. James Thompson says in the "City of the Dreadful Night":
"The city is of night but not of sleep; There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain. The pitiless hours like years and ages creep - A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, Or which some moment's stupor but increases."
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"This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, Wounded and slow and very venomous."
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'Lo, as thus prostrate in the dust I write My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears - But why evoke the spectres of black night To blot the sunshine of exultant years!
"Because a cold rage seizes one at times To show the bitter, old and wrinkled truth, Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth."
All this, alas, is the inevitable physical outcome of the attempt to -
"Divorce old, barren Reason from my house To take the daughter of the vine to spouse."
All subjective happiness due to nerve stimulation is of the nature of mania. In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will be followed by its subjective reaction, the "Nuit Blanche," the "dark brown taste," by the experience of "the difference in the morning." The only melancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce. It is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activity and vitiates life.
There are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorder of nerve. Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, we shall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism. In fact, cheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather the expression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes. Most of the philosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of the unattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequent flow of good health. Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulness when both sermons and arguments fail.
For a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health. It is as natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it. Pessimism arises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves. It is a symptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind.
There is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over and above all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them. But the melancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcotic or stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys. "Liver complaint," says Zangwill, "is the Prometheus myth done into modern English." Already historical criticism has shown that the Bloody Assizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of vice and cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves. It is natural that degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust. But whatever the causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy in nervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought into sound and helpful life. To live effectively implies the belief that life is worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for a moment doubted this.
Such an expression as "worth living" has in fact no real meaning. To act and to love are the twin functions of the human body and soul. To refuse these functions is to make one's self incapable of them. It is in a sense to die while the body is still alive. To refuse these functions is to make misery out of existence, and a life of ennui is doubtless not "worth living."
The philosophy of life is its working hypothesis of action. To hold that all effort is futile, that all knowledge is illusion, and that no result of the human will is worth the pain of calling it into action, is to cut the nerve of effectiveness. In proportion as one really believes this, he becomes a cumberer of the ground. It was said of Oscar McCulloch, an earnest student of human life, that "in whatever part of God's universe he finds himself, he will be a hopeful man, looking forward and not backward, looking upward and not downward, always ready to lend a helping hand, and not afraid to die."
Of like spirit was Robert Louis Stevenson:
"Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will."
It is through men of this type that