The Philosophy of Despair

by

David Starr Jordan

 To John Maxson Stillman In Token of Good Cheer

 A darkening sky and a whitening sea, And the wind in the palm trees tall; Soon or late comes a call for me, Down from the mountain or up from the sea, Then let me lie where I fall. 

 And a friend may write--for friends there be, On a stone from the gray sea wall, "Jungle and town and reef and sea-- I loved God's Earth and His Earth loved me, Taken for all in all. "

Today is your day and mine, the only day we have, the day in which weplay our part. What our part may signify in the great whole, we may notunderstand, but we are here to play it, and now is our time. This weknow, it is a part of action, not of whining. It is a part of love, notcynicism. It is for us to express love in terms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sad experience that any othercourse of life leads toward decay and waste. 

The Philosophy of Despair

The Bubbles of Sáki. 

From Fitzgerald's exquisite version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, Itake the following quatrains which may serve as a text for what I haveto say:

 So when the angel of the darker Drink At last shall find you by the river-brink, And offering you his cup, invite your Soul Forth to your lips to quaff, you shall not shrink. 

 Why, if the soul can fling the Dust aside, And naked on the air of Heaven ride, Wert not a shame--wert not a shame for him In this clay carcase crippled to abide?

 'Tis but a tent where takes his one-day's rest A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrásh Strikes, and prepares it for another guest. 

 And fear not lest Existence, closing your Account, and mine, shall know the like no more; The Eternal Sáki from that bowl hath pour'd Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour. 

 When you and I behind the veil are past, Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last, Which of our coming and departure heeds As the Sev'n Seas shall heed a pebble-cast. 

 A moment's halt--a momentary taste Of Being from the Well amid the waste, And lo!--the phantom caravan has reach'd The Nothing it set out from--O, make haste!

 * * *

 There was the door to which I found no key; There was the veil through which I could not see: Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was--and then no more of Thee and Me. 

 * * *

 Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust Like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn Are scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust. 

 With them the seed of wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand wrought to make it grow And this was all the harvest that I reap'd-- "I come like water, and like wind I go. "

 * * *

 Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits--and then Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire!

 Yon rising Moon that looks for us again-- How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same garden--and for one in vain!

 And when like her, O Sáki, you shall pass Among the guests, star-scattered on the grass, And in your blissful errand reach the spot Where I made one--turn down an empty glass!

 * * *

And, again, in another poem from Carmen Silva's Roumanian folk-songs:

 Hopeless. 

 Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me, Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun. "

 We sat beneath our tent; Then he that hath no hope drew near us there, And sat him down by us. We asked him: "Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?" And he made answer: "I have seen them all. " And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt, Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart, Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart-- The heart was gone. And yet he trembled not, the while we looked, And sought the heart, the heart that was not there. He let us look. And he that had no hope Smiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs. Then we did envy him, that he could sing Without a heart to suffer what he sang. And when he went, he cast his cloak about him, And those that met him, they could never guess How that his shirt was torn about the heart, And that his breast was pierced above the heart, And that the heart was gone. 

 I gazed into the mist, and fear came on me, Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun. "

This poem of Omar and of Fitzgerald is perhaps our best expression ofthe sadness and the grandeur of insoluble problems. It is the sweetnessof philosophical sorrow which has no kinship with misery or distress. Inthe strains of the saddest music the soul finds the keenest delight. Thesame sweet, sorrowful pleasure is felt in the play of the mind about theriddles which it cannot solve. 

In the presence of the infinite problem of life, the voice of Science isdumb, for Science is the coördinate and corrected expression of humanexperience, and human experience must stop with the limitations of humanlife. Man was not present "When the foundations of the Earth were laid, "and beyond the certainty that they were laid in wisdom and power, mancan say little about them. Man finds in the economy of nature "no traceof a beginning; no prospect of an end!" He may feel sure, with Hutton, that "time is as long as space is wide. " But he cannot conceive of spaceas actually without limit, nor can he imagine any limiting conditions. He cannot think of a period before time began, nor of a state in whichtime shall be no more. The mind fails before the idea of time's eternalcontinuity. So time becomes to man merely the sequence of the earthlyevents in which he and his ancestors have taken part. Even thus limitedit is sadly immortal, while man's stay on the earth is but of "few daysand full of trouble. " "Oh, but the long, long while this world shalllast!" or as the grim humorist puts it, "we shall be a long time dead. "

Though the meaning of time, space, existence lies beyond our reach, yetsome sort of solution of the infinite problem the human heart demands. We find in life a power for action, limited though this power may be. Life is action, and action is impossible if devoid of motive or hope. 

It is my purpose here to indicate some part of the answer of Science tothe Philosophy of Despair. Direct reply Science has none. We cannotargue against a singer or a poet. The poet sings of what he feels, butScience speaks only of what we know. We feel infinity, but we cannotknow it, for to the highest human wisdom the ultimate truths of theuniverse are no nearer than to the child. Science knows no ultimatetruths. These are beyond the reach of man, and all that man knows mustbe stated in terms of his experience. But as to human experience andconduct, Science has a word to say. 

Therefore Science can speak of the causes and results of Pessimism. Itcan touch the practical side of the riddle of life by asking certainquestions, the answers to which lie within the province of humanexperience. Among these are the following:

Why is there a "Philosophy of Despair?"

Can Despair be wrought into healthful life?

In what part of the Universe are you and what are you doing?

Personal despair or discouragement may rise from failure of strength orfailure of plans. This is a matter of every-day occurrence. The "bestlaid schemes o' mice and men" generally go wrong, no doubt, but thisfact has little to do with the Philosophy of Pessimism. It is naturalfor mice and men to try again and to gain wisdom from failures. "By theembers of loss we count our gains. "

The Pessimism of Youth we may first consider: In the transition fromchildhood to manhood great changes take place in the nervous system. There is for a time a period of confusion, in which the nerve cells areacquiring new powers and new relations. This is followed by a time ofjoy and exuberance, a sense of a new life in a new world, a feeling ofnew power and adequacy, the thought that life is richer and better worthliving than the child could have supposed. 

To this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have beena thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following partof a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speechesmade up for us centuries before we were born. " The new power of manhoodand womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. Asour own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it, so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic. Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to passthrough a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectationcaught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may findexpression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turneddown his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that tookthe starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth, " says Zangwill, "says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear hadit been alive. " With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds itsexpression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair. 

This adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mooddisappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanisheswith the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad ofthe drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuouslife. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome. 

But if action is impossible, the mood remains. And here arises thedespair of the highly educated. The purpose of knowledge is action. Butto refuse action is to secure time for the acquisition of moreknowledge. It is written in the very structure of the brain that eachimpression of the senses must bring with it the impulse to act. Toresist this impulse is in turn to destroy it and to substitute a dullsoul-ache in its place. "Much study is a weariness of the flesh, and theexperience of all the ages brings only despair if it cannot be wroughtinto life. This lack of balance between knowledge and achievement is themain element in a form of ineffectiveness which with various others hasbeen uncritically called Degeneration. As the common pleasures whicharise from active life become impossible or distasteful, the desire formore intense and novel joys comes in, and with the goading of the thirstfor these comes ever deeper discouragement. 

At the best, the tendency of large knowledge, not vitalized by practicalexperience, is to spend itself in cynical criticism, in futile effortsto tear down without feeling the higher obligation to build up. For itis the essence of this form of Pessimism to feel that there is nothingon earth worth the trouble of building. The real is only a "sneeringcomment" on the ideal, and man's life is too short to make any actionworth while. 

 "With her the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hands wrought to make it grow; And this is all the harvest that I reap'd, 'I come like water, and like wind I go. '"

One of the few things that we may know in life is this, that it isimpossible for man to know anything absolutely. The power of reasoningis a mere "by-product in the process of Evolution. " It is but aninstrument to help out the confusion of the senses, and it isconditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which itdeals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason ispowerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculativephilosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intenselypractical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediatepurposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature ofthe infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If wecannot "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 believenothing, 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. Inthe Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In thecourse 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 isindeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue tothose who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose thatany man is in any degree "the arbiter of his own destiny" is pureillusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against ourwill we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, "ona 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 wekindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. Theriver sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by ourefforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we findourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we maydescribe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement. 

To the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mereillusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fititself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest forthe same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible underthe rare conditions in which life is not destroyed. 

In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. Ifwe are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shallnever begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in ourhand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To reachfor 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 andto secure that "absolute veracity of thought" without which sound actionis impossible does not always lead to hopefulness. 

There is much to discourage in human history, --in the facts of humanlife. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He isignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairsbear the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in theprevalence of destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilizationis dissolved in the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest orcommercial greed be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death. Its essential feature is the slaughter of the young, the brave, theambitious, the hopeful, leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged toperpetuate 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 thisday. For those who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of theslaves, scullions, the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Romanglory could not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all thatis worthy in the works of man. 

That there seems no way out of this is the cause of the sullen despairof so many scholars of Continental Europe. The millennium is not insight. It is farther away than fifty years ago. The future is narrowingdown and men do not care to forecast it. It is enough to grasp what wemay 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, " inWatson's phrase, can only pile up fuel for their own destruction, andthe failure of force will release the unholy brood which force hascaused to develop. The winds of freedom are tainted by sulphurousexhalations. In all our merry-making we find with Ibsen that "there is acorpse on board. " The mask is falling only to show the Death's headthere concealed. Aristocracy, Democracy, Anarchy, Empire, the history ofpolitics, is the eternal round of the Dance of Death. 

When we look at human nature in detail we find more of animal than ofangel, and the "veracity of thought and action, " which is the choicestgift of Science, is lost in the happy-go-lucky movement of the humanmob. "To see things as they really are" is the purpose of the philosophyof Pessimism in the hands of its worthiest exponents. But we know whatis, and that alone, even were such knowledge possible, is not to knowthe truth. The higher wisdom seeks to find the forces at work to producethat which now is. The present time is the meeting time of forces; thepresent fact their temporary product. To the philosophy of Evolution, "every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities. " Each meanest factis the product of the world-forces that lie behind it; each meanest manthe resultant of the vast powers, alive in human nature, strugglingsince life began. And these forces, omnipotent and eternal, will nevercease their work. 

To the philosophy of Pessimism, the child is a mere human larva, weak, perverse, disagreeable, the heir of mortality, with all manner of"defects of doubt and taints of blood, " gathered in the long experienceof its wretched parentage. 

In the more hopeful view of Evolution the child exists for itspossibilities. The huge forces within have thrown it to the surface oftime. They will push it onward to development, which may not be much inthe individual case, but beyond it all lie the possibilities of itsrace. Inherent in it is the power to rise, to form its own environment, to stand at last superior to the blind forces by which the human willwas made. With this thought is sure to come, in some degree, thecertainty that the heart of the Universe is sound, that though there beso many of us in the world, each must have his place, and each at last"be somehow needful to infinity. " We can see that each least creaturehas its need for being. The present justifies the past. It is thetranscendent future which renders the commonplace present possible. 

 The "dragons of the prime, That tore each other in the slime, "

lived and fought that we their descendants may realize ourselves in"lives made beautiful and sweet, " through all unlikeness to dragons. Itwas necessary that every foot of soil in Europe should be crimsoned byblood, wantonly shed, to bring the relative peace and tolerance of thecivilization of Europe today. It always "needs that offense must come"to bring about the better condition in which each particular offenseshall be done away. For the evolution of life is not in straight linesfrom lower to higher things, but runs rather in wavering spirals. It isthe resultant of stress and storm. The evil and failure which darken thepresent are necessary to the illumination of the future. Time is long. "God tosses back to man his failures" one by one, and gives him time andstrength to try again. 

According to Schopenhauer, we move across the stage of life stung byappetite and goaded by desire, in pain unceasing, the sole respite frompain, the instant in which desire is lost in satisfaction. To do awaywith desire is to destroy pain, but it also destroys existence. Desireis lost where the "mouth is stopped with dust, " and with death onlycomes relief from pain. 

Thus the Pessimist tells us that "the only reality in life is pain. " Butsurely this is not the truth. He who knows no reality save appetite hasnever known life at all. The realities in life are love and action; notdesire, but the exercise of our appointed functions. 

Action follows sensation. The more we have to do the more accurate mustbe our sensations, the greater the hold environment has upon us. Broaderactivities demand better knowledge of our surroundings. Greatersensitiveness to external things means greater capacity for pain, hencegreater suffering, when the natural channels of effort are closed. Thusarises the hope for nothingness in which many sensitive souls haveindulged. With no surroundings at all, or with environment that nevervaries, there could be no sense-perception. To see nothing, to feelnothing--there could be no demand for action. With no failure of actionthere could be no weariness. From the varied environment of earthly lifespring, through adaptation, the varied powers and varied sensibilities, susceptibilities to joy and pain as well as the rest. The greater thesensitiveness the greater the capacity for suffering. Hence the"quenching of desire, " the "turning toward Nirvana, the desire toescape from the hideous bustle of a world in which we are able to takeno part, is a natural impulse with the soul which feels but cannot orwill not act. 

 "Can it be, O Christ in Heaven, That the highest suffer most, That the strongest wander farthest And most hopelessly are lost?--

 That the mark of rank in Nature Is capacity for pain, And the anguish of the singer Marks the sweetness of the strain?

That this must be so rests in the very nature of things. The mostperfect instrument is one most easily thrown out of adjustment. The mosthighly developed organism is the most exactly fitted to its functions, the one most deeply injured when these functions are altered orsuppressed. 

Man's sensations and power to act must go together. Man can know nothingthat he cannot somehow weave into action. If he fails to do this in oneform or another, it is through limitations he has placed on himself. Mancannot suffer for lack of "more worlds to conquer, " because his power toconquer worlds is the product of his own 'past life and his own pastneeds. To weave knowledge into action is the antidote for ennui. Toplan, to hope, to do, to accomplish the full measure of our powers, whatever they may be, is to turn away from Nirvana to real life. Auseful man, a helpful man, an active man in any sense, even though his, activity be misdirected or harmful, is always a hopeful man. 

The feeling that "the only reality in life is pain, " is the sign not ofphilosophical acuteness but of bodily under-vitalization. The nervoussystem is too feeble for the body it has to move. To act is to make theenvironment your servant. Its pressure is no longer pain but joy. Theconcessions which life has made to time and space are the source oflife's glory and power. 

The function of the nervous system is to carry from the environment tothe brain the impressions of truth, that action may be true and safe. Pain and pleasure are both incidental to sound action. The one drives, the other coaxes us toward the path of wisdom. If pain is in excess ofjoy in our experience, it is because we have wandered from the path ofnormal activity. By right-doing, we mean that action which makes for"abundance of life, " and abundance of life means fulness of joy. "Thoughlife be sad, yet there's joy in the living it" was the word of theancient Greeks, "who ever with a frolic welcome took the Thunder and theSunshine. "

The life of man is dynamic, not static; not a condition but a movement. "Not enjoyment and not sorrow" is its end or justification. It is a rushof forces, an evolution towards greater activities and higheradjustment, the growth of a stability which shall be ever more unstable. This onward motion is recognized in the pessimistic philosophy of VonHartmann, as a movement towards ever greater possibilities of pain. Withhim life is "the supreme blunder of the blind unconscious force" whichcreated man and developed him as the prey of ever-increasing suffering. 

But the power to enjoy has grown in like degree, and both joy and painare subordinated to the power to act. The human will, the power to do, is the real end of the stress and struggle of the ages. However limitedits individual action, the will finds its place among the giganticfactors in the evolution of life. It is not the present, but theultimate, which is truth. Not the unstable and temporary fact but theboundless clashing forces which endlessly throw truths to the surface. 

Another source of Pessimism is the reaction from unearned pleasures andfrom spurious joys. It is the business of the senses to translaterealities, to tell the truth about us in terms of human experience. Every real pleasure has its cost in some form of nervous activity. Whatwe get we must earn, if it is to be really ours. Long ago, in theinfancy of civilization, man learned that there were drugs in Nature, cell products of the growth or transformation of "our brother organisms, the plants, " by whose agency pain was turned to pleasure. By the aid ofthese outside influences he could clear "today of past regrets andfuture fears, " and strike out from the sad "calendar unborn tomorrow anddead yesterday. "

That the joys thus produced had no real objective existence, man was notlong in finding out, and it soon appeared that for each subjectivepleasure which had no foundation in action, there was a subjectivesorrow, likewise unrelated to external things. 

But that the pains more than balanced the joys, and that the indulgencein unearned deceptions destroyed sooner or later all capacity forenjoyment, man learned more slowly. 

The joys of wine, of opium, of tobacco and of all kindred drugs are meretricks upon the nervous system. In greater or less degree they destroyits power to tell the truth, and in proportion as they have seemed tobring subjective happiness, so do they bring at last subjective horrorand disgust. And this utter soul-weariness of drugs has found its wayinto literature as the expression of Pessimism. 

"The City of the Dreadful Night, " for example, does not find itsinspiration in the misery of selfish, rushing, crowded London. It is theeffect of brandy on the sensitive mind of an exquisitive poet. Not theworld, but the poet, lies in the "dreadful night" of self-inflictedinsomnia. Wherever these subjective nerve influences find expression inliterature 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. "

 * * *

 "This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, Wounded and slow and very venomous. "

 * * *

 '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 ofmania. In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will befollowed by its subjective reaction, the "Nuit Blanche, " the "dark browntaste, " by the experience of "the difference in the morning. " The onlymelancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce. It is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activityand vitiates life. 

There are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorderof nerve. Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, weshall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism. In fact, cheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather theexpression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes. Most of thephilosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of theunattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequentflow of good health. Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulnesswhen both sermons and arguments fail. 

For a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health. It isas natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it. Pessimismarises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves. It is asymptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind. 

There is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over andabove all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them. But themelancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcoticor stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys. "Liver complaint, " says Zangwill, "is the Prometheus myth done intomodern English. " Already historical criticism has shown that the BloodyAssizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of viceand cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves. It is naturalthat degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust. But whateverthe causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy innervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought intosound and helpful life. To live effectively implies the belief that lifeis worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for amoment doubted this. 

Such an expression as "worth living" has in fact no real meaning. To actand to love are the twin functions of the human body and soul. To refusethese functions is to make one's self incapable of them. It is in asense to die while the body is still alive. To refuse these functions isto 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 thatall effort is futile, that all knowledge is illusion, and that no resultof the human will is worth the pain of calling it into action, is to cutthe nerve of effectiveness. In proportion as one really believes this, he becomes a cumberer of the ground. It was said of Oscar McCulloch, anearnest student of human life, that "in whatever part of God's universehe finds himself, he will be a hopeful man, looking forward and notbackward, looking upward and not downward, always ready to lend ahelping 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 the work of civilization has beenaccomplished, "men of present valor, stalwart, brave iconoclasts. " Theywere men who were content with the order of the universe as it is, andseek only to place their own actions in harmony with this order. Theyhave no complaints to urge against "the goodness and severity of God, "nor any futile wish "to remould it nearer to the heart's desire. " The"Fanaticism for Veracity" is satisfied with what is. Not the ultimatetruth which is God's alone, but the highest attainable truth, is the aimof Science, and to translate Science into Virtue is the goal ofcivilization. 

The third question which Science may ask is the direct one. In what partof the universe are you, and what are you doing? Thoreau says that"there is no hope for you unless this bit of sod under your feet is thesweetest to you in this world--in any world. " Why not? Nowhere is thesky so blue, the grass so green, the sunshine so bright, the shade sowelcome, as right here, now, today. No other blue sky, nor brightsunshine, nor welcome shade exists for you. Other skies are bright toother men. They have been bright in the past and so will they be again, but yours are here and now. Today is your day and mine, the only day wehave, the day in which we play our part. What our part may signify inthe great whole we may not understand, but we are here to play it, andnow is the time. This we know, it is a part of action, not of whining. It is a part of love, not cynicism. It is for us to express love interms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sadexperience that any other course of life leads toward decay and waste. 

What, then, are you doing under these blue skies? The thing you doshould be for you the most important thing in the world. If you could dosomething better than you are doing now, everything considered, why areyou not doing it?

If every one did the very best he knew, most of the problems of humanlife would be already settled. If each one did the best he knew, hewould be on the highway to greater knowledge, and therefore still betteraction. The redemption of the world is waiting only for each man to"lend a hand. "

It does not matter if the greatest thing for you to do be not in itselfgreat. The best preparation for greatness comes in doing faithfully thelittle things that lie nearest. The nearest is the greatest in mosthuman lives. 

Even washing one's own face may be the greatest present duty. Theascetics of the past, who scorned cleanliness in the search forgodliness, became, sometimes, neither clean nor holy. For want of aclean face they lost their souls. 

It was Agassiz's strength that he knew the value of today. Never weresuch bright skies as arched above him; nowhere else were such charmingassociates, such budding students, such secrets of nature fresh to hishand. His was the buoyant strength of the man who can look the stars inthe face because he does his part in the Universe as well as they dotheirs. It is the fresh, unspoiled confidence of the natural man, whofinds the world a world of action and joy, and time all too short forthe fulness of life which it demands. When Agassiz died, "the bestfriend that ever student had, " the students of Harvard "laid a wreath oflaurel on his bier, and their manly voices sang a requiem, for he hadbeen a student all his life long, and when he died he was younger thanany of them. "

Optimism in life is a good working hypothesis, if by optimism we meanthe open-eyed faith that force exerted is never lost. Much that callsitself faith is only the blindness of self-satisfaction. 

What if there are so many of us in the ranks of humanity? What if theindividual be lost in the mass as a pebble cast into the Seven Seas?Would you choose a world so small as to leave room for only you and yoursatellites? Would you ask for problems of life so tame that even youcould grasp them? Would you choose a fibreless Universe to be "remouldednearer to the heart's desire, " in place of the wild, tough, virile, man-making environment from which the Attraction of Gravitation letsnone of us escape?

It is not that "I come like water and like wind I go. " I am here today, and the moment and the place are real, and my will is itself one of thefates that make and unmake all things. "Every meanest day is theconflux of two eternities, " and in this center of all time and space forthe moment it is I that stand. Great is Eternity, but it is made up oftime. Could we blot out one day in the midst of time, Eternity could beno more. The feebleness of man has its place within the infiniteOmnipotence. 

It is a question not of hope or despair, but of truth, not of optimismnor of Pessimism, but of wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to do next;virtue is doing it. Religion is the heart impulse that turns toward thebest and highest course of action. "It was my duty to have loved thehighest. What does that demand? What have I to do next? Not in infinity, where we can do nothing, but here, today, the greatest day that everwas, for it alone is mine!

What matter is it that time does not end with us? Neither with us doeshistory begin. An Emperor of China once decreed that nothing should bebefore him, that all history should begin with him. But he could go nofarther than his own decree. Who are you that would be Emperor of China?

 "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour. "

Why not? Should life stop with you? What have you done that you shouldmark the end of time? If you have played your part in the procession ofbubbles, all is well, though the best you can do is to leave the world alittle better for the next that follows. 

If you have not made life a little richer and its conditions a littlemore just by your living you have not touched the world. You are indeeda bubble. If some kind friend somewhere "turn down an empty glass, " itwill be the best monument you deserve. But to have had a friend is toleave the glass not wholly empty, for life is justified in love as wellas in action. 

The words of Omar need to be read with the rising inflection, and theybecome the expression of exultant hopefulness. 

 "The eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured Millions of bubbles and shall pour!"

Small though we are the story is not all told when we are dead. The hugeprocession goes on and shall go on, till the secret of the grandsymphony of life is reached. 

 "A single note in the Eternal Song A perfect Singer hath had need for me. "

 * * *

 "I do rejoice that when of Thee and Me Men speak no longer, yet not less but more The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill And ever fairer, clearer bubbles pour. "

In the same way we must read with the rising inflection the lines ofTennyson:

 "I falter when I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares, Upon the World's great altar-stairs That slope through darkness, up to god!"

Read these words with courage, and with the upward turn of the voice atthe end. It is no longer in the darkness that we falter. The greataltar-stairs of which no man knows the beginning nor the end, do notspring from the mire nor end in the mists. They "slope through darknessup to God, " and no one could ask a stronger expression of that robustoptimism which must be the mainspring of successful life.