II Analysis of Pessimism
Attempts to assign reasons for the pessimistic conception of life—Views of E. von Hartmann—Analysis of Kowalevsky’s work on the Psychology of Pessimism
In view of the facts I brought together in my last chapter, there is occasion to inquire if it be possible to discover the intimate mechanism by which men arrive at a conception of life as an evil to be got rid of as quickly as possible. Why do so many think that man is less happy than the beasts, and that cultured and intelligent men are more unhappy than those who are ignorant or feeble-minded?
I have related how in a society of friends of suicide, injustice and unfaithfulness were regarded as prime factors in arousing a distaste for life. Shakspeare made Hamlet exclaim that if it were possible to put an end to our days no one would continue to live:—
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely?
For Byron, besides diseases, death and slavery, the evils that we see, there are others:—
And worse, the woes we see not—which throb through
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.
In many of his works he insists on the feeling of satiety which was almost continually upon him. Every sensation of pleasure that came to him was rapidly succeeded by a still stronger feeling of disgust.
Heine thought that existence was evil and saw
... across the hard surfaces of the rocks
The homes of men and the hearts of men—
In the one as in the others, lies, imposture and misery.
As I urged in The Nature of Man, consciousness of the shortness of human life has been an important factor in exciting pessimism, and we find this theme recurring in pessimistic writers. Leopardi returns to it again and again in his poems. “Falling in peril of death from some mysterious disease,” he said in his Souvenirs, “I lamented over my sweet youth and the flower of my poor days which was to fall so soon, and often in the midnight hours wove from my sorrows, by the pale light of my lamp, a sad poem, and in the silence of the night wept over my fleeting life, and half fainting, sang to myself my funeral song” (loc. cit., p. 28). The bas-relief on an ancient tomb, representing the departure of a young girl who took farewell of her friends, suggested to Leopardi the following thoughts: “Mother, who from their birth makes her family of living beings tremble and weep, Nature, monster unworthy of our praise, who brings into the world and nurtures only to kill, if the premature death of a mortal be evil, why do you bring it on so many innocent heads? If it be a good, why do you make it sad for those who go and for those left behind? Why is it the hardest grief to console? The only relief from our woes is death, death, the inevitable end, the immutable law which you have established for human beings. Why, alas, after the sad voyage of life, do you not make the arrival joyful? This certain end, this end which is in our souls all our lives, which alone can soothe our troubles, why do you drape it in black and surround it with mournful shades? Why do you make the harbour more terrible than the open seas?” (loc. cit., p. 55).
The three chief grievances—injustice, disease, and death—often come together. From the anthropomorphic point of view fate is represented as a sort of wicked being who commits injustice by visiting all kinds of evils on mankind.
A pessimistic conception of life is arrived at by a complex psychological process in which both feelings and reflection are involved, and hence it is difficult to analyse it satisfactorily. Formerly, therefore, writers were content with general and very vague estimates of the process by which we may become pessimists. Ed. von Hartmann has tried to deal more exactly with this inner process of the human mind. In the first place, he lays stress on the fact that pleasures always bring less satisfaction than pains bring grief. False notes in music, for instance, are more painful than the best music is delightful. The pain of toothache is much more violent than the pleasure when relief comes. So also with all diseases. In love, according to Hartmann, the pleasure is always very greatly over-balanced by the pain. Muscular work brings pleasure only in a very small degree, and devotion to science and art and intellectual work in general brings more pain than pleasure to the votaries. As the result of an analysis, Hartmann is convinced that there is much more pain than pleasure in the world. Pessimism is founded upon the essential nature of human feelings.
M. Kowalevsky,181 a German philosopher at Koenigsberg, adopting the modern habit of measuring mental processes as exactly as possible, has recently published an attempt to analyse pessimism psychologically. Although this has not solved the problem, it is extremely interesting as an instance of the application of the methods now being adopted in modern psychology.
M. Kowalevsky took advantage of all the known methods of estimating the relative values of our emotions; he tried to make use of the notes of Munsterberg, another living psychologist who kept a journal in which he set down daily his psychical and psycho-physical impressions. The object of the work had no relation to the question of pessimism, and for that reason Kowalevsky thought that it was specially important in his investigations.
Munsterberg was not content with the existing classification of emotions as agreeable or painful. He subdivided them much further. He recognised, for instance, emotions of tranquillity and excitement, serious and pleasant impressions. Having completed the reckoning, Kowalevsky came to the conclusion that his colleague, who was by no means a pessimist, but a psychologist of well-balanced mind, experienced many more painful emotions (about 60 per cent. as compared with 40 per cent.) than agreeable emotions. “Such a result is in favour of pessimism,” concluded Kowalevsky.
However, he went beyond the foregoing enquiry. By several other methods, he tried to gain an exact idea of the value of our emotions. He visited elementary schools in order to investigate the pleasures and pains of the scholars. In the case of 104 boys, of eleven to thirteen years of age, he found that pain was much more deeply felt than corresponding pleasure. Thus, while in 88 cases illness was set down as an evil, only in 21 was health reckoned as a good. One-third of the pupils noted down war amongst evils, whilst only one noted peace amongst the good things. Poverty was written down thirteen times as an evil, against twice in which riches were put down as a good. In another series of investigations, Kowalevsky took notes on the pleasures and pains felt by pupils of the two sexes attending the same school. The result was that the greatest evil, according to them, was illness, noted 43 times, then death 42 times, after which came fire 37 times, hunger 23 times, floods 20 times. Amongst the good things, the first place was given, as might have been expected, to games (30) and the second to presents.
As Kowalevsky did not find that such investigations could solve the problem, he tried to discover a more exact method. With this object, he turned to different sensations, such as those of smell, hearing and taste, to which he applied methods of exact measurement. In the case of taste, for instance, he determined the minimum quantity of different substances which could excite definitely pleasant or unpleasant sensations. In his experiments, Kowalevsky found that doses which gave bad tastes were not balanced by those which gave good tastes. For instance, to neutralise the unpleasant taste of quinine, it was necessary to employ a much larger quantity of sugar. He was specially pleased with one experiment. Four persons were given definite mixtures of sugar and quinine in order to discover the proportion of the two substances necessary to obtain a neutral sensation. He found that to take away the bad taste of quinine, it was necessary to double the quantity of sugar given. Similarly with smells, he found that those which were unpleasant were appreciated much more strongly than those which were pleasant. Here, then, was a series of scientific results supporting the view of the pessimists. Must we really conclude from them that the world is very badly arranged? The analysis of good and bad temper made by Kowalevsky is in favour of such an interpretation. In order to estimate these conditions of mind, he measured the gait, that is to say, the number of steps taken in a minute. This method depended upon the following idea. It is an accepted view that the condition of mind is shown by the rapidity of the human walk; we have only to compare the slow pace of a man in deep grief with the rapid steps of a man in a state of joy. Pain, as a general rule, depresses, while joy stimulates voluntary movements. The result of the measurements taken according to this method give a new argument in favour of pessimism. However, it is useless to attempt to analyse these figures on which Kowalevsky had to employ the integral calculus, because the principle of his method cannot be supported. As a matter of fact, the rapidity of walking is an index of the degree of excitation, and not of the happy or unhappy condition of the mind. When a person suddenly undergoes a strong impression, either pleasant or unpleasant, he takes to walking actively about in his room, and may even want to go out of doors to walk more quickly. A letter which has been received and which gives some unexpected news, as for instance of the infidelity of a person one loves, or of an inheritance which one did not expect, produces a condition of excitement shown chiefly by rapid walking. Many orators and professors have to make gestures and to walk about in the course of their lectures. A man of science to whom some new idea comes and who wishes to think it out, rises from his chair and begins to walk. But not only on such pleasant occasions, but when one has to face an insult or an act of defiance which makes one very angry, the need to walk actively is felt. It is therefore impossible to utilise records of movements in the study of the pessimistic state of mind.
M. Kowalevsky employed still another mode of attacking the problem. He examined the recollection of painful or pleasant impressions. He asked the children of both sexes, whom he was investigating, questions which gave him indications as to whether pleasures or pains made the more lasting impression on the memory, and he registered the answers. The result, which agreed with what had already been obtained by Mr. Colegrove, an American psychologist, was unfavourable to the pessimistic view. He found, in fact, that in the majority of cases (70 per cent.) recollection of pleasant impressions predominated. However, in such investigations there is a facile source of error arising from the condition of mind of those who are being questioned. It is probable that Kowalevsky made his enquiry in school during recreation time, when most of the pupils were free from the boredom of the actual class. When we are happy the tendency exists in us to recall pleasant impressions of the past. If the enquiry had been made during a difficult or wearying lesson, or on children shut up in a hospital, or undergoing punishment, it is probable that the result would have been reversed.
It is evident that all such attempts to solve a problem so complex as that of pessimism, even by the so-called exact methods of physiological psychology, cannot lead to any convincing result. Thus Kowalevsky’s different investigations led to contradictory conclusions. Whilst some of his series of facts supported the pessimistic conception, others were opposed to it, and he obtained no definite general conclusion. How can one expect to apply a method of measurement to sensations and emotions so different, not only from the qualitative point of view, but also in relation to their intensity? Take, for instance, the case of an individual who has experienced in one day nine sensations which were painful and one which was agreeable. According to the valuation of experimental psychologists, he ought to have reason to become a pessimist. However, this may be far from the case, if the nine painful impressions were much weaker than the single happy impression. The first were provoked by small wounds to his pride, fleeting pains of no importance, and small losses of money, whilst the happy emotion came from receiving a love letter. The sum of the ten impressions would be a happy one, and might well put him in an optimistic frame of mind. The learned attempts of experimental psychologists must be abandoned, as incapable of illuminating the problem. If, however, the human spirit still seeks some means of explaining the psychology of pessimism, there remains only the less subtle method given by the biographical study of human beings.