Early

Journal Content on JSTOR, Free to Anyone in the World

This article is one of nearly 500,000 scholarly works digitized and made freely available to everyone in
the world by JSTOR.
Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other
writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the
mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries.
We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this
resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non-commercial
purposes.
Read more about Early Journal Content at http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/individuals/early-
journal-content.








JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people
discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching
platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit
organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please
contact support@jstor.org.

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL
OF ETHICS.
O CT OB E3
IS LIFE

WORTH

R,

1 8 9 5.

LIVING?*

WHEN Mr. Mallock's book with this title appeared some

fifteenyears ago, the jocose answer that " it depends on the
liver" had great currencyin the newspapers. The answer that
I propose to give to-day cannot be jocose. In the words of
one of Shakespeare's prologues, " I come no more to make
you laugh; things now that bear a weightyand a serious
brow,sad, high, and working,fullof state and woe," must be
my theme. In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner
in which the ultimate mysteryof things works sadly, and I
know not what such an Association as yours intendsnor what
you ask of those whom you invite to address you, unless it
be to lead you fromthe surface-glamourof existence and for
an hour at least to make you heedless to the buzzing and
jigging and vibrationof small interestsand excitementsthat
form the tissue of our ordinary consciousness. Without
furtherexplanation or apology, then, I ask you to join me
in turningan attention,commonlytoo unwilling,to the profounderbass-note of life. Let us search the lonely depths for
an hour together and see what answers in the last folds and
recesses of thingsour question may find.
* An Addressto theYoung Men's ChristianAssociationof HarvardUniversity,
May, 1895.-Afterwards read at the Philadelphia Ethical Society and at the
PlymouthSchool of Applied Ethics.
i
VOL. VI.-No.
I

InternationalYournal of Ethics.

I.
With manymen the questionof life'sworthis answered
optimismthat makes themincapableof
by a temperamental
seriouslyevilcan exist. Our dearold
believingthatanything
Walt Whitman'sworksare the standingtext-bookof this
kind of optimism:the merejoy of livingis so immensein
of any
Walt Whitman'sveinsthatit abolishesthepossibility
otherkindof feeling.
" To breathethe air, how delicious!
To speak, to walk, to seize somethingby the hand!
To be thisincredibleGod I am! . . .
o amazementof things,even the least particle!
of things! . . .
o spirituality
I too carol the Sun, or at noon,or as now setting,
I, too, throbto the brainand beautyof the earth,and of all thegrowthsof the
earth.
I sing the equalities,modernor old;
I sing the endlessfinalesof things;
I say Naturecontinues-Glorycontinues;
I praisewithelectricvoice;
in the Universe,
For I do notsee one imperfection
And I do notsee one cause or resultlamentableat last."

So Rousseau,writingof thenine yearshe spentat Annecy,

withnothingbuthis happinessto tell:
" How tell whatwas neithersaid nor done nor even thought,but tastedonly
and felt,with no objectof myfelicitybut the emotionof felicityitself. I rose
withthe sun and I was happy; I wenttowalk and I was happy; I saw ' Maman'
and I was happy; I lefther and I was happy. I rambledthroughthewoods and
over the vine-slopes,I wanderedin the valleys,I read, I lounged,I worked in
the garden,I gatheredthe fruits,I helped at the indoorwork,and happiness
followed me everywhere:it was in no one assignable thing; it was all within
myself; it could notleave me fora singleinstant."

If moodslikethis couldbe madepermanent

and constitutherewould neverbe any occasion
tionsliketheseuniversal,
would
forsuchdiscoursesas thepresentone. No philosopher
thatlifeis worthliving,forthefact
seek to provearticulately
is so wouldvouchforitself,
and theproblem
thatit absolutely
disappearin thevanishingof thequestionratherthan in the
comingof anythinglikea reply. But we are not magicians

Is Life WorthLiving?

to make the optimistictemperamentuniversal; and alongside

of the deliverances of temperamentaloptimism concerning
life,those of temperamentalpessimismalways exist and oppose
to them a standing refutation. In what is called circular insanityphases of melancholysucceed phases of mania,with no
outwardcause that we can discover,and oftenenough to one
and the same well person lifewill offerincarnateradiance today and incarnate dreariness to-morrow,according to the
fluctuationsof what the older medical books used to call the
concoction of the humors. In the words of the newspaper
joke, " it depends on the liver." Rousseau's ill-balanced
constitutionundergoes a change, and behold him in his latter
evil days a prey to melancholyand black delusions of suspicion and fear. And some men seem launched upon the
world even fromtheirbirthwith souls as incapable of happiness as Walt Whitman's soul was of gloom, and' they have
leftus theirmessages in even more lasting verse than histhe exquisite Leopardi, for example, or our own contemporary, James Thomson, in that pathetic book, "The City of
Dreadful Night," which I think is less well-known than it
should be for its literarybeauty, simply because men are
afraidto quote its words-they are so gloomy and at the same
time so sincere. In one place Thomson describesa congregation gatheredto listen to a preacherin a great unillumined
cathedral at night. The sermonis too long to quote, but it
ends thus:
"0 Brothersof sad lives! theyare so brief;
A few shortyearsmustbringus all relief:
Can we notbear theseyearsof laboringbreath?
But if you would notthispoor lifefulfil,
Lo, you are freeto end it when you will,
Withoutthe fearof wakingafterdeath.
The organ-likevibrationsof his voice
Thrilledthroughthe vaulted aisles and died away;
The yearningof the toneswhichbade rejoice
Was sad and tenderas a requiemlay:
Our shadowycongregationrestedstill
As broodingon that' End it when you will.'
*

InternationalYournal of Ethics.
Our shadowycongregationrestedstill,
As musingon thatmessagewe had heard
And broodingon that' End it whenyou will;'
Perchanceawaitingyetsome otherword;
sky
When keen as lightningthrougha muffled
Sprangfortha shrilland lamentablecry:
The man speaks sooth,alas! the man speaks sooth
We have no personallifebeyond the grave;
There is no God; Fate knows nor wrathnor ruth:
Can I findhere the comfortwhichI crave?
In all eternity
I had one chance,
One fewyears' termof gracioushumanlife:
The splendorsof the intellect'sadvance,
The sweetnessof the home withbabes and wife;
The social pleasureswiththeirgenial wit;
The fascinationof the worldsof art;
The gloriesof the worldsof nature,lit
By large imagination'sglowingheart;
The raptureof merebeing,fullof health;
The careless childhoodand the ardentyouth,
The strenuousmanhoodwinningvariouswealth,
The reverendage serenewithlife's long truth
All the sublimeprerogativesof Man;
The storiedmemoriesof the timesof old,
The patienttrackingof the world's greatplan
Throughsequences and changesmyriadfold.
This chance was neverofferedme before;
For me the infinitepast is blank and dumb:
This chance recurreth
never,nevermore;
Blank, blank forme the infiniteTo-come.
And thissole chance was frustatefrommybirth,
A mockery,a delusion; and mybreath
Of noble humanlifeupon thisearth
So racksme thatI sigh forsenselessdeath.
My wine of lifeis poisonmixed withgall,
My noondaypasses in a nightmaredream,
I worse thanlose theyearswhich are my all:
What can console me forthe loss supreme?
Speak not of comfortwhereno comfortis,
Speak not at all: can wordsmake foulthingsfair?
Our life'sa cheat,our death a black abyss:
Hush and be muteenvisagingdespair.-

Is

/ifeWorthLiving.?

This vehementvoice came fromthe northernaisle

Rapid and shrillto its abruptharshclose;
And none gave answerfora certainwhile,
For wordsmustshrinkfromthesemostwordlesswoes;
At last the pulpitspeakersimplysaid,
droopinghead,With humideyes and thoughtful,
My Brother,mypoor Brothers,it is thus;
This life itselfholds nothinggood forus,
But it ends soon and nevermorecan be
And we knew nothingof it ere our birth,
And shall know nothingwhen consignedto earth:
me."
I ponderthesethoughtsand theycomfort

"It ends soon and nevermoreshall be. . . . Lo! you are

free to end it when you will"-these verses flow truthfully
frompoor JamesThomson's pen, and are in trutha consolation
forall to whom,as to him,the earth is farmore like a steady
den of fearthan a continualfountainof delight. That lifeis
notworthliving the whole army of suicides declare-an army
whose roll-call, like the famous evening drum-beatof the
British army, follows the sun round the world and never
terminates. We, too, as we sit here in our comfort,must
" ponder these things"also, forwe are of one substance with
these suicides, and their lifeis the lifewe share. The plainest intellectual integrity,nay, more, the simplest manliness
and honor,forbidus to forgettheircase.
" If suddenly," says Mr. Ruskin, " in the midst of the enjoymentsof the
the walls of the champalate and lightnessesof heartof a London dinner-party
ber were parted,and throughtheir gap the nearest human beings who were
famishingand in miserywere borneintothe midstof the companyfeastingand
broken by despair,body
fancyfree-if, pale fromdeath,horriblein destitution,
by body,theywere laid upon the softcarpet,one beside thechairof everyguest,
would onlythe crumbsof the dainties be cast to them-would only a passing
glance, a passingthought,be vouchsafedto them? Yet the actual facts,the real
of the
relationof each Dives and Lazarus, are not altered by the intervention
house-wallbetweenthe table and the sick-bed-by the few feetof ground(how
fromthe misery."
few!) whichare, indeed, all thatseparatethe merriment

II.
To come immediatelyto the heart of my theme,then,what
I propose is to imagine ourselves reasoning with a fellowmortal who is on such termswith lifethat the only comfort

International-7ournalof Ethics.

lefthim is to brood on the assurance "you may end it when

you will." What reasons can we plead that may rendersuch
a brother(or sister) willing to take up the burden again?
OrdinaryChristians,reasoning with would-be suicides, have
littleto offerthembeyond the usual negative" thou shalt not."
God alone is masterof life and death, they say, and it is a
blasphemous act to anticipate his absolving hand. But can
we find nothing richeror more positive than this,no reflections to urge wherebythe suicide may actually see, and in all
sad seriousness feel,that in spite of adverse appearances even
for him life is worth living still? There are suicides and
suicides-in the United States about three thousand of them
everyyear-and I must franklyconfessthat with perhaps the
majorityof these my suggestionsare impotentto deal. Where
suicide is the result of insanityor sudden frenziedimpulse,
reflectionis impotentto arrest its headway, and cases like
these belong to the ultimatemysteryof evil concerningwhich
I can only offer considerations tending towards religious
patience at the end of this hour. My task,let me say now, is
practicallynarrow,and my words are to deal only with that
metaphysicaltediumvitk which is peculiar to reflectingmen.
Most of you are devoted forgood or evil to the reflectivelife.
Many of you are studentsof philosophy,and have alreadyfelt
in your own persons the scepticism and unrealitythat too
much grubbing in the abstract roots of things will breed.
This is, indeed,one of the regular fruitsof the over-studious
career. Too much questioning and too little active responsibilitylead, almost as often as too much sensualism,to the
edge of the slope at the bottomof which lie pessimism and
the nightmareor suicidal view of life. But to the diseases
which reflectionbreeds, still furtherreflectioncan oppose
effectiveremedies; and it is of the melancholy and Weltschmerzbred of reflectionthat I now proceed to speak.
Let me say immediatelythat my final appeal is to nothing
more reconditethan religious faith. So faras my argument
is to be destructive,it will consist in nothing more than the
sweeping away of certainviews that oftenkeep the springsof
religiousfaithcompressed; and so faras it is to be constructive

Is Life WorthLiving?

it will consist in holding up to the light of day certain considerations calculated to let loose these springsin a normal,
naturalway. Pessimismis essentiallya religiousdisease. In
the formof it to which you are most liable it consists in
nothing but a religious demand to which there comes no
normal religious reply.
Now thereare two stages of recoveryfromthis disease, two
differentlevels upon which one may emerge from the midnightview to the daylightview of things,and I must treatof
them in turn. The second stage is the more complete and
joyous, and it corresponds to the freerexercise of religious
trustand fancy. There are, as is well known,personswho are
naturallyveryfreein this regard,otherswho are not at all so.
There are persons,for instance,whom we find indulging to
their heart's content in prospects of immortality,
and there
in making
are others who experience the greatest difficulty
such a notion seem real to themselves at all. These latter
persons are tied to theirsenses, restrictedto theirnaturalexperience; and many of them moreoverfeel a sort of intellectual loyalty to what they call hard factswhich is positively
shocked by the easy excursions into the unseen that they
witness other people make at the bare call of sentiment.
Minds of either class may, however,be intenselyreligious.
They may equally desire atonement,harmony,reconciliation;
and crave acquiescence and communionwith the total Soul
of Things. But the craving,when the mind is pent in to the
hard facts, especially as "Science" now reveals them, can
breed pessimismquite as easily as it breeds optimismwhen it
inspiresreligious trustand fancyto wing theirway to another
and a betterworld.
This is why I call pessimisman essentiallyreligiousdisease.
The nightmareview of lifehas plentyof organicsources, but
its great refectivesource in these days, and at all times,has
been the contradictionbetweenthe phenomenaof Nature and
the craving of the heart to believe that behind Nature there
is a spiritwhose expression Nature is. What philosophers
call naturaltheologyhas been one way of appeasing thiscraving. The poetryof Nature in which our English literature

Internationaljournall of Ethics.

is so richhas been anotherway. Now suppose a mind of the

latterof our two classes, whose imaginationis pent in consequently,and who takes its facts" hard;" suppose it,moreover,
to feelstronglythe cravingforcommunion,and yet to realize
how desperatelydifficult
it is to construe the scientificorder
of Nature either theologicallyor poetically, and what result
can therebe but innerdiscord and contradiction? Now this
inner discord (merely as discord) can be relieved in either
of two ways. The longing to read the factsreligiouslymay
cease, and leave the bare facts by themselves. Or supplementaryfactsmay be discoveredor believed in, which permit
the religious readingto go on. And these two ways of relief
are the two stages of recovery,the two levels of escape from
pessimism,to which I made allusion a momentago, and which
what followswill, I trust,make more clear.
III.
Starting then with Nature, we naturallytend, if we have
the religiouscraving,to saywith Marcus Aurelius,0 Universe,
what thou wishest I wish. Our sacred books and traditions
tell us of one God who made heaven and earth,and looking
on them saw that they were good. Yet, on more intimate
acquaintance, the visible surfacesof heaven and earth refuse
to beabroughtby us into any intelligibleunityat all. Every
phenomena that we would praise there exists cheek by jowl
with some contraryphenomenonthat cancels all its religious
effectupon the mind. Beauty and hideousness, love and
cruelty,life and death keep house together in indissoluble
partnership; and theregradually steals over us, instead of the
old warninotionof a man-lovingDeity, thatof an awfulPower
that neither hates nor loves, but rolls all things together
meaninglesslyto a common doom. This is an uncanny,a
sinister,a nightmareview of life,and its peculiarunheimlichkeit
or poisonousness lies expresslyin our holding two thingstogetherwhich cannot possibly agree,-in our clinging on the
one hand to the demand that there shall be a living spiritof
the whole, and, on the other,to the belief that the course of
and exnature must be such a spirit'sadequate manifestation

Is Lfe WortkLiving?

pression. It is in the contradictionbetween the supposed

beingof a spiritthat encompasses and owns us and withwhich
we ought to have some communion,and the characterof such
a spirit,as revealed by the visible world's course, that this
particulardeath-in-lifeparadox and this melancholy-breeding
puzzle reside. Carlyle expresses the result in that chapter
of his immortalSartor Resartus entitledthe EverlastingNo.
"I ended," says poor Teufelsdr6ckh," by living in a continual
indefinitepining fear; tremulous,pusillanimous,apprehensive
of I knew not what. It seemed as if all thingsin the Heavens
above and the Earth beneathwould hurtme; as ifthe Heavens
and the Earth were but boundless Jaws of a devouringMonster,whereinI, palpitating,lay waitingto be devoured."
This is the firststage of speculativemelancholy. No brute
can have this sort of melancholy,no man that is irreligious
can become its prey. It is the sick shudder of the frustrated
religious demand, and not the mere necessary outcome of
animal experience. Teufelsdr6ckhhimselfcould have made
shiftto face the general chaos and bedevilmentof thisworld's
experiences very well were he not the victimof.an originally
unlimitedtrustand affectiontowardsthem. If he mightmeet
them piecemeal, with no suspicion of any Whole expressing
itselfin them,shunning the bitterparts and husbanding the
sweet ones, as the occasion served,and as (to use a vulgar
phrase) he struckit fator lean, he could have zigzagged fairly
towards an easy end, and feltno obligation to make the air
vocal with his lamentations. The mood of levity,of " I don't
care," is forthis world's ills a sovereign and practical anxsthetic. But no! somethingdeep down in Teufelsdr6ckhand
in the rest of us tells us that there is a spirit in things to
whichwe owe allegiance and forwhose sake we must keep up
the serious mood, and so the innerfeverand discord also are
kept up-for Nature taken on her visible surface reveals no
such spirit,and beyond the facts of Nature we are at the
presentstage of our inquirynot supposing ourselves to look.
Now, I do not hesitate franklyand sincerelyto confess to
you that this real and genuine discord seems to me to proclaim the inevitablebankruptcyof naturalreligionnaivelyand

IO

International
Yournalof Ethics.

simplytaken. There were times when Leibnitzes with their

heads buried in monstrouswigs could compose Theodicies,
and when stall-fedofficialsof an established church could
prove by the valves in the heartand the round ligamentof the
hip-jointthe existence of a " Moral and IntelligentContriver
of the World." But those times are past, and we of the nineteenthcentury,withour evolutionarytheoriesand our mechanical philosophies,already know naturetoo impartiallyand too
well to worshipunreservedlyany god of whose charactershe
can be an adequate expression. Truly all we know of good
and beauty proceeds fromnature,but none the less so all we
know of evil. Visible natureis all plasticityand indifference,
a multiverse,as one might call it, and not a universe. To
such a harlot we owe no moral allegiance; with her as a
whole we can establish no sentimentalcommunion; and we
are free in our dealings with her several parts to obey or
destroy,and to followno law but that of prudence in coming
to termswith such of her particularfeaturesas will help us to
our private ends. If there be a divine spiritof the universe,
nature,such as we know her, cannot possibly be its ultimate
word to man. Either thereis no spirit revealed in nature,or
else it is inadequately revealed there; and (as all the higher
religions have assumed) what we call visible nature or this
world must be but a veil and surface-showwhose fullmeaning resides in a supplementaryunseen or otherworld.
accounting it on the whole a gain
I cannot help, therefore,
(though it mayseem forcertainpoetic constitutionsa verysad
loss) thatthe naturalisticsuperstition,the worshipof the God
of naturesimplytaken as such, should have begun to loosen
its hold upon the educated mind. In fact,if I am to express
mypersonal opinion unreservedly,I should say (in spite of its
sounding blasphemous at firstto certainears) that the initial
step towards getting into healthyultimate relationswith the
universeis the act of rebellion against the idea that such a
God exists. Such rebellion essentiallyis that which in the
chapterquoted a while ago Carlyle goes on to describe:
" Wherefore,
like a coward,dostthouforeverpipand whimper,and go cowering
and trembling? Despicable biped! . . . Hast thou not a heart? Canst thou

Is Life WorthLiving?

II

notsuffer
whatsoit be, and as a Child of Freedom,thoughoutcast,trampleTophet
itselfunderthyfeet,while it consumesthee? Let it come then; I will meetit
and defyit! And as I so thoughtthere rushed like a streamof fireover my
whole soul; and I shook base Fear away fromme forever. . . Thus had the
EverlastingNo pealed authoritatively
throughall the recessesof mybeing,of
my ME; and then it was that mywhole ME stood up, in nativeGod-created
transaction
majesty,and recordedits protest. Such a protest,
the mostimportant
in Life, maythatsameindignationand defiance,in a psychologicalpointofview,
outbe fitlycalled. The EverlastingNo had said: ' Behold,thouartfatherless,
cast, and the Universeis mine' . . . to whichmy whole Me now made answer:
'I am notthine,butFree, and foreverhate thee!"' "From thathour," Teufelsdrockh-Carlyle
adds, " I began to be a Man."

And our friend,poor JamesThomson, similarlywrites:

" Who is mostwretchedin thisdolorousplace ?
I thinkmyself;yetI would ratherbe
My miserableself than He, than He
Who formedsuch creaturesto His own disgrace.
The vilestthingmustbe less vile thanThou
Fromwhomit had its being,God and Lord!
Creatorof all woe and sin! abhorred,
Malignantand implacable! I vow
That notforall Thy powerfurledand unfurled,
For all thetemplesto Thy glorybuilt,
Would I assumetheignominiousguilt
Of havingmade such menin such a world."

We are familiarenough in this communitywith the spectacle of persons exultingin theiremancipationfrombelief in

the God of theirancestralCalvinism,him who made the garden and the serpentand pre-appointedthe eternalfiresof hell.
Some of them have found humanerGods to worship,others
are simplyconverts from all theology; but both alike they
assure us that to have got rid of the sophisticationof thinking
theycould feel any reverenceor duty towardsthat impossible
idol gave a tremendous happiness to their souls. Now, the
idol ofa worshipful
spiritofNature also leads to sophistication;
the
and in souls that are religiousand would also be scientific,
sophisticationbreeds a philosophical melancholyfromwhich
the firstnatural step of escape is the denial of the idol; and
with the downfallof the idol, whatever lack of positive joyousness may remain, there comes also the downfall of the

I2

International-7ournalof Ethics.

whimperingand cowering mood. With evil simplytaken as

such, men can make shortwork, for their relations with it
thenare onlypractical. It looms up no longerso spectrally,it
loses all its hauntingand perplexingsignificanceas soon as the
mind attacks the instancesof it singly and ceases to worry
about theirderivationfromthe " one and only" Power.
Here, then,on this stage of mere emancipationfrommonistic superstition,the would-be suicide may already get encouraging answersto his questionabout theworthof life. There are
in mostmen instinctivespringsof vitalitythat respondhealthily when the burdenof metaphysicaland infiniteresponsibility
rolls off. The certaintythat you now may step out of life
wheneveryou please, and that to do so is not blasphemousor
monstrous,is itselfan immenserelief. The thoughtof suicide
is now no longer a guiltychallenge and obsession. "This
little lifeis all we must endure; the grave's most holy peace
is eversure,"says Thomson; adding," I ponderthesethoughts,
and they comfortme." Meanwhile we can always stand it
fortwenty-four
hours longer,if only to see what to-morrow's
newspaperwill contain or what the next postman will bring.
But fardeeper forcesthan this mere vital curiosityare arousmind; forwhere the
able, even in the pessimistically-tending
loving and admiringimpulsesare dead, the hatingand fighting
impulses will still respond to fitappeals. This evil which we
feel so deeply is somethingwhich we can also help to overthrow,forits sources, now that no " Substance" or " Spirit" is
behind them,are finite,and we can deal with each of them in
turn. It is, indeed, a remarkable fact that sufferingsand
hardshipsdo not,as a rule, abate the love of life; they seem,
on the contrary,usually to give it a keener zest. The sovereign source of melancholy is repletion. Need and struggle
are what excite and inspireus; our hour of triumphis what
bringsthe void. Not the Jews of the captivity,but those of
the days of Solomon's glory are those fromwhom the pessimistic utterancesin our Bibles come. Germany,when she
lay trampled beneath the hoofs of Bonaparte's troopers,produced perhapsthe most optimisticand idealisticliteraturethat
the world has seen; and not till the French " milliards"were

Is Life WorthLiving?

I13

distributedafteri87i did pessimism overrun the countryin

the shape in which we see it there to-day. The historyof
our own race is one long commentaryon the cheerfulnessthat
comes with fightingills. Or take the Waldenses, of whom I
lately have been reading,as examples of what strongmen will
endure. In I485, a papal bull of InnocentVIII. enjoined their
extermination. It absolved those who should take up the
cross against them fromall ecclesiasticalpains and penalties,
released them fromany oath,legitimizedtheirtitleto all propertywhich they mighthave illegally acquired, and promised
remissionof sins to all who should kill the heretics.
" There is no townin Piedmont,"says a Vaudois writer," wheresome of our
brethrenhave not been put to death. JordanTerbano was burntalive at Susa;
Hippolite Rossieroat Turin; Michael Goneto,an octogenarian,at Sarcena; VillerminAmbrosiohanged on the Col di Meano; Hugo Chiambs,of Fenestrelle,
had his entrailstornfromhis living body at Turin; Peter Geymaraliof Bobbio
in like mannerhad his entrailstakenout in Luzerne, and a fiercecat thrustin
their place to torturehim further;Maria Romano was buried alive at Rocca
Patia; Magdalena Fauno underwentthe same fateat San Giovanni; Susanna
Micheliniwas bound hand and footand leftto perishof cold and hungeron the
snow at Sarcena; BartolomeoFache, gashed withsabres,had the wounds filled
up withquicklime,and perishedthusin agonyat Fenile; Daniel Michelinihad
his tonguetornout at Bobbo forhaving praised God; James Baridari perished
coveredwithsulphurousmatcheswhichhad been forcedintohis fleshunderthe
nails, betweenthe fingers,in the nostrils,in the lips, and all overthe body and
thenlighted; Daniel Rovelli had his mouthfilledwithgunpowderwhich,being
lighted,blew his head to pieces; . . . Sara Rostignolwas slit open fromthe legs
to the bosom,and leftso to perishon theroad betweenEyral and Luzerna; Anna
Charbonnierwas impaled,and carriedthuson a pike fromSan Giovannito La
Torre."

landdergleichennehr! In i630, the plague sweptaway onehalf the Vaudois population,including fifteenof theirseventeen pastors. The places of these were supplied fromGeneva
and Dauphiny, and the whole Vaudois people learned French
in order to follow their services. More than once their
number fell by unremittingpersecution from the normal
standardof twenty-five
thousand to about fourthousand. In
i686, the Duke of Savoy orderedthe threethousand that remained to give up theirfaithor leave the country. Refusing,
they fought the French and Piedmontese armies till only
eighty of their fightingmen remained alive or uncaptured,

I4

Internationaljournal of Ethics.

when they gave up and were sent in a body to Switzerland.

But in i689, encouraged by William of Orange and led by
one of theirpastor-captains,betweeneight hundred and nine
hundredof them returnedto capturetheirold homes again.
They foughttheirway to Bobi, reduced to fourhundred men
in the firsthalf year, and met everyforce sent against them
until at last the Duke of Savoy, giving up his alliance with
that abominationof desolation,Louis XIV., restoredthem to
comparativefreedom. Since which time they have increased
and multipliedin theirbarrenAlpine valleys to this day.
What are our woes and sufferancecompared with these?
Does not the recital of such a fightso obstinatelywaged
against such odds fill us with resolution against our petty
powers of darkness,machine politicians,spoilsmen, and the
rest? Life is worth living,no matterwhat it bring,if only
such combats may be carried to successful terminationsand
one's heel set on the tyrant'sthroat. To the suicide, then,in
his supposed world of multifariousand immoral Nature,you
can appeal, and appeal in the name of the veryevils that make
his heart sick there,to wait and see his part of the battle out.
And the consentto live on, which you ask of him under these
circumstances,is not the sophistical" resignation"which devotees of cowering religions preach. It is not resignationin
the sense of licking a despotic deity's hand. It is, on the
contrary,a resignation based on manliness and pride. So
long as your would-be suicide leaves an evil of his own unremedied,so long he has strictlyno concernwith evil in the
abstractand at large. The submissionwhich you demand of
yourselfto the general factof evil in the world,your apparent
acquiescence in it, is here nothingbut the convictionthat evil
at large is noneof your businessuntilyour business with your
private particularevils is liquidated and settled up. A challenge of this sort,withproperdesignationof detail,is one that
need only be made to be accepted by men whose normal instinctsare not decayed, and your reflectivewould-be suicide
may easily be moved by it to face lifewith a certain interest
again. The sentimentof honor is a verypenetratingthing.
When you aridI, forinstance,realize how manyinnocentbeasts

Is L?e WorthLiving?

I5

have had to sufferin cattle-carsand slaughter-pensand lay

down theirlives that we mightgrow up, all fattenedand clad,
to sit togetherhere in comfortand carryon this discourse,it
does, indeed,put our relationto the Universein a more solemn
light. "Does not," as a young Amherst philosopher(Xenos
Clark, now dead) once wrote," the acceptance of a happy life
upon such terms involve a point of honor?" Are we not
bound to do some self-denyingservicewith our lives in return
forall those lives upon which ours are built? To hear this
question is to answer it in only one possible way, if one have
a normallyconstitutedheart!
Thus, then,we see that mereinstinctivecuriosity,pugnacity,
and honor may make lifeon a purely naturalisticbasis seem
worthliving fromday to day to men who have cast away all
metaphysics in order to get rid of hypochondria,but who
are resolved to owe nothingas yet to religion and its more
positive gifts. A poor half-waystage, some of you may be
inclinedto say; but at least you must grantit to be an honest
stage; and no man should dare to speak meanly of these instinctswhich are our nature's best equipment,and to which
religionherselfmustin thelast resortaddress her own peculiar
appeals.

IV.

And now, in turningto what religion may have to say to

the question, I come to what is the soul of my discourse.
Religion has meant many things in human history,but when
fromnow onwardI use the word I mean to use it in the supernaturalistsense,as signifyingthat the so-called orderof nature
that constitutesthis world's experience is only one portionof
the total Universe,and that therestretchesbeyond thisvisible
world an unseen world of which we now know nothing positive,but in its relation to which the true significanceof our
presentmundanelifeconsists. A man's religious faith(whatever more special items of doctrineit may involve) means for
me essentiallyhis faithin the existence of an unseen order of
some kind in which the riddles of the naturalorder may be
foundexplained. In the more developed religionsthis world
has always been regardedas the mere scaffoldingor vestibule

i6

International7ournal of Ethics.

of a truer,more eternalworld,and affirmedto be a sphere of

education, trial,or redemption. One must in some fashion
die to this world beforeone can enter into life eternal. The
notionthat this physical world of wind and water,where the
sun rises and the moon sets, is absolutely and ultimatelythe
divinelyaimed at and established thing,is one that we find
only in veryearly religions,such as that of the most primitive
Jews. It is this naturalreligion(primitivestill in spite of the
fact that poets and men of science whose good-will exceeds
theirperspicacitykeep publishingit in new editions tuned to
our contemporaryears) that,as I said a while ago, has suffered
definitivebankruptcyin the opinion of a circle of persons,
amongst whom I must count myself,and who are growing
more numerous every day. For such persons the physical
order of Nature,taken simplyas Science knows it, cannot be
held to reveal any one harmoniousspiritualintent. It is mere
weather, as Chauncey Wright called it, doing and undoing
withoutend.
Now I wish to make you feel,if I can in the short remainder
of this hour,that we have a rightto believe that the physical
order is onlya partial order; we have a rightto supplementit
by an unseen spiritual order which we assume on trust,if
only therebylife may seem to us betterworth living again.
But as such a trustwill seem to some of you sadly mystical
I must firstsay a word or two to
and execrably unscientific,
weaken the veto whichyou may considerthat Science opposes
to our act.
There is included in human naturean ingrainednaturalism
and materialismof mind which can only admit factsthat are
actually tangible. Of this sort of mind the entity called
" Science" is the idol. Fondness for the word " scientist"is
one of the notes by which you may know its votaries; and its
shortway of killing any opinion that it disbelieves in is to
call it "unscientific." It must be granted that there is no
slight excuse forthis. Science has made such glorious leaps
in the last three hundred years,and extended our knowledge
of Nature so enormouslyboth in general and in detail; men
of science,moreover,have as a class displayed such admirable

Is Life WorthLiving?

I7

virtues,that it is no wonder ifthe worshippersof Science lose

theirhead. In thisveryUniversity,accordingly,I have heard
more than one teacher say that all the fundamentalconceptions of truth have already been foundby Science, and that
the futurehas only the details of the pictureto fillin. But
the slightest reflectionon the real conditionswill sufficeto
show how barbaricsuch notions are. They show such a lack
of scientificimagination,that it is hard to see how one who is
activelyadvancing any part of Science can make a mistakeso
crude. Think how manyabsolutelynew scientificconceptions
have arisen in our own generation,how many new problems
have been formulatedthat were never thought of before,and
thencast an eye upon the brevityof Science's career. It began
with Galileo just three hundred years ago. Four thinkers
since Galileo, each informinghis successor of what discoveries
his own lifetimehad seen achieved, might have passed the
torch of Science into our hands as we sit here in this room.
Indeed, forthe matterof that,an audience much smaller than
the presentone, an audience of some sixty or seventypeople,
ifeach person in it could speak forhis own generation,would
carryus away to the black unknownof the human species, to
days withouta documentor monumentto tell their tale. Is
it credible that such a mushroom knowledge,such a growth
overnight as this, can represent more than the minutest
glimpse of what the Universe will really prove to be when
adequately understood? No! our Science is a drop, our
ignorance a sea. Whatever else be certain,this at least is
certain: that the world of our present natural knowledge is
enveloped in a larger world of some sort of whose residual
propertieswe at presentcan frameno positive idea.
Agnostic positivism,of course, admits this principle theoreticallyin the most cordial terms,but insiststhatwe mustnot
turnit to any practical use. We have no right,this doctrine
tells us, to dream dreams,or supposeanythingabout the unseen part of the universe,merelybecause to do so may be for
what we are pleased to call our highest interests. We must
always wait for sensible evidence for our beliefs; and where
such evidence is inaccessible we must frame no hypotheses
VOL.

VI.-No. i

I8

International5Yournalof Ethics.

whatever. Of course thisis a safeenough positionin abstract.

If a thinkerhad no stake in the unknown,no vital needs, to
live or languish according to what the unseen world contained,a philosophic neutralityand refusal to believe either
one way or the otherwould be his wisest cue. But, unfortuit is also outnately,neutralityis not only inwardlydifficult,
wardlyunrealizable,where our relations to an alternativeare
practicaland vital. This is because, as the psychologists tell
us, belief and doubt are livingattitudes,and involve conduct
on our part. Our only way, for example, of doubting,or refusingto believe,that a certainthingis,is continuingto act as
if it were not. If, forinstance,we refuse to believe that the
room is gettingcold,we must leave the windows open and
light no firejust as if it still were warm. If I refuse to
believe that you are unworthyof my confidence,I must keep
tellingyou everythingjust as ifyou were worthyof the same.
And similarlyif,as the agnostics tell me, I must not believe
that the world is divine,I can only express that refusal by
declining to act distinctivelyas if it were so, which can only
mean acting on certain criticaloccasions as if it were notso,
or unmorallyand irreligiously. Not to be for, you see, is
oftento be practicallyagainst; so that a strictand consistent
neutralityis really unattainable.
And afterall, isn't this duty of neutralitywhere only our
inner interestswould lead us to believe, the most ridiculous
of commands? Isn't it sheer dogmatic follyto say that with
the forcesthat the hiddenworldmaycontain the mysticalside
of our nature can have no real connection? In other cases
divinationsbased on inner interestshave proved prophetic
enough. Without an imperious inner demand on our part
forideal, logical, and mathematicalharmonies,Science herself
would never have attained to proving that such harmonies
lie hidden betweenall the chinks and intersticesof the crude
natural world. Hardly a law has been established in Science, hardly a fact ascertained, that was not first sought
after,often with sweat and blood, to gratifyan inner need.
Whence such needs come fromwe do not know-we find
them in us, and biological psychology so far only classes

Is Life WorthLiving?

I9

them with Darwin's "accidental variations" But the inner

need of believingthat this world of Nature is a sign of somethingmore spiritualand eternalthanitselfis just as strongand
authoritativein those who feelit, as the innerneed of uniform
laws of causation ever can be in a professionallyscientific
head. The toil of many generations has proved the latter
need prophetic. Why may not the formerone be prophetic,
too ? If needs of ours outrun the visible universe,why may
not that be a sign that an invisible universeis there? What,
in short,is to debar us fromtrustingour religious demands?
Science as such assuredly has no authority,forshe can only
say what is, not what is not; and the agnostic "thou shalt
not believe without coercive sensible evidence" is simplyan
expression (freeto any one to make) of privatepersonal appetite forevidence of a particularkind.
Now, when I speak of trustingour religious demands, just
what do I mean by "trusting"? Is the word to carrywithit
license to definein detail an invisibleworld and to anathema? Certize and excommunicatethose whose trust is different
tainlynot! Our facultiesof belief were not primarilygiven
us to make orthodoxiesand heresies withal; they were given
us to live by. And to trustour religiousdemands means first
of all to live in the light of them,and to act as ifthe invisible
worldwhichtheysuggestwerereal. It is a factofhumannature
thatmen can live and die by the help of a sortof faiththatgoes
withouta single dogma or definition.The bare assurancethat
this naturalorderis not ultimatebut a mere sign or vision,the
externalstagingof a many-storieduniverse,in which spiritual
forceshave the last word and are eternal; this bare assurance
is to such men enough to make lifeseem worthliving in spite
of everycontrarypresumptionsuggested by its circumstances
on the natural plane. Destroy this innerassurance,vague as
it is, however,and all the light and radiance of existence is
extinguishedforthese persons at a stroke. Oftenenough the
wild-eyedlook at life,-the suicidal mood will then set in.
And now the application comes directlyhome to you and
me. Probably to almost every one of us here the most

20

Internationaljournal of Ethics.

adverse lifewould seem well worthliving if we only could be

certainthat our braveryand patience with it were terminating
and eventuatingand bearing fruitsomewhere in an unseen
spiritualworld. But grantingwe are not certain,does it then
followthat a bare trustin such a world is a fool's paradise
and lubberland,or rather that it is a living attitudein which
we are free to indulge? Well, we are free to trust at our
own risks anythingthat is not impossible and that can bring
analogies to bear in its behalf. That the world of physics is
probablynot absolute, all the converging multitudeof arguments'that make in favorof idealismtend to prove. And that
our whole physical life may lie soaking in a spiritualatmosphere,a dimensionof Being thatwe at presenthave no organ
forapprehending,is vividlysuggested to us by the analogy of
the lifeof our domestic animals. Our dogs, forexample, are
in our human life but not of it. They witness hourly the
outward body of eventswhose innermeaning cannot,by any
possible operation,be revealed to their intelligence,events in
which they themselvesoftenplay the cardinal part. -My terrierbites a teasing boy, forexample, and the fatherdemands
damages. The dog may be presentat every step of the negotiations,and see the moneypaid withoutan inklingof what it
all means, withouta suspicionthat it has anythingto do with
him. And he never can know in his natural dog's life. Or
take another case which used greatlyto impress me in my
medical-studentdays. Consider a poor dog whom they are
vivisectingin a laboratory. He lies strappedon a board and
shriekingat his executioners,and to his own dark consciousness is literallyin a sort of hell. He cannot see a single redeeming ray in the whole business; and yet all these diabolical-seemingeventsare usually controlledby human intentions
withwhich,ifhis poor benightedmind could onlybe made to
catch a glimpse of them,all that is heroic in him would religof
iously acquiesce. Healing truth,reliefto futuresufferings
beast and man are to be bought by them. It is genuinely
a process of redemption. Lying on his back on the board
a functionincalculablyhigherthan any
there he is performing
prosperous canine life admits of; and yet, of the whole per-

Is Life WorthLiving.?

21

formance,this functionis the one portion that must remain

absolutelybeyond his ken.
Now turn from this to the lifeof man. In the dog's life
we see the world invisible to him because we live in both
worlds. In human life,although we only see our world,and
his withinit,yet encompassingthese worldsa stillwiderworld
may be there unseen by us; and to believe in thatworld may
be the most essentialfunctionthat our lives in thisworldhave
to perform. But "may be! may be !" one hears the positivist
contemptuouslyexclaim; " what use can a scientificlife have
formaybes?" But the " scientific"life itselfhas much to do
withmaybes,and human lifeat large has everythingto do with
them. So far as man stands foranything,and is productive
or originativeat all, his entirevital functionmay be said to be
to deal with maybes. Not a victoryis gained, not a deed of
faithfulnessor courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a
service,not a sally of generosity,not a scientificexploration
or experimentor text-book,that may not be a mistake. It is
only by riskingour persons fromone hour to anotherthatwe
live at all. And oftenenough our faithbeforehandin an uncertifiedresult is the only thing that makes the result come
true. Suppose, forinstance,that you are climbinga mountain
and have workedyourselfinto a position fromwhich the only
escape is by a terribleleap. Have faiththat you can successfullymake it, and your feetare nerved to its accomplishment.
But mistrustyourself,and thinkof all the sweet thingsyou
have heard the scientistssay of maybes,and you will hesitate
so long that,at last,all unstrungand trembling,
and launching
yourselfin a momentof despair,you roll in the abyss. In
such a case (and it belongs to an enormous class), the part of
wisdom as well as of courage is to believewhat is in theline of
your needs,foronly by the beliefis the need fulfilled. Refuse
to believe, and you shall indeed be right,for you shall irretrievablyperish. But believe, and again you shall be right,
foryou shall save yourself. You make one or the other of
two possible universes true by your trust or mistrust,both
universes having been only maybes,in this particular,before
you contributedyour act.

22

InternationalYournal of Ethics.

Now, it appears to me thatthequestionwhetherlifeis worth

living is subject to conditions logically much like these. It
does, indeed,depend on you the liver. If you surrenderto
the nightmareview and crown the evil edifice by your own
suicide, you have indeed made a picturetotallyblack. Pessimism,completedby your act, is true beyond a doubt, so far
as your world goes. Your mistrustof lifehas removedwhatever worth your own enduringexistence mighthave given to
it; and now,throughoutthe whole sphereof possible influence
of that existence,the mistrusthas proved itselfto have had
diviningpower. But suppose, on the otherhand,that instead
of giving way to the nightmareview you cling to it that this
world is not the ultimatum. Suppose you find yourselfa
very well-spring,as Wordsworthsays, of
"Zeal, and the virtueto existby faith
As soldierslive by courage; as, by strength
Of heart,the sailorfightswithroaringseas."

Suppose, however thickly evils crowd upon you, that your

unconquerable subjectivityproves to be theirmatch,and that
you finda more wonderfuljoy than any passive pleasure can
bringin trustingeverin the largerwhole. Have you not now
made lifeworthliving on theseterms? What sort of a thing
would lifereallybe, withyour qualities ready fora tussle with
it, if it only broughtfairweatherand gave these higherfaculties of yours no scope? Please rememberthat optimismand
pessimism are definitionsof the world,and that our own reactions on the world,small as theyare in bulk, are parts of it,
and necessarilyhelp to determinethe definition. They may
be the decisive elements in determiningthe definition. A
large mass can have its unstable equilibriumoverturnedby
the addition of a feather'sweight. A long phrase may have
its sense reversedby the addition of the three lettersn, o, t.
This lifeis worthliving,we can say, since it is what we make
it, from the moral point of view, and we are bound to make
it fromthat point of view, so faras we have anythingto do
with it, a success.
Now, in this descriptionof faiths that verifythemselves

Is Life WorthLiving?

23

I have assumed that our faithin an invisible order is what

inspires those effortsand that patience of ours that make
this visible order good formoral men. Our faithin the seen
world's goodness (goodness now meaningfitnessforsuccessful
moral and religious life)has verifieditselfby leaning on our
faithin the unseen world. But will our faithin the unseen
world similarlyverifyitself? Who knows?
Once more it is a case of maybe. And once more maybes
are the essence of the situation. I confessthat I do not see
why the very existence of an invisibleworld may not in part
depend on thepersonalresponsewhichany one of us may make
to the religious appeal. God himself,in short, may draw
vital strengthand increase of verybeing from our fidelity.
For my own part,I do not know what the sweat and blood
and tragedyof this lifemean, if they mean anything shortof
this. If this life be not a real fight,in which something is
eternallygained for the Universe by success, it is no better
than a game of privatetheatricalsfromwhich one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight; as if there were
somethingreally wild in the Universe which we, with all our
idealitiesand faithfulnesses,
are needed to redeem. And first
of all to redeemour own hearts fromatheismsand fears. For
such a half-wild,half-saved universe our nature is adapted.
The deepest thingin our natureis this Binnenleben(as a German doctor lately has called it), thisdumb regionof the heart
in which we dwell alone withour willingnessesand unwillingnesses, our faiths and fears. As through the cracks and
cranniesof subterraneancavernsthe earth's-bosomexudes its
waters,which then formthe fountain-headsof springs,so in
these crepusculardepths of personalitythe sources of all our
outer deeds and decisions take theirrise. Here is our deepest
organ of communicationwiththe natureof things; and compared with these concrete movementsof our soul all abstract
statementsand scientificarguments,the veto, for example,
which the strictpositivistpronounces upon our faith,sound
to us like mere chatteringsof the teeth. For here possibilities, not finishedfacts,are the realities that we encounter;
and to quote my friendWilliam Salter, of the Philadelphia

24

InternationalYournal of Ethics.

Ethical Society, " as the essence of courage is to stake one's

lifeon a possibility,so the essence of faithis to believe that
the possibilityexists."
These, then, are my last words to you: Be not afraidof
life. Believe that lifeis worthliving,and your beliefwill help
createthe fact. The " scientificproof" that you are rightmay
not be clear before the day of judgment (or some stage of
Being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is
reached. But the faithfulfightersof this hour, or the beings
that then and therewill representthem,may then turnto the
who here declineto go on, withwords like those
faint-hearted,
withwhich Henry IV. greeted the tardy Crillon aftera great
victoryhad been gained: " Hang yourself,Crillon! we fought
at Arques, and you were not there."
WILLIAM
HARVARD

JAMES.

UNIVERSITY.

REFORM

IN EDUCATION.*

thata writeron this subject refrainsfrom

IT is withdifficulty
beginningwith an apology. He cannot add to the list of defectsthat everyone findsin English education,and he cannot
have the heartto increase the list of remedies. In the present
case the interestingconditionin whichthe reformof secondary
education finds itselfgives him some excuse, but he relies
mainlyon a hope that the policy which he is to argue has
special interestforthe readers of the JOURNAL- OF ETHICS,both forthose who are more expresslyconcernedwith practical questions,and for those who are concerned about philosophy.
Technical education,continuationschools, the educational
ladder,-these are subjects which the zeal of reformersis undertakingwith much promiseof success. But this progress
is not so much by reformingprevious education as by adding
to it. One would like to thinkthat the demand forschooling
* This paperhas been writtenwithspecial referenceto the conditionof educationin England.