2. The Errors of Philosophical Pessimists and Religious Optimists.

Philosophical pessimists⁴ maintain that there are on earth many more causes of pain than of pleasure;

and that pain exists positively, but pleasure is a mere absence of pain because we are conscious of sickness but not of health; of loss, but not of possession. On the contrary, religious optimists insist that there must not be any evil in God's universe, that evil has no independent nature, but simply denotes a privation of good -- that is, evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound.'

No matter what these one-sided observers' opinion may be, we are certain that we experience good as well as evil, and feel pain and pleasure as well. Neither can we alleviate the real sufferings of the sick by telling them that sickness is no other than the absence of health, nor can we make the poor a whit richer by telling them that poverty is a mere absence of riches. How could we save the dying by persuading them that death is a bare privation of life? Is it possible to dispirit the happy by telling them that happiness is unreal, or make the fortunate miserable by telling them that fortune has no objective reality, or to make one welcome evil by telling one that it is only the absence of good?

You must admit there are no definite external causes of pain nor those of pleasure, for one and the same thing causes pain at one time and pleasure at another. A cause of delight to one person turns out to be that of aversion to another. A dying miser might revive at the sight of gold, yet a Diogenes would pass without noticing it. Cigars and wine are blessed gifts of heaven to the intemperate,' but accursed poison to the temperate. Some might enjoy a long life, but others would heartily desire to curtail it. Some might groan under a slight indisposition, while others would whistle away a life of serious disease. An Epicure might be taken prisoner by poverty, yet an Epictetus would fearlessly face and vanquish him. How, then, do you distinguish the real cause of pain from that of pleasure?

How do you know the causes of one are more numerous than the causes of the other?

Expose thermometers of several kinds to one and the same temperature. One will indicate, say, 60°, another as high as 100°, another as low as 15°. Expose the thermometers of human sensibilities, which are of myriads of different kinds, to one and the same temperature of environment. None of them will indicate the same degrees. In one and the same climate, which we think moderate, the Eskimo would be washed with perspiration, while the Hindu would shudder with cold. Similarly, under one and the same circumstance some might be extremely miserable and think it unbearable, yet others would be contented and happy. Therefore we may safely conclude that there are no definite external causes of pain and pleasure, and that there must be internal causes which modify the external.