be,
often lies the initiative when the conscious centre thinks itself
free. This _I_ is, no doubt, a hierarchy or commonwealth of psychical
units that at death dissolves and sinks below the threshold of
consciousness.

It is plain, then, that the swift spread of science has brought men
into a new universe. Few there are that can adorn the new home with
ornaments saved from the old. For most men the universe which science
tells of rises about them unsightly and barn-like, with bare walls and
naked rafters, and until art can beautify the walls, and poetry gild
the rafters, men will have that appalling feeling of being nowhere at
home, that awful sinking as if the bottom were dropping out of all
things.

The last great motive to despair is supplied by Indo-German
philosophy. Under the headship of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, there
has grown up of late a black pessimism rooted in Hindoo thought, and
allied to that strange exotic cult of Eastern religions that has
enabled Neo-Buddhism to proselyte even in Christian Europe. Its
success has been brilliant. In twenty years Hartmann's "Philosophy of
the Unconscious" has reached its tenth German edition, entered all the
great languages of Europe, and called forth a vast literature of its
own. Thoroughly in touch with modern culture and gifted with a
striking style, Hartmann is to-day, perhaps, the best read philosopher
on the continent.

Hartmann dwells upon the sorrow inherent in all existence. Happiness,
whether expected in one's own life, in an ecstatic life beyond the
grave, or in the far future of humanity, is an illusion. The breaking
through this illusion is progress. Consciousness itself is built on
pain. Life is an evil best cured by quenching the will to live. The
world is a mistake--a stupendous blunder of the blind unconscious.
From it there is no escape until the world is hurled back into
nothingness by a supreme effort of the collective human will. To bring
about this replunge into Nirvana is the goal of the world process. The
vast scheme of nature, the slow growth of mind up the long scale of
organic forms, the high intelligence that crowns the summit of
life--all these exist to bring forth the pessimist. He alone has
gained true culture, and reached a rational insight into the emptiness
of existence. He alone has rent the veil of Maya and pierced the last
illusion. His task is to waken humanity, now tossing on its bed of
pain, from the spell of the great a