]

This note of pessimism grows more marked among the philosophers, and is
at length taken up into the Christian renunciation of the world. The
philosophers attempted to devise a way of happiness which the superior
individual might follow through detaching himself from political
society and cultivating his speculative powers.[27] But the Christian
renunciation involved the abandonment of every claim to individual
self-sufficiency, even the pride of reason. It expressed a sense of
the general plight of humanity, and looked for relief only through a
power with love and might enough to save all. Hence there is this
fundamental difference between pagan and Christian pessimism: the pagan
confesses his powerlessness to make himself impregnable {115} to
fortune, while the Christian convicts himself of sin, confessing his
worthlessness when measured by the task of universal salvation. The
one pities and absolves himself; the other condemns himself.

Now the other-worldliness of Christianity was without doubt a grave
error, which it found itself compelled to correct; but it was none the
less the vehicle through which European civilization became possessed
of the most important secrets of religious happiness. In the first
place, all are made sharers, through sympathy, in the failure of the
present; and, thus distributed, the burden is lightened. "It is an act
within the power of charity," says Sir Thomas Browne, "to translate a
passion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost
out of itself; for an affliction, like a dimension, may be so divided
as, if not indivisible, at least to become insensible." [28] In the
second place, it is understood that there is no such thing as a
happiness that is enjoyed at the expense of others and by the special
favor of fortune. There is no promise of individual salvation save in
the salvation of all. A private and protected happiness is bound
sooner or later to be destroyed by an increase of sensibility, by an
enlightened awareness of the evil beyond. And to experience evil, to
realize it, and yet to be content, lies not within {116} the power of
any moral being; it is not merely difficult, it is self-contradictory.
To any one who judges himself fairly, with a wide and vivid image of
life as it is in all its ramifications and obscurities, the evil of the
world is all one. It follows that, as there is no perfect happiness
except in the annihilation of evil, so ther