No one, I think, can study philosophy, that grey web of the reason, without being oppressed by its utter pessimism. No matter what the philosophy be, whether it be professedly a pessimism as Schopenhauer's or not, there is no difference. It is all dull, weary barrenness, with none of the light of hope there. Hope and beauty and happiness are strangers to that twilight country. They could not live there. Like all that is beautiful and worth having, they require light and shadow, sunshine and the dark. And the lives of philosophers, what do they gain from the reason alone? Is there anyone who, after reading the life of any philosopher, would not say, "God help me from such." What did his unaided reason give him? Pessimism, and pessimism, and again pessimism. No matter who your philosopher is--Horace or Omar Khayyam, or Carlyle or Nietsche:--where is the difference? See how Huxley even could not stifle his desire for immortality that no reason could justify. What has reason to offer me? Only this, resignation to the worst in the world, and of it knows nothing. To which it would be replied: And religion, what has that to offer either here or in the next world? For in this world they declare--at least Christianity and Buddhism both declare--that nothing is worth having. It is all vanity and vexation, fraud and error and wickedness, to be quickly done with. The philosopher has Utopias of sorts here, but these two religions have no Utopia, no happiness at all here to offer. All this life is denounced as a continued misery. And you say that neither heaven nor Nirvana appeal to men, that men shrink from them. If philosophy be pessimism, what then is religion? Do you consider the Christian theory of the fall of man, the sacrifice of God to God, the declaration that the vast majority of men are doomed to everlasting fire, a cheerful theory? Do you consider the Buddhist theory that life is itself an evil to be done with, that no consciousness survives death, but only the effects of a man's actions, an optimism? Philosophies may not be very cheerful, but what are religions? Whatever charge you may bring against philosophy, it can be ten times repeated of any religion. Compared with any religious theory, even Schopenhauer's philosophy is a glaring optimism. To which I would answer, No!