But when men have passed through the three stages of illusion it is not physical pain which presses most heavily on them. Max Nordau himself admits that it is “appalling to think of the cessation of our consciousness, and the annihilation of our ego.” None the less, he believes “that we are so happily constituted as to be able to accept the really inevitable with a light heart, and that there is no ill feeling about the matter.” This admission is not in accordance with the well-established facts discussed in chap. vi. With very rare exceptions man does not willingly accept the prospect of death, especially if he be still under the influence of illusion in any of its three stages. As a rule those who desire to live feel not only a repugnance to the contemplation of death, but death seems to them something abnormal and irrational. It is no answer to assert that all who feel this are psychopaths, or that it is absurd to think that the happiness of mankind counts for something in the cosmic process. On the contrary, it is quite natural that man should seek after happiness, and that he should try to analyse the phenomena taking place within him and around him from the point of view of that ideal. For this reason it is quite unjust to say that pessimism cannot be treated seriously. It is pessimism which has been the first to draw up a true indictment of human nature, and if pain is to be regarded as useful in its quality of danger-signal we should equally recognise that the pessimistic view of the universe is a step onwards in the evolution of humanity. Without pessimism we might easily sink into a kind of contented fatalism, and end in quietism, in the manner of many religions. It is only natural, however, that the thinking world should not accept pessimism as the last word of human wisdom, and that more or less noted philosophers should devote themselves to finding a possible solution of the problem of life and death. These systems of philosophy, one and all, have abandoned readily all belief in future life and personal immortality. But they have adopted pantheistic conceptions, and have accepted the existence of some general principle into which the individual consciousness will eventually be absorbed. There is division of opinion as to the properties of this principle. For some it is the Idea, for others Will, for others Force, or Eternal Energy.[250] The nomenclature is the less important as the views as to the nature of the general principle are absolutely vague. Accordingly this part of the philosophic doctrines appears in a lyrical form and has passed over into the domain of poetry. German poets have helped to spread pantheistic conceptions very widely. I need hardly mention Goethe, whose ideas were purely those of Spinoza, but Schiller’s well-known lines are precise:— “Vor dem Tode erschrickst Du? Du wünschest, unsterblich zu leben? Leb’ im Ganzen! Wenn du lange dahin bist, es bleibt!”