EXAMINING the nature of life, philosophically or otherwise, means taking into account its actual value. On the one hand, there are those who insist that the world is perfect – or at least as good as we are going to get – and that to seek harmony with it is to do good, particularly in the face of an evil which performs its own crucial role in the grand scheme of things. Not as an actuality, or equal counterpart to good, but as something which only comes to light in its absence. The thirteenth-century theologian, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), had earlier referred to this phenomenon as “privation theory”. On the other hand, we have those who view the world as a domain of endless suffering and for whom the very nature of existence must be brought into question. Even to the extent that non-existence is considered to be preferable to the daily ordeal of living.

Those of the first category – incorporating men such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) – are known as Optimists, whilst those of the second – among whom one finds the aforementioned Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann – are Pessimists.

Leibnitz, who was a famous scientist, mathematician and philosopher, believed that it would be impossible to imagine a world that is better than the one into which we have been born and that it is such because God is perfect. According to Steiner:

Whoever starts from this point of view will find it easy to lay down the direction which human action must follow, in order to make its contribution to the greatest good of the universe. All that man need do will be to find out the counsels of God and to act in accordance with them. If he knows what God’s purposes are concerning the world and the human race, he will be able, for his part, to do what is right. And he will be happy in the feeling that he is adding his share to all the other good in the world. From this optimistic standpoint, then, life is worth living. It is such as to stimulate us to co-operate with, and enter into, it. (p.107)

Contrary to this form of Optimism, however, one finds the arch-Pessimism of Schopenhauer. As we discussed in Part Five, Steiner criticised The World as Will and Representation (1818) as a result of his German counterpart’s claim that the world is nothing more that an idea which appears in human consciousness and thus bases the entire foundation of his philosophy on sense-datum. Steiner says of Schopenhauer’s view of life that he

thinks of ultimate reality not as an all-wise and all-beneficent being, but as blind striving or will. Eternal striving, ceaseless craving for satisfaction which yet is ever beyond reach, these are the fundamental characteristics of all will. For as soon as we have attained what we want, a fresh need springs up, and so on. Satisfaction, when it occurs, endures always only for an infinitesimal time. The whole rest of our lives is unsatisfied craving, i.e., discontent and suffering. When at last blind craving is dulled, every definite content is gone from our lives. Existence is filled with nothing but an endless ennui. Hence the best we can do is to throttle all desires and needs within us and exterminate the will. Schopenhauer’s Pessimism leads to complete inactivity; its moral aim is universal idleness. (pp.107-8)

Despite falling into the same category as Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartman has a rather different approach to Pessimism. As we discovered in Part One of this series, Steiner had displayed a keen interest in his Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness (1879) as a result of the author discussing the idea that it is impossible to have knowledge of the motives that underlie one’s own actions. Steiner, however, concluded by stating that Von Hartmann makes no attempt to distinguish between conscious and unconscious motive and therefore considers free will to be irrelevant.

In relation to Pessimism itself, Steiner tells us, Von Hartmann sought to promulgate it within the sphere of Ethics:

He attempts, in keeping with the fashion of our age, to base his worldview on experience. By observation of life he hopes to discover whether there is more pain or more pleasure in the world. He passes in review before the tribunal of reason whatever men consider to be happiness and a good, in order to show that all apparent satisfaction turns out, on closer inspection, to be nothing but illusion. It is illusion when we believe that in health, youth, freedom, sufficient income, love (sexual satisfaction), pity, friendship and family life, honour, reputation, glory, power, religious edification, pursuit of science and of art, hope of a life after death, participation in the advancement of civilisation—that in all these we have sources of happiness and satisfaction. Soberly considered, every enjoyment brings much more evil and misery than pleasure into the world. The disagreeableness of “the morning after” is always greater than the agreeableness of intoxication. Pain far outweighs pleasure in the world. No man, even though relatively the happiest, would, if asked, wish to live through this miserable life a second time. (p.108)

From Von Hartmann’s perspective, God has created a world of pain in order to express “his” own anguish and that the ultimate conclusion that we must draw from life is that it is a rebellion against God. Meanwhile, it is God alone who can liberate us from the pain of existence and this is achieved by the annihilation that leads to non-existence. Whilst this process frees the individual from the burden of life, it also releases God in the sense that the world has been used for that very purpose. Furthermore, it represents the fulfilment of a divine obligation:

It is man’s duty to permeate his whole being with the recognition that the pursuit of individual satisfaction (Egoism) is a folly, and that he ought to be guided solely by the task of assisting in the redemption of God by unselfish service of the world-process. Thus, in contrast with the Pessimism of Schopenhauer, that of Von Hartmann leads us to devoted activity in a sublime cause. (pp.108-9)

Steiner disagrees with Von Hartmann’s claim that the morning following a pleasurable experience represents a transition from pleasure to pain, arguing that it is nonsensical to assume that striving to repeat the experience – or one comparable to it – is some kind of insufferable burden. On the contrary, says Steiner, it only becomes a form of pain when one ultimately fails to obtain the subsequent experience. The initial pleasure, as far as Von Hartmann is concerned, gives birth to the sense of deflation that happens when the experience cannot be sustained but unless the episode is shattered directly by something unpleasant one cannot claim that pleasure leads to pain in the way that he describes.

Schopenhauer makes a similar error when he perceives striving to be the cause of misery and discontent:

If striving caused pain, then the removal of striving ought to be accompanied by pleasure. But the very reverse is true. To have no striving in one’s life causes boredom, and boredom is always accompanied by displeasure. Now, since it may be a long time before a striving meets with fulfilment, and since, in the interval, it is content with the hope of fulfilment, we must acknowledge that there is no connection in principle between pain and striving, but that pain depends solely on the non-fulfilment of the striving. Schopenhauer, then, is wrong, in any case, in regarding desire or striving (will) as being in principle the source of pain. (p.109)

Schopenhauer is often viewed as a slightly later example of German Idealism, but his negative assessment of striving is certainly out-of-kilter with Romantic philosophers like Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829). Along with Schelling, the latter believed that striving was absolutely essential to the human condition and in this sense he was influenced by the Dutch Platonist, François Hemsterhuis (1721-1790), and his idea of “longing for the infinite” and encouraging philosophers to engage in a “restless striving after activity”.

In relation to the spurious logic that pleasure is followed by a tortuous striving, therefore, as both Von Hartmann and Schopenhauer claim, Steiner has this to say:

Who does not know the pleasure which is caused by the hope of a remote but intensely desired enjoyment? This pleasure is the companion of all labour, the results of which will be enjoyed by us only in the future. It is a pleasure which is wholly independent of the attainment of the end. For when the aim has been attained, the pleasure of satisfaction is added as a fresh thrill to the pleasure of striving. If anyone were to argue that the pain caused by the non-attainment of an aim is increased by the pain of disappointed hope, and that thus, in the end, the pain of non-fulfilment will still always outweigh the utmost possible pleasure of fulfilment, we shall have to reply that the reverse may be the case, and that the recollection of past pleasure at a time of unsatisfied desire will as often mitigate the displeasure of non-satisfaction. Whoever at the moment when his hopes suffer shipwreck exclaims, “I have done my part,” proves thereby my assertion. (pp.109-110)

Steiner’s fundamental argument is that pleasure and pain can be experienced without being the result of desire. In the case of the latter, he makes the point that illness – which, naturally, may be considered a form of pain – is not a consequence of desire and that to suggest this is the case would involve the erroneous assumption that not wishing to become ill somehow represents a “positive desire”. Similarly, Steiner states that when someone receives a large financial legacy from an unknown relative it is impossible for the recipient to have felt any form of corresponding desire prior to the experience of pleasure:

Hence, if we set out to inquire whether the balance is on the side of pleasure or of pain, we must allow in our calculation for the pleasure of striving, the pleasure of the satisfaction of striving, and the pleasure which comes to us without any striving whatever. On the debit side we shall have to enter the displeasure of boredom, the displeasure of unfulfilled striving, and, lastly, the displeasure which comes to us without any striving on our part. Under this last heading we shall have to put also the displeasure caused by work that has been forced upon us, not chosen by ourselves. (p.110)

Using reason as a determining principle by which to measure the experiences of pleasure and pain, Von Hartmann was forced to rely on personal feelings as a standard of value. In order to establish precisely what effect these polar opposites have had on our lives, therefore, Von Hartmann deems it necessary to remove two errors of judgement. The first of these, he claims, involves the case of an ambitious man who can only assess his life in terms of falsely accentuating his achievements and, thus, downplaying those failures which simply get in the way. Although this allows the man to diminish the category of pain by heightening the sense of pleasure, it create a false judgement. Von Hartmann believed that in order for reason to maintain a balance between the two spheres and provide a more accurate reflection it was necessary to suspend one’s ambitious motives during the process of self-examination itself.

In addition to this, Von Hartmann was adamant that an individual must convince himself that the public recognition he seeks is worth far less than he had previously imagined and that no value should be attributed to the thoughts of others. Scientific analysis, he believed, must outweigh the transience of majoritarian impressions. This, in other words, is the second error of judgement and Von Hartmann’s ultimate conclusion is that once the ambitious man leaves aside such notions the total pleasure experienced during the course of a lifetime amounts to very little and thus proves his more general theory – in rational, scientific terms – that non-existence is preferable to existence.

Whilst the inherent logic of Von Hartmann’s reasoning can appear very persuasive, however, Steiner nonetheless challenges the German’s ideas in the sense that he believes it is wrong to suggest that the objects to which our feelings become attached can be shown to be illusory on the basis of reason:

For the elimination, from the credit-side of life, of all pleasurable feelings which accompany actual or supposed illusions would positively falsify the balance of pleasure and of pain. An ambitious man has genuinely enjoyed the acclamations of the multitude, irrespective of whether subsequently he himself, or some other person, recognises that this acclamation is an illusion. The pleasure, once enjoyed, is not one whit diminished by such recognition. Consequently the elimination of all these “illusory” feelings from life’s balance, so far from making our judgement about our feelings more correct, actually cancels out of life feelings which were genuinely there. (p.112)

Steiner questions why Von Hartmann would even wish to cancel such feelings in the first place, contending that such an approach merely judges human existence in accordance with the quality of pleasure and pain as opposed to their actual quantity. Consequently, this leads Von Hartmann to focus on the perceived value of the object to which one has become attached.

Von Hartmann’s theory about pleasure and pain is like separating life into two columns on a balance-sheet, whilst trying to establish what percentage of each should go on either side of the dividing line:

Here we touch the point where reason is not in a position by itself to determine the surplus of pleasure or of pain, but where it must exhibit this surplus in life as something actually felt. For man reaches reality not through concepts by themselves, but through the interpenetration of concepts and percepts (and feelings are percepts) which thinking brings about. A merchant will give up his business only when the loss of goods, as calculated by his accountant, is actually confirmed by the facts. If the facts do not bear out the calculation, he asks his accountant to check the account once more. That is exactly what a man will do in the business of life. If a philosopher wants to prove to him that the pain is far greater than the pleasure, but that he does not feel it so, then he will reply: “You have made a mistake in your theorisings; repeat your analysis once more.” But if there comes a time in a business when the losses are really so great that the firm’s credit no longer suffices to satisfy the creditors, bankruptcy results, even though the merchant may avoid keeping himself informed by careful accounts about the state of his affairs. Similarly, supposing the quantity of pain in a man’s life became at any time so great that no hope (credit) of future pleasure could help him to get over the pain, the bankruptcy of life’s business would inevitably follow. (p.113)

Needless to say, this conclusion is precisely why Pessimists like Von Hartmann and Schopenhauer become Pessimists in the first place.

From Steiner’s perspective, the fact that so few people commit suicide in relation to those who do not demonstrates that the perpetuation of one’s existence is not determined by the amount of pleasure or pain that is experienced during the course of a lifetime. Von Hartmann’s approach to this seeming anomaly is for man to soldier-on with his existential burden, having realised – through the application of reason – that the egotistical pursuit of pleasure always results in disappointment. This, it appears, is the ultimate aim of Pessimism, that a constant failure to attain everything one wants provokes an ironic “fountain of unselfishness” that allows man to live a more balanced and devotional life:

According to this view, then, the striving for pleasure is fundamentally inherent in human nature. It is only through the insight into the impossibility of satisfaction that this striving abdicates in favour of the higher tasks of humanity. (p.113)

Despite this, Steiner does not believe that Pessimism fully overcomes man’s propensity for egotism on the basis that moral ideas are ignored in favour of the individual discovering for himself that striving after pleasure is futile. Pessimism, therefore, infers that moral ideas are incapable of reining-in our more base instincts and yet occupy the same ethical space.

Returning to what Von Hartmann says about God having created a world of pain and that life represents a rebellion against God, meaning that none but God can free us from the burden of existence and thereby frees himself in the process, Steiner contends that to commit suicide would hinder this process:

God must rationally be conceived as having created men for the sole purpose of bringing about his salvation through their action, else would creation be purposeless. Every one of us has to perform his own definite task in the general work of salvation. If he withdraws from the task by suicide, another has to do the work which was intended for him. Somebody else must bear in his stead the agony of existence. And since in every being it is, at bottom, God who is the ultimate bearer of all pain, it follows that to commit suicide does not in the least diminish the quantity of God’s pain, but rather imposes upon God the additional difficulty of providing a substitute. (p.114)

As an aside, Von Hartmann’s ideas sound rather similar to the notion of Tikkun ha-Olam (“repairing the world”) that one finds in Lurianic Kabbalah. Given that Jews believe that the process of Creation was defective, something they express through the imagery of “broken vessels” that proved incapable of witholding the light of God as it descended into the world, Tikkun ha-Olam represents the restitution of everything to its original place in the universe, thus allowing the Creation to continue. Due to an interruption in the creative process, in other words, mankind must help to bring about the replenishment of the world in order that Creation itself – which is presently in a state of suspension – can recommence. Tikkun ha-Olam therefore relates, not to abstract tenets of Judaic law, but directly to the social sphere and relies upon the actual intervention of humanity. By examining one’s active and contemplative state, Jews hope to recover the divine light that has been trapped and thus facilitate the lost unity of the Divine image (Skekhinah) with God.

To return to Steiner’s discussion of Pessimism, the Austrian uses the example of hunger to demonstrate that pain can also be the cause of pleasure. If a man feels the pain of starvation and yet knows that he is going to eat a satisfying meal later in the day, to suddenly decide to eat inferior food prior to that meal in order to quieten his more immediate hunger would reduce the satisfaction he would have felt later on. In other words, feeling intense hunger would lead to greater enjoyment at a time when the food is of a higher standard. He may have alleviated the pain of hunger with a scrap of mouldy bread, but that merely satisfies the internal organs and cannot possibly compete with the pleasure of satiating a more extreme hunger and pleasing the taste-buds at the same time:

He needs hunger in order to get the full enjoyment out of his meal. Thus hunger becomes for him at the same time a cause of pleasure. Supposing all the hunger in the world could be satisfied, we should get the total quantity of pleasure which we owe to the existence of the desire for nourishment. But we should still have to add the additional pleasure which gourmets gain by cultivating the sensibility of their taste-nerves beyond the common measure. (pp.114-115)

Steiner makes a distinction between the quantity and value of pleasure. In the case of the former, it can only be said to have full value when it corresponds to the “duration and degree” of our desires. If it fails to measure up to expectations, so to speak, the value of the pleasure is diminished. This works in the opposite fashion, too, for when an experience surpasses what we expected “pleasure can turn into displeasure” and becomes a form of suffering. Pleasure can only be measured, therefore, in terms of desire.

Whilst pleasure and pain may be compared, Steiner tells his readers, the Pessimists are wrong to suggest that a surplus of pain renders existence insufferable because such matters are never calculated during the course of one’s life and there are many exceptions to the rule. Besides, it is the intensity of desire which remains the determining factor in assessing the corresponding quantities of pleasure and pain:

A proof for the accuracy of this view is to be found in the fact, that we put a higher value on pleasure when it has to be purchased at the price of great pain than when it simply falls into our lap like a gift from heaven. When sufferings and agonies have toned down our desire and yet after all our aim is attained, then the pleasure is all the greater in proportion to the intensity of the desire that has survived. Now it is just this proportion which, as I have shown, represents the value of the pleasure. A further proof is to be found in the fact that all living creatures (including men) develop their instincts as long as they are able to bear the opposition of pains and agonies. The struggle for existence is but a consequence of this fact. All living creatures strive to expand, and only those abandon the struggle whose desires are throttled by the overwhelming magnitude of the difficulties with which they meet. Every living creature seeks food until sheer lack of food destroys its life. Man, too, does not turn his hand against himself until, rightly or wrongly, he believes that he cannot attain those aims in life which alone seem to him worth striving for. (p.117-118)

Pessimists are unable to demonstrate that striving is rational only when pleasure outweighs pain, because human nature is such that we strive for something in spite of what Steiner calls “incidental pain”. Even if it was possible for such philosophers to prove such a theory, it would reduce human will to the level of pursuing pleasure to the exclusion of everything else.

At the same time, man will not cease his striving on account of the world being said to contain more pain than pleasure and this is fundamentally at odds with the view of the Pessimist that attaining a sufficient degree of pleasure is impossible and that the realisation of such a principle allows humanity to concentrate on its moral duty:

But these moral tasks are nothing but the concrete natural and spiritual instincts; and he strives to satisfy these not-withstanding all incidental pain. The pursuit of pleasure, then, which the Pessimist sets himself to eradicate is nowhere to be found. But the tasks which man has to fulfil are fulfilled by him because from his very nature he wills to fulfil them. The Pessimistic system of Ethics maintains that a man cannot devote himself to what he recognises as his task in life until he has first given up the desire for pleasure. But no system of Ethics can ever invent other tasks than the realisation of those satisfactions which human desires demand, and the fulfilment of man’s moral ideas. No Ethical theory can deprive him of the pleasure which he experiences in the realisation of what he desires. When the Pessimist says, “Do not strive after pleasure, for pleasure is unattainable; strive instead after what you recognise to be your task,” we must reply that it is human nature to strive to do one’s tasks, and that philosophy has gone astray in inventing the principle that man strives for nothing but pleasure. He aims at the satisfaction of what his nature demands, and the attainment of this satisfaction is to him a pleasure. (p.119-120)

As we saw in the previous part of this series, Steiner is of the opinion that moral ideas stem from the moral imagination. This involves the utilisation of an intuitive spirit that propels the free individual towards the practical realisation of his or her own thinking-processes, something that is often done against all odds. This, contrary to the Pessimistic denial of the pleasure principle, provides the individual with the satisfaction that comes with acting upon great ideals.

Nonetheless, Steiner is aware that his thoughts on the unbridled spirit may be taken out of context and offers a word of caution:

It cannot be denied that the views here outlined may easily be misunderstood. Immature youths without any moral imagin-ation like to look upon the instincts of their half-developed natures as the full substance of humanity, and reject all moral ideas which they have not themselves originated, in order that they may “live themselves out” without restriction. But it goes without saying that a theory which holds for a fully developed man does not hold for half-developed boys. Anyone who still requires to be brought by education to the point where his moral nature breaks through the shell of his lower passions, cannot expect to be measured by the same standard as a mature man. But it was not my intention to set down what a half-fledged youth requires to be taught, but the essential nature of a mature man. My intention was to demonstrate the possibility of freedom, which becomes manifest, not in actions physically or psychically determined, but in actions sustained; by spiritual intuitions. (p.121)

It is here that we are reminded of the fact that pleasure, at least by those with an appropriate degree of maturity, is not sought to the exclusion of all else but must take its place within the overall scheme of moral intuition. This, Steiner describes as “the measure” of one’s will, something that allows the individual to value both existence and personal character according to his or her own judgement.