The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. Optimism and Pessimism

[ 1 ] Man has proven to be the center of the world order. As spirit, he achieves the highest form of existence and accomplishes the most perfect world process in thinking. Only as he illuminates things are they real. This is a view according to which man has the support, the goal and the core of his existence in himself. It makes man a self-sufficient being. He must find in himself the support for everything about him. Thus also for his bliss. If the latter is to become his, he can only owe it to himself. Any power that would give it to him from outside would condemn him to lack of freedom. Nothing can give satisfaction to man to whom this ability was not first bestowed by him. If something is to give us pleasure, we must first give it the power that enables it to do so. Pleasure and displeasure are only there for man in the higher sense insofar as he feels them as such. Thus all optimism and all pessimism collapse. The latter assumes that the world is such that everything in it is good, that it leads man to the highest satisfaction. But if this is to be the case, then he must himself extract something from its objects that he desires, that is, he cannot become happy through the world but only through himself.

[ 2 ] Pessimism, on the other hand, believes that the world is set up in such a way that it leaves man eternally unsatisfied, that he can never be happy. The above objection naturally also applies here. The external world is neither good nor bad in itself, it only becomes so through man. Man would have to make himself unhappy if pessimism were to be justified. He would have to have a desire for unhappiness. But the satisfaction of his desire is the very foundation of his happiness. The pessimist would logically have to assume that man sees his happiness in misfortune. But this would again reduce his view to nothing. This single consideration shows clearly enough the fallacy of pessimism.