Schopenhauer determined the value of the world in terms of feeling. He pronounced the world to be the worst of all possible worlds. It is founded on pain. The first and last expression of objectified will is pain. The world ought not to exist. Only a blind will would objectify itself. A will accompanied by knowledge "needs optimism" as an excuse for its appearance Man, instead of being called to account for the way in which he has spent this miserable existence, should demand why he was drawn forth from the quiet of the Nothing.
"What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of Everlasting Penalities, if broke."
It is a world of unrelieved misery from the cradle to the grave. The suffering is heightened in man by the gift of knowledge. Yet there are some who would apply the concept good to this Hades in which we dwell.
The optimism of the philosopher, Leibnitz, "conflicts with the palpable misery of existence". The world was created by a wise and good God. It is therefore the best of all possible worlds. The best world is the most orderly, harmonious, and beautiful. Hence the world in which we live must be the most orderly, as to the relations of its parts and activities, the most harmonious, as to design and finish, the most beautiful in its manifestation.
To Schopenhauer optimism is a "really wicked way of thinking, as a bitter mockery of the unspeakable suffering of humanity."
Life flows continually between willing and obtaining. To will is pain, because willing arises from want, deficiency, therefore pain. To take a different view; willing is the putting forth of activity. There is pleasure in willing. Craving is not necessarily painful. "A specific type of life and the exercise of the same is the real aim of all life and striving."
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