The nature of man : studies in optimistic philosophy / by Eĺie Metchnikoff ; The English translation edited by P. Chalmers Mitchell.

  • Élie Metchnikoff
Date:
[1903]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature of man : studies in optimistic philosophy / by Eĺie Metchnikoff ; The English translation edited by P. Chalmers Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    race and human race. This uneasiness reveals itself as discontentment, and it leads to pessimism or to mysticism. Most of the philosophical systems of the nineteenth cen¬ tury were steeped in melancholy, and led straight to a denial of the possibility of happiness and even to an advo¬ cacy of extinction. The frequency of suicide has increased greatly among all the civilised peoples. There is no need to tabulate proofs of a notorious fact.* A remedy for this malady of the age has been sought in the attempt to restore religious and mystical faith. On all sides have sprung up efforts to found new religions or to amend the old. Many defenders of science have gone the length of admitting its incapacity to solve the problem of the existence of man ; they have held that that problem was insoluble for the human mind. Such a depressing conclusion has been formulated in spite of many attempts to reach a rational conception of the universe and of man. It is no new thing to ask if there be nothing but faith to control human conduct and to lead mankind towards universal happiness. Men of science and philosophers, in many ages, have thought that human nature itself could provide all the materials for a rational morality. In the ancient world and, above all, among the Greeks, human nature was held in high esteem. The Oriental races, predecessors of the Greeks in civilisation, generally represented their gods as fantastic or grotesque beings, composites of men and animals. The Greeks made gods * Since A. Wagner’s classical work, “ Ueber die Gesetzmassigkeit der scheinbar wilkiirlichen menschlichen Handlungen,” suicide has been discussed by many authors. The most recent contribution to the subject is the important monograph by Westergaard, “ Die Lehre von der Mortalitaet u. Morbiditaet,” Second Edition, Jena, 1.901. .
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