"" The need of an optimism is one of the penalties
, which reflection brings. Natural life takes the good-
ness of things for granted ; but reflection disturbs
the placid contentmeht^and__sets^_man,..at. Kaciance

^^ith his world. The fruit of the; tree, of. knowledge
always reveals his nakedness to man ; he is turned
out of the paradise of unconsciousness and doomed
to force Nature, now conceived as a step-dame, to
satisfy needs which are now first felt. Optimism
is the expression of man's new reconciliation with
his world ; as the opposite doctrine of pessimism is
the consciousness of an unresolved contradiction.
Both are a judgment passed upon the world, from
the point of view of its adequacy or inadequacy
to meet demands, arising from n^ds whjch the
individual has discovered in himself.
Now, as I have tried to show, one of the main
characteristics of the opening years of the present
era was its deeper intuition of the significance of
human life, and, therefore, by implication, of its
wants and claims. The spiritual nature of man,
lost sight of during the preceding age, was re-dis-



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM yg

covered ; and the first and immediate consequence
was that man, as man, attained infinite worth.
