is scarcely allowed, now more than heretofore, to state all that
crosses his mind concerning existence in this universe, in his
attempts to explain or excuse the presence of evil and the
incongruity of penalizing the irresponsible--it must be obvious to
open intelligences that, without denying the beauty and faithful
service of certain venerable cults, such disallowance of "obstinate
questionings" and "blank misgivings" tends to a paralysed
intellectual stalemate. Heine observed nearly a hundred years ago
that the soul has her eternal rights; that she will not be darkened
by statutes, nor lullabied by the music of bells. And what is to-
day, in allusions to the present author's pages, alleged to be
"pessimism" is, in truth, only such "questionings" in the exploration
of reality, and is the first step towards the soul's betterment, and
the body's also.

If I may be forgiven for quoting my own old words, let me repeat what
I printed in this relation more than twenty years ago, and wrote much
earlier, in a poem entitled "In Tenebris":


If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst:


that is to say, by the exploration of reality, and its frank
recognition stage by stage along the survey, with an eye to the best
consummation possible: briefly, evolutionary meliorism. But it is
called pessimism nevertheless; under which word, expressed with
condemnatory emphasis, it is regarded by many as some pernicious new
thing (though so old as to underlie the Christian idea, and even to
permeate the Greek drama); and the subject is charitably left to