SOURCE: “Critique of Pessimism as Taught by Von Hartmann,” in Atheism in Philosophy, Roberts Brothers, 1884, pp. 123-141.

In the following essay, Hedge takes issue with the Pessimist conclusions made by Hartmann in Philosophy of the Unconscious.

Does good, or evil, preponderate in the lot of man? Is the human world advancing to millennial peace, or tending to utter ruin? Or does it fluctuate between the two, alternately gaining and losing in certain fixed proportions, which no lapse of time, no social adjustments, and no cosmic revolutions can essentially change? Are Ormuzd and Ahriman so nearly matched that neither the one nor the other in endless ages shall acquire supreme and exclusive sway?

A question old as philosophy, and still awaiting its final solution,—a solution based on irrefragable proofs, and admitting of no appeal. My aim at present is not to establish a thesis on the subject, but...