Pessimism
that mental attitude which induces one to give preponderating importance to the evils and sorrows of existence; the habit of taking a gloom, and desponding view of things. Als the name given to the system of philosophy denounced by Schopenhauer (1788- 1860) in "The World as Will and Idea" (of which the first volume was published in 1819, and the second some 25 years after), and by Von Hartman in his "Philosophy of the Unconscious” (1860), It was at the beginning of the 19th century that pessimism began to create a literature of its own. As examples may be cited Byron's "Euthanasia" and Heine's "Fragen." The adherents of this philosophy have for the most part belonged to the German races, Leopardi (1798- 1837) being the sole Latin writer of note who has advocated pessimist theories.