Its value is less than nothing.

For who would begin one's life again in the same conditions, or even in new natural conditions, if one could choose them oneself, but of which enjoyment would be the sole end ?" There was, in fact, a strongly-marked vein of pessimism in Kant.

One of the ablest men of the younger generation who were brought up on his system founded the philosophical pessimism--very different in range and depth from the sentimental pessimism of Rousseau--which was to play a remarkable part in German thought in the nineteenth century.

[Footnote: Kant's pessimism has been studied at length by von Hartmann, in Zur Geschichte und Begrundung des Pessimismus (1880).] Schopenhauer's unpleasant conclusion that of all conceivable worlds this is the worst, is one of the speculations for which Kant may be held ultimately responsible.

[Footnote: Schopenhauer recognised progress social, economic, and political, but as a fact that contains no guarantee of happiness; on the contrary, the development of the intelligence increases suffering.