Optimism and Pessimism

Leibniz is sometimes characterized as an 'optimist' on the basis of his contention that it is possible for an individual to become happy by attaining the knowledge that, despite appearances, this is a perfect, divinely ordered, universe.  So, even though his immediate target is Hegel, by advocating Pessimism, Schopenhauer is, nominally at least, Leibniz' most prominent opponent.  However, the contrast is not quite isomorphic, and, furthermore, the labelling obscures a more significant divergence.  They do agree that there is a lot of suffering in human experience, though Schopenhauer becomes hyperbolic about its degree, whence his generalization of it as a source of Pessimism.  But, unlike Leibniz, he rejects the redeeming grounds for Optimism, since, according to him, the noumenal realm is not one of divinely rational harmony, but is the blind Will to Live.  Now, Nietzsche subsequently shows that Pessimism is not inherent in the latter, rather is merely a contingent response to it, an analysis that can be extended to Leibniz' Optimism.  So, stripped of these extrinsic judgments, the substantive distinction between the two systems is that the species has supplanted a deity as the noumenal being.