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In Lord Jim, it is made very conspicuous that Marlow takes interest in the toil of life because he is a materialist but, at the same time, has a philosophical bent of mind also. He is presented also as a spiritualist and idealist and Conrad regards it as the divine feature of human nature. Marlow contrasted with Jim whenever he shows faith in the sunny side of man's existence. He is a steadfast optimist that, due to misfortune Jim is not. Jim is more pessimistic and this is the cause why he suffers a lot in his life. Chester seems perfectly right when he says that one should not take everything to his heart but we would not like to state that one should not have a heart or conscience at all, because we feel the divinity through conscience. What is wrong about Jim is that he is extremely sensitive and conscious. His overly sensitive conscience puts him in a chaotic state. He mentally suffers a lot and finds his life a hell because of his excessive sensitivity.
Marlow is, undoubtedly, right when he says that we exist only in so far as we hang together. It is true that human beings can not exist or achieve anything important unless he lives together or cooperates with each other. This cooperative feeling gets clearly reflected in die shape of family, society and other organizations of human activity. When, in the primitive age, men were living in jungles or mountain caves, they were solely at the mercy of natural and supernatural forces. They never dreamt of making any scientific invention or discovery. Industries are the result of men living together and their mutual cooperation.
Jim, due to misfortune, does not adopt this philosophy of hanging together or being together. He could not follow it even for some days in his life, and this is the cause why he suffered so badly and underwent severe spiritual turmoil or mental agony but Marlow, Stein or Chester do not pass through these phases because of their sense of "hanging together". Here, it should be made clear that even by hanging together or through mutual cooperation, it is not sure that one would not do anything wrong or would not make erroneous judgment or not prove to be a failure. Thus, we sometimes succeed, sometimes fail in our lives. No one is uniformly successful or happy in his life. There are so many nations, tribes communities or races in this world but few among them are enjoying success, peace and happiness. War, growing population, poverty etc. can not be solved by merely "hanging together". There are many factors that bring tragedy to one's life. It should not surprise us when we see Jim suffering, to a great extent, because of "hanging away from his fellowmen."