{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_47136/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_47136","id":"gutenberg_47136","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47136","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: German Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860"],"text":"[Frontispiece: Schopenhauer]\n\n\n\n\n  SCHOPENHAUER\n\n  BY MARGRIETA BEER, M.A.\n\n\n\n  LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK\n  67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH\n  NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHAP.\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nI. SCHOPENHAUER'S LIFE\n\nII. PESSIMISM\n\nIII. ART\n\nIV. VIRTUE\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nINDEX\n\n\n\n\n{7}\n\nARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nSchopenhauer differs from most other philosophers in that he has\ninfluenced not only the development of the history of thought, the\ncourse along which modern philosophy has proceeded, but in that his\nviews have been welcomed as an inspiration, accepted almost in the\nspirit of a religious faith by workers in quite other departments of\nlife.\n\nNo philosopher has so directly touched and influenced the great art\nmovements of modern times.  It is now nearly one hundred years since\nthe publication of his greatest work, and his philosophy is a more\npotent and vitalising force to-day than in his own lifetime.  It has\nbeen a source of inspiration to artists and has directly stimulated\ntheir creative activity, probably more than any other abstract system\nhas ever done.\n\nPoetry has always been influenced subtly by philosophy.  Spenser and\nShelley are imbued through and through with the doctrines of Plato.\nGoethe wrote some of his finest work under the spell of Spinoza, and\nsome of Wordsworth's deepest experiences were interpreted to him\nthrough the ideas of Kant.  It is to all artists, but especially to\nmusicians, that Schopenhauer makes his most intimate appeal.  For in\nhis system music plays a strangely important part, above and apart {8}\nfrom all the other arts.  In analysing its spiritual character, he\nendows it with mystic significance.  One famous instance of this\ninfluence is that of Wagner.  His acquaintance with Schopenhauer's\nphilosophy marked a turning-point in his artistic life.  It gave a\ntremendous stimulus to his musical productivity, and while under its\ninfluence he composed his greatest works.\n\nSchopenhauer's system expresses, according to his own statement, only a\nsingle thought, viewed in different aspects.  He considers it from the\nmetaphysical, \u00e6sthetic, and ethical points of view.  This fundamental\nthought, which lies at the root of his entire philosophy, is concerned\nwith the significance of the will.  The will alone gives the key to the\nunderstanding of man's existence.  Every force in nature is to be\nregarded as will, and the inner reality of the universe is to be found\nonly in will.\n\nWhile it is especially to those who are concerned with the problems\narising out of the function and significance of art that Schopenhauer\noffers such fruitful and fascinating suggestions, the other aspects of\nhis system offer solutions in the sphere of ethics and metaphysics of\nalmost equally vital importance.  His insistence on the significance of\ninstinct and intuition in all the lower and higher forms of life is of\ngreat importance in the history of philosophy.  It is an aspect of the\nsubject which until later times had been strangely neglected.  This\nprominence which is given to instinct and intuition, is connected\ndirectly with his philosophy of the will.\n\nSchopenhauer, unlike most philosophers, has always been read and\nappreciated by the general reader and student of life, as distinguished\nfrom the specialised {9} student of philosophy.  His fundamental\nattitude towards philosophy explains this to a great extent.\nNotwithstanding his marked leaning towards mysticism, he brought\nphilosophy down to earth, and into relation with, the actual facts of\nlife.  He exchanged abstractions for realities.  Philosophy had always\nbeen far too much concerned, he maintained, with abstract conceptions,\nand the philosopher had tended too exclusively to be a mere man of\nbooks and learning.  The true philosopher, on the contrary, should be a\nguide to fine living as well as to high thinking.\n\nPhilosophy should express the real life of things.  But the deepest\nthings in life are not known by way of the intellect, but are lived and\nfelt.  The profoundest truths of life we know intuitively and directly,\nwith a deeper certainty than the understanding can give.\n\nThat Schopenhauer has a wider public than have most philosophers is due\npartly to his style.  He writes in language so singularly clear and\nlucid, that it can be followed easily by the general reader, not\nspecially trained in a technical philosophical vocabulary.  Of all\nGerman philosophers he is the greatest from a literary point of view.\n\"The true philosopher,\" he writes, \"will always seek after light and\nclearness, and will endeavour to resemble a Swiss lake, which through\nits peacefulness is able to unite great depth with great clearness, the\ndepth revealing itself precisely by the clearness, rather than a\nturbid, impetuous mountain torrent.\"  Philosophers have not always\ngiven much heed to this counsel of perfection.  Obscurity of expression\nis merely the cloak in which men seek to hide their poverty of thought\nand triteness of mind.  \"Everyone,\" says Schopenhauer, \"who possesses a\nbeautiful and rich mind will always express himself in the most {10}\nnatural, direct, and simple way, concerned to communicate his thoughts\nto others and thus relieve the loneliness that he must feel in such a\nworld as this.\"\n\nSchopenhauer is a temperamental pessimist.  In words of glowing and\npassionate eloquence he sets out to prove that all life is essentially\nsorrow.  From his earliest days he had been abnormally sensitive to the\nmisery that lies beneath the surface of life.  Pain is essential to\nlife and cannot be evaded.  If it can find entrance in no other form,\nthen it comes in the sad, grey garments of tedium and ennui.\n\nThe purest joy in life is that which lifts us out of our daily\nexistence, and transforms us into disinterested spectators of it.  This\n\"divine release from the common ways of men\" can only be found through\nart.  But even this release, which is accessible only to the few,\nincreases the capacity for suffering.\n\nThe final and only permanent solution of life is to be found in the\nlife of the saint.  True morality passes through virtue, which is\nrooted in sympathy, into asceticism.  Art gives a marvellous\nconsolation in life, but renunciation and self-surrender offer a\ncomplete release from the terrors and evils of existence.  The veil of\nM\u00e2y\u00e2--the web of illusion--is lifted from man's eyes.  He now shudders\nat the pleasures which recognise the assertion of life, and attains to\nthe state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, and true\nindifference.  Buddhism, Schopenhauer maintained, comes nearest of all\nreligions to expressing this truth.  It is here that he shows how\nprofoundly Indian philosophy and religion had influenced him.\n\nThroughout his life Schopenhauer was aggressively hostile towards all\ncontemporary philosophers.  To some extent, no doubt, his own failure\nto obtain academic {11} recognition embittered him.  But partly his\nattitude may be explained by the complete difference of method between\nthem.  Schopenhauer cares nothing at all about method.  To Hegel and\nhis contemporaries method was all-important.  The historical method was\nthe pathway which was followed with most enthusiasm at the time.  It is\nespecially for the historical method that Schopenhauer has the frankest\ncontempt.  Hegel and others were attempting to interpret present\nreality through history, seeking to show that through the slow process\nof history, unfolding itself in time, are revealed the organic\nprinciples which underlie the whole of life.  Schopenhauer attaches\npractically no value to history as a highroad for philosophical\ninquiry.  This way, he says, lie merely the dry bones of arch\u00e6ology and\nantiquarianism.  To examine things historically is to look along a\nhorizontal line.  To think philosophically is to look along a vertical\nline.  The latter is the rational and the more profound point of view.\n\"What history narrates is in fact only the long, heavy, and confused\ndream of humanity.\"  It is our inmost consciousness which is the real\nconcern of the philosopher.  \"The true philosophy of history,\" he says,\n\"consists in the insight into the causes of all these endless changes\nand their confusion.  We have always before us the same even,\nunchanging nature, which to-day acts in the same way as yesterday.\nThus it ought to recognise the identical in all events, in ancient as\nin modern times, in the East as in the West, and in spite of all\ndifference in special circumstances, of costume and of custom, to see\neverywhere the same humanity.  If one has read Herodotus, then in a\nphilosophical regard one has read enough history.  For everything is\nalready there that makes up the subsequent history of the world.\"\n\n{12}\n\nThat which is significant in itself, not in its relations, is to be\nfound far more profoundly and distinctly in poetry than in history.\nThere is, therefore, far more real, inner truth in poetry than in\nhistory.  Aristotle held the same view, maintaining that poetry reveals\na higher truth than history, for it strives to express the universal.\n\"Poetry,\" he says, \"is a more philosophical, and a higher thing than\nhistory.\"\n\nIn Schopenhauer's view, the true philosopher is the genius.  His\npenetrative imagination will see farther and deeper than the learning\nof the mere scholar.  The genius is a clear mirror of the inner nature\nof the universe.  To him knowledge is the sun which reveals the world.\nHis work may be regarded as an inspiration, as an interpretation of the\nspirit of beauty in art.  He has been endowed by nature with a special\nfaculty of inner vision, and uses his power to open the eyes of\nordinary men.  It is the genius who knows the inner nature of things,\njust as in Plato true philosophers are defined as \"the lovers of the\nvision of truth, who are able to distinguish the idea from the objects\nwhich participate in the idea, and whose eyes are ever directed towards\nfixed and immutable principles.\"  It is the genius, says Schopenhauer,\nwho interprets his vision to the rest of mankind.  He enables us to see\nthe world through his eyes.\n\nThere was a wide difference, too, between Schopenhauer and other\ncontemporary philosophers, in their attitude towards religion.\nSchopenhauer's freedom from academic fetters enabled him to steer an\nindependent way.  The German university professor was almost always\ndominated by the need for reconciling his philosophical theories with a\ntheological creed.  At times to square accounts between the two\ninvolved {13} considerable ingenuity, as in the case of Kant.  To\nSchopenhauer, to whom orthodox religion had always been a mere form,\nsuch attempts savoured of hypocrisy.  Hence he always speaks\nslightingly of \"philosophy-professors,\" and throughout his writings he\nmakes bitter attacks upon them.  Hegel's work is described as\nthree-fourths utter absurdity, and one quarter as paradox, and he\nhimself alluded to as \"that intellectual Caliban.\"  Plato's contempt\nfor the sophists stands on very much the same plane of thought.\n\nIn spite of this attitude there is much in Schopenhauer's system, which\nis closely akin to Christianity on its mystical side.  In his ethical\ntheory he shows extraordinary points of agreement with the medi\u00e6val\nmystics.  Materialism was utterly alien to his spirit.  Materialists,\nhe said, possess neither humanities nor culture, and their point of\nview filled him with the Olympian laughter of the gods.  He always\nmaintained that his theory of pessimism was more truly Christian, and\nmore closely in accord with the spirit of primitive Christianity than\nthe shallow optimism which crept into the later developments of that\nsystem.  Its ascetic spirit he considered the kernel of Christianity.\nProtestantism represented for him a falling away from the earlier and\npurer form, and a transition to shallow rationalism.\n\nHis thought was much influenced by ancient Indian philosophy, and\nespecially by Buddhism.  The Upanishads had been published in Germany\nin 1801 in a Latin translation from a Persian version of the Sanscrit\noriginal.  In these treatises are set forth the general system of\nmystical pantheism, which grew out of the more theosophic elements of\nthe Vedas.  In reading them Schopenhauer immediately acknowledged a\nkindred spirit.  In speaking of this work he says, \"How {14} does\neveryone who by diligent reading has familiarised himself with this\nincomparable book, feel himself stirred to the innermost by that\nspirit.  The mind is here washed clean of all its early ingrafted\nsuperstition, and all philosophy servile to that superstition.  It is\nthe most profitable and the most elevating reading which is possible in\nthe world.  It has been the consolation of my life, and will be the\nconsolation of my death.\"\n\n\n\n\n{15}\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nSCHOPENHAUER'S LIFE\n\nArthur Schopenhauer led the outwardly uneventful life of a scholar and\na thinker, taking no part in public affairs.  The great movements in\nEuropean history, through which he lived, left him untroubled and\nunmoved in his scholar's seclusion.  There is little therefore to\nchronicle with regard to the outer history of his life.  It is the more\neasy to escape the criticism of Schopenhauer himself, who says that\n\"those who, instead of studying the thoughts of a philosopher, make\nthemselves acquainted with his life and history, are like people who\ninstead of occupying themselves with a picture, are rather occupied\nwith its frame, reflecting on the taste of its carving and the nature\nof its gilding.\"\n\nThe little that there is to tell is, however, of great significance\nwith regard to the development of his thought.  For of no philosopher\ncan it be more truly said than of Schopenhauer, that his thought is the\nexpression of his character.\n\nSchopenhauer was born at Dantzig on February 22, 1788.  He traced his\ndescent through both parents to Dutch ancestors.  The family had\nsettled at Dantzig in the course of commerce.  For several generations\nthe head of the family had combined the career of a merchant with\nlanded pursuits.  Schopenhauer's great-grandfather, Andreas\nSchopenhauer, leased one of the {16} large farms belonging to the\nmunicipality, while following the business of a merchant.  His son\nAndreas acquired property near Dantzig, and there the father of the\nphilosopher, Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, was born.  Some mental\nweakness seems to have been inherited.  The eldest son of Andreas was\nan imbecile from his youth, and the other children, with the exception\nof Schopenhauer's father, all had some curious mental or moral twist.\nHeinrich Floris Schopenhauer, however, was a man of strong intelligence\nand character.  He followed a merchant's career with great success,\nraising his firm to the first position in the town.  He was a disciple\nof the school of Voltaire, read French and English literature, and had\na keen admiration for English life and institutions.  His wife,\nJohanna, belonged, too, to one of the leading families of Dantzig.  She\nhad been educated on broader lines than was usual for girls at the\ntime, and had a love for art and letters which extended her interests\nbeyond the domestic concerns of her home.  Later on, during her\nwidowhood, these were to find a wider field and opportunity, and she\nbecame a well-known authoress in the Germany of her day.  She married\nin 1785, at the age of eighteen, being twenty years younger than her\nhusband.  The marriage was an unhappy one, owing to differences of\ntemperament.  There were two children of the marriage.  They suffered\nfor the incompatibilities of their parents.  Both were burdened with\nabnormally strong desires for the pleasures of life, together with an\nextraordinary capacity for suffering.\n\nArthur, the future philosopher, was the first child of the marriage.\nHe was given the name of Arthur to satisfy the cosmopolitanism of his\nfather, the name being spelt alike in several languages.  His earliest\n{17} years were spent at the country house near Dantzig, or at the\nfarm, between the sea and the pine-woods, which had been rented many\nyears before by his great-grandfather.\n\nIn 1793, when Schopenhauer was five years old, the family migrated to\nHamburg.  The \"free city\" of Dantzig, which had a constitution of its\nown, was annexed by Prussia in 1793, at the second partition of Poland,\nand Heinrich Schopenhauer was too stern a republican to adapt himself\nto the new rule.  He carried on his business in Hamburg for the next\ntwelve years, but never became a naturalised citizen.\n\nHe had resolved that his son should follow the family career of a\nmerchant, and his education was planned accordingly on those lines.  He\nwas taken to France in 1797, and left at Havre for two years.  For the\nnext three years he attended a private school at Hamburg.  During this\ntime, discontent with his father's plans for his future was gradually\nripening within him.  To reconcile him, he was promised a trip to\nFrance and England, on the condition that he promised to give up his\nown desires and ambitions, and to be loyal to his father's wishes.  The\nprospect of the journey was too alluring, and he gave the required\npromise.  After six weeks had been spent in London, his parents left\nhim at a boarding-school at Wimbledon.  In letters to his mother, he\ncomplains of the mechanical instruction, the dreary Sunday services,\nand the tedious routine of the school.  She, in reply, warns him not to\ngive way to bombast and empty pathos.\n\nHe became proficient in English, and always held English character and\nintelligence in admiration, although he was impressed by the prevalent\nhypocrisy and the oppressive pietism of the time.  He was busy {18}\nalready recording his impressions, describing characteristically the\nfeelings and ideas awakened in him rather than the actual facts and\nevents.  The travellers returned through France, from Geneva to Vienna,\nand thence to Berlin.\n\nFor about four months Schopenhauer now worked in a Dantzig office,\ntrying to acquire the rudiments of a business training.  When almost\nseventeen, he entered the employment of a firm in Hamburg.  He himself\nhas recorded that there never was a worse clerk in a merchant's office.\nIn his leisure, and during office hours whenever possible, he was\nreading voraciously.\n\nIn 1805 his father died, whether by accident or by his own hand remains\nuncertain.  For two years longer Schopenhauer stuck to his hated task,\nout of loyalty to his father, and the promise made him some years\nearlier.  But at last he could stifle his ambitions and yearnings\ntowards a purely intellectual life no longer, and he obtained his\nmother's consent to leave his office, and to begin preparation for a\nlearned career.\n\nHis mother meanwhile, with her daughter Ad\u00e8le, had left Hamburg and\nsettled at Weimar, at that time the intellectual centre of Germany.\nGoethe was here the sun round which the lesser lights of the artistic\nand intellectual world revolved.  At the age of forty, Johanna\nSchopenhauer had entered on a new life, and was finding scope and free\ndevelopment for untried capabilities.  She played a prominent part in\nthe social life of the place, and her receptions were remarkable for\nthe circle she gathered round her.  Goethe himself was a frequent\nvisitor there.  She also took part in the theatrical performances,\nwhich were so conspicuous a feature of the life at Weimar.  With help\nand encouragement from Fernow, a distinguished scholar and {19} art\ncritic, she began to write, and published with considerable popular\nsuccess travel sketches, art biographies, and novels.  Her daughter, in\ndescribing their life at Weimar, tells how her mother experienced ever\nfresh delight in intercourse with the famous men living there.  \"She\nwas liked, her society was agreeable.  Her pleasing manners made her\nhouse a centre of intellectual activity, where everyone felt at home,\nand freely contributed the best he had to bring.\"  Besides Goethe,\nSchlegel, Grimm, Wieland and others were frequent guests under her\nroof.  Freed from his hated bondage, Schopenhauer now left Hamburg and\nentered the gymnasium, or grammar school, at Gotha, but a lampoon on\none of the masters was so resented that he was obliged to leave.  He\nthen came to Weimar, at his mother's suggestion, and worked at classics\nin the house of a well-known scholar, who had a real enthusiasm for all\nthings Greek.  Something of his spirit he communicated to his pupil,\nand the passion for Greek art and thought grew into a moulding\nprinciple in Schopenhauer's views of life and religion.  At the same\ntime that he was entering into the spirit of classical literature, he\nwas cultivating his musical ability, and thus feeling his way towards a\nfull and intense understanding of the art, which entered later with\nsuch significance into the development of his philosophy.  He was\nstriving to realise an ideal of the fullest and most complete culture,\nin which not only the life of thought, but also the life of art should\nfind consummate satisfaction.\n\nThe estrangement between his mother and himself began to widen now that\nthey were thrown constantly together.  By arrangement, he dined daily\nwith her, and came to her receptions.  But Schopenhauer was {20} too\nuncontrolled in his temper, and too uncompromising in his egoism to\nmake an agreeable companion.  His mother, driven to write to him,\nasserts that his constant grumbling, gloomy looks, and intolerant\ndogmatism depress her.  It is necessary to her happiness to know that\nhe is happy, but not necessary that she should be a witness to it.\nTherefore, if they are to agree they must consent to live apart.  Both\nmother and son were bent on self-development, and in character were too\ndissimilar to understand each other.  Schopenhauer was jealous,\nuncontrolled in his moods, and boorish in his manners.  That\nall-consuming egoism, which all his life spoiled his relations with\neveryone with whom he came in contact, made a congenial family life\nimpossible.  He resented his mother's freedom and independence, and\ninsulted her friends.  In a way that is very characteristic of him, he\ngeneralises from his own personal experience, and in his views on women\nwe find reflected all the bitterness which had grown round the\nrelations between himself and his mother.\n\nIn 1809 he attained his majority, and received his share of his\nfather's fortune, amounting to about \u00a3150 a year.  He was now\nindependent, and could pursue the career he had marked out for himself.\nHe valued all his life the liberty which this competency secured him.\nA draft dedication, intended for the second edition of _The World as\nWill and Idea_, was addressed \"to the _manes_ of my father.  Noble,\nbeneficent spirit!  to whom I owe everything that I am....  As thou\ndidst bring into the world a son such as I am, thou didst also make\nprovision that in a world like this, such a son should be able to\nsubsist and to develop himself....  In my mind the tendency to its only\nproper vocation was too decidedly implanted to let me {21} do violence\nto my nature, and so to subjugate it that, recking nought of existence\nin general, and active only for my personal existence, it should find\nits sole task in procuring daily bread....  Thou seemest to have\nforeseen that thy son, thou proud republican, could not possess the\ntalent to compete in cringing before ministers and councillors,\nM\u00e6cenases, and their advisers, basely to beg for the hard-earned piece\nof bread, or to flatter self-conceited commonplaceness, and humbly join\nhimself to the eulogistic retinue of bungling charlatans....  That I\ncould expand the forces nature gave me and apply them to their destined\npurpose, that I could follow my natural instinct and think and work for\nbeings without number, while no one does anything for me, for that I\nthank thee, my father, thank thy activity, prudence, thrift, and\nprovision for the future.\"\n\nIn 1809 he entered the University of G\u00f6ttingen as a student of\nmedicine.  In his second year he changed his course to philosophy.\nWieland, the poet, on the occasion of a visit from Schopenhauer, tried\nto dissuade him from philosophy as a career.  The reply was, \"Life is a\nticklish business.  I have decided to spend it in reflecting on it.\"\n\nIn 1811 Schopenhauer left G\u00f6ttingen, and entered the University of\nBerlin.  Here, too, he gave special attention to natural science.\nThroughout his notebooks are scattered critical remarks on his teachers\nand their lectures.  Fichte especially was a butt for his sarcasms.\nAgainst a statement of Schleiermacher's, that \"No man can be a\nphilosopher without being religious,\" he writes, \"No man who is\nreligious takes to philosophy: he does not need it.\"\n\nThe Napoleonic wars were at this time disorganising {22} the whole of\nEurope.  Berlin was in the hands of a French garrison.  But after the\ndisastrous campaign of Napoleon in Russia, the entire nation rose\nagainst the invader.  University classes were broken up.  Fichte stayed\nbehind to nurse the wounded, and died next year at his post.\nSchopenhauer, a prey to fears, which tormented him all his life, fled\nfor safety to Dresden.  He settled finally at Rudolstadt, and wrote\nthere an essay, to qualify for the degree of doctor of philosophy at\nJena.  This he obtained, and his essay was published as _A\nPhilosophical Treatise on the Four-fold Root of the Principle of\nSufficient Reason_.  This work he describes in his later books as a\npreliminary part of his system, which must be studied if the remainder\nis to be understood.  It is written entirely under the influence of\nKant.  The title refers to the four branches of knowledge: physical\nscience, mathematics, logic, and ethics.\n\nAfter the publication of his book, Schopenhauer returned to Weimar, and\nstayed for a few months with his mother.  The experiment resulted in\ncomplete estrangement.  He was overbearing and dogmatic, insulting his\nmother's friends, and censorious towards herself.  She wrote to him\nagain, to avoid an unpleasant personal interview, and complained of his\ncontemptuous bearing and peremptory manner.  He left Weimar and never\nsaw his mother again, although she lived for twenty-four years after\ntheir separation.  It is a curious commentary on his relations to his\nparents, that his highest praise of his father lay in the fact that he\nhad, by his thrift, left his son an adequate income; and that his main\ncensure on his mother is that she spends her money too negligently.\n\nHis visits to his mother at Weimar were of considerable {23} importance\nin the subsequent development of his thought, for it was there that he\nmade the acquaintance, not only of Goethe, who influenced him\nprofoundly for a time, but also of F. Mayer, the orientalist, who\ndirected his attention to the philosophical literature of ancient\nIndia.  This literature left a permanent mark upon his mind.\n\nFor the next four years he lived at Dresden.  In 1816 he published an\nessay _On Vision and Colours_, which has reference to the controversy\nwhich Goethe was waging on the theory of light.  Schopenhauer's theory\nis fantastic.  It is not submitted to experimental evidence, and rests,\nas he admits, on \"intuitive\" certainty.\n\nThis early work is hardly in the direct line of the development of\nSchopenhauer's thought.  It is really a deviation, for which Goethe's\nall-compelling influence is responsible.  Goethe was at first inclined\nto regard Schopenhauer as an opponent, for the essay is rather a\ntransformation of Goethe's theory than an expansion of it.\n\nHis residence at Dresden was the best he could have chosen from the\npoint of view of his own system of philosophy.  Here he could study\nbetter than in almost any other town of Europe the works of art, in\nwhich he was to see a revelation of the meaning of life.  The art\ncollections of the town are among the most famous in Europe, and the\nmusic, both operatic and orchestral, was then, as now, of the highest\nquality.  In this home of art, Schopenhauer's great system was now\ntaking shape.\n\nDuring his daily walks along the banks of the Elbe, he was thinking out\nhis theories, making notes occasionally in a note-book, and then\nstriding on again {24} with the rapid pace by which he was recognised\neven as an old man.\n\nMore and more strongly it was borne in upon him that \"inward discord is\nthe very law of human nature.\"  All his life his thoughts had struck\nthe note of genuine pessimism.  He was always in revolt against the\npain and misery that lie hidden beneath the surface of life.  That this\npessimistic bias was fundamentally one of temperament, there can be no\ndoubt.  In letters to him from his mother, we find her constantly\nurging him, even as a child, to look upon the brighter side of things.\nIn a letter written to him in 1806, she writes, \"I could tell you\nthings that would make your hair stand on end, but I refrain, for I\nknow how you love to brood over human misery in any case.\"\n\nEven in happiness and success he recognised illusion.  Everywhere in\nnature we see strife and conflict.  One species preys upon another.\nThe \"will to live\" necessarily expresses itself as a struggle.\n\nHegel at this time reigned supreme in the kingdom of philosophy.  It\nwas hardly possible to escape his influence.  Schopenhauer, in striving\nto give expression to a system which would lay bare the real inner\nnature of our life and destiny, was at the same time protesting\npassionately against the Hegelian view.  It was as a protest against\nthe all-powerful idealism of this philosophy that his system was\ndirected in the first place.  He represents a reaction against the\nabsorption of everything in reason.  As opposed to this view,\nSchopenhauer urged the priority of the will and the feelings as the\nfundamental factors in determining the mental life.\n\nThe will is the reality behind all life.  The intellect is merely a\ntool in the service of the will.  It is {25} impossible to find in\nreason a complete knowledge of the essence of the world.  A merely\nintellectual philosophy of life is bound to be thin and hollow, and we\nshould aim rather at a clear and direct insight into life.\n\nNow the will, into which every form of life can be resolved, is the\nsource of all human misery and unhappiness.  The only way in which men\ncan free themselves from the bondage of the will, and throw off its\nyoke, is by looking upon beauty.  It is in art that eternal truth is\nrevealed with a directness and certainty to which science never\nattains.  This theory is connected with the Platonic theory of Ideas.\nThe real inner nature of things, the Ideas in the Platonic sense, are\nrevealed in creative and imaginative art.  The faculty of vision, which\nenables men to divine this reality behind appearances, and to interpret\nit to others, is the gift of the artistic genius.  He \"understands the\nhalf-uttered speech of nature, and articulates clearly what she only\nstammered forth.\"  The man of genius produces works of art by intuitive\ninsight.  He sees through the outer shell to the inner significance\nthat lies at the heart of things.  Genius is the faculty of renouncing\nentirely one's own personality for the time being, so as to become\nclear vision of the world, free of subjectivity.  The genius must have\nimagination, above all things, in order to see in things not that which\nnature has actually made, but that which she endeavoured to make, but\ncould not.\n\nArt, however, does not deliver us permanently from life, but only for\nmoments.  It is therefore not a path out of life, but only an\noccasional consolation in life.\n\nIt is the saint, who through the surrender of all willing, through the\nintentional mortification of his own desires, attains to true\nresignation.  Happiness {26} and unhappiness become then a matter of\nindifference, and the spell of the illusion, which held us chained in\nthe bonds of this world, is broken for ever.\n\nThese were the views which found expression in Schopenhauer's great\nwork, _The World as Will and Idea_, which was finished in 1818.  He\nfound a publisher in Brockhaus of Leipsic.  While the work was going\nthrough the press, he attacked his publisher with such violent\nrudeness, that Brockhaus wrote declining all further correspondence\nwith one \"whose letters in their supreme coarseness and rusticity\nsavour more of the cabman than of the philosopher.\"\n\nThe work appeared when Schopenhauer was thirty years of age, an\nextraordinarily early date at which to produce so complete and\nelaborate a system of philosophy.  In this work the outlines of his\nwhole system are permanently fixed.  The whole contains, he says, but a\nsingle thought.  That thought exhibits itself as metaphysics,\n\u00e6sthetics, and ethics.  He wrote later many essays and supplements, but\nthese all go towards confirmation and expansion of his earlier work.\nFor the rest of his life he was repeating his original theories, with\ninfinite variation in expression.  This is entirely in accord with his\nown theory of age.  At thirty, he maintained, the intellectual and\nmoral endowment has reached its highest development.  All that is done\nlater is to vary and expand the main principles already laid down.\n\nHis book fell still-born from the press.  Twenty years later he\nsucceeded in getting his publishers to undertake a second edition, but\nthis too received but scant recognition.  Schopenhauer had built great\nhopes on his work, and his disappointment was bitter when no word of\nnotice greeted its appearance.  \"I dread silence {27} about my system,\nas a burnt child dreads the fire,\" he wrote on one occasion.  When\nbringing his manuscript to the notice of the publisher, he had written\nthat the work \"would hereafter be the source of a hundred other books.\"\nHe confided to a disciple that upon completing the work, he had felt so\nconvinced that he had solved the enigma of the world, that he had\nthought of having his signet-ring carved with the image of the sphinx\nthrowing herself down the abyss.  \"My philosophy,\" he wrote, \"is the\nreal solution of the enigma of the world.  In this sense it may be\ncalled a revelation.\"\n\nBefore the book appeared, Schopenhauer travelled to Italy.  He first\nspent some weeks in Venice, where Byron was living at the time.  The\ntwo, however, did not meet.  He then set out for Rome, by way of\nBologna and Florence, and there he spent the winter.  His time was\nspent mostly in the art collections, and in the study of Italian.  He\nkept, as he always did in travelling, a diary, recording not so much\nhis observations on things seen, as his moods and moralisings on them.\n\nIn May of the following year, as he was returning home, he received the\nnews of the bankruptcy of the Dantzig house in which almost the entire\nmeans of his mother and his sister were invested.  He himself had a far\nsmaller amount at stake.  The business arrangements connected with the\nwinding-up of the firm, which his mother accepted, were not to\nSchopenhauer's taste, and the estrangement between himself and his\nrelatives now became permanent.  He showed his usual promptness to\nsuspect evil, and his angry accusations were so bitter, that a silence\nof eleven years fell between himself and his mother and sister.  His\nstruggle with the firm in question lasted for two years.  Schopenhauer\ncame {28} off triumphant financially, his capital with interest being\npaid in full, whereas the other creditors obtained only thirty per cent.\n\nHis great work having now been launched in the philosophical world,\nSchopenhauer turned his thoughts to the chances of an academic\nappointment.  After many inquiries he decided finally on Berlin, and\nmade an application.  Specimen copies of his published works were sent\nin, and a private trial lecture delivered.  Here in 1820 he began his\ncareer as assistant lecturer, and a course of lectures was announced,\nof six hours a week, on philosophy in general.  He chose as his lecture\nhour the very time at which Hegel delivered his principal course,\nthinking to enter into direct competition with him, and carry off his\nstudents.  His hopes, however, misled him.  The students were not to be\nbeguiled away from the omnipotent Hegel, and Schopenhauer's course was\na complete failure.  He was not a good lecturer, and the course fell\nthrough before the end of the term.  The lectures were never again\ndelivered.\n\nThe six years he spent in Berlin were not in other respects happy ones.\nHe was on bad terms with all his colleagues, and even in his private\nlife he contrived to bring worry and legal trouble upon himself.  In a\nsmall entrance hall, common ground to himself and another lodger, he,\none day, found three women engaged in conversation.  He demanded their\nwithdrawal.  Two complied, but one, a sempstress lodging in the same\nhouse, refused.  Thereupon Schopenhauer, stick in hand, threw her\nforcibly twice out of the house.  She fell, and on the following day\nbrought her case before the court.  After six months, the verdict went\nin Schopenhauer's favour, but an appeal was lodged, and, in his\nabsence, the court inflicted a fine of twenty thalers, {29} as\ncompensation for injuries inflicted.  Some months later the sempstress\nbrought a further action.  She claimed that her injuries were more\nserious than had first appeared, and that she was now permanently\nincapacitated for work.  Schopenhauer was condemned to pay her sixty\nthalers a year as aliment, and five-sixths of the costs of the case.\nThis sum he paid until the time of her death, twenty years later.  On\nher death certificate he wrote, \"obit anus, abit onus.\"  The episode\nthrows light on the character of the philosopher, with its marked\nstrain of coarseness and ill-controlled passion.\n\nMeanwhile, Schopenhauer continued to philosophise, still hoping against\nhope for the university professorship, which never came, but sustained\nby immense self-confidence in the importance of his message.  He lived\nat Berlin in absolute seclusion.  Social life had no attractions for\nhim.  He was a constant visitor to the theatre, the opera-house, and\nthe concert-room, and at home his flute was a constant diversion.\nThese were his chief distractions.\n\nFrom time to time the thought of marriage had entered into his plans,\nbut his habits of solitude were growing stronger, and his cynical views\non women were obtaining an ever firmer hold on his mind.  His nature\nwas strongly sensual, and intermittent amorous experience is not the\nbest school in which to foster the growth of fine feeling or noble\nthoughts on the relations of the sexes.  It is not surprising to find,\ntherefore, in his views on women the unmistakable stamp of his personal\nexperience, a fatal blindness to all but the physical side of sex.  The\nsubject is not one that he passes over with indifference, for it\namounts almost to an obsession with him.  He left behind him notes on\n{30} love and marriage, which were held by his literary executor to be\nunfit for publication, and these were burned accordingly.\n\nIt was during these years at Berlin, embittered by the lack of\nrecognition of his philosophical work, and by his failure in the\nacademic world, that his attacks on university professors grew so\nvirulent.  He attributed his failure in both respects to conspiracy on\nthe part of those in power.  His attacks on Hegel grew ever fiercer.\n\nIn 1829 he was anxious to undertake a translation into English of\nKant's chief works.  He wrote to the publishers, urging his claims,\nsaying \"a century may pass before there shall again meet in the same\nhead so much Kantian philosophy with so much English, as happen to\ndwell together in mine.\"  The proposal came to nothing, and Kant's\n_Critique_ had to wait for nearly ten years longer before it appeared\nin an English form.\n\nIn 1831 the cholera broke out in Berlin, and Schopenhauer immediately\ntook to flight.  Hegel was one of the victims of this outbreak.  In one\nof his later works, Schopenhauer describes how he had been moved to\nleave Berlin, on the entry of the cholera, by means of a dream.  He had\ndreamed of a little schoolfellow and playmate, who died in childhood,\n\"It may have been,\" he says, \"of hypothetical truth, a warning in\nshort, that if I had remained, I should have died of the cholera.\nImmediately after my arrival in Frankfurt, I was the subject of a\nperfectly distinct apparition, as I believe, of my parents, and\nsignifying that I should survive my mother, who was still alive; my\nfather, already deceased, carried a light in his hand.\"  This is\nsignificant, as showing Schopenhauer's belief in the supernatural, and\nin mystical influences.\n\nAfter leaving Berlin, Schopenhauer settled at Frankfurt, {31} and with\nthe exception of one year, which was spent at Mannheim, he lived there\nuntil his death twenty-seven years later.  For twenty years after\ncoming to Frankfurt he lived in entire isolation.  Now and again, at\nrare intervals, an article from his pen appeared, but this is the only\nsign of life.  We hear nothing of his personal life during this period.\nFriends he seems to have had none, and all personal intercourse with\nacquaintances invariably came to an abrupt end, owing to his intolerant\nattitude towards those who dared to disagree with any of his views.\n\nOnly when he reaches the verge of old age do we once again have some\nrecord of him.  This latter part of his life was spent with unvaried\nregularity.  His chief occupation and solace is philosophy.  His daily\nroutine was mapped out, according to a regular plan, which hardly\nvaried from day to day.  He worked during the forenoon for three or\nfour hours.  At noon he enjoyed half an hour's relaxation on the flute.\nHe dined daily at a hotel.  After an hour's rest, the afternoon was\ngiven up to lighter literature.  His favourite authors, among poets,\nwere Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Calderon.  The study of the great\nclassical writers was all his life his greatest delight.  The\ndegradation in style of contemporary literature, which he constantly\nbemoaned, he held to be due largely to the neglect of classical\nliterature.  \"Without Latin,\" he wrote, \"a man must be content to be\ncounted amongst the vulgar.\"  He regretted the disuse of the Latin\nlanguage as a means of communication between scholars.  Apart\naltogether from the educational value of the classics, he thought no\nother literature afforded the same refreshment and enjoyment for the\nmind.  To take one of the classics in one's hand, even for half {32} an\nhour, is to feel refreshed, purified, elevated, and strengthened,\nexactly as if one had drunk from a fresh rock spring.\n\nIn the afternoon, whatever the weather, Schopenhauer took his daily\nwalk, together with his dog, his invariable companion.  The two were\nwell-known figures in Frankfurt, as they took their customary exercise\ntogether.  Schopenhauer's devotion to his dog was boundless.  For the\nanimal world altogether he had a special tenderness, pitying animals as\nthe tortured souls of the earth, and holding that in all essentials\nthey are the same as man.  He condemned vivisection, on the ground that\nanimals have rights.\n\nFor two hours he took his customary walk, at a rapid pace, in\naccordance with his theory that quick movement is essential to health.\nThen he visited the reading-room of the town, never omitting to look\nthrough the _Times_.  The evening was spent frequently at the theatre,\nor in the concert-room.  In his later years, his growing deafness\nrobbed him of much of the pleasure which he had always won from music.\nOn returning home, he read for an hour, and then retired to rest.  All\nhis life he was afraid of robbers, and took extraordinary precautions\nagainst them.  He slept invariably with loaded weapons by his bedside,\nand his valuables were hidden away with great ingenuity in various\ncorners of his rooms.  He believed that a thinker needed more than the\nordinary amount of sleep to recuperate after the day's labours.  His\nrule of life was modelled on that of Kant, but of Kant's early rising\nhe strongly disapproved, believing it to be a reckless waste of vital\nenergy.\n\nThus the latter part of his life is occupied with careful rules for the\npreservation of his health, which was {33} naturally robust.  The\ncontradiction is at once obvious between his actual mode of life and\nhis own moral ideal, as set forth in his works.  Some of his most\neloquent writing is on the subject of holiness, attained through\nrenunciation and self-denial.  Poverty, chastity, and constant\nmortification of the will are the ways along which man must travel to\ngain the highest moral solution of life.  Schopenhauer was perfectly\nconscious of this contradiction between his ideals and his own way of\nlife.  But, he says, it is just as little needful that a saint should\nbe a philosopher, as that a philosopher should be a saint.  In the same\nway, it is not necessary that a perfectly beautiful man should be a\ngreat sculptor, or that a great sculptor should himself be a beautiful\nman.  It is a strange demand, that a moralist should teach no other\nvirtue than that which he himself possesses.\n\nAfter 1818, when _The World as Will and Idea_ appeared, he published\nnothing further until 1836.  In that year, a small book called _On the\nWill in Nature_ appeared.  It was described on the title-page as \"a\ndiscussion of the corroborations which the philosophy of the author\nhas, since its first appearance, received at the hands of empirical\nscience.\"  During these eighteen years, in which no new work of his was\npublished, he had been collecting from all that he read, or saw, or\nheard, everything that could in any way be brought to bear as evidence\ntowards the proof of his main theories and principles.  Especially had\nhe been on the alert with regard to scientific investigation, believing\nthat his own sceptical generation would be most strongly influenced by\nanything that science could bring forward as confirmation of his\nmetaphysical principles.  Physics, he thought, had arrived at the point\nwhere it touches {34} metaphysics.  He was now confident that the time\nfor his philosophy was ripening.  But in spite of this confidence, the\nbook met with no more recognition than had his previous works.\n\nIn 1838 he competed successfully for a prize offered by the Scientific\nSociety of Drontheim, in Norway, for the best essay on the question\n\"whether free-will could be proved from the evidence of consciousness.\"\nThe subject could not have been more happily chosen to suit him.  His\nessay won the prize, and he was elected a member of the Society.  He\nobtained permission from the Society to publish his essay in Germany.\n\nMeanwhile he was competing for another prize, offered by the Royal\nDanish Academy of the Sciences, at Copenhagen, on the subject of the\nsources or the basis of morality.  He was confident of success, and\nwrote to the Academy asking that the award might be speedily made\npublic, as he proposed to publish his essay along with the one which\nhad been successful in Norway.  His confidence was premature, for when\nthe Danish Academy made known its decision, it announced that\nSchopenhauer's essay was the only one sent in, but that it was unworthy\nof the prize on several grounds, one of which was, that several of the\nchief philosophers had been treated with contempt.\n\nFrom this time his rage against the three philosophers, Hegel, Fichte,\nand Schelling, knows no bounds.  He attributed his failure to win\nrecognition to a conspiracy among them and their followers.  His\nwritings abound in violent invective against them.  In several ways\nthere are points of contact between the system of Schopenhauer and that\nof Hegel, but Schopenhauer refused to admit any kinship between them.\n\nHis two treatises were published together, as he had {35} intended.\nThey appeared in 1841 as _The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics_.\nThese two problems are the freedom of the will and the basis of\nmorality.  The treatment is little more than an expansion of the\ntheories set forth in his chief work.  He finds the roots of morality\nin sympathy.  The sense of brotherhood, which binds together individual\nand individual, and welds them into an organic whole, is the foundation\non which all the moral sentiments are built.  All goodness, love,\nvirtue, and nobility of character spring from the same source, from\nsympathy, which is the same in its nature as pure love.  Beyond the\negoism, which is fostered by the world around us, there exists also the\nprinciple of altruism, impelling men to self-sacrifice, unselfishness,\nand devotion.\n\nThe second edition of _The World as Will and Idea_, which appeared in\n1844, seemed at first as likely to fail of attaining recognition as the\nearlier one.  But a change was now at hand.  The reign of optimistic\npantheism was approaching its end in Germany.  The lofty idealism,\nwhich was the strength of the dominant school of thought, and which\nfound political expression in the revolutionary movements of 1848, was\nnow followed by a wave of reaction.  The democratic movement, after\nobtaining some temporary triumphs, was checked completely for the time,\nand a wave of weariness and discouragement passed over the country.\nSchopenhauer looked on, while Frankfurt was torn violently asunder in\nthe throes of its revolution.  His sentiments were against the\ndemocratic party, and he seems to have feared, above all else, the\npossibility of losing his private means.  In letters written at this\ntime to his friends, Schopenhauer expresses his dislike and disapproval\nof the great national movement of 1848.  He {36} was a thorough-going\nindividualist, and the movement, which stirred to the depths the finest\nnatures of the time, found no response in Schopenhauer's heart.  His\nroom was used by Austrian soldiers, who shot from the windows upon the\ndemocrats below.\n\nHis political views are expressed again in his will, made in 1852, in\nwhich Schopenhauer left the greater part of his estate to be spent for\nthe benefit of the soldiers who had been wounded at Berlin, in 1818, in\ndefence of the royal party against the democratic revolutionaries.  In\nhis view, the State exists only to secure safety of persons and\nproperty.  It is a strange error, he says, to attribute to the State\nany moral function.  It is to be regarded merely as the night-watchman,\nwho protects us from thieves and robbers.\n\nThe German Parliament, which sat at Frankfurt, had but a short-lived\nexistence.  In the reaction which followed, Schopenhauer's philosophy\nfound an open door.  Disciples attached themselves gradually to the\nphilosopher, and by degrees his system gained ground at home and abroad.\n\nThe work which won for him more popularity than any other, was _Parerga\nand Paralipomena_ (Chips and Scraps), published in 1851.  The work had\nbeen declined by three publishers before a Berlin firm agreed to\npublish, without any payment to the author.  The book consists of\nessays of a very heterogeneous kind, and of varying length.  Most of\nthe chief problems discussed in his larger works are treated again in\nthe essays.  Religion, education, arch\u00e6ology, Sanscrit, style, noise,\nghosts, and immortality are a few of the subjects dealt with.\nSchopenhauer's reading was wide.  His quotations range freely over\noriental, classical, and modern literature.\n\nThe success which followed the publication of this {37} book was\nreflected on the earlier works, and it was now possible to bring out\nfurther editions.  Schopenhauer's delight at this tardy recognition was\nunbounded.  Every scrap of applause was gathered and absorbed with\neagerness.  In his letters during this period, everyone who differs\nfrom him is denounced as a charlatan and a windbag.  Everyone who says\nanything at all similar is attacked as a plagiarist.  Every adversary\nis moved by the meanest motives.  So virulent is his abuse, and so\ncoarse his language, that words in his letters have sometimes to be\nchanged for an initial.  Nothing short of adulation, could satisfy his\nhungry vanity.  Even when the universities at last acknowledged him,\nand offered a prize for the best exposition and criticism of his\nsystem, he was enraged at the award of the prize to a student who\ntreated him as of more importance in a literary than in a philosophical\ncapacity.  Praise of any other philosophy than his own filled him with\nbitterness.  His correspondence with Frauenstadt, Lindner, and Asher is\nfull of such weakness.  It may be doubted whether any great man ever\nleft behind him letters of so trifling a nature, so steeped in vanity\nand so resentful of any breath of criticism.\n\nHe was active to the end of his life, though the first fine rapture of\nhis passionate love for all that is best in art was dimmed inevitably\nwith the passing years.  There is a pathetic reference in a letter to\nthis dulling of his power of vision.  \"In the time,\" he writes, \"when\nmy spirit was at its zenith, whatever object my eye rested upon made\nrevelations to me.  Now that I am old, it may happen that I stand in\nfront of Raphael's Madonna, and she says nothing to me.\"\n\nHe died suddenly, in 1860, at the age of seventy-two.  The stone which\nmarks his grave bears as inscription the sole words \"Arthur\nSchopenhauer.\"\n\n\n\n\n{38}\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nPESSIMISM\n\nSchopenhauer's system is set forth in all its fulness in his great\nwork, _The World as Will and Idea_.  All that he wrote after the\nappearance of this book was confirmation and expansion of the theories\nalready laid down.  It differs from his earlier books in method.  He no\nlonger follows academic lines.  He looks upon the work as a revelation\nof the meaning of life, based on a clear and direct intuition into\nlife, and the style shapes itself accordingly.  Metaphor frequently\ntakes the place of argument, and his theories are developed in a flow\nof passionate eloquence, contrasting remarkably with the severer\nmethods of the ordinary metaphysician.\n\nSchopenhauer takes as his starting-point certain theories from the\nphilosophies of Plato and Kant.  Things, as we know them in experience,\nsaid Kant, are made up partly of forms or moulds, which are in the\nmind, and partly of something outside the mind.  That which we know,\nour actual experience, is a combination of the two elements, the\nsubjective and the objective element.  That part of experience which\nlies outside the mind, the reality, the thing-in-itself or the noumenon\nin philosophical language, we can never know.  For in order to be known\nby us, it has to run into the forms or moulds supplied by the mind, and\nin this transition its nature has been changed.  To know it as it is,\nbefore it enters into contact with our minds, is impossible.  That we\n{39} appear to have objective knowledge is therefore a deception and an\nillusion.\n\nSchopenhauer accepts Kant's analysis of experience, but denies that the\nthing-in-itself is unknowable.  For that which is real in our\nexperience is not outside us altogether, as in Kant's theory.  It lies\nwithin ourselves; it is the only real and essential part of our nature,\nand we have a direct knowledge of it.  This reality Schopenhauer finds\nin the will.  Now the will is fully known to us through internal\nperception, through intuition.  It is the real, inner nature of\neverything in the world.  It affords the key to the knowledge of the\ninmost being of the whole of nature.  It is the kernel of every\nindividual thing, and also of the whole universe.\n\nIt is important to note, that Schopenhauer's use of the word \"will\" is\nfar wider than that of common usage.  It includes not only conscious\ndesire, but also unconscious instinct, and the forces of inorganic\nnature.  He recognises will not only in the existences which resemble\nour own, in men and animals, but also in the force which germinates and\nvegetates in the plant, the force through which the crystal is formed,\nthat by which the magnet turns to the north pole, the force which\nappears in the elective affinities of matter as repulsion and\nattraction, decomposition and combination, and lastly even as\ngravitation, which draws the stone to the earth and the earth to the\nsun.  All these in their inner nature are identical.  It is the same\nforce in every manifestation of nature, as in each preconsidered action\nof man.  The difference is merely one of degree.\n\nThe body is the most real thing for everyone.  If we analyse the\nreality of this body, we find nothing but the will.  With this its\nreality is exhausted.  The word {40} will, like a magic spell, he says,\nreveals the inmost being of all nature.  Spinoza says, that if a stone,\nwhich has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would\nbelieve that it was moving of its own will.  Schopenhauer adds that the\nstone would be right.  The impulse given it, is for the stone what the\nmotive is for us.  All blindly impelling force, all forces which act in\nnature in accordance with universal laws, are equally in their inner\nnature to be recognised as will.  It is everywhere one and the same,\n\"just as the first dim light of dawn must share the name of sunlight\nwith the rays of the full midday.\"\n\nNow the will expresses itself necessarily as a struggle.  Everywhere in\nnature we see strife, conflict, and alternation of victory.  Every\ngrade of will fights for the matter, the space, and the time of the\nothers.  For each desires to express its own inmost nature.  Nature\nexists only through such struggle.  This universal conflict is most\ndistinctly visible in the animal kingdom.  For animals have the whole\nof the vegetable kingdom for their food, and even within the animal\nkingdom every beast is the prey and the food of another.  Each animal\ncan maintain its existence only by the constant destruction of some\nother life.\n\nThis is the \"will to live\" which everywhere preys upon itself, until\nfinally the human race regards nature as a manufactory for its own use.\nThis strife manifests itself just as characteristically in the lower\ngrades of will, _e.g._ the ivy which encircles the oak until the tree\nwithers as if choked, the parasite which fastens itself on the animal\nand kills it.  Even crude matter has its existence only in the strife\nof conflicting forces.\n\nMan has need of the beasts for his support, the beasts in their turn\nhave need of each other as well as plants, {41} which in their turn\nrequire the ground, water, and chemical elements and their\ncombinations.  Thus in nature everything preys on some other form of\nlife.  For the will must live on itself; there exists nothing beside\nit, and it is a hungry will.\n\nThis theory of the will is connected by Schopenhauer with pessimism.\nEternal becoming, endless flux characterises the inner nature of the\nwill.  In the human race this character of the will is most clearly\nmarked.  All our endeavours and desires delude us by presenting their\nsatisfaction as the final end of will.  But as soon as we attain our\ndesires, they no longer appear the same.  They soon grow stale and are\nforgotten, and then are thrown aside as useless illusions.  The\nenchantment of distance shows us paradises, which vanish like optical\ndelusions, as soon as we have allowed ourselves to be mocked by them.\nWe are fortunate if there still remains something to wish for and to\nstrive after, that the game may be kept up of constant transition from\ndesire to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new desire.\n\nHappiness, therefore, always lies in the future, or else in the past.\nThe present, Schopenhauer compares to a small dark cloud, which the\nwind drives over the sunny plain.  Before and behind it all is bright,\nbut the cloud itself always casts a shadow.  The present is always\ninsufficient, the future is uncertain, and the past irrevocable.\n\nThe will strives always, for striving is its real nature.  No\nattainment of the goal can put an end to this constant striving.  It is\nnot susceptible, therefore, of any final satisfaction, for in itself it\ngoes on for ever.  As in the life of the plant, so in the life of all\nmen.  There is the same restless, unsatisfied striving, a ceaseless\n{42} movement through ever-ascending forms, until finally the seed\nbecomes a new starting-point.  This is repeated _ad infinitum_, nowhere\nan end, nowhere a final satisfaction, nowhere a resting-place.  No\npossible satisfaction in the world can suffice to still the cravings of\nthe will, to set a goal to its infinite aspirations, and to fill the\nbottomless abyss of its heart.\n\nThe hindrance of this striving, through an obstacle, we call suffering;\nthe attainment of its temporary end is well-being or happiness.  But as\nthere is no final end of striving, there is no measure and end of\nsuffering.  In proportion as knowledge attains to distinctness, as\nconsciousness ascends in the scale of organic life, pain increases\nalso.  It reaches its highest capacity, therefore, in man.  The more\nintelligence a man has, the greater his capacity for suffering; the man\nwho is gifted with genius suffers most of all.  Suffering is in the\nvery nature of all life, and the ceaseless efforts which we make to\nbanish it succeed only in making it change its form.  Yet we pursue our\nlives, absorbed in the interests of the moment, just as we blow out a\nsoap bubble as large as possible, although we know perfectly well that\nit will burst.  Willing or striving may be compared to an unquenchable\nthirst.  Every act of willing presupposes a want.  The basis of all\nwilling is need or deficiency.  The nature of man, therefore, is\nsubject to pain originally and through its very nature.\n\nIf, on the other hand, man lacks objects of desire, being deprived of\nthem by too easy satisfaction, then a terrible emptiness and sense of\nboredom, comes over him.  His very existence becomes an unbearable\nburden to him.  Thus life swings like a pendulum backwards and forwards\nbetween pain and boredom.  Men have {43} expressed this truth oddly,\nsays Schopenhauer, in transferring all pain and torments to hell, and\nin leaving what remains, that is, boredom, for heaven.  Man is of all\nanimals the most full of wants and needs.  He is a concretion of a\nthousand necessities.  Driven by these, he wanders through life,\nuncertain about everything except his own need and misery.  The care\nfor the maintenance of his existence occupies, as a rule, the whole of\nhuman life.  A second claim, that of the reproduction of the species,\nis related directly to this.  At the same time, he is threatened from\nall sides by different kinds of dangers, from which it requires\nconstant watchfulness to escape.  \"With cautious steps and casting\nanxious glances round him, he pursues his path, for a thousand\naccidents and a thousand enemies lie in wait for him.  Thus he went\nwhile yet a savage, thus he goes in civilised life.  There is no\nsecurity for him.\"\n\nThe majority of men wage a constant battle for their very existence,\nwith nothing before them but the certainty of losing it at last.  Man's\ngreatest care in avoiding the rocks and whirlpools of life, only bring\nhim nearer at every step to the greatest, inevitable, and irremediable\nshipwreck of death.  This is the final goal of the laborious voyage.\n\nWhatever nature and fortune may have done, whoever a man be, and\nwhatever he may possess, the pain of life cannot be cast off.\nExcessive joy and excessive suffering always occur in the same person,\nfor they condition each other reciprocally, and are conditioned by\ngreat activity of the mind.  Error and delusion lie at the foundation\nof keen joy or grief.  Joy rests on the delusion that lasting\nsatisfaction has been found for the desires.  The inevitable result is\nthat when the {44} delusion vanishes, we pay for it with pain as bitter\nas the joy was keen.  The greater the height from which we drop, the\nmore severe the fall.\n\nFor the most part we close our minds to the knowledge that happiness is\na delusion.  We strive unweariedly from wish to wish, and from desire\nto desire.  It is incredible how meaningless when viewed from without,\nhow dull and unenlightened by intellect when felt from within, is the\ncourse of life of the great mass of men.  It is a weary longing and\ncomplaining, a dreamlike staggering through the four ages of life to\ndeath, accompanied only by trivial thoughts.  Such men go like\nclockwork, without knowing the reason why.  The life of every\nindividual, if we survey it as a whole, is always a tragedy, but looked\nat in detail, it has all the character of a comedy.  Everyone who has\nawakened from the first dream of youth, who has reflected on his own\nexperience and on that of others, must conclude inevitably that this\nhuman world is the kingdom of chance and error, which rule without\nmercy in great things and in small.  Everything better struggles\nthrough only with difficulty.  That which is noble and wise seldom\nattains to expression.  The absurd and the perverse in the sphere of\nthought, the dull and tasteless in the sphere of art, the wicked and\ndeceitful in the sphere of action, assert a supremacy which is rarely\ndisturbed.\n\nNothing external has power to deliver man from this dominion of woe.\nIn vain does he make to himself gods, in order to get from them by\nprayers and flattery what can be accomplished only by his own\nwill-power.\n\nThe most beautiful part of life, its purest joy, is pure knowledge.  It\nis removed from all willing, and lifts us out of real existence.  This\nrelief, however, is granted {45} only to a few, because it demands rare\ntalents and rare opportunities.  Even the few, to whom it comes only as\na passing dream, are made susceptible of far greater suffering than\nduller minds can ever feel.  They are placed in lonely isolation by\ntheir nature, which is different from that of others.  To the great\nmass of men, purely intellectual pleasures are not accessible.  They\nare almost incapable of the joys which lie in pure knowledge.  Their\nlives are given up to willing.\n\nIf we could bring clearly to a man's sight the terrible sufferings and\nmiseries to which his life is exposed, he would be seized with horror.\nThe brevity of life may be the best quality it possesses.\n\nAll happiness is negative in character, and never positive.  Only pain\nand want can be felt positively.  Happiness is merely the absence of\npain, for it follows upon the satisfaction of a wish.  Some want or\nneed is the condition which precedes every pleasure.  But with the\nsatisfaction, the wish, and therefore the pleasure, cease.  The\nsatisfaction can never be more than deliverance from a pain or want.\nWe observe that the days of our life were happy after they have given\nplace to unhappy ones.  In proportion as pleasures increase, the\ncapacity for them decreases.  What is customary is no longer felt as a\npleasure.  Achievement is difficult, but when attained it is nothing\nbut deliverance from some sorrow or want.  Therefore we value our\nblessings and advantages only when we have lost them, for the\ndeprivation, the need, is the positive factor.\n\nMan's real existence is only in the present, and the present is\nslipping ever into the past.  There is thus a constant transition into\ndeath.  The future is quite uncertain, and always short.  Our\nexistence, therefore, is a constant hurrying of the present, into the\ndead past, {46} a constant dying.  On the physical side, the life of\nthe body is but an ever-postponed death.  In the end death must\nconquer, and he only plays for a little with his prey before he\nswallows it up.\n\nWith such intensity did Schopenhauer feel that pessimism was the only\npossible conclusion, that he maintained that optimism was not only\nabsurd, but really a wicked way of thought.  For optimism is a bitter\nmockery of the unspeakable suffering of humanity.  He revolted against\nthe theory of Leibnitz, who maintained that this is the best of all\npossible worlds.  It is, on the contrary, he declared, the worst of all\npossible worlds.  Optimism is at bottom the unmerited self-praise of\nthe will to live, the real originator of the world, which views itself\ncomplacently in its works.  It is not only a false, but also a\npernicious doctrine.  For it presents life to us as a desirable\ncondition, and happiness as its end.  Everyone believes that he has a\njust claim to happiness and pleasure, and if these do not fall to his\nlot, he believes that he is wronged.  It is far more correct to regard\nmisery and suffering, crowned by death, as the end of our life, for it\nis these which lead to the denial of the will to live.  It is difficult\nto conceive how men can deceive themselves and be persuaded that life\nis there to be thankfully enjoyed, and that man exists in order to be\nhappy.  The constant illusion and disillusion seem intended to awaken\nthe conviction, that nothing at all is worth our striving, our efforts,\nor our struggles, and that all good things are but empty vanity.  The\ntruth is, he says, we ought to be wretched and we are.\n\nThe world is a hell, which surpasses that of Dante.  One need look only\nat man's treatment of his fellow-men.\n\nSchopenhauer points to the children, who are sent {47} into factories\nto work there daily for long hours, performing day after day the same\nmechanical task.  This, he adds, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction\nof drawing breath.  Everyone would have declined the \"gift\" of life, if\nhe could have seen it and tested it beforehand.  But life has never\nbeen chosen freely.  Everyone would retire from the struggle gladly,\nbut want and boredom are the whips which keep the top spinning.  Every\nindividual bears the stamp of a forced condition.  Inwardly weary, he\nlongs for rest, but yet he must press forward.  All movement is forced,\nand men are pushed from behind.  It is not life that tempts them on,\nbut necessity that drives them forward.\n\nSuicide is no solution of the problem of life.  It is not to be\nregarded as a crime, as in the code of modern society.  But there is a\nvalid moral reason against it, in that it substitutes for the real\nemancipation from the world of suffering, a merely apparent one.  So\nfar from being a denial of the will, suicide is indeed a strong\nassertion of the will.  The suicide destroys merely the individual\nmanifestation of life.  The wilful destruction of the single existence\nis a vain and foolish act.  The suicide gives up living, because he\ncannot give up willing.  He denies the individual only, not the\nspecies.  There is a more adequate way of conquering life than by\ndestroying it, which Schopenhauer expounds when he deals with the\nethical aspect of his philosophy.\n\nHis analysis of the worth of human life, as represented in this theory\nof pessimism, is the most passionate and terrible indictment of\nexistence which has ever found expression.  His sense of disenchantment\nis felt with such intensity, that it colours and distorts the whole\nfabric of his vision of life.\n\nThere is much affinity between the character and {48} work of\nSchopenhauer and that of Leopardi.  In both are displayed penetrating\nprofundity of thought, extraordinary beauty of expression, and deep\ninsight into the workings of the human mind, while the same passionate\nrevolt against the misery of life colours the outlook and achievement\nof philosopher and poet alike.  Schopenhauer was acquainted with the\nwritings of Leopardi, and had great admiration for his work.  His\nsubject, he says, is always the mockery and wretchedness of existence,\nand he presents it with such wealth of imagery, such multiplicity of\nforms and applications, that he never wearies us, but is always\nentertaining and exciting.  This estimate of the work of Leopardi might\nwith equal justice be applied to Schopenhauer himself.\n\nAs his philosophy gained ground gradually, and became known, he won\nmany disciples and enthusiastic followers, and for a time his theories\nof pessimism became fashionable.  Certain literary groups adopted them\nwith enthusiasm, but in that direction his influence was not permanent.\nIt is not in Schopenhauer's theory of pessimism that his true\nimportance and real significance lie.  In philosophy this influence has\nbut faintly shown itself.  Schopenhauer's direct successor on these\nlines of thought is Eduard von Hartmann.  He rejects Schopenhauer's\ndoctrine that all pleasure is merely relief from pain, but admits that\nthe greater number of pleasures are of this kind.  Satisfaction, he\nasserts, is always brief, while dissatisfaction is enduring as life\nitself.  The pain in the universe greatly preponderates over the\npleasure, even for those who are regarded as the fortunate ones in the\neyes of the world.  The future, moreover, seems likely to bring us only\nincreased misery.  Hartmann's practical conclusion is that we should\naim at the negation of the will to live, not each for himself, as\nSchopenhauer {49} taught, but universally, by working towards the\nannihilation of all existence.  Schopenhauer's influence is here,\nobviously, very strongly marked.\n\nAnother disciple, and a far more famous one, is Nietzsche.  He came\nunder Schopenhauer's influence while a student at the university, and\nthrew himself with passionate enthusiasm under the spell of his\nphilosophy.  Although in his later development he reacted strongly in\nan opposite direction, yet all his work bears the mark of the deep\nimpress which Schopenhauer had made upon his mind.  His outlook on life\nhad been changed profoundly by \"that wonderful heart-stirring\nphilosophy,\" as he calls it.  One of his earliest works was an essay on\n_Schopenhauer as Educator_, in which he bases the greatness of\nSchopenhauer on his power to see the picture of life as a unity, and to\nexpress it as such.  He is held up as the ideal philosopher, and as one\nof three models for future man, the other two being Goethe and\nRousseau.  Schopenhauer's insistence on action as the proper sphere of\nman, as contrasted with the mere life of thought, made a strong appeal\nto Nietzsche.  A philosopher, says Nietzsche, must be not only a great\nthinker, but a living man.  Schopenhauer had not been spoilt, as was\nKant, by his education.  He had seen life as well as studied books, and\nso was able to see how the free, strong man could be evolved.  Many of\nNietzsche's most characteristic doctrines are suggested in this early\nessay, and are read partially into Schopenhauer's philosophy.\n\nIt is more especially Schopenhauer's theories of art which influenced\nNietzsche's thought, and left the deepest and most permanent mark on\nhis work.  He adopted in his early days the pessimism along with the\nrest of Schopenhauer's system.  But this conception {50} of life was\nnot really native to his mind, and it was against this aspect of\nSchopenhauer's philosophy that he reacted most violently in later life.\nNietzsche stands, above all else, for the affirmation of life,\nSchopenhauer for the negation of life.  In his protest against\npessimism, Nietzsche reaffirms with passionate intensity the worth of\nlife and the splendour of human destiny.  He told men to believe in the\nglory of things, and bade them shout for the joy of living.  \"All\nthat's joyful shall be true,\" he says in one of his poems.  In another\npassage he insists that \"it is necessary to remain bravely at the\nsurface, to worship appearance, to believe in forms, in tones, in\nwords, in the whole Olympus of appearance.\"  It is clear that by this\ntime nothing of the pessimistic outlook on life had been left in\nNietzsche's philosophy.\n\nPessimism will always find an echo in the minds of those who by\ntemperament tend to see only the darker colours of the picture of life.\nToo much questioning and too little responsibility lead down to the\nabyss, as William James points out.  Pessimism, he says, is essentially\na religious disease.  It consists in nothing but a religious demand, to\nwhich there comes no normal religious reply.\n\nTo the great mass of mankind there is something alien and repellent in\nthis grim and bitter outlook of hopelessness.  It finds little or no\nresponse in the heart of the normal human being, even though at times\nthe nightmare view may force itself upon him.  \"Deliverance,\" says the\nIndian poet Tagore, \"is not for me in renunciation.  I feel the embrace\nof freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.  All my illusions will burn\ninto illumination of joy and all my desires ripen into fruits of love.\"\n\n{51}\n\nFor Schopenhauer the way of escape lay in two directions.  In\nconsidering his \u00e6sthetic theories, we shall see how he found in art a\ntemporary release from the bondage of life, and in his ethical system\nhe points the way to a permanent deliverance.\n\nIt is in these statements, the \u00e6sthetic and the ethical aspects of his\nsystem, that we find the most significant part of Schopenhauer's\nphilosophy.  His pessimism left little permanent mark on the course of\nphilosophic thought.  It is to the other side of his work that we must\nlook for a fruitful issue, to his statement of the function of art and\nits meaning for life; his insistence on the will, the active element,\nas that which has most reality and significance in life; to the part\nwhich the feelings, instinct, and impulse play in his system.  In all\nthese directions, Schopenhauer's influence has been powerful and\nfar-reaching.  To-day he is a stronger force than any other of the\ngreat thinkers of his time, overshadowed though he was by them during\nhis lifetime.  In Germany especially, his influence is felt as a\npowerful factor in the thought of the present day.\n\n\n\n\n{52}\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nART\n\nSchopenhauer's theory of the beautiful is the side of his philosophy\nwhich has always made so potent an appeal to artists, and to all those\nlovers of the beautiful, for whom art represents the supreme\nsignificance of life.\n\nThe present for Schopenhauer is only an infinitesimal moment between\ntwo eternities, the past and the future.  It is \"a flash of light\nbetween two darknesses.\"  Now how is man to make the best of this brief\nmoment, under the hard conditions of his destiny?  The answer to this\nquestion Schopenhauer finds in his theory of the function of art.  He\nlinks up into intimate relation his theory of \u00e6sthetic with his\nphilosophical pessimism, but his pessimism is modified considerably in\nthe process.\n\nThere are certain men, he maintains, who can free themselves from the\nbondage of the will.  They can throw off its yoke, and, released from\nall the aims of desire, they can become disinterested spectators of the\nreal, essential nature of the world.  The inner meaning of their clear,\ndeep vision they can interpret to others.  Such men are artists, and\nthe interpretation of their vision is the work of art.  In art are\nrevealed the eternal truths of the nature of man and the universe,\nrevealed with a power and directness to which science can never attain.\nArtists, then, are the seers, the visionaries, who penetrate into the\nhidden, vital principles of things.  They alone have power to interpret\n{53} the half-uttered speech of nature, and disentangle that which is\nreal and essential, the inner truth, from that which is accidental and\ntransitory.  The road to philosophy, then, leads through the gateway of\nart.\n\nIn this theory Schopenhauer starts from Plato's doctrine of the Ideas.\nThe particular objects of sense, which we know, are mere appearances.\nThey have no reality in themselves.  They arise and pass away, they\nalways become and never are.  But there exist also the types and\neternal forms of things, which do not enter into time and space, and\nwhich remain fixed, subject to no change.  These constitute the sole\nreality.  Plato called them the Ideas, and Schopenhauer adopts this\nterm from the Platonic philosophy.  The Ideas for Schopenhauer\nrepresent the different grades of the objectification of the will,\nwhich are manifested in the individuals.  These are the eternal forms\nor prototypes of individual things.\n\nOur knowledge of the ordinary things of sense-experience is indirect,\nit is gained by way of the intellect.  Our knowledge of the Ideas, on\nthe other hand, is direct and immediate, it is gained through\nintuition.  In his account of the Ideas, or the real, essential nature\nof things, Schopenhauer is treading already the path of mysticism,\nalong which he works out his theories of ethics.\n\nNow the whole function of art is to reproduce the eternal ideas, to\nseize on that which is essential and abiding in all the phenomena of\nthe world.  The one and only source of art is the knowledge of true\nreality, of the Ideas.  The one aim of art is the communication of this\nknowledge.  According to the material in which this vision of true\nreality is reproduced, it is architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry,\nor music.\n\n{54}\n\nScience can only follow the unresting and inconstant stream of\nappearances.  It can never reach a final goal nor attain complete\nsatisfaction, any more than by running we can reach the place where the\nclouds touch the horizon.  But art, on the other hand, is everywhere at\nits goal.  It plucks the object of its contemplation out of the stream\nof things as they seem, and holds it isolated before its vision.  And\nthis particular thing, which in the stream of the world's course was a\nsmall perishing part, becomes to art the representative of the whole,\nthe type of the endless multitude in space and time.  Art, therefore,\npauses before this reality, which it perceives in the particular thing.\nThe course of time stands still; relations vanish before it; only the\nessential, the Idea, remains as the object of the artist's vision.  In\nthe multitudinous and manifold forms of human life, and in the\nunceasing change of events, the artist looks only on the Idea, knowing\nit as the abiding and the essential, as that which is known with equal\ntruth for all time.  Art, therefore, is the bridge between two worlds.\nIt leads us from things as they seem to things as they really are.\n\nIt is the genius who possesses this power of vision, and whose magic\nworks can unfold before the eyes of ordinary mortals the spirit of\nbeauty as she has revealed herself to him.  Entirely in this spirit\ndoes Blake express his sense of the poet's mission:\n\n      \"I rest not from my great task\n  To open the eternal worlds, to open the immortal eyes\n  Of man inwards; into the worlds of thought; into Eternity\n  Ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human Imagination.\n\n\nThe method of genius is always artistic, as opposed to scientific.  The\nnature of genius consists in a surpassing capacity for the pure\ncontemplation of Ideas.  {55} It is the faculty of continuing in the\nstate of pure perception, of losing the personality in perception, and\nof enlisting in this service the knowledge which existed originally\nonly for the service of the will.  Genius, then, is the power of\nleaving one's own interests, wishes, and aims entirely out of sight, of\nrenouncing entirely one's own personality for a time, so as to remain\npure knowing subject, clear vision of the world.  This state must be\nachieved, not merely at moments, but for a sufficient length of time,\nand with sufficient consciousness, to enable the artist to reproduce by\ndeliberate art what has thus been seized by his inner vision.  He must\nfix in lasting thoughts the wavering images that float before the mind:\n\n  \"But from these create he can\n  Forms more real than living man,\n  Nurslings of immortality.\"\n\n\nIt is as if, says Schopenhauer, when genius appears in an individual, a\nfar greater measure of the power of knowledge falls to his lot than is\nnecessary for ordinary men.  This excess of knowledge, being free, now\nbecomes subject purified from will, a clear mirror of the inner nature\nof the world.\n\nImagination is an essential element in genius, and it is a necessary\ncondition that it should be possessed in an extraordinary degree.\nImagination extends the horizon far beyond the limits of actual\npersonal experience, and so enables the artist to construct the whole\ndream, the complete vision, out of the little that comes into his own\nactual apperception.\n\nThe actual objects are almost always but imperfect copies of the ideas\nexpressed in them.  Therefore the artist requires imagination in order\nto see in things, not that which nature has actually made, but that\nwhich {56} she endeavoured to make, but could not, because of the\nnever-ceasing conflict between the various forms of will.  Through the\npenetrating vision of this imagination, the artist recognises the Idea.\nHe understands the half-uttered speech of nature, and is able to\narticulate clearly what she only stammered forth.\n\nThe common mortal, he says, that manufacture of nature, which she\nproduces by the thousand every day, is not capable of observation that\nis wholly disinterested in every sense.  He can turn his attention to\nthings only so far as they have some relation to his will, however\nindirect it may be.  This is why he is so soon done with everything,\nwith works of art, objects of natural beauty, and everywhere with all\nthat is truly significant in the various scenes of life.  He does not\nlinger in the pursuit of beauty, but seeks only to gain his own way in\nlife.  On the consideration of the significance of life as a whole, he\nwastes no time.  The artist, on the other hand, strives to understand\nthe inner nature of everything.  His faculty of vision is to him the\nsum which reveals the world.\n\nIn spite of his contempt for the majority of men, Schopenhauer has to\nadmit that the faculty of perceiving the Idea, the inner reality, must\nexist in nearly all men, in a smaller and different degree, otherwise\nthey would be just as incapable of enjoying works of art as of\nproducing them.  They would have no susceptibility to beauty, nor to\nsublimity.  All men, therefore, who are capable of \u00e6sthetic pleasure at\nall, must be capable to some extent of knowing the Idea in things, and\nin responding to the call of beauty, of transcending their personality\nfor the moment.\n\n\u00c6sthetic pleasure is the same whether it is evoked by a work of art or\nby the contemplation of nature, for {57} the Idea remains unchanged and\nthe same.  The work of art is only a means of making permanent the\nvision in which this pleasure consists.  The artist does not add \"the\ngleam, the light that never was on sea or land,\" but his vision is more\nfinely attuned to the reality than that of ordinary men.  He makes\npermanent in the various media of art \"the consecration and the poet's\ndream.\"  His work acts as a communicating spark from mind to mind.\n\nIn one of Carlyle's most suggestive passages, he insists on the\nspiritual and symbolic nature of the work of art, in words that echo\ncuriously the thought of Schopenhauer.  \"In all true works of art,\" he\nsays, \"thou wilt discern eternity looking through time, the godlike\nrendered visible ... a hierarch therefore, and pontiff of the world\nwill we call him, the poet and inspired maker, who Prometheus-like can\nshape new symbols, and bring new fire from heaven to fix it there.\"\n\nThat the Idea, the true reality behind appearance, is revealed with so\nmuch more force and clearness in the productions of art than directly\nin nature is due to the power of the artist to abstract the pure Idea,\nthe reality, from the actual and the accidental, omitting all\ndisturbing, non-essential qualities.  He disentangles that which is\nreal and essential from the confused mass presented in experience.  The\nartist lets us see the real world through his eyes.  That he has these\neyes, that he knows the inner nature of things, apart from all their\nrelations, is the gift of genius.  This gift is inborn, and cannot be\nacquired.  But that the artist is able to lend us this gift, and let us\nsee through his eyes, is acquired.  This is the technical side of his\nart.\n\nPrimarily, then, the genius is the artist.  Scientific {58} genius\nfinds no place in Schopenhauer's scheme.  Statesmen are of very\ndifferent fibre.  Their intellect retains a practical tendency, and is\nconcerned with the choice of the best means to practical ends,\nremaining therefore in the service of the will.  The eminent man, who\nis fitted for great achievement in the practical sphere of life, is so\nbecause objects rouse his will in a strong degree, and spur him on to\nthe investigation of their relations.  His intellect, therefore, has\ngrown up in close connection with his will.\n\nTalent is limited to detecting the relations which exist between\nindividual phenomena, whereas genius rises to a vision of the universal\nin the individual.  The genius has a vision of another and a deeper\nworld, because he sees more profoundly into the world which lies before\nhim.  \"To compare useful people with men of genius is like comparing\nbuilding stone with diamonds.\"  Mere men of talent come always at the\nright time, for they are called forth by the needs of their own age.\nThe genius, on the other hand, comes into his age like a comet, whose\neccentric course is foreign to its well-regulated order.  Genius\nappears only as a perfectly isolated exception.\n\nSchopenhauer never states definitely that a philosopher may be a\ngenius, but he always seems to assume that he himself belongs to the\nheavenly company.  He gives a detailed description of the genius, even\nto his physical appearance.  With his usual habit of generalising from\nhis own particular case, he endows the genius with many of his own\npersonal characteristics, even to his dislike of mathematics.\n\nThe Platonic theory of Ideas was the basis on which Schopenhauer built\nhis philosophy of art.  But Plato's own theory of the function of art\ndiffered fundamentally {59} from that of Schopenhauer, and it is\ninteresting to compare the two views.  To Plato it seemed that art was\nconcerned with the imitation of things as they seem, not as they really\nare; with the objects of sense perception and not with the Ideas.  The\nartist mutates the illusory appearances of concrete things.\nConsequently the work of art is still further removed from true\nreality, from the Idea, than is the thing of experience.  It is a copy\nof a copy.  This led him to the statement that works of art are thrice\nremoved from the truth.  They can be produced easily without any\nknowledge of the truth, for they are concerned only with appearances,\nand not with the reality that lies behind appearances.  Hence Plato's\nrejection of art.  In his system it is not art, but philosophy that\ngives a direct revelation of truth.  Schopenhauer, on the other hand,\nmaintains that it is not the concrete object of experience, but the\nreality itself which lies behind that object, with which the artist is\nsupremely concerned.  The artist alone among men has the capacity of\nvision to see and grasp the truth of this reality.  Such capacity of\nvision is reserved by Plato for philosophers, those whom he calls\n\"lovers of the vision of truth.\"\n\nIn his earlier works, Plato approximates far more closely to\nSchopenhauer's theory.  He speaks there of the poet as \"a light and\nwinged and holy thing.  There is no invention in him until he has been\ninspired....  Beautiful poems are not human or the work of man, but\ndivine and the work of God.  The poets are only the interpreters of the\ngods, by whom they are severally possessed.\"\n\nThe value of art for Schopenhauer lies mainly in its power to deliver\nus from the slavery of the will.  In the quiet contemplation of beauty\nrevealed in art, we are {60} delivered from the misery of life.\nWilling, he maintains, arises from want, and therefore from suffering.\nThe satisfaction of a wish ends it, but every satisfied wish at once\nmakes room for a new one, and both are illusions.  No attained object\nof desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting\ngratification.  It is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps\nhim alive today, that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow.\n\nWithout peace no true well-being is possible.  But when some external\ncause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream\nof willing, and knowledge is delivered from the slavery of the will, we\nhave a vision of things free from this relation of the will.  We can\nobserve them without personal interest, without subjectivity.  Then,\nall at once, the peace which we are always seeking, but which always\nfled from us on the path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord,\nand it is well with us.  This is the painless state, which Epicurus\nprized as the highest good, and as the state of the gods.  We are then\nset free from the miserable striving of the will.  It is this\ndeliverance that art effects for us, and which is accomplished only by\nthe inner power of the artistic nature.  Art frees us from all\nsubjectivity, from the bondage of the will.  This freeing of knowledge\nlifts us out of all the misery of endless desire, as wholly and\nentirely as do sleep and dreams.  Happiness and unhappiness have\ndisappeared.  We are no longer individuals.  We are only that one eye\nof the world, which looks out from all knowing creatures, but which can\nbecome perfectly free from the service of the will in man alone.  Art\nprovides us with a sphere, in which we can escape from all our misery,\nand can attain to a state of temporary peace and painlessness.\n\n{61}\n\nThere is a curious affinity between the \u00e6sthetic theories of one of the\nmedi\u00e6val mystics and those of Schopenhauer.  St. Thomas Aquinas, the\ngreatest of the schoolmen, expounded views in the thirteenth century\nakin in many respects to those set forth by Schopenhauer at the\nbeginning of the nineteenth century.  Beauty, he held, is the\nrevelation of reason in sensuous shape, and he proceeds further to say\nthat in the realisation of beauty desire is quieted.\n\nArt is the most joy-giving and the only innocent side of life.  It is,\nsays Schopenhauer, in the full significance of the word, the flower of\nlife.  The pleasure which we receive from all beauty, the consolation\nwhich art affords, enables us to forget the cares of life.  This\npleasure consists in the contemplation of the Ideas, in the\ncontemplation of the inner truth of life, which reveals to us a drama\nfull of significance.  In entering into the state of pure\ncontemplation, our happiness lies in the sense of being lifted, for the\ntime being, above all willing, beyond all wishes and desires.  We\nbecome freed from ourselves.  These moments when, sunk in contemplation\nand enjoyment of the work of art, we are delivered from the ardent\nstriving of the will, when we seem to rise out of the heavy atmosphere\nof earth, these moments are the happiest which we ever know.\n\nThe arts themselves Schopenhauer arranges according to their\nsubject-matter rather than according to their medium.  He places them\nin very much the same order as that in which Hegel puts them.\nArchitecture, painting and sculpture, poetry and music are each\ndiscussed in turn.\n\n_Music_.--Music is the apex of his whole system of \u00e6sthetics.  It is\nplaced by itself, outside and above all the other arts.  For it is not,\nlike the other arts, a copy {62} of the Ideas, but it is the copy of\nthe will itself.  In the main Schopenhauer's treatment of music is\nmystical.  Hegel too gave to music the supreme position among the arts.\nIt was the central romantic art in his system, and the mysterious\nmagical enchantment of music is painted by him with glowing eloquence.\n\nThe effect of music, says Schopenhauer, on the inmost nature of man, is\npowerful beyond that of any of the other arts.  For that great and\nexceedingly noble art stands alone, quite apart from the other arts.\nIn it there is no copy or repetition of any Idea of existence in the\nworld.  It is understood by man in his inmost consciousness as a\nuniversal language, the distinctness of which surpasses that of the\nvisible world itself.  The basis of modern music lies in the numerical\nrelations which underlie sounds.  Arithmetical proportions enter into\nand have some part in the pleasure which we derive from music, as\nLeibnitz points out, but this does not account for that passionate\ndelight with which we hear the deepest recesses of our nature find\nexpression in sound.  If we take the \u00e6sthetic effect as a criterion, we\nmust attribute to music a far deeper and more vital significance than\nthat which lies at the basis of the other arts.  This is connected with\nthe inmost nature of man and the world.  Its representative relation to\nthe world must be very deep, absolutely true, and extraordinarily\naccurate, because it is understood immediately by everyone.  It has the\nappearance of a certain infallibility, because its form may be reduced\nto quite definite rules, expressed in numbers, from which it cannot\nfree itself without ceasing to be music.  The obscure relation of music\nto the world has never been made clear.\n\nIn order to explain this relation, Schopenhauer says {63} he gave his\nmind entirely to the impression of music in all its aspects, and then\nreturned to apply his reflections to his system of thought.  We know\nthat he had invaluable opportunities of studying music, in its various\nforms, during the time that he was working out his system at Dresden.\nHe himself practised daily the use of a musical instrument.  The result\nof his investigation is an explanation, which he admits is impossible\nof proof, because it regards music as the copy of an original, which\ncan never itself be presented directly as idea.  But he maintains that\nin order to assent with full conviction to his theory of the\nsignificance of this art, it is only necessary to listen frequently to\nmusic, testing the theory at the time, and reflecting constantly upon\nit.\n\nThe other arts represent the Ideas in the particular things, the\nrealities that lie behind the visible world, but music is independent\naltogether of the world of concrete things.  It ignores completely this\naspect of life.  It could to a certain extent exist even if there was\nno world at all.  Music, then, is not the copy of the Ideas, but the\ncopy of the Will itself.  That is why the effect of music is so much\nmore powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts, for they\nspeak only of shadows, but it speaks of the thing itself.\n\nBrowning relates music to the will in one of his best-known poems, when\nhe makes Abt Vogler say:\n\n  \"But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,\n  Existent behind all laws, that made them, and lo, they are!\n  And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,\n  That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.\"\n\n\nSchopenhauer, in working out the details of his theory, tries to\nestablish an analogy between music and {64} the Ideas of the visible\nworld, connecting the lower tones with the lowest grades of the\nobjectification of the will, those of inorganic nature, and leading up\ngradually through the intermediate grades until the higher tones are\nreached, representing the other end of the scale, the highest organic\nforms of life.  The melody, the high singing part, represents the\nintelligent life and effort of man, and progresses with unrestrained\nfreedom, while it dominates the whole.  This represents the unbroken,\nsignificant connection of one continuous thought.  The melody,\ntherefore, has significant intentional connection from beginning to\nend.  It records the history of the will enlightened by intellect.  In\nthe world of experience the will expresses itself in action.  But\nmelody does more, it expresses the inner side of the action, drawing\nout from the deeps its secret history, its motives and efforts, its\npassionate yearning and inner excitements, all that which the reason\nincludes in the concept of feeling.  For this reason music has been\ncalled the language of feeling and passion, as words are the language\nof the reason.  In melody there is a constant deviation from the\nkeynote in a thousand ways, yet there always follows a constant return\nto the keynote.  In all these digressions and deviations melody\nexpresses the manifold efforts of the will.  Its satisfaction is also\nexpressed by the final return to a harmonious interval, and to the\nkeynote.  In melody, therefore, the composer reveals all the deepest\nsecrets of human willing and feeling.\n\nHis work lies far from all reflection and conscious intention, and\nflows directly from inspiration.  The abstract conception is here, as\neverywhere in art, unfruitful.  The composer reveals the inner nature\nof the world, and expresses the deepest wisdom in a language {65} which\nhis reason does not understand.  In the same way, a person under the\ninfluence of mesmerism tells things of which he has no conception when\nhe wakes.  In the composer, more than in any other artist, the man is\nentirely separate and distinct from the artist.\n\nAs quick transition from wish to satisfaction is well-being, so quick\nmelodies are cheerful.  Slow melodies are analogous to the delayed and\nhardly-won satisfaction, and are sad.  Quick dance music seems to speak\nonly of easily attained and common pleasure.  Adagio movements speak of\nthe pain of a great and noble striving, which despises all trivial\nhappiness.\n\nThe effect of the major and the minor key is equally marked.  In\ngeneral, music consists of a constant succession of more or less\ndisquieting chords, chords which excite \"immortal longings,\" and also\nof more or less quieting and satisfying chords, just as the life of the\nheart is a constant succession of feelings of disquietude and of peace,\nfollowing desire and satisfaction.  Just as there are two general\nfundamental moods of the feelings, serenity and sadness, so music has\ntwo keys, which correspond to these, the major and the minor.  Since\nmusic is founded deeply in the nature of man, the dominant national\nmood is reproduced invariably in a country's music.  We find\naccordingly that the minor key prevails in Russian music, while allegro\nin the minor is characteristic of French music, \"as if one danced while\none's shoe pinched.\"\n\nBut in all these analogies music has no direct, but only an indirect\nrelation to them.  It does not express particular and definite joys,\nsorrows, pains, or horrors, but joy, sorrow, pain, or horror itself,\nthe real, inner nature of each emotion.  It is the essential character\nof these emotions that is represented, without disturbing {66}\naccessories.  Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its\nevents, never the events themselves.  This inner meaning of life, the\neternal truth of things, is felt and understood immediately when we\nlisten to great music.  \"All things eternal,\" wrote Wagner, \"can be\nexpressed with unmistakable certainty in music.\"  And in another\npassage, he says, \"Music can never and in no possible alliance cease to\nbe the highest, the redeeming art.  It is of her nature, that what all\nthe other arts but hint at, through her and in her becomes the most\nindubitable of certainties, the most direct and definite of truths.\"\n\nIt is for this reason that our imagination is excited so easily by\nmusic, and that we seek to give it form by clothing it with words.\nThis is the origin of opera and songs.\n\nWagner built up a whole theory of music, based on the philosophy of\nSchopenhauer.  But in their views on opera they differed fundamentally.\nThe text of opera, says Schopenhauer, should never forsake a\nsubordinate position.  The music should never become a mere means of\nexpressing the words.  That is a great misconception of the function of\nmusic, for music should always be universal.  It is just its\nuniversality, which belongs exclusively to it, that gives music its\nhigh worth as \"the panacea for all our woes.\"  If music is too closely\nunited to the words, and tries to express itself according to outward\nevents, it is striving to speak a language which is not its own.\nSchopenhauer mentions Rossini as the composer who is most free from\nthis mistake.  His music speaks so clearly that it requires no words to\nexplain it.\n\nNature and music, then, are merely two different expressions of the\nsame thing.  Music is a universal {67} language, expressing the inner\nnature of the world.  It resembles geometrical figures and numbers.\nThey are the universal forms of all possible objects of experience, and\nyet are not abstract, but concrete and determined.  All that goes on in\nthe heart of man, and that is included in the concept of feeling, may\nbe expressed by an infinite number of possible melodies, but always\nuniversally.  Music represents the inmost soul of the event, without\nthe body.  We might therefore just as well call the world embodied\nmusic as embodied will.  For this reason music makes every scene of\nreal life, and of the world, more profoundly significant.  It lays bare\nthe inmost kernel which lies hidden in the heart of all things.  It\npenetrates to the very heart of nature.  The ineffable joy which we\nderive from music, which haunts our consciousness as the vision of a\ndistant paradise, restores to us all the emotions of our inmost nature,\nbut divested entirely of the sting of actuality, and far removed from\nits pain.\n\nIt is interesting to compare the view of Schopenhauer, that music is a\ncopy of the will itself, with the theory of Plato and Aristotle, which\nmaintained that music is a direct reflection of character.  The modern\nart of music was not developed in their day, and yet both these\nphilosophers seem to have had prophetic insight in understanding the\nnature of the marvellous spell and power of sound.  Music to them was\nan imitation, a copy of character, and as such of profound importance\nin education.  Music reflects character, and therefore moulds and\ninfluences it.  The foundations of character, says Plato, are laid in\nmusic, which charms the souls of the young into the path of virtue.\nRhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul,\nmaking the soul harmonious and graceful.  {68} \"If our youth are to do\ntheir work in life, they must make harmony their perpetual aim,\" and\nthe soul can only be reached and educated in this way through music.\n\nIt is Schopenhauer's theory of music which has influenced most directly\nthe world of art.  It was hailed by Wagner as a revelation, and it\ndetermined his musical development and all his \u00e6sthetic theories.\nThrough Wagner it may be said to have revolutionised much of modern\nmusic.  After reading _The World as Will and Idea_, Wagner wrote, \"I\nmust confess to having arrived at a clear understanding of my own works\nof art through the help of another, who has provided me with the\nreasoned conceptions corresponding to my intuitive principles.\"  This\nphilosophy contained, he said, the intellectual demonstration of the\nconflict of human forces, which he himself had demonstrated\nartistically.\n\n_Architecture_.--In Schopenhauer's arrangement of the arts, music, as\nwe have seen, occupies the supreme place, being the highest expression\nin art which man can achieve.  At the other end of the scale stands\narchitecture.  Its aim is to bring to greater distinctness some of the\nideas which represent the lowest grades of the will, such as gravity,\ncohesion, rigidity, and hardness.  These are the universal qualities of\nstone, and the simplest, most inarticulate manifestations of will.\nThey may be called the bass notes of nature.  The conflict between\ngravity and rigidity is the sole \u00e6sthetic material of architecture.\nIts problem is to make this conflict appear distinctly in a multitude\nof different ways.  The beauty of a building lies in the obvious\nadaptation of every part to the stability of the whole.  The position,\nsize, and form of every part must be so {69} related to the whole, that\nit forms a necessary and inevitable part of an organic unity.  Each\narch, column, and capital must be determined by its relation to the\nwhole building.\n\nIt is the function of architecture to reveal also the nature of light.\nFor the light is intercepted, confined, and reflected by the mass of\nthe building.  It is thrown into high relief by the receding forms,\nwhich supply the contrasting depths of shade.  It thus unfolds its\nnature and qualities in the clearest and most definite way.  It is not\nmerely form and symmetry which appeal to us in architecture, but\nprimarily the fundamental forces of nature, the simplest qualities of\nmatter.  The quality of the material, therefore, is of great\nimportance.  The fundamental law of architecture is that no burden\nshall be without sufficient support, and no support without a suitable\nburden.  The purest example of this principle is the column and\nentablature.  In separating completely the support and burden in the\ncolumn and entablature, the reciprocal action of the two and their\nrelation to each other become perfectly clear.  For this reason the\nsimplest building in Italy gives \u00e6sthetic pleasure, due to the flatness\nof the roof.  A high roof is neither support nor burden, for its two\nhalves support each other.  It serves merely a useful end, presenting\nto the eye an extended mass, which is wholly alien to the \u00e6sthetic\nsense.  Architecture requires large masses, in order to be felt\nadequately, and it must work out its own character under the law of the\nmost perfect clearness to the eye.  It exists in space-perception, and\nmust make a direct and inevitable appeal to the \u00e6sthetic sense.  This\ndemands symmetry, which is necessary to mark out the work as a whole.\nIt is only through symmetry that a work of architecture reveals itself\nas {70} an organic unity and as the development of a central thought.\nArchitecture ought not to imitate the forms of nature, and yet it\nshould work in the spirit of nature.  It should reveal the end in view\nquite openly, and should avoid everything which is merely aimless.\nThus it achieves the grace which is the result of ease, and the\nsubordination of every detail to its purpose.\n\nIt follows from Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture that he held\nGreek work of the best period to be the highest type of building which\nit is possible to attain.  In its best examples that style is perfect\nand complete, and is not susceptible of any important improvement.  The\nmodern architect, he held, cannot depart, to any great extent, from the\nrules and models of the Greeks, without descending the path of\ndeterioration.  There remains nothing for him to do but to apply the\nart transmitted to him, and to carry out the rules laid down, so far as\nhe is able under the limitations of climate, age, and country.\n\nSchopenhauer, therefore, had no appreciation of Gothic architecture.\nThe simple rationality of the Greek temple delights him, but the Gothic\ncathedral leaves him cold and unmoved.  He makes the na\u00efve admission,\nthat approval of Gothic architecture would upset all his theories of\nthe \u00e6sthetic significance of architecture.  To compare the two is, he\nsays, a barbarous presumption, although he allows, somewhat grudgingly,\nthat a certain beauty of its own cannot be denied to the Gothic style.\nOur pleasure in it, however, is to be traced mainly to the association\nof ideas, and to historical memories.  That pure rationality by which\nevery part admits instantly of strict account in its subordination to\nthe plan as a whole, is not to be found in Gothic work.  Greek\narchitecture is conceived in a {71} purely objective spirit, whereas\nGothic is rather subjective in spirit.  But Schopenhauer cannot reason\naway entirely the impression created by the Gothic interior.  That, he\nadmits, is the finest part of the whole, and it is here that the mind\nis impressed by the effect of the groined vaulting, borne by slender,\naspiring pillars, soaring upwards.  All burden seems to have\ndisappeared, promising eternal security.  Most of the faults, however,\nappear upon the exterior, whereas in Greek buildings the exterior is\nthe finer; in the interior the flat roof retains something depressing\nand prosaic.\n\nOf the ideals and aspirations which the great builders of the Middle\nAges so wonderfully transmuted into stone, Schopenhauer has nothing to\ntell us.  The men \"who sang their souls in stone\" were for him\npre-eminently the builders of Greek temples.\n\nIn his insistence on the open display of the relation between burden\nand support, and also on the importance of bringing out the qualities\nof the material, Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture recalls many\npassages in Ruskin, in which he insists repeatedly, that both truth and\nfeeling require that the conditions of support should be clearly\nunderstood, and that the quality of the material must find expression.\n\nThe analogy of architecture to music is one of the most characteristic\nand suggestive portions of Schopenhauer's \u00e6sthetic.  He emphasises the\ngreat difference between the two arts, pointing out that according to\ntheir inner nature, in their potency, extent, and significance they are\nindeed true antipodes.  Architecture exists in space, unrelated to\ntime, whereas music is in time alone, having no relation to space.  But\nthe principle which gives coherency to architecture is symmetry, that\nwhich gives coherency to music is rhythm.  The {72} close relationship\nbetween these two principles is obvious.  It is this resemblance which\nhas led to the saying that architecture is \"frozen music,\" which\nSchopenhauer quotes from Goethe.\n\nThis relation between the two arts, however, extends only to the\noutward form.  In their inner nature they are entirely different.  In\nessential qualities, Schopenhauer maintains, architecture is the most\nlimited and the weakest of all the arts, whereas music is the most\nfar-reaching, and possesses the deepest significance.\n\n_Painting and Sculpture_.--Filling an intermediate position between\narchitecture and music come painting and sculpture.  These arts\nrepresent more complex grades of the will than architecture, and\ntherefore convey the truth of life with deeper insight.  They too are\nconcerned with the Ideas, and symbolise the inner reality of outward\nthings and events.  Lowest in the scale of the various kinds of\npainting come the painting of landscape and of still life, in which the\nsubjective side of \u00e6sthetic pleasure is predominant.  Our satisfaction\nconsists less in the vision and comprehension of the Ideas than in the\nstate of mind aroused.  We receive a reflected sense of the deep\nspiritual peace and absolute silence of the will, which are necessary\nin order to enter so completely into the character of these lifeless\nobjects.  It would be impossible to bring the modern art of landscape\npainting, with its revolt against a purely objective representation of\nnature, into line with this analysis of Schopenhauer's.\n\nNext in the scale comes the painting and sculpture of animals, and then\nfollows the plastic representation of the human form.  The artist\nexpresses in marble or paint that beauty of form which nature has\nfailed to complete, and which has to be disentangled from the {73}\nobscuring cloud of trivial and accidental details.  In virtue of this\nanticipation through art, it is possible for us to recognise beauty\nwhen nature by a rare chance does achieve a masterpiece.  Human beauty\nis the fullest objectification of the will at the highest grade which\nis known.  It is expressed through form.  In sculpture, beauty and\ngrace are the principal qualities.  The special character of the mind,\nrepresented by expression, is the peculiar sphere of painting.\nHistorical painting aims at beauty, grace, and character.  The inward\nsignificance of an action, which is the depth of insight into the Idea\nwhich it reveals, must be brought to light.  Only the inward\nsignificance concerns art, the outward belongs to history.  The\ncountless scenes and events which make up the life of men are important\nenough to be the object of art, for by their rich variety they unfold\nthe many-sided Idea of humanity.\n\nNo event of human life is excluded from painting.  The painters of the\nDutch school, for example, are great artists, not only in virtue of\ntheir technical skill, but because they have seized the inner\nsignificance of the things and actions they have depicted.  They have\nreal depth of insight into reality.  What is peculiarly significant is\nnot the individual, nor the particular event, but that which is\nuniversal in the individual.\n\nSchopenhauer held that the highest achievements of the art of painting\nwere reached by the Italian painters of the early Renaissance,\nespecially by Raphael and Correggio.  We see in them, says\nSchopenhauer, a complete grasp of the Ideas, and thus the whole nature\nof life and the world.  In them we find the spirit of complete\nresignation, which is the inmost spirit of early Christianity, as well\nas of Indian philosophy.  There {74} are portrayed the surrender of all\nvolition, the suppression of the will.  In this way these great artists\nexpressed the highest wisdom, which is the summit of all art.\n\n_Poetry_.--Poetry too represents the ideal in individual creations.\nIts aim, like the other arts, is the revelation of the Ideas.  The poet\nmust understand how to draw the abstract and universal out of the\nconcrete and individual, by the manner in which he combines them.  The\nuniversality of every concept must be narrowed more and more, until we\nreach the concrete image, for the poet must express the universal in\nconcrete form.  The whole of nature can be represented in the medium of\npoetry.  The extent of its province is boundless.  Thoughts and\nemotions, however, are its peculiar province, and here no other art can\ncompete with it.  That which has significance in itself, and not in its\nrelations, the real unfolding of the Idea, is found definitely and\ndistinctly in poetry.  More genuine inner truth is to be found in\npoetry than in history.  The poet's knowledge is intuitive, and by its\nmeans he shows us in the mirror of his mind the Idea, pure and\ndistinct, bringing to the consciousness of others that which they feel\nand do.  In the epic, the poem of romance, and the tragedy, selected\ncharacters are placed in those circumstances in which all their special\nqualities unfold themselves, and the depths of the human heart are\nrevealed, and become visible in significant actions.\n\nTragedy is the summit of poetic art.  Here the unspeakable pain, the\nwail of humanity, the triumph of evil, the mastery of chance is\nunfolded before us.  It is one and the same will that appears\nthroughout.  Knowledge reaches the point at which it is no longer\ndeceived by the veil of M\u00e2y\u00e2, the web of illusion.  Thus the noblest\nmen, after long conflict and suffering, at last renounce for ever the\nends they have so eagerly pursued.  {75} The heroes and heroines of\ntragedy die, purified by suffering, after the will to live is dead.\nThe true import of tragedy is that the hero expiates, not his own\nindividual sins, but the crime of existence itself.  Tragedy, then,\npresents the highest grade of the objectification of the will, in\nconflict with itself, on a scale of grandeur and awful impressiveness.\nThe greatest poetry is symbolic in this deepest sense.\n\nGoethe may be considered one of the greatest symbolists among poets.\nEvery event in life was symbolic for him.  It expressed something more\nuniversal, more extensive, more profound.  The concrete image, the\nwhole full-blooded individual was always clearly before his mind, but\nbeyond that he saw and realised something more universal, from which it\nnecessarily and inevitably springs.  He saw that the truth of nature\ndoes not lie on the surface, but in a deeper unity, which the\npenetrative insight of the artist alone can grasp.\n\nIn the system of Schopenhauer, then, art acquires almost the character\nof a religion.  It becomes the means by which the ultimate essence, the\nsoul of whatever exists, is disengaged from the world of matter.  And\n\"in this dutiful waiting upon every symbol, by which the soul of things\ncan be made visible, art at last attains liberty.  In speaking to us so\nintimately, so solemnly, as only religion had hitherto spoken to us, it\nbecomes itself a kind of religion, with all the duties and\nresponsibilities of the sacred ritual.\"\n\nThere is a deep significance in the historical fact, that the birth of\nreligion is interwoven invariably with that of the origin of art.\nAristotle connects closely the rise of various forms of poetry with\nreligious celebrations.  Art and religion were born simultaneously, and\nhave always been closely related in the history of mankind.\n\n\n\n\n{76}\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nVIRTUE\n\nArt, which Schopenhauer calls \"the flower of life,\" enables us to\nforget the cares and sufferings of life.  The consolation which we\nderive from beauty repays us for the miseries and terrors of existence.\nThe contemplation of beauty brings us deliverance from the deceptions\nand illusions of life, and gives us a pure, true, and deep knowledge of\nthe inner nature of the world.  It acts as a quieter of the will, and\nsuch quiet contemplation of beauty is the nearest approach to pure\nsatisfaction that we can achieve.  This deliverance, however, is not a\npath out of life, but only a consolation in life.  We must seek the\nhighest solution in proceeding farther in the same direction.  In his\ntheories on ethics and religion, Schopenhauer points the way to a\npermanent escape from life.\n\nTrue morality is summed up in self-surrender, in the denial of the will\nto live.  There are two stages in this progress of morality.  The first\nand lower is that attained in the perfecting of the good disposition.\nThis is ordinary virtue, which is rooted in love and sympathy, and\nwhich rests on the recognition of the real identity of any one\nindividual with all other individuals.  The second and higher stage is\nthat of holiness, and is attained only through asceticism, through the\ncomplete self-surrender which turns away from all the pleasures {77} of\nlife, and represses even the natural instincts.  Man lays hold on that\nwhich is real through complete resignation and surrender of the will.\nOnly then is the veil of M\u00e2y\u00e2, the illusion of life, torn asunder, and\nis it possible for man to be told the vision of truth.  This is the way\nof virtue.  It cannot be taught any more than genius can be taught.\nSystems of ethics can produce virtuous and holy men no more than\n\u00e6sthetics can produce great poets or musicians.\n\nIn working out his ethical system, Schopenhauer was deeply influenced\nby ancient Indian philosophy.  The complete release from the slavery of\nthe will is only to be found, in his view, in the asceticism which is\nthe fundamental principle of Buddhism and of early Christianity.  The\ndisposition of mind, which alone leads to true holiness and to\ndeliverance from the world of desire, finds expression in renunciation.\n\nSchopenhauer expands his philosophy of art at far greater length than\nhe does his ethical system, and seems at times to attach more\nsignificance to it.  But in his final view it is only through virtue\nand holiness that man attains to the gate of heaven.\n\nIt follows from his philosophy of the will that human action has a\nsignificance far transcending all the possibilities of experience.\nHuman action exceeds in importance all other things in the world.  The\nsanest philosophers, he held, have been those who have played an active\npart in life, and who have not devoted themselves merely to abstract\nthought.  It is not the highest function of man to think and to\nunderstand, but to feel and to live.  In short, understanding itself is\nattained only through life.  For reality is greater than our knowledge\nof it.  Knowledge itself is a poor thing at best, an indirect way of\nseizing hold of reality.  We must {78} understand things by a deeper\nknowledge than that of the intellect.  We must exchange head knowledge\nfor heart knowledge.  For head knowledge is concerned only with that\npart of reality which rises above the threshold of consciousness.  Our\ntotal sense of reality is broader and deeper than a merely intellectual\nknowledge.  It includes the subconscious depths of our personality,\nmaking up a whole which is far richer in content than that mere surface\nlife which we know in consciousness.\n\nThis insistence on the importance of intuitive knowledge is closely\nconnected with Schopenhauer's treatment of instinct.  He is supremely\ninterested in instinct, finding in it a positive quality, which plays\nfrequently a more important part than the knowledge of the\nunderstanding or the reason.  The one kind of knowledge is set\nconstantly against the other in his system.  His treatment of the whole\nsubject is of deep significance in his philosophy.\n\nThe typical case in which instinct is most highly developed is that of\nanimals.  They strive definitely towards an end, though this end is\nunknown to them.  In all the instinctive actions of animals, the will\nis clearly as operative as in their other actions, but it is in blind\nactivity.  In inorganic and vegetable nature the will acts as blind\nimpulse, and so with infallible certainty.  Animals are exposed already\nto illusion and deception, but in their case instinct comes to their\nassistance.  Though guided by no motive or knowledge, they yet have the\nappearance of performing their work from rational motives.  They work\nwith the greatest precision and definiteness towards an end which they\ndo not know.  In man also the will is in many ways only blindly active.\nThough a tendency of the will, instinct {79} does not act entirely from\nwithin.  It waits for some external circumstance for its action.\nInstinct gives the universal, the rule; intellect gives the particular,\nthe application.  Instinct seems always to be in accordance with the\nconception of an end, and yet is entirely without such an end.\nSchopenhauer also connects instinct with clairvoyance and dreams.  In\nhis own life he attached especial importance to dreams, and on several\ncritical occasions regulated his actions in accordance with them.  With\nhis treatment of instinct is bound up also his theory of sexual love.\nThe lover is deluded in thinking that he aims at his own happiness.\nThe will to live is forcing him, for nature's own purposes, to aim at a\ncertain typical beauty, which has its end in the perfection of the\noffspring.  The more perfectly two individuals are adapted to each\nother, the stronger will be their mutual passion.  Nature is striving\nfor a better realisation of the type, and to attain its ends must\nimplant a certain illusion in the individual.  That which is good only\nfor the species appears to him as good for himself.  He serves the\nspecies in imagining that he is serving himself.  This illusion is\ninstinct.  The individual is but a helpless tool carrying out blindly\nthe designs of nature.\n\nAn instinctive character belongs also to the highest functions of human\nlife, as in art and virtue.  Wisdom proper, says Schopenhauer, is\nsomething intuitive, and not something pertaining to the intellect.  It\ndoes not consist in principles and thoughts, which are carried about\nready in the mind, as the result of research, but it is the whole\nmanner in which the world presents itself intuitively to the mind.  In\nreal life the scholar is far surpassed by the man of the world, for the\nstrength of the latter consists in perfect intuitive knowledge.  The\n{80} true view of life proceeds from the way in which the world is\nknown and understood, not from abstract knowledge.  The heart of all\nknowledge is intuition.  Upon this depends the infinite superiority of\ngenius to learning and scholarship.  They stand to each other as the\ntext of a classic to its commentary.  It was this emphasis, which\nSchopenhauer laid on the instinctive and impulsive side in man, rather\nthan on the conscious and deliberate, which led him to the view that\nman is a creature controlled and dominated by his instincts, and\ntherefore a mere puppet in the hands of nature.\n\nThis aspect of Schopenhauer's system acquires a special importance,\nwhen compared with much of the most modern philosophy.  There are\ninteresting points of contact with the views of M. Bergson, who\nmaintains that in the intuition of life we see reality as it is.\n\nThe intellect is merely a tool in the service of the will.  Since\nphilosophy must express the real nature of life, we are driven to seek\nreality through that which is felt.  Since the time of Socrates,\nSchopenhauer maintained, philosophy has made a systematic misuse of\ngeneral conceptions.  We have an immediate experience of the will, and\ntherefore we may be said to have an immediate knowledge of the nature\nof reality.  One of the most valuable contributions which Schopenhauer\nmade to the history of thought, was his insistence on the view that\nphilosophy must be brought back to the recognition of the richness of\nan immediate and direct knowledge of reality.  It must learn that the\nmeaning of things is to be realised more by living than by thinking.\nThe philosopher, therefore, must be before all things \"a real man,\" a\nguide to fine living.  Schopenhauer brought philosophy into relation\nwith life, he drew it down from the icy heights, where {81} abstract\nconceptions alone can flourish, to the sunny plains below, where art,\nwith \"a spark of the divine fire,\" warms and lightens the ways of man.\nThe intuitive insight of the genius, which divines the truth through\nart, is a far higher form of knowledge than that of the abstract\nthinker.\n\nIt is suggestive to compare with this the view of Pater, that\n\"philosophy serves culture, not by the fancied gift of absolute or\ntranscendental knowledge, but by suggesting questions which help one to\ndetect the passion, and strangeness, and dramatic contrasts of life.\"\n\nThere is much significance in Schopenhauer's exaltation of intuition\nover reason.  Philosophy has always tended to make too much of reason.\nAnd in spite of many crudities in his psychology, Schopenhauer's\ntreatment of the subject contains much of the greatest value.  In\nemphasising the part played in the mental life by instinct, habit, and\nimpulse, he anticipated much that has since been confirmed in the\nmodern science of psychology.\n\nKant maintained that the only absolutely good thing in the world is the\ngood will, and Schopenhauer practically accepts this dictum.  Right\naction springs from the will, and not from the intellect, for the true\nnature of man lies in his will.  The problem of ethics for Schopenhauer\nis how the will is to be made good.  His treatment of the problem leads\nhim beyond a system of ethics to a philosophy of religion.\n\nVirtue to Socrates was a knowledge of the good; but no amount of mere\nknowledge of the good can make the will good, and therefore\nSchopenhauer maintained that Socrates had done next to nothing in\nethics.  The real solution of the problem of moral obligation {82} lies\nin sympathy.  It is through sympathy that man is able to attain virtue.\nGoodness of disposition shows itself as pure disinterested love towards\nothers.  And when such love becomes perfect it places the fate of other\nindividuals on a level with itself and its own fate.  The character\nwhich has thus attained the highest goodness and nobility will\nsacrifice its own interests, and even its life, for the well-being of\nothers.  Great heroes in all ages have laid down their lives for their\ncountry or their friends.  Others have submitted voluntarily to death\nor torture for the sake of truths or principles which they held dear.\nSocrates and Giordano Bruno, and many another hero, have suffered death\nrather than deny what they held to be true.  Such heights are reached\nonly by rare natures among men.  But all the intermediate stages of\ngoodness spring from the same root of sympathy.  Pure love is in its\nnature sympathy.\n\nSchopenhauer is here in direct contradiction to Kant, who recognised\ngoodness and virtue only when they spring from abstract reflection,\nfrom the conception of duty, and who explained sympathy as weakness.\nOn the contrary, says Schopenhauer, the mere concept is as unfruitful\nfor virtue as it is for art.  All true and pure love is sympathy, and\nall love which is not sympathy is selfishness.  Many of our sentiments\nare a combination of the two.  Friendship is always, he says, a mixture\nof selfishness and sympathy.  The selfishness lies in the pleasure\nwhich we experience in the presence of a friend, the sympathy in the\nparticipation in his joy or grief, and the sacrifices we make for his\nsake.\n\nGenuine virtue springs from the knowledge, which we have through\nintuition, that other individuals are {83} of the same nature as\nourselves.  The source of morality is this inward principle of\nsolidarity between individual and individual.  This sense of\nbrotherhood, which pervades the whole of humanity, is the real and\nvital fact which makes the whole world kin.  Transcending the spirit of\negoism, which is fostered by the actual conditions of life, there\nsprings the spirit of altruism, which strives to subordinate the good\nof the individual to the good of the whole community, and prompts the\nindividual to self-denial and unselfishness.\n\nIn dealing with men, we should never, he says, take into consideration\ntheir interested motives, their limited intellectual capacity, nor\ntheir wrong-headedness, but we should think only of their sufferings,\ntheir needs, their anxieties and their misery.  Only in this way can we\nfeel ourselves akin, and so enter into sympathy with others, that we\nexperience a fellow-feeling and a desire to help them in their need.\nThe two fundamental attitudes of mind, in which the virtues and vices\nof men are rooted, are envy and sympathy.  Each man bears within\nhimself these two diametrically opposite characteristics.  One or the\nother quality becomes the fundamental attitude of mind and the basis of\naction according to the character of the individual.  Envy builds up a\nstrong, impregnable wall between each man and his neighbour, isolating\nthe individual in his crust of misanthropy, which grows daily harder\nand denser.  Sympathy, on the other hand, breaks down the barriers\nbetween man and man.  The sense of division grows thin and transparent,\nuntil the individual feels himself a part of an organic whole, deriving\nhis sole usefulness and justification only in so far as he subordinates\nhis own personal ends to the common good.\n\nSchopenhauer's use of the factor of sympathy in {84} explaining\nmorality, differs considerably from that of the English philosophers of\nthe eighteenth century, in whose systems of ethics sympathy played a\nlarge part.  The sympathy, which Hume presupposes as \"a principle in\nhuman nature, beyond which we cannot hope to find any principle more\ngeneral,\" is sympathy with the pleasure resulting from the effects of\nvirtuous action.\n\nAdam Smith, who also regarded sympathy as the ultimate element into\nwhich moral sentiments may be analysed, approached more nearly to the\nposition of Schopenhauer.  Morality arises in its simplest form from\ndirect sympathy or \"fellow-feeling\" with the passions of others, which\na spectator feels from imagining himself in their situation.  It is of\ntwo kinds, and moves the spectator to enter into the sentiments of the\nperson concerned, and also moves the person concerned \"to bring down\nhis emotions to what the spectator can go along with.\"  It is a power\nwhich enables us to take a disinterested view of our own conduct by\nputting ourselves in another's position.\n\nIn Schopenhauer's view sympathy is a positive principle of conduct.  It\nis based upon the recognition of the identity of all living beings.  It\nalone makes moral conduct possible, and moves us to feel and act\ntowards others as to ourselves.\n\nSo far Schopenhauer has described the first stage in the progress of\nmorality, that which is attained in ordinary virtue.  The higher stage,\nthat which he calls holiness, is attained through asceticism, the\ndenial of the will to live.  On the path of virtue man has learned to\nmake no distinction between his own person and that of others, to take\nas much interest in the sufferings of others as in his own.  He is even\nready to sacrifice his own individuality, whenever such sacrifice will\n{85} benefit humanity.  It is no longer the changing joy and sorrow of\nhis own personality which concerns him, but the joy and sorrow of all.\nHe attains to a vision of the real nature of life, and realises the\nvain striving, the inward conflict, and incessant suffering in which it\nconsists.  And with this knowledge he finds it impossible to assert the\negoistic desires of his own nature.  His will turns away from life.  He\nshudders at the pleasures which recognise the assertion of life.  He\nattains to the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, and\nindifference.\n\nThe attainment of this goal is the hardest end of all to achieve.  Only\nthe saint, the perfect man, ever attains it completely and finally.\nWeaker and less perfect natures are ever drawn back to life by the\nsting of the desires, for the veil of M\u00e2y\u00e2, the mist of illusion, still\nclings about their feet.  The vanity and bitterness of life still holds\nthem, although the entrance to all suffering stands open while they are\nnot yet purified by complete and final renunciation.  They cannot tear\nthemselves free from the illusions of life, from the allurements of\nhope, and the sweetness of pleasure.  Those who see through the\ndeceptions of life, and recognise the real nature of the world, are\nalready on the way to consolation.  They withdraw from the struggle of\nlife, and no longer wish to assert their own individuality.  The\nloftiest goodness means refraining from all willing.\n\nThis is the transition from virtue to asceticism.  A man who has\nreached so far ceases to will anything, he guards himself against\ndesire, and strives to attain complete indifference to everything.  He\ngives the lie to his own body, and no longer desires any gratification.\nVoluntary and complete chastity and poverty are {86} necessary steps in\nthis asceticism.  Man is at once the priest and the sacrifice.  Every\nkind of volition is suppressed intentionally.  The body is nourished\nsparingly, lest its vigour and well-being should arouse the will.\nEvery step is taken to break and destroy the will, which is recognised\nas the source of all suffering.  Death when it comes at last is\nwelcomed as a longed-for deliverance, and hailed with gladness.\n\nIn this picture of the life of holiness and asceticism Schopenhauer\nshows the strong influence which Indian philosophy had exercised upon\nhis thought.  This is the ideal life, the life of the saint, as\nportrayed by the early Christian mystics, and in the Indian religious\nbooks.\n\nVirtue and holiness proceed from inward, direct and intuitive\nknowledge, and not from abstract knowledge, as so many earlier\nphilosophers asserted.  The chasm between the two kinds of knowledge\ncan be bridged only by philosophy.  Everyone is conscious intuitively\nof philosophical truths, but philosophy is necessary to bring them to\nabstract knowledge and reflection.  Hence Schopenhauer is at enmity\nwith all rational religion.  For religion has to do primarily not with\nthe intellect, but with the will and the feelings.  He felt this so\ndeeply that he left the rational element almost entirely out of his\ndefinition of virtue.  We learn the meaning of virtue, in his view,\nthrough the sympathy, which makes us feel intuitively the underlying\nidentity in the lives of other beings with our own life.  It is\npossible to express abstractly the inner nature of holiness and\nasceticism as the denial of the will to live, but this abstract theory\nhas been known directly, and carried into practice by countless saints\nand ascetics, who all possessed the same inward knowledge, though they\nused very different language with regard to it, {87} according to their\ndogmas.  Whether a saint is moved by the grossest superstition, or\nwhether he be a philosopher, makes no difference.  His conduct\ntestifies to his saintliness, and this proceeds from an intuitive and\ndirect realisation of the nature of the world.  The dogmas he holds are\nmerely for the satisfaction of his intellect.  It is therefore not\nnecessary that a saint should be a philosopher, just as it is not\nnecessary that a great sculptor should be himself a beautiful man.\n\nThe use of philosophy is to gather up the whole nature of the world in\nconcepts, abstractly and universally, and thus to store up \"a reflected\nimage of it in permanent concepts always at the command of reason.\"\nIntuitive knowledge, on the other hand, is expressed most perfectly in\ndeeds and conduct, not in abstract conceptions.  To understand it\nfully, therefore, we must know examples in experience and actual life.\nA mere description of a beautiful soul is cold and abstract.\nSchopenhauer refers as models to the biographies of the early Christian\nand of the Buddhist saints, and in later times to the biography of\nSpinoza.  He holds up with especial admiration the life of St. Francis\nof Assisi.  These records of the lives of simple, self-denying men,\nmixed as they are with superstition, are for the philosopher far more\nsignificant and important than the lives of the great fighters and\nconquerors of the world.  The life of St. Francis is of greater import\nthan that of Alexander the Great.  It is the ethical aspect of action\nwhich is important, and therefore the most significant life which the\nworld can show is not the conqueror of the world, but he who has in\nhimself subdued the world.  It is the quiet, unobserved life of the man\nwho has learned to deny the will to live that is most profoundly\ninstructive.\n\n{88}\n\nThis ethical teaching is no new thing.  It is only the philosophical\nexpression of it which is new.  As Christianity developed, the seed of\nasceticism unfolded into full flower in the writings of the saints and\nmystics.  Even more fully developed and more vividly expressed is this\nteaching in the ancient Indian writings.  In the Indian sacred books,\nin their poems, myths, and legends, and in the lives of their saints,\nthe love of one's neighbour is taught, and the complete surrender of\nself enjoined.  Such love is not confined to humanity, but includes all\nliving creatures.  The path of asceticism is marked as the ideal way\nfor all who strive after true holiness.  There is wonderful harmony\nbetween the life of a Christian mystic and that of a Hindu saint.  In\neach case the inward life and effort is the same.  The rule of life\nenjoined on both shows striking resemblances.  The renunciation of all\npossessions, the choice of deep, unbroken solitude, which is spent in\nsilent contemplation, perfect chastity, and voluntary penance, is the\nteaching of Christian and Hindu alike.  In such rare similarity of\nteaching, followed by races differing so radically in outward\ncircumstances, Schopenhauer finds proof that this manifestation has its\nroot in the nature of man, and appeals to an essential side of human,\nnature.\n\nIn his treatment of art, Schopenhauer points out how happiness is\nachieved in the contemplation of beauty.  In his treatment of ethics he\nshows how permanent happiness may be attained.  It is the man alone who\nfollows the path of renunciation, and who succeeds in denying the will\nto live, who attains perfect happiness.  He is filled with inward joy\nand peace.  This joy is in no way akin to the passionate delight\nexperienced by those who love life.  That is a fleeting emotion, which\nhas keen suffering as its correlative.  But \"it is a {89} peace that\ncannot be shaken, a deep rest and inward serenity, a state which we\ncannot contemplate without the greatest longing, when it is brought\nbefore our imagination, because we at once recognise it as that which\ninfinitely surpasses anything else.  Then we feel that every\ngratification won from the world is merely like the alms which the\nbeggar receives from life to-day, that he may hunger again on the\nmorrow.  Resignation, on the other hand, is like an inherited estate,\nit frees the owner for ever from all care.\"  He who can enter into the\nspirit of the beautiful, as revealed in art, silences his will for the\nmoment, but the saint who attains holiness is altogether blessed, for\nhe silences his will, not only for the moment, but for ever.  His will\nis wholly extinguished, save for the last glimmering spark, which\nretains his body in life, and which will be extinguished only with his\ndeath.  Such a man has endured bitter struggles with his own nature,\nbut has emerged triumphant.  \"Nothing can trouble him more, nothing can\nmove him, for he has cut all the thousand cords of will which hold us\nbound to the world, and as desire, fear, envy, and anger drag us hither\nand thither in constant pain.  He now looks back smiling and at rest on\nthe delusions of the world, which once were able to agonise his spirit,\nbut which now are as indifferent to him as the chessmen when the game\nis ended.  Life passes before him as a fleeting illusion, as a light\nmorning dream before half-waking eyes, the real world already shining\nthrough it.\"\n\nIt is interesting to compare Schopenhauer's ideal of the highest form\nof human life with that of Aristotle.  For Aristotle too the highest\nend of man was the life of pure contemplation.  This, however, was a\nmore purely intellectual state than Schopenhauer had in mind, but {90}\nstill an existence withdrawn from the cares and struggles of life,\nwrapped securely in quiet contemplation.\n\nIt must not be supposed that when this self-surrender has been won,\nthat it never wavers or hesitates.  We can never rest upon it as an\nassured possession.  It must ever be attained anew by a constant\nbattle.  For so long as the body lives, the whole will to live exists\npotentially, striving to realise itself and to burn again with its old\nintensity.  The peace and blessedness which is attained in the lives of\nholy men is found only as the flower which blossoms after victory in\nthe constant battle with the will to live.  In the histories of the\nsaints we find their inner lives full of conflicts and temptations, the\nend which gives the deepest peace and opens the door of freedom\nconstantly eluding them.\n\nThe suffering which is experienced personally is that which most\nfrequently produces the fullest resignation.  The illusions of life are\na constant hindrance to the fullest self-surrender.  The will must\nfirst be broken by great personal suffering before complete\nself-conquest is reached.  Then, having passed through increasing\nstages of affliction, and being brought finally to the verge of\ndespair, a man knows himself and the world, and rises above himself and\nall suffering.  He renounces willingly everything he desired formerly,\nand faces death joyfully.  This is the refined gold, which is drawn out\nof the purifying flame of suffering.  Goethe has given an incomparable\npicture of an unfolding of character to such ends, in his drawing of\nGretchen in Faust.\n\nThe extent to which man is free to make himself good raises the\nperennial question of the freedom of the will.  Schopenhauer held that\nthe answer depends entirely on the statement of the problem.  In so far\nas the real nature of man is will, and man himself is only a {91}\nphenomenon of this will, a particular action follows inevitably on a\ngiven motive in a given character.  It is just as absurd, he says, to\ndoubt such inevitableness as to doubt that the three angles of any\ntriangle are together equal to two right angles.  If the character and\nthe motives were given completely, it would be possible to calculate\nthe future conduct of a man as exactly as we can calculate an eclipse\nof the sun or moon.  Character is as consistent as nature.  There is no\nindependence of the law of causality, the necessity of which extends to\nman as to all else in nature.  But in the metaphysical world,\nSchopenhauer, following Kant, maintains that the will is free.  In so\nfar as the will represents the only reality, it transcends experience.\nIt is outside time, outside every form of the mind which limits or\nmoulds our experience.  It is above and beyond the forms of causality,\nand therefore free transcendentally.  In that dim region where\ncharacter is formed we are our own creators.  Action which is seen\nempirically to follow inevitably from a character already formed is\nseen from another point of view to be but a form of self-realisation,\nof self-expression.\n\nMysticism is strong in Schopenhauer.  Now and again it breaks through\nthe even flow of European thought, usually, as with Schopenhauer,\ndrawing its main inspiration from the East.  There is a recurring\nperiod in the history of thought, when the scientific point of view\ndoes not make its accustomed appeal, when it is felt intensely that\nscience can give but a partial and limited view.  Academic culture and\nscience are felt to be inadequate, are felt even to be leading away\nfrom the real heart of the matter, and putting us outside the deepest\ncurrent of existence.  Intuitive and direct knowledge is given then an\nimportance {92} denied to the knowledge of the reason.  Man retires\ninto himself, instead of searching outside himself for objective\nknowledge.  He seeks the secret of the universe in the depths of his\nown heart and will, and strives to pluck out the heart of life's\nmystery in waiting on the silent twilight of inner feeling.  The eyes\nare shut on the outer world, in order that one may see the more\ninwardly.  Then only does man experience the sense of solidarity and\nkinship which runs through all things, and feel himself one with the\nuniverse.\n\nThese recurring waves of mysticism seem always to appear in the history\nof thought at the end of a specially brilliant intellectual period.  It\nis as though the human mind, having striven to the top of its capacity\non the lines of the intellect and the reason, impatient at its own\nlimitations, and wearying of the discrepancy between its endeavours and\nits achievements, turns eagerly in the opposite direction, and directs\nits gaze inward.  The great school of Neo-Platonists, for example,\nfollowed immediately the most brilliant age of Greek thought.  And the\nsame is true of the strong trend in the direction of mysticism, which\nis so marked towards the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of\nthe nineteenth centuries in Germany, a tendency which shows itself in\nSchopenhauer more strongly than in any other philosopher.\n\nThere is a strong appeal in this ideal of human life, which\nSchopenhauer depicts in words of glowing eloquence.  Based on the\npessimism which claims that all life is worthless, it aims at\nconquering life by withdrawing altogether from it.  This is a negative\nsolution of the problem of life.  It is possible to oppose to this\nphilosophy a robuster view, which would come to grips with the misery\nand evil of existence on another plane.  {93} William James points to\nthe spiritual gain that comes of fighting ills.  To wage war\nobstinately against the odds of life fills us with courage and\nresolution, and there is possibly a deeper satisfaction to be won from\nthe determined facing of the battle of life than in the attitude of\npessimism, which bids us draw back and take no part in the fray.  There\nis a fine courage in the attitude of mind, which admits \"the\ndeliciousness of insanities and realities, strivings and deadnesses,\nhopes and fears, agonies and exultations,\" but which claims that we who\nare born for the conflict, the shifting struggle of the sunbeam in the\ngloom, must accept it all as a vital part of the whole.  \"When the\nhealthy love of life is on one, and all its forms and its appetites\nseem so unutterably real; when the most brutal and the most spiritual\nthings are lit by the same sun, and each is an integral part of the\ntotal richness, it seems a grudging and sickly way of meeting so robust\na universe to shrink away from any of its facts and wish them not to\nbe.  Rather take the strictly dramatic point of view, and treat the\nwhole thing as a great unending romance which the spirit of the\nuniverse, striving to realise its own content, is eternally thinking\nout and representing to itself.\"\n\n\n\n\n{94}\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\nA. ENGLISH\n\n_The World as Will and Idea_.  Translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp.\n3 vols.  1883-6.  London: The English and Foreign Philosophical Library.\n\n_Two Essays.  I. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient\nReason.  II. On the Will in Nature_.  Bonn's Philosophical Library.\n1889.\n\n_Selected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer_.  Translated by E. Belfort\nBax.  London: Bohn.\n\n_Religion: A Dialogue; and other Essays_.  Translated by T. Bailey\nSaunders.  1891.  London: Swan Sonnenschein.  Pp. 140.\n\n_The Wisdom of Life_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1890.\nLondon: Swan Sonnenschein.  and Co.  Pp. xxvi, 135.\n\n_Counsels and Maxims_.  Translated by T. B. Saunders.  1895.  London:\nSwan Sonnenschein.  Pp. 162.\n\n_The Art of Literature_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1891.\nLondon: Swan Sonnenschein Pp. xiv, 149.\n\n_Studies in Pessimism_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1891.\nLondon: Swan Sonnenschein.  Pp. 142.\n\n_On Human Nature_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1902.\nLondon: Swan Sonnenschein and Co.  Pp. 132.\n\n{95}\n\n_Life of Arthur Schopenhauer_.  W. Wallace.  1890.  London: Scott.  Pp.\n217.\n\n_Arthur Schopenhauer, His Life and His Philosophy_.  Helen Zimmern.\n1876.  London: Longmans.  Pp. 249.\n\n_Schopenhauer's System in its Philosophical Significance_.  Caldwell.\n1896.  Edinburgh: Blackwood.  Pp. xviii, 538.\n\n\n\nB. FOREIGN\n\n_Schopenhauer's S\u00e4mmtliche Werke_.  Herausgegeben von J. Frauenst\u00e4dt.\n6 Bde.  Leipzig.  1873-4.\n\n_Schopenhauer Lexikon_.  Bearbeitet von J. Frauenst\u00e4dt.  2 Bde.\nLeipzig.  1871.\n\n_La Philosophie de Schopenhauer_.  T. Bibot.  2nd edit.  1885.\n\n_Schopenhauer's Leben_.  W. von Gwinner.  1910.  Leipzig.  Pp. xv, 439.\n\n_Arthur Schopenhauer_.  J. Volkelt.  1907.  Stuttgart, Pp. xvi, 459.\n\n_Schopenhauer und Nietzsche_.  G. Simmel.  1907.  Leipzig.  Pp. 263.\n\n\n\n\n{96}\n\nINDEX\n\n\nArchitecture, 68\n\nAristotle, 12, 67, 89\n\nArt, 10, 23, 25, 52\n\nAsceticism, 25, 76, 77, 84, 88\n\n\n\nBergson, 80\n\nBlake, 54\n\nBrowning, 63\n\nBuddhism, 10, 13, 77, 86, 87, 88\n\n\n\nDreams, 30, 79\n\n\n\nEpicurus, 60\n\n\n\nSt. Francis, 87\n\n\n\nGenius, 12, 25, 54\n\nGoethe, 7, 19, 23, 75, 90\n\n\n\nHartmann, E. von, 48\n\nHegel, 11, 13, 24, 28, 30, 61, 62\n\nHistory, 11\n\nHume, 84\n\n\n\nInstinct, 8, 39, 78, 79, 80\n\n\n\nJames, William, 50, 93\n\n\n\nKant, 7, 13, 22, 30, 32, 38, 81, 82, 91\n\n\n\nLeopardi, 48\n\n\n\nMusic, 7, 19, 61\n\nMysticism, 13, 53, 91\n\n\n\nNietzsche, 49\n\n\n\nOpera, 66\n\n\n\nPainting, 72\n\n_Parerga und Paralipomena_, 36\n\nPater, 81\n\nPessimism, 10, 13, 24, 38\n\nPlato, 7, 12, 13, 25, 38, 53, 58, 67\n\nPoetry, 74\n\n\n\nReligion, 12, 75\n\nRuskin, 71\n\n\n\nSchopenhauer, Heinrich F., 16\n\nSchopenhauer, Johanna, 16, 18, 19, 22\n\nSculpture, 72\n\nShelley, 7\n\nSmith, Adam, 84\n\nSocrates, 81\n\nSpenser, 7\n\nSpinoza, 7, 40, 87\n\nStyle, 9\n\nSuicide, 47\n\nSymbolism, 75\n\nSympathy, 10, 76, 82, 84\n\n\n\nSt. Thomas Aquinas, 61\n\nTragedy, 74\n\n\n\nVirtue, 70\n\n\n\nWagner, 8, 66, 68\n\nWill, 8, 24, 80, 90\n\nWomen, views on, 20, 29\n\nWordsworth, 7\n\n_World as Will and Idea_, 20, 26, 33, 35, 38, 68\n\n\n\n\n  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.\n  at Paul's Work, Edinburgh\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTHE PEOPLE'S BOOKS\n\nGeneral Editor--H. C. O'NEILL\n\n\"With the 'People's Books' in hand there should be nobody of average\nintelligence unable to secure self-education.\"--_Sunday Times_.\n\nNOW READY (February 1914)\n\nTHE FIRST NINETY-SIX VOLUMES\n\n\n  1. The Foundations of Science . . . By W. C. D. Whetham, M.A., F.R.S.\n  2. Embryology--The Beginnings of Life . . . By Prof. Gerald Leighton, M.D.\n  3. Biology . . . By Prof. W. D. Henderson, M.A.\n  4. Zoology: The Study of Animal Life . . . By Prof. E. W. MacBride,\n             M.A., F.R.S.\n  5. Botany; The Modern Study of Plants . . . By M. C. Stopes, D.Sc.,\n             Ph.D., F.L.S.\n  7. The Structure of the Earth . . . By Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S.\n  8. Evolution . . . By E. S. Goodrich, M.A., F.R.S.\n  10. Heredity . . . By J. A. S. Watson, B.Sc.\n  11. Inorganic Chemistry . . . By Prof. E. C. C. Baly, F.R.S.\n  12. Organic Chemistry . . . By Prof. J. B. Cohen, B.Sc., F.R.S.\n  13. The Principles of Electricity . . . By Norman K. Campbell, M.A.\n  14. Radiation . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.\n  15. The Science of the Stars . . . By E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S.\n  16. The Science of Light . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.\n  17. Weather Science . . . By R. G. K. Lempfert, M.A.\n  18. Hypnotism and Self-Education . . . By A. M. Hutchison, M.D.\n  19. The Baby: A Mother's Book . . . By a University Woman.\n  20. Youth and Sex--Dangers and Safeguards for Boys and Girls . . .\n             By Mary Scharlieb, M.D., M.S., and F. Arthur Sibly, M.A., LL.D.\n  21. Marriage and Motherhood . . . By H. S. Davidson, M.B., F.R.C.S.E.\n  22. Lord Kelvin . . . By A. Russell, M.A., D.Sc., M.I.E.E.\n  23. Huxley . . . By Professor G. Leighton, M.D.\n  24. Sir William Huggins and Spectroscopic Astronomy . . .\n             By E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S., of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.\n  26. Henri Bergson . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.\n  27. Psychology . . . By H. J. Watt, M.A., Ph.D., D.Phil.\n  28. Ethics . . . By Canon Rashdall, D.Litt., F.B.A.\n  29. Kant's Philosophy . . . By A. D. Lindsay, M.A., of\n             Balliol College, Oxford.\n  32. Roman Catholicism . . . By H. B. Coxon.  Preface, Mgr. R. H. Benson.\n  33. The Oxford Movement . . . By Wilfrid Ward.\n  34. The Bible and Criticism . . . By W. H. Bennett, D.D., Litt.P.,\n             and W. F. Adeney, D.D.\n  36. The Growth of Freedom . . . By H. W. Nevinson.\n  37. Bismarck and the Origin of the German Empire . . .\n             By Professor F. M. Powicke.\n  38. Oliver Cromwell . . . By Hilda Johnstone, M.A.\n  39. Mary Queen of Scots . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.\n  40. Cecil John Rhodes, 1853-1902 . . . By Ian D. Colvin.\n  41. Julius C\u00e6sar . . . By Hilary Hardinge.\n  42. England in the Making . . . By Prof. F. J. C. Hearnshaw, M.A., LL.D.\n  43. England in the Middle Ages . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.\n  44. The Monarchy and the People . . . By W. T. Waugh, M.A.\n  45. The Industrial Revolution . . . By Arthur Jones, M.A.\n  46. Empire and Democracy . . . By G. S. Veitch, M.A., Litt.D.\n  47. Women's Suffrage . . . By M. G. Fawcett, LL.D.\n  51. Shakespeare . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.\n  52. Wordsworth . . . By Rosaline Masson.\n  53. Pure Gold--A Choice of Lyrics and Sonnets . . . by H. C. O'Neill\n  54. Francis Bacon . . . By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.\n  55. The Bront\u00ebs . . . By Flora Masson.\n  56. Carlyle . . . By L. MacLean Watt.\n  57. Dante . . . By A. G. Ferrers Howell.\n  60. A Dictionary of Synonyms . . . By Austin K. Gray, B.A.\n  61. Home Rule . . . By L. G. Redmond Howard.\n             Preface by Robert Harcourt, M.P.\n  62. Practical Astronomy . . . By H. Macpherson, Jr., F.R.A.S.\n  63. Aviation . . . By Sydney F. Walker, R.N.\n  64. Navigation . . . By William Hall, R.N., B.A.\n  65. Pond Life . . . By E. C. Ash, M.R.A.C.\n  66. Dietetics . . . By Alex. Bryce, M.D., D.P.H.\n  67. Aristotle . . . By Prof. A. E. Taylor, M.A., F.B.A.\n  68. Friedrich Nietzsche . . . By M. A. M\u00fcgge.\n  69. Eucken: A Philosophy of Life . . . By A. J. Jones, M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D.\n  70. The Experimental Psychology of Beauty . . . By C. W. Valentine,\n             B.A., D.Phil.\n  71. The Problem of Truth . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.\n  72. The Church of England . . . By Rev. Canon Masterman.\n  74. The Free Churches . . . By Rev. Edward Shillito, M.A.\n  75. Judaism . . . By Ephraim Levine, M.A.\n  76. Theosophy . . . By Annie Besant.\n  78. Wellington and Waterloo . . . By Major G. W. Redway.\n  79. Medi\u00e6val Socialism . . . By Bede Jarrett, O.P., M.A.\n  80. Syndicalism . . . By J. H. Harley, M.A.\n  82. Co-operation . . . By Joseph Clayton.\n  83. Insurance as a Means of Investment . . . By W. A. Robertson, F.F.A.\n  85. A History of English Literature . . . By A. Compton-Rickett, LL.D.\n  87. Charles Lamb . . . By Flora Masson.\n  88. Goethe . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.\n  92. The Training of the Child . . . By G. Spiller.\n  93. Tennyson . . . By Aaron Watson.\n  94. The Nature of Mathematics . . . By P. E. B. Jourdain, M.A.\n  95. Applications of Electricity . . . By Alex. Ogilvie, B.Sc.\n  96.  Gardening . . . By A. Cecil Bartlett.\n  98.  Atlas of the World . . . By T. Bartholomew, F.R.G.S.\n  101.  Luther and the Reformation . . . By Leonard D. Agate, M.A.\n  103.  Turkey and the Eastern Question . . . By John Macdonald, M.A.\n  104.  Architecture . . . By Mrs. Arthur Bell.\n  105.  Trade Unions . . . By Joseph Clayton.\n  106.  Everyday Law . . . By J. J. Adams.\n  108.  Shelley . . . By Sydney Waterlow, M.A.\n  110.  British Birds . . . By F. B Kirkman, B.A.\n  111.  Spiritualism . . . By J. Arthur Hill.\n  112.  Kindergarten Teaching at Home . . . By Two Members of the\n             National Froebel Union.\n  113.  Schopenhauer . . . By Margrieta Beer, M.A.\n  114.  The Stock Exchange . . . By J. F. Wheeler.\n  115.  Coleridge . . . By S. L. Bensusan.\n  116.  The Crusades . . . By M. M. C. Calthrop.\n  117.  Wild Flowers . . . By Macgregor Skene, B.Sc.\n  118.  Principles of Logic . . . By Stanley Williams, B.A.\n  119.  The Foundations of Religion . . . By Stanley A. Cook, M.A.\n  120.  History of Rome . . . By A. F. Giles, M.A.\n  121.  Land, Industry, and Taxation . . . By Frederick Verinder.\n\n\n\n  LONDON AND EDINBURGH: T. C. & E. C. JACK\n  NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.","title":"Schopenhauer","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":27237}