The Project Gutenberg EBook of Schopenhauer, by Margrieta Beer

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

Title: Schopenhauer

Author: Margrieta Beer

Release Date: October 18, 2014 [EBook #47136]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCHOPENHAUER ***




Produced by Al Haines








[Frontispiece: Schopenhauer]




  SCHOPENHAUER

  BY MARGRIETA BEER, M.A.



  LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
  67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH
  NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.




CONTENTS

CHAP.

INTRODUCTION

I. SCHOPENHAUER'S LIFE

II. PESSIMISM

III. ART

IV. VIRTUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX




{7}

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER



INTRODUCTION

Schopenhauer differs from most other philosophers in that he has
influenced not only the development of the history of thought, the
course along which modern philosophy has proceeded, but in that his
views have been welcomed as an inspiration, accepted almost in the
spirit of a religious faith by workers in quite other departments of
life.

No philosopher has so directly touched and influenced the great art
movements of modern times.  It is now nearly one hundred years since
the publication of his greatest work, and his philosophy is a more
potent and vitalising force to-day than in his own lifetime.  It has
been a source of inspiration to artists and has directly stimulated
their creative activity, probably more than any other abstract system
has ever done.

Poetry has always been influenced subtly by philosophy.  Spenser and
Shelley are imbued through and through with the doctrines of Plato.
Goethe wrote some of his finest work under the spell of Spinoza, and
some of Wordsworth's deepest experiences were interpreted to him
through the ideas of Kant.  It is to all artists, but especially to
musicians, that Schopenhauer makes his most intimate appeal.  For in
his system music plays a strangely important part, above and apart {8}
from all the other arts.  In analysing its spiritual character, he
endows it with mystic significance.  One famous instance of this
influence is that of Wagner.  His acquaintance with Schopenhauer's
philosophy marked a turning-point in his artistic life.  It gave a
tremendous stimulus to his musical productivity, and while under its
influence he composed his greatest works.

Schopenhauer's system expresses, according to his own statement, only a
single thought, viewed in different aspects.  He considers it from the
metaphysical, aesthetic, and ethical points of view.  This fundamental
thought, which lies at the root of his entire philosophy, is concerned
with the significance of the will.  The will alone gives the key to the
understanding of man's existence.  Every force in nature is to be
regarded as will, and the inner reality of the universe is to be found
only in will.

While it is especially to those who are concerned with the problems
arising out of the function and significance of art that Schopenhauer
offers such fruitful and fascinating suggestions, the other aspects of
his system offer solutions in the sphere of ethics and metaphysics of
almost equally vital importance.  His insistence on the significance of
instinct and intuition in all the lower and higher forms of life is of
great importance in the history of philosophy.  It is an aspect of the
subject which until later times had been strangely neglected.  This
prominence which is given to instinct and intuition, is connected
directly with his philosophy of the will.

Schopenhauer, unlike most philosophers, has always been read and
appreciated by the general reader and student of life, as distinguished
from the specialised {9} student of philosophy.  His fundamental
attitude towards philosophy explains this to a great extent.
Notwithstanding his marked leaning towards mysticism, he brought
philosophy down to earth, and into relation with, the actual facts of
life.  He exchanged abstractions for realities.  Philosophy had always
been far too much concerned, he maintained, with abstract conceptions,
and the philosopher had tended too exclusively to be a mere man of
books and learning.  The true philosopher, on the contrary, should be a
guide to fine living as well as to high thinking.

Philosophy should express the real life of things.  But the deepest
things in life are not known by way of the intellect, but are lived and
felt.  The profoundest truths of life we know intuitively and directly,
with a deeper certainty than the understanding can give.

That Schopenhauer has a wider public than have most philosophers is due
partly to his style.  He writes in language so singularly clear and
lucid, that it can be followed easily by the general reader, not
specially trained in a technical philosophical vocabulary.  Of all
German philosophers he is the greatest from a literary point of view.
"The true philosopher," he writes, "will always seek after light and
clearness, and will endeavour to resemble a Swiss lake, which through
its peacefulness is able to unite great depth with great clearness, the
depth revealing itself precisely by the clearness, rather than a
turbid, impetuous mountain torrent."  Philosophers have not always
given much heed to this counsel of perfection.  Obscurity of expression
is merely the cloak in which men seek to hide their poverty of thought
and triteness of mind.  "Everyone," says Schopenhauer, "who possesses a
beautiful and rich mind will always express himself in the most {10}
natural, direct, and simple way, concerned to communicate his thoughts
to others and thus relieve the loneliness that he must feel in such a
world as this."

Schopenhauer is a temperamental pessimist.  In words of glowing and
passionate eloquence he sets out to prove that all life is essentially
sorrow.  From his earliest days he had been abnormally sensitive to the
misery that lies beneath the surface of life.  Pain is essential to
life and cannot be evaded.  If it can find entrance in no other form,
then it comes in the sad, grey garments of tedium and ennui.

The purest joy in life is that which lifts us out of our daily
existence, and transforms us into disinterested spectators of it.  This
"divine release from the common ways of men" can only be found through
art.  But even this release, which is accessible only to the few,
increases the capacity for suffering.

The final and only permanent solution of life is to be found in the
life of the saint.  True morality passes through virtue, which is
rooted in sympathy, into asceticism.  Art gives a marvellous
consolation in life, but renunciation and self-surrender offer a
complete release from the terrors and evils of existence.  The veil of
Maya--the web of illusion--is lifted from man's eyes.  He now shudders
at the pleasures which recognise the assertion of life, and attains to
the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, and true
indifference.  Buddhism, Schopenhauer maintained, comes nearest of all
religions to expressing this truth.  It is here that he shows how
profoundly Indian philosophy and religion had influenced him.

Throughout his life Schopenhauer was aggressively hostile towards all
contemporary philosophers.  To some extent, no doubt, his own failure
to obtain academic {11} recognition embittered him.  But partly his
attitude may be explained by the complete difference of method between
them.  Schopenhauer cares nothing at all about method.  To Hegel and
his contemporaries method was all-important.  The historical method was
the pathway which was followed with most enthusiasm at the time.  It is
especially for the historical method that Schopenhauer has the frankest
contempt.  Hegel and others were attempting to interpret present
reality through history, seeking to show that through the slow process
of history, unfolding itself in time, are revealed the organic
principles which underlie the whole of life.  Schopenhauer attaches
practically no value to history as a highroad for philosophical
inquiry.  This way, he says, lie merely the dry bones of archaeology and
antiquarianism.  To examine things historically is to look along a
horizontal line.  To think philosophically is to look along a vertical
line.  The latter is the rational and the more profound point of view.
"What history narrates is in fact only the long, heavy, and confused
dream of humanity."  It is our inmost consciousness which is the real
concern of the philosopher.  "The true philosophy of history," he says,
"consists in the insight into the causes of all these endless changes
and their confusion.  We have always before us the same even,
unchanging nature, which to-day acts in the same way as yesterday.
Thus it ought to recognise the identical in all events, in ancient as
in modern times, in the East as in the West, and in spite of all
difference in special circumstances, of costume and of custom, to see
everywhere the same humanity.  If one has read Herodotus, then in a
philosophical regard one has read enough history.  For everything is
already there that makes up the subsequent history of the world."

{12}

That which is significant in itself, not in its relations, is to be
found far more profoundly and distinctly in poetry than in history.
There is, therefore, far more real, inner truth in poetry than in
history.  Aristotle held the same view, maintaining that poetry reveals
a higher truth than history, for it strives to express the universal.
"Poetry," he says, "is a more philosophical, and a higher thing than
history."

In Schopenhauer's view, the true philosopher is the genius.  His
penetrative imagination will see farther and deeper than the learning
of the mere scholar.  The genius is a clear mirror of the inner nature
of the universe.  To him knowledge is the sun which reveals the world.
His work may be regarded as an inspiration, as an interpretation of the
spirit of beauty in art.  He has been endowed by nature with a special
faculty of inner vision, and uses his power to open the eyes of
ordinary men.  It is the genius who knows the inner nature of things,
just as in Plato true philosophers are defined as "the lovers of the
vision of truth, who are able to distinguish the idea from the objects
which participate in the idea, and whose eyes are ever directed towards
fixed and immutable principles."  It is the genius, says Schopenhauer,
who interprets his vision to the rest of mankind.  He enables us to see
the world through his eyes.

There was a wide difference, too, between Schopenhauer and other
contemporary philosophers, in their attitude towards religion.
Schopenhauer's freedom from academic fetters enabled him to steer an
independent way.  The German university professor was almost always
dominated by the need for reconciling his philosophical theories with a
theological creed.  At times to square accounts between the two
involved {13} considerable ingenuity, as in the case of Kant.  To
Schopenhauer, to whom orthodox religion had always been a mere form,
such attempts savoured of hypocrisy.  Hence he always speaks
slightingly of "philosophy-professors," and throughout his writings he
makes bitter attacks upon them.  Hegel's work is described as
three-fourths utter absurdity, and one quarter as paradox, and he
himself alluded to as "that intellectual Caliban."  Plato's contempt
for the sophists stands on very much the same plane of thought.

In spite of this attitude there is much in Schopenhauer's system, which
is closely akin to Christianity on its mystical side.  In his ethical
theory he shows extraordinary points of agreement with the mediaeval
mystics.  Materialism was utterly alien to his spirit.  Materialists,
he said, possess neither humanities nor culture, and their point of
view filled him with the Olympian laughter of the gods.  He always
maintained that his theory of pessimism was more truly Christian, and
more closely in accord with the spirit of primitive Christianity than
the shallow optimism which crept into the later developments of that
system.  Its ascetic spirit he considered the kernel of Christianity.
Protestantism represented for him a falling away from the earlier and
purer form, and a transition to shallow rationalism.

His thought was much influenced by ancient Indian philosophy, and
especially by Buddhism.  The Upanishads had been published in Germany
in 1801 in a Latin translation from a Persian version of the Sanscrit
original.  In these treatises are set forth the general system of
mystical pantheism, which grew out of the more theosophic elements of
the Vedas.  In reading them Schopenhauer immediately acknowledged a
kindred spirit.  In speaking of this work he says, "How {14} does
everyone who by diligent reading has familiarised himself with this
incomparable book, feel himself stirred to the innermost by that
spirit.  The mind is here washed clean of all its early ingrafted
superstition, and all philosophy servile to that superstition.  It is
the most profitable and the most elevating reading which is possible in
the world.  It has been the consolation of my life, and will be the
consolation of my death."




{15}

CHAPTER I

SCHOPENHAUER'S LIFE

Arthur Schopenhauer led the outwardly uneventful life of a scholar and
a thinker, taking no part in public affairs.  The great movements in
European history, through which he lived, left him untroubled and
unmoved in his scholar's seclusion.  There is little therefore to
chronicle with regard to the outer history of his life.  It is the more
easy to escape the criticism of Schopenhauer himself, who says that
"those who, instead of studying the thoughts of a philosopher, make
themselves acquainted with his life and history, are like people who
instead of occupying themselves with a picture, are rather occupied
with its frame, reflecting on the taste of its carving and the nature
of its gilding."

The little that there is to tell is, however, of great significance
with regard to the development of his thought.  For of no philosopher
can it be more truly said than of Schopenhauer, that his thought is the
expression of his character.

Schopenhauer was born at Dantzig on February 22, 1788.  He traced his
descent through both parents to Dutch ancestors.  The family had
settled at Dantzig in the course of commerce.  For several generations
the head of the family had combined the career of a merchant with
landed pursuits.  Schopenhauer's great-grandfather, Andreas
Schopenhauer, leased one of the {16} large farms belonging to the
municipality, while following the business of a merchant.  His son
Andreas acquired property near Dantzig, and there the father of the
philosopher, Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, was born.  Some mental
weakness seems to have been inherited.  The eldest son of Andreas was
an imbecile from his youth, and the other children, with the exception
of Schopenhauer's father, all had some curious mental or moral twist.
Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, however, was a man of strong intelligence
and character.  He followed a merchant's career with great success,
raising his firm to the first position in the town.  He was a disciple
of the school of Voltaire, read French and English literature, and had
a keen admiration for English life and institutions.  His wife,
Johanna, belonged, too, to one of the leading families of Dantzig.  She
had been educated on broader lines than was usual for girls at the
time, and had a love for art and letters which extended her interests
beyond the domestic concerns of her home.  Later on, during her
widowhood, these were to find a wider field and opportunity, and she
became a well-known authoress in the Germany of her day.  She married
in 1785, at the age of eighteen, being twenty years younger than her
husband.  The marriage was an unhappy one, owing to differences of
temperament.  There were two children of the marriage.  They suffered
for the incompatibilities of their parents.  Both were burdened with
abnormally strong desires for the pleasures of life, together with an
extraordinary capacity for suffering.

Arthur, the future philosopher, was the first child of the marriage.
He was given the name of Arthur to satisfy the cosmopolitanism of his
father, the name being spelt alike in several languages.  His earliest
{17} years were spent at the country house near Dantzig, or at the
farm, between the sea and the pine-woods, which had been rented many
years before by his great-grandfather.

In 1793, when Schopenhauer was five years old, the family migrated to
Hamburg.  The "free city" of Dantzig, which had a constitution of its
own, was annexed by Prussia in 1793, at the second partition of Poland,
and Heinrich Schopenhauer was too stern a republican to adapt himself
to the new rule.  He carried on his business in Hamburg for the next
twelve years, but never became a naturalised citizen.

He had resolved that his son should follow the family career of a
merchant, and his education was planned accordingly on those lines.  He
was taken to France in 1797, and left at Havre for two years.  For the
next three years he attended a private school at Hamburg.  During this
time, discontent with his father's plans for his future was gradually
ripening within him.  To reconcile him, he was promised a trip to
France and England, on the condition that he promised to give up his
own desires and ambitions, and to be loyal to his father's wishes.  The
prospect of the journey was too alluring, and he gave the required
promise.  After six weeks had been spent in London, his parents left
him at a boarding-school at Wimbledon.  In letters to his mother, he
complains of the mechanical instruction, the dreary Sunday services,
and the tedious routine of the school.  She, in reply, warns him not to
give way to bombast and empty pathos.

He became proficient in English, and always held English character and
intelligence in admiration, although he was impressed by the prevalent
hypocrisy and the oppressive pietism of the time.  He was busy {18}
already recording his impressions, describing characteristically the
feelings and ideas awakened in him rather than the actual facts and
events.  The travellers returned through France, from Geneva to Vienna,
and thence to Berlin.

For about four months Schopenhauer now worked in a Dantzig office,
trying to acquire the rudiments of a business training.  When almost
seventeen, he entered the employment of a firm in Hamburg.  He himself
has recorded that there never was a worse clerk in a merchant's office.
In his leisure, and during office hours whenever possible, he was
reading voraciously.

In 1805 his father died, whether by accident or by his own hand remains
uncertain.  For two years longer Schopenhauer stuck to his hated task,
out of loyalty to his father, and the promise made him some years
earlier.  But at last he could stifle his ambitions and yearnings
towards a purely intellectual life no longer, and he obtained his
mother's consent to leave his office, and to begin preparation for a
learned career.

His mother meanwhile, with her daughter Adele, had left Hamburg and
settled at Weimar, at that time the intellectual centre of Germany.
Goethe was here the sun round which the lesser lights of the artistic
and intellectual world revolved.  At the age of forty, Johanna
Schopenhauer had entered on a new life, and was finding scope and free
development for untried capabilities.  She played a prominent part in
the social life of the place, and her receptions were remarkable for
the circle she gathered round her.  Goethe himself was a frequent
visitor there.  She also took part in the theatrical performances,
which were so conspicuous a feature of the life at Weimar.  With help
and encouragement from Fernow, a distinguished scholar and {19} art
critic, she began to write, and published with considerable popular
success travel sketches, art biographies, and novels.  Her daughter, in
describing their life at Weimar, tells how her mother experienced ever
fresh delight in intercourse with the famous men living there.  "She
was liked, her society was agreeable.  Her pleasing manners made her
house a centre of intellectual activity, where everyone felt at home,
and freely contributed the best he had to bring."  Besides Goethe,
Schlegel, Grimm, Wieland and others were frequent guests under her
roof.  Freed from his hated bondage, Schopenhauer now left Hamburg and
entered the gymnasium, or grammar school, at Gotha, but a lampoon on
one of the masters was so resented that he was obliged to leave.  He
then came to Weimar, at his mother's suggestion, and worked at classics
in the house of a well-known scholar, who had a real enthusiasm for all
things Greek.  Something of his spirit he communicated to his pupil,
and the passion for Greek art and thought grew into a moulding
principle in Schopenhauer's views of life and religion.  At the same
time that he was entering into the spirit of classical literature, he
was cultivating his musical ability, and thus feeling his way towards a
full and intense understanding of the art, which entered later with
such significance into the development of his philosophy.  He was
striving to realise an ideal of the fullest and most complete culture,
in which not only the life of thought, but also the life of art should
find consummate satisfaction.

The estrangement between his mother and himself began to widen now that
they were thrown constantly together.  By arrangement, he dined daily
with her, and came to her receptions.  But Schopenhauer was {20} too
uncontrolled in his temper, and too uncompromising in his egoism to
make an agreeable companion.  His mother, driven to write to him,
asserts that his constant grumbling, gloomy looks, and intolerant
dogmatism depress her.  It is necessary to her happiness to know that
he is happy, but not necessary that she should be a witness to it.
Therefore, if they are to agree they must consent to live apart.  Both
mother and son were bent on self-development, and in character were too
dissimilar to understand each other.  Schopenhauer was jealous,
uncontrolled in his moods, and boorish in his manners.  That
all-consuming egoism, which all his life spoiled his relations with
everyone with whom he came in contact, made a congenial family life
impossible.  He resented his mother's freedom and independence, and
insulted her friends.  In a way that is very characteristic of him, he
generalises from his own personal experience, and in his views on women
we find reflected all the bitterness which had grown round the
relations between himself and his mother.

In 1809 he attained his majority, and received his share of his
father's fortune, amounting to about L150 a year.  He was now
independent, and could pursue the career he had marked out for himself.
He valued all his life the liberty which this competency secured him.
A draft dedication, intended for the second edition of _The World as
Will and Idea_, was addressed "to the _manes_ of my father.  Noble,
beneficent spirit!  to whom I owe everything that I am....  As thou
didst bring into the world a son such as I am, thou didst also make
provision that in a world like this, such a son should be able to
subsist and to develop himself....  In my mind the tendency to its only
proper vocation was too decidedly implanted to let me {21} do violence
to my nature, and so to subjugate it that, recking nought of existence
in general, and active only for my personal existence, it should find
its sole task in procuring daily bread....  Thou seemest to have
foreseen that thy son, thou proud republican, could not possess the
talent to compete in cringing before ministers and councillors,
Maecenases, and their advisers, basely to beg for the hard-earned piece
of bread, or to flatter self-conceited commonplaceness, and humbly join
himself to the eulogistic retinue of bungling charlatans....  That I
could expand the forces nature gave me and apply them to their destined
purpose, that I could follow my natural instinct and think and work for
beings without number, while no one does anything for me, for that I
thank thee, my father, thank thy activity, prudence, thrift, and
provision for the future."

In 1809 he entered the University of Goettingen as a student of
medicine.  In his second year he changed his course to philosophy.
Wieland, the poet, on the occasion of a visit from Schopenhauer, tried
to dissuade him from philosophy as a career.  The reply was, "Life is a
ticklish business.  I have decided to spend it in reflecting on it."

In 1811 Schopenhauer left Goettingen, and entered the University of
Berlin.  Here, too, he gave special attention to natural science.
Throughout his notebooks are scattered critical remarks on his teachers
and their lectures.  Fichte especially was a butt for his sarcasms.
Against a statement of Schleiermacher's, that "No man can be a
philosopher without being religious," he writes, "No man who is
religious takes to philosophy: he does not need it."

The Napoleonic wars were at this time disorganising {22} the whole of
Europe.  Berlin was in the hands of a French garrison.  But after the
disastrous campaign of Napoleon in Russia, the entire nation rose
against the invader.  University classes were broken up.  Fichte stayed
behind to nurse the wounded, and died next year at his post.
Schopenhauer, a prey to fears, which tormented him all his life, fled
for safety to Dresden.  He settled finally at Rudolstadt, and wrote
there an essay, to qualify for the degree of doctor of philosophy at
Jena.  This he obtained, and his essay was published as _A
Philosophical Treatise on the Four-fold Root of the Principle of
Sufficient Reason_.  This work he describes in his later books as a
preliminary part of his system, which must be studied if the remainder
is to be understood.  It is written entirely under the influence of
Kant.  The title refers to the four branches of knowledge: physical
science, mathematics, logic, and ethics.

After the publication of his book, Schopenhauer returned to Weimar, and
stayed for a few months with his mother.  The experiment resulted in
complete estrangement.  He was overbearing and dogmatic, insulting his
mother's friends, and censorious towards herself.  She wrote to him
again, to avoid an unpleasant personal interview, and complained of his
contemptuous bearing and peremptory manner.  He left Weimar and never
saw his mother again, although she lived for twenty-four years after
their separation.  It is a curious commentary on his relations to his
parents, that his highest praise of his father lay in the fact that he
had, by his thrift, left his son an adequate income; and that his main
censure on his mother is that she spends her money too negligently.

His visits to his mother at Weimar were of considerable {23} importance
in the subsequent development of his thought, for it was there that he
made the acquaintance, not only of Goethe, who influenced him
profoundly for a time, but also of F. Mayer, the orientalist, who
directed his attention to the philosophical literature of ancient
India.  This literature left a permanent mark upon his mind.

For the next four years he lived at Dresden.  In 1816 he published an
essay _On Vision and Colours_, which has reference to the controversy
which Goethe was waging on the theory of light.  Schopenhauer's theory
is fantastic.  It is not submitted to experimental evidence, and rests,
as he admits, on "intuitive" certainty.

This early work is hardly in the direct line of the development of
Schopenhauer's thought.  It is really a deviation, for which Goethe's
all-compelling influence is responsible.  Goethe was at first inclined
to regard Schopenhauer as an opponent, for the essay is rather a
transformation of Goethe's theory than an expansion of it.

His residence at Dresden was the best he could have chosen from the
point of view of his own system of philosophy.  Here he could study
better than in almost any other town of Europe the works of art, in
which he was to see a revelation of the meaning of life.  The art
collections of the town are among the most famous in Europe, and the
music, both operatic and orchestral, was then, as now, of the highest
quality.  In this home of art, Schopenhauer's great system was now
taking shape.

During his daily walks along the banks of the Elbe, he was thinking out
his theories, making notes occasionally in a note-book, and then
striding on again {24} with the rapid pace by which he was recognised
even as an old man.

More and more strongly it was borne in upon him that "inward discord is
the very law of human nature."  All his life his thoughts had struck
the note of genuine pessimism.  He was always in revolt against the
pain and misery that lie hidden beneath the surface of life.  That this
pessimistic bias was fundamentally one of temperament, there can be no
doubt.  In letters to him from his mother, we find her constantly
urging him, even as a child, to look upon the brighter side of things.
In a letter written to him in 1806, she writes, "I could tell you
things that would make your hair stand on end, but I refrain, for I
know how you love to brood over human misery in any case."

Even in happiness and success he recognised illusion.  Everywhere in
nature we see strife and conflict.  One species preys upon another.
The "will to live" necessarily expresses itself as a struggle.

Hegel at this time reigned supreme in the kingdom of philosophy.  It
was hardly possible to escape his influence.  Schopenhauer, in striving
to give expression to a system which would lay bare the real inner
nature of our life and destiny, was at the same time protesting
passionately against the Hegelian view.  It was as a protest against
the all-powerful idealism of this philosophy that his system was
directed in the first place.  He represents a reaction against the
absorption of everything in reason.  As opposed to this view,
Schopenhauer urged the priority of the will and the feelings as the
fundamental factors in determining the mental life.

The will is the reality behind all life.  The intellect is merely a
tool in the service of the will.  It is {25} impossible to find in
reason a complete knowledge of the essence of the world.  A merely
intellectual philosophy of life is bound to be thin and hollow, and we
should aim rather at a clear and direct insight into life.

Now the will, into which every form of life can be resolved, is the
source of all human misery and unhappiness.  The only way in which men
can free themselves from the bondage of the will, and throw off its
yoke, is by looking upon beauty.  It is in art that eternal truth is
revealed with a directness and certainty to which science never
attains.  This theory is connected with the Platonic theory of Ideas.
The real inner nature of things, the Ideas in the Platonic sense, are
revealed in creative and imaginative art.  The faculty of vision, which
enables men to divine this reality behind appearances, and to interpret
it to others, is the gift of the artistic genius.  He "understands the
half-uttered speech of nature, and articulates clearly what she only
stammered forth."  The man of genius produces works of art by intuitive
insight.  He sees through the outer shell to the inner significance
that lies at the heart of things.  Genius is the faculty of renouncing
entirely one's own personality for the time being, so as to become
clear vision of the world, free of subjectivity.  The genius must have
imagination, above all things, in order to see in things not that which
nature has actually made, but that which she endeavoured to make, but
could not.

Art, however, does not deliver us permanently from life, but only for
moments.  It is therefore not a path out of life, but only an
occasional consolation in life.

It is the saint, who through the surrender of all willing, through the
intentional mortification of his own desires, attains to true
resignation.  Happiness {26} and unhappiness become then a matter of
indifference, and the spell of the illusion, which held us chained in
the bonds of this world, is broken for ever.

These were the views which found expression in Schopenhauer's great
work, _The World as Will and Idea_, which was finished in 1818.  He
found a publisher in Brockhaus of Leipsic.  While the work was going
through the press, he attacked his publisher with such violent
rudeness, that Brockhaus wrote declining all further correspondence
with one "whose letters in their supreme coarseness and rusticity
savour more of the cabman than of the philosopher."

The work appeared when Schopenhauer was thirty years of age, an
extraordinarily early date at which to produce so complete and
elaborate a system of philosophy.  In this work the outlines of his
whole system are permanently fixed.  The whole contains, he says, but a
single thought.  That thought exhibits itself as metaphysics,
aesthetics, and ethics.  He wrote later many essays and supplements, but
these all go towards confirmation and expansion of his earlier work.
For the rest of his life he was repeating his original theories, with
infinite variation in expression.  This is entirely in accord with his
own theory of age.  At thirty, he maintained, the intellectual and
moral endowment has reached its highest development.  All that is done
later is to vary and expand the main principles already laid down.

His book fell still-born from the press.  Twenty years later he
succeeded in getting his publishers to undertake a second edition, but
this too received but scant recognition.  Schopenhauer had built great
hopes on his work, and his disappointment was bitter when no word of
notice greeted its appearance.  "I dread silence {27} about my system,
as a burnt child dreads the fire," he wrote on one occasion.  When
bringing his manuscript to the notice of the publisher, he had written
that the work "would hereafter be the source of a hundred other books."
He confided to a disciple that upon completing the work, he had felt so
convinced that he had solved the enigma of the world, that he had
thought of having his signet-ring carved with the image of the sphinx
throwing herself down the abyss.  "My philosophy," he wrote, "is the
real solution of the enigma of the world.  In this sense it may be
called a revelation."

Before the book appeared, Schopenhauer travelled to Italy.  He first
spent some weeks in Venice, where Byron was living at the time.  The
two, however, did not meet.  He then set out for Rome, by way of
Bologna and Florence, and there he spent the winter.  His time was
spent mostly in the art collections, and in the study of Italian.  He
kept, as he always did in travelling, a diary, recording not so much
his observations on things seen, as his moods and moralisings on them.

In May of the following year, as he was returning home, he received the
news of the bankruptcy of the Dantzig house in which almost the entire
means of his mother and his sister were invested.  He himself had a far
smaller amount at stake.  The business arrangements connected with the
winding-up of the firm, which his mother accepted, were not to
Schopenhauer's taste, and the estrangement between himself and his
relatives now became permanent.  He showed his usual promptness to
suspect evil, and his angry accusations were so bitter, that a silence
of eleven years fell between himself and his mother and sister.  His
struggle with the firm in question lasted for two years.  Schopenhauer
came {28} off triumphant financially, his capital with interest being
paid in full, whereas the other creditors obtained only thirty per cent.

His great work having now been launched in the philosophical world,
Schopenhauer turned his thoughts to the chances of an academic
appointment.  After many inquiries he decided finally on Berlin, and
made an application.  Specimen copies of his published works were sent
in, and a private trial lecture delivered.  Here in 1820 he began his
career as assistant lecturer, and a course of lectures was announced,
of six hours a week, on philosophy in general.  He chose as his lecture
hour the very time at which Hegel delivered his principal course,
thinking to enter into direct competition with him, and carry off his
students.  His hopes, however, misled him.  The students were not to be
beguiled away from the omnipotent Hegel, and Schopenhauer's course was
a complete failure.  He was not a good lecturer, and the course fell
through before the end of the term.  The lectures were never again
delivered.

The six years he spent in Berlin were not in other respects happy ones.
He was on bad terms with all his colleagues, and even in his private
life he contrived to bring worry and legal trouble upon himself.  In a
small entrance hall, common ground to himself and another lodger, he,
one day, found three women engaged in conversation.  He demanded their
withdrawal.  Two complied, but one, a sempstress lodging in the same
house, refused.  Thereupon Schopenhauer, stick in hand, threw her
forcibly twice out of the house.  She fell, and on the following day
brought her case before the court.  After six months, the verdict went
in Schopenhauer's favour, but an appeal was lodged, and, in his
absence, the court inflicted a fine of twenty thalers, {29} as
compensation for injuries inflicted.  Some months later the sempstress
brought a further action.  She claimed that her injuries were more
serious than had first appeared, and that she was now permanently
incapacitated for work.  Schopenhauer was condemned to pay her sixty
thalers a year as aliment, and five-sixths of the costs of the case.
This sum he paid until the time of her death, twenty years later.  On
her death certificate he wrote, "obit anus, abit onus."  The episode
throws light on the character of the philosopher, with its marked
strain of coarseness and ill-controlled passion.

Meanwhile, Schopenhauer continued to philosophise, still hoping against
hope for the university professorship, which never came, but sustained
by immense self-confidence in the importance of his message.  He lived
at Berlin in absolute seclusion.  Social life had no attractions for
him.  He was a constant visitor to the theatre, the opera-house, and
the concert-room, and at home his flute was a constant diversion.
These were his chief distractions.

From time to time the thought of marriage had entered into his plans,
but his habits of solitude were growing stronger, and his cynical views
on women were obtaining an ever firmer hold on his mind.  His nature
was strongly sensual, and intermittent amorous experience is not the
best school in which to foster the growth of fine feeling or noble
thoughts on the relations of the sexes.  It is not surprising to find,
therefore, in his views on women the unmistakable stamp of his personal
experience, a fatal blindness to all but the physical side of sex.  The
subject is not one that he passes over with indifference, for it
amounts almost to an obsession with him.  He left behind him notes on
{30} love and marriage, which were held by his literary executor to be
unfit for publication, and these were burned accordingly.

It was during these years at Berlin, embittered by the lack of
recognition of his philosophical work, and by his failure in the
academic world, that his attacks on university professors grew so
virulent.  He attributed his failure in both respects to conspiracy on
the part of those in power.  His attacks on Hegel grew ever fiercer.

In 1829 he was anxious to undertake a translation into English of
Kant's chief works.  He wrote to the publishers, urging his claims,
saying "a century may pass before there shall again meet in the same
head so much Kantian philosophy with so much English, as happen to
dwell together in mine."  The proposal came to nothing, and Kant's
_Critique_ had to wait for nearly ten years longer before it appeared
in an English form.

In 1831 the cholera broke out in Berlin, and Schopenhauer immediately
took to flight.  Hegel was one of the victims of this outbreak.  In one
of his later works, Schopenhauer describes how he had been moved to
leave Berlin, on the entry of the cholera, by means of a dream.  He had
dreamed of a little schoolfellow and playmate, who died in childhood,
"It may have been," he says, "of hypothetical truth, a warning in
short, that if I had remained, I should have died of the cholera.
Immediately after my arrival in Frankfurt, I was the subject of a
perfectly distinct apparition, as I believe, of my parents, and
signifying that I should survive my mother, who was still alive; my
father, already deceased, carried a light in his hand."  This is
significant, as showing Schopenhauer's belief in the supernatural, and
in mystical influences.

After leaving Berlin, Schopenhauer settled at Frankfurt, {31} and with
the exception of one year, which was spent at Mannheim, he lived there
until his death twenty-seven years later.  For twenty years after
coming to Frankfurt he lived in entire isolation.  Now and again, at
rare intervals, an article from his pen appeared, but this is the only
sign of life.  We hear nothing of his personal life during this period.
Friends he seems to have had none, and all personal intercourse with
acquaintances invariably came to an abrupt end, owing to his intolerant
attitude towards those who dared to disagree with any of his views.

Only when he reaches the verge of old age do we once again have some
record of him.  This latter part of his life was spent with unvaried
regularity.  His chief occupation and solace is philosophy.  His daily
routine was mapped out, according to a regular plan, which hardly
varied from day to day.  He worked during the forenoon for three or
four hours.  At noon he enjoyed half an hour's relaxation on the flute.
He dined daily at a hotel.  After an hour's rest, the afternoon was
given up to lighter literature.  His favourite authors, among poets,
were Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Calderon.  The study of the great
classical writers was all his life his greatest delight.  The
degradation in style of contemporary literature, which he constantly
bemoaned, he held to be due largely to the neglect of classical
literature.  "Without Latin," he wrote, "a man must be content to be
counted amongst the vulgar."  He regretted the disuse of the Latin
language as a means of communication between scholars.  Apart
altogether from the educational value of the classics, he thought no
other literature afforded the same refreshment and enjoyment for the
mind.  To take one of the classics in one's hand, even for half {32} an
hour, is to feel refreshed, purified, elevated, and strengthened,
exactly as if one had drunk from a fresh rock spring.

In the afternoon, whatever the weather, Schopenhauer took his daily
walk, together with his dog, his invariable companion.  The two were
well-known figures in Frankfurt, as they took their customary exercise
together.  Schopenhauer's devotion to his dog was boundless.  For the
animal world altogether he had a special tenderness, pitying animals as
the tortured souls of the earth, and holding that in all essentials
they are the same as man.  He condemned vivisection, on the ground that
animals have rights.

For two hours he took his customary walk, at a rapid pace, in
accordance with his theory that quick movement is essential to health.
Then he visited the reading-room of the town, never omitting to look
through the _Times_.  The evening was spent frequently at the theatre,
or in the concert-room.  In his later years, his growing deafness
robbed him of much of the pleasure which he had always won from music.
On returning home, he read for an hour, and then retired to rest.  All
his life he was afraid of robbers, and took extraordinary precautions
against them.  He slept invariably with loaded weapons by his bedside,
and his valuables were hidden away with great ingenuity in various
corners of his rooms.  He believed that a thinker needed more than the
ordinary amount of sleep to recuperate after the day's labours.  His
rule of life was modelled on that of Kant, but of Kant's early rising
he strongly disapproved, believing it to be a reckless waste of vital
energy.

Thus the latter part of his life is occupied with careful rules for the
preservation of his health, which was {33} naturally robust.  The
contradiction is at once obvious between his actual mode of life and
his own moral ideal, as set forth in his works.  Some of his most
eloquent writing is on the subject of holiness, attained through
renunciation and self-denial.  Poverty, chastity, and constant
mortification of the will are the ways along which man must travel to
gain the highest moral solution of life.  Schopenhauer was perfectly
conscious of this contradiction between his ideals and his own way of
life.  But, he says, it is just as little needful that a saint should
be a philosopher, as that a philosopher should be a saint.  In the same
way, it is not necessary that a perfectly beautiful man should be a
great sculptor, or that a great sculptor should himself be a beautiful
man.  It is a strange demand, that a moralist should teach no other
virtue than that which he himself possesses.

After 1818, when _The World as Will and Idea_ appeared, he published
nothing further until 1836.  In that year, a small book called _On the
Will in Nature_ appeared.  It was described on the title-page as "a
discussion of the corroborations which the philosophy of the author
has, since its first appearance, received at the hands of empirical
science."  During these eighteen years, in which no new work of his was
published, he had been collecting from all that he read, or saw, or
heard, everything that could in any way be brought to bear as evidence
towards the proof of his main theories and principles.  Especially had
he been on the alert with regard to scientific investigation, believing
that his own sceptical generation would be most strongly influenced by
anything that science could bring forward as confirmation of his
metaphysical principles.  Physics, he thought, had arrived at the point
where it touches {34} metaphysics.  He was now confident that the time
for his philosophy was ripening.  But in spite of this confidence, the
book met with no more recognition than had his previous works.

In 1838 he competed successfully for a prize offered by the Scientific
Society of Drontheim, in Norway, for the best essay on the question
"whether free-will could be proved from the evidence of consciousness."
The subject could not have been more happily chosen to suit him.  His
essay won the prize, and he was elected a member of the Society.  He
obtained permission from the Society to publish his essay in Germany.

Meanwhile he was competing for another prize, offered by the Royal
Danish Academy of the Sciences, at Copenhagen, on the subject of the
sources or the basis of morality.  He was confident of success, and
wrote to the Academy asking that the award might be speedily made
public, as he proposed to publish his essay along with the one which
had been successful in Norway.  His confidence was premature, for when
the Danish Academy made known its decision, it announced that
Schopenhauer's essay was the only one sent in, but that it was unworthy
of the prize on several grounds, one of which was, that several of the
chief philosophers had been treated with contempt.

From this time his rage against the three philosophers, Hegel, Fichte,
and Schelling, knows no bounds.  He attributed his failure to win
recognition to a conspiracy among them and their followers.  His
writings abound in violent invective against them.  In several ways
there are points of contact between the system of Schopenhauer and that
of Hegel, but Schopenhauer refused to admit any kinship between them.

His two treatises were published together, as he had {35} intended.
They appeared in 1841 as _The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics_.
These two problems are the freedom of the will and the basis of
morality.  The treatment is little more than an expansion of the
theories set forth in his chief work.  He finds the roots of morality
in sympathy.  The sense of brotherhood, which binds together individual
and individual, and welds them into an organic whole, is the foundation
on which all the moral sentiments are built.  All goodness, love,
virtue, and nobility of character spring from the same source, from
sympathy, which is the same in its nature as pure love.  Beyond the
egoism, which is fostered by the world around us, there exists also the
principle of altruism, impelling men to self-sacrifice, unselfishness,
and devotion.

The second edition of _The World as Will and Idea_, which appeared in
1844, seemed at first as likely to fail of attaining recognition as the
earlier one.  But a change was now at hand.  The reign of optimistic
pantheism was approaching its end in Germany.  The lofty idealism,
which was the strength of the dominant school of thought, and which
found political expression in the revolutionary movements of 1848, was
now followed by a wave of reaction.  The democratic movement, after
obtaining some temporary triumphs, was checked completely for the time,
and a wave of weariness and discouragement passed over the country.
Schopenhauer looked on, while Frankfurt was torn violently asunder in
the throes of its revolution.  His sentiments were against the
democratic party, and he seems to have feared, above all else, the
possibility of losing his private means.  In letters written at this
time to his friends, Schopenhauer expresses his dislike and disapproval
of the great national movement of 1848.  He {36} was a thorough-going
individualist, and the movement, which stirred to the depths the finest
natures of the time, found no response in Schopenhauer's heart.  His
room was used by Austrian soldiers, who shot from the windows upon the
democrats below.

His political views are expressed again in his will, made in 1852, in
which Schopenhauer left the greater part of his estate to be spent for
the benefit of the soldiers who had been wounded at Berlin, in 1818, in
defence of the royal party against the democratic revolutionaries.  In
his view, the State exists only to secure safety of persons and
property.  It is a strange error, he says, to attribute to the State
any moral function.  It is to be regarded merely as the night-watchman,
who protects us from thieves and robbers.

The German Parliament, which sat at Frankfurt, had but a short-lived
existence.  In the reaction which followed, Schopenhauer's philosophy
found an open door.  Disciples attached themselves gradually to the
philosopher, and by degrees his system gained ground at home and abroad.

The work which won for him more popularity than any other, was _Parerga
and Paralipomena_ (Chips and Scraps), published in 1851.  The work had
been declined by three publishers before a Berlin firm agreed to
publish, without any payment to the author.  The book consists of
essays of a very heterogeneous kind, and of varying length.  Most of
the chief problems discussed in his larger works are treated again in
the essays.  Religion, education, archaeology, Sanscrit, style, noise,
ghosts, and immortality are a few of the subjects dealt with.
Schopenhauer's reading was wide.  His quotations range freely over
oriental, classical, and modern literature.

The success which followed the publication of this {37} book was
reflected on the earlier works, and it was now possible to bring out
further editions.  Schopenhauer's delight at this tardy recognition was
unbounded.  Every scrap of applause was gathered and absorbed with
eagerness.  In his letters during this period, everyone who differs
from him is denounced as a charlatan and a windbag.  Everyone who says
anything at all similar is attacked as a plagiarist.  Every adversary
is moved by the meanest motives.  So virulent is his abuse, and so
coarse his language, that words in his letters have sometimes to be
changed for an initial.  Nothing short of adulation, could satisfy his
hungry vanity.  Even when the universities at last acknowledged him,
and offered a prize for the best exposition and criticism of his
system, he was enraged at the award of the prize to a student who
treated him as of more importance in a literary than in a philosophical
capacity.  Praise of any other philosophy than his own filled him with
bitterness.  His correspondence with Frauenstadt, Lindner, and Asher is
full of such weakness.  It may be doubted whether any great man ever
left behind him letters of so trifling a nature, so steeped in vanity
and so resentful of any breath of criticism.

He was active to the end of his life, though the first fine rapture of
his passionate love for all that is best in art was dimmed inevitably
with the passing years.  There is a pathetic reference in a letter to
this dulling of his power of vision.  "In the time," he writes, "when
my spirit was at its zenith, whatever object my eye rested upon made
revelations to me.  Now that I am old, it may happen that I stand in
front of Raphael's Madonna, and she says nothing to me."

He died suddenly, in 1860, at the age of seventy-two.  The stone which
marks his grave bears as inscription the sole words "Arthur
Schopenhauer."




{38}

CHAPTER II

PESSIMISM

Schopenhauer's system is set forth in all its fulness in his great
work, _The World as Will and Idea_.  All that he wrote after the
appearance of this book was confirmation and expansion of the theories
already laid down.  It differs from his earlier books in method.  He no
longer follows academic lines.  He looks upon the work as a revelation
of the meaning of life, based on a clear and direct intuition into
life, and the style shapes itself accordingly.  Metaphor frequently
takes the place of argument, and his theories are developed in a flow
of passionate eloquence, contrasting remarkably with the severer
methods of the ordinary metaphysician.

Schopenhauer takes as his starting-point certain theories from the
philosophies of Plato and Kant.  Things, as we know them in experience,
said Kant, are made up partly of forms or moulds, which are in the
mind, and partly of something outside the mind.  That which we know,
our actual experience, is a combination of the two elements, the
subjective and the objective element.  That part of experience which
lies outside the mind, the reality, the thing-in-itself or the noumenon
in philosophical language, we can never know.  For in order to be known
by us, it has to run into the forms or moulds supplied by the mind, and
in this transition its nature has been changed.  To know it as it is,
before it enters into contact with our minds, is impossible.  That we
{39} appear to have objective knowledge is therefore a deception and an
illusion.

Schopenhauer accepts Kant's analysis of experience, but denies that the
thing-in-itself is unknowable.  For that which is real in our
experience is not outside us altogether, as in Kant's theory.  It lies
within ourselves; it is the only real and essential part of our nature,
and we have a direct knowledge of it.  This reality Schopenhauer finds
in the will.  Now the will is fully known to us through internal
perception, through intuition.  It is the real, inner nature of
everything in the world.  It affords the key to the knowledge of the
inmost being of the whole of nature.  It is the kernel of every
individual thing, and also of the whole universe.

It is important to note, that Schopenhauer's use of the word "will" is
far wider than that of common usage.  It includes not only conscious
desire, but also unconscious instinct, and the forces of inorganic
nature.  He recognises will not only in the existences which resemble
our own, in men and animals, but also in the force which germinates and
vegetates in the plant, the force through which the crystal is formed,
that by which the magnet turns to the north pole, the force which
appears in the elective affinities of matter as repulsion and
attraction, decomposition and combination, and lastly even as
gravitation, which draws the stone to the earth and the earth to the
sun.  All these in their inner nature are identical.  It is the same
force in every manifestation of nature, as in each preconsidered action
of man.  The difference is merely one of degree.

The body is the most real thing for everyone.  If we analyse the
reality of this body, we find nothing but the will.  With this its
reality is exhausted.  The word {40} will, like a magic spell, he says,
reveals the inmost being of all nature.  Spinoza says, that if a stone,
which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would
believe that it was moving of its own will.  Schopenhauer adds that the
stone would be right.  The impulse given it, is for the stone what the
motive is for us.  All blindly impelling force, all forces which act in
nature in accordance with universal laws, are equally in their inner
nature to be recognised as will.  It is everywhere one and the same,
"just as the first dim light of dawn must share the name of sunlight
with the rays of the full midday."

Now the will expresses itself necessarily as a struggle.  Everywhere in
nature we see strife, conflict, and alternation of victory.  Every
grade of will fights for the matter, the space, and the time of the
others.  For each desires to express its own inmost nature.  Nature
exists only through such struggle.  This universal conflict is most
distinctly visible in the animal kingdom.  For animals have the whole
of the vegetable kingdom for their food, and even within the animal
kingdom every beast is the prey and the food of another.  Each animal
can maintain its existence only by the constant destruction of some
other life.

This is the "will to live" which everywhere preys upon itself, until
finally the human race regards nature as a manufactory for its own use.
This strife manifests itself just as characteristically in the lower
grades of will, _e.g._ the ivy which encircles the oak until the tree
withers as if choked, the parasite which fastens itself on the animal
and kills it.  Even crude matter has its existence only in the strife
of conflicting forces.

Man has need of the beasts for his support, the beasts in their turn
have need of each other as well as plants, {41} which in their turn
require the ground, water, and chemical elements and their
combinations.  Thus in nature everything preys on some other form of
life.  For the will must live on itself; there exists nothing beside
it, and it is a hungry will.

This theory of the will is connected by Schopenhauer with pessimism.
Eternal becoming, endless flux characterises the inner nature of the
will.  In the human race this character of the will is most clearly
marked.  All our endeavours and desires delude us by presenting their
satisfaction as the final end of will.  But as soon as we attain our
desires, they no longer appear the same.  They soon grow stale and are
forgotten, and then are thrown aside as useless illusions.  The
enchantment of distance shows us paradises, which vanish like optical
delusions, as soon as we have allowed ourselves to be mocked by them.
We are fortunate if there still remains something to wish for and to
strive after, that the game may be kept up of constant transition from
desire to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new desire.

Happiness, therefore, always lies in the future, or else in the past.
The present, Schopenhauer compares to a small dark cloud, which the
wind drives over the sunny plain.  Before and behind it all is bright,
but the cloud itself always casts a shadow.  The present is always
insufficient, the future is uncertain, and the past irrevocable.

The will strives always, for striving is its real nature.  No
attainment of the goal can put an end to this constant striving.  It is
not susceptible, therefore, of any final satisfaction, for in itself it
goes on for ever.  As in the life of the plant, so in the life of all
men.  There is the same restless, unsatisfied striving, a ceaseless
{42} movement through ever-ascending forms, until finally the seed
becomes a new starting-point.  This is repeated _ad infinitum_, nowhere
an end, nowhere a final satisfaction, nowhere a resting-place.  No
possible satisfaction in the world can suffice to still the cravings of
the will, to set a goal to its infinite aspirations, and to fill the
bottomless abyss of its heart.

The hindrance of this striving, through an obstacle, we call suffering;
the attainment of its temporary end is well-being or happiness.  But as
there is no final end of striving, there is no measure and end of
suffering.  In proportion as knowledge attains to distinctness, as
consciousness ascends in the scale of organic life, pain increases
also.  It reaches its highest capacity, therefore, in man.  The more
intelligence a man has, the greater his capacity for suffering; the man
who is gifted with genius suffers most of all.  Suffering is in the
very nature of all life, and the ceaseless efforts which we make to
banish it succeed only in making it change its form.  Yet we pursue our
lives, absorbed in the interests of the moment, just as we blow out a
soap bubble as large as possible, although we know perfectly well that
it will burst.  Willing or striving may be compared to an unquenchable
thirst.  Every act of willing presupposes a want.  The basis of all
willing is need or deficiency.  The nature of man, therefore, is
subject to pain originally and through its very nature.

If, on the other hand, man lacks objects of desire, being deprived of
them by too easy satisfaction, then a terrible emptiness and sense of
boredom, comes over him.  His very existence becomes an unbearable
burden to him.  Thus life swings like a pendulum backwards and forwards
between pain and boredom.  Men have {43} expressed this truth oddly,
says Schopenhauer, in transferring all pain and torments to hell, and
in leaving what remains, that is, boredom, for heaven.  Man is of all
animals the most full of wants and needs.  He is a concretion of a
thousand necessities.  Driven by these, he wanders through life,
uncertain about everything except his own need and misery.  The care
for the maintenance of his existence occupies, as a rule, the whole of
human life.  A second claim, that of the reproduction of the species,
is related directly to this.  At the same time, he is threatened from
all sides by different kinds of dangers, from which it requires
constant watchfulness to escape.  "With cautious steps and casting
anxious glances round him, he pursues his path, for a thousand
accidents and a thousand enemies lie in wait for him.  Thus he went
while yet a savage, thus he goes in civilised life.  There is no
security for him."

The majority of men wage a constant battle for their very existence,
with nothing before them but the certainty of losing it at last.  Man's
greatest care in avoiding the rocks and whirlpools of life, only bring
him nearer at every step to the greatest, inevitable, and irremediable
shipwreck of death.  This is the final goal of the laborious voyage.

Whatever nature and fortune may have done, whoever a man be, and
whatever he may possess, the pain of life cannot be cast off.
Excessive joy and excessive suffering always occur in the same person,
for they condition each other reciprocally, and are conditioned by
great activity of the mind.  Error and delusion lie at the foundation
of keen joy or grief.  Joy rests on the delusion that lasting
satisfaction has been found for the desires.  The inevitable result is
that when the {44} delusion vanishes, we pay for it with pain as bitter
as the joy was keen.  The greater the height from which we drop, the
more severe the fall.

For the most part we close our minds to the knowledge that happiness is
a delusion.  We strive unweariedly from wish to wish, and from desire
to desire.  It is incredible how meaningless when viewed from without,
how dull and unenlightened by intellect when felt from within, is the
course of life of the great mass of men.  It is a weary longing and
complaining, a dreamlike staggering through the four ages of life to
death, accompanied only by trivial thoughts.  Such men go like
clockwork, without knowing the reason why.  The life of every
individual, if we survey it as a whole, is always a tragedy, but looked
at in detail, it has all the character of a comedy.  Everyone who has
awakened from the first dream of youth, who has reflected on his own
experience and on that of others, must conclude inevitably that this
human world is the kingdom of chance and error, which rule without
mercy in great things and in small.  Everything better struggles
through only with difficulty.  That which is noble and wise seldom
attains to expression.  The absurd and the perverse in the sphere of
thought, the dull and tasteless in the sphere of art, the wicked and
deceitful in the sphere of action, assert a supremacy which is rarely
disturbed.

Nothing external has power to deliver man from this dominion of woe.
In vain does he make to himself gods, in order to get from them by
prayers and flattery what can be accomplished only by his own
will-power.

The most beautiful part of life, its purest joy, is pure knowledge.  It
is removed from all willing, and lifts us out of real existence.  This
relief, however, is granted {45} only to a few, because it demands rare
talents and rare opportunities.  Even the few, to whom it comes only as
a passing dream, are made susceptible of far greater suffering than
duller minds can ever feel.  They are placed in lonely isolation by
their nature, which is different from that of others.  To the great
mass of men, purely intellectual pleasures are not accessible.  They
are almost incapable of the joys which lie in pure knowledge.  Their
lives are given up to willing.

If we could bring clearly to a man's sight the terrible sufferings and
miseries to which his life is exposed, he would be seized with horror.
The brevity of life may be the best quality it possesses.

All happiness is negative in character, and never positive.  Only pain
and want can be felt positively.  Happiness is merely the absence of
pain, for it follows upon the satisfaction of a wish.  Some want or
need is the condition which precedes every pleasure.  But with the
satisfaction, the wish, and therefore the pleasure, cease.  The
satisfaction can never be more than deliverance from a pain or want.
We observe that the days of our life were happy after they have given
place to unhappy ones.  In proportion as pleasures increase, the
capacity for them decreases.  What is customary is no longer felt as a
pleasure.  Achievement is difficult, but when attained it is nothing
but deliverance from some sorrow or want.  Therefore we value our
blessings and advantages only when we have lost them, for the
deprivation, the need, is the positive factor.

Man's real existence is only in the present, and the present is
slipping ever into the past.  There is thus a constant transition into
death.  The future is quite uncertain, and always short.  Our
existence, therefore, is a constant hurrying of the present, into the
dead past, {46} a constant dying.  On the physical side, the life of
the body is but an ever-postponed death.  In the end death must
conquer, and he only plays for a little with his prey before he
swallows it up.

With such intensity did Schopenhauer feel that pessimism was the only
possible conclusion, that he maintained that optimism was not only
absurd, but really a wicked way of thought.  For optimism is a bitter
mockery of the unspeakable suffering of humanity.  He revolted against
the theory of Leibnitz, who maintained that this is the best of all
possible worlds.  It is, on the contrary, he declared, the worst of all
possible worlds.  Optimism is at bottom the unmerited self-praise of
the will to live, the real originator of the world, which views itself
complacently in its works.  It is not only a false, but also a
pernicious doctrine.  For it presents life to us as a desirable
condition, and happiness as its end.  Everyone believes that he has a
just claim to happiness and pleasure, and if these do not fall to his
lot, he believes that he is wronged.  It is far more correct to regard
misery and suffering, crowned by death, as the end of our life, for it
is these which lead to the denial of the will to live.  It is difficult
to conceive how men can deceive themselves and be persuaded that life
is there to be thankfully enjoyed, and that man exists in order to be
happy.  The constant illusion and disillusion seem intended to awaken
the conviction, that nothing at all is worth our striving, our efforts,
or our struggles, and that all good things are but empty vanity.  The
truth is, he says, we ought to be wretched and we are.

The world is a hell, which surpasses that of Dante.  One need look only
at man's treatment of his fellow-men.

Schopenhauer points to the children, who are sent {47} into factories
to work there daily for long hours, performing day after day the same
mechanical task.  This, he adds, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction
of drawing breath.  Everyone would have declined the "gift" of life, if
he could have seen it and tested it beforehand.  But life has never
been chosen freely.  Everyone would retire from the struggle gladly,
but want and boredom are the whips which keep the top spinning.  Every
individual bears the stamp of a forced condition.  Inwardly weary, he
longs for rest, but yet he must press forward.  All movement is forced,
and men are pushed from behind.  It is not life that tempts them on,
but necessity that drives them forward.

Suicide is no solution of the problem of life.  It is not to be
regarded as a crime, as in the code of modern society.  But there is a
valid moral reason against it, in that it substitutes for the real
emancipation from the world of suffering, a merely apparent one.  So
far from being a denial of the will, suicide is indeed a strong
assertion of the will.  The suicide destroys merely the individual
manifestation of life.  The wilful destruction of the single existence
is a vain and foolish act.  The suicide gives up living, because he
cannot give up willing.  He denies the individual only, not the
species.  There is a more adequate way of conquering life than by
destroying it, which Schopenhauer expounds when he deals with the
ethical aspect of his philosophy.

His analysis of the worth of human life, as represented in this theory
of pessimism, is the most passionate and terrible indictment of
existence which has ever found expression.  His sense of disenchantment
is felt with such intensity, that it colours and distorts the whole
fabric of his vision of life.

There is much affinity between the character and {48} work of
Schopenhauer and that of Leopardi.  In both are displayed penetrating
profundity of thought, extraordinary beauty of expression, and deep
insight into the workings of the human mind, while the same passionate
revolt against the misery of life colours the outlook and achievement
of philosopher and poet alike.  Schopenhauer was acquainted with the
writings of Leopardi, and had great admiration for his work.  His
subject, he says, is always the mockery and wretchedness of existence,
and he presents it with such wealth of imagery, such multiplicity of
forms and applications, that he never wearies us, but is always
entertaining and exciting.  This estimate of the work of Leopardi might
with equal justice be applied to Schopenhauer himself.

As his philosophy gained ground gradually, and became known, he won
many disciples and enthusiastic followers, and for a time his theories
of pessimism became fashionable.  Certain literary groups adopted them
with enthusiasm, but in that direction his influence was not permanent.
It is not in Schopenhauer's theory of pessimism that his true
importance and real significance lie.  In philosophy this influence has
but faintly shown itself.  Schopenhauer's direct successor on these
lines of thought is Eduard von Hartmann.  He rejects Schopenhauer's
doctrine that all pleasure is merely relief from pain, but admits that
the greater number of pleasures are of this kind.  Satisfaction, he
asserts, is always brief, while dissatisfaction is enduring as life
itself.  The pain in the universe greatly preponderates over the
pleasure, even for those who are regarded as the fortunate ones in the
eyes of the world.  The future, moreover, seems likely to bring us only
increased misery.  Hartmann's practical conclusion is that we should
aim at the negation of the will to live, not each for himself, as
Schopenhauer {49} taught, but universally, by working towards the
annihilation of all existence.  Schopenhauer's influence is here,
obviously, very strongly marked.

Another disciple, and a far more famous one, is Nietzsche.  He came
under Schopenhauer's influence while a student at the university, and
threw himself with passionate enthusiasm under the spell of his
philosophy.  Although in his later development he reacted strongly in
an opposite direction, yet all his work bears the mark of the deep
impress which Schopenhauer had made upon his mind.  His outlook on life
had been changed profoundly by "that wonderful heart-stirring
philosophy," as he calls it.  One of his earliest works was an essay on
_Schopenhauer as Educator_, in which he bases the greatness of
Schopenhauer on his power to see the picture of life as a unity, and to
express it as such.  He is held up as the ideal philosopher, and as one
of three models for future man, the other two being Goethe and
Rousseau.  Schopenhauer's insistence on action as the proper sphere of
man, as contrasted with the mere life of thought, made a strong appeal
to Nietzsche.  A philosopher, says Nietzsche, must be not only a great
thinker, but a living man.  Schopenhauer had not been spoilt, as was
Kant, by his education.  He had seen life as well as studied books, and
so was able to see how the free, strong man could be evolved.  Many of
Nietzsche's most characteristic doctrines are suggested in this early
essay, and are read partially into Schopenhauer's philosophy.

It is more especially Schopenhauer's theories of art which influenced
Nietzsche's thought, and left the deepest and most permanent mark on
his work.  He adopted in his early days the pessimism along with the
rest of Schopenhauer's system.  But this conception {50} of life was
not really native to his mind, and it was against this aspect of
Schopenhauer's philosophy that he reacted most violently in later life.
Nietzsche stands, above all else, for the affirmation of life,
Schopenhauer for the negation of life.  In his protest against
pessimism, Nietzsche reaffirms with passionate intensity the worth of
life and the splendour of human destiny.  He told men to believe in the
glory of things, and bade them shout for the joy of living.  "All
that's joyful shall be true," he says in one of his poems.  In another
passage he insists that "it is necessary to remain bravely at the
surface, to worship appearance, to believe in forms, in tones, in
words, in the whole Olympus of appearance."  It is clear that by this
time nothing of the pessimistic outlook on life had been left in
Nietzsche's philosophy.

Pessimism will always find an echo in the minds of those who by
temperament tend to see only the darker colours of the picture of life.
Too much questioning and too little responsibility lead down to the
abyss, as William James points out.  Pessimism, he says, is essentially
a religious disease.  It consists in nothing but a religious demand, to
which there comes no normal religious reply.

To the great mass of mankind there is something alien and repellent in
this grim and bitter outlook of hopelessness.  It finds little or no
response in the heart of the normal human being, even though at times
the nightmare view may force itself upon him.  "Deliverance," says the
Indian poet Tagore, "is not for me in renunciation.  I feel the embrace
of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.  All my illusions will burn
into illumination of joy and all my desires ripen into fruits of love."

{51}

For Schopenhauer the way of escape lay in two directions.  In
considering his aesthetic theories, we shall see how he found in art a
temporary release from the bondage of life, and in his ethical system
he points the way to a permanent deliverance.

It is in these statements, the aesthetic and the ethical aspects of his
system, that we find the most significant part of Schopenhauer's
philosophy.  His pessimism left little permanent mark on the course of
philosophic thought.  It is to the other side of his work that we must
look for a fruitful issue, to his statement of the function of art and
its meaning for life; his insistence on the will, the active element,
as that which has most reality and significance in life; to the part
which the feelings, instinct, and impulse play in his system.  In all
these directions, Schopenhauer's influence has been powerful and
far-reaching.  To-day he is a stronger force than any other of the
great thinkers of his time, overshadowed though he was by them during
his lifetime.  In Germany especially, his influence is felt as a
powerful factor in the thought of the present day.




{52}

CHAPTER III

ART

Schopenhauer's theory of the beautiful is the side of his philosophy
which has always made so potent an appeal to artists, and to all those
lovers of the beautiful, for whom art represents the supreme
significance of life.

The present for Schopenhauer is only an infinitesimal moment between
two eternities, the past and the future.  It is "a flash of light
between two darknesses."  Now how is man to make the best of this brief
moment, under the hard conditions of his destiny?  The answer to this
question Schopenhauer finds in his theory of the function of art.  He
links up into intimate relation his theory of aesthetic with his
philosophical pessimism, but his pessimism is modified considerably in
the process.

There are certain men, he maintains, who can free themselves from the
bondage of the will.  They can throw off its yoke, and, released from
all the aims of desire, they can become disinterested spectators of the
real, essential nature of the world.  The inner meaning of their clear,
deep vision they can interpret to others.  Such men are artists, and
the interpretation of their vision is the work of art.  In art are
revealed the eternal truths of the nature of man and the universe,
revealed with a power and directness to which science can never attain.
Artists, then, are the seers, the visionaries, who penetrate into the
hidden, vital principles of things.  They alone have power to interpret
{53} the half-uttered speech of nature, and disentangle that which is
real and essential, the inner truth, from that which is accidental and
transitory.  The road to philosophy, then, leads through the gateway of
art.

In this theory Schopenhauer starts from Plato's doctrine of the Ideas.
The particular objects of sense, which we know, are mere appearances.
They have no reality in themselves.  They arise and pass away, they
always become and never are.  But there exist also the types and
eternal forms of things, which do not enter into time and space, and
which remain fixed, subject to no change.  These constitute the sole
reality.  Plato called them the Ideas, and Schopenhauer adopts this
term from the Platonic philosophy.  The Ideas for Schopenhauer
represent the different grades of the objectification of the will,
which are manifested in the individuals.  These are the eternal forms
or prototypes of individual things.

Our knowledge of the ordinary things of sense-experience is indirect,
it is gained by way of the intellect.  Our knowledge of the Ideas, on
the other hand, is direct and immediate, it is gained through
intuition.  In his account of the Ideas, or the real, essential nature
of things, Schopenhauer is treading already the path of mysticism,
along which he works out his theories of ethics.

Now the whole function of art is to reproduce the eternal ideas, to
seize on that which is essential and abiding in all the phenomena of
the world.  The one and only source of art is the knowledge of true
reality, of the Ideas.  The one aim of art is the communication of this
knowledge.  According to the material in which this vision of true
reality is reproduced, it is architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry,
or music.

{54}

Science can only follow the unresting and inconstant stream of
appearances.  It can never reach a final goal nor attain complete
satisfaction, any more than by running we can reach the place where the
clouds touch the horizon.  But art, on the other hand, is everywhere at
its goal.  It plucks the object of its contemplation out of the stream
of things as they seem, and holds it isolated before its vision.  And
this particular thing, which in the stream of the world's course was a
small perishing part, becomes to art the representative of the whole,
the type of the endless multitude in space and time.  Art, therefore,
pauses before this reality, which it perceives in the particular thing.
The course of time stands still; relations vanish before it; only the
essential, the Idea, remains as the object of the artist's vision.  In
the multitudinous and manifold forms of human life, and in the
unceasing change of events, the artist looks only on the Idea, knowing
it as the abiding and the essential, as that which is known with equal
truth for all time.  Art, therefore, is the bridge between two worlds.
It leads us from things as they seem to things as they really are.

It is the genius who possesses this power of vision, and whose magic
works can unfold before the eyes of ordinary mortals the spirit of
beauty as she has revealed herself to him.  Entirely in this spirit
does Blake express his sense of the poet's mission:

      "I rest not from my great task
  To open the eternal worlds, to open the immortal eyes
  Of man inwards; into the worlds of thought; into Eternity
  Ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human Imagination.


The method of genius is always artistic, as opposed to scientific.  The
nature of genius consists in a surpassing capacity for the pure
contemplation of Ideas.  {55} It is the faculty of continuing in the
state of pure perception, of losing the personality in perception, and
of enlisting in this service the knowledge which existed originally
only for the service of the will.  Genius, then, is the power of
leaving one's own interests, wishes, and aims entirely out of sight, of
renouncing entirely one's own personality for a time, so as to remain
pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world.  This state must be
achieved, not merely at moments, but for a sufficient length of time,
and with sufficient consciousness, to enable the artist to reproduce by
deliberate art what has thus been seized by his inner vision.  He must
fix in lasting thoughts the wavering images that float before the mind:

  "But from these create he can
  Forms more real than living man,
  Nurslings of immortality."


It is as if, says Schopenhauer, when genius appears in an individual, a
far greater measure of the power of knowledge falls to his lot than is
necessary for ordinary men.  This excess of knowledge, being free, now
becomes subject purified from will, a clear mirror of the inner nature
of the world.

Imagination is an essential element in genius, and it is a necessary
condition that it should be possessed in an extraordinary degree.
Imagination extends the horizon far beyond the limits of actual
personal experience, and so enables the artist to construct the whole
dream, the complete vision, out of the little that comes into his own
actual apperception.

The actual objects are almost always but imperfect copies of the ideas
expressed in them.  Therefore the artist requires imagination in order
to see in things, not that which nature has actually made, but that
which {56} she endeavoured to make, but could not, because of the
never-ceasing conflict between the various forms of will.  Through the
penetrating vision of this imagination, the artist recognises the Idea.
He understands the half-uttered speech of nature, and is able to
articulate clearly what she only stammered forth.

The common mortal, he says, that manufacture of nature, which she
produces by the thousand every day, is not capable of observation that
is wholly disinterested in every sense.  He can turn his attention to
things only so far as they have some relation to his will, however
indirect it may be.  This is why he is so soon done with everything,
with works of art, objects of natural beauty, and everywhere with all
that is truly significant in the various scenes of life.  He does not
linger in the pursuit of beauty, but seeks only to gain his own way in
life.  On the consideration of the significance of life as a whole, he
wastes no time.  The artist, on the other hand, strives to understand
the inner nature of everything.  His faculty of vision is to him the
sum which reveals the world.

In spite of his contempt for the majority of men, Schopenhauer has to
admit that the faculty of perceiving the Idea, the inner reality, must
exist in nearly all men, in a smaller and different degree, otherwise
they would be just as incapable of enjoying works of art as of
producing them.  They would have no susceptibility to beauty, nor to
sublimity.  All men, therefore, who are capable of aesthetic pleasure at
all, must be capable to some extent of knowing the Idea in things, and
in responding to the call of beauty, of transcending their personality
for the moment.

AEsthetic pleasure is the same whether it is evoked by a work of art or
by the contemplation of nature, for {57} the Idea remains unchanged and
the same.  The work of art is only a means of making permanent the
vision in which this pleasure consists.  The artist does not add "the
gleam, the light that never was on sea or land," but his vision is more
finely attuned to the reality than that of ordinary men.  He makes
permanent in the various media of art "the consecration and the poet's
dream."  His work acts as a communicating spark from mind to mind.

In one of Carlyle's most suggestive passages, he insists on the
spiritual and symbolic nature of the work of art, in words that echo
curiously the thought of Schopenhauer.  "In all true works of art," he
says, "thou wilt discern eternity looking through time, the godlike
rendered visible ... a hierarch therefore, and pontiff of the world
will we call him, the poet and inspired maker, who Prometheus-like can
shape new symbols, and bring new fire from heaven to fix it there."

That the Idea, the true reality behind appearance, is revealed with so
much more force and clearness in the productions of art than directly
in nature is due to the power of the artist to abstract the pure Idea,
the reality, from the actual and the accidental, omitting all
disturbing, non-essential qualities.  He disentangles that which is
real and essential from the confused mass presented in experience.  The
artist lets us see the real world through his eyes.  That he has these
eyes, that he knows the inner nature of things, apart from all their
relations, is the gift of genius.  This gift is inborn, and cannot be
acquired.  But that the artist is able to lend us this gift, and let us
see through his eyes, is acquired.  This is the technical side of his
art.

Primarily, then, the genius is the artist.  Scientific {58} genius
finds no place in Schopenhauer's scheme.  Statesmen are of very
different fibre.  Their intellect retains a practical tendency, and is
concerned with the choice of the best means to practical ends,
remaining therefore in the service of the will.  The eminent man, who
is fitted for great achievement in the practical sphere of life, is so
because objects rouse his will in a strong degree, and spur him on to
the investigation of their relations.  His intellect, therefore, has
grown up in close connection with his will.

Talent is limited to detecting the relations which exist between
individual phenomena, whereas genius rises to a vision of the universal
in the individual.  The genius has a vision of another and a deeper
world, because he sees more profoundly into the world which lies before
him.  "To compare useful people with men of genius is like comparing
building stone with diamonds."  Mere men of talent come always at the
right time, for they are called forth by the needs of their own age.
The genius, on the other hand, comes into his age like a comet, whose
eccentric course is foreign to its well-regulated order.  Genius
appears only as a perfectly isolated exception.

Schopenhauer never states definitely that a philosopher may be a
genius, but he always seems to assume that he himself belongs to the
heavenly company.  He gives a detailed description of the genius, even
to his physical appearance.  With his usual habit of generalising from
his own particular case, he endows the genius with many of his own
personal characteristics, even to his dislike of mathematics.

The Platonic theory of Ideas was the basis on which Schopenhauer built
his philosophy of art.  But Plato's own theory of the function of art
differed fundamentally {59} from that of Schopenhauer, and it is
interesting to compare the two views.  To Plato it seemed that art was
concerned with the imitation of things as they seem, not as they really
are; with the objects of sense perception and not with the Ideas.  The
artist mutates the illusory appearances of concrete things.
Consequently the work of art is still further removed from true
reality, from the Idea, than is the thing of experience.  It is a copy
of a copy.  This led him to the statement that works of art are thrice
removed from the truth.  They can be produced easily without any
knowledge of the truth, for they are concerned only with appearances,
and not with the reality that lies behind appearances.  Hence Plato's
rejection of art.  In his system it is not art, but philosophy that
gives a direct revelation of truth.  Schopenhauer, on the other hand,
maintains that it is not the concrete object of experience, but the
reality itself which lies behind that object, with which the artist is
supremely concerned.  The artist alone among men has the capacity of
vision to see and grasp the truth of this reality.  Such capacity of
vision is reserved by Plato for philosophers, those whom he calls
"lovers of the vision of truth."

In his earlier works, Plato approximates far more closely to
Schopenhauer's theory.  He speaks there of the poet as "a light and
winged and holy thing.  There is no invention in him until he has been
inspired....  Beautiful poems are not human or the work of man, but
divine and the work of God.  The poets are only the interpreters of the
gods, by whom they are severally possessed."

The value of art for Schopenhauer lies mainly in its power to deliver
us from the slavery of the will.  In the quiet contemplation of beauty
revealed in art, we are {60} delivered from the misery of life.
Willing, he maintains, arises from want, and therefore from suffering.
The satisfaction of a wish ends it, but every satisfied wish at once
makes room for a new one, and both are illusions.  No attained object
of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting
gratification.  It is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps
him alive today, that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow.

Without peace no true well-being is possible.  But when some external
cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream
of willing, and knowledge is delivered from the slavery of the will, we
have a vision of things free from this relation of the will.  We can
observe them without personal interest, without subjectivity.  Then,
all at once, the peace which we are always seeking, but which always
fled from us on the path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord,
and it is well with us.  This is the painless state, which Epicurus
prized as the highest good, and as the state of the gods.  We are then
set free from the miserable striving of the will.  It is this
deliverance that art effects for us, and which is accomplished only by
the inner power of the artistic nature.  Art frees us from all
subjectivity, from the bondage of the will.  This freeing of knowledge
lifts us out of all the misery of endless desire, as wholly and
entirely as do sleep and dreams.  Happiness and unhappiness have
disappeared.  We are no longer individuals.  We are only that one eye
of the world, which looks out from all knowing creatures, but which can
become perfectly free from the service of the will in man alone.  Art
provides us with a sphere, in which we can escape from all our misery,
and can attain to a state of temporary peace and painlessness.

{61}

There is a curious affinity between the aesthetic theories of one of the
mediaeval mystics and those of Schopenhauer.  St. Thomas Aquinas, the
greatest of the schoolmen, expounded views in the thirteenth century
akin in many respects to those set forth by Schopenhauer at the
beginning of the nineteenth century.  Beauty, he held, is the
revelation of reason in sensuous shape, and he proceeds further to say
that in the realisation of beauty desire is quieted.

Art is the most joy-giving and the only innocent side of life.  It is,
says Schopenhauer, in the full significance of the word, the flower of
life.  The pleasure which we receive from all beauty, the consolation
which art affords, enables us to forget the cares of life.  This
pleasure consists in the contemplation of the Ideas, in the
contemplation of the inner truth of life, which reveals to us a drama
full of significance.  In entering into the state of pure
contemplation, our happiness lies in the sense of being lifted, for the
time being, above all willing, beyond all wishes and desires.  We
become freed from ourselves.  These moments when, sunk in contemplation
and enjoyment of the work of art, we are delivered from the ardent
striving of the will, when we seem to rise out of the heavy atmosphere
of earth, these moments are the happiest which we ever know.

The arts themselves Schopenhauer arranges according to their
subject-matter rather than according to their medium.  He places them
in very much the same order as that in which Hegel puts them.
Architecture, painting and sculpture, poetry and music are each
discussed in turn.

_Music_.--Music is the apex of his whole system of aesthetics.  It is
placed by itself, outside and above all the other arts.  For it is not,
like the other arts, a copy {62} of the Ideas, but it is the copy of
the will itself.  In the main Schopenhauer's treatment of music is
mystical.  Hegel too gave to music the supreme position among the arts.
It was the central romantic art in his system, and the mysterious
magical enchantment of music is painted by him with glowing eloquence.

The effect of music, says Schopenhauer, on the inmost nature of man, is
powerful beyond that of any of the other arts.  For that great and
exceedingly noble art stands alone, quite apart from the other arts.
In it there is no copy or repetition of any Idea of existence in the
world.  It is understood by man in his inmost consciousness as a
universal language, the distinctness of which surpasses that of the
visible world itself.  The basis of modern music lies in the numerical
relations which underlie sounds.  Arithmetical proportions enter into
and have some part in the pleasure which we derive from music, as
Leibnitz points out, but this does not account for that passionate
delight with which we hear the deepest recesses of our nature find
expression in sound.  If we take the aesthetic effect as a criterion, we
must attribute to music a far deeper and more vital significance than
that which lies at the basis of the other arts.  This is connected with
the inmost nature of man and the world.  Its representative relation to
the world must be very deep, absolutely true, and extraordinarily
accurate, because it is understood immediately by everyone.  It has the
appearance of a certain infallibility, because its form may be reduced
to quite definite rules, expressed in numbers, from which it cannot
free itself without ceasing to be music.  The obscure relation of music
to the world has never been made clear.

In order to explain this relation, Schopenhauer says {63} he gave his
mind entirely to the impression of music in all its aspects, and then
returned to apply his reflections to his system of thought.  We know
that he had invaluable opportunities of studying music, in its various
forms, during the time that he was working out his system at Dresden.
He himself practised daily the use of a musical instrument.  The result
of his investigation is an explanation, which he admits is impossible
of proof, because it regards music as the copy of an original, which
can never itself be presented directly as idea.  But he maintains that
in order to assent with full conviction to his theory of the
significance of this art, it is only necessary to listen frequently to
music, testing the theory at the time, and reflecting constantly upon
it.

The other arts represent the Ideas in the particular things, the
realities that lie behind the visible world, but music is independent
altogether of the world of concrete things.  It ignores completely this
aspect of life.  It could to a certain extent exist even if there was
no world at all.  Music, then, is not the copy of the Ideas, but the
copy of the Will itself.  That is why the effect of music is so much
more powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts, for they
speak only of shadows, but it speaks of the thing itself.

Browning relates music to the will in one of his best-known poems, when
he makes Abt Vogler say:

  "But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
  Existent behind all laws, that made them, and lo, they are!
  And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
  That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star."


Schopenhauer, in working out the details of his theory, tries to
establish an analogy between music and {64} the Ideas of the visible
world, connecting the lower tones with the lowest grades of the
objectification of the will, those of inorganic nature, and leading up
gradually through the intermediate grades until the higher tones are
reached, representing the other end of the scale, the highest organic
forms of life.  The melody, the high singing part, represents the
intelligent life and effort of man, and progresses with unrestrained
freedom, while it dominates the whole.  This represents the unbroken,
significant connection of one continuous thought.  The melody,
therefore, has significant intentional connection from beginning to
end.  It records the history of the will enlightened by intellect.  In
the world of experience the will expresses itself in action.  But
melody does more, it expresses the inner side of the action, drawing
out from the deeps its secret history, its motives and efforts, its
passionate yearning and inner excitements, all that which the reason
includes in the concept of feeling.  For this reason music has been
called the language of feeling and passion, as words are the language
of the reason.  In melody there is a constant deviation from the
keynote in a thousand ways, yet there always follows a constant return
to the keynote.  In all these digressions and deviations melody
expresses the manifold efforts of the will.  Its satisfaction is also
expressed by the final return to a harmonious interval, and to the
keynote.  In melody, therefore, the composer reveals all the deepest
secrets of human willing and feeling.

His work lies far from all reflection and conscious intention, and
flows directly from inspiration.  The abstract conception is here, as
everywhere in art, unfruitful.  The composer reveals the inner nature
of the world, and expresses the deepest wisdom in a language {65} which
his reason does not understand.  In the same way, a person under the
influence of mesmerism tells things of which he has no conception when
he wakes.  In the composer, more than in any other artist, the man is
entirely separate and distinct from the artist.

As quick transition from wish to satisfaction is well-being, so quick
melodies are cheerful.  Slow melodies are analogous to the delayed and
hardly-won satisfaction, and are sad.  Quick dance music seems to speak
only of easily attained and common pleasure.  Adagio movements speak of
the pain of a great and noble striving, which despises all trivial
happiness.

The effect of the major and the minor key is equally marked.  In
general, music consists of a constant succession of more or less
disquieting chords, chords which excite "immortal longings," and also
of more or less quieting and satisfying chords, just as the life of the
heart is a constant succession of feelings of disquietude and of peace,
following desire and satisfaction.  Just as there are two general
fundamental moods of the feelings, serenity and sadness, so music has
two keys, which correspond to these, the major and the minor.  Since
music is founded deeply in the nature of man, the dominant national
mood is reproduced invariably in a country's music.  We find
accordingly that the minor key prevails in Russian music, while allegro
in the minor is characteristic of French music, "as if one danced while
one's shoe pinched."

But in all these analogies music has no direct, but only an indirect
relation to them.  It does not express particular and definite joys,
sorrows, pains, or horrors, but joy, sorrow, pain, or horror itself,
the real, inner nature of each emotion.  It is the essential character
of these emotions that is represented, without disturbing {66}
accessories.  Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its
events, never the events themselves.  This inner meaning of life, the
eternal truth of things, is felt and understood immediately when we
listen to great music.  "All things eternal," wrote Wagner, "can be
expressed with unmistakable certainty in music."  And in another
passage, he says, "Music can never and in no possible alliance cease to
be the highest, the redeeming art.  It is of her nature, that what all
the other arts but hint at, through her and in her becomes the most
indubitable of certainties, the most direct and definite of truths."

It is for this reason that our imagination is excited so easily by
music, and that we seek to give it form by clothing it with words.
This is the origin of opera and songs.

Wagner built up a whole theory of music, based on the philosophy of
Schopenhauer.  But in their views on opera they differed fundamentally.
The text of opera, says Schopenhauer, should never forsake a
subordinate position.  The music should never become a mere means of
expressing the words.  That is a great misconception of the function of
music, for music should always be universal.  It is just its
universality, which belongs exclusively to it, that gives music its
high worth as "the panacea for all our woes."  If music is too closely
united to the words, and tries to express itself according to outward
events, it is striving to speak a language which is not its own.
Schopenhauer mentions Rossini as the composer who is most free from
this mistake.  His music speaks so clearly that it requires no words to
explain it.

Nature and music, then, are merely two different expressions of the
same thing.  Music is a universal {67} language, expressing the inner
nature of the world.  It resembles geometrical figures and numbers.
They are the universal forms of all possible objects of experience, and
yet are not abstract, but concrete and determined.  All that goes on in
the heart of man, and that is included in the concept of feeling, may
be expressed by an infinite number of possible melodies, but always
universally.  Music represents the inmost soul of the event, without
the body.  We might therefore just as well call the world embodied
music as embodied will.  For this reason music makes every scene of
real life, and of the world, more profoundly significant.  It lays bare
the inmost kernel which lies hidden in the heart of all things.  It
penetrates to the very heart of nature.  The ineffable joy which we
derive from music, which haunts our consciousness as the vision of a
distant paradise, restores to us all the emotions of our inmost nature,
but divested entirely of the sting of actuality, and far removed from
its pain.

It is interesting to compare the view of Schopenhauer, that music is a
copy of the will itself, with the theory of Plato and Aristotle, which
maintained that music is a direct reflection of character.  The modern
art of music was not developed in their day, and yet both these
philosophers seem to have had prophetic insight in understanding the
nature of the marvellous spell and power of sound.  Music to them was
an imitation, a copy of character, and as such of profound importance
in education.  Music reflects character, and therefore moulds and
influences it.  The foundations of character, says Plato, are laid in
music, which charms the souls of the young into the path of virtue.
Rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul,
making the soul harmonious and graceful.  {68} "If our youth are to do
their work in life, they must make harmony their perpetual aim," and
the soul can only be reached and educated in this way through music.

It is Schopenhauer's theory of music which has influenced most directly
the world of art.  It was hailed by Wagner as a revelation, and it
determined his musical development and all his aesthetic theories.
Through Wagner it may be said to have revolutionised much of modern
music.  After reading _The World as Will and Idea_, Wagner wrote, "I
must confess to having arrived at a clear understanding of my own works
of art through the help of another, who has provided me with the
reasoned conceptions corresponding to my intuitive principles."  This
philosophy contained, he said, the intellectual demonstration of the
conflict of human forces, which he himself had demonstrated
artistically.

_Architecture_.--In Schopenhauer's arrangement of the arts, music, as
we have seen, occupies the supreme place, being the highest expression
in art which man can achieve.  At the other end of the scale stands
architecture.  Its aim is to bring to greater distinctness some of the
ideas which represent the lowest grades of the will, such as gravity,
cohesion, rigidity, and hardness.  These are the universal qualities of
stone, and the simplest, most inarticulate manifestations of will.
They may be called the bass notes of nature.  The conflict between
gravity and rigidity is the sole aesthetic material of architecture.
Its problem is to make this conflict appear distinctly in a multitude
of different ways.  The beauty of a building lies in the obvious
adaptation of every part to the stability of the whole.  The position,
size, and form of every part must be so {69} related to the whole, that
it forms a necessary and inevitable part of an organic unity.  Each
arch, column, and capital must be determined by its relation to the
whole building.

It is the function of architecture to reveal also the nature of light.
For the light is intercepted, confined, and reflected by the mass of
the building.  It is thrown into high relief by the receding forms,
which supply the contrasting depths of shade.  It thus unfolds its
nature and qualities in the clearest and most definite way.  It is not
merely form and symmetry which appeal to us in architecture, but
primarily the fundamental forces of nature, the simplest qualities of
matter.  The quality of the material, therefore, is of great
importance.  The fundamental law of architecture is that no burden
shall be without sufficient support, and no support without a suitable
burden.  The purest example of this principle is the column and
entablature.  In separating completely the support and burden in the
column and entablature, the reciprocal action of the two and their
relation to each other become perfectly clear.  For this reason the
simplest building in Italy gives aesthetic pleasure, due to the flatness
of the roof.  A high roof is neither support nor burden, for its two
halves support each other.  It serves merely a useful end, presenting
to the eye an extended mass, which is wholly alien to the aesthetic
sense.  Architecture requires large masses, in order to be felt
adequately, and it must work out its own character under the law of the
most perfect clearness to the eye.  It exists in space-perception, and
must make a direct and inevitable appeal to the aesthetic sense.  This
demands symmetry, which is necessary to mark out the work as a whole.
It is only through symmetry that a work of architecture reveals itself
as {70} an organic unity and as the development of a central thought.
Architecture ought not to imitate the forms of nature, and yet it
should work in the spirit of nature.  It should reveal the end in view
quite openly, and should avoid everything which is merely aimless.
Thus it achieves the grace which is the result of ease, and the
subordination of every detail to its purpose.

It follows from Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture that he held
Greek work of the best period to be the highest type of building which
it is possible to attain.  In its best examples that style is perfect
and complete, and is not susceptible of any important improvement.  The
modern architect, he held, cannot depart, to any great extent, from the
rules and models of the Greeks, without descending the path of
deterioration.  There remains nothing for him to do but to apply the
art transmitted to him, and to carry out the rules laid down, so far as
he is able under the limitations of climate, age, and country.

Schopenhauer, therefore, had no appreciation of Gothic architecture.
The simple rationality of the Greek temple delights him, but the Gothic
cathedral leaves him cold and unmoved.  He makes the naive admission,
that approval of Gothic architecture would upset all his theories of
the aesthetic significance of architecture.  To compare the two is, he
says, a barbarous presumption, although he allows, somewhat grudgingly,
that a certain beauty of its own cannot be denied to the Gothic style.
Our pleasure in it, however, is to be traced mainly to the association
of ideas, and to historical memories.  That pure rationality by which
every part admits instantly of strict account in its subordination to
the plan as a whole, is not to be found in Gothic work.  Greek
architecture is conceived in a {71} purely objective spirit, whereas
Gothic is rather subjective in spirit.  But Schopenhauer cannot reason
away entirely the impression created by the Gothic interior.  That, he
admits, is the finest part of the whole, and it is here that the mind
is impressed by the effect of the groined vaulting, borne by slender,
aspiring pillars, soaring upwards.  All burden seems to have
disappeared, promising eternal security.  Most of the faults, however,
appear upon the exterior, whereas in Greek buildings the exterior is
the finer; in the interior the flat roof retains something depressing
and prosaic.

Of the ideals and aspirations which the great builders of the Middle
Ages so wonderfully transmuted into stone, Schopenhauer has nothing to
tell us.  The men "who sang their souls in stone" were for him
pre-eminently the builders of Greek temples.

In his insistence on the open display of the relation between burden
and support, and also on the importance of bringing out the qualities
of the material, Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture recalls many
passages in Ruskin, in which he insists repeatedly, that both truth and
feeling require that the conditions of support should be clearly
understood, and that the quality of the material must find expression.

The analogy of architecture to music is one of the most characteristic
and suggestive portions of Schopenhauer's aesthetic.  He emphasises the
great difference between the two arts, pointing out that according to
their inner nature, in their potency, extent, and significance they are
indeed true antipodes.  Architecture exists in space, unrelated to
time, whereas music is in time alone, having no relation to space.  But
the principle which gives coherency to architecture is symmetry, that
which gives coherency to music is rhythm.  The {72} close relationship
between these two principles is obvious.  It is this resemblance which
has led to the saying that architecture is "frozen music," which
Schopenhauer quotes from Goethe.

This relation between the two arts, however, extends only to the
outward form.  In their inner nature they are entirely different.  In
essential qualities, Schopenhauer maintains, architecture is the most
limited and the weakest of all the arts, whereas music is the most
far-reaching, and possesses the deepest significance.

_Painting and Sculpture_.--Filling an intermediate position between
architecture and music come painting and sculpture.  These arts
represent more complex grades of the will than architecture, and
therefore convey the truth of life with deeper insight.  They too are
concerned with the Ideas, and symbolise the inner reality of outward
things and events.  Lowest in the scale of the various kinds of
painting come the painting of landscape and of still life, in which the
subjective side of aesthetic pleasure is predominant.  Our satisfaction
consists less in the vision and comprehension of the Ideas than in the
state of mind aroused.  We receive a reflected sense of the deep
spiritual peace and absolute silence of the will, which are necessary
in order to enter so completely into the character of these lifeless
objects.  It would be impossible to bring the modern art of landscape
painting, with its revolt against a purely objective representation of
nature, into line with this analysis of Schopenhauer's.

Next in the scale comes the painting and sculpture of animals, and then
follows the plastic representation of the human form.  The artist
expresses in marble or paint that beauty of form which nature has
failed to complete, and which has to be disentangled from the {73}
obscuring cloud of trivial and accidental details.  In virtue of this
anticipation through art, it is possible for us to recognise beauty
when nature by a rare chance does achieve a masterpiece.  Human beauty
is the fullest objectification of the will at the highest grade which
is known.  It is expressed through form.  In sculpture, beauty and
grace are the principal qualities.  The special character of the mind,
represented by expression, is the peculiar sphere of painting.
Historical painting aims at beauty, grace, and character.  The inward
significance of an action, which is the depth of insight into the Idea
which it reveals, must be brought to light.  Only the inward
significance concerns art, the outward belongs to history.  The
countless scenes and events which make up the life of men are important
enough to be the object of art, for by their rich variety they unfold
the many-sided Idea of humanity.

No event of human life is excluded from painting.  The painters of the
Dutch school, for example, are great artists, not only in virtue of
their technical skill, but because they have seized the inner
significance of the things and actions they have depicted.  They have
real depth of insight into reality.  What is peculiarly significant is
not the individual, nor the particular event, but that which is
universal in the individual.

Schopenhauer held that the highest achievements of the art of painting
were reached by the Italian painters of the early Renaissance,
especially by Raphael and Correggio.  We see in them, says
Schopenhauer, a complete grasp of the Ideas, and thus the whole nature
of life and the world.  In them we find the spirit of complete
resignation, which is the inmost spirit of early Christianity, as well
as of Indian philosophy.  There {74} are portrayed the surrender of all
volition, the suppression of the will.  In this way these great artists
expressed the highest wisdom, which is the summit of all art.

_Poetry_.--Poetry too represents the ideal in individual creations.
Its aim, like the other arts, is the revelation of the Ideas.  The poet
must understand how to draw the abstract and universal out of the
concrete and individual, by the manner in which he combines them.  The
universality of every concept must be narrowed more and more, until we
reach the concrete image, for the poet must express the universal in
concrete form.  The whole of nature can be represented in the medium of
poetry.  The extent of its province is boundless.  Thoughts and
emotions, however, are its peculiar province, and here no other art can
compete with it.  That which has significance in itself, and not in its
relations, the real unfolding of the Idea, is found definitely and
distinctly in poetry.  More genuine inner truth is to be found in
poetry than in history.  The poet's knowledge is intuitive, and by its
means he shows us in the mirror of his mind the Idea, pure and
distinct, bringing to the consciousness of others that which they feel
and do.  In the epic, the poem of romance, and the tragedy, selected
characters are placed in those circumstances in which all their special
qualities unfold themselves, and the depths of the human heart are
revealed, and become visible in significant actions.

Tragedy is the summit of poetic art.  Here the unspeakable pain, the
wail of humanity, the triumph of evil, the mastery of chance is
unfolded before us.  It is one and the same will that appears
throughout.  Knowledge reaches the point at which it is no longer
deceived by the veil of Maya, the web of illusion.  Thus the noblest
men, after long conflict and suffering, at last renounce for ever the
ends they have so eagerly pursued.  {75} The heroes and heroines of
tragedy die, purified by suffering, after the will to live is dead.
The true import of tragedy is that the hero expiates, not his own
individual sins, but the crime of existence itself.  Tragedy, then,
presents the highest grade of the objectification of the will, in
conflict with itself, on a scale of grandeur and awful impressiveness.
The greatest poetry is symbolic in this deepest sense.

Goethe may be considered one of the greatest symbolists among poets.
Every event in life was symbolic for him.  It expressed something more
universal, more extensive, more profound.  The concrete image, the
whole full-blooded individual was always clearly before his mind, but
beyond that he saw and realised something more universal, from which it
necessarily and inevitably springs.  He saw that the truth of nature
does not lie on the surface, but in a deeper unity, which the
penetrative insight of the artist alone can grasp.

In the system of Schopenhauer, then, art acquires almost the character
of a religion.  It becomes the means by which the ultimate essence, the
soul of whatever exists, is disengaged from the world of matter.  And
"in this dutiful waiting upon every symbol, by which the soul of things
can be made visible, art at last attains liberty.  In speaking to us so
intimately, so solemnly, as only religion had hitherto spoken to us, it
becomes itself a kind of religion, with all the duties and
responsibilities of the sacred ritual."

There is a deep significance in the historical fact, that the birth of
religion is interwoven invariably with that of the origin of art.
Aristotle connects closely the rise of various forms of poetry with
religious celebrations.  Art and religion were born simultaneously, and
have always been closely related in the history of mankind.




{76}

CHAPTER IV

VIRTUE

Art, which Schopenhauer calls "the flower of life," enables us to
forget the cares and sufferings of life.  The consolation which we
derive from beauty repays us for the miseries and terrors of existence.
The contemplation of beauty brings us deliverance from the deceptions
and illusions of life, and gives us a pure, true, and deep knowledge of
the inner nature of the world.  It acts as a quieter of the will, and
such quiet contemplation of beauty is the nearest approach to pure
satisfaction that we can achieve.  This deliverance, however, is not a
path out of life, but only a consolation in life.  We must seek the
highest solution in proceeding farther in the same direction.  In his
theories on ethics and religion, Schopenhauer points the way to a
permanent escape from life.

True morality is summed up in self-surrender, in the denial of the will
to live.  There are two stages in this progress of morality.  The first
and lower is that attained in the perfecting of the good disposition.
This is ordinary virtue, which is rooted in love and sympathy, and
which rests on the recognition of the real identity of any one
individual with all other individuals.  The second and higher stage is
that of holiness, and is attained only through asceticism, through the
complete self-surrender which turns away from all the pleasures {77} of
life, and represses even the natural instincts.  Man lays hold on that
which is real through complete resignation and surrender of the will.
Only then is the veil of Maya, the illusion of life, torn asunder, and
is it possible for man to be told the vision of truth.  This is the way
of virtue.  It cannot be taught any more than genius can be taught.
Systems of ethics can produce virtuous and holy men no more than
aesthetics can produce great poets or musicians.

In working out his ethical system, Schopenhauer was deeply influenced
by ancient Indian philosophy.  The complete release from the slavery of
the will is only to be found, in his view, in the asceticism which is
the fundamental principle of Buddhism and of early Christianity.  The
disposition of mind, which alone leads to true holiness and to
deliverance from the world of desire, finds expression in renunciation.

Schopenhauer expands his philosophy of art at far greater length than
he does his ethical system, and seems at times to attach more
significance to it.  But in his final view it is only through virtue
and holiness that man attains to the gate of heaven.

It follows from his philosophy of the will that human action has a
significance far transcending all the possibilities of experience.
Human action exceeds in importance all other things in the world.  The
sanest philosophers, he held, have been those who have played an active
part in life, and who have not devoted themselves merely to abstract
thought.  It is not the highest function of man to think and to
understand, but to feel and to live.  In short, understanding itself is
attained only through life.  For reality is greater than our knowledge
of it.  Knowledge itself is a poor thing at best, an indirect way of
seizing hold of reality.  We must {78} understand things by a deeper
knowledge than that of the intellect.  We must exchange head knowledge
for heart knowledge.  For head knowledge is concerned only with that
part of reality which rises above the threshold of consciousness.  Our
total sense of reality is broader and deeper than a merely intellectual
knowledge.  It includes the subconscious depths of our personality,
making up a whole which is far richer in content than that mere surface
life which we know in consciousness.

This insistence on the importance of intuitive knowledge is closely
connected with Schopenhauer's treatment of instinct.  He is supremely
interested in instinct, finding in it a positive quality, which plays
frequently a more important part than the knowledge of the
understanding or the reason.  The one kind of knowledge is set
constantly against the other in his system.  His treatment of the whole
subject is of deep significance in his philosophy.

The typical case in which instinct is most highly developed is that of
animals.  They strive definitely towards an end, though this end is
unknown to them.  In all the instinctive actions of animals, the will
is clearly as operative as in their other actions, but it is in blind
activity.  In inorganic and vegetable nature the will acts as blind
impulse, and so with infallible certainty.  Animals are exposed already
to illusion and deception, but in their case instinct comes to their
assistance.  Though guided by no motive or knowledge, they yet have the
appearance of performing their work from rational motives.  They work
with the greatest precision and definiteness towards an end which they
do not know.  In man also the will is in many ways only blindly active.
Though a tendency of the will, instinct {79} does not act entirely from
within.  It waits for some external circumstance for its action.
Instinct gives the universal, the rule; intellect gives the particular,
the application.  Instinct seems always to be in accordance with the
conception of an end, and yet is entirely without such an end.
Schopenhauer also connects instinct with clairvoyance and dreams.  In
his own life he attached especial importance to dreams, and on several
critical occasions regulated his actions in accordance with them.  With
his treatment of instinct is bound up also his theory of sexual love.
The lover is deluded in thinking that he aims at his own happiness.
The will to live is forcing him, for nature's own purposes, to aim at a
certain typical beauty, which has its end in the perfection of the
offspring.  The more perfectly two individuals are adapted to each
other, the stronger will be their mutual passion.  Nature is striving
for a better realisation of the type, and to attain its ends must
implant a certain illusion in the individual.  That which is good only
for the species appears to him as good for himself.  He serves the
species in imagining that he is serving himself.  This illusion is
instinct.  The individual is but a helpless tool carrying out blindly
the designs of nature.

An instinctive character belongs also to the highest functions of human
life, as in art and virtue.  Wisdom proper, says Schopenhauer, is
something intuitive, and not something pertaining to the intellect.  It
does not consist in principles and thoughts, which are carried about
ready in the mind, as the result of research, but it is the whole
manner in which the world presents itself intuitively to the mind.  In
real life the scholar is far surpassed by the man of the world, for the
strength of the latter consists in perfect intuitive knowledge.  The
{80} true view of life proceeds from the way in which the world is
known and understood, not from abstract knowledge.  The heart of all
knowledge is intuition.  Upon this depends the infinite superiority of
genius to learning and scholarship.  They stand to each other as the
text of a classic to its commentary.  It was this emphasis, which
Schopenhauer laid on the instinctive and impulsive side in man, rather
than on the conscious and deliberate, which led him to the view that
man is a creature controlled and dominated by his instincts, and
therefore a mere puppet in the hands of nature.

This aspect of Schopenhauer's system acquires a special importance,
when compared with much of the most modern philosophy.  There are
interesting points of contact with the views of M. Bergson, who
maintains that in the intuition of life we see reality as it is.

The intellect is merely a tool in the service of the will.  Since
philosophy must express the real nature of life, we are driven to seek
reality through that which is felt.  Since the time of Socrates,
Schopenhauer maintained, philosophy has made a systematic misuse of
general conceptions.  We have an immediate experience of the will, and
therefore we may be said to have an immediate knowledge of the nature
of reality.  One of the most valuable contributions which Schopenhauer
made to the history of thought, was his insistence on the view that
philosophy must be brought back to the recognition of the richness of
an immediate and direct knowledge of reality.  It must learn that the
meaning of things is to be realised more by living than by thinking.
The philosopher, therefore, must be before all things "a real man," a
guide to fine living.  Schopenhauer brought philosophy into relation
with life, he drew it down from the icy heights, where {81} abstract
conceptions alone can flourish, to the sunny plains below, where art,
with "a spark of the divine fire," warms and lightens the ways of man.
The intuitive insight of the genius, which divines the truth through
art, is a far higher form of knowledge than that of the abstract
thinker.

It is suggestive to compare with this the view of Pater, that
"philosophy serves culture, not by the fancied gift of absolute or
transcendental knowledge, but by suggesting questions which help one to
detect the passion, and strangeness, and dramatic contrasts of life."

There is much significance in Schopenhauer's exaltation of intuition
over reason.  Philosophy has always tended to make too much of reason.
And in spite of many crudities in his psychology, Schopenhauer's
treatment of the subject contains much of the greatest value.  In
emphasising the part played in the mental life by instinct, habit, and
impulse, he anticipated much that has since been confirmed in the
modern science of psychology.

Kant maintained that the only absolutely good thing in the world is the
good will, and Schopenhauer practically accepts this dictum.  Right
action springs from the will, and not from the intellect, for the true
nature of man lies in his will.  The problem of ethics for Schopenhauer
is how the will is to be made good.  His treatment of the problem leads
him beyond a system of ethics to a philosophy of religion.

Virtue to Socrates was a knowledge of the good; but no amount of mere
knowledge of the good can make the will good, and therefore
Schopenhauer maintained that Socrates had done next to nothing in
ethics.  The real solution of the problem of moral obligation {82} lies
in sympathy.  It is through sympathy that man is able to attain virtue.
Goodness of disposition shows itself as pure disinterested love towards
others.  And when such love becomes perfect it places the fate of other
individuals on a level with itself and its own fate.  The character
which has thus attained the highest goodness and nobility will
sacrifice its own interests, and even its life, for the well-being of
others.  Great heroes in all ages have laid down their lives for their
country or their friends.  Others have submitted voluntarily to death
or torture for the sake of truths or principles which they held dear.
Socrates and Giordano Bruno, and many another hero, have suffered death
rather than deny what they held to be true.  Such heights are reached
only by rare natures among men.  But all the intermediate stages of
goodness spring from the same root of sympathy.  Pure love is in its
nature sympathy.

Schopenhauer is here in direct contradiction to Kant, who recognised
goodness and virtue only when they spring from abstract reflection,
from the conception of duty, and who explained sympathy as weakness.
On the contrary, says Schopenhauer, the mere concept is as unfruitful
for virtue as it is for art.  All true and pure love is sympathy, and
all love which is not sympathy is selfishness.  Many of our sentiments
are a combination of the two.  Friendship is always, he says, a mixture
of selfishness and sympathy.  The selfishness lies in the pleasure
which we experience in the presence of a friend, the sympathy in the
participation in his joy or grief, and the sacrifices we make for his
sake.

Genuine virtue springs from the knowledge, which we have through
intuition, that other individuals are {83} of the same nature as
ourselves.  The source of morality is this inward principle of
solidarity between individual and individual.  This sense of
brotherhood, which pervades the whole of humanity, is the real and
vital fact which makes the whole world kin.  Transcending the spirit of
egoism, which is fostered by the actual conditions of life, there
springs the spirit of altruism, which strives to subordinate the good
of the individual to the good of the whole community, and prompts the
individual to self-denial and unselfishness.

In dealing with men, we should never, he says, take into consideration
their interested motives, their limited intellectual capacity, nor
their wrong-headedness, but we should think only of their sufferings,
their needs, their anxieties and their misery.  Only in this way can we
feel ourselves akin, and so enter into sympathy with others, that we
experience a fellow-feeling and a desire to help them in their need.
The two fundamental attitudes of mind, in which the virtues and vices
of men are rooted, are envy and sympathy.  Each man bears within
himself these two diametrically opposite characteristics.  One or the
other quality becomes the fundamental attitude of mind and the basis of
action according to the character of the individual.  Envy builds up a
strong, impregnable wall between each man and his neighbour, isolating
the individual in his crust of misanthropy, which grows daily harder
and denser.  Sympathy, on the other hand, breaks down the barriers
between man and man.  The sense of division grows thin and transparent,
until the individual feels himself a part of an organic whole, deriving
his sole usefulness and justification only in so far as he subordinates
his own personal ends to the common good.

Schopenhauer's use of the factor of sympathy in {84} explaining
morality, differs considerably from that of the English philosophers of
the eighteenth century, in whose systems of ethics sympathy played a
large part.  The sympathy, which Hume presupposes as "a principle in
human nature, beyond which we cannot hope to find any principle more
general," is sympathy with the pleasure resulting from the effects of
virtuous action.

Adam Smith, who also regarded sympathy as the ultimate element into
which moral sentiments may be analysed, approached more nearly to the
position of Schopenhauer.  Morality arises in its simplest form from
direct sympathy or "fellow-feeling" with the passions of others, which
a spectator feels from imagining himself in their situation.  It is of
two kinds, and moves the spectator to enter into the sentiments of the
person concerned, and also moves the person concerned "to bring down
his emotions to what the spectator can go along with."  It is a power
which enables us to take a disinterested view of our own conduct by
putting ourselves in another's position.

In Schopenhauer's view sympathy is a positive principle of conduct.  It
is based upon the recognition of the identity of all living beings.  It
alone makes moral conduct possible, and moves us to feel and act
towards others as to ourselves.

So far Schopenhauer has described the first stage in the progress of
morality, that which is attained in ordinary virtue.  The higher stage,
that which he calls holiness, is attained through asceticism, the
denial of the will to live.  On the path of virtue man has learned to
make no distinction between his own person and that of others, to take
as much interest in the sufferings of others as in his own.  He is even
ready to sacrifice his own individuality, whenever such sacrifice will
{85} benefit humanity.  It is no longer the changing joy and sorrow of
his own personality which concerns him, but the joy and sorrow of all.
He attains to a vision of the real nature of life, and realises the
vain striving, the inward conflict, and incessant suffering in which it
consists.  And with this knowledge he finds it impossible to assert the
egoistic desires of his own nature.  His will turns away from life.  He
shudders at the pleasures which recognise the assertion of life.  He
attains to the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, and
indifference.

The attainment of this goal is the hardest end of all to achieve.  Only
the saint, the perfect man, ever attains it completely and finally.
Weaker and less perfect natures are ever drawn back to life by the
sting of the desires, for the veil of Maya, the mist of illusion, still
clings about their feet.  The vanity and bitterness of life still holds
them, although the entrance to all suffering stands open while they are
not yet purified by complete and final renunciation.  They cannot tear
themselves free from the illusions of life, from the allurements of
hope, and the sweetness of pleasure.  Those who see through the
deceptions of life, and recognise the real nature of the world, are
already on the way to consolation.  They withdraw from the struggle of
life, and no longer wish to assert their own individuality.  The
loftiest goodness means refraining from all willing.

This is the transition from virtue to asceticism.  A man who has
reached so far ceases to will anything, he guards himself against
desire, and strives to attain complete indifference to everything.  He
gives the lie to his own body, and no longer desires any gratification.
Voluntary and complete chastity and poverty are {86} necessary steps in
this asceticism.  Man is at once the priest and the sacrifice.  Every
kind of volition is suppressed intentionally.  The body is nourished
sparingly, lest its vigour and well-being should arouse the will.
Every step is taken to break and destroy the will, which is recognised
as the source of all suffering.  Death when it comes at last is
welcomed as a longed-for deliverance, and hailed with gladness.

In this picture of the life of holiness and asceticism Schopenhauer
shows the strong influence which Indian philosophy had exercised upon
his thought.  This is the ideal life, the life of the saint, as
portrayed by the early Christian mystics, and in the Indian religious
books.

Virtue and holiness proceed from inward, direct and intuitive
knowledge, and not from abstract knowledge, as so many earlier
philosophers asserted.  The chasm between the two kinds of knowledge
can be bridged only by philosophy.  Everyone is conscious intuitively
of philosophical truths, but philosophy is necessary to bring them to
abstract knowledge and reflection.  Hence Schopenhauer is at enmity
with all rational religion.  For religion has to do primarily not with
the intellect, but with the will and the feelings.  He felt this so
deeply that he left the rational element almost entirely out of his
definition of virtue.  We learn the meaning of virtue, in his view,
through the sympathy, which makes us feel intuitively the underlying
identity in the lives of other beings with our own life.  It is
possible to express abstractly the inner nature of holiness and
asceticism as the denial of the will to live, but this abstract theory
has been known directly, and carried into practice by countless saints
and ascetics, who all possessed the same inward knowledge, though they
used very different language with regard to it, {87} according to their
dogmas.  Whether a saint is moved by the grossest superstition, or
whether he be a philosopher, makes no difference.  His conduct
testifies to his saintliness, and this proceeds from an intuitive and
direct realisation of the nature of the world.  The dogmas he holds are
merely for the satisfaction of his intellect.  It is therefore not
necessary that a saint should be a philosopher, just as it is not
necessary that a great sculptor should be himself a beautiful man.

The use of philosophy is to gather up the whole nature of the world in
concepts, abstractly and universally, and thus to store up "a reflected
image of it in permanent concepts always at the command of reason."
Intuitive knowledge, on the other hand, is expressed most perfectly in
deeds and conduct, not in abstract conceptions.  To understand it
fully, therefore, we must know examples in experience and actual life.
A mere description of a beautiful soul is cold and abstract.
Schopenhauer refers as models to the biographies of the early Christian
and of the Buddhist saints, and in later times to the biography of
Spinoza.  He holds up with especial admiration the life of St. Francis
of Assisi.  These records of the lives of simple, self-denying men,
mixed as they are with superstition, are for the philosopher far more
significant and important than the lives of the great fighters and
conquerors of the world.  The life of St. Francis is of greater import
than that of Alexander the Great.  It is the ethical aspect of action
which is important, and therefore the most significant life which the
world can show is not the conqueror of the world, but he who has in
himself subdued the world.  It is the quiet, unobserved life of the man
who has learned to deny the will to live that is most profoundly
instructive.

{88}

This ethical teaching is no new thing.  It is only the philosophical
expression of it which is new.  As Christianity developed, the seed of
asceticism unfolded into full flower in the writings of the saints and
mystics.  Even more fully developed and more vividly expressed is this
teaching in the ancient Indian writings.  In the Indian sacred books,
in their poems, myths, and legends, and in the lives of their saints,
the love of one's neighbour is taught, and the complete surrender of
self enjoined.  Such love is not confined to humanity, but includes all
living creatures.  The path of asceticism is marked as the ideal way
for all who strive after true holiness.  There is wonderful harmony
between the life of a Christian mystic and that of a Hindu saint.  In
each case the inward life and effort is the same.  The rule of life
enjoined on both shows striking resemblances.  The renunciation of all
possessions, the choice of deep, unbroken solitude, which is spent in
silent contemplation, perfect chastity, and voluntary penance, is the
teaching of Christian and Hindu alike.  In such rare similarity of
teaching, followed by races differing so radically in outward
circumstances, Schopenhauer finds proof that this manifestation has its
root in the nature of man, and appeals to an essential side of human,
nature.

In his treatment of art, Schopenhauer points out how happiness is
achieved in the contemplation of beauty.  In his treatment of ethics he
shows how permanent happiness may be attained.  It is the man alone who
follows the path of renunciation, and who succeeds in denying the will
to live, who attains perfect happiness.  He is filled with inward joy
and peace.  This joy is in no way akin to the passionate delight
experienced by those who love life.  That is a fleeting emotion, which
has keen suffering as its correlative.  But "it is a {89} peace that
cannot be shaken, a deep rest and inward serenity, a state which we
cannot contemplate without the greatest longing, when it is brought
before our imagination, because we at once recognise it as that which
infinitely surpasses anything else.  Then we feel that every
gratification won from the world is merely like the alms which the
beggar receives from life to-day, that he may hunger again on the
morrow.  Resignation, on the other hand, is like an inherited estate,
it frees the owner for ever from all care."  He who can enter into the
spirit of the beautiful, as revealed in art, silences his will for the
moment, but the saint who attains holiness is altogether blessed, for
he silences his will, not only for the moment, but for ever.  His will
is wholly extinguished, save for the last glimmering spark, which
retains his body in life, and which will be extinguished only with his
death.  Such a man has endured bitter struggles with his own nature,
but has emerged triumphant.  "Nothing can trouble him more, nothing can
move him, for he has cut all the thousand cords of will which hold us
bound to the world, and as desire, fear, envy, and anger drag us hither
and thither in constant pain.  He now looks back smiling and at rest on
the delusions of the world, which once were able to agonise his spirit,
but which now are as indifferent to him as the chessmen when the game
is ended.  Life passes before him as a fleeting illusion, as a light
morning dream before half-waking eyes, the real world already shining
through it."

It is interesting to compare Schopenhauer's ideal of the highest form
of human life with that of Aristotle.  For Aristotle too the highest
end of man was the life of pure contemplation.  This, however, was a
more purely intellectual state than Schopenhauer had in mind, but {90}
still an existence withdrawn from the cares and struggles of life,
wrapped securely in quiet contemplation.

It must not be supposed that when this self-surrender has been won,
that it never wavers or hesitates.  We can never rest upon it as an
assured possession.  It must ever be attained anew by a constant
battle.  For so long as the body lives, the whole will to live exists
potentially, striving to realise itself and to burn again with its old
intensity.  The peace and blessedness which is attained in the lives of
holy men is found only as the flower which blossoms after victory in
the constant battle with the will to live.  In the histories of the
saints we find their inner lives full of conflicts and temptations, the
end which gives the deepest peace and opens the door of freedom
constantly eluding them.

The suffering which is experienced personally is that which most
frequently produces the fullest resignation.  The illusions of life are
a constant hindrance to the fullest self-surrender.  The will must
first be broken by great personal suffering before complete
self-conquest is reached.  Then, having passed through increasing
stages of affliction, and being brought finally to the verge of
despair, a man knows himself and the world, and rises above himself and
all suffering.  He renounces willingly everything he desired formerly,
and faces death joyfully.  This is the refined gold, which is drawn out
of the purifying flame of suffering.  Goethe has given an incomparable
picture of an unfolding of character to such ends, in his drawing of
Gretchen in Faust.

The extent to which man is free to make himself good raises the
perennial question of the freedom of the will.  Schopenhauer held that
the answer depends entirely on the statement of the problem.  In so far
as the real nature of man is will, and man himself is only a {91}
phenomenon of this will, a particular action follows inevitably on a
given motive in a given character.  It is just as absurd, he says, to
doubt such inevitableness as to doubt that the three angles of any
triangle are together equal to two right angles.  If the character and
the motives were given completely, it would be possible to calculate
the future conduct of a man as exactly as we can calculate an eclipse
of the sun or moon.  Character is as consistent as nature.  There is no
independence of the law of causality, the necessity of which extends to
man as to all else in nature.  But in the metaphysical world,
Schopenhauer, following Kant, maintains that the will is free.  In so
far as the will represents the only reality, it transcends experience.
It is outside time, outside every form of the mind which limits or
moulds our experience.  It is above and beyond the forms of causality,
and therefore free transcendentally.  In that dim region where
character is formed we are our own creators.  Action which is seen
empirically to follow inevitably from a character already formed is
seen from another point of view to be but a form of self-realisation,
of self-expression.

Mysticism is strong in Schopenhauer.  Now and again it breaks through
the even flow of European thought, usually, as with Schopenhauer,
drawing its main inspiration from the East.  There is a recurring
period in the history of thought, when the scientific point of view
does not make its accustomed appeal, when it is felt intensely that
science can give but a partial and limited view.  Academic culture and
science are felt to be inadequate, are felt even to be leading away
from the real heart of the matter, and putting us outside the deepest
current of existence.  Intuitive and direct knowledge is given then an
importance {92} denied to the knowledge of the reason.  Man retires
into himself, instead of searching outside himself for objective
knowledge.  He seeks the secret of the universe in the depths of his
own heart and will, and strives to pluck out the heart of life's
mystery in waiting on the silent twilight of inner feeling.  The eyes
are shut on the outer world, in order that one may see the more
inwardly.  Then only does man experience the sense of solidarity and
kinship which runs through all things, and feel himself one with the
universe.

These recurring waves of mysticism seem always to appear in the history
of thought at the end of a specially brilliant intellectual period.  It
is as though the human mind, having striven to the top of its capacity
on the lines of the intellect and the reason, impatient at its own
limitations, and wearying of the discrepancy between its endeavours and
its achievements, turns eagerly in the opposite direction, and directs
its gaze inward.  The great school of Neo-Platonists, for example,
followed immediately the most brilliant age of Greek thought.  And the
same is true of the strong trend in the direction of mysticism, which
is so marked towards the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth centuries in Germany, a tendency which shows itself in
Schopenhauer more strongly than in any other philosopher.

There is a strong appeal in this ideal of human life, which
Schopenhauer depicts in words of glowing eloquence.  Based on the
pessimism which claims that all life is worthless, it aims at
conquering life by withdrawing altogether from it.  This is a negative
solution of the problem of life.  It is possible to oppose to this
philosophy a robuster view, which would come to grips with the misery
and evil of existence on another plane.  {93} William James points to
the spiritual gain that comes of fighting ills.  To wage war
obstinately against the odds of life fills us with courage and
resolution, and there is possibly a deeper satisfaction to be won from
the determined facing of the battle of life than in the attitude of
pessimism, which bids us draw back and take no part in the fray.  There
is a fine courage in the attitude of mind, which admits "the
deliciousness of insanities and realities, strivings and deadnesses,
hopes and fears, agonies and exultations," but which claims that we who
are born for the conflict, the shifting struggle of the sunbeam in the
gloom, must accept it all as a vital part of the whole.  "When the
healthy love of life is on one, and all its forms and its appetites
seem so unutterably real; when the most brutal and the most spiritual
things are lit by the same sun, and each is an integral part of the
total richness, it seems a grudging and sickly way of meeting so robust
a universe to shrink away from any of its facts and wish them not to
be.  Rather take the strictly dramatic point of view, and treat the
whole thing as a great unending romance which the spirit of the
universe, striving to realise its own content, is eternally thinking
out and representing to itself."




{94}

BIBLIOGRAPHY


A. ENGLISH

_The World as Will and Idea_.  Translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp.
3 vols.  1883-6.  London: The English and Foreign Philosophical Library.

_Two Essays.  I. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient
Reason.  II. On the Will in Nature_.  Bonn's Philosophical Library.
1889.

_Selected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer_.  Translated by E. Belfort
Bax.  London: Bohn.

_Religion: A Dialogue; and other Essays_.  Translated by T. Bailey
Saunders.  1891.  London: Swan Sonnenschein.  Pp. 140.

_The Wisdom of Life_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1890.
London: Swan Sonnenschein.  and Co.  Pp. xxvi, 135.

_Counsels and Maxims_.  Translated by T. B. Saunders.  1895.  London:
Swan Sonnenschein.  Pp. 162.

_The Art of Literature_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1891.
London: Swan Sonnenschein Pp. xiv, 149.

_Studies in Pessimism_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1891.
London: Swan Sonnenschein.  Pp. 142.

_On Human Nature_.  Essays translated by T. B. Saunders.  1902.
London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co.  Pp. 132.

{95}

_Life of Arthur Schopenhauer_.  W. Wallace.  1890.  London: Scott.  Pp.
217.

_Arthur Schopenhauer, His Life and His Philosophy_.  Helen Zimmern.
1876.  London: Longmans.  Pp. 249.

_Schopenhauer's System in its Philosophical Significance_.  Caldwell.
1896.  Edinburgh: Blackwood.  Pp. xviii, 538.



B. FOREIGN

_Schopenhauer's Saemmtliche Werke_.  Herausgegeben von J. Frauenstaedt.
6 Bde.  Leipzig.  1873-4.

_Schopenhauer Lexikon_.  Bearbeitet von J. Frauenstaedt.  2 Bde.
Leipzig.  1871.

_La Philosophie de Schopenhauer_.  T. Bibot.  2nd edit.  1885.

_Schopenhauer's Leben_.  W. von Gwinner.  1910.  Leipzig.  Pp. xv, 439.

_Arthur Schopenhauer_.  J. Volkelt.  1907.  Stuttgart, Pp. xvi, 459.

_Schopenhauer und Nietzsche_.  G. Simmel.  1907.  Leipzig.  Pp. 263.




{96}

INDEX


Architecture, 68

Aristotle, 12, 67, 89

Art, 10, 23, 25, 52

Asceticism, 25, 76, 77, 84, 88



Bergson, 80

Blake, 54

Browning, 63

Buddhism, 10, 13, 77, 86, 87, 88



Dreams, 30, 79



Epicurus, 60



St. Francis, 87



Genius, 12, 25, 54

Goethe, 7, 19, 23, 75, 90



Hartmann, E. von, 48

Hegel, 11, 13, 24, 28, 30, 61, 62

History, 11

Hume, 84



Instinct, 8, 39, 78, 79, 80



James, William, 50, 93



Kant, 7, 13, 22, 30, 32, 38, 81, 82, 91



Leopardi, 48



Music, 7, 19, 61

Mysticism, 13, 53, 91



Nietzsche, 49



Opera, 66



Painting, 72

_Parerga und Paralipomena_, 36

Pater, 81

Pessimism, 10, 13, 24, 38

Plato, 7, 12, 13, 25, 38, 53, 58, 67

Poetry, 74



Religion, 12, 75

Ruskin, 71



Schopenhauer, Heinrich F., 16

Schopenhauer, Johanna, 16, 18, 19, 22

Sculpture, 72

Shelley, 7

Smith, Adam, 84

Socrates, 81

Spenser, 7

Spinoza, 7, 40, 87

Style, 9

Suicide, 47

Symbolism, 75

Sympathy, 10, 76, 82, 84



St. Thomas Aquinas, 61

Tragedy, 74



Virtue, 70



Wagner, 8, 66, 68

Will, 8, 24, 80, 90

Women, views on, 20, 29

Wordsworth, 7

_World as Will and Idea_, 20, 26, 33, 35, 38, 68




  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.
  at Paul's Work, Edinburgh




      *      *      *      *      *




THE PEOPLE'S BOOKS

General Editor--H. C. O'NEILL

"With the 'People's Books' in hand there should be nobody of average
intelligence unable to secure self-education."--_Sunday Times_.

NOW READY (February 1914)

THE FIRST NINETY-SIX VOLUMES


  1. The Foundations of Science . . . By W. C. D. Whetham, M.A., F.R.S.
  2. Embryology--The Beginnings of Life . . . By Prof. Gerald Leighton, M.D.
  3. Biology . . . By Prof. W. D. Henderson, M.A.
  4. Zoology: The Study of Animal Life . . . By Prof. E. W. MacBride,
             M.A., F.R.S.
  5. Botany; The Modern Study of Plants . . . By M. C. Stopes, D.Sc.,
             Ph.D., F.L.S.
  7. The Structure of the Earth . . . By Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S.
  8. Evolution . . . By E. S. Goodrich, M.A., F.R.S.
  10. Heredity . . . By J. A. S. Watson, B.Sc.
  11. Inorganic Chemistry . . . By Prof. E. C. C. Baly, F.R.S.
  12. Organic Chemistry . . . By Prof. J. B. Cohen, B.Sc., F.R.S.
  13. The Principles of Electricity . . . By Norman K. Campbell, M.A.
  14. Radiation . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.
  15. The Science of the Stars . . . By E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S.
  16. The Science of Light . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.
  17. Weather Science . . . By R. G. K. Lempfert, M.A.
  18. Hypnotism and Self-Education . . . By A. M. Hutchison, M.D.
  19. The Baby: A Mother's Book . . . By a University Woman.
  20. Youth and Sex--Dangers and Safeguards for Boys and Girls . . .
             By Mary Scharlieb, M.D., M.S., and F. Arthur Sibly, M.A., LL.D.
  21. Marriage and Motherhood . . . By H. S. Davidson, M.B., F.R.C.S.E.
  22. Lord Kelvin . . . By A. Russell, M.A., D.Sc., M.I.E.E.
  23. Huxley . . . By Professor G. Leighton, M.D.
  24. Sir William Huggins and Spectroscopic Astronomy . . .
             By E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S., of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
  26. Henri Bergson . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.
  27. Psychology . . . By H. J. Watt, M.A., Ph.D., D.Phil.
  28. Ethics . . . By Canon Rashdall, D.Litt., F.B.A.
  29. Kant's Philosophy . . . By A. D. Lindsay, M.A., of
             Balliol College, Oxford.
  32. Roman Catholicism . . . By H. B. Coxon.  Preface, Mgr. R. H. Benson.
  33. The Oxford Movement . . . By Wilfrid Ward.
  34. The Bible and Criticism . . . By W. H. Bennett, D.D., Litt.P.,
             and W. F. Adeney, D.D.
  36. The Growth of Freedom . . . By H. W. Nevinson.
  37. Bismarck and the Origin of the German Empire . . .
             By Professor F. M. Powicke.
  38. Oliver Cromwell . . . By Hilda Johnstone, M.A.
  39. Mary Queen of Scots . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.
  40. Cecil John Rhodes, 1853-1902 . . . By Ian D. Colvin.
  41. Julius Caesar . . . By Hilary Hardinge.
  42. England in the Making . . . By Prof. F. J. C. Hearnshaw, M.A., LL.D.
  43. England in the Middle Ages . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.
  44. The Monarchy and the People . . . By W. T. Waugh, M.A.
  45. The Industrial Revolution . . . By Arthur Jones, M.A.
  46. Empire and Democracy . . . By G. S. Veitch, M.A., Litt.D.
  47. Women's Suffrage . . . By M. G. Fawcett, LL.D.
  51. Shakespeare . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.
  52. Wordsworth . . . By Rosaline Masson.
  53. Pure Gold--A Choice of Lyrics and Sonnets . . . by H. C. O'Neill
  54. Francis Bacon . . . By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.
  55. The Brontes . . . By Flora Masson.
  56. Carlyle . . . By L. MacLean Watt.
  57. Dante . . . By A. G. Ferrers Howell.
  60. A Dictionary of Synonyms . . . By Austin K. Gray, B.A.
  61. Home Rule . . . By L. G. Redmond Howard.
             Preface by Robert Harcourt, M.P.
  62. Practical Astronomy . . . By H. Macpherson, Jr., F.R.A.S.
  63. Aviation . . . By Sydney F. Walker, R.N.
  64. Navigation . . . By William Hall, R.N., B.A.
  65. Pond Life . . . By E. C. Ash, M.R.A.C.
  66. Dietetics . . . By Alex. Bryce, M.D., D.P.H.
  67. Aristotle . . . By Prof. A. E. Taylor, M.A., F.B.A.
  68. Friedrich Nietzsche . . . By M. A. Muegge.
  69. Eucken: A Philosophy of Life . . . By A. J. Jones, M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D.
  70. The Experimental Psychology of Beauty . . . By C. W. Valentine,
             B.A., D.Phil.
  71. The Problem of Truth . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.
  72. The Church of England . . . By Rev. Canon Masterman.
  74. The Free Churches . . . By Rev. Edward Shillito, M.A.
  75. Judaism . . . By Ephraim Levine, M.A.
  76. Theosophy . . . By Annie Besant.
  78. Wellington and Waterloo . . . By Major G. W. Redway.
  79. Mediaeval Socialism . . . By Bede Jarrett, O.P., M.A.
  80. Syndicalism . . . By J. H. Harley, M.A.
  82. Co-operation . . . By Joseph Clayton.
  83. Insurance as a Means of Investment . . . By W. A. Robertson, F.F.A.
  85. A History of English Literature . . . By A. Compton-Rickett, LL.D.
  87. Charles Lamb . . . By Flora Masson.
  88. Goethe . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.
  92. The Training of the Child . . . By G. Spiller.
  93. Tennyson . . . By Aaron Watson.
  94. The Nature of Mathematics . . . By P. E. B. Jourdain, M.A.
  95. Applications of Electricity . . . By Alex. Ogilvie, B.Sc.
  96.  Gardening . . . By A. Cecil Bartlett.
  98.  Atlas of the World . . . By T. Bartholomew, F.R.G.S.
  101.  Luther and the Reformation . . . By Leonard D. Agate, M.A.
  103.  Turkey and the Eastern Question . . . By John Macdonald, M.A.
  104.  Architecture . . . By Mrs. Arthur Bell.
  105.  Trade Unions . . . By Joseph Clayton.
  106.  Everyday Law . . . By J. J. Adams.
  108.  Shelley . . . By Sydney Waterlow, M.A.
  110.  British Birds . . . By F. B Kirkman, B.A.
  111.  Spiritualism . . . By J. Arthur Hill.
  112.  Kindergarten Teaching at Home . . . By Two Members of the
             National Froebel Union.
  113.  Schopenhauer . . . By Margrieta Beer, M.A.
  114.  The Stock Exchange . . . By J. F. Wheeler.
  115.  Coleridge . . . By S. L. Bensusan.
  116.  The Crusades . . . By M. M. C. Calthrop.
  117.  Wild Flowers . . . By Macgregor Skene, B.Sc.
  118.  Principles of Logic . . . By Stanley Williams, B.A.
  119.  The Foundations of Religion . . . By Stanley A. Cook, M.A.
  120.  History of Rome . . . By A. F. Giles, M.A.
  121.  Land, Industry, and Taxation . . . By Frederick Verinder.



  LONDON AND EDINBURGH: T. C. & E. C. JACK
  NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.









End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Schopenhauer, by Margrieta Beer

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCHOPENHAUER ***

***** This file should be named 47136.txt or 47136.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/1/3/47136/

Produced by Al Haines
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
  are located before using this ebook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that

* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
  Literary Archive Foundation."

* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
  works.

* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
  receipt of the work.

* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:

    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
    Chief Executive and Director
    gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.