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Title: The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 3 of 3)

Author: Arthur Schopenhauer

Release Date: September 26, 2012 [Ebook #40868]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF‐8


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA (VOL. 3 OF 3)***





                        The World As Will And Idea

                                    By

                           Arthur Schopenhauer

                      Translated From The German By

                           R. B. Haldane, M.A.

                                   And

                              J. Kemp, M.A.

                                Vol. III.

  Containing Supplements to Part of the Second Book and to the Third and
                               Fourth Books

                              Sixth Edition

                                  London

                    Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.

                                   1909





CONTENTS


Supplements To The Second Book.
   Chapter XXI. Retrospect and More General View.
   Chapter XXII. Objective View of the Intellect.
   Chapter XXIII.On The Objectification Of The Will In Unconscious Nature.
   Chapter XXIV. On Matter.
   Chapter XXV. Transcendent Considerations Concerning The Will As Thing
   In Itself.
   Chapter XXVI. On Teleology.
   Chapter XXVII. On Instinct And Mechanical Tendency.
   Chapter XXVIII. Characterisation Of The Will To Live.
Supplements to the Third Book.
   Chapter XXIX. On The Knowledge Of The Ideas.
   Chapter XXX. On The Pure Subject Of Knowledge.
   Chapter XXXI. On Genius.
   Chapter XXXII. On Madness.
   Chapter XXXIII. Isolated Remarks On Natural Beauty.
   Chapter XXXIV. On The Inner Nature Of Art.
   Chapter XXXV. On The Æsthetics Of Architecture.
   Chapter XXXVI. Isolated Remarks On The Æsthetics Of The Plastic And
   Pictorial Arts.
   Chapter XXXVII. On The Æsthetics Of Poetry.
   Chapter XXXVIII. On History.
   Chapter XXXIX. On The Metaphysics Of Music.
Supplements to the Fourth Book.
   Chapter XL. Preface.
   Chapter XLI. On Death And Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our
   True Nature.
   Chapter XLII. The Life Of The Species.
   Chapter XLIII. On Heredity.
   Chapter XLIV. The Metaphysics Of The Love Of The Sexes.
   Chapter XLV. On The Assertion Of The Will To Live.
   Chapter XLVI. On The Vanity And Suffering Of Life.
   Chapter XLVII. On Ethics.
   Chapter XLVIII. On The Doctrine Of The Denial Of The Will To Live.
   Chapter XLIX. The Way Of Salvation.
   Chapter L. Epiphilosophy.
Appendix.
   Abstract.
   Chapter I.
   Chapter II.
   Chapter III.
   Chapter IV.
   Chapter V.
   Chapter VI.
   Chapter VII.
   Chapter VIII.
Index.
Corrigenda And Addenda In Vol. I.
Footnotes






                               [Cover Art]

[Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]





SUPPLEMENTS TO THE SECOND BOOK.




Chapter XXI. Retrospect and More General View.


If the _intellect_ were not of a subordinate nature, as the two preceding
chapters show, then everything which takes place without it, _i.e._,
without intervention of the idea, such as reproduction, the development
and maintenance of the organism, the healing of wounds, the restoration or
vicarious supplementing of mutilated parts, the salutary crisis in
diseases, the works of the mechanical skill of animals, and the
performances of instinct would not be done so infinitely better and more
perfectly than what takes place with the assistance of intellect, all
conscious and intentional achievements of men, which compared with the
former are mere bungling. In general _nature_ signifies that which
operates, acts, performs without the assistance of the intellect. Now,
that this is really identical with what we find in ourselves as _will_ is
the general theme of this second book, and also of the essay, “_Ueber den
Willen in der Natur_.” The possibility of this fundamental knowledge
depends upon the fact that _in us_ the will is directly lighted by the
intellect, which here appears as self‐consciousness; otherwise we could
just as little arrive at a fuller knowledge of it _within us_ as without
us, and must for ever stop at inscrutable forces of nature. We have to
abstract from the assistance of the _intellect_ if we wish to comprehend
the nature of the will in itself, and thereby, as far as is possible,
penetrate to the inner being of nature.

On this account, it may be remarked in passing, my direct antipode among
philosophers is Anaxagoras; for he assumed arbitrarily as that which is
first and original, from which everything proceeds, a νους, an
intelligence, a subject of ideas, and he is regarded as the first who
promulgated such a view. According to him the world existed earlier in the
mere idea than in itself; while according to me it is the unconscious
_will_ which constitutes the reality of things, and its development must
have advanced very far before it finally attains, in the animal
consciousness, to the idea and intelligence; so that, according to me,
thought appears as the very last. However, according to the testimony of
Aristotle (_Metaph._, i. 4), Anaxagoras himself did not know how to begin
much with his νους, but merely set it up, and then left it standing like a
painted saint at the entrance, without making use of it in his development
of nature, except in cases of need, when he did not know how else to help
himself. All physico‐theology is a carrying out of the error opposed to
the truth expressed at the beginning of this chapter—the error that the
most perfect form of the origin of things is that which is brought about
by means of an _intellect_. Therefore it draws a bolt against all deep
exploration of nature.

From the time of Socrates down to our own time, we find that the chief
subject of the ceaseless disputations of the philosophers has been that
_ens rationis_, called _soul_. We see the most of them assert its
immortality, that is to say, its metaphysical nature; yet others,
supported by facts which incontrovertibly prove the entire dependence of
the intellect upon the bodily organism, unweariedly maintain the contrary.
That soul is by all and before everything taken as _absolutely simple_;
for precisely from this its metaphysical nature, its immateriality and
immortality were proved, although these by no means necessarily follow
from it. For although we can only conceive the destruction of a formed
body through breaking up of it into its parts, it does not follow from
this that the destruction of a simple existence, of which besides we have
no conception, may not be possible in some other way, perhaps by gradually
vanishing. I, on the contrary, start by doing away with the presupposed
simplicity of our subjectively conscious nature, or the _ego_, inasmuch as
I show that the manifestations from which it was deduced have two very
different sources, and that in any case the intellect is physically
conditioned, the function of a material organ, therefore dependent upon
it, and without it is just as impossible as the grasp without the hand;
that accordingly it belongs to the mere phenomenon, and thus shares the
fate of this,—that the _will_, on the contrary, is bound to no special
organ, but is everywhere present, is everywhere that which moves and
forms, and therefore is that which conditions the whole organism; that, in
fact, it constitutes the metaphysical substratum of the whole phenomenon,
consequently is not, like the intellect, a _Posterius_ of it, but its
_Prius_; and the phenomenon depends upon it, not it upon the phenomenon.
But the body is reduced indeed to a mere idea, for it is only the manner
in which the _will_ exhibits itself in the perception of the intellect or
brain. The _will_, again, which in all other systems, different as they
are in other respects, appears as one of the last results, is with me the
very first. The _intellect_, as mere function of the brain, is involved in
the destruction of the body, but the _will_ is by no means so. From this
heterogeneity of the two, together with the subordinate nature of the
intellect, it becomes conceivable that man, in the depths of his self‐
consciousness, feels himself to be eternal and indestructible, but yet can
have no memory, either _a parte ante_ or _a parte post_, beyond the
duration of his life. I do not wish to anticipate here the exposition of
the true indestructibility of our nature, which has its place in the
fourth book, but have only sought to indicate the place where it links
itself on.

But now that, in an expression which is certainly one‐sided, yet from our
standpoint true, the body is called a mere idea depends upon the fact than
an existence in space, as something extended, and in time, as something
that changes, and more closely determined in both through the causal‐
nexus, is only possible in the _idea_, for all those determinations rest
upon its forms, thus in a brain, in which accordingly such an existence
appears as something objective, _i.e._, foreign; therefore even our own
body can have this kind of existence only in a brain. For the knowledge
which I have of my body as extended, space‐occupying, and movable, is only
_indirect_: it is a picture in my brain which is brought about by means of
the senses and understanding. The body is given to me _directly_ only in
muscular action and in pain and pleasure, both of which primarily and
directly belong to the _will_. But the combination of these two different
kinds of knowledge of my own body afterwards affords the further insight
that all other things which also have the objective existence described,
which is primarily only in my brain, are not therefore entirely non‐
existent apart from it, but must also ultimately _in themselves_ be that
which makes itself known in self‐consciousness as _will_.




Chapter XXII.(1) Objective View of the Intellect.


There are two fundamentally different ways of regarding the intellect,
which depend upon the difference of the point of view, and, much as they
are opposed to each other in consequence of this, must yet be brought into
agreement. One is the _subjective_, which, starting from _within_ and
taking the _consciousness_ as the given, shows us by what mechanism the
world exhibits itself in it, and how, out of the materials which the
senses and the understanding provide, it constructs itself in it. We must
look upon Locke as the originator of this method of consideration; Kant
brought it to incomparably higher perfection; and our first book also,
together with its supplements, are devoted to it.

The method of considering the intellect which is opposed to this is the
_objective_, which starts from _without_, takes as its object not our own
consciousness, but the beings given in outward experience, conscious of
themselves and of the world, and now investigates the relation of their
intellect to their other qualities, how it has become possible, how it has
become necessary, and what it accomplishes for them. The standpoint of
this method of consideration is the empirical. It takes the world and the
animal existences present in it as absolutely given, in that it starts
from them. It is accordingly primarily zoological, anatomical,
physiological, and only becomes philosophical by connection with that
first method of consideration, and from the higher point of view thereby
attained. The only foundations of this which as yet have been given we owe
to zootomists and physiologists, for the most part French. Here Cabanis is
specially to be named, whose excellent work, “_Des rapports du physique au
moral_,” is initiatory of this method of consideration on the path of
physiology. The famous Bichat was his contemporary, but his theme was a
much more comprehensive one. Even Gall may be named here, although his
chief aim was missed. Ignorance and prejudice have raised against this
method of consideration the accusation of materialism, because, adhering
simply to experience, it does not know the immaterial substance, soul. The
most recent advances in the physiology of the nervous system, through Sir
Charles Bell, Magendie, Marshall Hall, and others, have also enriched and
corrected the material of this method of consideration. A philosophy
which, like the Kantian, entirely ignores this point of view for the
intellect is one‐sided, and consequently inadequate. It leaves an
impassable gulf between our philosophical and our physiological knowledge,
with which we can never find satisfaction.

Although what I have said in the two preceding chapters concerning the
life and the activity of the brain belongs to this method of
consideration, and in the same way all the discussions to be found under
the heading, “_Pflanzenphysiologie_,” in the essay, “_Ueber den Willen in
der Natur_,” and also a portion of those under the heading “_Vergleichende
Anatomie_,” are devoted to it, the following exposition of its results in
general will be by no means superfluous.

We become most vividly conscious of the glaring contrast between the two
methods of considering the intellect opposed to each other above if we
carry the matter to the extreme and realise that what the one, as
reflective thought and vivid perception, directly assumes and makes its
material is for the other nothing more than the physiological function of
an internal organ, the brain; nay, that we are justified in asserting that
the whole objective world, so boundless in space, so infinite in time, so
unsearchable in its perfection, is really only a certain movement or
affection of the pulpy matter in the skull. We then ask in astonishment:
what is this brain whose function produces such a phenomenon of all
phenomena? What is the matter which can be refined and potentiated to such
a pulp that the stimulation of a few of its particles becomes the
conditional supporter of the existence of an objective world? The fear of
such questions led to the hypothesis of the simple substance of an
immaterial soul, which merely dwelt in the brain. We say boldly: this pulp
also, like every vegetable or animal part, is an organic structure, like
all its poorer relations in the inferior accommodation of the heads of our
irrational brethren, down to the lowest, which scarcely apprehends at all;
yet that organic pulp is the last product of nature, which presupposes all
the rest. But in itself, and outside the idea, the brain also, like
everything else, is _will_. _For existing for another is being perceived;
being in itself is willing_: upon this it depends that on the purely
objective path we never attain to the inner nature of things; but if we
attempt to find their inner nature from without and empirically, this
inner always becomes an outer again in our hands,—the pith of the tree, as
well as its bark; the heart of the animal, as well as its hide; the white
and the yolk of an egg, as well as its shell. On the other hand, upon the
subjective path the inner is accessible to us at every moment; for we find
it as the _will_ primarily in ourselves, and must, by the clue of the
analogy with our own nature, be able to solve that of others, in that we
attain to the insight that a being in itself independent of being known,
_i.e._, of exhibiting itself in an intellect, is only conceivable as
willing.

If now, in the _objective_ comprehension of the intellect, we go back as
far as we possibly can, we shall find that the necessity or the need of
_knowledge in general_ arises from the multiplicity and the _separate_
existence of beings, thus from individuation. For suppose there only
existed _a single_ being, such a being would have no need of knowledge:
because nothing would exist which was different from it, and whose
existence it would therefore have to take up into itself indirectly
through knowledge, _i.e._, image and concept. It would _itself_ already be
all in all, and therefore there would remain nothing for it to know,
_i.e._, nothing foreign that could be apprehended as object. In the case
of a multiplicity of beings, on the other hand, every individual finds
itself in a condition of isolation from all the rest, and hence arises the
necessity of knowledge. The nervous system, by means of which the animal
individual primarily becomes conscious of itself, is bounded by a skin;
yet in the brain that has attained to intellect it passes beyond this
limit by means of its form of knowledge, causality, and thus there arises
for it perception as a consciousness of _other_ things, as an image of
beings in space and time, which change in accordance with causality. In
this sense it would be more correct to say, “Only the different is known
by the different,” than as Empedocles said, “Only the like is known by the
like,” which was a very indefinite and ambiguous proposition; although
points of view may certainly also be conceived from which it is true; as,
for instance, we may observe in passing that of Helvetius when he says so
beautifully and happily: “_Il n’y a que l’esprit qui sente l’esprit: c’est
une corde qui ne frémit qu’à l’unison_,” which corresponds with Xenophon’s
“σοφον ειναι δει τον επιγνωσομενον τον σοφον” (_sapientem esse opportet
eum, qui sapientem agniturus sit_), and is a great sorrow. But now, again,
from the other side we know that multiplicity of similars only becomes
possible through time and space; thus through the forms of our knowledge.
Space first arises in that the knowing subject sees externally; it is the
manner in which the subject comprehends something as different from
itself. But we also saw knowledge in general conditioned by multiplicity
and difference. Thus knowledge and multiplicity, or individuation, stand
and fall together, for they reciprocally condition each other. Hence it
must be inferred that, beyond the phenomenon in the true being of all
things, to which time and space, and consequently also multiplicity, must
be foreign, there can also be no knowledge. Buddhism defines this as
_Pratschna Paramita_, _i.e._, that which is beyond all knowledge (J. J.
Schmidt, “On the Maha‐Jana and Pratschna Paramita”). A “knowledge of
things in themselves,” in the strictest sense of the word, would
accordingly be already impossible from the fact that where the thing in
itself begins knowledge ceases, and all knowledge is essentially concerned
only with phenomena. For it springs from a limitation, by which it is made
necessary, in order to extend the limits.

For the objective consideration the brain is the efflorescence of the
organism; therefore only where the latter has attained its highest
perfection and complexity does the brain appear in its greatest
development. But in the preceding chapter we have recognised the organism
as the objectification of the will; therefore the brain also, as a part of
it, must belong to this objectification. Further, from the fact that the
organism is only the visibility of the will, thus in itself is the will, I
have deduced that every affection of the organism at once and directly
affects the will, _i.e._, is felt as agreeable or painful. Yet, with the
heightening of sensibility, in the higher development of the nervous
system, the possibility arises that in the nobler, _i.e._, the
_objective_, organs of sense (sight and hearing) the exquisitely delicate
affections proper to them are perceived without in themselves and directly
affecting the will, that is, without being either painful or agreeable,
and that therefore they appear in consciousness as indifferent, merely
perceived, sensations. But in the brain this heightening of sensibility
reaches such a high degree that upon received impressions of sense a
reaction even takes place, which does not proceed directly from the will,
but is primarily a spontaneity of the function of understanding, which
makes the transition from the directly perceived sensation of the senses
to its _cause_; and since the brain then at once produces the form of
space, there thus arises the perception of an _external object_. We may
therefore regard the point at which the understanding makes the transition
from the mere sensation upon the retina, which is still a mere affection
of the body and therefore of the will, to the _cause_ of that sensation,
which it projects by means of its form of space, as something external and
different from its own body, as the boundary between the world as will and
the world as idea, or as the birthplace of the latter. In man, however,
the spontaneity of the activity of the brain, which in the last instance
is certainly conferred by the will, goes further than mere _perception_
and immediate comprehension of causal relations. It extends to the
construction of abstract conceptions out of these perceptions, and to
operating with these conceptions, _i.e._, to _thinking_, as that in which
his _reason_ consists. _Thoughts_ are therefore furthest removed from the
affections of the body, which, since the body is the objectification of
the will, may, through increased intensity, pass at once into pain, even
in the organs of sense. Accordingly idea and thought may also be regarded
as the efflorescence of the will, because they spring from the highest
perfection and development of the organism; but the organism, in itself
and apart from the idea, is the _will_. Of course, in my explanation, the
existence of the body presupposes the world of idea; inasmuch as it also,
as body or real object, is only in this world; and, on the other hand, the
idea itself just as much presupposes the body, for it arises only through
the function of an organ of the body. That which lies at the foundation of
the whole phenomenon, that in it which alone has being in itself and is
original, is exclusively the _will_; for it is the will which through this
very process assumes the form of the _idea_, _i.e._, enters the secondary
existence of an objective world, or the sphere of the knowable.
Philosophers before Kant, with few exceptions, approached the explanation
of the origin of our knowledge from the wrong side. They set out from a
so‐called soul, an existence whose inner nature and peculiar function
consisted in thinking, and indeed quite specially in abstract thinking,
with mere conceptions, which belonged to it the more completely the
further they lay from all perception. (I beg to refer here to the note at
the end of § 6 of my prize essay on the foundation of morals.) This soul
has in some inconceivable manner entered the body, and there it is only
disturbed in its pure thinking, first by impressions of the senses and
perceptions, still more by the desires which these excite, and finally by
the emotions, nay, passions, to which these desires develop; while the
characteristic and original element of this soul is mere abstract
thinking, and given up to this it has only universals, inborn conceptions,
and _æternæ veritates_ for its objects, and leaves everything perceptible
lying far below it. Hence, also, arises the contempt with which even now
“sensibility” and the "sensuous" are referred to by professors of
philosophy, nay, are even made the chief source of immorality, while it is
just the senses which are the genuine and innocent source of all our
knowledge, from which all thinking must first borrow its material, for in
combination with the _a priori_ functions of the intellect they produce
the _perception_. One might really suppose that in speaking of sensibility
these gentlemen always think only of the pretended sixth sense of the
French. Thus, as we have said, in the process of knowledge, its ultimate
product was made that which is first and original in it, and accordingly
the matter was taken hold of by the wrong end. According to my exposition,
the intellect springs from the organism, and thereby from the will, and
hence could not be without the latter. Thus, without the will it would
also find no material to occupy it; for everything that is knowable is
just the objectification of the will.

But not only the perception of the external world, or the consciousness of
other things, is conditioned by the brain and its functions, but also
self‐consciousness. The will in itself is without consciousness, and
remains so in the greater part of its phenomena. The secondary world of
idea must be added, in order that it may become conscious of itself, just
as light only becomes visible through the bodies which reflect it, and
without them loses itself in darkness without producing any effect.
Because the will, with the aim of comprehending its relations to the
external world, produces a brain in the animal individual, the
consciousness of its own self arises in it, by means of the subject of
knowledge, which comprehends things as existing and the _ego_ as willing.
The sensibility, which reaches its highest degree in the brain, but is yet
dispersed through its different parts, must first of all collect all the
rays of its activity, concentrate them, as it were, in a focus, which,
however, does not lie without, as in the case of the concave mirror, but
within, as in the convex mirror. With this point now it first describes
the line of time, upon which, therefore, all that it presents to itself as
idea must exhibit itself, and which is the first and most essential form
of all knowledge, or the form of inner sense. This focus of the whole
activity of the brain is what Kant called the synthetic unity of
apperception (_cf._ vol. ii. p. 475). Only by means of this does the will
become conscious of itself, because this focus of the activity of the
brain, or that which knows, apprehends itself as identical with its own
basis, from which it springs, that which wills; and thus the _ego_ arises.
Yet this focus of the brain activity remains primarily a mere subject of
knowledge, and as such capable of being the cold and impartial spectator,
the mere guide and counsellor of the will, and also of comprehending the
external world in a purely objective manner, without reference to the will
and its weal or woe. But whenever it turns within, it recognises the will
as the basis of its own phenomenon, and therefore combines with it in the
consciousness of an _ego_. That focus of the activity of the brain (or the
subject of knowledge) is indeed, as an indivisible point, simple, but yet
is not on this account a substance (soul), but a mere condition or state.
That of which it is itself a condition or state can only be known by it
indirectly, as it were through reflection. But the ceasing of this state
must not be regarded as the annihilation of that of which it is a state.
This _knowing_ and conscious _ego_ is related to the will, which is the
basis of its phenomenal appearance, as the picture in the focus of a
concave mirror is related to the mirror itself, and has, like that
picture, only a conditioned, nay, really a merely apparent, reality. Far
from being the absolutely first (as, for example, Fichte teaches), it is
at bottom tertiary, for it presupposes the organism, and the organism
presupposes the will. I admit that all that is said here is really only an
image and a figure, and in part also hypothetical; but we stand at a point
to which thought can scarcely reach, not to speak of proof. I therefore
request the reader to compare with this what I have adduced at length on
this subject in chapter 20.

Now, although the true being of everything that exists consists in its
will, and knowledge together with consciousness are only added at the
higher grades of the phenomenon as something secondary, yet we find that
the difference which the presence and the different degree of
consciousness places between one being and another is exceedingly great
and of important results. The subjective existence of the plant we must
think of as a weak analogue, a mere shadow of comfort and discomfort; and
even in this exceedingly weak degree the plant knows only of itself, not
of anything outside of it. On the other hand, even the lowest animal
standing next to it is forced by increased and more definitely specified
wants to extend the sphere of its existence beyond the limits of its own
body. This takes place through knowledge. It has a dim apprehension of its
immediate surroundings, out of which the motives for its action with a
view to its own maintenance arise. Thus accordingly the _medium of
motives_ appears, and this is—the world existing objectively in time and
space, _the world as idea_, however weak, obscure, and dimly dawning this
first and lowest example of it may be. But it imprints itself ever more
and more distinctly, ever wider and deeper, in proportion as in the
ascending scale of animal organisations the brain is ever more perfectly
produced. This progress in the development of the brain, thus of the
intellect, and of the clearness of the idea, at each of these ever higher
grades is, however, brought about by the constantly increasing and more
complicated _wants_ of this phenomenon of the will. This must always first
afford the occasion for it, for without necessity nature (_i.e._, the will
which objectifies itself in it) produces nothing, least of all the hardest
of its productions—a more perfect brain: in consequence of its _lex
parsimoniæ_: _natura nihil agit frustra et nihil facit supervacaneum_. It
has provided every animal with the organs which are necessary for its
sustenance and the weapons necessary for its conflict, as I have shown at
length in my work, “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” under the heading,
“_Vergleichende Anatomie_.” According to this measure, therefore, it
imparts to each the most important of those organs concerned with what is
without, the brain, with its function the intellect. The more complicated,
through higher development, its organisation became, the more multifarious
and specially determined did its wants also become, and consequently the
more difficult and the more dependent upon opportunity was the provision
of what would satisfy them. Thus there was needed here a wider range of
sight, a more accurate comprehension, a more correct distinction of things
in the external world, in all their circumstances and relations.
Accordingly we see the faculty of forming ideas, and its organs, brain,
nerves, and special senses, appear ever more perfect the higher we advance
in the scale of animals; and in proportion as the cerebral system
develops, the external world appears ever more distinct, many‐sided, and
complete in consciousness. The comprehension of it now demands ever more
attention, and ultimately in such a degree that sometimes its relation to
the will must momentarily be lost sight of in order that it may take place
more purely and correctly. Quite definitely this first appears in the case
of man. With him alone does a _pure separation of knowing and willing_
take place. This is an important point, which I merely touch on here in
order to indicate its position, and be able to take it up again later.
But, like all the rest, nature takes this last step also in extending and
perfecting the brain, and thereby in increasing the powers of knowledge,
only in consequence of the increased needs, thus in the service of the
_will_. What this aims at and attains in man is indeed essentially the
same, and not more than what is also its goal in the brutes—nourishment
and propagation. But the requisites for the attainment of this goal became
so much increased in number, and of so much higher quality and greater
definiteness through the organisation of man, that a very much more
considerable heightening of the intellect than the previous steps demanded
was necessary, or at least was the easiest means of reaching the end. But
since now the intellect, in accordance with its nature, is a tool of the
most various utility, and is equally applicable to the most different
kinds of ends, nature, true to her spirit of parsimony, could now meet
through it alone all the demands of the wants which had now become so
manifold. Therefore she sent forth man without clothing, without natural
means of protection or weapons of attack, nay, with relatively little
muscular power, combined with great frailty and little endurance of
adverse influences and wants, in reliance upon that one great tool, in
addition to which she had only to retain the hands from the next grade
below him, the ape. But through the predominating intellect which here
appears not only is the comprehension of motives, their multiplicity, and
in general the horizon of the aims infinitely increased, but also the
distinctness with which the will is conscious _of itself_ is enhanced in
the highest degree in consequence of the clearness of the whole
consciousness which has been brought about, which is supported by the
capacity for abstract knowledge, and now attains to complete
reflectiveness. But thereby, and also through the vehemence of the will,
which is necessarily presupposed as the supporter of such a heightened
intellect, an intensifying of all the _emotions_ appears, and indeed the
possibility of the _passions_, which, properly speaking, are unknown to
the brute. For the vehemence of the will keeps pace with the advance of
intelligence, because this advance really always springs from the
increased needs and pressing demands of the will: besides this, however,
the two reciprocally support each other. Thus the vehemence of the
character corresponds to the greater energy of the beating of the heart
and the circulation of the blood, which physically heighten the activity
of the brain. On the other hand, the clearness of the intelligence
intensifies the emotions, which are called forth by the outward
circumstances, by means of the more vivid apprehension of the latter.
Hence, for example, young calves quietly allow themselves to be packed in
a cart and carried off; but young lions, if they are only separated from
their mother, remain permanently restless, and roar unceasingly from
morning to night; children in such a position would cry and vex themselves
almost to death. The vivaciousness and impetuosity of the ape is in exact
proportion to its greatly developed intellect. It depends just on this
reciprocal relationship that man is, in general, capable of far greater
sorrows than the brute, but also of greater joy in satisfied and pleasing
emotions. In the same way his higher intelligence makes him more sensible
to _ennui_ than the brute; but it also becomes, if he is individually very
complete, an inexhaustible source of entertainment. Thus, as a whole, the
manifestation of the will in man is related to that in the brute of the
higher species, as a note that has been struck to its fifth pitched two or
three octaves lower. But between the different kinds of brutes also the
differences of intellect, and thereby of consciousness, are great and
endlessly graduated. The mere analogy of consciousness which we must yet
attribute to plants will be related to the still far deader subjective
nature of an unorganised body, very much as the consciousness of the
lowest species of animals is related to the _quasi_ consciousness of
plants. We may present to our imagination the innumerable gradations in
the degree of consciousness under the figure of the different velocity of
points which are unequally distant from the centre of a revolving sphere.
But the most correct, and indeed, as our third book teaches, the natural
figure of that gradation is afforded us by the scale in its whole compass
from the lowest audible note to the highest. It is, however, the grade of
consciousness which determines the grade of existence of a being. For
every immediate existence is subjective: the objective existence is in the
consciousness of another, thus only for this other, consequently quite
indirect. Through the grade of consciousness beings are as different as
through the will they are alike, for the will is what is common to them
all.

But what we have now considered between the plant and the animal, and then
between the different species of animals, occurs also between man and man.
Here also that which is secondary, the intellect, by means of the
clearness of consciousness and distinctness of knowledge which depends
upon it, constitutes a fundamental and immeasurably great difference in
the whole manner of the existence, and thereby in the grade of it. The
higher the consciousness has risen, the more distinct and connected are
the thoughts, the clearer the perceptions the more intense the sensations.
Through it everything gains more depth: emotion, sadness, joy, and sorrow.
Commonplace blockheads are not even capable of real joy: they live on in
dull insensibility. While to one man his consciousness only presents his
own existence, together with the motives which must be apprehended for the
purpose of sustaining and enlivening it, in a bare comprehension of the
external world, it is to another a _camera obscura_ in which the macrocosm
exhibits itself:


    “He feels that he holds a little world
    Brooding in his brain,
    That it begins to work and to live,
    That he fain would give it forth.”


The difference of the whole manner of existence which the extremes of the
gradation of intellectual capacity establish between man and man is so
great that that between a king and a day labourer seems small in
comparison. And here also, as in the case of the species of animals, a
connection between the vehemence of the will and the height of the
intellect can be shown. Genius is conditioned by a passionate temperament,
and a phlegmatic genius is inconceivable: it seems as if an exceptionally
vehement, thus a violently longing, will must be present if nature is to
give an abnormally heightened intellect, as corresponding to it; while the
merely physical account of this points to the greater energy with which
the arteries of the head move the brain and increase its turgescence.
Certainly, however, the quantity, quality, and form of the brain itself is
the other and incomparably more rare condition of genius. On the other
hand, phlegmatic persons are as a rule of very moderate mental power; and
thus the northern, cold‐blooded, and phlegmatic nations are in general
noticeably inferior in mind to the southern vivacious and passionate
peoples; although, as Bacon(2) has most pertinently remarked, if once a
man of a northern nation is highly gifted by nature, he can then reach a
grade which no southern ever attains to. It is accordingly as perverse as
it is common to take the great minds of different nations as the standard
for comparing their mental powers: for that is just attempting to prove
the rule by the exceptions. It is rather the great majority of each nation
that one has to consider: for one swallow does not make a summer. We have
further to remark here that that very passionateness which is a condition
of genius, bound up with its vivid apprehension of things, produces in
practical life, where the will comes into play, and especially in the case
of sudden occurrences, so great an excitement of the emotions that it
disturbs and confuses the intellect; while the phlegmatic man in such a
case still retains the full use of his mental faculties, though they are
much more limited, and then accomplishes much more with them than the
greatest genius can achieve. Accordingly a passionate temperament is
favourable to the original quality of the intellect, but a phlegmatic
temperament to its use. Therefore genius proper is only for theoretical
achievements, for which it can choose and await its time, which will just
be the time at which the will is entirely at rest, and no waves disturb
the clear mirror of the comprehension of the world. On the other hand,
genius is ill adapted and unserviceable for practical life, and is
therefore for the most part unfortunate. Goethe’s “Tasso” is written from
this point of view. As now genius proper depends upon the _absolute_
strength of the intellect, which must be purchased by a correspondingly
excessive vehemence of disposition, so, on the other hand, the great pre‐
eminence in practical life that makes generals and statesmen depends upon
the _relative_ strength of the intellect, thus upon the highest degree of
it that can be attained without too great excitability of the emotions,
and too great vehemence of character, and that therefore can hold its own
even in the storm. Great firmness of will and constancy of mind, together
with a capable and fine understanding, are here sufficient; and whatever
goes beyond this acts detrimentally, for too great a development of the
intelligence directly impedes firmness of character and resolution of
will. Hence this kind of eminence is not so abnormal, and is a hundred
times less rare than the former kind; and accordingly we see great
generals and great ministers appear in every age, whenever the merely
external conditions are favourable to their efficiency. Great poets and
philosophers, on the other hand, leave centuries waiting for them; and yet
humanity may be contented even with this rare appearance of them, for
their works remain, and do not exist only for the present, like the
achievements of those other men. It is also quite in keeping with the law
of the parsimony of nature referred to above that it bestows great
eminence of mind in general upon very few, and genius only as the rarest
of all exceptions, while it equips the great mass of the human race with
no more mental power than is required for the maintenance of the
individual and the species. For the great, and through their very
satisfaction, constantly increasing needs of the human race make it
necessary that the great majority of men should pass their lives in
occupations of a coarsely physical and entirely mechanical description.
And what would be the use to them of an active mind, a glowing
imagination, a subtle understanding, and a profoundly penetrating
intellect? These would only make them useless and unhappy. Therefore
nature has thus gone about the most costly of all her productions in the
least extravagant manner. In order not to judge unfairly one ought also to
settle definitely one’s expectations of the mental achievements of men
generally from this point of view, and to regard, for example, even
learned men, since as a rule they have become so only by the force of
outward circumstances, primarily as men whom nature really intended to be
tillers of the soil; indeed even professors of philosophy ought to be
estimated according to this standard, and then their achievements will be
found to come up to all fair expectations. It is worth noticing that in
the south, where the necessities of life press less severely upon the
human race, and more leisure is allowed, the mental faculties even of the
multitude also become more active and finer. It is physiologically
noteworthy that the preponderance of the mass of the brain over that of
the spinal cord and the nerves, which, according to Sömmerring’s acute
discovery, affords the true and closest measure of the degree of
intelligence both of species of brutes and of individual men, at the same
time increases the direct power of moving, the agility of the limbs;
because, through the great inequality of the relation, the dependence of
all motor nerves upon the brain becomes more decided; and besides this the
cerebellum, which is the primary controller of movements, shares the
qualitative perfection of the cerebrum; thus through both all voluntary
movements gain greater facility, rapidity, and manageableness, and by the
concentration of the starting‐point of all activity that arises which
Lichtenberg praises in Garrick: “that he appeared to be present in all the
muscles of his body.” Hence clumsiness in the movement of the body
indicates clumsiness in the movement of the thoughts, and will be regarded
as a sign of stupidity both in individuals and nations, as much as
sleepiness of the countenance and vacancy of the glance. Another symptom
of the physiological state of the case referred to is the fact that many
persons are obliged at once to stand still whenever their conversation
with any one who is walking with them begins to gain some connection;
because their brain, as soon as it has to link together a few thoughts,
has no longer as much power over as is required to keep the limbs in
motion by means of the motory nerves, so closely is everything measured
with them.

It results from this whole objective consideration of the intellect and
its origin, that it is designed for the comprehension of those ends upon
the attainment of which depends the individual life and its propagation,
but by no means for deciphering the inner nature of things and of the
world, which exists independently of the knower. What to the plant is the
susceptibility to light, in consequence of which it guides its growth in
the direction of it, that is, in kind, the knowledge of the brute, nay,
even of man, although in degree it is increased in proportion as the needs
of each of these beings demand. With them all apprehension remains a mere
consciousness of their relations to other things, and is by no means
intended to present again in the consciousness of the knower the peculiar,
absolutely real nature of these things. Rather, as springing from the
will, the intellect is also only designed for its service, thus for the
apprehension of motives; it is adapted for this, and is therefore of a
thoroughly practical tendency. This also holds good if we conceive the
significance of life as ethical; for in this regard too we find man
knowing only for the benefit of his conduct. Such a faculty of knowledge,
existing exclusively for practical ends, will from its nature always
comprehend only the relations of things to each other, but not the inner
nature of them, as it is in itself. But to regard the complex of these
relations as the absolute nature of the world as it is in itself, and the
manner in which it necessarily exhibits itself in accordance with the laws
predisposed in the brain as the eternal laws of the existence of all
things, and then to construct ontology, cosmology, and theology in
accordance with this view—this was really the old fundamental error, of
which Kant’s teaching has made an end. Here, then, our objective, and
therefore for the most part physiological consideration of the intellect
meets _his_ transcendental consideration of it; nay, appears in a certain
sense even as an _a priori_ insight into it; for, from a point of view
which we have taken up outside of it, our objective view enables us to
know in its origin, and therefore as _necessary_, what that transcendental
consideration, starting from facts of consciousness, presents only as a
matter of fact. For it follows from our objective consideration of the
intellect, that the world as idea, as it exists stretched out in space and
time, and moves on regularly according to the strict law of causality, is
primarily only a physiological phenomenon, a function of the brain, which
brings it about, certainly upon the occasion of certain external stimuli,
but yet in conformity with its own laws. Accordingly it is beforehand a
matter of course, that what goes on in this function itself, and therefore
through it and for it, must by no means be regarded as the nature of
_things in themselves_, which exist independently of it and are entirely
different from it, but primarily exhibits only the mode or manner of this
function itself, which can always receive only a very subordinate
modification through that which exists completely independently of it, and
sets it in motion as a stimulus. As, then, Locke claimed for the organs of
sense all that comes into our apprehension by means of the sensation, in
order to deny that it belongs to things in themselves, so Kant, with the
same intention, and pursuing the same path further, has proved all that
makes _perception_ proper possible, thus space, time, and causality, to be
functions of the brain; although he has refrained from using this
physiological expression, to which, however, our present method of
investigation, coming from the opposite side, the side of the real,
necessarily leads us. Kant arrived upon his analytical path at the result
that what we know are mere _phenomena_. What this mysterious expression
really means becomes clear from our objective and genetic investigation of
the intellect. The phenomena are the motives for the aims of individual
will as they exhibit themselves in the intellect which the will has
produced for this purpose (which itself appears as a phenomenon
objectively, as the brain), and which, when comprehended, as far as one
can follow their concatenation, afford us in their connection the world
which extends itself objectively in time and space, and which I call the
world as idea. Moreover, from our point of view, the objectionable element
vanishes which in the Kantian doctrine arises from the fact that, because
the intellect knows merely phenomena instead of things as they are in
themselves, nay, in consequence of this is led astray into paralogisms and
unfounded hypostases by means of “sophistications, not of men but of the
reason itself, from which even the wisest does not free himself, and if,
perhaps indeed after much trouble, he avoids error, can yet never get quit
of the illusion which unceasingly torments and mocks him”—because of all
this, I say, the appearance arises that our intellect is intentionally
designed to lead us into errors. For the objective view of the intellect
given here, which contains a genesis of it, makes it conceivable that,
being exclusively intended for practical ends, it is merely the _medium of
motives_, and therefore fulfils its end by an accurate presentation of
these, and that if we undertake to discover the nature of things in
themselves, from the manifold phenomena which here exhibit themselves
objectively to us, and their laws, we do this at our own peril and on our
own responsibility. We have recognised that the original inner force of
nature, without knowledge and working in the dark, which, if it has worked
its way up to self‐consciousness, reveals itself to this as _will_,
attains to this grade only by the production of an animal brain and of
knowledge, as its function, whereupon the phenomenon of the world of
perception arises in this brain. But to explain this mere brain
phenomenon, with the conformity to law which is invariably connected with
its functions, as the objective inner nature of the world and the things
in it, which is independent of the brain, existing before and after it, is
clearly a spring which nothing warrants us in making. From this _mundus
phœnomenon_, however, from this perception which arises under such a
variety of conditions, all our conceptions are drawn. They have all their
content from it, or even only in relation to it. Therefore, as Kant says,
they are only for immanent, not for transcendental, use; that is to say,
these conceptions of ours, this first material of thought, and
consequently still more the judgments which result from their combination,
are unfitted for the task of thinking the nature of things in themselves,
and the true connection of the world and existence; indeed, to undertake
this is analogous to expressing the stereometrical content of a body in
square inches. For our intellect, originally only intended to present to
an individual will its paltry aims, comprehends accordingly mere
_relations_ of things, and does not penetrate to their inner being, to
their real nature. It is therefore a merely superficial force, clings to
the surface of things, and apprehends mere _species transitivas_, not the
true being of things. From this it arises that we cannot understand and
comprehend any single thing, even the simplest and smallest, through and
through, but something remains entirely inexplicable to us in each of
them. Just because the intellect is a product of nature, and is therefore
only intended for its ends, the Christian mystics have very aptly called
it “the light of nature,” and driven it back within its limits; for nature
is the object to which alone it is the subject. The thought from which the
Critique of Pure Reason has sprung really lies already at the foundation
of this expression. That we cannot comprehend the world on the direct
path, _i.e._, through the uncritical, direct application of the intellect
and its data, but when we reflect upon it become ever more deeply involved
in insoluble mysteries, points to the fact that the intellect, thus
knowledge itself, is secondary, a mere product, brought about by the
development of the inner being of the world, which consequently till then
preceded it, and it at last appeared as a breaking through to the light
out of the obscure depths of the unconscious striving the nature of which
exhibits itself as _will_ to the self‐consciousness which now at once
arises. That which preceded knowledge as its condition, whereby it first
became possible, thus its own basis, cannot be directly comprehended by
it; as the eye cannot see itself. It is rather the relations of one
existence to another, exhibiting themselves upon the surface of things,
which alone are its affair, and are so only by means of the apparatus of
the intellect, its forms, space, time, and causality. Just because the
world has made itself without the assistance of knowledge, its whole being
does not enter into knowledge, but knowledge presupposes the existence of
the world; on which account the origin of the world does not lie within
its sphere. It is accordingly limited to the relations between the things
which lie before it, and is thus sufficient for the individual will, for
the service of which alone it appeared. For the intellect is, as has been
shown, conditioned by nature, lies in it, belongs to it, and cannot
therefore place itself over against it as something quite foreign to it,
in order thus to take up into itself its whole nature, absolutely,
objectively, and thoroughly. It can, if fortune favours it, understand all
that is in nature, but not nature itself, at least not directly.

However discouraging to metaphysics this essential limitation of the
intellect may be, which arises from its nature and origin, it has yet
another side which is very consoling. It deprives the direct utterances of
nature of their unconditional validity, in the assertion of which
_naturalism_ proper consists. If, therefore, nature presents to us every
living thing as appearing out of nothing, and, after an ephemeral
existence, returning again for ever to nothing, and if it seems to take
pleasure in the unceasing production of new beings, in order that it may
be able unceasingly to destroy, and, on the other hand, is unable to bring
anything permanent to light; if accordingly we are forced to recognise
_matter_ as that which alone is permanent, which never came into being and
never passes away, but brings forth all things from its womb, whence its
name appears to be derived from _mater rerum_, and along with it, as the
father of things, _form_, which, just as fleeting as matter is permanent,
changes really every moment, and can only maintain itself so long as it
clings as a parasite to matter (now to one part of it, now to another),
but when once it entirely loses hold, disappears, as is shown by the
palæotheria and the ichthyosaurians, we must indeed recognise this as the
direct and genuine utterance of nature, but on account of the origin of
the intellect explained above, and the nature of it which results from
this origin, we cannot ascribe to this utterance an _unconditional truth_,
but rather only an entirely _conditional_ truth, which Kant has
appropriately indicated as such by calling it the _phenomenon_ in
opposition to the _thing in itself_.

If, in spite of this essential limitation of the intellect, it is
possible, by a circuitous route, to arrive at a certain understanding of
the world and the nature of things, by means of reflection widely pursued,
and the skilful combination of objective knowledge directed towards
without, with the data of self‐consciousness, this will yet be only a very
limited, entirely indirect, and relative understanding, a parabolical
translation into the forms of knowledge, thus a _quadam prodire tenus_,
which must always leave many problems still unsolved. On the other hand,
the fundamental error of the old _dogmatism_ in all its forms, which was
destroyed by Kant, was this, that it started absolutely from _knowledge_,
i.e., _the world as idea_, in order to deduce and construct from its laws
being in general, whereby it accepted that world of idea, together with
its laws, as absolutely existing and absolutely real; while its whole
existence is throughout relative, and a mere result or phenomenon of the
true being which lies at its foundation,—or, in other words, that it
constructed an ontology when it had only materials for a dianoiology. Kant
discovered the subjectively conditioned and therefore entirely immanent
nature of knowledge, _i.e._, its unsuitableness for transcendental use,
from the constitution of knowledge itself; and therefore he very
appropriately called his doctrine the _Critique of Reason_. He
accomplished this partly by showing the important and thoroughly _a
priori_ part of all knowledge, which, as throughout subjective, spoils all
objectivity, and partly by professedly proving that if they were followed
out to the end the principles of knowledge, taken as purely objective, led
to contradictions. He had, however, hastily assumed that, apart from
_objective_ knowledge, _i.e._, apart from the world as _idea_, there is
nothing given us except conscience, out of which he constructed the little
that still remained of metaphysics, his moral theology, to which, however,
he attributed absolutely only a practical validity, and no theoretical
validity at all. He had overlooked that although certainly objective
knowledge, or the world as idea, affords nothing but phenomena, together
with their phenomenal connection and regressus, yet our own nature
necessarily also belongs to the world of things in themselves, for it must
have its root in it. But here, even if the root itself cannot be brought
to light, it must be possible to gather some data for the explanation of
the connection of the world of phenomena with the inner nature of things.
Thus here lies the path upon which I have gone beyond Kant and the limits
which he drew, yet always restricting myself to the ground of reflection,
and consequently of honesty, and therefore without the vain pretension of
intellectual intuition or absolute thought which characterises the period
of pseudo‐philosophy between Kant and me. In his proof of the
insufficiency of rational knowledge to fathom the nature of the world Kant
started from knowledge as a _fact_, which our consciousness affords us,
thus in this sense he proceeded _a posteriori_. But in this chapter, and
also in my work, “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” I have sought to show
what knowledge is in its _nature and origin_, something secondary,
designed for individual ends; whence it follows that it _must be_
insufficient to fathom the nature of the world. Thus so far I have reached
the same goal _a priori_. But one never knows anything wholly and
completely until one has gone right round it for that purpose, and has got
back to it from the opposite side from which one started. Therefore also,
in the case of the important fundamental knowledge here considered, one
must not merely go from the intellect to the knowledge of the world, as
Kant has done, but also from the world, taken as given, to the intellect,
as I have undertaken here. Then this physiological consideration, in the
wider sense, becomes the supplement of that ideological, as the French
say, or, more accurately, transcendental consideration.

In the above, in order not to break the thread of the exposition, I have
postponed the explanation of one point which I touched upon. It was this,
that in proportion as, in the ascending series of animals, the intellect
appears ever more developed and complete, _knowledge_ always separates
itself more distinctly from _will_, and thereby becomes purer. What is
essential upon this point will be found in my work, “_Ueber den Willen in
der Natur_,” under the heading, “_Pflanzenphysiologie_” (p. 68‐72 of the
second, and 74‐77 of the third edition), to which I refer, in order to
avoid repetition, and merely add here a few remarks. Since the plant
possesses neither irritability nor sensibility, but the will objectifies
itself in it only as plastic or reproductive power, it has neither muscle
nor nerve. In the lowest grades of the animal kingdom, in zoophites,
especially in polyps, we cannot as yet distinctly recognise the separation
of these two constituent parts, but still we assume their existence,
though in a state of fusion; because we perceive movements which follow,
not, as in the case of plants, upon mere stimuli, but upon motives,
_i.e._, in consequence of a certain apprehension. Now in proportion as, in
the ascending series of animals, the nervous and muscular systems
_separate_ ever more distinctly from each other, till in the vertebrate
animals, and most completely in man, the former divides into an organic
and a cerebral nervous system, and of these the latter again develops into
the excessively complicated apparatus of the cerebrum and cerebellum,
spinal marrow, cerebral and spinal nerves, sensory and motor nerve
fascicles, of which only the cerebrum, together with the sensory nerves
depending upon it, and the posterior spinal nerve fascicles are intended
for the _apprehension of the motive_ from the external world, while all
the other parts are intended for the _transmission_ of the motive to the
muscles in which the will manifests itself directly; in the same
proportion does the _motive_ separate ever more distinctly in
_consciousness_ from the _act of will_ which it calls forth, thus the
_idea_ from the _will_; and thereby the _objectivity_ of consciousness
constantly increases, for the ideas exhibit themselves ever more
distinctly and purely in it. These two _separations_ are, however, really
only one and the same, which we have here considered from two sides, the
objective and the subjective, or first in the consciousness of other
things and then in self‐consciousness. Upon the degree of this separation
ultimately depends the difference and the gradation of intellectual
capacity, both between different kinds of animals and between individual
human beings; thus it gives the standard for the intellectual completeness
of these beings. For the clearness of the consciousness of the external
world, the objectivity of the perception, depends upon it. In the passage
referred to above I have shown that the brute only perceives things so far
as they are _motives_ for its will, and that even the most intelligent of
the brutes scarcely overstep these limits, because their intellect is too
closely joined to the will from which it has sprung. On the other hand,
even the stupidest man comprehends things in some degree _objectively_;
for he recognises not merely what they are with reference to him, but also
something of what they are with reference to themselves and to other
things. Yet in the case of very few does this reach such a degree that
they are in a position to examine and judge of anything purely
_objectively_; but “that must I do, that must I say, that must I believe,”
is the goal to which on every occasion their thought hastens in a direct
line, and at which their understanding at once finds welcome rest. For
thinking is as unendurable to the weak head as the lifting of a burden to
the weak arm; therefore both hasten to set it down. The objectivity of
knowledge, and primarily of perceptive knowledge, has innumerable grades,
which depend upon the energy of the intellect and its separation from the
will, and the highest of which is _genius_, in which the comprehension of
the external world becomes so pure and objective that to it even more
reveals itself directly in the individual thing than the individual thing
itself, namely, the nature of its whole _species_, _i.e._, its Platonic
Idea; which is brought about by the fact that in this case the will
entirely vanishes from consciousness. Here is the point at which the
present investigation, starting from physiological grounds, connects
itself with the subject of our third book, the metaphysics of the
beautiful, where æsthetic comprehension proper, which, in a high degree,
is peculiar to genius alone, is fully considered as the condition of pure,
_i.e._, perfectly will‐less, and on that account completely objective
knowledge. According to what has been said, the rise of intelligence, from
the obscurest animal consciousness up to that of man, is a progressive
_loosening of the intellect from the will_, which appears complete,
although only as an exception, in the _genius_. Therefore genius may be
defined as the highest grade of the _objectivity_ of knowledge. The
condition of this, which so seldom occurs, is a decidedly larger measure
of intelligence than is required for the service of the will, which
constitutes its basis; it is accordingly this free surplus which first
really properly comes to know the world, _i.e._, comprehends it perfectly
_objectively_, and now paints pictures, composes poems, and thinks in
accordance with this comprehension.




Chapter XXIII.(3)On The Objectification Of The Will In Unconscious Nature.


That the will which we find within us does not proceed, as philosophy has
hitherto assumed, first from knowledge, and indeed is a mere modification
of it, thus something secondary, derived, and, like knowledge itself,
conditioned by the brain; but that it is the _prius_ of knowledge, the
kernel of our nature, and that original force itself which forms and
sustains the animal body, in that it carries out both its unconscious and
its conscious functions;—this is the first step in the fundamental
knowledge of my metaphysics. Paradoxical as it even now seems to many that
the will in itself is without knowledge, yet the scholastics in some way
already recognised and confessed it; for Jul. Cæs. Vaninus (that well‐
known sacrifice to fanaticism and priestly fury), who was thoroughly
versed in their philosophy, says in his “_Amphitheatro_,” p. 181:
“_Voluntas potentia cœca est, ex scholasticorum opinione_.” That, further,
it is that same will which in the plant forms the bud in order to develop
the leaf and the flower out of it; nay, that the regular form of the
crystal is only the trace which its momentary effort has left behind, and
that in general, as the true and only αυτοματον, in the proper sense of
the word, it lies at the foundation of all the forces of unorganised
nature, plays, acts, in all their multifarious phenomena, imparts power to
their laws, and even in the crudest mass manifests itself as gravity;—this
insight is the second step in that fundamental knowledge, and is brought
about by further reflection. But it would be the grossest misunderstanding
to suppose that this is a mere question of a word to denote an unknown
quantity. It is rather the most real of all real knowledge which is here
expressed in language. For it is the tracing back of that which is quite
inaccessible to our immediate knowledge, and therefore in its essence
foreign and unknown to us, which we denote by the words _force of nature_,
to that which is known to us most accurately and intimately, but which is
yet only accessible to us in our own being and directly, and must
therefore be carried over from this to other phenomena. It is the insight
that what is inward and original in all the changes and movements of
bodies, however various they may be, is in its nature identical; that yet
we have only one opportunity of getting to know it more closely and
directly, and that is in the movements of our own body. In consequence of
this knowledge we must call it _will_. It is the insight that that which
acts and strives in nature, and exhibits itself in ever more perfect
phenomena, when it has worked itself up so far that the light of knowledge
falls directly upon it, _i.e._, when it has attained to the state of self‐
consciousness—exists as that _will_, which is what is most intimately
known to us, and therefore cannot be further explained by anything else,
but rather affords the explanation of all other things. It is accordingly
the _thing in itself_ so far as this can ever be reached by knowledge.
Consequently it is that which must express itself in some way in
everything in the world, for it is the inner nature of the world and the
kernel of all phenomena.

As my essay, “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” specially refers to the
subject of this chapter, and also adduces the evidence of unprejudiced
empiricists in favour of this important point of my doctrine, I have only
to add now to what is said there a few supplementary remarks, which are
therefore strung together in a somewhat fragmentary manner.

First, then, with reference to plant life, I draw attention to the
remarkable first two chapters of Aristotle’s work upon plants. What is
most interesting in them, as is so often the case with Aristotle, are the
opinions of earlier profound philosophers quoted by him. We see there that
Anaxagoras and Empedocles quite rightly taught that plants have the motion
of their growth by virtue of their indwelling _desires_ (επιθυμια); nay,
that they also attributed to them pleasure and pain, therefore sensation.
But Plato only ascribed to them desires, and that on account of their
strong appetite for nutrition (_cf._ Plato in the “_Timœus_,” p. 403,
Bip.) Aristotle, on the other hand, true to his customary method, glides
on the surface of things, confines himself to single characteristics and
conceptions fixed by current expressions, and asserts that without
sensation there can be no desires, and that plants have not sensation. He
is, however, in considerable embarrassment, as his confused language
shows, till here also, “where fails the comprehension, a word steps
promptly in as deputy,” namely, το θρεπτικον, the faculty of nourishing.
Plants have this, and thus a part of the so‐called soul, according to his
favourite division into _anima vegetativa_, _sensitiva_, and
_intellectiva_. This, however, is just a scholastic _Quidditas_, and
signifies _plantœ nutriuntur quia habent facultatem nutritivam_. It is
therefore a bad substitute for the more profound research of his
predecessors, whom he is criticising. We also see, in the second chapter,
that Empedocles even recognised the sexuality of plants; which Aristotle
then also finds fault with, and conceals his want of special knowledge
behind general propositions, such as this, that plants could not have both
sexes combined, for if so they would be more complete than animals. By
quite an analogous procedure he displaces the correct astronomical system
of the world of the Pythagoreans, and by his absurd fundamental
principles, which he specially explains in the books _de Cœlo_, introduces
the system of Ptolemy, whereby mankind was again deprived of an already
discovered truth of the greatest importance for almost two thousand years.

I cannot refrain from giving here the saying of an excellent biologist of
our own time who fully agrees with my teaching. It is G. R. Treviranus,
who, in his work, “_Ueber die Erscheinungen und Gesetze des organischen
Lebens_,” 1832, Bd. 2, Abth. 1, § 49, has said what follows: “A form of
life is, however, conceivable in which the effect of the external upon the
internal produces merely feelings of desire or dislike. Such is the life
of plants. In the higher forms of animal life the external is felt as
something objective.” Treviranus speaks here from pure unprejudiced
comprehension of nature, and is as little conscious of the metaphysical
importance of his words as of the _contradictio in adjecto_ which lies in
the conception of something “felt as objective,” a conception which indeed
he works out at great length. He does not know that all feeling is
essentially subjective, and all that is objective is, on the other hand,
perception, and therefore a product of the understanding. Yet this does
not detract at all from the truth and importance of what he says.

In fact, in the life of plants the truth that will can exist without
knowledge is apparent—one might say palpably recognisable. For here we see
a decided effort, determined by wants, modified in various ways, and
adapting itself to the difference of the circumstances, yet clearly
without knowledge. And just because the plant is without knowledge it
bears its organs of generation ostentatiously in view, in perfect
innocence; it knows nothing about it. As soon, on the other hand, as in
the series of existences knowledge appears the organs of generation are
transferred to a hidden part. Man, however, with whom this is again less
the case, conceals them intentionally: he is ashamed of them.

Primarily, then, the vital force is identical with the will, but so also
are all other forces of nature; though this is less apparent. If,
therefore, we find the recognition of a desire, _i.e._, of a will, as the
basis of _plant life_, expressed at all times, with more or less
distinctness of conception, on the other hand, the reference of the forces
of _unorganised_ nature to the same foundation is rarer in proportion as
their remoteness from our own nature is greater. In fact, the boundary
between the organised and the unorganised is the most sharply drawn in the
whole of nature, and perhaps the only one that admits of no
transgressions; so that _natura non facit saltus_ seems to suffer an
exception here. Although certain crystallisations display an external form
resembling the vegetable, yet even between the smallest lichen, the lowest
fungus, and everything unorganised there remains a fundamental and
essential difference. In the _unorganised_ body that which is essential
and permanent, thus that upon which its identity and integrity rests, is
the material, the _matter_; what is unessential and changing is, on the
other hand, the _form_. With the _organised_ body the case is exactly
reversed; for its life, _i.e._, its existence as an organised being,
simply consists in the constant change of the _material_, while the _form_
remains permanent. Its being and its identity thus lies in the _form_
alone. Therefore the continuance of the _unorganised_ body depends upon
_repose_ and exclusion from external influences: thus alone does it retain
its existence; and if this condition is perfect, such a body lasts for
ever. The continuance of the _organised_ body, on the contrary, just
depends upon continual _movement_ and the constant reception of external
influences. As soon as these are wanting and the movement in it stops it
is dead, and thereby ceases to be organic, although the trace of the
organism that has been still remains for a while. Therefore the talk,
which is so much affected in our own day, of the life of what is
unorganised, indeed of the globe itself, and that it, and also the
planetary system, is an organism, is entirely inadmissible. The predicate
life belongs only to what is organised. Every organism, however, is
throughout organised, is so in all its parts; and nowhere are these, even
in their smallest particles, composed by aggregation of what is
unorganised. Thus if the earth were an organism, all mountains and rocks,
and the whole interior of their mass, would necessarily be organised, and
accordingly really nothing unorganised would exist; and therefore the
whole conception of it would be wanting.

On the other hand, that the manifestation of a _will_ is as little bound
up with life and organisation as with knowledge, and that therefore the
unorganised has also a will, the manifestations of which are all its
fundamental qualities, which cannot be further explained,—this is an
essential point in my doctrine; although the trace of such a thought is
far seldomer found in writers who have preceded me than that of the will
in plants, where, however, it is still unconscious.

In the forming of the crystal we see, as it were, a tendency towards an
attempt at life, to which, however, it does not attain, because the
fluidity of which, like a living thing, it is composed at the moment of
that movement is not enclosed in a _skin_, as is always the case with the
latter, and consequently it has neither vessels in which that movement
could go on, nor does anything separate it from the external world.
Therefore, rigidity at once seizes that momentary movement, of which only
the trace remains as the crystal.

The thought that the will, which constitutes the basis of our own nature,
is also the same will which shows itself even in the lowest unorganised
phenomena, on account of which the conformity to law of both phenomena
shows a perfect analogy, lies at the foundation of Goethe’s
“_Wahlverwandtschaften_,” as the title indeed indicates, although he
himself was unconscious of this.

Mechanics and astronomy specially show us how this will conducts itself so
far as it appears at the lowest grade of its manifestation merely as
gravity, rigidity, and inertia. Hydraulics shows us the same thing where
rigidity is wanting and the fluid material is now unrestrainedly
surrendered to its predominating passion, gravity. In this sense
hydraulics may be conceived as a characteristic sketch of water, for it
presents to us the manifestations of will to which water is moved by
gravity; these always correspond exactly to the external influences, for
in the case of all non‐individual existences there is no particular
character in addition to the general one; thus they can easily be referred
to fixed characteristics, which are called laws, and which are learned by
experience of water. These laws accurately inform us how water will
conduct itself under all different circumstances, on account of its
gravity, the unconditioned mobility of its parts, and its want of
elasticity. Hydrostatics teaches how it is brought to rest through
gravity; hydrodynamics, how it is set in motion; and the latter has also
to take account of hindrances which adhesion opposes to the will of water:
the two together constitute hydraulics. In the same way Chemistry teaches
us how the will conducts itself when the inner qualities of materials
obtain free play by being brought into a fluid state, and there appears
that wonderful attraction and repulsion, separating and combining, leaving
go of one to seize upon another, from which every precipitation
originates, and the whole of which is denoted by “elective affinity” (an
expression which is entirely borrowed from the conscious will). But
Anatomy and Physiology allow us to see how the will conducts itself in
order to bring about the phenomenon of life and sustain it for a while.
Finally, the poet shows us how the will conducts itself under the
influence of motives and reflection. He exhibits it therefore for the most
part in the most perfect of its manifestations, in rational beings, whose
character is individual, and whose conduct and suffering he brings before
us in the Drama, the Epic, the Romance, &c. The more correctly, the more
strictly according to the laws of nature his characters are there
presented, the greater is his fame; hence Shakespeare stands at the top.
The point of view which is here taken up corresponds at bottom to the
spirit in which Goethe followed and loved the natural sciences, although
he was not conscious of the matter in the abstract. Nay more, this not
only appears from his writings, but is also known to me from his personal
utterances.

If we consider the will, where no one denies it, in conscious beings, we
find everywhere, as its fundamental effort, the _self‐preservation_ of
every being: _omnis natura vult esse conservatrix sui_. But all
manifestations of this fundamental effort may constantly be traced back to
a seeking or pursuit and a shunning or fleeing from, according to the
occasion. Now this also may be shown even at the lowest grades of nature,
that is, of the objectification of the will, where the bodies still act
only as bodies in general, thus are the subject‐matter of mechanics, and
are considered only with reference to the manifestations of
impenetrability, cohesion, rigidity, elasticity, and gravity. Here also
the _seeking_ shows itself as gravitation, and the _shunning_ as the
receiving of motion; and the _movableness_ of bodies by pressure or
impact, which constitutes the basis of mechanics, is at bottom a
manifestation of the effort after _self‐preservation_, which dwells in
them also. For, since as bodies they are impenetrable, this is the sole
means of preserving their cohesion, thus their continuance at any time.
The body which is impelled or exposed to pressure would be crushed to
pieces by the impelling or pressing body if it did not withdraw itself
from its power by flight, in order to preserve its cohesion; and when
flight is impossible for it this actually happens. Indeed, one may regard
_elastic_ bodies as the more _courageous_, which seek to repel the enemy,
or at least to prevent him from pursuing further. Thus in the one secret
which (besides gravity) is left by mechanics otherwise so clear, in the
communicability of motion, we see a manifestation of the fundamental
effort of the will in all its phenomena, the effort after self‐
preservation, which shows itself even at the lowest grades as that which
is essential.

In unorganised nature the will objectifies itself primarily in the
universal forces, and only by means of these in the phenomena of the
particular things which are called forth by causes. In § 26 of the first
volume I have fully explained the relation between cause, force of nature,
and will as thing in itself. One sees from that explanation that
metaphysics never interrupts the course of physics, but only takes up the
thread where physics leaves it, at the original forces in which all causal
explanation has its limits. Only here does the metaphysical explanation
from the will as the thing in itself begin. In the case of every physical
phenomenon, of every _change_ of material things, its cause is primarily
to be looked for; and this cause is just such a particular _change_ which
has appeared immediately before it. Then, however, the original force of
nature is to be sought by virtue of which this cause was capable of
acting. And first of all the _will_ is to be recognised as the inner
nature of this force in opposition to its manifestation. Yet the will
shows itself just as directly in the fall of a stone as in the action of
the man; the difference is only that its particular manifestation is in
the one case called forth by a motive, in the other by a mechanically
acting cause, for example, the taking away of what supported the stone;
yet in both cases with equal necessity; and that in the one case it
depends upon an individual character, in the other upon an universal force
of nature. This identity of what is fundamentally essential is even made
palpable to the senses. If, for instance, we carefully observe a body
which has lost its equilibrium, and on account of its special form rolls
back and forward for a long time till it finds its centre of gravity
again, a certain appearance of life forces itself upon us, and we directly
feel that something analogous to the foundation of life is also active
here. This is certainly the universal force of nature, which, however, in
itself identical with the _will_, becomes here, as it were, the soul of a
very brief _quasi_ life. Thus what is identical in the two extremes of the
manifestation of the will makes itself faintly known here even to direct
perception, in that this raises a feeling in us that here also something
entirely original, such as we only know in the acts of our own will,
directly succeeded in manifesting itself.

We may attain to an intuitive knowledge of the existence and activity of
the will in unorganised nature in quite a different and a sublime manner
if we study the problem of the three heavenly bodies, and thus learn more
accurately and specially the course of the moon round the earth. By the
different combinations which the constant change of the position of these
three heavenly bodies towards each other introduces, the course of the
moon is now accelerated; now retarded, now it approaches the earth, and
again recedes from it; and this again takes place differently in the
perihelion of the earth from in its aphelion, all of which together
introduces such irregularity into the moon’s course that it really obtains
a capricious appearance; for, indeed, Kepler’s third law is no longer
constantly valid, but in equal times it describes unequal areas. The
consideration of this course is a small and separate chapter of celestial
mechanics, which is distinguished in a sublime manner from terrestrial
mechanics by the absence of all impact and pressure, thus of the _vis a
tergo_ which appears to us so intelligible, and indeed of the actually
completed case, for besides _vis inertiœ_ it knows no other moving and
directing force, except only gravitation, that longing for union which
proceeds from the very inner nature of bodies. If now we construct for
ourselves in imagination the working of this given case in detail, we
recognise distinctly and directly in the moving force here that which is
given to us in self‐consciousness as will. For the alterations in the
course of the earth and the moon, according as one of them is by its
position more or less exposed to the influence of the sun, are evidently
analogous to the influence of newly appearing motives upon our wills, and
to the modifications of our action which result.

The following is an illustrative example of another kind. Liebig (_Chemie
in Anwendung auf Agrikultur_, p. 501), says: “If we bring moist copper
into air which contains carbonic acid, the affinity of the metal for the
oxygen of the air will be increased by the contact with this acid to such
a degree that the two will combine with each other; its surface will be
coated with green carbonic oxide of copper. But now two bodies which have
the capacity of combining, the moment they meet assume opposite electrical
conditions. Therefore if we touch the copper with iron, by producing a
special electrical state, the capacity of the copper to enter into
combination with the oxygen is destroyed; even under the above conditions
it remains bright.” The fact is well known and of technical use. I quote
it in order to say that here the will of the copper, laid claim to and
occupied by the electrical opposition to iron, leaves unused the
opportunity which presents itself for its chemical affinity for oxygen and
carbonic acid. Accordingly it conducts itself exactly as the will in a man
who omits an action which he would otherwise feel himself moved to in
order to perform another to which a stronger motive urges him.

I have shown in the first volume that the forces of nature lie outside the
chain of causes and effects, because they constitute their accompanying
condition, their metaphysical foundation, and therefore prove themselves
to be eternal and omnipresent, _i.e._, independent of time and space. Even
in the uncontested truth that what is essential to a _cause_ as such
consists in this, that it will produce the same effect at any future time
as it does now, it is already involved that something lies in the cause
which is independent of the course of time, _i.e._, is outside of all
time; this is the force of nature which manifests itself in it. One can
even convince oneself to a certain extent empirically and as a matter of
fact of the _ideality_ of this form of our perception by fixing one’s eyes
upon the powerlessness of time as opposed to natural forces. If, for
example, a rotatory motion is imparted to a planet by some external cause,
if no new cause enters to stop it, this motion will endure for ever. This
could not be so if time were something in itself and had an objective,
real existence; for then it would necessarily also produce some effect.
Thus we see here, on the one hand, the _forces of nature_, which manifest
themselves in that rotation, and, if it is once begun, carry it on for
ever without becoming weary or dying out, prove themselves to be eternal
or timeless, and consequently absolutely real and existing in themselves;
and, on the other hand, _time_ as something which consists only in the
manner in which we apprehend that phenomenon, since it exerts no power and
no influence upon the phenomenon itself; for _what does not act is not_.

We have a natural inclination whenever it is possible to explain every
natural phenomenon _mechanically_; doubtless because mechanics calls in
the assistance of the fewest original, and hence inexplicable, forces,
and, on the other hand, contains much that can be known _a priori_, and
therefore depends upon the forms of our own intellect, which as such
carries with it the highest degree of comprehensibility and clearness.
However, in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science” Kant
has referred mechanical activity itself to a dynamical activity. On the
other hand, the application of mechanical explanatory hypotheses, beyond
what is demonstrably mechanical, to which, for example, Acoustics also
belongs, is entirely unjustified, and I will never believe that even the
simplest chemical combination or the difference of the three states of
aggregation will ever admit of mechanical explanation, much less the
properties of light, of heat, and electricity. These will always admit
only of a dynamical explanation, _i.e._, one which explains the phenomenon
from original forces which are entirely different from those of impact,
pressure, weight, &c., and are therefore of a higher kind, _i.e._, are
more distinct objectifications of that will which obtains visible form in
all things. I am of opinion that light is neither an emanation nor a
vibration; both views are akin to that which explains transparency from
pores and the evident falseness of which is proved by the fact that light
is subject to no mechanical laws. In order to obtain direct conviction of
this one only requires to watch the effects of a storm of wind, which
bends, upsets, and scatters everything, but during which a ray of light
shooting down from a break in the clouds is entirely undisturbed and
steadier than a rock, so that with great directness it imparts to us the
knowledge that it belongs to another order of things than the mechanical:
it stands there unmoved like a ghost. Those constructions of light from
molecules and atoms which have originated with the French are indeed a
revolting absurdity. An article by Ampère, who is otherwise so acute, upon
light and heat, which is to be found in the April number of the “_Annales
de chimie et physique_,” of 1835, may be considered as a flagrant
expression of this, and indeed of the whole of atomism in general. There
the solid, the fluid, and the elastic consist of the same atoms, and all
differences arise solely from their aggregation; nay, it is said that
space indeed is infinitely divisible, but not matter; because, if the
division has been carried as far as the atoms, the further division must
fall in the spaces between the atoms! Light and heat, then, are here
vibrations of the atoms; and sound, on the other hand, is a vibration of
the molecules composed of the atoms. In truth, however, these atoms are a
fixed idea of the French savants, and therefore they just speak of them as
if they had seen them. Otherwise one would necessarily marvel that such a
matter‐of‐fact nation as the French can hold so firmly to a completely
transcendent hypothesis, which is quite beyond the possibility of
experience, and confidently build upon it up to the sky. This is just a
consequence of the backward state of the metaphysics they shun so much,
which is poorly represented by M. Cousin, who, with all good will, is
shallow and very scantily endowed with judgment. At bottom they are still
Lockeians, owing to the earlier influence of Condillac. Therefore for them
the thing in itself is really matter, from the fundamental properties of
which, such as impenetrability, form, hardness, and the other primary
qualities, everything in the world must be ultimately explicable. They
will not let themselves be talked out of this, and their tacit assumption
is that matter can only be moved by mechanical forces. In Germany Kant’s
teaching has prevented the continuance of the absurdities of the atomistic
and purely mechanical physics for any length of time; although at the
present moment these views prevail here also, which is a consequence of
the shallowness, crudeness, and folly introduced by Hegel. However, it
cannot be denied that not only the evidently porous nature of natural
bodies, but also two special doctrines of modern physics, apparently
render assistance to the atomic nuisance. These are, Hauz’s
Crystallography, which traces every crystal back to its kernel form, which
is an ultimate form, though only _relatively_ indivisible; and Berzelius’s
doctrine of chemical atoms, which are yet mere expressions for combining
proportions, thus only arithmetical quantities, and at bottom nothing more
than counters. On the other hand, Kant’s thesis in the second antinomy in
defence of atoms, which is certainly only set up for dialectical purposes,
is a mere sophism, as I have proved in my criticism of his philosophy, and
our understanding itself by no means leads us necessarily to the
assumption of atoms. For just as little as I am obliged to think that the
slow but constant and uniform _motion_ of a body before my eyes is
composed of innumerable motions which are absolutely quick, but broken and
interrupted by just as many absolutely short moments of rest, but, on the
contrary, know very well that the stone that has been thrown flies more
slowly than the projected bullet, yet never pauses for an instant on the
way, so little am I obliged to think of the mass of a body as consisting
of atoms and the spaces between them, _i.e._, of absolute density and
absolute vacuity; but I comprehend those two phenomena without difficulty
as constant _continua_, one of which uniformly fills time and the other
space. But just as the one motion may yet be quicker than another, _i.e._,
in an equal time can pass through more space, so also one body may have a
greater specific gravity than another, _i.e._, in equal space may contain
more matter: in both cases the difference depends upon the intensity of
the acting force; for Kant (following Priestley) has quite correctly
reduced matter to forces. But even if the analogy here set up should not
be admitted as valid, and it should be insisted upon that the difference
of specific gravity can only have its ground in porosity, even this
assumption would always lead, not to atoms, but only to a perfectly dense
matter, unequally distributed among different bodies; a matter which would
certainly be no longer _compressible_, when no pores ran through it, but
yet, like the space which it fills, would always remain infinitely
_divisible_. For the fact that it would have no pores by no means involves
that no possible force could do away with the continuity of its spatial
parts. For to say that everywhere this is only possible by extending the
already existing intervals is a purely arbitrary assertion.

The assumption of atoms rests upon the two phenomena which have been
touched upon, the difference of the specific gravity of bodies and that of
their compressibility, for both are conveniently explained by the
assumption of atoms. But then both must also always be present in like
measure, which is by no means the case. For, for example, water has a far
lower specific gravity than all metals properly so called. It must thus
have fewer atoms and greater interstices between them, and consequently be
very compressible: but it is almost entirely incompressible.

The defence of atoms might be conducted in this way. One may start from
porosity and say something of this sort: All bodies have pores, and
therefore so also have all parts of a body: now if this were carried out
to infinity, there would ultimately be nothing left of a body but pores.
The refutation would be that what remained over would certainly have to be
assumed as without pores, and so far as absolutely dense, yet not on that
account as consisting of absolutely indivisible particles, atoms;
accordingly it would certainly be absolutely incompressible, but not
absolutely indivisible. It would therefore be necessary that it should be
asserted that the division of a body is only possible by penetrating into
its pores; which, however, is entirely unproved. If, however, this is
assumed, then we certainly have atoms, _i.e._, absolutely indivisible
bodies, thus bodies of such strong cohesion of their spatial parts that no
possible power can separate them: but then one may just as well assume
such bodies to be large as small, and an atom might be as big as an ox, if
it only would resist all possible attacks upon it.

Imagine two bodies of very different kinds, entirely freed from all pores
by compression, as by means of hammering, or by pulverisation;—would their
specific gravity then be the same? This would be the criterion of
dynamics.




Chapter XXIV. On Matter.


Matter has already been spoken of in the fourth chapter of the supplements
to the first book, when we were considering the part of our knowledge of
which we are conscious _a priori_. But it could only be considered there
from a one‐sided point of view, because we were then concerned merely with
its relation to the forms of our intellect, and not to the thing in
itself, and therefore we investigated it only from the subjective side,
_i.e._, so far as it is an idea, and not from the objective side, _i.e._,
with regard to what it may be in itself. In the first respect, our
conclusion was that it is objective _activity_ in general, yet conceived
without fuller determination; therefore it takes the place of causality in
the table of our _a priori_ knowledge which is given there. For what is
material is that which _acts_ (the actual) in general, and regarded apart
from the specific nature of its action. Hence also matter, merely as such,
is not an object of _perception_, but only of _thought_, and thus is
really an abstraction. It only comes into perception in connection with
form and quality, as a body, _i.e._, as a fully determined kind of
activity. It is only by abstracting from this fuller determination that we
think of matter as such, _i.e._, separated from form and quality;
consequently under matter we think of _acting_ absolutely and in general,
thus of _activity_ in the abstract. The more fully determined acting we
then conceive as the _accident_ of matter; but only by means of this does
matter become perceptible, _i.e._, present itself as a body and an object
of experience. Pure matter, on the other hand, which, as I have shown in
the Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, alone constitutes the true and
admissible content of the conception of _substance_, is causality itself,
thought objectively, consequently as in space, and therefore filling it.
Accordingly the whole being of matter consists in _acting_. Only thus does
it occupy space and last in time. It is through and through pure
causality. Therefore wherever there is action there is matter, and the
material is the active in general. But causality itself is the form of our
understanding; for it is known to us _a priori_, as well as time and
space. Thus matter also, _so far_ and up to this point, belongs to the
formal part of our knowledge, and is consequently that form of the
understanding, _causality_ itself, bound up with space and time, hence
objectified, _i.e._, conceived as that which fills space. (The fuller
explanation of this doctrine will be found in the second edition of the
essay on the principle of sufficient reason, p. 77; third edition, p. 82.)
So far, however, matter is properly not the _object_ but the _condition_
of experience; like the pure understanding itself, whose function it so
far is. Therefore of pure matter there is also only a _conception_, no
_perception_. It enters into all external experience as a necessary
constituent part of it; yet it cannot be given in any experience, but is
only _thought_, and thought indeed as that which is absolutely inert,
inactive, formless, and without qualities, and which is yet the supporter
of all forms, qualities, and effects. Accordingly, of all fleeting
phenomena, thus of all manifestations of natural forces and all living
beings, matter is the _permanent substratum_ which is necessarily produced
by the forms of our intellect in which the world as _idea_ exhibits
itself. As such, and as having sprung from the forms of the intellect, it
is entirely _indifferent_ to those phenomena themselves, _i.e._, it is
just as ready to be the supporter of this force of nature as of that,
whenever, under the guidance of causality, the necessary conditions
appear; while it itself, just because its existence is really only
_formal_, _i.e._, is founded in the _intellect_ must be thought as that
which under all that change is absolutely permanent, thus with regard to
time is without beginning and without end. This is why we cannot give up
the thought that anything may be made out of anything, for example, gold
out of lead; for this would only require that we should find out and bring
about the intermediate states which matter, in itself indifferent, would
have to pass through upon that path. For _a priori_ we can never see why
the same matter which is now the supporter of the quality lead could not
some time become the supporter of the quality gold. Matter, as that which
is only _thought_ _a priori_, is distinguished from the _a priori_
_intuitions_ or _perceptions_ proper by the fact that we can also think it
entirely away; space and time, on the contrary, never. But this only shows
that we can present to ourselves space and time in imagination without
matter. For the matter which has once been placed in them, and accordingly
thought as _existing_, we can never again absolutely think away, _i.e._,
imagine it as vanished and annihilated, but are always forced to think of
it merely as transferred to another space. So far, then, matter is as
inseparably connected with our faculty of knowledge as space and time
themselves. Yet even the difference that it must first be voluntarily
thought as existing indicates that it does not belong so entirely and in
every regard to the _formal_ part of our knowledge as space and time, but
also contains an element which is only given _a posteriori_. It is, in
fact, the point of connection of the empirical part of our knowledge with
the pure and _a priori_ part, consequently the peculiar foundation‐stone
of the world of experience.

Only where all _a priori_ assertions cease, therefore in the _entirely
empirical_ part of our knowledge of bodies, in their form, quality, and
definite manner of acting, does that _will_ reveal itself which we have
already recognised and established as the true inner nature of things. But
these forms and qualities always appear only as the properties and
manifestations of that very _matter_ the existence and nature of which
depends upon the subjective forms of our intellect, _i.e._, they only
become visible in it, and therefore by means of it. For that which always
exhibits itself to us is only _matter_ acting in some specially determined
manner. Out of the inner properties of such matter, properties which
cannot be further explained, proceeds every definite kind of effect of
given bodies; and yet the matter itself is never perceived, but only these
effects, and the definite properties which lie at their foundation, after
separating which, matter, as that which then remains over, is necessarily
added in thought by us; for, according to the exposition given above, it
is objectified _causality itself_. Accordingly matter is that whereby the
_will_, which constitutes the inner nature of things, becomes capable of
being apprehended, perceptible, _visible_. In this sense, then, matter is
simply the _visibility_ of the will, or the bond between the world as will
and the world as idea. It belongs to the latter inasmuch as it is the
product of the functions of the intellect, to the former inasmuch as that
which manifests itself in all material existences, _i.e._, phenomena is
the will. Therefore every object is, as thing in itself, will, and as
phenomenon, matter. If we could strip any given matter of all the
properties that come to it _a priori_, _i.e._, of all the forms of our
perception and apprehension, we would have left the thing in itself, that
which, by means of those forms, appears as the purely empirical in matter,
but which would then itself no longer appear as something extended and
active; _i.e._, we would no longer have matter before us, but the will.
This very thing in itself, or the will, in that it becomes a phenomenon,
_i.e._, enters the forms of our intellect, appears as matter, _i.e._, as
the invisible but necessarily assumed supporter of the properties which
are only visible through it. In this sense, then, matter is the visibility
of the _will_. Consequently Plotinus and Giordano Bruno were right, not
only in their sense but also in ours, when they made the paradoxical
assertion already referred to in chapter 4: Matter itself is not extended,
consequently it is incorporeal. For space, which is our form of
perception, imparts extension to matter, and corporeal existence consists
in acting, which depends upon causality, and consequently upon the form of
our understanding. On the other hand, every definite property, thus
everything empirical in matter, even gravity, depends upon that which only
becomes visible by means of matter, the thing in itself, the will. Gravity
is yet the lowest of all grades of the objectification of the will;
therefore it appears in all matter without exception, thus is inseparable
from matter in general. Yet, just because it is a manifestation of the
will, it belongs to knowledge _a posteriori_, not to knowledge _a priori_.
Therefore we can always picture to ourselves matter without weight, but
not without extension, repulsive force, and stability, for then it would
be without impenetrability, and consequently would not occupy space,
_i.e._, it would be without _the power of acting_; but the nature of
matter as such just consists in _acting_, _i.e._, in causality in general;
and causality depends upon the _a priori_ form of our understanding, and
therefore cannot be thought away.

Matter is accordingly the _will_ itself, but no longer in itself, but so
far as it is _perceived_, _i.e._, assumes the form of the objective idea.
Thus what objectively is matter is subjectively will. Exactly
corresponding to this, as was proved above, our body is just the
visibility, objectivity of our will, and so also every body is the
objectivity of the will at some one of its grades. Whenever the will
exhibits itself to objective knowledge it enters into the forms of
perception of the intellect, time, space, and causality. But on account of
this it exists at once as a _material_ object. We can present to our minds
form without matter, but not the reverse; because matter deprived of form
would be the will itself, and the will only becomes objective by entering
the forms of perception of our intellect, and therefore only by means of
the assumption of form. Space is the form of perception of matter because
the latter is the substance (Stoff) of mere form, but matter can _appear_
only in form.

Since the will becomes objective, _i.e._, passes over into the idea,
matter is the universal substratum of this objectification, or rather it
is this objectification itself taken abstractly, _i.e._, regarded apart
from all form. Matter is accordingly the _visibility_ of the will in
general, while the character of its definite manifestations has its
expression in form and quality. Hence what in the manifestation, _i.e._,
for the idea, is _matter_ is in itself _will_. Therefore, under the
conditions of experience and perception, everything holds good of it that
holds good of the will in itself, and it repeats all the relations and
properties of the will in temporal images. Accordingly it is the substance
of the world of perception, as the will is the inner nature of all things.
The forms are innumerable, the matter is one; just as the will is one in
all its objectifications. As the will never objectifies itself as general,
_i.e._, as absolute will, but always as particular, _i.e._, under special
determinations and a given character, so matter never appears as such, but
always in connection with some particular form and quality. In the
manifestation or objectification of the will matter represents its
totality, it itself, which in all is one, as matter is one in all bodies.
As the will is the inmost kernel of all phenomenal beings, so matter is
the substance which remains after all the accidents have been taken away.
As the will is that which is absolutely indestructible in all existence,
so matter is that which is imperishable in time and permanent through all
changes. That matter for itself, thus separated from form, cannot be
perceived or presented in imagination depends upon the fact that in
itself, and as the pure substantiality of bodies, it is really the _will_
itself. But the will cannot be apprehended objectively, or perceived in
itself, but only under all the conditions of the _idea_, and therefore
only as _phenomenon_. Under these conditions, however, it exhibits itself
at once as body, _i.e._, as matter clothed in form and quality. But form
is conditioned by space, and quality or power of acting by causality; thus
both depend upon the functions of the intellect. Matter without them would
just be the thing in itself, _i.e._, the will itself. Therefore, as has
been said, Plotinus and Giordano Bruno could only be brought by a
completely objective path to the assertion that matter in and for itself
is without extension, consequently without spatial properties,
consequently incorporeal.

Because, then, matter is the visibility of the will, and every force in
itself is will, no force can appear without a material substratum, and
conversely no body can be without forces dwelling in it which constitute
its quality. Therefore a body is the union of matter and form which is
called substance (Stoff). Force and substance are inseparable because at
bottom they are one; for, as Kant has shown, matter itself is given us
only as the union of two forces, the force of expansion and that of
attraction. Thus there is no opposition between force and substance,
rather they are precisely one.

Led by the course of our consideration to this standpoint, and having
attained to this metaphysical view of matter, we will confess without
reluctance that the temporal _origin_ of forms, shapes, or species cannot
reasonably be sought elsewhere than in matter. Some time or other they
must have come forth from it, just because it is the mere _visibility of
the will_ which constitutes the inner nature of all phenomena. In that the
will manifests itself, _i.e._, presents itself _objectively_ to the
intellect, matter, as its visibility, assumes _form_ by means of the
functions of the intellect. Hence the Schoolmen said: “_Materia appetit
formam_.” That such was the origin of all forms of life cannot be doubted:
we cannot even conceive it otherwise. Whether, however, now, since the
paths to the perpetuation of the forms stand open, and are secured and
sustained by nature with boundless care and jealousy, _generatio œquivoca_
still takes place, can only be decided by experience; especially since the
saying, _Natura nihil facit frustra_, might, with reference to the paths
of regular propagation, be used as a valid argument against it. Yet in
spite of the most recent objections to it, I hold that at very low grades
_generatio œquivoca_ is very probable, and primarily indeed in the case of
entozoa and epizoa, particularly such as appear in consequence of special
cachexia of the animal organism. For the conditions of their life only
appear exceptionally; consequently their species cannot propagate itself
in the regular manner, and therefore has always to arise anew whenever
opportunity offers. Therefore as soon as the conditions of life of epizoa
have appeared in consequence of certain chronic diseases, or cachexia, and
in accordance with them, _pediculus capitis_ or _pubis_ or _corporis_
appears entirely of itself, and without any egg; and this notwithstanding
the complex structure of these insects, for the putrefaction of a living
animal body affords material for higher productions than that of hay in
water, which only produces infusoria. Or is it thought more likely that
the eggs of the epizoa are constantly floating about in the air in
expectation? (Fearful to think of!) Let us rather remember the disease of
phthiriasis, which occurs even now. An analogous case takes place when
through special circumstances the conditions of life appear of a species
which up till then was foreign to that _place_. Thus August St. Hilaire
saw in Brazil, after the burning of a primitive forest, as soon as ever
the ashes had cooled, a number of plants grow up out of them, the species
of which was not to be found far and wide; and quite recently Admiral
Petit‐Thouars informed the _Académie des sciences_ that upon the growing
coral islands in Polynesia a soil gradually deposits itself which is now
dry, now lies in water, and which vegetation soon takes possession of,
bringing forth trees which are absolutely peculiar to these islands
(_Comptes rendus_, 17th Jan. 1859, p. 147). Whenever putrefaction takes
place mould, fungi, and in liquids infusoria appear. The assumption now in
favour that spores and eggs of the innumerable species of all those kinds
of animal life are everywhere floating in the air, and wait through long
years for a favourable opportunity, is more paradoxical than that of
_generatio œquivoca_. Putrefaction is the decomposition of an organised
body, first into its _more immediate_ chemical constituents. Since now
these are more or less the same in all living beings, the omnipresent will
to live can possess itself of them, in order, in accordance with the
circumstances, to produce new existences from them; and these forming
themselves according to design, _i.e._, objectifying the volition of the
will at the time, solidify out of the chemical elements as the chicken out
of the fluidity of the egg. When, however, this does not take place, the
putrefying matter is resolved into its _ultimate_ constituent parts, which
are the chemical elements, and now passes over again into the great course
of nature. The war which has been waged for the last ten or fifteen years
against _generatio œquivoca_, with its premature shouts of victory, was
the prelude to the denial of the vital force, and related to it. Let no
one, however, be deceived by dogmatic assertions and brazen assurances
that the questions are decided, settled, and generally recognised. On the
contrary, the whole mechanical and atomistic view of nature is approaching
its bankruptcy, and its defenders have to learn that something more is
concealed behind nature than action and reaction. The reality of
_generatio œquivoca_ and the folly of the extraordinary assumption that in
the atmosphere, everywhere and always, billions of seeds of all possible
kinds of fungi, and eggs of all possible kinds of infusoria, are floating
about, till now one and then another by chance finds its suitable medium,
has quite recently (1859) been thoroughly and victoriously shown by
Pouchet before the French Academy, to the great vexation of the other
members.

Our wonder at the origin of forms in matter is at bottom like that of the
savage who looks for the first time in a mirror and marvels at his own
image which he sees there. For our own inner nature is the will, whose
mere _visibility_ is matter. Yet matter never appears otherwise than with
the _visible_, _i.e._, under the outer shell of form and quality, and
therefore is never directly apprehended, but always merely added in
thought as that which is identical in all things, under all differences of
quality and form. On this account it is more a metaphysical than a
physical principle of explanation of things, and to make all existences
arise from it is really to explain them from something which is very
mysterious; which all know it to be except those who confound attacking
with comprehending. In truth, the ultimate and exhaustive explanation of
things is by no means to be sought in matter, although certainly the
temporal origin both of unorganised forms and of organised beings is to be
sought in it. Yet it seems that the origination of organised forms, the
production of the species themselves, is almost as difficult for nature to
accomplish as it is for us to comprehend. This is indicated by the
entirely extravagant provision which nature always makes for maintaining
the species which once exist. Yet on the present surface of this planet
the will to live has gone through the scale of its objectification three
times, quite independently of each other, in a different modulation, and
also with great difference of perfection and fulness. The old world,
America, and Australia have, it is well known, each their peculiar
independent fauna, entirely different from that of the other two. Upon
each of these great continents the species are throughout different, but
yet, because all three belong to the same planet, they have a thorough
analogy with each other running parallel through them; therefore the
_genera_ are for the most part the same. In Australia this analogy can
only be very imperfectly followed because its fauna is very poor in
mammalia, and contains neither beasts of prey nor apes. On the other hand,
between the old world and America it is obvious, and in the following
manner. In mammals America always produces the inferior analogue, but in
birds and reptiles the better. Thus it has the advantage in the condor,
the macaw, the humming‐bird, and the largest batrachia and ophidia; but,
for example, instead of the elephant it has only the tapir, instead of the
lion the puma, instead of the tiger the jaguar, instead of the camel the
lama, and instead of apes proper only monkeys. Even from this last defect
it may be concluded that in America nature was not able to rise to man;
for even from the nearest grade below man, the chimpanzee and the orang‐
outang or pongo, the step to man was still an excessively great one.
Correspondingly we find that the three races of men which, both upon
physiological and linguistic grounds, are undoubtedly equally original,
the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian, are only at home in the
old world; while America, on the other hand, is peopled by a mixed or
climatically modified Mongolian race, which must have come over from Asia.
On the surface of the earth which immediately preceded the present surface
apes were reached here and there, but not men.

From this standpoint of our consideration, which shows us matter as the
direct visibility of the will which manifests itself in all things, nay,
indeed, for the merely physical investigation which follows the guidance
of time and causality, lets it pass as the origin of things, we are easily
led to the question whether even in philosophy we could not just as well
start from the objective as from the subjective side, and accordingly set
up as the fundamental truth the proposition: “There is in general nothing
but matter and its indwelling forces.” But, with regard to these
“indwelling forces” here so easily used, we must remember that their
assumption leads every explanation back to a completely incomprehensible
miracle, and then leaves it beside it, or rather leaves it to begin from
it. For every definite, inexplicable force of nature which lies at the
foundation of the most different kinds of effects of an unorganised body,
not less than the vital force which manifests itself in every organised
body, is such an incomprehensible miracle, as I have fully explained in
chap. 17, and have also shown that physics can never be set upon the
throne of metaphysics, just because it leaves quite untouched the
assumption referred to and also many others; whereby from the beginning it
renounces all claim to give an ultimate explanation of things. I must
further remind the reader here of the proof of the insufficiency of
materialism, which is given towards the end of the first chapter, because,
as was said there, it is the philosophy of the subject which forgets
itself in its calculation. But all these truths rest upon the fact that
everything _objective_, everything external, since it is always only
something apprehended, something known, remains also always indirect and
secondary, therefore absolutely never can become the ultimate ground of
explanation of things or the starting‐point of philosophy. Philosophy
necessarily requires what is absolutely immediate for its starting‐point.
But clearly only that which is given in _self‐consciousness_ fulfils this
condition, that which is within, the _subjective_. And hence it is so
eminent a merit of Descartes that he first made philosophy start from
self‐consciousness. Since then, upon this path, the genuine philosophers,
especially Locke, Berkeley, and Kant, have gone even further, each in his
own manner, and in consequence of their investigations I was led to
recognise and make use, not of one, but of two completely different data
of immediate knowledge in self‐consciousness, the idea and the will, by
the combined application of which one can go further in philosophy, in the
same proportion as in the case of an algebraical problem one can
accomplish more if two known quantities are given than if only one is
given.

In accordance with what has been said, the ineradicable falseness of
materialism primarily consists in the fact that it starts from a _petitio
principii_, which when more closely considered turns out indeed to be a
πρωτον φευδος. It starts from the assumption that matter is something
absolutely and unconditionally given, something existing independently of
the knowledge of the subject, thus really a thing in itself. It attributes
to matter (and consequently also to its presuppositions time and space) an
_absolute_ existence, _i.e._, an existence independent of the perceiving
subject; this is its fundamental error. Then, if it will go honestly to
work, it must leave the qualities inherent in the given materials, _i.e._,
in the substances, together with the natural forces which manifest
themselves in these, and finally also the vital force, unexplained, as
unfathomable _qualitates occultæ_, and start from them; as physics and
physiology actually do, because they make no claim to be the ultimate
explanation of things. But just to avoid this, materialism—at least as it
has hitherto appeared—has not proceeded honestly. It denies all those
original forces, for it pretends and seems to reduce them all, and
ultimately also the vital force, to the mere mechanical activity of
matter, thus to manifestations of impenetrability, form, cohesion,
impulsive power, inertia, gravity, &c., qualities which certainly have
least that is inexplicable in themselves, just because they partly depend
upon what is known _a priori_, consequently on the forms of our own
intellect, which are the principle of all comprehensibility. But the
intellect as the condition of all objects, and consequently of the whole
phenomenal world, is entirely ignored by materialism. Its plan is now to
refer everything qualitative to something merely quantitative, for it
attributes the former to mere _form_ in opposition to _matter_ proper. To
matter it leaves, of the properly _empirical_ qualities, only gravity,
because it already appears as something quantitative, the only measure of
the quantity of the matter. This path necessarily leads it to the fiction
of atoms, which now become the material out of which it thinks to
construct the mysterious manifestations of all original forces. But here
it has really no longer to do with empirically _given_ matter, but with a
matter which is not to be found _in rerum natura_, but is rather a mere
abstraction of that real matter, a matter which would absolutely have no
other than those mechanical qualities which, with the exception of
gravity, can be pretty well construed _a priori_, just because they depend
upon the forms of space, time, and causality, and consequently upon our
intellect; to this poor material, then, it finds itself reduced for the
construction of its castle in the air.

In this way it inevitably becomes _atomism_; as happened to it already in
its childhood in the hands of Leucippus and Democritus, and happens to it
again now that it has come to a second childhood through age; with the
French because they have never known the Kantian philosophy, and with the
Germans because they have forgotten it. And indeed it carries it further
in this its second childhood than in its first. Not merely _solid_ bodies
are supposed to consist of atoms, but liquids, water, air, gas, nay, even
light, which is supposed to be the undulations of a completely
hypothetical and altogether unproved ether, consisting of atoms, the
difference of the rapidity of these undulations causing colours. This is
an hypothesis which, like the earlier Newtonian seven‐colour theory,
starts from an analogy with music, entirely arbitrarily assumed, and then
violently carried out. One must really be credulous to an unheard‐of
degree to let oneself be persuaded that the innumerable different ether
vibrations proceeding from the infinite multiplicity of coloured surfaces
in this varied world could constantly, and each in its own time, run
through and everywhere cross each other without ever disturbing each
other, but should rather produce through such tumult and confusion the
profoundly peaceful aspect of illumined nature and art. _Credat Judæus
Apella!_ Certainly the nature of light is to us a secret; but it is better
to confess this than to bar the way of future knowledge by bad theories.
That light is something quite different from a mere mechanical movement,
undulation, or vibration and tremor, indeed that it is material, is shown
by its chemical effects, a beautiful series of which was recently laid
before the _Académie des sciences_ by Chevreul, who let sunlight act upon
different coloured materials. The most beautiful thing in these
experiments is, that a white roll of paper which has been exposed to the
sunlight exhibits the same effects, nay, does so even after six months, if
during this time it has been secured in a firmly closed metal tube. Has,
then, the tremulation paused for six months, and does it now fall into
time again? (_Comptes rendus_ of 20th December 1858.) This whole
hypothesis of vibrating ether atoms is not only a chimera, but equals in
awkward crudeness the worst of Democritus, and yet is shameless enough, at
the present day, to profess to be an established fact, and has thus
brought it about that it is orthodoxly repeated by a thousand stupid
scribblers of all kinds, who are devoid of all knowledge of such things,
and is believed in as a gospel. But the doctrine of atoms in general goes
still further: it is soon a case of _Spartam, quam nactus es, orna_!
Different perpetual motions are then ascribed to all the atoms, revolving,
vibrating, &c., according to the office of each; in the same way every
atom has its atmosphere of ether, or something else, and whatever other
similar fancies there may be. The fancies of Schelling’s philosophy of
nature and its disciples were for the most part ingenious, lofty, or at
least witty; but these, on the contrary, are clumsy, insipid, paltry, and
awkward, the production of minds which, in the first place, are unable to
think any other reality than a fabulous, qualityless matter, which is also
an absolute object, _i.e._, an object without a subject; and secondly can
think of no other activity than motion and impact: these two alone are
comprehensible to them, and that everything runs back to these is their _a
priori_ assumption; for these are their _thing in itself_. To attain this
end the vital force is reduced to chemical forces (which are insidiously
and unjustifiably called molecular forces), and all processes of
unorganised nature to mechanism, _i.e._, to action and reaction. And thus
at last the whole world and everything in it becomes merely a piece of
mechanical ingenuity, like the toys worked by levers, wheels, and sand,
which represent a mine or the work on a farm. The source of the evil is,
that through the amount of hand‐work which experimenting requires the
head‐work of thinking has been allowed to get out of practice. The
crucible and the voltaic pile are supposed to assume its functions; hence
also the profound abhorrence of all philosophy.

But the matter might be put in this way. One might say that materialism,
as it has hitherto appeared, has only failed because it did not adequately
_know_ the matter out of which it thought to construct the world, and
therefore was dealing, not with matter itself, but with a propertyless
substitute for it. If, on the contrary, instead of this, it had taken the
actual and _empirically_ given matter (_i.e._, material substance, or
rather substances), endowed as it is with all physical, chemical,
electrical properties, and also with the power of spontaneously producing
life out of itself, thus the true _mater rerum_, from the obscurity of
whose womb all phenomena and forms come forth, to fall back into it some
time again; from this, _i.e._, from matter fully comprehended and
exhaustively known, a world might have been constructed of which
materialism would not need to be ashamed. Quite true: only the trick would
then consist in this, that the _Quæsita_ had been placed in the _Data_,
for professedly what was taken as given, and made the starting‐point of
the deduction, was mere matter, but really it included all the mysterious
forces of nature which cling to it, or more correctly, by means of it
become visible to us, much the same as if under the name of the dish we
understand what lies upon it. For in fact, for our knowledge, matter is
really merely the _vehicle_ of the qualities and natural forces, which
appear as its accidents, and just because I have traced these back to the
will I call matter the mere _visibility of the will_. Stripped of all
these qualities, matter remains behind as that which is without qualities,
the _caput mortuum_ of nature, out of which nothing can honestly be made.
If, on the contrary, in the manner referred to, one leaves it all these
properties, one is guilty of a concealed _petitio principii_, for one has
assumed the _Quæsita_ beforehand as _Data_. But what is accomplished with
_this_ will no longer be a proper _materialism_, but merely _naturalism_,
_i.e._, an absolute system of _physics_, which, as was shown in chap. 17
already referred to, can never assume and fill the place of metaphysics,
just because it only begins after so many assumptions, thus never
undertakes to explain things from the foundation. Mere naturalism is
therefore essentially based simply upon _qualitates occultæ_, which one
can never get beyond except, as I have done, by calling in the aid of the
_subjective_ source of knowledge, which then certainly leads to the long
and toilsome round‐about path of metaphysics, for it presupposes the
complete analysis of self‐consciousness and of the intellect and will
given in it. However, the starting from what is _objective_, at the
foundation of which lies _external perception_, so distinct and
comprehensible, is a path so natural and which presents itself of its own
accord to man, that _naturalism_, and consequently, because this cannot
satisfy as it is not exhaustive, _materialism_, are systems to which the
speculative reason must necessarily have come, nay, must have come first
of all. Therefore at the very beginning of the history of philosophy we
meet naturalism, in the systems of the Ionic philosophers, and then
materialism in the teaching of Leucippus and Democritus, and also later we
see them ever appear anew from time to time.




Chapter XXV. Transcendent Considerations Concerning The Will As Thing In
Itself.


Even the merely empirical consideration of nature recognises a constant
transition from the simplest and most necessary manifestation of a
universal force of nature up to the life and consciousness of man himself,
through gentle gradations, and with only relative, and for the most part
fluctuating, limits. Reflection, following this view, and penetrating
somewhat more deeply into it, will soon be led to the conviction that in
all these phenomena, the inner nature, that which manifests itself, that
which appears, is one and the same, which comes forth ever more
distinctly; and accordingly that what exhibits itself in a million forms
of infinite diversity, and so carries on the most varied and the strangest
play without beginning or end, this is one being which is so closely
disguised behind all these masks that it does not even recognise itself,
and therefore often treats itself roughly. Thus the great doctrine of the
ἑν και παν early appeared both in the east and in the west, and, in spite
of all contradiction, has asserted itself, or at least constantly revived.
We, however, have now entered even deeper into the secret, since by what
has already been said we have been led to the insight that when in any
phenomenon a _knowing consciousness_ is added to that inner being which
lies at the foundation of all phenomena, a consciousness which when
directed inwardly becomes _self‐consciousness_, then that inner being
presents itself to this self‐consciousness as that which is so familiar
and so mysterious, and is denoted by the word _will_. Accordingly we have
called that universal fundamental nature of all phenomena _the will_,
after that manifestation in which it unveils itself to us most fully; and
by this word nothing is further from our intention than to denote an
unknown _x_; but, on the contrary, we denote that which at least on one
side is infinitely better known and more intimate than anything else.

Let us now call to mind a truth, the fullest and most thorough proof of
which will be found in my prize essay on the freedom of the will—the truth
that on account of the absolutely universal validity of the law of
causality, the conduct or the action of all existences in this world is
always strictly _necessitated_ by the causes which in each case call it
forth. And in this respect it makes no difference whether such an action
has been occasioned by causes in the strictest sense of the word, or by
stimuli, or finally by motives, for these differences refer only to the
grade of the susceptibility of the different kinds of existences. On this
point we must entertain no illusion: the law of causality knows no
exception; but everything, from the movement of a mote in a sunbeam to the
most deeply considered action of man, is subject to it with equal
strictness. Therefore, in the whole course of the world, neither could a
mote in a sunbeam describe any other line in its flight than it has
described, nor a man act any other way than he has acted; and no truth is
more certain than this, that all that happens, be it small or great,
happens with absolute _necessity_. Consequently, at every given moment of
time, the whole condition of all things is firmly and accurately
determined by the condition which has just preceded it, and so is it with
the stream of time back to infinity and on to infinity. Thus the course of
the world is like that of a clock after it has been put together and wound
up; thus from this incontestable point of view it is a mere machine, the
aim of which we cannot see. Even if, quite without justification, nay, at
bottom, in spite of all conceivability and its conformity to law, one
should assume a first beginning, nothing would thereby be essentially
changed. For the arbitrarily assumed first condition of things would at
its origin have irrevocably determined and fixed, both as a whole and down
to the smallest detail, the state immediately following it; this state,
again, would have determined the one succeeding it, and so on _per secula
seculorum_, for the chain of causality, with its absolute strictness—this
brazen bond of necessity and fate—introduces every phenomenon irrevocably
and unalterably, just as it is. The difference merely amounts to this,
that in the case of the one assumption we would have before us a piece of
clockwork which had once been wound up, but in the case of the other a
perpetual motion; the necessity of the course, on the other hand, would
remain the same. In the prize essay already referred to I have irrefutably
proved that the action of man can make no exception here, for I showed how
it constantly proceeds with strict necessity from two factors—his
character and the motives which come to him. The character is inborn and
unalterable; the motives are introduced with necessity under the guidance
of causality by the strictly determined course of the world.

Accordingly then, from one point of view, which we certainly cannot
abandon, because it is established by the objective laws of the world,
which are _a priori_ valid, the world, with all that is in it, appears as
an aimless, and therefore incomprehensible, play of an eternal necessity,
an inscrutable and inexorable Αναγκη. Now, what is objectionable, nay,
revolting, in this inevitable and irrefutable view of the world cannot be
thoroughly done away with by any assumption except this, that as in one
aspect every being in the world is a phenomenon, and necessarily
determined by the laws of the phenomenon, in another aspect it is in
itself _will_, and indeed absolutely _free will_, for necessity only
arises through the forms which belong entirely to the phenomenon, through
the principle of sufficient reason in its different modes. Such a will,
then, must be self‐dependent, for, as free, _i.e._, as a thing in itself,
and therefore not subject to the principle of sufficient reason, it cannot
depend upon another in its being and nature any more than in its conduct
and action. By this assumption alone will as much _freedom_ be supposed as
is needed to counterbalance the inevitable strict _necessity_ which
governs the course of the world. Accordingly one has really only the
choice either of seeing that the world is a mere machine which runs on of
necessity, or of recognising a free will as its inner being whose
manifestation is not directly the action but primarily the _existence and
nature_ of things. This freedom is therefore transcendental, and consists
with empirical necessity, in the same way as the transcendental ideality
of phenomena consists with their empirical reality. That only under this
assumption the action of a man, in spite of the necessity with which it
proceeds from his character and the motives, is yet _his own_ I have shown
in my prize essay on the freedom of the will; with this, however, self‐
dependency is attributed to his nature. The same relation holds good of
all things in the world. The strictest _necessity_, carried out honestly
with rigid consistency, and the most perfect _freedom_, rising to
omnipotence, had to appear at once and together in philosophy; but,
without doing violence to truth, this could only take place by placing the
whole _necessity_ in the _acting and doing_ (_Operari_), and the whole
_freedom_ in the _being and nature_ (_Esse_). Thereby a riddle is solved
which is as old as the world, simply because it has hitherto always been
held upside down and the freedom persistently sought in the _Operari_, the
necessity in the _Esse_. I, on the contrary, say: Every being without
exception _acts_ with strict necessity, but it _exists_ and is what it is
by virtue of its _freedom_. Thus with me freedom and necessity are to be
met with neither more nor less than in any earlier system; although now
one and now the other must be conspicuous according as one takes offence
that _will_ is attributed to processes of nature which hitherto were
explained from necessity, or that the same strict necessity is recognised
in motivation as in mechanical causality. The two have merely changed
places: freedom has been transferred to the _Esse_, and necessity limited
to the _Operari_.

In short, _Determinism_ stands firm. For fifteen hundred years men have
wearied themselves in vain to shake it, influenced by certain crotchets,
which are well known, but dare scarcely yet be called by their name. Yet
in accordance with it the world becomes a mere puppet‐show, drawn by wires
(motives), without it being even possible to understand for whose
amusement. If the piece has a plan, then fate is the director; if it has
none, then blind necessity. There is no other deliverance from this
absurdity than the knowledge that the _being and nature_ of all things is
the manifestation of a really _free will_, which knows itself in them; for
their _doing and acting_ cannot be delivered from necessity. To save
freedom from fate and chance, it had to be transferred from the action to
the existence.

As now necessity only affects the phenomenon, not the thing in itself,
_i.e._, the true nature of the world, so also does _multiplicity_. This is
sufficiently explained in § 25 of the first volume. I have only to add
here one remark in confirmation and illustration of this truth.

Every one knows only _one_ being quite immediately—his own will in self‐
consciousness. Everything else he knows only indirectly, and then judges
it by analogy with this; a process which he carries further in proportion
to the grade of his reflective powers. Even this ultimately springs from
the fact that there really is _only one being_; the illusion of
multiplicity (_Maja_), which proceeds from the forms of external,
objective comprehension, could not penetrate to inner, simple
consciousness; therefore this always finds before it only one being.

If we consider the perfection of the works of nature, which can never be
sufficiently admired, and which even in the lowest and smallest organisms,
for example, in the fertilising parts of plants or in the internal
construction of insects, is carried out with as infinite care and
unwearied labour as if each work of nature had been its only one, upon
which it was therefore able to expend all its art and power; if we yet
find this repeated an infinite number of times in each one of innumerable
individuals of every kind, and not less carefully worked out in that one
whose dwelling‐place is the most lonely, neglected spot, to which, till
then, no eye had penetrated; if we now follow the combination of the parts
of every organism as far as we can, and yet never come upon one part which
is quite simple, and therefore ultimate, not to speak of one which is
inorganic; if, finally, we lose ourselves in calculating the design of all
those parts of the organism for the maintenance of the whole by virtue of
which every living thing is complete in and for itself; if we consider at
the same time that each of these masterpieces, itself of short duration,
has already been produced anew an innumerable number of times, and yet
every example of a species, every insect, every flower, every leaf, still
appears just as carefully perfected as was the first of its kind; thus
that nature by no means wearies and begins to bungle, but, with equally
patient master‐hand, perfects the last like the first: then we become
conscious, first of all, that all human art is completely different, not
merely in degree, but in kind, from the works of nature; and, next, that
the working force, the _natura naturans_, in each of its innumerable
works, in the least as in the greatest, in the last as in the first, _is
immediately present whole and undivided_, from which it follows that, as
such and in itself, it knows nothing of space and time. If we further
reflect that the production of these hyperboles of all works of art costs
nature absolutely nothing, so that, with inconceivable prodigality, she
creates millions of organisms which never attain to maturity, and without
sparing exposes every living thing to a thousand accidents, yet, on the
other hand, if favoured by chance or directed by human purpose, readily
affords millions of examples of a species of which hitherto there was only
one, so that millions cost her no more than one; this also leads us to see
that the multiplicity of things has its root in the nature of the
knowledge of the subject, but is foreign to the thing in itself, _i.e._,
to the inner primary force which shows itself in things; that consequently
space and time, upon which the possibility of all multiplicity depends,
are mere forms of our perception; nay, that even that whole inconceivable
ingenuity of structure associated with the reckless prodigality of the
works upon which it has been expended ultimately springs simply from the
way in which things are apprehended by us; for when the simple and
indivisible original effort of the will exhibits itself as object in our
cerebral knowledge, it must appear as an ingenious combination of separate
parts, as means and ends of each other, accomplished with wonderful
completeness.

The _unity of that will_, here referred to, which lies beyond the
phenomenon, and in which we have recognised the inner nature of the
phenomenal world, is a metaphysical unity, and consequently transcends the
knowledge of it, _i.e._, does not depend upon the functions of our
intellect, and therefore can not really be comprehended by it. Hence it
arises that it opens to the consideration an abyss so profound that it
admits of no thoroughly clear and systematically connected insight, but
grants us only isolated glances, which enable us to recognise this unity
in this and that relation of things, now in the subjective, now in the
objective sphere, whereby, however, new problems are again raised, all of
which I will not engage to solve, but rather appeal here to the words _est
quadam prodire tenus_, more concerned to set up nothing false or
arbitrarily invented than to give a thorough account of all;—at the risk
of giving here only a fragmentary exposition.

If we call up to our minds and distinctly go through in thought the
exceedingly acute theory of the origin of the planetary system, first put
forth by Kant and later by Laplace, a theory of which it is scarcely
possible to doubt the correctness, we see the lowest, crudest, and
blindest forces of nature bound to the most rigid conformity to law, by
means of their conflict for one and the same given matter, and the
accidental results brought about by this produce the framework of the
world, thus of the designedly prepared future dwelling‐place of
innumerable living beings, as a system of order and harmony, at which we
are the more astonished the more distinctly and accurately we come to
understand it. For example, if we see that every planet, with its present
velocity, can only maintain itself exactly where it actually has its
place, because if it were brought nearer to the sun it would necessarily
fall into it, or if placed further from it would necessarily fly away from
it; how, conversely, if we take the place as given, it can only remain
there with its present velocity and no other, because if it went faster it
would necessarily fly away from the sun, and if it went slower it would
necessarily fall into it; that thus only one definite place is suitable to
each definite velocity of a planet; and if we now see this solved by the
fact that the same physical, necessary, and blindly acting cause which
appointed it its place, at the same time and just by doing so, imparted to
it exactly the only velocity suitable for this place, in consequence of
the law of nature that a revolving body increases its velocity in
proportion as its revolution becomes smaller; and, moreover, if finally we
understand how endless permanence is assured to the whole system, by the
fact that all the mutual disturbances of the course of the planets which
unavoidably enter, must adjust themselves in time; how then it is just the
irrationality of the periods of revolution of Jupiter and Saturn to each
other that prevents their respective perturbations from repeating
themselves at one place, whereby they would become dangerous, and brings
it about that, appearing seldom and always at a different place, they must
sublate themselves again, like dissonances in music which are again
resolved into harmony. By means of such considerations we recognise a
design and perfection, such as could only have been brought about by the
freest absolute will directed by the most penetrating understanding and
the most acute calculation. And yet, under the guidance of that cosmogony
of Laplace, so well thought out and so accurately calculated, we cannot
prevent ourselves from seeing that perfectly blind forces of nature,
acting according to unalterable natural laws, through their conflict and
aimless play among themselves, could produce nothing else but this very
framework of the world, which is equal to the work of an extraordinarily
enhanced power of combination. Instead now, after the manner of
Anaxagoras, of dragging in the aid of an _intelligence_ known to us only
from animal nature, and adapted only to its aims, an intelligence which,
coming from without, cunningly made use of the existing forces of nature
and their laws in order to carry out its ends, which are foreign to
these,—we recognise in these lowest forces of nature themselves that same,
one will, which indeed first manifests itself in them, and already in this
manifestation striving after its goal, through its original laws
themselves works towards its final end, to which therefore all that
happens according to blind laws of nature must minister and correspond.
And this indeed cannot be otherwise, because everything material is
nothing but just the phenomenal appearance, the visibility, the
objectivity of the will to live which is one. Thus even the lowest forces
of nature themselves are animated by that same will, which afterwards, in
the individual beings provided with intelligence, marvels at its own work,
as the somnambulist wonders in the morning at what he has done in his
sleep; or, more accurately, which is astonished at its own form which it
beholds in the mirror. This unity which is here proved of the accidental
with the intentional, of the necessary with the free, on account of which
the blindest chances, which, however, rest upon universal laws of nature,
are as it were the keys upon which the world‐spirit plays its melodies so
full of significance,—this unity, I say, is, as has already been remarked,
an abyss in the investigation into which even philosophy can throw no full
light, but only a glimmer.

But I now turn to a _subjective_ consideration belonging to this place, to
which, however, I am able to give still less distinctness than to the
objective consideration which has just been set forth; for I shall only be
able to express it by images and similes. Why is our consciousness
brighter and more distinct the further it extends towards without, so that
its greatest clearness lies in sense perception, which already half
belongs to things outside us,—and, on the other hand, grows dimmer as we
go in, and leads, if followed to its inmost recesses, to a darkness in
which all knowledge ceases? Because, I say, consciousness presupposes
_individuality_; but this belongs to the mere phenomenon, for it is
conditioned by the forms of the phenomenon, space and time, as
multiplicity of the similar. Our inner nature, on the other hand, has its
root in that which is no longer phenomenon, but thing in itself, to which,
therefore, the forms of the phenomenon do not extend; and thus the chief
conditions of individuality are wanting, and with these the distinctness
of consciousness falls off. In this root of existence the difference of
beings ceases, like that of the radii of a sphere in the centre; and as in
the sphere the surface is produced by the radii ending and breaking off,
so consciousness is only possible where the true inner being runs out into
the phenomenon, through whose forms the separate individuality becomes
possible upon which consciousness depends, which is just on that account
confined to phenomena. Therefore all that is distinct and thoroughly
comprehensible in our consciousness always lies without upon this surface
of the sphere. Whenever, on the contrary, we withdraw entirely from this,
consciousness forsakes us,—in sleep, in death, to a certain extent also in
magnetic or magic influences; for these all lead through the centre. But
just because distinct consciousness, being confined to the surface of the
sphere, is not directed towards the centre, it recognises other
individuals certainly as of the same kind, but not as identical, which yet
in themselves they are. Immortality of the individual might be compared to
a point of the surface flying off at a tangent. But immortality, by virtue
of the eternal nature of the inner being of the whole phenomenon, may be
compared to the return of that point, on the radius, to the centre, of
which the whole surface is just the extension. The will as the thing in
itself is whole and undivided in every being, as the centre is an integral
part of every radius; while the peripherical end of this radius is in the
most rapid revolution, with the surface, which represents time and its
content, the other end, at the centre, which represents eternity, remains
in the profoundest peace, because the centre is the point of which the
rising half is not different from the sinking. Therefore in the Bhagavad‐
gita it is said: “_Haud distributum animantibus, et quasi distributum
tamen insidens, animantiumque sustentaculum id cognoscendum, edax et
rursus genitale_” (Lect. 13, 16 vers. Schlegel). Certainly we fall here
into mystical and figurative language, but it is the only language in
which anything can be said on this entirely transcendent theme. So this
simile also may pass. The human race may be imagined as an _animal
compositum_, a form of life of which many polypi, especially those which
swim, such as _Veretillum_, _Funiculina_, and others, afford examples. As
in these the head isolates each individual animal, and the lower part,
with the common stomach, combines them all in the unity of one life
process, so the brain with its consciousness isolates the human
individual, while the unconscious part, the vegetative life with its
ganglion system, into which in sleep the brain‐consciousness disappears,
like a lotus which nightly sinks in the flood, is a common life of all, by
means of which in exceptional cases they can even communicate, as, for
example, occurs when dreams communicate themselves directly, the thoughts
of the mesmeriser pass into the somnambulist, and finally also in the
magnetic or generally magical influence proceeding from intentional
willing. Such an influence, if it occurs, is _toto genere_ different from
every other on account of the _influxus physicus_ which takes place, for
it is really an _actio in distans_ which the will, certainly proceeding
from the individual, yet performs in its metaphysical quality as the
omnipresent substratum of the whole of nature. One might also say that as
in the _generatio æquivoca_ there sometimes and as an exception appears a
weak residue of the original _creative power_ of the will, which in the
existing forms of nature has already done its work and is extinguished, so
there may be, exceptionally, acting in these magical influences, as it
were, a surplus of its original _omnipotence_, which completes its work
and spends itself in the construction and maintenance of the organisms. I
have spoken fully of this magical property of the will in “The Will in
Nature,” and I gladly omit here discussions which have to appeal to
uncertain facts, which yet cannot be altogether ignored or denied.




Chapter XXVI.(4) On Teleology.


The universal teleology or design of organised nature relative to the
continuance of every existing being, together with the adaptation of
organised to unorganised nature, cannot without violence enter into the
connection of any philosophical system except that one which makes a
_will_ the basis of the existence of every natural being; a will which
accordingly expresses its nature and tendency not merely in the actions,
but already in the _form_ of the phenomenal organism. In the preceding
chapter I have merely indicated the account which our system of thought
gives of this subject, since I have already expounded it in the passage of
the first volume referred to below, and with special clearness and fulness
in “The Will in Nature,” under the rubric “Comparative Anatomy.”

The astounding amazement which is wont to take possession of us when we
consider the endless design displayed in the construction of organised
beings ultimately rests upon the certainly natural but yet false
assumption that that _adaptation_ of the parts to each other, to the whole
of the organism and to its aims in the external world, as we comprehend it
and judge of it by means of _knowledge_, thus upon the path of the _idea_,
has also come into being upon the same path; thus that as it exists _for_
the intellect, it was also brought about _by_ the intellect. We certainly
can only bring about something regular and conforming to law, such, for
example, as every crystal is, under the guidance of the law and the rule;
and in the same way, we can only bring about something designed under the
guidance of the conception of the end; but we are by no means justified in
imputing this limitation of ours to nature, which is itself prior to all
intellect, and whose action is entirely different in kind from ours, as
was said in the preceding chapter. It accomplishes that which appears so
designed and planned without reflection and without conception of an end,
because without idea, which is of quite secondary origin. Let us first
consider what is merely according to rule, not yet adapted to ends. The
six equal radii of a snowflake, separating at equal angles, are measured
beforehand by no knowledge; but it is the simple tendency of the original
will, which so exhibits itself to knowledge when knowledge appears. As now
here the will brings about the regular figure without mathematics, so also
without physiology does it bring about the form which is organised and
furnished with organs evidently adapted to special ends. The regular form
in space only exists for the perception, the perceptive form of which is
space; so the design of the organism only exists for the knowing reason,
the reflection of which is bound to the conceptions of end and means. If
direct insight into the working of nature was possible for us, we would
necessarily recognise that the wonder excited by teleology referred to
above is analogous to that which that savage referred to by Kant in his
explanation of the ludicrous felt when he saw the froth irresistibly
foaming out of a bottle of beer which had just been opened, and expressed
his wonder not that it should come out, but that any one had ever been
able to get it in; for we also assume that the teleology of natural
productions has been put in the same as it comes out for us. Therefore our
astonishment at design may likewise be compared to that which the first
productions of the art of printing excited in those who considered them
under the supposition that they were works of the pen, and therefore had
to resort to the assumption of the assistance of a devil in order to
explain them. For, let it be said again, it is our intellect which by
means of its own forms, space, time, and causality, apprehends as object
the act of will, in itself metaphysical and indivisible, which exhibits
itself in the phenomenon of an animal,—it is our intellect which first
produces the multiplicity and diversity of the parts, and is then struck
with amazement at their perfect agreement and conspiring together, which
proceeds from the original unity; whereby then, in a certain sense, it
marvels at its own work.

If we give ourselves up to the contemplation of the indescribably and
infinitely ingenious construction of any animal, even if it were only the
commonest insect, lose ourselves in admiration of it, and it now occurs to
us that nature recklessly exposes even this exceedingly ingenious and
highly complicated organism daily and by thousands to destruction by
accident, animal rapacity, and human wantonness, this wild prodigality
fills us with amazement; but our amazement is based upon an ambiguity of
the conceptions, for we have in our minds the human work of art which is
accomplished by the help of the intellect and by overcoming a foreign and
resisting material, and therefore certainly costs much trouble. Nature’s
works, on the contrary, however ingenious they may be, cost her absolutely
no trouble; for here the will to work is already the work itself, since,
as has already been said, the organism is merely the visibility of the
will which is here present, brought about in the brain.

In consequence of the nature of organised beings which has been set forth,
teleology, as the assumption of the adaptation of every part to its end,
is a perfectly safe guide in considering the whole of organised nature; on
the other hand, in a metaphysical regard, for the explanation of nature
beyond the possibility of experience, it must only be regarded as valid in
a secondary and subsidiary manner for the confirmation of principles of
explanation which are otherwise established: for here it belongs to the
problems which have to be given account of. Accordingly, if in some animal
a part is found of which we do not see any use, we must never venture the
conjecture that nature has produced it aimlessly, perhaps trifling, or out
of mere caprice. Certainly it is possible to conceive something of this
kind under the Anaxagorean assumption that the disposition of nature has
been brought about by means of an ordering understanding, which, as such,
obeys a foreign will; but not under the assumption that the true inner
being (_i.e._, outside of our idea) of every organism is simply and solely
_its own will_; for then the existence of every part is conditioned by the
circumstance that in some way it serves the will which here lies at its
foundation, expresses and realises some tendency of it, and consequently
in some way contributes to the maintenance of this organism. For apart
from _the will which manifests itself in it_, and the conditions of the
external world under which this has voluntarily undertaken to live, for
the conflict with which its whole form and disposition is already adapted,
nothing can have influenced it and determined its form and parts, thus no
arbitrary power, no caprice. On this account everything in it must be
designed; and therefore final causes (_causæ finales_) are the clue to the
understanding of organised nature, as efficient causes (_causæ
efficientes_) are the clue to the understanding of unorganised nature. It
depends upon this, that if in anatomy or zoology, we cannot find the end
or aim of an existing part, our understanding receives a shock similar to
that which it receives in physics from an effect whose cause remains
concealed; and as we assume the latter as necessary, so also we assume the
former, and therefore go on searching for it, however long we may already
have done so in vain. This is, for example, the case with the spleen, as
to the use of which men never cease inventing hypotheses, till some day
one shall have proved itself correct. So is it also with the large spiral‐
formed teeth of the babyroussa, the horn‐shaped excrescences of certain
caterpillars, and more of the like. Negative cases are also judged by us
according to the same rule; for example, that in a class which, as a
whole, is so uniform as that of lizards, so important a part as the
bladder is present in many species, while it is wanting in others;
similarly that dolphins and certain cetacea related to them are entirely
without olfactory nerves, while the rest of the cetacea and even fishes
have them: there must be a reason which determines this.

Individual real exceptions to this universal law of design in organised
nature have indeed been discovered, and with great surprise; but in these
cases that _exceptio firmat regulam_ applies, since they can be accounted
for upon other grounds. Such, for example, is the fact that the tadpoles
of the pipa toad have tails and gills, although, unlike all other
tadpoles, they do not swim, but await their metamorphosis on the back of
the mother; that the male kangaroo has the marsupial bones which in the
female carry the pouch; that male mammals have breasts; that the _Mus
typhlus_, a rat, has eyes, although very small ones, without any opening
for them in the outer skin, which thus covers them, clothed with hair; and
that the moles of the Apennines, and also two fishes—_Murena cœcilia_ and
_Gastrobrauchus cœcus_—are in the same case; of like kind is the _Proteus
anguinus_. These rare and surprising exceptions to the rule of nature,
which is otherwise so rigid, these contradictions with itself into which
it falls, we must explain from the inner connection which the different
kinds of phenomena have with each other, by virtue of the unity of that
which manifests itself in them, and in consequence of which nature must
hint at some thing in one, simply because another of the same type
actually has it. Accordingly the male animal has a rudimentary form of an
organ which is actually present in the female. As now here the difference
of the _sex_ cannot abolish the type of the _species_, so also the type of
a whole order—for example, of the batrachia—asserts itself even where in
one particular species (pipa) one of its determinations is superfluous.
Still less can nature allow a determination (eyes) which belongs to the
type of a whole division (Vertebrata) to vanish entirely without a trace,
even if it is wanting in some particular species (_Mus typhlus_) as
superfluous; but here also it must at least indicate in a rudimentary
manner what it carries out in all the others.

Even from this point of view it is to some extent possible to see upon
what depends that _homology_ in the skeleton primarily of mammals, and in
a wider sense of all vertebrates, which has been so fully explained,
especially by Richard Owen in his “_Ostéologie comparée_,” and on account
of which, for example, all mammals have seven cervical vertebræ, every
bone of the human hand and arm finds its analogue in the fin of the whale,
the skull of the bird in the egg has exactly as many bones as that of the
human fœtus, &c. All this points to a principle which is independent of
teleology, but which is yet the foundation upon which teleology builds, or
the already given material for its works, and just that which Geoffroy St.
Hilaire has explained as the “anatomical element.” It is the _unité de
plan_, the fundamental type of the higher animal world, as it were the
arbitrarily chosen key upon which nature here plays.

Aristotle has already correctly defined the difference between the
efficient cause (_causa efficiens_) and the final cause (_causa finalis_)
in these words: “Δυο τροποι της αιτιας, το οὑ ἑνεκα και το εξ αναγκης, και
δει λεγοντας τυγχανειν μαλιστα μεν αμφοιν.” (_Duo sunt causæ modi: alter
cujus gratia, et alter e necessitate; ac potissimum utrumque eruere
oportet._) _De part. anim._, i. 1. The efficient cause is that _whereby_
something is, the final cause that _on account of which_ it is; the
phenomenon to be explained has, in time, the former _behind_ it, and the
latter _before_ it. Only in the case of the voluntary actions of animal
beings do the two directly unite, for here the final cause, the end,
appears as the motive; a motive, however, is always the true and proper
_cause_ of the action, is wholly and solely its _efficient_ cause, the
change preceding it which calls it forth, by virtue of which it
necessarily appears, and without which it could not happen; as I have
shown in my prize essay upon freedom. For whatever of a physiological
nature one might wish to insert between the act of will and the corporeal
movement, the _will_ always remains here confessedly that which moves, and
what moves _it_ is the _motive_ coming from without, thus the _causa
finalis_; which consequently appears here as _causa efficiens_. Besides,
we know from what has gone before that the bodily movement is one with the
act of will, for it is merely its phenomenal appearance in cerebral
perception. This union of the _causa finalis_ with the efficient cause in
the one phenomenon _intimately_ known to us, which accordingly remains
throughout our typical phenomenon, is certainly to be firmly retained; for
it leads precisely to the conclusion that at least in organised nature,
the knowledge of which has throughout final causes for its clue, a _will_
is the forming power. In fact, we cannot otherwise distinctly think a
final cause except as an end in view, _i.e._, a motive. Indeed, if we
carefully consider the final causes in nature in order to express their
transcendent nature, we must not shrink from a contradiction, and boldly
say: the final cause is a motive which acts upon a being, by which it is
not known. For certainly the termite nests are the motive which has
produced the toothless muzzle of the ant‐bear, and also its long
extensile, glutinous tongue: the hard egg‐shell which holds the chicken
imprisoned is certainly the motive for the horny point with which its beak
is provided in order to break through that shell, after which it throws it
off as of no further use. And in the same way the laws of the reflection
and refraction of light are the motive for the wonderfully ingenious and
complex optical instrument, the human eye, which has the transparency of
its cornea, the different density of its three humours, the form of its
lens, the blackness of its choroid, the sensitiveness of its retina, the
contracting power of its pupil, and its muscular system, accurately
calculated according to those laws. But those motives acted before they
were apprehended; it is not otherwise, however contradictory it may sound.
For here is the transition of the physical into the metaphysical. But the
latter we have already recognised in the _will_; therefore we must see
that the will which extends an elephant’s trunk towards an object is the
same will which has also called it forth and formed it, anticipating
objects.

It is in conformity with this that in the investigation of _organised_
nature we are entirely referred to _final causes_, everywhere seek for
these and explain everything from them. The _efficient causes_, on the
contrary, here assume only a quite subordinate position as the mere tools
of the final causes, and, just as in the case of the voluntary movement of
the limbs, which is confessedly effected by external motives, they are
rather assumed than pointed out. In explaining the physiological
_functions_ we certainly look about for the efficient causes, though for
the most part in vain; but in explaining the origin of the parts we again
look for them no more, but are satisfied with the final causes alone. At
the most we have here some such general principle as that the larger the
part is to be the stronger must be the artery that conducts blood to it;
but of the actually efficient causes which bring about, for example, the
eye, the ear, the brain, we know absolutely nothing. Indeed, even in
explaining the mere functions the final cause is far more important and
more to the point than the efficient; therefore, if the former alone is
known we are instructed and satisfied with regard to the principal matter,
while, on the other hand, the efficient cause alone helps us little. For
example, if we really knew the _efficient cause_ of the circulation of the
blood, as we do not, but still seek it, this would help us little unless
we knew the final cause, that the blood must go into the lungs for the
purpose of oxidation, and again flow back for the purpose of nourishing;
but by the knowledge of this, even without the knowledge of the efficient
cause, we have gained much light. Moreover, I am of opinion, as was said
above, that the circulation of the blood has no properly efficient cause,
but that the will is here as immediately active as in muscular movement
where motives determine it by means of nerve conduction, so that here also
the movement is called forth directly by the final cause; thus by the need
of oxidation in the lungs, which here to a certain extent acts as a motive
upon the blood, yet so that the mediation of knowledge is in this case
wanting, because everything takes place in the interior of the organism.
The so‐called metamorphosis of plants, a thought lightly thrown out by
Kaspar Wolf, which, under this hyperbolic title, Goethe pompously and with
solemn delivery expounds as his own production, belongs to the class of
explanations of organic nature from the efficient cause; although
ultimately he only says that nature does not in the case of every
production begin from the beginning and create out of nothing, but as it
were, writing on in the same style, adds on to what already exists, makes
use of the earlier forms, developed, and raised to higher power, to carry
its work further: just as it has done in the ascending series of animals
entirely in accordance with the law: _Natura non facit saltus, et quod
commodissimum in omnibus suis operationibus sequitur_ (_Arist. de incessu
animalium, c. 2 et 8_). Indeed, to explain the blossom by pointing out in
all its parts the form of the leaf seems to me almost the same as
explaining the structure of a house by showing that all its parts,
storeys, balconies, and garrets, are only composed of bricks and mere
repetitions of the original unity of the brick. And not much better,
though much more problematical, seems to me the explanation of the skull
from vertebræ, although even here also it is a matter of course that the
covering or case of the brain will not be absolutely different and
entirely disparate from that of the spinal cord, of which it is the
continuation and terminal knob, but will rather be a carrying out of the
same kind of thing. This whole method of consideration belongs to the
Homology of Richard Owen referred to above. On the other hand, it seems to
me that the following explanation of the nature of the flower from its
_final cause_, suggested by an Italian whose name has escaped me, is a far
more satisfactory account to give. The end of the _corolla_ is—(1.)
Protection of the pistil and the _stamina_; (2.) by means of it the
purified saps are prepared, which are concentrated in the _pollen_ and
_germs_; (3.) from the glands of its base the essential oil distils which,
for the most part as a fragrant vapour, surrounding the anthers and
pistil, protects them to a certain extent from the influence of the damp
air. It is also one of the advantages of final causes that every
_efficient_ cause always ultimately rests upon something that cannot be
fathomed, a force of nature, _i.e._, a _qualitas occulta_, and, therefore,
it can only give a _relative_ explanation; while the final cause within
its sphere affords a sufficient and perfect explanation. It is true we are
only perfectly content when we know both the efficient cause, also called
by Aristotle ἡ αιτια εξ αναγκης, and the final cause, ἡ χαριν του
βελτιονος, at once and yet separately, as their concurrence, their
wonderful working together, then surprises us, and on account of it the
best appears as the absolutely necessary, and the necessary again as if it
were merely the best and not necessary; for then arises in us the dim
perception that both causes, however different may be their origin, are
yet connected in the root, in the nature of the thing in itself. But such
a twofold knowledge is seldom attainable; in _organised_ nature, because
the efficient cause is seldom known to us; in _unorganised_ nature,
because the final cause remains problematical. However, I will illustrate
this by a couple of examples as good as I find within the range of my
physiological knowledge, for which physiologists may be able to substitute
clearer and more striking ones. The louse of the negro is black. Final
cause: its own safety. Efficient cause: because its nourishment is the
black _rete Malpighi_ of the negro. The multifarious, brilliant, and gay
colouring of the plumage of tropical birds is explained, although only
very generally, from the strong effect of the light in the tropics, as its
efficient cause. As the final cause I would assign that those brilliant
feathers are the gorgeous uniform in which the individuals of the
innumerable species there, often belonging to the same genus, may
recognise each other; so that each male may find his female. The same
holds good of butterflies of different zones and latitudes. It has been
observed that consumptive women, in the last stage of their illness,
readily become pregnant, that the disease stops during pregnancy, but
after delivery appears again worse than before, and now generally results
in death: similarly that consumptive men generally beget another child in
the last days of their life. The _final cause_ here is that nature, always
so anxiously concerned for the maintenance of the species, seeks to
replace by a new individual the approaching loss of one in the prime of
life; the _efficient cause_, on the other hand, is the unusually excited
state of the nervous system which occurs in the last period of
consumption. From the same final cause is to be explained the analogous
phenomenon that (according to Oken, _Die Zeugung_, p. 65) flies poisoned
with arsenic still couple, and die in the act of copulation. The final
cause of the pubes in both sexes, and of the Mons Veneris in the female,
is that even in the case of very thin subjects the Ossa pubis shall not be
felt, which might excite antipathy; the efficient cause, on the other
hand, is to be sought in the fact that wherever the mucous membrane passes
over to the outer skin, hair grows in the vicinity; and, secondly, also
that the head and the genitals are to a certain extent opposite poles of
each other, and therefore have various relations and analogies between
them, among which is that of being covered with hair. The same efficient
cause holds good also of the beard of the man; the final cause of it, I
suppose, lies in the fact that the pathogonomic signs, thus the rapid
alterations of the countenance betraying every movement of the mind, are
principally visible in the mouth and its vicinity; therefore, in order to
conceal these from the prying eye of the adversary, as something dangerous
in bargaining, or in sudden emergencies, nature gave man the beard (which
shows that _homo homini lupus_). The woman, on the other hand, could
dispense with this; for with her dissimulation and command of countenance
are inborn. As I have said, there must be far more apt examples to be
found to show how the completely blind working of nature unites in the
result with the apparently intentional, or, as Kant calls it, the
mechanism of nature with its technic; which points to the fact that both
have their common origin beyond their difference in the will as the thing
in itself. Much would be achieved for the elucidation of this point of
view, if, for example, we could find the efficient cause which carries the
driftwood to the treeless polar lands, or that which has concentrated the
dry land of our planet principally in the northern half of it; while it is
to be regarded as the final cause of this that the winter of that half,
because it occurs in the perihelion which accelerates the course of the
earth, is eight days shorter, and hereby is also milder. Yet in
considering _unorganised_ nature the final cause is always ambiguous, and,
especially when the _efficient_ cause is found, leaves us in doubt whether
it is not a merely subjective view, an aspect conditioned by our point of
view. In this respect, however, it may be compared to many works of art;
for example, to coarse mosaics, theatre decorations, and to the god
Apennine at Pratolino, near Florence, composed of large masses of rock,
all of which only produce their effect at a distance, and vanish when we
come near, because instead of them the efficient cause of their appearance
now becomes visible: but the forms are yet actually existent, and are no
mere imagination. Analogous to this, then, are the final causes in
unorganised nature, if the efficient causes appear. Indeed, those who take
a wide view of things would perhaps allow it to pass if I added that
something similar is the case with omens.

For the rest, if any one desires to misuse the _external_ design, which,
as has been said, always remains ambiguous for physico‐theological
demonstrations, which is done even at the present day, though it is to be
hoped only by Englishmen, there are in this class enough examples _in
contrarium_, thus ateleological instances, to derange his conception. One
of the strongest is presented by the unsuitableness of sea‐water for
drinking, in consequence of which man is never more exposed to the danger
of dying of thirst than in the midst of the greatest mass of water on his
planet. “Why, then, does the sea need to be salt?” let us ask our
Englishman.

That in _unorganised_ nature the final causes entirely withdraw into the
background, so that an explanation from them alone is here no longer
valid, but the efficient causes are rather indispensably required, depends
upon the fact that the will which objectifies itself here also no longer
appears in individuals which constitute a whole for themselves, but in
forces of nature and their action, whereby end and means are too far
separated for their relation to be clear and for us to recognise a
manifestation of will in it. This already occurs in organised nature, in a
certain degree, when the design is an external one, _i.e._, the end lies
in _one_ individual and the means in _another_. Yet even here it remains
unquestionable so long as the two belong to the same species, indeed it
then becomes the more striking. Here we have first to count the
reciprocally adapted organisation of the genitals of the two sexes, and
then also many circumstances that assist the propagation of the species,
for example, in the case of the _Lampyris noctiluca_ (the glowworm) the
circumstance that only the male, which does not shine, has wings to enable
it to seek out the female; the wingless female, on the other hand, since
it only comes out in the evening, possesses the phosphorescent light, so
that the male may be able to find it. Yet in the case of the _Lampyris
Italica_ both sexes shine, which is an instance of the natural luxury of
the South. But a striking, because quite special, example of the kind of
design we are speaking of is afforded by the discovery made by Geoffroy
St. Hilaire, in his last years, of the more exact nature of the sucking
apparatus of the cetacea. Since all sucking requires the action of
respiration, it can only take place in the respirable medium itself, and
not under water, where, however, the sucking young of the whale hangs on
to the teats of the mother; now to meet this the whole mammary apparatus
of the cetacea is so modified that it has become an injecting organ, and
placed in the mouth of the young injects the milk into it without it
requiring to suck. When, on the contrary, the individual that affords
essential help to another belongs to an entirely different species, and
even to another kingdom of nature, we will doubt this external design just
as in unorganised nature; unless it is evident that the maintenance of the
species depends upon it. But this is the case with many plants whose
fructification only takes place by means of insects, which either bear the
pollen to the stigma or bend the stamina to the pistil. The common
barberry, many kinds of iris, and _Aristolochia Clematitis_ cannot
fructify themselves at all without the help of insects (_Chr. Cour._
Sprengel, _Entdecktes Geheimniss, &c._, 1793; Wildenow, _Grundriss der
Kräuterkunde_, 353). Very many diœcia, monœcia, and polygamia are in the
same position. The reciprocal support which the plant and the insect
worlds receive from each other will be found admirably described in
Burdach’s large Physiology, vol. i. § 263. He very beautifully adds: “This
is no mechanical assistance, no make‐shift, as if nature had made the
plants yesterday, and had committed an error which she tries to correct
to‐day through the insect; it is rather a deep‐lying sympathy between the
plant and the animal worlds. It ought to reveal the identity of the two.
Both, children of one mother, ought to subsist with each other and through
each other.” And further on: “But the organised world stands in such a
sympathy with the unorganised world also,” &c. A proof of this _consensus
naturæ_ is also afforded by the observation communicated in the second
volume of the “Introduction into Entomology” by Kirby and Spence, that the
insect eggs that pass the winter attached to the twigs of the trees, which
serve as nourishment for their larvæ, are hatched exactly at the time at
which the twig buds; thus, for example, the aphis of the birch a month
earlier than that of the ash. Similarly, that the insects of perennial
plants pass the winter upon these as eggs; but those of mere annuals,
since they cannot do this, in the state of pupæ.

Three great men have entirely rejected teleology, or the explanation from
final causes, and many small men have echoed them. These three are,
Lucretius, Bacon of Verulam, and Spinoza. But in the case of all three we
know clearly enough the source of this aversion, namely, that they
regarded it as inseparable from speculative theology, of which, however,
they entertained so great a distrust (which Bacon indeed prudently sought
to conceal) that they wanted to give it a wide berth. We find Leibnitz
also entirely involved in this prejudice, for, with characteristic
naïveté, he expresses it as something self‐evident in his _Lettre à M.
Nicaise_ (_Spinozæ op. ed Paulus_, vol. ii. p. 672): “_Les causes finales,
ou ce qui est la même chose, la consideration de la sagesse divine dans
l’ordre des choses._” (The devil also _même chose_!) At the same point of
view we find, indeed, Englishmen even at the present day. The Bridgewater‐
Treatise‐men—Lord Brougham, &c.—nay, even Richard Owen also, in his
“_Ostéologie Comparée_,” thinks precisely as Leibnitz, which I have
already found fault with in the first volume. To all these teleology is at
once also theology, and at every instance of design recognised in nature,
instead of thinking and learning to understand nature, they break at once
into the childish cry, “Design! design!” then strike up the refrain of
their old wives’ philosophy, and stop their ears against all rational
arguments, such as, however, the great Hume has already advanced against
them.(5)

The ignorance of the Kantian philosophy now, after seventy years, which is
really a disgrace to Englishmen of learning, is principally responsible
for this whole outcast position of the English; and this ignorance, again,
depends, at least in great measure, upon the nefarious influence of the
detestable English clergy, with whom stultification of every kind is a
thing after their own hearts, so that only they may be able still to hold
the English nation, otherwise so intelligent, involved in the most
degrading bigotry; therefore, inspired by the basest obscurantism, they
oppose with all their might the education of the people, the investigation
of nature, nay, the advancement of all human knowledge in general; and
both by means of their connections and by means of their scandalous,
unwarrantable wealth, which increases the misery of the people, they
extend their influence even to university teachers and authors, who
accordingly (for example, Th. Brown, “On Cause and Effect”) resort to
suppressions and perversions of every kind simply in order to avoid
opposing even in a distant manner that “cold superstition” (as Pückler
very happily designates their religion, or the current arguments in its
favour).

But, on the other hand, the three great men of whom we are speaking, since
they lived long before the dawn of the Kantian philosophy, are to be
pardoned for their distrust of teleology on account of its origin; yet
even Voltaire regarded the physico‐theological proof as irrefutable. In
order, however, to go into this somewhat more fully: first of all, the
polemic of Lucretius (iv. 824‐858) against teleology is so crude and
clumsy that it refutes itself and convinces us of the opposite. But as
regards Bacon (_De augm. scient._, iii. 4), he makes, in the first place,
no distinction with reference to the use of final causes between organised
and unorganised nature (which is yet just the principal matter), for, in
his examples of final causes, he mixes the two up together. Then he
banishes final causes from physics to metaphysics; but the latter is for
him, as it is still for many at the present day, identical with
speculative theology. From this, then, he regards final causes as
inseparable, and goes so far in this respect that he blames Aristotle
because he has made great use of final causes, yet without connecting them
with speculative theology (which I shall have occasion immediately
especially to praise). Finally, Spinoza (_Eth._ i. _prop._ 36, _appendix_)
makes it abundantly clear that he identifies teleology so entirely with
physico‐theology, against which he expresses himself with bitterness, that
he explains _Natura nihil frustra agere_: _hoc est, quod in usum hominum
non sit_: similarly, _Omnia naturalia tanquam ad suum utile media
considerant, et credunt aliquem alium esse, qui illa media paraverit_; and
also: _Hinc statuerunt, Deos omnia in usum hominum fecisse et dirigere_.
Upon this, then, he bases his assertion: _Naturam finem nullum sibi
præfixum habere et omnes causas finales nihil, nisi humana esse figmenta_.
His aim merely was to block the path of theism; and he had quite rightly
recognised the physico‐theological proof as its strongest weapon. But it
was reserved for Kant really to refute this proof, and for me to give the
correct exposition of its material, whereby I have satisfied the maxim:
_Est enim verum index sui et falsi_. But Spinoza did not know how else to
help himself but by the desperate stroke of denying teleology itself, thus
design in the works of nature—an assertion the monstrosity of which is at
once evident to every one who has gained any accurate knowledge of
organised nature. This limited point of view of Spinoza, together with his
complete ignorance of nature, sufficiently prove his entire incompetence
in this matter, and the folly of those who, upon his authority, believe
they must judge contemptuously of final causes.

Aristotle, who just here shows his brilliant side, contrasts very
advantageously with these modern philosophers. He goes unprejudiced to
nature, knows of no physico‐theology—such a thing has never entered his
mind,—and he has never looked at the world for the purpose of seeing
whether it was a bungled piece of work. He is in his heart pure from all
this, for he also sets up hypotheses as to the origin of animals and men
(_De generat. anim._, iii. 11) without lighting upon the physico‐
theological train of thought. He always says: “ἡ φυσις ποιει (_natura
facit_), never ἡ φυσις πεποιηται” (_natura facta est_). But after he has
truly and diligently studied nature, he finds that it everywhere proceeds
teleologically, and he says: “ματην ὁρωμεν ουδεν ποιουσαν την φυσιν”
(_naturam nihil frustra facere cernimus_), _De respir._, c. 10; and in the
books, _De partibus animalium_, which are a comparative anatomy: “Ουδε
περιεργον ουδεν, ουτε ματην ἡ φυσις ποιει.—Ἡ φυσις ἑνεκα του ποιει
παντα.—Πανταχου δε λεγομεν τοδε τουδε ἑνεκα, ὁπου αν φαινηται τελος τι,
προς ὁ ἡ κινησις περαινει; ὡστε ειναι φανερον, ὁτι εστι τι τοιουτον, ὁ δη
και καλουμεν φυσιν. Επει το σωμα οργανον; ἑνεκα τινος γαρ ἑκαστον των
μοριων, ομοιως τε και το ὁλον.” (_Nihil supervacaneum, nihil frustra
natura facit.—Natura rei alicujus gratia facit omnia.—Rem autem hanc esse
illius gratia asserere ubique solemus, quoties finem intelligimus aliquem,
in quem motus terminetur; quocirca ejusmodi aliquid esse constat, quod
Naturam vocamus. Est enim corpus instrumentum: nam membrum unumquodque __
rei alicujus gratia est, tum vero totum ipsum._) At greater length, p. 633
and 645 of the Berlin quarto edition, and also _De incessu animalium_, c.
2: “Ἡ φυσις ουδεν ποιει ματην, αλλ᾽ αει, εκ των ενδεχομενων τῃ ουσιᾳ, περι
ἑκαστον γενος ζωου το αριστον.” (_Natura nihil frustra facit, sed semper
ex iis, quæ cuique animalium generis essentiæ contingunt, id quod optimum
est._) But he expressly recommends teleology at the end of the books _De
generatione animalium_, and blames Democritus for having denied it, which
is just what Bacon, in his prejudice, praises in him. Especially, however,
in the “Physica,” ii. 8, p. 198, Aristotle speaks _ex professo_ of final
causes, and establishes them as the true principle of the investigation of
nature. In fact, every good and regular mind must, in considering
organised nature, hit upon teleology, but unless it is determined by the
preconceived opinions, by no means either upon physico‐theology or upon
the anthropo‐teleology condemned by Spinoza. With regard to Aristotle
generally, I wish further to draw attention to the fact here, that his
teaching, so far as it concerns _unorganised_ nature, is very defective
and unserviceable, as in the fundamental conceptions of mechanics and
physics he accepts the most gross errors, which is the less pardonable,
since before him the Pythagoreans and Empedocles had been upon the right
path and had taught much better. Empedocles indeed, as we learn from
Aristotle’s second book, _De cœlo_ (c. 1, p. 284), had already grasped the
conception of a tangential force arising from rotation, and counteracting
gravity, which Aristotle again rejects. Quite the reverse, however, is
Aristotle’s relation to the investigation of _organised_ nature. This is
his field; here the wealth of his knowledge, the keenness of his
observation, nay, sometimes the depth of his insight, astonish us. Thus,
to give just one example, he already knew the antagonism in which in the
ruminants the horns and the teeth of the upper jaw stand to each other, on
account of which, therefore, the latter are wanting where the former are
found, and conversely (_De partib. anim._, iii. 2). Hence then, also his
correct estimation of final causes.




Chapter XXVII. On Instinct And Mechanical Tendency.


It is as if nature had wished, in the mechanical tendencies of animals, to
give the investigator an illustrative commentary upon her works, according
to final causes and the admirable design of her organised productions
which is thereby introduced. For these mechanical tendencies show most
clearly that creatures can work with the greatest decision and
definiteness towards an end which they do not know, nay, of which they
have no idea. Such, for instance, is the bird’s nest, the spider’s web,
the ant‐lion’s pitfall, the ingenious bee‐hive, the marvellous termite
dwelling, &c., at least for those individual animals that carry them out
for the first time; for neither the form of the perfected work nor the use
of it can be known to them. Precisely so, however, does _organising_
nature work; and therefore in the preceding chapter I gave the paradoxical
explanation of the final cause, that it is a motive which acts without
being known. And as in working from mechanical tendency that which is
active is evidently and confessedly the _will_, so is it also really the
will which is active in the working of organising nature.

One might say, the will of animal creatures is set in motion in two
different ways: either by motivation or by instinct; thus from without, or
from within; by an external occasion, or by an internal tendency; the
former is explicable because it lies before us without, the latter is
inexplicable because it is merely internal. But, more closely considered,
the contrast between the two is not so sharp, indeed ultimately it runs
back into a difference of degree. The motive also only acts under the
assumption of an inner tendency, _i.e._, a definite quality of will which
is called its _character_. The motive in each case only gives to this a
definite direction—individualises it for the concrete case. So also
instinct, although a definite tendency of the will, does not act entirely,
like a spring, from within; but it also waits for some external
circumstance necessarily demanded for its action, which at least
determines the time of its manifestation; such is, for the migrating bird,
the season of the year; for the bird that builds its nest, the fact of
pregnancy and the presence of the material for the nest; for the bee it
is, for the beginning of the structure, the basket or the hollow tree, and
for the following work many individually appearing circumstances; for the
spider, it is a well‐adapted corner; for the caterpillar, the suitable
leaf; for egg‐laying insects, the for the most part very specially
determined and often rare place, where the hatched larvæ will at once find
their nourishment, and so on. It follows from this that in works of
mechanical tendency it is primarily the instinct of these animals that is
active, yet subordinated also to their intellect. The instinct gives the
universal, the rule; the intellect the particular, the application, in
that it directs the detail of the execution, in which therefore the work
of these animals clearly adapts itself to the circumstances of the
existing case. According to all this, the difference between instinct and
mere character is to be fixed thus: Instinct is a character which is only
set in motion by a _quite specially determined_ motive, and on this
account the action that proceeds from it is always exactly of the same
kind; while the character which is possessed by every species of animal
and every individual man is certainly a permanent and unalterable quality
of will, which can yet be set in motion by very different motives, and
adapts itself to these; and on account of this the action proceeding from
it may, according to its material quality, be very different, but yet will
always bear the stamp of the same character, and will therefore express
and reveal this; so that for the knowledge of this character the material
quality of the action in which it appears is essentially a matter of
indifference. Accordingly we might explain instinct as a character which
is beyond all measure one‐sided and strictly determined. It follows from
this exposition that being determined by mere motivation presupposes a
certain width of the sphere of knowledge, and consequently a more fully
developed intellect: therefore it is peculiar to the higher animals, quite
pre‐eminently, however, to man; while being determined by instinct only
demands as much intellect as is necessary to apprehend the one quite
specially determined motive, which alone and exclusively becomes the
occasion for the manifestation of the instinct. Therefore it is found in
the case of an exceedingly limited sphere of knowledge, and consequently,
as a rule, and in the highest degree, only in animals of the lower
classes, especially insects. Since, accordingly, the actions of these
animals only require an exceedingly simple and small motivation from
without, the medium of this, thus the intellect or the brain, is very
slightly developed in them, and their outward actions are for the most
part under the same guidance as the inner, follow upon mere stimuli,
physiological functions, thus the ganglion system. This is, then, in their
case excessively developed; their principal nerve‐stem runs under the
belly in the form of two cords, which at every limb of the body form a
ganglion little inferior to the brain in size, and, according to Cuvier,
this nerve‐stem is an analogue not so much of the spinal cord as of the
great sympathetic nerve. According to all this, instinct and action
through mere motivation, stand in a certain antagonism, in consequence of
which the former has its maximum in insects, and the latter in man, and
the actuation of other animals lies between the two in manifold gradations
according as in each the cerebral or the ganglion system is
preponderatingly developed. Just because the instinctive action and the
ingenious contrivances of insects are principally directed from the
ganglion system, if we regard them as proceeding from the brain alone, and
wish to explain them accordingly, we fall into absurdities, because we
then apply a false key. The same circumstance, however, imparts to their
action a remarkable likeness to that of somnambulists, which indeed is
also explained as arising from the fact that, instead of the brain, the
sympathetic nerve has undertaken the conduct of the outward actions also;
insects are accordingly, to a certain extent, natural somnambulists.
Things which we cannot get at directly we must make comprehensible to
ourselves by means of an analogy. What has just been referred to will
accomplish this in a high degree when assisted by the fact that in
Kieser’s “_Tellurismus_” (vol. ii. p. 250) a case is mentioned “in which
the command of the mesmerist to the somnambulist to perform a definite
action in a waking state was carried out by him when he awoke, without
remembering the command.” Thus it was as if he must perform that action
without rightly knowing why. Certainly this has the greatest resemblance
to what goes on in the case of mechanical instincts in insects. The young
spider feels that it must spin its web, although it neither knows nor
understands the aim of it. We are also reminded here of the dæmon of
Socrates, on account of which he had the feeling that he must leave undone
some action expected of him, or lying near him, without knowing why—for
his prophetic dream about it was forgotten. We have in our own day quite
well‐authenticated cases analogous to this; therefore I only briefly call
these to mind. One had taken his passage on a ship, but when it was about
to sail he positively would not go on board without being conscious of a
reason;—the ship went down. Another goes with companions to a powder
magazine; when he has arrived in its vicinity he absolutely will not go
any further, but turns hastily back, seized with anxiety he knows not
why;—the magazine blows up. A third upon the ocean feels moved one night,
without any reason, not to undress, but lays himself on the bed in his
clothes and boots, and even with his spectacles on;—in the night the ship
goes on fire, and he is among the few who save themselves in the boat. All
this depends upon the dull after‐effect of forgotten fatidical dreams, and
gives us the key to an analogous understanding of instinct and mechanical
tendencies.

On the other hand, as has been said, the mechanical tendencies of insects
reflect much light upon the working of the unconscious will in the inner
functions of the organism and in its construction. For without any
difficulty we can see in the ant‐hill or the beehive the picture of an
organism explained and brought to the light of knowledge. In this sense
Burdach says (_Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 22): “The formation and
depositing of the eggs is the part of the queen‐bee, and the care for the
cultivation of them falls to the workers; thus in the former the ovary,
and in the latter the uterus, is individualised.” In the insect society,
as in the animal organism, the _vita propria_ of each part is subordinated
to the life of the whole, and the care for the whole precedes that for
particular existence; indeed the latter is only conditionally willed, the
former unconditionally; therefore the individuals are even sacrificed
occasionally for the whole, as we allow a limb to be taken off in order to
save the whole body. Thus, for example, if the path is closed by water
against the march of the ants, those in front boldly throw themselves in
until their corpses are heaped up into a dam for those that follow. When
the drones have become useless they are stung to death. Two queens in the
hive are surrounded, and must fight with each other till one of them loses
its life. The ant‐mother bites its own wings off after it has been
impregnated, for they would only be a hindrance to it in the work that is
before it of tending the new family it is about to found under the earth
(Kirby and Spence, vol. i.) As the liver will do nothing more than secrete
gall for the service of the digestion, nay, will only itself exist for
this end—and so with every other part—the working bees also will do
nothing more than collect honey, secrete wax, and make cells for the brood
of the queen; the drones nothing more than impregnate; the queen nothing
but deposit eggs; thus all the parts work only for the maintenance of the
whole which alone is the unconditional end, just like the parts of the
organism. The difference is merely that in the organism the will acts
perfectly blindly in its primary condition; in the insect society, on the
other hand, the thing goes on already in the light of knowledge, to which,
however, a decided co‐operation and individual choice is only left in the
accidents of detail, where it gives assistance and adopts what has to be
carried out to the circumstances. But the insects will the end as a whole
without knowing it; just like organised nature working according to final
causes; even the choice of the means is not as a whole left to their
knowledge, but only the more detailed disposition of them. Just on this
account, however, their action is by no means automatic, which becomes
most distinctly visible if one opposes obstacles to their action. For
example, the caterpillar spins itself in leaves without knowing the end;
but if we destroy the web it skilfully repairs it. Bees adapt their hive
at the first to the existing circumstances, and subsequent misfortunes,
such as intentional destruction, they meet in the way most suitable to the
special case (Kirby and Spence, _Introduc. to Entomol._; Huber, _Des
abeilles_). Such things excite our astonishment, because the apprehension
of the circumstances and the adaptation to these is clearly a matter of
knowledge; while we believe them capable once for all of the most
ingenious preparation for the coming race and the distant future, well
knowing that in this they are not guided by knowledge, for a forethought
of that kind proceeding from knowledge demands an activity of the brain
rising to the level of reason. On the other hand, the intellect even of
the lower animals is sufficient for the modifying and arranging of the
particular case according to the existing or appearing circumstances;
because, guided by instinct, it has only to fill up the gaps which this
leaves. Thus we see ants carry off their larvæ whenever the place is too
damp, and bring them back again when it becomes dry. They do not know the
aim of this, thus are not guided in it by knowledge; but the choice of the
time at which the place is no longer suitable for the larvæ, and also of
the place to which they now bring them, is left to their knowledge. I wish
here also to mention a fact which some one related to me verbally from his
own experience, though I have since found that Burdach quotes it from
Gleditsch. The latter, in order to test the burying‐beetle (_Necrophorus
vespillo_), had tied a dead frog lying upon the ground to a string, the
upper end of which was fastened to a stick stuck obliquely in the ground.
Now after several burying‐beetles had, according to their custom,
undermined the frog, it could not, as they expected, sink into the ground;
after much perplexed running hither and thither they undermined the stick
also. To this assistance rendered to instinct, and that repairing of the
works of mechanical tendency, we find in the organism the _healing power_
of nature analogous, which not only heals wounds, replacing even bone and
nerve substance, but, if through the injury of a vein or nerve branch a
connection is interrupted, opens a new connection by means of enlargement
of other veins or nerves, nay, perhaps even by producing new branches;
which further makes some other part or function take the place of a
diseased part or function; in the case of the loss of an eye sharpens the
other, or in the case of the loss of one of the senses sharpens all the
rest; which even sometimes closes an intestinal wound, in itself fatal, by
the adhesion of the mesentery or the peritoneum; in short, seeks to meet
every injury and every disturbance in the most ingenious manner. If, on
the other hand, the injury is quite incurable, it hastens to expedite
death, and indeed the more so the higher is the species of the organism,
thus the greater its sensibility. Even this has its analogue in the
instinct of insects. The wasps, for instance, who through the whole summer
have with great care and labour fed their larvæ on the produce of their
plundering, but now, in October, see the last generation of them facing
starvation, sting them to death (Kirby and Spence, vol. i. p. 374). Nay,
still more curious and special analogies may be found; for example, this:
if the female humble‐bee (_Apis terrestris, bombylius_) lays eggs, the
working humble‐bees are seized with a desire to devour them, which lasts
from six to eight hours and is satisfied unless the mother keeps them off
and carefully guards the eggs. But after this time the working humble‐bees
show absolutely no inclination to eat the eggs even when offered to them;
on the contrary, they now become the zealous tenders and nourishers of the
larvæ now being hatched out. This may without violence be taken as an
analogue of children’s complaints, especially teething, in which it is
just the future nourishers of the organism making an attack upon it which
so often costs it its life. The consideration of all these analogies
between organised life and the instinct, together with the mechanical
tendencies of the lower animals, serves ever more to confirm the
conviction that the _will_ is the basis of the one as of the other, for it
shows here also the subordinate rôle of knowledge in the action of the
will, sometimes more, sometimes less, confined, and sometimes wanting
altogether.

But in yet another respect instincts and the animal organisation
reciprocally illustrate each other: through the _anticipation of the
future_ which appears in both. By means of instincts and mechanical
tendencies animals care for the satisfaction of wants which they do not
yet feel, nay, not only for their own wants, but even for those of the
future brood. Thus they work for an end which is as yet unknown to them.
This goes so far, as I have illustrated by the example of the Bombex in
“The Will in Nature” (second edit. p. 45, third edit. p. 47), that they
pursue and kill in advance the enemies of their future eggs. In the same
way we see the future wants of an animal, its prospective ends,
anticipated in its whole corporisation by the organised implements for
their attainment and satisfaction; from which, then, proceeds that perfect
adaptation of the structure of every animal to its manner of life, that
equipment of it with the needful weapons to attack its prey and to ward
off its enemies, and that calculation of its whole form with reference to
the element and the surroundings in which it has to appear as a pursuer,
which I have fully described in my work on the will in nature under the
rubric “Comparative Anatomy.” All these anticipations, both in the
instinct and in the organisation of animals, we might bring under the
conception of a knowledge _a priori_, if _knowledge_ lay at their
foundation at all. But this is, as we have shown, not the case. Their
source lies deeper than the sphere of knowledge, in the will as the thing
in itself, which as such remains free even from the _forms_ of knowledge;
therefore with reference to it time has no significance, consequently the
future lies as near it as the present.




Chapter XXVIII.(6) Characterisation Of The Will To Live.


Our second book closed with the question as to the goal and aim of that
will which had shown itself to be the inner nature of all things in the
world. The following remarks may serve to supplement the answer to this
question given there in general terms, for they lay down the character of
the will as a whole.

Such a characterisation is possible because we have recognised as the
inner nature of the world something thoroughly real and empirically given.
On the other hand, the very name “world‐soul,” by which many have denoted
that inner being, gives instead of this a mere _ens rationis_; for “soul”
signifies an individual unity of consciousness which clearly does not
belong to that nature, and in general, since the conception “soul”
supposes knowing and willing in inseparable connection and yet independent
of the animal organism, it is not to be justified, and therefore not to be
used. The word should never be applied except in a metaphorical sense, for
it is much more insidious than ψυχη or anima, which signify breath.

Much more unsuitable, however, is the way in which so‐called pantheists
express themselves, whose whole philosophy consists chiefly in this, that
they call the inner nature of the world, which is unknown to them, “God;”
by which indeed they imagine they have achieved much. According to this,
then, the world would be a theophany. But let one only look at it: this
world of constantly needy creatures, who continue for a time only by
devouring one another, fulfil their existence in anxiety and want, and
often suffer terrible miseries, till at last they fall into the arms of
death; whoever distinctly looks upon this will allow that Aristotle was
right in saying: “ἡ φυσις δαιομονια, αλλ᾽ ου θεια εστι” (_Natura dæmonia
est, non divina_), _De divinat._, c. 2, p. 463; nay, he will be obliged to
confess that a God who could think of changing Himself into such a world
as this must certainly have been tormented by the devil. I know well that
the pretended philosophers of this century follow Spinoza in this, and
think themselves thereby justified. But Spinoza had special reasons for
thus naming his one substance, in order, namely, to preserve at least the
word, although not the thing. The stake of Giordano Bruno and of Vanini
was still fresh in the memory; they also had been sacrificed to that God
for whose honour incomparably more human sacrifices have bled than on the
altars of all heathen gods of both hemispheres together. If, then, Spinoza
calls the world God, it is exactly the same thing as when Rousseau in the
“_Contrat social_,” constantly and throughout denotes the people by the
word _le souverain_; we might also compare it with this, that once a
prince who intended to abolish the nobility in his land, in order to rob
no one of his own, hit upon the idea of ennobling all his subjects. Those
philosophers of our day have certainly one other ground for the
nomenclature we are speaking of, but it is no more substantial. In their
philosophising they all start, not from the world or our consciousness of
it, but from God, as something given and known; He is not their
_quæsitum_, but their _datum_. If they were boys I would then explain to
them that this is a _petitio principii_, but they know this as well as I
do. But since Kant has shown that the path of the earlier dogmatism, which
proceeded honestly, the path from the world to a God, does not lead there,
these gentlemen now imagine they have found a fine way of escape and made
it cunningly. Will the reader of a later age pardon me for detaining him
with persons of whom he has never heard.

Every glance at the world, to explain which is the task of the
philosopher, confirms and proves that _will to live_, far from being an
arbitrary hypostasis or an empty word, is the only true expression of its
inmost nature. Everything presses and strives towards _existence_, if
possible _organised existence_, _i.e._, _life_, and after that to the
highest possible grade of it. In animal nature it then becomes apparent
that _will to live_ is the keynote of its being, its one unchangeable and
unconditioned quality. Let any one consider this universal desire for
life, let him see the infinite willingness, facility, and exuberance with
which the will to live presses impetuously into existence under a million
forms everywhere and at every moment, by means of fructification and of
germs, nay, when these are wanting, by means of _generatio æquivoca_,
seizing every opportunity, eagerly grasping for itself every material
capable of life: and then again let him cast a glance at its fearful alarm
and wild rebellion when in any particular phenomenon it must pass out of
existence; especially when this takes place with distinct consciousness.
Then it is precisely the same as if in this single phenomenon the whole
world would be annihilated for ever, and the whole being of this
threatened living thing is at once transformed into the most desperate
struggle against death and resistance to it. Look, for example, at the
incredible anxiety of a man in danger of his life, the rapid and serious
participation in this of every witness of it, and the boundless rejoicing
at his deliverance. Look at the rigid terror with which a sentence of
death is heard, the profound awe with which we regard the preparations for
carrying it out, and the heartrending compassion which seizes us at the
execution itself. We would then suppose there was something quite
different in question than a few less years of an empty, sad existence,
embittered by troubles of every kind, and always uncertain: we would
rather be amazed that it was a matter of any consequence whether one
attained a few years earlier to the place where after an ephemeral
existence he has billions of years to be. In such phenomena, then, it
becomes visible that I am right in declaring that _the will to live_ is
that which cannot be further explained, but lies at the foundation of all
explanations, and that this, far from being an empty word, like the
absolute, the infinite, the idea, and similar expressions, is the most
real thing we know, nay, the kernel of reality itself.

But if now, abstracting for a while from this interpretation drawn from
our inner being, we place ourselves as strangers over against nature, in
order to comprehend it objectively, we find that from the grade of
organised life upwards it has only one intention—that of the _maintenance
of the species_. To this end it works, through the immense superfluity of
germs, through the urgent vehemence of the sexual instinct, through its
willingness to adapt itself to all circumstances and opportunities, even
to the production of bastards, and through the instinctive maternal
affection, the strength of which is so great that in many kinds of animals
it even outweighs self‐love, so that the mother sacrifices her life in
order to preserve that of the young. The individual, on the contrary, has
for nature only an indirect value, only so far as it is the means of
maintaining the species. Apart from this its existence is to nature a
matter of indifference; indeed nature even leads it to destruction as soon
as it has ceased to be useful for this end. Why the individual exists
would thus be clear; but why does the species itself exist? That is a
question which nature when considered merely objectively cannot answer.
For in vain do we seek by contemplating her for an end of this restless
striving, this ceaseless pressing into existence, this anxious care for
the maintenance of the species. The strength and time of the individuals
are consumed in the effort to procure sustenance for themselves and their
young, and are only just sufficient, sometimes even not sufficient, for
this. Even if here and there a surplus of strength, and therefore of
comfort—in the case of the _one_ rational species also of
knowledge—remains, this is much too insignificant to pass for the end of
that whole process of nature. The whole thing, when regarded thus purely
objectively, and indeed as extraneous to us, looks as if nature was only
concerned that of all her (Platonic) _Ideas_, _i.e._, permanent forms,
none should be lost. Accordingly, as if she had so thoroughly satisfied
herself with the fortunate discovery and combination of these Ideas (for
which the three preceding occasions on which she stocked the earth’s
surface with animals were only the preparation), that now her only fear is
lest any one of these beautiful fancies should be lost, _i.e._, lest any
one of these forms should disappear from time and the causal series. For
the individuals are fleeting as the water in the brook; the Ideas, on the
contrary, are permanent, like its eddies: but the exhaustion of the water
would also do away with the eddies. We would have to stop at this
unintelligible view if nature were known to us only from without, thus
were given us merely _objectively_, and we accepted it as it is
comprehended by knowledge, and also as sprung from knowledge, _i.e._, in
the sphere of the idea, and were therefore obliged to confine ourselves to
this province in solving it. But the case is otherwise, and a glance at
any rate is afforded us into the _interior of nature_; inasmuch as this is
nothing else than _our own inner being_, which is precisely where nature,
arrived at the highest grade to which its striving could work itself up,
is now by the light of knowledge found directly in self‐consciousness.
Here the will shows itself to us as something _toto genere_ different from
the idea, in which nature appears unfolded in all her (Platonic) Ideas;
and it now gives us, at one stroke, the explanation which could never be
found upon the objective path of the idea. Thus the subjective here gives
the key for the exposition of the objective. In order to recognise, as
something original and unconditioned, that exceedingly strong tendency of
all animals and men to retain life and carry it on as long as possible—a
tendency which was set forth above as characteristic of the subjective, or
of the will—it is necessary to make clear to ourselves that this is by no
means the result of any objective _knowledge_ of the worth of life, but is
independent of all knowledge; or, in other words, that those beings
exhibit themselves, not as drawn from in front, but as impelled from
behind.

If with this intention we first of all review the interminable series of
animals, consider the infinite variety of their forms, as they exhibit
themselves always differently modified according to their element and
manner of life, and also ponder the inimitable ingenuity of their
structure and mechanism, which is carried out with equal perfection in
every individual; and finally, if we take into consideration the
incredible expenditure of strength, dexterity, prudence, and activity
which every animal has ceaselessly to make through its whole life; if,
approaching the matter more closely, we contemplate the untiring diligence
of wretched little ants, the marvellous and ingenious industry of the
bees, or observe how a single burying‐beetle (_Necrophorus vespillo_)
buries a mole of forty times its own size in two days in order to deposit
its eggs in it and insure nourishment for the future brood (_Gleditsch,
Physik. Bot. Œkon. Abhandl._, iii. 220), at the same time calling to mind
how the life of most insects is nothing but ceaseless labour to prepare
food and an abode for the future brood which will arise from their eggs,
and which then, after they have consumed the food and passed through the
chrysalis state, enter upon life merely to begin again from the beginning
the same labour; then also how, like this, the life of the birds is for
the most part taken up with their distant and laborious migrations, then
with the building of their nests and the collecting of food for the brood,
which itself has to play the same rôle the following year; and so all work
constantly for the future, which afterwards makes bankrupt;—then we cannot
avoid looking round for the reward of all this skill and trouble, for the
end which these animals have before their eyes, which strive so
ceaselessly—in short, we are driven to ask: What is the result? what is
attained by the animal existence which demands such infinite preparation?
And there is nothing to point to but the satisfaction of hunger and the
sexual instinct, or in any case a little momentary comfort, as it falls to
the lot of each animal individual, now and then in the intervals of its
endless need and struggle. If we place the two together, the indescribable
ingenuity of the preparations, the enormous abundance of the means, and
the insufficiency of what is thereby aimed at and attained, the insight
presses itself upon us that life is a business, the proceeds of which are
very far from covering the cost of it. This becomes most evident in some
animals of a specially simple manner of life. Take, for example, the mole,
that unwearied worker. To dig with all its might with its enormous shovel
claws is the occupation of its whole life; constant night surrounds it;
its embryo eyes only make it avoid the light. It alone is truly an _animal
nocturnum_; not cats, owls, and bats, who see by night. But what, now,
does it attain by this life, full of trouble and devoid of pleasure? Food
and the begetting of its kind; thus only the means of carrying on and
beginning anew the same doleful course in new individuals. In such
examples it becomes clear that there is no proportion between the cares
and troubles of life and the results or gain of it. The consciousness of
the world of perception gives a certain appearance of objective worth of
existence to the life of those animals which can see, although in their
case this consciousness is entirely subjective and limited to the
influence of motives upon them. But the _blind_ mole, with its perfect
organisation and ceaseless activity, limited to the alternation of insect
larvæ and hunger, makes the disproportion of the means to the end
apparent. In this respect the consideration of the animal world left to
itself in lands uninhabited by men is also specially instructive. A
beautiful picture of this, and of the suffering which nature prepares for
herself without the interference of man, is given by Humboldt in his
“_Ansichten der Natur_” (second edition, p. 30 _et seq._); nor does he
neglect to cast a glance (p. 44) at the analogous suffering of the human
race, always and everywhere at variance with itself. Yet in the simple and
easily surveyed life of the brutes the emptiness and vanity of the
struggle of the whole phenomenon is more easily grasped. The variety of
the organisations, the ingenuity of the means, whereby each is adapted to
its element and its prey contrasts here distinctly with the want of any
lasting final aim; instead of which there presents itself only momentary
comfort, fleeting pleasure conditioned by wants, much and long suffering,
constant strife, _bellum omnium_, each one both a hunter and hunted,
pressure, want, need, and anxiety, shrieking and howling; and this goes on
_in secula seculorum_, or till once again the crust of the planet breaks.
Yunghahn relates that he saw in Java a plain far as the eye could reach
entirely covered with skeletons, and took it for a battlefield; they were,
however, merely the skeletons of large turtles, five feet long and three
feet broad, and the same height, which come this way out of the sea in
order to lay their eggs, and are then attacked by wild dogs (_Canis
rutilans_), who with their united strength lay them on their backs, strip
off their lower armour, that is, the small shell of the stomach, and so
devour them alive. But often then a tiger pounces upon the dogs. Now all
this misery repeats itself thousands and thousands of times, year out,
year in. For this, then, these turtles are born. For whose guilt must they
suffer this torment? Wherefore the whole scene of horror? To this the only
answer is: it is thus that the will to live objectifies itself.(7) Let one
consider it well and comprehend it in all its objectifications; and then
one will arrive at an understanding of its nature and of the world; but
not if one frames general conceptions and builds card houses out of them.
The comprehension of the great drama of the objectification of the will to
live, and the characterisation of its nature, certainly demands somewhat
more accurate consideration and greater thoroughness than the dismissal of
the world by attributing to it the title of God, or, with a silliness
which only the German fatherland offers and knows how to enjoy, explaining
it as the “Idea in its other being,” in which for twenty years the
simpletons of my time have found their unutterable delight. Certainly,
according to pantheism or Spinozism, of which the systems of our century
are mere travesties, all that sort of thing reels itself off actually
without end, straight on through all eternity. For then the world is a
God, _ens perfectissimum_, _i.e._, nothing better can be or be conceived.
Thus there is no need of deliverance from it; and consequently there is
none. But why the whole tragi‐comedy exists cannot in the least be seen;
for it has no spectators, and the actors themselves undergo infinite
trouble, with little and merely negative pleasure.

Let us now add the consideration of the human race. The matter indeed
becomes more complicated, and assumes a certain seriousness of aspect; but
the fundamental character remains unaltered. Here also life presents
itself by no means as a gift for enjoyment, but as a task, a drudgery to
be performed; and in accordance with this we see, in great and small,
universal need, ceaseless cares, constant pressure, endless strife,
compulsory activity, with extreme exertion of all the powers of body and
mind. Many millions, united into nations, strive for the common good, each
individual on account of his own; but many thousands fall as a sacrifice
for it. Now senseless delusions, now intriguing politics, incite them to
wars with each other; then the sweat and the blood of the great multitude
must flow, to carry out the ideas of individuals, or to expiate their
faults. In peace industry and trade are active, inventions work miracles,
seas are navigated, delicacies are collected from all ends of the world,
the waves engulf thousands. All strive, some planning, others acting; the
tumult is indescribable. But the ultimate aim of it all, what is it? To
sustain ephemeral and tormented individuals through a short span of time
in the most fortunate case with endurable want and comparative freedom
from pain, which, however, is at once attended with ennui; then the
reproduction of this race and its striving. In this evident disproportion
between the trouble and the reward, the will to live appears to us from
this point of view, if taken objectively, as a fool, or subjectively, as a
delusion, seized by which everything living works with the utmost exertion
of its strength for something that is of no value. But when we consider it
more closely, we shall find here also that it is rather a blind pressure,
a tendency entirely without ground or motive.

The law of motivation, as was shown in § 29 of the first volume, only
extends to the particular actions, not to willing _as a whole and in
general_. It depends upon this, that if we conceive of the human race and
its action _as a whole and universally_, it does not present itself to us,
as when we contemplate the particular actions, as a play of puppets who
are pulled after the ordinary manner by threads outside them; but from
this point of view, as puppets which are set in motion by internal
clockwork. For if, as we have done above, one compares the ceaseless,
serious, and laborious striving of men with what they gain by it, nay,
even with what they ever can gain, the disproportion we have pointed out
becomes apparent, for one recognises that that which is to be gained,
taken as the motive‐power, is entirely insufficient for the explanation of
that movement and that ceaseless striving. What, then, is a short
postponement of death, a slight easing of misery or deferment of pain, a
momentary stilling of desire, compared with such an abundant and certain
victory over them all as death? What could such advantages accomplish
taken as actual moving causes of a human race, innumerable because
constantly renewed, which unceasingly moves, strives, struggles, grieves,
writhes, and performs the whole tragi‐comedy of the history of the world,
nay, what says more than all, _perseveres_ in such a mock‐existence as
long as each one possibly can? Clearly this is all inexplicable if we seek
the moving causes outside the figures and conceive the human race as
striving, in consequence of rational reflection, or something analogous to
this (as moving threads), after those good things held out to it, the
attainment of which would be a sufficient reward for its ceaseless cares
and troubles. The matter being taken thus, every one would rather have
long ago said, “_Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_,” and have gone out.
But, on the contrary, every one guards and defends his life, like a
precious pledge intrusted to him under heavy responsibility, under
infinite cares and abundant misery, even under which life is tolerable.
The wherefore and the why, the reward for this, certainly he does not see;
but he has accepted the worth of that pledge without seeing it, upon trust
and faith, and does not know what it consists in. Hence I have said that
these puppets are not pulled from without, but each bears in itself the
clockwork from which its movements result. This is _the will to live_,
manifesting itself as an untiring machine, an irrational tendency, which
has not its sufficient reason in the external world. It holds the
individuals firmly upon the scene, and is the _primum mobile_ of their
movements; while the external objects, the motives, only determine their
direction in the particular case; otherwise the cause would not be at all
suitable to the effect. For, as every manifestation of a force of nature
has a cause, but the force of nature itself none, so every particular act
of will has a motive, but the will in general has none: indeed at bottom
these two are one and the same. The will, as that which is metaphysical,
is everywhere the boundary‐stone of every investigation, beyond which it
cannot go. From the original and unconditioned nature of the will, which
has been proved, it is explicable that man loves beyond everything else an
existence full of misery, trouble, pain, and anxiety, and, again, full of
ennui, which, if he considered and weighed it purely objectively, he would
certainly abhor, and fears above all things the end of it, which is yet
for him the one thing certain.(8) Accordingly we often see a miserable
figure, deformed and shrunk with age, want, and disease, implore our help
from the bottom of his heart for the prolongation of an existence, the end
of which would necessarily appear altogether desirable if it were an
objective judgment that determined here. Thus instead of this it is the
blind will, appearing as the tendency to life, the love of life, and the
sense of life; it is the same which makes the plants grow. This sense of
life may be compared to a rope which is stretched above the puppet‐show of
the world of men, and on which the puppets hang by invisible threads,
while apparently they are supported only by the ground beneath them (the
objective value of life). But if the rope becomes weak the puppet sinks;
if it breaks the puppet must fall, for the ground beneath it only seemed
to support it: _i.e._, the weakening of that love of life shows itself as
hypochondria, spleen, melancholy: its entire exhaustion as the inclination
to suicide, which now takes place on the slightest occasion, nay, for a
merely imaginary reason, for now, as it were, the man seeks a quarrel with
himself, in order to shoot himself dead, as many do with others for a like
purpose;—indeed, upon necessity, suicide is resorted to without any
special occasion. (Evidence of this will be found in Esquirol, _Des
maladies mentales_, 1838.) And as with the persistence in life, so is it
also with its action and movement. This is not something freely chosen;
but while every one would really gladly rest, want and ennui are the whips
that keep the top spinning. Therefore the whole and every individual bears
the stamp of a forced condition; and every one, in that, inwardly weary,
he longs for rest, but yet must press forward, is like his planet, which
does not fall into the sun only because a force driving it forward
prevents it. Therefore everything is in continual strain and forced
movement, and the course of the world goes on, to use an expression of
Aristotle’s (_De cœlo_, ii. 13), “ου φυσει, αλλα βιᾳ” (_Motu, non naturali
sed violento_). Men are only apparently drawn from in front; really they
are pushed from behind; it is not life that tempts them on, but necessity
that drives them forward. The law of motivation is, like all causality,
merely the form of the phenomenon. We may remark in passing that this is
the source of the comical, the burlesque, the grotesque, the ridiculous
side of life; for, urged forward against his will, every one bears himself
as best he can, and the straits that thus arise often look comical enough,
serious as is the misery which underlies them.

In all these considerations, then, it becomes clear to us that the will to
live is not a consequence of the knowledge of life, is in no way a
_conclusio ex præmissis_, and in general is nothing secondary. Rather, it
is that which is first and unconditioned, the premiss of all premisses,
and just on that account that from which philosophy must _start_, for the
will to live does not appear in consequence of the world, but the world in
consequence of the will to live.

I scarcely need to draw attention to the fact that the considerations with
which we now conclude the second book already point forcibly to the
serious theme of the fourth book, indeed would pass over into it directly
if it were not that my architectonic symmetry makes it necessary that the
third book, with its fair contents, should come between, as a second
consideration of _the world as idea_, the conclusion of which, however,
again points in the same direction.





SUPPLEMENTS TO THE THIRD BOOK.


    “_Et is similis spectatori est, quad ab omni separatus spectaculum
    videt._”

    —OUPNEKHAT, vol. i. p. 304.




Chapter XXIX.(9) On The Knowledge Of The Ideas.


The intellect, which has hitherto only been considered in its original and
natural condition of servitude under the will, appears in the third book
in its deliverance from that bondage; with regard to which, however, it
must at once be observed that we have not to do here with a lasting
emancipation, but only with a brief hour of rest, an exceptional and
indeed only momentary release from the service of the will. As this
subject has been treated with sufficient fulness in the first volume, I
have here only to add a few supplementary remarks.

As, then, was there explained, the intellect in its activity in the
service of the will, thus in its natural function, knows only the mere
_relations_ of things; primarily to the will itself, to which it belongs,
whereby they become motives of the will; but then also, just for the sake
of the completeness of this knowledge, the relations of things to each
other. This last knowledge first appears in some extent and importance in
the human intellect; in the case of the brutes, on the other hand, even
where the intellect is considerably developed, only within very narrow
limits. Clearly even the apprehension of the relations which things have
to each other only takes place, _indirectly_, in the service of the will.
It therefore forms the transition to the purely objective knowledge, which
is entirely independent of the will; it is scientific knowledge, the
latter is artistic knowledge. If many and various relations of an object
are immediately apprehended, from these the peculiar and proper nature of
the object appears ever more distinctly, and gradually constructs itself
out of mere relations: although it itself is entirely different from them.
In this mode of apprehension the subjection of the intellect to the will
at once becomes ever more indirect and less. If the intellect has strength
enough to gain the preponderance, and let go altogether the relations of
things to the will, in order to apprehend, instead of them, the purely
objective nature of a phenomenon, which expresses itself through all
relations, it also forsakes, along with the service of the will, the
apprehension of mere relations, and thereby really also that of the
individual thing as such. It then moves freely, no longer belonging to a
will. In the individual thing it knows only the _essential_, and therefore
its whole _species_; consequently it now has for its object the _Ideas_,
in my sense, which agrees with the original, Platonic meaning of this
grossly misused word; thus the permanent, unchanging forms, independent of
the temporal existence of the individuals, the _species rerum_, which
really constitute what is purely objective in the phenomena. An Idea so
apprehended is not yet indeed the essence of the thing in itself, just
because it has sprung from knowledge of mere relations; yet, as the result
of the sum of all the relations, it is the peculiar _character_ of the
thing, and thereby the complete expression of the essence which exhibits
itself as an object of perception, comprehended, not in relation to an
individual will, but as it expresses itself spontaneously, whereby indeed
it determines all its relations, which till then alone were known. The
Idea is the root point of all these relations, and thereby the complete
and perfect phenomenon, or, as I have expressed it in the text, the
adequate objectivity of the will at this grade of its manifestation. Form
and colour, indeed, which in the apprehension of the Idea by perception
are what is immediate, belong at bottom not to the Idea itself, but are
merely the medium of its expression; for, strictly speaking, space is as
foreign to it as time. In this sense the Neo‐Platonist Olympiodorus
already says in his commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades (Kreuzer’s edition of
Proclus and Olympiodorus, vol. ii. p. 82): “το ειδος μεταδεδωκε μεν της
μορφης τῃ ὑλῃ αμερες δε ον μετελαβεν εξ αυτης του δεαστατου:” _i.e._, the
Idea, in itself unextended, imparted certainly the form to the matter, but
first assumed extension from it. Thus, as was said, the Ideas reveal not
the thing in itself, but only the objective character of things, thus
still only the phenomenon; and we would not even understand this character
if the inner nature of things were not otherwise known to us at least
obscurely and in feeling. This nature itself cannot be understood from the
Ideas, nor in general through any merely _objective_ knowledge; therefore
it would remain an eternal secret if we were not able to approach it from
an entirely different side. Only because every knowing being is also an
individual, and thereby a part of nature, does the approach to the inner
being of nature stand open to him in his own self‐consciousness, where, as
we have found, it makes itself known in the most immediate manner as will.

Now what the Platonic Idea is, regarded as a merely objective image, mere
form, and thereby lifted out of time and all relations—that, taken
empirically and in time, is the _species_ or kind. This, then, is the
empirical correlative of the Idea. The Idea is properly eternal, but the
species is of endless duration, although its appearance upon one planet
may become extinct. Even the names of the two pass over into each other:
ιδεα, ειδος, _species_, kind. The Idea is the species, but not the genus:
therefore the _species_ are the work of nature, the _genera_ the work of
man; they are mere conceptions. There are _species __ naturales_, but only
_genera logica_. Of manufactured articles there are no Ideas, but only
conceptions; thus _genera logica_, and their subordinate classes are
_species logicæ_. To what is said in this reference in vol. i. § 41, I
will add here that Aristotle also (_Metaph._ i. 9 and xiii. 5) says that
the Platonists admitted no ideas of manufactured articles: “ὁιον οικια,
και δακτυλιος, ὡν ου φασιν ειναι ειδη” (_Ut domus et annulus, quorum ideas
dari negant_). With which compare the Scholiast, p. 562, 563 of the Berlin
quarto edition. Aristotle further says (_Metaph._ xi. 3): “αλλ ειπερ
(Supple., ειδῃ εστι) επι των φυσει (εστι) διο δη ου κακως ὁ Πλατων εφη,
ὁτι ειδη εστι ὁποσα φυσει” (_Si quidem ideæ sunt, in iis sunt, quæ natura
fiunt: propter quod non male Plato dixit, quod species eorum sunt, quæ
natura sunt_). On which the Scholiast remarks, p. 800: “και τουτο αρεσκει
και αυτοις τοις τας ιδεας θεμενοις; των γαρ ὑπο τεχνης γινομενων ιδεας
ειναι ουκ ελεγον, αλλα των ὑπο φυσεως” (_Hoc etiam ipsis ideas
statuentibus placet: non enim arte factorum ideas dari ajebant, sed natura
procreatorum_). For the rest, the doctrine of Ideas originated with the
Pythagoreans, unless we distrust the assertion of Plutarch in the book,
_De placitis philosophorum_, L. i. c. 3.

The individual is rooted in the species, and time in eternity. And as
every individual is so only because it has the nature of its species in
itself, so also it has only temporal existence because it is in eternity.
In the following book a special chapter is devoted to the life of the
species.

In § 49 of the first volume I have sufficiently brought out the difference
between the Idea and the conception. Their resemblance, on the other hand,
rests upon the following ground: The original and essential unity of an
Idea becomes broken up into the multiplicity of individual things through
the perception of the knowing individual, which is subject to sensuous and
cerebral conditions. But that unity is then restored through the
reflection of the reason, yet only _in abstracto_, as a concept,
_universale_, which indeed is equal to the Idea in extension, but has
assumed quite a different _form_, and has thereby lost its perceptible
nature, and with this its thorough determinateness. In this sense (but in
no other) we might, in the language of the Scholastics, describe the Ideas
as _universalia ante rem_, the conceptions as _universalia post rem_.
Between the two stand the individual things, the knowledge of which is
possessed also by the brutes. Without doubt the realism of the Scholastics
arose from the confusion of the Platonic Ideas, to which, since they are
also the species, an objective real being can certainly be attributed,
with the mere concepts to which the Realists now wished to attribute such
a being, and thereby called forth the victorious opposition of Nominalism.




Chapter XXX.(10) On The Pure Subject Of Knowledge.


The comprehension of an Idea, the entrance of it into our consciousness,
is only possible by means of a change in us, which might also be regarded
as an act of self‐denial; for it consists in this, that knowledge turns
away altogether from our own will, thus now leaves out of sight entirely
the valuable pledge intrusted to it, and considers things as if they could
never concern the will at all. For thus alone does knowledge become a pure
mirror of the objective nature of things. Knowledge conditioned in this
way must lie at the foundation of every genuine work of art as its origin.
The change in the subject which is required for this cannot proceed from
the will, just because it consists in the elimination of all volition;
thus it can be no act of the will, _i.e._, it cannot lie in our choice. On
the contrary, it springs only from a temporary preponderance of the
intellect over the will, or, physiologically considered, from a strong
excitement of the perceptive faculty of the brain, without any excitement
of the desires or emotions. To explain this somewhat more accurately I
remind the reader that our consciousness has two sides; partly, it is a
consciousness of our _own selves_, which is the will; partly a
consciousness of other things, and as such primarily, knowledge, _through
perception_, of the external world, the apprehension of objects. Now the
more one side of the whole consciousness comes to the front, the more the
other side withdraws. Accordingly, the consciousness of _other things_,
thus knowledge of perception, becomes the more perfect, _i.e._, the more
objective, the less we are conscious of ourselves at the time. Here exists
an actual antagonism. The more we are conscious of the object, the less we
are conscious of the subject; the more, on the other hand, the latter
occupies our consciousness, the weaker and more imperfect is our
perception of the external world. The state which is required for pure
objectivity of perception has partly permanent conditions in the
perfection of the brain and the general physiological qualities favourable
to its activity, partly temporary conditions, inasmuch as such a state is
favoured by all that increases the attention and heightens the
susceptibility of the cerebral nervous system, yet without exciting any
passion. One must not think here of spirituous drinks or opium; what is
rather required is a night of quiet sleep, a cold bath, and all that
procures for the brain activity an unforced predominance by quieting the
circulation and calming the passions. It is especially these natural means
of furthering the cerebral nervous activity which bring it about,
certainly so much the better the more developed and energetic in general
the brain is, that the object separates itself ever more from the subject,
and finally introduces the state of pure objectivity of perception, which
of itself eliminates the will from consciousness, and in which all things
stand before us with increased clearness and distinctness, so that we are
conscious almost only of them and scarcely at all of ourselves; thus our
whole consciousness is almost nothing more than the medium through which
the perceived object appears in the world as an idea. Thus it is necessary
for pure, will‐less knowledge that the consciousness of ourselves should
vanish, since the consciousness of other things is raised to such a pitch.
For we only apprehend the world in a purely objective manner when we no
longer know that we belong to it; and all things appear the more beautiful
the more we are conscious merely of them and the less we are conscious of
ourselves. Since now all suffering proceeds from the will, which
constitutes the real self, with the withdrawal of this side of
consciousness all possibility of suffering is also abolished; therefore
the condition of the pure objectivity of perception is one which
throughout gives pleasure; and hence I have shown that in it lies one of
the two constituent elements of æsthetic satisfaction. As soon, on the
other hand, as the consciousness of our own self, thus subjectivity,
_i.e._, the will, again obtains the upper hand, a proportional degree of
discomfort or unrest also enters; of discomfort, because our corporealness
(the organism which in itself is the will) is again felt; of unrest,
because the will, on the path of thought, again fills the consciousness
through wishes, emotions, passions, and cares. For the will, as the
principle of subjectivity, is everywhere the opposite, nay, the antagonist
of knowledge. The greatest concentration of subjectivity consists in the
_act of will_ proper, in which therefore we have the most distinct
consciousness of our own self. All other excitements of the will are only
preparations for this; the act of will itself is for subjectivity what for
the electric apparatus is the passing of the spark. Every bodily sensation
is in itself an excitement of the will, and indeed oftener of the
_noluntas_ than of the _voluntas_. The excitement of the will on the path
of thought is that which occurs by means of motives; thus here the
subjectivity is awakened and set in play by the objectivity itself. This
takes place whenever any object is apprehended no longer in a purely
objective manner, thus without participation in it, but, directly or
indirectly, excites desire or aversion, even if it is only by means of a
recollection, for then it acts as a motive in the widest sense of the
word.

I remark here that abstract thinking and reading, which are connected with
words, belong indeed in the wider sense to the consciousness _of other
things_, thus to the objective employment of the mind; yet only
indirectly, by means of conceptions. But the latter are the artificial
product of the reason, and are therefore already a work of intention.
Moreover, the will is the ruler of all abstract exercise of the mind, for,
according to its aims, it imparts the direction, and also fixes the
attention; therefore such mental activity is always accompanied by some
effort; and this presupposes the activity of the will. Thus complete
objectivity of consciousness does not exist with this kind of mental
activity, as it accompanies the æsthetic apprehension, _i.e._, the
knowledge of the Ideas, as a condition.

In accordance with the above, the pure objectivity of perception, by
virtue of which no longer the individual thing as such, but the Idea of
its species is known, is conditioned by the fact that one is no longer
conscious of oneself, but only of the perceived objects, so that one’s own
consciousness only remains as the supporter of the objective existence of
these objects. What increases the difficulty of this state, and therefore
makes it more rare, is, that in it the accident (the intellect) overcomes
and annuls the substance (the will), although only for a short time. Here
also lies the analogy and, indeed, the relationship of this with the
denial of the will expounded at the end of the following book. Although
knowledge, as was shown in the preceding book, is sprung from the will and
is rooted in the manifestation of the will, the organism, yet it is just
by the will that its purity is disturbed, as the flame is by the fuel and
its smoke. It depends upon this that we can only apprehend the purely
objective nature of things, the Ideas which appear in them, when we have
ourselves no interest in them, because they stand in no relation to our
will. From this, again, it arises that the Ideas of anything appeal to us
more easily from a work of art than from reality. For what we behold only
in a picture or in poetry stands outside all possibility of having any
relation to our will; for in itself it exists only for knowledge and
appeals immediately to knowledge alone. On the other hand, the
apprehension of Ideas from reality assumes some measure of abstraction
from our own volition, arising above its interests which demands a special
power of the intellect. In a high degree, and for some duration, this
belongs only to genius, which consists indeed in this, that a greater
measure of the power of knowledge exists than is required for the service
of an individual will, and this surplus becomes free, and now comprehends
the world without reference to the will. Thus that the work of art
facilitates so greatly the apprehension of the Ideas, in which æsthetic
satisfaction consists, depends not merely upon the fact that art, by
giving prominence to what is essential and eliminating what is
unessential, presents the things more distinctly and characteristically,
but just as much on the fact that the absolute silence of the will, which
is demanded for the purely objective comprehension of the nature of the
things, is attained with the greatest certainty when the perceived object
itself lies entirely outside the province of things which are capable of
having a relation to the will, because it is nothing real, but a mere
picture. Now this holds good, not only of the works of plastic and
pictorial art, but also of poetry; the effect of which is also conditioned
by indifferent, will‐less, and thereby purely objective apprehension. It
is exactly this which makes a perceived object _picturesque_, an event of
actual life _poetical_; for it is only this that throws over the objects
of the real world that magic gleam which in the case of sensibly perceived
objects is called the picturesque, and in the case of those which are only
perceived in imagination is called the poetical. If poets sing of the
blithe morning, the beautiful evening, the still moonlight night, and many
such things, the real object of their praise is, unknown to themselves,
the pure subject of knowledge which is called forth by those beauties of
nature, and on the appearance of which the will vanishes from
consciousness, and so that peace of heart enters which, apart from this,
is unattainable in the world. How otherwise, for example, could the verse—


    “_Nox erat, at cœlo fulgebat luna sereno,_
          _Inter minora sidera_,”


affect us so beneficently, nay, so magically? Further, that the stranger
or the mere passing traveller feels the picturesque or poetical effect of
objects which are unable to produce this effect upon those who live among
them may be explained from the fact that the novelty and complete
strangeness of the objects of such an indifferent, purely objective
apprehension are favourable to it. Thus, for example, the sight of an
entirely strange town often makes a specially agreeable impression upon
the traveller, which it by no means produces in the inhabitant of it; for
it arises from the fact that the former, being out of all relation to this
town and its inhabitants, perceives it purely objectively. Upon this
depends partly the pleasure of travelling. This seems also to be the
reason why it is sought to increase the effect of narrative or dramatic
works by transferring the scene to distant times or lands: in Germany, to
Italy or Spain; in Italy, to Germany, Poland, or even Holland. If now
perfectly objective, intuitive apprehension, purified from all volition,
is the condition of the _enjoyment_ of æsthetic objects, so much the more
is it the condition of their _production_. Every good picture, every
genuine poem, bears the stamp of the frame of mind described. For only
what has sprung from perception, and indeed from purely objective
perception, or is directly excited by it, contains the living germ from
which genuine and original achievements can grow up: not only in plastic
and pictorial art, but also in poetry, nay, even in philosophy. The
_punctum saliens_ of every beautiful work, of every great or profound
thought, is a purely objective perception. Such perception, however, is
absolutely conditioned by the complete silence of the will, which leaves
the man simply the pure subject of knowledge. The natural disposition for
the predominance of this state is genius.

With the disappearance of volition from consciousness, the individuality
also, and with it its suffering and misery, is really abolished. Therefore
I have described the pure subject of knowledge which then remains over as
the eternal eye of the world, which, although with very different degrees
of clearness, looks forth from all living creatures, untouched by their
appearing and passing away, and thus, as identical with itself, as
constantly one and the same, is the supporter of the world of permanent
Ideas, _i.e._, of the adequate objectivity of the will; while the
individual subject, whose knowledge is clouded by the individuality which
springs from the will, has only particular things as its object, and is
transitory as these themselves. In the sense here indicated a double
existence may be attributed to every one. As will, and therefore as
individual, he is only one, and this one exclusively, which gives him
enough to do and to suffer. As the purely objective perceiver, he is the
pure subject of knowledge in whose consciousness alone the objective world
has its existence; as such he is _all things_ so far as he perceives them.
and in him is their existence without burden or inconvenience. It is _his_
existence, so far as it exists in _his_ idea; but it is there without
will. So far, on the other hand, as it is will, it is not in him. It is
well with every one when he is in that state in which he is all things; it
is ill with him when in the state in which he is exclusively one. Every
state, every man, every scene of life, requires only to be purely
objectively apprehended and be made the subject of a sketch, whether with
pencil or with words, in order to appear interesting, charming, and
enviable; but if one is in it, if one is it oneself, then (it is often a
case of) may the devil endure it. Therefore Goethe says—


    “What in life doth only grieve us,
    That in art we gladly see.”


There was a period in the years of my youth when I was always trying to
see myself and my action from without, and picture it to myself; probably
in order to make it more enjoyable to me.

As I have never spoken before on the subject I have just been considering,
I wish to add a psychological illustration of it.

In the immediate perception of the world and of life we consider things,
as a rule, merely in their relations, consequently according to their
relative and not their absolute nature and existence. For example, we will
regard houses, ships, machines, and the like with the thought of their end
and their adaptation to it; men, with the thought of their relation to us,
if they have any such; and then with that of their relations to each
other, whether in their present action or with regard to their position
and business, judging perhaps their fitness for it, &c. Such a
consideration of the relations we can follow more or less far to the most
distant links of their chain: the consideration will thereby gain in
accuracy and extent, but in its quality and nature it remains the same. It
is the consideration of things in their relations, nay, _by means of
these_, thus according to the principle of sufficient reason. Every one,
for the most part and as a rule, is given up to this method of
consideration; indeed I believe that most men are capable of no other. But
if, as an exception, it happens that we experience a momentary heightening
of the intensity of our intuitive intelligence, we at once see things with
entirely different eyes, in that we now apprehend them no longer according
to their relations, but according to that which they are in and for
themselves, and suddenly perceive their absolute existence apart from
their relative existence. At once every individual represents its species;
and accordingly we now apprehend the universal of every being. Now what we
thus know are the _Ideas of things_; but out of these there now speaks a
higher wisdom than that which knows of mere relations. And we also have
then passed out of the relations, and have thus become the pure subject of
knowledge. But what now exceptionally brings about this state must be
internal physiological processes, which purify the activity of the brain,
and heighten it to such a degree that a sudden spring‐tide of activity
like this ensues. The external conditions of this are that we remain
completely strange to the scene to be considered, and separated from it,
and are absolutely not actively involved in it.

In order to see that a purely objective, and therefore correct,
comprehension of things is only possible when we consider them without any
personal participation in them, thus when the will is perfectly silent,
let one call to mind how much every emotion or passion disturbs and
falsifies our knowledge, indeed how every inclination and aversion alters,
colours, and distorts not only the judgment, but even the original
perception of things. Let one remember how when we are gladdened by some
fortunate occurrence the whole world at once assumes a bright colour and a
smiling aspect, and, on the contrary, looks gloomy and sad when we are
pressed with cares; also, how even a lifeless thing, if it is to be made
use of in doing something which we abhor, seems to have a hideous
physiognomy; for example, the scaffold, the fortress, to which we have
been brought, the surgeon’s cases of instruments; the travelling carriage
of our loved one, &c., nay, numbers, letters, seals, may seem to grin upon
us horribly and affect us as fearful monstrosities. On the other hand, the
tools for the accomplishment of our wishes at once appear to us agreeable
and pleasing; for example, the hump‐backed old woman with the love‐letter,
the Jew with the louis d’ors, the rope‐ladder to escape by, &c. As now
here the falsification of the idea through the will in the case of special
abhorrence or love is unmistakable, so is it present in a less degree in
every object which has any even distant relation to our will, that is, to
our desire or aversion. Only when the will with its interests has left
consciousness, and the intellect freely follows its own laws, and as pure
subject mirrors the objective world, yet in doing so, although spurred on
by no volition, is of its own inclination in the highest state of tension
and activity, do the colours and forms of things appear in their true and
full significance. Thus it is from such comprehension alone that genuine
works of art can proceed whose permanent worth and ever renewed approval
arises simply from the fact that they express the purely objective
element, which lies at the foundation of and shines through the different
subjective, and therefore distorted, perceptions, as that which is common
to them all and alone stands fast; as it were the common theme of all
those subjective variations. For certainly the nature which is displayed
before our eyes exhibits itself very differently in different minds; and
as each one sees it so alone can he repeat it, whether with the pencil or
the chisel, or with words and gestures on the stage. Objectivity alone
makes one capable of being an artist; but objectivity is only possible in
this way, that the intellect, separated from its root the will, moves
freely, and yet acts with the highest degree of energy.

To the youth whose perceptive intellect still acts with fresh energy
nature often exhibits itself with complete objectivity, and therefore with
perfect beauty. But the pleasure of such a glance is sometimes disturbed
by the saddening reflection that the objects present which exhibit
themselves in such beauty do not stand in a personal relation to this
will, by virtue of which they could interest and delight him; he expects
his life in the form of an interesting romance. “Behind that jutting cliff
the well‐mounted band of friends should await me,—beside that waterfall my
love should rest; this beautifully lighted building should be her
dwelling, and that vine‐clad window hers;—but this beautiful world is for
me a desert!” and so on. Such melancholy youthful reveries really demand
something exactly contradictory to themselves; for the beauty with which
those objects present themselves depends just upon the pure objectivity,
_i.e._, disinterestedness of their perception, and would therefore at once
be abolished by the relation to his own will which the youth painfully
misses, and thus the whole charm which now affords him pleasure, even
though alloyed with a certain admixture of pain, would cease to exist. The
same holds good, moreover, of every age and every relation; the beauty of
the objects of a landscape which now delights us would vanish if we stood
in personal relations to them, of which we remained always conscious.
Everything is beautiful only so long as it does not concern us. (We are
not speaking here of sensual passion, but of æsthetic pleasure.) Life is
never beautiful, but only the pictures of life are so in the transfiguring
mirror of art or poetry; especially in youth, when we do not yet know it.
Many a youth would receive great peace of mind if one could assist him to
this knowledge.

Why has the sight of the full moon such a beneficent, quieting, and
exalting effect? Because the moon is an object of perception, but never of
desire:


    “The stars we yearn not after
    Delight us with their glory.”—G.


Further, it is sublime, _i.e._, it induces a lofty mood in us, because,
without any relation to us, it moves along for ever strange to earthly
doings, and sees all while it takes part in nothing. Therefore, at the
sight of it the will, with its constant neediness, vanishes from
consciousness, and leaves a purely knowing consciousness behind. Perhaps
there is also mingled here a feeling that we share this sight with
millions, whose individual differences are therein extinguished, so that
in this perception they are one, which certainly increases the impression
of the sublime. Finally, this is also furthered by the fact that the moon
lights without heating, in which certainly lies the reason why it has been
called chaste and identified with Diana. In consequence of this whole
beneficent impression upon our feeling, the moon becomes gradually our
bosom friend. The sun, again, never does so; but is like an over‐plenteous
benefactor whom we can never look in the face.

The following remark may find room here as an addition to what is said in
§ 38 of the first volume on the æsthetic pleasure afforded by light,
reflection, and colours. The whole immediate, thoughtless, but also
unspeakable, pleasure which is excited in us by the impression of colours,
strengthened by the gleam of metal, and still more by transparency, as,
for example, in coloured windows, and in a greater measure by means of the
clouds and their reflection at sunset,—ultimately depends upon the fact
that here in the easiest manner, almost by a physical necessity, our whole
interest is won for knowledge, without any excitement of our will, so that
we enter the state of pure knowing, although for the most part this
consists here in a mere sensation of the affection of the retina, which,
however, as it is in itself perfectly free from pain or pleasure, and
therefore entirely without direct influence on the will, thus belongs to
pure knowledge.




Chapter XXXI.(11) On Genius.


What is properly denoted by the name genius is the predominating capacity
for that kind of knowledge which has been described in the two preceding
chapters, the knowledge from which all genuine works of art and poetry,
and even of philosophy, proceed. Accordingly, since this has for its
objects the Platonic Ideas, and these are not comprehended in the
abstract, but _only perceptibly_, the essence of genius must lie in the
perfection and energy of the knowledge of _perception_. Corresponding to
this, the works which we hear most decidedly designated works of genius
are those which start immediately from perception and devote themselves to
perception; thus those of plastic and pictorial art, and then those of
poetry, which gets its perceptions by the assistance of the imagination.
The difference between genius and mere talent makes itself noticeable even
here. For talent is an excellence which lies rather in the greater
versatility and acuteness of discursive than of intuitive knowledge. He
who is endowed with talent thinks more quickly and more correctly than
others; but the genius beholds another world from them all, although only
because he has a more profound perception of the world which lies before
them also, in that it presents itself in his mind more objectively, and
consequently in greater purity and distinctness.

The intellect is, according to its destination, merely the medium of
motives; and in accordance with this it originally comprehends nothing in
things but their relations to the will, the direct, the indirect, and the
possible. In the case of the brutes, where it is almost entirely confined
to the direct relations, the matter is just on that account most apparent:
what has no relation to their will does not exist for them. Therefore we
sometimes see with surprise that even clever animals do not observe at all
something conspicuous to them; for example, they show no surprise at
obvious alterations in our person and surroundings. In the case of normal
men the indirect, and even the possible, relations to the will are added,
the sum of which make up the total of useful knowledge; but here also
knowledge remains confined to the relations. Therefore the normal mind
does not attain to an absolutely pure, objective picture of things,
because its power of perception, whenever it is not spurred on by the will
and set in motion, at once becomes tired and inactive, because it has not
enough energy of its own elasticity and without an end in view to
apprehend the world in a purely objective manner. Where, on the other
hand, this takes place—where the brain has such a surplus of the power of
ideation that a pure, distinct, objective image of the external world
exhibits itself _without any aim_; an image which is useless for the
intentions of the will, indeed, in the higher degrees, disturbing, and
even injurious to them—there, the natural disposition, at least, is
already present for that abnormity which the name genius denotes, which
signifies that here a _genius_ foreign to the will, _i.e._, to the I
proper, as it were coming from without, seems to be active. But to speak
without a figure: genius consists in this, that the knowing faculty has
received a considerably greater development than the _service of the
will_, for which alone it originally appeared, demands. Therefore,
strictly speaking, physiology might to a certain extent class such a
superfluity of brain activity, and with it of brain itself, among the
_monstra per excessum_, which, it is well known, it co‐ordinates with
_monstra per defectum_ and those _per situm mutatum_. Thus genius consists
in an abnormally large measure of intellect, which can only find its use
by being applied to the universal of existence, whereby it then devotes
itself to the service of the whole human race, as the normal intellect to
that of the individual. In order to make this perfectly comprehensible one
might say: if the normal man consists of two‐thirds will and one‐third
intellect, the genius, on the contrary, has two‐thirds intellect and one‐
third will. This might, then, be further illustrated by a chemical simile:
the base and the acid of a neutral salt are distinguished by the fact that
in each of the two the radical has the converse relation to oxygen to that
which it has in the other. The base or the alkali is so because in it the
radical predominates with reference to oxygen, and the acid is so because
in it oxygen predominates. In the same way now the normal man and the
genius are related in respect of will and intellect. From this arises a
thorough distinction between them, which is visible even in their whole
nature and behaviour, but comes out most clearly in their achievements.
One might add the difference that while that total opposition between the
chemical materials forms the strongest affinity and attraction between
them, in the human race the opposite is rather wont to be found.

The first manifestation which such a superfluity of the power of knowledge
calls forth shows itself for the most part in the most original and
fundamental knowledge, _i.e._, in knowledge of _perception_, and occasions
the repetition of it in an image; hence arises the painter and the
sculptor. In their case, then, the path between the apprehension of genius
and the artistic production is the shortest; therefore the form in which
genius and its activity here exhibits itself is the simplest and its
description the easiest. Yet here also the source is shown from which all
genuine productions in every art, in poetry, and indeed in philosophy,
have their origin, although in the case of these the process is not so
simple.

Let the result arrived at in the first book be here borne in mind, that
all perception is intellectual and not merely sensuous. If one now adds
the exposition given here, and, at the same time, in justice considers
that the philosophy of last century denoted the perceptive faculty of
knowledge by the name “lower powers of the soul,” we will not think it so
utterly absurd nor so deserving of the bitter scorn with which Jean Paul
quotes it in his “_Vorschule der Æsthetik_,” that Adelung, who had to
speak the language of his age, placed genius in “a remarkable strength of
the lower powers of the soul.” The work just referred to of this author,
who is so worthy of our admiration, has great excellences, but yet I must
remark that all through, whenever a theoretical explanation and, in
general, instruction is the end in view, a style of exposition which is
constantly indulging in displays of wit and hurrying along in mere similes
cannot be well adapted to the purpose.

It is, then, _perception_ to which primarily the peculiar and true nature
of things, although still in a conditioned manner, discloses and reveals
itself. All conceptions and everything thought are mere abstractions,
consequently partial ideas taken from perception, and have only arisen by
thinking away. All profound knowledge, even wisdom properly so called, is
rooted in the _perceptive_ apprehension of things, as we have fully
considered in the supplements to the first book. A _perceptive_
apprehension has always been the generative process in which every genuine
work of art, every immortal thought, received the spark of life. All
primary thought takes place in pictures. From conceptions, on the other
hand, arise the works of mere talent, the merely rational thoughts,
imitations, and indeed all that is calculated merely with reference to the
present need and contemporary conditions.

But if now our perception were constantly bound to the real present of
things, its material would be entirely under the dominion of chance, which
seldom produces things at the right time, seldom arranges them for an end
and for the most part presents them to us in very defective examples.
Therefore the _imagination_ is required in order to complete, arrange,
give the finishing touches to, retain, and repeat at pleasure all those
significant pictures of life, according as the aims of a profoundly
penetrating knowledge and of the significant work whereby they are to be
communicated may demand. Upon this rests the high value of imagination,
which is an indispensable tool of genius. For only by virtue of
imagination can genius ever, according to the requirements of the
connection of its painting or poetry or thinking, call up to itself each
object or event in a lively image, and thus constantly draw fresh
nourishment from the primary source of all knowledge, perception. The man
who is endowed with imagination is able, as it were, to call up spirits,
who at the right time reveal to him the truths which the naked reality of
things exhibits only weakly, rarely, and then for the most part at the
wrong time. Therefore the man without imagination is related to him, as
the mussel fastened to its rock, which must wait for what chance may bring
it, is related to the freely moving or even winged animal. For such a man
knows nothing but the actual perception of the senses: till it comes he
gnaws at conceptions and abstractions which are yet mere shells and husks,
not the kernel of knowledge. He will never achieve anything great, unless
it be in calculating and mathematics. The works of plastic and pictorial
art and of poetry, as also the achievements of mimicry, may also be
regarded as means by which those who have no imagination may make up for
this defect as far as possible, and those who are gifted with it may
facilitate the use of it.

Thus, although the kind of knowledge which is peculiar and essential to
genius is knowledge of _perception_, yet the special object of this
knowledge by no means consists of the particular things, but of the
Platonic Ideas which manifest themselves in these, as their apprehension
was analysed in chapter 29. Always to see the universal in the particular
is just the fundamental characteristic of genius, while the normal man
knows in the particular only the particular as such, for only as such does
it belong to the actual which alone has interests for him, _i.e._,
relations to his _will_. The degree in which every one not merely thinks,
but actually perceives, in the particular thing, only the particular, or a
more or less universal up to the most universal of the species, is the
measure of his approach to genius. And corresponding to this, only the
nature of things generally, the universal in them, the whole, is the
special object of genius. The investigation of the particular phenomena is
the field of the talents, in the real sciences, whose special object is
always only the relations of things to each other.

What was fully shown in the preceding chapter, that the apprehension of
the Ideas is conditioned by the fact that the knower is the _pure subject_
of knowledge, _i.e._, that the will entirely vanishes from consciousness,
must be borne in mind here. The pleasure which we have in many of Goethe’s
songs which bring the landscape before our eyes, or in Jean Paul’s
sketches of nature, depends upon the fact that we thereby participate in
the objectivity of those minds, _i.e._, the purity with which in them the
world as idea separated from the world as will, and, as it were, entirely
emancipated itself from it. It also follows from the fact that the kind of
knowledge peculiar to genius is essentially that which is purified from
all will and its relations, that the works of genius do not proceed from
intention or choice, but it is guided in them by a kind of instinctive
necessity. What is called the awaking of genius, the hour of initiation,
the moment of inspiration, is nothing but the attainment of freedom by the
intellect, when, delivered for a while from its service under the will, it
does not now sink into inactivity or lassitude, but is active for a short
time entirely alone and spontaneously. Then it is of the greatest purity,
and becomes the clear mirror of the world; for, completely severed from
its origin, the will, it is now the world as idea itself, concentrated in
_one_ consciousness. In such moments, as it were, the souls of immortal
works are begotten. On the other hand, in all intentional reflection the
intellect is not free, for indeed the will guides it and prescribes it its
theme.

The stamp of commonness, the expression of vulgarity, which is impressed
on the great majority of countenances consists really in this, that in
them becomes visible the strict subordination of their knowledge to their
will, the firm chain which binds these two together, and the impossibility
following from this of apprehending things otherwise than in their
relation to the will and its aims. On the other hand, the expression of
genius which constitutes the evident family likeness of all highly gifted
men consists in this, that in it we distinctly read the liberation, the
manumission of the intellect from the service of the will, the
predominance of knowledge over volition; and because all anxiety proceeds
from the will, and knowledge, on the contrary, is in and for itself
painless and serene, this gives to their lofty brow and clear, perceiving
glance, which are not subject to the service of the will and its wants,
that look of great, almost supernatural serenity which at times breaks
through, and consists very well with the melancholy of their other
features, especially the mouth, and which in this relation may be aptly
described by the motto of Giordano Bruno: _In tristitia hilaris, in
hilaritate tristis_.

The will, which is the root of the intellect, opposes itself to any
activity of the latter which is directed to anything else but its own
aims. Therefore the intellect is only capable of a purely objective and
profound comprehension of the external world when it has freed itself at
least for a while from this its root. So long as it remains bound to the
will, it is of its own means capable of no activity, but sleeps in a
stupor, whenever the will (the interests) does not awake it, and set it in
motion. If, however, this happens, it is indeed very well fitted to
recognise the relations of things according to the interest of the will,
as the prudent mind does, which, however, must always be an awakened mind,
_i.e._, a mind actively aroused by volition; but just on this account it
is not capable of comprehending the purely objective nature of things. For
the willing and the aims make it so one‐sided that it sees in things only
that which relates to these, and the rest either disappears or enters
consciousness in a falsified form. For example, the traveller in anxiety
and haste will see the Rhine and its banks only as a line, and the bridges
over it only as lines cutting it. In the mind of the man who is filled
with his own aims the world appears as a beautiful landscape appears on
the plan of a battlefield. Certainly these are extremes, taken for the
sake of distinctness; but every excitement of the will, however slight,
will have as its consequence a slight but constantly proportionate
falsification of knowledge. The world can only appear in its true colour
and form, in its whole and correct significance, when the intellect,
devoid of willing, moves freely over the objects, and without being driven
on by the will is yet energetically active. This is certainly opposed to
the nature and determination of the intellect, thus to a certain extent
unnatural, and just on this account exceedingly rare; but it is just in
this that the essential nature of genius lies, in which alone that
condition takes place in a high degree and is of some duration, while in
others it only appears approximately and exceptionally. I take it to be in
the sense expounded here that Jean Paul (_Vorschule der Æsthetik_, § 12)
places the essence of genius in _reflectiveness_. The normal man is sunk
in the whirl and tumult of life, to which he belongs through his will; his
intellect is filled with the things and events of life; but he does not
know these things nor life itself in their objective significance; as the
merchant on ’Change in Amsterdam apprehends perfectly what his neighbour
says, but does not hear the hum of the whole Exchange, like the sound of
the sea, which astonishes the distant observer. From the genius, on the
contrary, whose intellect is delivered from the will, and thus from the
person, what concerns these does not conceal the world and things
themselves; but he becomes distinctly conscious of them, he apprehends
them in and for themselves in objective perception; in this sense he is
_reflective_.

It is _reflectiveness_ which enables the painter to repeat the natural
objects which he contemplates faithfully upon the canvas, and the poet
accurately to call up again the concrete present, by means of abstract
conceptions, by giving it utterance and so bringing it to distinct
consciousness, and also to express everything in words which others only
feel. The brute lives entirely without reflection. It has consciousness,
_i.e._, it knows itself and its good and ill, also the objects which
occasion these. But its knowledge remains always subjective, never becomes
objective; everything that enters it seems a matter of course, and
therefore can never become for it a theme (an object of exposition) nor a
problem (an object of meditation). Its consciousness is thus entirely
_immanent_. Not certainly the same, but yet of kindred nature, is the
consciousness of the common type of man, for his apprehension also of
things and the world is predominantly subjective and remains prevalently
immanent. It apprehends the things in the world, but not the world; its
own action and suffering, but not itself. As now in innumerable gradations
the distinctness of consciousness rises, reflectiveness appears more and
more; and thus it is brought about little by little that sometimes, though
rarely, and then again in very different degrees of distinctness, the
question passes through the mind like a flash, “What is all this?” or
again, “How is it really fashioned?” The first question, if it attains
great distinctness and continued presence, will make the philosopher, and
the other, under the same conditions, the artist or the poet. Therefore,
then, the high calling of both of these has its root in the reflectiveness
which primarily springs from the distinctness with which they are
conscious of the world and their own selves, and thereby come to reflect
upon them. But the whole process springs from the fact that the intellect
through its preponderance frees itself for a time from the will, to which
it is originally subject.

The considerations concerning genius here set forth are connected by way
of supplement with the exposition contained in chapter 21, of the _ever
wider separation of the will and the intellect_, which can be traced in
the whole series of existences. This reaches its highest grade in genius,
where it extends to the entire liberation of the intellect from its root
the will, so that here the intellect becomes perfectly free, whereby the
_world as idea_ first attains to complete objectification.

A few remarks now concerning the individuality of genius. Aristotle has
already said, according to Cicero (_Tusc._, i. 33), “_Omnes ingeniosos
melancholicos esse_;” which without doubt is connected with the passage of
Aristotle’s “_Problemata_,” xxx. 1. Goethe also says: “My poetic rapture
was very small, so long as I only encountered good; but it burnt with a
bright flame when I fled from threatening evil. The tender poem, like the
rainbow, is only drawn on a dark ground; hence the genius of the poet
loves the element of melancholy.”

This is to be explained from the fact that since the will constantly re‐
establishes its original sway over the intellect, the latter more easily
withdraws from this under unfavourable personal relations; because it
gladly turns from adverse circumstances, in order to a certain extent to
divert itself, and now directs itself with so much the greater energy to
the foreign external world, thus more easily becomes purely objective.
Favourable personal relations act conversely. Yet as a whole and in
general the melancholy which accompanies genius depends upon the fact that
the brighter the intellect which enlightens the will to live, the more
distinctly does it perceive the misery of its condition. The melancholy
disposition of highly gifted minds which has so often been observed has
its emblem in Mont Blanc, the summit of which is for the most part lost in
clouds; but when sometimes, especially in the early morning, the veil of
clouds is rent and now the mountain looks down on Chamounix from its
height in the heavens above the clouds, then it is a sight at which the
heart of each of us swells from its profoundest depths. So also the
genius, for the most part melancholy, shows at times that peculiar
serenity already described above, which is possible only for it, and
springs from the most perfect objectivity of the mind. It floats like a
ray of light upon his lofty brow: _In tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate
tristis_.

All bunglers are so ultimately because their intellect, still too firmly
bound to the will, only becomes active when spurred on by it, and
therefore remains entirely in its service. They are accordingly only
capable of personal aims. In conformity with these they produce bad
pictures, insipid poems, shallow, absurd, and very often dishonest
philosophemes, when it is to their interest to recommend themselves to
high authorities by a pious disingenuousness. Thus all their action and
thought is personal. Therefore they succeed at most in appropriating what
is external, accidental, and arbitrary in the genuine works of others as
mannerisms, in doing which they take the shell instead of the kernel, and
yet imagine they have attained to everything, nay, have surpassed those
works. If, however, the failure is patent, yet many hope to attain success
in the end through their good intentions. But it is just this good will
which makes success impossible; because this only pursues personal ends,
and with these neither art nor poetry nor philosophy can ever be taken
seriously. Therefore the saying is peculiarly applicable to such persons:
“They stand in their own light.” They have no idea that it is only the
intellect delivered from the government of the will and all its projects,
and therefore freely active, that makes one capable of genuine
productions, because it alone imparts true seriousness; and it is well for
them that they have not, otherwise they would leap into the water. The
_good will_ is in _morality_ everything; but in art it is nothing. In art,
as the word itself indicates (_Kunst_), what alone is of consequence is
ability (_Können_). It all amounts ultimately to this, where the true
_seriousness_ of the man lies. In almost all it lies exclusively in their
own well‐being and that of their families; therefore they are in a
position to promote this and nothing else; for no purpose, no voluntary
and intentional effort, imparts the true, profound, and proper
seriousness, or makes up for it, or more correctly, takes its place. For
it always remains where nature has placed it; and without it everything is
only half performed. Therefore, for the same reason, persons of genius
often manage so badly for their own welfare. As a leaden weight always
brings a body back to the position which its centre of gravity thereby
determined demands, so the true seriousness of the man always draws the
strength and attention of the intellect back to that in which it lies;
everything else the man does _without true seriousness_. Therefore only
the exceedingly rare and abnormal men whose true seriousness does not lie
in the personal and practical, but in the objective and theoretical, are
in a position to apprehend what is essential in the things of the world,
thus the highest truths, and reproduce them in any way. For such a
seriousness of the individual, falling outside himself in the objective,
is something foreign to the nature of man, something unnatural, or really
supernatural: yet on account of this alone is the man _great_; and
therefore what he achieves is then ascribed to a _genius_ different from
himself, which takes possession of him. To such a man his painting,
poetry, or thinking is an _end_; to others it is a _means_. The latter
thereby seek their own things, and, as a rule, they know how to further
them, for they flatter their contemporaries, ready to serve their wants
and humours; therefore for the most part they live in happy circumstances;
the former often in very miserable circumstances. For he sacrifices his
personal welfare to his _objective end_; he cannot indeed do otherwise,
because his seriousness lies there. They act conversely; therefore they
are _small_, but he is _great_. Accordingly his work is for all time, but
the recognition of it generally only begins with posterity: they live and
die with their time. In general he only is great who in his work, whether
it is practical or theoretical, seeks _not his own concerns_, but pursues
an _objective end_ alone; he is so, however, even when in the practical
sphere this end is a misunderstood one, and even if in consequence of this
it should be a crime. _That he seeks not himself and his own concerns_,
this makes him under all circumstances _great_. _Small_, on the other
hand, is all action which is directed to personal ends; for whoever is
thereby set in activity knows and finds himself only in his own transient
and insignificant person. He who is great, again, finds himself in all,
and therefore in the whole: he lives not, like others, only in the
microcosm, but still more in the macrocosm. Hence the whole interests him,
and he seeks to comprehend it in order to represent it, or to explain it,
or to act practically upon it. For it is not strange to him; he feels that
it concerns him. On account of this extension of his sphere he is called
_great_. Therefore that lofty predicate belongs only to the true hero, in
some sense, and to genius: it signifies that they, contrary to human
nature, have not sought their own things, have not lived for themselves,
but for all. As now clearly the great majority must _constantly_ be small,
and can _never_ become great, the converse of this, that one should be
great throughout, that is, constantly and every moment, is yet not
possible—


    “For man is made of common clay,
    And custom is his nurse.”


Every great man must often be only the individual, have only himself in
view, and that means he must be small. Upon this depends the very true
remark, that no man is a hero to his valet, and not upon the fact that the
valet cannot appreciate the hero; which Goethe, in the
“_Wahlverwandhschaften_” (vol. ii. chap. 5), serves up as an idea of
Ottilie’s.

Genius is its own reward: for the best that one is, one must necessarily
be for oneself. “Whoever is born with a talent, to a talent, finds in this
his fairest existence,” says Goethe. When we look back at a great man of
former times, we do not think, “How happy is he to be still admired by all
of us!” but, “How happy must he have been in the immediate enjoyment of a
mind at the surviving traces of which centuries revive themselves!” Not in
the fame, but in that whereby it is attained, lies the value, and in the
production of immortal children the pleasure. Therefore those who seek to
show the vanity of posthumous fame from the fact that he who obtains it
knows nothing of it, may be compared to the wiseacre who very learnedly
tried to demonstrate to the man who cast envious glances at a heap of
oyster‐shells in his neighbour’s yard the absolute uselessness of them.

According to the exposition of the nature of genius which has been given,
it is so far contrary to nature, inasmuch as it consists in this, that the
intellect, whose real destination is the service of the will, emancipates
itself from this service in order to be active on its own account.
Accordingly genius is an intellect which has become untrue to its
destination. Upon this depend the _disadvantages_ connected with it, for
the consideration of which we shall now prepare the way by comparing
genius with the less decided predominance of the intellect.

The intellect of the normal man, strictly bound to the service of the
will, and therefore really only occupied with the apprehension of motives,
may be regarded as a complex system of wires, by means of which each of
these puppets is set in motion in the theatre of the world. From this
arises the dry, grave seriousness of most people, which is only surpassed
by that of the brutes, who never laugh. On the other hand, we might
compare the genius, with his unfettered intellect, to a living man playing
along with the large puppets of the famous puppet‐show at Milan, who would
be the only one among them who would understand everything, and would
therefore gladly leave the stage for a while to enjoy the play from the
boxes;—that is the reflectiveness of genius. But even the man of great
understanding and reason, whom one might almost call wise, is very
different from the genius, and in this way, that his intellect retains a
_practical_ tendency, is concerned with the choice of the best ends and
means, therefore remains in the service of the will, and accordingly is
occupied in a manner that is thoroughly in keeping with nature. The firm,
practical seriousness of life which the Romans denoted _gravitas_
presupposes that the intellect does not forsake the service of the will in
order to wander away after that which does not concern the will; therefore
it does not admit of that separation of the will and the intellect which
is the condition of genius. The able, nay, eminent man, who is fitted for
great achievements in the practical sphere, is so precisely because
objects rouse his will in a lively manner, and spur him on to the
ceaseless investigation of their relations and connections. Thus his
intellect has grown up closely connected with his will. Before the man of
genius, on the contrary, there floats in his objective comprehension the
phenomenon of the world, as something foreign to him, an object of
contemplation, which expels his will from consciousness. Round this point
turns the distinction between the capacity for _deeds_ and for _works_.
The latter demand objectivity and depth of knowledge, which presupposes
entire separation of the intellect from the will; the former, on the other
hand, demands the application of knowledge, presence of mind, and
decision, which required that the intellect should uninterruptedly attend
to the service of the will. Where the bond between the intellect and the
will is loosened, the intellect, turned away from its natural destination,
will neglect the service of the will; it will, for example, even in the
need of the moment, preserve its emancipation, and perhaps be unable to
avoid taking in the picturesque impression of the surroundings, from which
danger threatens the individual. The intellect of the reasonable and
understanding man, on the other hand, is constantly at its post, is
directed to the circumstances and their requirements. Such a man will
therefore in all cases determine and carry out what is suitable to the
case, and consequently will by no means fall into those eccentricities,
personal slips, nay, follies, to which the genius is exposed, because his
intellect does not remain exclusively the guide and guardian of his will,
but sometimes more, sometimes less, is laid claim to by the purely
objective. In the contrast of Tasso and Antonio, Goethe has illustrated
the opposition, here explained in the abstract, in which these two
entirely different kinds of capacity stand to each other. The kinship of
genius and madness, so often observed, depends chiefly upon that
separation of the intellect from the will which is essential to genius,
but is yet contrary to nature. But this separation itself is by no means
to be attributed to the fact that genius is accompanied by less intensity
of will; for it is rather distinguished by a vehement and passionate
character; but it is to be explained from this, that the practically
excellent person, the man of deeds, has merely the whole, full measure of
intellect required for an energetic will while most men lack even this;
but genius consists in a completely abnormal, actual superfluity of
intellect, such as is required for the service of no will. On this account
the men of genuine works are a thousand times rarer than the men of deeds.
It is just that abnormal superfluity of intellect by virtue of which it
obtains the decided preponderance, sets itself free from the will, and
now, forgetting its origin, is freely active from its own strength and
elasticity; and from this the creations of genius proceed.

Now further, just this, that genius in working consists of the free
intellect, _i.e._, of the intellect emancipated from the service of the
will, has as a consequence that its productions serve no useful ends. The
work of genius is music, or philosophy, or paintings, or poetry; it is
nothing to use. To be of no use belongs to the character of the works of
genius; it is their patent of nobility. All other works of men are for the
maintenance or easing of our existence; only those we are speaking of are
not; they alone exist for their own sake, and are in this sense to be
regarded as the flower or the net profit of existence. Therefore our heart
swells at the enjoyment of them, for we rise out of the heavy earthly
atmosphere of want. Analogous to this, we see the beautiful, even apart
from these, rarely combined with the useful. Lofty and beautiful trees
bear no fruit; the fruit‐trees are small, ugly cripples. The full garden
rose is not fruitful, but the small, wild, almost scentless roses are. The
most beautiful buildings are not the useful ones; a temple is no dwelling‐
house. A man of high, rare mental endowments compelled to apply himself to
a merely useful business, for which the most ordinary man would be fitted,
is like a costly vase decorated with the most beautiful painting which is
used as a kitchen pot; and to compare useful people with men of genius is
like comparing building‐stone with diamonds.

Thus the merely practical man uses his intellect for that for which nature
destined it, the comprehension of the relations of things, partly to each
other, partly to the will of the knowing individual. The genius, on the
other hand, uses it, contrary to its destination, for the comprehension of
the objective nature of things. His mind, therefore, belongs not to
himself, but to the world, to the illumination of which, in some sense, it
will contribute. From this must spring manifold _disadvantages_ to the
individual favoured with genius. For his intellect will in general show
those faults which are rarely wanting in any tool which is used for that
for which it has not been made. First of all, it will be, as it were, the
servant of two masters, for on every opportunity it frees itself from the
service to which it was destined in order to follow its own ends, whereby
it often leaves the will very inopportunely in a fix, and thus the
individual so gifted becomes more or less useless for life, nay, in his
conduct sometimes reminds us of madness. Then, on account of its highly
developed power of knowledge, it will see in things more the universal
than the particular; while the service of the will principally requires
the knowledge of the particular. But, again, when, as opportunity offers,
that whole abnormally heightened power of knowledge directs itself with
all its energy to the circumstances and miseries of the will, it will be
apt to apprehend these too vividly, to behold all in too glaring colours,
in too bright a light, and in a fearfully exaggerated form, whereby the
individual falls into mere extremes. The following may serve to explain
this more accurately. All great theoretical achievements, in whatever
sphere they may be, are brought about in this way: Their author directs
all the forces of his mind upon one point, in which he lets them unite and
concentrate so strongly, firmly, and exclusively that now the whole of the
rest of the world vanishes for him, and his object fills all reality. Now
this great and powerful concentration which belongs to the privileges of
genius sometimes appears for it also in the case of objects of the real
world and the events of daily life, which then, brought under such a
focus, are magnified to such a monstrous extent that they appear like the
flea, which under the solar microscope assumes the stature of an elephant.
Hence it arises that highly gifted individuals sometimes are thrown by
trifles into violent emotions of the most various kinds, which are
incomprehensible to others, who see them transported with grief, joy,
care, fear, anger, &c., by things which leave the every‐day man quite
composed. Thus, then, the genius lacks _soberness_, which simply consists
in this, that one sees in things nothing more than actually belongs to
them, especially with reference to our possible ends; therefore no sober‐
minded man can be a genius. With the disadvantages which have been
enumerated there is also associated hyper‐sensibility, which an abnormally
developed nervous and cerebral system brings with it, and indeed in union
with the vehemence and passionateness of will which is certainly
characteristic of genius, and which exhibits itself physically as energy
of the pulsation of the heart. From all this very easily arises that
extravagance of disposition, that vehemence of the emotions, that quick
change of mood under prevailing melancholy, which Goethe has presented to
us in Tasso. What reasonableness, quiet composure, finished surveyal,
certainty and proportionateness of behaviour is shown by the well‐endowed
normal man in comparison with the now dreamy absentness, and now
passionate excitement of the man of genius, whose inward pain is the
mother’s lap of immortal works! To all this must still be added that
genius lives essentially alone. It is too rare to find its like with ease,
and too different from the rest of men to be their companion. With them it
is the will, with him it is knowledge, that predominates; therefore their
pleasures are not his, and his are not theirs. They are merely moral
beings, and have merely personal relations; he is at the same time a pure
intellect, and as such belongs to the whole of humanity. The course of
thought of the intellect which is detached from its mother soil, the will,
and only returns to it periodically, will soon show itself entirely
different from that of the normal intellect, still cleaving to its stem.
For this reason, and also on account of the dissimilarity of the pace, the
former is not adapted for thinking in common, _i.e._, for conversation
with the others: they will have as little pleasure in him and his
oppressive superiority as he will in them. They will therefore feel more
comfortable with their equals, and he will prefer the entertainment of his
equals, although, as a rule, this is only possible through the works they
have left behind them. Therefore Chamfort says very rightly: “_Il y a peu
de vices qui empêchent un homme d’avoir beaucoup d’amis, autant que
peuvent le faire de trop grandes qualités_.” The happiest lot that can
fall to the genius is release from action, which is not his element, and
leisure for production. From all this it results that although genius may
highly bless him who is gifted with it, in the hours in which, abandoned
to it, he revels unhindered in its delight, yet it is by no means fitted
to procure for him a happy course of life; rather the contrary. This is
also confirmed by the experience recorded in biographies. Besides this
there is also an external incongruity, for the genius, in his efforts and
achievements themselves, is for the most part in contradiction and
conflict with his age. Mere men of talent come always at the right time;
for as they are roused by the spirit of their age, and called forth by its
needs, they are also capable only of satisfying these. They therefore go
hand in hand with the advancing culture of their contemporaries or with
the gradual progress of a special science: for this they reap reward and
approval. But to the next generation their works are no longer enjoyable;
they must be replaced by others, which again are not permanent. The
genius, on the contrary, comes into his age like a comet into the paths of
the planets, to whose well‐regulated and comprehensible order its entirely
eccentric course is foreign. Accordingly he cannot go hand in hand with
the existing, regular progress of the culture of the age, but flings his
works far out on to the way in front (as the dying emperor flung his spear
among the enemy), upon which time has first to overtake them. His relation
to the culminating men of talent of his time might be expressed in the
words of the Evangelist: “Ὁ καιρος ὁ εμος ουπω παρεστιν; ὁ δε καιρος ὁ
ὑμετερος παντοτε εστιν ἑτοιμος” (John vii. 6). The man of talent can
achieve what is beyond the power of achievement of other men, but not what
is beyond their power of apprehension: therefore he at once finds those
who prize him. But the achievement of the man of genius, on the contrary,
transcends not only the power of achievement, but also the power of
apprehension of others; therefore they do not become directly conscious of
him. The man of talent is like the marksman who hits a mark the others
cannot hit; the man of genius is like the marksman who hits a mark they
cannot even see to; therefore they only get news of him indirectly, and
thus late; and even this they only accept upon trust and faith.
Accordingly Goethe says in one of his letters, “Imitation is inborn in us;
what to imitate is not easily recognised. Rarely is what is excellent
found; still more rarely is it prized.” And Chamfort says: “_Il en est de
la valeur des hommes comme de celle des diamans, qui à une certaine mesure
de grosseur, de pureté, de perfection, ont un prix fixe et marqué, mais
qui, par‐delà cette mesure, restent sans prix, et ne trouvent point
d’acheteurs_.” And Bacon of Verulam has also expressed it: “_Infimarum
virtutum, apud vulgus, laus est, mediarum admiratio, supremarum sensus
nullus_” (_De augm. sc._, L. vi. c. 3). Indeed, one might perhaps reply,
_Apud vulgus!_ But I must then come to his assistance with Machiavelli’s
assurance: “_Nel mondo non è se non volgo_;”(12) as also Thilo (_Ueber den
Ruhm_) remarks, that to the vulgar herd there generally belongs one more
than each of us believes. It is a consequence of this late recognition of
the works of the man of genius that they are rarely enjoyed by their
contemporaries, and accordingly in the freshness of colour which
synchronism and presence imparts, but, like figs and dates, much more in a
dry than in a fresh state.

If, finally, we consider genius from the somatic side, we find it
conditioned by several anatomical and physiological qualities, which
individually are seldom present in perfection, and still more seldom
perfect together, but which are yet all indispensably required; so that
this explains why genius only appears as a perfectly isolated and almost
portentous exception. The fundamental condition is an abnormal
predominance of sensibility over irritability and reproductive power; and
what makes the matter more difficult, this must take place in a male body.
(Women may have great talent, but no genius, for they always remain
subjective.) Similarly the cerebral system must be perfectly separated
from the ganglion system by complete isolation, so that it stands in
complete opposition to the latter; and thus the brain pursues its
parasitic life on the organism in a very decided, isolated, powerful, and
independent manner. Certainly it will thereby very easily affect the rest
of the organism injuriously, and through its heightened life and ceaseless
activity wear it out prematurely, unless it is itself possessed of
energetic vital force and a good constitution: thus the latter belong to
the conditions of genius. Indeed even a good stomach is a condition on
account of the special and close agreement of this part with the brain.
But chiefly the brain must be of unusual development and magnitude,
especially broad and high. On the other hand, its depth will be inferior,
and the cerebrum will abnormally preponderate in proportion to the
cerebellum. Without doubt much depends upon the configuration of the brain
as a whole and in its parts; but our knowledge is not yet sufficient to
determine this accurately, although we easily recognise the form of skull
that indicates a noble and lofty intelligence. The texture of the mass of
the brain must be of extreme fineness and perfection, and consist of the
purest, most concentrated, tenderest, and most excitable nerve‐substance;
certainly the quantitative proportion of the white to the grey matter has
a decided influence, which, however, we are also unable as yet to specify.
However, the report of the _post‐mortem_ on the body of Byron(13) shows
that in his case the white matter was in unusually large proportion to the
grey, and also that his brain weighed six pounds. Cuvier’s brain weighed
five pounds; the normal weight is three pounds. In contrast to the
superior size of the brain, the spinal cord and nerves must be unusually
thin. A beautifully arched, high and broad skull of thin bone must protect
the brain without in any way cramping it. This whole quality of the brain
and nervous system is the inheritance from the mother, to which we shall
return in the following book. But it is quite insufficient to produce the
phenomenon of genius if the inheritance from the father is not added, a
lively, passionate temperament, which exhibits itself somatically as
unusual energy of the heart, and consequently of the circulation of the
blood, especially towards the head. For, in the first place, that
turgescence peculiar to the brain on account of which it presses against
its walls is increased by this; therefore it forces itself out of any
opening in these which has been occasioned by some injury; and secondly,
from the requisite strength of the heart the brain receives that internal
movement different from its constant rising and sinking at every breath,
which consists in a shaking of its whole mass at every pulsation of the
four cerebral arteries, and the energy of which must correspond to the
here increased quantity of the brain, as this movement in general is an
indispensable condition of its activity. To this, therefore, small stature
and especially a short neck is favourable, because by the shorter path the
blood reaches the brain with more energy; and on this account great minds
have seldom large bodies. Yet that shortness of the distance is not
indispensable; for example, Goethe was of more than middle height. If,
however, the whole condition connected with the circulation of the blood,
and therefore coming from the father is wanting, the good quality of the
brain coming from the mother, will at most produce a man of talent, a fine
understanding, which the phlegmatic temperament thus introduced supports;
but a phlegmatic genius is impossible. This condition coming from the
father explains many faults of temperament described above. But, on the
other hand, if this condition exists without the former, thus with an
ordinarily or even badly constructed brain, it gives vivacity without
mind, heat without light, hot‐headed persons, men of unsupportable
restlessness and petulance. That of two brothers only one has genius, and
that one generally the elder, as, for example, in Kant’s case, is
primarily to be explained from the fact that the father was at the age of
strength and passion only when he was begotten; although also the other
condition originating with the mother may be spoiled by unfavourable
circumstances.

I have further to add here a special remark on the _childlike_ character
of the genius, _i.e._, on a certain resemblance which exists between
genius and the age of childhood. In childhood, as in the case of genius,
the cerebral and nervous system decidedly preponderates, for its
development hurries far in advance of that of the rest of the organism; so
that already at the seventh year the brain has attained its full extension
and mass. Therefore, Bichat says: “_Dans l’enfance le système nerveux,
comparé au musculaire, est proportionellement plus considérable que dans
tous les âges suivans, tandis que par la suite, la pluspart des autres
systèmes prédominent sur celui‐ci. On sait que, pour bien voir les nerfs,
on choisit toujours les enfans_” (_De la vie et de la mort_, art. 8, § 6).
On the other hand, the development of the genital system begins latest,
and irritability, reproduction, and genital function are in full force
only at the age of manhood, and then, as a rule, they predominate over the
brain function. Hence it is explicable that children, in general, are so
sensible, reasonable, desirous of information, and teachable, nay, on the
whole, are more disposed and fitted for all theoretical occupation than
grown‐up people. They have, in consequence of that course of development,
more intellect than will, _i.e._, than inclinations, desire, and passion.
For intellect and brain are one, and so also is the genital system one
with the most vehement of all desires: therefore I have called the latter
the focus of the will. Just because the fearful activity of this system
still slumbers, while that of the brain has already full play, childhood
is the time of innocence and happiness, the paradise of life, the lost
Eden on which we look longingly back through the whole remaining course of
our life. But the basis of that happiness is that in childhood our whole
existence lies much more in knowing than in willing—a condition which is
also supported from without by the novelty of all objects. Hence in the
morning sunshine of life the world lies before us so fresh, so magically
gleaming, so attractive. The small desires, the weak inclinations, and
trifling cares of childhood are only a weak counterpoise to that
predominance of intellectual activity. The innocent and clear glance of
children, at which we revive ourselves, and which sometimes in particular
cases reaches the sublime contemplative expression with which Raphael has
glorified his cherubs, is to be explained from what has been said.
Accordingly the mental powers develop much earlier than the needs they are
destined to serve; and here, as everywhere, nature proceeds very
designedly. For in this time of predominating intelligence the man
collects a great store of knowledge for future wants which at the time are
foreign to him. Therefore his intellect, now unceasingly active, eagerly
apprehends all phenomena, broods over them and stores them up carefully
for the coming time,—like the bees, who gather a great deal more honey
than they can consume, in anticipation of future need. Certainly what a
man acquires of insight and knowledge up to the age of puberty is, taken
as a whole, more than all that he afterwards learns, however learned he
may become; for it is the foundation of all human knowledge. Up till the
same time plasticity predominates in the child’s body, and later, by a
metastasis, its forces throw themselves into the system of generation; and
thus with puberty the sexual passion appears, and now, little by little,
the will gains the upper hand. Then childhood, which is prevailingly
theoretical and desirous of learning, is followed by the restless, now
stormy, now melancholy, period of youth, which afterwards passes into the
vigorous and earnest age of manhood. Just because that impulse pregnant
with evil is wanting in the child is its volition so adapted and
subordinated to knowledge, whence arises that character of innocence,
intelligence, and reasonableness which is peculiar to the age of
childhood. On what, then, the likeness between childhood and genius
depends I scarcely need to express further: upon the surplus of the powers
of knowledge over the needs of the will, and the predominance of the
purely intellectual activity which springs from this. Really every child
is to a certain extent a genius, and the genius is to a certain extent a
child. The relationship of the two shows itself primarily in the naïveté
and sublime simplicity which is characteristic of true genius; and besides
this it appears in several traits, so that a certain childishness
certainly belongs to the character of the genius. In Riemer’s
“_Mittheilungen über Goethe_” (vol. i. p. 184) it is related that Herder
and others found fault with Goethe, saying he was always a big child.
Certainly they were right in what they said, but they were not right in
finding fault with it. It has also been said of Mozart that all his life
he remained a child (Nissen’s Biography of Mozart, p. 2 and 529).
Schlichtegroll’s “_Nekrology_” (for 1791, vol. ii. p. 109) says of him:
“In his art he early became a man, but in all other relations he always
remained a child.” Every genius is even for this reason a big child; he
looks out into the world as into something strange, a play, and therefore
with purely objective interest. Accordingly he has just as little as the
child that dull gravity of ordinary men, who, since they are capable only
of subjective interests, always see in things mere motives for their
action. Whoever does not to a certain extent remain all his life a big
child, but becomes a grave, sober, thoroughly composed, and reasonable
man, may be a very useful and capable citizen of this world; but never a
genius. In fact, the genius is so because that predominance of the
sensible system and of intellectual activity which is natural to childhood
maintains itself in him in an abnormal manner through his whole life, thus
here becomes perennial. A trace of this certainly shows itself in many
ordinary men up to the period of their youth; therefore, for example, in
many students a purely intellectual tendency and an eccentricity
suggestive of genius is unmistakable. But nature returns to her track;
they assume the chrysalis form and reappear at the age of manhood, as
incarnate Philistines, at whom we are startled when we meet them again in
later years. Upon all this that has been expounded here depends Goethe’s
beautiful remark: “Children do not perform what they promise; young people
very seldom; and if they do keep their word, the world does not keep its
word with them” (_Wahlverwandtschaften_, Pt. i. ch. 10)—the world which
afterwards bestows the crowns which it holds aloft for merit on those who
are the tools of its low aims or know how to deceive it. In accordance
with what has been said, as there is a mere beauty of youth, which almost
every one at some time possesses (_beauté du diable_), so there is a mere
intellectuality of youth, a certain mental nature disposed and adapted for
apprehending, understanding, and learning, which every one has in
childhood, and some have still in youth, but which is afterwards lost,
just like that beauty. Only in the case of a very few, the chosen, the
one, like the other, lasts through the whole life; so that even in old age
a trace of it still remains visible: these are the truly beautiful and the
men of true genius.

The predominance of the cerebral nervous system and of intelligence in
childhood, which is here under consideration, together with the decline of
it in riper age, receives important illustration and confirmation from the
fact that in the species of animals which stands nearest to man, the apes,
the same relation is found in a striking degree. It has by degrees become
certain that the highly intelligent orang‐outang is a young pongo, which
when it has grown up loses the remarkable human look of its countenance,
and also its astonishing intelligence, because the lower and brutal part
of its face increases in size, the forehead thereby recedes, large
_cristæ_, muscular developments, give the skull a brutish form, the
activity of the nervous system sinks, and in its place extraordinary
muscular strength develops, which, as it is sufficient for its
preservation, makes the great intelligence now superfluous. Especially
important is what Fréd. Cuvier has said in this reference, and Flourens
has illustrated in a review of the “_Histoire Naturelle_” of the former,
which appeared in the September number of the “_Journal des Savans_” of
1839, and was also separately printed with some additions, under the
title, “_Résumé analytique des observations de Fr. Cuvier sur l’instinct
et l’intelligence des animaux_,” _p. Flourens_, 1841. It is there said, p.
50: “_L’intelligence de l’orang‐outang, cette intelligence si développée,
et développée de si bonne heure, décroit avec l’âge. L’orang‐outang,
lorsqu’il est jeune, nous étonne par sa pénétration, par sa ruse, par son
adresse; l’orang‐outang, devenu adulte, n’est plus qu’un animal grossier,
brutal, intraitable. Et il en est de tous les singes comme de l’orang‐
outang. Dans tous, l’intelligence décroit à mesure que les forces
s’accroissent. L’animal qui a le plus d’intelligence, n’a toute cette
intelligence que dans le jeune âge._” Further, p. 87: “_Les singes de tous
les genres offrent ce rapport inverse de l’âge et de l’intelligence.
Ainsi, par exemple, l’Entelle (espèce de guenon du sous‐genre des Semno‐
pithèques et l’un des singes vénérés dans la religion des Brames) a, dans
le __ jeune âge, le front large, le museau peu saillant, le crâne élevé,
arrondi, etc. Avec l’âge le front disparait, recule, le museau proémine;
et le moral ne change pas moins que le physique: l’apathie, la violence,
le besoin de solitude, remplacent la pénétration, la docilité, la
confiance. __‹ __Ces différences sont si grandes,__ ›__ dit Mr. Fréd.
Cuvier, __‹ __que dans l’habitude où nous sommes de juger des actions des
animaux par les nôtres, nous prendrions le jeune animal pour un individu
de l’âge, où toutes les qualités morales de l’espèce sont acquises, et
l’Entelle adulte pour un individu qui n’aurait encore que ses forces
physiques. Mais la nature n’en agit pas ainsi avec ces animaux, qui ne
doivent pas sortir de la sphère étroite, qui leur est fixée, et à qui il
suffit en quelque sorte de pouvoir veiller à leur conservation. Pour cela
l’intelligence était nécessaire, quand la force n’existait pas, et quand
celle‐ci est acquise, toute autre puissance perd de son utilité.__ ›_” And
p. 118: “_La conservation des espèces ne repose pas moins sur les qualités
intellectuelles des animaux, que sur leurs qualités organiques_.” This
last confirms my principle that the intellect, like the claws and teeth,
is nothing else than a weapon in the service of the will.




Chapter XXXII.(14) On Madness.


The health of the mind properly consists in perfect recollection. Of
course this is not to be understood as meaning that our memory preserves
everything. For the past course of our life shrinks up in time, as the
path of the wanderer looking back shrinks up in space: sometimes it is
difficult for us to distinguish the particular years; the days have for
the most part become unrecognisable. Really, however, only the exactly
similar events, recurring an innumerable number of times, so that their
images, as it were, conceal each other, ought so to run together in the
memory that they are individually unrecognisable; on the other hand, every
event in any way peculiar or significant we must be able to find again in
memory, if the intellect is normal, vigorous, and quite healthy. In the
text I have explained _madness_ as the _broken thread_ of this memory,
which still runs on regularly, although in constantly decreasing fulness
and distinctness. The following considerations may serve to confirm this.

The memory of a healthy man affords a certainty as to an event he has
witnessed, which is regarded as just as firm and sure as his present
apprehension of things; therefore, if sworn to by him, this event is
thereby established in a court of law. On the other hand, the mere
suspicion of madness will at once weaken the testimony of a witness. Here,
then, lies the criterion between the healthy mind and insanity. Whenever I
doubt whether an event which I remember really took place, I throw upon
myself the suspicion of madness: unless it is that I am uncertain whether
it was not a mere dream. If another doubts the reality of an event,
related by me as an eye‐witness, without mistrusting my honesty, then he
regards me as insane. Whoever comes at last, through constantly recounting
an event which originally was fabricated by him, to believe in it himself
is, in this one point, really insane. We may ascribe to an insane person
flashes of wit, single clever thoughts, even correct judgments, but his
testimony as to past events no man will consider valid. In the Lalita‐
vistara, well known to be the history of Buddha Sakya‐Muni, it is related
that at the moment of his birth all the sick became well, all the blind
saw, all the deaf heard, and all mad people “recovered their memory.” This
last is mentioned in two passages.(15)

My own experience of many years has led me to the opinion that madness
occurs proportionally most frequently among actors. But what a misuse they
make of their memory! Daily they have to learn a new part or refresh an
old one; but these parts are entirely without connection, nay, are in
contradiction and contrast with each other, and every evening the actor
strives to forget himself entirely and be some quite different person.
This kind of thing paves the way for madness.

The exposition of the origin of madness given in the text will become more
comprehensible if it is remembered how unwillingly we think of things
which powerfully injure our interests, wound our pride, or interfere with
our wishes; with what difficulty do we determine to lay such things before
our own intellect for careful and serious investigation; how easily, on
the other hand, we unconsciously break away or sneak off from them again;
how, on the contrary, agreeable events come into our minds of their own
accord, and, if driven away, constantly creep in again, so that we dwell
on them for hours together. In that resistance of the will to allowing
what is contrary to it to come under the examination of the intellect lies
the place at which madness can break in upon the mind. Each new adverse
event must be assimilated by the intellect, _i.e._, it must receive a
place in the system of the truths connected with our will and its
interests, whatever it may have to displace that is more satisfactory.
Whenever this has taken place, it already pains us much less; but this
operation itself is often very painful, and also, in general, only takes
place slowly and with resistance. However, the health of the mind can only
continue so long as this is in each case properly carried out. If, on the
contrary, in some particular case, the resistance and struggles of the
will against the apprehension of some knowledge reaches such a degree that
that operation is not performed in its integrity, then certain events or
circumstances become for the intellect completely suppressed, because the
will cannot endure the sight of them, and then, for the sake of the
necessary connection, the gaps that thus arise are filled up at pleasure;
thus madness appears. For the intellect has given up its nature to please
the will: the man now imagines what does not exist. Yet the madness which
has thus arisen is now the lethe of unendurable suffering; it was the last
remedy of harassed nature, _i.e._, of the will.

Let me mention here in passing a proof of my view which is worth noticing.
Carlo Gozzi, in the “_Monstro turchino_,” act i. scene 2, presents to us a
person who has drunk a magic potion which produces forgetfulness, and this
person appears exactly like a madman.

In accordance with the above exposition one may thus regard the origin of
madness as a violent “casting out of the mind” of anything, which,
however, is only possible by “taking into the head” something else. The
converse process is more rare, that the “taking into the head” comes
first, and the “casting out of the mind” second. It takes place, however,
in those cases in which the occasion of insanity is kept constantly
present to the mind and cannot be escaped from; thus, for example, in the
case of many who have gone mad from love, erotomaniacs, where the occasion
of their madness is constantly longed after; also in the case of madness
which has resulted from the fright of some sudden horrible occurrence.
Such patients cling, as it were, convulsively to the thought they have
grasped, so that no other, or at least none opposed to it, can arise. In
both processes, however, what is essential to madness remains the same,
the impossibility of a uniformly connected recollection, such as is the
basis of our healthy and rational reflection. Perhaps the contrast of the
ways in which they arise, set forth here, might, if applied with judgment,
afford a sharp and profound principle of division of delusions proper.

For the rest, I have only considered the physical origin of madness, thus
what is introduced by external, objective occasions. More frequently,
however, it depends upon purely physical causes, upon malformations or
partial disorganisation of the brain or its membranes, also upon the
influence which other parts affected with disease exercise upon the brain.
Principally in the latter kind of madness false sense‐perceptions,
hallucinations, may arise. Yet the two causes of madness will generally
partake of each other, particularly the psychical of the physical. It is
the same as with suicide, which is rarely brought about by an external
occasion alone, but a certain physical discomfort lies at its foundation;
and according to the degree which this attains to a greater or less
external occasion is required; only in the case of the very highest degree
is no external occasion at all required. Therefore there is no misfortune
so great that it would influence every one to suicide, and none so small
that one like it has not already led to it. I have shown the psychical
origin of madness as, at least according to all appearance, it is brought
about in the healthy mind by a great misfortune. In the case of those who
are already strongly disposed to madness physically a very small
disappointment will be sufficient to induce it. For example, I remember a
man in a madhouse who had been a soldier, and had gone out of his mind
because his officer had addressed him as _Er_.(16) In the case of decided
physical disposition no occasion at all is required when this has come to
maturity. The madness which has sprung from purely psychical causes may,
perhaps, by the violent perversion of the course of thought which has
produced it, also introduce a kind of paralysis or other depravity of some
part of the brain, which, if not soon done away with, becomes permanent.
Therefore madness is only curable at first, and not after a longer time.

Pinel taught that there is a _mania sine delirio_, frenzy without
insanity. This was controverted by Esquirol, and since then much has been
said for and against it. The question can only be decided empirically. But
if such a state really does occur, then it is to be explained from the
fact that here the will periodically entirely withdraws itself from the
government and guidance of the intellect, and consequently of motives, and
thus it then appears as a blind, impetuous, destructive force of nature,
and accordingly manifests itself as the desire to annihilate everything
that comes in its way. The will thus let loose is like the stream which
has broken through the dam, the horse that has thrown his rider, or a
clock out of which the regulating screws have been taken. Yet only the
reason, thus _reflective_ knowledge, is included in that suspension, not
_intuitive_ knowledge also; otherwise the will would remain entirely
without guidance, and consequently the man would be immovable. But, on the
contrary, the man in a frenzy apprehends objects, for he breaks out upon
them; thus he has also consciousness of his present action, and afterwards
remembrance of it. But he is entirely without reflection, thus without any
guidance of the reason, consequently quite incapable of any consideration
or regard for the present, the past, or the future. When the attack is
over, and the reason has regained its command, its function is correct,
because here its proper activity has not been perverted or destroyed, but
only the will has found the means to withdraw itself from it entirely for
a while.




Chapter XXXIII.(17) Isolated Remarks On Natural Beauty.


What contributes among other things to make the sight of a beautiful
landscape so exceedingly delightful is the perfect _truth and consistency_
of nature. Certainly nature does not follow here the guidance of logic in
the connection of the grounds of knowledge, of antecedents and
consequences, premisses and conclusions; but still it follows what is for
it analogous to the law of causality in the visible connection of causes
and effects. Every modification, even the slightest, which an object
receives from its position, foreshortening, concealment, distance,
lighting, linear and atmospheric perspective, &c., is, through its effect
upon the eye, unerringly given and accurately taken account of: the Indian
proverb, “Every corn of rice casts its shadow,” finds here its
confirmation. Therefore here everything shows itself so consistent,
accurately regular, connected, and scrupulously right; here there are no
evasions. If now we consider the sight of a beautiful view, merely as a
brain‐phenomenon, it is the only one among the complicated brain‐phenomena
which is always absolutely regular, blameless, and perfect; all the rest,
especially our own mental operations, are, in form or material, affected
more or less with defects or inaccuracies. From this excellence of the
sight of beautiful nature, is the harmonious and thoroughly satisfying
character of its impression to be explained, and also the favourable
effect which it has upon our whole thought, which in its formal part
thereby becomes more correctly disposed, and to a certain extent purified,
for that brain‐phenomenon which alone is entirely faultless sets the brain
in general in perfectly normal action; and now the thought seeks to follow
that method of nature in the consistency, connectedness, regularity, and
harmony of all its processes, after being brought by it into the right
swing. A beautiful view is therefore a cathartic of the mind, as music,
according to Aristotle, is of the feeling, and in its presence one will
think most correctly.

That the sight of a mountain chain suddenly rising before us throws us so
easily into a serious, and even sublime mood may partly depend upon the
fact that the form of the mountains and the outline of the chain arising
from it is the only constantly _permanent_ line of the landscape, for the
mountains alone defy the decay which soon sweeps away everything else,
especially our own ephemeral person. Not that at the sight of the mountain
chain all this appeared distinctly in our consciousness, but an obscure
feeling of it is the fundamental note of our mood.

I would like to know why it is that while for the human form and
countenance light from above is altogether the most advantageous, and
light from below the most unfavourable, with regard to landscape nature
exactly the converse holds good.

Yet how æsthetic is nature! Every spot that is entirely uncultivated and
wild, _i.e._, left free to itself, however small it may be, if only the
hand of man remains absent, it decorates at once in the most tasteful
manner, clothes it with plants, flowers, and shrubs, whose unforced
nature, natural grace, and tasteful grouping bears witness that they have
not grown up under the rod of correction of the great egoist, but that
nature has here moved freely. Every neglected plant at once becomes
beautiful. Upon this rests the principle of the English garden, which is
as much as possible to conceal art, so that it may appear as if nature had
here moved freely; for only then is it perfectly beautiful, _i.e._, shows
in the greatest distinctness the objectification of the still unconscious
will to live, which here unfolds itself with the greatest naïveté, because
the forms are not, as in the animal world, determined by external ends,
but only immediately by the soil, climate, and a mysterious third
influence on account of which so many plants which have originally sprung
up in the same soil and climate yet show such different forms and
characters.

The great difference between the English, or more correctly the Chinese,
garden and the old French, which is now always becoming more rare, yet
still exists in a few magnificent examples, ultimately rests upon the fact
that the former is planned in an objective spirit, the latter in a
subjective. In the former the will of nature, as it objectifies itself in
tree and shrub, mountain and waterfall, is brought to the purest possible
expression of these its Ideas, thus of its own inner being. In the French
garden, on the other hand, only the will of the possessor of it is
mirrored, which has subdued nature so that instead of its Ideas it bears
as tokens of its slavery the forms which correspond to that will, and
which are forcibly imposed upon it—clipped hedges, trees cut into all
kinds of forms, straight alleys, arched avenues, &c.




Chapter XXXIV.(18) On The Inner Nature Of Art.


Not merely philosophy but also the fine arts work at bottom towards the
solution of the problem of existence. For in every mind that once gives
itself up to the purely objective contemplation of nature a desire has
been excited, however concealed and unconscious it may be, to comprehend
the true nature of things, of life and existence. For this alone has
interest for the intellect as such, _i.e._, for the pure subject of
knowledge which has become free from the aims of the will; as for the
subject which knows as a mere individual the aims of the will alone have
interest. On this account the result of the purely objective apprehension
of things is an expression more of the nature of life and existence, more
an answer to the question, “What is life?” Every genuine and successful
work of art answers this question in its own way with perfect correctness.
But all the arts speak only the naive and childish language of perception,
not the abstract and serious language of _reflection_; their answer is
therefore a fleeting image: not permanent and general knowledge. Thus for
_perception_ every work of art answers that question, every painting,
every statue, every poem, every scene upon the stage: music also answers
it; and indeed more profoundly than all the rest, for in its language,
which is understood with absolute directness, but which is yet
untranslatable into that of the reason, the inner nature of all life and
existence expresses itself. Thus all the other arts hold up to the
questioner a perceptible image, and say, “Look here, this is life.” Their
answer, however correct it may be, will yet always afford merely a
temporary, not a complete and final, satisfaction. For they always give
merely a fragment, an example instead of the rule, not the whole, which
can only be given in the universality of the _conception_. For this,
therefore, thus for reflection and in the abstract, to give an answer
which just on that account shall be permanent and suffice for always, is
the task of philosophy. However, we see here upon what the relationship of
philosophy to the fine arts rests, and can conclude from that to what
extent the capacity of both, although in its direction and in secondary
matters very different, is yet in its root the same.

Every work of art accordingly really aims at showing us life and things as
they are in truth, but cannot be directly discerned by every one through
the mist of objective and subjective contingencies. Art takes away this
mist.

The works of the poets, sculptors, and representative artists in general
contain an unacknowledged treasure of profound wisdom; just because out of
them the wisdom of the nature of things itself speaks, whose utterances
they merely interpret by illustrations and purer repetitions. On this
account, however, every one who reads the poem or looks at the picture
must certainly contribute out of his own means to bring that wisdom to
light; accordingly he comprehends only so much of it as his capacity and
culture admit of; as in the deep sea each sailor only lets down the lead
as far as the length of the line will allow. Before a picture, as before a
prince, every one must stand, waiting to see whether and what it will
speak to him; and, as in the case of a prince, so here he must not himself
address it, for then he would only hear himself. It follows from all this
that in the works of the representative arts all truth is certainly
contained, yet only _virtualiter_ or _implicite_; philosophy, on the other
hand, endeavours to supply the same truth _actualiter_ and _explicite_,
and therefore, in this sense, is related to art as wine to grapes. What it
promises to supply would be, as it were, an already realised and clear
gain, a firm and abiding possession; while that which proceeds from the
achievements and works of art is one which has constantly to be reproduced
anew. Therefore, however, it makes demands, not only upon those who
produce its works, but also upon those who are to enjoy them which are
discouraging and hard to comply with. Therefore its public remains small,
while that of art is large.

The co‐operation of the beholder, which is referred to above, as demanded
for the enjoyment of a work of art, depends partly upon the fact that
every work of art can only produce its effect through the medium of the
fancy; therefore it must excite this, and can never allow it to be left
out of the play and remain inactive. This is a condition of the æsthetic
effect, and therefore a fundamental law of all fine arts. But it follows
from this that, through the work of art, everything must not be directly
given to the senses, but rather only so much as is demanded to lead the
fancy on to the right path; something, and indeed the ultimate thing, must
always be left over for the fancy to do. Even the author must always leave
something over for the reader to think; for Voltaire has very rightly
said, “_Le secret d’être ennuyeux, c’est de tout dire_.” But besides this,
in art the best of all is too spiritual to be given directly to the
senses; it must be born in the imagination of the beholder, although
begotten by the work of art. It depends upon this that the sketches of
great masters often effect more than their finished pictures; although
another advantage certainly contributes to this, namely, that they are
completed offhand in the moment of conception; while the perfected
painting is only produced through continued effort, by means of skilful
deliberation and persistent intention, for the inspiration cannot last
till it is completed. From the fundamental æsthetical law we are speaking
of, it is further to be explained why wax figures never produce an
æsthetic effect, and therefore are not properly works of fine art,
although it is just in them that the imitation of nature is able to reach
its highest grade. For they leave nothing for the imagination to do.
Sculpture gives merely the form without the colour; painting gives the
colour, but the mere appearance of the form; thus both appeal to the
imagination of the beholder. The wax figure, on the other hand, gives all,
form and colour at once; whence arises the appearance of reality, and the
imagination is left out of account. Poetry, on the contrary, appeals
indeed to the imagination alone, which it sets in action by means of mere
words.

An arbitrary playing with the means of art without a proper knowledge of
the end is, in every art, the fundamental characteristic of the dabbler.
Such a man shows himself in the pillars that support nothing, aimless
volutes, juttings and projections of bad architecture, in the meaningless
runs and figures, together with the aimless noise of bad music, in the
jingling of the rhymes of senseless poetry, &c.

It follows from the preceding chapter, and from my whole view of art, that
its aim is the facilitating of the knowledge of the Ideas of the world (in
the Platonic sense, the only one which I recognise for the word Idea). The
Ideas, however, are essentially something perceptible, which, therefore,
in its fuller determinations, is inexhaustible. The communication of such
an Idea can therefore only take place on the path of perception, which is
that of art. Whoever, therefore, is filled with the comprehension of an
Idea is justified if he chooses art as the medium of its communication.
The mere conception, on the other hand, is something completely
determinable, therefore exhaustible, and distinctly thought, the whole
content of which can be coldly and dryly expressed in words. Now to desire
to communicate such a conception by means of a work of art is a very
useless circumlocution, indeed belongs to that playing with the means of
art without knowledge of its end which has just been condemned. Therefore
a work of art which has proceeded from mere distinct conceptions is always
ungenuine. If now, in considering a work of plastic art, or in reading a
poem, or in hearing a piece of music (which aims at describing something
definite), we see, through all the rich materials of art, the distinct,
limited, cold, dry conception shine out, and at last come to the front,
the conception which was the kernel of this work, the whole notion of
which consequently consisted in the distinct thinking of it, and
accordingly is absolutely exhausted by its communication, we feel
disgusted and indignant, for we see ourselves deceived and cheated out of
our interest and attention. We are only perfectly satisfied by the
impression of a work of art when it leaves something which, with all our
thinking about it, we cannot bring down to the distinctness of a
conception. The mark of that hybrid origin from mere conceptions is that
the author of a work of art could, before he set about it, give in
distinct words what he intended to present; for then it would have been
possible to attain his whole end through these words. Therefore it is an
undertaking as unworthy as it is absurd if, as has often been tried at the
present day, one seeks to reduce a poem of Shakspeare’s or Goethe’s to the
abstract truth which it was its aim to communicate. Certainly the artist
ought to think in the arranging of his work; but only that thought which
was _perceived_ before it was thought has afterwards, in its
communication, the power of animating or rousing, and thereby becomes
imperishable. We shall not refrain from observing here that certainly the
work which is done at a stroke, like the sketches of painters already
referred to, the work which is completed in the inspiration of its first
conception, and as it were unconsciously dashed off, like the melody which
comes entirely without reflection, and quite as if by inspiration, and
finally, also the lyrical poem proper, the mere song, in which the deeply
felt mood of the present, and the impression of the surroundings, as if
involuntarily, pours itself forth in words, whose metre and rhyme come
about of their own accord—that all these, I say, have the great advantage
of being purely the work of the ecstasy of the moment, the inspiration,
the free movement of genius, without any admixture of intention and
reflection; hence they are through and through delightful and enjoyable,
without shell and kernel, and their effect is much more inevitable than
that of the greatest works of art, of slower and more deliberate
execution. In all the latter, thus in great historical paintings, in long
epic poems, great operas, &c., reflection, intention, and deliberate
selection has had an important part; understanding, technical skill, and
routine must here fill up the gaps which the conception and inspiration of
genius has left, and must mix with these all kinds of necessary
supplementary work as cement of the only really genuinely brilliant parts.
This explains why all such works, only excepting the perfect masterpieces
of the very greatest masters (as, for example, “Hamlet,” “Faust,” the
opera of “Don Juan”), inevitably contain an admixture of something insipid
and wearisome, which in some measure hinders the enjoyment of them. Proofs
of this are the “Messiah,” “_Gerusalemme liberata_,” even “Paradise Lost”
and the “Æneid;” and Horace already makes the bold remark, “_Quandoque
dormitat bonus Homerus_.” But that this is the case is the consequence of
the limitation of human powers in general.

The mother of the useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts
superfluity. As their father, the former have understanding; the latter
genius, which is itself a kind of superfluity, that of the powers of
knowledge beyond the measure which is required for the service of the
will.




Chapter XXXV.(19) On The Æsthetics Of Architecture.


In accordance with the deduction given in the text of the pure æsthetics
of architecture from the lowest grades of the objectification of the will
or of nature, the Ideas of which it seeks to bring to distinct perception,
its one constant theme is _support and burden_, and its fundamental law is
that no burden shall be without sufficient support, and no support without
a suitable burden; consequently that the relation of these two shall be
exactly the fitting one. The purest example of the carrying out of this
theme is the column and entablature. Therefore the order or columnar
arrangement has become, as it were, the thorough bass of the whole of
architecture. In column and entablature the support and the burden are
_completely separated_; whereby the reciprocal action of the two and their
relation to each other becomes apparent. For certainly even every plain
wall contains support and burden; but here the two are still fused
together. All is here support and all is burden; hence there is no
æsthetic effect. This first appears through the separation, and takes
place in proportion to its degree. For between the row of columns and the
plain wall there are many intermediate degrees. Even in the mere breaking
up of the wall of a house by windows and doors one seeks at least to
indicate that separation by flat projecting pilasters (_antæ_) with
capitals, which are inserted under the mouldings, nay, in case of need,
are represented by mere painting, in order to indicate in some way the
entablature and an order. Real pillars, and also consoles and supports of
various kinds, realise more that pure separation of support and burden
which is striven after throughout by architecture. In this respect, next
to the column with the entablature, but as a special construction not
imitating it, stands the vault with the pillar. The latter certainly is
far from attaining to the æsthetic effect of the former, because here the
support and the burden are not _purely separated_, but are fused, passing
over into each other. In the vault itself every stone is at once burden
and support, and even the pillars, especially in groined vaulting, are, at
least apparently, held in position by the pressure of opposite arches; and
also just on account of this lateral pressure not only vaults but even
mere arches ought not to rest upon columns, but require the massive four‐
cornered pillars. In the row of columns alone is the separation complete,
for here the entablature appears as pure burden, the column as pure
support. Accordingly the relation of the colonnade to the plain wall may
be compared to that which would exist between a scale ascending in regular
intervals and a tone ascending little by little from the same depth to the
same height without gradation, which would produce a mere howl. For in the
one as in the other the material is the same, and the important difference
proceeds entirely from the _pure separation_.

Moreover, the support is not adapted to the burden when it is only
sufficient to bear it, but when it can do this so conveniently and amply
that at the first glance we are quite at ease about it. Yet this
superfluity of support must not exceed a certain degree; for otherwise we
will perceive support without burden, which is opposed to the æsthetic
end. As a rule for determining that degree the ancients devised the line
of equilibrium, which is got by carrying out the diminution of the
thickness of the column as it ascends till it runs out into an acute
angle, whereby the column becomes a cone; now every cross section will
leave the lower part so strong that it is sufficient to support the upper
part cut off. Commonly, however, one builds with twentyfold strength,
_i.e._, one lays upon every support only 1/20th of the maximum it could
bear. A glaring example of burden without support is presented to the eye
by the balconies at the corners of many houses built in the elegant style
of the present day. We do not see what supports them; they seem to hang
suspended, and disturb the mind.

That in Italy even the simplest and most unornamented buildings make an
æsthetic impression, while in Germany this is not the case, depends
principally upon the fact that in Italy the roofs are very flat. A high
roof is neither support nor burden, for its two halves mutually support
each other, but the whole has no weight corresponding to its extension.
Therefore it presents to the eye an extended mass which is entirely
foreign to the æsthetic end, serves merely a useful end, consequently
disturbs the former, of which the theme is always only support and burden.

The form of the column has its sole ground in the fact that it affords the
simplest and most suitable support. In the twisted column
inappropriateness appears as if with intentional perversity, and therefore
shamelessness: hence good taste condemns it at the first glance. The four‐
cornered pillar, since the diagonal exceeds the sides, has unequal
dimensions of thickness which have no end as their motive, but are
occasioned by the accident of greater feasibleness; and just on this
account it pleases us so very much less than the column. Even the
hexagonal or octagonal pillar is more pleasing, because it approaches more
nearly to the round column; for the form of the latter alone is
exclusively determined by the end. It is, however, also so determined in
all its other proportions, primarily in the relation of its thickness to
its height, within the limits permitted by the difference of the three
columnar orders. Therefore its diminution from the first third of its
height upwards, and also a slight increase of its thickness just at this
place (_entasis vitr._), depends upon the fact that the pressure of the
burden is greatest there. It has hitherto been believed that this increase
in thickness was peculiar to the Ionic and Corinthian columns alone, but
recent measurements have shown it also in the Doric columns, even at
Pæstum. Thus everything in the column, its thoroughly determined form, the
proportion of its height to its thickness, of both to the intervals
between the columns, and that of the whole series to the entablature and
the burden resting upon it, is the exactly calculated result of the
relation of the necessary support to the given burden. As the latter is
uniformly distributed, so must also the support be; therefore groups of
columns are tasteless. On the other hand, in the best Doric temples the
corner column comes somewhat nearer to the next ones, because the meeting
of the entablatures at the corner increases the burden; and in this the
principle of architecture expresses itself distinctly, that the structural
relations, _i.e._, the relations between support and burden, are the
essential ones, to which the relations of symmetry, as subordinate, must
at once give way. According to the weight of the whole burden generally
will the Doric or the two lighter orders of columns be chosen, for the
first, not only by the greater thickness, but also by the closer position
of the columns, which is essential to it, is calculated for heavier
burdens, to which end also the almost crude simplicity of its capital is
suited. The capitals in general serve the end of showing visibly that the
columns bear the entablature, and are not stuck in like pins; at the same
time they increase by means of their abacus the bearing surface. Since,
then, all the laws of columnar arrangement, and consequently also the form
and proportion of the column, in all its parts and dimensions down to the
smallest details, follow from the thoroughly understood and consistently
carried out conception of the amply adequate support of a given burden,
thus so far are determined _a priori_, it comes out clearly how perverse
is the thought, so often repeated, that the stems of trees, or even (which
unfortunately even “Vitruvius,” iv. 1, expresses) the human form has been
the prototype of the column. For if the form of the column were for
architecture a purely accidental one, taken from without, it could never
appeal to us so harmoniously and satisfactorily whenever we behold it in
its proper symmetry; nor, on the other hand, could every even slight
disproportion of it be felt at once by the fine and cultivated sense as
disagreeable and disturbing, like a false note in music. This is rather
only possible because, according to the given end and means, all the rest
is essentially determined _a priori_, as in music, according to the given
melody and key, the whole harmony is essentially so determined. And, like
music, architecture in general is also not an imitative art, although both
are often falsely taken to be so.

Æsthetic satisfaction, as was fully explained in the text, always depends
upon the apprehension of a (Platonic) Idea. For architecture, considered
merely as a fine art, the Ideas of the lowest grades of nature, such as
gravity, rigidity, and cohesion, are the peculiar theme; but not, as has
hitherto been assumed, merely regular form, proportion, and symmetry,
which, as something purely geometrical, properties of space, are not
Ideas, and therefore cannot be the theme of a fine art. Thus in
architecture also they are of secondary origin, and have a subordinate
significance, which I shall bring out immediately. If it were the task of
architecture as a fine art simply to exhibit these, then the model would
have the same effect as the finished work. But this is distinctly not the
case; on the contrary, the works of architecture, in order to act
æsthetically, absolutely must have a considerable size; nay, they can
never be too large, but may easily be too small. Indeed _ceteris paribus_
the æsthetic effect is in exact proportion to the size of the building,
because only great masses make the action of gravitation apparent and
impressive in a high degree. But this confirms my view that the tendency
and antagonism of those fundamental forces of nature constitute the
special æsthetical material of architecture, which, according to its
nature, requires large masses in order to become visible, and indeed
capable of being felt. The forms in architecture, as was shown above in
the case of the column, are primarily determined by the immediate
structural end of each part. But so far as this leaves anything
undetermined, the law of the most perfect clearness to perception, thus
also of the easiest comprehensibility, comes in; for architecture has its
existence primarily in our spatial perception, and accordingly appeals to
our _a priori_ faculty for this. But these qualities always result from
the greatest regularity of the forms and rationality of their relations.
Therefore beautiful architecture selects only regular figures composed of
straight lines or regular curves, and also the bodies which result from
these, such as cubes, parallelopipeda, cylinders, spheres, pyramids, and
cones; but as openings sometimes circles or ellipses, yet, as a rule,
quadrates, and still oftener rectangles, the latter of thoroughly rational
and very easily comprehended relation of their sides (not, for instance as
6:7, but as 1:2, 2:3), finally also blind windows or niches of regular and
comprehensible proportions. For the same reason it will readily give to
the buildings themselves and their large parts a rational and easily
comprehended relation of height and breadth; for example, it will let the
height of a facade be half the breadth, and place the pillars so that
every three or four of them, with the intervals between them, will measure
a line which is equal to the height, thus will form a quadrate. The same
principle of perceptibility and easy comprehension demands also that a
building should be easily surveyed. This introduces symmetry, which is
further necessary to mark out the work as a whole, and to distinguish its
essential from its accidental limitation; for sometimes, for example, it
is only under the guidance of symmetry that one knows whether one has
before one three buildings standing beside each other or only one. Thus
only by means of symmetry does a work of architecture at once announce
itself as individual unity, and as the development of a central thought.

Now although, as was cursorily shown above, architecture has by no means
to imitate the forms of nature, such as the stems of trees or even the
human figure, yet it ought to work in the spirit of nature, for it makes
the law its own, _natura nihil agit frustra, nihilque supervacaneum, et
quod commodissimum in omnibus suis operationibus sequitur_, and
accordingly avoids everything which is even only apparently aimless, and
always attains the end in view in each case, whether this is purely
architectonic, _i.e._, structural, or an end connected with usefulness, by
the shortest and most natural path, and thus openly exhibits the end
through the work itself. Thus it attains a certain grace, analogous to
that which in living creatures consists in the ease and suitableness of
every movement and position to its end. Accordingly we see in the good
antique style of architecture every part, whether pillar, column, arch,
entablature, or door, window, stair, or balcony, attain its end in the
directest and simplest manner, at the same time displaying it openly and
naively; just as organised nature also does in its works. The tasteless
style of architecture, on the contrary, seeks in everything useless
roundabout ways, and delights in caprices, thereby hits upon aimlessly
broken and irregular entablatures, grouped columns, fragmentary cornices
on door arches and gables, meaningless volutes, scrolls, and such like. It
plays with the means of the art without understanding its aims, as
children play with the tools of grown‐up people. This was given above as
the character of the bungler. Of this kind is every interruption of a
straight line, every alteration in the sweep of a curve, without apparent
end. On the other hand, it is also just that naive simplicity in the
disclosure and attainment of the end, corresponding to the spirit in which
nature works and fashions, that imparts such beauty and grace of form to
antique pottery that it ever anew excites our wonder, because it contrasts
so advantageously in original taste with our modern pottery, which bears
the stamp of vulgarity, whether it is made of porcelain or common potter’s
clay. At the sight of the pottery and implements of the ancients we feel
that if nature had wished to produce such things it would have done so in
these forms. Since, then, we see that the beauty of architecture arises
from the unconcealed exhibition of the ends, and the attainment of them by
the shortest and most natural path, my theory here appears in direct
contradiction with that of Kant, which places the nature of all beauty in
an apparent design without an end.

The sole theme of architecture here set forth—support and burden—is so
very simple, that just on this account this art, so far as it is a fine
art (but not so far as it serves useful ends), is perfect and complete in
essential matters, since the best Greek period, at least, is not
susceptible of any important enrichment. On the other hand, the modern
architect cannot noticeably depart from the rules and patterns of the
ancients without already being on the path of deterioration. Therefore
there remains nothing for him to do but to apply the art transmitted to
him by the ancients, and carry out the rules so far as is possible under
the limitations which are inevitably laid down for him by wants, climate,
age, and country. For in this art, as in sculpture, the effort after the
ideal unites with the imitation of the ancients.

I scarcely need to remind the reader that in all these considerations I
have had in view antique architecture alone, and not the so‐called Gothic
style, which is of Saracen origin, and was introduced by the Goths in
Spain to the rest of Europe. Perhaps a certain beauty of its own kind is
not altogether to be denied to this style, but yet if it attempts to
oppose itself to the former as its equal, then this is a barbarous
presumption which must not be allowed for a moment. How beneficently,
after contemplating such Gothic magnificence, does the sight of a building
correctly carried out in the antique style act upon our mind! We feel at
once that this alone is right and true. If one could bring an ancient
Greek before our most celebrated Gothic cathedrals, what would he say to
them?—Βαρβαροι! Our pleasure in Gothic works certainly depends for the
most part upon the association of ideas and historical reminiscences, thus
upon a feeling which is foreign to art. All that I have said of the true
æsthetic end, of the spirit and the theme of architecture, loses in the
case of these works its validity. For the freely lying entablature has
vanished, and with it the columns: support and burden, arranged and
distributed in order to give visible form to the conflict between rigidity
and gravity, are here no longer the theme. Moreover, that thorough, pure
rationality by virtue of which everything admits of strict account, nay,
already presents it of its own accord to the thoughtful beholder, and
which belongs to the character of antique architecture, can here no longer
be found; we soon become conscious that here, instead of it, a will guided
by other conceptions has moved; therefore much remains unexplained to us.
For only the antique style of architecture is conceived in a purely
_objective_ spirit; the Gothic style is more in the subjective spirit. Yet
as we have recognised the peculiar æsthetic fundamental thought of antique
architecture in the unfolding of the conflict between rigidity and
gravity, if we wish to discover in Gothic architecture also an analogous
fundamental thought, it will be this, that here the entire overcoming and
conquest of gravity by rigidity is supposed to be exhibited. For in
accordance with this the horizontal line which is that of burden has
entirely vanished, and the action of gravity only appears indirectly,
disguised in arches and vaults, while the vertical line which is that of
support, alone prevails, and makes palpable to the senses the victorious
action of rigidity, in excessively high buttresses, towers, turrets, and
pinnacles without number which rise unencumbered on high. While in antique
architecture the tendency and pressure from above downwards is just as
well represented and exhibited as that from below upwards, here the latter
decidedly predominates; whence that analogy often observed with the
crystal, whose crystallisation also takes place with the overcoming of
gravity. If now we attribute this spirit and fundamental thought to Gothic
architecture, and would like thereby to set it up as the equally justified
antithesis of antique architecture, we must remember that the conflict
between rigidity and gravity, which the antique architecture so openly and
naïvely expresses, is an actual and true conflict founded in nature; the
entire overcoming of gravity by rigidity, on the contrary, remains a mere
appearance, a fiction accredited by illusion. Every one will easily be
able to see clearly how from the fundamental thought given here, and the
peculiarities of Gothic architecture noticed above, there arises that
mysterious and hyperphysical character which is attributed to it. It
principally arises, as was already mentioned, from the fact that here the
arbitrary has taken the place of the purely rational, which makes itself
known as the thorough adaptation of the means to the end. The many things
that are really aimless, but yet are so carefully perfected, raise the
assumption of unknown, unfathomed, and secret ends, _i.e._, give the
appearance of mystery. On the other hand, the brilliant side of Gothic
churches is the interior; because here the effect of the groined vaulting
borne by slender, crystalline, aspiring pillars, raised high aloft, and,
all burden having disappeared, promising eternal security, impresses the
mind; while most of the faults which have been mentioned lie upon the
outside. In antique buildings the external side is the most advantageous,
because there we see better the support and the burden; in the interior,
on the other hand, the flat roof always retains something depressing and
prosaic. For the most part, also, in the temples of the ancients, while
the outworks were many and great, the interior proper was small. An
appearance of sublimity is gained from the hemispherical vault of a
cupola, as in the Pantheon, of which, therefore, the Italians also,
building in this style, have made a most extensive use. What determines
this is, that the ancients, as southern peoples, lived more in the open
air than the northern nations who have produced the Gothic style of
architecture. Whoever, then, absolutely insists upon Gothic architecture
being accepted as an essential and authorised style may, if he is also
fond of analogies, regard it as the negative pole of architecture, or,
again, as its minor key. In the interest of good taste I must wish that
great wealth will be devoted to that which is objectively, _i.e._,
actually, good and right, to what in itself is beautiful, but not to that
whose value depends merely upon the association of ideas. Now when I see
how this unbelieving age so diligently finishes the Gothic churches left
incomplete by the believing Middle Ages, it looks to me as if it were
desired to embalm a dead Christianity.




Chapter XXXVI.(20) Isolated Remarks On The Æsthetics Of The Plastic And
Pictorial Arts.


In sculpture beauty and grace are the principal things; but in painting
expression, passion, and character predominate; therefore just so much of
the claims of beauty must be neglected. For a perfect beauty of all forms,
such as sculpture demands, would detract from the characteristic and weary
by monotony. Accordingly painting may also present ugly faces and
emaciated figures; sculpture, on the other hand, demands beauty, although
not always perfect, but, throughout, strength and fulness of the figures.
Consequently a thin Christ upon the Cross, a dying St. Jerome, wasted by
age and disease, like the masterpiece of Domenichino, is a proper subject
for painting; while, on the contrary, the marble figure by Donatello, in
the gallery at Florence, of John the Baptist, reduced to skin and bone by
fasting, has, in spite of the masterly execution, a repulsive effect. From
this point of view sculpture seems suitable for the affirmation, painting
for the negation, of the will to live, and from this it may be explained
why sculpture was the art of the ancients, while painting has been the art
of the Christian era.

In connection with the exposition given in § 45 of the first volume, that
the discovery, recognition, and retention of the type of human beauty
depends to a certain extent upon an anticipation of it, and therefore in
part has an _a priori_ foundation, I find that I have yet to bring out
clearly the fact that this anticipation nevertheless requires experience,
by which it may be stirred up; analogous to the instinct of the brutes,
which, although guiding the action _a priori_, yet requires determination
by motives in the details of it. Experience and reality present to the
intellect of the artist human forms, which, in one part or another, are
more or less true to nature, as if it were asking for his judgment
concerning them, and thus, after the Socratic method, call forth from that
obscure anticipation the distinct and definite knowledge of the ideal.
Therefore it assisted the Greek sculptors very much that the climate and
customs of their country gave them opportunity the whole day of seeing
half‐naked forms, and in the gymnasium entirely naked forms. In this way
every limb presented its plastic significance to criticism, and to
comparison with the ideal which lay undeveloped in their consciousness.
Thus they constantly exercised their judgment with regard to all forms and
limbs, down to their finest shades of difference; and thus, little by
little, their originally dull anticipation of the ideal of human beauty
was raised to such distinct consciousness that they became capable of
objectifying it in works of art. In an entirely analogous manner some
experience is useful and necessary to the poet for the representation of
characters. For although he does not work according to experience and
empirical data, but in accordance with the clear consciousness of the
nature of humanity, as he finds it within himself, yet experience serves
this consciousness as a pattern, incites it and gives it practice.
Accordingly his knowledge of human nature and its varieties, although in
the main it proceeds _a priori_ and by anticipation, yet first receives
life, definiteness, and compass through experience. But, supporting
ourselves upon the preceding book and chapter 44 in the following book, we
can go still deeper into the ground of that marvellous sense of beauty of
the Greeks which made them alone of all nations upon earth capable of
discovering the true normal type of the human form, and accordingly of
setting up the pattern of beauty and grace for the imitation of all ages,
and we can say: The same thing which, if it remains unseparated from the
_will_, gives sexual instinct with its discriminating selection, _i.e._,
_sexual love_ (which it is well known was subject among the Greeks to
great aberrations), becomes, if, by the presence of an abnormally
preponderating intellect, it separates itself from the will and yet
remains active, _the objective sense of beauty_ of the human form, which
now shows itself primarily as a critical artistic sense, but can rise to
the discovery and representation of the norm of all parts and proportions;
as was the case in Phidias, Praxiteles, Scopas, &c. Then is fulfilled what
Goethe makes the artist say—


    “That I with mind divine
    And human hand
    May be able to form
    What with my wife,
    As animal, I can and must.”


And again, analogous to this, that which in the poet, if it remained
unseparated from the will, would give only worldly prudence, becomes, if
it frees itself from the will by abnormal preponderance of the intellect,
the capacity for objective, dramatic representation.

Modern sculpture, whatever it may achieve, is still analogous to modern
Latin poetry, and, like this, is a child of imitation, sprung from
reminiscences. If it presumes to try to be original, it at once goes
astray, especially upon the bad path of forming according to nature as it
lies before it, instead of according to the proportions of the ancients.
Canova, Thorwaldsen, and many others may be compared to Johannes Secundus
and Owenus. It is the same with architecture, only there it is founded in
the art itself, the purely æsthetic part of which is of small compass, and
was already exhausted by the ancients; therefore the modern architect can
only distinguish himself in the wise application of it; and he ought to
know that he removes himself from good taste just so far as he departs
from the style and pattern of the Greeks.

The art of the painter, considered only so far as it aims at producing the
appearance of reality, may ultimately be referred to the fact that he
understands how to separate purely what in seeing is the mere sensation,
thus the affection of the retina, _i.e._, the only directly given
_effect_, from its _cause_, _i.e._, the objective external world, the
perception of which first rises in the understanding from this effect;
whereby, if he has technical skill, he is in a position to produce the
same effect in the eye through an entirely different cause, the patches of
applied colour, from which then in the understanding of the beholder the
same perception again arises through the unavoidable reference of the
effect to the ordinary cause.

If we consider how there lies something so entirely idiosyncratic, so
thoroughly original, in every human countenance, and that it presents a
whole which can only belong to a unity consisting entirely of necessary
parts by virtue of which we recognise a known individual out of so many
thousands, even after long years, although the possible variations of
human features, especially of one race, lie within very narrow limits, we
must doubt whether anything of such essential unity and such great
originality could ever proceed from any other source than from the
mysterious depths of the inner being of nature; but from this it would
follow that no artist could be capable of really reproducing the original
peculiarity of a human countenance, or even of composing it according to
nature from recollection. Accordingly what he produced of this kind would
always be only a half true, nay, perhaps an impossible composition; for
how should he compose an actual physiognomical unity when the principle of
this unity is really unknown to him? Therefore, in the case of every face
which has merely been imagined by an artist, we must doubt whether it is
in fact a possible face, and whether nature, as the master of all masters,
would not show it to be a bungled production by pointing out complete
contradictions in it. This would, of course, lead to the principle that in
historical paintings only portraits ought to figure, which certainly would
then have to be selected with the greatest care and in some degree
idealised. It is well known that great artists have always gladly painted
from living models and introduced many portraits.

Although, as is explained in the text, the real end of painting, as of art
in general, is to make the comprehension of the (Platonic) Ideas of the
nature of the world easier for us, whereby we are at once thrown into the
state of pure, _i.e._, will‐less, knowing, there yet belongs to it besides
this an independent beauty of its own, which is produced by the mere
harmony of the colours, the pleasingness of the grouping, the happy
distribution of light and shade, and the tone of the whole picture. This
accompanying subordinate kind of beauty furthers the condition of pure
knowing, and is in painting what the diction, the metre, and rhyme are in
poetry; both are not what is essential, but what acts first and
immediately.

I have some further evidence to give in support of my judgment given in
the first volume, § 50, on the inadmissibleness of allegory in painting.
In the Borghese palace at Rome there is the following picture by Michael
Angelo Caravaggio: Jesus, as a child of about ten years old, treads upon
the head of a serpent, but entirely without fear and with great calmness;
and His mother, who accompanies Him, remains quite as indifferent. Close
by stands St. Elizabeth, looking solemnly and tragically up to heaven. Now
what could be thought of this kyriological hieroglyphic by a man who had
never heard anything about the seed of the woman that should bruise the
head of the serpent? At Florence, in the library of the palace Riccardi,
we find the following allegory upon the ceiling, painted by Luca Giordano,
which is meant to signify that science frees the understanding from the
bonds of ignorance: the understanding is a strong man bound with cords,
which are just falling off; a nymph holds a mirror in front of him,
another hands him a large detached wing; above sits science on a globe,
and beside her, with a globe in her hand, the naked truth. At Ludwigsburg,
near Stuttgart, there is a picture which shows us time, as Saturn, cutting
off with a pair of shears the wings of Cupid. If this is meant to signify
that when we grow old love proves unstable, this no doubt has its truth.

The following may serve to strengthen my solution of the problem as to why
Laocoon does not cry out. One may practically convince oneself of the
faulty effect of the representation of shrieking by the works of the
plastic and pictorial arts, which are essentially dumb, by a picture of
the slaughter of the innocents, by Guido Reni, which is to be found in the
Academy of Arts at Bologna, and in which this great artist has committed
the mistake of painting six shrieking wide‐open mouths. Let any one who
wants to have this more distinct think of a pantomimic representation on
the stage, and in one of the scenes an urgent occasion for one of the
players to shriek; if now the dancer who is representing this part should
express the shriek by standing for a while with his mouth wide open, the
loud laughter of the whole house would bear witness to the absurdity of
the thing. Accordingly, since the shrieking of Laocoon had to be avoided
for reasons which did not lie in the objects to be represented, but in the
nature of the representing art, the task thus arose for the artist so to
present this not‐shrieking as to make it plausible to us that a man in
such a position should not shriek. He solves this problem by representing
the bite of the snake, not as having already taken place, nor yet as still
threatening, but as just happening now in the side; for thereby the lower
part of the body is contracted, and shrieking made impossible. This
immediate but only subordinate reason was correctly discovered by Goethe,
and is expounded at the end of the eleventh book of his autobiography, and
also in the paper on Laocoon in the first part of the Propylæa; but the
ultimate, primary reason, which conditions this one, is that which I have
set forth. I cannot refrain from remarking that I here stand in the same
relation to Goethe as with reference to the theory of colours. In the
collection of the Duke of Aremberg at Brussels there is an antique head of
Laocoon which was found later. However, the head in the world‐renowned
group is not a restored one which follows from Goethe’s special table of
all the restorations of this group, which is given at the end of the first
volume of the Propylæa, and is also confirmed by the fact that the head
which was found later resembles that of the group very much. Thus we must
assume that another antique repetition of the group has existed to which
the Aremberg head belonged. In my opinion the latter excels both in beauty
and expression that of the group. It has the mouth decidedly wider open
than in the group, yet not really to the extent of shrieking.




Chapter XXXVII.(21) On The Æsthetics Of Poetry.


I might give it as the simplest and most correct definition of poetry,
that it is the art of bringing the imagination into play by means of
words. How it brings this to pass I have shown in the first volume, § 51.
A special confirmation of what is said there is afforded by the following
passage in a letter of Wieland’s to Merck, which has since then been
published: “I have spent two days and a half upon a single stanza, in
which the whole thing ultimately depended upon a single word which I
wanted and could not find. I revolved and turned about the thing and my
brain in all directions, because naturally, where a picture was in
question, I desired to bring the same definite vision, which floated
before my own mind into the mind of my reader also, and for this all often
depends, _ut nosti_, upon a single touch or suggestion or reflex” (_Briefe
an Merck_, edited by Wagner, 1835, p. 193). From the fact that the
imagination of the reader is the material in which poetry exhibits its
pictures, it has the advantage that the fuller development of these
pictures and their finer touches, take place in the imagination of every
one just as is most suitable to his individuality, his sphere of
knowledge, and his humour, and therefore move him in the most lively
manner; instead of which plastic and pictorial art cannot so adapt itself,
but here _one_ picture, _one_ form, must satisfy all. And yet this will
always bear in some respect the stamp of the individuality of the artist
or of his model, as a subjective or accidental and inefficient addition;
although always less so the more objective, _i.e._, the more of a genius,
the artist is. This, to some extent, explains why works of poetry exercise
a much stronger, deeper, and more universal effect than pictures and
statues; the latter, for the most part, leave the common people quite
cold; and, in general, the plastic arts are those which have the weakest
effect. A remarkable proof of this is afforded by the frequent discovery
and disclosure of pictures by great masters in private houses and all
kinds of localities, where they have been hanging for many generations,
not buried and concealed, but merely unheeded, thus without any effect. In
my time (1823) there was even discovered in Florence a Madonna of
Raphael’s, which had hung for a long series of years on the wall of the
servants’ hall of a palace (in the _Quartiere di S. Spirito_); and this
happens among Italians, the nation which is gifted beyond all others with
the sense of the beautiful. It shows how little direct and immediate
effect the works of plastic and pictorial art have, and that it requires
more culture and knowledge to prize them than the works of all other arts.
How unfailingly, on the contrary, a beautiful melody that touches the
heart makes its journey round the world, and an excellent poem wanders
from people to people. That the great and rich devote their powerful
support just to the plastic and pictorial arts, and expend considerable
sums upon _their_ works only; nay, at the present day, an idolatry, in the
proper sense of the term, gives the value of a large estate for a picture
of a celebrated old master—this depends principally upon the rarity of the
masterpieces, the possession of which therefore gratifies pride; and then
also upon the fact that the enjoyment of them demands very little time and
effort, and is ready at any moment, for a moment; while poetry and even
music make incomparably harder conditions. Corresponding to this, the
plastic and pictorial arts may be dispensed with; whole nations—for
example, the Mohammedan peoples—are without them, but no people is without
music and poetry.

But the intention with which the poet sets our imagination in motion is to
reveal to us the Ideas, _i.e._, to show us by an example what life and
what the world is. The first condition of this is that he himself has
known it; according as his knowledge has been profound or superficial so
will his poem be. Therefore, as there are innumerable degrees of
profoundness and clearness in the comprehension of the nature of things,
so are there of poets. Each of these, however, must regard himself as
excellent so far as he has correctly represented what he knew, and his
picture answers to _his_ original: he must make himself equal with the
best, for even in the best picture he does not recognise more than in his
own, that is, as much as he sees in nature itself; for his glance cannot
now penetrate deeper. But the best himself recognises himself as such in
the fact that he sees how superficial was the view of the others, how much
lay beyond it which they were not able to repeat, because they did not see
it, and how much further his own glance and picture reaches. If he
understood the superficial poets as little as they do him, then he would
necessarily despair; for just because it requires an extraordinary man to
do him justice, but the inferior poets can just as little esteem him as he
can them, he also has long to live upon his own approval before that of
the world follows it. Meanwhile he is deprived even of his own approval,
for he is expected to be very modest. It is, however, as impossible that
he who has merit, and knows what it costs, should himself be blind to it,
as that a man who is six feet high should not observe that he rises above
others. If from the base of the tower to the summit is 300 feet, then
certainly it is just as much from the summit to the base. Horace,
Lucretius, Ovid, and almost all the ancients have spoken proudly of
themselves, and also Dante, Shakspeare, Bacon of Verulam, and many more.
That one can be a great man without observing anything of it is an
absurdity of which only hopeless incapacity can persuade itself, in order
that it may regard the feeling of its own insignificance as modesty. An
Englishman has wittily and correctly observed that merit and modesty have
nothing in common except the initial letter.(22) I have always a suspicion
about modest celebrities that they may very well be right; and Corneille
says directly—


    “La fausse humilité ne met plus en crédit:
    Je sçais ce que je vaux, et crois ce qu’on m’en dit.”


Finally, Goethe has frankly said, “Only good‐for‐nothings are modest.” But
the assertion would be still more certain that those who so eagerly demand
modesty from others, urge modesty, unceasingly cry, “Only be modest, for
God’s sake, only be modest!” are positively good‐for‐nothings, _i.e._,
persons entirely without merit, manufactures of nature, ordinary members
of the great mass of humanity. For he who himself has merit also concedes
merit—understands himself truly and really. But he who himself lacks all
excellence and merit wishes there was no such thing: the sight of it in
others stretches him upon the rack; pale, green, and yellow envy consumes
his heart: he would like to annihilate and destroy all those who are
personally favoured; but if unfortunately he must let them live, it must
only be under the condition that they conceal, entirely deny, nay, abjure
their advantages. This, then, is the root of the frequent eulogising of
modesty. And if the deliverers of these eulogies have the opportunity of
suppressing merit as it arises, or at least of hindering it from showing
itself or being known, who can doubt that they will do it? For this is the
practice of their theory.

Now, although the poet, like every artist, always brings before us only
the particular, the individual, what he has known, and wishes by his work
to make us know, is the (Platonic) Idea, the whole species; therefore in
his images, as it were, the type of human characters and situations will
be impressed. The narrative and also the dramatic poet takes the whole
particular from life, and describes it accurately in its individuality,
but yet reveals in this way the whole of human existence; for although he
seems to have to do with the particular, in truth he is concerned with
that which is everywhere and at all times. Hence it arises that sentences,
especially of the dramatic poets, even without being general apophthegms,
find frequent application in actual life. Poetry is related to philosophy
as experience is related to empirical science. Experience makes us
acquainted with the phenomenon in the particular and by means of examples,
science embraces the whole of phenomena by means of general conceptions.
So poetry seeks to make us acquainted with the (Platonic) Ideas through
the particular and by means of examples. Philosophy aims at teaching, as a
whole and in general, the inner nature of things which expresses itself in
these. One sees even here that poetry bears more the character of youth,
philosophy that of old age. In fact, the gift of poetry really only
flourishes in youth; and also the susceptibility for poetry is often
passionate in youth: the youth delights in verses as such, and is often
contented with small ware. This inclination gradually diminishes with
years, and in old age one prefers prose. By that poetical tendency of
youth the sense of the real is then easily spoiled. For poetry differs
from reality by the fact that in it life flows past us, interesting and
yet painless; while in reality, on the contrary, so long as it is painless
it is uninteresting, and as soon as it becomes interesting, it does not
remain without pain. The youth who has been initiated into poetry earlier
than into reality now desires from the latter what only the former can
achieve; this is a principal source of the discomfort which oppresses the
most gifted youths.

Metre and rhyme are a fetter, but also a veil which the poet throws round
him, and under which he is permitted to speak as he otherwise dared not
do; and that is what gives us pleasure. He is only half responsible for
all that he says; metre and rhyme must answer for the other half. Metre,
or measure, as mere rhythm, has its existence only in time, which is a
pure perception _a priori_, thus, to use Kant’s language, belongs merely
to _pure sensibility_; rhyme, on the other hand, is an affair of
sensation, in the organ of hearing, thus of _empirical sensibility_.
Therefore rhythm is a much nobler and more worthy expedient than rhyme,
which the ancients accordingly despised, and which found its origin in
those imperfect languages which arose from the corruption of earlier ones
and in barbarous times. The poorness of French poetry depends principally
upon the fact that it is confined to rhyme alone without metre, and it is
increased by the fact that in order to conceal its want of means it has
increased the difficulty of rhyming by a number of pedantic laws, such as,
for example, that only syllables which are written the same way rhyme, as
if it were for the eye and not for the ear that the hiatus is forbidden;
that a number of words must not occur; and many such, to all of which the
new school of French poetry seeks to put an end. In no language, however,
at least on me, does the rhyme make such a pleasing and powerful
impression as in Latin; the rhymed Latin poems of the Middle Ages have a
peculiar charm. This must be explained from the fact that the Latin
language is incomparably more perfect, more beautiful and noble, than any
modern language, and now moves so gracefully in the ornaments and spangles
which really belong to the latter, and which it itself originally
despised.

To serious consideration it might almost appear as high treason against
our reason that even the slightest violence should be done to a thought or
its correct and pure expression, with the childish intention that after
some syllables the same sound of word should be heard, or even that these
syllables themselves should present a kind of rhythmical beat. But without
such violence very few verses would be made; for it must be attributed to
this that in foreign languages verses are much more difficult to
understand than prose. If we could see into the secret workshops of the
poets, we would find that the thought is sought for the rhyme ten times
oftener than the rhyme for the thought; and even when the latter is the
case, it is not easily accomplished without pliability on the part of the
thought. But the art of verse bids defiance to these considerations, and,
moreover, has all ages and peoples upon its side, so great is the power
which metre and rhyme exercise upon the feeling, and so effective the
mysterious _lenocinium_ which belongs to them. I would explain this from
the fact that a happily rhymed verse, by its indescribably emphatic
effect, raises the feeling as if the thought expressed in it lay already
predestined, nay, performed in the language, and the poet has only had to
find it out. Even trivial thoughts receive from rhythm and rhyme a touch
of importance; cut a figure in this attire, as among girls plain faces
attract the eye by finery. Nay, even distorted and false thoughts gain
through versification an appearance of truth. On the other hand, even
famous passages from famous poets shrink together and become insignificant
when they are reproduced accurately in prose. If only the true is
beautiful, and the dearest ornament of truth is nakedness, then a thought
which appears true and beautiful in prose will have more true worth than
one which affects us in the same way in verse. Now it is very striking,
and well worth investigating, that such trifling, nay, apparently
childish, means as metre and rhyme produce so powerful an effect. I
explain it to myself in the following manner: That which is given directly
to the sense of hearing, thus the mere sound of the words, receives from
rhythm and rhyme a certain completeness and significance in itself for it
thereby becomes a kind of music; therefore it seems now to exist for its
own sake, and no longer as a mere means, mere signs of something
signified, the sense of the words. To please the ear with its sound seems
to be its whole end, and therefore with this everything seems to be
attained and all claims satisfied. But that it further contains a meaning,
expresses a thought, presents itself now as an unexpected addition, like
words to music—as an unexpected present which agreeably surprises us—and
therefore, since we made no demands of this kind, very easily satisfies
us; and if indeed this thought is such that, in itself, thus said in
prose, it would also be significant, then we are enchanted. I can
remember, in my early childhood, that I had delighted myself for a long
time with the agreeable sound of verse before I made the discovery that it
all also contained meaning and thoughts. Accordingly there is also, in all
languages, a mere doggerel poetry almost entirely devoid of meaning.
Davis, the Sinologist, in the preface to his translation of the “_Laou‐
sang‐urh_,” or “_An Heir in Old Age_” (_London, 1817_), observes that the
Chinese dramas partly consist of verses which are sung, and adds: “The
meaning of them is often obscure, and, according to the statements of the
Chinese themselves, the end of these verses is especially to flatter the
ear, and the sense is neglected, and even entirely sacrificed to the
harmony.” Who is not reminded here of the choruses of many Greek tragedies
which are often so hard to make out?

The sign by which one most immediately recognises the genuine poet, both
of the higher and lower species, is the unforced nature of his rhymes.
They have appeared of themselves as if by divine arrangement; his thoughts
come to him already in rhyme. The homely, prosaic man on the contrary,
seeks the rhyme for the thought; the bungler seeks the thought for the
rhyme. Very often one can find out from a couple of rhymed verses which of
the two had the thought and which had the rhyme as its father. The art
consists in concealing the latter, so that such lines may not appear
almost as mere stuffed out _boutsrimés_.

According to my feeling (proofs cannot here be given) rhyme is from its
nature binary: its effect is limited to one single recurrence of the same
sound, and is not strengthened by more frequent repetition. Thus whenever
a final syllable has received the one of the same sound its effect is
exhausted; the third recurrence of the note acts merely as a second rhyme
which accidentally hits upon the same sound, but without heightening the
effect; it links itself on to the existing rhyme, yet without combining
with it to produce a stronger impression. For the first note does not
sound through the second on to the third: therefore this is an æsthetic
pleonasm, a double courage which is of no use. Least of all, therefore, do
such accumulations of rhymes merit the heavy sacrifices which they cost in
the octave rhyme, the terza rima, and the sonnet, and which are the cause
of the mental torture under which we sometimes read such productions, for
poetical pleasure is impossible under the condition of racking our brains.
That the great poetical mind sometimes overcomes even these forms, and
moves in them with ease and grace, does not extend to a recommendation of
the forms themselves, for in themselves they are as ineffectual as they
are difficult. And even in good poets, when they make use of these forms,
we frequently see the conflict between the rhyme and the thought, in which
now one and now the other gains the victory; thus either the thought is
stunted for the sake of the rhyme, or the rhyme has to be satisfied with a
weak _à peu près_. Since this is so, I do not regard it as an evidence of
ignorance, but as a proof of good taste, that Shakspeare in his sonnets
has given different rhymes to each quatraine. At any rate, their acoustic
effect is not in the least diminished by it, and the thought obtains its
rights far more than it could have done if it had had to be laced up in
the customary Spanish boots.

It is a disadvantage for the poetry of a language if it has many words
which cannot be used in prose, and, on the other hand, dare not use
certain words of prose. The former is mostly the case in Latin and Italian
poetry, and the latter in French, where it has recently been very aptly
called, “_La bégeulerie de la langue française_;” both are to be found
less in English, and least in German. For such words belonging exclusively
to poetry remain foreign to our heart, do not speak to us directly, and
therefore leave us cold. They are a conventional language of poetry, and
as it were mere painted sensations instead of real ones: they exclude
genuine feeling.

The distinction, so often discussed in our own day, between _classic_ and
_romantic_ poetry seems to me ultimately to depend upon the fact that the
former knows no other motives than those which are purely human, actual,
and natural; the latter, on the other hand, also treats artificial
conventional, and imaginary motives as efficient. To such belong the
motives which spring from the Christian mythus, also from the chivalrous
over‐strained fantastical law of honour, further from the absurd and
ludicrous Germano‐Christian veneration of women, and lastly from doting
and mooning hyperphysical amorousness. But even in the best poets of the
romantic class, _e.g._, in Calderon, we can see to what ridiculous
distortions of human relations and human nature these motives lead. Not to
speak of the Autos, I merely refer to such pieces as “_No siempre el peor
es cierto_” (The worst is not always certain), and “_El postrero duelo en
España_” (The last duel in Spain), and similar comedies _en capa y
espada_: with the elements mentioned there is here further associated the
scholastic subtility so often appearing in the conversation which at that
time belonged to the mental culture of the higher classes. How decidedly
advantageous, on the contrary, is the position of the poetry of the
ancients, which always remains true to nature; and the result is that
classical poetry has an unconditional, romantic poetry only a conditional,
truth and correctness; analogous to Greek and Gothic architecture. Yet, on
the other hand, we must remark here that all dramatic or narrative poems
which transfer their scene to ancient Greece or Rome lose by this from the
fact that our knowledge of antiquity, especially in what concerns the
details of life, is insufficient, fragmentary, and not drawn from
perception. This obliges the poet to avoid much and to content himself
with generalities, whereby he becomes abstract, and his work loses that
concreteness and individualisation which is throughout essential to
poetry. It is this which gives all such works the peculiar appearance of
emptiness and tediousness. Only Shakspeare’s works of this kind are free
from it; because without hesitation he has presented, under the names of
Greeks and Romans, Englishmen of his own time.

It has been objected to many masterpieces of lyrical poetry, especially
some Odes of Horace (see, for example, the second of the third book) and
several of Goethe’s songs (for example, “The Shepherd’s Lament”), that
they lack proper connection and are full of gaps in the thought. But here
the logical connection is intentionally neglected, in order that the unity
of the fundamental sensation and mood may take its place, which comes out
more clearly just by the fact that it passes like a thread through the
separate pearls, and brings about the quick changes of the objects of
contemplation, in the same way as in music the transition from one key to
another is brought about by the chord of the seventh, through which the
still sounding fundamental note becomes the dominant of the new key. Most
distinctly, even exaggeratedly, the quality here described is found in the
Canzone of Petrarch which begins, “_Mai non vo’ più cantar, com’ io
soleva_.”

Accordingly, as in the lyrical poem the subjective element predominates,
so in the drama, on the contrary, the objective element is alone and
exclusively present. Between the two epic poetry in all its forms and
modifications, from the narrative romance to the epos proper, has a broad
middle path. For although in the main it is objective, yet it contains a
subjective element, appearing now more and now less, which finds its
expression in the tone, in the form of the delivery, and also in scattered
reflections. We do not so entirely lose sight of the poet as in the drama.

The end of the drama in general is to show us in an example what is the
nature and existence of man. The sad or the bright side of these can be
turned to us in it, or their transitions into each other. But the
expression, “nature and existence of man,” already contains the germ of
the controversy whether the nature, _i.e._, the character, or the
existence, _i.e._, the fate, the adventures, the action, is the principal
thing. Moreover, the two have grown so firmly together that although they
can certainly be separated in conception, they cannot be separated in the
representation of them. For only the circumstances, the fate, the events,
make the character manifest its nature, and only from the character does
the action arise from which the events proceed. Certainly, in the
representation, the one or the other may be made more prominent; and in
this respect the piece which centres in the characters and the piece which
centres in the plot are the two extremes.

The common end of the drama and the epic, to exhibit, in significant
characters placed in significant situations, the extraordinary actions
brought about by both, will be most completely attained by the poet if he
first introduces the characters to us in a state of peace, in which merely
their general colour becomes visible, and allows a motive to enter which
produces an action, out of which a new and stronger motive arises, which
again calls forth a more significant action, which, in its turn, begets
new and even stronger motives, whereby, then, in the time suitable to the
form of the poem, the most passionate excitement takes the place of the
original peace, and in this now the important actions occur in which the
qualities of the characters which have hitherto slumbered are brought
clearly to light, together with the course of the world.

Great poets transform themselves into each of the persons to be
represented, and speak out of each of them like ventriloquists; now out of
the hero, and immediately afterwards out of the young and innocent maiden,
with equal truth and naturalness: so Shakspeare and Goethe. Poets of the
second rank transform the principal person to be represented into
themselves. This is what Byron does; and then the other persons often
remain lifeless, as is the case even with the principal persons in the
works of mediocre poets.

Our pleasure in tragedy belongs, not to the sense of the beautiful, but to
that of the sublime; nay, it is the highest grade of this feeling. For, as
at the sight of the sublime in nature we turn away from the interests of
the will, in order to be purely perceptive, so in the tragic catastrophe
we turn away even from the will to live. In tragedy the terrible side of
life is presented to us, the wail of humanity, the reign of chance and
error, the fall of the just, the triumph of the wicked; thus the aspect of
the world which directly strives against our will is brought before our
eyes. At this sight we feel ourselves challenged to turn away our will
from life, no longer to will it or love it. But just in this way we become
conscious that then there still remains something over to us, which we
absolutely cannot know positively, but only negatively, as that which does
not will life. As the chord of the seventh demands the fundamental chord;
as the colour red demands green, and even produces it in the eye; so every
tragedy demands an entirely different kind of existence, another world,
the knowledge of which can only be given us indirectly just as here by
such a demand. In the moment of the tragic catastrophe the conviction
becomes more distinct to us than ever that life is a bad dream from which
we have to awake. So far the effect of the tragedy is analogous to that of
the dynamical sublime, for like this it lifts us above the will and its
interests, and puts us in such a mood that we find pleasure in the sight
of what tends directly against it. What gives to all tragedy, in whatever
form it may appear, the peculiar tendency towards the sublime is the
awakening of the knowledge that the world, life, can afford us no true
pleasure, and consequently is not worthy of our attachment. In this
consists the tragic spirit: it therefore leads to resignation.

I admit that in ancient tragedy this spirit of resignation seldom appears
and is expressed directly. Œdipus Colonus certainly dies resigned and
willing; yet he is comforted by the revenge on his country. Iphigenia at
Aulis is very willing to die; yet it is the thought of the welfare of
Greece that comforts her, and occasions the change of her mind, on account
of which she willingly accepts the death which at first she sought to
avoid by any means. Cassandra, in the Agamemnon of the great Æschylus,
dies willingly, αρκειτω βιος (1306); but she also is comforted by the
thought of revenge. Hercules, in the Trachiniæ, submits to necessity, and
dies composed, but not resigned. So also the Hippolytus of Euripides, in
whose case it surprises us that Artemis, who appears to comfort him,
promises him temples and fame, but never points him to an existence beyond
life, and leaves him in death, as all gods forsake the dying:—in
Christianity they come to him; and so also in Brahmanism and Buddhism,
although in the latter the gods are really exotic. Thus Hippolytus, like
almost all the tragic heroes of the ancients, shows submission to
inevitable fate and the inflexible will of the gods, but no surrender of
the will to live itself. As the Stoic equanimity is fundamentally
distinguished from Christian resignation by the fact that it teaches only
patient endurance and composed expectation of unalterably necessary evil,
while Christianity teaches renunciation, surrender of the will; so also
the tragic heroes of the ancients show resolute subjection under the
unavoidable blows of fate, while Christian tragedy, on the contrary, shows
the surrender of the whole will to live, joyful forsaking of the world in
the consciousness of its worthlessness and vanity. But I am also entirely
of opinion that modern tragedy stands higher than that of the ancients.
Shakspeare is much greater than Sophocles; in comparison with Goethe’s
Iphigenia one might find that of Euripides almost crude and vulgar. The
Bacchæ of Euripides is a revolting composition in favour of the heathen
priests. Many ancient pieces have no tragic tendency at all, like the
Alcestis and Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides; some have disagreeable, or
even disgusting motives, like the Antigone and Philocteles. Almost all
show the human race under the fearful rule of chance and error, but not
the resignation which is occasioned by it, and delivers from it. All
because the ancients had not yet attained to the summit and goal of
tragedy, or indeed of the view of life itself.

Although, then, the ancients displayed little of the spirit of
resignation, the turning away of the will from life, in their tragic
heroes themselves, as their frame of mind, yet the peculiar tendency and
effect of tragedy remains the awakening of that spirit in the beholder,
the calling up of that frame of mind, even though only temporarily. The
horrors upon the stage hold up to him the bitterness and worthlessness of
life, thus the vanity of all its struggle. The effect of this impression
must be that he becomes conscious, if only in obscure feeling, that it is
better to tear his heart free from life, to turn his will from it, to love
not the world nor life; whereby then in his deepest soul, the
consciousness is aroused that for another kind of willing there must also
be another existence. For if this were not so, then the tendency of
tragedy would not be this rising above all the ends and good things of
life, this turning away from it and its seductions, and the turning
towards another kind of existence, which already lies in this, although an
existence which is for us quite inconceivable. How would it, then, in
general, be possible that the exhibition of the most terrible side of
life, brought before our eyes in the most glaring light, could act upon us
beneficently, and afford us a lofty satisfaction? Fear and sympathy, in
the excitement of which Aristotle places the ultimate end of tragedy,
certainly do not in themselves belong to the agreeable sensations:
therefore they cannot be the end, but only the means. Thus the summons to
turn away the will from life remains the true tendency of tragedy, the
ultimate end of the intentional exhibition of the suffering of humanity,
and is so accordingly even where this resigned exaltation of the mind is
not shown in the hero himself, but is merely excited in the spectator by
the sight of great, unmerited, nay, even merited suffering. Many of the
moderns also are, like the ancients, satisfied with throwing the spectator
into the mood which has been described, by the objective representation of
human misfortune as a whole; while others exhibit this through the change
of the frame of mind of the hero himself, effected by suffering. The
former give, as it were, only the premisses, and leave the conclusion to
the spectator; while the latter give the conclusion, or the moral of the
fable, also, as the change of the frame of mind of the hero, and even also
as reflection, in the mouth of the chorus, as, for example, Schiller in
“The Bride of Messina:” “Life is not the highest good.” Let me remark here
that the genuine tragic effect of the catastrophe, thus the resignation
and exaltation of the mind of the hero which is brought about by it,
seldom appears so purely motived and so distinctly expressed as in the
opera of “Norma,” where it comes in in the duet, “_Qual cor tradisti, qual
cor perdesti_,” in which the change of the will is distinctly indicated by
the quietness which is suddenly introduced into the music. In general,
this piece—regarded apart altogether from its excellent music, and also
from the diction which can only be that of a libretto, and considered only
according to its motives and its inner economy—is a highly perfect
tragedy, a true pattern of tragic disposition of the motives, tragic
progress of the action, and tragic development, together with the effect
of these upon the frame of mind of the hero, raising it above the world,
and which is then also communicated to the spectator; indeed the effect
attained here is the less delusive and the more indicative of the true
nature of tragedy that no Christians, nor even Christian ideas, appear in
it.

The neglect of the unity of time and place with which the moderns are so
often reproached is only a fault when it goes so far that it destroys the
unity of the action; for then there only remains the unity of the
principal character, as, for example, in Shakspeare’s “Henry VIII.” But
even the unity of the action does not need to go so far that the same
thing is spoken of throughout, as in the French tragedies which in general
observe this so strictly that the course of the drama is like a
geometrical line without breadth. There it is constantly a case of “Only
get on! _Pensez à votre affaire!_” and the thing is expedited and hurried
on in a thoroughly business fashion, and no one detains himself with
irrelevances which do not belong to it, or looks to the right or the left.
The Shakspearian tragedy, on the other hand, is like a line which has also
breadth: it takes time, _exspatiatur_: speeches and even whole scenes
occur which do not advance the action, indeed do not properly concern it,
by which, however, we get to know the characters or their circumstances
more fully, and then understand the action also more thoroughly. This
certainly remains the principal thing, yet not so exclusively that we
forget that in the last instance what is aimed at is the representation of
human nature and existence generally.

The dramatic or epic poet ought to know that he is fate, and should
therefore be inexorable, as it is; also that he is the mirror of the human
race, and should therefore represent very many bad and sometimes
profligate characters, and also many fools, buffoons, and eccentric
persons; then also, now and again, a reasonable, a prudent, an honest, or
a good man, and only as the rarest exception a truly magnanimous man. In
the whole of Homer there is in my opinion no really magnanimous character
presented, although many good and honest. In the whole of Shakspeare there
may be perhaps a couple of noble, though by no means transcendently noble,
characters to be found; perhaps Cordelia, Coriolanus—hardly more; on the
other hand, his works swarm with the species indicated above. But
Iffland’s and Kotzebue’s pieces have many magnanimous characters; while
Goldoni has done as I recommended above, whereby he shows that he stands
higher. On the other hand, Schiller’s “Minna von Barnhelm” labours under
too much and too universal magnanimity; but so much magnanimity as the one
Marquis Posa displays is not to be found in the whole of Goethe’s works
together. There is, however, a small German piece called “Duty for Duty’s
Sake” (a title which sounds as if it had been taken from the Critique of
Practical Reason), which has only three characters, and yet all the three
are of most transcendent magnanimity.

The Greeks have taken for their heroes only royal persons; and so also for
the most part have the moderns. Certainly not because the rank gives more
worth to him who is acting or suffering; and since the whole thing is just
to set human passions in play, the relative value of the objects by which
this happens is indifferent, and peasant huts achieve as much as kingdoms.
Moreover, civic tragedy is by no means to be unconditionally rejected.
Persons of great power and consideration are yet the best adapted for
tragedy on this account, that the misfortune in which we ought to
recognise the fate of humanity must have a sufficient magnitude to appear
terrible to the spectator, whoever he may be. Euripides himself says,
“φευ, φευ, τα μεγαλα, μεγαλα και πασχει κακα” (_Stob. Flor._, vol. ii. p.
299). Now the circumstances which plunge a citizen family into want and
despair are in the eyes of the great or rich, for the most part, very
insignificant, and capable of being removed by human assistance, nay,
sometimes even by a trifle: such spectators, therefore, cannot be
tragically affected by them. On the other hand, the misfortunes of the
great and powerful are unconditionally terrible, and also accessible to no
help from without; for kings must help themselves by their own power, or
fall. To this we have to add that the fall is greatest from a height.
Accordingly persons of the rank of citizens lack height to fall from.

If now we have found the tendency and ultimate intention of tragedy to be
a turning to resignation, to the denial of the will to live, we shall
easily recognise in its opposite, comedy, the incitement to the continued
assertion of the will. It is true the comedy, like every representation of
human life, without exception, must bring before our eyes suffering and
adversity; but it presents it to us as passing, resolving itself into joy,
in general mingled with success, victory, and hopes, which in the end
preponderate; moreover, it brings out the inexhaustible material for
laughter of which life, and even its adversities themselves are filled,
and which under all circumstances ought to keep us in a good humour. Thus
it declares, in the result, that life as a whole is thoroughly good, and
especially is always amusing. Certainly it must hasten to drop the curtain
at the moment of joy, so that we may not see what comes after; while the
tragedy, as a rule, so ends that nothing can come after. And moreover, if
once we contemplate this burlesque side of life somewhat seriously, as it
shows itself in the naïve utterances and gestures which trifling
embarrassment, personal fear, momentary anger, secret envy, and many
similar emotions force upon the forms of the real life that mirrors itself
here, forms which deviate considerably from the type of beauty, then from
this side also, thus in an unexpected manner, the reflective spectator may
become convinced that the existence and action of such beings cannot
itself be an end; that, on the contrary, they can only have attained to
existence by an error, and that what so exhibits itself is something which
had better not be.




Chapter XXXVIII.(23) On History.


In the passage of the first volume referred to below I have fully shown
that more is achieved for our knowledge of mankind by poetry than by
history, and why this is so; inasmuch as more real instruction was to be
expected from the former than from the latter. Aristotle has also
confessed this, for he says: “και φιλοσοφωτερον και σπουδαιοτερον ποιησις
ἱστοριας εστιν” (_et res magis philosophica, et melior poësis est quam
historia_(24)), _De poët._, c. 9. Yet, in order to cause no
misunderstanding as to the value of history, I wish here to express my
thoughts about it.

In every class and species of things the facts are innumerable, the
individuals infinite in number, the variety of their differences
unapproachable. At the first glance at them the curious mind becomes
giddy; however much it investigates, it sees itself condemned to
ignorance. But then comes science: it separates the innumerable multitude,
arranges it under generic conceptions, these again under conceptions of
species, whereby it opens the path to a knowledge of the general and the
particular, which also comprehends the innumerable individuals, for it
holds good of all without one being obliged to consider each particular
for itself. Thus it promises satisfaction to the investigating mind. Then
all sciences place themselves together, and above the real world of
individual things, as that which they have divided among them. Over them
all, however, moves philosophy, as the most general, and therefore
important, rational knowledge, which promises the conclusions for which
the others have only prepared the way. History alone cannot properly enter
into that series, since it cannot boast of the same advantage as the
others, for it lacks the fundamental characteristic of science, the
subordination of what is known, instead of which it can only present its
co‐ordination. Therefore there is no system of history, as there is of
every other science. It is therefore certainly rational knowledge, but it
is not a science. For it never knows the particular by means of the
general, but must comprehend the particular directly, and so, as it were,
creeps along the ground of experience; while the true sciences move above
it, because they have obtained comprehensive conceptions by means of which
they command the particular, and, at least within certain limits,
anticipate the possibility of things within their sphere, so that they can
be at ease even about what may yet have to come. The sciences, since they
are systems of conceptions, speak always of species; history speaks of
individuals. It would accordingly be a science of individuals, which is a
contradiction. It also follows that the sciences all speak of that which
always is as history, on the other hand, of that which is once, and then
no more. Since, further, history has to do with the absolutely particular
and individuals, which from its nature is inexhaustible, it knows
everything only imperfectly and half. Besides, it must also let itself be
taught by every new day in its trivial commonplaceness what as yet it did
not know at all. If it should be objected that in history also there is
subordination of the particular under the general, because the periods,
the governments, and other general changes, or political revolutions, in
short, all that is given in historical tables, is the general, to which
the special subordinates itself, this would rest upon a false
comprehension of the conception of the general. For the general in history
here referred to is merely _subjective_, _i.e._, its generality springs
merely from the inadequacy of the individual knowledge of the things, but
not _objective_, _i.e._, a conception in which the things would actually
already be thought together. Even the most general in history is in itself
only a particular and individual, a long period of time, or an important
event; therefore the special is related to this as the part to the whole,
but not as the case to the rule; which, on the contrary, takes place in
all the sciences proper because they afford conceptions and not mere
facts. On this account in these sciences by a correct knowledge of the
general we can determine with certainty the particular that arises. If,
for example, I know the laws of the triangle in general, I can then also
tell what must be the properties of the triangle laid before me; and what
holds good of all mammals, for example, that they have double ventricles
of the heart, exactly seven cervical vertebræ, lungs, diaphragm, bladder,
five senses, &c., I can also assert of the strange bat which has just been
caught, before dissecting it. But not so in history, where the general is
no objective general of the conception, but merely a subjective general of
my knowledge, which can only be called general inasmuch as it is
superficial. Therefore I may always know in general of the Thirty Years’
War that it was a religious war, waged in the seventeenth century; but
this general knowledge does not make me capable of telling anything more
definite about its course. The same opposition is also confirmed by the
fact that in the real sciences the special and individual is that which is
most certain, because it rests upon immediate apprehension; the general
truths, again, are only abstracted from it; therefore something false may
be more easily assumed in the latter. But in history, conversely, the most
general is the most certain; for example, the periods, the succession of
the kings, the revolutions, wars, and treaties of peace; the particulars,
again, of the events and their connection is uncertain, and becomes always
more so the further one goes into details. Therefore history is the more
interesting the more special it is, but the less to be trusted, and
approaches then in every respect to the romance. For the rest, what
importance is to be attached to the boasted pragmatic teaching of history
he will best be able to judge who remembers that sometimes it was only
after twenty years that he understood the events of his own life in their
true connection, although the data for this were fully before him, so
difficult is the combination of the action of the motives under the
constant interferences of chance and the concealment of the intentions.
Since now history really always has for its object only the particular,
the individual fact, and regards this as the exclusively real, it is the
direct opposite and counterpart of philosophy, which considers things from
the most general point of view, and has intentionally the general as its
object, which remains identical in every particular; therefore in the
particular philosophy sees only the general, and recognises the change in
its manifestation as unessential: φιλοκαθολου γαρ ὁ φιλοσοφος (_generalium
amator philosophus_). While history teaches us that at every time
something else has been, philosophy tries to assist us to the insight that
at all times exactly the same was, is, and shall be. In truth, the essence
of human life, as of nature in general, is given complete in every present
time, and therefore only requires depth of comprehension in order to be
exhaustively known. But history hopes to make up for depth by length and
breadth; for it every present time is only a fragment which must be
supplemented by the past, the length of which is, however, infinite, and
to which again an infinite future is joined. Upon this rests the
opposition between philosophical and historical minds; the former want to
go to the bottom, the latter want to go through the whole series. History
shows on every side only the same under different forms; but whoever does
not come to know this in one or a few will hardly attain to a knowledge of
it by going through all the forms. The chapters of the history of nations
are at bottom only distinguished by the names and dates; the really
essential content is everywhere the same.

Now since the material of art is the _Idea_, and the material of science
the _concept_, we see both occupied with that which always exists and
constantly in the same manner, not something which now is and now is not,
now is thus and now otherwise; therefore both have to do with that which
Plato set up as the exclusive object of real rational knowledge. The
material of history, on the other hand, is the particular in its
particularity and contingency, which at one time is, and then for ever is
no more, the transient complexities of a human world moved like clouds in
the wind, a world which is often entirely transformed by the most trifling
accident. From this point of view the material of history appears to us as
scarcely a worthy object of the serious and painful consideration of the
human mind, the human mind which, just because it is so transitory, ought
to choose for its consideration that which passes not away.

Finally, as regards the endeavour—specially introduced by the Hegelian
pseudo‐philosophy, everywhere so pernicious and stupefying to the mind—to
comprehend the history of the world as a planned whole, or, as they call
it, “to construe it organically,” a crude and positive realism lies at its
foundation, which takes the phenomenon for the inner being of the world,
and imagines that this phenomenon, its forms and events, are the chief
concern; in which it is secretly supported by certain mythological notions
which it tacitly assumes: otherwise one might ask for what spectators such
a comedy was really produced. For, since only the individual, and not the
human race, has actual, immediate unity of consciousness, the unity of the
course of life of the race is a mere fiction. Besides, as in nature only
the species are real, and the genera are mere abstractions, so in the
human race only the individuals and their course of life are real, the
peoples and their lives mere abstractions. Finally, constructive
histories, guided by a positive optimism, always ultimately end in a
comfortable, rich, fat State, with a well‐regulated constitution, good
justice and police, useful arts and industries, and, at the most, in
intellectual perfection; for this, in fact, is alone possible, since what
is moral remains essentially unaltered. But it is the moral element which,
according to the testimony of our inmost consciousness, is the whole
concern: and this lies only in the individual as the tendency of his will.
In truth, only the life of each individual has unity, connection, and true
significance: it is to be regarded as an instruction, and the meaning of
it is moral. Only the incidents of our _inner_ life, since they concern
the will, have true reality, and are actual events; because the will alone
is the thing in itself. In every microcosm lies the whole macrocosm, and
the latter contains nothing more than the former. Multiplicity is
phenomenal, and external events are mere configurations of the phenomenal
world, and have therefore directly neither reality nor significance, but
only indirectly through their relation to the wills of the individuals.
The endeavour to explain and interpret them directly is accordingly like
the endeavour to see in the forms of the clouds groups of men and animals.
What history narrates is in fact only the long, heavy, and confused dream
of humanity.

The Hegelians, who regard the philosophy of history as indeed the chief
end of all philosophy, are to be referred to Plato, who unweariedly
repeats that the object of philosophy is that which is unchangeable and
always remains, not that which now is thus and now otherwise. All those
who set up such constructions of the course of the world, or, as they call
it, of history, have failed to grasp the principal truth of all
philosophy, that what is is at all times the same, all becoming and
arising are only seeming; the Ideas alone are permanent; time ideal. This
is what Plato holds, this is what Kant holds. One ought therefore to seek
to understand what exists, what really is, to‐day and always, _i.e._, to
know the Ideas (in Plato’s sense). Fools, on the contrary, imagine that
something must first become and happen. Therefore they concede to history
the chief place in their philosophy, and construct it according to a
preconceived plan of the world, according to which everything is ordered
for the best, which is then supposed _finaliter_ to appear, and will be a
glorious thing. Accordingly they take the world as perfectly real, and
place the end of it in the poor earthly happiness, which, however much it
may be fostered by men and favoured by fate, is a hollow, deceptive,
decaying, and sad thing, out of which neither constitutions and legal
systems nor steam‐engines and telegraphs can ever make anything that is
essentially better. The said philosophers and glorifiers of history are
accordingly simple realists, and also optimists and eudæmonists,
consequently dull fellows and incarnate philistines; and besides are
really bad Christians, for the true spirit and kernel of Christianity, as
also of Brahmanism and Buddhism, is the knowledge of the vanity of earthly
happiness, the complete contempt for it, and the turning away from it to
an existence of another, nay, an opposite, kind. This, I say, is the
spirit and end of Christianity, the true “humour of the matter;” and not,
as they imagine, monotheism; therefore even atheistic Buddhism is far more
closely related to Christianity than optimistic Judaism or its variety
Islamism.

A true philosophy of history ought not therefore to consider, as all these
do, what (to use Plato’s language) always _becomes_ and never _is_, and
hold this to be the true nature of things; but it ought to fix its
attention upon that which always is and never becomes nor passes away.
Thus it does not consist in raising the temporal ends of men to eternal
and absolute ends, and then with art and imagination constructing their
progress through all complications; but in the insight that not only in
its development, but in its very nature, history is mendacious; for,
speaking of mere individuals and particular events, it pretends always to
relate something different, while from beginning to end it repeats always
the same thing under different names and in a different dress. The true
philosophy of history consists in the insight that in all these endless
changes and their confusion we have always before us only the same, even,
unchanging nature, which to‐day acts in the same way as yesterday and
always; thus it ought to recognise the identical in all events, of ancient
as of modern times, of the east as of the west; and, in spite of all
difference of the special circumstances, of the costume and the customs,
to see everywhere the same humanity. This identical element which is
permanent through all change consists in the fundamental qualities of the
human heart and head—many bad, few good. The motto of history in general
should run: _Eadem, sed aliter_. If one has read Herodotus, then in a
philosophical regard one has already studied history enough. For
everything is already there that makes up the subsequent history of the
world: the efforts, action, sufferings, and fate of the human race as it
proceeds from the qualities we have referred to, and the physical earthly
lot.

If in what has been said we have recognised that history, regarded as a
means for the knowledge of the nature of man, is inferior to poetry; then,
that it is not in the proper sense a science; finally, that the endeavour
to construct it as a whole with beginning, middle, and end, together with
a significant connection, is vain, and based upon misunderstanding: it
would look as if we wished to deny it all value if we did not show in what
its value consists. Really, however, there remains for it, after this
conquest by art and rejection by science, a quite special province,
different from both, in which it exists most honourably.

_What reason is to the individual that is history to the human race._ By
virtue of reason, man is not, like the brute, limited to the narrow,
perceptible present, but also knows the incomparably more extended past,
with which it is linked, and out of which it has proceeded; and only thus
has he a proper understanding of the present itself, and can even draw
inferences as to the future. The brute, on the other hand, whose
knowledge, devoid of reflection, is on this account limited to the
present, even when it is tamed, moves about among men ignorant, dull,
stupid, helpless, and dependent. Analogous to this is the nation that does
not know its own history, is limited to the present of the now living
generation, and therefore does not understand itself and its own present,
because it cannot connect it with a past, and explain it from this; still
less can it anticipate the future. Only through history does a nation
become completely conscious of itself. Accordingly history is to be
regarded as the rational consciousness of the human race, and is to the
race what the reflected and connected consciousness is to the individual
who is conditioned by reason, a consciousness through the want of which
the brute is confined to the narrow, perceptible present. Therefore every
gap in history is like a gap in the recollective self‐consciousness of a
man; and in the presence of a monument of ancient times which has outlived
the knowledge of itself, as, for example, the Pyramids, or temples and
palaces in Yucatan, we stand as senseless and stupid as the brute in the
presence of the action of man, in which it is implicated in his service;
or as a man before something written in an old cipher of his own, the key
to which he has forgotten; nay, like a somnambulist who finds before him
in the morning what he has done in his sleep. In this sense, then, history
is to be regarded as the reason, or the reflected consciousness, of the
human race, and takes the place of an immediate self‐consciousness common
to the whole race, so that only by virtue of it does the human race come
to be a whole, come to be a humanity. This is the true value of history,
and accordingly the universal and predominating interest in it depends
principally upon the fact that it is a personal concern of the human race.
Now, what language is for the reason of individuals, as an indispensable
condition of its use, writing is for the reason of the whole race here
pointed out; for only with this does its real existence begin, as that of
the individual reason begins first with language. Writing serves to
restore unity to the consciousness of the human race, which is constantly
interrupted by death, and therefore fragmentary; so that the thought which
has arisen in the ancestor is thought out by his remote descendant; it
finds a remedy for the breaking up of the human race and its consciousness
into an innumerable number of ephemeral individuals, and so bids defiance
to the ever hurrying time, in whose hand goes forgetfulness. As an attempt
to accomplish this we must regard not only written, but also _stone_
monuments, which in part are older than the former. For who will believe
that those who, at incalculable cost, set in action the human powers of
many thousands for many years in order to construct the pyramids,
monoliths, rock tombs, obelisks, temples, and palaces which have already
existed for thousands of years, could have had in view the short span of
their own life, too short to let them see the finishing of the
construction, or even the ostensible end which the ignorance of the many
required them to allege? Clearly their real end was to speak to their
latest descendants, to put themselves in connection with these, and so to
establish the unity of the consciousness of humanity. The buildings of the
Hindus, the Egyptians, even the Greeks and Romans, were calculated to last
several thousand years, because through higher culture their horizon was a
wider one; while the buildings of the Middle Ages and of modern times have
only been intended, at the most, to last a few centuries; which, however,
is also due to the fact that men trusted more to writing after its use had
become general, and still more since from its womb was born the art of
printing. Yet even in the buildings of more recent times we see the desire
to speak to posterity; and, therefore, it is shameful if they are
destroyed or disfigured in order to serve low utilitarian ends. Written
monuments have less to fear from the elements, but more to fear from
barbarians, than stone ones; they accomplish far more. The Egyptians
wished to combine the two, for they covered their stone monuments with
hieroglyphics, nay, they added paintings in case the hieroglyphics should
no longer be understood.




Chapter XXXIX.(25) On The Metaphysics Of Music.


The outcome, or result, of my exposition of the peculiar significance of
this wonderful art, which is given in the passage of the first volume
referred to below, and which will here be present to the mind of the
reader, was, that there is indeed no resemblance between its productions
and the world as idea, _i.e._, the world of nature, but yet there must be
a distinct _parallelism_, which was then also proved. I have yet to add
some fuller particulars with regard to this parallelism, which are worthy
of attention.

The four voices, or parts, of all harmony, the bass, the tenor, the alto,
and the soprana, or the fundamental note, the third, the fifth, and the
octave, correspond to the four grades in the series of existences, the
mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the brute kingdom, and man. This
receives an additional and striking confirmation in the fundamental rule
of music, that the bass must be at a much greater distance below the three
upper parts than they have between themselves; so that it must never
approach nearer to them than at the most within an octave of them, and
generally remains still further below them. Hence, then, the correct triad
has its place in the third octave from the fundamental note. Accordingly
the effect of _extended_ harmony, in which the bass is widely separated
from the other parts, is much more powerful and beautiful than that of
_close_ harmony, in which it is moved up nearer to them, and which is only
introduced on account of the limited compass of the instruments. This
whole rule, however, is by no means arbitrary, but has its root in the
natural source of the tonal system; for the nearest consonant intervals
that sound along with the fundamental note by means of its vibrations are
the octave and its fifth. Now, in this rule we recognise the analogue of
the fundamental characteristic of nature on account of which organised
beings are much more nearly related to each other than to the inanimate,
unorganised mass of the mineral kingdom, between which and them exists the
most definite boundary and the widest gulf in the whole of nature. The
fact that the high voice which sings the melody is yet also an integral
part of the harmony, and therein accords even with the deepest fundamental
bass, may be regarded as the analogue of the fact that _the same_ matter
which in a human organism is the supporter of the Idea of man must yet
also exhibit and support the Ideas of gravitation and chemical qualities,
that is, of the lowest grades of the objectification of will.

That music acts directly upon the will, _i.e._, the feelings, passions,
and emotions of the hearer, so that it quickly raises them or changes
them, may be explained from the fact that, unlike all the other arts, it
does not express the Ideas, or grades of the objectification of the will,
but directly the _will itself_.

As surely as music, far from being a mere accessory of poetry, is an
independent art, nay, the most powerful of all the arts, and therefore
attains its ends entirely with means of its own, so surely does it not
stand in need of the words of the song or the action of an opera. Music as
such knows the tones or notes alone, but not the causes which produce
these. Accordingly, for it even the human voice is originally and
essentially nothing else than a modified tone, just like that of an
instrument; and, like every other tone, it has the special advantages and
disadvantages which are a consequence of the instrument that produces it.
Now, in this case, that this same instrument, as the organ of speech, also
serves to communicate conceptions is an accidental circumstance, which
music can certainly also make use of, in order to enter into a connection
with poetry; but it must never make this the principal matter, and concern
itself entirely with the expression of what for the most part, nay (as
Diderot gives us to understand in _Le Neveu de Rameau_), essentially are
insipid verses. The words are and remain for the music a foreign addition,
of subordinate value, for the effect of the tones is incomparably more
powerful, more infallible, and quicker than that of the words. Therefore,
if words become incorporated in music, they must yet assume an entirely
subordinate position, and adapt themselves completely to it. But the
relation appears reversed in the case of the given poetry, thus the song
or the libretto of an opera to which music is adapted. For the art of
music at once shows in these its power and higher fitness, disclosing the
most profound ultimate and secret significance of the feeling expressed in
the words or the action presented in the opera, giving utterance to their
peculiar and true nature, and teaching us the inmost soul of the actions
and events whose mere clothing and body is set before us on the stage.
With regard to this superiority of the music, and also because it stands
to the libretto and the action in the relation of the universal to the
particular, of the rule to the example, it might perhaps appear more
fitting that the libretto should be written for the music than that the
music should be composed for the libretto. However, in the customary
method, the words and actions of the libretto lead the composer to the
affections of the will which lie at their foundation, and call up in him
the feelings to be expressed; they act, therefore, as a means of exciting
his musical imagination. Moreover, that the addition of poetry to music is
so welcome to us, and a song with intelligible words gives us such deep
satisfaction, depends upon the fact that in this way our most direct and
most indirect ways of knowing are called into play at once and in
connection. The most direct is that for which music expresses the emotions
of the will itself, and the most indirect that of conceptions denoted by
words. When the language of the feelings is in question the reason does
not willingly sit entirely idle. Music is certainly able with the means at
its own disposal to express every movement of the will, every feeling; but
by the addition of words we receive besides this the objects of these
feelings, the motives which occasion them. The music of an opera, as it is
presented in the score, has a completely independent, separate, and, as it
were, abstract existence for itself, to which the incidents and persons of
the piece are foreign, and which follows its own unchanging rules;
therefore it can produce its full effect without the libretto. But this
music, since it was composed with reference to the drama, is, as it were,
the soul of the latter; for, in its connection with the incidents,
persons, and words, it becomes the expression of the inner significance of
all those incidents, and of their ultimate and secret necessity which
depends upon this significance. The pleasure of the spectator, unless he
is a mere gaper, really depends upon an indistinct feeling of this. Yet in
the opera music also shows its heterogeneous nature and higher reality by
its entire indifference to the whole material of the incidents; in
consequence of which it everywhere expresses the storm of the passions and
the pathos of the feelings in the same way, and its tones accompany the
piece with the same pomp, whether Agamemnon and Achilles or the
dissensions of a bourgeois family form its material. For only the
passions, the movements of the will, exist for it, and, like God, it sees
only the hearts. It never assimilates itself to the natural; and
therefore, even when it accompanies the most ludicrous and extravagant
farces of the comic opera, it still preserves its essential beauty,
purity, and sublimity; and its fusion with these incidents is unable to
draw it down from its height, to which all absurdity is really foreign.
Thus the profound and serious significance of our existence hangs over the
farce and the endless miseries of human life, and never leaves it for a
moment.

If we now cast a glance at purely instrumental music, a symphony of
Beethoven presents to us the greatest confusion, which yet has the most
perfect order at its foundation, the most vehement conflict, which is
transformed the next moment into the most beautiful concord. It is _rerum
concordia discors_, a true and perfect picture of the nature of the world
which rolls on in the boundless maze of innumerable forms, and through
constant destruction supports itself. But in this symphony all human
passions and emotions also find utterance; joy, sorrow, love, hatred,
terror, hope, &c., in innumerable degrees, yet all, as it were, only _in
abstracto_, and without any particularisation; it is their mere form
without the substance, like a spirit world without matter. Certainly we
have a tendency to realise them while we listen, to clothe them in
imagination with flesh and bones, and to see in them scenes of life and
nature on every hand. Yet, taken generally, this is not required for their
comprehension or enjoyment, but rather imparts to them a foreign and
arbitrary addition: therefore it is better to apprehend them in their
immediacy and purity.

Since now, in the foregoing remarks, and also in the text, I have
considered music only from the metaphysical side, that is, with reference
to the inner significance of its performances, it is right that I should
now also subject to a general consideration the means by which, acting
upon our mind, it brings these about; therefore that I should show the
connection of that metaphysical side of music, and the physical side,
which has been fully investigated, and is well known, I start from the
theory which is generally known, and has by no means been shaken by recent
objections, that all harmony of the notes depends upon the coincidence of
their vibrations, which when two notes sound together occurs perhaps at
every second, or at every third, or at every fourth vibration, according
to which, then, they are the octave, the fifth, or the fourth of each
other, and so on. So long as the vibrations of two notes have a rational
relation to each other, which can be expressed in small numbers, they can
be connected together in our apprehension through their constantly
recurring coincidence: the notes become blended, and are thereby in
consonance. If, on the other hand, that relation is an irrational one, or
one which can only be expressed in larger numbers, then no coincidence of
the vibrations which can be apprehended occurs, but _obstrepunt sibi
perpetuo_, whereby they resist being joined together in our apprehension,
and accordingly are called a dissonance. Now, according to this theory,
music is a means of making rational and irrational relations of numbers
comprehensible, not like arithmetic by the help of the concept, but by
bringing them to a knowledge which is perfectly directly and
simultaneously sensible. Now the connection of the metaphysical
significance of music with this its physical and arithmetical basis
depends upon the fact that what resists our _apprehension_, the irrational
relation, or the dissonance, becomes the natural type of what resists our
_will_; and, conversely, the consonance, or the rational relation, which
easily adapts itself to our apprehension, becomes the type of the
satisfaction of the will. And further, since that rational and irrational
element in the numerical relations of the vibrations admits of innumerable
degrees, shades of difference, sequences, and variations, by means of it
music becomes the material in which all the movements of the human heart,
_i.e._, of the will, movements whose essential nature is always
satisfaction and dissatisfaction, although in innumerable degrees, can be
faithfully portrayed and rendered in all their finest shades and
modifications, which takes place by means of the invention of the melody.
Thus we see here the movements of the will transferred to the province of
the mere idea, which is the exclusive scene of the achievements of the
fine arts, for they absolutely demand that the _will itself_ shall not
interfere, and that we shall conduct ourselves as pure _knowing_ subjects.
Therefore the affections of the will itself, thus actual pain and actual
pleasure, must not be excited, but only their substitutes, that which is
agreeable to _the intellect_, as a _picture_ of the satisfaction of the
will, and that which is more or less repugnant to it, as a _picture_ of
greater or less pain. Only thus does music never cause us actual sorrow,
but even in its most melancholy strains is still pleasing, and we gladly
hear in its language the secret history of our will, and all its emotions
and strivings, with their manifold protractions, hindrances, and griefs,
even in the saddest melodies. When, on the other hand, in reality and its
terrors, it is our _will itself_ that is roused and tormented, we have not
then to do with tones and their numerical relations, but are rather now
ourselves the trembling string that is stretched and twanged.

But, further, because, in consequence of the physical theory which lies at
its foundation, the musical quality of the notes is in the proportion of
the rapidity of their vibrations, but not in their relative strength, the
musical ear always follows by preference, in harmony, the highest note,
not the loudest. Therefore, even in the case of the most powerful
orchestral accompaniment, the soprano comes out clearly, and thus receives
a natural right to deliver the melody. And this is also supported by its
great flexibility, which depends upon the same rapidity of the vibrations,
and shows itself in the ornate passages, whereby the soprano becomes the
suitable representative of the heightened sensibility, susceptible to the
slightest impression, and determinable by it, consequently of the most
highly developed consciousness standing on the uppermost stage of the
scale of being. Its opposite, from converse causes, is the bass,
inflexible, rising and falling only in great intervals, thirds, fourths,
and fifths, and also at every step guided by rigid rules. It is therefore
the natural representative of the inorganic kingdom of nature, which is
insensible, insusceptible to fine impressions, and only determinable
according to general laws. It must indeed never rise by one tone, for
example, from a fourth to a fifth, for this produces in the upper parts
the incorrect consecutive fifths and octaves; therefore, originally and in
its own nature, it can never present the melody. If, however, the melody
is assigned to it, this happens by means of counterpoint, _i.e._, it is an
_inverted_ bass—one of the upper parts is lowered and disguised as a bass;
properly speaking, it then requires a second fundamental bass as its
accompaniment. This unnaturalness of a melody lying in the bass is the
reason why bass airs, with full accompaniment, never afford us pure,
undisturbed pleasure, like the soprano air, which, in the connection of
harmony, is alone natural. We may remark in passing that such a melodious
bass, forcibly obtained by inversion, might, in keeping with our
metaphysic of music, be compared to a block of marble to which the human
form has been imparted: and therefore it is wonderfully suitable to the
stone guest in “Don Juan.”

But now we shall try to get somewhat nearer the foundation of the genesis
of melody, which can be accomplished by analysing it into its constituent
parts, and in any case will afford us the pleasure which arises from
bringing to abstract and distinct consciousness what every one knows in
the concrete, so that it gains the appearance of novelty.

Melody consists of two elements, the one rhythmical, the other harmonious.
The former may also be described as the quantitative, the latter as the
qualitative element, since the first is concerned with the duration, and
the second with the pitch of the notes. In the writing of music the former
depends upon the perpendicular, and the latter upon the horizontal lines.
Purely arithmetical relations, thus relations of time, lie at the
foundation of both; in the one case the relative duration of the notes, in
the other the relative rapidity of their vibrations. The rhythmical
element is the essential; for it can produce a kind of melody of itself
alone, and without the other, as, for example, on the drum; yet complete
melody requires both elements. It consists in an alternating _disunion and
reconciliation_ of them, as I shall show immediately; but first, since I
have already spoken of the harmonious element in what has been said, I
wish to consider the rhythmical element somewhat more closely.

_Rhythm_ is in time what _symmetry_ is in space, division into equal parts
corresponding to each other. First, into larger parts, which again fall
into smaller parts, subordinate to the former. In the series of the arts
given by me _architecture_ and _music_ are the two extreme ends. Moreover,
according to their inner nature, their power, the extent of their spheres,
and their significance, they are the most heterogeneous, indeed true
antipodes. This opposition extends even to the form of their appearance,
for architecture is in space alone, without any connection with time; and
music is in time alone, without any connection with space.(26) Now hence
springs their one point of analogy, that as in architecture that which
orders and holds together is _symmetry_, in music it is _rhythm_, and thus
here also it holds true that extremes meet. As the ultimate constituent
parts of a building are the exactly similar stones, so the ultimate
constituent parts of a musical composition are the exactly similar beats;
yet by being weak or strong, or in general by the measure, which denotes
the species of time, these are divided into equal parts, which may be
compared to the dimensions of the stone. The musical period consists of
several bars, and it has also two equal parts, one rising, aspiring,
generally going to the dominant, and one sinking, quieting, returning to
the fundamental note. Two or several periods constitute a part, which in
general is also symmetrically doubled by the sign of repetition; two parts
make a small piece of music, or only a movement of a larger piece; and
thus a concerto or sonata usually consists of three movements, a symphony
of four, and a mass of five. Thus we see the musical composition bound
together and rounded off as a whole, by symmetrical distribution and
repeated division, down to the beats and their fractions, with thorough
subordination, superordination, and co‐ordination of its members, just as
a building is connected and rounded off by its symmetry. Only in the
latter that is exclusively in space which in the former is exclusively in
time. The mere feeling of this analogy has in the last thirty years called
forth the oft‐repeated, daring witticism, that architecture is frozen
music. The origin of this can be traced to Goethe; for, according to
Eckermann’s “Conversations,” vol. ii. p. 88, he said: “I have found among
my papers a page on which I call architecture a rigidified music; and
really there is something in it; the mood which is produced by
architecture approaches the effect of music.” Probably he let fall this
witticism much earlier in conversation, and in that case it is well known
that there were never wanting persons to pick up what he so let fall that
they might afterwards go about decked with it. For the rest, whatever
Goethe may have said, the analogy of music and architecture, which is here
referred by me to its sole ground, the analogy of rhythm with symmetry,
extends accordingly only to the outward form, and by no means to the inner
nature of the two arts, which is entirely different. Indeed it would be
absurd to wish to put on the same level in essential respects the most
limited and the weakest of all the arts, and the most far‐reaching and
powerful. As an amplification of the analogy pointed out, we might add
further, that when music, as it were in a fit of desire for independence,
seizes the opportunity of a pause to free itself from the control of
rhythm, to launch out into the free imagination of an ornate _cadenza_,
such a piece of music divested of all rhythm is analogous to the ruin
which is divested of symmetry, and which accordingly may be called, in the
bold language of the witticism, a frozen _cadenza_.

After this exposition of _rhythm_, I have now to show how the nature of
melody consists in the constantly renewed _disunion and reconciliation_ of
the rhythmical, and the harmonious elements of it. Its harmonious element
has as its assumption the fundamental note, as the rhythmical element has
the species of time, and consists in a wandering from it through all the
notes of the scale, until by shorter or longer digressions it reaches a
harmonious interval, generally the dominant or sub‐dominant, which affords
it an incomplete satisfaction; and then follows, by a similarly long path,
its return to the fundamental note, with which complete satisfaction
appears. But both must so take place that the attainment of the interval
referred to and the return to the fundamental note correspond with certain
favourite points of the rhythm, otherwise it will not work. Thus, as the
harmonious succession of sounds requires certain notes, first of all the
tonic, next to it the dominant, and so on, so rhythm, on its part,
requires certain _points of time_, certain numbered bars, and certain
parts of these bars, which are called strong or good beats, or the
accented parts of the bar, in opposition to the weak or bad beats, or
unaccented parts of the bar. Now the disunion of these two fundamental
elements consists in this, that because the demand of one is satisfied
that of the other is not; and their reconciliation consists in this, that
both are satisfied at once and together. That wandering of the notes until
they find a more or less harmonious interval must so take place that this
interval is attained only after a definite number of bars, and also at an
accented part of the bar, and in this way becomes for it a kind of
resting‐point; and similarly the return to the keynote must take place
after a like number of bars, and also at an accented part of the bar, and
thus complete satisfaction is then attained. So long as this required
coincidence of the satisfaction of both elements is not attained, the
rhythm, on the one hand, may follow its regular course, and, on the other
hand, the required notes may occur often enough, but yet they will remain
entirely without that effect through which melody arises. The following
very simple example may serve to illustrate this:—

                          [Illustration: Music]

Here the harmonious sequence of notes finds the keynote just at the end of
the first bar; but it does not receive any satisfaction from this, because
the rhythm is caught at the least accented part of the bar. Immediately
afterwards, in the second bar, the rhythm has the accented part of the
bar, but the sequence of notes has arrived at the seventh. Thus here the
two elements of melody are entirely _disunited_; and we feel disquieted.
In the second half of the period everything is reversed, and in the last
note they are _reconciled_. This kind of thing can be shown in every
melody, although generally in a much more extended form. Now the constant
disunion and reconciliation of its two elements which there takes place
is, when metaphysically considered, the copy of the origination of new
wishes, and then of their satisfaction. Thus, by flattery, music
penetrates into our hearts, for it presents the image of the complete
satisfaction of its wishes. More closely considered, we see in this
procedure of melody a condition which, to a certain extent, is _inward_
(the harmonious) meet with an _outward_ condition (the rhythmical), as if
by an _accident_,—which is certainly brought about by the composer, and
which may, so far, be compared to rhyme in poetry. But this is just the
copy of the meeting of our wishes with the favourable outward
circumstances which are independent of them, and is thus the picture of
happiness. The effect of the _suspension_ also deserves to be considered
here. It is a dissonance which delays the final consonance, which is
awaited with certainty; and thus the longing for it is strengthened, and
its appearance satisfies all the more. Clearly an analogue of the
heightened satisfaction of the will through delay. The complete cadence
requires the preceding chord of the seventh on the dominant; because the
most deeply felt satisfaction and the most entire relief can only follow
the most earnest longing. Thus, in general, music consists of a constant
succession of more or less disquieting chords, _i.e._, chords which excite
longing, and more or less quieting and satisfying chords; just as the life
of the heart (the will) is a constant succession of greater or less
disquietude through desire and aversion, and just as various degrees of
relief. Accordingly the harmonious sequence of chords consists of the
correct alternation of dissonance and consonance. A succession of merely
consonant chords would be satiating, wearisome, and empty, like the
languor produced by the satisfaction of all wishes. Therefore dissonances
must be introduced, although they disquiet us and affect us almost
painfully, but only in order to be resolved again in consonances with
proper preparation. Indeed, in the whole of music there are really only
two fundamental chords, the dissonant chord of the seventh and the
consonant triad, to which all chords that occur can be referred. This just
corresponds to the fact, that for the will there are at bottom only
dissatisfaction and satisfaction, under however many forms they may
present themselves. And as there are two general fundamental moods of the
mind, serenity, or at least healthiness, and sadness, or even oppression,
so music has two general keys, the major and the minor, which correspond
to these, and it must always be in one of the two. But it is, in fact,
very wonderful that there is a sign of pain which is neither physically
painful nor yet conventional, but which nevertheless is suitable and
unmistakable: the minor. From this we may measure how deeply music is
founded in the nature of things and of man. With northern nations, whose
life is subject to hard conditions, especially with the Russians, the
minor prevails, even in the church music. Allegro in the minor is very
common in French music, and is characteristic of it; it is as if one
danced while one’s shoe pinched.

I add further a few subsidiary remarks. When the key‐note is changed, and
with it the value of all the intervals, in consequence of which the same
note figures as the second, the third, the fourth, and so on, the notes of
the scale are analogous to actors, who must assume now one _rôle_, now
another, while their person remains the same. That the actors are often
not precisely suited to these _rôles_ may be compared to the unavoidable
impurity of every harmonic system (referred to at the end of § 52 of the
first volume) which the equal temperament has introduced.

Perhaps some may be offended, that, according to this metaphysic of it,
music, which so often exalts our minds, which seems to us to speak of
other and better worlds than ours, yet really only flatters the will to
live, because it exhibits to it its nature, deludes it with the image of
its success, and at the end expresses its satisfaction and contentment.
The following passage from the “_Vedas_” may serve to quiet such doubts:
“_Etanand sroup, quod forma gaudii est,_ τον _pram Atma ex hoc dicunt,
quod quocunque loco gaudium est, particula e gaudio ejus est_”
(_Oupnekhat_, vol. i. p. 405; _et iterum_, vol. ii. p. 215).





SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FOURTH BOOK.


    “_Tous les hommes désirent uniquement de se délivrer de la mort:
    ils ne savent pas se délivrer de la vie._”

    —_Lao‐tsen‐Tao‐te‐King_, ed. STAN. JULIEN, p. 184.




Chapter XL. Preface.


The supplements to this fourth book would be very considerable if it were
not that two of its principal subjects which stand specially in need of
being supplemented—the freedom of the will and the foundation of
ethics—have, on the occasion of prize questions being set by two
Scandinavian Academies, been fully worked out by me in the form of a
monograph, which was laid before the public in the year 1841 under the
title, “The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics.” Accordingly I assume an
acquaintance on the part of my readers with the work which has just been
mentioned, just as unconditionally as in the supplements to the second
book I have assumed it with regard to the work “On the Will in Nature.” In
general I make the demand that whoever wishes to make himself acquainted
with my philosophy shall read every line of me. For I am no voluminous
writer, no fabricator of compendiums, no earner of pecuniary rewards, not
one whose writings aim at the approbation of a minister; in a word, not
one whose pen is under the influence of personal ends. I strive after
nothing but the truth, and write as the ancients wrote, with the sole
intention of preserving my thoughts, so that they may be for the benefit
of those who understand how to meditate upon them and prize them.
Therefore I have written little, but that little with reflection and at
long intervals, and accordingly I have also confined within the smallest
possible limits those repetitions which in philosophical works are
sometimes unavoidable on account of the connection, and from which no
single philosopher is free; so that by far the most of what I have to say
is only to be found in one place. On this account, then, whoever wishes to
learn from me and understand me must leave nothing unread that I have
written. Yet one can judge me and criticise me without this, as experience
has shown; and to this also I further wish much pleasure.

Meanwhile the space gained by the said elimination of two important
subjects will be very welcome to us. For since those explanations, which
every man has more at heart than anything else, and which therefore in
every system, as ultimate results, form the apex of its pyramid, are also
crowded together in _my_ last book, a larger space will gladly be granted
to every firmer proof or more accurate account of these. Besides this we
have been able to discuss here, as belonging to the doctrine of the
“assertion of the will to live,” a question which in our fourth book
itself remained untouched, as it was also entirely neglected by all
philosophers before me: it is the inner significance and real nature of
the sexual love, which sometimes rises to a vehement passion—a subject
which it would not have been paradoxical to take up in the ethical part of
philosophy if its importance had been known.




Chapter XLI.(27) On Death And Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our
True Nature.


Death is the true inspiring genius, or the muse of philosophy, wherefore
Socrates has defined the latter as θανατου μελετη. Indeed without death
men would scarcely philosophise. Therefore it will be quite in order that
a special consideration of this should have its place here at the
beginning of the last, most serious, and most important of our books.

The brute lives without a proper knowledge of death; therefore the
individual brute enjoys directly the absolute imperishableness of the
species, for it is only conscious of itself as endless. In the case of men
the terrifying certainty of death necessarily entered with reason. But as
everywhere in nature with every evil a means of cure, or at least some
compensation, is given, the same reflection which introduces the knowledge
of death also assists us to _metaphysical_ points of view, which comfort
us concerning it, and of which the brute has no need and is incapable. All
religious and philosophical systems are principally directed to this end,
and are thus primarily the antidote to the certainty of death, which the
reflective reason produces out of its own means. Yet the degree in which
they attain this end is very different, and certainly _one_ religion or
philosophy will, far more than the others, enable men to look death in the
face with a quiet glance. Brahmanism and Buddhism, which teach man to
regard himself as himself, the original being, the Brahm, to which all
coming into being and passing away is essentially foreign, will achieve
much more in this respect than such as teach that man is made out of
nothing, and actually begins at birth his existence derived from another.
Answering to this we find in India a confidence and a contempt for death
of which one has no conception in Europe. It is, in fact, a hazardous
thing to force upon a man, by early imprinting them, weak and untenable
conceptions in this important regard, and thereby making him for ever
incapable of taking up correct and stable ones. For example, to teach him
that he recently came out of nothing, and consequently through an eternity
has been nothing, but yet for the future will be imperishable, is just the
same as to teach him that although he is through and through the work of
another, yet he will be held responsible through all eternity for his
actions. If, then, when the mind ripens and reflection appears, the
untenable nature of such doctrines forces itself upon him, he has nothing
better to put in its place, nay, is no longer capable of understanding
anything better, and thus loses the comfort which nature had destined for
him also, as a compensation for the certainty of death. In consequence of
such a process, we see even now in England (1844), among ruined factory
hands, the Socialists, and in Germany, among ruined students, the young
Hegelians, sink to the absolutely physical point of view, which leads to
the result: _edite_, _bibite_, _post mortem nulla voluptas_, and so far
may be defined as bestialism.

However, after all that has been taught concerning death, it cannot be
denied that, at least in Europe, the opinion of men, nay, often even of
the same individual, very frequently vacillates between the conception of
death as absolute annihilation and the assumption that we are, as it were,
with skin and hair, immortal. Both are equally false: but we have not so
much to find a correct mean as rather to gain the higher point of view
from which such notions disappear of themselves.

In these considerations I shall first of all start from the purely
empirical standpoint. Here there primarily lies before us the undeniable
fact that, according to the natural consciousness, man not only fears
death for his own person more than anything else, but also weeps violently
over the death of those that belong to him, and indeed clearly not
egotistically, for his own loss, but out of sympathy for the great
misfortune that has befallen them. Therefore he also censures those who in
such a case neither weep nor show sadness as hard‐hearted and unloving. It
is parallel with this that revenge, in its highest degree, seeks the death
of the adversary as the greatest evil that can be inflicted. Opinions
change with time and place; but the voice of nature remains always and
everywhere the same, and is therefore to be heeded before everything else.
Now here it seems distinctly to say that death is a great evil. In the
language of nature death means annihilation. And that death is a serious
matter may be concluded from the fact that, as every one knows, life is no
joke. We must indeed deserve nothing better than these two.

In fact, the fear of death is independent of all knowledge; for the brute
has it, although it does not know death. Everything that is born brings it
with it into the world. But this fear of death is _a priori_ only the
reverse side of the will to live, which indeed we all are. Therefore in
every brute the fear of its destruction is inborn, like the care for its
maintenance. Thus it is the fear of death, and not the mere avoidance of
pain, which shows itself in the anxious carefulness with which the brute
seeks to protect itself, and still more its brood, from everything that
might become dangerous. Why does the brute flee, trembling, and seek to
conceal itself? Because it is simply the will to live, but, as such, is
forfeited to death, and wishes to gain time. Such also, by nature, is man.
The greatest evil, the worst that can anywhere threaten, is death; the
greatest fear is the fear of death. Nothing excites us so irresistibly to
the most lively interest as danger to the life of others; nothing is so
shocking as an execution. Now the boundless attachment to life which
appears here cannot have sprung from knowledge and reflection; to these it
rather appears foolish, for the objective worth of life is very uncertain,
and at least it remains doubtful whether it is preferable to not being,
nay, if experience and reflection come to be expressed, not being must
certainly win. If one knocked on the graves, and asked the dead whether
they wished to rise again, they would shake their heads. Such is the
opinion of Socrates in “Plato’s Apology,” and even the gay and amiable
Voltaire cannot help saying, “_On aime la vie; mais le néant ne laisse pas
d’avoir du bon_;” and again, “_Je ne sais pas ce que c’est que la vie
éternelle, mais celle‐ci est une mauvaise plaisanterie_.” Besides, life
must in any case soon end; so that the few years which perhaps one has yet
to be vanish entirely before the endless time when one will be no more.
Accordingly it appears to reflection even ludicrous to be so anxious about
this span of time, to tremble so much if our own life or that of another
is in danger, and to compose tragedies the horror of which has its
strength in the fear of death. That powerful attachment to life is
therefore irrational and blind; it can only be explained from the fact
that our whole inner nature is itself will to live, to which, therefore,
life must appear as the highest good, however embittered, short, and
uncertain it may always be; and that that will, in itself and originally,
is unconscious and blind. Knowledge, on the contrary, far from being the
source of that attachment to life, even works against it, for it discloses
the worthlessness of life, and thus combats the fear of death. When it
conquers, and accordingly the man faces death courageously and composedly,
this is honoured as great and noble, thus we hail then the triumph of
knowledge over the blind will to live, which is yet the kernel of our own
being. In the same way we despise him in whom knowledge is defeated in
that conflict, and who therefore clings unconditionally to life, struggles
to the utmost against approaching death, and receives it with despair;(28)
and yet in him it is only the most original being of ourselves and of
nature that expresses itself. We may here ask, in passing, how could this
boundless love of life and endeavour to maintain it in every way as long
as possible be regarded as base, contemptible, and by the adherents of
every religion as unworthy of this, if it were the gift of good gods, to
be recognised with thankfulness? And how could it then seem great and
noble to esteem it lightly? Meanwhile, what is confirmed by these
considerations is—(1.) that the will to live is the inmost nature of man;
(2.) that in itself it is unconscious and blind; (3.) that knowledge is an
adventitious principle, which is originally foreign to the will; (4.) that
knowledge conflicts with the will, and that our judgment applauds the
victory of knowledge over the will.

If what makes death seem so terrible to us were the thought of not being,
we would necessarily think with equal horror of the time when as yet we
were not. For it is irrefutably certain that not being after death cannot
be different from not being before birth, and consequently is also no more
deplorable. A whole eternity has run its course while as yet we were not,
but that by no means disturbs us. On the other hand, we find it hard, nay,
unendurable, that after the momentary intermezzo of an ephemeral
existence, a second eternity should follow in which we shall no longer be.
Should, then, this thirst for existence have arisen because we have now
tasted it and have found it so delightful? As was already briefly
explained above, certainly not; far sooner could the experience gained
have awakened an infinite longing for the lost paradise of non‐existence.
To the hope, also, of the immortality of the soul there is always added
that of a “better world”—a sign that the present world is not much good.
Notwithstanding all this, the question as to our state after death has
certainly been discussed, in books and verbally, ten thousand times
oftener than the question as to our state before birth. Yet theoretically
the one is just as near at hand and as fair a problem as the other; and
besides, whoever had answered the one would soon see to the bottom of the
other. We have fine declamations about how shocking it would be to think
that the mind of man, which embraces the world, and has so many very
excellent thoughts, should sink with him into the grave; but we hear
nothing about this mind having allowed a whole eternity to pass before it
came into being with these its qualities, and how the world must have had
to do without it all that time. Yet no question presents itself more
naturally to knowledge, uncorrupted by the will, than this: An infinite
time has passed before my birth; what was I during this time?
Metaphysically, it might perhaps be answered, “I was always I; that is,
all who during that time said I, were just I.” But let us look away from
this to our present entirely empirical point of view, and assume that I
did not exist at all. Then I can console myself as to the infinite time
after my death, when I shall not be, with the infinite time when I already
was not, as a well‐accustomed, and indeed very comfortable, state. For the
eternity _a parte post_ without me can be just as little fearful as the
eternity _a parte ante_ without me, since the two are distinguished by
nothing except by the interposition of an ephemeral dream of life. All
proofs, also, for continued existence after death may just as well be
applied _in partem ante_, where they then demonstrate existence before
life, in the assumption of which the Hindus and Buddhists therefore show
themselves very consistent. Kant’s ideality of time alone solves all these
riddles. But we are not speaking of that now. This, however, results from
what has been said, that to mourn for the time when one will be no more is
just as absurd as it would be to mourn over the time when as yet one was
not; for it is all the same whether the time which our existence does not
fill is related to that which it does fill, as future or as past.

But, also, regarded entirely apart from these temporal considerations, it
is in and for itself absurd to look upon not being as an evil; for every
evil, as every good, presupposes existence, nay, even consciousness: but
the latter ceases with life, as also in sleep and in a swoon; therefore
the absence of it is well known to us, and trusted, as containing no evil
at all: its entrance, however, is always an affair of a moment. From this
point of view Epicurus considered death, and therefore quite rightly said,
“ὁ θανατος μηδεν προς ἡμας” (Death does not concern us); with the
explanation that when we are death is not, and when death is we are not
(_Diog. Laert._, x. 27). To have lost what cannot be missed is clearly no
evil. Therefore ceasing to be ought to disturb us as little as not having
been. Accordingly from the standpoint of knowledge there appears
absolutely no reason to fear death. But consciousness consists in knowing;
therefore, for consciousness death is no evil. Moreover, it is really not
this _knowing_ part of our _ego_ that fears death, but the _fuga mortis_
proceeds entirely and alone from the blind _will_, of which everything
living is filled. To this, however, as was already mentioned above, it is
essential, just because it is will to live, whose whole nature consists in
the effort after life and existence, and which is not originally endowed
with knowledge, but only in consequence of its objectification in animal
individuals. If now the will, by means of knowledge, beholds death as the
end of the phenomenon with which it has identified itself, and to which,
therefore, it sees itself limited, its whole nature struggles against it
with all its might. Whether now it has really something to fear from death
we will investigate further on, and will then remember the real source of
the fear of death, which has been shown here along with the requisite
distinction of the willing and the knowing part of our nature.

Corresponding to this, then, what makes death so terrible to us is not so
much the end of life—for this can appear to no one specially worthy of
regret—but rather the destruction of the organism; really because this is
the will itself exhibiting itself as body. But we only really feel this
destruction in the evils of disease or of old age; death itself, on the
other hand, consists for the _subject_ only in the moment when
consciousness vanishes because the activity of the brain ceases. The
extension of the stoppage to all the other parts of the organism which
follows this is really already an event after death. Thus death, in a
subjective regard, concerns the consciousness alone. Now what the
vanishing of this may be every one can to a certain extent judge of from
going to sleep; but it is still better known to whoever has really
fainted, for in this the transition is not so gradual, nor accompanied by
dreams, but first the power of sight leaves us, still fully conscious, and
then immediately the most profound unconsciousness enters; the sensation
that accompanies it, so far as it goes, is anything but disagreeable; and
without doubt, as sleep is the brother of death, so the swoon is its twin‐
brother. Even violent death cannot be painful, for even severe wounds are
not felt at all till some time afterwards, often not till the outward
signs of them are observed. If they are rapidly mortal, consciousness will
vanish before this discovery; if they result in death later, then it is
the same as with other illnesses. All those also who have lost
consciousness in water, or from charcoal fumes, or through hanging are
well known to say that it happened without pain. And now, finally, the
death which is properly in accordance with nature, death from old age,
euthanasia, is a gradual vanishing and sinking out of existence in an
imperceptible manner. Little by little in old age, the passions and
desires, with the susceptibility for their objects, are extinguished; the
emotions no longer find anything to excite them; for the power of
presenting ideas to the mind always becomes weaker, its images fainter;
the impressions no longer cleave to us, but pass over without leaving a
trace, the days roll ever faster, events lose their significance,
everything grows pale. The old man stricken in years totters about or
rests in a corner now only a shadow, a ghost of his former self. What
remains there for death to destroy? One day a sleep is his last, and his
dreams are ——. They are the dreams which Hamlet inquires after in the
famous soliloquy. I believe we dream them even now.

I have here also to remark that the maintenance of the life process,
although it has a metaphysical basis, does not go on without resistance,
and consequently not without effort. It is this to which the organism
yields every night, on account of which it then suspends the brain
function and diminishes certain secretions, the respiration, the pulse,
and the development of heat. From this we may conclude that the entire
ceasing of the life process must be a wonderful relief to its motive
force; perhaps this has some share in the expression of sweet contentment
on the faces of most dead persons. In general the moment of death may be
like the moment of awaking from a heavy dream that has oppressed us like a
nightmare.

Up to this point the result we have arrived at is that death, however much
it may be feared, can yet really be no evil. But often it even appears as
a good thing, as something wished for, as a friend. All that have met with
insuperable obstacles to their existence or their efforts, that suffer
from incurable diseases or inconsolable griefs, have as a last refuge,
which generally opens to them of its own accord, the return into the womb
of nature, from which they arose for a short time, enticed by the hope of
more favourable conditions of existence than have fallen to their lot, and
the same path out of which constantly remains open. That return is the
_cessio bonorum_ of life. Yet even here it is only entered upon after a
physical and moral conflict: so hard does one struggle against returning
to the place from which one came out so lightly and readily, to an
existence which has so much suffering and so little pleasure to offer. The
Hindus give the god of death, Yama, two faces; one very fearful and
terrible, and one very cheerful and benevolent. This partly explains
itself from the reflections we have just made.

At the empirical point of view at which we still stand, the following
consideration is one which presents itself of its own accord, and
therefore deserves to be accurately defined by illustration, and thereby
referred to its proper limits. The sight of a dead body shows me that
sensibility, irritability, circulation of the blood, reproduction, &c.,
have here ceased. I conclude from this with certainty that what actuated
these hitherto, which was yet always something unknown to me, now actuates
them no longer, thus has departed from them. But if I should now wish to
add that this must have been just what I have known only as consciousness,
consequently as intelligence (soul), this would be not only an unjustified
but clearly a false conclusion. For consciousness has always showed itself
to me not as the cause, but as the product and result of the organised
life, for it rose and sank in consequence of this in the different periods
of life, in health and sickness, in sleep, in a swoon, in awaking, &c.,
thus always appeared as effect, never as cause of the organised life,
always showed itself as something which arises and passes away, and again
arises, so long as the conditions of this still exist, but not apart from
them. Nay, I may also have seen that the complete derangement of
consciousness, madness, far from dragging down with it and depressing the
other forces, or indeed endangering life, heightens these very much,
especially irritability or muscular force, and rather lengthens than
shortens life, if other causes do not come in. Then, also: I knew
individuality as a quality of everything organised, and therefore, if this
is a self‐conscious organism, also of consciousness. But there exists no
occasion now to conclude that individuality was inherent in that vanished
principle, which imparts life, and is completely unknown to me; all the
less so as I see that everywhere in nature each particular phenomenon is
the work of a general force which is active in thousands of similar
phenomena. But, on the other hand, there is just as little occasion to
conclude that because the organised life has ceased here that force which
hitherto actuated it has also become nothing; as little as to infer the
death of the spinner from the stopping of the spinning‐wheel. If a
pendulum, by finding its centre of gravity, at last comes to rest, and
thus its individual apparent life has ceased, no one will imagine that
gravitation is now annihilated; but every one comprehends that, after as
before, it is active in innumerable phenomena. Certainly it might be urged
against this comparison, that here also, in this pendulum, gravitation has
not ceased to be active, but only to manifest its activity palpably;
whoever insists on this may think, instead, of an electrical body, in
which, after its discharge, electricity has actually ceased to be active.
I only wished to show in this that we ourselves recognise in the lowest
forces of nature an eternity and ubiquity with regard to which the
transitory nature of their fleeting phenomena never makes us err for a
moment. So much the less, then, should it come into our mind to regard the
ceasing of life as the annihilation of the living principle, and
consequently death as the entire destruction of the man. Because the
strong arm which, three thousand years ago, bent the bow of Ulysses is no
more, no reflective and well‐regulated understanding will regard the force
which acted so energetically in it as entirely annihilated, and therefore,
upon further reflection, will also not assume that the force which bends
the bow to‐day first began with this arm. The thought lies far nearer us,
that the force which earlier actuated the life which now has vanished is
the same which is active in the life which now flourishes: nay, this is
almost inevitable. Certainly, however, we know that, as was explained in
the second book, only that is perishable which is involved in the causal
series; but only the states and forms are so involved. On the other hand,
untouched by the change of these which is introduced by causes, there
remain on the one side matter, and on the other side natural forces: for
both are the presupposition of all these changes. But the principle of our
life we must, primarily at least, conceive as a force of nature, until
perhaps a more profound investigation has brought us to know what it is in
itself. Thus, taken simply as a force of nature, the vital force remains
entirely undisturbed by the change of forms and states, which the bond of
cause and effect introduces and carries off again, and which alone are
subject to the process of coming into being and passing away, as it lies
before us in experience. Thus so far the imperishable nature of our true
being can be proved with certainty. But it is true this will not satisfy
the claims which are wont to be made upon proofs of our continued
existence after death, nor insure the consolation which is expected from
such proofs. However, it is always something; and whoever fears death as
an absolute annihilation cannot afford to despise the perfect certainty
that the inmost principle of his life remains untouched by it. Nay, the
paradox might be set up, that that second thing also which, just like the
forces of nature, remains untouched by the continual change under the
guidance of causality, thus matter, by its absolute permanence, insures us
indestructibility, by virtue of which whoever was incapable of
comprehending any other might yet confidently trust in a certain
imperishableness. “What!” it will be said, “the permanence of the mere
dust, of the crude matter, is to be regarded as a continuance of our
being?” Oh! do you know this dust, then? Do you know what it is and what
it can do? Learn to know it before you despise it. This matter which now
lies there as dust and ashes will soon, dissolved in water, form itself as
a crystal, will shine as metal, will then emit electric sparks, will by
means of its galvanic intensity manifest a force which, decomposing the
closest combinations, reduces earths to metals; nay, it will, of its own
accord, form itself into plants and animals, and from its mysterious womb
develop that life for the loss of which you, in your narrowness, are so
painfully anxious. Is it, then, absolutely nothing to continue to exist as
such matter? Nay, I seriously assert that even this permanence of matter
affords evidence of the indestructibility of our true nature, though only
as in an image or simile, or, rather, only as in outline. To see this we
only need to call to mind the explanation of matter given in chapter 24,
from which it resulted that mere formless matter—this basis of the world
of experience which is never perceived for itself alone, but assumed as
constantly remaining—is the immediate reflection, the visibility in
general, of the thing in itself, thus of the will. Therefore, whatever
absolutely pertains to the will as such holds good also of matter, and it
reflects the true eternal nature of the will under the image of temporal
imperishableness. Because, as has been said, nature does not lie, no view
which has sprung from a purely objective comprehension of it, and been
logically thought out, can be absolutely false, but at the most only very
one‐sided and imperfect. Such, however, is, indisputably, consistent
materialism; for instance, that of Epicurus, just as well as the absolute
idealism opposed to it, like that of Berkeley, and in general every
philosophical point of view which has proceeded from a correct _apperçu_,
and been honestly carried out. Only they are all exceedingly one‐sided
comprehensions, and therefore, in spite of their opposition, they are all
true, each from a definite point of view; but as soon as one has risen
above this point of view, then they only appear as relatively and
conditionally true. The highest standpoint alone, from which one surveys
them all and knows them in their relative truth, but also beyond this, in
their falseness, can be that of absolute truth so far as this is in
general attainable. Accordingly we see, as was shown above, that in the
very crude, and therefore very old, point of view of materialism proper
the indestructibility of our true nature in itself is represented, as by a
mere shadow of it, the imperishableness of matter; as in the already
higher naturalism of an absolute physics it is represented by the ubiquity
and eternity of the natural forces, among which the vital force is at
least to be counted. Thus even these crude points of view contain the
assertion that the living being suffers no absolute annihilation through
death, but continues to exist in and with the whole of nature.

The considerations which have brought us to this point, and to which the
further explanations link themselves on, started from the remarkable fear
of death which fills all living beings. But now we will change the
standpoint and consider how, in contrast to the individual beings, the
_whole_ of nature bears itself with reference to death. In doing this,
however, we still always remain upon the ground of experience.

Certainly we know no higher game of chance than that for death and life.
Every decision about this we watch with the utmost excitement, interest,
and fear; for in our eyes all in all is at stake. On the other hand,
nature, which never lies, but is always straightforward and open, speaks
quite differently upon this theme, speaks like Krishna in the
Bhagavadgita. What it says is: The death or the life of the individual is
of no significance. It expresses this by the fact that it exposes the life
of every brute, and even of man, to the most insignificant accidents
without coming to the rescue. Consider the insect on your path; a slight,
unconscious turning of your step is decisive as to its life or death. Look
at the wood‐snail, without any means of flight, of defence, of deception,
of concealment, a ready prey for all. Look at the fish carelessly playing
in the still open net; the frog restrained by its laziness from the flight
which might save it; the bird that does not know of the falcon that soars
above it; the sheep which the wolf eyes and examines from the thicket. All
these, provided with little foresight, go about guilelessly among the
dangers that threaten their existence every moment. Since now nature
exposes its organisms, constructed with such inimitable skill, not only to
the predatory instincts of the stronger, but also to the blindest chance,
to the humour of every fool, the mischievousness of every child without
reserve, it declares that the annihilation of these individuals is
indifferent to it, does it no harm, has no significance, and that in these
cases the effect is of no more importance than the cause. It says this
very distinctly, and it does not lie; only it makes no comments on its
utterances, but rather expresses them in the laconic style of an oracle.
If now the all‐mother sends forth her children without protection to a
thousand threatening dangers, this can only be because she knows that if
they fall they fall back into her womb, where they are safe; therefore
their fall is a mere jest. Nature does not act otherwise with man than
with the brutes. Therefore its declaration extends also to man: the life
and death of the individual are indifferent to it. Accordingly, in a
certain sense, they ought also to be indifferent to us, for we ourselves
are indeed nature. Certainly, if only we saw deep enough, we would agree
with nature, and regard life and death as indifferently as it does.
Meanwhile, by means of reflection, we must attribute that carelessness and
indifference of nature towards the life of the individuals to the fact
that the destruction of such a phenomenon does not in the least affect its
true and proper nature.

If we further ponder the fact, that not only, as we have just seen, are
life and death dependent upon the most trifling accidents, but that the
existence of the organised being in general is an ephemeral one, that
animal and plant arise to‐day and pass away to‐morrow, and birth and death
follow in quick succession, while to the unorganised things which stand so
much lower an incomparably longer duration is assured, and an infinite
duration to the absolutely formless matter alone, to which, indeed, we
attribute this _a priori_,—then, I think, the thought must follow of its
own accord, even from the purely empirical, but objective and unprejudiced
comprehension of such an order of things, that this is only a superficial
phenomenon, that such a constant arising and passing away can by no means
touch the root of things, but can only be relative, nay, only apparent, in
which the true inner nature of that thing is not included, the nature
which everywhere evades our glance and is thoroughly mysterious, but
rather that this continues to exist undisturbed by it; although we can
neither apprehend nor conceive the manner in which this happens, and must
therefore think of it only generally as a kind of _tour de passe‐passe_
which took place there. For that, while what is most imperfect, the
lowest, the unorganised, continues to exist unassailed, it is just the
most perfect beings, the living creatures, with their infinitely
complicated and inconceivably ingenious organisations, which constantly
arise, new from the very foundation, and after a brief span of time
absolutely pass into nothingness, to make room for other new ones like
them coming into existence out of nothing—this is something so obviously
absurd that it can never be the true order of things, but rather a mere
veil which conceals this, or, more accurately, a phenomenon conditioned by
the nature of our intellect. Nay, the whole being and not being itself of
these individuals, in relation to which death and life are opposites, can
only be relative. Thus the language of nature, in which it is given us as
absolute, cannot be the true and ultimate expression of the nature of
things and of the order of the world, but indeed only a _patois du pays_,
_i.e._, something merely relatively true,—something to be understood _cum
grano salis_, or, to speak properly, something conditioned by our
intellect; I say, an immediate, intuitive conviction of the kind which I
have tried to describe in words will press itself upon every one; _i.e._,
certainly only upon every one whose mind is not of an utterly ordinary
species, which is absolutely only capable of knowing the particular simply
and solely as such, which is strictly limited to the knowledge of
individuals, after the manner of the intellect of the brutes. Whoever, on
the other hand, by means of a capacity of an only somewhat higher power,
even just begins to see in the individual beings their universal, their
Ideas, will also, to a certain extent, participate in that conviction, and
that indeed as an immediate, and therefore certain, conviction. In fact,
it is also only small, limited minds that fear death quite seriously as
their annihilation, and persons of decidedly superior capacity are
completely free from such terrors. Plato rightly bases the whole of
philosophy upon the knowledge of the doctrine of Ideas, _i.e._, upon the
perception of the universal in the particular. But the conviction here
described, which proceeds directly from the comprehension of nature, must
have been exceedingly vivid in those sublime authors of the Upanishads of
the Vedas, who can scarcely be thought of as mere men, for it speaks to us
so forcibly out of an innumerable number of their utterances that we must
ascribe this immediate illumination of their mind to the fact that these
wise men, standing nearer the origin of our race in time, comprehended the
nature of things more clearly and profoundly than the already deteriorated
race, ὁιοι νυν βροτοι εισιν, is able to do. But certainly their
comprehension is assisted by the natural world of India, which is endowed
with life in a very different degree from our northern world. However,
thorough reflection, as pursued by Kant’s great mind, leads by another
path to the same result, for it teaches us that our intellect, in which
that phenomenal world which changes so fast exhibits itself, does not
comprehend the true ultimate nature of things, but merely its phenomenal
manifestation, and indeed, as I add, because it is originally only
destined to present the motives to our will, _i.e._, to be serviceable to
it in the pursuit of its paltry ends.

Let us, however, carry our objective and unprejudiced consideration of
nature still further. If I kill a living creature, whether a dog, a bird,
a frog, or even only an insect, it is really inconceivable that this
being, or rather the original force by virtue of which such a marvellous
phenomenon exhibited itself just the moment before, in its full energy and
love of life, should have been annihilated by my wicked or thoughtless
act. And again, on the other hand, the millions of animals of every kind
which come into existence every moment, in infinite variety, full of force
and activity, can never, before the act of their generation, have been
nothing at all, and have attained from nothing to an absolute beginning.
If now in this way I see one of these withdraw itself from my sight,
without me knowing where it goes, and another appear without me knowing
whence it comes; if, moreover, both have the same form, the same nature,
the same character, and only not the same matter, which yet during their
existence they continually throw off and renew; then certainly the
assumption, that that which vanishes and that which appears in its place
are one and the same, which has only experienced a slight alteration, a
renewal of the form of its existence, and that consequently death is for
the species what sleep is for the individual; this assumption, I say, lies
so close at hand that it is impossible not to light upon it, unless the
mind, perverted in early youth by the imprinting of false views, hurries
it out of the way, even from a distance, with superstitious fear. But the
opposite assumption that the birth of an animal is an arising out of
nothing, and accordingly that its death is its absolute annihilation, and
this with the further addition that man, who has also originated out of
nothing, has yet an individual, endless existence, and indeed a conscious
existence, while the dog, the ape, the elephant, are annihilated by death,
is really something against which the healthy mind revolts and which it
must regard as absurd. If, as is sufficiently often repeated, the
comparison of the results of a system with the utterances of the healthy
mind is supposed to be a touchstone of its truth, I wish the adherents of
the system which was handed down from Descartes to the pre‐Kantian
eclectics, nay, which even now is still the prevailing view of the great
majority of cultured people in Europe, would apply this touchstone here.

Throughout and everywhere the true symbol of nature is the circle, because
it is the schema or type of recurrence. This is, in fact, the most
universal form in nature, which it carries out in everything, from the
course of the stars down to the death and the genesis of organised beings,
and by which alone, in the ceaseless stream of time, and its content, a
permanent existence, _i.e._, a nature, becomes possible.

If in autumn we consider the little world of insects, and see how one
prepares its bed to sleep the long, rigid winter‐sleep; another spins its
cocoon to pass the winter as a chrysalis, and awake in spring rejuvenated
and perfected; and, finally, how most of them, intending themselves to
rest in the arms of death, merely arrange with care the suitable place for
their egg, in order to issue forth again from it some day renewed;—this is
nature’s great doctrine of immortality, which seeks to teach us that there
is no radical difference between sleep and death, but the one endangers
existence just as little as the other. The care with which the insect
prepares a cell, or hole, or nest, deposits its egg in it, together with
food for the larva that will come out of it in the following spring, and
then quietly dies, is just like the care with which in the evening a man
lays ready his clothes and his breakfast for the next morning, and then
quietly goes to sleep; and at bottom it could not take place at all if it
were not that the insect which dies in autumn is in itself, and according
to its true nature, just as much identical with the one which is hatched
out in the spring as the man who lies down to sleep is identical with the
man who rises from it.

If now, after these considerations, we return to ourselves and our own
species, then cast our glance forward far into the future, and seek to
present to our minds the future generations, with the millions of their
individuals in the strange form of their customs and pursuits, and then
interpose with the question: Whence will all these come? Where are they
now? Where is the fertile womb of that nothing, pregnant with worlds,
which still conceals the coming races? Would not the smiling and true
answer to this be, Where else should they be than there where alone the
real always was and will be, in the present and its content?—thus with
thee, the foolish questioner, who in this mistaking of his own nature is
like the leaf upon the tree, which, fading in autumn and about to fall,
complains at its destruction, and will not be consoled by looking forward
to the fresh green which will clothe the tree in spring, but says
lamenting, “I am not these! These are quite different leaves!” Oh, foolish
leaf! Whither wilt thou? And whence should others come? Where is the
nothing whose abyss thou fearest? Know thine own nature, that which is so
filled with thirst for existence; recognise it in the inner, mysterious,
germinating force of the tree, which, constantly _one_ and the same in all
generations of leaves, remains untouched by all arising and passing away.
And now, οἱη περ φυλλων γενεη, τοιηδε και ανδρων (_Qualis foliorum
generatio, talis et hominum_). Whether the fly which now buzzes round me
goes to sleep in the evening, and buzzes again tomorrow, or dies in the
evening, and in spring another fly buzzes which has sprung from its egg:
that is in itself the same thing; but therefore the knowledge which
exhibits this as two fundamentally different things is not unconditioned,
but relative, a knowledge of the phenomenon, not of the thing in itself.
In the morning the fly exists again; it also exists again in the spring.
What distinguishes for it the winter from the night? In Burdach’s
“Physiology,” vol. i. § 275, we read, “Till ten o’clock in the morning no
_Cercaria ephemera_ (one of the infusoria) is to be seen (in the
infusion), and at twelve the whole water swarms with them. In the evening
they die, and the next morning they again appear anew.” So it was observed
by Nitzsch six days running.

So everything lingers but a moment, and hastens on to death. The plant and
the insect die at the end of the summer, the brute and the man after a few
years: death reaps unweariedly. Yet notwithstanding this, nay, as if this
were not so at all, everything is always there and in its place, just as
if everything were imperishable. The plant always thrives and blooms, the
insect hums, the brute and the man exist in unwasted youth, and the
cherries that have already been enjoyed a thousand times we have again
before us every summer. The nations also exist as immortal individuals,
although sometimes their names change; even their action, what they do and
suffer, is always the same; although history always pretends to relate
something different: for it is like the kaleidoscope, which at every turn
shows a new figure, while we really always have the same thing before our
eyes. What then presses itself more irresistibly upon us than the thought
that that arising and passing away does not concern the real nature of
things, but this remains untouched by it, thus is imperishable, and
therefore all and each that _wills_ to exist actually exists continuously
and without end. Accordingly at every given point of time all species of
animals, from the gnat to the elephant, exist together complete. They have
already renewed themselves many thousand times, and withal have remained
the same. They know nothing of others like them, who have lived before
them, or will live after them; it is the species which always lives, and
in the consciousness of the imperishable nature of the species and their
identity with it the individuals cheerfully exist. The will to live
manifests itself in an endless present, because this is the form of the
life of the species, which, therefore, never grows old, but remains always
young. Death is for it what sleep is for the individual, or what winking
is for the eye, by the absence of which the Indian gods are known, if they
appear in human form. As through the entrance of night the world vanishes,
but yet does not for a moment cease to exist, so man and brute apparently
pass away through death, and yet their true nature continues, just as
undisturbed by it. Let us now think of that alternation of death and birth
as infinitely rapid vibrations, and we have before us the enduring
objectification of the will, the permanent Ideas of being, fixed like the
rainbow on the waterfall. This is temporal immortality. In consequence of
this, notwithstanding thousands of years of death and decay, nothing has
been lost, not an atom of the matter, still less anything of the inner
being, that exhibits itself as nature. Therefore every moment we can
cheerfully cry, “In spite of time, death, and decay, we are still all
together!”

Perhaps we would have to except whoever had once said from the bottom of
his heart, with regard to this game, “I want no more.” But this is not yet
the place to speak of this.

But we have certainly to draw attention to the fact that the pain of birth
and the bitterness of death are the two constant conditions under which
the will to live maintains itself in its objectification, _i.e._, our
inner nature, untouched by the course of time and the death of races,
exists in an everlasting present, and enjoys the fruit of the assertion of
the will to live. This is analogous to the fact that we can only be awake
during the day on condition that we sleep during the night; indeed the
latter is the commentary which nature offers us for the understanding of
that difficult passage.(29)

For the substratum, or the content, πληρωμα, or the material of the
_present_, is through all time really the same. The impossibility of
knowing this identity directly is just _time_, a form and limitation of
our intellect. That on account of it, for example, the future event is not
yet, depends upon an illusion of which we become conscious when that event
has come. That the essential form of our intellect introduces such an
illusion explains and justifies itself from the fact that the intellect
has come forth from the hands of nature by no means for the apprehension
of the nature of things, but merely for the apprehension of motives, thus
for the service of an individual and temporal phenomenon of will.(30)

Whoever comprehends the reflections which here occupy us will also
understand the true meaning of the paradoxical doctrine of the Eleatics,
that there is no arising and passing away, but the whole remains
immovable: “Παρμενιδης και Μελισσος ανῃρουν γενεσιν και φθοραν, δια το
νομιξειν το παν ακινητον” (_Parmenides et Melissus ortum et interitum
tollebant, quoniam nihil moveri putabant_), _Stob. Ecl._, i. 21. Light is
also thrown here upon the beautiful passage of Empedocles which Plutarch
has preserved for us in the book, “_Adversus Coloten_,” c. 12:—


    “Νηπιοι; ου γαρ σφιν δολιχοφρονες εισι μεριμναι,
    Οἱ δη γινεσθαι παρος ουκ εον ελπιζουσι,
    Η τι καταθνησκειν και εξολλυσθαι ἁπαντη.
    Ουκ αν ανηρ τοιαυτα σοφος φρεσι μαντευσαιτο,
    Ὡς οφρα μεν τε βιωσι (το δη βιοτον καλεουσι),
    Τοφρα μεν ουν εισιν, και σφιν παρα δεινα και ἐσθλα
    Πριν τε παγεν τε βροτοι, και επει λυθεν, ουδεν αρ᾽ ἐισιν.”

    _(Stulta, et prolixas non admittentia curas_
    _Pectora: qui sperant, existere posse, quod ante_
    _Non fuit, aut ullam rem pessum protinus ire_;—
    _Non animo prudens homo quod præsentiat ullus_,
    _Dum vivunt (namque hoc vitaï nomine signant)_,
    _Sunt, et fortuna tum conflictantur utraque_:
    _Ante ortum nihil est homo, nec post funera quidquam.)_


The very remarkable and, in its place, astonishing passage in Diderot’s
“_Jacques le fataliste_,” deserves not less to be mentioned here: “_Un
château immense, au frontispice duquel on lisait: __‹ __Je n’appartiens à
personne, et j’appartiens à tout le monde: vous y étiez avant que d’y
entrer, vous y serez encore, quand vous en sortirez__ ›_.”

Certainly in the sense in which, when he is begotten, the man arises out
of nothing, he becomes nothing through death. But really to learn to know
this “nothing” would be very interesting; for it only requires moderate
acuteness to see that this empirical nothing is by no means absolute,
_i.e._, such as would in every sense be nothing. We are already led to
this insight by the observation that all qualities of the parents recur in
the children, thus have overcome death. Of this, however, I will speak in
a special chapter.

There is no greater contrast than that between the ceaseless flight of
time, which carries its whole content with it, and the rigid immobility of
what is actually present, which at all times is one and the same. And if
from this point of view we watch in a purely objective manner the
immediate events of life, the _Nunc stans_ becomes clear and visible to us
in the centre of the wheel of time. To the eye of a being of incomparably
longer life, which at _one_ glance comprehended the human race in its
whole duration, the constant alternation of birth and death would present
itself as a continuous vibration, and accordingly it would not occur to it
at all to see in this an ever new arising out of nothing and passing into
nothing; but just as to our sight the quickly revolving spark appears as a
continuous circle, the rapidly vibrating spring as a permanent triangle,
the vibrating cord as a spindle, so to this eye the species would appear
as that which has being and permanence, death and life as vibrations.

We will have false conceptions of the indestructibility of our true nature
by death, so long as we do not make up our minds to study it primarily in
the brutes, but claim for ourselves alone a class apart from them, under
the boastful name of immortality. But it is this pretension alone, and the
narrowness of view from which it proceeds, on account of which most men
struggle so obstinately against the recognition of the obvious truth that
we are essentially, and in the chief respect, the same as the brutes; nay,
that they recoil at every hint of our relationship with these. But it is
this denial of the truth which more than anything else closes against them
the path to real knowledge of the indestructibility of our nature. For if
we seek anything upon a wrong path, we have just on that account forsaken
the right path, and upon the path we follow we will never attain to
anything in the end but late disillusion. Up, then, follow the truth, not
according to preconceived notions, but as nature leads! First of all,
learn to recognise in the aspect of every young animal the existence of
the species that never grows old, which, as a reflection of its eternal
youth, imparts to every individual a temporary youth, and lets it come
forth as new and fresh as if the world were of to‐day. Let one ask himself
honestly whether the swallow of this year’s spring is absolutely a
different one from the swallow of the first spring, and whether really
between the two the miracle of the creation out of nothing has repeated
itself millions of times, in order to work just as often into the hands of
absolute annihilation. I know well that if I seriously assured any one
that the cat which now plays in the yard is still the same one which made
the same springs and played the same tricks there three hundred years ago,
he would think I was mad; but I also know that it is much madder to
believe that the cat of to‐day is through and through and in its whole
nature quite a different one from the cat of three hundred years ago. One
only requires truly and seriously to sink oneself in the contemplation of
one of these higher vertebrates in order to become distinctly conscious
that this unfathomable nature, taken as a whole, as it exists there,
cannot possibly become nothing; and yet, on the other hand, one knows its
transitoriness. This depends upon the fact that in this animal the
infinite nature of its Idea (species) is imprinted in the finiteness of
the individual. For in a certain sense it is of course true that in the
individual we always have before us another being—in the sense which
depends upon the principle of sufficient reason, in which are also
included time and space, which constitute the _principium
individuationis_. But in another sense it is not true—in the sense in
which reality belongs to the permanent forms of things, the Ideas alone,
and which was so clearly evident to Plato that it became his fundamental
thought, the centre of his philosophy; and he made the comprehension of it
the criterion of capacity for philosophising in general.

As the scattered drops of the roaring waterfall change with lightning
rapidity, while the rainbow, whose supporter they are, remains immovably
at rest, quite untouched by that ceaseless change, so every Idea, _i.e._,
every species of living creature remains quite untouched by the continual
change of its individuals. But it is the Idea, or the species in which the
will to live is really rooted, and manifests itself; and therefore also
the will is only truly concerned in the continuance of the species. For
example, the lions which are born and die are like the drops of the
waterfall; but the _leonitas_, the Idea or form of the lion, is like the
unshaken rainbow upon it. Therefore Plato attributed true being to the
Ideas alone, _i.e._, to the species; to the individuals only a ceaseless
arising and passing away. From the profound consciousness of his
imperishable nature really springs also the confidence and peace of mind
with which every brute, and even human individual, moves unconcernedly
along amid a host of chances, which may annihilate it any moment, and,
moreover, moves straight on to death: out of its eyes, however, there
shines the peace of the species, which that death does not affect, and
does not concern. Even to man this peace could not be imparted by
uncertain and changing dogmas. But, as was said, the contemplation of
every animal teaches that death is no obstacle to the kernel of life, to
the will in its manifestation. What an unfathomable mystery lies, then, in
every animal! Look at the nearest one; look at your dog, how cheerfully
and peacefully he lives! Many thousands of dogs have had to die before it
came to this one’s turn to live. But the death of these thousands has not
affected the Idea of the dog; it has not been in the least disturbed by
all that dying. Therefore the dog exists as fresh and endowed with
primitive force as if this were its first day and none could ever be its
last; and out of its eyes there shines the indestructible principle in it,
the archæus. What, then, has died during those thousands of years? Not the
dog—it stands unscathed before us; merely its shadow, its image in our
form of knowledge, which is bound to time. Yet how can one even believe
that that passes away which for ever and ever exists and fills all time?
Certainly the matter can be explained empirically; in proportion as death
destroyed the individuals, generation produced new ones. But this
empirical explanation is only an apparent explanation: it puts one riddle
in the place of the other. The metaphysical understanding of the matter,
although not to be got so cheaply, is yet the only true and satisfying
one.

Kant, in his subjective procedure, brought to light the truth that time
cannot belong to the thing in itself, because it lies pre‐formed in our
apprehension. Now death is the temporal end of the temporal phenomenon;
but as soon as we abstract time, there is no longer any end, and this word
has lost all significance. But I, here upon the objective path, am trying
to show the positive side of the matter, that the thing in itself remains
untouched by time, and by that which is only possible through time,
arising and passing away, and that the phenomena in time could not have
even that ceaselessly fleeting existence which stands next to nothingness,
if there were not in them a kernel of the infinite. Eternity is certainly
a conception which has no perception as its foundation; accordingly it has
also a merely negative content; it signifies a timeless existence. Time is
yet merely an image of eternity, ὁ χρονος εἰκων τον αἰωνος, as Plotinus
has it; and in the same way our temporal existence is a mere image of our
true nature. This must lie in eternity, just because time is only the form
of our knowledge; but on account of this alone do we know our own
existence, and that of all things as transitory, finite, and subject to
annihilation.

In the second book I have shown that the adequate objectivity of the will
as the thing in itself, at each of its grades, is the (Platonic) Idea;
similarly in the third book that the Ideas of things have the pure subject
of knowledge as their correlative; consequently the knowledge of them only
appears exceptionally and temporarily under specially favourable
conditions. For individual knowledge, on the other hand, thus in time, the
_Idea_ presents itself under the form of the _species_, which is the Idea
broken up through its entrance into time. Therefore the species is the
most immediate objectification of the thing in itself, _i.e._, of the will
to live. The inmost nature of every brute, and also of man, accordingly
lies in the species; thus the will to live, which is so powerfully active,
is rooted in this, not really in the individual. On the other hand, in the
individual alone lies the immediate consciousness: accordingly it imagines
itself different from the species, and therefore fears death. The will to
live manifests itself in relation to the individual as hunger and the fear
of death: in relation to the species as sexual instinct and passionate
care for the offspring. In agreement with this we find nature, which is
free from that delusion of the individual, as careful for the maintenance
of the species as it is indifferent to the destruction of the individuals:
the latter are always only means, the former is the end. Therefore a
glaring contrast appears between its niggardliness in the endowment of the
individuals and its prodigality when the species is concerned. In the
latter case from _one_ individual are often annually obtained a hundred
thousand germs, and more; for example, from trees, fishes, crabs,
termites, and many others. In the former case, on the contrary, only
barely enough in the way of powers and organs is given to each to enable
it with ceaseless effort to maintain its life. And, therefore, if an
animal is injured or weakened it must, as a rule, starve. And where an
incidental saving was possible, through the circumstance that one part
could upon necessity be dispensed with, it has been withheld, even out of
order. Hence, for example, many caterpillars are without eyes; the poor
creatures grope in the dark from leaf to leaf, which, since they lack
feelers, they do by moving three‐fourths of their body back and forward in
the air, till they find some object. Hence they often miss their food
which is to be found close by. But this happens in consequence of the _lex
parsimoniæ naturæ_, to the expression of which _natura nihil facit
supervacaneum_ one may add _et nihil largitur_. The same tendency of
nature shows itself also in the fact that the more fit the individual is,
on account of his age, for the propagation of the species, the more
powerfully does the _vis naturæ medicatrix_ manifest itself in him, and
therefore his wounds heal easily, and he easily recovers from diseases.
This diminishes along with the power of generation, and sinks low after it
is extinct; for now in the eyes of nature the individual has become
worthless.

If now we cast another glance at the scale of existences, with the whole
of their accompanying gradations of consciousness, from the polyp up to
man, we see this wonderful pyramid, kept in ceaseless oscillation
certainly by the constant death of the individuals, yet by means of the
bond of generation, enduring in the species through the infinite course of
time. While, then, as was explained above, the _objective_, the species,
presents itself as indestructible, the _subjective_, which consists merely
in the self‐consciousness of these beings, seems to be of the shortest
duration, and to be unceasingly destroyed, in order, just as often, to
come forth again from nothing in an incomprehensible manner. But, indeed,
one must be very short‐sighted to let oneself be deceived by this
appearance, and not to comprehend that, although the form of temporal
permanence only belongs to the objective, the subjective, _i.e._, the
will, which lives and manifests itself in all, and with it the subject of
the _knowledge_ in which all exhibits itself, must be not less
indestructible; because the permanence of the objective, or external, can
yet only be the phenomenal appearance of the indestructibility of the
subjective or internal; for the former can possess nothing which it has
not received on loan from the latter; and cannot be essentially and
originally an objective, a phenomenon, and then secondarily and
accidentally a subjective, a thing in itself, a self‐consciousness. For
clearly the former as a manifestation presupposes something which
manifests itself, as being for other presupposes a being for self, and as
object presupposes a subject; and not conversely: because everywhere the
root of things must lie in that which they are for themselves, thus in the
subjective, not in the objective, _i.e._, in that which they are only for
others, in a foreign consciousness. Accordingly we found in the first book
that the right starting‐point for philosophy is essentially and
necessarily the subjective, _i.e._, the idealistic starting‐point; and
also that the opposite starting‐point, that which proceeds from the
objective, leads to materialism. At bottom, however, we are far more one
with the world than we commonly suppose: its inner nature is our will, its
phenomenal appearance is our idea. For any one who could bring this unity
of being to distinct consciousness, the difference between the continuance
of the external world after his death and his own continuance after death
would vanish. The two would present themselves to him as one and the same;
nay, he would laugh at the delusion that could separate them. For the
understanding of the indestructibility of our nature coincides with that
of the identity of the macrocosm and the microcosm. Meanwhile one may
obtain light upon what is said here by a peculiar experiment, performed by
means of the imagination, an experiment which might be called
metaphysical. Let any one try to present vividly to his mind the time, in
any case not far distant, when he will be dead. Then he thinks himself
away and lets the world go on existing; but soon, to his own astonishment,
he will discover that he was nevertheless still there. For he intended to
present the world to his mind without himself; but the ego is the
immediate element in consciousness, through which alone the world is
brought about, and for which alone it exists. This centre of all
existence, this kernel of all reality, is to be abolished, and yet the
world is to go on existing; it is a thought which can be conceived in the
abstract, but not realised. The endeavour to accomplish this, the attempt
to think the secondary without the primary, the conditioned without the
condition, that which is supported without the supporter, always fails,
much in the same way as the attempt to think an equilateral, right‐angled
triangle, or a destruction or origination of matter, and similar
impossibilities. Instead of what was intended, the feeling here presses
upon us that the world is not less in us than we in it, and that the
source of all reality lies within us. The result is really this: the time
when I shall not be will objectively come; but subjectively it can never
come. It might therefore, indeed, be asked, how far every one, in his
heart, actually believes in a thing which he really cannot conceive at
all; or whether, since the profound consciousness of the
indestructibleness of our true nature associates itself with that merely
intellectual experiment, which, however, has already been made more or
less distinctly by every one, whether, I say, our own death is not perhaps
for us at bottom the most incredible thing in the world.

The deep conviction of the indestructibleness of our nature through death,
which, as is also shown by the inevitable qualms of conscience at its
approach, every one carries at the bottom of his heart, depends altogether
upon the consciousness of the original and eternal nature of our being:
therefore Spinoza expresses it thus: “_Sentimus, experimurque, nos æternos
esse_.” For a reasonable man can only think of himself as imperishable,
because he thinks of himself as without beginning, as eternal, in fact as
timeless. Whoever, on the other hand, regards himself as having become out
of nothing must also think that he will again become nothing; for that an
eternity had passed before he was, and then a second eternity had begun,
through which he will never cease to be, is a monstrous thought. Really
the most solid ground for our immortality is the old principle: “_Ex
nihilo nihil fit, et in nihilum nihil potest reverti_.” Theophrastus
Paracelsus very happily says (Works, Strasburg, 1603, vol. ii. p. 6): “The
soul in me has arisen out of something; therefore it does not come to
nothing; for it comes out of something.” He gives the true reason. But
whoever regards the birth of the man as his absolute beginning must regard
death as his absolute end. For both are what they are in the same sense;
consequently every one can only think of himself as _immortal_ so far as
he also thinks of himself as _unborn_, and in the same sense. What birth
is, that also is death, according to its nature and significance: it is
the same line drawn in two directions. If the former is an actual arising
out of nothing, then the latter is also an actual annihilation. But in
truth it is only by means of the _eternity_ of our real being that we can
conceive it as imperishable, and consequently this imperishableness is not
temporal. The assumption that man is made out of nothing leads necessarily
to the assumption that death is his absolute end. Thus in this the Old
Testament is perfectly consistent; for no doctrine of immortality is
suitable to a creation out of nothing. New Testament Christianity has such
a doctrine because it is Indian in spirit, and therefore more than
probably also of Indian origin, although only indirectly, through Egypt.
But to the Jewish stem, upon which that Indian wisdom had to be grafted in
the Holy Land, such a doctrine is as little suited as the freedom of the
will to its determinism, or as


    “_Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit._”


It is always bad if one cannot be thoroughly original, and dare not carve
out of the whole wood. Brahmanism and Buddhism, on the other hand, have
quite consistently, besides the continued existence after death, an
existence before birth to expiate the guilt of which we have this life.
Moreover, how distinctly conscious they were of the necessary consistency
in this is shown by the following passage from Colebrooke’s “History of
the Indian Philosophy” in the “Transac. of the Asiatic London Society,”
vol. i. p. 577: “Against the system of the Bhagavatas which is but
partially heretical, the objection upon which the chief stress is laid by
Vyaso is, that the soul would not be eternal if it were a production, and
consequently had a beginning.” Further, in Upham’s “Doctrine of Buddhism,”
p. 110, it is said: “The lot in hell of impious persons called Deitty is
the most severe: these are they who, discrediting the evidence of Buddha,
adhere to the heretical doctrine that all living beings had their
beginning in the mother’s womb, and will have their end in death.”

Whoever conceives his existence as merely accidental must certainly fear
that he will lose it by death. On the other hand, whoever sees, even only
in general, that his existence rests upon some kind of original necessity
will not believe that this which has produced so wonderful a thing is
limited to such a brief span of time, but that it is active in every one.
But he will recognise his existence as necessary who reflects that up till
now, when he exists, already an infinite time, thus also an infinity of
changes, has run its course, but in spite of this he yet exists; thus the
Whole range of all possible states has already exhausted itself without
being able to destroy his existence. _If he could ever not be, he would
already not be now._ For the infinity of the time that has already
elapsed, with the exhausted possibility of the events in it, guarantees
that _what exists, exists necessarily_. Therefore every one must conceive
himself as a necessary being, _i.e._, as a being whose existence would
follow from its true and exhaustive definition if one only had it. In this
line of thought, then, really lies the only immanent proof of the
imperishableness of our nature, _i.e._, the only proof of this that holds
good within the sphere of empirical data. In this nature existence must
inhere, because it shows itself as independent of all states which can
possibly be introduced through the chain of causes; for these states have
already done what they could, and yet our existence has remained unshaken
by it, as the ray of light by the storm wind which it cuts through. If
time, of its own resources, could bring us to a happy state, then we would
already have been there long ago; for an infinite time lies behind us. But
also: if it could lead us to destruction, we would already have long been
no more. From the fact that we now exist, it follows, if well considered,
that we must at all times exist. For we are ourselves the nature which
time has taken up into itself in order to fill its void; consequently it
fills the whole of time, present, past, and future, in the same way, and
it is just as impossible for us to fall out of existence as to fall out of
space. Carefully considered, it is inconceivable that what once exists in
all the strength of reality should ever become nothing, and then not be,
through an infinite time. Hence has arisen the Christian doctrine of the
restoration of all things, that of the Hindus of the constantly repeated
creation of the world by Brahma, together with similar dogmas of the Greek
philosophers. The great mystery of our being and not being, to explain
which these and all kindred dogmas have been devised, ultimately rests
upon the fact that the same thing which objectively constitutes an
infinite course of time is subjectively an indivisible, ever present
present: but who comprehends it? It has been most distinctly set forth by
Kant in his immortal doctrine of the ideality of time and the sole reality
of the thing in itself. For it results from this that the really essential
part of things, of man, of the world, lies permanently and enduringly in
the _Nunc stans_, firm and immovable; and that the change of the phenomena
and events is a mere consequence of our apprehension of them by means of
our form of perception, which is time. Accordingly, instead of saying to
men, “Ye have arisen through birth, but are immortal,” one ought to say to
them, “Ye are not nothing,” and teach them to understand this in the sense
of the saying attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, “Το γαρ ὀν ἀει ἐσται”
(_Quod enim est, erit semper_), _Stob. Ecl._, i. 43, 6. If, however, this
does not succeed, but the anxious heart raises its old lament, “I see all
beings arise through birth out of nothing, and after a brief term again
return to this; my existence also, now in the present, will soon lie in
the distant past, and I will be nothing!”—the right answer is, “Dost thou
not exist? Hast thou not within thee the valuable present, after which ye
children of time so eagerly strive, now within, actually within? And dost
thou understand how thou hast attained to it? Knowest thou the paths which
have led thee to it, that thou canst know they will be shut against thee
by death? An existence of thyself after the destruction of thy body is not
conceivable by thee as possible; but can it be more inconceivable to thee
than thy present existence, and how thou hast attained to it? Why shouldst
thou doubt but that the secret paths to this present, which stood open to
thee, will also stand open to every future present?”

If, then, considerations of this kind are at any rate adapted to awaken
the conviction that there is something in us which death cannot destroy,
this yet only takes place by raising us to a point of view from which
birth is not the beginning of our existence. But from this it follows that
what is proved to be indestructible by death is not properly the
individual, which, moreover, as having arisen through generation, and
having in itself the qualities of the father and mother, presents itself
as a mere difference of the species, but as such can only be finite. As,
in accordance with this, the individual has no recollection of its
existence before its birth, so it can have no remembrance of its present
existence after death. But every one places his ego in _consciousness_;
this seems to him therefore to be bound to individuality, with which,
besides, everything disappears which is peculiar to him, as to this, and
distinguishes him from others. His continued existence without
individuality becomes to him therefore indistinguishable from the
continuance of other beings, and he sees his ego sink. But whoever thus
links his existence to the identity of consciousness, and therefore
desires an endless existence after death for this, ought to reflect that
he can certainly only attain this at the price of just as endless a past
before birth. For since he has no remembrance of an existence before
birth, thus his consciousness begins with birth, he must accept his birth
as an origination of his existence out of nothing. But then he purchases
the endless time of his existence after death for just as long a time
before birth; thus the account balances without any profit for him. If, on
the other hand, the existence which death leaves untouched is different
from that of the individual consciousness, then it must be independent of
birth, just as of death; and therefore, with regard to it, it must be
equally true to say, “I will always be,” and “I have always been;” which
then gives two infinities for one. But the great equivocation really lies
in the word “I,” as any one will see at once who remembers the contents of
our second book, and the separation which is made there of the willing
from the knowing part of our nature. According as I understand this word I
can say, “Death is my complete end;” or, “This my personal phenomenal
existence is just as infinitely small a part of my true nature as I am of
the world.” But the “I” is the dark point in consciousness, as on the
retina the exact point at which the nerve of sight enters is blind, as the
brain itself is entirely without sensation, the body of the sun is dark,
and the eye sees all except itself. Our faculty of knowledge is directed
entirely towards without, in accordance with the fact that it is the
product of a brain function, which has arisen for the purpose of mere
self‐maintenance, thus of the search for nourishment and the capture of
prey. Therefore every one knows himself only as this individual as it
presents itself in external perception. If, on the other hand, he could
bring to consciousness what he is besides and beyond this, then he would
willingly give up his individuality, smile at the tenacity of his
attachment to it, and say, “What is the loss of this individuality to me,
who bear in myself the possibility of innumerable individualities?” He
would see that even if a continued existence of his individuality does not
lie before him, it is yet quite as good as if he had such an existence,
because he carries in himself complete compensation for it. Besides,
however, it may further be taken into consideration that the individuality
of most men is so miserable and worthless that with it they truly lose
nothing, and that that in them which may still have some worth is the
universal human element; but to this imperishableness can be promised.
Indeed, even the rigid unalterableness and essential limitation of every
individual would, in the case of an endless duration of it, necessarily at
last produce such great weariness by its monotony that only to be relieved
of this one would prefer to become nothing. To desire that the
individuality should be immortal really means to wish to perpetuate an
error infinitely. For at bottom every individuality is really only a
special error, a false step, something that had better not be; nay,
something which it is the real end of life to bring us back from. This
also finds confirmation in the fact that the great majority, indeed really
all men, are so constituted that they could not be happy in whatever kind
of world they might be placed. In proportion as such a world excluded want
and hardship, they would become a prey to ennui, and in proportion as this
was prevented, they would fall into want, misery, and suffering. Thus for
a blessed condition of man it would be by no means sufficient that he
should be transferred to a “better world,” but it would also be necessary
that a complete change should take place in himself; that thus he should
no longer be what he is, and, on the contrary, should become what he is
not. But for this he must first of all cease to be what he is: this
desideratum is, as a preliminary, supplied by death, the moral necessity
of which can already be seen from this point of view. To be transferred to
another world and to have his whole nature changed are, at bottom, one and
the same. Upon this also ultimately rests that dependence of the objective
upon the subjective which the idealism of our first book shows.
Accordingly here lies the point at which the transcendent philosophy links
itself on to ethics. If one considers this one will find that the awaking
from the dream of life is only possible through the disappearance along
with it of its whole ground‐warp also, But this is its organ itself, the
intellect together with its forms, with which the dream would spin itself
out without end, so firmly is it incorporated with it. That which really
dreamt this dream is yet different from it, and alone remains over. On the
other hand, the fear that with death all will be over may be compared to
the case of one who imagines in a dream that there are only dreams without
a dreamer. But now, after an individual consciousness has once been ended
by death, would it even be desirable that it should be kindled again in
order to continue for ever? The greater part of its content, nay,
generally its whole content, is nothing but a stream of small, earthly,
paltry thoughts and endless cares. Let them, then, at last be stilled!
Therefore with a true instinct, the ancients inscribed upon their
gravestones: _Securitati perpetuæ_;—or _Bonæ quieti_. But if here, as so
often has happened, a continued existence of the individual consciousness
should be desired, in order to connect with it a future reward or
punishment, what would really be aimed at in this would simply be the
compatibility of virtue and egoism. But these two will never embrace: they
are fundamentally opposed. On the other hand, the conviction is well
founded, which the sight of noble conduct calls forth, that the spirit of
love, which enjoins one man to spare his enemy, and another to protect at
the risk of his life some one whom he has never seen before, can never
pass away and become nothing.

The most thorough answer to the question as to the continued existence of
the individual after death lies in Kant’s great doctrine of the _ideality
of time_, which just here shows itself specially fruitful and rich in
consequences, for it substitutes a purely theoretical but well‐proved
insight for dogmas which upon one path as upon the other lead to the
absurd, and thus settles at once the most exciting of all metaphysical
questions. Beginning, ending, and continuing are conceptions which derive
their significance simply and solely from time, and are therefore valid
only under the presupposition of this. But time has no absolute existence;
it is not the manner of being of the thing in itself, but merely the form
of our _knowledge_ of our existence and nature, and that of all things,
which is just on this account very imperfect, and is limited to mere
phenomena. Thus with reference to this knowledge alone do the conceptions
of ceasing and continuing find application, not with reference to that
which exhibits itself in these, the inner being of things in relation to
which these conceptions have therefore no longer any meaning. For this
shows itself also in the fact that an answer to the question which arises
from those time‐conceptions is impossible, and every assertion of such an
answer, whether upon one side or the other, is open to convincing
objections. One might indeed assert that our true being continues after
death because it is false that it is destroyed; but one might just as well
assert that it is destroyed because it is false that it continues: at
bottom the one is as true as the other. Accordingly something like an
antinomy might certainly be set up here. But it would rest upon mere
negations. In it one would deny two contradictorily opposite predicates of
the subject of the judgment, but only because the whole category of these
predicates would be inapplicable to that subject. But if now one denies
these two predicates, not together, but separately, it appears as if the
contradictory opposite of the predicate which in each case is denied were
proved of the subject of the judgment. This, however, depends upon the
fact that here incommensurable quantities are compared, for the problem
removes us to a scene where time is abolished, and yet asks about temporal
properties which it is consequently equally false to attribute to, or to
deny of the subject. This just means: the problem is transcendent. In this
sense death remains a mystery.

On the other hand, adhering to that distinction between phenomenon and
thing in itself, we can make the assertion that, as phenomenon, man is
certainly perishable, but yet his true being will not be involved in this.
Thus this true being is indestructible, although, on account of the
elimination of time‐conceptions which is connected with it, we cannot
attribute to it continuance. Accordingly we would be led here to the
conception of an indestructibility which would yet be no continuance. Now
this is a conception which, having been obtained on the path of
abstraction, can certainly also be thought in the abstract, but yet cannot
be supported by any perception, and consequently cannot really become
distinct; yet, on the other hand, we must here keep in mind that we have
not, like Kant, absolutely given up the knowledge of the thing in itself,
but know that it is to be sought for in the will. It is true that we have
never asserted an absolute and exhaustive knowledge of the thing in
itself, but rather have seen very well that it is impossible to know
anything as it is absolutely and in itself. For as soon as I _know_, I
have an idea; but this idea, just because it is _my_ idea, cannot be
identical with what is known, but repeats it in an entirely different
form, for it makes a being for other out of a being for self, and is thus
always to be regarded as a phenomenal appearance of the thing in itself.
Therefore for a _knowing_ consciousness, however it may be constituted,
there can be always only phenomena. This is not entirely obviated even by
the fact that it is my own nature which is known; for, since it falls
within my _knowing_ consciousness, it is already a reflex of my nature,
something different from this itself, thus already in a certain degree
phenomenon. So far, then, as I am a knowing being, I have even in my own
nature really only a phenomenon; so far, on the other hand, as I am
directly this nature itself, I am not a _knowing_ being. For it is
sufficiently proved in the second book that knowledge is only a secondary
property of our being, and introduced by its animal nature. Strictly
speaking, then, we know even our own will always merely as phenomenon, and
not as it may be absolutely in and for itself. But in that second book,
and also in my work upon the will in nature, it is fully explained and
proved that if, in order to penetrate into the inner nature of things,
leaving what is given merely indirectly and from without, we stick to the
only phenomenon into the nature of which an immediate insight from within
is attainable, we find in this quite definitely, as the ultimate kernel of
reality, the will, in which therefore we recognise the thing in itself in
so far as it has here no longer space, although it still has time, for its
form consequently really only in its most immediate manifestation, and
with the reservation that this knowledge of it is still not exhaustive and
entirely adequate. Thus in this sense we retain here also the conception
of will as that of the thing in itself.

The conception of ceasing to be is certainly applicable to man as a
phenomenon in time, and empirical knowledge plainly presents death as the
end of this temporal existence. The end of the person is just as real as
was its beginning, and in the same sense as before birth we were not,
after death we shall be no more. Yet no more can be destroyed by death
than was produced by birth; thus not that through which birth first became
possible. In this sense _natus et denatus_ is a beautiful expression. But
now the whole of empirical knowledge affords us merely phenomena;
therefore only phenomena are involved in the temporal processes of coming
into being and passing away, and not that which manifests itself in the
phenomena, the thing in itself. For this the opposition of coming into
being and passing away conditioned by the brain, does not exist at all,
but has here lost meaning and significance. It thus remains untouched by
the temporal end of a temporal phenomenon, and constantly retains that
existence to which the conceptions of beginning, end, and continuance are
not applicable. But the thing in itself, so far as we can follow it, is in
every phenomenal being the will of this being: so also in man.
Consciousness, on the other hand, consists in knowledge. But knowledge, as
activity of the brain, and consequently as function of the organism,
belongs, as has been sufficiently proved, to the mere phenomenon, and
therefore ends with this. The will alone, whose work, or rather whose
image was the body, is that which is indestructible. The sharp distinction
of will from knowledge, together with the primacy of the former, which
constitutes the fundamental characteristic of my philosophy, is therefore
the only key to the contradiction which presents itself in so many ways,
and arises ever anew in every consciousness, even the most crude, that
death is our end, and that yet we must be eternal and indestructible, thus
the _sentimus, experimurque nos æternos esse_ of Spinoza. All philosophers
have erred in this: they place the metaphysical, the indestructible, the
eternal element in man in the _intellect_. It lies exclusively in the
_will_, which is entirely different from the intellect, and alone is
original. The intellect, as was most fully shown in the second book, is a
secondary phenomenon, and conditioned by the brain, therefore beginning
and ending with this. The will alone is that which conditions, the kernel
of the whole phenomenon, consequently free from the forms of the
phenomenon to which time belongs, thus also indestructible. Accordingly
with death consciousness is certainly lost, but not that which produced
and sustained consciousness; life is extinguished, but not the principle
of life also, which manifested itself in it. Therefore a sure feeling
informs every one that there is something in him which is absolutely
imperishable and indestructible. Indeed the freshness and vividness of
memories of the most distant time, of earliest childhood, bears witness to
the fact that something in us does not pass away with time, does not grow
old, but endures unchanged. But what this imperishable element is one
could not make clear to oneself. It is not consciousness any more than it
is the body upon which clearly consciousness depends. But it is just that
which, when it appears in consciousness, presents itself as _will_. Beyond
this immediate manifestation of it we certainly cannot go; because we
cannot go beyond consciousness; therefore the question what that may be
when it does not come within consciousness, _i.e._, what it is absolutely
in itself, remains unanswerable.

In the phenomenon, and by means of its forms, time and space, as
_principium individuationis_, what presents itself is that the human
individual perishes, while the human race, on the contrary, always remains
and lives. But in the true being of things, which is free from these
forms, this whole distinction between the individual and the race also
disappears, and the two are immediately one. The whole will to live is in
the individual, as it is in the race, and therefore the continuance of the
species is merely the image of the indestructibility of the individual.

Since, then, the infinitely important understanding of the
indestructibility of our true nature by death depends entirely upon the
distinction between phenomenon and thing in itself, I wish now to bring
this difference into the clearest light by explaining it in the opposite
of death, thus in the origin of the animal existence, _i.e._, generation.
For this process, which is just as mysterious as death, presents to us
most directly the fundamental opposition between the phenomenal appearance
and the true being of things, _i.e._, between the world as idea and the
world as will, and also the entire heterogeneity of the laws of these two.
The act of procreation presents itself to us in a twofold manner: first,
for self‐consciousness, whose only object, as I have often shown, is the
will, with all its affections; and then for the consciousness of other
things, _i.e._, the world of idea, or the empirical reality of things.
Now, from the side of the will, thus inwardly, subjectively, for self‐
consciousness, that act presents itself as the most immediate and complete
satisfaction of the will, _i.e._, as sensual pleasure. From the side of
the idea, on the other hand, thus externally, objectively, for the
consciousness of other things, this act is just the woof of the most
cunning of webs, the foundation of the inexpressibly complicated animal
organism, which then only requires to be developed to become visible to
our astonished eyes. This organism, whose infinite complication and
perfection is only known to him who has studied anatomy, cannot, from the
side of the idea, be otherwise conceived and thought of than as a system
devised with the most ingenious forethought and carried out with the most
consummate skill and exactness, as the most arduous work of profound
reflection. But from the side of the will we know, through self‐
consciousness, the production of this organism as the work of an act which
is exactly the opposite of all reflection, an impetuous, blind impulse, an
exceedingly pleasurable sensation. This opposition is closely related to
the infinite contrast, which is shown above, between the absolute facility
with which nature produces its works, together with the correspondingly
boundless carelessness with which it abandons them to destruction, and the
incalculably ingenious and studied construction of these very works,
judging from which they must have been infinitely difficult to make, and
their maintenance should have been provided for with all conceivable care;
while we have the opposite before our eyes. If now by this certainly very
unusual consideration, we have brought together in the boldest manner the
two heterogeneous sides of the world, and, as it were, grasped them with
one hand, we must now hold them fast in order to convince ourselves of the
entire invalidity of the laws of the phenomenon, or the world as idea, for
that of will, or the thing in itself. Then it will become more
comprehensible to us that while on the side of the idea, that is, in the
phenomenal world, there exhibits itself to us now an arising out of
nothing, and now an entire annihilation of what has arisen, from that
other side, or in itself, a nature lies before us with reference to which
the conceptions of arising and passing away have no significance. For, by
going back to the root, where, by means of self‐consciousness, the
phenomenon and the thing in itself meet, we have just, as it were,
palpably apprehended that the two are absolutely incommensurable, and the
whole manner of being of the one, together with all the fundamental laws
of its being, signify nothing, and less than nothing, in the other. I
believe that this last consideration will only be rightly understood by a
few, and that it will be displeasing and even offensive to all who do not
understand it, but I shall never on this account omit anything that can
serve to illustrate my fundamental thought.

At the beginning of this chapter I have explained that the great clinging
to life, or rather fear of death, by no means springs from knowledge, in
which case it would be the result of the known value of life; but that
that fear of death has its root directly in the _will_, out of the
original nature of which it proceeds, in which it is entirely without
knowledge, and therefore blind will to live. As we are allured into life
by the wholly illusory inclination to sensual pleasure, so we are retained
in it by the fear of death, which is certainly just as illusory. Both
spring directly from the will, which in itself is unconscious. If, on the
contrary, man were merely a _knowing_ being, then death would necessarily
be to him not only indifferent, but even welcome. The reflection to which
we have here attained now teaches that what is affected by death is merely
the _knowing_ consciousness, and the will, on the other hand, because it
is the thing in itself, which lies at the foundation of every phenomenon,
is free from all that depends upon temporal determinations, thus is also
imperishable. Its striving towards existence and manifestation, from which
the world results, is constantly satisfied, for this accompanies it as the
shadow accompanies the body, for it is merely the visibility of its
nature. That yet in us it fears death results from the fact that here
knowledge presents its existence to it as merely in the individual
phenomenon, whence the illusion arises that it will perish with this, as
my image in a mirror seems to be destroyed along with it if the mirror is
broken; this then, as contrary to its original nature, which is a blind
striving towards existence, fills it with horror. From this now it follows
that that in us which alone is capable of fearing death, and also alone
fears it, the _will_, is not affected by it; and that, on the other hand,
what is affected by it and really perishes is that which from its nature
is capable of no fear, and in general of no desire or emotion, and is
therefore indifferent to being and not being, the mere subject of
knowledge, the intellect, whose existence consists in its relation to the
world of idea, _i.e._, the objective world, whose correlative it is, and
with whose existence its own is ultimately one. Thus, although the
individual consciousness does not survive death, yet that survives it
which alone struggles against it—the will. This also explains the
contradiction that from the standpoint of knowledge philosophers have
always proved with cogent reasons that death is no evil; yet the fear of
death remains inevitable for all, because it is rooted, not in knowledge,
but in the will. It is also a result of the fact that only the will, and
not the intellect, is indestructible, that all religions and philosophies
promise a reward in eternity only to the virtues of the will, or heart,
not to those of the intellect, or head.

The following may also serve to illustrate this consideration. The will,
which constitutes our true being, is of a simple nature; it merely wills,
and does not know. The subject of knowledge, on the other hand, is a
secondary phenomenon, arising from the objectification of the will; it is
the point of unity of the sensibility of the nervous system, as it were
the focus in which the rays of the activity of all the parts of the brain
unite. With this, then, it must perish. In self‐consciousness, as that
which alone knows, it stands over against the will as its spectator, and,
although sprung from it, knows it as something different from itself,
something foreign to it, and consequently also only empirically, in time,
by degrees, in its successive excitements and acts, and also learns its
decisions only _a posteriori_, and often very indirectly. This explains
the fact that our own nature is a riddle to us, _i.e._, to our intellect,
and that the individual regards itself as having newly arisen and as
perishable; although its true nature is independent of time, thus is
eternal. As now the _will_ does not _know_, so conversely the intellect,
or the subject of knowledge, is simply and solely _knowing_, without ever
_willing_. This can be proved even physically in the fact that, as was
already mentioned in the second book, according to Bichat, the various
emotions directly affect all parts of the organism and disturb their
functions, with the exception of the brain, which can only be affected by
them very indirectly, _i.e._, just in consequence of those disturbances
(_De la vie et de la mort_, art. 6, § 2). But from this it follows that
the subject of knowledge, for itself and as such, cannot take part or
interest in anything, but for it the being or not being of everything,
nay, even of its own self, is a matter of indifference. Now why should
this purely neutral being be immortal? It ends with the temporal
manifestation of the will, _i.e._, the individual, as it arose with it. It
is the lantern which is extinguished when it has served its end. The
intellect, like the perceptible world which exists only in it, is a mere
phenomenon; but the finiteness of both does not affect that of which they
are the phenomenal appearance. The intellect is the function of the
cerebral nervous system; but the latter, like the rest of the body, is the
objectivity of the _will_. Therefore the intellect depends upon the
somatic life of the organism; but this itself depends upon the will. The
organised body may thus, in a certain sense, be regarded as the link
between the will and the intellect; although really it is only the will
itself exhibiting itself spatially in the perception of the intellect.
Death and birth are the constant renewal of the consciousness of the will,
in itself without end and without beginning, which alone is, as it were,
the substance of existence (but each such renewal brings a new possibility
of the denial of the will to live). Consciousness is the life of the
subject of knowledge, or the brain, and death is its end. And therefore,
finally, consciousness is always new, in each case beginning at the
beginning. The will alone is permanent; and, moreover, it is it alone that
permanence concerns; for it is the will to live. The knowing subject for
itself is not concerned about anything. In the ego, however, the two are
bound up together. In every animal existence the will has achieved an
intellect which is the light by which it here pursues its ends. It may be
remarked by the way that the fear of death may also partly depend upon the
fact that the individual will is so loath to separate from the intellect
which has fallen to its lot through the course of nature, its guide and
guard, without which it knows that it is helpless and blind.

Finally, this explanation also agrees with the commonplace moral
experience which teaches us that the will alone is real, while its
objects, on the other hand, as conditioned by knowledge, are only
phenomena, are only froth and vapour, like the wine which Mephistopheles
provided in Auerbach’s cellar: after every sensuous pleasure we also say,
“And yet it seemed as I were drinking wine.”

The terrors of death depend for the most part upon the false illusion that
now the ego vanishes and the world remains. But rather is the opposite the
case; the world vanishes, but the inmost kernel of the ego, the supporter
and producer of that subject, in whose idea alone the world has its
existence, remains. With the brain the intellect perishes, and with the
intellect the objective world, its mere idea. That in other brains,
afterwards as before, a similar world lives and moves is, with reference
to the intellect which perishes, a matter of indifference. If, therefore,
reality proper did not lie in the _will_, and if the moral existence were
not that which extends beyond death, then, since the intellect, and with
it its world, is extinguished, the true nature of things in general would
be no more than an endless succession of short and troubled dreams,
without connection among themselves; for the permanence of unconscious
nature consists merely in the idea of time of conscious nature. Thus a
world‐spirit dreaming without end or aim, dreams which for the most part
are very troubled and heavy, would then be all in all.

When, now, an individual experiences the fear of death, we have really
before us the extraordinary, nay, absurd, spectacle of the lord of the
worlds, who fills all with his being, and through whom alone everything
that is has its existence, desponding and afraid of perishing, of sinking
into the abyss of eternal nothingness;—while, in truth, all is full of
him, and there is no place where he is not, no being in which he does not
live; for it is not existence that supports him, but he that supports
existence. Yet it is he who desponds in the individual who suffers from
the fear of death, for he is exposed to the illusion produced by the
_principium individuationis_ that his existence is limited to the nature
which is now dying. This illusion belongs to the heavy dream into which,
as the will to live, he has fallen. But one might say to the dying
individual: “Thou ceasest to be something which thou hadst done better
never to become.”

So long as no denial of the will takes place, what death leaves untouched
is the germ and kernel of quite another existence, in which a new
individual finds itself again, so fresh and original that it broods over
itself in astonishment. What sleep is for the individual, death is for the
will as thing in itself. It would not endure to continue the same actions
and sufferings throughout an eternity without true gain, if memory and
individuality remained to it. It flings them off, and this is lethe; and
through this sleep of death it reappears refreshed and fitted out with
another intellect, as a new being—“a new day tempts to new shores.”

As the self‐asserting will to live man has the root of his existence in
the species. Accordingly death is the loss of one individuality and the
assumption of another, consequently a change of individuality under the
exclusive guidance of one’s own will. For in this alone lies the eternal
power which could produce its existence with its ego, yet, on account of
its nature, was not able to maintain it in existence. For death is the
_démenti_ which the essence (_essentia_) of every one receives in its
claim to existence (_existentia_), the appearance of a contradiction which
lies in every individual existence:


          “For all that arises
    Is worthy of being destroyed.”


But an infinite number of such existences, each with its ego, stands
within reach of this power, thus of the will, which, however, will again
prove just as transitory and perishable. Since now every ego has its
separate consciousness, that infinite number of them is, with reference to
such an ego, not different from a single one. From this point of view it
appears to me not accidental that _ævum_, αἰων, signifies both the
individual term of life and infinite time. Indeed from this point of view
it may be seen, although indistinctly, that ultimately and in themselves
both are the same; and according to this there would really be no
difference whether I existed only through my term of life or for an
infinite time.

Certainly, however, we cannot obtain an idea of all that is said above
entirely without time‐concepts; yet when we are dealing with the thing in
itself these ought to be excluded. But it belongs to the unalterable
limitations of our intellect that it can never entirely cast off this
first and most immediate form of all its ideas, in order to operate
without it. Therefore we certainly come here upon a kind of
metempsychosis, although with the important difference that it does not
concern the whole ψυχη, not the _knowing_ being, but the _will_ alone; and
thus, with the consciousness that the form of time only enters here as an
unavoidable concession to the limitation of our intellect, so many
absurdities which accompany the doctrine of metempsychosis disappear. If,
indeed, we now call in the assistance of the fact, to be explained in
chapter 43, that the character, _i.e._, the will, is inherited from the
father, and the intellect, on the other hand, from the mother, it agrees
very well with our view that the will of a man, in itself individual,
separated itself in death from the intellect received from the mother in
generation, and in accordance with its now modified nature, under the
guidance of the absolutely necessary course of the world harmonising with
this, received through a new generation a new intellect, with which it
became a new being, which had no recollection of an earlier existence; for
the intellect, which alone has the faculty of memory, is the mortal part
or the form, while the will is the eternal part, the substance. In
accordance with this, this doctrine is more correctly denoted by the word
palingenesis than by metempsychosis. These constant new births, then,
constitute the succession of the life‐dreams of a will which in itself is
indestructible, until, instructed and improved by so much and such various
successive knowledge in a constantly new form, it abolishes or abrogates
itself.

The true and, so to speak, esoteric doctrine of Buddhism, as we have come
to know it through the latest investigations, also agrees with this view,
for it teaches not metempsychosis, but a peculiar palingenesis, resting
upon a moral basis which it works out and explains with great profundity.
This may be seen from the exposition of the subject, well worth reading
and pondering, which is given in Spence Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism,” pp.
394‐96 (with which compare pp. 429, 440, and 445 of the same book), the
confirmation of which is to be found in Taylor’s “_Prabodh Chandro Daya_,”
London, 1812, p. 35; also in Sangermano’s “Burmese Empire,” p. 6, and in
the “Asiatic Researches,” vol. vi. p. 179, and vol. ix. p. 256. The very
useful German compendium of Buddhism by Köppen is also right upon this
point. Yet for the great mass of Buddhists this doctrine is too subtle;
therefore to them simple metempsychosis is preached as a comprehensible
substitute.

Besides, it must not be neglected that even empirical grounds support a
palingenesis of this kind. As a matter of fact there does exist a
connection between the birth of the newly appearing beings and the death
of those that are worn out. It shows itself in the great fruitfulness of
the human race which appears as a consequence of devastating diseases.
When in the fourteenth century the black death had for the most part
depopulated the old world, a quite abnormal fruitfulness appeared among
the human race, and twin‐births were very frequent. The circumstance was
also very remarkable that none of the children born at this time obtained
their full number of teeth; thus nature, exerting itself to the utmost,
was niggardly in details. This is related by F. Schnurrer, “_Chronik der
Seuchen_,” 1825. Casper also, “_Ueber die wahrscheinliche Lebensdauer des
Menschen_,” 1835, confirms the principle that the number of births in a
given population has the most decided influence upon the length of life
and mortality in it, as this always keeps pace with the mortality: so that
always and everywhere the deaths and the births increase and decrease in
like proportion; which he places beyond doubt by an accumulation of
evidence collected from many lands and their various provinces. And yet it
is impossible that there can be a _physical_ causal connection between my
early death and the fruitfulness of a marriage with which I have nothing
to do, or conversely. Thus here the metaphysical appears undeniably and in
a stupendous manner as the immediate ground of explanation of the
physical. Every new‐born being indeed comes fresh and blithe into the new
existence, and enjoys it as a free gift: but there is, and can be, nothing
freely given. Its fresh existence is paid for by the old age and death of
a worn‐out existence which has perished, but which contained the
indestructible seed out of which this new existence has arisen: they are
_one_ being. To show the bridge between the two would certainly be the
solution of a great riddle.

The great truth which is expressed here has never been entirely
unacknowledged, although it could not be reduced to its exact and correct
meaning, which is only possible through the doctrine of the primacy and
metaphysical nature of the will and the secondary, merely organic nature
of the intellect. We find the doctrine of metempsychosis, springing from
the earliest and noblest ages of the human race, always spread abroad in
the earth as the belief of the great majority of mankind, nay, really as
the teaching of all religions, with the exception of that of the Jews and
the two which have proceeded from it: in the most subtle form, however,
and coming nearest to the truth, as has already been mentioned, in
Buddhism. Accordingly, while Christians console themselves with the
thought of meeting again in another world, in which one regains one’s
complete personality and knows oneself at once, in those other religions
the meeting again is already going on now, only incognito. In the
succession of births, and by virtue of metempsychosis or palingenesis, the
persons who now stand in close connection or contact with us will also be
born along with us at the next birth, and will have the same or analogous
relations and sentiments towards us as now, whether these are of a
friendly or a hostile description. (_Cf._, for example, Spence Hardy’s
“Manual of Buddhism,” p. 162.) Recognition is certainly here limited to an
obscure intimation, a reminiscence which cannot be brought to distinct
consciousness, and refers to an infinitely distant time;—with the
exception, however, of Buddha himself, who has the prerogative of
distinctly knowing his own earlier births and those of others;—as this is
described in the “Jâtaka.” But, in fact, if at favourable moment one
contemplates, in a purely objective manner, the action of men in reality;
the intuitive conviction is forced upon one that it not only is and
remains constantly the same, according to the (Platonic) Idea, but also
that the present generation, in its true inner nature, is precisely and
substantially identical with every generation that has been before it. The
question simply is in what this true being consists. The answer which my
doctrine gives to this question is well known. The intuitive conviction
referred to may be conceived as arising from the fact that the
multiplying‐glasses, time and space, lose for a moment their effect. With
reference to the universality of the belief in metempsychosis, Obry says
rightly, in his excellent book, “_Du Nirvana Indien_,” p. 13: “_Cette
vieille croyance a fait le tour du monde, et était tellement répandue dans
la haute antiquité, qu’un docte Anglican l’avait jugée sans père, sans
mère, et sans généalogie_” (_Ths. Burnet, dans Beausobre, Hist. du
Manichéisme_, ii. p. 391). Taught already in the "Vedas," as in all the
sacred books of India, metempsychosis is well known to be the kernel of
Brahmanism and Buddhism. It accordingly prevails at the present day in the
whole of non‐Mohammedan Asia, thus among more than half of the whole human
race, as the firmest conviction, and with an incredibly strong practical
influence. It was also the belief of the Egyptians (Herod., ii. 123), from
whom it was received with enthusiasm by Orpheus. Pythagoras, and Plato:
the Pythagoreans, however, specially retained it. That it was also taught
in the mysteries of the Greeks undeniably follows from the ninth book of
Plato’s “Laws” (pp. 38 and 42, ed. Bip.) Nemesius indeed (_De nat. hom._,
c. 2) says: “Κοινη μεν οὐν παντες Ἑλληνες, οἱ την ψυχην αθανατον
αποφηναμενοι, την μετενσωματωσιν δογματιζουσι.” (_Communiter igitur omnes
Græci, qui animam immortalem statuerunt, eam de uno corpore in aliud
transferri censuerunt._) The “Edda” also, especially in the “Völuspá,”
teaches metempsychosis. Not less was it the foundation of the religion of
the Druids (_Cæs. de bello Gall._, vi.; _A. Pictet, Le mystère des Bardes
de l’ile de Bretagne_, 1856). Even a Mohammedan sect in Hindostan, the
Bohrahs, of which Colebrooke gives a full account in the “Asiatic
Researches,” vol. vii. p. 336 _sqq._, believes in metempsychosis, and
accordingly refrains from all animal food. Also among American Indians and
negro tribes, nay, even among the natives of Australia, traces of this
belief are found, as appears from a minute description given in the
_Times_ of 29th January 1841 of the execution of two Australian savages
for arson and murder. It is said there: “The younger of the two prisoners
met his end with a dogged and a determined spirit, as it appeared, of
revenge; the only intelligible expressions made use of conveyed an
impression that he would rise up a ‘white fellow,’ which it was considered
strengthened his resolution.” Also in a book by Ungewitter, “_Der
Welttheil Australien_,” it is related that the Papuas in Australia
regarded the whites as their own relations who had returned to the world.
According to all this, the belief in metempsychosis presents itself as the
natural conviction of man, whenever he reflects at all in an unprejudiced
manner. It would really be that which Kant falsely asserts of his three
pretended Ideas of the reason, a philosopheme natural to human reason,
which proceeds from its forms; and when it is not found it must have been
displaced by positive religious doctrines coming from a different source.
I have also remarked that it is at once obvious to every one who hears of
it for the first time. Let any one only observe how earnestly Lessing
defends it in the last seven paragraphs of his “_Erziehung des
Menschengeschlechts_.” Lichtenberg also says in his
“_Selbstcharacteristik_:” “I cannot get rid of the thought that I died
before I was born.” Even the excessively empirical Hume says in his
sceptical essay on immortality, p. 23: “The metempsychosis is therefore
the only system of this kind that philosophy can hearken to.”(31) What
resists this belief, which is spread over the whole human race and
commends itself alike to the wise and to the vulgar, is Judaism, together
with the two religions which have sprung from it, because they teach the
creation of man out of nothing, and he has then the hard task of linking
on to this the belief in an endless existence _a parte post_. They
certainly have succeeded, with fire and sword, in driving out of Europe
and part of Asia that consoling primitive belief of mankind; it is still
doubtful for how long. Yet how difficult this was is shown by the oldest
Church histories. Most of the heretics were attached to this primitive
belief; for example, Simonists, Basilidians, Valentinians, Marcionists,
Gnostics, and Manichæans. The Jews themselves have in part fallen into it,
as Tertullian and Justinus (in his dialogues) inform us. In the Talmud it
is related that Abel’s soul passed into the body of Seth, and then into
that of Moses. Even the passage of the Bible, Matt. xvi. 13‐15, only
obtains a rational meaning if we understand it as spoken under the
assumption of the dogma of metempsychosis. Luke, it is true, who also has
the passage (ix. 18‐20), adds the words ὁτι προφητης τις των αρχαιων
ανεστῃ, and thus attributes to the Jews the assumption that such an
ancient prophet can rise again body and all, which, since they know that
he has already lain between six and seven hundred years in his grave, and
consequently has long since turned to dust, would be a palpable absurdity.
In Christianity, however, the doctrine of original sin, _i.e._, the
doctrine of punishment for the sins of another individual, has taken the
place of the transmigration of souls and the expiation in this way of all
the sins committed in an earlier life. Both identify, and that with a
moral tendency, the existing man with one who has existed before; the
transmigration of souls does so directly, original sin indirectly.

Death is the great reprimand which the will to live, or more especially
the egoism, which is essential to this, receives through the course of
nature; and it may be conceived as a punishment for our existence.(32) It
is the painful loosing of the knot which the act of generation had tied
with sensual pleasure, the violent destruction coming from without of the
fundamental error of our nature: the great disillusion. We are at bottom
something that ought not to be: therefore we cease to be. Egoism consists
really in the fact that man limits all reality to his own person, in that
he imagines that he lives in this alone and not in others. Death teaches
him better, for it destroys this person, so that the true nature of man,
which is his will, will henceforth live only in other individuals; while
his intellect, which itself belonged only to the phenomenon, _i.e._, to
the world as idea, and was merely the form of the external world, also
continues to exist in the condition of being idea, _i.e._, in the
_objective_ being of things as such, thus also only in the existence of
what was hitherto the external world. His whole ego thus lives from this
time forth only in that which he had hitherto regarded as non‐ego: for the
difference between external and internal ceases. We call to mind here that
the better man is he who makes the least difference between himself and
others, does not regard them as absolute non‐ego, while for the bad man
this difference is great, nay, absolute. I have worked this out in my
prize essay on the foundation of morals. According to what was said above,
the degree in which death can be regarded as the annihilation of the man
is in proportion to this difference. But if we start from the fact that
the distinction of outside me and in me, as a spatial distinction, is only
founded in the phenomenon, not in the thing in itself, thus is no
absolutely real distinction, then we shall see in the losing of our own
individuality only the loss of a phenomenon, thus only an apparent loss.
However much reality that distinction has in the empirical consciousness,
yet from the metaphysical standpoint the propositions, “I perish, but the
world endures,” and “The world perishes but I endure,” are at bottom not
really different.

But, besides all this, death is the great opportunity no longer to be
I;—to him who uses it. During life the will of man is without freedom: his
action takes place with necessity upon the basis of his unalterable
character in the chain of motives. But every one remembers much that he
has done, and on account of which he is by no means satisfied with
himself. If now he were to go on living, he would go on acting in the same
way, on account of the unalterable nature of his character. Accordingly he
must cease to be what he is in order to be able to arise out of the germ
of his nature as a new and different being. Therefore death looses these
bonds; the will again becomes free; for freedom lies in the _Esse_, not in
the _Operari_. “_Finditur nodus cordis, dissolvuntur omnes dubitationes,
ejusque opera evanescunt_,” is a very celebrated saying of the Vedas,
which all Vedantic writers frequently repeat.(33) Death is the moment of
that deliverance from the one‐sidedness of an individuality which does not
constitute the inmost kernel of our being, but is rather to be thought of
as a kind of aberration of it. The true original freedom re‐enters at this
moment, which, in the sense indicated, may be regarded as a _restitutio in
integrum_. The peace and quietness upon the countenance of most dead
persons seems to have its origin in this. Quiet and easy is, as a rule,
the death of every good man: but to die willingly, to die gladly, to die
joyfully, is the prerogative of the resigned, of him who surrenders and
denies the will to live. For only he wills to die _really_, and not merely
_apparently_, and consequently he needs and desires no continuance of his
person. The existence which we know he willingly gives up: what he gets
instead of it is in our eyes _nothing_, because our existence is, with
reference to that, _nothing_. The Buddhist faith calls it Nirvana,(34)
_i.e._, extinction.




Chapter XLII. The Life Of The Species.


In the preceding chapter it was called to mind that the (Platonic) Ideas
of the different grades of beings, which are the adequate objectification
of the will to live, exhibit themselves in the knowledge of the
individual, which is bound to the form of time, as the _species_, _i.e._,
as the successive individuals of one kind connected by the bond of
generation, and that therefore the species is the Idea (εἰδος, _species_)
broken up in time. Accordingly the true nature of every living thing lies
primarily in its species: yet the species again has its existence only in
the individuals. Now, although the will only attains to self‐consciousness
in the individual, thus knows itself immediately only as the individual,
yet the deep‐seated consciousness that it is really the species in which
his true nature objectifies itself appears in the fact that for the
individual the concerns of the species as such, thus the relations of the
sexes, the production and nourishment of the offspring, are of
incomparably greater importance and consequence than everything else.
Hence, then, arises in the case of the brutes, heat or rut (an excellent
description of the vehemence of which will be found in Burdach’s
“Physiology,” vol. i. §§ 247, 257), and, in the case of man, the careful
and capricious selection of the other individual for the satisfaction of
the sexual impulse, which can rise to the height of passionate love, to
the fuller investigation of which I shall devote a special chapter: hence
also, finally the excessive love of parents for their offspring.

In the supplements to the second book the will was compared to the root
and the intellect to the crown of the tree; and this is the case inwardly
or psychologically. But outwardly or physiologically the genitals are the
root and the head the crown. The nourishing part is certainly not the
genitals, but the villi of the intestines: yet not the latter but the
former are the root; because through them the individual is connected with
the species in which it is rooted. For physically the individual is a
production of the species, metaphysically a more or less perfect picture
of the Idea, which, in the form of time, exhibits itself as species. In
agreement with the relation expressed here, the greatest vitality, and
also the decrepitude of the brain and the genital organs, is simultaneous
and stands in connection. The sexual impulse is to be regarded as the
inner life of the tree (the species) upon which the life of the individual
grows, like a leaf that is nourished by the tree, and assists in
nourishing the tree; this is why that impulse is so strong, and springs
from the depths of our nature. To castrate an individual means to cut him
off from the tree of the species upon which he grows, and thus severed,
leave him to wither: hence the degradation of his mental and physical
powers. That the service of the species, _i.e._, fecundation, is followed
in the case of every animal individual by momentary exhaustion and
debility of all the powers, and in the case of most insects indeed by
speedy death, on account of which Celsus said, “_Seminis emissio est
partis animæ jactura_;” that in the case of man the extinction of the
generative power shows that the individual approaches death; that
excessive use of this power at every age shortens life, while, on the
other hand, temperance in this respect increases all the powers, and
especially the muscular powers, on which account it was part of the
training of the Greek athletes; that the same restraint lengthens the life
of the insect even to the following spring; all this points to the fact
that the life of the individual is at bottom only borrowed from the
species, and that all vital force is, as it were, force of the species
restricted by being dammed up. But this is to be explained from the fact
that the metaphysical substratum of life reveals itself directly in the
species and only by means of this in the individual. Accordingly the
Lingam with the Yoni, as the symbol of the species and its immortality, is
worshipped in India, and, as the counterpoise of death, is ascribed as an
attribute to the very divinity who presides over death, Siva.

But without myth or symbol, the vehemence of the sexual impulse, the keen
intentness and profound seriousness with which every animal, including
man, pursues its concerns, shows that it is through the function which
serves it that the animal belongs to that in which really and principally
its true being lies, the _species_; while all other functions and organs
directly serve only the individual, whose existence is at bottom merely
secondary. In the vehemence of that impulse, which is the concentration of
the whole animal nature, the consciousness further expresses itself that
the individual does not endure, and therefore all must be staked on the
maintenance of the species, in which its true existence lies.

To illustrate what has been said, let us now imagine a brute in rut, and
in the act of generation. We see a seriousness and intentness never known
in it at any other time. Now what goes on in it? Does it know that it must
die, and that through its present occupation a new individual, which yet
entirely resembles itself, will arise in order to take its place? Of all
this it knows nothing, for it does not think. But it is as intently
careful for the continuance of the species in time as if it knew all that.
For it is conscious that it desires to live and exist, and it expresses
the highest degree of this volition in the act of generation; this is all
that then takes place in its consciousness. This is also quite sufficient
for the permanence of the kind; just because the will is the radical and
knowledge the adventitious. On this account the will does not require to
be guided by knowledge throughout; but whenever in its primitive
originality it has resolved, this volition will objectify itself of its
own accord in the world of the idea. If now in this way it is that
definite animal form which we have thought of that wills life and
existence, it does not will life and existence in general, but in this
particular form. Therefore it is the sight of its form in the female of
its species that stimulates the will of the brute to the act of
generation. This volition of the brute, when regarded from without and
under the form of time, presents itself as such an animal form maintained
through an infinite time by the constantly repeated replacement of one
individual by another, thus by the alternation of death and reproduction,
which so regarded appear only as the pulse‐beats of that form (ιδεα,
εἰδος, _species_) which endures through all time. They may be compared to
the forces of attraction and repulsion in which matter consists. That
which is shown here in the brute holds good also of man; for although in
him the act of generation is accompanied by complete knowledge of its
final cause, yet it is not guided by this knowledge, but proceeds directly
from the will to live as its concentration. It is accordingly to be
reckoned among instinctive actions. For in reproduction the brute is just
as little guided by knowledge of the end as in mechanical instincts; in
these also the will manifests itself, in the main, without the mediation
of knowledge, which here, as there, is only concerned with details.
Reproduction is, to a certain extent, the most marvellous of all
instincts, and its work the most astonishing.

These considerations explain why the sexual desire has a very different
character from every other; it is not only the strongest, but even
specifically of a more powerful kind than any other. It is everywhere
tacitly assumed as necessary and inevitable, and is not, like other
desires, a matter of taste and disposition. For it is the desire which
even constitutes the nature of man. In conflict with it no motive is so
strong that it would be certain of victory. It is so pre‐eminently the
chief concern that no other pleasures make up for the deprivation of its
satisfaction; and, moreover, for its sake both brute and man undertake
every danger and every conflict. A very naïve expression of this
disposition is the well‐known inscription on the door of the _fornix_ at
Pompeii, decorated with the phallus: “_Heic habitat felicitas_:” this was
for those going in naïve, for those coming out ironical, and in itself
humorous. On the other hand, the excessive power of the sexual passion is
seriously and worthily expressed in the inscription which (according to
Theon of Smyrna, _De Musica_, c. 47), Osiris had placed upon the column he
erected to the eternal gods: “To Eros, the spirit, the heaven, the sun,
the moon, the earth, the night, the day, and the father of all that is and
that shall be;” also in the beautiful apostrophe with which Lucretius
begins his work:


    “_Æneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas,_
    _Alma Venus cet._”


To all this corresponds the important _rôle_ which the relation of the
sexes plays in the world of men, where it is really the invisible central
point of all action and conduct, and peeps out everywhere in spite of all
veils thrown over it. It is the cause of war and the end of peace, the
basis of what is serious, and the aim of the jest, the inexhaustible
source of wit, the key to all allusions, and the meaning of all mysterious
hints, of all unspoken offers and all stolen glances, the daily meditation
of the young, and often also of the old, the hourly thought of the
unchaste, and even against their will the constantly recurring imagination
of the chaste, the ever ready material of a joke, just because the
profoundest seriousness lies at its foundation. It is, however, the
piquant element and the joke of life that the chief concern of all men is
secretly pursued and ostensibly ignored as much as possible. But, in fact,
we see it every moment seat itself, as the true and hereditary lord of the
world, out of the fulness of its own strength, upon the ancestral throne,
and looking down from thence with scornful glances, laugh at the
preparations which have been made to bind it, imprison it, or at least to
limit it and wherever it is possible to keep it concealed, or even so to
master it that it shall only appear as a subordinate, secondary concern of
life. But all this agrees with the fact that the sexual passion is the
kernel of the will to live, and consequently the concentration of all
desire; therefore in the text I have called the genital organs the focus
of the will. Indeed, one may say man is concrete sexual desire; for his
origin is an act of copulation and his wish of wishes is an act of
copulation, and this tendency alone perpetuates and holds together his
whole phenomenal existence. The will to live manifests itself indeed
primarily as an effort to sustain the individual; yet this is only a step
to the effort to sustain the species, and the latter endeavour must be
more powerful in proportion as the life of the species surpasses that of
the individual in duration, extension, and value. Therefore sexual passion
is the most perfect manifestation of the will to live, its most distinctly
expressed type; and the origin of the individual in it, and its primacy
over all other desires of the natural man, are both in complete agreement
with this.

One other remark of a physiological nature is in place here, a remark
which throws light upon my fundamental doctrine expounded in the second
book. As the sexual impulse is the most vehement of desires, the wish of
wishes, the concentration of all our volition, and accordingly the
satisfaction of it which exactly corresponds to the individual wish of any
one, that is, the desire fixed upon a definite individual, is the summit
and crown of his happiness, the ultimate goal of his natural endeavours,
with the attainment of which everything seems to him to have been
attained, and with the frustrating of which everything seems to him to
have been lost:—so we find, as its physiological correlative, in the
objectified will, thus in the human organism, the sperm or semen as the
secretion of secretions, the quintessence of all animal fluids, the last
result of all organic functions, and have in it a new proof of the fact
that the body is only the objectivity of the will, _i.e._, is the will
itself under the form of the idea.

With reproduction is connected the maintenance of the offspring, and with
the sexual impulse, parental love; and thus through these the life of the
species is carried on. Accordingly the love of the brute for its young
has, like the sexual impulse, a strength which far surpasses that of the
efforts which merely concerns itself as an individual. This shows itself
in the fact that even the mildest animals are ready to undertake for the
sake of their young even the most unequal battle for life and death, and
with almost all species of animals the mother encounters any danger for
the protection of her young, nay, in many cases even faces certain death.
In the case of man this instinctive parental love is guided and directed
by reason, _i.e._, by reflection. Sometimes, however, it is also in this
way restricted, and with bad characters this may extend to the complete
repudiation of it. Therefore we can observe its effects most purely in the
lower animals. In itself, however, it is not less strong in man; here
also, in particular cases, we see it entirely overcome self‐love, and even
extend to the sacrifice of life. Thus, for example, the French newspapers
have just announced that at Cahors, in the department of Lot, a father has
taken his own life in order that his son, who had been drawn for military
service, should be the eldest son of a widow, and therefore exempt
(_Galignani’s Messenger_ of 22d June 1843). Yet in the case of the lower
animals, since they are capable of no reflection, the instinctive maternal
affection (the male is generally ignorant of his paternity) shows itself
directly and unsophisticated, and therefore with perfect distinctness and
in its whole strength. At bottom it is the expression of the consciousness
in the brute that its true being lies more immediately in the species than
in the individual, and therefore, when necessary, it sacrifices its life
that the species may be maintained in the young. Thus here, as also in the
sexual impulse, the will to live becomes to a certain extent transcendent,
for its consciousness extends beyond the individual, in which it is
inherent, to the species. In order to avoid expressing this second
manifestation of the life of the species in a merely abstract manner, and
to present it to the reader in its magnitude and reality, I will give a
few examples of the extraordinary strength of instinctive maternal
affection.

The sea‐otter, when pursued, seizes its young one and dives with it; when
it comes up again to take breath, it covers the young one with its body,
and receives the harpoon of the hunter while the young one is escaping. A
young whale is killed merely to attract the mother, who hurries to it and
seldom forsakes it so long as it still lives, even although she is struck
with several harpoons (Scoresby’s “Journal of a Whaling Voyage;” from the
English of Kreis, p. 196). At Three Kings Island, near New Zealand, there
are colossal seals called sea‐elephants (_phoca proboscidea_). They swim
round the island in regular herds and feed upon fishes, but yet have
certain terrible enemies below water unknown to us, by whom they are often
severely wounded; hence their swimming together requires special tactics.
The females bring forth their young upon the shore; while they are
suckling them, which lasts from seven to eight weeks, all the males form a
circle round them in order to prevent them, driven by hunger, from
entering the sea, and if this is attempted they prevent it by biting. Thus
they all fast together for between seven and eight weeks, and all become
very thin, simply in order that the young may not enter the sea before
they are able to swim well and observe the necessary tactics which are
then taught them with blows and bites (Freycinet, _Voy. aux terres
Australes_, 1826). We also see here how parental affection, like every
strong exertion of the will (_cf._ chap. xix. 6), heightens the
intelligence. Wild ducks, white‐throats, and many other birds, when the
sportsman comes near their nest, fly in front of him with loud cries and
flap about as if their wings were injured, in order to attract his
attention from their young to themselves. The lark tries to entice the dog
away from its nest by exposing itself. In the same way hinds and does
induce the hunter to pursue them in order that their young may not be
attacked. Swallows have flown into burning houses to rescue their young or
perish with them. At Delft, in a great fire, a stork allowed itself to be
burnt in its nest rather than forsake its tender young, which could not
yet fly (Hadr. Junius, _Descriptio Hollandiæ_). Mountain‐cocks and
woodcocks allow themselves to be taken upon the nest when brooding.
_Muscicapa tyrannus_ protects its nest with remarkable courage, and
defends itself against eagles. An ant has been cut in two, and the fore
half been seen to bring the pupæ to a place of safety. A bitch whose
litter had been cut out of her belly crept up to them dying, caressed
them, and began to whine violently only when they were taken from her
(Burdach, _Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft_, vol. ii. and iii.).




Chapter XLIII. On Heredity.


The most ordinary experience teaches that in generation the combined seed
of the parents not only propagates the peculiarities of the species, but
also those of the individual, as far as bodily (objective, external)
qualities are concerned, and this has also always been recognised—


    “_Naturæ sequitur semina quisque suæ._”

    —CATULL.


Now whether this also holds good of mental (subjective, internal)
qualities, so that these also are transmitted by the parents to the
children, is a question which has already often been raised, and almost
always answered in the affirmative. More difficult, however, is the
problem whether it is possible to distinguish what belongs to the father
and what to the mother, thus what is the mental inheritance which we
receive from each of our parents. If now we cast upon this problem the
light of our fundamental knowledge that the will is the true being, the
kernel, the radical element in man, and the intellect, on the other hand,
is what is secondary, adventitious, the accident of that substance; before
questioning experience we will assume it as at least probable that the
father, as _sexus potior_ and the procreative principle, imparts the
basis, the radical element, of the new life, thus the _will_, and the
mother, as _sexus sequior_ and merely conceiving principle, imparts the
secondary element, the _intellect_; that thus the man inherits his moral
nature, his character, his inclinations, his heart, from the father, and,
on the other hand, the grade, quality, and tendency of his intelligence
from the mother. Now this assumption actually finds its confirmation in
experience; only this cannot be decided by a physical experiment upon the
table, but results partly from the careful and acute observation of many
years, and partly from history.

One’s own experience has the advantage of complete certainty and the
greatest speciality, and this outweighs the disadvantage that arises from
it, that its sphere is limited and its examples not generally known.
Therefore, primarily, I refer every one to his own experience. First of
all let him consider himself, confess to himself his inclinations and
passions, his characteristic errors and weaknesses, his vices, and also
his excellences and virtues, if he has any. Then let him think of his
father, and he cannot fail to recognise all these characteristic traits in
him also. On the other hand, he will often find his mother of an entirely
different character, and a moral agreement with her will very seldom
occur, indeed only through the exceptional accident of a similarity of the
character of the two parents. Let him make this examination, for example,
with reference to quick temper or patience, avarice or prodigality,
inclination to sensuality, or to intemperance, or to gambling, hard‐
heartedness or kindliness, honesty or hypocrisy, pride or condescension,
courage or cowardice, peaceableness or quarrelsomeness, placability or
resentfulness, &c. Then let him make the same investigation with regard to
all those whose characters and whose parents he has accurately known. If
he proceeds attentively, with correct judgment, and candidly, the
confirmation of our principle will not be lacking. Thus, for example, he
will find the special tendency to lie, which belongs to many men, equally
present in two brothers, because they have inherited it from the father;
on this account also the comedy, “The Liar and his Son,” is
psychologically correct. However, two inevitable limitations must here be
borne in mind, which only open injustice could interpret as evasions.
First, _pater semper incertus_. Only a decided physical resemblance to the
father removes this limitation; a superficial resemblance, on the other
hand, is not sufficient to do so; for there is an after‐effect of earlier
impregnation by virtue of which the children of the second marriage have
sometimes still a slight resemblance to the first husband, and children
begotten in adultery to the legitimate father. Such an after‐effect has
been still more distinctly observed in the case of brutes. The second
limitation is, that in the son the moral character of the father certainly
appears, yet under the modification which it has received through another
and often very different _intellect_ (the inheritance from the mother),
and thus a correction of the observation becomes necessary. This
modification may be important or trifling in proportion to that
difference, but it can never be so great that the fundamental traits of
the paternal character do not always appear under it recognisably enough,
like a man who has disguised himself by an entirely different kind of
dress, wig, and beard. For example, if by inheritance from the mother a
man is pre‐eminently endowed with reason, thus with the power of
reflection and deliberation, the passions inherited from his father are
partly bridled by this, partly concealed, and accordingly only attain to a
methodical, systematic, or secret manifestation, and thus a very different
phenomenon from that of the father, who perhaps had only a very limited
mind, will then result; and in the same way the converse case may occur.
The inclinations and passions of the mother, on the other hand, do not
reappear at all in the children, often indeed their opposite.

Historical examples have the advantage over those of private life of being
universally known; but, on the other hand, they are of course impaired by
the uncertainty and frequent falsification of all tradition, and
especially also by the fact that as a rule they only contain the public,
not the private life, and consequently only the political actions, not the
finer manifestations of character. However, I wish to support the truth we
are speaking of by a few historical examples, to which those who have made
a special study of history can no doubt add a far larger number of equally
pertinent cases.

It is well known that P. Decius Mus sacrificed his life for his country
with heroic nobleness; for, solemnly committing himself and the enemy to
the infernal deities, with covered face he plunged into the army of the
Latins. About forty years later his son, of the same name, did exactly the
same thing in the war against the Gauls (Liv. viii. 6; x. 28). Thus a
thorough proof of the Horatian _fortes creantur fortibus et bonis_: the
converse of which is thus given by Shakspeare—


    “Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base.”

    —CYMBELINE, iv. 2.


Early Roman history presents to us whole families whose members in long
succession distinguished themselves by devoted patriotism and courage;
such were the _gens Fabia_ and the _gens Fabricia_. Again, Alexander the
Great was fond of power and conquest, like his father Philip. The pedigree
of Nero which, with a moral intention, Suetonius (c. 4 _et_ 5) gives at
the beginning of his sketch of this monster is very well worth
considering. It is the _gens Claudia_ he describes, which flourished in
Rome through six centuries, and produced not only capable, but arrogant
and cruel men. From it sprang Tiberius, Caligula, and finally Nero. In his
grandfather, and still more strongly in his father, all those atrocious
qualities show themselves, which could only attain their perfect
development in Nero, partly because his higher position afforded them
freer scope, partly because he had for his mother the irrational
Bacchante, Agrippina, who could impart to him no intellect to bridle his
passions. Quite in our sense, therefore, Suetonius relates that at his
birth _præsagio fuit etiam Domitii, patris, vox, inter gratulationes
amicorum, negantis, quidquam ex se __ et Agrippina, nisi detestabile et
malo publico nasci potuisse_. On the other hand, Cimon was the son of
Miltiades, and Hannibal of Hamilcar, and the Scipios make up a whole
family of heroes and noble defenders of their country. But the son of Pope
Alexander VI. was his hideous image, Cæsar Borgia. The son of the
notorious Duke of Alba was just as cruel and wicked a man as his father.
The malicious and unjust Philip IV. of France, who is specially known by
his cruel torture and execution of the knights templars, had for his
daughter Isabella, wife of Edward II. of England, who rebelled against her
husband, took him prisoner, and after he had signed his abdication, since
the attempt to kill him by ill‐usage was unsuccessful, caused him to be
put to death in prison in a manner which is too horrible for me to care to
relate. The blood‐thirsty tyrant and _defensor fidei_, Henry VIII. of
England had a daughter by his first marriage, Queen Mary, equally
distinguished for bigotry and cruelty, who from her numerous burnings of
heretics has won the name of Bloody Mary. His daughter by his second
marriage, Elizabeth, received an excellent understanding from her mother,
Anne Boleyn, which prevented bigotry and curbed the parental character in
her, yet did not do away with it; so that it still always shone through on
occasions, and distinctly appeared in her cruel treatment of Mary of
Scotland. Van Geuns(35) tells a story, after Marcus Donatus, of a Scotch
girl whose father had been burnt as a highway robber and a cannibal when
she was only one year old. Although she was brought up among quite
different people, there developed in her the same craving for human flesh,
and being caught in the act of satisfying it, she was buried alive. In the
_Freimüthigen_ of the 13th July 1821 we read that in the department of
Aube the police pursued a girl because she had murdered two children, whom
she ought to have taken to the foundling hospital, in order to keep the
little money given to the children. At last the police found the girl on
the road to Paris, near Romilly, drowned, and her own father gave himself
up as her murderer. Finally, let me mention a couple of cases which have
occurred recently, and have therefore only the newspapers as their
vouchers. In October 1836 a Count Belecznai was condemned to death in
Hungary because he had murdered an official and severely wounded his own
relations. His elder brother was executed earlier as a patricide, and his
father also had been a murderer (_Frankfurter Postzeitung_ of the 26th
October 1836). A year later the youngest brother of this Count, in the
same street where the latter had murdered the official, fired a pistol at
the steward of his estates, but missed him (_Frankfurter Journal_, 16th
September 1837). In the _Frankfurter Postzeitung_ of the 19th November
1857 a correspondent in Paris announces the condemnation to death of a
very dangerous highway robber, Lemaire, and his companions, and adds: “The
criminal tendency seems hereditary in his family and in those of his
confederates, as several of their race have died on the scaffold.” It
follows from a passage in the Laws of Plato that similar cases were
already known in Greece (_Stob. Flor._, vol. ii. p. 213). The annals of
crime will certainly have many similar pedigrees to show. The tendency to
suicide is specially hereditary.

On the other hand, when we see the excellent Marcus Aurelius have the
wicked Commodus for a son, this does not not lead us astray; for we know
that the _Diva Faustina_ was a _uxor infamis_. On the contrary, we mark
this case in order in analogous cases to presume an analogous reason; for
example, that Domitian was the full brother of Titus I can never believe,
but that Vespasian also was a deceived husband.

Now, as regards the second part of the principle set up thus the
inheritance of the intellect from the mother, this enjoys a far more
general acceptance than the first part, which in itself appeals to the
_liberum arbitrium indifferentiæ_, while its separate apprehension is
opposed by the doctrine of the simplicity and indivisibility of the soul.
Even the old and popular expression “mother‐wit” shows the early
recognition of this second truth, which depends upon the experience both
with regard to small and great intellectual endowments, that they are the
possession of those whose mothers proportionately distinguished themselves
by their intelligence. That, on the other hand, the intellectual qualities
of the father are not transmitted to the son is proved both by the fathers
and the sons of men distinguished by the most eminent faculties, for, as a
rule, they are quite ordinary men, without a trace of the paternal mental
gifts. But if now an isolated exception to this experience, so often
confirmed, should appear; such, for example, as is presented by Pitt and
his father, Lord Chatham, we are warranted in ascribing it to accident,
nay, obliged to do so, although, on account of the exceptional rarity of
great talents, it is certainly an accident of a most extraordinary kind.
Here, however, the rule holds good: it is improbable that the improbable
_never_ happens. Besides, great statesmen (as was already mentioned in
chapter 22) are so just as much through the qualities of their character,
thus through what is inherited from the father, as through the superiority
of their mind. On the other hand, among artists, poets, and philosophers,
to whose works alone _genius_ is properly ascribed, I know of no case
analogous to that. Raphael’s father was certainly a painter, but not a
great one; Mozart’s father, and also his son, were musicians, but not
great ones. However, it is indeed wonderful that the fate which had
destined a very short life to both of these men, each the greatest in his
own sphere, as it were by way of compensation, took care, by letting them
be born already in their workshop, that, without suffering the loss of
time in youth which for the most part occurs in the case of other men of
genius, they received even from childhood, through paternal example and
instruction, the necessary introduction into the art to which they were
exclusively destined. This secret and mysterious power which seems to
guide the individual life I have made the subject of special
investigations, which I have communicated in the essay, “_Ueber die
scheinbare Absichtlichkeit im Schicksale des Einzelnen_” (_Parerga_, vol.
i.). It is further to be observed here that there are certain scientific
occupations which certainly presuppose good native faculties, yet not
those which are really rare and extraordinary; while the principal
requirements are zealous efforts, diligence, patience, early instruction,
sustained study, and much practice. From this, and not from the
inheritance of the intellect of the father, the fact is to be explained
that, since the son always willingly follows the path that has been opened
up by the father, and almost all businesses are hereditary in certain
families, in some sciences also, which before everything demand diligence
and persistence, individual families can show a succession of men of
merit; such are the Scaligers, the Bernouillis, the Cassinis, the
Herschels.

The number of proofs of the actual inheritance of the intellect of the
mother would be much greater than it appears if it were not that the
character and disposition of the female sex is such that women rarely give
public proof of their mental faculties; and therefore these do not become
historical, and thus known to posterity. Besides, on account of the weaker
nature in general of the female sex, these faculties themselves can never
reach the grade in them to which they may afterwards rise in the son;
thus, with reference to themselves, we have to estimate their achievements
higher in this proportion. Accordingly, in the first instance, only the
following examples present themselves as proofs of our truth. Joseph II.
was the son of Maria Theresia. Cardanus says in the third chapter, “_De
vita propria_:” “_Mater mea fuit memoria et ingenio pollens_.” J. J.
Rousseau says in the first book of the “Confessions:” “_La beauté de ma
mère, son __ esprit, ses talents,—elle en avait de trop brillans pour son
état_,” &c., and then quotes some delightful lines of hers. D’Alembert was
the illegitimate son of Claudine de Tencin, a woman of superior mind, and
the author of several romances and similar works, which met with great
approbation in her day, and should even still be enjoyable (see her
biography in the “_Blätter für litterarische Unterhaltung_,” March 1845,
Nos. 71‐73). That Buffon’s mother was a remarkable woman is shown by the
following passage from the “_Voyage à Montbar, par Hérault de Sechelles_,”
which Flourens quotes in his “_Histoire des travaux de Buffon_,” p. 288:
“_Buffon avait ce principe qu’en général les enfants tenaient de leur mère
leurs qualités intellectuelles et morales: et lorsqu’il l’avait développé
dans la conversation, il en faisait sur‐le‐champ l’application à lui‐même,
en faisant un éloge pompeux de sa mère, qui avait en effet, beaucoup
d’esprit, des connaissances étandues, et une tête très bien organisée._”
That he includes the moral qualities is an error which is either committed
by the reporter, or depends upon the fact that his mother had accidentally
the same character as himself and his father. The contrary of this is
shown in innumerable cases in which the mother and the son have opposite
characters. Hence the greatest dramatists could present, in Orestes and
Hamlet, mother and son in hostile conflict, in which the son appears as
the moral representative and avenger of his father. On the other hand, the
converse case, that the son should appear as the moral representative and
avenger of the mother against the father, would be revolting and, at the
same time, almost absurd. This depends upon the fact that between father
and son there is actual identity of nature, which is the will, but between
mother and son there is merely identity of intellect, and even this only
in a conditioned manner. Between mother and son the greatest moral
opposition can exist, between father and son only an intellectual
opposition. From this point of view, also, one should recognise the
necessity of the Salic law: the woman cannot carry on the race. Hume says
in his short autobiography: “Our mother was a woman of singular merit.” It
is said of Kant’s mother in the most recent biography by F. W. Schubert:
“According to the judgment of her son himself, she was a woman of great
natural understanding. For that time, when there was so little opportunity
for the education of girls, she was exceptionally well instructed, and she
also continued later to care for her further education by herself. In the
course of walks she drew the attention of her son to all kinds of natural
phenomena, and tried to explain to him through them the power of God.”
What a remarkably able, clever, and superior woman Goethe’s mother was is
now universally known. How much she has been spoken of in literature!
while his father has not been spoken of at all; Goethe himself describes
him as a man of subordinate faculties. Schiller’s mother was susceptible
to poetry, and made verses herself, a fragment of which will be found in
his biography by Schwab. Bürger, that genuine poetic genius, to whom
perhaps the first place after Goethe among German poets belongs—for
compared with his ballads those of Schiller seem cold and laboured—has
given an account of his parents which for us is significant, and which his
friend and physician, Althof repeats in his biography which appeared in
1798, in these words: “Bürger’s father was certainly provided with a
variety of knowledge after the manner of study prevalent at the time, and
was also a good, honourable man; but he loved his quiet comfort and his
pipe of tobacco so much, that, as my friend used to say, he had always
first to pull himself together if he was going to apply himself for a
quarter of an hour or so to the instruction of his son. His wife was a
woman of extraordinary mental endowments, which, however, were so little
cultivated that she had scarcely learnt to write legibly. Bürger thought
that with proper culture his mother would have been the most famous of her
sex, although he several times expressed a strong disapproval of different
traits of her moral character. However, he believed that he inherited from
his mother some mental gifts, and from his father an agreement with his
moral character.” Walter Scott’s mother was a poetess, and was in
communication with the wits of her time, as we learn from the obituary
notice of Walter Scott in the _Globe_ of 24th September 1832. That poems
of hers appeared in print in 1789 I find from an article entitled “Mother‐
wit,” in the _Blätter für litterarische Unterhaltung_ of 4th October 1841,
published by Brockhaus, which gives a long list of clever mothers of
distinguished men, from which I shall only take two: “Bacon’s mother was a
distinguished linguist, wrote and translated several works, and in all of
them showed learning, acuteness, and taste. Boerhave’s mother
distinguished herself through medical knowledge.” On the other hand,
Haller has preserved for us a strong proof of the inheritance of the
mental weakness of the mother, for he says: “_E duabus patriciis
sororibus, ob divitias maritos nactis, quum tamen fatuis essent proximæ,
novimus in nobilissimas gentes nunc a seculo retro ejus morbi manasse
semina, ut etiam in quarta generatione, quintave, omnium posterorum aliqui
fatui supersint_” (_Elementa physiol._, Lib. xxix. § 8). Also, according
to Esquirol, madness is more frequently inherited from the mother than the
father. If, however, it is inherited from the father, I attribute this to
the disposition of the character whose influence occasions it.

It seems to follow from our principle that sons of the same mother have
equal mental capacity, and if one should be highly gifted the other must
be so also. Sometimes it is so. Examples of this are the Carracci, Joseph
and Michael Haydn, Bernard and Andreas Romberg, George and Frederic
Cuvier. I would also add the brothers Schlegel, if it were not that the
younger, Friedrich, made himself unworthy of the honour of being named
along with his excellent, blameless, and highly distinguished brother,
August Wilhelm, by the disgraceful obscurantism which in the last quarter
of his life he pursued along with Adam Müller. For obscurantism is a sin,
possibly not against the Holy Spirit, but yet against the human spirit,
which one ought therefore never to forgive, but always and everywhere
implacably to remember against whoever has been guilty of it, and take
every opportunity of showing contempt for him so long as he lives, nay,
after he is dead. But just as often the above result does not take place;
for example, Kant’s brother was quite an ordinary man. To explain this I
must remind the reader of what is said in the thirty‐first chapter on the
physiological conditions of genius. Not only an extraordinarily developed
and absolutely correctly formed brain (the share of the mother) is
required, but also a very energetic action of the heart to animate it,
_i.e._, subjectively a passionate will, a lively temperament: this is the
inheritance from the father. But this quality is at its height only during
the father’s strongest years; and the mother ages still more quickly.
Accordingly the highly gifted sons will, as a rule, be the eldest,
begotten in the full strength of both parents; thus Kant’s brother was
eleven years younger than him. Even in the case of two distinguished
brothers, as a rule, the elder will be the superior. But not only the age,
but every temporary ebb of the vital force or other disturbance of health
in the parents at the time when the child is begotten may interfere with
the part of one or other, and prevent the appearance of a man of eminent
talent, which is therefore so exceedingly rare a phenomenon. It may be
said, in passing, that in the case of twins the absence of all the
differences just mentioned is the cause of the quasi‐identity of their
nature.

If single cases should be found in which a highly gifted son had a mother
who was not mentally distinguished at all, this may be explained from the
fact that this mother herself had a phlegmatic father, and on this account
her more than ordinarily developed brain was not adequately excited by a
corresponding energy of the circulation—a necessary condition, as I have
explained above in chapter 31. Nevertheless, her highly perfected nervous
and cerebral system was transmitted to the son, in whose case a father
with a lively and passionate disposition and an energetic action of the
heart was added, and thus the other physical condition of great mental
power first appeared here. Perhaps this was Byron’s case, since we nowhere
find the mental advantages of his mother mentioned. The same explanation
is also to be applied to the case in which the mother of a son of genius
who was herself distinguished for mental gifts had a mother who was by no
means clever, for the father of the latter has been a man of a phlegmatic
disposition.

The inharmonious, disproportionate, ambiguous element in the character of
most men might perhaps be referred to the fact that the individual has not
a simple origin, but derives the will from the father and the intellect
from the mother. The more heterogeneous and ill‐adapted to each other the
two parents were, the greater will that want of harmony, that inner
variance, be. While some excel through their heart and others through
their head, there are still others whose excellence lies in a certain
harmony and unity of the whole nature, which arises from the fact that in
them heart and head are so thoroughly adapted that they mutually support
and advance each other; which leads us to assume that the parents were
peculiarly suited to each other, and agreed in an exceptional measure.

With reference to the physiological side of the theory set forth, I wish
now to mention that Burdach, who erroneously assumes that the same
psychical qualities may be inherited now from the father, now from the
mother, yet adds (_Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft_, vol. i. §
306): “As a whole, the male element has more influence in determining the
irritable life, and the female element, on the other hand, has more
influence on the sensibility.” What Linné says in the “_Systema naturæ_,”
Tom. i. p. 8, is also in point here: “_Mater prolifera promit, ante
generationem, __ vivum compendium medullare novi animalis suique
simillimi, carinam Malpighianam dictum, tanquam plumulam vegetabilium: hoc
ex genitura Cor adsociat ramificandum in corpus. Punctum emin saliens ovi
incubantis avis ostendit primum cor micans, cerebrumque cum medulla:
corculum hoc, cessans a frigore, excitatur calido halitu, premitque bulla
aërea, sensim dilatata, liquores, secundum canales fluxiles. Punctum
vitalitatis itaque in viventibus est tanquam a prima creatione continuata
medullaris vitæ ramificatio, cum ovum sit gemma medullaris matris a
primordio viva, licet non sua ante proprium cor paternum._”

If we now connect the conviction we have gained here of the inheritance of
the character from the father and the intellect from the mother with our
earlier investigation of the wide gulf which nature has placed between man
and man in a moral as in an intellectual regard, and also with our
knowledge of the absolute unalterableness both of the character and of the
mental faculties, we shall be led to the view that a real and thorough
improvement of the human race might be attained to not so much from
without as from within, thus not so much by instruction and culture as
rather upon the path of generation. Plato had already something of the
kind in his mind when in the fifth book of his Republic he set forth his
wonderful plan for increasing and improving his class of warriors. If we
could castrate all scoundrels, and shut up all stupid geese in
monasteries, and give persons of noble character a whole harem, and
provide men, and indeed complete men, for all maidens of mind and
understanding, a generation would soon arise which would produce a better
age than that of Pericles. But, without entering into such utopian plans,
it might be taken into consideration that if, as, if I am not mistaken,
was actually the case among certain ancient nations, castration was the
severest punishment after death, the world would be delivered from whole
races of scoundrels, all the more certainly as it is well known that most
crimes are committed between the age of twenty and thirty.(36) In the same
way, it might be considered whether, as regards results, it would not be
more advantageous to give the public dowries which upon certain occasions
have to be distributed, not, as is now customary, to the girls who are
supposed to be the most virtuous, but to those who have most understanding
and are the cleverest; especially as it is very difficult to judge as to
virtue, for, as it is said, only God sees the heart. The opportunities for
displaying a noble character are rare, and a matter of chance; besides,
many a girl has a powerful support to her virtue in her plainness; on the
other hand, as regards understanding, those who themselves are gifted with
it can judge with great certainty after some examination. The following is
another practical application. In many countries, among others in South
Germany, the bad custom prevails of women carrying burdens, often very
considerable, upon the head. This must act disadvantageously upon the
brain, which must thereby gradually deteriorate in the female sex of the
nation; and since from that sex the male sex receives its brain, the whole
nation becomes ever more stupid; which in many cases is by no means
necessary. Accordingly by the abolition of this custom the quantum of
intelligence in the whole nation would be increased, which would
positively be the greatest increase of the national wealth.

But if now, leaving such practical applications to others, we return to
our special point of view, the ethico‐metaphysical standpoint—since we
connect the content of chapter 41 with that of the present chapter—the
following result will present itself to us, which, with all its
transcendence, has yet a direct empirical support. It is the same
character, thus the same individually determined will, that lives in all
the descendants of one stock, from the remote ancestor to the present
representative of the family. But in each of these a different intellect
is given with it, thus a different degree and a different kind of
knowledge. Thus in each of these life presents itself to it from another
side and in a different light: it receives a new fundamental view of it, a
new instruction. It is true that, since the intellect is extinguished with
the individual, that will cannot supplement the insight of one course of
life with that of another. But in consequence of each fundamentally new
view of life, such as only a renewed personality can impart to it, its
willing itself receives a different tendency, thus experiences a
modification from it, and what is the chief concern, the will, has, in
this new direction, either to assert life anew or deny it. In this way
does the arrangement of nature of an ever‐changing connection of a will
with an intellect, which arises from the necessity of two sexes for
reproduction, become the basis of a method of salvation. For by virtue of
this arrangement life unceasingly presents new sides to the will (whose
image and mirror it is), turns itself about, as it were, without
intermission before its sight, allows different and ever different modes
of perception to try their effect upon it, so that upon each of these it
must decide for assertion or denial, both of which constantly stand open
to it, only that, if once denial is chosen, the whole phenomenon ceases
for it with death. Now because, according to this, it is just the constant
renewal and complete alteration of the intellect for the same will which,
as imparting a new view of the world, holds open the path of salvation,
and because the intellect comes from the mother, the profound reason may
lie here on account of which all nations (with very few and doubtful
exceptions) abominate and forbid the marriage of brothers and sisters,
nay, even on account of which sexual love does not arise at all between
brothers and sisters, unless in very rare exceptions, which depend upon an
unnatural perversity of the instinct, if not upon the fact that one of the
two is illegitimate. For from a marriage of brothers and sisters nothing
could proceed but constantly ever the same will with the same intellect,
as both already exist united in both the parents, thus the hopeless
repetition of the phenomenon which has already been.

But if now, in the particular case and close at hand, we contemplate the
incredibly great and yet manifest difference of characters—find one so
good and philanthropic, another so wicked, nay, ferocious; again, behold
one just, honest, and upright, and another completely false, as a sneak, a
swindler, a traitor, an incorrigible scoundrel—there discloses itself to
us a chasm in our investigation, for in vain we ponder, reflecting on the
origin of such a difference. Hindus and Buddhists solve the problem by
saying, “It is the consequence of the deeds of the preceding courses of
life.” This solution is certainly the oldest, also the most
comprehensible, and has come from the wisest of mankind; but it only
pushes the question further back. Yet a more satisfactory answer will
hardly be found. From the point of view of my whole teaching, it remains
for me to say that here, where we are speaking of the will as thing in
itself, the principle of sufficient reason, as merely the form of the
phenomenon, is no longer applicable; with it, however, all why and whence
disappear. Absolute freedom just consists in this, that something is not
subject at all to the principle of sufficient reason, as the principle of
all necessity. Such freedom, therefore, only belongs to the thing in
itself. And this is just the will. Accordingly, in its phenomenal
manifestation, consequently in the _Operari_, it is subject to necessity;
but in the _Esse_, where it has determined itself as thing in itself, it
is free. Whenever, therefore, we come to this, as happens here, all
explanation by means of reasons and consequents ceases, and nothing
remains for us but to say that here manifests itself the true freedom of
the will, which belongs to it because it is the thing in itself, which,
however, just as such, is groundless, _i.e._, knows no why. But on this
account all understanding ceases for us here, because all our
understanding depends upon the principle of sufficient reason, for it
consists in the mere application of that principle.




Chapter XLIV. The Metaphysics Of The Love Of The Sexes.


    “Ye wise men, highly, deeply learned,
    Who think it out and know,
    How, when, and where do all things pair?
    Why do they kiss and love?
    Ye men of lofty wisdom, say
    What happened to me then;
    Search out and tell me where, how, when,
    And why it happened thus.”

    —BÜRGER.


This chapter is the last of four whose various reciprocal relations, by
virtue of which, to a certain extent, they constitute a subordinate whole,
the attentive reader will recognise without it being needful for me to
interrupt my exposition by recalling them or referring to them.

We are accustomed to see poets principally occupied with describing the
love of the sexes. This is as a rule the chief theme of all dramatic
works, tragical as well as comical, romantic as well as classical, Indian
as well as European. Not less is it the material of by far the largest
part of lyrical and also of epic poetry, especially if we class with the
latter the enormous piles of romances which for centuries every year has
produced in all the civilised countries of Europe as regularly as the
fruits of the earth. As regards their main contents, all these works are
nothing else than many‐sided brief or lengthy descriptions of the passion
we are speaking of. Moreover, the most successful pictures of it—such, for
example, as Romeo and Juliet, _La Nouvelle Hélöise_, and _Werther_—have
gained immortal fame. Yet, when Rochefoucauld imagines that it is the same
with passionate love as with ghosts, of which every one speaks, but which
no one has seen; and Lichtenberg also in his essay, “_Ueber die Macht der
Liebe_,” disputes and denies the reality and naturalness of that passion,
they are greatly in error. For it is impossible that something which is
foreign and contrary to human nature, thus a mere imaginary caricature,
could be unweariedly represented by poetic genius in all ages, and
received by mankind with unaltered interest; for nothing that is
artistically beautiful can be without truth:—


    “_Rien n’est beau que le vrai; le vrai seul est aimable_.”

    —BOIL.


Certainly, however, it is also confirmed by experience, although not by
the experience of every day, that that which as a rule only appears as a
strong yet still controllable inclination may rise under certain
circumstances to a passion which exceeds all others in vehemence, and
which then sets aside all considerations, overcomes all obstacles with
incredible strength and perseverance, so that for its satisfaction life is
risked without hesitation, nay, if that satisfaction is still withheld, is
given as the price of it. Werthers and Jacopo Ortis exist not only in
romance, but every year can show at least half a dozen of them in Europe:
_Sed ignotis perierunt mortibus illi_; for their sorrows find no other
chroniclers than the writers of official registers or the reporters of the
newspapers. Yet the readers of the police news in English and French
journals will attest the correctness of my assertion. Still greater,
however, is the number of those whom the same passion brings to the
madhouse. Finally, every year can show cases of the double suicide of a
pair of lovers who are opposed by outward circumstances. In such cases,
however, it is inexplicable to me how those who, certain of mutual love,
expect to find the supremest bliss in the enjoyment of this, do not
withdraw themselves from all connections by taking the extremest steps,
and endure all hardships, rather than give up with life a pleasure which
is greater than any other they can conceive. As regards the lower grades
of that passion, and the mere approaches to it, every one has them daily
before his eyes, and, as long as he is not old, for the most part also in
his heart.

So then, after what has here been called to mind, no one can doubt either
the reality or the importance of the matter; and therefore, instead of
wondering that a philosophy should also for once make its own this
constant theme of all poets, one ought rather to be surprised that a thing
which plays throughout so important a part in human life has hitherto
practically been disregarded by philosophers altogether, and lies before
us as raw material. The one who has most concerned himself with it is
Plato, especially in the “Symposium” and the “Phædrus.” Yet what he says
on the subject is confined to the sphere of myths, fables, and jokes, and
also for the most part concerns only the Greek love of youths. The little
that Rousseau says upon our theme in the “_Discours sur l’inégalité_” (p.
96, ed. Bip.) is false and insufficient. Kant’s explanation of the subject
in the third part of the essay, “_Ueber das Gefühl des Schönen und
Erhabenen_” (p. 435 _seq._ of Rosenkranz’s edition), is very superficial
and without practical knowledge, therefore it is also partly incorrect.
Lastly, Platner’s treatment of the matter in his “Anthropology” (§ 1347
_seq._) every one will find dull and shallow. On the other hand, Spinoza’s
definition, on account of its excessive naïveté, deserves to be quoted for
the sake of amusement: “_Amor est titillatio, concomitante idea causæ
externæ_” (_Eth._ iv., prop. 44, _dem._) Accordingly I have no
predecessors either to make use of or to refute. The subject has pressed
itself upon me objectively, and has entered of its own accord into the
connection of my consideration of the world. Moreover, least of all can I
hope for approbation from those who are themselves under the power of this
passion, and who accordingly seek to express the excess of their feelings
in the sublimest and most ethereal images. To them my view will appear too
physical, too material, however metaphysical and even transcendent it may
be at bottom. Meanwhile let them reflect that if the object which to‐day
inspires them to write madrigals and sonnets had been born eighteen years
earlier it would scarcely have won a glance from them.

For all love, however ethereally it may bear itself, is rooted in the
sexual impulse alone, nay, it absolutely is only a more definitely
determined, specialised, and indeed in the strictest sense individualised
sexual impulse. If now, keeping this in view, one considers the important
part which the sexual impulse in all its degrees and nuances plays not
only on the stage and in novels, but also in the real world, where, next
to the love of life, it shows itself the strongest and most powerful of
motives, constantly lays claim to half the powers and thoughts of the
younger portion of mankind, is the ultimate goal of almost all human
effort, exerts an adverse influence on the most important events,
interrupts the most serious occupations every hour, sometimes embarrasses
for a while even the greatest minds, does not hesitate to intrude with its
trash interfering with the negotiations of statesmen and the
investigations of men of learning, knows how to slip its love letters and
locks of hair even into ministerial portfolios and philosophical
manuscripts, and no less devises daily the most entangled and the worst
actions, destroys the most valuable relationships, breaks the firmest
bonds, demands the sacrifice sometimes of life or health, sometimes of
wealth, rank, and happiness, nay, robs those who are otherwise honest of
all conscience, makes those who have hitherto been faithful, traitors;
accordingly, on the whole, appears as a malevolent demon that strives to
pervert, confuse, and overthrow everything;—then one will be forced to
cry, Wherefore all this noise? Wherefore the straining and storming, the
anxiety and want? It is merely a question of every Hans finding his
Grethe.(37) Why should such a trifle play so important a part, and
constantly introduce disturbance and confusion into the well‐regulated
life of man? But to the earnest investigator the spirit of truth gradually
reveals the answer. It is no trifle that is in question here; on the
contrary, the importance of the matter is quite proportionate to the
seriousness and ardour of the effort. The ultimate end of all love
affairs, whether they are played in sock or cothurnus, is really more
important than all other ends of human life, and is therefore quite worthy
of the profound seriousness with which every one pursues it. That which is
decided by it is nothing less than _the composition of the next
generation_. The _dramatis personæ_ who shall appear when we are withdrawn
are here determined, both as regards their existence and their nature, by
these frivolous love affairs. As the being, the _existentia_, of these
future persons is absolutely conditioned by our sexual impulse generally,
so their nature, _essentia_, is determined by the individual selection in
its satisfaction, _i.e._, by sexual love, and is in every respect
irrevocably fixed by this. This is the key of the problem: we shall arrive
at a more accurate knowledge of it in its application if we go through the
degrees of love, from the passing inclination to the vehement passion,
when we shall also recognise that the difference of these grades arises
from the degree of the individualisation of the choice.

The collective love affairs of the present generation taken together are
accordingly, of the whole human race, the serious _meditatio compositionis
generationis futuræ, e qua iterum pendent innumeræ generationes_. This
high importance of the matter, in which it is not a question of individual
weal or woe, as in all other matters, but of the existence and special
nature of the human race in future times, and therefore the will of the
individual appears at a higher power as the will of the species;—this it
is on which the pathetic and sublime elements in affairs of love depend,
which for thousands of years poets have never wearied of representing in
innumerable examples; because no theme can equal in interest this one,
which stands to all others which only concern the welfare of individuals
as the solid body to the surface, because it concerns the weal and woe of
the species. Just on this account, then, is it so difficult to impart
interest to a drama without the element of love, and, on the other hand,
this theme is never worn out even by daily use.

That which presents itself in the individual consciousness as sexual
impulse in general, without being directed towards a definite individual
of the other sex, is in itself, and apart from the phenomenon, simply the
will to live. But what appears in consciousness as a sexual impulse
directed to a definite individual is in itself the will to live as a
definitely determined individual. Now in this case the sexual impulse,
although in itself a subjective need, knows how to assume very skilfully
the mask of an objective admiration, and thus to deceive our
consciousness; for nature requires this stratagem to attain its ends. But
yet that in every case of falling in love, however objective and sublime
this admiration may appear, what alone is looked to is the production of
an individual of a definite nature is primarily confirmed by the fact that
the essential matter is not the reciprocation of love, but possession,
_i.e._, the physical enjoyment. The certainty of the former can therefore
by no means console us for the want of the latter; on the contrary, in
such a situation many a man has shot himself. On the other hand, persons
who are deeply in love, and can obtain no return of it, are contented with
possession, _i.e._, with the physical enjoyment. This is proved by all
forced marriages, and also by the frequent purchase of the favour of a
woman, in spite of her dislike, by large presents or other sacrifices,
nay, even by cases of rape. That this particular child shall be begotten
is, although unknown to the parties concerned, the true end of the whole
love story; the manner in which it is attained is a secondary
consideration. Now, however loudly persons of lofty and sentimental soul,
and especially those who are in love, may cry out here about the gross
realism of my view, they are yet in error. For is not the definite
determination of the individualities of the next generation a much higher
and more worthy end than those exuberant feelings and super‐sensible soap
bubbles of theirs? Nay, among earthly aims, can there be one which is
greater or more important? It alone corresponds to the profoundness with
which passionate love is felt, to the seriousness with which it appears,
and the importance which it attributes even to the trifling details of its
sphere and occasion. Only so far as this end is assumed as the true one do
the difficulties encountered, the infinite exertions and annoyances made
and endured for the attainment of the loved object, appear proportionate
to the matter. For it is the future generation, in its whole individual
determinateness, that presses into existence by means of those efforts and
toils. Nay, it is itself already active in that careful, definite, and
arbitrary choice for the satisfaction of the sexual impulse which we call
love. The growing inclination of two lovers is really already the will to
live of the new individual which they can and desire to produce; nay, even
in the meeting of their longing glances its new life breaks out, and
announces itself as a future individuality harmoniously and well composed.
They feel the longing for an actual union and fusing together into a
single being, in order to live on only as this; and this longing receives
its fulfilment in the child which is produced by them, as that in which
the qualities transmitted by them both, fused and united in one being,
live on. Conversely, the mutual, decided and persistent aversion between a
man and a maid is a sign that what they could produce would only be a
badly organised, in itself inharmonious and unhappy being. Hence there
lies a deeper meaning in the fact that Calderon, though he calls the
atrocious Semiramis the daughter of the air, yet introduces her as the
daughter of rape followed by the murder of the husband.

But, finally, what draws two individuals of different sex exclusively to
each other with such power is the will to live, which exhibits itself in
the whole species, and which here anticipates in the individual which
these two can produce an objectification of its nature answering to its
aims. This individual will have the will, or character, from the father,
the intellect from the mother, and the corporisation from both; yet, for
the most part, the figure will take more after the father, the size after
the mother,—according to the law which comes out in the breeding of
hybrids among the brutes, and principally depends upon the fact that the
size of the fœtus must conform to the size of the uterus. Just as
inexplicable as the quite special individuality of any man, which is
exclusively peculiar to him, is also the quite special and individual
passion of two lovers; indeed at bottom the two are one and the same: the
former is _explicite_ what the latter was _implicite_. The moment at which
the parents begin to love each other—to fancy each other, as the very
happy English expression has it—is really to be regarded as the first
appearance of a new individual and the true _punctum saliens_ of its life,
and, as has been said, in the meeting and fixing of their longing glances
there appears the first germ of the new being, which certainly, like all
germs, is generally crushed out. This new individual is to a certain
extent a new (Platonic) Idea; and now, as all Ideas strive with the
greatest vehemence to enter the phenomenal world, eagerly seizing for this
end upon the matter which the law of causality divides among them all, so
also does this particular Idea of a human individuality strive with the
greatest eagerness and vehemence towards its realisation in the
phenomenon. This eagerness and vehemence is just the passion of the two
future parents for each other. It has innumerable degrees, the two
extremes of which may at any rate be described as Αφροδιτη πανδημος and
ουρανια; in its nature, however, it is everywhere the same. On the other
hand, it will be in degree so much the more powerful the more
_individualised_ it is; that is, the more the loved individual is
exclusively suited, by virtue of all his or her parts and qualities, to
satisfy the desire of the lover and the need established by his or her own
individuality. What is really in question here will become clear in the
further course of our exposition. Primarily and essentially the
inclination of love is directed to health, strength, and beauty,
consequently also to youth; because the will first of all seeks to exhibit
the specific character of the human species as the basis of all
individuality: ordinary amorousness (Αφροδιτη πανδημος) does not go much
further. To these, then, more special claims link themselves on, which we
shall investigate in detail further on, and with which, when they see
satisfaction before them, the passion increases. But the highest degrees
of this passion spring from that suitableness of two individualities to
each other on account of which the will, _i.e._, the character, of the
father and the intellect of the mother, in their connection, make up
precisely that individual towards which the will to live in general which
exhibits itself in the whole species feels a longing proportionate to this
its magnitude, and which therefore exceeds the measure of a mortal heart,
and the motives of which, in the same way, lie beyond the sphere of the
individual intellect. This is thus the soul of a true and great passion.
Now the more perfect is the mutual adaptation of two individuals to each
other in each of the many respects which have further to be considered,
the stronger will be their mutual passion. Since there do not exist two
individuals exactly alike, there must be for each particular man a
particular woman—always with reference to what is to be produced—who
corresponds most perfectly. A really passionate love is as rare as the
accident of these two meeting. Since, however, the possibility of such a
love is present in every one, the representations of it in the works of
the poets are comprehensible to us. Just because the passion of love
really turns about that which is to be produced, and its qualities, and
because its kernel lies here, a friendship without any admixture of sexual
love can exist between two young and good‐looking persons of different
sex, on account of the agreement of their disposition, character, and
mental tendencies; nay, as regards sexual love there may even be a certain
aversion between them. The reason of this is to be sought in the fact that
a child produced by them would have physical or mental qualities which
were inharmonious; in short, its existence and nature would not answer the
ends of the will to live as it exhibits itself in the species. On the
other hand, in the case of difference of disposition, character, and
mental tendency, and the dislike, nay, enmity, proceeding from this,
sexual love may yet arise and exist; when it then blinds us to all that;
and if it here leads to marriage it will be a very unhappy one.

Let us now set about the more thorough investigation of the matter. Egoism
is so deeply rooted a quality of all individuals in general, that in order
to rouse the activity of an individual being egoistical ends are the only
ones upon which we can count with certainty. Certainly the species has an
earlier, closer, and greater claim upon the individual than the perishable
individuality itself. Yet when the individual has to act, and even make
sacrifices for the continuance and quality of the species, the importance
of the matter cannot be made so comprehensible to his intellect, which is
calculated merely with regard to individual ends, as to have its
proportionate effect. Therefore in such a case nature can only attain its
ends by implanting a certain illusion in the individual, on account of
which that which is only a good for the species appears to him as a good
for himself, so that when he serves the species he imagines he is serving
himself; in which process a mere chimera, which vanishes immediately
afterwards, floats before him, and takes the place of a real thing as a
motive. This illusion is instinct. In the great majority of cases this is
to be regarded as the sense of the species, which presents what is of
benefit to _it_ to the will. Since, however, the will has here become
individual, it must be so deluded that it apprehends through the sense of
the individual what the sense of the species presents to it, thus imagines
it is following individual ends while in truth it is pursuing ends which
are merely general (taking this word in its strictest sense). The external
phenomenon of instinct we can best observe in the brutes where its rôle is
most important; but it is in ourselves alone that we arrive at a knowledge
of its internal process, as of everything internal. Now it is certainly
supposed that man has almost no instinct; at any rate only this, that the
new‐born babe seeks for and seizes the breast of its mother. But, in fact,
we have a very definite, distinct, and complicated instinct, that of the
selection of another individual for the satisfaction of the sexual
impulse, a selection which is so fine, so serious, and so arbitrary. With
this satisfaction in itself, _i.e._, so far as it is a sensual pleasure
resting upon a pressing want of the individual, the beauty or ugliness of
the other individual has nothing to do. Thus the regard for this which is
yet pursued with such ardour, together with the careful selection which
springs from it, is evidently connected, not with the chooser
himself—although he imagines it is so—but with the true end, that which is
to be produced, which is to receive the type of the species as purely and
correctly as possible. Through a thousand physical accidents and moral
aberrations there arise a great variety of deteriorations of the human
form; yet its true type, in all its parts, is always again established:
and this takes place under the guidance of the sense of beauty, which
always directs the sexual impulse, and without which this sinks to the
level of a disgusting necessity. Accordingly, in the first place, every
one will decidedly prefer and eagerly desire the most beautiful
individuals, _i.e._, those in whom the character of the species is most
purely impressed; but, secondly, each one will specially regard as
beautiful in another individual those perfections which he himself lacks,
nay, even those imperfections which are the opposite of his own. Hence,
for example, little men love big women, fair persons like dark, &c. &c.
The delusive ecstasy which seizes a man at the sight of a woman whose
beauty is suited to him, and pictures to him a union with her as the
highest good, is just the _sense of the species_, which, recognising the
distinctly expressed stamp of the same, desires to perpetuate it with this
individual. Upon this decided inclination to beauty depends the
maintenance of the type of the species: hence it acts with such great
power. We shall examine specially further on the considerations which it
follows. Thus what guides man here is really an instinct which is directed
to doing the best for the species, while the man himself imagines that he
only seeks the heightening of his own pleasure. In fact, we have in this
an instructive lesson concerning the inner nature of all instinct, which,
as here, almost always sets the individual in motion for the good of the
species. For clearly the pains with which an insect seeks out a particular
flower, or fruit, or dung, or flesh, or, as in the case of the
ichneumonidæ, the larva of another insect, in order to deposit its eggs
there only, and to attain this end shrinks neither from trouble nor
danger, is thoroughly analogous to the pains with which for his sexual
satisfaction a man carefully chooses a woman with definite qualities which
appeal to him individually, and strives so eagerly after her that in order
to attain this end he often sacrifices his own happiness in life, contrary
to all reason, by a foolish marriage, by love affairs which cost him
wealth, honour, and life, even by crimes such as adultery or rape, all
merely in order to serve the species in the most efficient way, although
at the cost of the individual, in accordance with the will of nature which
is everywhere sovereign. Instinct, in fact, is always an act which seems
to be in accordance with the conception of an end, and yet is entirely
without such a conception. Nature implants it wherever the acting
individual is incapable of understanding the end, or would be unwilling to
pursue it. Therefore, as a rule, it is given only to the brutes, and
indeed especially to the lowest of them which have least understanding;
but almost only in the case we are here considering it is also given to
man, who certainly could understand the end, but would not pursue it with
the necessary ardour, that is, even at the expense of his individual
welfare. Thus here, as in the case of all instinct, the truth assumes the
form of an illusion, in order to act upon the will. It is a voluptuous
illusion which leads the man to believe he will find a greater pleasure in
the arms of a woman whose beauty appeals to him than in those of any
other; or which indeed, exclusively directed to a single individual,
firmly convinces him that the possession of her will ensure him excessive
happiness. Therefore he imagines he is taking trouble and making
sacrifices for his own pleasure, while he does so merely for the
maintenance of the regular type of the species, or else a quite special
individuality, which can only come from these parents, is to attain to
existence. The character of instinct is here so perfectly present, thus an
action which seems to be in accordance with the conception of an end, and
yet is entirely without such a conception, that he who is drawn by that
illusion often abhors the end which alone guides it, procreation, and
would like to hinder it; thus it is in the case of almost all illicit love
affairs. In accordance with the character of the matter which has been
explained, every lover will experience a marvellous disillusion after the
pleasure he has at last attained, and will wonder that what was so
longingly desired accomplishes nothing more than every other sexual
satisfaction; so that he does not see himself much benefited by it. That
wish was related to all his other wishes as the species is related to the
individual, thus as the infinite to the finite. The satisfaction, on the
other hand, is really only for the benefit of the species, and thus does
not come within the consciousness of the individual, who, inspired by the
will of the species, here served an end with every kind of sacrifice,
which was not his own end at all. Hence, then, every lover, after the
ultimate consummation of the great work, finds himself cheated; for the
illusion has vanished by means of which the individual was here the dupe
of the species, Accordingly Plato very happily says: “ἡδονη ἁπαντων
αλαζονεστατον” (_voluptas ommlum maxime vaniloqua_), _Phileb._ 319.

But all this reflects light on the instincts and mechanical tendencies of
the brutes. They also are, without doubt, involved in a kind of illusion,
which deceives them with the prospect of their own pleasure, while they
work so laboriously and with so much self‐denial for the species, the bird
builds its nest, the insect seeks the only suitable place for its eggs, or
even hunts for prey which, unsuited for its own enjoyment, must be laid
beside the eggs as food for the future larvæ, the bees, the wasps, the
ants apply themselves to their skilful dwellings and highly complicated
economy. They are all guided with certainty by an illusion, which conceals
the service of the species under the mask of an egotistical end. This is
probably the only way to comprehend the inner or subjective process that
lies at the foundation of the manifestations of instinct. Outwardly,
however, or objectively, we find in those creatures which are to a large
extent governed by instinct, especially in insects, a preponderance of the
ganglion system, _i.e._, the _subjective_ nervous system, over the
objective or cerebral system; from which we must conclude that they are
moved, not so much by objective, proper apprehension as by subjective
ideas exciting desire, which arise from the influence of the ganglion
system upon the brain, and accordingly by a kind of illusion; and this
will be the _physiological_ process in the case of all instinct. For the
sake of illustration I will mention as another example of instinct in the
human species, although a weak one, the capricious appetite of women who
are pregnant. It seems to arise from the fact that the nourishment of the
embryo sometimes requires a special or definite modification of the blood
which flows to it, upon which the food which produces such a modification
at once presents itself to the pregnant woman as an object of ardent
longing, thus here also an illusion arises. Accordingly woman has one
instinct more than man; and the ganglion system is also much more
developed in the woman. That man has fewer instincts than the brutes and
that even these few can be easily led astray, may be explained from the
great preponderance of the brain in his case. The sense of beauty which
instinctively guides the selection for the satisfaction of sexual passion
is led astray when it degenerates into the tendency to pederasty;
analogous to the fact that the blue‐bottle (_Musca vomitoria_), instead of
depositing its eggs, according to instinct, in putrefying flesh, lays them
in the blossom of the _Arum dracunculus_, deceived by the cadaverous smell
of this plant.

Now that an instinct entirely directed to that which is to be produced
lies at the foundation of all sexual love will receive complete
confirmation from the fuller analysis of it, which we cannot therefore
avoid. First of all we have to remark here that by nature man is inclined
to inconstancy in love, woman to constancy. The love of the man sinks
perceptibly from the moment it has obtained satisfaction; almost every
other woman charms him more than the one he already possesses; he longs
for variety. The love of the woman, on the other hand, increases just from
that moment. This is a consequence of the aim of nature which is directed
to the maintenance, and therefore to the greatest possible increase, of
the species. The man can easily beget over a hundred children a year; the
woman, on the contrary, with however many men, can yet only bring one
child a year into the world (leaving twin births out of account).
Therefore the man always looks about after other women; the woman, again,
sticks firmly to the one man; for nature moves her, instinctively and
without reflection, to retain the nourisher and protector of the future
offspring. Accordingly faithfulness in marriage is with the man
artificial, with the woman it is natural, and thus adultery on the part of
the woman is much less pardonable than on the part of the man, both
objectively on account of the consequences and also subjectively on
account of its unnaturalness.

But in order to be thorough and gain full conviction that the pleasure in
the other sex, however objective it may seem to us, is yet merely
disguised instinct, _i.e._, sense of the species, which strives to
maintain its type, we must investigate more fully the considerations which
guide us in this pleasure, and enter into the details of this, rarely as
these details which will have to be mentioned here may have figured in a
philosophical work before. These considerations divide themselves into
those which directly concern the type of the species, _i.e._, beauty,
those which are concerned with physical qualities, and lastly, those which
are merely relative, which arise from the requisite correction or
neutralisation of the one‐sided qualities and abnormities of the two
individuals by each other. We shall go through them one by one.

The first consideration which guides our choice and inclination is age. In
general we accept the age from the years when menstruation begins to those
when it ceases, yet we give the decided preference to the period from the
eighteenth to the twenty‐eighth year. Outside of those years, on the other
hand, no woman can attract us: an old woman, _i.e._, one who no longer
menstruates, excites our aversion. Youth without beauty has still always
attraction; beauty without youth has none. Clearly the unconscious end
which guides us here is the possibility of reproduction in general:
therefore every individual loses attraction for the opposite sex in
proportion as he or she is removed from the fittest period for begetting
or conceiving. The second consideration is that of health. Acute diseases
only temporarily disturb us, chronic diseases or cachexia repel us,
because they are transmitted to the child. The third consideration is the
skeleton, because it is the basis of the type of the species. Next to age
and disease nothing repels us so much as a deformed figure; even the most
beautiful face cannot atone for it; on the contrary, even the ugliest face
when accompanied by a straight figure is unquestionably preferred.
Further, we feel every disproportion of the skeleton most strongly; for
example, a stunted, dumpy, short‐boned figure, and many such; also a
halting gait, where it is not the result of an extraneous accident. On the
other hand, a strikingly beautiful figure can make up for all defects: it
enchants us. Here also comes in the great value which all attach to the
smallness of the feet: it depends upon the fact that they are an essential
characteristic of the species, for no animal has the tarsus and the
metatarsus taken together so small as man, which accords with his upright
walk; he is a plantigrade. Accordingly Jesus Sirach also says (xxvi. 23,
according to the revised translation by Kraus): “A woman with a straight
figure and beautiful feet is like columns of gold in sockets of silver.”
The teeth also are important; because they are essential for nourishment
and quite specially hereditary. The fourth consideration is a certain
fulness of flesh; thus a predominance of the vegetative function, of
plasticity; because this promises abundant nourishment for the fœtus;
hence great leanness repels us in a striking degree. A full female bosom
exerts an exceptional charm upon the male sex; because, standing in direct
connection with the female functions of propagation, it promises abundant
nourishment to the new‐born child. On the other hand, excessively fat
women excite our disgust: the cause is that this indicates atrophy of the
uterus, thus barrenness; which is not known by the head, but by instinct.
The last consideration of all is the beauty of the face. Here also before
everything else the bones are considered; therefore we look principally
for a beautiful nose, and a short turned‐up nose spoils everything. A
slight inclination of the nose downwards or upwards has decided the
happiness in life of innumerable maidens, and rightly so, for it concerns
the type of the species. A small mouth, by means of small maxillæ, is very
essential as specifically characteristic of the human countenance, as
distinguished from the muzzle of the brutes. A receding or, as it were,
cut‐away chin is especially disagreeable, because _mentum prominulum_ is
an exclusive characteristic of our species. Finally comes the regard for
beautiful eyes and forehead; it is connected with the psychical qualities,
especially the intellectual which are inherited from the mother.

The unconscious considerations which, on the other hand, the inclination
of women follows naturally cannot be so exactly assigned. In general the
following may be asserted: They give the preference to the age from thirty
to thirty‐five years, especially over that of youths who yet really
present the height of human beauty. The reason is that they are not guided
by taste but by instinct, which recognises in the age named the acme of
reproductive power. In general they look less to beauty, especially of the
face. It is as if they took it upon themselves alone to impart this to the
child. They are principally won by the strength of the man, and the
courage which is connected with this; for these promise the production of
stronger children, and also a brave protector for them. Every physical
defect of the man, every divergence from the type, may with regard to the
child be removed by the woman in reproduction, through the fact that she
herself is blameless in these respects, or even exceeds in the opposite
direction. Only those qualities of the man have to be excepted which are
peculiar to his sex, and which therefore the mother cannot give to the
child: such are the manly structure of the skeleton, broad shoulders,
slender hips, straight bones, muscular power, courage, beard, &c. Hence it
arises that women often love ugly men, but never an unmanly man, because
they cannot neutralise his defects.

The second class of the considerations which lie at the foundation of
sexual love are those which regard psychical qualities. Here we shall find
that the woman is throughout attracted by the qualities of the heart or
character in the man, as those which are inherited from the father. The
woman is won especially by firmness of will, decision, and courage, and
perhaps also by honesty and good‐heartedness. On the other hand,
intellectual gifts exercise no direct and instinctive power over her, just
because they are not inherited from the father. Want of understanding does
a man no harm with women; indeed extraordinary mental endowment, or even
genius, might sooner influence them unfavourably as an abnormity. Hence
one often sees an ugly, stupid, and coarse fellow get the better of a
cultured, able, and amiable man with women. Also marriages from love are
sometimes consummated between natures which are mentally very different:
for example, the man is rough, powerful, and stupid; the woman tenderly
sensitive, delicately thoughtful, cultured, æsthetic, &c.; or the man is a
genius and learned, the woman a goose:


    “_Sic visum Veneri; cui placet impares_
    _Formas atque animos sub juga aënea_
          _Sævo mittere cum joco._”


The reason is, that here quite other considerations than the intellectual
predominate,—those of instinct. In marriage what is looked to is not
intellectual entertainment, but the production of children: it is a bond
of the heart, not of the head. It is a vain and absurd pretence when women
assert that they have fallen in love with the mind of a man, or else it is
the over‐straining of a degenerate nature. Men, on the other hand, are not
determined in their instinctive love by the qualities of character of the
woman; hence so many Socrateses have found their Xantippes; for example,
Shakspeare, Albrecht Dürer, Byron, &c. The intellectual qualities,
however, certainly influence here, because they are inherited from the
mother. Yet their influence is easily outweighed by that of physical
beauty, which acts directly, as concerning a more essential point.
However, it happens, either from the feeling or the experience of that
influence, that mothers have their daughters taught the fine arts,
languages, and so forth in order to make them attractive to men, whereby
they wish to assist the intellect by artificial means, just as, in case of
need, they assist the hips and the bosom. Observe that here we are
speaking throughout only of that entirely immediate instinctive attraction
from which alone love properly so called grows. That a woman of culture
and understanding prizes understanding and intellect in a man, that a man
from rational reflection should test and have regard to the character of
his bride, has nothing to do with the matter with which we are dealing
here. Such things lie at the bottom of a rational choice in marriage, but
not of the passionate love, which is our theme.

Hitherto I have only taken account of the _absolute_ considerations,
_i.e._, those which hold good for every one: I come now to the _relative_
considerations, which are individual, because in their case what is looked
to is the rectification of the type of the species, which is already
defectively presented, the correction of the divergences from it which the
chooser’s own person already bears in itself, and thus the return to the
pure presentation of the type. Here, then, each one loves what he lacks.
Starting from the individual constitution, and directed to the individual
constitution, the choice which rests upon such relative considerations is
much more definite, decided, and exclusive than that which proceeds merely
from the absolute considerations; therefore the source of really
passionate love will lie, as a rule, in these relative considerations, and
only that of the ordinary and slighter inclination in the absolute
considerations. Accordingly it is not generally precisely correct and
perfect beauties that kindle great passions. For such a truly passionate
inclination to arise something is required which can only be expressed by
a chemical metaphor: two persons must neutralise each other, like acid and
alkali, to a neutral salt. The essential conditions demanded for this are
the following. First: all sex is one‐sided. This one‐sidedness is more
distinctly expressed in one individual than in another; therefore in every
individual it can be better supplemented and neutralised by one than by
another individual of the opposite sex, for each one requires a one‐
sidedness which is the opposite of his own to complete the type of
humanity in the new individual that is to be produced, the constitution of
which is always the goal towards which all tends. Physiologists know that
manhood and womanhood admit of innumerable degrees, through which the
former sinks to the repulsive gynander and hypospadæus, and the latter
rises to the graceful androgyne; from both sides complete hermaphrodism
can be reached, at which point stand those individuals who, holding the
exact mean between the two sexes, can be attributed to neither, and
consequently are unfit to propagate the species. Accordingly, the
neutralisation of two individualities by each other, of which we are
speaking, demands that the definite degree of _his_ manhood shall exactly
correspond to the definite degree of _her_ womanhood; so that the one‐
sidedness of each exactly annuls that of the other. Accordingly, the most
manly man will seek the most womanly woman, and _vice versâ_, and in the
same way every individual will seek another corresponding to him or her in
degree of sex. Now how far the required relation exists between two
individuals is instinctively felt by them, and, together with the other
relative considerations, lies at the foundation of the higher degrees of
love. While, therefore, the lovers speak pathetically of the harmony of
their souls, the heart of the matter is for the most part the agreement or
suitableness pointed out here with reference to the being which is to be
produced and its perfection, and which is also clearly of much more
importance than the harmony of their souls, which often, not long after
the marriage, resolves itself into a howling discord. Now, here come in
the further relative considerations, which depend upon the fact that every
one endeavours to neutralise by means of the other his weaknesses,
defects, and deviations from the type, so that they will not perpetuate
themselves, or even develop into complete abnormities in the child which
is to be produced. The weaker a man is as regards muscular power the more
will he seek for strong women; and the woman on her side will do the same.
But since now a less degree of muscular power is natural and regular in
the woman, women as a rule will give the preference to strong men.
Further, the size is an important consideration. Little men have a decided
inclination for big women, and _vice versâ_; and indeed in a little man
the preference for big women will be so much the more passionate if he
himself was begotten by a big father, and only remains little through the
influence of his mother; because he has inherited from his father the
vascular system and its energy, which was able to supply a large body with
blood. If, on the other hand, his father and grandfather were both little,
that inclination will make itself less felt. At the foundation of the
aversion of a big woman to big men lies the intention of nature to avoid
too big a race, if with the strength which _this_ woman could impart to
them they would be too weak to live long. If, however, such a woman
selects a big husband, perhaps for the sake of being more presentable in
society, then, as a rule, her offspring will have to atone for her folly.
Further, the consideration as to the complexion is very decided. Blondes
prefer dark persons, or brunettes; but the latter seldom prefer the
former. The reason is, that fair hair and blue eyes are in themselves a
variation from the type, almost an abnormity, analogous to white mice, or
at least to grey horses. In no part of the world, not even in the vicinity
of the pole, are they indigenous, except in Europe, and are clearly of
Scandinavian origin. I may here express my opinion in passing that the
white colour of the skin is not natural to man, but that by nature he has
a black or brown skin, like our forefathers the Hindus; that consequently
a white man has never originally sprung from the womb of nature, and that
thus there is no such thing as a white race, much as this is talked of,
but every white man is a faded or bleached one. Forced into the strange
world, where he only exists like an exotic plant, and like this requires
in winter the hothouse, in the course of thousands of years man became
white. The gipsies, an Indian race which immigrated only about four
centuries ago, show the transition from the complexion of the Hindu to our
own.(38) Therefore in sexual love nature strives to return to dark hair
and brown eyes as the primitive type; but the white colour of the skin has
become a second nature, though not so that the brown of the Hindu repels
us. Finally, each one also seeks in the particular parts of the body the
corrective of his own defects and aberrations, and does so the more
decidedly the more important the part is. Therefore snub‐nosed individuals
have an inexpressible liking for hook‐noses, parrot‐faces; and it is the
same with regard to all other parts. Men with excessively slim, long
bodies and limbs can find beauty in a body which is even beyond measure
stumpy and short. The considerations with regard to temperament act in an
analogous manner. Each will prefer the temperament opposed to his own; yet
only in proportion as his one is decided. Whoever is himself in some
respect very perfect does not indeed seek and love imperfection in this
respect, but is yet more easily reconciled to it than others; because he
himself insures the children against great imperfection of this part. For
example, whoever is himself very white will not object to a yellow
complexion; but whoever has the latter will find dazzling whiteness
divinely beautiful. The rare case in which a man falls in love with a
decidedly ugly woman occurs when, besides the exact harmony of the degree
of sex explained above, the whole of her abnormities are precisely the
opposite, and thus the corrective, of his. The love is then wont to reach
a high degree.

The profound seriousness with which we consider and ponder each bodily
part of the woman, and she on her part does the same, the critical
scrupulosity with which we inspect a woman who begins to please us, the
capriciousness of our choice, the keen attention with which the bridegroom
observes his betrothed, his carefulness not to be deceived in any part,
and the great value which he attaches to every excess or defect in the
essential parts, all this is quite in keeping with the importance of the
end. For the new being to be produced will have to bear through its whole
life a similar part. For example, if the woman is only a little crooked,
this may easily impart to her son a hump, and so in all the rest.
Consciousness of all this certainly does not exist. On the contrary, every
one imagines that he makes that careful selection in the interest of his
own pleasure (which at bottom cannot be interested in it at all); but he
makes it precisely as, under the presupposition of his own corporisation,
is most in keeping with the interest of the species, to maintain the type
of which as pure as possible is the secret task. The individual acts here,
without knowing it, by order of something higher than itself, the species;
hence the importance which it attaches to things which may and indeed must
be, indifferent to itself as such. There is something quite peculiar in
the profound unconscious seriousness with which two young persons of
opposite sex who see each other for the first time regard each other, in
the searching and penetrating glance they cast at one another, in the
careful review which all the features and parts of their respective
persons have to endure. This investigating and examining is the
_meditation of the genius of the species_ on the individual which is
possible through these two and the combination of its qualities. According
to the result of this meditation is the degree of their pleasure in each
other and their yearning for each other. This yearning, even after it has
attained a considerable degree, may be suddenly extinguished again by the
discovery of something that had previously remained unobserved. In this
way, then, the genius of the species meditates concerning the coming race
in all who are capable of reproduction. The nature of this race is the
great work with which Cupid is occupied, unceasingly active, speculating,
and pondering. In comparison with the importance of his great affair,
which concerns the species and all coming races, the affairs of
individuals in their whole ephemeral totality are very trifling; therefore
he is always ready to sacrifice these regardlessly. For he is related to
them as an immortal to mortals, and his interests to theirs as infinite to
finite. Thus, in the consciousness of managing affairs of a higher kind
than all those which only concern individual weal or woe, he carries them
on sublimely, undisturbed in the midst of the tumult of war, or in the
bustle of business life, or during the raging of a plague, and pursues
them even into the seclusion of the cloister.

We have seen in the above that the intensity of love increases with its
individualisation, because we have shown that the physical qualities of
two individuals can be such that, for the purpose of restoring as far as
possible the type of the species, the one is quite specially and perfectly
the completion or supplement of the other, which therefore desires it
exclusively. Already in this case a considerable passion arises, which at
once gains a nobler and more sublime appearance from the fact that it is
directed to an individual object, and to it alone; thus, as it were,
arises at the special order of the species. For the opposite reason, the
mere sexual impulse is ignoble, because without individualisation it is
directed to all, and strives to maintain the species only as regards
quantity, with little respect to quality. But the individualising, and
with it the intensity of the love, can reach so high a degree that without
its satisfaction all the good things in the world, and even life itself,
lose their value. It is then a wish which attains a vehemence that no
other wish ever reaches, and therefore makes one ready for any sacrifice,
and in case its fulfilment remains unalterably denied, may lead to madness
or suicide. At the foundation of such an excessive passion there must lie,
besides the considerations we have shown above, still others which we have
not thus before our eyes. We must therefore assume that here not only the
corporisation, but the _will_ of the man and the _intellect_ of the woman
are specially suitable to each other, in consequence of which a perfectly
definite individual can be produced by them alone, whose existence the
genius of the species has here in view, for reasons which are inaccessible
to us, since they lie in the nature of the thing in itself. Or, to speak
more exactly, the will to live desires here to objectify itself in a
perfectly definite individual, which can only be produced by this father
with this mother. This metaphysical desire of the will in itself has
primarily no other sphere of action in the series of existences than the
hearts of the future parents, which accordingly are seized with this
ardent longing, and now imagine themselves to desire on their own account
what really for the present has only a purely metaphysical end, _i.e._, an
end which lies outside the series of actually existing things. Thus it is
the ardent longing to enter existence of the future individual which has
first become possible here, a longing which proceeds from the primary
source of all being, and exhibits itself in the phenomenal world as the
lofty passion of the future parents for each other, paying little regard
to all that is outside itself; in fact, as an unparalleled illusion, on
account of which such a lover would give up all the good things of this
world to enjoy the possession of this woman, who yet can really give him
nothing more than any other. That yet it is just this possession that is
kept in view here is seen from the fact that even this lofty passion, like
all others, is extinguished in its enjoyment—to the great astonishment of
those who are possessed by it. It also becomes extinct when, through the
woman turning out barren (which, according to Hufeland, may arise from
nineteen accidental constitutional defects), the real metaphysical end is
frustrated; just as daily happens in millions of germs trampled under
foot, in which yet the same metaphysical life principle strives for
existence; for which there is no other consolation than that an infinity
of space, time, and matter, and consequently inexhaustible opportunity for
return, stands open to the will to live.

The view which is here expounded must once have been present to the mind
of Theophrastus Paracelsus, even if only in a fleeting form, though he has
not handled this subject, and my whole system of thought was foreign to
him; for, in quite a different context and in his desultory manner, he
wrote the following remarkable words: “_Hi sunt, quos Deus copulavit, ut
eam, quæ fuit Uriæ et David; quamvis ex diametro (sic enim sibi humana
mens persuadebat) cum justo et legitimo matrimonio pugnaret hoc.... sed
propter Salomonem_, QUI ALIUNDE NASCI NON POTUIT, _nisi ex Bathseba,
conjuncto David semine, quamvis meretrice, conjunxit eos Deus_” (_De vita
longa_, i. 5).

The longing of love, the ἱμερος, which the poets of all ages are
unceasingly occupied with expressing in innumerable forms, and do not
exhaust the subject, nay, cannot do it justice, this longing, which
attaches the idea of endless happiness to the possession of a particular
woman, and unutterable pain to the thought that this possession cannot be
attained,—this longing and this pain cannot obtain their material from the
wants of an ephemeral individual; but they are the sighs of the spirit of
the species, which sees here, to be won or lost, a means for the
attainment of its ends which cannot be replaced, and therefore groans
deeply. The species alone has infinite life, and therefore is capable of
infinite desires, infinite satisfaction, and infinite pain. But these are
here imprisoned in the narrow breast of a mortal. No wonder, then, if such
a breast seems like to burst, and can find no expression for the
intimations of infinite rapture or infinite misery with which it is
filled. This, then, affords the materials for all erotic poetry of a
sublime kind, which accordingly rises into transcendent metaphors, soaring
above all that is earthly. This is the theme of Petrarch, the material for
the St. Preuxs, Werthers, and Jacopo Ortis, who apart from it could not be
understood nor explained. For that infinite esteem for the loved one
cannot rest upon some spiritual excellences, or in general upon any
objective, real qualities of hers; for one thing, because she is often not
sufficiently well known to the lover, as was the case with Petrarch. The
spirit of the species alone can see at one glance what _worth_ she has for
_it_, for its ends. And great passions also arise, as a rule, at the first
glance:


    “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”

    —SHAKSPEARE, “As You Like it,” iii. 5.


In this regard a passage in the romance of “_Guzman de Alfarache_,” by
Mateo Aleman, which has been famous for 250 years, is remarkable: “_No es
necessario, para que uno ame, que pase distancia de tiempo, que siga
discurso, ni haga eleccion, sino que con aquella primera y sola vista,
concurran juntamente cierta correspondencia ó consonancia, ó lo que acá __
solemos vulgarmente decir, una confrontacion de sangre, a que por
particular influxo suelen mover las estrellas._” (For one to love it is
not necessary that much time should pass, that he should set about
reflecting and make a choice; but only that at that first and only glance
a certain correspondence and consonance should be encountered on both
sides, or that which in common life we are wont to call a _sympathy of the
blood_, and to which a special influence of the stars generally impels),
P. ii. lib. iii. c. 5. Accordingly the loss of the loved one, through a
rival, or through death, is also for the passionate lover a pain that
surpasses all others, just because it is of a transcendental kind, since
it affects him not merely as an individual, but attacks him in his
_essentia æterna_, in the life of the species into whose special will and
service he was here called. Hence jealousy is such torment and so grim,
and the surrender of the loved one is the greatest of all sacrifices. A
hero is ashamed of all lamentations except the lamentation of love,
because in this it is not he but the species that laments. In Calderon’s
“Zenobia the Great” there is in the first act a scene between Zenobia and
Decius in which the latter says:


    “_Cielos, luego tu me quieres? Perdiera cien mil victorias,
    Volviérame_,” &c.

    (Heaven! then thou lovest me? For this I would lose a thousand
    victories, would turn about, &c.)


Here, honour, which hitherto outweighed every interest, is beaten out of
the field as soon as sexual love, _i.e._, the interest of the species,
comes into play, and sees before it a decided advantage; for this is
infinitely superior to every interest of mere individuals, however
important it may be. Therefore to this alone honour, duty, and fidelity
yield after they have withstood every other temptation, including the
threat of death. In the same way we find in private life that
conscientiousness is in no point so rare as in this: it is here sometimes
set aside even by persons who are otherwise honest and just, and adultery
is recklessly committed when passionate love, _i.e._, the interest of the
species, has mastered them. It even seems as if in this they believed
themselves to be conscious of a higher right than the interests of
individuals can ever confer; just because they act in the interest of the
species. In this reference Chamfort’s remark is worth noticing: “_Quand un
homme et une femme ont l’un pour l’autre une passion violente, il me
semble toujours que quelque soient les obstacles qui les séparent, un
mari, des parens, etc., les deux amans sont l’un a l’autre, de par la
Nature, qu’ils s’appartiennent de droit divin, malgré les lois et les
conventions humaines_.” Whoever is inclined to be incensed at this should
be referred to the remarkable indulgence which the Saviour shows in the
Gospel to the woman taken in adultery, in that He also assumes the same
guilt in the case of all present. From this point of view the greater part
of the “Decameron” appears as mere mocking and jeering of the genius of
the species at the rights and interests of individuals which it tramples
under foot. Differences of rank and all similar circumstances, when they
oppose the union of passionate lovers, are set aside with the same ease
and treated as nothing by the genius of the species, which, pursuing its
ends that concern innumerable generations, blows off as spray such human
laws and scruples. From the same deep‐lying grounds, when the ends of
passionate love are concerned, every danger is willingly encountered, and
those who are otherwise timorous here become courageous. In plays and
novels also we see, with ready sympathy, the young persons who are
fighting the battle of their love, _i.e._, the interest of the species,
gain the victory over their elders, who are thinking only of the welfare
of the individuals. For the efforts of the lovers appear to us as much
more important, sublime, and therefore right, than anything that can be
opposed to them, as the species is more important than the individual.
Accordingly the fundamental theme of almost all comedies is the appearance
of the genius of the species with its aims, which are opposed to the
personal interest of the individuals presented, and therefore threaten to
undermine their happiness. As a rule it attains its end, which, as in
accordance with poetical justice, satisfies the spectator, because he
feels that the aims of the species are much to be preferred to those of
the individual. Therefore at the conclusion he leaves the victorious
lovers quite confidently, because he shares with them the illusion that
they have founded their own happiness, while they have rather sacrificed
it to the choice of the species, against the will and foresight of their
elders. It has been attempted in single, abnormal comedies to reverse the
matter and bring about the happiness of the individuals at the cost of the
aims of the species; but then the spectator feels the pain which the
genius of the species suffers, and is not consoled by the advantages which
are thereby assured to the individuals. As examples of this kind two very
well‐known little pieces occur to me: “_La reine de 16 ans_,” and “_Le
marriage de raison_.” In tragedies containing love affairs, since the aims
of the species are frustrated, the lovers who were its tools, generally
perish also; for example, in “Romeo and Juliet,” “Tancred,” “Don Carlos,”
“Wallenstein,” “The Bride of Messina,” and many others.

The love of a man often affords comical, and sometimes also tragical
phenomena; both because, taken possession of by the spirit of the species,
he is now ruled by this, and no longer belongs to himself: his conduct
thereby becomes unsuited to the individual. That which in the higher
grades of love imparts such a tinge of poetry and sublimeness to his
thoughts, which gives them even a transcendental and hyperphysical
tendency, on account of which he seems to lose sight altogether of his
real, very physical aim, is at bottom this, that he is now inspired by the
spirit of the species whose affairs are infinitely more important than all
those which concern mere individuals, in order to find under the special
directions of this spirit the whole existence of an indefinitely long
posterity with this individual and exactly determined nature, which it can
receive only from him as father and the woman he loves as mother, and
which otherwise could never, _as such_, attain to existence, while the
objectification of the will to live expressly demands this existence. It
is the feeling that he is acting in affairs of such transcendent
importance which raises the lover so high above everything earthly, nay,
even above himself, and gives such a hyperphysical clothing to his very
physical desires, that love becomes a poetical episode even in the life of
the most prosaic man; in which last case the matter sometimes assumes a
comical aspect. That mandate of the will which objectifies itself in the
species exhibits itself in the consciousness of the lover under the mask
of the anticipation of an infinite blessedness which is to be found for
him in the union with this female individual. Now, in the highest grades
of love this chimera becomes so radiant that if it cannot be attained life
itself loses all charm, and now appears so joyless, hollow, and
insupportable that the disgust at it even overcomes the fear of death, so
that it is then sometimes voluntarily cut short. The will of such a man
has been caught in the vortex of the will of the species, or this has
obtained such a great predominance over the individual will that if such a
man cannot be effective in the first capacity, he disdains to be so in the
last. The individual is here too weak a vessel to be capable of enduring
the infinite longing of the will of the species concentrated upon a
definite object. In this case, therefore, the issue is suicide, sometimes
the double suicide of the two lovers; unless, to save life, nature allows
madness to intervene, which then covers with its veil the consciousness of
that hopeless state. No year passes without proving the reality of what
has been expounded by several cases of all these kinds.

Not only, however, has the unsatisfied passion of love sometimes a tragic
issue, but the satisfied passion also leads oftener to unhappiness than to
happiness. For its demands often conflict so much with the personal
welfare of him who is concerned that they undermine it, because they are
incompatible with his other circumstances, and disturb the plan of life
built upon them. Nay, not only with external circumstances is love often
in contradiction, but even with the lover’s own individuality, for it
flings itself upon persons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be
hateful, contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. But so much more
powerful is the will of the species than that of the individual that the
lover shuts his eyes to all those qualities which are repellent to him,
overlooks all, ignores all, and binds himself for ever to the object of
his passion—so entirely is he blinded by that illusion, which vanishes as
soon as the will of the species is satisfied, and leaves behind a detested
companion for life. Only from this can it be explained that we often see
very reasonable and excellent men bound to termagants and she‐devils, and
cannot conceive how they could have made such a choice. On this account
the ancients represented love as blind. Indeed, a lover may even know
distinctly and feel bitterly the faults of temperament and character of
his bride, which promise him a miserable life, and yet not be frightened
away:—


    “I ask not, I care not,
      If guilt’s in thy heart,
    I know that I love thee
      Whatever thou art.”


For ultimately he seeks not his own things, but those of a third person,
who has yet to come into being, although he is involved in the illusion
that what he seeks is his own affair. But it is just this not seeking of
one’s own things which is everywhere the stamp of greatness, that gives to
passionate love also a touch of sublimity, and makes it a worthy subject
of poetry. Finally, sexual love is compatible even with the extremest
hatred towards its object: therefore Plato has compared it to the love of
the wolf for the sheep. This case appears when a passionate lover, in
spite of all efforts and entreaties, cannot obtain a favourable hearing on
any condition:—


    “I love and hate her.”

    —SHAKSPEARE, _Cymb._, iii. 5.


The hatred of the loved one which then is kindled sometimes goes so far
that the lover murders her, and then himself. One or two examples of this
generally happen every year; they will be found in the newspapers.
Therefore Goethe’s lines are quite correct:—


    “By all despised love! By hellish element!
    Would that I knew a worse, that I might swear by!”


It is really no hyperbole if a lover describes the coldness of his beloved
and the delight of her vanity, which feeds on his sufferings, as cruelty;
for he is under the influence of an impulse which, akin to the instinct of
insects, compels him, in spite of all grounds of reason, to pursue his end
unconditionally, and to undervalue everything else: he cannot give it up.
Not one but many a Petrarch has there been who was compelled to drag
through life the unsatisfied ardour of love, like a fetter, an iron weight
at his foot, and breathe his sighs in lonely woods; but only in the one
Petrarch dwelt also the gift of poetry; so that Goethe’s beautiful lines
hold good of him:—


    “And when in misery the man was dumb
    A god gave me the power to tell my sorrow.”


In fact, the genius of the species wages war throughout with the guardian
geniuses of individuals, is their pursuer and enemy, always ready
relentlessly to destroy personal happiness in order to carry out its ends;
nay, the welfare of whole nations has sometimes been sacrificed to its
humours. An example of this is given us by Shakspeare in “Henry VI.,” pt.
iii., act 3, sc. 2 and 3. All this depends upon the fact that the species,
as that in which the root of our being lies, has a closer and earlier
right to us than the individual; hence its affairs take precedence. From
the feeling of this the ancients personified the genius of the species in
Cupid, a malevolent, cruel, and therefore ill‐reputed god, in spite of his
childish appearance; a capricious, despotic demon, but yet lord of gods
and men:


    “Συ δ᾽ω θεων τυραννε κ᾽ανθρωπων, Ερως!”

    (_Tu, deorum hominumque tyranne, Amor!_)


A deadly shot, blindness, and wings are his attributes. The latter signify
inconstancy; and this appears, as a rule, only with the disillusion which
is the consequence of satisfaction.

Because the passion depended upon an illusion, which represented that
which has only value for the species as valuable for the individual, the
deception must vanish after the attainment of the end of the species. The
spirit of the species which took possession of the individual sets it free
again. Forsaken by this spirit, the individual falls back into its
original limitation and narrowness, and sees with wonder that after such a
high, heroic, and infinite effort nothing has resulted for its pleasure
but what every sexual gratification affords. Contrary to expectation, it
finds itself no happier than before. It observes that it has been the dupe
of the will of the species. Therefore, as a rule, a Theseus who has been
made happy will forsake his Ariadne. If Petrarch’s passion had been
satisfied, his song would have been silenced from that time forth, like
that of the bird as soon as the eggs are laid.

Here let me remark in passing that however much my metaphysics of love
will displease the very persons who are entangled in this passion, yet if
rational considerations in general could avail anything against it, the
fundamental truth disclosed by me would necessarily fit one more than
anything else to subdue it. But the saying of the old comedian will, no
doubt, remain true: “_Quæ res in se __ neque consilium, neque modum habet
ullum, eam consilio regere non potes._”

Marriages from love are made in the interest of the species, not of the
individuals. Certainly the persons concerned imagine they are advancing
their own happiness; but their real end is one which is foreign to
themselves, for it lies in the production of an individual which is only
possible through them. Brought together by this aim, they ought henceforth
to try to get on together as well as possible. But very often the pair
brought together by that instinctive illusion, which is the essence of
passionate love, will, in other respects, be of very different natures.
This comes to light when the illusion vanishes, as it necessarily must.
Accordingly love marriages, as a rule, turn out unhappy; for through them
the coming generation is cared for at the expense of the present. “_Quien
se casa por amores, ha de vivir con dolores_” (Who marries from love must
live in sorrow), says the Spanish proverb. The opposite is the case with
marriages contracted for purposes of convenience, generally in accordance
with the choice of the parents. The considerations prevailing here, of
whatever kind they may be, are at least real, and cannot vanish of
themselves. Through them, however, the happiness of the present generation
is certainly cared for, to the disadvantage of the coming generation, and
notwithstanding this it remains problematical. The man who in his marriage
looks to money more than to the satisfaction of his inclination lives more
in the individual than in the species; which is directly opposed to the
truth; hence it appears unnatural, and excites a certain contempt. A girl
who, against the advice of her parents, rejects the offer of a rich and
not yet old man, in order, setting aside all considerations of
convenience, to choose according to her instinctive inclination alone,
sacrifices her individual welfare to the species. But just on this account
one cannot withhold from her a certain approbation; for she has preferred
what is of most importance, and has acted in the spirit of nature (more
exactly, of the species), while the parents advised in the spirit of
individual egoism. In accordance with all this, it appears as if in making
a marriage either the individual or the interests of the species must come
off a loser. And this is generally the case; for that convenience and
passionate love should go hand in hand is the rarest of lucky accidents.
The physical, moral, or intellectual deficiency of the nature of most men
may to some extent have its ground in the fact that marriages are
ordinarily entered into not from pure choice and inclination, but from all
kinds of external considerations, and on account of accidental
circumstances. If, however, besides convenience, inclination is also to a
certain extent regarded, this is, as it were, an agreement with the genius
of the species. Happy marriages are well known to be rare; just because it
lies in the nature of marriage that its chief end is not the present but
the coming generation. However, let me add, for the consolation of tender,
loving natures, that sometimes passionate sexual love associates itself
with a feeling of an entirely different origin—real friendship based upon
agreement of disposition, which yet for the most part only appears when
sexual love proper is extinguished in its satisfaction. This friendship
will then generally spring from the fact that the supplementing and
corresponding physical, moral, and intellectual qualities of the two
individuals, from which sexual love arose, with reference to the child to
be produced, are, with reference also to the individuals themselves,
related to each other in a supplementary manner as opposite qualities of
temperament and mental gifts, and thereby form the basis of a harmony of
disposition.

The whole metaphysics of love here dealt with stands in close connection
with my metaphysics in general, and the light which it throws upon this
may be summed up as follows.

We have seen that the careful selection for the satisfaction of the sexual
impulse, a selection which rises through innumerable degrees up to that of
passionate love, depends upon the highly serious interest which man takes
in the special personal constitution of the next generation. Now this
exceedingly remarkable interest confirms two truths which have been set
forth in the preceding chapters. (1.) The indestructibility of the true
nature of man, which lives on in that coming generation. For that interest
which is so lively and eager, and does not spring from reflection and
intention, but from the inmost characteristics and tendencies of our
nature, could not be so indelibly present and exercise such great power
over man if he were absolutely perishable, and were merely followed in
time by a race actually and entirely different from him. (2.) That his
true nature lies more in the species than in the individual. For that
interest in the special nature of the species, which is the root of all
love, from the passing inclination to the serious passion, is for every
one really the highest concern, the success or failure of which touches
him most sensibly; therefore it is called _par excellence_ the affair of
the heart. Moreover, when this interest has expressed itself strongly and
decidedly, everything which merely concerns one’s own person is postponed
and necessarily sacrificed to it. Through this, then, man shows that the
species lies closer to him than the individual, and he lives more
immediately in the former than in the latter. Why does the lover hang with
complete abandonment on the eyes of his chosen one, and is ready to make
every sacrifice for her? Because it is his immortal part that longs after
her; while it is only his mortal part that desires everything else. That
vehement or intense longing directed to a particular woman is accordingly
an immediate pledge of the indestructibility of the kernel of our being,
and of its continued existence in the species. But to regard this
continued existence as something trifling and insufficient is an error
which arises from the fact that under the conception of the continued life
of the species one thinks nothing more than the future existence of beings
similar to us, but in no regard identical with us; and this again because,
starting from knowledge directed towards without, one takes into
consideration only the external form of the species as we apprehend it in
perception, and not its inner nature. But it is just this inner nature
which lies at the foundation of our own consciousness as its kernel, and
hence indeed is more immediate than this itself, and, as thing in itself,
free from the _principium individuationis_, is really the same and
identical in all individuals, whether they exist together or after each
other. Now this is the will to live, thus just that which desires life and
continuance so vehemently. This accordingly is spared and unaffected by
death. It can attain to no better state than its present one; and
consequently for it, with life, the constant suffering and striving of the
individuals is certain. To free it from this is reserved for the denial of
the will to live, as the means by which the individual will breaks away
from the stem of the species, and surrenders that existence in it. We lack
conceptions for that which it now is; indeed all data for such conceptions
are wanting. We can only describe it as that which is free to be will to
live or not. Buddhism denotes the latter case by the word Nirvana, the
etymology of which was given in the note at the end of chapter 41. It is
the point which remains for ever unattainable to all human knowledge, just
as such.

If now, from the standpoint of this last consideration, we contemplate the
turmoil of life, we behold all occupied with its want and misery,
straining all their powers to satisfy its infinite needs and to ward off
its multifarious sorrows, yet without daring to hope anything else than
simply the preservation of this tormented existence for a short span of
time. In between, however, in the midst of the tumult, we see the glances
of two lovers meet longingly: yet why so secretly, fearfully, and
stealthily? Because these lovers are the traitors who seek to perpetuate
the whole want and drudgery, which would otherwise speedily reach an end;
this they wish to frustrate, as others like them have frustrated it
before. This consideration already passes over into the subject of the
following chapter.(39)




Chapter XLV.(40) On The Assertion Of The Will To Live.


If the will to live exhibited itself merely as an impulse to self‐
preservation, this would only be an assertion of the individual phenomenon
for the span of time of its natural duration. The cares and troubles of
such a life would not be great, and consequently existence would be easy
and serene. Since, on the contrary, the will wills life absolutely and for
all time, it exhibits itself also as sexual impulse, which has in view an
endless series of generations. This impulse does away with that
carelessness, serenity, and innocence which would accompany a merely
individual existence, for it brings unrest and melancholy into the
consciousness; misfortunes, cares, and misery into the course of life. If,
on the other hand, it is voluntarily suppressed, as we see in rare
exceptions, then this is the turning of the will, which changes its
course. The will does not then transcend the individual, but is abolished
in it. Yet this can only take place by means of the individual doing
painful violence to itself. If, however, it does take place, then the
freedom from care and the serenity of the purely individual existence is
restored to the consciousness, and indeed in a higher degree. On the other
hand, to the satisfaction of that most vehement of all impulses and
desires is linked the origin of a new existence, thus the carrying out of
life anew, with all its burdens, cares, wants, and pains; certainly in
another individual; yet if the two who are different in the phenomenon
were so absolutely and in themselves, where would then be eternal justice?
Life presents itself as a problem, a task to be worked out, and therefore,
as a rule, as a constant conflict with necessity. Accordingly every one
tries to get through with it and come off as well as he can. He performs
life as a compulsory service which he owes. But who has contracted the
debt?—His begetter, in the enjoyment of sensual pleasure. Thus, because
the one has enjoyed this, the other must live, suffer, and die. However,
we know and look back here to the fact that the difference of the similar
is conditioned by space and time, which in this sense I have called the
_principium individuationis_. Otherwise eternal justice could not be
vindicated. Paternal love, on account of which the father is ready to do,
to suffer, and to risk more for his child than for himself, and at the
same time knows that he owes this, depends simply upon the fact that the
begetter recognises himself in the begotten.

The life of a man, with its endless care, want, and suffering, is to be
regarded as the explanation and paraphrase of the act of procreation,
_i.e._, the decided assertion of the will to live; and further, it is also
due to this that he owes to nature the debt of death, and thinks with
anxiety of this debt. Is this not evidence of the fact that our existence
involves guilt? At any rate, we always exist, subject to the periodical
payment of the toll, birth and death, and successively partake of all the
sorrows and joys of life, so that none can escape us: this is just the
fruit of the assertion of the will to live. Thus the fear of death, which
in spite of all the miseries of life holds us firmly to it, is really
illusory; but just as illusory is the impulse which has enticed us into
it. This enticement itself may be seen objectively in the reciprocal
longing glances of two lovers; they are the purest expression of the will
to live, in its assertion. How soft and tender it is here! It wills well‐
being, and quiet pleasure, and mild joys for itself, for others, for all.
It is the theme of Anacreon. Thus by allurements and flattery it makes its
way into life. But when once it is there, misery introduces crime, and
crime misery; horror and desolation fill the scene. It is the theme of
Æschylus.

But now the act through which the will asserts itself and man arises is
one of which all are, in their inmost being, ashamed, which they therefore
carefully conceal; nay, if they are caught in it, are terrified as if they
had been taken in a crime. It is an action of which in cold reflection one
generally thinks with dislike, and in a lofty mood with loathing.
Reflections which in this regard approach the matter more closely are
offered by Montaigne in the fifth chapter of the third book, under the
marginal heading: “_Ce que c’est que l’amour_.” A peculiar sadness and
repentance follows close upon it, is yet most perceptible after the first
performance of the act, and in general is the more distinct the nobler is
the character. Hence even Pliny, the pagan, says: “_Homini tantum primi
coitus pœnitentia, augurium scilicet vitæ, a pœnitenda origine_” (_Hist.
Nat._, x. 83). And, on the other hand, in Goethe’s “Faust,” what do devil
and witches practise and sing of on their Sabbath? Lewdness and obscenity.
And in the same work (in the admirable “Paralipomena” to “Faust”) what
does incarnate Satan preach before the assembled multitude? Lewdness and
obscenity. But simply and solely by means of the continual practice of
such an act as this does the human race subsist. If now optimism were
right, if our existence were to be thankfully recognised as the gift of
the highest goodness guided by wisdom, and accordingly in itself
praiseworthy, commendable, and agreeable, then certainly the act which
perpetuates it would necessarily have borne quite another physiognomy. If,
on the other hand, this existence is a kind of false step or error; if it
is the work of an originally blind will, whose most fortunate development
is that it comes to itself in order to abolish itself; then the act which
perpetuates that existence must appear precisely as it does appear.

With reference to the first fundamental truth of my doctrine, the remark
deserves a place here that the shame mentioned above which attaches to the
act of generation extends even to the parts which are concerned in this,
although, like all other parts, they are given us by nature. This is again
a striking proof that not only the actions but even the body of man is to
be regarded as the manifestation, the objectification, of his will, and as
its work. For he could not be ashamed of a thing which existed without his
will.

The act of generation is further related to the world, as the answer is
related to the riddle. The world is wide in space and old in time, and of
an inexhaustible multiplicity of forms. Yet all this is only the
manifestation of the will to live; and the concentration, the focus of
this will is the act of generation. Thus in this act the inner nature of
the world expresses itself most distinctly. In this regard it is indeed
worth noticing that this act itself is also distinctly called “the will”
in the very significant German phrase, “_Er verlangte von ihr, sie sollte
ihm zu Willen sein_” (He desired her to comply with his wishes). As the
most distinct expression of the will, then, this act is the kernel, the
compendium, the quintessence of the world. Therefore from it we obtain
light as to the nature and tendency of the world: it is the answer to the
riddle. Accordingly it is understood under “the tree of knowledge,” for
after acquaintance with it the eyes of every one are opened as to life, as
Byron also says:


    “The tree of knowledge has been plucked,—all’s known.”

    —_Don Juan_, i. 128.


It is not less in keeping with this quality that it is the great αρρητον,
the open secret, which must never and nowhere be distinctly mentioned, but
always and everywhere is understood as the principal matter, and is
therefore constantly present to the thoughts of all, wherefore also the
slightest allusion to it is instantly understood. The leading part which
that act, and what is connected with it, plays in the world, because love
intrigues are everywhere, on the one hand, pursued, and, on the other
hand, assumed, is quite in keeping with the importance of this _punctum
saliens_ of the egg of the world. The source of the amusing is simply the
constant concealment of the chief concern.

But see now how the young, innocent, human intellect, when that great
secret of the world first becomes known to it, is startled at the
enormity! The reason of this is that in the long course which the
originally unconscious will had to traverse before it rose to intellect,
especially to human, rational intellect, it became so strange to itself
that it no longer knows its origin, that _pœnitenda origo_, and now, from
the standpoint of pure, and therefore innocent, knowing, is horrified at
it.

Since now the focus of the will, _i.e._, its concentration and highest
expression, is the sexual impulse and its satisfaction, this is very
significantly and naïvely expressed in the symbolical language of nature
through the fact that the individualised will, that is, the man and the
brute, makes its entrance into the world through the door of the sexual
organs.

The assertion of the will to live, which accordingly has its centre in the
act of generation, is in the case of the brute infallible. For the will,
which is the _natura naturans_, first arrives at reflection in man. To
arrive at reflection means, not merely to know the momentary necessity of
the individual will, how to serve it in the pressing present—as is the
case with the brute, in proportion to its completeness and its
necessities, which go hand in hand—but to have attained a greater breadth
of knowledge, by virtue of a distinct remembrance of the past, an
approximate anticipation of the future, and thereby a general survey of
the individual life, both one’s own life and that of others, nay, of
existence in general. Really the life of every species of brute, through
the thousands of years of its existence, is to a certain extent like a
single moment; for it is mere consciousness of the present, without that
of the past and the future, and consequently without that of death. In
this sense it is to be regarded as a permanent moment, a _Nunc stans_.
Here we see, in passing, most distinctly that in general the form of life,
or the manifestation of the will with consciousness, is primarily and
immediately merely the present. Past and future are added only in the case
of man, and indeed merely in conception, are known _in abstracto_, and
perhaps illustrated by pictures of the imagination. Thus after the will to
live, _i.e._, the inner being of nature, in the ceaseless striving towards
complete objectification and complete enjoyment, has run through the whole
series of the brutes,—which often occurs in the various periods of
successive animal series each arising anew on the same planet,—it arrives
at last at reflection in the being who is endowed with reason, man. Here
now to him the thing begins to be doubtful, the question forces itself
upon him whence and wherefore all this is, and chiefly whether the care
and misery of his life and effort is really repaid by the gain? “_Le jeu
vaut‐il bien la chandelle?_” Accordingly here is the point at which, in
the light of distinct knowledge, he decides for the assertion or denial of
the will to live; although as a rule he can only bring the latter to
consciousness in a mythical form. We have consequently no ground for
assuming that a still more highly developed objectification of the will is
ever reached, anywhere; for it has already reached its turning‐point here.




Chapter XLVI.(41) On The Vanity And Suffering Of Life.


Awakened to life out of the night of unconsciousness, the will finds
itself an individual, in an endless and boundless world, among innumerable
individuals, all striving, suffering, erring; and as if through a troubled
dream it hurries back to its old unconsciousness. Yet till then its
desires are limitless, its claims inexhaustible, and every satisfied
desire gives rise to a new one. No possible satisfaction in the world
could suffice to still its longings, set a goal to its infinite cravings,
and fill the bottomless abyss of its heart. Then let one consider what as
a rule are the satisfactions of any kind that a man obtains. For the most
part nothing more than the bare maintenance of this existence itself,
extorted day by day with unceasing trouble and constant care in the
conflict with want, and with death in prospect. Everything in life shows
that earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated or recognised as an
illusion. The grounds of this lie deep in the nature of things.
Accordingly the life of most men is troubled and short. Those who are
comparatively happy are so, for the most part, only apparently, or else,
like men of long life, they are the rare exceptions, a possibility of
which there had to be,—as decoy‐birds. Life presents itself as a continual
deception in small things as in great. If it has promised, it does not
keep its word, unless to show how little worth desiring were the things
desired: thus we are deluded now by hope, now by what was hoped for. If it
has given, it did so in order to take. The enchantment of distance shows
us paradises which vanish like optical illusions when we have allowed
ourselves to be mocked by them. Happiness accordingly always lies in the
future, or else in the past, and the present may be compared to a small
dark cloud which the wind drives over the sunny plain: before and behind
it all is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow. The present is
therefore always insufficient; but the future is uncertain, and the past
irrevocable. Life with its hourly, daily, weekly, yearly, little, greater,
and great misfortunes, with its deluded hopes and its accidents destroying
all our calculations, bears so distinctly the impression of something with
which we must become disgusted, that it is hard to conceive how one has
been able to mistake this and allow oneself to be persuaded that life is
there in order to be thankfully enjoyed, and that man exists in order to
be happy. Rather that continual illusion and disillusion, and also the
nature of life throughout, presents itself to us as intended and
calculated to awaken the conviction that nothing at all is worth our
striving, our efforts and struggles, that all good things are vanity, the
world in all its ends bankrupt, and life a business which does not cover
its expenses;—so that our will may turn away from it.

The way in which this vanity of all objects of the will makes itself known
and comprehensible to the intellect which is rooted in the individual, is
primarily _time_. It is the form by means of which that vanity of things
appears as their perishableness; for on account of this all our pleasures
and joys disappear in our hands, and we afterwards ask astonished where
they have remained. That nothingness itself is therefore the only
_objective_ element in time, _i.e._, that which corresponds to it in the
inner nature of things, thus that of which it is the expression. Just on
this account time is the _a priori_ necessary form of all our perceptions;
in it everything must present itself, even we ourselves. Accordingly,
first of all, our life is like a payment which one receives in nothing but
copper pence, and yet must then give a discharge for: the copper pence are
the days; the discharge is death. For at last time makes known the
judgment of nature concerning the work of all the beings which appear in
it, in that it destroys them:—


    “And rightly so, for all that arises
    Is worthy only of being destroyed.
    Hence were it better that nothing arose.”


Thus old age and death, to which every life necessarily hurries on, are
the sentence of condemnation on the will to live, coming from the hands of
nature itself, and which declares that this will is an effort which
frustrates itself. “What thou hast wished,” it says, “ends thus: desire
something better.” Hence the instruction which his life affords to every
one consists, as a whole, in this, that the objects of his desires
continually delude, waver, and fall, and accordingly bring more misery
than joy, till at last the whole foundation upon which they all stand
gives way, in that his life itself is destroyed and so he receives the
last proof that all his striving and wishing was a perversity, a false
path:—


    “Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
    Lead him to death, and make him understand,
    After a search so painful and so long,
    That all his life he has been in the wrong.”


We shall, however, enter into the details of the matter, for it is in
these views that I have met with most contradiction. First of all, I have
to confirm by the following remarks the proof given in the text of the
negative nature of all satisfaction, thus of all pleasure and all
happiness, in opposition to the positive nature of pain.

We feel pain, but not painlessness; we feel care, but not the absence of
care; fear, but not security. We feel the wish as we feel hunger and
thirst; but as soon as it has been fulfilled, it is like the mouthful that
has been taken, which ceases to exist for our feeling the moment it is
swallowed. Pleasures and joys we miss painfully whenever they are wanting;
but pains, even when they cease after having long been present, are not
directly missed, but at the most are intentionally thought of by means of
reflection. For only pain and want can be felt positively, and therefore
announce themselves; well‐being, on the other hand, is merely negative.
Therefore we do not become conscious of the three greatest blessings of
life, health, youth, and freedom, so long as we possess them, but only
after we have lost them; for they also are negations. We only observe that
days of our life were happy after they have given place to unhappy ones.
In proportion as pleasures increase, the susceptibility for them
decreases: what is customary is no longer felt as a pleasure. Just in this
way, however, is the susceptibility for suffering increased, for the loss
of what we are accustomed to is painfully felt. Thus the measure of what
is necessary increases through possession, and thereby the capacity for
feeling pain. The hours pass the quicker the more agreeably they are
spent, and the slower the more painfully they are spent; because pain, not
pleasure, is the positive, the presence of which makes itself felt. In the
same way we become conscious of time when we are bored, not when we are
diverted. Both these cases prove that our existence is most happy when we
perceive it least, from which it follows that it would be better not to
have it. Great and lively joy can only be conceived as the consequence of
great misery, which has preceded it; for nothing can be added to a state
of permanent satisfaction but some amusement, or the satisfaction of
vanity. Hence all poets are obliged to bring their heroes into anxious and
painful situations, so that they may be able to free them from them.
Dramas and Epics accordingly always describe only fighting, suffering,
tormented men; and every romance is a rareeshow in which we observe the
spasms and convulsions of the agonised human heart. Walter Scott has
naïvely expressed this æsthetic necessity in the conclusion to his novel,
“Old Mortality.” Voltaire, who was so highly favoured both by nature and
fortune, says, in entire agreement with the truth proved by me: “_Le
bonheur n’est qu’un rève, et la douleur est réelle_.” And he adds: “_Il y
a quatre‐vingts ans que je l’éprouve. Je n’y sais autre chose que me
résigner, et me dire que les mouches sont nées pour être mangées par les
araignées, et les hommes pour être dévorés par les chagrins._”

Before so confidently affirming that life is a blessing worth desiring or
giving thanks for, let one compare calmly the sum of the possible
pleasures which a man can enjoy in his life with the sum of the possible
sorrows which may come to him in his life. I believe the balance will not
be hard to strike. At bottom, however, it is quite superfluous to dispute
whether there is more good or evil in the world: for the mere existence of
evil decides the matter. For the evil can never be annulled, and
consequently can never be balanced by the good which may exist along with
it or after it.


    “_Mille piacer’ non vagliono un tormento._”—Petr.
    (A thousand pleasures are not worth one torment.)


For that a thousand had lived in happiness and pleasure would never do
away with the anguish and death‐agony of a single one; and just as little
does my present well‐being undo my past suffering. If, therefore, the
evils in the world were a hundred times less than is the case, yet their
mere existence would be sufficient to establish a truth which may be
expressed in different ways, though always somewhat indirectly, the truth
that we have not to rejoice but rather to mourn at the existence of the
world;—that its non‐existence would be preferable to its existence;—that
it is something which at bottom ought not to be, &c., &c. Very beautiful
is Byron’s expression of this truth:—


    “_Our life is a false nature_,—’tis not in
    The harmony of things, this hard decree,
    This uneradicable taint of sin,
    This boundless Upas, this all‐blasting tree
    Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
    The skies, which rain their plagues on men like dew—
    Disease, death, bondage—all the woes we see—
    And worse, the woes we see not—which throb through
    The immedicable soul, with heart‐aches ever new.”


If the world and life were an end in themselves, and accordingly required
theoretically no justification and practically no indemnification or
compensation, but existed, for instance, as Spinoza and the Spinozists of
the present day represent it, as the single manifestation of a God, who,
_animi causa_, or else in order to mirror himself, undertook such an
evolution of himself; and hence its existence neither required to be
justified by reasons nor redeemed by results;—then the sufferings and
miseries of life would not indeed have to be fully equalled by the
pleasures and well‐being in it; for this, as has been said, is impossible,
because my present pain is never abolished by future joys, for the latter
fill their time as the former fills its time: but there would have to be
absolutely no suffering, and death also would either have not to be, or
else to have no terrors for us. Only thus would life pay for itself.

But since now our state is rather something which had better not be,
everything about us bears the trace of this,—just as in hell everything
smells of sulphur—for everything is always imperfect and illusory,
everything agreeable is displaced by something disagreeable, every
enjoyment is only a half one, every pleasure introduces its own
disturbance, every relief new difficulties, every aid of our daily and
hourly need leaves us each moment in the lurch and denies its service, the
step upon which we place our foot so often gives way under us, nay,
misfortunes great and small are the element of our life; and, in a word,
we are like Phineus, whose food was all tainted and made uneatable by the
harpies.(42) Two remedies for this are tried: first, ευλαβεια, _i.e._,
prudence, foresight, cunning; it does not fully instruct us, is
insufficient, and leads to defeat. Secondly, the stoical equanimity which
seeks to arm us against all misfortunes by preparedness for everything and
contempt of all: practically it becomes cynical renunciation, which
prefers once for all to reject all means of relief and all alleviations—it
reduces us to the position of dogs, like Diogenes in his tub. The truth
is, we ought to be wretched, and we are so. The chief source of the
serious evils which affect men is man himself: _homo homini lupus_.
Whoever keeps this last fact clearly in view beholds the world as a hell,
which surpasses that of Dante in this respect, that one man must be the
devil of another. For this, one is certainly more fitted than another; an
arch‐fiend, indeed, more fitted than all others, appearing in the form of
a conqueror, who places several hundred thousand men opposite each other,
and says to them: “To suffer and die is your destiny; now shoot each other
with guns and cannons,” and they do so.

In general, however, the conduct of men towards each other is
characterised as a rule by injustice, extreme unfairness, hardness, nay,
cruelty: an opposite course of conduct appears only as an exception. Upon
this depends the necessity of the State and legislation, and upon none of
your false pretences. But in all cases which do not lie within the reach
of the law, that regardlessness of his like, peculiar to man, shows itself
at once; a regardlessness which springs from his boundless egoism, and
sometimes also from wickedness. How man deals with man is shown, for
example, by negro slavery, the final end of which is sugar and coffee. But
we do not need to go so far: at the age of five years to enter a cotton‐
spinning or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily,
first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same
mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing
breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is
analogous to it.

We others, however, can be made perfectly miserable by trifling
misfortunes; perfectly happy, not by the world. Whatever one may say, the
happiest moment of the happy man is the moment of his falling asleep, and
the unhappiest moment of the unhappy that of his awaking. An indirect but
certain proof of the fact that men feel themselves unhappy, and
consequently are so, is also abundantly afforded by the fearful envy which
dwells in us all, and which in all relations of life, on the occasion of
any superiority, of whatever kind it may be, is excited, and cannot
contain its poison. Because they feel themselves unhappy, men cannot
endure the sight of one whom they imagine happy; he who for the moment
feels himself happy would like to make all around him happy also, and
says:


    “_Que tout le monde ici soit heureux de ma joie._”


If life were in itself a blessing to be prized, and decidedly to be
preferred to non‐existence, the exit from it would not need to be guarded
by such fearful sentinels as death and its terrors. But who would continue
in life as it is if death were less terrible? And again, who could even
endure the thought of death if life were a pleasure! But thus the former
has still always this good, that it is the end of life, and we console
ourselves with regard to the suffering of life with death, and with regard
to death with the suffering of life. The truth is, that the two
inseparably belong to each other, for together they constitute a deviation
from the right path, to return to which is as difficult as it is
desirable.

If the world were not something which, expressed _practically_, ought not
to be, it would also not be _theoretically_ a problem; but its existence
would either require no explanation, inasmuch as it would be so entirely
self‐evident that wonder concerning it or a question about it could arise
in no mind, or its end would present itself unmistakably. Instead of this,
however, it is indeed an insoluble problem; for even the most perfect
philosophy will yet always contain an unexplained element, like an
insoluble deposit or the remainder which the irrational relation of two
quantities always leaves over. Therefore if one ventures to raise the
question why there is not rather nothing than this world, the world cannot
be justified from itself, no ground, no final cause of its existence can
be found in itself, it cannot be shown that it exists for its own sake,
_i.e._, for its own advantage. In accordance with my teaching, this can
certainly be explained from the fact that the principle of its existence
is expressly one which is without ground, a blind will to live, which as
thing in itself cannot be made subject to the principle of sufficient
reason, which is merely the form of the phenomenon, and through which
alone every why is justified. But this also agrees with the nature of the
world, for only a blind will, no seeing will, could place itself in the
position in which we behold ourselves. A seeing will would rather have
soon made the calculation that the business did not cover the cost, for
such a mighty effort and struggle with the straining of all the powers,
under constant care, anxiety, and want, and with the inevitable
destruction of every individual life, finds no compensation in the
ephemeral existence itself, which is so obtained, and which passes into
nothing in our hands. Hence, then, the explanation of the world from the
Anaxagorean νους, _i.e._, from a will accompanied by _knowledge_,
necessarily demands optimism to excuse it, which accordingly is set up and
maintained in spite of the loudly crying evidence of a whole world full of
misery. Life is there given out to be a gift, while it is evident that
every one would have declined such a gift if he could have seen it and
tested it beforehand; just as Lessing admired the understanding of his
son, who, because he had absolutely declined to enter life, had to be
forcibly brought into it with the forceps, but was scarcely there when he
hurried away from it again. On the other hand, it is then well said that
life should be, from one end to the other, only a lesson; to which,
however, any one might reply: “For this very reason I wish I had been left
in the peace of the all‐sufficient nothing, where I would have had no need
of lessons or of anything else.” If indeed it should now be added that he
must one day give an account of every hour of his life, he would be more
justified in himself demanding an account of why he had been transferred
from that rest into such a questionable, dark, anxious, and painful
situation. To this, then, we are led by false views. For human existence,
far from bearing the character of a _gift_, has entirely the character of
a _debt_ that has been contracted. The calling in of this debt appears in
the form of the pressing wants, tormenting desires, and endless misery
established through this existence. As a rule, the whole lifetime is
devoted to the paying off of this debt; but this only meets the interest.
The payment of the capital takes place through death. And when was this
debt contracted? At the begetting.

Accordingly, if we regard man as a being whose existence is a punishment
and an expiation, we then view him in a right light. The myth of the fall
(although probably, like the whole of Judaism, borrowed from the Zend‐
Avesta: Bundahish, 15), is the only point in the Old Testament to which I
can ascribe metaphysical, although only allegorical, truth; indeed it is
this alone that reconciles me to the Old Testament. Our existence
resembles nothing so much as the consequence of a false step and a guilty
desire. New Testament Christianity, the ethical spirit of which is that of
Brahmanism and Buddhism, and is therefore very foreign to the otherwise
optimistic spirit of the Old Testament, has also, very wisely, linked
itself on precisely to that myth: indeed, without this it would have found
no point of connection with Judaism at all. If any one desires to measure
the degree of guilt with which our existence is tainted, then let him look
at the suffering that is connected with it. Every great pain, whether
bodily or mental, declares what we deserve: for it could not come to us if
we did not deserve it. That Christianity also regards our existence in
this light is shown by a passage in Luther’s Commentary on Galatians,
chap. 3, which I only have beside me in Latin: “_Sumus autem nos omnes
corporibus et rebus subjecti Diabolo, et hospites sumus in mundo, cujus
ipse princeps et Deus est. Ideo panis, quem edimus, potus, quem bibimus,
vestes, quibus utimur, imo aër et totum quo vivimus in carne, sub ipsius
imperio est._” An outcry has been made about the melancholy and
disconsolate nature of my philosophy; yet it lies merely in the fact that
instead of inventing a future hell as the equivalent of sin, I show that
where guilt lies in the world there is also already something akin to
hell; but whoever is inclined to deny this can easily experience it.

And to this world, to this scene of tormented and agonised beings, who
only continue to exist by devouring each other, in which, therefore, every
ravenous beast is the living grave of thousands of others, and its self‐
maintenance is a chain of painful deaths; and in which the capacity for
feeling pain increases with knowledge, and therefore reaches its highest
degree in man, a degree which is the higher the more intelligent the man
is; to this world it has been sought to apply the system of optimism, and
demonstrate to us that it is the best of all possible worlds. The
absurdity is glaring. But an optimist bids me open my eyes and look at the
world, how beautiful it is in the sunshine, with its mountains and
valleys, streams, plants, animals, &c. &c. Is the world, then, a
rareeshow? These things are certainly beautiful to _look at_, but to _be_
them is something quite different. Then comes a teleologist, and praises
to me the wise arrangement by virtue of which it is taken care that the
planets do not run their heads together, that land and sea do not get
mixed into a pulp, but are held so beautifully apart, also that everything
is neither rigid with continual frost nor roasted with heat; in the same
way, that in consequence of the obliquity of the ecliptic there is no
eternal spring, in which nothing could attain to ripeness, &c. &c. But
this and all like it are mere _conditiones sine quibus non_. If in general
there is to be a world at all, if its planets are to exist at least as
long as the light of a distant fixed star requires to reach them, and are
not, like Lessing’s son, to depart again immediately after birth, then
certainly it must not be so clumsily constructed that its very framework
threatens to fall to pieces. But if one goes on to the results of this
applauded work, considers the players who act upon the stage which is so
durably constructed, and now sees how with sensibility pain appears, and
increases in proportion as the sensibility develops to intelligence, and
then how, keeping pace with this, desire and suffering come out ever more
strongly, and increase till at last human life affords no other material
than this for tragedies and comedies, then whoever is honest will scarcely
be disposed to set up hallelujahs. David Hume, in his “Natural History of
Religion,” §§ 6, 7, 8, and 13, has also exposed, mercilessly but with
convincing truth, the real though concealed source of these last. He also
explains clearly in the tenth and eleventh books of his “Dialogues on
Natural Religion,” with very pertinent arguments, which are yet of quite a
different kind from mine, the miserable nature of this world and the
untenableness of all optimism; in doing which he attacks this in its
origin. Both works of Hume’s are as well worth reading as they are unknown
at the present day in Germany, where, on the other hand, incredible
pleasure is found, patriotically, in the most disgusting nonsense of home‐
bred boastful mediocrities, who are proclaimed great men. Hamann, however,
translated these dialogues; Kant went through the translation, and late in
life wished to induce Hamann’s son to publish them because the translation
of Platner did not satisfy him (see Kant’s biography by F. W. Schubert,
pp. 81 and 165). From every page of David Hume there is more to be learned
than from the collected philosophical works of Hegel, Herbart, and
Schleiermacher together.

The founder of systematic optimism, again, is Leibnitz whose philosophical
merit I have no intention of denying although I have never succeeded in
thinking myself into the monadology, pre‐established harmony, and
_identitas indiscernibilium_. His “_Nouveaux essays sur l’entendement_”
are, however, merely an excerpt, with a full yet weak criticism, with a
view to correction, of Locke’s work which is justly of world‐wide
reputation. He here opposes Locke with just as little success as he
opposes Newton in the “_Tentamen de motuum cœlestium causis_,” directed
against the system of gravitation. The “Critique of Pure Reason” is
specially directed against this Leibnitz‐Wolfian philosophy, and has a
polemical, nay, a destructive relation to it, just as it is related to
Locke and Hume as a continuation and further construction. That at the
present day the professors of philosophy are on all sides engaged in
setting Leibnitz, with his juggling, upon his legs again, nay, in
glorifying him, and, on the other hand, in depreciating and setting aside
Kant as much as possible, has its sufficient reason in the _primum
vivere_; the “Critique of Pure Reason” does not admit of one giving out
Judaistic mythology as philosophy, nor of one speaking, without ceremony,
of the “soul” as a given reality, a well‐known and well‐accredited person,
without giving account of how one arrived at this conception, and what
justification one has for using it scientifically. But _primum vivere,
deinde philosophari_! Down with Kant, _vivat_ our Leibnitz! To return,
then, to Leibnitz, I cannot ascribe to the Théodicée, as a methodical and
broad unfolding of optimism, any other merit than this, that it gave
occasion later for the immortal “_Candide_” of the great Voltaire; whereby
certainly Leibnitz’s often‐repeated and lame excuse for the evil of the
world, that the bad sometimes brings about the good, received a
confirmation which was unexpected by him. Even by the name of his hero
Voltaire indicates that it only requires sincerity to recognise the
opposite of optimism. Really upon this scene of sin, suffering, and death
optimism makes such an extraordinary figure that one would be forced to
regard it as irony if one had not a sufficient explanation of its origin
in the secret source of it (insincere flattery, with insulting confidence
in its success), which, as was mentioned above, is so delightfully
disclosed by Hume.

But indeed to the palpably sophistical proofs of Leibnitz that this is the
best of all possible worlds, we may seriously and honestly oppose the
proof that it is the worst of all possible worlds. For possible means, not
what one may construct in imagination, but what can actually exist and
continue. Now this world is so arranged as to be able to maintain itself
with great difficulty; but if it were a little worse, it could no longer
maintain itself. Consequently a worse world, since it could not continue
to exist, is absolutely impossible: thus this world itself is the worst of
all possible worlds. For not only if the planets were to run their heads
together, but even if any one of the actually appearing perturbations of
their course, instead of being gradually balanced by others, continued to
increase, the world would soon reach its end. Astronomers know upon what
accidental circumstances—principally the irrational relation to each other
of the periods of revolution—this depends, and have carefully calculated
that it will always go on well; consequently the world also can continue
and go on. We will hope that, although Newton was of an opposite opinion,
they have not miscalculated, and consequently that the mechanical
perpetual motion realised in such a planetary system will not also, like
the rest, ultimately come to a standstill. Again, under the firm crust of
the planet dwell the powerful forces of nature which, as soon as some
accident affords them free play, must necessarily destroy that crust, with
everything living upon it, as has already taken place at least three times
upon our planet, and will probably take place oftener still. The
earthquake of Lisbon, the earthquake of Haiti, the destruction of Pompeii,
are only small, playful hints of what is possible. A small alteration of
the atmosphere, which cannot even be chemically proved, causes cholera,
yellow fever, black death, &c., which carry off millions of men; a
somewhat greater alteration would extinguish all life. A very moderate
increase of heat would dry up all the rivers and springs. The brutes have
received just barely so much in the way of organs and powers as enables
them to procure with the greatest exertion sustenance for their own lives
and food for their offspring; therefore if a brute loses a limb, or even
the full use of one, it must generally perish. Even of the human race,
powerful as are the weapons it possesses in understanding and reason,
nine‐tenths live in constant conflict with want, always balancing
themselves with difficulty and effort upon the brink of destruction. Thus
throughout, as for the continuance of the whole, so also for that of each
individual being the conditions are barely and scantily given, but nothing
over. The individual life is a ceaseless battle for existence itself;
while at every step destruction threatens it. Just because this threat is
so often fulfilled provision had to be made, by means of the enormous
excess of the germs, that the destruction of the individuals should not
involve that of the species, for which alone nature really cares. The
world is therefore as bad as it possibly can be if it is to continue to be
at all. _Q. E. D._ The fossils of the entirely different kinds of animal
species which formerly inhabited the planet afford us, as a proof of our
calculation, the records of worlds the continuance of which was no longer
possible, and which consequently were somewhat worse than the worst of
possible worlds.

Optimism is at bottom the unmerited self‐praise of the real originator of
the world, the will to live, which views itself complacently in its works;
and accordingly it is not only a false, but also a pernicious doctrine.
For it presents life to us as a desirable condition, and the happiness of
man as the end of it. Starting from this, every one then believes that he
has the most just claim to happiness and pleasure; and if, as is wont to
happen, these do not fall to his lot, then he believes that he is wronged,
nay, that he loses the end of his existence; while it is far more correct
to regard work, privation, misery, and suffering, crowned by death, as the
end of our life (as Brahmanism and Buddhism, and also genuine Christianity
do); for it is these which lead to the denial of the will to live. In the
New Testament the world is represented as a valley of tears, life as a
process of purifying or refining, and the symbol of Christianity is an
instrument of torture. Therefore, when Leibnitz, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke,
and Pope brought forward optimism, the general offence which it gave
depended principally upon the fact that optimism is irreconcilable with
Christianity; as Voltaire states and explains in the preface to his
excellent poem, “_Le désastre de Lisbonne_,” which is also expressly
directed against optimism. This great man, whom I so gladly praise, in
opposition to the abuse of venal German ink‐slingers, is placed decidedly
higher than Rousseau by the insight to which he attained in three
respects, and which prove the greater depth of his thinking: (1) the
recognition of the preponderating magnitude of the evil and misery of
existence with which he is deeply penetrated; (2) that of the strict
necessity of the acts of will; (3) that of the truth of Locke’s principle,
that what thinks may also be material: while Rousseau opposes all this
with declamations in his “_Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard_,” a
superficial Protestant pastor’s philosophy; as he also in the same spirit
attacks the beautiful poem of Voltaire which has just been referred to
with ill‐founded, shallow, and logically false reasoning, in the interests
of optimism, in his long letter to Voltaire of 18th August 1756, which is
devoted simply to this purpose. Indeed, the fundamental characteristic and
the πρωτον ψευδος of Rousseau’s whole philosophy is this, that in the
place of the Christian doctrine of original sin, and the original
depravity of the human race, he puts an original goodness and unlimited
perfectibility of it, which has only been led astray by civilisation and
its consequences, and then founds upon this his optimism and humanism.

As in “_Candide_” Voltaire wages war in his facetious manner against
optimism, Byron has also done so in his serious and tragic style, in his
immortal masterpiece, “Cain,” on account of which he also has been
honoured with the invectives of the obscurantist, Friedrich Schlegel. If
now, in conclusion, to confirm my view, I were to give what has been said
by great men of all ages in this anti‐optimistic spirit, there would be no
end to the quotations, for almost every one of them has expressed in
strong language his knowledge of the misery of this world. Thus, not to
confirm, but merely to embellish this chapter, a few quotations of this
kind may be given at the end of it.

First of all, let me mention here that the Greeks, far as they were from
the Christian and lofty Asiatic conception of the world, and although they
decidedly stood at the point of view of the assertion of the will, were
yet deeply affected by the wretchedness of existence. This is shown even
by the invention of tragedy, which belongs to them. Another proof of it is
afforded us by the custom of the Thracians, which is first mentioned by
Herodotus, though often referred to afterwards—the custom of welcoming the
new‐born child with lamentations, and recounting all the evils which now
lie before it; and, on the other hand, burying the dead with mirth and
jesting, because they are no longer exposed to so many and great
sufferings. In a beautiful poem preserved for us by Plutarch (_De audiend.
poët. in fine_) this runs thus:—


    “Τον φυντα θρηνειν, εις ὁσ᾽ ερχεται κακα
    Τον δ᾽αυ θανοντα και πονων πεπαυμενον
    Χαιροντας ευφημουντας εκπεμπειν δομων.”

    (_Lugere genitum, tanta qui intrarit mala:_
    _At morte si quis finiisset miserias,_
    _Hunc laude amicos atque lætitia exsequi._)


It is not to be attributed to historical relationship, but to the moral
identity of the matter, that the Mexicans welcomed the new‐born child with
the words, “My child, thou art born to endure; therefore endure, suffer,
and keep silence.” And, following the same feeling, Swift (as Walter Scott
relates in his Life of Swift) early adopted the custom of keeping his
birthday not as a time of joy but of sadness, and of reading on that day
the passage of the Bible in which Job laments and curses the day on which
it was said in the house of his father a man‐child is born.

Well known and too long for quotation is the passage in the “Apology of
Socrates,” in which Plato makes this wisest of mortals say that death,
even if it deprives us of consciousness for ever, would be a wonderful
gain, for a deep, dreamless sleep every day is to be preferred even to the
happiest life.

A saying of Heraclitus runs: “Τῳ ουν βιῳ ονομα μεν βιος, εργον δε
θανατος.” (_Vitæ nomen quidem est vita, opus autem mors. Etymologicum
magnum, voce_ Βιος; also _Eustath. ad Iliad._, i. p. 31.)

The beautiful lines of the “Theogony” are famous:—


    “Αρχην μεν μη φυναι επιχθονιοισιν αριστον,
    Μηδ᾽ εισιδειν αυγας οξεος ἡελιου;
      Φυντα δ᾽ ὁπως ωκιστα πυλας Αϊδαο περησαι,
      Και κεισθαι πολλην γην επαμησαμενον.”

    (_Optima sors homini natum non esse, nec unquam._
    _Adspexisse diem, flammiferumque jubar._
    _Altera jam genitum demitti protinus Orco,_
    _Et pressum multa mergere corpus humo._)


Sophocles, in “Œdipus Colonus” (1225), has the following abbreviation of
the same:—


    “Μη φυναι τον ἁπαντα νικα
    λογον; το δ᾽ επει φανῃ,
    βηναι κειθεν, ὁθεν περ ἡκει,
    πολυ δευτερον, ὡς ταχιστα.”

    (_Natum non esse sortes vincit alias omnes: proxima autem est, ubi
    quis in lucem editus fuerit, eodem redire, unde venit, quam
    ocissime._)


Euripides says:—


    “Πας δ᾽οδυνηρος βιος ανθρωπων,
    Κ᾽ουκ εστι πονων αναπαυσις.”

    (_Omnis hominum vita est plena dolore,_
    _Nec datur laborum remissio._)

    —HIPPOL, 189.


And Homer already said:—


    “Ου μεν γαρ τι εστιν οϊζυρωτερον ανδρος
    Παντων, ὁσσα δε γαιαν επι πνεει τε και ἑρπει.”

    (_Non enim quidquam alicubi est calamitosius homine_
    _Omnium, quotquot super terram spirantque et moventur._)

    —II. xvii. 446.


Even Pliny says: “_Quapropter hoc primum quisque in remediis animi sui
habeat, ex omnibus bonis, quæ homini natura tribuit, nullum melius esse
tempestiva morte_” (_Hist. Nat._ 28, 2).

Shakspeare puts the words in the mouth of the old king Henry IV.:—


    “O heaven! that one might read the book of fate,
    And see the revolution of the times,
    ... how chances mock,
    And changes fill the cup of alteration
    With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
    The happiest youth,—viewing his progress through,
    What perils past, what crosses to ensue,—
    Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.”


Finally, Byron:—


    “Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
      Count o’er thy days from anguish free,
    And know, whatever thou hast been,
      ’Tis something better not to be.”


Baltazar Gracian also brings the misery of our existence before our eyes
in the darkest colours in the “Criticon,” Parte i., Crisi 5, just at the
beginning, and Crisi 7 at the end, where he explicitly represents life as
a tragic farce.

Yet no one has so thoroughly and exhaustively handled this subject as, in
our own day, Leopardi. He is entirely filled and penetrated by it: his
theme is everywhere the mockery and wretchedness of this existence; he
presents it upon every page of his works, yet in such a multiplicity of
forms and applications, with such wealth of imagery that he never wearies
us, but, on the contrary, is throughout entertaining and exciting.




Chapter XLVII.(43) On Ethics.


Here is the great gap which occurs in these supplements, on account of the
circumstance that I have already dealt with moral philosophy in the
narrower sense in the two prize essays published under the title, “_Die
Grundprobleme der Ethik_,” an acquaintance with which is assumed, as I
have said, in order to avoid useless repetition. Therefore there only
remains for me here a small gleaning of isolated reflections which could
not be discussed in that work, the contents of which were, in the main,
prescribed by the Academies; least of all those reflections which demand a
higher point of view than that which is common to all, and which I was
there obliged to adhere to. Accordingly it will not surprise the reader to
find these reflections here in a very fragmentary collection. This
collection again has been continued in the eighth and ninth chapters of
the second volume of the Parerga.

That moral investigations are incomparably more difficult than physical,
and in general than any others, results from the fact that they are almost
immediately concerned with the thing in itself, namely, with that
manifestation of it in which, directly discovered by the light of
knowledge, it reveals its nature as _will_. Physical truths, on the other
hand, remain entirely in the province of the idea, _i.e._, of the
phenomenon, and merely show how the lowest manifestations of the will
present themselves in the idea in conformity to law. Further, the
consideration of the world from the _physical_ side, however far and
successfully it may be pursued, is in its results without any consolation
for us: on the _moral_ side alone is consolation to be found; for here the
depths of our own inner nature disclose themselves to the consideration.

But my philosophy is the only one which confers upon ethics its complete
and whole rights; for only if the true nature of man is his own _will_,
and consequently he is, in the strictest sense, his own work, are his
deeds really entirely his and to be ascribed to him. On the other hand,
whenever he has another origin, or is the work of a being different from
himself, all his guilt falls back upon this origin, or originator. For
_operari sequitur esse_.

To connect the force which produces the phenomenon of the world, and
consequently determines its nature, with the morality of the disposition
or character, and thus to establish a _moral_ order of the world as the
foundation of the _physical_,—this has been since Socrates the problem of
philosophy. Theism solved it in a childish manner, which could not satisfy
mature humanity. Therefore pantheism opposed itself to it whenever it
ventured to do so, and showed that nature bears in itself the power by
virtue of which it appears. With this, however, ethics had necessarily to
be given up. Spinoza, indeed, attempts here and there to preserve it by
means of sophistry, but for the most part gives it up altogether, and,
with a boldness which excites astonishment and repugnance, explains the
distinction between right and wrong, and in general between good and evil,
as merely conventional, thus in itself empty (for example, _Eth._ iv.,
prop. 37, schol. 2). After having met with unmerited neglect for more than
a hundred years, Spinoza has, in general, become too much esteemed in this
century through the reaction caused by the swing of the pendulum of
opinion. All pantheism must ultimately be overthrown by the inevitable
demands of ethics, and then by the evil and suffering of the world. If the
world is a theophany, then all that man, or even the brute, does is
equally divine and excellent; nothing can be censurable, and nothing more
praiseworthy than the rest: thus there is no ethics. Hence, in consequence
of the revived Spinozism of our own day, thus of pantheism, the treatment
of ethics has sunk so low and become so shallow that it has been made a
mere instruction as to the proper life of a citizen and a member of a
family, in which the ultimate end of human existence is supposed to
consist: thus in methodical, complete, smug, and comfortable philistinism.
Pantheism, indeed, has only led to such shallow vulgarisms through the
fact that (by a shameful misuse of the _e quovis ligno fit Mercurius_) a
common mind, Hegel, has, by the well‐known means, been falsely stamped as
a great philosopher, and a herd of his disciples, at first suborned,
afterwards only stupid, received his weighty words. Such outrages on the
human mind do not remain unpunished: the seed has sprouted. In the same
spirit it was then asserted that ethics should have for its material not
the conduct of individuals, but that of nations, that this alone was a
theme worthy of it. Nothing can be more perverse than this view, which
rests on the most vulgar realism. For in every individual appears the
whole undivided will to live, the thing in itself, and the microcosm is
like the macrocosm. The masses have no more content than each individual.
Ethics is concerned not with actions and their results, but with willing,
and willing itself takes place only in the individual. Not the fate of
nations, which exists only in the phenomenon, but that of the individual
is decided _morally_. Nations are really mere abstractions; individuals
alone actually exist. Thus, then, is pantheism related to ethics. But the
evil and misery of the world are not in accord even with theism; hence it
sought assistance from all kinds of evasions, theodicies, which yet were
irretrievably overthrown by the arguments of Hume and Voltaire. Pantheism,
however, is completely untenable in the presence of that bad side of the
world. Only when the world is regarded entirely from without and from the
_physical_ side alone, and nothing else is kept in view but the constant
restorative order, and the comparative imperishableness of the whole which
is thereby introduced, is it perhaps possible to explain it as a god, yet
always only symbolically. But if one enters within, thus considers also
the _subjective_ and _moral_ side, with its preponderance of want,
suffering, and misery, of dissension, wickedness, madness, and perversity,
then one soon becomes conscious with horror that the last thing imaginable
one has before one is a theophany. I, however, have shown, and especially
in my work “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_” have proved, that the force
which works and acts in nature is identical with the will in us. Thereby
the moral order of the world is brought into direct connection with the
force which produces the phenomenon of the world. For the phenomenon of
the will must exactly correspond to its nature. Upon this depends the
exposition of eternal justice given in §§ 63 and 64 of the first volume,
and the world, although subsisting by its own power, receives throughout a
_moral_ tendency. Accordingly the problem which has been discussed from
the time of Socrates is now for the first time really solved, and the
demand of thinking reason directed to morality is satisfied. Yet I have
never professed to propound a philosophy which leaves no questions
unanswered. In this sense philosophy is really impossible: it would be the
science of omniscience. But _est quadam prodire tenus, si non datur
ultra_: there is a limit to which reflection can penetrate and can so far
lighten the night of our existence, although the horizon always remains
dark. My doctrine reaches this limit in the will to live, which in its own
manifestation asserts or denies itself. To wish, however, to go beyond
this is, in my eyes, like wishing to fly beyond the atmosphere. We must
stop there; even although new problems arise out of those which have been
solved. Besides this, however, we must refer to the fact that the validity
of the principle of sufficient reason is limited to the phenomenon; this
was the theme of my first essay on that principle, which was published as
early as 1813.

I now go on to supplement particular points, and shall begin by
supporting, with two passages from classical poetry, my explanation of
weeping given in § 67 of the first volume, that it springs from sympathy
the object of which is one’s own self. At the end of the eighth book of
the “Odyssey,” Ulysses, who in all his many sorrows is never represented
as weeping, bursts into tears, when, still unknown, he hears his early
heroic life and deeds sung by the bard Demodocus in the palace of the
Phæacian king, for this remembrance of the brilliant period of his life
contrasts with his present wretchedness. Thus not this itself directly,
but the objective consideration of it, the picture of his present summoned
up by his past, calls forth his tears; he feels sympathy with himself.
Euripides makes the innocently condemned Hypolytus, bemoaning his own
fate, express the same feeling:


    “Φευ ειθ᾽ ην εμαυτον προσβλεπειν εναντιον
    στανθ᾽, ὡς εδακρυς᾽, ὁια πασχομεν κακα” (1084).

    (_Heu, si liceret mihi, me ipsum extrinsecus spectare, quantopere
    deflerem mala, quæ patior._)


Finally, as a proof of my explanation, an anecdote may be given here which
I take from the English journal _The Herald_ of the 16th July 1836. A
client, when he had heard his case set forth by his counsel in court,
burst into a flood of tears, and cried, “I never knew I had suffered half
so much till I heard it here to‐day.”

I have shown in § 55 of the first volume how, notwithstanding the
unalterable nature of the character, _i.e._, of the special fundamental
will of a man, a real moral repentance is yet possible. I wish, however,
to add the following explanation, which I must preface by a few
definitions. _Inclination_ is every strong susceptibility of the will for
motives of a certain kind. _Passion_ is an inclination so strong that the
motives which excite it exercise a power over the will, which is stronger
than that of every possible motive that can oppose them; thus its mastery
over the will becomes absolute, and consequently with reference to it the
will is _passive_ or _suffering_. It must, however, be remarked here that
passions seldom reach the degree at which they fully answer to the
definition, but rather bear their name as mere approximations to it:
therefore there are then still counter‐motives which are able at least to
restrict their effect, if only they appear distinctly in consciousness.
The _emotion_ is just as irresistible, but yet only a passing excitement
of the will, by a motive which receives its power, not from a deeply
rooted inclination, but merely from the fact that, appearing suddenly, it
excludes for the moment the counter‐effect of all other motives, for it
consists of an idea, which completely obscures all others by its excessive
vividness, or, as it were, conceals them entirely by its too close
proximity, so that they cannot enter consciousness and act on the will,
whereby, therefore, the capacity for reflection, and with it _intellectual
freedom_, is to a certain extent abolished. Accordingly the emotion is
related to the passion as delirium to madness.

Moral repentance is now conditioned by the fact that before the act the
inclination to it did not leave the intellect free scope, because it did
not allow it to contemplate clearly and fully the counter‐motives, but
rather turned it ever anew to the motives in its own favour. But now,
after the act has been performed, these motives are, by this itself,
neutralised, and consequently have become ineffective. Now reality brings
before the intellect the counter‐motives as the consequences of the act
which have already appeared; and the intellect now knows that they would
have been the stronger if it had only adequately contemplated and weighed
them. Thus the man becomes conscious that he has done what was really not
in accordance with his will. This knowledge is repentance, for he has not
acted with full intellectual freedom; for all the motives did not attain
to efficiency. What excluded the motives opposed to the action was in the
case of the hasty action the emotion, and in the case of the deliberate
action the passion. It has also often depended upon the circumstance that
his reason certainly presented to him the counter‐motives in the abstract,
but was not supported by a sufficiently strong imagination to present to
him their whole content and true significance in images. Examples of what
has been said are the cases in which revenge, jealousy, or avarice have
led to murder. After it is committed they are extinguished, and now
justice, sympathy, the remembrance of former friendship, raise their
voices and say all that they would have said before if they had been
allowed to speak. Then enters the bitter repentance, which says, “If it
were not done it would never happen.” An incomparable representation of
this is afforded by the old Scottish ballad, which has also been
translated by Herder, “Edward, Edward.” In an analogous manner, the
neglect of one’s own good may occasion an egotistical repentance. For
example, when an otherwise unadvisable marriage is concluded in
consequence of passionate love, which now is extinguished just by the
marriage, and for the first time the counter‐motives of personal interest,
lost independence, &c., &c., come into consciousness, and speak as they
would have spoken before if they had been allowed utterance. All such
actions accordingly spring from a relative weakness of intellect, because
it lets itself be mastered by the will, just where its function as the
presenter of motives ought to have been inexorably fulfilled, without
allowing itself to be disturbed by the will. The vehemence of the will is
here only _indirectly_ the cause, in that it interferes with the
intellect, and thereby prepares for itself repentance. The
_reasonableness_ of the character σωφροσυνη, which is opposed to
passionateness, really consists in this, that the will never overpowers
the intellect to such an extent as to prevent it from correctly exercising
its function of the distinct, full, and clear exposition of the motives in
the abstract for the reason, in the concrete for the imagination. Now this
may just as well depend upon the moderation and mildness of the will as
upon the strength of the intellect. All that is required is that the
latter should be _relatively_ strong enough for the will that is present,
thus that the two should stand in a suitable relation to each other.

The following explanations have still to be added to the fundamental
characteristics of the philosophy of law expounded in § 62 of the first
volume, and also in my prize essay on the foundation of morals, § 17.

Those who, with Spinoza, deny that there is a right apart from the State,
confound the means for enforcing the right with the right itself.
Certainly the right is insured protection only in the State. But it itself
exists independently of the State. For by force it can only be suppressed,
never abolished. Accordingly the State is nothing more than an institution
for protection, which has become necessary through the manifold attacks to
which man is exposed, and which he would not be able to ward off alone,
but only in union with others. So, then, the aims of the State are—

(1.) First of all, outward protection, which may just as well become
needful against lifeless forces of nature or wild beasts as against men,
consequently against other nations; although this case is the most
frequent and important, for the worst enemy of man is man: _homo homini
lupus_. Since, in consequence of this aim, nations always set up the
principle, in words if not with deeds, that they wish to stand to each
other in a purely defensive, never in an aggressive relation, they
recognise _the law of nations_. This is at bottom nothing but natural law,
in the only sphere of its practical activity that remains to it, between
nation and nation, where it alone must reign, because its stronger son,
positive law, cannot assert itself, since it requires a judge and an
executive. Accordingly the law of nations consists of a certain degree of
morality in the dealings of nations with each other, the maintenance of
which is a question of honour for mankind. The bar at which cases based on
this law are tried is that of public opinion.

(2.) Protection within, thus protection of the members of a State against
each other, consequently security of private right, by means of the
maintenance of an honest state of things, which consists in this, that the
concentrated forces of all protect each individual, from which arises an
appearance as if all were honest, _i.e._, just, thus as if no one wished
to injure the others.

But, as is always the way in human affairs, the removal of one evil
generally opens the way for a new one; thus the granting of that double
protection introduces the need of a third, namely: (3.) Protection against
the protector, _i.e._, against him or those to whom the society has
transferred the management of the protection, thus the guarantee of public
right. This appears most completely attainable by dividing and separating
from each other the threefold unity of the protective power, thus the
legislature, the judicature, and the executive, so that each is managed by
others, and independently of the rest. The great value, indeed the
fundamental idea of the monarchy appears to me to lie in the fact that
because men remain men one must be placed so high, and so much power,
wealth, security, and absolute inviolability given him that there remains
nothing for him to desire, to hope, and to fear for himself; whereby the
egoism which dwells in him, as in every one, is annihilated, as it were,
by neutralisation, and he is now able, as if he were no longer a man, to
practise justice, and to keep in view no longer his own but only the
public good. This is the source of the seemingly superhuman nature that
everywhere accompanies royalty, and distinguishes it so infinitely from
the mere presidency. Therefore it must also be hereditary, not elective;
partly in order that no one may see his equal in the king; partly that the
king himself may only be able to provide for his successors by caring for
the welfare of the State, which is absolutely one with that of his family.

If other ends besides that of protection, here explained, are ascribed to
the State, this may easily endanger the true end.

According to my explanation, the right of property arises only through the
expenditure of labour upon things. This truth, which has already often
been expressed, finds a noteworthy confirmation in the fact that it is
asserted, even in a practical regard, in a declaration of the American ex‐
president, Quincey Adams, which is to be found in the _Quarterly Review_
of 1840, No. 130; and also in French, in the “_Bibliothèque universelle de
Genêve_,” July 1840, No. 55. I will give it here in German (English of
_Quarterly Review_): “There are moralists who have questioned the right of
the Europeans to intrude upon the possessions of the aboriginals in any
case, and under any limitations whatsoever; but have they maturely
considered the whole subject? The Indian right of possession itself
stands, with regard to the greatest part of the country, upon a
_questionable_ foundation. Their cultivated fields, their constructed
habitations, a space of ample sufficiency for their subsistence, and
whatever they had annexed of themselves by personal labour, was
undoubtedly by the laws of nature theirs. But what is the right of a
huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally
ranged in quest of prey?” &c. In the same way, those who in our own day
have seen occasion to combat communism with reasons (for example, the
Archbishop of Paris, in his pastoral of June 1851) have always brought
forward the argument that property is the result of work, as it were only
embodied work. This is further evidence that the right of property can
only be established by the application of work to things, for only in this
respect does it find free recognition and make itself morally valid.

An entirely different kind of proof of the same truth is afforded by the
moral fact that while the law punishes poaching just as severely as theft,
and in many countries more severely, yet civil honour, which is
irrevocably lost by the latter, is really not affected by the former; but
the poacher, if he has been guilty of nothing else, is certainly tainted
with a fault, but yet is not regarded, like the thief, as dishonourable
and shunned by all. For the principles of civil honour rest upon moral and
not upon mere positive law; but game is not an object upon which labour is
bestowed, and thus also is not an object of a morally valid possession:
the right to it is therefore entirely a positive one, and is not morally
recognised.

According to my view, the principle ought to lie at the basis of criminal
law that it is not really the man but only the deed which is punished, in
order that it may not recur. The criminal is merely the subject in whom
the deed is punished, in order that the law in consequence of which the
punishment is inflicted may retain its deterrent power. This is the
meaning of the expression, “He is forfeited to the law.” According to
Kant’s explanation, which amounts to a _jus talionis_, it is not the deed
but the man that is punished. The penitentiary system also seeks not so
much to punish the deed as the man, in order to reform him. It thereby
sets aside the real aim of punishment, determent from the deed, in order
to attain the very problematic end of reformation. But it is always a
doubtful thing to attempt to attain two different ends by _one_ means: how
much more so if the two are in any sense opposite ends. Education is a
benefit, punishment ought to be an evil; the penitentiary prison is
supposed to accomplish both at once. Moreover, however large a share
untutored ignorance, combined with outward distress, may have in many
crimes, yet we dare not regard these as their principal cause, for
innumerable persons living in the same ignorance and under absolutely
similar circumstances commit no crimes. Thus the substance of the matter
falls back upon the personal, moral character; but this, as I have shown
in my prize essay on the freedom of the will, is absolutely unalterable.
Therefore moral reformation is really not possible, but only determent
from the deed through fear. At the same time, the correction of knowledge
and the awakening of the desire to work can certainly be attained; it will
appear what effect this can produce. Besides this, it appears to me, from
the aim of punishment set forth in the text, that, when possible, the
apparent severity of the punishment should exceed the actual: but solitary
confinement achieves the reverse. Its great severity has no witnesses, and
is by no means anticipated by any one who has not experienced it; thus it
does not deter. It threatens him who is tempted to crime by want and
misery with the opposite pole of human suffering, ennui: but, as Goethe
rightly observes—


    “When real affliction is our lot,
    Then do we long for ennui.”


The contemplation of it will deter him just as little as the sight of the
palatial prisons which are built by honest men for rogues. If, however, it
is desired that these penitentiary prisons should be regarded as
educational institutions, then it is to be regretted that the entrance to
them is only obtained by crimes, instead of which it ought to have
preceded them.

That punishment, as Beccaria has taught, ought to bear a proper proportion
to the crime does not depend upon the fact that it would be an expiation
of it, but rather on the fact that the pledge ought to be proportionate to
the value of that for which it answers. Therefore every one is justified
in demanding the pledge of the life of another as a guarantee for the
security of his own life, but not for the security of his property, for
which the freedom, and so forth, of another is sufficient pledge. For the
security of the life of the citizens capital punishment is therefore
absolutely necessary. Those who wish to abolish it should be answered,
“First remove murder from the world, and then capital punishment ought to
follow.” It ought also to be inflicted for the clear attempt to murder
just as for murder itself; for the law desires to punish the deed, not to
revenge its consequences. In general the injury to be guarded against
affords the right measure for the punishment which is to be threatened,
but it does not give the moral baseness of the forbidden action. Therefore
the law may rightly impose the punishment of imprisonment for allowing a
flower‐pot to fall from a window, or impose hard labour for smoking in the
woods during the summer, and yet permit it in the winter. But to impose
the punishment of death, as in Poland, for shooting an ure‐ox is too much,
for the maintenance of the species of ure‐oxen may not be purchased with
human life. In determining the measure of the punishment, along with the
magnitude of the injury to be guarded against, we have to consider the
strength of the motives which impel to the forbidden action. Quite a
different standard of punishment would be established if expiation,
retribution, _jus talionis_, were its true ground. But the criminal code
ought to be nothing but a register of counter‐motives for possible
criminal actions: therefore each of these motives must decidedly outweigh
the motives which lead to these actions, and indeed so much the more the
greater the evil is which would arise from the action to be guarded
against, the stronger the temptation to it, and the more difficult the
conviction of the criminal;—always under the correct assumption that the
will is not free, but determinable by motives;—apart from this it could
not be got at at all. So much for the philosophy of law.

In my prize essay on the freedom of the will (p. 50 _seq._) I have proved
the originality and unalterableness of the inborn character, from which
the moral content of the course of life proceeds. It is established as a
fact. But in order to understand problems in their full extent it is
sometimes necessary to oppose opposites sharply to each other. In this
case, then, let one recall how incredibly great is the inborn difference
between man and man, in a moral and in an intellectual regard. Here
nobleness and wisdom; there wickedness and stupidity. In one the goodness
of the heart shines out of the eyes, or the stamp of genius is enthroned
in his countenance. The base physiognomy of another is the impression of
moral worthlessness and intellectual dulness, imprinted by the hands of
nature itself, unmistakable and ineradicable; he looks as if he must be
ashamed of existence. But to this outward appearance the inner being
really corresponds. We cannot possibly assume that such differences, which
transform the whole being of the man, and which nothing can abolish,
which, further, in conflict with his circumstances, determine his course
of life, could exist without guilt or merit on the part of those affected
by them, and be merely the work of chance. Even from this it is evident
that the man must be in a certain sense his own work. But now, on the
other hand, we can show the source of these differences empirically in the
nature of the parents; and besides this, the meeting and connection of
these parents has clearly been the work of the most accidental
circumstances. By such considerations, then, we are forcibly directed to
the distinction between the phenomenon and the true being of things, which
alone can contain the solution of that problem. The thing in itself only
reveals itself by means of the forms of the phenomenon; therefore what
proceeds from the thing in itself must yet appear in those forms, thus
also in the bonds of causality. Accordingly it will present itself to us
here as a mysterious and incomprehensible guidance of things, of which the
external empirical connection would be the mere tool. Yet all that happens
appears in this empirical connection introduced by causes, thus
necessarily and determined from without, while its true ground lies in the
inner nature of what thus manifests itself. Certainly we can here see the
solution of the problem only from afar, and when we reflect upon it we
fall into an abyss of thought—as Hamlet very truly says, “thoughts beyond
the reaches of our souls.” In my essay in the first volume of the Parerga
“On the Appearance of Intention in the Fate of Individuals” I have set
forth my thoughts upon this mysterious guidance of things, a guidance
which indeed can only be conceived symbolically.

In § 14 of my prize essay on the foundation of morals there will be found
an exposition of egoism, as regards its nature; and the following attempt
to discover its root may be looked upon as supplementary to that
paragraph. Nature itself contradicts itself directly, according as it
speaks from the individual or the universal, from within or from without,
from the centre or the periphery. It has its centre in every individual;
for each individual is the whole will to live. Therefore, even if this
individual is only an insect or a worm, nature itself speaks out of it
thus: “I alone am all in all: in my maintenance everything is involved;
the rest may perish, it is really nothing.” So speaks nature from the
_particular_ standpoint, thus from the point of view of self‐
consciousness, and upon this depends the egoism of every living thing. On
the other hand, from the _universal_ point of view,—which is that of the
_consciousness of other things_, that of objective knowledge, which for
the moment looks away from the individual with whom the knowledge is
connected,—from without then, from the periphery nature speaks thus: “The
individual is nothing, and less than nothing. I destroy millions of
individuals every day, for sport and pastime: I abandon their fate to the
most capricious and wilful of my children, chance, who harasses them at
pleasure. I produce millions of new individuals every day, without any
diminution of my productive power; just as little as the power of a mirror
is exhausted by the number of reflections of the sun, which it casts on
the wall one after another. The individual is nothing.” Only he who knows
how to really reconcile and eliminate this patent contradiction of nature
has a true answer to the question as to the perishableness and
imperishableness of his own self. I believe I have given, in the first
four chapters of this fourth book of the supplements, an adequate
introduction to such knowledge. What is said above may further be
illustrated in the following manner. Every individual, when he looks
within, recognises in his nature, which is his will, the thing in itself,
therefore that which everywhere alone is real. Accordingly he conceives
himself as the kernel and centre of the world, and regards himself as of
infinite importance. If, on the other hand, he looks without, then he is
in the province of the idea the mere phenomenon, where he sees himself as
an individual among an infinite number of other individuals, accordingly
as something very insignificant, nay, vanishing altogether. Consequently
every individual, even the most insignificant, every I, when regarded from
within, is all in all; regarded from without, on the other hand, he is
nothing, or at least as good as nothing. Hence upon this depends the great
difference between what each one necessarily is in his own eyes and what
he is in the eyes of others, consequently the egoism with which every one
reproaches every one else.

In consequence of this egoism our fundamental error of all is this, that
with reference to each other we are reciprocally not I. On the other hand,
to be just, noble, and benevolent is nothing else than to translate my
metaphysics into actions. To say that time and space are mere forms of our
knowledge, not conditions of things in themselves, is the same as to say
that the doctrine of metempsychosis, “Thou shalt one day be born as him
whom thou now injurest, and in thy turn shalt suffer like injury,” is
identical with the formula of the Brahmans, which has frequently been
mentioned, _Tat twam asi_, “This thou art.” All true virtue proceeds from
the immediate and intuitive knowledge of the metaphysical identity of all
beings, which I have frequently shown, especially in § 22 of my prize
essay on the foundation of morals. But just on this account it is not the
result of a special pre‐eminence of intellect; on the contrary, even the
weakest intellect is sufficient to see through the _principium
individuationis_, which is what is required in this matter. Accordingly we
may find the most excellent character even in the case of a very weak
understanding. And further, the excitement of our sympathy is accompanied
by no exertion of our intellect. It rather appears that the requisite
penetration of the _principium individuationis_ would be present in every
one if it were not that the _will_ opposes this, and by virtue of its
immediate mysterious and despotic influence upon the intellect generally
prevents it from arising; so that ultimately all guilt falls back upon the
_will_, as indeed is in conformity with the fact.

The doctrine of metempsychosis, touched on above, deviates from the truth
merely through the circumstance that it transfers to the future what
already is now. It makes my true inner nature exist in others only after
my death, while, according to the truth, it already lives in them now, and
death merely removes the illusion on account of which I am not aware of
this; just as an innumerable host of stars constantly shine above our
heads, but only become visible to us when the one sun near the earth has
set. From this point of view my individual existence, however much, like
that sun, it may outshine everything, appears ultimately only as a
hindrance which stands between me and the knowledge of the true extent of
my being. And because every individual, in his knowledge, is subject to
this hindrance, it is just individuation that keeps the will to live in
error as to its own nature; it is the Mâyâ of Brahmanism. Death is a
refutation of this error, and abolishes it. I believe that at the moment
of death we become conscious that it is a mere illusion that has limited
our existence to our person. Indeed empirical traces of this may be found
in several states which are related to death by the abolition of the
concentration of consciousness in the brain, among which the magnetic
sleep is the most prominent; for in it, if it reaches a high degree, our
existence shows itself through various symptoms, beyond our persons and in
other beings, most strikingly by direct participation in the thoughts of
another individual, and ultimately even by the power of knowing the
absent, the distant, and even the future, thus by a kind of omnipresence.

Upon this metaphysical identity of the will, as the thing in itself, in
the infinite multiplicity of its phenomena, three principal phenomena
depend, which may be included under the common name of sympathies: (1)
_sympathy proper_, which, as I have shown, is the basis of justice and
benevolence, _caritas_; (2) _sexual love_, with capricious selection,
_amor_, which is the life of the species, that asserts its precedence over
that of the individual; (3) _magic_, to which animal magnetism and
sympathetic cures also belong. Accordingly _sympathy_ may be defined as
the empirical appearance of the metaphysical identity of the will, through
the physical multiplicity of its phenomena, whereby a connection shows
itself which is entirely different from that brought about by means of the
forms of the phenomenon which we comprehend under the principle of
sufficient reason.




Chapter XLVIII.(44) On The Doctrine Of The Denial Of The Will To Live.


Man has his existence and being either _with_ his will, _i.e._, his
consent, or _without_ this; in the latter case an existence so embittered
by manifold and insupportable sufferings would be a flagrant injustice.
The ancients, especially the Stoics, also the Peripatetics and Academics,
strove in vain to prove that virtue sufficed to make life happy.
Experience cried out loudly against it. What really lay at the foundation
of the efforts of these philosophers, although they were not distinctly
conscious of it, was the assumed _justice_ of the thing; whoever was
without guilt ought to be free from suffering, thus happy. But the serious
and profound solution of the problem lies in the Christian doctrine that
works do not justify. Accordingly a man, even if he has practised all
justice and benevolence, consequently the αγαθον, _honestum_, is yet not,
as Cicero imagines, _culpa omni carens_ (_Tusc._, v. i.); but _el delito
mayor del hombre es haber nacido_ (the greatest guilt of man is that he
was born), as Calderon, illuminated by Christianity, has expressed it with
far profounder knowledge than these wise men. Therefore that man comes
into the world already tainted with guilt can appear absurd only to him
who regards him as just then having arisen out of nothing and as the work
of another. In consequence of _this_ guilt, then, which must therefore
have proceeded from his will, man remains rightly exposed to physical and
mental suffering, even if he has practised all those virtues, thus is not
happy. This follows from the _eternal justice_ of which I have spoken in §
63 of the first volume. That, however, as St. Paul (Rom. iii. 21),
Augustine, and Luther teach, works cannot justify, inasmuch as we all are
and remain essentially sinners, ultimately rests upon the fact that,
because _operari sequitur esse_, if we acted as we ought, we would
necessarily be as we ought. But then we would require no _salvation_ from
our present condition, which not only Christianity but also Brahmanism and
Buddhism (under the name which is expressed in English by _final
emancipation_) present as the highest goal, _i.e._, we would not need to
become something quite different from, nay, the very opposite of what we
are. Since, however, we are what we ought not to be, we also necessarily
do what we ought not to do. Therefore we need a complete transformation of
our mind and nature; _i.e._, the new birth, as the result of which
salvation appears. Although the guilt lies in action, _operari_, yet the
root of the guilt lies in our _essentia et existentia_, for out of these
the _operari_ necessarily proceeds, as I have shown in the prize essay on
the freedom of the will. Accordingly our one true sin is really original
sin. Now the Christian myth makes original sin first arise after man came
into existence, and for this purpose ascribes to him, _per impossibile_, a
free will. It does this, however, simply as myth. The inmost kernel and
spirit of Christianity is identical with that of Brahmanism and Buddhism;
they all teach a great guilt of the human race through its existence
itself, only that Christianity does not proceed directly and frankly like
these more ancient religions: thus does not make the guilt simply the
result of existence itself, but makes it arise through the act of the
first human pair. This was only possible under the fiction of a _liberum
arbitrium indifferentiæ_, and only necessary on account of the Jewish
fundamental dogma, in which that doctrine had here to be implanted.
Because, according to the truth, the coming into existence of man himself
is the act of his free will, and accordingly one with the fall, and
therefore the original sin, of which all other sins are the result,
appeared already with the _essentia_ and _existentia_ of man; but the
fundamental dogma of Judaism did not admit of such an explanation. Thus
Augustine taught, in his books _De libero arbitrio_, that only as Adam
before the fall was man guiltless and possessed of a free will, but for
ever after is involved in the necessity of sin. The law, ὁ νομος, in the
Biblical sense, always demands that we shall change our doing, while our
being remains unchanged. But because this is impossible, Paul says that no
man is justified by the law; only the new birth in Jesus Christ, in
consequence of the work of grace, on account of which a new man arises and
the old man is abolished (_i.e._, a fundamental change of mind or
conversion), can transfer us from the state of sinfulness into that of
freedom and salvation. This is the Christian myth with reference to
ethics. But certainly the Jewish theism, upon which it was grafted, must
have received wonderful additions to adapt itself to that myth. In it the
fable of the fall presented the only place for the graft of the old Indian
stem. It is to be attributed just to that forcibly surmounted difficulty
that the Christian mysteries have received such an extraordinary
appearance, conflicting with the ordinary understanding, which makes
proselytising more difficult, and on account of which, from incapacity to
comprehend their profound meaning, Pelagianism, or at the present day
Rationalism, rises against them, and seeks to explain them away, but
thereby reduces Christianity to Judaism.

But to speak without myth: so long as our will is the same, our world can
be no other than it is. It is true all wish to be delivered from the state
of suffering and death; they would like, as it is expressed, to attain to
eternal blessedness, to enter the kingdom of heaven, only not upon their
own feet; they would like to be carried there by the course of nature.
That, however, is impossible. Therefore nature will never let us fall and
become nothing; but yet it can lead us nowhere but always again into
nature. Yet how questionable a thing it is to exist as a part of nature
every one experiences in his own life and death. Accordingly existence is
certainly to be regarded as an erring, to return from which is salvation:
it also bears this character throughout. It is therefore conceived in this
manner by the ancient Samana religions, and also, although indirectly, by
real and original Christianity. Even Judaism itself contains at least in
the fall (this its redeeming feature) the germ of such a view. Only Greek
paganism and Islamism are entirely optimistic: therefore in the former the
opposite tendency had to find expression at least in tragedy; but in
Islamism, which is the worst, as it is the most modern, of all religions,
it appeared as Sufism, that very beautiful phenomenon, which is completely
of Indian spirit and origin, and has now continued for upwards of a
thousand years. Nothing can, in fact, be given as the end of our existence
but the knowledge that we had better not be. This, however, is the most
important of all truths, which must therefore be expressed, however great
the contrast in which it stands with the European manner of thought of the
present day. On the other hand, in the whole of non‐Mohammedan Asia it is
the most universally recognised fundamental truth, to‐day as much as three
thousand years ago.

If now we consider the will to live as a whole and objectively, we have,
in accordance with what has been said, to think of it as involved in an
illusion, to escape from which, thus to deny its whole existing endeavour,
is what all religions denote by self‐renunciation, _abnegatio sui ipsius_;
for the true self is the will to live. The moral virtues, thus justice and
benevolence, since if they are pure they spring, as I have shown, from the
fact that the will to live, seeing through the _principium
individuationis_, recognises itself in all its manifestations, are
accordingly primarily a sign, a symptom, that the self‐manifesting will is
no longer firmly held in that illusion, but the disillusion already begins
to take place; so that one might metaphorically say it already flaps its
wings to fly away from it. Conversely, injustice, wickedness, cruelty are
signs of the opposite, thus of the deep entanglement in that illusion.
Secondly, however, these virtues are a means of advancing self‐
renunciation, and accordingly the denial of the will to live. For true
integrity, inviolable justice, this first and most important of cardinal
virtues, is so hard a task that whoever professes it unconditionally and
from the bottom of his heart has to make sacrifices that soon deprive life
of the sweetness which is demanded to make it enjoyable, and thereby turn
away the will from it, thus lead to resignation. Yet just what makes
integrity honourable is the sacrifices which it costs; in trifles it is
not admired. Its nature really consists in this, that the just man does
not throw upon others, by craft or force, the burdens and sorrows which
life brings with it, as the unjust man does, but bears himself what falls
to his lot; and thus he has to bear the full burden of the evil imposed
upon human life, undiminished. Justice thereby becomes a means of
advancing the denial of the will to live, for want and suffering, those
true conditions of human life, are its consequence, and these lead to
resignation. Still more quickly does the virtue of benevolence, _caritas_,
which goes further, lead to the same result; for on account of it one
takes over even the sufferings which originally fell to the lot of others,
therefore appropriates to oneself a larger share of these than in the
course of things would come to the particular individual. He who is
inspired with this virtue has recognised his own being in all others. And
thereby he identifies his own lot with that of humanity in general; but
this is a hard lot, that of care, suffering, and death. Whoever, then, by
renouncing every accidental advantage, desires for himself no other lot
than that of humanity in general cannot desire even this long. The
clinging to life and its pleasures must now soon yield, and give place to
a universal renunciation; consequently the denial of the will will take
place. Since now, in accordance with this, poverty, privation, and special
sufferings of many kinds are introduced simply by the perfect exercise of
the moral virtues, asceticism in the narrowest sense, thus the surrender
of all possessions, the intentional seeking out of what is disagreeable
and repulsive, self‐mortification, fasts, the hair shirt, and the
scourge—all this is rejected by many, and perhaps rightly, as superfluous.
Justice itself is the hair shirt that constantly harasses its owner and
the charity that gives away what is needed, provides constant fasts.(45)
Just on this account Buddhism is free from all strict and excessive
asceticism, which plays a large part in Brahmanism, thus from intentional
self‐mortification. It rests satisfied with the celibacy, voluntary
poverty, humility, and obedience of the monks, with abstention from animal
food, as also from all worldliness. Since, further, the goal to which the
moral virtues lead is that which is here pointed out, the Vedanta
philosophy(46) rightly says that after the entrance of true knowledge,
with entire resignation in its train, thus the new birth, then the
morality or immorality of the past life is a matter of indifference, and
uses here also the saying so often quoted by the Brahmans: “_Finditur
nodus cordis, dissolvuntur omnes dubitationes, ejusque opera evanescunt,
viso supremo illo_” (_Sancara, sloca 32_).

Now, however objectionable this view may be to many, to whom a reward in
heaven or a punishment in hell is a much more satisfactory explanation of
the ethical significance of human action, just as the good Windischmann
rejects that doctrine, while he expounds it, yet whoever is able to go to
the bottom of the matter will find that in the end it agrees with that
Christian doctrine especially urged by Luther, that it is not works but
only the faith which enters through the work of grace, that saves us, and
that therefore we can never be justified by our deeds, but can only obtain
the forgiveness of our sins through the merits of the Mediator. It is
indeed easy to see that without such assumptions Christianity would have
to teach infinite punishment for all, and Brahmanism endless re‐births for
all, thus no salvation would be reached by either. The sinful works and
their consequences must be annulled and annihilated, whether by extraneous
pardon or by the entrance of a better knowledge; otherwise the world could
hope for no salvation; afterwards, however, they become a matter of
indifference. This is also the μετανοια και αφεσις ἁμαρτιων, the
announcement of which the risen Christ exclusively imposes upon His
Apostles as the sum of their mission (Luke xxiv. 47). The moral virtues
are really not the ultimate end, but only a step towards it. This step is
signified in the Christian myth by the eating of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, with which moral responsibility enters, together with
original sin. The latter itself is in truth the assertion of the will to
live: the denial of the will to live, in consequence of the appearance of
a better knowledge, is, on the other hand, salvation. Between these two,
then, lies the sphere of morality; it accompanies man as a light upon his
path from the assertion to the denial of the will, or, mythically, from
original sin to salvation through faith in the mediation of the incarnate
God (Avatar); or, according to the teaching of the Vedas, through all re‐
births, which are the consequence of the works in each case, until right
knowledge appears, and with it salvation (final emancipation), Mokscha,
_i.e._, reunion with Brahma. The Buddhists, however, with perfect honesty,
only indicate the matter negatively, by Nirvana, which is the negation of
this world, or of Sansara. If Nirvana is defined as nothing, this only
means that the Sansara contains no single element which could assist the
definition or construction of Nirvana. Just on this account the Jainas,
who differ from the Buddhists only in name, call the Brahmans who believe
in the Vedas Sabdapramans, a nickname which is meant to signify that they
believe upon hearsay what cannot be known or proved (“Asiat. Researches,”
vol. vi. P. 474).

When certain ancient philosophers, such as Orpheus, the Pythagoreans, and
Plato (_e.g._, in the “Phædo,” pp. 151, 183 _seq._, Bip.; and see _Clem.
Alex. strom._, iii. p. 400 _seq._), just like the Apostle Paul, lament the
union of soul and body, and desire to be freed from it, we understand the
real and true meaning of this complaint, since we have recognised, in the
second book, that the body is the will itself, objectively perceived as a
phenomenon in space.

In the hour of death it is decided whether the man returns into the womb
of nature or belongs no more to nature at all, but —— —— ——: for this
opposite we lack image, conception, and word, just because these are all
taken from the objectification of the will, therefore belong to this, and
consequently can in no way express the absolute opposite of it, which
accordingly remains for us a mere negation. However, the death of the
individual is in each case the unweariedly repeated question of nature to
the will to live, “Hast thou enough? Wilt thou escape from me?” In order
that it may occur often enough, the individual life is so short. In this
spirit are conceived the ceremonies, prayers, and exhortations of the
Brahmans at the time of death, as we find them preserved in the Upanischad
in several places; and so also are the Christian provisions for the
suitable employment of the hour of death by means of exhortation,
confession, communion, and extreme unction: hence also the Christian
prayers for deliverance from sudden death. That at the present day it is
just this that many desire only proves that they no longer stand at the
Christian point of view, which is that of the denial of the will to live,
but at that of its assertion, which is the heathen point of view.

But he will fear least to become nothing in death who has recognised that
he is already nothing now, and who consequently no longer takes any share
in his individual phenomenon, because in him knowledge has, as it were,
burnt up and consumed the will, so that no will, thus no desire for
individual existence, remains in him any more.

Individuality inheres indeed primarily in the intellect; and the
intellect, reflecting the phenomenon, belongs to the phenomenon, which has
the _principium individuationis_ as its form. But it inheres also in the
will, inasmuch as the character is individual: yet the character itself is
abolished in the denial of the will. Thus individuality inheres in the
will only in its assertion, not in its denial. Even the holiness which is
connected with every purely moral action depends upon the fact that such
an action ultimately springs from the immediate knowledge of the numerical
identity of the inner nature of all living things.(47) But this identity
only really exists in the condition of the denial of the will (Nirvana),
for the assertion of the will (Sansara) has for its form the phenomenal
appearance of it in multiplicity. Assertion of the will to live, the
phenomenal world, the diversity of all beings, individuality, egoism,
hatred, wickedness, all spring from _one_ root; and so also, on the other
hand, do the world as thing in itself, the identity of all beings,
justice, benevolence, the denial of the will to live. If now, as I have
sufficiently proved, even the moral virtues spring from the consciousness
of that identity of all beings, but this lies, not in the phenomenon, but
only in the thing in itself, in the root of all beings, the moral action
is a momentary passing through the point, the permanent return to which is
the denial of the will to live.

It follows, as a deduction from what has been said, that we have no ground
to assume that there are more perfect intelligences than that of human
beings. For we see that even this degree of intelligence is sufficient to
impart to the will that knowledge in consequence of which it denies and
abolishes itself, upon which the individuality, and consequently the
intelligence, which is merely a tool of individual, and therefore animal
nature, perish. This will appear to us less open to objection if we
consider that we cannot conceive even the most perfect intelligences
possible, which for this end we may experimentally assume, existing
through an endless time, which would be much too poor to afford them
constantly new objects worthy of them. Because the nature of all things is
at bottom one, all knowledge of them is necessarily tautological. If now
this nature once becomes comprehended, as by those most perfect
intelligences it soon would be comprehended, what would then remain but
the wearisomeness of mere repetition through an infinite time? Thus from
this side also we are pointed to the fact that the end of all intelligence
can only be reaction upon the will; since, however, all willing is an
error, it remains the last work of intelligence to abolish the willing,
whose ends it had hitherto served. Accordingly even the most perfect
intelligence possible can only be a transition step to that to which no
knowledge can ever extend: indeed such an intelligence can, in the nature
of things, only assume the position of the moment of the attainment of
perfect insight.

In agreement with all these considerations, and also with what is proved
in the second book as to the origin of knowledge in the will, the
_assertion_ of which it reflects in fulfilling the sole function of
knowledge, that of being serviceable to the ends of the will, while true
salvation lies in its _denial_, we see all religions at their highest
point pass over into mysticism and mysteries, _i.e._, into darkness and
veiled obscurity, which for knowledge signify merely an empty spot, the
point where knowledge necessarily ceases; therefore for thought this can
only be expressed by negations, but for sense perception it is indicated
by symbolical signs; in temples by dim light and silence; in Brahmanism
indeed by the required suspension of all thought and perception for the
sake of sinking oneself profoundly in the grounds of one’s own being,
mentally pronouncing the mysterious Oum.(48) Mysticism in the widest sense
is every guidance to the immediate consciousness of that to which neither
perception nor conception, thus in general no knowledge extends. The
mystic is thus opposed to the philosopher by the fact that he begins from
within, while the philosopher begins from without. The mystic starts from
his inner, positive, individual experience, in which he finds himself to
be the eternal and only being, &c. But nothing of this is communicable
except the assertions which one has to accept upon his word; consequently
he cannot convince. The philosopher, on the other hand, starts from what
is common to all, from the objective phenomenon which lies before all, and
from the facts of consciousness as they are present in all. His method is
therefore reflection upon all this, and combination of the data given in
it: accordingly he can convince. He ought therefore to beware of falling
into the way of the mystics, and, for example, by the assertion of
intellectual intuitions or pretended immediate apprehensions of the
reason, to seek to make a vain show of positive knowledge of that which is
for ever inaccessible to all knowledge, or at the most can be indicated by
means of a negation. The value and worth of philosophy lies in the fact
that it rejects all assumptions which cannot be established, and takes as
its data only what can be certainly proved in the world given in external
perception, in the forms of apprehension of this world, which are
constitutive of our intellect, and in the consciousness of one’s own self
which is common to all. Therefore it must remain cosmology, and cannot
become theology. Its theme must limit itself to the world; to express in
all aspects what this _is_, what it is in its inmost nature, is all that
it can honestly achieve. Now it answers to this that my system when it
reaches its highest point assumes a _negative_ character, thus ends with a
negation. It can here speak only of what is denied, given up: but what is
thereby won, what is laid hold of, it is obliged (at the conclusion of the
fourth book) to denote as nothing, and can only add the consolation that
it is merely a relative, not an absolute nothing. For if something is none
of all the things which we know, it is certainly for us, speaking
generally, nothing. But it does not yet follow from this that it is
absolutely nothing, that from every possible point of view and in every
possible sense it must be nothing, but only that we are limited to a
completely negative knowledge of it, which may very well lie in the
limitation of our point of view. Now it is just here that the mystic
proceeds positively, and therefore it is just from this point that nothing
but mysticism remains. However, any one who wishes this kind of supplement
to the negative knowledge to which alone philosophy can guide him will
find it in its most beautiful and richest form in the Oupnekhat, then also
in the Enneads of Plotinus, in Scotus Erigena, in passages of Jakob Böhm,
but especially in the marvellous work of Madame de Guion, _Les Torrens_,
and in Angelus Silesius; finally also in the poems of the Sufis, of which
Tholuk has given us a collection translated into Latin, and another
translated into German, and in many other works. The Sufis are the
Gnostics of Islam. Hence Sadi denotes them by a word which may be
translated “full of insight.” Theism, calculated with reference to the
capacity of the multitude, places the source of existence without us, as
an object. All mysticism, and so also Sufism, according to the various
degrees of its initiation, draws it gradually back within us, as the
subject, and the adept recognises at last with wonder and delight that he
is it himself. This procedure, common to all mysticism, we find not only
expressed by Meister Eckhard, the father of German mysticism, in the form
of a precept for the perfect ascetic, “that he seek not God outside
himself” (Eckhard’s works, edited by Pfeiffer, vol. i. p. 626), but also
very naïvely exhibited by Eckhard’s spiritual daughter, who sought him
out, when she had experienced that conversion in herself, to cry out
joyfully to him, “Sir, rejoice with me, I have become God” (_loc. cit._,
p. 465). The mysticism of the Sufis also expresses itself throughout
precisely in accordance with this spirit, principally as a revelling in
the consciousness that one is oneself the kernel of the world and the
source of all existence, to which all returns. Certainly there also often
appears the call to surrender all volition as the only way in which
deliverance from individual existence and its suffering is possible, yet
subordinated and required as something easy. In the mysticism of the
Hindus, on the other hand, the latter side comes out much more strongly,
and in Christian mysticism it is quite predominant, so that pantheistic
consciousness, which is essential to all mysticism, here only appears in a
secondary manner, in consequence of the surrender of all volition, as
union with God. Corresponding to this difference of the conception,
Mohammedan mysticism has a very serene character, Christian mysticism a
gloomy and melancholy character, while that of the Hindus, standing above
both, in this respect also holds the mean.

Quietism, _i.e._, surrender of all volition, asceticism, _i.e._,
intentional mortification of one’s own will, and mysticism, _i.e._,
consciousness of the identity of one’s own nature with that of all things
or with the kernel of the world, stand in the closest connection; so that
whoever professes one of them is gradually led to accept the others, even
against his intention. Nothing can be more surprising than the agreement
with each other of the writers who present these doctrines,
notwithstanding the greatest difference of their age, country, and
religion, accompanied by the firm certainty and inward confidence with
which they set forth the permanence of their inner experience. They do not
constitute a _sect_, which adheres to, defends, and propagates a favourite
dogma once laid hold of; indeed the Indian, Christian, and Mohammedan
mystics, quietists, and ascetics are different in every respect, except
the inner significance and spirit of their teaching. A very striking
example of this is afforded by the comparison of the _Torrens_ of Madame
de Guion with the teaching of the Vedas, especially with the passage in
the Oupnekhat, vol. i. p. 63, which contains the content of that French
work in the briefest form, but accurately and even with the same images,
and yet could not possibly have been known to Madame de Guion in 1680. In
the “_Deutschen Theologie_” (the only unmutilated edition, Stuttgart,
1851) it is said in chapters 2 and 3 that both the fall of the devil and
that of Adam consisted in the fact that the one as the other ascribed to
himself the I and me, the mine and to me, and on p. 89 it is said: “In
true love there remains neither I nor me, mine, to me, thou, thine, and
the like.” Now, corresponding to this, it is said in the “Kural,” from the
Tamilian by Graul, p. 8: “The passion of the mine directed outwardly, and
that of the I directed inwardly, cease” (_cf._ ver. 346). And in the
“Manual of Buddhism” by Spence Hardy, p. 258, Buddha says: “My disciples
reject the thoughts I am this, or this is mine.” In general, if we look
away from the forms which are introduced by external circumstances and go
to the bottom of the matter, we will find that Sakya Muni and Meister
Eckhard teach the same; only that the former dared to express his thoughts
directly, while the latter is obliged to clothe them in the garments of
the Christian myth and adapt his expressions to this. He carries this,
however, so far that with him the Christian myth has become little more
than a symbolical language, just as the Hellenic myth became for the Neo‐
Platonists: he takes it throughout allegorically. In the same respect it
is worth noticing that the transition of St. Francis from prosperity to
the mendicant life is similar to the still greater step of Buddha Sakya
Muni from prince to beggar, and that, corresponding to this, the life of
St. Francis, and also the order he founded, was just a kind of
Sannyasiism. Indeed it deserves to be mentioned that his relationship with
the Indian spirit appears also in his great love for the brutes and
frequent intercourse with them, when he always calls them his sisters and
brothers; and his beautiful Cantico also bears witness to his inborn
Indian spirit by the praise of the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, the
water, the fire, and the earth.(49)

Even the Christian quietists must often have had little or no knowledge of
each other; for example, Molinos and Madame de Guion of Tauler and the
“_Deutsche Theologie_,” or Gichtel of the former. In any case, the great
difference of their culture, in that some of them, like Molinos, were
learned, others, like Gichtel and many more, were the reverse, has no
essential influence upon their teaching. Their great internal agreement,
along with the firmness and certainty of their utterances, proves all the
more that they speak from real inward experience, from an experience which
certainly is not accessible to all, but is possessed only by a few
favoured individuals, and therefore has received the name of the work of
grace, the reality of which, however, for the above reasons, is not to be
doubted. But in order to understand all this one must read the mystics
themselves, and not be contented with second‐hand reports of them; for
every one must himself be comprehended before one judges concerning him.
Thus to become acquainted with quietism I specially recommend Meister
Eckhard, the “_Deutsche Theologie_,” Tauler, Madame de Guion, Antoinette
Bourignon, the English Bunyan, Molinos(50) and Gichtel. In the same way,
as practical proofs and examples of the profound seriousness of
asceticism, the life of Pascal, edited by Reuchlin, together with his
history of the Port‐Royal, and also the _Histoire de Sainte Elisabeth, par
le comte de Montalembert_, and _La vie de Rancé, par Chateaubriand_, are
very well worth reading, but yet by no means exhaust all that is important
in this class. Whoever has read such writings, and compared their spirit
with that of ascetism and quietism as it runs through all works of
Brahmanism and Buddhism, and speaks in every page, will admit that every
philosophy, which must in consistency reject that whole mode of thought,
which it can only do by explaining the representatives of it to be either
impostors or mad‐men, must just on this account necessarily be false. But
all European systems, with the exception of mine, find themselves in this
position. Truly it must be an extraordinary madness which, under the most
widely different circumstances and persons possible, spoke with such
agreement, and, moreover, was raised to the position of a chief doctrine
of their religion, by the most ancient and numerous peoples of the earth,
something like three‐fourths of all the inhabitants of Asia. But no
philosophy can leave the theme of quietism and asceticism undecided if the
question is proposed to it; because this theme is, in its matter,
identical with that of all metaphysics and ethics. Here then is a point
upon which I expect and desire that every philosophy, with its optimism,
should declare itself. And if, in the judgment of contemporaries, the
paradoxical and unexampled agreement of my philosophy with quietism and
asceticism appears as an open stumbling‐block, I, on the contrary, see
just in that agreement a proof of its sole correctness and truth, and also
a ground of explanation of why it is ignored and kept secret by the
_Protestant_ universities.

For not only the religions of the East, but also true Christianity, has
throughout that ascetic fundamental character which my philosophy explains
as the denial of the will to live; although Protestantism, especially in
its present form, seeks to conceal this. Yet even the open enemies of
Christianity who have appeared in the most recent times have ascribed to
it the doctrines of renunciation, self‐denial, perfect chastity, and, in
general, mortification of the will, which they quite correctly denote by
the name of the “_anti‐cosmic tendency_,” and have fully proved that such
doctrines are essentially proper to original and genuine Christianity. In
this they are undeniably right. But that they set up this as an evident
and patent reproach to Christianity, while just here lies its profoundest
truth, its high value, and its sublime character,—this shows an obscuring
of the mind, which can only be explained by the fact that these men’s
minds, unfortunately like thousands more at the present day in Germany,
are completely spoiled and distorted by the miserable Hegelism, that
school of dulness, that centre of misunderstanding and ignorance, that
mind‐destroying, spurious wisdom, which now at last begins to be
recognised as such, and the veneration of which will soon be left to the
Danish Academy, in whose eyes even that gross charlatan is a _summus
philosophus_, for whom it takes the field:—


    “_Car ils suivront la créance et estude,_
    _De l’ignorante et sotte multitude,_
    _Dont le plus lourd sera reça pour juge._”

    —RABELAIS.


In any case, the ascetic tendency is unmistakable in the genuine and
original Christianity as it developed in the writings of the Church
Fathers from its kernel in the New Testament; it is the summit towards
which all strives upwards. As its chief doctrine we find the
recommendation of genuine and pure celibacy (this first and most important
step in the denial of the will to live), which is already expressed in the
New Testament.(51) Strauss also, in his “Life of Jesus” (vol i. p. 618 of
the first edition), says, with reference to the recommendation of celibacy
given in Matt. xix. 11 _seq._, “That the doctrine of Jesus may not run
counter to the ideas of the present day, men have hastened to introduce
surreptitiously the thought that Jesus only praised celibacy with
reference to the circumstances of the time, and in order to leave the
activity of the Apostles unfettered; but there is even less indication of
this in the context than in the kindred passage, 1 Cor. vii. 25 _seq._;
but we have here again one of the places where _ascetic principles_, such
as prevailed among the Essenes, and probably still more widely among the
Jews, appear in the teaching of Jesus also.” This ascetic tendency appears
more decidedly later than at the beginning, when Christianity, still
seeking adherents, dared not pitch its demands too high; and by the
beginning of the third century it is expressly urged. Marriage, in genuine
Christianity, is merely a compromise with the sinful nature of man, as a
concession, something allowed to those who lack strength to aspire to the
highest, an expedient to avoid greater evil: in this sense it receives the
sanction of the Church in order that the bond may be indissoluble. But
celibacy and virginity are set up as the higher consecration of
Christianity through which one enters the ranks of the elect. Through
these alone does one attain the victor’s crown, which even at the present
day is signified by the wreath upon the coffin of the unmarried, and also
by that which the bride lays aside on the day of her marriage.

A piece of evidence upon this point, which certainly comes to us from the
primitive times of Christianity, is the pregnant answer of the Lord,
quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus (_Strom._ iii. 6 _et_ 9) from the Gospel of
the Egyptians: “Τῃ Σαλωμῃ ὁ κυριος πυνθανομενῃ, μεχρι ποτε θανατος
ισχυσει; μεχρις αν ειπεν, ὑμεις, αἱ γυναικες, τικτετε” (_Salomæ
interroganti ____quousque vigebit mors?____ Dominus ____guoadlusque____
inguit ____vos, mulieres, paritis___). “Τουτ᾽ εστι, μεχρις αν αἱ επιθυμιαι
ενεργωσι” (_Hoc est, quamdiu operabuntur cupiditates_), adds Clement, c.
9, with which he at once connects the famous passage, Rom. v. 12. Further
on, c. 13, he quotes the words of Cassianus: “Πυνθανομενης της Σαλωμης,
ποτε γνωσθησεται τα περι ὡν ηρετο, εφη ὁ κυριος, ᾽Οταν της αισχυνς ενδυμα
πατησετε, και ὁταν γενηται τα δυο ἑν, και το αρρεν μετα της θηλειας ουτε
αρρεν, ουτε θηλυ” (_Cum interrogaret Salome, quando cognoscentur ea, de
quibus interrogabat, ait Dominus: ____quando pudoris indumentum
conculcaveritis, et quando duo facto fuerint unum, et masculum cum fæmina
nec masculum, nec fæminium___), _i.e._, when she no longer needs the veil
of modesty, since all distinction of sex will have disappeared.

With regard to this point the heretics have certainly gone furthest: even
in the second century the Tatianites or Encratites, the Gnostics, the
Marcionites, the Montanists, Valentinians, and Cassians; yet only because
with reckless consistency they gave honour to the truth, and therefore, in
accordance with the spirit of Christianity, they taught perfect
continence; while the Church prudently declared to be heresy all that ran
counter to its far‐seeing policy. Augustine says of the Tatianites:
“_Nuptias damnant, atque omnino pares eas fornicationibus aliisque
corruptionibus faciunt: nec recipiunt in suum numerum conjugio utentem,
sive marem, sive fœminam. Non vescunlur carnibus, easque abominantur._”
(_De hœresi ad quod vult Deum. hœr._, 25.) But even the orthodox Fathers
look upon marriage in the light indicated above, and zealously preach
entire continence, the ἁγνεια. Athanasius gives as the cause of marriage:
“Ὁτι υποπιπτοντες εσμεν τῃ του προπατορος καταδικῃ ... επειδη ὁ
προηγουμενος σκοπος του θεου ην, το μη δια γαμου γενεσθαι ἡμας και φθορας;
ἡ δε παραβασις της εντολης του γαμον εισηγαγεν δια το ανομησαι τον Αδαμ.”
(_Quia subjacemus condemnationi propatoris nostri; ... nam finis, a Deo
prœlatus, erat, nos non per nuptias et corruptionem fieri: sed
transgressio mandati nuptias introduxit, propter legis violationem
Adœ._—_Exposit. in psalm._ 50). Tertullian calls marriage _genus mali
inferioris, ex indulgentia ortum_ (_De pudicitia_, c. 16) and says:
“_Matrimonium et stuprum est commixtio carnis; scilicet cujus
concupiscentiam dominus stupro adœquavit. Ergo, inguis, jam et primas, id
est unas nuptias destruis? Nec immerito: quoniam et ipsœ ex eo constant,
quod est stuprum_” (_De exhort. castit._, c. 9). Indeed, Augustine himself
commits himself entirely to this doctrine and all its results, for he
says: “_Novi quosdam, qui murmurent: quid, si, inquiunt, omnes velint ab
omni concubitu abstinere, unde subsistet genus humanum? Utinam omnes hoc
vellent! dumtaxat in caritate, de corde puro et conscientia bona, et fide
non ficta: multo citius Dei civitas compleretur, ut acceleraretur terminus
mundi_” (_De bono conjugali_, c. 10). And again: “_Non vos ab hoc studio,
quo multos ad imitandum vos excitatis, frangat querela vanorum, qui
dicunt: quomodo subsistet genus humanum, si omnes fuerint continentes?
Quasi propter aliud retardetur hoc seculum, nisi ut impleatur
prœdestinatus numerus ille sanctorum, quo citius impleto, profecto nec
terminus seculi differetur_” (_De bono individuitatis_, c. 23). One sees
at once that he identifies salvation with the end of the world. The other
passages in the works of Augustine which bear on this point will be found
collected in the “_Confessio Augustiniana e D. Augustini operibus
compilata a Hieronymo Torrense_,” 1610, under the headings _De
matrimonio_, _De cœlibatu_, &c., and any one may convince himself from
these that in ancient, genuine Christianity marriage was only a
concession, which besides this was supposed to have only the begetting of
children as its end, that, on the other hand, perfect continence was the
true virtue far to be preferred to this. To those, however, who do not
wish to go back to the authorities themselves I recommend two works for
the purpose of removing any kind of doubt as to the tendency of
Christianity we are speaking about: Carové, “_Ueber das Cölibatgesetz_,”
1832, and Lind, “_De cœlibatu Christianorum per tria priora secula_,”
_Havniœ_, 1839. It is, however, by no means the views of these writers
themselves to which I refer, for these are opposed to mine, but solely to
their carefully collected accounts and quotations, which deserve full
acceptance as quite trustworthy, just because both these writers are
opponents of celibacy, the former a rationalistic Catholic, and the other
a Protestant candidate in theology, who speaks exactly like one. In the
first‐named work we find, vol. i. p. 166, in that reference, the following
result expressed: “In accordance with the Church view, as it may be read
in canonical Church Fathers, in the Synodal and Papal instructions, and in
innumerable writings of orthodox Catholics, perpetual chastity is called a
divine, heavenly, angelic virtue, and the obtaining of the assistance of
divine grace for this end is made dependent upon earnest prayer. We have
already shown that this Augustinian doctrine is by Canisius and in the
decrees of the Council of Trent expressed as an unchanging belief of the
Church. That, however, it has been retained as a dogma till the present
day is sufficiently established by the June number, 1831, of the magazine
‘_Der Katholik_.’ It is said there, p. 263: ‘In Catholicism the observance
of a perpetual chastity, for the sake of God, appears as in itself the
highest merit of man. The view that the observance of continual chastity
as an end in itself sanctifies and exalts the man is, as every instructed
Catholic is convinced, deeply rooted in Christianity, both as regards its
spirit and its express precepts. The decrees of the Council of Trent have
abolished all possible doubt on this point....’ It must at any rate be
confessed by every unprejudiced person, not only that the doctrine
expressed by ‘_Der Katholik_’ is really Catholic, but also that the proofs
adduced may be quite irrefutable for a Catholic reason, because they are
drawn so directly from the ecclesiastical view, taken by the Church, of
life and its destiny.” It is further said in the same work, p. 270:
“Although both Paul calls the forbidding to marry a false doctrine, and
the still Judaistic author of the Epistle to the Hebrews enjoins that
marriage shall be held in honour by all, and the bed kept undefiled (Heb.
xiii 4), yet the main tendency of these two sacred writers is not on that
account to be mistaken. Virginity is for both the perfect state, marriage
only a make‐shift for the weak, and only as such to be held inviolable.
The highest effort, on the other hand, was directed to complete, material
putting off of self. The self must turn and refrain from all that tends
only to its own pleasure, and that only temporarily.” Lastly, p. 288: “We
agree with the Abbé Zaccaria, who asserts that celibacy (not the law of
celibacy) is before everything to be deduced from the teaching of Christ
and the Apostle Paul.”

What is opposed to this specially Christian view is everywhere and always
merely the Old Testament, with its παντα καλα λιαν. This appears with
peculiar distinctness from that important third book of the Stromata of
Clement, where, arguing against the encratistic heretics mentioned above,
he constantly opposes to them only Judaism, with its optimistic history of
creation, with which the world‐denying tendency of the New Testament is
certainly in contradiction. But the connection of the New Testament with
the Old is at bottom only external, accidental, and forced; and the one
point at which Christian doctrine can link itself on to the latter is only
to be found, as has been said, in the story of the fall, which, moreover,
stands quite isolated in the Old Testament, and is made no further use of.
But, in accordance with the account in the Gospels, it is just the
orthodox adherents of the Old Testament who bring about the crucifixion of
the founder of Christianity, because they find his teaching in conflict
with their own. In the said third book of the Stromata of Clement the
antagonism between optimism with theism on the one hand, and pessimism
with ascetic morality on the other, comes out with surprising
distinctness. This book is directed against the Gnostics, who just taught
pessimism and asceticism, that is, εγκρατεια (abstinence of every kind,
but especially from all sexual satisfaction); on account of which Clement
censures them vigorously. But, at the same time, it becomes apparent that
even the spirit of the Old Testament stands in this antagonism with that
of the New Testament. For, apart from the fall, which appears in the Old
Testament like a _hors d’œuvre_, the spirit of the Old Testament is
diametrically opposed to that of the New Testament—the former optimistic,
the latter pessimistic. Clement himself brings this contradiction out
prominently at the end of the eleventh chapter (προσαποτεινομενον τον
Παυλον τῳ Κριστῃ κ.τ.λ.), although he will not allow that it is a real
contradiction, but explains it as only apparent,—like a good Jew, as he
is. In general it is interesting to see how with Clement the New and the
Old Testament get mixed up together; and he strives to reconcile them, yet
for the most part drives out the New Testament with the Old. Just at the
beginning of the third chapter he objects to the Marcionites that they
find fault with the creation, after the example of Plato and Pythagoras;
for Marcion teaches that nature is bad, made out of bad materials (φυσις
κακη, εκ τε ὑλης κακης); therefore one ought not to people this world, but
to abstain from marriage (μη βουλομενοι τον κοσμον συμπληρουν, απεχεσθαι
γαμου). Now Clement, to whom in general the Old Testament is much more
congenial and convincing than the New, takes this very much amiss. He sees
in it their flagrant ingratitude to and enmity and rebellion against him
who has made the world, the just demiurgus, whose work they themselves
are, and yet despise the use of his creatures, in impious rebellion
“forsaking the natural opinion” (αντιτασσομενοι τῳ ποιητῃ τῳ σφων, ...
εγκρατεις τῃ προς τον πεποιηκοτα εχθρᾳ, μη βουλομενοι χρησθαι τοις ὑπ᾽
αυτου κτισθεισιν, ... ασεβει θεομαχιᾳ των κατα φυσιν εκσταντες λογισμωι).
At the same time, in his holy zeal, he will not allow the Marcionites even
the honour of originality, but, armed with his well‐known erudition, he
brings it against them, and supports his case with the most beautiful
quotations, that even the ancient philosophers, that Heraclitus and
Empedocles, Pythagoras and Plato, Orpheus and Pindar, Herodotus and
Euripides, and also the Sibyls, lamented deeply the wretched nature of the
world, thus taught pessimism. Now in this learned enthusiasm he does not
observe that in this way he is just giving the Marcionites water for their
mill, for he shows that


    “All the wisest of all the ages”


have taught and sung what they do, but confidently and boldly he quotes
the most decided and energetic utterances of the ancients in this sense.
Certainly they cannot lead him astray. Wise men may mourn the sadness of
existence, poets may pour out the most affecting lamentations about it,
nature and experience may cry out as loudly as they will against
optimism,—all this does not touch our Church Father: he holds his Jewish
revelation in his hand, and remains confident. The demiurgus made the
world. From this it is _a priori_ certain that it is excellent, and it may
look as it likes. The same thing then takes place with regard to the
second point, the εγκρατεια, through which, according to his view, the
Marcionites show their ingratitude towards the demiurgus (αχαρισειν τῳ
δημιουργῳ) and the perversity with which they put from them all his gifts
(δἰ αντιταξιν προς τον δημιουργον, την χρησιν των κοσμικων παραιτουμενοι).
Here now the tragic poets have preceded the Encratites (to the prejudice
of their originality) and have said the same things. For since they also
lament the infinite misery of existence, they have added that it is better
to bring no children into such a world; which he now again supports with
the most beautiful passages, and, at the same time, accuses the
Pythagoreans of having renounced sexual pleasure on this ground. But all
this touches him not; he sticks to his principle that all these sin
against the demiurgus, in that they teach that one ought not to marry,
ought not to beget children, ought not to bring new miserable beings into
the world, ought not to provide new food for death (δἰ εγκρατειας ασεβουσι
εις τε την κτισιν και τον ἁγιον δημιουργον, τον παντοκρατορα μονον θεον,
και διδασκουσι, μη δειν παραδεχεσθαι γαμον και παιδοποιϊαν, μηδε
αντεισαγειν τῳ κοσμῳ δυστυχησοντας ἑτερους, μηδε επιχορηγειν θανατῳ
τροφην—c. 6). Since the learned Church Father thus denounces εγκρατεια, he
seems to have had no presentiment that just after his time the celibacy of
the Christian priesthood would be more and more introduced, and finally,
in the eleventh century, raised to the position of a law, because it is in
keeping with the spirit of the New Testament. It is just this spirit which
the Gnostics have grasped more profoundly and understood better than our
Church Father, who is more Jew than Christian. The conception of the
Gnostics comes out very clearly at the beginning of the ninth chapter,
where the following passage is quoted from the Gospel of the Egyptians:
Αυτος ειπεν ὁ Σωτηρ, “ηλθον καταλυσαι τα εργα της θηλειας;” θηλειας μεν,
της επιθυμιας; εργα δε, γενεσιν και φθοραν (_Ajunt enim dixisse
Servatorem: ____veni ad dissolvendum opera feminæ;____ feminæ quidem,
cupiditatis; opera autem, generationem et interitum_); but quite specially
at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth chapter.
The Church certainly was obliged to consider how to set a religion upon
its legs that could also walk and stand in the world as it is, and among
men; therefore it declared these persons to be heretics. At the conclusion
of the seventh chapter our Church Father opposes Indian asceticism, as
bad, to Christian Judaism; whereby the fundamental difference of the
spirit of the two religions is clearly brought out. In Judaism and
Christianity everything runs back to obedience or disobedience to the
command of God: ὑπακοη και παρακοη; as befits us creatures, ἡμιν, τοις
πεπλασμενοις ὑπο της του Παντοκρατορος βουλησεως (_nobis, qui Omnipotentis
voluntate efficti sumus_), chap. 14. Then comes, as a second duty,
λατρευειν θεῳ ζωντι, to serve God, extol His works, and overflow with
thankfulness. Certainly the matter has a very different aspect in
Brahmanism and Buddhism, for in the latter all improvement and conversion,
and the only deliverance we can hope for from this world of suffering,
this Sansara, proceeds from the knowledge of the four fundamental truths:
(1) _dolor_; (2) _doloris ortus_; (3) _doloris interitus_; (4)
_octopartita via ad doloris sedationem_ (_Dammapadam_, ed. Fausböll, p. 35
_et_ 347). The explanation of these four truths will be found in Bournouf,
“_Introduct. à l’hist. du Buddhisme_,” p. 629, and in all expositions of
Buddhism.

In truth, Judaism, with its παντα καλα λιαν, is not related to
Christianity as regards its spirit and ethical tendency, but Brahmanism
and Buddhism are. But the spirit and ethical tendency are what is
essential in a religion, not the myths in which these are clothed. I
therefore cannot give up the belief that the doctrines of Christianity can
in some way be derived from these primitive religions. I have pointed out
some traces of this in the second volume of the Parerga, § 179 (second
edition, § 180). I have to add to these that Epiphanias (_Hæretic_.
xviii.) relates that the first Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, who called
themselves Nazarenes, refrained from all animal food. On account of this
origin (or, at least, this agreement) Christianity belongs to the ancient,
true and sublime faith of mankind, which is opposed to the false, shallow,
and injurious optimism which exhibits itself in Greek paganism, Judaism,
and Islamism. The Zend religion holds to a certain extent the mean,
because it has opposed to Ormuzd a pessimistic counterpoise in Ahriman.
From this Zend religion the Jewish religion proceeded, as J.G. Rhode has
thoroughly proved in his book, “_Die heilige Sage des Zendvolks_;” from
Ormuzd has come Jehovah, and from Ahriman, Satan, who, however, plays only
a very subordinate rôle in Judaism, indeed almost entirely disappears,
whereby then optimism gains the upper hand, and there only remains the
myth of the fall as a pessimistic element, which certainly (as the fable
of Meschia and Meschiane) is derived from the Zend‐Avesta. Yet even this
falls into oblivion, till it is again taken up by Christianity along with
Satan. Ormuzd himself, however, is derived from Brahmanism, although from
a lower region of it; he is no other than Indra, that subordinate god of
the firmament and the atmosphere, who is represented as frequently in
rivalry with men. This has been very clearly shown by J.J. Schmidt in his
work on the relation of the Gnostic‐theosophic doctrines to the religions
of the East. This Indra‐Ormuzd‐Jehovah had afterwards to pass over into
Christianity, because this religion arose in Judæa. But on account of the
cosmopolitan character of Christianity he laid aside his own name to be
denoted in the language of each converted nation by the appellation of the
superhuman beings he supplanted, as, Δεος, _Deus_, which comes from the
Sanscrit _Deva_ (from which also devil comes), or among the Gothico‐
Germanic peoples by the word God, _Gott_, which comes from _Odin_,
_Wodan_, _Guodan_, _Godan_. In the same way he assumed in Islamism, which
also sprang from Judaism, the name of Allah, which also existed earlier in
Arabia. Analogous to this, the gods of the Greek Olympus, when in
prehistoric times they were transplanted to Italy, also assumed the names
of the previously reigning gods: hence among the Romans Zeus is called
Jupiter, Hera Juno, Hermes Mercury, &c. In China the first difficulty of
the missionaries arose from the fact that the Chinese language has no
appellation of the kind and also no word for creating; for the three
religions of China know no gods either in the plural or in the
singular.(52)

However the rest may be, that παντα καλα λιαν of the Old Testament is
really foreign to true Christianity; for in the New Testament the world is
always spoken of as something to which one does not belong, which one does
not love, nay, whose lord is the devil.(53) This agrees with the ascetic
spirit of the denial of one’s self and the overcoming of the world which,
just like the boundless love of one’s neighbour, even of one’s enemy, is
the fundamental characteristic which Christianity has in common with
Brahmanism and Buddhism, and which proves their relationship. There is
nothing in which one has to distinguish the kernel so carefully from the
shell as in Christianity. Just because I prize this kernel highly I
sometimes treat the shell with little ceremony; it is, however, thicker
than is generally supposed. Protestantism, since it has eliminated
asceticism and its central point, the meritoriousness of celibacy, has
already given up the inmost kernel of Christianity, and so far is to be
regarded as a falling away from it. This has become apparent in our own
day by the gradual transition of Protestantism into shallow rationalism,
this modern Pelagianism, which ultimately degenerates into the doctrine of
a loving father, who has made the world, in order that things may go on
very pleasantly in it (in which case, then, he must certainly have
failed), and who, if one only conforms to his will in certain respects,
will also afterwards provide a still more beautiful world (with regard to
which it is only a pity that it has such a fatal entrance). That may be a
good religion for comfortable, married, and enlightened Protestant
pastors; but it is no Christianity. Christianity is the doctrine of the
deep guilt of the human race through its existence alone, and the longing
of the heart for deliverance from it, which, however, can only be attained
by the greatest sacrifices and by the denial of one’s own self, thus by an
entire reversal of human nature. Luther may have been perfectly right from
the practical point of view, _i.e._, with reference to the Church scandal
of his time, which he wished to remove, but not so from the theoretical
point of view. The more sublime a doctrine is, the more it is exposed to
abuse at the hands of human nature, which, on the whole, is of a low and
evil disposition: hence the abuses of Catholicism are so much more
numerous and so much greater than those of Protestantism. Thus, for
example, monasticism, that methodical denial of the will practised in
common for the sake of mutual encouragement, is an institution of a
sublime description, which, however, for this very reason is for the most
part untrue to its spirit. The shocking abuses of the Church excited in
the honest mind of Luther a lofty indignation. But in consequence of this
he was led to desire to limit as much as possible the claims of
Christianity itself, and for this end he first confined it to the words of
the Bible; but then, in his well‐meant zeal, he went too far, for he
attacked the very heart of Christianity in the ascetic principle. For
after the withdrawal of the ascetic principle, the optimistic principle
soon necessarily took its place. But in religions, as in philosophy,
optimism is a fundamental error which obstructs the path of all truth.
From all this it seems to me that Catholicism is a shamefully abused, but
Protestantism a degenerate Christianity; thus, that Christianity in
general has met the fate which befalls all that is noble, sublime, and
great whenever it has to dwell among men.

However, even in the very lap of Protestantism, the essentially ascetic
and encratistic spirit of Christianity has made way for itself; and in
this case it has appeared in a phenomenon which perhaps has never before
been equalled in magnitude and definiteness, the highly remarkable sect of
the Shakers, in North America, founded by an Englishwoman, Anne Lee, in
1774. The adherents of this sect have already increased to 6000, who are
divided into fifteen communities, and inhabit a number of villages in the
states of New York and Kentucky, especially in the district of New
Lebanon, near Nassau village. The fundamental characteristic of their
religious rule of life is celibacy and entire abstention from all sexual
satisfaction. It is unanimously admitted, even by the English and
Americans who visit them, and who laugh and jeer at them in every other
respect, that this rule is strictly and with perfect honesty observed;
although brothers and sisters sometimes even occupy the same house, eat at
the same table, nay, _dance_ together in the religious services in church.
For whoever has made that hardest of all sacrifices may _dance_ before the
Lord; he is a victor, he has overcome. Their singing in church consists in
general of cheerful, and partly even of merry, songs. The church‐dance,
also, which follows the sermon is accompanied by the singing of the rest.
It is a lively dance, performed in measured time, and concludes with a
galop, which is carried on till the dancers are exhausted. Between each
dance one of their teachers cries aloud, “Think, that ye rejoice before
the Lord for having slain your flesh; for this is here the only use we
make of our refractory limbs.” To celibacy most of the other conditions
link themselves on of themselves. There are no families, and therefore
there is no private property, but community of goods. All are clothed
alike, in Quaker fashion, and with great neatness. They are industrious
and diligent: idleness is not endured. They have also the enviable rule
that they are to avoid all unnecessary noise, such as shouting, door‐
slamming, whip‐cracking, loud knocking, &c. Their rule of life has been
thus expressed by one of them: “Lead a life of innocence and purity, love
your neighbours as yourself, live at peace with all men, and refrain from
war, blood‐shed, and all violence against others, as well as from all
striving after worldly honour and distinction. Give to each his own, and
follow after holiness, without which no man can see the Lord. Do good to
all so far as your opportunity and your power extends.” They persuade no
one to join them, but test those who present themselves by a novitiate of
several years. Moreover, every one is free to leave them; very rarely is
any one expelled for misconduct. Adopted children are carefully educated,
and only when they are grown up do they voluntarily join the sect. It is
said that in the controversies of their ministers with Anglican clergy the
latter generally come off the worse, for the arguments consist of passages
from the New Testament. Fuller accounts of them will be found particularly
in Maxwell’s “Run through the United States,” 1841; also in Benedict’s
“History of all Religions,” 1830; also in the _Times_, November 4, 1837,
and in the German magazine _Columbus_, May number, 1831. A German sect in
America, very similar to them, who also live in strict celibacy and
continence, are the Rappists. An account of them is given in F. Loher’s
“_Geschichte und Zustande der Deutschen in Amerika_,” 1853. In Russia also
the Raskolniks are a similar sect. The Gichtelians live also in strict
chastity. But among the ancient Jews we already find a prototype of all
these sects, the Essenes, of whom even Pliny gives an account (_Hist.
Nat._, v. 15), and who resembled the Shakers very much, not only in
celibacy, but also in other respects; for example, in dancing during
divine service, which leads to the opinion that the founder of the Shakers
took the Essenes as a pattern. In the presence of such facts as these how
does Luther’s assertion look: “_Ubi natura, quemadmodum a Deo nobis insita
est, fertur ac rapitur_, FIERI NULLO MODO POTEST, _ut extra matrimonium
caste vivatur_”? (_Catech. maj._)

Although Christianity, in essential respects, taught only what all Asia
knew long before, and even better, yet for Europe it was a new and great
revelation, in consequence of which the spiritual tendency of the European
nations was therefore entirely transformed. For it disclosed to them the
metaphysical significance of existence, and therefore taught them to look
away from the narrow, paltry, ephemeral life of earth, and to regard it no
longer as an end in itself, but as a condition of suffering, guilt, trial,
conflict, and purification, out of which, by means of moral achievements,
difficult renunciation, and denial of oneself, one may rise to a better
existence, which is inconceivable by us. It taught the great truth of the
assertion and denial of the will to live in the clothing of allegory by
saying that through Adam’s fall the curse has come upon all, sin has come
into the world, and guilt is inherited by all; but that, on the other
hand, through the sacrificial death of Jesus all are reconciled, the world
saved, guilt abolished, and justice satisfied. In order, however, to
understand the truth itself that is contained in this myth one must not
regard men simply in time, as beings independent of each other, but must
comprehend the (Platonic) Idea of man, which is related to the series of
men, as eternity in itself is related to eternity drawn out as time; hence
the eternal Idea _man_ extended in time to the series of men through the
connecting bond of generation appears again in time as a whole. If now we
keep the Idea of man in view, we see that Adam’s fall represents the
finite, animal, sinful nature of man, in respect of which he is a finite
being, exposed to sin, suffering, and death. On the other hand, the life,
teaching, and death of Jesus Christ represent the eternal, supernatural
side, the freedom, the salvation of man. Now every man, as such and
_potentiâ_, is both Adam and Jesus, according as he comprehends himself,
and his will thereupon determines him; in consequence of which he is then
condemned and given over to death, or saved and attains to eternal life.
Now these truths, both in their allegorical and in their real acceptation,
were completely new as far as Greeks and Romans were concerned, who were
still entirely absorbed in life, and did not seriously look beyond it. Let
whoever doubts this see how Cicero (_Pro Cluentio_, c. 61) and Sallust
(_Catil._, c. 47) speak of the state after death. The ancients, although
far advanced in almost everything else, remained children with regard to
the chief concern, and were surpassed in this even by the Druids, who at
least taught metempsychosis. That one or two philosophers, like Pythagoras
and Plato, thought otherwise alters nothing as regards the whole.

That great fundamental truth, then, which is contained in Christianity, as
in Brahmanism and Buddhism, the need of deliverance from an existence
which is given up to suffering and death, and the attainableness of this
by the denial of the will, thus by a decided opposition to nature, is
beyond all comparison the most important truth there can be; but, at the
same time, it is entirely opposed to the natural tendency of the human
race, and in its true grounds it is difficult to comprehend; as indeed all
that can only be thought generally and in the abstract is inaccessible to
the great majority of men. Therefore for these men there was everywhere
required, in order to bring that great truth within the sphere of its
practical application, _a mythical vehicle_ for it, as it were a
receptacle, without which it would be lost and dissipated. The truth had
therefore everywhere to borrow the garb of the fable, and also constantly
to endeavour to connect itself with what in each case was historically
given, already familiar, and already revered. What _sensu proprio_
remained inaccessible to the great mass of mankind of all ages and lands,
with their low tone of mind, their intellectual stupidity and general
brutality, had, for practical purposes, to be brought home to them _sensu
allegorico_, in order to become their guiding star. So, then, the
religions mentioned above are to be regarded as the sacred vessels in
which the great truth, known and expressed for several thousand years,
indeed perhaps since the beginning of the human race, which yet in itself,
for the great mass of mankind always remains a mystery, is, according to
the measure of their powers, made accessible to them, preserved and
transmitted through the centuries. Yet, because all that does not through
and through consist of the imperishable material of pure truth is subject
to destruction, whenever this fate befalls such a vessel, through contact
with a heterogeneous age, its sacred content must in some way be saved and
preserved for mankind by another. But it is the task of philosophy, since
it is one with pure truth, to present that content pure and unmixed, thus
merely in abstract conceptions, and consequently without that vehicle, for
those who are capable of thinking, who are always an exceedingly small
number. It is therefore related to religions as a straight line to several
curves running near it: for it expresses _sensu proprio_, thus reaches
directly, what they show in veiled forms and reach by circuitous routes.

If now, in order to illustrate what has just been said by an example, and
also to follow a philosophical fashion of my time, I should wish perhaps
to attempt to solve the profoundest mystery of Christianity, that of the
Trinity, in the fundamental conception of my philosophy, this could be
done, with the licence permitted in such interpretations, in the following
manner. The Holy Ghost is the distinct denial of the will to live: the man
in whom this exhibits itself _in concreto_ is the Son; He is identical
with the will which asserts life, and thereby produces the phenomenon of
this perceptible world, _i.e._, with the Father, because the assertion and
denial are opposite acts of the same will whose capability for both is the
only true freedom. However, this is to be regarded as a mere _lusus
ingenii_.

Before I close this chapter I wish to adduce a few proofs in support of
what in § 68 of the first volume I denoted by the expression Δευτυρος
πλους, the bringing about of the denial of the will by one’s own deeply
felt suffering, thus not merely by the appropriation of the suffering of
others, and the knowledge of the vanity and wretchedness of our existence
introduced by this. We can arrive at a comprehension of what goes on in
the heart of a man, in the case of an elevation of this kind and the
accompanying purifying process, by considering what every emotional man
experiences on beholding a tragedy, which is of kindred nature to this. In
the third and fourth acts perhaps such a man is distressed and disturbed
by the ever more clouded and threatened happiness of the hero; but when,
in the fifth act, this happiness is entirely wrecked and shattered, he
experiences a certain elevation of the soul, which affords him an
infinitely higher kind of pleasure than the sight of the happiness of the
hero, however great it might be, could ever have given. Now this is the
same thing, in the weak water‐colours of sympathy which is able to raise a
well‐known illusion, as that which takes place with the energy of reality
in the feeling of our own fate when it is heavy misfortune that drives the
man at last into the haven of entire resignation. Upon this occurrence
depend all those conversions which completely transform men such as are
described in the text. I may give here in a few words the story of the
conversion of the Abbé Rancé, as it is strikingly similar to that of
Raymond Lully, which is told in the text, and besides this is memorable on
account of its result. His youth was devoted to enjoyment and pleasure;
finally, he lived in a relation of passion with a Madame de Montbazon. One
evening, when he visited her, he found her room empty, in disorder and
darkness. He struck something with his foot; it was her head, which had
been severed from the trunk, because after her sudden death her corpse
could not otherwise be got into the lead coffin that stood beside it.
After overcoming an immense sorrow, Rancé now became, in 1663, the
reformer of the order of the Trappists, which at that time had entirely
relaxed the strictness of its rules. He joined this order, and through him
it was led back to that terrible degree of renunciation which is still
maintained at the present day at La Trappe, and, as the methodically
carried out denial of the will, aided by the severest renunciation and an
incredibly hard and painful manner of life, fills the visitor with sacred
awe, after he has been touched at his reception by the humility of these
genuine monks, who, emaciated by fasting, by cold, by night watches,
prayers and penances, kneel before him, the worldling and the sinner, to
implore his blessing. Of all orders of monks, this one alone has
maintained itself in perfection in France, through all changes; which is
to be attributed to the profound earnestness which in it is unmistakable,
and excludes all secondary ends. It has remained untouched even by the
decline of religion, because its root lies deeper in human nature than any
positive system of belief.

I have mentioned in the text that this great and rapid change of the
inmost being of man which we are here considering, and which has hitherto
been entirely neglected by philosophers, appears most frequently when,
with full consciousness, he stands in the presence of a violent and
certain death, thus in the case of executions. But, in order to bring this
process much more distinctly before our eyes, I regard it as by no means
unbecoming to the dignity of philosophy to quote what has been said by
some criminals before their execution, even at the risk of incurring the
sneer that I encourage gallows’ sermons. I certainly rather believe that
the gallows is a place of quite peculiar revelations, and a watch‐tower
from which the man who even then retains his presence of mind obtains a
wider, clearer outlook into eternity than most philosophers over the
paragraphs of their rational psychology and theology. The following speech
on the gallows was made on the 15th April, 1837, at Gloucester, by a man
called Bartlett, who had murdered his mother‐in‐law: “Englishmen and
fellow countrymen,—I have a few words to say to you, and they shall be but
very few. Yet let me entreat you, one and all, that these few words that I
shall utter may strike deep into your hearts. Bear them in your mind, not
only now while you are witnessing this sad scene, but take them to your
homes, take them, and repeat them to your children and friends. I implore
you as a dying man—one for whom the instrument of death is even now
prepared—and these words are that you may loose yourselves from the love
of this dying world and its vain pleasures. Think less of it and more of
your God. Do this: repent, repent, for be assured that without deep and
true repentance, without turning to your heavenly Father, you will never
attain, nor can hold the slightest hope of ever reaching those bowers of
bliss to which I trust I am now fast advancing” (_Times_, 18th April
1837).

Still more remarkable are the last words of the well‐known murderer,
Greenacre, who was executed in London on the 1st of May 1837. The English
newspaper the _Post_ gives the following account, which is also reprinted
in _Galignani’s Messenger_ of the 6th of May 1837: “On the morning of his
execution a gentleman advised him to put his trust in God, and pray for
forgiveness through the mediation of Jesus Christ. Greenacre replied that
forgiveness through the mediation of Christ was a matter of opinion; for
his part, he believed that in the sight of the highest Being, a Mohammedan
was as good as a Christian and had just as much claim to salvation. Since
his imprisonment he had had his attention directed to theological
subjects, and he had become convinced that the gallows is a passport to
heaven.” The indifference displayed here towards positive religions is
just what gives this utterance greater weight, for it shows that it is no
fanatical delusion, but individual immediate knowledge that lies at its
foundation. The following incident may also be mentioned which is given by
_Galignani’s Messenger_ of the 15th August 1837, from the _Limerick
Chronicle_: “Last Monday Maria Cooney was executed for the revolting
murder of Mrs. Anderson. So deeply was this wretched woman impressed with
the greatness of her crime that she kissed the rope which was put round
her neck, while she humbly implored the mercy of God.” Lastly this: the
_Times_, of the 29th April 1845 gives several letters which Hocker, who
was condemned for the murder of Delarue, wrote the day before his
execution. In one of these he says: “I am persuaded that unless the
natural heart be broken, and renewed by divine mercy, however noble and
amiable it may be deemed by the world, it can never think of eternity
without inwardly shuddering.” These are the outlooks into eternity
referred to above which are obtained from that watch‐tower; and I have had
the less hesitation in giving them here since Shakspeare also says—


        “Out of these convertites
    There is much matter to be heard and learned.”

    —_As You Like it_, last scene.


Strauss, in his “Life of Jesus,” has proved that Christianity also
ascribes to suffering as such the purifying and sanctifying power here set
forth (_Leben Jesu_, vol. i. ch. 6, §§ 72 and 74). He says that the
beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount have a different sense in Luke (vi.
21) from that which they have in Matt. (v. 3), for only the latter adds τῳ
πνευματι to μακαριοι οἱ πτωχοι, and την δικαιοσυνην to πεινωντες. Thus by
him alone are the simple‐minded, the humble, &c., meant, while by Luke are
meant the literally poor; so that here the contrast is that between
present suffering and future happiness. With the Ebionites it is a capital
principle that whoever takes his portion in this age gets nothing in the
future, and conversely. Accordingly in Luke the blessings are followed by
as many ουαι, woes, which are addressed to the rich, οἱ πλουσιοι, the
full, οἱ εμπεπλησμενοι, and to them that laugh, οἱ γελωντες, in the
Ebionite spirit. In the same spirit, he says, p. 604, is the parable (Luke
xvi. 19) of the rich man and Lazarus given, which nowhere mentions any
fault of the former or any merit of the latter, and takes as the standard
of the future recompense, not the good done or the wickedness practised,
but the evil suffered here and the good things enjoyed, in the Ebionite
spirit. “A like estimation of outward poverty,” Strauss goes on, “is also
attributed to Jesus by the other synoptists (Matt. xix. 16; Mark x. 17;
Luke xviii. 18), in the story of the rich young man and the saying about
the camel and the eye of a needle.”

If we go to the bottom of the matter we will recognise that even in the
most famous passages of the Sermon on the Mount there is contained an
indirect injunction to voluntary poverty, and thereby to the denial of the
will to live. For the precept (Matt. v. 40 _seq._) to consent
unconditionally to all demands made upon us, to give our cloak also to him
who will take away our coat, &c., similarly (Matt. vi. 25‐34) the precept
to cast aside all care for the future, even for the morrow, and so to live
simply in the present, are rules of life the observance of which
inevitably leads to absolute poverty, and which therefore just say in an
indirect manner what Buddha directly commands his disciples and has
confirmed by his own example: throw everything away and become bhikkhu,
_i.e._, beggars. This appears still more decidedly in the passage Matt. x.
9‐15, where all possessions, even shoes and a staff, are forbidden to the
Apostles, and they are directed to beg. These commands afterwards became
the foundation of the mendicant order of St. Francis (_Bonaventuræ vita S.
Francisci_, c. 3). Hence, then, I say that the spirit of Christian ethics
is identical with that of Brahmanism and Buddhism. In conformity with the
whole view expounded here Meister Eckhard also says (Works, vol. i. p.
492): “The swiftest animal that bears thee to perfection is suffering.”




Chapter XLIX. The Way Of Salvation.


There is only one inborn error, and that is, that we exist in order to be
happy. It is inborn in us because it is one with our existence itself, and
our whole being is only a paraphrase of it, nay, our body is its monogram.
We are nothing more than will to live and the successive satisfaction of
all our volitions is what we think in the conception of happiness.

As long as we persist in this inborn error, indeed even become rigidly
fixed in it through optimistic dogmas, the world appears to us full of
contradictions. For at every step, in great things as in small, we must
experience that the world and life are by no means arranged with a view to
containing a happy existence. While now by this the thoughtless man only
finds himself tormented in reality, in the case of him who thinks there is
added to his real pain the theoretical perplexity why a world and a life
which exist in order that one may be happy in them answer their end so
badly. First of all it finds expression in pious ejaculations, such as,
“Ah! why are the tears on earth so many?” &c. &c. But in their train come
disquieting doubts about the assumptions of those preconceived optimistic
dogmas. One may try if one will to throw the blame of one’s individual
unhappiness now upon the circumstances, now upon other men, now upon one’s
own bad luck, or even upon one’s own awkwardness, and may know well how
all these have worked together to produce it; but this in no way alters
the result that one has missed the real end of life, which consists indeed
in being happy. The consideration of this is, then, often very depressing,
especially if life is already on the wane; hence the countenances of
almost all elderly persons wear the expression of that which in English is
called disappointment. Besides this, however, hitherto every day of our
life has taught us that joys and pleasures, even if attained, are in
themselves delusive, do not perform what they promise, do not satisfy the
heart, and finally their possession is at least embittered by the
disagreeables that accompany them or spring from them; while, on the
contrary, the pains and sorrows prove themselves very real, and often
exceed all expectation. Thus certainly everything in life is calculated to
recall us from that original error, and to convince us that the end of our
existence is not to be happy. Indeed, if we regard it more closely and
without prejudice, life rather presents itself as specially intended to be
such that we shall _not_ feel ourselves happy in it, for through its whole
nature it bears the character of something for which we have no taste,
which must be endured by us, and from which we have to return as from an
error that our heart may be cured of the passionate desire of enjoyment,
nay, of life, and turned away from the world. In this sense, it would be
more correct to place the end of life in our woe than in our welfare. For
the considerations at the conclusion of the preceding chapter have shown
that the more one suffers the sooner one attains to the true end of life,
and that the more happily one lives the longer this is delayed. The
conclusion of the last letter of Seneca corresponds with this: _bonum tunc
habebis tuum, quum intelliges infelicissimos esse felices_; which
certainly seems to show the influence of Christianity. The peculiar effect
of the tragic drama also ultimately depends upon the fact that it shakes
that inborn error by vividly presenting in a great and striking example
the vanity of human effort and the nothingness of this whole existence,
and thus discloses the profound significance of life; hence it is
recognised as the sublimest form of poetry. Whoever now has returned by
one or other path from that error which dwells in us _a priori_, that
πρωτου ψευδος of our existence, will soon see all in another light, and
will now find the world in harmony with his insight, although not with his
wishes. Misfortunes of every kind and magnitude, although they pain him,
will no longer surprise him, for he has come to see that it is just pain
and trouble that tend towards the true end of life, the turning away of
the will from it. This will give him indeed a wonderful composedness in
all that may happen, similar to that with which a sick person who
undergoes a long and painful cure bears the pain of it as a sign of its
efficacy. In the whole of human existence suffering expresses itself
clearly enough as its true destiny. Life is deeply sunk in suffering, and
cannot escape from it; our entrance into it takes place amid tears, its
course is at bottom always tragic, and its end still more so. There is an
unmistakable appearance of intention in this. As a rule man’s destiny
passes through his mind in a striking manner, at the very summit of his
desires and efforts, and thus his life receives a tragic tendency by
virtue of which it is fitted to free him from the passionate desire of
which every individual existence is an example, and bring him into such a
condition that he parts with life without retaining a single desire for it
and its pleasures. Suffering is, in fact, the purifying process through
which alone, in most cases, the man is sanctified, _i.e._, is led back
from the path of error of the will to live. In accordance with this, the
salutary nature of the cross and of suffering is so often explained in
Christian books of edification, and in general the cross, an instrument of
suffering, not of doing, is very suitably the symbol of the Christian
religion. Nay, even the Preacher, who is still Jewish, but so very
philosophical, rightly says: “Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the
sadness of the countenance the heart is made better” (Eccles. vii. 3).
Under the name of the δεντρος πλους I have presented suffering as to a
certain extent a substitute for virtue and holiness; but here I must make
the bold assertion that, taking everything into consideration, we have
more to hope for our salvation and deliverance from what we suffer than
from what we do. Precisely in this spirit Lamartine very beautifully says
in his “_Hymne à la douleur_,” apostrophising pain:—


    “_Tu me traites sans doute en favori des cieux,_
    _Car tu n’épargnes pas les larmes à mes yeux._
    _Eh bien! je les reçois comme tu les envoies,_
    _Tes maux seront mes biens, et tes soupirs mes joies._
    _Je sens qu’il est en toi, sans avoir combattu,_
    _Une vertu divine au lieu de ma vertu,_
    _Que tu n’es pas la mort l’âme, mais sa vie,_
    _Que ton bras, en frappant, guérit et vivifie._”


If, then, suffering itself has such a sanctifying power, this will belong
in an even higher degree to death, which is more feared than any
suffering. Answering to this, a certain awe, kindred to that which great
suffering occasions us, is felt in the presence of every dead person,
indeed every case of death presents itself to a certain extent as a kind
of apotheosis or canonisation; therefore we cannot look upon the dead body
of even the most insignificant man without awe, and indeed, extraordinary
as the remark may sound in this place, in the presence of every corpse the
watch goes under arms. Dying is certainly to be regarded as the real aim
of life: in the moment of death all that is decided for which the whole
course of life was only the preparation and introduction. Death is the
result, the _Résumé_ of life, or the added up sum which expresses at once
the instruction which life gave in detail, and bit by bit; this, that the
whole striving whose manifestation is life was a vain, idle, and self‐
contradictory effort, to have returned from which is a deliverance. As the
whole, slow vegetation of the plant is related to the fruit, which now at
a stroke achieves a hundredfold what the plant achieved gradually and bit
by bit, so life, with its obstacles, deluded hopes, frustrated plans, and
constant suffering, is related to death, which at one stroke destroys all,
all that the man has willed, and so crowns the instruction which life gave
him. The completed course of life upon which the dying man looks back has
an effect upon the whole will that objectifies itself in this perishing
individuality, analogous to that which a motive exercises upon the conduct
of the man. It gives it a new direction, which accordingly is the moral
and essential result of the life. Just because a sudden death makes this
retrospect impossible, the Church regards such a death as a misfortune,
and prays that it should be averted. Since this retrospect, like the
distinct foreknowledge of death, as conditioned by the reason, is possible
only in man, not in the brute, and accordingly man alone really drinks the
cup of death, humanity is the only material in which the will can deny
itself and entirely turn away from life. To the will that does not deny
itself every birth imparts a new and different intellect,—till it has
learned the true nature of life, and in consequence of this wills it no
more.

In the natural course, in age the decay of the body coincides with that of
the will. The desire for pleasures soon vanishes with the capacity to
enjoy them. The occasion of the most vehement willing, the focus of the
will, the sexual impulse, is first extinguished, whereby the man is placed
in a position which resembles the state of innocence which existed before
the development of the genital system. The illusions, which set up
chimeras as exceedingly desirable benefits, vanish, and the knowledge of
the vanity of all earthly blessings takes their place. Selfishness is
repressed by the love of one’s children, by means of which the man already
begins to live more in the ego of others than in his own, which now will
soon be no more. This course of life is at least the desirable one; it is
the euthanasia of the will. In hope of this the Brahman is ordered, after
he has passed the best years of his life, to forsake possessions and
family, and lead the life of a hermit (_Menu_, B. 6), But if, conversely,
the desire outlives the capacity for enjoyment, and we now regret
particular pleasures in life which we miss, instead of seeing the
emptiness and vanity of all; and if then gold, the abstract representative
of the objects of desire for which the sense is dead, takes the place of
all these objects themselves, and now excites the same vehement passions
which were formerly more pardonably awakened by the objects of actual
pleasure, and thus now with deadened senses a lifeless but indestructible
object is desired with equally indestructible eagerness; or, also, if, in
the same way, existence in the opinion of others takes the place of
existence and action in the real world, and now kindles the same
passions;—then the will has become sublimated and etherealised into
avarice or ambition; but has thereby thrown itself into the last fortress,
in which it can only now be besieged by death. The end of existence has
been missed.

All these considerations afford us a fuller explanation of that
purification, conversion of the will and deliverance, denoted in the
preceding chapter by the expression δευτερος πλους which is brought about
by the suffering of life, and without doubt is the most frequent. For it
is the way of sinners such as we all are. The other way, which leads to
the same goal, by means of mere knowledge and the consequent appropriation
of the suffering of a whole world, is the narrow path of the elect, the
saints, and therefore to be regarded as a rare exception. Therefore
without that first way for most of us there would be no salvation to hope
for. However, we struggle against entering upon it, and strive rather to
procure for ourselves a safe and agreeable existence, whereby we chain our
will ever more firmly to life. The conduct of the ascetics is the opposite
of this. They make their life intentionally as poor, hard, and empty of
pleasure as possible, because they have their true and ultimate welfare in
view. But fate and the course of things care for us better than we
ourselves, for they frustrate on all sides our arrangements for an utopian
life, the folly of which is evident enough from its brevity, uncertainty,
and emptiness, and its conclusion by bitter death; they strew thorns upon
thorns in our path, and meet us everywhere with healing sorrow, the
panacea of our misery. What really gives its wonderful and ambiguous
character to our life is this, that two diametrically opposite aims
constantly cross each other in it; that of the individual will directed to
chimerical happiness in an ephemeral, dream‐like, and delusive existence,
in which, with reference to the past, happiness and unhappiness are a
matter of indifference, and the present is every moment becoming the past;
and that of fate visibly enough directed to the destruction of our
happiness, and thereby to the mortification of our will and the abolition
of the illusion that holds us chained in the bonds of this world.

The prevalent and peculiarly Protestant view that the end of life lies
solely and immediately in the moral virtues, thus in the practice of
justice and benevolence, betrays its insufficiency even in the fact that
so miserably little real and pure morality is found among men. I am not
speaking at all of lofty virtue, nobleness, magnanimity, and self‐
sacrifice, which one hardly finds anywhere but in plays and novels, but
only of those virtues which are the duty of every one. Let whoever is old
think of all those with whom he has had to do; how many persons will he
have met who were merely really and truly _honest_? Were not by far the
greater number, in spite of their shameless indignation at the slightest
suspicion of dishonesty or even untruthfulness, in plain words, the
precise opposite? Were not abject selfishness, boundless avarice, well‐
concealed knavery, and also poisonous envy and fiendish delight in the
misfortunes of others so universally prevalent that the slightest
exception was met with surprise? And benevolence, how very rarely it
extends beyond a gift of what is so superfluous that one never misses it.
And is the whole end of existence to lie in such exceedingly rare and weak
traces of morality? If we place it, on the contrary, in the entire
reversal of this nature of ours (which bears the evil fruits just
mentioned) brought about by suffering, the matter gains an appearance of
probability and is brought into agreement with what actually lies before
us. Life presents itself then as a purifying process, of which the
purifying lye is pain. If the process is carried out, it leaves behind it
the previous immorality and wickedness as refuse, and there appears what
the Veda says: “_Finditur nodus cordis, dissolvuntur omnes dubitationes,
ejusque opera evanescunt._” As agreeing with this view the fifteenth
sermon of Meister Eckhard will be found very well worth reading.




Chapter L. Epiphilosophy.


At the conclusion of my exposition a few reflections concerning my
philosophy itself may find their place. My philosophy does not pretend to
explain the existence of the world in its ultimate grounds: it rather
sticks to the facts of external and internal experience as they are
accessible to every one, and shows the true and deepest connection of them
without really going beyond them to any extra‐mundane things and their
relations to the world. It therefore arrives at no conclusions as to what
lies beyond all possible experience, but affords merely an exposition of
what is given in the external world and in self‐consciousness, thus
contents itself with comprehending the nature of the world in its inner
connection with itself. It is consequently _immanent_, in the Kantian
sense of the word. But just on this account it leaves many questions
untouched; for example, why what is proved as a fact is as it is and not
otherwise, &c. All such questions, however, or rather the answers to them,
are really transcendent, _i.e._, they cannot be thought by the forms and
functions of our intellect, do not enter into these; it is therefore
related to them as our sensibility is related to the possible properties
of bodies for which we have no senses. After all my explanations one may
still ask, for example, whence has sprung this will that is free to assert
itself, the manifestation of which is the world, or to deny itself, the
manifestation of which we do not know. What is the fatality lying beyond
all experience which has placed it in the very doubtful dilemma of either
appearing as a world in which suffering and death reign, or else denying
its very being?—or again, what can have prevailed upon it to forsake the
infinitely preferable peace of blessed nothingness? An individual will,
one may add, can only turn to its own destruction through error in the
choice, thus through the fault of knowledge; but the will in itself,
before all manifestation, consequently still without knowledge, how could
it go astray and fall into the ruin of its present condition? Whence in
general is the great discord that permeates this world? It may, further,
be asked how deep into the true being of the world the roots of
individuality go; to which it may certainly be answered: they go as deep
as the assertion of the will to live; where the denial of the will appears
they cease, for they have arisen with the assertion. But one might indeed
even put the question, “What would I be if I were not will to live?” and
more of the same kind. To all such questions we would first have to reply
that the expression of the most universal and general form of our
intellect is the _principle of sufficient reason_; but that just on this
account that principle finds application only to the phenomenon, not to
the being in itself of things. Yet all whence and why depend upon that
principle alone. As a result of the Kantian philosophy it is no longer an
_æterna veritas_, but merely the form, _i.e._, the function, of our
intellect, which is essentially cerebral, and originally a mere tool in
the service of the will, which it therefore presupposes together with all
its objectifications. But our whole knowing and conceiving is bound to its
forms; accordingly we must conceive everything in time, consequently as a
before and after, then as cause and effect, and also as above and below,
whole and part, &c., and cannot by any means escape from this sphere in
which all possibility of our knowledge lies. Now these forms are utterly
unsuited to the problems raised here, nor are they fit or able to
comprehend their solution even if it were given. Therefore with our
intellect, this mere tool of the will, we are everywhere striking upon
insoluble problems, as against the walls of our prison. But, besides this,
it may at least be assumed as probable that not only _for us_ is knowledge
of all that has been asked about impossible, but no such knowledge is
possible in general, thus never and in no way; that these relations are
not only relatively but absolutely insusceptible of investigation; that
not only does no one know them, but that they are in themselves
unknowable, because they do not enter into the form of knowledge in
general. (This corresponds to what Scotus Erigena says, _de mirabili
divina ignorantia, qua Deus non intelligit quid ipse sit_. Lib. ii.) For
knowableness in general, with its most essential, and therefore constantly
necessary form of subject and object, belongs merely to the phenomenal
appearance, not to the being in itself of things. Where knowledge, and
consequently idea, is, there is also only phenomenon, and we stand there
already in the province of the phenomenal; nay, knowledge in general is
known to us only as a phenomenon of brain, and we are not only unjustified
in conceiving it otherwise, but also incapable of doing so. What the world
is as world may be understood: it is phenomenal manifestation; and we can
know that which manifests itself in it, directly from ourselves, by means
of a thorough analysis of self‐consciousness. Then, however, by means of
this key to the nature of the world, the whole phenomenal manifestation
can be deciphered, as I believe I have succeeded in doing. But if we leave
the world in order to answer the questions indicated above, we have also
left the whole sphere in which, not only connection according to reason
and consequent, but even knowledge itself is possible; then all is
_instabilis tellus, innabilis unda_. The nature of things before or beyond
the world, and consequently beyond the will, is open to no investigation;
because knowledge in general is itself only a phenomenon, and therefore
exists only in the world as the world exists only in it. The inner being
in itself of things is nothing that knows, no intellect, but an
unconscious; knowledge is only added as an accident, a means of assistance
to the phenomenon of that inner being, and can therefore apprehend that
being itself only in proportion to its own nature, which is designed with
reference to quite different ends (those of the individual will),
consequently very imperfectly. Here lies the reason why a perfect
understanding of the existence, nature, and origin of the world, extending
to its ultimate ground and satisfying all demands, is impossible. So much
as to the limits of my philosophy, and indeed of all philosophy.

The ἑν και παν, _i.e._, that the inner nature in all things is absolutely
one and the same, my age had already grasped and understood, after the
Eleatics, Scotus Erigena, Giordano Bruno, and Spinoza had thoroughly
taught, and Schelling had revived this doctrine. But _what_ this one is,
and how it is able to exhibit itself as the many, is a problem the
solution of which is first found in my philosophy. Certainly from the most
ancient times man had been called the microcosm. I have reversed the
proposition, and shown the world as the macranthropos: because will and
idea exhaust its nature as they do that of man. But it is clearly more
correct to learn to understand the world from man than man from the world;
for one has to explain what is indirectly given, thus external perception
from what is directly given, thus self‐consciousness—not conversely.

With the Pantheists, then, I have certainly that ἑν και παν in common, but
not the παν θεος; because I do not go beyond experience (taken in its
widest sense), and still less do I put myself in contradiction with the
data which lie before me. Scotus Erigena, quite consistently with the
spirit of Pantheism, explains every phenomenon as a theophany; but then
this conception must also be applied to the most terrible and abominable
phenomena. Fine theophanies! What further distinguishes me from Pantheism
is principally the following. (1). That their θεος is an _x_, an unknown
quantity; the will, on the other hand, is of all possible things the one
that is known to us most exactly, the only thing given immediately, and
therefore exclusively fitted for the explanation of the rest. For what is
unknown must always be explained by what is better known; not conversely.
(2). That their θεος manifests himself _animi causa_, to unfold his glory,
or, indeed, to let himself be admired. Apart from the vanity here
attributed to him, they are placed in the position of being obliged to
sophisticate away the colossal evil of the world; but the world remains in
glaring and terrible contradiction with that imagined excellence. With me,
on the contrary, the _will_ arrives through its objectification however
this may occur, at self‐knowledge, whereby its abolition, conversion,
salvation becomes possible. And accordingly, with me alone ethics has a
sure foundation and is completely worked out in agreement with the sublime
and profound religions, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Christianity, not merely
with Judaism and Mohammedanism. The metaphysic of the beautiful also is
first fully cleared up as a result of my fundamental truth, and no longer
requires to take refuge behind empty words. With me alone is the evil of
the world honestly confessed in its whole magnitude: this is rendered
possible by the fact that the answer to the question as to its origin
coincides with the answer to the question as to the origin of the world.
On the other hand, in all other systems, since they are all optimistic,
the question as to the origin of evil is the incurable disease, ever
breaking out anew, with which they are affected, and in consequence of
which they struggle along with palliatives and quack remedies. (3.) That I
start from experience and the natural self‐consciousness given to every
one, and lead to the will as that which alone is metaphysical; thus I
adopt the ascending, analytical method. The Pantheists, again, adopt the
opposite method, the descending or synthetical. They start from their
θεος, which they beg or take by force, although sometimes under the name
_substantia_, or absolute, and this unknown is then supposed to explain
everything that is better known. (4.) That with me the world does not fill
the whole possibility of all being, but in this there still remains much
room for that which we denote only negatively as the denial of the will to
live. Pantheism, on the other hand, is essentially optimism: but if the
world is what is best, then the matter may rest there. (5.) That to the
Pantheists the perceptible world, thus the world of idea, is just the
intentional manifestation of the God indwelling in it, which contains no
real explanation of its appearance, but rather requires to be explained
itself. With me, on the other hand, the world as idea appears merely _per
accidens_, because the intellect, with its external perception, is
primarily only the medium of motives for the more perfect phenomena of
will, which gradually rises to that objectivity of perceptibility, in
which the world exists. In this sense its origin, as an object of
perception, is really accounted for, and not, as with the Pantheists, by
means of untenable fictions.

Since, in consequence of the Kantian criticism of all speculative
theology, the philosophisers of Germany almost all threw themselves back
upon Spinoza, so that the whole series of futile attempts known by the
name of the post‐Kantian philosophy are simply Spinozism tastelessly
dressed up, veiled in all kinds of unintelligible language, and otherwise
distorted, I wish, now that I have explained the relation of my philosophy
to Pantheism in general, to point out its relation to Spinozism in
particular. It stands, then, to Spinozism as the New Testament stands to
the Old. What the Old Testament has in common with the New is the same
God‐Creator. Analogous to this, the world exists, with me as with Spinoza,
by its inner power and through itself. But with Spinoza his _substantia
æterna_, the inner nature of the world, which he himself calls God, is
also, as regards its moral character and worth, Jehovah, the God‐Creator,
who applauds His own creation, and finds that all is very good, παντα καλα
λιαν. Spinoza has deprived Him of nothing but personality. Thus, according
to him also, the world and all in it is wholly excellent and as it ought
to be: therefore man has nothing more to do than _vivere, agere, suum Esse
conservare ex fundamento proprium utile quærendi_ (_Eth._, iv. pr. 67); he
is even to rejoice in his life as long as it lasts; entirely in accordance
with Ecclesiastes ix. 7‐10. In short, it is optimism: therefore its
ethical side is weak, as in the Old Testament; nay, it is even false, and
in part revolting.(54) With me, on the other hand, the will, or the inner
nature of the world, is by no means Jehovah, it is rather, as it were, the
crucified Saviour, or the crucified thief, according as it resolves.
Therefore my ethical teaching agrees with that of Christianity, completely
and in its highest tendencies, and not less with that of Brahmanism and
Buddhism. Spinoza could not get rid of the Jews; _quo semel est imbuta
recens servabit odorem_. His contempt for the brutes, which, as mere
things for our use, he also declares to be without rights, is thoroughly
Jewish, and, in union with Pantheism, is at the same time absurd and
detestable (_Eth._, iv., appendix, c. 27). With all this Spinoza remains a
very great man. But in order to estimate his work correctly we must keep
in view his relation to Descartes. The latter had sharply divided nature
into mind and matter, _i.e._, thinking and extended substance, and had
also placed God and the world in complete opposition to each other;
Spinoza also, so long as he was a Cartesian, taught all that in his
“_Cogitatis Metaphysicis_,” c. 12, i. I., 1665. Only in his later years
did he see the fundamental falseness of that double dualism; and
accordingly his own philosophy principally consists of the indirect
abolition of these two antitheses. Yet partly to avoid injuring his
teacher, partly in order to be less offensive, he gave it a positive
appearance by means of a strictly dogmatic form, although its content is
chiefly negative. His identification of the world with God has also this
negative significance alone. For to call the world God is not to explain
it: it remains a riddle under the one name as under the other. But these
two negative truths had value for their age, as for every age in which
there still are conscious or unconscious Cartesians. He makes the mistake,
common to all philosophers before Locke, of starting from conceptions,
without having previously investigated their origin, such, for example, as
substance, cause, &c., and in such a method of procedure these conceptions
then receive a much too extensive validity. Those who in the most recent
times refused to acknowledge the Neo‐Spinozism which had appeared, for
example, Jacobi, were principally deterred from doing so by the bugbear of
fatalism. By this is to be understood every doctrine which refers the
existence of the world, together with the critical position of mankind in
it, to any absolute necessity, _i.e._, to a necessity that cannot be
further explained. Those who feared fatalism, again, believed that all
that was of importance was to deduce the world from the free act of will
of a being existing outside it; as if it were antecedently certain which
of the two was more correct, or even better merely in relation to us. What
is, however, especially assumed here is the _non datur tertium_, and
accordingly hitherto every philosophy has represented one or the other. I
am the first to depart from this; for I have actually established the
_Tertium_: the act of will from which the world arises is our own. It is
free; for the principle of sufficient reason, from which alone all
necessity derives its significance, is merely the form of its phenomenon.
Just on this account this phenomenon, if it once exists, is absolutely
necessary in its course; in consequence of this alone we can recognise in
it the nature of the act of will, and accordingly _eventualiter_ will
otherwise.





APPENDIX.




Abstract.


SCHOPENHAUER’S ESSAY ON THE FOURFOLD ROOT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT
REASON (Fourth Edition, Edited by FRAUENSTÄDT. The First Edition appeared
in 1813).

This essay is divided into eight chapters. The first is introductory. The
second contains an historical review of previous philosophical doctrines
on the subject. The third deals with the insufficiency of the previous
treatment of the principle, and prescribes the lines of the new departure.
The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh treat of the four classes of objects
for the subject, and the forms of the principle of sufficient reason which
respectively characterise these classes. The eighth contains general
remarks and results. It will be convenient to summarise these chapters
severally.




Chapter I.


Schopenhauer points out that Plato and Kant agree in recommending, as the
method of all knowledge, obedience to two laws:—that of Homogeneity, and
that of Specification. The former bids us, by attention to the points of
resemblance and agreement in things, get at their kinds, and combine them
into species, and these species again into genera, until we have arrived
at the highest concept of all, that which embraces everything. This law
being transcendental, or an essential in our faculty of reason, assumes
that nature is in harmony with it, an assumption which is expressed in the
old rule: _Entia præter necessitatem non esse multiplicanda._ The law of
Specification, on the other hand, is stated by Kant in these words:
_Entium varietates non temere esse minuendas._ That is to say, we must
carefully distinguish the species which are united under a genus, and the
lower kinds which in their turn are united under these species; taking
care not to make a leap, and subsume the lower kinds and individuals under
the concept of the genus, since this is always capable of division, but
never descends to the object of pure perception. Plato and Kant agree that
these laws are transcendental, and that they presuppose that things are in
harmony with them.

The previous treatment of the principle of sufficient reason, even by
Kant, has been a failure, owing to the neglect of the second of these
laws. It may well be that we shall find that this principle is the common
expression of more than one fundamental principle of knowledge, and that
the necessity, to which it refers, is therefore of different kinds. It may
be stated in these words: _Nihil est sine ratione cur potius sit, quam non
sit._ This is the general expression for the different forms of the
assumption which everywhere justifies that question “Why?” which is the
mother of all science.




Chapter II.


Schopenhauer in this chapter traces historically the forms in which the
principle had been stated by his predecessors, and their influence. He
points out that in Greek philosophy it appeared in two aspects—that of the
necessity of a ground for a logical judgment, and that of a cause for
every physical change—and that these two aspects were systematically
confounded. The Aristotelian division, not of the forms of the principle
itself, but of one of its aspects, the causal, exemplified a confusion
which continued throughout the Scholastic period. Descartes succeeds no
better. His proof of the existence of God that the immensity of His nature
is a _cause or reason_ beyond which no cause is needed for His existence,
simply illustrates the gross confusion between cause and ground of
knowledge which underlies every form of this ontological proof. “That a
miserable fellow like Hegel, whose entire philosophy is nothing but a
monstrous amplification of the ontological proof, should dare to defend
this proof against Kant’s criticism of it is an alliance of which the
ontological proof itself, little as it knows of shame, might well feel
ashamed. It is not to be expected I should speak respectfully of people
who have brought philosophy into disrespect.” Spinoza made the same
confusion when he laid it down that the cause of existence was either
contained in the nature and definition of the thing as it existed, or was
to be found outside that thing. It was through this confusion of the
ground of knowledge with the efficient cause that he succeeded in
identifying God with the world. The true picture of Spinoza’s “_Causa
sui_” is Baron Munchhausen encircling his horse with his legs, and raising
himself and the horse upwards by means of his pigtail, with the
inscription “_Causa sui_” written below. Leibnitz was the first to place
the principle of sufficient reason in the position of a first principle,
and to indicate the difference between its two meanings. But it was Wolff
who first completely distinguished them, and divided the doctrine into
three kinds: _principium fiendi_ (cause), _principium essendi_
(possibility), and _principium cognoscendi_. Baumgarten, Reimarus,
Lambert, and Platner added nothing to the work of Wolff, and the next
great step was Hume’s question as to the validity of the principle. Kant’s
distinction of the logical or formal principle of knowledge—Every
_proposition_ must have its ground; from the transcendental or material
principle, Every _thing_ must have its ground—was followed out by his
immediate successors. But when we come to Schelling we find the
proposition that gravitation is the _reason_ and light the _cause_ of
things, a proposition which is quoted simply as a curiosity, for such a
piece of nonsense deserves no place among the opinions of earnest and
honest inquirers. The chapter concludes by pointing out the futility of
the attempts to prove the principle. Every proof is the exhibition of the
ground of a judgment which has been expressed, and of which, just because
that ground is exhibited, we predicate truth. The principle of sufficient
reason is just this expression of the demand for such a ground, and he who
seeks a proof, _i.e._, the exhibition of a ground for this principle
itself, presupposes it as true, and so falls into the circle of seeking a
proof of the justification of the demand for proof.




Chapter III.


In the third chapter Schopenhauer points out that the two applications of
the principle of sufficient reason distinguished by his predecessors, to
judgments, which must have a ground, and to the changes of real objects,
which must have a cause, are not exhaustive. The reason why the three
sides of a certain triangle are equal is that the angles are equal, and
this is neither a logical deduction nor a case of causation. With a view
to stating exhaustively the various kinds into which the application of
the principle falls it is necessary to determine the nature of the
principle itself. All our ideas are objects of the subject, and all
objects of the subject are our ideas. But our ideas stand to one another
as a matter of fact in an orderly connection, which is always determinable
_a priori_ in point of form, and on account of which nothing that is in
itself separate and wholly independent of other things can be the object
of our consciousness. It is this connection which the principle of
sufficient reason in its generality expresses. The relations which
constitute it are what Schopenhauer calls its root, and they fall into
four classes, which are discussed in the four following chapters.




Chapter IV.


In the fourth chapter Schopenhauer deals with the first class of objects
for the subject and the form of the principle of sufficient reason which
obtains in it. This first class is that of those complete ideas of
perception which form part of our experience, and which are referable to
some sensation of our bodies. These ideas are capable of being perceived
only under the forms of Space and Time. If time were the only form there
would be no coexistence, and therefore no persistence. If space were their
only form there would be no succession, and therefore no change. Time may
therefore be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions
of the same thing. But the union of these two forms of existence is the
essential condition of reality, and this union is the work of the
understanding (see “World as Will and Idea,” vol. i. § 4, and the table of
predicables annexed to vol. ii., chap. 4). In this class of objects for
the subject the principle of sufficient reason appears as the law of
causality or the principle of sufficient reason of becoming, and it is
through it that all objects which present themselves in perception are
bound together through the changes of their states. When a new state of
one or more objects makes its appearance it must have been preceded by
another on which it regularly follows. This is causal sequence, and the
first state is the cause, the second the effect. The law has thus to do
exclusively with the _changes_ of objects of external experience, and not
with things themselves, a circumstance which is fatal to the validity of
the cosmological proof of the existence of God. It follows also from the
essential connection of causality with succession that the notion of
reciprocity, with its contemporaneous existence of cause and effect, is a
delusion. The chain of causes and effects does not affect either matter,
which is that in which all changes take place, or the original forces of
nature, through which causation becomes possible, and which exist apart
from all change, and in this sense out of time, but which yet are
everywhere present (_e.g._, chemical forces, see _supra_, vol. i., § 26).
In nature causation assumes three different forms; that of cause in the
narrow sense, of stimulus, and of motive, on which differences depend the
true distinctions between inorganic bodies, plants, and animals. It is
only of cause properly so called that Newton’s third law of the equality
of action and reaction is true, and only here do we find the degree of the
effect proportionate to that of the cause. The absence of this feature
characterises stimulation. Motive demands knowledge as its condition, and
intelligence is therefore the true characteristic of the animal. The three
forms are in principle identical, the difference being due to the degrees
of receptivity in existence. What is called freedom of the will is
therefore an absurdity, as is also Kant’s “Practical Reason.” These
results are followed by an examination of the nature of vision, which
Schopenhauer sums up in these words: “I have examined all these visual
processes in detail in order to show that the understanding is active in
all of them, the understanding which, by apprehending every change as an
effect and referring it to its cause, creates on the basis of the _a
priori_ and fundamental intuitions or perceptions of space and time, the
objective world, that phenomenon of the brain, for which the sensations of
the senses afford only certain data. And this task the understanding
accomplishes only through its proper form, the law of causality, and
accomplishes it directly without the aid of reflection, that is, of
abstract knowledge through concepts and words, which are the material of
secondary knowledge, of thought, thus of the Reason.” “What understanding
knows aright is reality; what reason knows aright is truth, _i.e._, a
judgment which has a ground; the opposite of the former being illusion
(what is falsely perceived), of the latter error (what is falsely
thought).” All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal
relation, and this is the sole function of understanding, and not the
complicated working of the twelve Kantian Categories, the theory of which
is a mistaken one. A consequence of this conclusion is, that arithmetical
processes do not belong to the understanding, concerned as they are with
abstract conceptions. But it must not be forgotten that between volition
and the apparently consequential action of the body there is no causal
relation, for they are the same thing perceived in two different ways.
Section 23 contains a detailed refutation of Kant’s proof of the _a
priori_ nature of the causal relation in the “Second Analogy of
Experience” of the Critique of Pure Reason, the gist of the objection
being that the so‐called subjective succession is as much objective in
reality as what is called objective by Kant: “Phenomena may well follow
one another, without following _from_ one another.”




Chapter V.


The fifth chapter commences with an examination of the distinction between
man and the brutes. Man possesses _reason_, that is to say, he has a class
of ideas of which the brutes are not capable, _abstract_ ideas as
distinguished from those ideas of perception from which the former kind
are yet derived. The consequence is, that the brute neither speaks nor
laughs, and lacks all those qualities which make human life great. The
nature of _motives_, too, is different where abstract ideas are possible.
No doubt the actions of men follow of necessity from their causes, not
less than is the case with the brutes, but the kind of sequence through
thought which renders choice, _i.e._, the conscious conflict of motives,
possible is different. Our abstract ideas, being incapable of being
objects of perception, would be outside consciousness, and the operations
of thought would be impossible, were it not that they are fixed for sense
by arbitrary signs called words, which therefore always indicate _general_
conceptions. It is just because the brutes are incapable of general
conceptions that they have no faculty of speech. But thought does not
consist in the mere presence of abstract ideas in consciousness, but in
the union and separation of two or more of them, subject to the manifold
restrictions and modifications which logic deals with. Such a clearly
expressed conceptual relation is a judgment. In relation to judgments the
principle of sufficient reason is valid in a new form: that of the ground
of knowing. In this form it asserts that if a judgment is to express
knowledge it must have a ground; and it is just because it has a ground
that it has ascribed to it the predicate true. The grounds on which a
judgment may depend are divisible into four kinds. A judgment may have
another judgment as its ground, in which case its truth is formal or
_logical_. There is no truth except in the relation of a judgment to
something outside it, and intrinsic truth, which is sometimes
distinguished from extrinsic logical truth, is therefore an absurdity. A
judgment may also have its ground in sense‐perception, and its truth is
then material truth. Again, those forms of knowledge which lie in the
understanding and in pure sensibility, as the conditions of the
possibility of experience, may be the ground of a judgment which is then
synthetical _a priori_. Finally, those formal conditions of all thinking
which lie in the reason may be the ground of a judgment, which may in that
case be called metalogically true. Of these metalogical judgments there
are four, and they were long ago discovered and called laws of thought.
(1.) A subject is equal to the sum of its predicates. (2.) A subject
cannot at once have a given predicate affirmed and denied of it. (3.) Of
two contradictorily opposed predicates one must belong to every subject.
(4.) Truth is the relation of a judgment to something outside it as its
sufficient reason. Reason, it may be remarked, has no material but only
formal truth.




Chapter VI.


The third class of objects for the subject is constituted by the formal
element in perception, the forms of outer and inner sense, space and time.
This class of ideas, in which time and space appear as pure intuitions, is
distinguished from that other class in which they are objects of
perception by the presence of matter which has been shown to be the
perceptibility of time and space in one aspect, and causality which has
become objective, in another. Space and time have this property, that all
their parts stand to one another in a relation in which each is determined
and conditioned by another. This relation is peculiar, and is intelligible
to us neither through understanding nor through reason, but solely through
pure intuition or perception _a priori_. And the law according to which
the parts of space and time thus determine one another is called the law
of sufficient reason of _being_. In space every position is determined
with reference to every other position, so that the first stands to the
second in the relation of a consequence to its ground. In time every
moment is conditioned by that which precedes it. The ground of being, in
the form of the law of sequence, is here very simple owing to the
circumstance that time has only one dimension. On the nexus of the
position of the parts of space depends the entire science of geometry.
Ground of _knowledge_ produces _conviction_ only, as distinguished from
_insight_ into the ground of being. Thus it is that the attempt, which
even Euclid at times makes, to produce _conviction_, as distinguished from
insight into the ground of being, in geometry, is a mistake, and induces
aversions to mathematics in many an admirable mind.




Chapter VII.


The remaining class of objects for the subject is a very peculiar and
important one. It comprehends only one object, the immediate object of
inner sense, the subject in volition which becomes an object of knowledge,
but only in inner sense, and therefore always in time and never in space;
and in time only under limitations. There can be no knowledge of
knowledge, for that would imply that the subject had separated itself from
knowledge, and yet knew knowledge, which is impossible. The subject is the
condition of the existence of ideas, and can never itself become idea or
object. It knows itself therefore never as _knowing_, but only as
_willing_. Thus what we know in ourselves is never what knows, but what
wills, the will. The identity of the subject of volition with the subject
of knowledge, through which the word “I” includes both, is the insoluble
problem. The identity of the knowing with the known is inexplicable, and
yet is immediately present. The operation of a motive is not, like that of
all other causes, known only from without, and therefore indirectly, but
also from within. Motivation is, in fact, causality viewed from within.




Chapter VIII.


In this, the concluding chapter, Schopenhauer sums up his results.
Necessity has no meaning other than that of the irresistible sequence of
the effect where the cause is given. All necessity is thus conditioned,
and absolute or unconditioned necessity is a contradiction in terms. And
there is a fourfold necessity corresponding to the four forms of the
principle of sufficient reason:—(1.) The logical form, according to the
principle of the ground of knowledge; on account of which, if the
premisses are given, the conclusion follows. (2.) The physical form,
according to the law of causality; on account of which, if the cause is
given, the effect must follow. (3.) The mathematical form, according to
the law of being; on account of which every relation expressed by a true
geometrical proposition is what it is affirmed to be, and every correct
calculation is irrefutable. (4.) The moral form, on account of which every
human being and every brute must, when the motive appears, perform the
only act which accords with the inborn and unalterable character. A
consequence of this is, that every department of science has one or other
of the forms of the principle of sufficient reason as its basis. In
conclusion, Schopenhauer points out that just because the principle of
sufficient reason belongs to the _a priori_ element in intelligence, it
cannot be applied to the entirety of things, to the universe as inclusive
of intelligence. Such a universe is mere phenomenon, and what is only true
because it belongs to the form of intelligence can have no application to
intelligence itself. Thus it is that it cannot be said that the universe
and all things in it exist because of something else. In other words, the
cosmological proof of the existence of God is inadmissible.





INDEX.(55)


Aboriginals, interference with, iii. 411.

Absolute, conception of, has reality only in matter, ii. 94;
  how not to be conceived, ii. 94;
  misuse of, ii. 94, 215, 216, 393.

Abstract, idea, knowledge, dependent on idea of perception, i. 45, 52, 53,
            ii. 258;
  insufficiency of, i. 72, ii. 248‐251;
  opposite of idea of perception, i. 7;
  philosophy must not start from, ii. 261 _seq._;
  relation to intuitive knowledge, ii. 54, 55, 91;
  use of, ii. 235, 238.

Absurd, sphere of, ii. 242;
  supremacy of, i. 418.

Academies, relation of, to great men, ii. 496.

Accident. See _Substance_.

Actors, why madness common among, iii. 168.

Adultery, iii. 351, 364, 365.

Æschylus, iii. 213, 378.

Æsthetic mode of contemplation, i. 253 _seq._, iii. 127 _seq._

Agamemnon, i. 199, iii. 213.

Alemann, Matteo, iii. 363.

Alfieri, i. 247.

Allegory, nature of, use and abuse in art, i. 305‐313.

America, compared with Old World in physical regard, iii. 57, 58.

Ampere, iii. 44.

Anacreon, iii. 377.

Analytical method, ii. 309.

Anatomy, what it teaches, iii. 38;
  value of comparative anatomy, i. 187, iii. 84.

Anaxagoras, iii. 2, 34, 73, 390.

Ancients, the, their architecture, iii. 185, 188, 190;
  defects in religion, iii. 452;
  freedom of thought, ii. 394;
  inferiority of tragedy, iii. 213, 214;
  historians, i. 317, 318;
  philosophy, ii. 400;
  sculpture, i. 269, 291.

Angelus Silesius, i. 167, 492, iii. 432.

Anger, evidence of primacy of will, ii. 442;
  psychological effect of, ii. 429.

Animals, lower, distinctive characteristics of animal life, i. 25, ii.
            228, 232;
  essential identity with man, i. 192;
  difference from man, i. 45, 47, 112, see _Man_;
  do not laugh, ii. 280;
  nor weep, i. 486;
  naïveté of, i. 204;
  no passions proper, iii. 16;
  no knowledge of death, iii. 249;
  yet fear death, iii. 251;
  right of man over, i. 481 n.

Animal magnetism, iii. 76, 418, 419.

Anselm of Canterbury, ii. 125, 126.

Anticipation in art, i. 287, 288;
  in nature, iii. 103, 104.

Antinomies, criticism of Kantian, i, 39, ii. 107 _seq._;
  the two of natural science, i. 37 _seq._

Antisthenes, i. 115, ii. 357.

Anwari Soheili, ii. 283.

Απαγωγη and επαγωγη, ii. 290.

Apollo Belvedere, i. 230.

Apperception, transcendental unity of, ii. 333.

_A priori_ knowledge, meaning and explanation of, ii. 33;
  directness, necessity, and universality of, i. 88;
  table of _prædicabilia a priori_, ii. 221;
  the basis of ontology, ii. 220.

Apuleius, ii. 352.

Architecture, its problem as a fine art, i. 276;
  solution of problem, i. 277 _seq._, iii. 182 _seq._;
  beauty and grace in, i. 277, iii. 188, 189;
  combines beauty with usefulness, i. 280;
  its relation to light, i. 279, 280;
  to music, iii. 239 _seq._;
  to plastic arts and poetry, i. 280;
  its effects dynamical as well as mathematical, i. 279;
  comparison of antique and Gothic, iii. 189‐192.

Aristippus, ii. 319, 363.

Aristo of Chios, ii. 319.

Aristocracy of intellect, ii. 342.

Aristotle, his logic, i. 62;
  on scientific knowledge, i. 95;
  his _forma substantialis_, i. 186;
  on essential conflict in nature, i. 192;
  his method, i. 239;
  on Platonic Ideas, i. 273, iii. 124;
  on derivation of ηθη, i. 378;
  his style, ii. 21;
  denies reciprocity, ii. 66;
  on the necessary and contingent, ii. 70;
  contented with abstract conceptions, ii. 71;
  on quality and quantity, ii. 76;
  his categories, ii. 85;
  on existence as subject, ii. 101;
  on infinity of world in space, ii. 110;
  atomism not necessary, ii. 111;
  infinity _potentia_ not _actu_, ii. 115;
  refutation of ontological proof, ii. 129;
  νους πρακτικος of, ii. 133;
  the seat of the virtues, ii. 137;
  treatment of art, ii. 153;
  an infinitely large body immovable, ii. 203;
  relation of number and time, ii. 205;
  Topi of, ii. 212;
  division of causes, ii. 217;
  on pure matter, ii. 219;
  on origin of things, ii. 220;
  real things and conceptions, ii. 244;
  meaning of his _nihil est in intellectu nisi quod ante fuerit in sensu_,
              ii. 258;
  eight spheres of, ii. 265;
  rhetorics of, ii. 285;
  his επαγωγη and απαγωγη, ii. 290;
  his syllogistic figures, ii. 297;
  analysis of syllogisms, ii. 303;
  on the prudent man, ii. 347;
  his ethics eudæmonistic, ii. 349;
  wonder the origin of philosophy, ii. 360;
  view of the Sophists, ii. 362;
  necessity of metaphysics, ii. 379;
  on invertebrate animals, ii. 481;
  on plants, iii. 34;
  difference between efficient and final cause, iii. 82;
  his freedom from physico‐theology, iii. 94;
  merits of his teaching as to organised and unorganised nature, iii. 95;
  nature a demon, iii. 106;
  music a cathartic of the feelings, iii. 174;
  poetry better than history, iii. 220.

Arithmetic, depends on _a priori_ intuition of time, i. 99, ii. 204.

Arrian, ii. 355 _seq._

Art, source and aim of, i. 238, 239, 286 _seq._, iii. 126, 179;
  object of, see _Idea_;
  subject of, see _Genius_;
  relation to and difference from philosophy, iii. 176, 177, 178;
  contrasted with history, i. 298, 315, iii. 224;
  inborn and acquired, i. 252;
  the two extremes in series of, i. 274 _seq._, 280;
  value and importance of, i. 345, 346, iii. 132;
  opposition between useful and fine, iii. 181.

Art, works of, tendency of, iii. 177;
  relation of conception to execution of, iii. 180;
  the abstract concept barren in, i. 303, 304, iii. 179, 180;
  why Idea more easily comprehended in than in nature, i. 252, iii. 132;
  co‐operation of the beholder required for enjoyment of, iii. 177;
  why they do not give all to the senses, iii. 178 _seq._;
  superiority of those dashed off in moment of conception, iii. 178, 180.

Asceticism, its source, i, 490 _seq._;
  its way of manifesting itself, i. 492, 493, 506, iii. 425;
  identity of its spirit in different countries and religions, i. 502,
              503, iii. 433;
  difference of spirit of cynicism, ii. 352, 353.

Assertion, definition of, ii. 308.

Association of ideas, its root, ii. 324;
  kinds of, ii. 324;
  apparent exceptions to law of, ii. 327;
  the will secretly controls the law of, ii. 328.

Astronomy, what it teaches, iii. 37;
  source of its certainty and comprehensibility, i. 86;
  its method, i. 87;
  Ptolemaic, i. 64.

Athanasius, iii. 439.

Atheism, what strengthens the reproach of, ii. 379;
  not necessarily materialism, ii. 131, 132.

Atom, assumption of, not necessary, iii. 44 _seq._;
  has no reality, ii. 223;
  defence of, from porosity refuted, iii. 47.

Attraction and repulsion, forces of, constitute space‐occupation, ii. 224.

Augustine, recognises identity of all things with will, i. 165;
  cause of beauty of vegetable world, i. 260 n.;
  on original sin, i. 524;
  the will not free, i. 525;
  dogmatics of, i. 525 n.;
  beginner of Scholasticism, ii. 12;
  on moral systems of ancients, ii. 349;
  spirit of his anti‐Pelagianism, ii. 368, iii. 421;
  on affections of will, ii. 412 n.;
  his _de civit. Dei_, iii. 117 n.

Autobiography. See _Biography_.

Avarice, the vice of old age, iii. 465

Avatar, iii. 426.

Axiom, definition, ii. 308.

Bacon, his conception of philosophy, i. 109;
  all movement preceded by perception, i. 137 n.;
  on atheism, ii. 131;
  his philosophical method, ii. 212;
  on the intellect, ii. 433;
  his moral character, ii. 447;
  influence of climate upon intellect, iii. 18;
  rejected teleology, iii. 91;
  on final causes, iii. 93;
  on Democritus, iii. 95;
  on rarity of genius, iii. 158.

Basilidians, iii. 305.

Bass. See _Music_.

Baumgarten, his æsthetics, ii. 153.

Beard, its efficient and final cause in man, iii. 88.

Beauty, the beautiful, two elements of, i. 270;
  source of pleasure in, i. 253 _seq._;
  everything beautiful, i. 271;
  why one thing more beautiful than another, i. 272;
  distinguished from grace, i. 289;
  distinguished from the sublime, i. 270;
  effect of natural beauty, i. 255, iii. 173, 174;
  beauty in art. See _Painting_, _Sculpture_, &c.

Beccaria, iii. 413.

Being, as the most general conception, ii. 236;
  in the professorial philosophy, ii. 288;
  relation of thought to. See _Thing in itself_;
  limitation of individual being the cause of philosophy, i. 135;
  contrast of seeing and being, iii. 392.

Bell, Sir Ch., i. 133, iii. 6.

Benedict, iii. 450.

Berkeley, on rareness of thought, i. 50;
  his idealism, ii. 15, 29, 41, 163, 165, 175, iii. 59, 261.

Bhagavad‐gita, i. 366, iii. 75, 262.

Bible, one metaphysical truth in Old Testament, iii. 423;
  ascetic spirit of New Testament, iii. 437, 458 _seq._;
  opposition of Old and New Testaments, i. 420, iii. 281, 441, 445;
  its historical material unsuited for paintings, i. 300.

Bichat, “_Sur la vie et la mort_,” ii. 470, 488;
  on circulation of blood, ii. 478;
  on organic and animal life, ii. 489;
  only animal life can be educated, ii. 491;
  Flourens’ attack on, ii. 494 _seq._;
  nervous and muscular systems in children, iii. 161;
  effect of emotions on organism, iii. 296.

Bio, on relation of science and philosophy, ii. 319.

Biography, superiority to history, i. 319 _seq._;
  difficulty of dissimulating in autobiographies, i. 320.

Biot, on colour rings, ii. 338.

Blood, the primitive fluid of organism, ii. 478‐481.

Body, the, an object among objects, i. 5, 14, 23, 25, 129, ii. 167;
  its identity with will, i. 129 _seq._; 137‐142, ii. 428, 468, 471‐493;
  relation of physiological and metaphysical explanations of, i. 139
              _seq._, ii. 492, 493;
  its design, i. 140 _seq._;
  knowledge of, key to nature of things, i. 136, 141 _seq._;
  criticism of antithesis of body and soul as two substances, ii. 101‐104,
              378, iii. 11.

Böhm, Jakob, everything half dead, i. 191;
  “_De signatura rerum_,” i. 284 n., iii. 432.

Bolingbroke, iii. 397.

Books, not so instructive as reality, ii. 244, 245;
  why they cannot take the place of experience, ii. 248, 249.

Boswell, his Life of Johnson, ii. 446.

Boureguon, Antoinette, iii. 435.

Brahmanism, recognises no beginning of world, ii. 94, 95, 108, 109;
  teaches metempsychosis, iii. 303.

Brain, metaphysically considered, ii. 468, 485, 486;
  physiologically considered, its origin and function, ii. 411, 462, 463,
              470, iii. 9;
  its share in perception, ii. 185;
  its relation to the ganglia, ii. 483;
  the seat of motives, ii. 473;
  develops with organism, ii. 416, iii. 13, 14;
  as necessary for thought as stomach for digestion, ii. 237;
  the regulator of the will, ii. 470;
  the condition of self‐consciousness, iii. 12 _seq._;
  influence of its development upon intellect at different periods of
              life, ii. 425, 454 _seq._;
  necessity of sleep for, ii. 464;
  effect of over‐work on, ii. 255, 256;
  its variation in man the cause of individual character, i. 171;
  its activity in dreams, ii. 464;
  the brain of genius, iii. 159, 160;
  influence on agility of limbs, iii. 21;
  influence of noise on, ii. 196, 197.

Brandis, Ch. A., ii. 264.

Brandis, J. D., ii. 488.

Bridgewater Treatise Men, iii. 91.

Brougham, Lord, iii. 91.

Brown, Thomas, “On Cause and Effect,” ii. 207, iii. 92.

Bruno, Giordano, started from real in his philosophy, i. 33;
  his view of life, i. 366;
  lonely position in his age, ii. 13 n.;
  on finiteness of world, ii. 110;
  infinitely large body immovable, ii. 203;
  matter incorporeal, ii. 208, iii. 51, 54;
  no space beyond the world, ii. 265;
  his death, iii. 106;
  his motto, iii. 144.

Buddhism, its pre‐eminence over all religions, ii. 371;
  superiority to Brahmanism, i. 460, iii. 430;
  compared with Christianity, iii. 445 _seq._;
  its pessimism, i. 372, iii. 397;
  its mysticism, iii. 435;
  teaches that nature expects salvation from man, i. 492;
  its doctrine of metempsychosis, iii. 302;
  doctrine of Nirvana, iii. 308, 427.

Buffon, on intelligence of animals, i. 29;
  on style, ii. 247.

Bunyan, John, iii. 435.

Bundahish, iii. 391.

Burdach, sleep the original state, ii. 463;
  formation of muscles from blood, ii. 478;
  heart independent of nervous system and sensibility, ii. 479;
  reciprocal support of vegetable and insect world, iii. 90;
  on bees, iii. 100;
  on the burrying beetle, iii. 102;
  on _cercaria ephemera_, iii. 269;
  on maternal affection of animals, iii. 317.

Bürger, his place in German poetry, iii. 327;
  his parents, iii. 327;
  on love, iii. 336.

Burke, on the beautiful, ii. 153;
  on the apprehension of words, ii. 239.

Byron, an instance of connection of genius and madness, i. 247;
  brain weighed 6 lbs., iii. 160;
  quoted, i. 234, 324, 258, 342, 432, 458, iii. 379, 398, 400.

Cabanis, on arterial and venous systems, ii. 257;
  his materialism, ii. 378;
  on passions of children, ii. 424;
  “_Des rapports du physique au moral_,” iii. 6.

Cæsar, Jul., on Druids, iii. 304.

Calderon, life a dream, i. 22;
  steadfast prince, i. 327;
  a crime to be born, i. 328, 458, iii. 420;
  his Semiramis, iii. 343;
  “Zenobia the Great,” iii. 364.

Camerarius, J., collection of emblems, i. 309.

Cannibalism, most palpable example of wrong, i. 431;
  hereditary, iii. 322.

Canisius, iii. 440.

Canova, iii. 195.

Caravaggio, iii. 197.

Caricature, character of species annulled by that of individual, i. 291.

Carové, iii. 440.

Carracci, Hannibal, his allegorical paintings, i. 306, 308.

Casper, on length of human life, iii. 301.

Castration, its significance, iii. 310;
  its use as a punishment, iii. 331.

Categories, criticism of the Kantian, ii. 48‐51.

Catholicism, compared with Protestantism in an ethical regard, iii. 448,
            449.

Catullus, iii. 318.

Caucasian, an original race, iii. 58.

Cause, Causality, law of, ii. 214;
  _a priori_ nature of law of, i. 154 _seq._, ii. 206 _seq._;
  corollary from it the permanence of substance, ii. 79;
  difference of cause and force, i. 144, 145;
  mysteriousness of connection between cause and effect, i. 174;
  temporal relation between cause and effect, ii. 209, 210;
  three kinds of causes, i. 149, 150;
  truth of doctrine of occasional causes, i. 178 _seq._;
  falseness of proposition “the effect cannot contain more than the
              cause,” ii. 213;
  a “first cause” inconceivable, ii. 214;
  to determine the cause of an effect, ii. 154.

Celibacy, from Christian and ethical point of view, iii. 425, 437, 438,
            449, 450, 451.

Cellini, Benvenuto, his conversion, i. 510.

Celsus, on generation, iii. 310.

Certainty, distinguished from scientific completeness of knowledge, i. 83;
  superiority of immediate to indirect, i. 89, 90.

Cervantes, i. 311; ii. 246.

Chamfort, iii., 157, 158, 365.

Champollion, i. 313.

Change, nature of, i. 11;
  always conditioned by a cause, i. 170, ii. 211 _seq._

Character, as a force of nature, i. 370;
  difference between that of man and brutes, i. 170, 386, 387;
  that of man individual, i. 290;
  empirical, ii. 407;
  constant, i. 378, ii. 441, 491;
  inherited from father, iii. 320 _seq._;
  relation of intelligible to empirical, i. 203, 207, 373 _seq._;
  a false inference from unalterableness of, i. 389;
  the acquired, i. 391‐397;
  explanation of inharmonious nature of, iii. 330;
  abolition of, i. 520 _seq._

Chatham, Lord, iii. 324.

Chateaubriand, iii. 435.

Chemistry, what it teaches, iii. 38;
  antinomy of, i. 37 _seq._

Chevreul, experiments on light, iii. 62.

Childhood, character of, iii. 161 _seq._

Chiliasts, ii. 243.

Chinese, philosophy, i. 187, 188, 343;
  garden, iii. 157.

Chladni, i. 344.

Choice, man larger sphere of, than brutes, i. 388;
  not freedom of individual volition, _loc. cit._

Christianity, different constituent parts of, i. 500, 501, iii. 422;
  its connection with Brahmanism and Buddhism, iii. 391, 421, 459;
  pessimistic spirit of, ii. 372, iii. 397, 436;
  kernel of, i. 424, 523‐524, ii. 149, iii. 421, 452;
  symbol of, iii. 462.

Chrysippus, i. 116, 118, 389, ii. 72, 349.

Cicero, i. 116 n., 117, 247, 389, ii. 72, 137, 138, 140, 141, 270, 272,
            348, 356, 358, 444, iii. 147, 253 n., 452.

Circle, the symbol of nature, iii. 267.

Classics, advantage of studying, ii. 239.

Classical poetry, distinguished from romantic, iii. 209.

Cleanthes, i. 118, ii. 128.

Clemens Alexandrinus, “Stromata” referred to, i. 425, ii. 98, iii. 427,
            438, 442, 443.

Clouds, illustration of opposition between Idea and phenomenon, i. 235.

Colebrooke, i. 491, 494 n., 281, 304, 307, 308 n.

Comedy, distinguished from tragedy, iii. 218.

Composer, musical, i. 336.

Concept, conception, see _Abstract_;
  their construction the function of reason, i. 7, 50, ii. 235 _seq._;
  content and extent of, ii. 236;
  spheres, i. 55, 64;
  representatives of, i. 51;
  relation to word, i. 51; ii. 234, 238;
  relation to Idea, i. 301, 302;
  simple, ii. 236;
  distinct, ii. 237;
  abstract and concrete, i. 53;
  pure, ii. 385;
  advantages and disadvantages of, i. 45, 47 _seq._, 68‐75, ii. 234‐243,
              345 _seq._

Concrete, union of form and matter, ii. 215.

Condillac, his materialism, ii. 175, 187. iii. 45.

Condorcet, ii. 187.

Connections among men, foundation of, ii. 450.

Conscience, presupposes intelligible character, i. 474;
  is only affected by deeds, i. 387;
  anguish of, i. 471 _seq._;
  the good, i. 482.

Consciousness, only a property of animal beings, ii. 336, 337, 414;
  origin, aim, and seat of, ii. 475;
  what common to all, and what distinguishes one from another, ii. 414,
              iii. 17 _seq._;
  self‐consciousness and that of other things, ii. 259, 412, 468, iii.
              126;
  limited to phenomena, i. 358 n., iii. 74, 285 _seq._;
  as opposed to unconsciousness, ii. 328;
  fragmentary nature of, ii. 330 _seq._;
  what gives it unity and connection, iii. 333;
  extinguished in death, iii. 255 _seq._

Considering things, ways of, i. 239; 121 _seq._

Contingent, contingency, conception of, ii. 67;
  misuse of word by pre‐Kantian dogmatists, ii. 70.

Conversation, ii. 343.

Copula, ii. 287, 288.

Coriolanus, ii. 136.

Corneille, iii. 203.

Correct, distinguished from true, real, &c., ii. 208.

Correggio, i. 300, 306, 307, 531.

Cosmogony, of Laplace, iii. 71, 72.

Cosmological proof, Kant’s refutation of, ii. 130.

Cousin, M., iii. 45.

Cramp, ii. 484.

Crime, chief cause of, iii. 412.
  See _Punishment_.

Criticism, the Kantian, ii. 6‐11.

Crystal, its one manifestation of life, i. 202;
  its individuality, i. 171;
  becomes rigid in the moment of movement, iii. 37.

Culture, cannot make up for want of understanding, ii. 253 _seq._, 343

Cuvier, ii. 204, 318, 479, iii. 98, 160, 165.

Cynicism, spirit and fundamental thought of, ii. 350 _seq._, iii. 388.

_Da Capo_, i. 342.

Daemon, i. 349, iii. 99.

Dante, i. 258, 419, ii. 315.

Davis, iii. 207.

Death, i. 356 _seq._, 506‐509, iii. 249‐308, 312, 389, 463;
  sudden death, why prayed against, iii, 428.

Decameron, iii. 365.

Deductive method, ii. 310.

Delamark, ii. 318, 378.

Delirium, distinguished from madness, i. 248.

Democritus, i. 33, 159, 160, ii. 131 140, 177, 378, iii. 61, 62, 64, 95.

Denial. See _Will_.

Descartes, vortex of, i. 159;
  identifies will with judgment, 377, 385;
  his thought not free, ii. 13;
  on repetition, ii. 21, 25;
  ontological proof, ii. 126;
  made philosophy start from self‐consciousness, ii. 164, 165, 201, 400,
              iii. 59;
  the quantity of a motion, ii. 226;
  opinion of mathematics, ii. 323;
  slept a great deal, ii. 465;
  criticism of his doctrines, ii. 494‐496;
  relation to Spinoza, iii. 475.

Desire, the universal nature of things, i. 165, iii. 34;
  in a psychological regard, ii. 429.

Determinism, iii. 67‐69.

Δευτερος πλους, the second way of the denial of the will, i. 506, iii.
            454, 465.

Dialectic, definition of, ii. 285.

Diderot, ii. 341, iii. 233, 272.

Diodorus the Megaric, ii. 72.

Diogenes the Cynic, i. 151, ii. 351, 352, iii. 388.

Diogenes, Laertius, i. 118, 151, 169, ii. 319, 351, 355, 363, iii. 255.

Dionysius the Areopagite, ii. 264.

Discovery, the work of understanding, i. 26, 27.

Disease, its nature, ii. 487.

Disgusting, the, i. 269.

Dissimulation, i. 47, iii. 231.

Divisibility, infinite, of time, i. 13, ii. 221;
  of matter, iii. 46.

Dog, intelligence of, ii. 230‐232;
  wags its tail, ii. 280.

Dogmas, their relation to virtue and morality, i. 475 _seq._

Dogmatism, philosophical, opposed to criticism, ii. 10, 11;
  its fundamental error, iii. 27.

Domenichino, iii. 193.

Donatello, iii. 193.

Don Quixote, i. 311.

Drama, the, i. 321‐330, iii. 211‐219.

Drapery in sculpture, i. 296.

Dreams, distinguished from real life, i. 20 _seq._

Duns Scotus, i. 111, ii. 237.

Dutch paintings, i. 269.

Ebionites, iii. 458.

Eckermann, “Conversations of Goethe,” i. 362, iii. 240.

Eckhard, Meister, i. 492, 500, iii. 432, 435, 467.

Edda, the, iii. 304.

Ego, conception of, i. 132, 324, ii. 413, 487, iii. 3, 13, 284, 285;
  the logical ego, ii. 333.

Egoism, origin, nature, and scope of, i. 427, iii. 416, 417;
  theoretical egoism, i. 135.

Egyptians, gospel of, iii. 436, 444.

Eleatics, i. 33, 61, 93, ii. 85, 113, iii. 271.

Election, doctrine of, i. 378, ii. 149.

Elephant, intelligence of, i. 29, ii. 232, 233.

Eloquence, ii. 305, 306.

Emblems, i. 312, 313.

Emotion, its origin and effect, ii. 346, iii. 407, 408.

Empedocles, i. 192, 288, 530, iii. 8, 34, 95, 271.

Encratites, iii. 438.

English, the, their faults, ii. 131, iii. 92.

ἑν και παν, iii. 65, 471.

Ennui, i. 402, 404, iii. 413.

_Ens realissimum_, ii. 125‐127.

Envy, iii, 389.

επαγωγη and απαγωγη, ii. 290.

Epic poetry, i. 324, 413, iii. 211.

Epicurus, Epicureans, i. 33, 37, ii. 181, 145, 177, 378, iii. 255, 261.

Epictetus, i. 115, 116 n., 386, ii. 354, 356.

Epiphanias, iii. 446.

Equivocation, i. 79.

Erigena, Scotus, ii. 319, iii. 432, 470, 471.

Error, definition of, i. 30, 103‐105;
  difference between man and brutes with regard to, ii. 243, _seq._;
  pernicious nature of, i. 45, ii. 241 _seq._;
  tragic and comic side of, ii. 243;
  how perpetuated, ii. 243, 341.

Esquirol, iii. 117, 328.

Essenes, iii. 437, 451.

_Essentia_ and _existentia_, their relation, ii. 129, 130;
  their union in pure matter, ii. 218.

Eternity, conception of, i. 228, 360 _seq._, iii. 276.

Ethics, i. 441‐443, 474 _seq._, iii. 402‐409;
  criticism of Kantian, ii. 133 _seq._;
  of ancients, ii. 348, iii. 213, 214, 452.

Ethiopian, an original race, iii. 58.

Etiology, subject and scope of, i. 124 _seq._;
  its relation to the philosophy of nature, i. 182 _seq._

Euchel, Isaak, his “Prayers of the Jews,” ii. 98.

Euclid, criticism of his method, i. 90‐100, ii. 33, 164, 321‐323.

Eudæmonism, ii. 348 _seq._

ευκολος and δυσκολος, i. 407.

Euler, i. 55, 165, ii. 172 n., 187‐189, 192, 341.

Euripides, i. 328, 453, iii. 214, 218, 400, 406, 443.

Evidence, distinction between empirical and _a priori_, i. 85;
  the predicate “evident” defined, ii. 308.

Evil, meaning of word, i. 426;
  the _punctum pruriens_ of metaphysics, ii. 375.
  See _Pessimism_.

Existence, vanity of, iii. 382 _seq._;
  the end of, ii. 695.

Experience, ii. 234 _seq._, 388 _seq._

Experiment, ii. 268.

Explanation, i. 105 _seq._, 125.

Extension. See _Matter_.

Eye, i. 301, ii. 194, iii. 162.

Fame, i. 305, iii. 151.

Fanaticism, i. 466 n.

Fate, Fatalism, i. 389, 390, iii. 475.

Fear, effect of, ii. 429 _seq._;
  origin of belief in God, ii. 130.

Feeling, as sense of touch, ii. 195;
  as opposite of knowing, i. 66‐68.

Fénélon, i. 499.

Fernow, i. 293.

Fichte, i. 16, 33, 40‐43, ii. 22, 31, 176, iii. 13.

Fit Arari, ii. 444.

Flagellants, ii. 243.

Flourens, ii. 133, 416, 417, 479, 494‐496, iii. 165, 326.

Folly, a species of the ludicrous, i. 77 _seq._, ii. 277;
  a characteristic of genius, iii. 153.

Force, distinguished from cause, i. 144, 145, 174‐178, ii. 217;
  inseparable from matter, iii. 54 _seq._

Form and matter. i. 162, 168, ii. 215, iii. 26, 53‐57.

Forms of thought, 86 _seq._;
  their relation to parts of speech, ii. 85, 86.

Francis, St., i. 496, iii. 434, 459.

Frauenstädt, ii. 225.

Frederick the Great, ii. 133.

Freedom, as a metaphysical quality, i. 369 _seq._;
  intellectual, iii. 407;
  of the will, i. 376 _seq._, 388, 389, 520 _seq._;
  criticism of Kant’s doctrine, ii. 117 _seq._

French, national character of, i. 510;
  philosophy of, ii. 18, iii. 44, 45;
  poetry, iii. 209;
  music, iii. 244.

Friendship, i. 485.

Fright, effect of, ii. 429.

Froriep, ii. 209.

Future. See _Present_.

Gall, ii. 469, 494, 495.

Galenus, ii. 297.

Gallows, iii. 456, 457.

Ganglia, their function in organism, ii. 484 _seq._

Gardening, landscape, i. 282;
  difference between English and old French, iii. 175.

Garrick, ii. 279, iii. 21.

_Gemüth_, distinguished from mind, ii. 458, 459.

_Generatio æquivoca_, i. 184 _seq._; iii. 54‐56.

Generation, and death essential moments in life of species, i. 365, iii.
            270‐273;
  instinctive nature of act, iii. 309;
  act viewed subjectively and objectively, iii. 292, 293;
  inner significance of act, i. 423 _seq._, iii. 379;
  reason of shame connected with, i. 423, 378;
  existence a paraphrase of, iii. 377.

Genius, i. 238‐247, 251‐253, ii. 245‐249, iii. 138‐166.

Genital organs, the opposite pole of the brain, i. 425, iii. 87, 310;
  independence of knowledge, i. 150, 426;
  difference of plants, animals, and man in respect of, i. 204, iii. 35;
  shame connected with, iii. 379;
  symbolical language of, iii. 380.

Genus, distinguished from species, iii. 123 _seq._;
  construction of logical genus, ii. 103, 104.

Geometry, content of, i. 9;
  method of, i. 90 _seq._; ii. 321 _seq._

Genre painting, i. 298.

Gichtel, iii. 434, 435.

Gilbert, ii. 196.

Giordano, Luca, iii. 198.

Given, the, ii. 23, 84.

Gnostics, iii. 305, 432, 438, 442,

γνωθι σαυτον, ii. 423.

God, origin of the word, iii. 446;
  egotistical origin of belief in, ii. 130;
  an asserted “consciousness of God,” ii. 129, 141, 142;
  criticism of proofs for existence of, ii. 128‐133.

Goethe, his theory of colours, i. 26, 160, 245, ii. 433;
  on genius, i. 247, iii. 19, 147, 151, 153, 156;
  on effect of human beauty, i. 285;
  on Laocoon, i. 293;
  on painting of music, i. 295;
  on fable of Proserpine and pomegranate, i. 311, 424;
  his songs, i. 323, 210;
  on indestructibility of human spirit, i. 362 n.;
  “Confessions of beautiful soul,” i. 497;
  power of sight of suffering, i. 512;
  on persistency of error, ii. 4, 8;
  unknown to Kant, ii. 152;
  sensitive to noise, ii. 198;
  metamorphosis of plants, ii. 225, iii. 85;
  on skeletons of rodents, ii. 318;
  on Kant, ii. 340;
  never over‐worked, ii, 427;
  example of folly of childhood, ii. 456;
  on sleep, ii. 466;
  “_Wahlverwandtschaften_,” iii. 37, 151, 164;
  his love of natural sciences, iii. 39;
  his height, iii. 160;
  his childishness, iii. 163;
  his mother, iii. 327;
  quoted, i. 314, 366, ii. 14, 22, 294, iii. 132, 136, 369.

Good, the conception, i. 464 _seq._;
  nature of the good man, 465, 480, iii. 306, 307.

Gorgias, ii. 281, 286.

Gothic architecture compared with antique, iii. 189‐192.

Gozzi, Carlo, i. 237, ii. 276, iii. 169.

Grace, distinguished from beauty, i. 289;
  Christian doctrine of, i. 522 _seq._, 528, ii. 149.

Gracian, Balthasar, i. 311, ii. 250, iii. 401.

Grammar, relation to Logic, ii. 85‐87, 89.

_Gravitas_, iii. 152.

Gravitation, i. 13, 26, 195, 212, 213, 398, ii. 225, 226, iii. 52, 394.

Greatness in spiritual sense, iii. 150.

Guicciardini, ii. 447.

Guido Reni, iii. 191.

Guilt, i. 204, 454, iii. 390, 415, 418, 420 _seq._, 448.

Guion, Mme. de, i. 497, 505, iii. 432, 434, 435.

Hall, Marshall, i. 151, ii. 133, 433, 484, iii. 6.

Haller, ii. 479, 488, iii. 328.

Hamilton, Sir W., ii. 323.

Happiness, is negative, i. 411‐413;
  from standpoint of higher knowledge, i. 456;
  impossible in an existence like ours, iii. 382, 383;
  and virtue, i. 466, iii. 420 _seq._

Hardy, Spence, i. 497, iii. 301, 303, 308 n., 434.

Hauz, iii. 45.

Haydn, i. 304.

Head, relation of, to trunk in brutes and man, i. 230;
  opposite pole of genitals, i. 425, iii. 87, 310;
  and heart, ii. 450 _seq._

Health, i. 190 _seq._, iii. 385.

Hearing, sense of, ii. 195‐199.

Heart, the centre and _primum mobile_ of life, ii. 428, 479‐481;
  opposition between head and heart, ii. 450 _seq._;
  why love affairs are called affairs of the heart, iii. 373.

Heathen, ii. 97.

Heavens, sublime effect of, i. 266, 267.

Hegel, ii. 8, 22, 31, 171, 243, 261, 266, iii. 45, 224, 225, 394, 404,
            436.

Heine, Heinrich, ii. 283.

Hell, i. 419, iii. 387, 388, 392.

Helvetius, i. 288 n., ii. 256, 444 446, iii. 8.

Heraclitus, i. 8, ii. 256, iii. 399.

Herder, i. 52, ii. 153, iii. 163.

Heredity, iii. 318‐335.

Hermaphrodism, iii. 356.

Herodotus, ii. 347, iii. 303, 398.

Hesiod, i. 425.

History and science, i. 82, iii. 220, 221;
  and philosophy, iii. 223;
  and poetry, i. 315 _seq._, iii. 224;
  and biography, i. 319;
  the philosophy of, i. 236, 237, iii. 224‐226;
  true value of, iii. 227 _seq._
  untrustworthiness of, i. 238, 316, 317, iii. 223;
  history of world and history of the saints, i. 497, 498.

Hobbes, i. 21, 361 n., 441, 446, 451 ii. 263, 453.

Holberg, ii. 379.

Holiness, inner nature of, i. 494, 495;
  its independence of dogmas, i. 495, 509.

Hollbach, ii. 176.

Home, ii. 153, 270.

Homer, i. 236, 295, 311, 314, 324, iii. 400.

Hooke, i. 26, ii. 225, 226.

Hope, ii. 431.

Horace, ii. 139, 140, 274, iii. 181.

Horizon, mental, ii. 338.

Huber, iii. 101.

Human race. See _Man_.

Humboldt, Alex. von, ii. 64, iii. 112.

Hume, David, i. 15, 52, 89, ii. 8, 129, 130, 156, 157, 173, 207, 209 iii.
            92, 92 n., 305, 327, 393, 394, 395.

Humour, ii. 282‐284.

Hutcheson, ii. 270.

Hydraulics, science, of iii. 38;
  as a fine art, i. 281, 282.

Hypothesis, correct, ii. 309;
  effect of, on mind, ii. 432.

I. See _Ego_.

Idea (_Vorstellung_), what it is, ii. 400;
  common form of all classes of, i. 3;
  form of combination of all classes of, i. 5;
  chief distinction among, i. 7;
  idea of perception, i. 7‐45, ii. 163‐227;
  abstract, i. 45‐120, ii. 228‐395;
  subjective correlative of, i. 13 (Cf. _Object_ and _World_);
  the Platonic Idea (_Idee_) defined, i. 168, iii. 122;
  distinguished from thing in itself, i. 209, 226 _seq._, 232, iii. 122
              _seq._;
  empirical correlative of, iii. 123.;
  relation to individual things, i. 227, 233, iii. 275;
  knowledge of, i. 220‐228, 271, ii. 335‐336, iii. 122, 126 _seq._;
  grades of, in nature, i. 195‐199, 202;
  the object of art, see _Art_;
  misuse of word, i. 168, ii. 99, 100;
  association of, see _Association_;
  Kant’s Ideas of reason, ii. 23 _seq._

Ideal, in art, i. 287, 288;
  opposition between ideal and real, ii. 400 _seq._

Idealism, as opposed to realism, i. 3 _seq._, ii. 28 _seq._, 163, 167;
  difference between empirical and transcendental, ii. 170, 184;
  absolute, i. 134, 135.

Identity, law of, ii. 86‐88;
  philosophy of, i. 32, ii. 8, 400.

Idyll, the, why it must be short, i. 413.

Iffland, ii. 426.

Illusion distinguished from error, i. 28, 103, 104.

Imagination, an instrument of thought, ii. 240, 245;
  an essential element of genius, i. 241 _seq._, iii. 141, 142.

Imitation, in art, i. 304;
  of idiosyncrasies of others, i. 395.

Immanent knowledge, opposed to transcendent and transcendental, i. 224,
            ii. 387, iii. 430 n., 468.

Immortality, iii. 75.
  See _Indestructibility_.

Impenetrability of matter, i, 13, ii. 103, 223 _seq._, iii. 52.

Inclination, definition, iii. 406.

Indestructibility, of our true nature by death, Ch. 41 _passim_, iii.
            249‐308.

Indian, mysticism, 432;
  sculpture, i. 309;
  philosophy, iii. 281, 282;
  caste i. 459, 460
  (Cf. _Buddhism_ and _Brahmanism_).

Individuality, as phenomenon rooted in the thing in itself, i. 147, 219,
            354, 357, 358, iii. 74, 428, 469;
  at the different grades of nature, i. 170‐172;
  language of nature with reference to, i. 355, 356, iii. 108 _seq._, 416,
              417;
  destruction of, by death, iii. 286, 298 _seq._

Induction, ii. 310.

Infinite, true conception of, ii. 115.

Inquisition, i. 466 n.

Innocence, of plants, i. 204.

Insects, fertilisation of plants by, iii. 90;
  life of severed parts of, ii. 483;
  ephemeral nature of, iii. 267.
  See _Instinct_.

Instinct, an act directed to an unknown end, i. 148, 150, 197, iii. 96,
            346 _seq._;
  relation of, to guidance by motives, iii. 96 _seq._;
  relation to somnambulism, iii. 98;
  throws light on organising work of nature, iii. 96‐100, 103;
  in man, iii. 346 _seq._

Intellect, pure, ii. 179, 180;
  empirical, secondary nature of, ii. 411‐467, iii. 3 _seq._, 291;
  end of, i. 199, 228, ii. 336, 485, iii. 21 _seq._;
  degrees of, in series of animals and in man, iii. 29, 30;
  parsimony of nature in imparting, iii. 20;
  limitation of, to phenomena, iii. 21‐29;
  imperfections of, ii. 330‐344.

Interesting, distinguished from beautiful, i. 229.

Ionic school, i. 33.

Irritability as objectification of will, ii. 472 _seq._;
  its connection with blood, ii. 478.

Isaiah ii. 437.

Islamism, iii. 423, 446.

Jacobi, i. 225 n., ii. 169.

Jealousy, iii. 364.

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, i. 328.

Jones, Sir W., i. 8, 501 n.

Joy, i. 410, ii. 429 _seq._

Judaism, i. 300, iii. 305, 446.

Judgment, faculty of, i. 30, 84 _seq._, ii. 152 _seq._, 266 _seq._

Julian, Emperor, ii. 350.

Jung Stilling, ii. 243.

Justinius, 305.

Justice, as a virtue, i. 478, 479, iii. 424;
  retributive, i. 452;
  eternal, i. 427, 452‐458, 461, iii. 405, 421;
  poetical, i. 328.

Kant, abstract and perceptible knowledge, ii. 25, 32, 80, 213;
  æsthetic, ii. 32, 33, 189;
  amphiboly, ii. 38;
  analytic, ii. 33‐89;
  antinomy, i. 39, ii. 104‐125, iii. 45;
  _a priori_ nature of space and time, i. 6, 8, 154, 155, ii. 169, 201,
              202, iii. 276 _seq._;
  on the beautiful, iii. 189;
  categories, i. 57, ii. 43‐47, 403;
  causality, i. 16, ii. 58 _seq._, 173, 208, 209, 217, 385, 386, iii. 469;
  character, empirical and intelligible, i. 138, 203, 349, 373;
  chief result of Kantian philosophy, ii. 405;
  childish in old age, ii. 427;
  conceptions, philosophy a science of, ii. 259, 384;
  cosmological proof, ii. 130;
  cosmology, i. 194, ii. 225, 72;
  critical philosophy, ii. 6‐11;
  criticism of functions of the brain, ii. 174, 185;
  critique of judgment, ii. 152‐159;
  critique of practical reason, ii. 133‐150;
  critique of pure reason, ii. 3‐133 (fundamental thought of, ii. 18‐20),
              237, 377;
  dialectic, 89‐133;
  “_Die Falsche Spitzfindigkeit_,” ii. 300;
  dreams distinguished from reality, i. 20, 21;
  editions of Critique, ii. 29;
  error, source of, i. 103;
  ethics, i. 79, 110, 140, ii. 12, 133‐150;
  freedom and necessity, ii. 377;
  God, ii. 129, 130;
  laws of homogeneity and specification, i. 83;
  idealism of, ii. 29, 163, 164, 400 _seq._;
  infinity, ii. 115;
  judgment, reflective and subsuming, i. 85;
  judgments, table of, ii. 56‐78;
  philosophy of law, i. 433, ii. 150‐152;
  logic, transcendental, ii. 33‐133;
  on love, 338;
  theory of ludicrous, ii. 270;
  influence of Kantian doctrine on mathematics, i. 94, 385;
  explanation of matter, i. 12 n., iii. 54;
  “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science,” i. 88, ii. 111, 219,
              224, 225;
  metaphysics, impossibility of, ii. 386 _seq._;
  method of, ii. 53‐55, iii. 5;
  Kant’s mother, iii. 327;
  negative result of philosophy, ii. 17;
  _nihil privativum_, i. 528;
  sensitive to noise, ii. 198;
  ontological proof, ii. 129, 130;
  object of perception, ii. 33‐43;
  permanence of substance, ii. 78‐81;
  phenomenon and thing in itself, i. 9, 41, 155, 220, 6‐12, 28, 181, 379,
              389, 399, 486;
  physico‐theological proof, ii. 130;
  relation to Plato, i. 223 _seq._;
  psychology, refutation of rational, ii. 100‐104;
  reason, conception of, i. 49;
  ideas of, i. 169, ii. 96‐100;
  ideal of, ii. 125‐133;
  principle of, ii. 90‐96;
  reciprocity, category of, ii. 61 _seq._;
  schematism of categories, 48‐51;
  Scholastic dogmatism overthrown by, ii. 12‐16, iii. 27;
  Schopenhauer gone further than, iii. 28, 59;
  his sleep, ii. 465;
  speculative theology, refutation of, ii. 128‐133, 473;
  spiritualism, refutation of, ii. 177;
  style of, ii. 20, 21, 340;
  subject, system starts from, i. 42;
  theory of, sublime, i. 265;
  love of symmetry, ii. 22, 47, 69, 76, 78, 106, 133;
  synthetic unity of apperception, ii. 51, 52, 333, 476, iii. 12;
  thing in itself, ii. 3, 31, 169, 381, 407;
  transcendent, transcendental and immanent, i. 124, ii. 3, 87, iii. 24;
  _das Vernünfteln_ ii. 263;
  weight an _a priori_ quality of matter, i. 13.

Kemble, i. 295.

Kepler, i. 87, 94, 137 n., iii. 41.

Kerner, Justinus, ii. 481.

Kielmayer, 318.

Kicser, ii. 326, iii. 99.

Kirby, iii. 91, 101, 103.

Kleist, i. 311.

Klettenberg, Fr. von, i. 497.

Knowledge, whence the need of, iii. 7, 8;
  physiological and metaphysical view of, ii. 486, iii. 290, 291, 470;
  aim of, ii. 475;
  kinds of, i. 199, 230;
  degrees of, iii. 29, 30;
  why no knowledge of knowing, ii. 487;
  influence of will upon, iii. 134;
  influence of, on degree of sensibility and suffering, i. 400, iii. 16.

Köppen, iii. 301.

Koran, ii. 361.

Körösi, Csoma, ii. 371.

Kosack, i. 96.

Krishna, iii. 262.

Lactantius, ii. 98.

Lalita‐Vistara, iii. 168.

Lamarck, i. 185.

Lambert, i. 55, ii. 303.

Landscape painting, i. 282.

Language, the first production and tool of reason, i. 47, 48, 51;
  connection of conception with word, ii. 238;
  capacity for, depends on association of ideas, ii. 325;
  the acquisition of several an important mental culture, ii. 238, 239;
  against the modern habit of curtailing words, ii. 310 _seq._

Laocoon, i. 292, iii. 198.

Laplace, i. 194, ii. 225, iii. 72, 73.

Latin, as universal language of scientific literature, ii. 310 _seq._

La Trappe, i. 510, iii. 455.

Laughter, as a psychical act, i. 76 _seq._, ii. 270;
  peculiar to man, ii. 280;
  why pleasant, ii. 279;
  insulting and bitter, ii. 281;
  a test of moral worth, ii. 281.

Lavater, i. 312.

Law, philosophy of, i. 442, 452, ii. 150‐152, iii. 409‐414.

Learning, on the subordinate value of, ii. 253 _seq._

Lee, Anne, iii. 449.

Legislation, i. 446, 447.

Leibnitz, i. 49, 111, 342, ii. 11, 81 _seq._, 141, 237, 391, iii. 91, 394
            _seq._

Leibnitz‐Wolfian philosophy, i. 64, ii. 8, 127, 129, 141, iii. 394.

Leopardi, iii. 401.

Lessing, i. 292, ii. 16, 153, 169, iii. 305.

Leszczynski, iii. 203 n.

Leucippus, ii. 177, 378, iii. 61, 64.

Lichtenberg, ii. 113, 172 n., 198, 445. iii. 21, 203 n., 305, 332 n.

Lie, the, origin and end of, i. 434 _seq._

Liebig, iii. 42.

Life, nature of, iii. 36;
  conflict with mechanical and chemical forces, i. 190;
  opposition between organic and animal, ii. 489‐492;
  blind striving, iii. 105‐118;
  relation to dreams, i. 20, 415;
  tragic and comic side of, i. 415, 416;
  misery of, i. 401‐407, 417, iii. 114, 382‐401;
  aim of, iii. 376, 384‐391.

Light, mechanical explanations of, iii. 44 _seq._;
  relation to heat, i. 262, 263;
  explanation of pleasure given by, i. 258, iii. 137;
  connection with architecture, i. 279, 280.

Locke, i. 49, ii. 6, 7, 45, 81 _seq._, 141, 173 _seq._, 185 _seq._, 212,
            213, 258, 259, 402, iii. 5, 23, 59, 394.

Logic, definition of, i. 58, ii. 285;
  value of, i. 57‐59, ii. 286;
  on what its certainty depends, ii. 268.

Love, nature of all true and pure, i. 484 _seq._;
  root and significance of sexual love, iii, 419, 339‐343, 360;
  degrees of it, iii. 344‐361;
  the _rôle_ of instinct in it, iii. 345‐349, 350‐360;
  independence of friendship, iii. 345;
  sublime and comic sides of, iii. 366 _seq._

Lucretius, i. 403, 411, 412, iii. 91, 93, 313.

Lully, Raymond, i. 510, iii. 455.

Lupus, Rutilius, ii. 286.

Luther, i. 500, 525, ii. 145, 368, iii. 392, 421, 448‐451.

Lyric, subjectivity of, i. 321;
  nature of the song, i. 322‐324.

Machiavelli, ii. 135, iii. 158.

Macrocosm, i. 212, iii. 404.

Madness, nature of, i. 30, 248 _seq._, iii. 167;
  criterion of, iii. 167 _seq._;
  relation of knowledge of madman to that of the brutes, i. 249, ii. 243;
  relation of, to genius, i. 246, 247;
  prevalence among actors, iii. 168;
  origin of, i. 249 _seq._, iii. 169, 170;
  _mania sine delirio_, iii. 171, 172.

Magnetism, animal, ii. 466, 467, iii. 76, 419.

Maine de Biran, ii. 206, 507, 217.

Malebranche, i. 178, 179, 522, ii. 15.

Man, the human race, connection with rest of nature, i. 200 _seq._, 403,
            ii. 377;
  identity of essence of man and the brutes, i. 192;
  difference between man and brutes, i. 46‐48, 110‐112, 170, 171, 230,
              384, 385, ii. 228‐233, 358, iii. 14‐17, 380, 381;
  transcendent unity of human race, iii. 75, 76;
  turning‐point of will to live, i. 491 _seq._, iii. 381, 426;
  origin of, iii. 358;
  gradual degradation of, ii. 362.

Manichæans, iii. 305.

Mannerists, i. 304, 305.

Manzoni, ii. 352.

Marcionists, iii. 305, 438, 442, 443.

Marcus Aurelius, ii. 356, iii. 323.

Marriage, iii. 333, 334, 336‐375.

Materialism, i. 34 _seq._, ii. 175 _seq._, iii. 60‐64, 261, 262.

Mathematics, scientific nature of, i. 81, 82;
  ground of certainty of, i. 157, ii. 268;
  and genius, i. 246, 247;
  method of, i. 95 _seq._;
  and logic, ii. 202;
  value of, ii. 323.

Matter, i. 10‐13, 175, 275, 276, ii. 79, 103, 104, 218‐224, iii. 48‐54.

Maupertius, ii. 225.

Maximus of Tyre, ii. 264.

Maxwell, iii. 450.

Mâyâ, i. 9, 21, 425, 454, 455, 471, 478, 481, 482, 489, 490, 514, 515, ii.
            8, 10, 108 n., iii. 69, 418.

Mechanics, iii. 37, 39, 43 _seq._

Medwin, iii. 160 n.

Meister, J. C. F., ii. 152.

Melancholy, i. 512.

Melissus, ii. 264.

Memnon, ii. 198.

Memory, as a function of intellect, ii. 335, iii. 300;
  difference between that of men and brutes, ii. 229, 230;
  the influences acting upon, i. 30, 248‐251, ii. 200, 334, 438 _seq._

Menenius Agrippa, i. 311.

_Mens_ as opposed to _animus_, ii. 458.

Menu, laws of, i. 433, 501 n., iii. 465.

Merck, ii. 446, iii. 200.

Metaphysics, i. 107, ii. 20, 359‐395 iii. 40.

Metempsychosis, doctrine of, i. 458‐460, iii. 300‐306, 417, 418.

Method, i. 100, 108, ii. 53, 210, 259, 309, 310, 393.

Metre, i. 314, ii. 205‐207.

Mind, presence of, ii. 430.

Minor key, i. 337, iii. 243, 244.

Missionaries, i. 460.

Mnemonics, ii. 325.

Modality, categories of, ii. 66‐75.

Modesty, i. 303, iii. 202, 203.

Mohammedanism, ii. 361, 362, iii. 423, 433, 472.

Molinos, iii. 434, 435, 435 n.

Molock, ii. 243.

Monarchy, i. 443, iii. 410.

Monasticism, i. 499, iii. 448.

Mongolian race, iii. 58.

Montaigne, i. 463 n., ii. 315, 465, iii. 378.

Montalembert, iii. 435.

Montanists, iii. 438.

Monuments, value of historical, iii. 229.

Moon, æsthetic effect of, iii. 136.

Morality, i. 343, 477, iii. 405, 415, 423‐428 (Cf. _Ethics_).

Morphology, i. 124, 125, 183.

Mortality, iii. 301‐302.

Motives, Motivation, what they determine, i. 138, 212, 213, iii. 115;
  what imparts power to, iii. 97;
  intellectual condition of action of, i. 380, 381;
  influence of nearness upon strength of, ii. 346;
  influence upon intellect, ii. 436;
  distinguished from instinct, iii. 97;
  intellect as medium of, i. 199, ii. 336, 485, iii. 21 _seq._

Movement, i. 194, ii. 226, 227, 483, 484, iii. 39.

Mozart, iii. 163.

Müller, ii. 479.

Multiplicity, i. 145, 146, 166, 167, iii. 69 _seq._, 274, 275.

Münchhausen, Baron, i. 34, ii. 278.

Murder, i. 432, iii. 413, 414.

Music, metaphysics of, i. 330‐346, iii. 231‐248.

Mysteries essential to religion, ii. 367, 368, iii. 430.

Mysticism, Mystics, i. 499, 500, iii. 430 n., 430‐434.

Nakedness, i. 296.

Nature, what it means, iii. 1;
  works of nature and works of art, iii. 1, 69, 70, 79;
  inner nature of, i. 140 _seq._, 148, 152 _seq._, iii. 32, 33, 39;
  perfection of works of, iii. 69, 70;
  the circle of, iii. 267;
  grades of, i. 195 _seq._, 202‐206;
  continuity of, ii. 232, iii. 36, 85;
  the conflict in, i. 191, 210, 211;
  design of, i. 201‐211, 77 _seq._, 95;
  relation to species and individual, i. 356, 425, 426, iii. 194, 277,
              278, 396;
  æsthetic effect of, i. 255, iii. 173, 174;
  naïveté of, i. 203, 204, 356, 362, 423, 491, iii. 380;
  moral quality of, i. 518, iii. 106;
  laws of, i. 126, 172, 175 _seq._., 183;
  forces of, i. 126, 162, 169‐182, 202, ii. 217, 218, iii. 73, 259;
  investigator of, ii. 318, 319, 383.

Necessity, origin and meaning of conception, i. 97;
  relation to the actual and possible, ii. 72 _seq._;
  relation to contingent, ii. 67, 68;
  as opposed to freedom, iii. 67, 69;
  absolute necessity, 70.

Nerves, i. 131, ii. 173, 185, 481‐485.

Newton, Isaac, i. 26, 64, 160, 165, 245, ii. 226, 268, 338.

Nirvana, i. 460, iii. 308 n., 374, 427, 428.

Nitzsch, iii. 269.

Noise, ii. 198, 199, iii. 450.

Nominalism, ii. 85, iii. 125.

νοουμενον and Φαινομενον, i. 93, ii. 85.

Nothing, relativity of conception, i. 528, iii. 272.

Nourishment, i. 357.

Numenius, ii. 98.

νους, ii. 459, iii. 390.

_Nunc stans_, the, i. 227, 361 n., iii. 381.

Object, conditioned by subject, i. 3, 6, 16, _seq._, 123, 124, ii.
            166‐169, 170, 173, 179, 381.

Objectification, i. 130, 166‐163, ii. 468.

Objectivity, of genius and in art, i. 240, 321, 324, ii. 417, iii. 144,
            210.

Obscurantism, iii. 328, 329.

Obry, iii. 303, 308 n.

Ocelius Lucanus, 113.

Opera, iii. 92, 233, 234.

Optimism, i. 420, ii. 391, iii. 390‐397, 436, 443, 449, 471 _seq._

Organism, ii. 468, iii. 77 _seq._

Original sin, iii. 306, 421 _seq._, 426.

Orpheus, iii. 303, 427, 433, 443.

Osiander, i. 151.

Ossian, i. 324.

Ought, the absolute, i. 350, ii. 144.

Oum, iii. 430, 430 n.

Oupnekhat, i. 459, 501, iii. 425 n. 432, 433.

Ovid, 1. 396, 410.

Owen, R., ii. 131, 203 n., iii. 82, 86, 91.

Pæstum, iii. 185.

Pain, i. 386, 410, 412, 413, iii. 384, 385.

Paine, T., i. 231.

Painting, i. 282‐292, 297‐301, 306‐310, iii. 193, 196‐198.

Palingenesis, iii. 300, 301.

Pander, ii. 318.

Pantheism, iii. 106, 114, 403, 404, 471‐475.

Paracelsus, Theophrastus, iii. 280, 362.

Parmenides, i. 141, 425.

Parody, ii. 275, 276.

Particles, logical, ii. 288, 315.

Pascal, i. 476, iii. 435.

Passions, ii. 216, iii. 406, 407.

Past, the, i. 359, 360.

Pedantry, i. 78, ii. 250 _seq._

Pelagianism, i. 525, ii. 368, 369, iii. 422, 448.

Penitentiary system, i. 404, iii. 412.

Perception, intellectuality of, i. 14‐16, ii. 40, 174, 185, 192;
  share of senses and brain in, ii. 185;
  object of, i. 7, ii. 40;
  relation to thing in itself, ii. 174, 401;
  significance for knowledge, science, art, philosophy, and virtue, ii.
              244‐269, iii. 131, 141 _seq._

Perfection, ii. 15.

Peripatetics, ii. 137, 145.

Permanence of substance, ii. 78.

Perpetual motion, ii. 65, iii. 395.

Pessimism, can be demonstrated, iii. 395;
  the ground of distinction among religions, ii. 372 _seq._;
  of the most significant religions, i. 420, iii. 423;
  of great men of all ages, iii. 398 _seq._

_Petitio principii_, definition of, ii. 308.

Petit‐Thouars, Admiral, iii. 55.

Petrarch, i. 487, 512, ii. 313, iii. 210, 363, 369, 370, 386.

Petronius, ii. 130.

Pettigrew, i. 178 n.

Phidias, iii. 195.

Philosopher, the, nature of, i. 21, 109, ii. 319, 359, 360, iii. 146, 147;
  distinguished from poet, iii. 146, 147;
  distinguished from sophist, ii. 362, 363.

Philosophy, source of, 1. 135, ii. 359‐361, 374;
  task of, i. 107, 168, 350, 352, 495;
  distinguished from science, i. 107, ii. 317;
  as opposed to theology, ii. 367, 395, iii. 431, 453;
  relation to art, iii. 176, 177;
  relation to history, iii. 223;
  method of, ii. 53, 210, 259, 393;
  division of, i. 349;
  cause of small progress of, ii. 395;
  limits of, ii. 362, 363, 27, 405;
  professors of, ii. 362, 363.

Phlegmatic temperament, iii. 18, 161.

Physics, subject of, ii. 375;
  relation to metaphysics, ii. 376‐384, iii. 40.

Physiognomy, i. 74, 74 n.

Physiology, i. 125, ii. 317, iii. 38.

Pico de Mirandula, ii. 240.

Pictet, iii. 304.

Picturesque, iii. 130.

Pindar, i. 21.

Pitt, iii. 324.

Plagiarism, ii. 225, 226.

Plants, chief characteristics of, i. 357, ii. 29;
  inner nature of, i. 152, iii. 34‐36;
  distinguished from animals, i. 25, 150, iii. 13;
  form and physiognomy of, i. 203, 204;
  metamorphosis of, iii. 85;
  æsthetic effect of, i. 260, 288, 289.

Platner, ii. 270.

Plato, on _a priori_ knowledge, ii. 201;
  on being and becoming, i. 9;
  relation to Giordano Bruno, ii. 114 n.;
  figure of the cave, i. 311, ii. 8;
  improper use of conceptions, ii. 211, 261, 264;
  his Dæmon, i. 349;
  his dialectic, ii. 309;
  source of error, i. 103;
  errors in syllogistic reasoning, i. 93;
  his ethics, i. 114, ii. 145, 149, 348;
  ευκολος and δυσκολος, i. 407;
  hope the dream of waking, ii. 431;
  his Ideas, i. 168, 220, 273, ii. 85, 99, 322, iii. 123, 274, 275;
  on love, iii. 338;
  on materialism, ii. 176;
  on mathematics, 323;
  on metempsychosis, 303;
  his method, i. 239;
  on music, i. 336;
  on nature of nothing, i. 529;
  on the nature of the philosopher, i. 21, 41, 109, 143; ii. 369, 374;
  on plants, iii. 34;
  on punishment, i. 451;
  on reason, ii. 141;
  on science, i. 83;
  on sensual pleasure, iii. 349, 369;
  his world of shadows, ii. 10;
  on existence of soul, ii. 102;
  his theism, ii. 98.

Pliny, iii. 378, 400, 451.

Plotinus, ii. 218, iii. 51, 54, 432.

Plouquet, i. 55.

Plutarch, ii. 98, 319, iii. 124, 271 399.

Poaching, a positive, not a moral fault, iii. 411, 412.

Poet, the, grade; of, iii. 202;
  marks of genuine, iii. 207;
  bad influence of mediocre, i. 317 n.;
  distinguished from philosopher, iii. 146, 147.

Poetical justice, i. 328

Poetry, i. 313‐330, iii. 38, 200‐219.

Point, extensionless, ii. 223;
  immovable, ii. 219.

Polarity, i. 187.

Polier, Mme. de, i. 492, 501 n., ii 109.

Position, i. 9.

Possibility, ii. 69, 72.

Pouchet, iii. 56.

Poussin, i. 306.

Praxiteles, iii. 195.

Predestination, i. 378, ii. 149.

Pre‐existence, iii. 253, 254.

Prejudice, ii. 268.

Preller, ii. 357.

Present, the, i. 358‐360, iii. 271, 271 n.

Priestley, i. 373, ii. 111, 224, 225, iii. 46.

Priests, i. 466 n., ii. 362.

_Principium individuationis_, i. 145, 146, 166, 454 _seq._, 481, iii. 274,
            417, 418.

Principle of sufficient reason, is _a priori_, i. preface xi., 6, iii.
            469;
  sphere of validity of, i. 7, 16, 17, 41, 106, iii. 405, 469;
  importance of, i. 96, 107, ii. 316;
  indemonstrable nature of, i. 96, 106;
  fourfold root of, i. 7 (Cf. _Appendix_ to vol. iii.)

Property, right of, i. 432, 433 n., iii. 411.

Prose, as distinguished from poetry, i, 313, iii. 204‐206.

Protestantism. See _Catholicism_.

Prudence, i. 27, 245, 456.

Psychology, ii. 412‐467.

Punishment, distinguished from revenge, i. 449;
  end of, i. 448‐450, iii. 412, 413;
  measure of, iii. 413, 414.

Pyramids, i. 267, iii. 229.

Pythagoras, iii. 303.

Pythagoreans, i. 33, 86, 92, 95, 188, 343, ii. 319, iii. 95, 124, 427,
            442, 452.

Quality, of judgments ii. 57, 87;
  as determination of matter, iii. 54;
  natural forces as _qualitates occultæ_, i. 126, 162, 170, 182, ii. 376.

_Quid pro quo_, i. 79.

Quieter of will, i. 301, 326, 327, 367, 396, 489, 490.

Quietism, iii. 433‐435,

Rabelais, iii. 437.

Radius, Justus, ii. 191.

Rameau, i. 58.

Rancé, Abbé, i. 510, iii. 455.

Raphael, i. 295, 300, 531, iii. 162.

Rationalism in theology, ii. 369.

Reading, disadvantage of much, ii. 253‐255.

Realism, ii. 85, iii. 125.

Reality, definition, i. 30;
  the present is the form of, i. 359, 360, iii. 271 n.;
  of external world, i. 22, 23, ii. 169, 184.

Reason, the word, i. 48, ii. 141, 241;
  function of, i. 50, ii. 137;
  theoretical and practical, i. 30, 113, ii. 138, 139, 345; iii. 408;
  prerogative of man, i. 46‐48, 110‐112, 384, 385, ii. 228‐233, iii. 380,
              381;
  relation of language to, i. 47‐51, ii. 238;
  advantages and disadvantages, i. 45, 47, 68‐75, ii. 234‐243, 345 _seq._;
  compatible with want of understanding and with moral badness, ii. 136;
  opposed to revelation, ii. 142;
  Kant’s Ideas of, i. 169, ii. 96‐100;
  ideal of, ii. 125‐133;
  principle of, ii. 90‐96.

Reflection, definition, i. 46;
  relation to perceptive knowledge, ii. 54 _seq._

Reflex movements, ii. 483‐484.

Reid, Dr. Thomas, ii. 189, 191, 207, 240.

Reil, i. 140, 159.

Religion, significance of, ii. 367 _seq._;
  value of, ii. 370;
  fundamental distinction between, ii. 372 _seq._;
  mysteries essential to, ii. 367;
  demoralising influence of, i. 466 n.;
  conflict with culture and science, ii. 370;
  philosophy of, ii. 370
  (Cf. _Buddhism_, _Brahmanism_, _Christianity_, _Judaism_, and
              _Mohammedanism_).

Repentance, i. 382, iii. 406, 407.

Reproduction. See _Generation_.

Republics tend to anarchy, i. 443.

Resignation. See _Will, denial of_.

Resolve, i. 387.

Revenge, distinguished from punishment, i. 449;
  relation to wickedness, i. 470;
  a characteristic of human nature which is not to be confounded with
              revenge, i. 462.

Rhetoric, i. 63, ii. 285, 286, 305, 306.

Rhyme. See _Poetry_.

Rhythm, in music, i. 339 _seq._
  See _Poetry_.

Richter, Jean Paul, ii. 22, 198, 270, 283, iii. 141, 143, 145.

Right, negative nature of conception, i. 437, 444;
  independent of State, i. 439, iii. 409;
  positive i. 444, 446;
  of property, i. 432 433 n., iii. 411.

Ritter, ii. 357.

Romantic, distinguished from classical, iii. 209.

Rösch, ii. 478, 480.

Rosenkranz, i. 203 n., ii. 29, 36, 117, 120, 121, 146‐148, 204 n., 212,
            217, 225, 377.

Rosini, ii. 447.

Rousseau, i. 247, 343, ii. 136, 353, iii. 106, 325, 338, 397.

Ruins, sublime effect of, i. 267;
  analogous to _cadenza_ in music, iii. 241.

Ruisdael, i. 255.

St. Hilaire, August, iii. 55.

St. Hilaire, Geoffroi, ii. 318, iii. 82.

Sakya Muni, iii. 168, 434.

Salvation, the way of, iii. 460‐467.

Sangermano, iii. 301, 308 n.

Sannyasis, i. 496, ii. 352.

Saphir, ii. 274.

Sceptics, i. 123, 124.

Schelling, i. 187, ii. 22, 31, 116, 169, 176, 236, 261, iii. 62, 471.

Schiller, i. 79, 318, ii. 148, 276, 321, iii. 215, 217.

Schleiermacher, i. 67, 262, iii. 394.

Schlegel, iii. 75.

Schmidt, J. J., ii. 371, iii. 308 n.

Schnürrer, iii. 301.

Scholastics, Scholasticism, i. 82, 146, 162, 198 n., ii. 12, 13, 35, 100,
            125, 126, iii. 125.

Scholiast, ii. 319.

Schultz, ii. 480.

Schulze, ii. 312.

Science, nature of, i. 36, 58, 80‐90, 105, 106, 229, 238, ii. 53, 252,
            267.

Scott, Sir Walter, ii. 427, 457, iii. 328, 386, 399.

Scopas, iii. 195.

Sculpture, as opposed to painting, i. 292, iii. 193;
  æsthetic effect of, iii. 200, 201;
  significance of drapery in, i. 296;
  antique, i. 309, iii. 194, 195;
  modern, iii. 195.

Secundus, Johannes, iii. 195.

Selfishness. See _Egoism_.

Self‐knowledge, ii. 423.

Self‐renunciation, meaning of, iii. 423;
  the appearance of freedom in the phenomenon, i. 388, 389.

Seneca, i. 75, 246, 379, ii. 149, 234, 347, 350, 355‐358, 458.

Sensation, ii. 186‐191.

Senses, ii. 193‐200.

Sensibility, i. 13.

Sentimentality, i. 512, 513.

Serenity, i. 422, iii. 376.

Seriousness, as the opposite of laughter, ii. 280;
  as determining the tendency of life, iii. 149.

Sex, degree of, iii. 356.

Sextus Empiricus, i. 62, 93, 343, ii. 127.

Sexual impulse, difference between man and brute with reference to, i.
            171, iii. 309;
  significance and power of, i. 423, 425, 310, 312‐314, 376;
  physiological correlative of, iii. 314;
  its relation to happiness of life, iii. 376;
  voluntary renunciation of satisfaction of, i. 430, iii. 376.

Shaftesbury, iii. 397.

Shakers, iii. 449.

Shakspeare, i. 21, 268, 511, ii. 239, 254, 306, 315, iii. 210, 214, 216,
            321, 363, 369, 400, 457.

Shame, i. 424, iii. 379.

Shenstone, ii. 275.

Siècle, iii. 112 n.

Sight, sense of, ii. 193 _seq._

Simonists, iii. 305.

Simplicius, ii. 157.

Sirach, Jesus, iii. 352.

Sketches, value of, iii. 178.

Skull, explained from vertebræ iii. 85.

Slavery, as a wrong, i. 432.

Sleep, necessity of, ii. 337, 428, 462, 463, 466;
  action of vital force in, ii. 463, 466;
  positive character of, ii. 464;
  relation to brain life, ii. 465;
  relation to death, i. 358, iii. 267 _seq._

Socialists, iii. 250.

Socrates, i. 288, 343, ii. 107, 281, 363, iii. 299, 249, 252, 405.

Somnambulism, ii. 467, iii. 98 _seq._

Sömmering, iii. 21.

Sophist, distinguished from philosopher, ii. 362, 363.

Sophistry, i. 63, ii. 263, 264.

Sophocles, i. 21, 295, 328, iii. 214.

Soul, historical, iii. 2, 3, 13;
  opposition between soul and body, ii. 102‐104, 378;
  in what sense the word should be used, iii. 105;
  a motive which has led to the assumption of, ii. 409;
  theoretical and practical results of assumption, ii. 77, 409, 494.

Southey, ii. 427.

Space, ideality of, ii. 201‐204, 221;
  opposition between space and time with reference to abstract knowledge,
              i. 69, 70;
  union of space and time the condition of duration and matter, i. 10‐13,
              ii. 78;
  the framework of the phenomenal world, i. 187, 188;
  whether the world is limited in space, ii. 109
  (Cf. _Principium individuationis_).

Spallanzani, ii. 469.

Species, iii. 123.

_Spectator_, ii. 233.

Spinal cord, ii. 483‐484.

Spinoza, on benevolence, i. 486;
  biography of, i. 497;
  explanation and use of concepts, i. 111, ii. 241, 266;
  ethical teaching of, i. 114, 367, iii. 403;
  God of, iii. 106;
  on knowledge of Ideas, i. 231, 232 n.;
  on immortality, iii. 280, 291;
  on love, iii. 338;
  method of, i. 100 n., 108, ii. 212;
  his place in western philosophy, ii. 13 n.;
  rejection of spiritualism, ii. 177;
  conception of substance, i. 33, ii. 373, 391;
  rejection of teleology, iii. 91, 93, 94;
  on will, i. 164, 377, 385, ii. 120.

Spiritualism, ii, 177.

Stahl, i. 64.

State, the, i. 442‐448, 451, iii. 409‐411.

Statics, ii. 226.

Stewart, Dugald, ii. 226, 240.

Stobæus, i. 114, 117, 118, 378, 506 n., ii. 137, 319, 350.

Stoics, Stoicism, i. 113‐120, ii. 453.

Strauss, D. F., iii. 437, 457.

Stupidity, i. 30.

Style, ii. 44, 246, 247.

Suarez, i. 146, 162, 198 n., ii. 13, 89, 100.

Subject, the, has two parts, i. 132;
  of will, iii. 126;
  of knowing, i. 3, 6, 16, 123, 124, ii. 166‐169, 170 _seq._;
  pure, will‐less subject of knowing, i. 253 _seq._, iii. 128 _seq._

Sublime, the, i. 259‐268.

Substance, origin and content of concept, ii. 103, 104;
  principle of permanence of, ii. 78 _seq._;
  and accident, i. 12 _seq._, ii. 79, 80.

Succession, i. 9.

Suetonius, iii. 321.

Suffering, universality of, i. 399 _seq._;
  sanctifying power of, i. 511;
  of life, i. 401‐407, 417, iii. 114.

Sufism, iii. 423, 432.

Suicide, i. 408, 514‐520, iii. 117.

Suidas, ii. 98.

Sulzer, ii. 141.

Supernaturalism, ii. 369

Swift, iii. 399.

Swoon, the twin‐brother of death, iii. 256.

Sybarites, ii. 199.

Syllogism, ii. 292‐304.

Symbolism, i. 308 _seq._

Symmetry, analogy with rhythm iii. 240, 241.

Sympathy, definition and division, iii. 419.

Systems, philosophical, ground of interest in, ii. 360, 361;
  contrast between Schopenhauer’s and others, i. 32, ii. 180, 393;
  division of those starting from object, i. 33;
  error of those which proceed historically, i. 352;
  criteria of truth of, ii. 391.

Tatianites, iii. 439.

Tauler, iii. 434, 435.

Teleology, i. 201‐210, iii. 77‐95.

Tennemann, i. 67, ii. 12.

_Termini technici_, iii. 312.

Tersteegen, i. 496.

Tertullian, ii. 368, iii. 305, 439.

Thales, i. 33.

Theodicy, iii. 394, 404.

Theon of Smyrna, iii. 313.

Thilo, iii. 158.

Thing in itself, as opposed to phenomenon, i. 40, 44, 128, 142 145, 157,
            166, ii. 31, 168, 169, 402, 403, iii. 292;
  how knowledge of it can be attained, i. 41, 128, ii. 31, 174, 175, 404,
              405;
  in what sense it is the _will_, i. 142, ii. 407;
  why our knowledge of it is not exhaustive, i. 157, ii. 406, iii. 9, 24,
              25, 27, 286 _seq._;
  in history of philosophy, i. 220, ii. 30, 117, 174, 185, 380, 390, iii.
              45.

Tholuk, iii. 432.

Thorwaldsen, iii. 195.

Thracians, iii. 398.

Tiedemann, ii. 470.

Tien, ii. 97.

Time, nature of, i. 9, 44, ii. 205, iii. 12;
  ideality of, ii. 201, 204;
  _prædicabilia a priori_ of, 121 _seq._ (Cf. _Space_).

_Times_, the, i. 178 n., ii. 459, iii. 304, 450.

Tourtual, ii. 187.

Tragedy, i., 326‐330, iii. 212‐216. 454.

Transcendent, ii. 387.

Transcendental knowledge, i. 224;
  philosophy, ii. 11.

Travelling, æsthetic effect of, iii. 131.

Trent, decrees of Council of, iii. 441.

Treviranus, ii. 470, iii. 35.

Truth, definition, i. 30, ii. 308;
  foundation of, i. 100‐103;
  difference between conceivability and truth, ii. 278;
  relation to proof, i. 83, 84;
  power of, i. 45, 179.

Understanding, function of, i. 13, 14;
  identity of nature at different grades, i. 26, 28, 29;
  why sensibility is everywhere accompanied by, i. 30, 31, 228;
  misuse of word, ii. 241;
  defects and advantages of knowledge of, ii. 253;
  keenness of, i. 27, 245.

Ungewitter, iii. 304.

Universal, two kinds of, i. 301‐303, iii. 124, 125;
  knowledge of, ii. 335, 336;
  universal truths, ii. 308.

Upham, iii. 282.

Utopias, i. 451, iii. 331.

Valentinians, iii. 305, 438.

Vaninus, Jul. Cæsar, iii. 32, 106.

Vauvenarque, ii. 251.

Vedas, 9, 21, 114, 234, 266, 364 n., 458, 501, ii. 108 n., 362, iii. 303,
            307, 426, 427, 433, 467.

Velocity, ii. 226, 227.

Virgil, i. 293, 295.

Virtue, source of genuine, i. 475, 477, ii. 149, 252;
  cannot be taught, i. 475, ii. 149;
  relation to happiness, i. 466, iii. 420;
  distinguished from reasonableness, ii. 134;
  transition to asceticism, iii. 424, 425.

Voltaire, i. 327, 329, ii. 157, 277, 428, 469, iii. 178, 252, 368, 395.
            398, 404.

Vyaso, iii. 282.

Weeping, i. 486‐488, iii. 406.

Weighing, two ways of, ii. 227.

Whewell, ii. 323.

Wieland, i. 246, ii. 427, iii. 200.

Will, subject of, iii. 126;
  identity of subject of will and knowledge, 132;
  as the thing in itself, i. 142, ii. 407;
  contrast between will and its phenomenal appearance, i. 145, 166,
              213‐215, iii. 69‐71;
  objectification of, i. 130, 166‐168, ii. 468;
  assertion of, i. 421‐427, iii. 376‐381;
  denial of, i. 488‐514, iii. 420‐459.

Windischmann, iii. 307, 425 n.

Winkelmann, i. 289, 290, 292, 295, 309, 318, ii. 153.

Winkelried, Arnold von, ii. 134.

_Wirklichkeit_, i. 10.

Wit, i. 77, ii. 268, 277.

Wolf, i. 111, ii. 70 n., 90, 97, 102, 127, 225, 479, iii. 85.

Wordsworth, ii. 427.

Wrong, conception of, i. 431‐437.

Xenophanes, ii. 220, iii. 8.

Xenophon, i. 288.

Yama, iii. 258.

Yang, i. 187.

Yin, i. 187.

Y‐King, i. 188, 343.

Youth, i. 324, iii. 304.

Yunghahn, iii. 112.

Zaccaria, Abbé, iii. 441.

Zend Avesta, 111. 391, 446.

Zeno, i. 117 118.





CORRIGENDA AND ADDENDA IN VOL. I.


Page xxxii. _insert_

Preface to the Third Edition.

What is true and genuine would more easily gain room in the world if it
were not that those who are incapable of producing it are also sworn to
prevent it from succeeding. This fact has already hindered and retarded,
when indeed it has not choked, many a work that should have been of
benefit to the world. For me the consequence of this has been, that
although I was only thirty years old when the first edition of this work
appeared, I live to see this third edition not earlier than my seventy‐
second year. Yet for this I find comfort in the words of Petrarch: _Si
quis tota die currens, pervenit ad vesperam satis est_ (_de vera
Sapientia_, p. 140). If I also have at last arrived, and have the
satisfaction at the end of my course of seeing the beginning of my
influence, it is with the hope that, according to an old rule it will
endure long in proportion to the lateness of its beginning.

In this third edition the reader will miss nothing that was contained in
the second, but will receive considerably more, for, on account of the
additions that have been made in it, it has, with the same type, 136 pages
more than the second.

Seven years after the appearance of the second edition I published two
volumes of “Parerga and Paralipomena.” What is included under the latter
name consists of additions to the systematic exposition of my philosophy,
and would have found its right place in these volumes, but I was obliged
to find a place for it then where I could, as it was very doubtful whether
I would live to see this third edition. It will be found in the second
volume of the said “Parerga,” and will be easily recognised from the
headings of the chapters.

FRANKFORT‐ON‐THE‐MAINE,
_September 1859_.

Page  xiv. line 9, _for_ “pancorum” _read_ “paucorum.”
"    xix.  "  17, _for_ “alchemists” _read_ “adepts.”
"     xx.  "  10, _after_ “there” _insert_ “unanimous.”
"    xxi.  "   3, _for_ “will appeal to any thinking mind no matter when
            it comprehends it” _read_ “will also some time be comprehended
            by another thinking mind.”
"   xxii. last line, _after_ “not” _insert_ “in this case.”
"  xxiii. line 26, _for_ “conceptions” _read_ “conception.”
"    "     "   32, _for_ “origin” _read_ “stem.”
"   xxiv.  "   20, _for_ “a chromatic” _read_ “an achromatic.”
"      6, line 15, _for_ “universality” _read_ “common or reciprocal
            nature.”
"     21,  "   31, _for_ “Σιδωλ” _read_ “Ειδωλ.”
"     31,  "    7, _for_ “micrometre” _read_ “micrometer.”
"     41,  "   11, _for_ “θαυμαξειν” _read_ “θαυμαζειν.”
"     45,  "   22, _after_ “its” _insert_ “iron.”
"     45,  "   23, _for_ “extend to” _read_ “quench.”
"     48,  "   31, _for_ “λογιμον” _read_ “λογικον.”
"     49,  "   22, _after_ “to” _insert_ “abstract”.
"     50,  "   14, _after_ “function” _insert_ “the construction of the
            concept.”
"     62,  "   26, _for_ “Kallisthenes” _read_ “Callisthenes.”
"     75,  "    1, _for_ “fictum” _read_ “fictam.”
"     91,  "   18, _for_ “latter” _read_ “former.”
"     93, lines 8 and 33, _for_ “νουμενον” _read_ “νοουμενον.”
"     99, line 17, _for_ “42” _read_ “32.”
"    114,  "    7, _for_ “ευδαι μονειν” _read_ “ενδαιμονειν.”
"    116  note, _for_ “εφαρμοεξειν” _read_ “εφαρμοζειν.”
"    117, line, 30, _for_ “ψνχης” _read_ “ψυχης.”
"    118, lines 10, 12, _for_ “Kleanthes” _read_ “Cleanthes.”
"    119, line  7, _for_ “philospher” _read_ “philosopher.”
"    141,  "   18, _for_ “Σστιν” _read_ “Εστιν.”
"    146,  "   23, _for_ “became” _read_ “become.”
"    157, line  4, _for_ “casuality” _read_ “causality.”
"    166,  "    3, _insert_ § 25.
"    169,  "    5, _for_ “Laertes” _read_ “Laertius.”
"    172,  "   32, _for_ “casuality” _read_ “causality.”
"    182,  "    8, _for_ “quidities” _read_ “quiddities.”
"    184,  "   30, _for_ “this” _read_ “thus.”
"    205,  "   35, _for_ “casuality” _read_ “causality.”
"    220,  "   32, _for_ “ειδη” _read_ “ειδη.”
"    222,  "   24, _for_ “casuality” _read_ “causality.”
"    223, lines 4 and 33, _for_ “casuality” _read_ “causality.”
"    224, line  8, _for_ “casuality” _read_ “causality.”
"    230,  "   19, _for_ “Apollo of Belvedere” _read_ “Apollo Belvedere.”
"    231, last line, _for_ “Meus” _read_ “Mens.”

Page 247, line 17, _for_ “Great wits to madness sure are near allied”
            _read_ “Great wits are sure to madness near allied.” The lines
            are not from Pope, as Schopenhauer says, but from Dryden’s
            “Absalom and Achitophel,” Pt. i., l. 163.
"   251,  "   15, _for_ “appear” _read_ “appears.”
"   258,  "   18, _for_ “Ahrimines” _read_ “Ahriman.”
"   276, lines 9 and 11, _for_ “casuality” and “casual” _read_ “causality”
            and “causal;” line 23, _for_ “Timaus” _read_ “Timæus.”
"   382, line 32, _for_ “as” _read_ “but.”
"   396,  "    5, _for_ “αναγκη” _read_ “αναγκῃ.”
"   423,  "   35, _for_ “principiu mindividuationis” _read_ “principium
            individuationis.”
"   425,  "    7, _no comma after_ “βασιλειαν.”
"   429,  "   25, _after_ “chapter” _insert_ “of his.”
"   445, last line, _for_ “ζην” _read_ “ζῃν.”
"   453, lines 4 and 5, _for_ “παρ” _read_ “πας.”
"   455, line 10, _for_ “prineipium” _read_ “principium.”
"   463,  "   27, _for_ “ever” _read_ “every.”
"   467,  "    5, _for_ “πρως” _read_ “προς.”
"   496,  "   25, _for_ “Wiedergeborennen” _read_ “Wiedergeborenen.”
"   520,  "    9, _for_ “though this is hard to find out” _read_ “which is
            certainly hard to explain.”
"   531,  "   16, _for_ “wish to fruition” _read_ “desire to aversion.”






FOOTNOTES


    1 This chapter is connected with the last half of § 27 of the first
      volume.

    2 _De Augm. Scient._, L. vi. c. 3.

    3 This chapter is connected with § 23 of the first volume.

    4 This chapter and the following one are connected with § 28 of the
      first volume.

    5 Let me here remark in passing that, judging from the German
      literature since Kant, one would necessarily believe that Hume’s
      whole wisdom had consisted in his obviously false scepticism with
      regard to the law of causality, for this alone is everywhere
      referred to. In order to know Hume one must read his “Natural
      History of Religion” and his “Dialogues on Natural Religion.” There
      one sees him in his greatness, and these, together with Essay 21 “Of
      National Characters,” are the writings on account of which—I know of
      nothing that says more for his fame—even to the present day, he is
      everywhere hated by the English clergy.

    6 This chapter is connected with § 29 of the first volume.

    7 In the _Siècle_, 10th April 1859, there appears, very beautifully
      written, the story of a squirrel that was magically drawn by a
      serpent into its very jaws: “Un voyageur qui vient de parcourir
      plusieurs provinces de l’ile de Java cite un exemple remarqueable du
      pouvoir facinateur des serpens. Le voyageur dont il est question
      commençait à gravir Junjind, un des monts appelés par les Hollandais
      Pepergebergte. Après avoir pénétré dans une épaisse forêt, il
      aperçut sur les branches d’un kijatile un écureuil de Java à tête
      blanche, folâtrant avec la grâce et l’agilité qui distinguent cette
      charmante espèce de rongeurs. Un nid sphérique, formé de brins
      flexible et de mousse, placé dans les parties les plus élevées de
      l’arbre, a l’enfourchure de deux branches, et une cavité dans le
      tronc, semblaient les points de mire de ses jeux. A peine s’en
      était‐il éloigné qu’il y revenait avec une ardeur extrême. On était
      dans le mois de Juillet, et probablement l’écureuil avait en haut
      ses petits, et dans le bas le magasin à fruits. Bientôt il fut comme
      saisi d’effroi, ces mouvemens devinrent désordonnés, on eut dit
      qu’il cherchait toujours à mettre un obstacle entre lui et certaines
      parties de l’arbre: puis il se tapit et resta immobile entre deux
      branches. Le voyageur eut le sentiment d’un danger pour l’innocente
      bête, mais il ne pouvait deviner lequel. Il approcha, et un examen
      attentif lui fit découvrir dans un creux du tronc une couleuvre
      lieu, dardant ses yeux fixes dans la direction de l’écureuil. Notre
      voyageur trembla pour le pauvre écureuil. La couleuvre était si
      attentive à sa proie qu’elle ne semblait nullement remarquer la
      présence d’un homme. Notre voyageur, qui était armé, aurait donc
      prevenir en aide à l’infortuné rongeur en tuant le serpent. Mais la
      science l’emporta sur la pitié, et il voulut voir quelle issue
      aurait le drame. Le dénoûment fut tragique. L’écureuil ne tarda
      point à pousser un cri plaintif qui, pour tous ceux qui le
      connaissent, dénote le voisinage d’un serpent. Il avança un peu,
      essaya de reculer, revint encore en avant, tâche de retourner en
      arrière. Mais s’approcha toujours plus du reptile. La couleuvre,
      roulée en spirale, la tête au dessus des anneaux, et immobile comme
      un morceau de bois, ne le quittait pas du regard. L’écureuil, de
      branche en branche, et descendant toujours plus bas, arriva jusqu’à
      la partie nue du tronc. Alors le pauvre animal ne tenta même plus de
      fuir le danger. Attiré par une puissance invincible, et comme poussé
      par le vertige, il se précipita dans la gueule du serpent, qui
      s’ouvrit tout à coup démesurément pour le recevoir. Autant la
      couleuvre avait été inerte jusque là autant elle devint active dès
      qu’elle fut en possession de sa proie. Déroulant ses anneaux et
      prenant sa course de bas en haut avec une agilité inconcevable, sa
      reptation la porta en un clin d’œil au sommet de l’arbre, où elle
      alla sans doute digérer et dormir.”

      In this example we see what spirit animates nature, for it reveals
      itself in it, and how very true is the saying of Aristotle quoted
      above (p. 106). This story is not only important with regard to
      fascination, but also as an argument for pessimism. That an animal
      is surprised and attacked by another is bad; still we can console
      ourselves for that; but that such a poor innocent squirrel sitting
      beside its nest with its young is compelled, step by step,
      reluctantly, battling with itself and lamenting, to approach the
      wide, open jaws of the serpent and consciously throw itself into
      them is revolting and atrocious. What monstrous kind of nature is
      this to which we belong!

    8 “_Augustini de civit. Dei_,” L. xi. c. 27, deserves to be compared
      as an interesting commentary on what is said here.

    9 This chapter is connected with §§ 30‐32 of the first volume.

   10 This chapter is connected with §§ 33‐34 of the first volume.

   11 This chapter is connected with § 36 of the first volume.

   12 There is nothing else in the world but the vulgar.

   13 In Medwin’s “Conversations of Lord Byron,” p. 333.

   14 This chapter is connected with the second half of § 36 of the first
      volume.

   15 _Rgya Tcher Rol Pa, Hist. de Bouddha Chakya Mouni, trad. du
      Tibétain_, p. _Foucaux_, 1848, p. 91 et 99.

   16 In German inferiors are sometimes addressed as _Er_ instead of
      _Sie_.—_Trs._

   17 This chapter is connected with § 38 of the first volume.

   18 This chapter is connected with § 49 of the first volume.

   19 This chapter is connected with § 43 of the first volume.

   20 This chapter is connected with §§ 44‐50 of the first volume.

   21 This chapter is connected with § 51 of the first volume.

   22 Lichtenberg (“_Vermischte Schriften_,” new edition, Göttingen, 1884,
      vol. iii. p. 19) quotes Stanislaus Leszczynski as having said, “_La
      modestie devroit être la vertu de ceux, a qui les autres manquent_.”

   23 This chapter is connected with § 51 of the first volume.

   24 Let me remark in passing that from this opposition of ποιησις and
      ἱστορια the origin, and also the peculiar significance, of the first
      word comes out with more than ordinary distinctness; it signifies
      that which is made, invented, in opposition to what is discovered.

   25 This chapter is connected with § 52 of the first volume.

   26 It would be a false objection that sculpture and painting are also
      merely in space; for their works are connected, not directly, but
      yet indirectly, with time, for they represent life, movement,
      action. And it would be just as false to say that poetry, as speech,
      belongs to time alone: this is also true only indirectly of the
      words; its matter is all existent, thus spatial.

   27 This chapter is connected with § 54 of the first volume.

   28 _In gladiatoriis pugnis timidos et supplices, et, ut vivere liceat,
      obsecrantes etiam odisse solemus; fortes et animosos, et se acriter
      ipsos morti offerentes servare cupimus_ (_Cic. pro Milone_, c. 34).

   29 The suspension of the _animal_ functions is sleep, that of the
      _organic_ functions is death.

   30 There is only _one present_, and this is always: for it is the sole
      form of actual existence. One must attain to the insight that the
      _past_ is not _in itself_ different from the present, but only in
      our apprehension, which has time as its form, on account of which
      alone the present exhibits itself as different from the past. To
      assist this insight, imagine all the events and scenes of human
      life, bad and good, fortunate and unfortunate, pleasing and
      terrible, as they successively present themselves in the course of
      time and difference of places, in the most checkered
      multifariousness and variety, as _at once and together_, and always
      present in the _Nunc stans_, while it is only apparently that now
      this and now that is; then what the objectification of the will to
      live really means will be understood. Our pleasure also in _genre_
      painting depends principally upon the fact that it fixes the
      fleeting scenes of life. The dogma of metempsychosis has proceeded
      from the feeling of the truth which has just been expressed.

   31 This posthumous essay is to be found in the “Essays on Suicide and
      the Immortality of the Soul” by the late David Hume, Basil, 1799,
      sold by James Decker. By this reprint at Bâle these two works of one
      of the greatest thinkers and writers of England were rescued from
      destruction, when in their own land, in consequence of the stupid
      and utterly contemptible bigotry which prevailed, they had been
      suppressed through the influence of a powerful and insolent
      priesthood, to the lasting shame of England. They are entirely
      passionless, coldly rational investigations of the two subjects
      named.

   32 Death says: Thou art the product of an act which should not have
      been; therefore to expiate it thou must die.

   33 _Sancara, s. de theologumenis Vedanticorum_, ed. F. H. H.
      Windischmann, p. 37; “_Oupnekhat_,” vol. i. p. 387 _et_ p. 78;
      Colebrooke’s “Miscellaneous Essays,” vol. i. p. 363.

   34 The etymology of the word Nirvana is variously given. According to
      Colebrooke (“Transact. of the Royal Asiat. Soc.,” vol. i. p. 566) it
      comes from _va_, “to blow,” like the wind, and the prefixed negative
      _nir_, and thus signifies a calm, but as an adjective
      “extinguished.” Obry, also, _Du Nirvana Indien_, p. 3, says:
      “_Nirvanam en sanscrit signifie à la lettre extinction, telle que
      celle d’un feu_.” According to the “Asiatic Journal,” vol. xxiv. p.
      735, the word is really Neravana, from _nera_, “without,” and
      _vana_, “life,” and the meaning would be _annihilatio_. In “Eastern
      Monachism,” by Spence Hardy, p. 295, Nirvana is derived from _vana_,
      “sinful desires,” with the negative _nir_. J. J. Schmidt, in his
      translation of the history of the Eastern Mongolians, says that the
      Sanscrit word Nirvana is translated into Mongolian by a phrase which
      signifies “departed from misery,” “escaped from misery.” According
      to the learned lectures of the same in the St. Petersburg Academy,
      Nirvana is the opposite of Sanfara, which is the world of constant
      re‐birth, of longings and desires, of illusion of the senses and
      changing forms, of being born, growing old, becoming sick, and
      dying. In the Burmese language the word Nirvana, according to the
      analogy of other Sanscrit words, becomes transformed into Nieban,
      and is translated by “complete vanishing.” See Sangermano’s
      “Description of the Burmese Empire,” translated by Tandy, Rome,
      1833, § 27. In the first edition of 1819 I also wrote Nieban,
      because we then knew Buddhism only from meagre accounts of the
      Burmese.

   35 “_Disputatio de corporum habitudine, animæ, hujusque virium
      indice._” _Harderov._, 1789, § 9.

   36 Lichtenberg says in his miscellaneous writings (Göttingen, 1801,
      vol. ii. p. 447): “In England it was proposed to castrate thieves.
      The proposal is not bad: the punishment is very severe; it makes
      persons contemptible, and yet leaves them still fit for trades; and
      if stealing is hereditary, in this way it is not propagated.
      Moreover, the courage ceases, and since the sexual passion so
      frequently leads to thefts, this cause would also disappear. The
      remark that women would so much the more eagerly restrain their
      husbands from stealing is roguish, for as things are at present they
      risk losing them altogether.”

   37 I have not ventured to express myself distinctly here: the courteous
      reader must therefore translate the phrase into Aristophanic
      language.

   38 The fuller discussion of this subject will be found in the
      “Parerga,” vol. ii. § 92 of the first edition (second edition, pp.
      167‐170).

   39 [The appendix to this chapter was added only in the third edition of
      the German, and is meant to explain, in consistency with
      Schopenhauer’s general principles, the wide prevalence of the
      practice of pederasty, among different nations and in different
      ages. It is omitted.—_Trs._]

   40 This chapter is connected with § 60 of the first volume.

   41 This chapter is connected with §§ 56‐59 of the first volume. Also
      chapters 11 and 12 of the second volume of the “Parerga and
      Paralipomena” should be compared with it.

   42 All that we lay hold of resists us because it has its own will,
      which must be overcome.

   43 This chapter is connected with §§ 55, 62, 67 of the first volume.

   44 This chapter is connected with § 68 of the first volume. Chapter 14
      of the second volume of the Parerga should also be compared with it.

   45 If, on the contrary, asceticism is admitted, the list of the
      ultimate motives of human action, given in my prize essay on the
      foundation of morals, namely: (1) our own good, (2) the ill of
      others, and (3) the good of others, must be supplemented by a
      fourth, our own ill; which I merely mention here in passing in the
      interests of systematic consistency. In the essay referred to this
      fourth motive had to be passed over in silence, for the question
      asked was stated in the spirit of the philosophical ethics
      prevailing in Protestant Europe.

   46 _Cf._ F. H. H. Windischmann’s _Sancara, sive de theologumenis
      Vedanticorum_, pp. 116, 117, 121; and also _Oupnekhat_, vol. i. pp.
      340, 356, 360.

   47 Cf. _Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik_, p. 274 (second edition, p.
      271).

   48 If we keep in view the essential immanence of our knowledge and of
      all knowledge, which arises from the fact that it is a secondary
      thing which has only appeared for the ends of the will, it then
      becomes explicable to us that all mystics of all religions
      ultimately attain to a kind of ecstasy, in which all and every
      knowledge, with its whole fundamental form, object and subject,
      entirely ceases, and only in this sphere, which lies beyond all
      knowledge, do they claim to have reached their highest goal, for
      they have then attained to the sphere in which there is no longer
      any subject and object, and consequently no more knowledge, just
      because there is no more will, the service of which is the sole
      destiny of knowledge.

      Now, whoever has comprehended this will no longer regard it as
      beyond all measure extravagant that Fakirs should sit down, and,
      contemplating the tip of their nose, seek to banish all thought and
      perception, and that in many passages of the Upanischads
      instructions are given to sink oneself, silently and inwardly
      pronouncing the mysterious Oum, in the depths of one’s own being,
      where subject and object and all knowledge disappear.

   49 _S. Bonaventuræ vita S. Francisci_, ch. 8. K. Hase, “_Franz von
      Assisi_,” ch. 10. “_I cantici di S. Francesco,_” _editi da Schlosser
      e Steinle., Francoforto, s.M._, 1842.

   50 _Michælis de Molinos manuductio spiritualis; hispanice 1675, italice
      1680, latine 1687, gallice in libro non adeo raro, cui titulus:
      Recueil de diverses pièces concernant le quiétisme, ou Molinos et
      ses disciples. Amstd., 1688._

   51 Matt. xix. 11 _seq._; Luke xx. (1 Thess. iv. 3; 1 John iii. 3); Rev.
      35‐37; 1 Cor. vii. 1‐11 and 25‐40, xiv. 4.

   52 Cf. “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” second edition, p. 124; third
      edition, p. 135.

   53 For example, John xii. 25, 31, xiv. 30, xv. 18, 19, xvi. 33; Col.
      ii. 20; Eph. ii. 1‐3; I John ii. 15‐17, iv. 4, 5. On this
      opportunity one may see how certain Protestant theologians, in their
      efforts to misinterpret the text of the New Testament in conformity
      with their rationalistic, optimistic, and unutterably shallow view
      of life, go so far that they actually falsify this text in their
      translations. Thus H. A. Schott, in his new version given with the
      Griesbach text of 1805, has translated the word κοσμος, John xv. 18,
      19, by _Judœi_, 1 John iv. 4, by _profani homines_; and Col. ii. 20,
      στοιχεια του κοσμον by _elementa Judaica_; while Luther everywhere
      renders the word honestly and correctly by “_Welt_” (world).

   54 _Unusquisque tantum juris habet, quantum potentiâ valet_ (_Tract.
      pol._, c. 2 § 8). _Fides alicui data tamdiu rata manet, quamdiu
      ejus, qui fidem dedit, non mutatur voluntas_ (_Ibid._, § 12).
      _Uniuscujusque jus potentiâ ejus definetur_ (_Eth._ iv., _pr._ 37,
      _schol._ 1.) Especially chap. 16 of the _Tractatus theologico‐
      politicus_ is the true compendium of the immorality of Spinoza’s
      philosophy.

   55 [In preparing this Index Frauenstädt’s _Schopenhauer‐Lexikon_ has
      been freely used.—_Trs._]





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