The World as Will and Idea, Volume 3 quotes

… 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.”

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.

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 [pg 018] 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 …

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.

… 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 [pg 026] 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.

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.

… 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 [pg 057] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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;

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;

… 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.

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;

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.

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.

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;

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;

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.

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, [pg 128] 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;

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.

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;

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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;

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!”

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;

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.

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 …

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.

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 [pg 164] 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.

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.

… 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 [pg 175] much as possible to conceal art, so that it may appear as if nature had here moved freely;

… 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.

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.

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.

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.

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;

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.

… 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;

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.

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 [pg 189] in the sweep of a curve, without apparent end.

That one can be a great man without observing anything of it is an absurdity [pg 203] 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—

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—

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!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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;

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 …

History shows on every side only the same under different forms; but whoever does [pg 224] 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 …

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 …

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 [pg 228] 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;

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.

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.

But it is, in fact, very wonderful that there is a sign of pain which is [pg 244] 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;

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.

… 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, …

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.

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:

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, 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.

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;

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;

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.

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, [pg 283] 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.

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.

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.

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 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;

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 [pg 299] 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;

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.

… 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 [pg 314] 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 …

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.

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 [pg 345] 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.

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.

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.

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:

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 …

… 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:—

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 …

certainly in another individual; yet if the two who are different in the phenomenon [pg 377] 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.

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 [pg 378] 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.

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.

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.

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 [pg 383] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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;

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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;

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.

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.

… 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 …

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.

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 …

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:

“

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;

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;

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.

… 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;

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;

… 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?

… 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.

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.

… 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.

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.

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.

… 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.

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.

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.

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;

… 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?

the will, on the other hand, is of [pg 472] 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;

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.