The World as Will and Idea Volume III Part 14

I now go on to supplement particular points, and shall begin by supporting, with two pa.s.sages from cla.s.sical 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 Phaeacian 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:

"Fe? e??? ?? ea?t?? p??s?epe?? e?a?t???

sta???, ?? eda?????, ??a pas??e? ?a?a" (1084).

(_Heu, si liceret mihi, me ipsum extrinsecus spectare, quantopere deflerem mala, quae 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. _Pa.s.sion_ 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 _pa.s.sive_ or _suffering_. It must, however, be remarked here that pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion. It has also often depended upon the circ.u.mstance 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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 a.n.a.logous 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 pa.s.sionate 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 s?f??s???, which is opposed to pa.s.sionateness, 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 inst.i.tution 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: _h.o.m.o 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 a.s.sert 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 a.s.serted, 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 "_Bibliotheque universelle de Geneve_," 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 s.p.a.ce 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 princ.i.p.al cause, for innumerable persons living in the same ignorance and under absolutely similar circ.u.mstances 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 a.s.sumption 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 n.o.bleness and wisdom; there wickedness and stupidity. In one the goodness of the heart s.h.i.+nes 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 a.s.sume that such differences, which transform the whole being of the man, and which nothing can abolish, which, further, in conflict with his circ.u.mstances, 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 hara.s.ses 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 ill.u.s.trated 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, vanis.h.i.+ng 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, n.o.ble, and benevolent is nothing else than to translate my metaphysics into actions. To say that time and s.p.a.ce 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 ident.i.ty 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 circ.u.mstance 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 outs.h.i.+ne 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 Maya 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 ident.i.ty of the will, as the thing in itself, in the infinite multiplicity of its phenomena, three princ.i.p.al 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) _s.e.xual love_, with capricious selection, _amor_, which is the life of the species, that a.s.serts 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 ident.i.ty 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 a.s.sumed _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 a?a???, _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 emanc.i.p.ation_) 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 indifferentiae_, 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, ? ????, 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 s.h.i.+rt, and the scourge-all this is rejected by many, and perhaps rightly, as superfluous. Justice itself is the hair s.h.i.+rt that constantly hara.s.ses 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 evanesc.u.n.t, 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 h.e.l.l 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 a.s.sumptions 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 eta???a ?a? afes?? ?a?t???, 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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sertion to the denial of the will, or, mythically, from original sin to salvation through faith in the mediation of the incarnate G.o.d (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 emanc.i.p.ation), 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 a.s.sist 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 "Phaedo," 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 s.p.a.ce.

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 a.s.sertion, 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 a.s.sertion, 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 ident.i.ty of the inner nature of all living things.(47) But this ident.i.ty only really exists in the condition of the denial of the will (Nirvana), for the a.s.sertion of the will (Sansara) has for its form the phenomenal appearance of it in multiplicity. a.s.sertion 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 ident.i.ty 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 ident.i.ty 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sume, 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 repet.i.tion 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 a.s.sume 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 _a.s.sertion_ 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 pa.s.s 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 p.r.o.nouncing 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 a.s.sertions 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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sumptions 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 const.i.tutive 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 a.s.sumes 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 pa.s.sages of Jakob Bohm, 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 mult.i.tude, 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 G.o.d outside himself" (Eckhard's works, edited by Pfeiffer, vol. i. p. 626), but also very navely 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 G.o.d" (_loc. cit._, p. 465). The mysticism of the Sufis also expresses itself throughout precisely in accordance with this spirit, princ.i.p.ally 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 G.o.d. 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 ident.i.ty 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 const.i.tute 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sion 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 circ.u.mstances 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 h.e.l.lenic 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 Rance, par Chateaubriand_, are very well worth reading, but yet by no means exhaust all that is important in this cla.s.s. 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 circ.u.mstances 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 chast.i.ty, 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 creance et estude,_ _De l'ignorante et sotte mult.i.tude,_ _Dont le plus lourd sera reca pour juge._"