The World as Will and Representation

philosophies therefore stand as a mediating link between their special sciences and philosophy proper. For since the latter has to give the most general explanations concerning the whole of things, these must also be capable of being brought down and applied to the individual of every species of thing. The philosophy of each science, however, arises independently of philosophy in general, from the data of its own science itself. Therefore it does not need to wait till that philosophy at last be found; but if worked out in advance it will certainly agree with the true universal philosophy. This, on the other hand, must be capable of receiving confirmation and illustration from the philosophies of the particular sciences; for the most general truth must be capable of being proved through the more special truths. Goethe has afforded a beautiful example of the philosophy of zoology in his reflections on Dalton’s and Pander’s skeletons of rodents (Hefte zur Morphologie, 1824). And like merit in connection with the same science belongs to Kielmayer, Delamark, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Cuvier, and many others, in that they have all brought out clearly the complete analogy, the inner relationship, the permanent type, and systematic connection of animal forms. Empirical sciences pursued purely for their own sake and without philosophical tendency are like a face without eyes.

They are, however, a suitable occupation for men of good capacity who yet lack the highest faculties, which would even be a hindrance to minute investigations of such a kind. Such men concentrate their whole power and their whole knowledge upon one limited field, in which, therefore, on condition of remaining in entire ignorance of everything else, they can attain to the most complete knowledge possible; while the philosopher must survey all fields of knowledge, and indeed to a certain extent be at home in them; and thus that complete knowledge which can only be attained by the study of detail is necessarily denied him. Therefore the former may be compared to those Geneva workmen of whom one makes only wheels, another only springs, and a third only chains. The philosopher, on the other hand, is like the watchmaker, who alone produces a whole out of all these which has motion and significance. They may also be compared to the musicians of an orchestra, each of whom is master of his own instrument; and the philosopher, on the other hand, to the conductor, who must know the nature and use of every instrument, yet without being able to play them all, or even one of them, with great perfection. Scotus Erigena includes all sciences under the name Scientia, in opposition

to philosophy, which he calls Sapientia. The same distinction was already made by the Pythagoreans; as may be seen from Stobæus (Floril., vol. i. p. 20), where it is very clearly and neatly explained. But a much happier and more piquant comparison of the relation of the two kinds of mental effort to each other has been so often repeated by the ancients that we no longer know to whom it belongs. Diogenes Laertius (ii. 79) attributes it to Aristippus, Stobæus (Floril., tit. iv. 110) to Aristo of Chios; the Scholiast of Aristotle ascribes it to him (p. 8 of the Berlin edition), but Plutarch (De Puer. Educ., c. 10) attributes it to Bio—“_Qui ajebat, sicut Penelopes proci, __ quum non possent cum Penelope concumbere, rem cum ejus ancillis habuissent; ita qui philosophiam nequeunt apprehendere eos in alliis nullius pretii disciplinis sese conterere._” In our predominantly empirical and historical age it can do no harm to recall this.

Chapter XIII.(25) On The Methods Of Mathematics. Euclid’s method of demonstration has brought forth from its own womb its most striking parody and caricature in the famous controversy on the theory of parallels, and the attempts, which are repeated every year, to prove the eleventh axiom. This axiom asserts, and indeed supports its assertion by the indirect evidence of a third intersecting line, that two lines inclining towards each other (for that is just the meaning of “less than two right angles”) if produced far enough must meet—a truth which is supposed to be too complicated to pass as self-evident, and therefore requires a demonstration. Such a demonstration, however, cannot be produced, just because there is nothing that is not immediate. This scruple of conscience reminds me of Schiller’s question of law:—

“For years I have used my nose for smelling. Have I, then, actually a right to it that can be proved?” Indeed it seems to me that the logical method is hereby reduced to absurdity. Yet it is just through the controversies about this, together with the vain attempts to prove what is directly certain as merely indirectly certain, that the self-sufficingness and clearness of intuitive evidence appears in contrast with the uselessness and difficulty of logical proof—a contrast which is no less instructive than amusing. The direct certainty is not allowed to be valid here, because it is no mere logical certainty following from the conceptions, thus resting only upon the relation of the predicate to the subject, according to the principle of contradiction. That axiom, however, is a synthetical proposition a priori, and as such has the guarantee of pure, not empirical, perception, which is just as immediate and certain as the principle of contradiction itself, from which all demonstrations first derive their certainty. Ultimately this holds good of every geometrical theorem, and it is quite arbitrary where we draw the line between what is directly certain and what has first to be demonstrated. It surprises me that the eighth axiom is not rather attacked. “Figures which coincide with each other are equal to each other.” For “coinciding with each other” is either a mere tautology or something purely empirical which does not belong to pure perception but to external sensuous experience. It presupposes that the figures may be moved; but only matter is movable in space. Therefore this appeal to coincidence leaves pure space—the one element of geometry—in order to pass over to what is material and empirical.

The reputed motto of the Platonic lecture-room, “Αγεωμετρητος μηδεις εισιτω,” of which mathematicians are so proud, was no doubt inspired by the fact that Plato regarded the geometrical figures as intermediate existences between the eternal Ideas and particular things, as Aristotle frequently mentions in his “Metaphysics” (especially i. c. 6, p. 887, 998, et Scholia, p. 827, ed. Berol.) Moreover, the opposition between those self-existent eternal forms, or Ideas, and the transitory individual things, was most easily made comprehensible in geometrical figures, and thereby laid the foundation of the doctrine of Ideas, which is the central point of the philosophy of Plato, and indeed his only serious and decided theoretical dogma. In expounding it, therefore, he started from geometry. In the same sense we are told that he regarded geometry as a preliminary exercise through which the mind of the pupil accustomed itself to deal with incorporeal objects, having hitherto in practical life had only to do with corporeal things (Schol. in Aristot., p. 12, 15). This, then, is the sense in which Plato recommended geometry to the philosopher; and therefore one is not justified in extending it further. I rather recommend, as an investigation of the influence of mathematics upon our mental powers, and their value for scientific culture in general, a very thorough and learned discussion, in the

form of a review of a book by Whewell in the Edinburgh Review of January 1836. Its author, who afterwards published it with some other discussions, with his name, is Sir W. Hamilton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Scotland. This work has also found a German translator, and has appeared by itself under the title, “Ueber den Werth und Unwerth der Mathematik” aus dem Englishen, 1836. The conclusion the author arrives at is that the value of mathematics is only indirect, and lies in the application to ends which are only attainable through them; but in themselves mathematics leave the mind where they find it, and are by no means conducive to its general culture and development, nay, even a decided hindrance. This conclusion is not only proved by thorough dianoiological investigation of the mathematical activity of the mind, but is also confirmed by a very learned accumulation of examples and authorities. The only direct use which is left to mathematics is that it can accustom restless and unsteady minds to fix their attention. Even Descartes, who was yet himself famous as a mathematician, held the same opinion with regard to mathematics. In the “Vie de Descartes par Baillet,” 1693, it is said, Liv. ii. c. 6, p. 54: “_Sa propre expérience l’avait convaincu du peu d’utilité des mathématiques,

surtout lorsqu’on ne les cultive que pour elles mêmes.... Il ne voyait rien de moins solide, que de s’occuper de nombres tout simples et de figures imaginaires_,” &c.

Chapter XIV. On The Association Of Ideas.

The presence of ideas and thoughts in our consciousness is as strictly subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason in its different forms as the movement of bodies to the law of causality. It is just as little possible that a thought can appear in the mind without an occasion as that a body can be set in motion without a cause. Now this occasion is either external, thus an impression of the senses, or internal, thus itself also a thought which introduces another thought by means of association. This again depends either upon a relation of reason and consequent between the two; or upon similarity, even mere analogy; or lastly upon the circumstance that they were both first apprehended at the same time, which again may have its ground in the proximity in space of their objects. The last two cases are denoted by the word à propos. The predominance of one of these three bonds of association of thoughts over the others is characteristic of the intellectual worth of the man. The first named will predominate in thoughtful and profound minds, the second in witty, ingenious, and poetical minds, and the third in minds of limited capacity. Not less characteristic is the degree of facility with which one thought recalls others that stand in any kind of relation

to it: this constitutes the activeness of the mind. But the impossibility of the appearance of a thought without its sufficient occasion, even when there is the strongest desire to call it up, is proved by all the cases in which we weary ourselves in vain to recollect something, and go through the whole store of our thoughts in order to find any one that may be associated with the one we seek; if we find the former, the latter is also found. Whoever wishes to call up something in his memory first seeks for a thread with which it is connected by the association of thoughts. Upon this depends mnemonics: it aims at providing us with easily found occasioners or causes for all the conceptions, thoughts, or words which are to be preserved. But the worst of it is that these occasioners themselves have first to be recalled, and this again requires an occasioner. How much the occasion accomplishes in memory may be shown in this way. If we have read in a book of anecdotes say fifty anecdotes, and then have laid it aside, immediately afterwards we will sometimes be unable to recollect a single one of them. But if the occasion comes, or if a thought occurs to us which has any analogy with one of those

anecdotes, it immediately comes back to us; and so with the whole fifty as opportunity offers. The same thing holds good of all that we read. Our immediate remembrance of words, that is, our remembrance of them without the assistance of mnemonic contrivances, and with it our whole faculty of speech, ultimately depends upon the direct association of thoughts. For the learning of language consists in this, that once for all we so connect a conception with a word that this word will always occur to us along with this conception, and this conception will always occur to us along with this word. We have afterwards to repeat the same process in learning every new language; yet if we learn a language for passive and not for active use—that is, to read, but not to speak, as, for example, most of us learn Greek—then the connection is one-sided, for the conception occurs to us along with the word, but the word does not always occur to us along with the conception. The same procedure as in language becomes apparent in the particular case, in the learning of every new proper name. But sometimes we do not trust ourselves to connect directly the name of this person, or town, river, mountain, plant, animal, &c., with the thought of each so firmly

that it will call each of them up of itself; and then we assist ourselves mnemonically, and connect the image of the person or thing with any perceptible quality the name of which occurs in that of the person or thing. Yet this is only a temporary prop to lean on; later we let it drop, for the association of thoughts becomes an immediate support.

The search of memory for a clue shows itself in a peculiar manner in the case of a dream which we have forgotten on awaking, for in this case we seek in vain for that which a few minutes before occupied our minds with the strength of the clearest present, but now has entirely disappeared. We grasp at any lingering impression by which may hang the clue that by virtue of association would call that dream back again into our consciousness. According to Kieser, “Tellurismus,” Bd. ii. § 271, memory even of what passed in magnetic-somnambular sleep may possibly sometimes be aroused by a sensible sign found when awake. It depends upon the same impossibility of the appearance of a thought without its occasion that if we propose to do anything at a definite time, this can only take place if we either think of nothing else till then, or if at the determined time we are reminded of it by something, which may either be an external impression arranged beforehand or a thought which is itself again brought about in the regular way. Both, then, belong to the class of motives. Every morning when we awake our consciousness is a tabula rasa, which, however, quickly fills itself again. First it is the surroundings of the previous evening which now reappear, and remind us of what we thought in these surroundings; to this the events of the previous day link themselves on; and so one thought rapidly recalls the others, till all that occupied us yesterday is there again. Upon the fact that this takes place properly depends the health of the mind, as opposed to madness, which, as is shown in the third book, consists in the existence of great blanks in the memory of past events. But how completely sleep breaks the thread of memory, so that each morning it has to be taken up again, we see in particular cases of the incompleteness of this operation. For example, sometimes we cannot recall in the morning a melody which the night before ran in our head till we were tired of it.

The cases in which a thought or a picture of the fancy suddenly came into our mind without any conscious occasion seem to afford an exception to what has been said. Yet this is for the most part an illusion, which rests on the fact that the occasion was so trifling and the thought itself so vivid and interesting, that the former is instantly driven out of consciousness. Yet sometimes the cause of such an instantaneous appearance of an idea may be an internal physical impression either of the parts of the brain on each other or of the organic nervous system upon the brain.

In general our internal process of thought is in reality not so simple as the theory of it; for here it is involved in many ways. To make the matter clear to our imagination, let us compare our consciousness to a sheet of water of some depth. Then the distinctly conscious thoughts are merely the surface; while, on the other hand, the indistinct thoughts, the feelings, the after sensation of perceptions and of experience generally, mingled with the special disposition of our own will, which is the kernel of our being, is the mass of the water. Now the mass of the whole consciousness is more or less, in proportion to the intellectual activity, in constant motion, and what rise to the surface, in consequence of this, are the clear pictures of the fancy or the distinct, conscious thoughts expressed in words and the resolves of the will. The whole process of our thought and purpose seldom lies on the surface, that is, consists in a combination of distinctly thought judgments; although we strive against this in order that we may be able to explain our thought to ourselves and others. But ordinarily it is in the obscure depths of the mind that the rumination of the materials received from without takes place, through which they are worked up into thoughts; and it goes on almost as unconsciously as the conversion of nourishment into the humours and substance of the body. Hence it is that we can often give no account of the origin of our deepest thoughts. They are the birth of our mysterious inner life. Judgments, thoughts, purposes, rise from out that deep unexpectedly and to our own surprise. A letter brings us unlooked-for and important news, in consequence of which our thoughts and motives are disordered; we get rid of the matter for the present, and think no more about it; but next day, or on the third or fourth day after, the whole situation sometimes stands distinctly before us, with what we have to do in the circumstances. Consciousness is the mere surface of our mind, of which, as of the earth, we do not know the inside, but only the crust.

But in the last instance, or in the secret of our inner being, what sets in activity the association of thought itself, the laws of which were set forth above, is the will, which urges its servant the intellect, according to the measure of its powers, to link thought to thought, to recall the similar, the contemporaneous, to recognise reasons and consequents. For it is to the interest of the will that, in general, one should think, so that one may be well equipped for all cases that may arise. Therefore the form of the principle of sufficient reason which governs the association of thoughts and keeps it active is ultimately the law of motivation. For that which rules the sensorium, and determines it to follow the analogy or other association of thoughts in this or that direction, is the will of the thinking subject. Now just as here the laws of the connection of ideas subsist only upon the basis of the will, so also in the real world the causal connection of bodies really subsists only upon the basis of the will, which manifests itself in the phenomena of this world. On this account the explanation from causes is never absolute and exhaustive, but leads back to forces of nature as their condition, and the inner being of the latter is just the will as thing in itself. In saying this, however, I have certainly anticipated the following book.

But because now the outward (sensible) occasions of the presence of our ideas, just as well as the inner occasions (those of association), and both independently of each other, constantly affect the consciousness, there arise from this the frequent interruptions of our course of thought, which introduce a certain cutting up and confusion of our thinking. This belongs to its imperfections which cannot be explained away, and which we shall now consider in a separate chapter. Chapter XV. On The Essential Imperfections Of The Intellect.

Our self-consciousness has not space but only time as its form, and therefore we do not think in three dimensions, as we perceive, but only in one, thus in a line, without breadth or depth. This is the source of the greatest of the essential imperfections of our intellect. We can know all things only in succession, and can become conscious of only one at a time, indeed even of this one only under the condition that for the time we forget everything else, thus are absolutely unconscious of everything else, so that for the time it ceases to exist as far as we are concerned. In respect of this quality our intellect may be compared to a telescope with a very narrow field of vision; just because our consciousness is not stationary but fleeting. The intellect apprehends only successively, and in order to grasp one thing must let another go, retaining nothing but traces of it, which are ever becoming weaker. The thought which is vividly present to me now must after a little while have escaped me altogether; and if a good night’s sleep intervene, it may be that I shall never find it again, unless it is connected with my personal interests, that is, with my will, which always commands the field.

Upon this imperfection of the intellect depends the disconnected and often fragmentary nature of our course of thought, which I have already touched on at the close of last chapter; and from this again arises the unavoidable distraction of our thinking. Sometimes external impressions of sense throng in upon it, disturbing and interrupting it, forcing different kinds of things upon it every moment; sometimes one thought draws in another by the bond of association, and is now itself dislodged by it; sometimes, lastly, the intellect itself is not capable of fixing itself very long and continuously at a time upon one thought, but as the eye when it gazes long at one object is soon unable to see it any more distinctly, because the outlines run into each other and become confused, until finally all is obscure, so through long-continued reflection upon one subject our thinking also is gradually confused, becomes dull, and ends in complete stupor. Therefore after a certain time, which varies with the individual, we must for the present give up every meditation or deliberation which has had the fortune to remain undisturbed, but yet has not been brought to an end, even if it concerns a matter which is most important and pertinent to us; and we must dismiss from our consciousness the subject which interests

us so much, however heavily our anxiety about it may weigh upon us, in order to occupy ourselves now with insignificant and indifferent things. During this time that important subject no longer exists for us; it is like the heat in cold water, latent. If now we resume it again at another time, we approach it like a new thing, with which we become acquainted anew, although more quickly, and the agreeable or disagreeable impression of it is also produced anew upon our will. We ourselves, however, do not come back quite unchanged. For with the physical composition of the humours and tension of the nerves, which constantly changes with the hours, days, and years, our mood and point of view also changes. Moreover, the different kinds of ideas which have been there in the meantime have left an echo behind them, the tone of which influences the ideas which follow. Therefore the same thing appears to us at different times, in the morning, in the evening, at mid-day, or on another day, often very different; opposite views of it now press upon each other and increase our doubt. Hence we speak of sleeping upon a matter, and for important determinations we demand a long time for consideration. Now, although this quality of our intellect, as springing from its weakness,

has its evident disadvantages, yet, on the other hand, it affords the advantage that after the distraction and the physical change we return to our subject as comparatively new beings, fresh and strange, and thus are able to see it repeatedly in very different lights. From all this it is plain that human consciousness and thought is in its nature necessarily fragmentary, on account of which the theoretical and practical results which are achieved by piecing together such fragments are for the most part defective. In this our thinking consciousness is like a magic lantern, in the focus of which only one picture can appear at a time, and each, even if it represents the noblest objects, must yet soon pass away in order to make room for others of a different, and even most vulgar, description. In practical matters the most important plans and resolutions are formed in general; but others are subordinated to these as means to an end, and others again are subordinated to these, and so on down to the particular case that has to be carried out in concreto. They do not, however, come to be carried out in the order of their dignity, but while we are occupied with plans which are great and general, we have to contend with the most trifling details

and the cares of the moment. In this way our consciousness becomes still more desultory. In general, theoretical occupations of the mind unfit us for practical affairs, and vice versâ.

In consequence of the inevitably distracted and fragmentary nature of all our thinking, which has been pointed out, and the mingling of ideas of different kinds thereby introduced, to which even the noblest human minds are subject, we really have only half a consciousness with which to grope about in the labyrinth of our life and the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments sometimes illuminate our path like lightning. But what is to be expected of heads of which even the wisest is every night the scene of the strangest and most senseless dreams, and which has to take up its meditations again on awakening from these? Clearly a consciousness which is subject to such great limitations is little suited for solving the riddle of the world; and such an endeavour would necessarily appear strange and pitiful to a being of a higher order whose intellect had not time as its form, and whose thinking had thus true completeness and unity. Indeed it is really wonderful that we are not completely confused by the very heterogeneous mixture of ideas and fragments of thought of every kind which are constantly crossing each other in our minds, but are yet always able to see our way again and make everything agree together. Clearly there must exist a simpler thread upon which everything ranges itself together: but what is this? Memory alone is not sufficient, for it has essential limitations of which I shall speak shortly, and besides this, it is exceedingly imperfect and untrustworthy. The logical ego or even the transcendental synthetic unity of apperception are expressions and explanations which will not easily serve to make the matter comprehensible; they will rather suggest to many:

“’Tis true your beard is curly, yet it will not draw you the bolt.”

Kant’s proposition, “The I think must accompany all our ideas,” is insufficient; for the “I” is an unknown quantity, i.e., it is itself a secret. That which gives unity and connection to consciousness in that it runs through all its ideas, and is thus its substratum, its permanent supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, therefore cannot be an idea. Rather it must be the prius of consciousness, and the root of the tree of which that is the fruit. This, I say, is the will. It alone is unchangeable and absolutely identical, and has brought forth consciousness for its own ends. Therefore it is also the will which gives it unity and holds together all its ideas and thoughts, accompanying them like a continuous harmony. Without it the intellect would no longer have the unity of consciousness, as a mirror in which now this and now that successively presents itself, or at the most only so much as a convex mirror whose rays unite in an imaginary point behind its surface. But the will alone is that which is permanent and unchangeable in consciousness. It is the will which holds together all thoughts and ideas as means to its ends, and tinges them with the colour of its own character, its mood, and its interests, commands the attention, and holds in its hand the train of motives whose influence ultimately sets memory and the association of ideas in activity; at bottom it is the will that is spoken of whenever “I” appears in a judgment. Thus it is the true and final point of unity of consciousness, and the bond of all its functions and acts; it does not itself, however, belong to the intellect, but is only its root, source, and controller.

From the form of time and the single dimension of the series of ideas, on account of which, in order to take up one, the intellect must let all the others fall, there follows not only its distraction, but also its forgetfulness. Most of what it lets fall it never takes up again; especially since the taking up again is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, and thus demands an occasion which the association of thoughts and motivation have first to supply; an occasion, however, which may be the more remote and smaller in proportion as our sensibility for it is heightened by our interest in the subject. But memory, as I have already shown in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, is not a store-house, but merely a faculty acquired by practice of calling up ideas at pleasure, which must therefore constantly be kept in practice by use; for otherwise it will gradually be lost. Accordingly the knowledge even of the learned man exists only virtualiter as an acquired facility in calling up certain ideas; actualiter, on the other hand, it also is confined to one idea, and is only conscious of this one at a time. Hence arises a strange contrast between what he knows potentiâ and what he knows actu; that is, between his

knowledge and what he thinks at any moment: the former is an immense and always somewhat chaotic mass, the latter is a single distinct thought. The relation resembles that between the innumerable stars of the heavens and the limited field of vision of the telescope; it appears in a striking manner when upon some occasion he wishes to call distinctly to his remembrance some particular circumstance in his knowledge, and time and trouble are required to produce it from that chaos. Rapidity in doing this is a special gift, but is very dependent upon day and hour; therefore memory sometimes refuses us its service, even in things which at another time it has readily at hand. This consideration calls us in our studies to strive more to attain to correct insight than to increase our learning, and to lay it to heart that the quality of knowledge is more important than its quantity. The latter imparts to books only thickness, the former thoroughness and also style; for it is an intensive quantity, while the other is merely extensive. It consists in the distinctness and completeness of the conceptions, together with the purity and accuracy of the knowledge of perception which forms their foundation; therefore the whole of knowledge in all its parts is penetrated by it, and in proportion as

it is so is valuable or trifling. With a small quantity, but of good quality, one achieves more than with a very large quantity of bad quality.

The most perfect and satisfactory knowledge is that of perception, but it is limited absolutely to the particular, the individual. The combination of the many and the different in one idea is only possible through the conception, that is, through the omission of the differences; therefore this is a very imperfect manner of presenting things to the mind. Certainly the particular also can be directly comprehended as a universal, if it is raised to the (Platonic) Idea; but in this process, which I have analysed in the third book, the intellect already passes beyond the limits of individuality, and therefore of time; moreover it is only an exception.

These inner and essential imperfections of the intellect are further increased by a disturbance which, to a certain extent, is external to it, but yet is unceasing—the influence exerted by the will upon all its operations whenever it is in any way concerned in their result. Every passion, indeed every inclination and aversion, tinges the objects of knowledge with its colour. Of most common occurrence is the falsifying of knowledge which is brought about by wishes and hopes, for they picture to us the scarcely possible as probable and well nigh certain, and make us almost incapable of comprehending what is opposed to it: fear acts in a similar way; and every preconceived opinion, every partiality, and, as has been said, every interest, every emotion and inclination of the will, acts in an analogous manner. To all these imperfections of the intellect we have finally to add this, that it grows old with the brain, that is, like all physiological functions, it loses its energy in later years, whereby all its imperfections are then much increased.

The defective nature of the intellect here set forth will not, however, surprise us if we look back at its origin and destiny as established by me in the second book. Nature has produced it for the service of an individual will. Therefore it is only designed to know things so far as they afford the motives of such a will, but not to fathom them or comprehend their true being. Human intellect is only a higher gradation of the intellect of the brutes; and as this is entirely confined to the present, our intellect also bears strong traces of this limitation, Therefore our memory and recollection is something very imperfect. How little of all that we have done, experienced, learnt, or read, can we recall! And even this little for the most part only laboriously and imperfectly. For the same reasons is it so very difficult for us to keep ourselves free from the impressions of the present. Unconsciousness is the original and natural condition of all things, and therefore also the basis from which, in particular species of beings, consciousness results as their highest efflorescence; wherefore even then unconsciousness always continues to predominate. Accordingly most existences are without consciousness; but yet they act according to the laws of their nature, i.e., of their will. Plants have at most a very weak analogue of consciousness; the lowest species of animals only the dawn of it. But even after it has ascended through the whole series of animals to man and his reason, the unconsciousness of plants, from which it started, still remains the foundation, and may be traced in the necessity for sleep, and also in all those essential and great imperfections, here set forth, of every intellect produced through physiological functions; and of another intellect we have no conception.

The imperfections here proved to be essential to the intellect are constantly increased, however, in particular cases, by non-essential imperfections. The intellect is never in every respect what it possibly might be. The perfections possible to it are so opposed that they exclude each other. Therefore no man can be at once Plato and Aristotle, or Shakspeare and Newton, or Kant and Goethe. The imperfections of the intellect, on the contrary, consort very well together; therefore in reality it for the most part remains far below what it might be. Its functions depend upon so very many conditions, which we can only comprehend as anatomical and physiological, in the phenomenon in which alone they are given us, that a decidedly excelling intellect, even in one respect alone, is among the rarest of natural phenomena. Therefore the productions of such an intellect are preserved through thousands of years, indeed every relic of such a highly favoured individual becomes a most valuable treasure. From such an intellect down to that which approaches imbecility the gradations are innumerable. And primarily, in conformity with these gradations, the mental horizon of each of us varies very much from the mere comprehension of the present, which even the brute has, to that which also embraces the next hour, the day, even the morrow, the week, the

year, the life, the century, the thousand years, up to that of the consciousness which has almost always present, even though obscurely dawning, the horizon of the infinite, and whose thoughts therefore assume a character in keeping with this. Further, that difference among intelligences shows itself in the rapidity of their thinking, which is very important, and which may be as different and as finely graduated as that of the points in the radius of a revolving disc. The remoteness of the consequents and reasons to which any one’s thought can extend seems to stand in a certain relation to the rapidity of his thinking, for the greatest exertion of thought-power in general can only last quite a short time, and yet only while it lasts can a thought be thought out in its complete unity. It therefore amounts to this, how far the intellect can pursue it in so short a time, thus what length of path it can travel in it. On the other hand, in the case of some, rapidity may be made up for by the greater duration of that time of perfectly concentrated thought. Probably the slow and lasting thought makes the mathematical mind, while rapidity of thought makes the genius. The latter is a flight, the former a sure advance upon firm ground, step

by step. Yet even in the sciences, whenever it is no longer a question of mere quantities, but of understanding the nature of phenomena, this last kind of thinking is inadequate. This is shown, for example, by Newton’s theory of colour, and later by Biot’s nonsense about colour rings, which yet agrees with the whole atomistic method of treating light among the French, with its molécules de lumière, and in general with their fixed idea of reducing everything in nature to mere mechanical effects. Lastly, the great individual diversity of intelligence we are speaking about shows itself excellently in the degrees of the clearness of understanding, and accordingly in the distinctness of the whole thinking. To one man that is to understand which to another is only in some degree to observe; the one is already done and at the goal while the other is only at the beginning; to the one that is the solution which to the other is only the problem. This depends on the quality of thought and knowledge, which was already referred to above. As in rooms the degree of light varies, so does it in minds. We can detect this quality of the whole thought as soon as we have read only a few pages of an author. For in doing so we have

been obliged to understand both with his understanding and in his sense; and therefore before we know all that he has thought we see already how he thinks, what is the formal nature, the texture of his thinking, which remains the same in everything about which he thinks, and whose expression is the train of thought and the style. In this we feel at once the pace, the flexibleness and lightness, even indeed the soaring power of his mind; or, on the contrary, its dulness, formality, lameness and leaden quality. For, as language is the expression of the mind of a nation, style is the more immediate expression of the mind of an author than even his physiognomy. We throw a book aside when we observe that in it we enter an obscurer region than our own, unless we have to learn from it mere facts, not thoughts. Apart from mere facts, only that author will afford us profit whose understanding is keener and clearer than our own, who forwards our thinking instead of hindering it, like the dull mind that will force us to keep pace with the toad-like course of its thought; thus that author with whose mind it gives us sensible relief and assistance sometimes to think, by whom we feel ourselves borne where we could not

have gone alone. Goethe once said to me that if he read a page of Kant he felt as if he entered a brightly lighted room. Inferior minds are so not merely because they are distorted, and therefore judge falsely, but primarily through the indistinctness of their whole thinking, which may be compared to seeing through a bad telescope, when all the outlines appear indistinct and as if obliterated, and the different objects run into each other. The weak understanding of such minds shrinks from the demand for distinctness of conceptions, and therefore they do not themselves make this claim upon it, but put up with haziness; and to satisfy themselves with this they gladly have recourse to words, especially such as denote indefinite, very abstract, unusual conceptions which are hard to explain; such, for example, as infinite and finite, sensible and supersensible, the Idea of being, Ideas of the reason, the absolute, the Idea of the good, the divine, moral freedom, power of spontaneous generation, the absolute Idea, subject-object, &c. The like of these they confidently fling about, imagine they really express thoughts, and expect every one to be content with them; for the highest summit of wisdom which they can see is to have at command such ready-made words for every possible question. This immense satisfaction in words

is thoroughly characteristic of inferior minds. It depends simply upon their incapacity for distinct conceptions, whenever these must rise above the most trivial and simple relations. Hence upon the weakness and indolence of their intellect, and indeed upon the secret consciousness of this, which in the case of scholars is bound up with the early learnt and hard necessity of passing themselves off as thinking beings, to meet which demand in all cases they keep such a suitable store of ready-made words. It must really be amusing to see a professor of philosophy of this kind in the chair, who bonâ fide delivers such a juggle of words destitute of thoughts, quite sincerely, under the delusion that they are really thoughts, and in front of him the students, who just as bonâ fide, i.e., under the same delusion, listen attentively and take notes, while yet in reality neither the one nor the other goes beyond the words, but rather these words themselves, together with the audible scratching of pens, are the only realities in the whole matter. This peculiar satisfaction in words has more than anything else to do with the perpetuation of errors. For, relying on the words and phrases received from his predecessors, each one confidently passes over obscurities and problems, and thus these are propagated through centuries

from book to book; and the thinking man, especially in youth, is in doubt whether it may be that he is incapable of understanding it, or that there is really nothing here to understand; and similarly, whether for others the problem which they all slink past with such comical seriousness by the same path is no problem at all, or whether it is only that they will not see it. Many truths remain undiscovered simply on this account, that no one has the courage to look the problem in the face and grapple with it. On the contrary, the distinctness of thought and clearness of conceptions peculiar to eminent minds produces the effect that even known truths when brought forward by them gain new light, or at least a new stimulus. If we hear them or read them, it is as if we exchanged a bad telescope for a good one. Let one only read, for example, in Euler’s “Letters to the Princess,” his exposition of the fundamental truths of mechanics and optics. Upon this rests the remark of Diderot in the Neveu de Rameau, that only the perfect masters are capable of teaching really well the elements of a science; just because it is only they who really understand the questions, and for them words never take the place

But we ought to know that inferior minds are the rule, good minds the exception, eminent minds very rare, and genius a portent. How otherwise could a human race consisting of about eight hundred million individuals have left so much after six thousand years to discover, to invent, to think out, and to say? The intellect is calculated for the support of the individual alone, and as a rule it is only barely sufficient even for this. But nature has wisely been very sparing of conferring a larger measure; for the man of limited intelligence can survey the few and simple relations which lie within reach of his narrow sphere of action, and can control the levers of them with much greater ease than could the eminently intellectual man who commands an incomparably larger sphere and works with long levers. Thus the insect sees everything on its stem or leaf with the most minute exactness, and better than we, and yet is not aware of the man who stands within three steps of it. This is the reason of the slyness of half-witted persons, and the ground of the paradox: Il y a un mystère dans l’esprit des gens qui n’en ont pas. For practical life genius is about as useful as an astral telescope in a theatre. Thus, with regard to the intellect nature is highly aristocratic. The distinctions which it has established are greater than those which are made in any country by birth, rank, wealth, or caste. But in the aristocracy of intellect, as in other aristocracies, there are many thousands of plebeians for one nobleman, many millions for one prince, and the great multitude of men are mere populace, mob, rabble, la canaille. Now certainly there is a glaring contrast between the scale of rank of nature and that of convention, and their agreement is only to be hoped for in a golden age. Meanwhile those who stand very high in the one scale of rank and in the other have this in common, that for the most part they live in exalted isolation, to which Byron refers when he says:—

“To feel me in the solitude of kings Without the power that makes them bear a crown.” —Proph. of Dante, c. I.

For intellect is a differentiating, and therefore a separating principle. Its different grades, far more than those of mere culture, give to each man different conceptions, in consequence of which each man lives to a certain extent in a different world, in which he can directly meet those only who are like himself, and can only attempt to speak to the rest and make himself understood by them from a distance. Great differences in the grade and in the cultivation of the understanding fix a wide gulf between man and man, which can only be crossed by benevolence; for it is, on the contrary, the unifying principle, which identifies every one else with its own self. Yet the connection remains a moral one; it cannot become intellectual. Indeed, when the degree of culture is about the same, the conversation between a man of great intellect and an ordinary man is like the journey together of two men, one of whom rides on a spirited horse and the other goes on foot. It soon becomes very trying to both of them, and for any length of time impossible. For a short way the rider can indeed dismount, in order to walk with the other, though even then the impatience of his horse will give him much to do.

But the public could be benefited by nothing so much as by the recognition of that intellectual aristocracy of nature. By virtue of such recognition it would comprehend that when facts are concerned, thus when the matter has to be decided from experiments, travels, codes, histories, and chronicles, the normal mind is certainly sufficient; but, on the other hand, when mere thoughts are in question, especially those thoughts the material or data of which are within reach of every one, thus when it is really only a question of thinking before others, decided reflectiveness, native eminence, which only nature bestows, and that very seldom, is inevitably demanded, and no one deserves to be heard who does not at once give proofs of this. If the public could be brought to see this for itself, it would no longer waste the time which is sparingly measured out to it for its culture on the productions of ordinary minds, thus on the innumerable botches of poetry and philosophy which are produced every day. It would no longer seize always what is newest, in the childish delusion that books, like eggs, must be enjoyed while they are fresh, but would confine itself to the works of the few select and chosen minds of all ages and nations, would strive to learn to know and understand them, and might thus by degrees attain to true culture. And then, also, those thousands of uncalled-for productions which, like tares, hinder the growth of the good wheat would be discontinued.

Chapter XVI.(26) On The Practical Use Of Reason And On Stoicism. In the seventh chapter I have shown that, in the theoretical sphere, procedure based upon conceptions suffices for mediocre achievements only, while great achievements, on the other hand, demand that we should draw from perception itself as the primary source of all knowledge. In the practical sphere, however, the converse is the case. Here determination by what is perceived is the way of the brutes, but is unworthy of man, who has conceptions to guide his conduct, and is thus emancipated from the power of what is actually perceptibly present, to which the brute is unconditionally given over. In proportion as a man makes good this prerogative his conduct may be called rational, and only in this sense can we speak of practical reason, not in the Kantian sense, the inadmissibility of which I have thoroughly exposed in my prize essay on the foundation of morals.

It is not easy, however, to let oneself be determined by conceptions alone; for the directly present external world, with its perceptible reality, intrudes itself forcibly even on the strongest mind. But it is just in conquering this impression, in destroying its illusion, that the human spirit shows its worth and greatness. Thus if incitements to lust and pleasure leave it unaffected, if the threats and fury of enraged enemies do not shake it, if the entreaties of erring friends do not make its purpose waver, and the delusive forms with which preconcerted plots surround it leave it unmoved, if the scorn of fools and of the vulgar herd does not disturb it nor trouble it as to its own worth, then it seems to stand under the influence of a spirit-world, visible to it alone (and this is the world of conceptions), before which that perceptibly present world which lies open to all dissolves like a phantom. But, on the other hand, what gives to the external world and visible reality their great power over the mind is their nearness and directness. As the magnetic needle, which is kept in its position by the combined action of widely distributed forces of nature embracing the whole earth, can yet be perturbed and set in violent oscillation by a small piece

of iron, if only it comes quite close to it, so even a great mind can sometimes be disconcerted and perturbed by trifling events and insignificant men, if only they affect it very closely, and the deliberate purpose can be for the moment shaken by a trivial but immediately present counter motive. For the influence of the motives is subject to a law which is directly opposed to the law according to which weights act on a balance, and in consequence of it a very small motive, which, however, lies very near to us, can outweigh one which in itself is much stronger, but which only affects us from a distance. But it is this quality of the mind, by reason of which it allows itself to be determined in accordance with this law, and does not withdraw itself from it by the strength of actual practical reason, which the ancients denoted by animi impotentia, which really signifies ratio regendæ voluntatis impotens. Every emotion (animi perturbatio) simply arises from the fact that an idea which affects our will comes so excessively near to us that it conceals everything else from us, and we can no longer see anything but it, so that for the moment we become incapable of taking account of things of another kind. It would be a

valuable safeguard against this if we were to bring ourselves to regard the present, by the assistance of imagination, as if it were past, and should thus accustom our apperception to the epistolary style of the Romans. Yet conversely we are very well able to regard what is long past as so vividly present that old emotions which have long been asleep are thereby reawakened in their full strength. Thus also no one would be irritated or disconcerted by a misfortune, a disappointment, if reason always kept present to him what man really is: the most needy of creatures, daily and hourly abandoned to innumerable misfortunes, great and small, το δειλοτατον ζωον, who has therefore to live in constant care and fear. Herodotus already says, “Παν εστι ανθρωπος συμφορα” (homo totus est calamitas).

The application of reason to practice primarily accomplishes this. It reconstructs what is one-sided and defective in knowledge of mere perception, and makes use of the contrasts or oppositions which it presents, to correct each other, so that thus the objectively true result is arrived at. For example, if we look simply at the bad action of a man we will condemn him; on the other hand, if we consider merely the need that moved him to it, we will compassionate him: reason, by means of its conceptions, weighs the two, and leads to the conclusion that he must be restrained, restricted, and curbed by a proportionate punishment.

I am again reminded here of Seneca’s saying: “Si vis tibi omnia subjicere, te subjice rationi.” Since, however, as was shown in the fourth book, the nature of suffering is positive, and that of pleasure negative, he who takes abstract or rational knowledge as the rule of his conduct, and therefore constantly reflects on its consequences and on the future, will very frequently have to practise sustine et abstine, for in order to obtain the life that is most free from pain he generally sacrifices its keenest joys and pleasures, mindful of Aristotle’s “ὁ φρονιμος το αλυπον διωκει, ου το ἡδυ” (_quod dolore vacat, non quod __ suave est, persequitur vir prudens_). Therefore with him the future constantly borrows from the present, instead of the present borrowing from the future, as is the case with a frivolous fool, who thus becomes impoverished and finally bankrupt. In the case of the former reason must, for the most part, assume the rôle of a churlish mentor, and unceasingly call for renunciations, without being able to promise anything in return, except a fairly painless existence. This rests on the fact that reason, by means of its conceptions, surveys the whole of life, whose outcome, in the happiest conceivable case, can be no other than what we have said.

When this striving after a painless existence, so far as it might be attainable by the application of and strict adherence to rational reflection and acquired knowledge of the true nature of life, was carried out with the greatest consistency and to the utmost extreme, it produced cynicism, from which stoicism afterwards proceeded. I wish briefly here to bring this out more fully for the sake of establishing more firmly the concluding exposition of our first book.

All ancient moral systems, with the single exception of that of Plato, were guides to a happy life. Accordingly in them the end of virtue was entirely in this life, not beyond death. For to them it is only the right path to a truly happy life; and on this account the wise choose it. Hence arise those lengthy debates chiefly preserved for us by Cicero, those keen and constantly renewed investigations, whether virtue quite alone and in itself is really sufficient for a happy life, or whether this further requires some external condition; whether the virtuous and wise may also be happy on the rack and the wheel, or in the bull of Phalaris; or whether it does not go as far as this. For certainly this would be the touchstone of an ethical system of this kind; the practice of it must give happiness directly and unconditionally. If it cannot do this it does not accomplish what it ought, and must be rejected. It is therefore with truth and in accordance with the Christian point of view that Augustine prefaces his exposition of the moral systems of the ancients (De Civ. Dei, Lib. xix. c. 1) with the explanation: “Exponenda sunt nobis argumenta mortalium, quibus sibi ipsi beatitudinem facere IN HUJUS VITÆ INFELICITATE _moliti sunt; ut ab eorum

rebus vanis spes nostra quid differat clarescat. De finibus bonorum et malorum multa inter se philosophi disputarunt; quam quæstionem maxima intentione versantes, invenire conati sunt, quid efficiat hominem beatum: illud enim est finis bonorum._” I wish to place beyond all doubt the eudæmonistic end which we have ascribed to all ancient ethics by several express statements of the ancients themselves. Aristotle says in the “Eth. Magna,” i. 4: “Ἡ ευδαιμονια εν τῳ εν ζῃν εστι, το δε ευ ζῃν εν τῳ κατα τας αρετας ζῃν.” (Felicitas in bene vivendo posita est: verum bene vivere est in eo positum, ut secundum virtutem vivamus), with which may be compared “Eth. Nicom.,” i. 5. “Cic. Tusc.,” v. 1: “_Nam, quum ea causa impulerit eos, qui primi se ad philosophiæ studia contulerunt, ut, omnibus rebus posthabitis, totos se in optimo vitæ statu exquirendo collocarent; profecto spe beate vivendi tantam in eo studio curam operamque posuerunt_”. According to Plutarch (De Repugn. Stoic., c. xviii.) Chrysippus said: “Το κατα κακιαν ζῃν τῳ κακοδαιμονως ζῃν ταυτον εστι.” (Vitiose vivere idem est guod vivere infeliciter.) Ibid., c. 26: “Ἡ φρονησις ουχ ἑτερον εστι της ευδαιμονιας καθ᾽ ἑαυτο, αλλ᾽ ευδαιμονια.” (Prudentia nihil differt a felicitate, estque ipsa adeo felicitas.) “Stob. Ecl.,” Lib. ii. c. 7: “Τελος δε φασιν ειναι το ευδαιμονειν, ὁυ ἑνεκα παντα πραττεται.” (_Finem esse dicunt felicitatem,

cujus causa fiunt omnia._) “Ευδαιμονιαν συνωνυμειν τῳ τελει λεγουσι.” (Finem bonorum et felicitatem synonyma esse dicunt.) “Arrian Diss. Epict.,” i. 4: “Ἡ αρετη ταυτην εχει την επαγγελιαν, ευδαιμονιαν ποιησαι.” (Virtus profitetur, se felicitatem præstare.) Sen., Ep. 90: “_Ceterum (sapientia) ad beatum statum tendit, illo ducit, __ illo vias aperit_.”—Id., Ep. 108: “Illud admoneo auditionem philosophorum, lectionemque, ad propositum beatæ vitæ trahendum.”

The ethics of the Cynics also adopted this end of the happiest life, as the Emperor Julian expressly testifies (Orat. vi.): “Της Κυνικης δε φιλοσοφιας σκοπος μεν εστι και τελος, ὡσπερ δη και πασης φιλοσοφιας, το ευδαιμονειν; το δε ευδαιμονειν εν τῳ ζῃν κατα φυσιν, αλλα μη προς τας των πολλων δοξας.” (_Cynicæ philosophiæ ut etiam omnis philosophiæ, scopus et finis est feliciter vivere: felicitas vitæ autem in eo posita est, ut secundum naturam vivatur, nec vero secundum opiniones multitudinis._) Only the Cynics followed quite a peculiar path to this end, a path directly opposed to the ordinary one—the path of extreme privation. They start from the insight that the motions of the will which are brought about by the objects which attract and excite it, and the wearisome, and for the most part vain, efforts to attain these, or, if they are attained, the fear of losing them, and finally the loss itself, produce far greater pain than the want of all these objects ever can. Therefore, in order to attain to the life that is most free from pain, they chose the path of the extremest destitution, and fled from all pleasures as snares through which one was afterwards handed over to pain. But after this they could boldly scorn happiness and its caprices. This is the spirit of cynicism. Seneca distinctly expresses it in the eighth chapter, “De Tranquilitate Animi:” “_Cogitandum est, quanto levior dolor sit, non habere, quam perdere: et intelligemus paupertati eo minorem tormentorum, quo minorem damnorum esse materiam._” Then: “_Tolerabilius est, faciliusque, non acquirere, quam amittere.... Diogenes effecit, ne quid sibi eripi posset, ... qui se fortuitis omnibus exuit.... Videtur mihi dixisse; age tuum negotium, fortuna: nihil apud Diogenem jam tuum est._” The parallel passage to this last sentence is the quotation of Stobæus (Ecl. ii. 7): “Διογενης εφη νομιζειν ὁραν την Τυχην ενορωσαν αυτον και λεγουσαν; τουτον δ᾽ ου δυναμαι βαλεειν κυνα λυσσητηρα.” (Diogenes credere se dixit, videre Fortunam, ipsum intuentem, ac dicentem: aut hunc non potui tetigisse canem rabiosum.) The same spirit of cynicism is also shown in the epitaph on Diogenes, in Suidas, under the word Φιλισκος, and in “Diogenes Laertius,” vi. 2:

“Γηρασκει μεν χαλκος ὑπο χρονου; αλλα σον ουτι Κυδος ὁ πας αιων, Διογενης, καθελει; Μουνος επει βιοτης αυταρκεα δοξαν εδειξας Θνητοις, και ζωης οιμον ελαφροτατην.” (Æra quidem absumit tempus, sed tempore numquam Interitura tua est gloria, Diogenes: Quandoquidem ad vitam miseris mortalibus æquam Monstrata est facilis, te duce, et ampla via.)

Accordingly the fundamental thought of cynicism is that life in its simplest and nakedest form, with the hardships that belong to it by nature, is the most endurable, and is therefore to be chosen; for every assistance, convenience, gratification, and pleasure by means of which men seek to make life more agreeable only brings with it new and greater ills than originally belonged to it. Therefore we may regard the following sentence as the expression of the kernel of the doctrine of cynicism: “Διογενης εβοᾳ πολλακις λεγων, τον των ανθωπων βιον ραδιον ὑπο των θεων δεδοσθαι, αποκεκρυφθαι δε αυτον ζητουντων μελιπηκτα και μυρα και τα παραπλησια.” (_Diogenes clamabat sæpius, hominum vitam facilem a diis dari, verum occultari illam quærentibus mellita cibaria, unguenta et his similia._) (Diog., Laert., vi. 2.) And further: “Δεον, αντι των αχρηστων πονων, τους κατα φυσιν ἑλομενους, ζῃν ευδαιμονως; παρα την ανοιαν κακοδαιμονουσι.... τον αυτον χαρακτηρα του βιου λεγων διεξαγειν, ὁνπερ και Ἡρακλης, μηδεν ελευθηριας προκρινων.” (_Quum igitur, repudiatis inutilibus laboribus, naturales insequi, ac vivere beate debeamus, per summam dementiam infelices sumus.... eandem vitæ formam, quam Hercules, se vivere affirmans, nihil libertati præferens. Ibid._) Therefore the old, genuine Cynics, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Krates, and their disciples had once for all renounced every possession, all conveniences and pleasures, in order to escape for ever from the troubles and cares,

the dependence and the pains, which are inevitably bound up with them and are not counterbalanced by them. Through the bare satisfaction of the most pressing wants and the renunciation of everything superfluous they thought they would come off best. Accordingly they contented themselves with what in Athens or Corinth was to be had almost for nothing, such as lupines, water, an old threadbare cloak, a wallet, and a staff. They begged occasionally, as far as was necessary to supply such wants, but they never worked. Yet they accepted absolutely nothing that exceeded the wants referred to above. Independence in the widest sense was their aim. They occupied their time in resting, going about, talking with all men, and much mocking, laughing, and joking; their characteristic was carelessness and great cheerfulness. Since now in this manner of life they had no aims of their own, no purposes or ends to pursue, thus were lifted above the sphere of human action, and at the same time always enjoyed complete leisure, they were admirably fitted, as men of proved strength of mind, to be the advisers and admonishers of the rest. Therefore Apuleius says (Florid., iv.): “_Crates, ut lar familiaris apud homines suæ ætatis cultus est. Nulla domus ei unquam clausa erat: nec erat patrisfamilias tam absconditum secretum, quin eo tempestive Crates

interveniret, litium omnium et jurgiorum inter propinquos disceptator et arbiter._” Thus in this, as in so many other respects, they show a great likeness to the mendicant friars of modern times, that is, to the better and more genuine among them, whose ideal may be seen in the Capucine Christoforo in Manzoni’s famous romance. Yet this resemblance lies only in the effects, not in the cause. They agree in the result, but the fundamental thought of the two is quite different. With the friars, as with the Sannyâsis, who are akin to them, it is an aim which transcends life; but with the Cynics it is only the conviction that it is easier to reduce their wishes and their wants to the minimum, than to attain to the maximum in their satisfaction, which indeed is impossible, for with their satisfaction the wishes and wants grow ad infinitum; therefore, in order to reach the goal of all ancient ethics, the greatest happiness possible in this life, they took the path of renunciation as the shortest and easiest: “ὁθεν και τον Κυνισμον ειρηκασιν συντομον επ᾽ αρετην ὁδον.” (Unde Cynismum dixere compendiosam ad virtutem viam.) Diog. Laert., vi. 9. The fundamental difference between the spirit of cynicism and that of asceticism comes out very clearly in the humility which is essential to the

ascetic, but is so foreign to the Cynic that, on the contrary, he is distinguished beyond everything else for pride and scorn:—

“Sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives, Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum.”—Hor. On the other hand, the view of life held by the Cynics agrees in spirit with that of J. J. Rousseau as he expounds it in the “Discours sur l’Origine de l’Inégalité.” For he also would wish to lead us back to the crude state of nature, and regards the reduction of our wants to the minimum as the surest path to happiness. For the rest, the Cynics were exclusively practical philosophers: at least no account of their theoretical philosophy is known to me.

Now the Stoics proceeded from them in this way—they changed the practical into the theoretical. They held that the actual dispensing with everything that can be done without is not demanded, but that it is sufficient that we should regard possessions and pleasures constantly as dispensable, and as held in the hand of chance; for then the actual deprivation of them, if it should chance to occur, would neither be unexpected nor fall heavily. One might always have and enjoy everything; only one must ever keep present the conviction of the worthlessness and dispensableness of these good things on the one hand, and of their uncertainty and perishableness on the other, and therefore prize them all very little, and be always ready to give them up. Nay more, he who must actually dispense with these things in order not to be moved by them, thereby shows that in his heart he holds them to be truly good things, which one must put quite out of sight if one is not to long after them. The wise man, on the other hand, knows that they are not good things at all, but rather perfectly indifferent things, αδιαφορα, in any case προηγμενα. Therefore if they present themselves he will accept them, but yet is always ready to let them go again, if

chance, to which they belong, should demand them back; for they are των ουκ εφ᾽ ἡμιν. In this sense, Epictetus, chap. vii., says that the wise man, like one who has landed from a ship, &c., will also let himself be comforted by a wife or a child, but yet will always be ready, whenever the captain calls, to let them go again. Thus the Stoics perfected the theory of equanimity and independence at the cost of the practice, for they reduced everything to a mental process, and by arguments, such as are presented in the first chapter of Epictetus, sophisticated themselves into all the amenities of life. But in doing so they left out of account that everything to which one is accustomed becomes a need, and therefore can only be given up with pain; that the will does not allow itself to be played with, cannot enjoy without loving the pleasures; that a dog does not remain indifferent if one draws a piece of meat through its mouth, and neither does a wise man if he is hungry; and that there is no middle path between desiring and renouncing. But they believed that they satisfied their principles if, sitting at a luxurious Roman table, they left no dish untasted, yet at the same time protested that they were

each and all of them mere προηγμενα, not αγαθα; or in plain English, if they eat, drank, and were merry, yet gave no thanks to God for it all, but rather made fastidious faces, and persisted in boldly asserting that they gained nothing whatever from the whole feast. This was the expedient of the Stoics; they were therefore mere braggarts, and stand to the Cynics in much the same relation as well-fed Benedictines and Augustines stand to Franciscans and Capucines. Now the more they neglected practice, the more they refined the theory. I shall here add a few proofs and supplementary details to the exposition of it given at the close of our first book.

If we search in the writings of the Stoics which remain to us, all of which are unsystematically composed, for the ultimate ground of that irrefragible equanimity which is unceasingly demanded of us, we find no other than the knowledge that the course of the world is entirely independent of our will, and consequently, that the evil which befalls us is inevitable. If we have regulated our claims by a correct insight into this, then mourning, rejoicing, fearing, and hoping are follies of which we are no longer capable. Further, especially in the commentaries of Arrian, it is surreptitiously assumed that all that is ουκ εφ᾽ ἡμιν (i.e., does not depend upon us) is at once also ου προς ἡμας (i.e., does not concern us). Yet it remains true that all the good things of life are in the power of chance, and therefore whenever it makes use of this power to deprive us of them, we are unhappy if we have placed our happiness in them. From this unworthy fate we are, in the opinion of the Stoics, delivered by the right use of reason, by virtue of which we regard all these things, never as ours, but only as lent to us for an indefinite time; only thus can we never really lose them. Therefore Seneca says (Ep.

98): “Si, quid humanarum rerum varietas possit, cogitaverit, ante quam senserit,” and Diogenes Laertius (vii. 1. 87): “Ισον δε εστι το κατ᾽ αρετην ζῃν τῳ κατ᾽ εμπειριαν των φυσει συμβαινοντων ζῃν.” (Secundum virtutem vivere idem est, quod secundum experientiam eorum, quæ secundum naturam accidunt, vivere.) The passage in Arrian’s “Discourses of Epictetus,” B. iii., c. 24, 84-89, is particularly in point here; and especially, as a proof of what I have said in this reference in § 16 of the first volume, the passage: “Τουτο γαρ εστι το αιτιον τοις ανθροποις παντων των κακων το τας προληψεις τας κοινας μη δυνασθαι εφαρμοζειν τοις επι μερους,” Ibid. iv., 1. 42. (Hæc enim causa est hominibus omnium malorum, quod anticipationes generales rebus singularibus accommodare non possunt.) Similarly the passage in “Marcus Aurelius” (iv. 29): “Ει ξενος κοσμου ὁ μη γνωριζων τα εν αυτῳ οντα, ουχ ἡττον ξενος και ο μη γνωριζων τα γιγνομενα;” that is: “If he is a stranger to the universe who does not know what is in it, no less is he a stranger who does not know how things go on in it.” Also Seneca’s eleventh chapter, “De Tranquilitate Animi,” is a complete proof of this view. The opinion of the Stoics amounts on the whole to this, that if a man has watched for a while the

juggling illusion of happiness and then uses his reason, he must recognise both the rapid changes of the dice and the intrinsic worthlessness of the counters, and therefore must henceforth remain unmoved. Taken generally the Stoical point of view may be thus expressed: our suffering always arises from the want of agreement between our wishes and the course of the world. Therefore one of these two must be changed and adapted to the other. Since now the course of things is not in our power (ουκ εφ᾽ ἡμιν), we must direct our volitions and desires according to the course of things: for the will alone is εφ᾽ ἡμιν. This adaptation of volition to the course of the external world, thus to the nature of things, is very often understood under the ambiguous κατα φυσιν ζην. See the “Discourses of Epictetus,” ii. 17, 21, 22. Seneca also denotes this point of view (Ep. 119) when he says: “Nihil interest, utrum non desideres, an habeas. Summa rei in utroque est eadem: non torqueberis.” Also Cicero (Tusc. iv. 26) by the words: “Solum habere velle, summa dementia est.” Similarly Arrian (iv. 1. 175): “Ου γαρ εκπληρωσει των επιθυμουμενων ελευθερια παρασκευαζεται, αλλα ανασκευη της επιθυμιας.” (Non enim explendis desideriis libertas comparatur, sed tollenda cupiditate.)

The collected quotations in the “Historia Philosophiæ Græco-Romanæ” of Ritter and Preller may be taken as proofs of what I have said, in the place referred to above, about the ὁμολογουμενως ζῃν of the Stoics. Also the saying of Seneca (Ep. 31, and again Ep. 74): “Perfecta virtus est æqualitas et tenor vitæ per omnia consonans sibi.” The following passage of Seneca’s indicates the spirit of the Stoa generally (Ep. 92): “_Quid est beata vita? Securitas et perpetua tranquillitas. Hanc dabit animi magnitudo, dabit constantia bene judicati tenax._” A systematical study of the Stoics will convince every one that the end of their ethics, like that of the ethics of Cynicism from which they sprang, is really nothing else than a life as free as possible from pain, and therefore as happy as possible. Whence it follows that the Stoical morality is only a special form of Eudæmonism. It has not, like the Indian, the Christian, and even the Platonic ethics, a metaphysical tendency, a transcendental end, but a completely immanent end, attainable in this life; the steadfast serenity (αταραξια) and unclouded happiness of the wise man, whom nothing can disturb. Yet it cannot be denied that the later Stoics, especially Arrian, sometimes lose sight of this end, and show a really ascetic tendency, which is to be attributed to the Christian and Oriental spirit in general which was then already spreading. If we consider closely and seriously the goal of Stoicism, that αταραξια, we find in it merely a hardening and insensibility to the blow of fate which a man attains to because he keeps ever present to his mind the shortness of life, the emptiness of pleasure, the instability of happiness, and has also discerned that the difference between happiness and unhappiness is very much less than our anticipation of both is wont to represent. But this is yet no state of happiness; it is only the patient endurance of sufferings which one has foreseen as irremediable. Yet magnanimity and worth consist in this, that one should bear silently and patiently what is irremediable, in melancholy peace, remaining always the same, while others pass from rejoicing to despair and from despair to rejoicing. Accordingly one may also conceive of Stoicism as a spiritual hygiene, in accordance with which, just as one hardens the body against the influences of wind and weather, against fatigue and exertion, one has also to harden one’s mind against misfortune, danger, loss, injustice, malice, perfidy, arrogance, and the folly of men.

I remark further, that the καθγκοντα of the Stoics, which Cicero translates officia, signify as nearly as possible Obliegenheiten, or that which it befits the occasion to do; English, incumbencies; Italian, quel che tocca a me di fare, o di lasciare, thus what it behoves a reasonable man to do. Cf. Diog. Laert., vii. 1. 109. Finally, the pantheism of the Stoics, though absolutely inconsistent with many an exhortation of Arrian, is most distinctly expressed by Seneca: “_Quid est Deus? Mens universi. Quid est Deus? Quod vides totum, et quod non vides totum. Sic demum magnitudo sua illi redditur, qua nihil majus excogitari potest: si solus est omnia, opus suum et extra, et intra tenet._” (Quæst. Natur. 1, præfatio 12.) Chapter XVII.(27) On Man’s Need Of Metaphysics.

With the exception of man, no being wonders at its own existence; but it is to them all so much a matter of course that they do not observe it. The wisdom of nature speaks out of the peaceful glance of the brutes; for in them the will and the intellect are not yet so widely separated that they can be astonished at each other when they meet again. Thus here the whole phenomenon is still firmly attached to the stem of nature from which it has come, and is partaker of the unconscious omniscience of the great mother. Only after the inner being of nature (the will to live in its objectification) has ascended, vigorous and cheerful, through the two series of unconscious existences, and then through the long and broad series of animals, does it attain at last to reflection for the first time on the entrance of reason, thus in man. Then it marvels at its own works, and asks itself what it itself is. Its wonder however is the more serious, as it here stands for the first time consciously in the presence of death, and besides the finiteness of all existence, the vanity of all effort forces itself more or less upon it. With this reflection and this wonder there arises therefore for man alone,

the need for a metaphysic; he is accordingly an animal metaphysicum. At the beginning of his consciousness certainly he also accepts himself as a matter of course. This does not last long however, but very early, with the first dawn of reflection, that wonder already appears, which is some day to become the mother of metaphysics. In agreement with this Aristotle also says at the beginning of his metaphysics: “Δια γαρ το θαυμαζειν οἱ ανθρωποι και νυν και το πρωτον ηρξαντο φιλοσοφειν.” (Propter admirationem enim et nunc et primo inceperunt homines philosophari.) Moreover, the special philosophical disposition consists primarily in this, that a man is capable of wonder beyond the ordinary and everyday degree, and is thus induced to make the universal of the phenomenon his problem, while the investigators in the natural sciences wonder only at exquisite or rare phenomena, and their problem is merely to refer these to phenomena which are better known. The lower a man stands in an intellectual regard the less of a problem is existence itself for him; everything, how it is, and that it is, appears to him rather a matter of course. This rests upon the fact that his intellect still remains perfectly true to its original destiny of being serviceable to the will as the medium of motives, and therefore is

closely bound up with the world and nature, as an integral part of them. Consequently it is very far from comprehending the world in a purely objective manner, freeing itself, so to speak, from the whole of things, opposing itself to this whole, and so for a while becoming as if self-existent. On the other hand, the philosophical wonder which springs from this is conditioned in the individual by higher development of the intellect, yet in general not by this alone; but without doubt it is the knowledge of death, and along with this the consideration of the suffering and misery of life, which gives the strongest impulse to philosophical reflection and metaphysical explanation of the world. If our life were endless and painless, it would perhaps occur to no one to ask why the world exists, and is just the kind of world it is; but everything would just be taken as a matter of course. In accordance with this we find that the interest which philosophical and also religious systems inspire has always its strongest hold in the dogma of some kind of existence after death; and although the most recent systems seem to make the existence of their gods the main point, and to defend this most zealously, yet in reality this is only because they have

connected their special dogma of immortality with this, and regard the one as inseparable from the other: only on this account is it of importance to them. For if one could establish their doctrine of immortality for them in some other way, their lively zeal for their gods would at once cool, and it would give place almost to complete indifference if, conversely, the absolute impossibility of immortality were proved to them; for the interest in the existence of the gods would vanish with the hope of a closer acquaintance with them, to the residuum which might connect itself with their possible influence on the events of this present life. But if one could prove that continued existence after death is incompatible with the existence of gods, because, let us say, it pre-supposes originality of being, they would soon sacrifice the gods to their own immortality and become zealous for Atheism. The fact that the materialistic systems, properly so-called, and also absolute scepticism, have never been able to obtain a general or lasting influence, depends upon the same grounds.

Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all lands and in all ages, in splendour and vastness, testify to the metaphysical need of man, which, strong and ineradicable, follows close upon his physical need. Certainly whoever is satirically inclined might add that this metaphysical need is a modest fellow who is content with poor fare. It sometimes allows itself to be satisfied with clumsy fables and insipid tales. If only imprinted early enough, they are for a man adequate explanations of his existence and supports of his morality. Consider, for example, the Koran. This wretched book was sufficient to found a religion of the world, to satisfy the metaphysical need of innumerable millions of men for twelve hundred years, to become the foundation of their morality, and of no small contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and most extended conquests. We find in it the saddest and the poorest form of Theism. Much may be lost through the translations; but I have not been able to discover one single valuable thought in it. Such things show that metaphysical capacity does not go hand in hand with the metaphysical need. Yet it will appear that in the early ages of the present surface of the earth this was not the case, and that those who stood considerably nearer than we do to the beginning of the human race and the source of organic nature, had also both greater energy of the intuitive faculty of knowledge, and a truer disposition of mind, so that they were capable of a purer, more direct comprehension of the inner being of nature, and were thus in a position to satisfy the metaphysical need in a more worthy manner. Thus originated in the primitive ancestors of the Brahmans, the Rishis, the almost super-human conceptions which were afterwards set down in the Upanishads of the Vedas.

On the other hand, there have never been wanting persons who were interested in deriving their living from that metaphysical need, and in making the utmost they could out of it. Therefore among all nations there are monopolists and farmers-general of it—the priests. Yet their trade had everywhere to be assured to them in this way, that they received the right to impart their metaphysical dogmas to men at a very early age, before the judgment has awakened from its morning slumber, thus in early childhood; for then every well-impressed dogma, however senseless it may be, remains for ever. If they had to wait till the judgment is ripe, their privileges could not continue.

A second, though not a numerous class of persons, who derive their support from the metaphysical need of man, is constituted by those who live by philosophy. By the Greeks they were called Sophists, by the moderns they are called Professors of Philosophy. Aristotle (Metaph., ii. 2) without hesitation numbers Aristippus among the Sophists. In Diogenes Laertius (ii. 65) we find that the reason of this is that he was the first of the Socratics who accepted payment for his philosophy; on account of which Socrates also returned him his present. Among the moderns also those who live by philosophy are not only, as a rule, and with the rarest exceptions, quite different from those who live for philosophy, but they are very often the opponents, the secret and irreconcilable enemies of the latter. For every true and important philosophical achievement will overshadow their own too much, and, moreover, cannot adapt itself to the views and limitations of their guild. Therefore it is always their endeavour to prevent such a work from making its way; and for this purpose, according to the age and circumstances in each case, the customary means are suppressing, concealing, hushing up, ignoring and keeping secret, or denying, disparaging, censuring, slandering and distorting, or, finally, denouncing and persecuting. Hence many a great man has had to

drag himself wearily through life unknown, unhonoured, unrewarded, till at last, after his death, the world became undeceived as to him and as to them. In the meanwhile they had attained their end, had been accepted by preventing him from being accepted, and, with wife and child, had lived by philosophy, while he lived for it. But if he is dead, then the thing is reversed; the new generation of the former class, which always exists, now becomes heir to his achievements, cuts them down to its own measure, and now lives by him. That Kant could yet live both by and for philosophy depended on the rare circumstance that, for the first time since Divus Antoninus and Divus Julianus, a philosopher sat on the throne. Only under such auspices could the “Critique of Pure Reason” have seen the light. Scarcely was the king dead than we see that Kant also, seized with fear, because he belonged to the guild, modified, expurgated, and spoiled his masterpiece in the second edition, and yet was soon in danger of losing his place; so that Campe invited him to come to him, in Brunswick, and live with him as the instructor of his family (Ring., Ansichten aus Kant’s Leben, p. 68). University philosophy is, as a rule, mere juggling. Its real aim is

to impart to the students, in the deepest ground of their thought, that tendency of mind which the ministry that appoints to the professorships regards as consistent with its views. The ministry may also be perfectly right in this from a statesman’s point of view; only the result of it is that such philosophy of the chair is a nervis alienis mobile lignum, and cannot be regarded as serious philosophy, but as the mere jest of it. Moreover, it is at any rate just that such inspection or guidance should extend only to the philosophy of the chair, and not to the real philosophy that is in earnest. For if anything in the world is worth wishing for—so well worth wishing for that even the ignorant and dull herd in its more reflective moments would prize it more than silver and gold—it is that a ray of light should fall on the obscurity of our being, and that we should gain some explanation of our mysterious existence, in which nothing is clear but its misery and its vanity. But even if this is in itself attainable, it is made impossible by imposed and compulsory solutions.

We shall now subject to a general consideration the different ways of satisfying this strong metaphysical need.

By metaphysics I understand all knowledge that pretends to transcend the possibility of experience, thus to transcend nature or the given phenomenal appearance of things, in order to give an explanation of that by which, in some sense or other, this experience or nature is conditioned; or, to speak in popular language, of that which is behind nature, and makes it possible. But the great original diversity in the power of understanding, besides the cultivation of it, which demands much leisure, makes so great a difference between men, that as soon as a people has emerged from the state of savages, no one metaphysic can serve for them all. Therefore among civilised nations we find throughout two different kinds of metaphysics, which are distinguished by the fact that the one has its evidence in itself, the other outside itself. Since the metaphysical systems of the first kind require reflection, culture, and leisure for the recognition of their evidence, they can be accessible only to a very small number of men; and, moreover, they can only arise and maintain their existence in the case of advanced civilisation. On the other hand, the systems of the second kind exclusively are for the great majority of men who are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and who are not accessible to

reasons, but only to authority. These systems may therefore be called metaphysics of the people, after the analogy of poetry of the people, and also wisdom of the people, by which is understood proverbs. These systems, however, are known under the name of religions, and are found among all nations, not excepting even the most savage. Their evidence is, as has been said, external, and as such is called revelation, which is authenticated by signs and miracles. Their arguments are principally threats of eternal, and indeed also temporal evils, directed against unbelievers, and even against mere doubters. As ultima ratio theologorum, we find among many nations the stake or things similar to it. If they seek a different authentication, or if they make use of other arguments, they already make the transition into the systems of the first kind, and may degenerate into a mixture of the two, which brings more danger than advantage, for their invaluable prerogative of being imparted to children gives them the surest guarantee of the permanent possession of the mind, for thereby their dogmas grow into a kind of second inborn intellect, like the twig upon the grafted tree; while, on the other hand, the systems of the first kind only appeal to grown-up people, and in them always find a system of the second

kind already in possession of their convictions. Both kinds of metaphysics, whose difference may be briefly expressed by the words reasoned conviction and faith, have this in common, that every one of their particular systems stands in a hostile relation to all the others of its kind. Between those of the first kind war is waged only with word and pen; between those of the second with fire and sword as well. Several of the latter owe their propagation in part to this last kind of polemic, and all have by degrees divided the earth between them, and indeed with such decided authority that the peoples of the earth are distinguished and separated more according to them than according to nationality or government. They alone reign, each in its own province. The systems of the first kind, on the contrary, are at the most tolerated, and even this only because, on account of the small number of their adherents, they are for the most part not considered worth the trouble of combating with fire and sword—although, where it seemed necessary, these also have been employed against them with effect; besides, they occur only in a sporadic form. Yet in general they have only been endured in a tamed and subjugated condition, for the system of the second kind which prevailed

in the country ordered them to conform their teaching more or less closely to its own. Sometimes it not only subjugated them, but even employed their services and used them as a support, which is however a dangerous experiment. For these systems of the first kind, since they are deprived of power, believe they may advance themselves by craft, and never entirely lay aside a secret ill-will which at times comes unexpectedly into prominence and inflicts injuries which are hard to heal. For they are further made the more dangerous by the fact that all the real sciences, not even excepting the most innocent, are their secret allies against the systems of the second kind, and without themselves being openly at war with the latter, suddenly and unexpectedly do great mischief in their province. Besides, the attempt which is aimed at by the enlistment referred to of the services of the systems of the first kind by the second—the attempt to add an inner authentication to a system whose original authentication was external, is in its nature perilous; for, if it were capable of such an authentication, it would never have required an external one. And in general it is always a hazardous thing to attempt to place a new foundation under a finished structure. Moreover, how should a religion

require the suffrage of a philosophy? It has everything upon its side—revelation, tradition, miracles, prophecies, the protection of the government, the highest rank, as is due to the truth, the consent and reverence of all, a thousand temples in which it is proclaimed and practised, bands of sworn priests, and, what is more than all, the invaluable privilege of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at the tender age of childhood, whereby they became almost like innate ideas. With such wealth of means at its disposal, still to desire the assent of poor philosophers it must be more covetous, or to care about their contradiction it must be more fearful, than seems to be compatible with a good conscience.

To the distinction established above between metaphysics of the first and of the second kind, we have yet to add the following:—A system of the first kind, thus a philosophy, makes the claim, and has therefore the obligation, in everything that it says, sensu stricto et proprio, to be true, for it appeals to thought and conviction. A religion, on the other hand, being intended for the innumerable multitude who, since they are incapable of examination and thought, would never comprehend the profoundest and most difficult truths sensu proprio, has only the obligation to be true sensu allegorico. Truth cannot appear naked before the people. A symptom of this allegorical nature of religions is the mysteries which are to be found perhaps in them all, certain dogmas which cannot even be distinctly thought, not to speak of being literally true. Indeed, perhaps it might be asserted that some absolute contradictions, some actual absurdities, are an essential ingredient in a complete religion, for these are just the stamp of its allegorical nature, and the only adequate means of making the ordinary mind and the uncultured understanding feel what would be incomprehensible to it, that religion has ultimately to do with quite a different order of things, with an order of things in themselves, in the presence of which the laws of

this phenomenal world, in conformity with which it must speak, vanish; and that therefore not only the contradictory but also the comprehensible dogmas are really only allegories and accommodations to the human power of comprehension. It seems to me that it was in this spirit that Augustine and even Luther adhered to the mysteries of Christianity in opposition to Pelagianism, which sought to reduce everything to the dull level of comprehensibility. From this point of view it is also conceivable how Tertullian could say in all seriousness: “Prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est: ... certum est, quia impossibile” (De Carne Christi, c. 5). This allegorical nature of religions makes them independent of the proofs which are incumbent on philosophy, and in general withdraws them from investigation. Instead of this they require faith, that is, a voluntary admission that such is the state of the case. Since, then, faith guides action, and the allegory is always so framed that, as regards the practical, it leads precisely to that which the truth sensu proprio would also lead to, religion is justified in promising to those who believe eternal salvation. Thus we see that in the main, and for the great majority, who cannot apply themselves to thought, religions very well supply the place of metaphysics in general, the need of which man

feels to be imperative. They do this partly in a practical interest, as the guiding star of their action, the unfurled standard of integrity and virtue, as Kant admirably expresses it; partly as the indispensable comfort in the heavy sorrows of life, in which capacity they fully supply the place of an objectively true metaphysic, because they lift man above himself and his existence in time, as well perhaps as such a metaphysic ever could. In this their great value and indeed necessity shows itself very clearly. For Plato says, and says rightly, “φιλόσοφον πλῆθος ἁδύνατον εἶναι” (vulgus philosophum esse impossible est. De Rep., vi. p. 89, Bip.) On the other hand, the only stumbling-stone is this, that religions never dare to confess their allegorical nature, but have to assert that they are true sensu proprio. They thereby encroach on the province of metaphysics proper, and call forth the antagonism of the latter, which has therefore expressed itself at all times when it was not chained up. The controversy which is so perseveringly carried on in our own day between supernaturalists and rationalists also rests on the failure to recognise the allegorical nature of all religion. Both wish to have Christianity true sensu proprio; in this sense the former wish to maintain it without deduction, as it were with skin

and hair; and thus they have a hard stand to make against the knowledge and general culture of the age. The latter wish to explain away all that is properly Christian; whereupon they retain something which is neither sensu proprio nor sensu allegorico true, but rather a mere platitude, little better than Judaism, or at the most a shallow Pelagianism, and, what is worst, an abject optimism, absolutely foreign to Christianity proper. Moreover, the attempt to found a religion upon reason removes it into the other class of metaphysics, that which has its authentication in itself, thus to the foreign ground of the philosophical systems, and into the conflict which these wage against each other in their own arena, and consequently exposes it to the light fire of scepticism and the heavy artillery of the “Critique of Pure Reason;” but for it to venture there would be clear presumption.

It would be most beneficial to both kinds of metaphysics that each of them should remain clearly separated from the other and confine itself to its own province, that it may there be able to develop its nature fully. Instead of which, through the whole Christian era, the endeavour has been to bring about a fusion of the two, for the dogmas and conceptions of the one have been carried over into the other, whereby both are spoiled. This has taken place in the most open manner in our own day in that strange hermaphrodite or centaur, the so-called philosophy of religion, which, as a kind of gnosis, endeavours to interpret the given religion, and to explain what is true sensu allegorico through something which is true sensu proprio. But for this we would have to know and possess the truth sensu proprio already; and in that case such an interpretation would be superfluous. For to seek first to find metaphysics, i.e., the truth sensu proprio, merely out of religion by explanation and interpretation would be a doubtful and dangerous undertaking, to which one would only make up one’s mind if it were proved that truth, like iron and other base metals, could only be found in a mixed, not in a pure form, and therefore one could only obtain it by reduction from the mixed ore.

Religions are necessary for the people, and an inestimable benefit to them. But if they oppose themselves to the progress of mankind in the knowledge of the truth, they must with the utmost possible forbearance be set aside. And to require that a great mind—a Shakspeare; a Goethe—should make the dogmas of any religion implicitly, bonâ fide et sensu proprio, his conviction is to require that a giant should put on the shoe of a dwarf.

Religions, being calculated with reference to the power of comprehension of the great mass of men, can only have indirect, not immediate truth. To require of them the latter is as if one wished to read the letters set up in the form-chase, instead of their impression. The value of a religion will accordingly depend upon the greater or less content of truth which it contains under the veil of allegory, and then upon the greater or less distinctness with which it becomes visible through this veil, thus upon the transparency of the latter. It almost seems that, as the oldest languages are the most perfect, so also are the oldest religions. If I were to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I would be obliged to concede to Buddhism the pre-eminence over the rest. In any case it must be a satisfaction to me to see my teaching in such close agreement with a religion which the majority of men upon the earth hold as their own; for it numbers far more adherents than any other. This agreement, however, must be the more satisfactory to me because in my philosophising I have certainly not been under its influence. For up till 1818, when my work appeared, there were very few, exceedingly incomplete and scanty,

accounts of Buddhism to be found in Europe, which were almost entirely limited to a few essays in the earlier volumes of “Asiatic Researches,” and were principally concerned with the Buddhism of the Burmese. Only since then has fuller information about this religion gradually reached us, chiefly through the profound and instructive essays of the meritorious member of the St. Petersburg Academy, J. J. Schmidt, in the proceedings of his Academy, and then little by little through several English and French scholars, so that I was able to give a fairly numerous list of the best works on this religion in my work, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” under the heading Sinologie. Unfortunately Csoma Körösi, that persevering Hungarian, who, in order to study the language and sacred writings of Buddhism, spent many years in Tibet, and for the most part in Buddhist monasteries, was carried off by death just as he was beginning to work out for us the results of his researches. I cannot, however, deny the pleasure with which I read, in his provisional accounts, several passages cited directly from the Kahgyur itself; for example, the following conversation of the dying Buddha with Brahma, who is doing him homage: “There is a description of their conversation on the subject of creation,—by whom was the world made? Shakya

asks several questions of Brahma,—whether was it he who made or produced such and such things, and endowed or blessed them with such and such virtues or properties,—whether was it he who caused the several revolutions in the destruction and regeneration of the world. He denies that he had ever done anything to that effect. At last he himself asks Shakya how the world was made,—by whom? Here are attributed all changes in the world to the moral works of the animal beings, and it is stated that in the world all is illusion, there is no reality in the things; all is empty. Brahma, being instructed in his doctrine, becomes his follower” (Asiatic Researches, vol. XX. p. 434).

I cannot place, as is always done, the fundamental difference of all religions in the question whether they are monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, or atheistic, but only in the question whether they are optimistic or pessimistic, that is, whether they present the existence of the world as justified by itself, and therefore praise and value it, or regard it as something that can only be conceived as the consequence of our guilt, and therefore properly ought not to be, because they recognise that pain and death cannot lie in the eternal, original, and immutable order of things, in that which in every respect ought to be. The power by virtue of which Christianity was able to overcome first Judaism, and then the heathenism of Greece and Rome, lies solely in its pessimism, in the confession that our state is both exceedingly wretched and sinful, while Judaism and heathenism were optimistic. That truth, profoundly and painfully felt by all, penetrated, and bore in its train the need of redemption.

I turn to a general consideration of the other kind of metaphysics, that which has its authentication in itself, and is called philosophy. I remind the reader of its origin, mentioned above, in a wonder concerning the world and our own existence, inasmuch as these press upon the intellect as a riddle, the solution of which therefore occupies mankind without intermission. Here, then, I wish first of all to draw attention to the fact that this could not be the case if, in Spinoza’s sense, which in our own day has so often been brought forward again under modern forms and expositions as pantheism, the world were an “absolute substance,” and therefore an absolutely necessary existence. For this means that it exists with so great a necessity that beside it every other necessity comprehensible to our understanding as such must appear as an accident. It would then be something which comprehended in itself not only all actual but also all possible existence, so that, as Spinoza indeed declares, its possibility and its actuality would be absolutely one. Its non-being would therefore be impossibility itself; thus it would be something the non-being or other-being of which must be completely inconceivable, and which could therefore just as little be thought away as, for example, space or time. And since, further, we ourselves would be parts, modes, attributes, or accidents of such an absolute substance, which would be the only thing that, in any sense, could ever or anywhere exist, our and its existence, together with its properties, would necessarily be very far from presenting itself to us as remarkable, problematical, and indeed as an unfathomable and ever-disquieting riddle, but, on the contrary, would be far more self-evident than that two and two make four. For we would necessarily be incapable of thinking anything else than that the world is, and is, as it is; and therefore we would necessarily be as little conscious of its existence as such, i.e., as a problem for reflection, as we are of the incredibly fast motion of our planet.

All this, however, is absolutely not the case. Only to the brutes, who are without thought, does the world and existence appear as a matter of course; to man, on the contrary, it is a problem, of which even the most uneducated and narrow-minded becomes vividly conscious in certain brighter moments, but which enters more distinctly and more permanently into the consciousness of each one of us the clearer and more enlightened that consciousness is, and the more material for thought it has acquired through culture, which all ultimately rises, in minds that are naturally adapted for philosophising, to Plato’s “θαυμαζειν, μαλα φιλοσοφικον παθος” (mirari, valde philosophicus affectus), that is, to that wonder which comprehends in its whole magnitude that problem which unceasingly occupies the nobler portion of mankind in every age and in every land, and gives it no rest. In fact, the pendulum which keeps in motion the clock of metaphysics, that never runs down, is the consciousness that the non-existence of this world is just as possible as its existence. Thus, then, the Spinozistic view of it as an absolutely necessary existence, that is, as something that absolutely and in every sense ought to and must be, is a false one. Even simple Theism, since in its cosmological proof it tacitly starts by inferring the previous non-existence

of the world from its existence, thereby assumes beforehand that the world is something contingent. Nay, what is more, we very soon apprehend the world as something the non-existence of which is not only conceivable, but indeed preferable to its existence. Therefore our wonder at it easily passes into a brooding over the fatality which could yet call forth its existence, and by virtue of which such stupendous power as is demanded for the production and maintenance of such a world could be directed so much against its own interest. The philosophical astonishment is therefore at bottom perplexed and melancholy; philosophy, like the overture to “Don Juan,” commences with a minor chord. It follows from this that it can neither be Spinozism nor optimism. The more special nature, which has just been indicated, of the astonishment which leads us to philosophise clearly springs from the sight of the suffering and the wickedness in the world, which, even if they were in the most just proportion to each other, and also were far outweighed by good, are yet something which absolutely and in general ought not to be. But since now nothing can come out of nothing, these also must have their germ in the origin or in the kernel of the world itself. It is hard for us to assume

this if we look at the magnitude, the order and completeness, of the physical world, for it seems to us that what had the power to produce such a world must have been able to avoid the suffering and the wickedness. That assumption (the truest expression of which is Ormuzd and Ahrimines), it is easy to conceive, is hardest of all for Theism. Therefore the freedom of the will was primarily invented to account for wickedness. But this is only a concealed way of making something out of nothing, for it assumes an Operari that proceeded from no Esse (see Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik, p. 58, et seq.; second edition, p. 57 et seq..) Then it was sought to get rid of evil by attributing it to matter, or to unavoidable necessity, whereby the devil, who is really the right Expediens ad hoc, was unwillingly set aside. To evil also belongs death; but wickedness is only the throwing of the existing evil from oneself on to another. Thus, as was said above, it is wickedness, evil, and death that qualify and intensify the philosophical astonishment. Not merely that the world exists, but still more that it is such a wretched world, is the punctum pruriens of metaphysics, the problem which awakens in mankind an unrest that cannot be quieted

by scepticism nor yet by criticism.

We find physics also (in the widest sense of the word) occupied with the explanation of the phenomena in the world. But it lies in the very nature of its explanations themselves that they cannot be sufficient. Physics cannot stand on its own feet, but requires a metaphysic to lean upon, whatever airs it may give itself towards the latter. For it explains the phenomena by something still more unknown than they are themselves; by laws of nature, resting upon forces of nature, to which the power of life also belongs. Certainly the whole present condition of all things in the world, or in nature, must necessarily be explicable from purely physical causes. But such an explanation—supposing one actually succeeded so far as to be able to give it—must always just as necessarily be tainted with two imperfections (as it were with two sores, or like Achilles with the vulnerable heel, or the devil with the horse’s hoof), on account of which everything so explained really remains still unexplained. First with this imperfection, that the beginning of every explanatory chain of causes and effects, i.e., of connected changes, can absolutely never be reached, but, just like the limits of the world in space and time, unceasingly recedes in infinito. Secondly with this, that the whole of the efficient causes out

of which everything is explained constantly rest upon something which is completely inexplicable, the original qualities of things and the natural forces which play a prominent part among them, by virtue of which they produce a specific kind of effect, e.g., weight, hardness, impulsive force, elasticity, warmth, electricity, chemical forces, &c., and which now remain in every explanation which is given, like an unknown quantity, which absolutely cannot be eliminated, in an otherwise perfectly solved algebraical equation. Accordingly there is no fragment of clay, however little worth, that is not entirely composed of inexplicable qualities. Thus these two inevitable defects in every purely physical, i.e., causal, explanation show that such an explanation can only be relative, and that its whole method and nature cannot be the only one, the ultimate and thus the sufficient one, i.e., cannot be the method of explanation that can ever lead to the satisfactory solution of the difficult riddle of things, and to the true understanding of the world and existence; but that the physical explanation in general and as such requires further a metaphysical explanation, which affords us the key to all its assumptions, but just on this account must necessarily follow quite a different path. The first step to this is that one should bring to distinct consciousness and firmly retain the difference