^'^ f" / *o REESE UIBRARY (W THi; u^fIVER^ITY "of califo!??''nt a K< Accessions No. f>^ Shelf M "8^ m€ m^^:I. ^.^ v^ r," rswv\- <^^ \, X" >^s\rr fVv^ ^'^ \^;^ mm i ■#ip- \.^ ^^.^^' ^'^■■ '/ ^H:C<-< Sisa^j^. ■:a?:'^x m^\.^M .fKi;>--^c : Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.archive.org/details/arthurschopenliauOOzimmricli AETHUR SCHOPENHAUER , / ,— z .7; j^ ^J LONDON : PRINTED BY SrOTIlSWOODK AND CO., NEW-STUKKT PQrAUF AND PAKLIAMKNT STREET UNIVERSITY -^v(v V .^^_ c^yjCz^^v^^^^y^. IV. His Life at Dresden . . . . . 74 V. His ' Opus Maximum ' . . . . 1>7 VI. His Sojourn in Italy . . , . 117 VII. His Dissatisfied Years .... 135 VIII. His^ Residence at Frankfort . . . 158 IX. His Dawn of Fame . . . .179 X. His Ethics and /Esthetics . . . . 20G XI. His Fame and Death .... 237 HELEN ZIMMERN >r^ C THE ^ UNIVERSITY AETHUE SCHOPENHAUEE. CHAPTER I. HIS EARLY YEARS. In the cemetery of Frankfort-on-the-Main, is a grave- stone of black Belgian granite, half hidden by ever- green shrubs. It bears the inscription : ' Arthur Schopenhauer:' no more; neither date nor epitaph. The great man who lies buried here had himself or- dained this. He desired no fulsome inscriptions on his tomb ; he wished to be recorded in his works, and when his friend Dr. Gwinner once asked where he desired to be buried, he replied, ' No matter where ; posterity will find me.' And posterity is beginning to find him at last, though it has taken it a long while; and into no civilised country has this great man's fame penetrated later than to England. True, his name and philosophy are not unknown to a select few ; as witness the B /? 2 AETHUR SCHOPENHAUER. able article published as long ago as 1853 in the ' Westminster Keview,' when the recluse of whom it treated was still living. This essay was the first and is still by far the most adequate notice of the modern Buddhist that has appeared in this country. To this day, Arthur Schopenhauer's name conveys no distinct impression even to educated readers. It is mostly pronounced in disparagement of his philosophy, and dismissed with the contemptuous epithet, ' Nihilist,' by persons who have never read a line of his writings, or given his mode of thought an hour's consideration. They know possibly that he was a great pessimist, that ' 'tis better not to be ' may be deemed the key-note of his speculations. They leave out of all regard that these tenets, be they congenial to them or no, are based on a great mind's life-thoughts and correspond in essen- tials with those held by 300 millions of the human race. Yet notwithstanding all this, after long years of neglect and contempt, he is forcing the world to con- sider him. Speculations that continue to increase in respect and influence cannot be dismissed with a sneer. Even David Strauss, the optimist par excellence, pays Schopenhauer a grateful tribute in his last work, ' The New Faith and the Old.' As a rule, he remarks, optimism takes things too easily, and for this reason Schopenhauer's references to the colossal part sorrow and evil play in the world are quite in their right place as a HIS EAELY YEAES. 3 counterbalance, though ' every true philosophy is neces- sarily optimistic, as otherwise she hews down the branch on which she herself is sitting.' An apter and terser illustration is hardly needed to stigmatise such aberrations of thought. Aberrations, however, of such mighty influence and so needful to the complete de- velopment of all phases of humanity, that it is impera- tive upon all who study the history of their own time to know something of this philosopher's mode of thought. The more so as his influence on politics, literature, soci- ology and art can no longer be contested. Most modern musicians are great admirers of Schopenhauer, especially the followers of Wagner ; some of whom go so far as to say that in order truly to understand the ' music of the future,' it is needful to have begun with his philoso- The history of this man, to whom recognition came so late, is not remarkably eventful. It is little else than the record of his thoughts and his works. He had nevertheless seen more of practical life than many a thinker who evolves a system out of his internal con- sciousness, shut up within the four walls of his study, ignorant of mankind, their needs, and the adaptability of his speculations for their use. Not unjustly does the ' Eevue Contemporaine ' say of Schopenhauer, ' Ce n'est pas un philosophe comme les autres, c'est un. philosophe qui a vu le monde.' B 2 4 \^ "^ AKTHUE SCHOPENHAUER. Arthur Schopenhauer was born at Danzig, on the 22nd of February, 1788. His family were of Dutch extraction, but had long settled in this ancient Reich- stadt, which at his birth still maintained its Hanseatic privileges. Schopenhauer attached great importance to hereditary characteristics, regarding them among the prime factors of life. Without touching upon this contested principle, it would not be just to leave his genealogy disregarded in his biography, more especially as he was in a measure a living illustration of his theory. The Schopenhauers, so far back as we can trace them, appear to have been men of powerful character. In the days of Arthur's great-grandfather Andreas, they were already rich and influential citizens, so that when Peter the Great and the Empress Catherine visited Danzig, his house was selected to lodge the Imperial guests. The story of this visit has been preserved in the memoirs of Johanna Schopen^ hauer, the philosopher's mother, and is characteristic of the ancestor's prompt resolution and practical good sense. She gives it as told by a centenarian family retainer, who lived to dandle the infant Arthur in his arms. When the Czar and his consort were shown the house, they went all over it to choose their bedroom. Their choice fell upon a room in which there was neither stove nor fireplace. It was winter, and the HIS EAELY YEARS. 5 difficulty how to heat the room arose, for the cold was bitter. Everyone was at their wits' end, till old Herr Schopenhauer came to their aid. He ordered several barrels of fine brandy to be brought from the cellar.; these he emptied over the tiled floor, closed up the room carefully, and set the spirit ablaze. The Czar looked with delight at the flaming mass seething around his feet. Meanwhile precautions were taken to hinder the fire from spreading. When all was burnt out, the Imperial pair laid themselves to rest in the hot steamy air, and awoke next morning feeling neither headache nor discomfort, ready to extol their host and his hospitality in terms as glowing as his brandy. Andreas' son, Johann Friedrich, greatly enlarged the business, and added to the wealth and importance of the family. In later years he retired, and ended his days in a stately mansion near Danzig, which, until its demolition, bore the Schopenhauer name. His wife "was also sprung from a good lineage. "With advancing age she grew imbecile ; she had borne her husband an idiotic son, and perhaps contributed the hypochondriacal element so traceable in the powerful-minded grandson and in his father, her youngest son, Heinrich Floris. He was born in 1747, and was early sent out into the •world to gain knowledge and practical experience. For many years he lived in France and England. In France he served as clerk in the firm of Bethmann, 6 AETHUR SCHOPENHAUER. mercliants of Bordeaux. The admirable chief of that house won his whole respect. So greatly was he im- pressed by his conduct in business and family affairs, that in after years, when desirous to emphasise a com- mand, he would add as final argument : ' Monsieur Bethmann acted thus.' He read the French authors of his century with intelligent interest, and above all he was partial to Voltaire. In the working of the English constitution he took a lively interest, and was so pleased with family life in this country that he seriously con- templated making it his home. This love for England and English ways found expression in his country seat at Oliva, near Danzig, which he furnished after the English manner and with English comforts. His garden, too, was laid out in the English style. He daily read an English and French newspaper, and encouraged his son from early boyhood to read the ' Times,' from which, he remarked, ' one could learn everything.' These literary tendencies were undoubtedly inherited by Arthur, who preferred foreign philosophers to those of his country, and was never weary of contrasting Vol- taire, Helvetius, Locke, and Hume, with Leibnitz, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, commending the former as the only worthy precursors of Kant. He, too, up to his death daily read the ' Times.' Until the Grerman papers began to occupy themselves about him, he rarely condescended to occupy himself with them, a HIS EAELY YEAES. 7 peculiarity less to be condemned on account of their actual inferiority until a comparatively recent period. Notwithstanding his love for England, Heinrich Schopenhauer returned to his native city, where he entered the business and inherited the bulk of the family property. By this time his character was fully formed. His rectitude, candour, and uncompromising love of truth were remarkable, and won the esteem of his fellow citizens. Fierce, even passionate in his views and prejudices, he did not withal lack the balance and deliberation usually possessed by less excitable natures. The oppressions and iniquities perpetrated by the Prussians against his native city aroused the full vigour of his hate. At the same time he never with- held from the Grreat Frederick his just meed of praise. Early in life he might indeed, had he wished, have taken office under this monarch. For on his return from his travels he happened to be among the spectators of a review held at Potsdam. The Great Frederick had an eagle eye, and always marked an unusual appearance in a crowd. The elegance of Schopenhauer's dress, his foreign carriage and independent air, attracted the sovereign's notice. The following day he summoned the young man to his cabinet; the interview lasted two hours, during which the King begged, almost commanded him to settle in Prussia. He held out every inducement, promised to exert every influence 8 AETHUE SCHOPENHAUER. on his behalf. But it was in vain. The stern re- publican would not accept patronage from the oppres- sor of his native city. He never swerved from the family device : ' Point de bonheur sans liberte ; ' and Frederick was reluctantly obliged to let him depart. He could not forget him : by a cabinet order he assured to Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer and his descendants important privileges, of which, however, the}^ appear never to have availed themselves. This trait alone would serve to prove that Arthur Schopenhauer's father was no ordinary man. Another recorded incident con- firms this impression. After the second partition of Poland the Hanseatic republic of Danzig was destined by Frederick the Great to become his prey. In order to cut off supplies from the landside, the place was blockaded by Prussian troops. The general in command was quartered with Johann Schopenhauer, then living in retirement at his country seat. He showed such generous hospitality to his unwelcome guests that the general desired in some manner to evince his gratitude. He had heard that the old man's son, Heinrich, who lived within the walls, owned horses to which he was so attached that his fondness for them had become proverbial. Forage was growing scarce, and the general offered to allow food for Heinrich's horses to enter. This roused the stern patrician's ire. Why should he be distinguished from HIS EARLY YEAES. 9 among his countrymen ? Why should he be deemed willing to receive favours from the hated Prussians ? He wrote in reply that he thanked the general for his goodwill ; his stables were as yet amply provided, and when the stock was exhausted he should cause his horses to be killed. It might be supposed that a man who so little conformed to conventionalities, and opposed inflexible prejudice to palpable advantage, would scarcely make a good man of business, above all, a good merchant, perhaps next to a lawyer's, the most trimming and time-serving pursuit. Yet the contrary was the case. Heinrich Schopenhauer conducted his business in a manner that won him all respect and admiration. It was not until he was eight and thirty that he contem- plated marriage. His choice fell upon Johanna Hen- riette Trosiener, a pretty girl of eighteen, whose father was member of the Danzig Senate, and though not wealthy, was counted among the city's patricians. He too had travelled and acquired, like his son-in-law, the cosmopolitan culture uncommon in those days. Cheerful and lively by temperament, these qualities were occasionally overshadowed by unrestrained out- bursts of passion so violent that people shunned associa- tion with him for very fear. According to the testimony of his daughter, these irruptions of senseless fury seized iiim quite suddenly, often for the most trivial cause. 10 AKTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. Fortunately his anger was allayed as rapidly as it arose, but while the attack was upon him even the cat and dog would run away in terror. His wife only could mollify him somewhat. ' It needs but a few strokes to recall the picture of my dear gentle mother, Elizabeth, nee Lehmann,' says Johanna Schopenhauer ; ' she had a small dainty figure, with the prettiest hands and feet, a pair of large very light blue eyes, a very white fine skin, and long silky light brown hair. So much for her outward appear- ance. Her physique was not adapted to make her the robust housekeeper at that time in fashion ; with regard to what is demanded nowadays of women, her education had been no less neglected than that of her contemporaries. She could play a few polonaises and mazurkas, accompany herself to a few songs, and read and write sufficiently well for household requirements : that was pretty well all she had been taught. But common sense, natural ability, and the quick power of conception common to women, indemnified her for these deficiencies.' Such were the parents of the young girl, who on the verge of womanhood was united to a man twenty years her senior. Of her youth we have records from her own pen, as she intended writing her Memoirs, which would have proved interesting, not only with regard to her son, but because she lived on terms of HIS EARLY YEAES. 11 friendly intimacy with the famous men and women of her day. Unfortunately she was only able to bring them down to the year 1789, and as she was born in 1766, they embrace the least generally interesting period of her life. They present, however, a good idea of society in those troublous times. Johanna was the eldest daughter of her parents ; she inherited her mother's dainty proportions, light brown hair and clear blue eyes. In youth her figure was unusually attractive and onignonne; later in life she became corpulent, which, together with a malformation of the hip, de- tracted from the charm of her exterior. Her counten- ance was pleasant, but not beautiful ; till her death she preserved a certain grace in caiTiage and conver- sation which everywhere attracted attention. She was very popular, and was fond of social gatherings. Some people thought her haughty, which she was not, but she maintained a certain reserve in her demeanour towards strangers, and was besides fully aware of all her advantages, mental and physical. This is an account of her marriage in her own words. ' Before I had completed my nineteenth year, a brilliant future was opened out to me by this mar- riage, more brilliant than I was justified in anticipating^ but that these considerations had no weight in my youthful mind upon my final decision will be readily believed. I thought I had done with life, a delusion 12 AETHUE SCHOPENHAUER. to which one so easily and willingly gives way in early youth upon the first painful experience. I knew I had cause to be proud of belonging to this man, and I was proud. At the same time I as little feigned ardent love for him, as he demanded it from me.' Her education had been as incomplete as her mother's, but constant communion with a man of Hein- rich Schopenhauer's calibre, united to good natural ability, soon developed her intellectual growth. His house, alone, was an education. It was elegantly fur- nished so as to foster her sense of refinement; the walls ivere hung with engravings after the old masters, busts and excellent casts of antique statues ornamented the rooms ; the library was stocked with the best French, German, and English authors. An English clergyman attached to the colony at Danzig, Dr. Jameson, had been her friend and tutor from childhood. Under his guidance she read with judicious care and understand- ing, so that thanks to his aid and that of her husband, combined with the fruitful soil she herself offered for these endeavours, her mental development was rapid. The honeymoon of this pair was spent at their country seat of Oliva. They had hardly been married before Heinrich was seized with one of his eager long- ings to travel. The young wife shared his passion, and they set out upon a long journey. Berlin and Hanover were first visited ; from thence they went to Pyrmont, HIS EARLY YEARS. 13^ even then a popular watering place. Here they became acquainted with the statesman Justus Moser, not un- justly entitled the Franklin of Grermany. After this they proceeded to Frankfort, with which Johanna was especially delighted, little dreaming that it would be- come the home of her unborn son, whose name was destined to add another glory to that ancient city. ' I felt as if a draught of native air greeted me in Frankfort,' she says. ' Everything recalled Danzig to me with its busy independent life.' Belgium was next traversed, then the pair visited Paris, and finally crossed to England. It was the father's wish that his son — for he had determined on the sex — should be born in England, in order that he might enjoy all the rights of English citizenship; and with great reluctance he relinquished his purpose, ne- cessitated by his wife's precarious state of health. The journey fell in the depth of winter, and was attended with hardships of which the present generation can form no idea. It was, however, safely accomplished. On the 22nd of February, 1788, the great pessimist first saw the light of a world he deemed so wretched. The house in which he was born still stands, though greatly altered. It is No. 117, Heiligengeiststrasse, in Danzig. An anecdote of his birthday has been preserved. His father, it appears, was distinguished by intellectual. 14 AKTHUK SCHOPENHAUEK. rather than personal attractions. He was short and clumsily made, his broad face was lighted by prominent eyes, only redeemed from ugliness by their intelligence, his nose was stumpy and upturned, his mouth large and wide. From early youth too he had been deaf. When, on the afternoon of the 22nd of February, he entered his counting-house, and laconically announced to the assembled clerks: 6p(07ros, not jjnadv- SponTTos^ was the distinction he himself drew. ' I read in the face of the Apollo Belvedere the just and deep displeasure felt by the god of the Muses for the wretched and incorrigible obstinacy of the Philis- tines. At them he aimed his arrows ; he wished to destroy the brood of the eternally mawkish.' He was penetrated with the conviction that he had been placed in a world peopled with beings morally and intellectually contemptible, from whom he must keep apart, seeking out the few better ones to honour and value, and making it his duty to instruct the others and raise them from their debased condition. For this end he required leisure to think and work, and this leisure was his, thanks to his competence which raised him above the necessity of gaining his daily bread. He could live wholly for his bent. ' Never forget, my friend,' he says to himself, ' that you are a philosopher, called by Nature thereto and to nothing else. Never tread the paths of the Philistines, for even were you desirous to become one, it could not be, you would remain a half-Philistine and a failure.' ' In order that man may preserve a lofty frame of mind, turning his thoughts from the temporal to the eternal ; in one word, to keep a higher consciousness G 2 84 ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. alive in him ; pain, suffering, and failure are as needful as ballast to a ship, without which it does not draw enough water, becomes a plaything for the winds and waves, travels no certain road, and easily overturns.' ' Suffering is a condition of the efficacy of genius. Do you believe that Shakspere and Groethe would have written, Plato philosophised, Kant criticised Pure Rea- son, if they had found satisfaction and contentment in the actual world surrounding them ; if they had felt at home in it, and it had fulfilled their desires ? ' Schopenhauer's first task on his removal to Dresden was to complete the pamphlet on colours for Groethe. He then began to work at his own philosophical system with energy and ardour. As isolated thoughts came, he jotted them down. A marginal note, dated 1849, says of these memoranda : ' These sheets, written at Dresden during the years 1814 to 1818, show the fermenting process of my thoughts, out of which my whole philosophy evolved, revealing itself by degrees, like a beautiful landscape out of a morning mist. It is worthy of notice that already in 1814 (my twenty-seventh year) all the dogmas of my system, even the subordinate, were established.' His state of mind during these years of fermenta- tion is best told in his own words. ' A work forms itself under my hands, or rather in HIS LIFE AT DKESDEN. 85 my mind, a philosophy uniting ethics and metaphysics, which till now have been as wrongly dissociated as men have been separated into body and soul. The work grows, takes substance gradually and slowly, like the child in the womb. I do not know what originated first, what last. I discern one member, one vessel, one part after another ; that is to say, I write them down without troubling myself about the unity of the whole, for I know that all has sprang from one source. Thus arises an organic whole, and only such an one can live. ' I who sit here, who am known by my friends, I compreliend the development of my work as little as the mother does that of the child within her womb. I behold it, and say, like the mother, " I am blessed with the hope of offspring." My mind draws nourish- ment from the outer world by means of reason and sense ; this nourishment gives shape to my work, but I know not how, nor why, this happens to me and not to another who ha^ this nourishment also. ' Chance, supreme ruler of this world of sense, grant me life and peace but a few years more. I love my work as the mother loves her child. When it is ready, when it is born, use your right, claim interest for delay. Yet should I succumb sooner in this iron age, then may these immature attempts, these studies, be given to the world as they are ; perchance there 86 ARTIIUE SCIIOPENnAUER. may arise some kindred spirit who will understand how to piece the fragments and restore the antique.' He did not seclude himself; on the contrary, he sought society more eagerly than usual. He was constantly to be seen in the many rich art gal- leries of Dresden. Eaphael's divine Madonna di S. Sisto was his especial favourite ; he has written some lines on it that wonderfully characterise the strange, startled, rapt expression in the eye of the child Jesus. Sie tragt zur "Welt ihn, unci er schaiit entsetzt In ihrer Grau'l cliaotische Yerwirrung, In ihres Tobens wilde Easerei, In ihres Treibens nie geheilte Thorheit ; In ihrer Quaalen nie gestillten Schmerz, Entsetzt : doch strahlet Ruh', nnd Zuversicht, Und Siegesglanz sein Aug', yeikiindigend Schon der Erlosung ewige Gewissheit. His evenings were spent with friends or at the theatre, of which Schopenhauer was always a great admirer, as well as an acute critic. ' Who does not visit the theatre,' he says, ' resembles one who dresses without looking at himself in the glass.' 'Dramatic art can only affect at the moment ; therefore no artistic plea- sure is rarer, for it .can only be obtained by the actual presence of a man of great talent. Other arts, whose triumphs are durable, have always something to ex- hibit ; the drama very seldom ; nay rather it shows most garishly man's incapacity for attaining excellence.' HIS LIFE AT DRESDEN. 87 After hearing Don Griovanni, he noted, ' Don ■Giovanni is the most vivid illustration how life is VTTovKos.'' He often quoted, with great satisfaction, a criticism Groethe had spoken on the opera. According to him, the merriment in Don Griovanni was only surface deep, while a serious groundwork forms the basis of the play; and the music is a just expression of this double life. Schopenhauer might be seen sitting for hours before some picture. ' You must treat a work of art,' he said, ' like a great man ; stand before it and wait patiently till it deigns to speak.' His views on art are 'Contained in the chapter ' On the Metaphysics of the Beautiful and the Esthetic ' (Parerga). The charming country around Dresden was an additional attraction to Schopenhauer. He loved Na- ture, and found support and inspiration in communion with her. To his life's end he walked with an ener- getic hurried step ; in these youthful days his massive square figure tearing along the banks of the Elbe, pausing occasionally to jot down a thought, was a familiar object to the good people of Dresden. He did not love these people any more than the Grermans as a whole. ' The North Saxon,' he said, ' is clumsy without being awkward; and the South Saxon awk- ward without being clumsy.' Another of his favourite thinking places was the 88 AETHUE SCHOPENHAUEE. large conservatory in the Zwinger. At times the divine afflatus would so ferment in him that his looks and gestm-es resembled a maniac's. Once, lost in thought, he was striding up and down before the plants whose physiognomy he was studying, asking him- self whence they had these varied shapes and colours. ' What would these shrubs reveal to me by their curious forms ? What is the inner subjective beingv the Will, that manifests itself in these leaves and flowers ? ' He must have spoken aloud, and by this, and his violent gesticulations attracted the notice of the keeper, who felt curious as to who this eccentric gentleman could be. Groing up as Schopenhauer was leaving the conservatory, he asked him who he was. ' Yes, if you could tell me who I am, I should be greatly indebted,' answered Schopenhauer. The man stared in blank amazement, and was confirmed in his suspicions of the stranger's insanity. Another day he had paced the orangery, then in full bloom. Having secured a thought he had long wrestled for, he rushed home intoxicated with joy. Some of the blossoms had fallen on to his coat. ' You are in blossom, sir," said his landlady, picking them off. ' Of course I am,' he replied to her no small bewilderment, ' how should the trees bear fruit if they did not blossom ? ' As his work progressed and his own views evolved HIS LIFE AT DKESDEN. 89* before his mental vision, his pessimism grew confirmed. He was naturally nervous, Bvo-koXos. Whenever the postman brought a letter he would start at the thought of possible evil. He confessed, ' If I have nothing that alarms me I grow alarmed at this very condition, as if there must still be something of which I am only ignorant for a time. " Misera conditio nostra." ' At the outbreak of the wars of liberation he was pursued with the fear of being forced to serve. He was easily angered, suspicious and irritable. ' Its safer trusting fear than faith,' was one of his favourite quotations. As a child of six he had once persuaded himself that he was abandoned by his parents, and was found in a passion of tears on their return from a long walk. The slightest noise at night made him start and seize the pistols that always lay ready loaded. He would never trust himself under the razor of a barber, and he fled from the mere mention of an infectious disease. He carried a little leathern drinking-cup about with him if he dined in a public place, to avoid possible conta- gion, and his pipes and cigar tips were carefully locked away after use lest another person should touch them. Accounts or any notes regarding his property were never entrusted to the Grerman language ; his expenses- were written in English, his business affairs in Grreek or Latin. His valuables were hidden in the strangest places, he even labelled them with deceptive names ta ■90 ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. avert the suspicion of thieves, thus, his coupons as 'Arcana medica.' He hid bonds among old letters, and gold under his inkstand. This inborn nervousness caused him much torture, and was bitterly regretted, but appears to have been quite unconquerable. All this of course seems extremely petty and contemptible, unworthy a philosopher. Alas, man is at best ' all with speckles pied.' Schopenhauer himself says : ' Persons of wit and genius, and all such with whom the cultivation of their intellectual, theoretical, and mental paths has outsped that of their moral and practical character, are often not only awkward and laughable in real life, as Plato has noted in the 7th book of the Republic, and Groethe has depicted in Tasso, but also morally weak, despicable, ay even bad.' Concerning his pessimistic doctrines, he drew a fine distinction between such misanthropy as sprang from a noble nature and from one that was innately cor- rupt. ' The misanthropy of a Timon of Athens is some- thing quite different from the malevolence of the wicked. That arises from an objective recognition of the wickedness and folly of men in general, it does not fall on individuals, though individuals may give the first impetus ; it concerns all, and each individual is merely looked on as an example. It is even a certain HIS LIFE AT DRESDEN. 91 noble displeasure that only arises out of the conscious- ness of a better nature that has revolted against unex- pected wickedness. On the other hand, ordinary male- volence, ill-will and malice are quite subjective, arising not from cognition but from Will, which is constantly •crossed by collision with other persons and therefore hates individuals, i.e., all ; yet only partially, separately, and solely from a subjective point of view. He will love some few with whom he is united by relationship, habit or interest, although they are not better than the rest. The misanthrope is related to the merely male- volent, as the ascetic who gives up the will to live, who resigns, to the suicide, who, it is true, takes his own life, but dreads some certain event in life more, so that his fear outweighs his love to live. Malevolence and suicide are only called forth by certain cases ; misan- thropy and resignation include the whole of life. Those resemble the ordinary shipper who knows by routine how to sail a certain path on the sea, but is helpless elsewhere ; these are like a skilful navigator who knows the use of compass, chart, quadrant, and chronometer, and so finds his way over the whole world. Malevolence and suicide would disappear if certain circumstances were erased : misanthropy and resignation stand firm and are moved by nothing temporal.' It may excite surprise why a man who found life so 92 ARTHUE SCHOPENHAUER. unsatisfactory should care to live. Curiously, liowevery Schopenhauer was emphatic against suicide. Blind Will had set the puppets of human life in motion, the same power demands their preservation until their natural end. To flee from life is not cowardly but abnormal. It is only the disagreeable present conditions a man desires to quit, he does not deny the will to live ; this may consequently continue after his death and cause- him to take shape again in some more unpleasant form.. This appears paradoxical, indeed many views held by Schopenhauer were so. He knew this and rather prided himself upon it. ' Whoever is prejudiced by the paradoxicalness of a work, is clearly of opinion that a great deal of wis- dom is in circulation, that the world has got very far indeed, and that only details need emendation. But whoever, like Plato, polishes off current opinion with roh '7roX\ot9 iroXka Bo/csi, or is convinced with Groethe- that the absurd really fills the world, such an one regards the paradoxicalness of any work as a prima fade, although by no means a decisive, symptom of its; merit. ' It would be a beautiful world in which truth could not be paradox, virtue suffer no pain, and every good thing be certain of approbation.' Schopenhauer early recognised in what manner his- philosophy differed from the common. HIS LIFE AT DRESDEN. 93 ' The Philosophasters can never get outside them- •selves and deliberately regard the world and their inner being ; they think to spin out a system from concep- tions : it becomes worthy its origin. ' The subject for philosophy, the art whose mere materials are conceptions, is only idea. Let the philo- sopher seize the ideas of all such things as exist in con- sciousness and which appear as objects : he must stand like Adam before a new creation and give each thing- its name, he will then strip and starve the dead notions, drawing forth the ever-living idea, like the sculptor his «tatue from the marble.' He anticipated the criticisms his work would call forth. ' After every important discovery detractors spring- up to point out that the same thing was already spoken of in some old chronicles ; these will find traces of my teaching in nearly all the philosophies of all ages. Not only in the Vedas, in Plato and Kant, the living matter of Bruno, Grlisson and Spinoza, the slumbering monads of Leibnitz, but throughout in all philosophies, the oldest and the newest. Yet always in the most varied dress, interwoven with absurdities that strike the eye, in the most grotesque shapes, in which one can only recognise them by careful scrutiny. It appears to me like finding in all animals the type of man, but so strangely mauled and unfinished, some- 94 ARTHUE SCHOPENHAUER. times stinted, sometimes monstrous, now a rude attempt and now a caricature. The presumption that dares this comparison is merely a corollary of the pre- sumption that exists in setting up a new philosophic system at all ; for the doing so is an assertion that all previous attempts are failures, and that one's own is a success ; whoever does not think so, and yet thrusts a new system upon the world, is necessarily a charlatan. It has been with philosophy till now as it is in an auction-room, where everyone who speaks last annuls all that has been said before. ' I confess, however, that I do not believe my teach- ing could ever have arisen before the Upanishads, Plato, and Kant could throw their light combined into men's minds. But truly, as Diderot says, many columns have stood, and the sun shone on them all, yet only Memnon's sang.' Schopenhauer was never communicative, his works were for the world, his life was his own. Little is therefore known of his outer history during these four years at Dresden, though such ample memoranda remain of his thoughts. It appears he mixed chiefly among literary men with whom he was, strange to say, popular, notwithstanding his withering sarcasms and in- tellectual haughtiness. The three most popular novelists of the day, Heun, Schulze, and Schilling were the men he saw most constantly, all of them his seniors, excel- HIS LIFE AT DRESDEN. 95 leDt companions, witty and amusing. Schilling's eighty volumes of tales were already forgotten in Schopen- hauer's old age, a circumstance he regretted, as he valued them for their inexhaustible fund of humour. Neither are the other two remembered, except as names ; their works slumber in oblivion. The poet Ludwig Tieck also lived at Dresden, and for some time Schopenhauer visited much at his house, the central point of literary society. Tieck drew all intellectual men and women around him, and his wonderful dramatic readings and table talk were widely known. Some severe remarks let fall by Schopenhauer against Tieck's intimate friend Frederick Schlegel broke this intimacy* The truest friend he made at this time was Johann Grottlieb von Quandt, the art critic, who remained devoted to him till death. Schopenhauer's sarcasms did not spare even his friends. Quandt and he were of accord on many subjects and each derived pleasure from their intercourse, but Quandt would often remind Schopenhauer in after years of how little he had .valued his opinion. ' If I ever had at all a good idea,' he said, ' you always asked me where I had read that, as if I picked up all my thoughts out of the dustbins of literature.' Under such conditions, slowly and steadily was Schopenhauer's ojpus maximum, ' Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,' brought to an end. It contains his ■96 AETHUR SCHOPENHAUER. entire system, in it lie reached the apex of his intellec- tual life, all his later writings are mere brilliant commentaries and illustrations. In the spring of 1818, the manuscript was sent to Messrs. Brockhaus, of Leipzig, who gladly undertook its publication, paying the author a ducat the printed sheet. ' Whoever has accomplished a great immortal work will be as little hurt by its reception from the public, or swayed by the opinions of critics, as a sane man in a madhouse is affected by the upbraidings and aggressions of the insane.' These were the words Schopenhauer wrote as he sent his great work into the world. HIS ' OPUS MAXIMUM.' 97 CHAPTEE V. HIS 'OPUS MAXIMUM.' We will now attempt some definition of the leading- conception of 'Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,' the great work on which Schopenhauer rested his repu- tation. Anythiiig like a full analysis would be beyond our limits, but it may be possible briefly to convey a sufficient idea of its nature and- scope, to indicate the writer's place in the history of speculation. His own claim was to be regarded as the immediate successor of Kant, and such, no doubt considered merely as a meta- physician, he was. Philosophically however, he is chiefly interesting as a representative of Indian thought in the west, and a consequent precursor of that fusion of the European spirit of experimental research, with the East- ern genius for abstract sjpeculation, which, fostered by the mutual .intercourse of both peoples, is beginning to exert so pow^erful an influence upon each. Or, to put the matter somewhat differently, he may be described as helping to indicate that transition of the European mind from a monotheistic to a pantheistic view of the H 98 AETHUE SCHOPENHAUEE. universe, wliich began witli Griordano Bruno, and of which the end is not yet. Every philosophy and religion aiming to give a rational account of the universe must be either mun- dane or extra-mundane; it must either regard the cause of the Cosmos as contained in the Cosmos itself, or refer the existence of the latter to the interposition of some external agent. At a certain stage of man's intellectual progress the latter conclusion seems abso- lutely forced upon him. Having fully mastered the truth that every effect implies a cause, for ordinary common sense is not easily convinced that cause and effect are either unrelated, or, as has been recently maintained, identical, he is irresistibly impelled to seek the cause of every effect which he witnesses. Finding himself surrounded by phenomena inexplicable in the actual state of his knowledge, he naturally ascribes them to a cause external to the universe, and indepen- dent of it. The flaming thunderbolt, for instance, seems sufficient evidence of the existence of some agent by whom it is hurled upon the earth. No javelin of wood and iron, the reasoner knows well, could be cast forth without the immediate or mediate agency of an arm, and why a javelin of fire ? It requires a considerable intellectual advance, ere he is able to discern that the same degree of evidence does not exist for the fact and for the hypothesis by which it is sought to be explained, HIS ' OPUS maximum; 99 that the former is a matter of observation, and the latter of inference. The recognition of this truth signalises the birth of philosophy, which, alike in its speculative and practical aspect, may be defined for our present purpose as the endeavour to substitute knowledge for hypothesis : and the idea of an extraneous agency as the cause of the Universe being necessarily an hypothesis, although a very plausible one, the ten/^'vncy of philosophical speculation, as such, istnecessarily to weaken this notion. It is perceived in turn, that if the connection of the assumed cause and the effect is necessary, the two are inseparable, and that to deny the inevitableness of their connection is to assert that the supposed extra- neous cause of the Universe might conceivably have been unattended by any effect whatever. It obviously follows that if the Universe is not to be explained on the hypothesis of such extraneous agency, it can only be explicable as the result of forces immanent in itself; and as all these forces admit of being comprehended under the general title of Universe, and regarded as modifi- cations of a single existence, the tendency of this course of speculation must be to establish an absolute unity of cause, and a virtual identity of cause and effect — the natura naturans and natura naturata of Spinoza. This mental process is exhibited with great clearness in the gradual transition from the naturalistic polytheism H 2 100 AETHUE SCHOPENHAUEE. of the primitive Hindoos to Brahminical Pantheism ; ,, and on the experimental side, not less evidently in the history of European science. The great significance of Schopenhauer arises from his active participation in this characteristic intel- lectual movement of his age, and from his having at the same time formulated the doctrine of universal unity in a manner practically original and peculiar to himself. His claim could not be better stated than in his own words. 'My age,' he says, 'after the teaching of Bruno, Spinoza, and Schelling, had perfectly understood that all things are but one : but the nature of this unity, and the rationale of its appearance as plurality, were reserved for me to explain.' The theory thus referred to admits of being very briefly stated. It is fully conveyed by the hardly translatable title of Schopenhauer's principal work: ' Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.' As all philoso- phers must, he here makes a distinction between the actual substratum, the real essence of existence, and the merely phenomenal form of its manifestation. Spinoza had called the former natura natui-ans, the latter natura naturata, and had elsewhere described phenomena as the modes of the one infinite and eternal Substance. Schopenhauer endeavours to define this Substance itself, and declares it to be a Will. From HIS 'OPUS maximum; lOl the idea of Will, action is inseparable ; and the ex- istence of the phenomenal world is, according to him, sufficiently explained by regarding it as the result of the craving of the eternal Will, the substratum of all / existence, to manifest itself in an external form. This / Will, in a word, is a will to live. So far there is nothing original in Schoi)enhauer's doctrine, beyond its lively and characteristic method of expression. It is precisely the same as the Buddhist teaching, which refers all existence to desire, and differs but slightly from the religious mysticism which points out that the recognition of Divine attributes implies the necessity of creation, since love and wisdom must be dormant without an object to call them forth. Schopenhauer's peculiarity however is, that while other thinkers have usually assumed Intelligence as an / attribute of Will, Intelligence is to him but a mere phenomenon. 'This resolution,' he says, 'of the so long indivisible Ego or Soul into two heterogeneous constituents, is for philosophy what Lavoisier's resolution of water into oxygen and hydrogen has been for chemistry.' ' The world in itself,' to borrow Mr. Oxenford's con- densation of Schopenhauer's principle, ' is one enormous ^ Will, constantly rushing into life.' Will is the condition of all existence, sentient and insentient. ' Others,' he proudly says, ' have asserted the Will's freedom, I prove its omnipotence.' 102 ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. We cannot do better than translate M. Eibot's terse and lucid summary of Schopenhauer's teaching on this capital point. 'Since Will is the centre of ourselves and of all things, we must give it the first rank. It is its due, although since Anaxagoras Intelligence has usurped its place. In the volume which completes his great work, Schopenhauer has written an interesting chapter on the '' Pre-eminence of the Will," and on the inferiority of the thinking principle considered as a mere " cerebral phenomenon." To speak more exactly, Intelligence is only a tertiary phenomenon. The first place belongs / to the Will, the second to the organism, which is its immediate objectivation, the third to thought, which is a function of the brain, and consequently of the organ- ism. Therefore one may say Intelligence is the secondary phenomenon, the organisation the primary phenomenon ; the Will is metaphysical, the Intelligence is physical ; the Intelligence is the semblance, the Will the thing in itself; and in a still more metaphorical sense : Will is the substance of the man, Intelligence the accident ; Will is the matter, Intelligence the form ; Will is the heat, Intelligence the light.' This is shown by the following facts : ' 1. All knowledge presupposes a subject and an object, but the object is the primitive and essential element, it is the prototype whose ectype is the subject. HIS 'OPUS MAXIMUM.' 103 If we examine our knowledge we shall see that what is / most generally known in us is the Will with its affections : to strive, to desire, to fly, to hope, to fear, to love, to hate ; in a word, all that relates to our well or ill-being, all that is a modification of willing or not willing. Therefore even in our Will is the primitive and essential €lement. ' 2. The basis of consciousness in every animal is desire. This fundamental fact is shown by the tendency to preserve life and well-being, and to reproduce. It is this tendency which, according as it is thwarted or gratified, produces joy, anger, fear, hatred, love, selfish- ness, &c. This fundament is common to the polypus and to man. The difference between animals springs / from a difference in imderstanding. Therefore Will is / the primitive and essential, Intelligence the secondary and accidental fact. ' 3. If we examine the animal series we shall see that as we descend Intelligence becomes feebler and more imperfect, while the Will undergoes no similar degradation. In the smallest insect the WiU is entire, it wills what it wills quite as completely as man. Will is always identical with itself, its function is of the very simplest kind ; to will, or not to will. ' 4. Intelligence tires ; Will is indefatigable. Intel- ligence being secondary and physical, is, as such, subject to the force of inertia^ which explains why intellectual 104 AETHUE SCHOPENHAUEE. work requires moments of repose, and why age causes degeneracy of the brain, followed by imbecility or in- sanity. When we see men like Swift, Kant, Walter Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, and so many others sink into childishness, or into a state of intellectual feebleness, how can we deny that Intelligence is a pure organ, a function of the body, while the body is a function of the Will? ' 5. Intelligence plays its secondary part so well that it can only adequately accomplish its function while the Will is silent and does not interpose ; it has long been remarked that " passion is the declared enemy of pru- dence." Bacon justly says : ' " The eye of the human understanding is not a naked organ of perception {lumen siccum), but an eye imbued with moisture by Will and Passion. Man always believes what he determines to believe.'- ' 6. The functions of Intelligence, on the contrary, are augmented by the stimulation of the Will, when both act in concert. This is another common remark, that " Necessity is mother of the arts." " Facit indig- natio versum " &c. Even in animals, facts quoted by those who have observed them, show that when Will commands. Intelligence obeys. But the converse is not true. Intelligence is eclipsed by Will, as the moon by the sun. ' 7. If Will took its origin from Intelligence, as is / HIS 'OPUS MAXIMUM.' 105- generally admitted, there ought to be much will where t there is much knowledge and reason. But it is not always thus, as the experience of all ages' exemplifies. Intelligence is the instrument of "Will, as the hammer is that of the smith. ' 8. Let us consider on the one hand the virtues and faults of Intelligence, on the other those of Will ; history and experience teach that they are entirely independent of each other. Among examples which crowd upon us, * we will mention only one, Francis Bacon. Intellectual gifts have always been held as presents from Nature or the gods. Moral virtues are considered as innate, as really interior and personal. Thus all religions have promised eternal rewards, not to the virtues of the mind, which are exterior and accidental, but to the virtues of character, which are the man himself. And lasting friendships are far oftener those whose foundation rests on an accord of Will, than those whose foundation is an analogy of In- telligence. Hence the power possessed by the spirit of party, sect, faction, &c. ' 9. We should also remember the difference that every one makes between the Ifieart and the liead. The heart, the jprimum mobile of animal life, is rightly used as synonymous with the Will. We say heart whenever there is Will, head whenever there is Knowledge. We embalm the hearts of heroes, not 106 AKTHUK SCHOPENHAUEK. their brains ; we preserve the skull of a poet, a philo- sopher. '10. On what does the identity of personality rest? Not on the matter of the body, which changes in a few years ; nor on the form, which changes entirely and in all its parts ; nor on the consciousness, for that rests on memory ; age and maladies, physical and mental, destroy it. It can therefore only rest on the identity of the Will and the immortality of character. " Man is incarnate in the heart, not in the head." '11. The Will to live, with the consequent horror of death that results, is a fact anterior to, and inde- pendent of, all intelligence. ' 12. The secondary and dependent nature of Intelligence is plainly shown by its character of in- termittence and periodicity. In profound sleep all consciousness ceases. Only the centre of our being, the metaphysical principle, the 'primuim mobile^ does not stop, or life would cease. While the brain rests, and with it the intelligence, the organic functions con- tinue their work. The brain, whose proper office is to know, is a sentinel placed in the head by Will, to guard the outer world through the window of the senses ; hence its condition of constant effort and con- tinual tension, and hence the necessity of relieving it at its post.' — Th. Eibot, ' La Philosophic de Schopen- hauer,' pp. 69-72. HIS ' OPUS MAXIMUM.' 107 Schopenhauer's philosophy is therefore a phase of Pantheism, a modification of the system represented in Europe by Bruno,^ Spinoza, and Schelling, though differentiated from their philosophies by a bisection of the Soul, Ego, or First Principle, into two factors de- scribed as Will and Intelligence, — a separation capable, according to himself, of resolving the contradictions charged against Pantheism in general. If we first inquire into the genesis of this theory, which did not of course come spontaneously into being without in- tellectual antecedents, we shall probably find that it may be defined with equal propriety as an engrafting of Indian Pantheism upon Kant, or vice versa. Scho- penhauer himself magnanimously pointed out that he had been in some degree anticipated by the Wolfian / philosopher Crusius, to whom he applied the humorous imprecation, Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere. Kant, his first master, had taught him the illusiveness of space and time, and the unreality of the world of phenomena. In the Upanishads, the Vedanta phi- losophy, and such other documents of Indian wisdom as were accessible to the European world in his youth, of which his early note-books show him to have been an enthusiastic student, he found the same ideas re- iterated in a mystical form congenial to his imagina- * Intelligentia est divina qtisedam vis, insita rebus omnibus cum actu cognitionis, qua omnia intelligunt, sentiunt, et quomodoeunque cognoscunt. — Bruno. 108 AUTHUE SCHOPENHAUEE. tion and combined with that pessimistic view of life co-nate with his hypochondriacal temperament. The peculiar stress he was led to place upon the Will as the real cause of existence may be logically defensible,, but was no doubt in the first instance subjective, the reflection of his own individuality. ' An enormous- Will, constantly rushing into life,' would be no bad description of his own spiritual constitution. He must also throughout his life have been painfully conscious of the discordance of his philosophical principles witli his habitual practice. ' I preach sanctity,' he said, ' but I am myself na saint.' The Will, the blind instinctive impulse, was with him continually getting the upper hand of the regu- lating faculty, the Eeason. It was natural therefore, that he should regard the former as the primary sub- stance, the latter as the accident or phenomenon. ' ' Intelligence,' as his teaching is condensed by M.. Eibot, ' has but one end, the conservation of the indi- vidual. All else is ornament and superfluity.' This being so, the Will recognised by Schopenhauer as the basis of Being must be a Will to Live, and the question immediately arises whether this Will be a good one or a bad one. Schopenhauer's answer is ap- parent from what we have already told in his biography. He holds with the Indian and Singhalese schools of HIS 'OPUS maximum; 109 Buddhism (northern Buddhism seems to teach otherwise) that desire is the root of all evil, and that all desire may be reduced to the affirmation (Bejahung) of the Will to Live. By suppressing desire we suppress evil, but we suppress existence also. The whole world therefore ' lieth in wickedness ; ' it is a world that ought never to have been. The ethical and practical bearings of this conception will be better discussed elsewhere. We may remark here, however, upon the practical dis- advantages under which Schopenhauer is placed in comparison with Spinoza, by the primary importance he assigns to Will, and his divorce between volition and intelligence. No foundation is thus left for his universe but a blind unintelligent force, which could not reasonably be an object of reverence, even were its operation as beneficial as, according to Schopenhauer, it is the reverse. No religion consequently remains, except that of simple philanthropy and self-denial. To Spinoza, on the contrary'. Will and Intelligence alike, along with the entire material and spiritual universe, are but the manifestations of an infinite Substance, which, as infinite, must necessarily be manifested in an infinity of ways utterly beyond our comprehension. To Schopenhauer the universe has a centre, and that centre is a mere blind impulse. To Spinoza, as has been finely said, the centre is every- where and the circumference nowhere. The one, there- 110 AETHUR SCHOPENHAUER. fore, fully provides for the religious reverence tlie other abolishes. At the same time it must be added that the acceptance of Schopenhauer's view of the Will as the ultimate cause, and the denial of all qualities to it beyond instinctive impulse, by no means bind the dis- ' ciple to the acceptance of his pessimistic view of the universe. As Schopenhauer himself admits, the appre- ciation of phenomena varies greatly as the interpreter is by temperament svkoXos or 8ucr/co\os. Schopenhauer's disciple may be as enchanted with the beauty, har- mony, and convenience of the world as his master is impressed with its misery and wretchedness ; yet, if accepting his postulate of Will as the prime factor of Being, he is still speculatively his disciple. Very few of Schopenhauer's followers have consistently adopted his pessimism. Eduard von Hartmann, a writer of singular power and genius, who gave Schopenhauer's views a great development in his ' Philosophie des Unbewussten,' in his last publication betrays a wish to. recede from the advanced views he at one time held upon the subject. It need hardly be added that, although Schopen- hauer's cardinal principle is the omnipotence of Will, the freedom of the individual will is strenuously de- nied by him. All phenomena being but manifestations of the one primary force, are necessarily conditioned \ by it. No man can change his character, for the cha- HIS 'OPUS MAXIMUM.' Ill racier is the Will itself exhibited in a phenomenal form. ' The absolute Will,' says Mr. Oxenford, interpreting him, 'which lay beyond the jurisdiction of causality, has forced itself into the world of phenomena in an individual shape, and it must take the consequences, that is to say, a subjugation to that law of cause and effect by which the whole world of phenomena is governed. The character, which is the Idea of the human individual, just as gravitation is one of the Ideas of matter, is born with him, and cannot be altered. The knowledge of the individual may be enlarged, and consequently may be put in a better track, by learning that his natural desires will be more gratified if he obeys the laws of society than if he rises against them ; but the character remains the same.' This admission however seems to involve a larger o concession to Intelligence than is quite consistent with the spirit of Schopenhauer's philosophy. His theory — too, while thoroughly necessarian as respects the irre- sistible influence of motive upon action, is opposed to necessarianism, in the less refined and more popular aspect presented in the common phrase ' Man is the creature of circumstances.' He must have concurred with Mr. Mill ('Autobiography,' p. 169), that though our character is formed by circumstances, our desires^ 112 ) AETHUE SCHOPENHAUEE.