Schopenhauer, A - Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1974)

Parerga
and
Paralipomena
Short Philosophical Essays
by
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Translated from the German

by
E. F. J. PAYNE
VOLUl\fE T\VO
CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860.
IParerga and paralipomena. English)
Parerga and paralipomena: short philosophical essays I Arthur Schopenhauer;
translated from the German by E. F. J. Paync.-Rev. cd.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. l. Six long philosophical essays./-v. 2. Short philosophical essays.
I. Philosophy. I. Payne, E. F. J. II. Title.
B3118.ES P38 2000 193-dc21 00-059825
ISBN 0-19-924221-6
5791086
Printed in Great Britain by
on acid-free paper by
Biddies Ltd., King's Lynn, Norfolk
Vitam impendere vero
Juvenal, Sat. IV. 91
["Dedicate one's Hfe to truth"]
Contents
STRAY YET SYSTEMATICALLY ARRANGED
THOUGHTS ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS
I. On Philosophy and its Method 3
II. On Logic and Dialectic 21
III. Ideas concerning the Intellect generally and in

all Respects 33
IV. Some Observations on the Antithesis of the
Thing-in-Itself and the Phenomenon go
V. A few Words on Pantheism 99
VI. On Philosophy and Natural Science 103
VII. On the Theory of Colours 177

VIII. On Ethics 201
IX. On Jurisprudence and Politics 240
X. On the Doctrine of the Indestructibility of our

True Nature by Death 267
XI. Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the
Vanity of Existence 283
XII. Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the

Suffering of the World 291
XII I. On Suicide 306
XIV. Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the

Affirmation and Denial of the Will-to-Live 31 2
XV. On Religion
XVI. Some Remarks on Sanskrit Literature
XVII. Some Archaeological Observations
XVIII. Some Mythological Observations
XIX. On the Metaphysics of the Beautiful and Aes-
thetics 415
\'111 CONTENTS
XX. On Judgement, Criticism, Approbation, and

Fame 453
XXI. On Learning and the Learned 4 79
XXII. On Thinking for Oneself 491
XXIII. On Authorship and Style 501
XXIV. On Reading and Books 554
XXV. On Language and Words 565
XXVI. Psychological Remarks 581
XXVII. On Women 614
XXVIII. On Education 627
XXIX. On Physiognomy 634
XXX. On Din and Noise 642
XXXI. Similes, Parables, and Fables 646
Some Verses 653
Selected Bibliography 659
Index 661
STRAY YET SYSTEMATICALLY
ARRANGED THOUGHTS ONA
VARIETY OF SUBJECTS
Eleusis servat quod ostendat revisentibus.

Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, vn. go.
[' Eleusis keeps something that it can disclose only on a second

visit.']
CHAPTER I
On Philosophy and its Method
I
The ultimate basis on which all our knowledge and science
rest is the inexplicable. Therefore every explanation leads back
to this by means of more or less intermediate stages, just as in
the sea the plummet finds the bottom sometimes at a greater
and sometimes at a lesser depth, yet everywhere it must ulti-
mately reach this. This inexplicable something devolves on
metaphysics.
2
Almost all are for ever thinking that they are such and such
a man (TtS' av8pw1roS'), together with the corollaries resulting
therefrom. On the other hand, it hardly ever occurs to them that
they are in general a human being (o av8pw1ros) with all the
corollaries following from this; and yet this is the vital question.
The few who adhere more to the latter than to the former
proposition are philosophers. The tendency of the others,
however, is reducible to the fact that generally they always see
in things only their particular and individual aspect, never their
universal. Only the more highly gifted, according to the degree
of their eminence, see more and more in individual things their
universal aspect. This important distinction penetrates the
whole faculty of knowledge to such a degree that it reaches
down to the intuitive perception of the most ordinary everyday
objects. Hence such perception is in the eminent mind different
from what it is in the ordinary. This grasping of the universal
in the particular that always presents itself coincides also with
what I have called the pure will-less subject of knowing, and
have set up as the subjective correlative of the Platonic Idea.
For only if knowledge is directed to the universal can it remain
will-less; on the other hand, the objects of willing are to be
found in individual things. Therefore the knowledge of animals
is strictly limited to these particular things and accordingly their
4 ON PHILOSOPHY AND ITS METHOD
intellect remains exclusively in the service of their will. On the
other hand, that tendency of the mind to the universal is the
indispensable condition for true and original achievements in
philosophy, poetry, and the arts and sciences generally.
For the intellect in the service of the will and thus in practical
use, there are only particular things; for the intellect which
pursues art or science and is, therefore, active for its O'\vn sake,
there are only universalities, whole kinds, species, classes, Ideas of
things; for even the creative artist tries in the individual to
present the Idea, the species. This is due to the fact that the will
is directly turned only to particular things which are its real
objects, for they alone have empirical reality. Concepts, classes,
and species, on the other hand, can become its objects only
very indirectly; and so the vulgar and uncultured have no
thought or desire for universal truths, whereas the genius over-
looks and ignores what is individual. Enforced occupation with
the particular thing as such, in so far as this constitutes the
material of practical life, is for him an irksome bondage.
3
The two primary requirements for philosophizing are first
that we have the courage to make a clean breast of a question,
and secondly that we become clearly conscious of everything
that is self-evident in order to comprehend it as a problet:n.
Finally in order really to philosophize, the mind must be truly
at leisure. It must not pursue any aims and so must not be
guided by the will; it must give its undivided attention to the
instruction that is imparted to it by the world of intuitive
perception and by its own consciousness. Professors of philo-
sophy, on the other hand, have in mind their personal interest
and advantage and what leads thereto; this is where they are
in earnest. Hence there are so many distinct things which they
do not see at all; in fact, not even the problems of philosophy
ever occur to them.
4
The poet brings before the imagination pictures of life,
human characters and situations, all of which he sets in motion
and then leaves it to everyone to think in the case of such
pictures as much as his mental powers will allow. For this reason,
ON PHILOSOPHY AND ITS METHOD 5
he is able to satisfy men of the most varied capacities, indeed
fools and sages simultaneously. The philosopher, on the other
hand, does not bring life itself in this way, but the completed
ideas he has abstracted therefrom, and he now requires that his
reader will think in precisely the same way and to just the same
extent as does he himself; and so his public will be very small.
The poet is, accordingly, comparable to the man who brings
the flowers, whereas the philosopher resembles one who brings
their quintessence.
Another great advantage that poetical achievements have
over philosophical is that all the works of poetry can exist
simultaneously without thwarting and impeding one another;
in fact even the most heterogeneous can be enjoyed and
appreciated by one and the same mind. On the other hand,
hardly has any philosophical system come into the world when
it already contemplates the destruction of all its brothers, like
an Asiatic sultan when he ascends the throne. For just as there
can be only one queen in a beehive, so can only one philosophy
be the order of the day. Thus systems are by nature as un-
sociable as spiders, each of which sits alone in its web and sees
how many flies will allow themselves to be caught therein, but
approaches another spider merely in order to battle with it.
Thus whereas the works of poets pasture peacefully side by side
like lambs, those of philosophy are born beasts of prey and,
even in their destructive impulse, they are like scorpions,
spiders, and the larvae of some insects and are turned primarily
against their own species. They appear in the world like men
clad in annour from the seed of the dragon's teeth of jason and
till now have, like these, mutually exterminated one another.
This struggle has already lasted for more than two thousand
years; will there ever result from it a final victory and lasting
peace?
In consequence of this essentially polemical nature, this
bellum omnium contra omnes 1 of philosophical systems, it is infinitely
more difficult to gain recognition as a philosopher than as a
poet. The poet's work demands of the reader nothing more
than an entry into the series of writings that entertain or
elevate him and the devotion thereto of a few hours. The
['War of all against all'.]

philosopher's work, on the other hand, tries to revolutionize
the reader's whole mode of thought. It demands of him that he
shall acknowledge as error all that he has hitherto learnt and
believed in this branch of knowledge; that he shall declare all
his time and trouble to be wasted; and that he shall begin
again at the beginning. At most, it leaves standing a few
fragments of a predecessor in order thereon to make its
foundation. Again, there is the fact that it has in every teacher
of an already existing system an opponent by virtue of his office.
In fact, even the State smnetimes takes under its protection a
favourite philosophical system and, by n1eans of its powerful
material resources, prevents the success of any other. Moreover,
if we bear in mind that the size of the philosophical public and
that of the poetical are in the same proportion as the number
of those who want to be taught is to the number who want to
be amused, we shall be able to judge, quibus auspiciis,z a philo-
sopher makes his appearance. On the other hand, of course, it
is the approbation of thinkers, of the elect of long intervals of
time and of all countries without national distinction, with
which the philosopher is rewarded. Gradually, on the strength
of authority, the crowd learns to respect and honour his name.
In accordance with this and on account of the slow but pro-
found effect of the course of philosophy on that of the whole
human race, the history of philosophers has proceeded for
thousands of years along with that of kings and has numbered
a hundred times fewer names than has the latter. It is, therefore,
a great thing for anyone to procure for his name a permanent
place in the history of philosophers.
s
The philosophical author is the leader, his reader the
wanderer. If they are to arrive together, they tnust above all
start out together; in other words, the author must take up his
reader at a standpoint which they undoubtedly have in
common. This, however, can be none other than that of
empirical consciousness that is common to us all. Let him,
therefore, take him firmly by the hand and see how high above
the clouds he can reach, step by step on the mountain path.
:!('Under what auspices'.]

Kant proceeded in this way; he started from the entirely
common consciousness of other things as well as of his own
self. On the other hand, how absurd it is to attempt to start
from the standpoint of a pretended intellectual intuition of
hyperphysical relations, or of events, or even of a reason
[ Vernunft] that perceives the supernatural, or of an absolute
self-thinking reason [Vernunft]! For all this means starting from
the standpoint of cognitions that are not directly communicable;
and so here, at the very beginning, the reader never knows
whether he is standing near his author or is miles away frmn
him.
6
Conversation about things with someone else is related to our
own serious meditation and profound consideration of them as
is a machine to a living organisn1. For only in the latter is
everything as if it were cut from one piece or played in one key;
and thus it can attain absolute clearness, distinctness, and true
coherence, in fact unity; whereas with the fonner heterogeneous
pieces of very different origin are put together and a certain
unity of movement is forced which often stops unexpectedly.
Thus only ourselves do we thoroughly understand; others are
only half-understood, for at best we can attain to a community
of concepts, not to that of intuitive apprehension which is the
very basis thereof. Therefore profound philosophical truths will
never be brought to light by way of common thinking in
dialogue. Yet such a thing is very useful for the preliminary
practice, hunting up, and ventilation of problems, and subse-
quently for the testing, control, and criticism of the suggested
solution. Plato's dialogues are drawn up in this sense, and
accordingly from his school there issued the second and third
academies with an increasingly sceptical tendency. As a form
for the communication of philosophical ideas the written dia-
logue is appropriate only when the subject ad.Inits of two or
more quite different or even opposite views. The judgement
concerning them is to be left to the reader; or taken together
they lead to a complete and correct comprehension of the
matter. To the first case belongs the refutation of objections
that are raised. But then the dialogue form that is chosen for
this purpose must becon1e genuinely dramatic in that the
variety of views is thoroughly stressed and worked out; there
must really be two who speak. Without some such purpose it is
mere idle play, as is often the case.
7
Neither our knowledge nor our insight will ever be increased
to any great extent by a comparison and discussion of what has
been said by others; for this is always merely like pouring water
from one vessel into another. Only through our own contem-
plation of things themselves can insight and knowledge be
really enriched; for it alone is the living source that is always
ready and at hand. It is, therefore, curious to see how would-be
philosophers are always busy on the former path and do not
appear to know the latter at all; how they are always concerned
with what one man has said and what another may have meant.
Thus they are, so to speak, always turning old vessels upside
down to see whether some drop may have been left behi)ld,
whereas the living source flows neglected at their feet. Nothing
so much as this betrays their incapacity and gives the lie to
their assumed air of importance, profundity, and originality.
8
Those who hope to become philosophers by studying the
history of philosophy ought rather to infer from this that philo-
sophers, like poets, are only born, and indeed much more rarely.
g
A strange and unworthy definition of philosophy, which even
Kant gives, is that it is a branch of learning from mere concepts.
Yet the whole property of concepts is nothing but what has
been deposited in them, after it had been begged and borrowed
from knowledge of intuitive perception, that real and in-
exhaustible source of all insight. Therefore a true philosophy
cannot be spun out of n1ere abstract concepts, but must be
based on observation and experience, both inner and outer.
It is not by the attempts at the combination of concepts, such
as have been so often carried out, especially by the sophists of
our times, Fichte and Schelling, yet in its most repulsive form
by Hegel and also in morality by Schleiermacher, that any-
thing sound will ever be achieved in philosophy. Like art and
poetry, it must have its source in an apprehension of the world
through intuitive perception. l\rioreover, however nmch the
head has to remain uppermost, the course of things should not
be so cold-blooded that the whole man, with heart and head,
does not in the end take action and become thoroughly roused.
Philosophy is no algebraical sum; on the contrary, Vauven-
argues is right when he says: Les grandes pmsees viennent du coeur.3
IO
On the whole, the philosophy of all times can be conceived
as a pendulum swinging between raJionalism and illuminism,
that is, between the usc of the objective source of knowledge
and that of the subjective.
Rationalism, having for its organ the intellect that is originally
destined to serve the will alone and is thus directed outwards,
makes its first appearance as dogmatism; and as such it main-
tains a completely objective attitude. It then changes to scepticism
and, in consequence thereof, ultin1ately becomes criticism.
Through a consideration of the subject, it undertakes to settle
the dispute; in other words, it becomes transcendental philosophy.
By this I understand every philosophy that starts from the fact
that its nearest and in1mediate object are not things, but only
man's consciousness thereof, which should, therefore, never be
left out of account. The French smnewhat inaccurately call
this the methode psychologique as opposed to the m!thode purement
logique, by which they understand quite simply the philosophy
that starts from objects or frmn objectively thought concepts,
and hence dogmatis1n. Having now reached this point,
rationalism arrives at the knowledge that its organon grasps
only the phenormnon, but docs not reach the ultimate, inner, and
original essence of things.
At all its stages, yet here most of all, illuminism asserts itself as
its antithesis. Directed essentially inwards, illuminism ha..li as its
organon inner illumination, intellectual intuition, higher con-
sciousness, immediately knowing reason [Vernurift], divine con-
sciousness, unification, and the like, and disparages rationalism
as the 'light of nature'. Now if here it takes as its basis a
J ['Great thoughts come from the heart .]

religion, it becOines mysticism; but its fundamental defect is that
its knowledge is not communicable. This is due partly to the fact
that for inner perception there is no criterion of identity of the
object of different subjects, and partly to the fact that such
knowledge would nevertheless have to be comn1u1ucated by
means of language. But this has arisen for the purpose of the
intellect's outwardly directed knowledge by means of abstrac-
tions therefrom and is quite unsuited for expressing the inner
states or conditions which are fundamentally different from it
and are the material of illuminism. And so this \Vould have to
form a language of its own; but this again is not possible, on
account of the first reason previously mentioned. Now as such
a knowledge is not communicable, it is also undemonstrable,
whereupon rationalis1n again enters the field hand in hand with
scepticism. Illuminism can be traced even in certain passages of
Plato; but it makes a more definite appearance in the philo-
sophy of the Neo-Platonists, the Gnostics, Dionysius the Areo-
pagite, as well as in that of Scotus Er:igena; further among the
Mohammedans in the teaching of the Sufi; in India it is domi-
nant in the Vedanta and Mimansa; it appears most decidedly
in Jacob Boehme and all the Christian mystics. It always
appears when rationalism has run its course without attaining
its goal. Thus it crune towards the end of the scholastic philo-
sophy and in opposition thereto as mysticism, especially of the
Germans, in Taulcr and the author of the Theologia Germanica
among others; and likewise in modern times in opposition to
the Kantian philosophy, in Jacobi and Schelling and similarly
in Fichtc's last period. But philosophy should be communicable
knowledge and xnust, therefore, be rationalism. Accordingly,
at the end of 1ny philosophy I have indicated the sphere of
illuminism as something that exists but I have guarded against
setting even one foot thereon. For I have not undertaken to give
an ultimate explanation of the world's existence, but have only
gone as far as is possible on the objective path of rationalism.
I have left the ground free for illuminism where, in its own way,
it may arrive at a solution to aU problems without obstructing
my path or having to engage in polemic against me.
Nevertheless, a concealed illurnirusJn xnay often enough
underlie rationalism; and to such an illumirusm the philosopher
then looks as to a hidden compass, whereas he admittedly
ON PHILOSOPHY AND ITS METHOD II
steers his course only by the stars, that is, in accordance with
external objects which clearly lie before him and which alone
he takes into account. This is admissible because he does not
undertake to communicate incommunicable knowledge, but
his communications remain purely objective and rational. This
may have been the case with Plato, Spinoza, Malebranche, and
many others; it does not concern anyone, for they are the
secrets of their own breast. On the other hand, the noisy appeal
to intellectual intuition and the bold statement of its substance
with a claim to the objective validity thereof, as in the case of
Fichte and Schelling, are impudent and objectionable.
For the rest, illuminism is in itself a natural, and to that extent
justifiable, attempt to ascertain the truth. For the outwardly
directed intellect, as mere organon for the purposes of the will
and consequently something merely secondary, is nevertheless
only a part of our entire human nature. It belongs to the
phenomenon and its knowledge merely corresponds thereto, since
it exists solely for the purpose of the phenomenon. Therefore
what can be more natural than that, when we have failed with
the objectively knowing intellect, we now bring into play all
that remains of our true being which must also be the thing-in-
itself and thus belong to the true nature of the world and con-
sequently somehow carry within itself the solution to all the
riddles in order through it to seek help? This would be like the
ancient Germans who, when they had gambled away every-
thing, finally staked their own persons. But the only correct and
objectively valid way of carrying this out is for us to apprehend
the empirical fact of a will that proclaims itself in our inmost
being and constitutes our only true nature and to apply this
fact in order to explain objective external knowledge, as I have
accordingly done. On the other hand, for the reasons already
stated, the path of illuminism does not lead to the goal.
II
Mere astuteness qualifies one to be a sceptic, but not a
philosopher. Nevertheless, scepticism is in philosophy what the
opposition is in parliament; it is as beneficial as it is necessary.
It is everywhere based on the fact that philosophy is not capable
of evidence of the kind that mathematics has, any Inore than a
human being is capable of the tricks of animal instinct which
arc also just as a priori certain. Therefore against every system,
scepticism will always be able to lay itself in the other scale; but
compared with the other, its weight will ultimately become so
insignificant that it no more impairs it than it does the arith-
metical squaring of the circle which in fact is only approximate.
What we know has a double value if at the same time we own
up to not knowing what we do not know. For in this way, what
we know becomes free from suspicion to which it is exposed
when, like the Schellingites for instance, we pretend to know
even what we do not know.
12
Declarations of reason [ Vernutifi] is the expression used by
everyone for certain propositions which he regards as true
without investigation and which he believes with so firm a
conviction that, even if he wanted to, he could never bring
himself seriously to test them, for to do so he would meanwhile
have to call them in question. They have become firmly believed
by him because, when he began to speak and think, they were
constantly taught to him and were thus implanted in his mind.
Therefore his habit of thinking them is just as old as is the
habit of thinking itself, so that the result is that he is no longer
able to separate the two; in fact they have grown up with his
brain. What is said here is so true that to support it with
examples would be superfluous on the one hand, and hazardous
on the other.
13
No view of the world can be entirely false which has sprung
from an objective intuitive apprehension of things and has
been logically and consistently maintained. On the contrary,
such a view is in the worst case only one-sided as, for example,
thorough materialism, absolute idealism, and others. They are
all true, but they are all this simultaneously; consequently
their truth is only relative. Thus every such conception is true
only from a definite standpoint just as a picture presents a
landscape only from one point of view. If, however, we raise
ourselves above the standpoint of such a system, we recognize
the relative nature of its truth, that is, its one-sidedness. Only
the highest standpoint that surveys and takes into account
everything can furnish us with absolute truth. Accordingly, it
is true, for instance, when I consider myself as a merely
temporal product of nature which has come into being and is
destined to complete destruction, somewhat after the manner
of Ecclesiastes. At the same time, it is true that everything that
ever was and ever will be I am, and outside me there is nothing.
It is just as true when, after the manner of Anacreon, I put the
greatest happiness in the enjoyment of the present moment; but
at the same time it is true when I recognize the salutary nature
of suffering and the emptiness and even pernicious influence of
all pleasure, and conceive death as the aim and object of my
existence.
All this is due to the fact that every view that is logically
carried out is only an objective apprehension of nature through
intuitive perception, which is translated into concepts and
thereby fixed. But nature, in other words, that which is in-
tuitively perceptual, never lies or contradicts herself, for her
inner essence excludes any such thing. Therefore whenever
we have contradiction and falsehood, we have ideas that have
not sprung from objective apprehension, e.g., in optimism. On
the other hand, an objective apprehension may be incomplete
and onesided; it then needs to be supplemented, not refuted.
14
One is never tired of reproaching metaphysics with its very
small progress in face of the great advance made by the physical
sciences. Even Voltaire exclaims: 0 metaphysique! nous sommes
aussi avances que du tems des premiers Druids4 (Melanges philosophi
ques, ch. g). But what other branch of knowledge has always
had, like metaphysics, an ex officio antagonist, an appointed
fiscal prosecutor, a king's champion in full armour, as a
permanent hindrance, who falls upon it defenceless and
weaponless? It will never show its true powers, never be able
to make its giant strides, so long as it is expected under threats
to accommodate itself to dogmas that arc adapted to the very
small capacity of the masses. First our arms are tied and then
we are ridiculed because we cannot achieve anything.
Religions have taken possession of man's metaphysical
tendency partly by paralysing it through the early inculcation
['0 metaphysics! We have rome as far as the times of the early Druids.']
of their dogmas and partly by forbidding and tabooing all free
and unprejudiced expressions of it. Thus for man the free
investigation concerning the most important and interesting
affairs, namely his very existence, is to some extent directly
forbidden, indirectly prevented, or rendered impossible sub-
jectively through that paralysing effect; and in this way the
sublimest of his faculties lies in fetters.
15
In order to become tolerant of the views of others which are
opposed to our own and to be patient with contradiction, per-
haps nothing is more effective than for us to remember how
often we ourselves have successively held quite opposite opinions
on the same subject and have repeatedly changed them, some-
times even within a very short period; how we have rejected
and again taken up an opinion and then its opposite, according
as the subject presented itself now in this light and now in that.
In the same way, nothing is more calculated to find favour
with another, after we have contradicted his opinion, than the
phrase: 'I was previously of the same opinion but' and so on.
16
A false teaching, whether founded on an erroneous view or
sprung from an unworthy purpose, is always intended only for
special circumstances and consequently for a certain time; but
truth is for all time, although for a while it may be misunder-
stood or stifled. For as soon as a little light comes from within
or a little air from without, someone is found to proclaim or
defend it. Thus since it has not sprung from the design or
purpose of any party, any eminent mind becomes its champion
at any time. For it is like the magnet that points always and
everywhere in one absolutely definite direction; the false
teaching, on the other hand, is like a statue which with its
hand points to another; when once it is separated from this, it
has lost all significance.
17
What is most opposed to the discovery of truth is not the false
appearance that proceeds from things and leads to error, or
even directly a weakness of the intellect. On the contrary, it is
the preconceived opinion, the prejudice, which, as a spurious
a priori, is opposed to truth. It is then like a contrary wind that
drives the ship back from the direction in which the land lies,
so that rudder and sail now work to no purpose.
18
I comment as follows on the verse from Goethe's Faust;
What from your fathers' heritage is lent,
Earn it anew, really to possess it!s
It is of great value and advantage for us to discover by our own
means, independently of thinkers and before we know it, what
they have already discovered before us. For what we have
thought out for ourselves is understood much more thoroughly
than what we have learnt; and when we subsequently find it in
the works of those earlier thinkers, it obtains through the
acknowledged authority of others an unexpected confirmation
that speaks strongly in favour of its truth. In this way, we then
gain confidence and assurance for championing it in face of
every contradiction.
If, on the other hand, we have first discovered something in
books, but have then arrived at the same result through our own
reflection, we never know for certain whether we have thought
this out and judged it for ourselves and have not merely
repeated the words of those earlier thinkers or appropriated
their sentiments. Now this makes a very great difference as
regards the certainty of the matter. For in the latter case, we
might after all have erred with those thinkers through our being
preoccupied with them, just as water readily follows a well-
worn course. If two men independently do a calculation and
obtain the same result, this is sure and certain; but not if the
calculation of one of them has been merely looked through by
the other.
19
It is a consequence of the nature of our intellect, sprung as it
is from the will, that we cannot help conceiving the world either
as end or as means. Now the first would assert that its existence
was justified by its essence and that such existence would,
therefore, be decidedly preferable to its non-existence. But the
s [From Bayard Taylor's translation.]
knowledge that it is only the scene of struggle for suffering and
dying beings renders this idea untenable. Again, the infinity of
the time that has already elapsed docs not admit of its being
conceived as means, for by virtue of infinite time, every end to
be attained would necessarily have been reached long ago.
Fron1 this it follows that that application of the presupposition,
natural to our intellect, to the totality of things or to the world
is transcendent; in other words, it is one that is valid in the world,
but not of the world. This can be explained from the fact that
it springs from the nature of an intellect that has originated, as
I have shown, for the service of an individual will, that is to say,
for attaining the objects thereof. Such an intellect is exclusively
concerned with ends and means and consequently neither knows
nor conceives anything else at all.
When one looks outwards, where the vastness of the world and
the infinitude of its beings display themselves, one's own self as
a mere individual shrinks to nothing and seems to vanish.
Carried away by this very inunensity of mass and number,
one thinks further that only the outward(.y directed, and hence
objective, philosophy can be on the right path; it had never even
occurred to the oldest Greek philosophers to doubt this.
On the other hand, if we look inwards, we find in the first place
that every individual takes an immediate interest only in him-
self; indeed he has his own self n1ore at heart than all else put
together. This comes from the fact that he knows directly only
himself, but everything else merely indirectly. Now if in addi-
tion we consider that conscious and knowing beings are con-
ceivable solely as individuals, but that those without
consciousness have only a half-existence, one that is merely
mecliate, then all real and true existence comes do\vn to indivi-
duals. Finally, we call to mind that the object is conditioned by
the subject, that this immeasurable outside world, therefore,
has its existence only in the consciousruss of knowing beings.
Consequently, this world is so definitely tied to the existence of
individuals who are its bearers that it can in this sense be
regarded even as a mere equipment, an accident, of the always
individual consciousness. If we bear all this in mind, we arrive
at the view that only the inward!;, directed philosophy, starting
from the subject as that which is immediately given, and hence
the philosophy of the moderns since Descartes, is on the right
lines and that the ancients have, therefore, overlooked the main
point. But of this we become perfectly convinced only when we
descend into and commune with ourselves and bring to our
consciousness the feeling of originality which resides in every
knowing being. !\1ore than this, everyone, even the most in-
significant, finds himself in his sitnple self-consciousness as the
most real of all beings and necessarily recognizes in himself the
true centre of the world, indeed the primary source of all reality.
And could this ultimate consciousness lie? Its most powerful
expression is the words of the Upanishad: hae omnes creaturae in
to tum ego sum, et praeter me ens aliud non est, et omnia ego creata feci 6
(Oupnek'hat, Pt. 1, p. 122). This of, course, is the transition to
illuminism and even mysticism. This, then, is the result of
inwardly directed contemplation, whereas the outwardly direc-
ted shows us as the goal of our existence a heap of ashes.*
:From my point of view, the following would be of use con-

cerning the division ofphilosophy which is of in1portance especially
as regards its exposition.
Philosophy, it is true, has as its object experience, but not,
like the other branches of knowledge, this or that definite
experience. On the contrary, it has just experience itself,
generally and as such, according to its possibility, its sphere, its
essential content, its inner and outer elements, its form and
matter. Consequently, philosophy must certainly have empirical
foundations and cannot be spun out of pure abstract concepts,
as I have explained at length in the second volun1e of my chief
work, chapter I 7, and have a] so given as a brief resume in 9
f'iniu and irifiniu are concepts that have significance merely in reference to
space and time since both these arc infinite, that is, endless, just as they are infinitely
divisible. If we still apply these two concepts to other things, then it must be to
such as fill space and time and partake of the qualities thereof. From this it may be
gathered how much these two concepts have in the nineteenth century been
abused by philosophasters and windbags.
6 ['I am all this creation collectively, and besides me there exists no other being.
I have created everything.']
r8 ON PHILOSOPHY AND ITS METHOD
above. From its declared subject-matter, it follows also that the
first thing it has to consider must be the medium wherein
experience in general presents itself, together with the form and
nature of that medium. This is the representation, the mental
picture, knowledge, and thus the intellect. Therefore every
philosophy has to begin with an investigation of the faculty of
knowledge, its forms and laws, and also the validity and limits
thereof. Accordingly, such an investigation will be philosophia
prima. It is divided into a consideration of primary representa-
tions, i.e. representations of intuitive perception, and this part
may be called dianoiology or theory of the understanding; and
into a coilsideration of secondary representations, i.e. abstract
representations, together with the order of their manipulation,
and thus logic or the theory of reason [Vernurift]. Now this
general part at the same time embraces or rather replaces what
was formerly called ontology and was put forward as the doctrine
of the most universal and essential properties and qualities of
things in general and as such. For one regarded as the proper-
ties of things-in-themselves that which belongs to them only in
consequence of the form and nature of our representation-
faculty, since all beings to be apprehended thereby must exhibit
themselves in accordance with its form and nature and in
consequence they then bear certain properties or qualities that
are common to them all. This is comparable to our attributing
the colour of a glass to the objects that are seen through it.
The philosophy following on such investigations is then
metaphysics in the narrower sense, since it not only makes us
acquainted with nature, with what is actually present, and
considers the order and sequence thereof, but conceives it as a
phenomenon which is given but somehow conditioned and in
which an essence or entity manifests itself, such entity being
different from the phenomenon itself and accordingly would be
the thing-in-itself. Now philosophy in our sense tries to become
more closely acquainted with this thing-in-itself. The means to
this are par.tly the bringing together of outer and inner ex-
perience, partly the arrival at an understanding of the whole
phenomenon by discovering its meaning and connection-com-
parable to the reading of hitherto mysterious characters of an
unknowing writing. On this path our philosophy proceeds
from the phenomenal appearance to that which appears, to
that which is hidden behind the phenomenon; thus Ta p,ETa Ta
,Pv<YtKa.' Consequently, it is divided into three parts:
Metaphysics of Nature,
Metaphysics of the Beautiful,
Metaphysics of Morals.
Nevertheless, the tracing of this division to its origin already
presupposes metaphysics itself which shows the thingin-itself,
the inner and ultimate essence of the phenomenon, to be in our
will. Therefore after its consideration as it n1anifests itself in
external nature, its entirely different and immediate manifesta-
tion within ourselves is investigated, whence we have the
metaphysics of morals. Prior to this, however, the purest and
most perfect apprehension of the will's external or objective
phenomenon is taken into consideration and this gives us the
metaphysics of the beautiful.
There is no rational psychology or doctrine of the soul since,
as Kant has proved, the soul is a transcendent hypostasis, un-
demonstrated and unwarranted as such; accordingly, the anti-
thesis of 'spirit and nature' is left to Philistines and Hegelians.
Man's essence-in-itself can be understood only in conjunction
with the essencein-itself of all things and thus of nature. There-
fore in the Phaedrus Plato makes Socrates put the question in a
negative sense (c. 54, 27oC) : lJfvxfjs oOv cpvow ~lws t\oyov
KCX.Tavoij<Yat. OUt 8vva'TOV Elvat avEV Tijs 'TOV OAOV cpvaEWS; (Animae
vero naturam absque totius natura sujjicienter cognosci posse existimas ?) .8
Thus microcosm and macrocosm elucidate each other, where-
by they prove to be essentially the same. This considera-
tion that is associated with man's inner nature, penetrates
and permeates the whole of metaphysics in all its parts and
cannot again appear separately as psychology. On the other
hand, anthropology, as a science of experience, can be established,
but is partly anatomy and physiology-partly mere empirical
psychology, that is to say, knowledge of the moral and intellec-
tual manifestations and peculiarities of the human race which
is drawn from observation as well as knowledge of the variety of
7 ['What follows on physics'. An allusion to the etymology of the term 'meta-

physical' (lit. 'the books after the Physics').]
8 ['Do you believe that it is possible to know the essential nature of the soul in
a proper way without knowing the essential nature of the whole universe?']
individuals in this respect. Yet the most important thing from
this is necessarily, as empirical material, taken up and worked
out by the three parts of metaphysics. What still remains then
calls for fine observation and intelligent interpretation, indeed
contemplation from a somewhat higher point of view; I mean
from that of a certain superiority. It is, therefore, to be enjoyed
only in the works of eminent minds such as those of Theo-
phrastus, Montaignc, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, He1ve-
tius, Chamfort, Addison, Shaftesbury, Shenstone, Lichtenberg,
and others. But it is not to be sought or endured in the com-
pendiums of professors of philosophy who have no intellect and
therefore hate it.
CHAPTER II
On Logic and Dialectic
22
Every general truth is related to special ones as gold to silver in
so far as we can convert it into a considerable number of
special truths that follow from it, just as a gold coin can be
turned into small change. For example, the entire life of the
plant is a process of deoxidation, whereas that of the animal is
one of oxidation; or again, wherever an electric current fto\VS
in a circuit, there arises at once a magnetic current cutting
across it at right angles; or again, nulla animalia vocalia, nisi quae
pulmonihus respirant; 1 or tout animal fossil est un animal perdu; 2 or
no egg-laying animal has a diaphragm. All these are universal
truths from which we can derive very many particular truths
in order to use them for explaining phenomena that occur or
even anticipate these before they appear. General truths are
just as valuable in the sphere of morals and psychology. Indeed,
how golden is every general rule here, every sentence of the
kind, in fact every proverb! For they are the quintessence of
thousands of events which are repeated every day and are
through them illustrated and exemplified.
23
An analytical judgement is merely a concept drawn apart,
whereas a .rynthetical is the formation of a new concept out of
two that are already otherwise present in the intellect. But the
combination of these two must then be brought about and
established through some intuitive perception. Now according as
this is empirical or is a pure a priori intuition, so will the result-
ant judgement be synthetical a posteriori or a priori.
Every analytical judgement contains a tautology and every
judgement without any tautology is ~thetical. It follows from

1 ['No animals ace vocal which do nol breathe through lungs.']
-' ['Every fossil animal is an extinct animal. ]
ON LOGIC AND DIALECTIC
this that in a discourse analytical judgen1ents are to be used
only on the assumption that the man addressed does not have so
complete or ready a knowledge of the subject as does the man
who addresses him. Further, the synthetical nature of geometri-
cal propositions can be demonstrated from the fact that they
contain no tautology. This is not so obvious in the case of
arithmetic, but yet it is so. For the fact that, when we count
from 1 to 4 and from 1 to 5, the unit is repeated just as often as
when we count from 1 tog, is not a tautology, but is brought
about by the pure intuition of time and without this is in-
conceivable.
24
From one proposition there cannot result more than what is
already to be found therein, that is to say, more than it itself
states for the exhaustive comprehension of its meaning. But
from two propositions, if they are syllogistically connected to
premisses, more can result than is to be found in each of them
taken separately; just as a body that is a chemical compound
displays properties that do not belong to any of its constituent
elements considered separately. On this rests the value of
syllogisms.
25
Every demonstration of a truth is a logical deduction of the
asserted proposition from one already settled and certain-with
the aid of another as second premiss. Now that proposition must
either have itself direct, more correctly original, certainty, or
logically follow from one that has such certainty. Such pro-
positions of an original certainty that is not brought about by
any proof, constitute the fundatnental truths of all the sciences
and have always resulted from carrying over what is somehow
intuitively apprehended into what is thought, the abstract.
They are, therefore, called evident, a predicate that really
belongs only to them and not to the merely demonstrated
propositions that, as conclusiones ex praemissis, can be called
merely logical or consequential. Accordingly, this truth of
theirs is always only indirect, derived, and borrowed. Never-
theless, they can be just as certain as any proposition of direct
truth, namely when they are correctly inferred from such a
proposition even if only through parenthetical clauses. Even on
this assumption, their truth can often be den1onstrated and
made clear to everyone more easily than can that of an axiom
whose truth is to be known only immediately and intuitively
because there lack now the objective, now the subjective
conditions for the recognition of such an axiom. This relation
is analogous to the case where the steel magnet, that is produced
by having its magnetism imparted to it, has an attractive force
not only just as strong as, but often stronger than, that of the
original magnetic iron ore.
Thus the subjective conditions for knowing propositions that
are directly true constitute what is called power of judgement;
but this is one of the n1erits of superior minds; whereas no
sound intellect lacks the ability to draw correct conclusions from
given premisses. For to establish original propositions, that are
directly true, we need to carry over into abstract knowledge
that which is known through intuitive perception. But the
ability to do this is extremely limited in the case of ordinary
minds and extends only to an easily visible state of alfairs as, for
instance, to the axioms of Euclid, or even to quite simple facts
that are plainly obvious to them. What goes beyond this can
convince them only on the path of proof which calls for no
other direct knowledge than that which is expressed in logic
by the principles of contradiction and identity and is repeated
in the proofs at every step. Therefore on such a path everything
must be reduced for them to the simplest possible truths that
are the only ones they are capable of directly grasping. If we
proceed here from the general to the special, we have deduction,
but if we go in the opposite direction we have induction.
On the other hand, minds capable of judgement, but even
more so inventors and discoverers, possess in a much higher
degree the ability to pass from what is intuitively perceived to
what is thought or abstract; so that such ability extends to their
discerning very complicated relationships. In this way, the
field of propositions of direct truth is for them incomparably
more extensive and embraces much whereof the rest can never
obtain more than a feeble and merely indirect conviction. For
the latter the proof of a newly discovered truth is subsequently
sought, i.e. the reference to truths that are already acknow-
ledged or otherwise beyond question. Yet there are cases where
24 ON LOGIC AND DIALECTIC
this is impracticable. For example, I can find no proof for the
six fractions whereby I have expressed the six primary colours
and which alone give an insight into the real specific nature of
each one of them and thus for the first time actually explain
colour to our understanding. Yet their absolute certainty is so
great that scarcely any mind capable ofjudgement will seriously
doubt them. And so Professor Rosas of Vienna presumed to
give them out as the result of his own insight, and for this I took
him to task in my work On the Will in Nature (Physiology and
Pathology).
26
Controversy, disputing on a theoretical subject, can undoubtedly
be very profitable to the two parties engaged thereon since it
corrects or confirms the ideas they have and also stimulates
fresh ones. It is a conflict or collision of two minds which often
causes sparks; yet it is also analogous to the collision of bodies
in that the weaker has often to suffer for it, whereas the stronger
comes off well and merely cn1its a triumphant note. In this
respect, there is also the requirement that the two disputants
should at any rate be fairly well matched in intellect and
ability as well as in knowledge. If one of them lacks knowledge,
he is not au niveau 3 and is thus not amenable to the arguments
of the other; in the contest he is, so to speak, standing outside
the ring. But if he lacks intellect, the exasperation that is soon
stirred in him will induce him to make use of all kinds of
unfair tricks, subterfuges, and chicanery in the dispute and to
descend to rudeness when these are pointed out to him.
Accordingly, just as those of equal rank and birth were admitted
to tournaments, so above all a scholar should not argue with
those who are illiterate; for he is unable to use his best arguments
against them, since they lack the knowledge to understand and
ponder over them. If, however, in this embarrassing situation
he tries to make these clear to them, he will generally fail; in
fact through a bad and crude counter-argument, they will
appear to be right after all in the eyes of those who are as
ignorant as they. And so Goethe says in the Westostlicher Diwan:
Let not yourself at any time
Be wrongly guided into argument;
l ['Up to the mark'.]
The wise lapse into ignorance,
When disputing with the ignorant.
But it is even worse if the opponent is wanting in intellect and
understanding unless he makes good this defect by a sincere
attempt to obtain information and arrive at the truth. Other-
wise he soon feels himself hurt at his tenderest spot; and then
whoever argues with him will at once notice that he no longer
has to deal with his intellect, but with the radical part of the
man, his will, to which the only thing that matters is that he
ultimately triumphs either per fas or per nefas. Therefore his
intellect is now directed exclusively to tricks, dodges, and every
kind of unfairness; and when he is ultimately driven from these,
he will finally resort to rudeness merely to compensate in some
way for the inferiority he feels and, according to the station and
circumstances of the disputants, to turn the conflict of minds
into one of bodies, where he hopes for a better chance of
success. Accordingly, we have the second rule that we should
not argue with those of limited intellect. We can see already
that there will not be many left with whom we can perhaps
enter into an argument. Indeed we can do so only with those
who are the exceptions. On the other hand, men as a rule take
offence when we are not of their opinion; but then they should
modify their opinions so that we could adopt them. Now in a
controversy with them, we shall often experience only annoy-
ance and vexation even when they do not resort to the above-
mentioned ultima ratio stultorum.s For here we shall have to do
not merely with their intellectual incapacity, but very soon
with their moral depravity as well which will reveal itself in
the frequent dishonesty of their methods when they argue. The
tricks, dodges, and chicanery, to which they resort in order to be
right in the end, are so numerous and manifold and yet recur so
regularly that some years ago I made them the subject of my
own reflection and directed my attention to their purely formal
element after I had perceived that, however varied the subjects
of discussion and the persons taking part therein, the same
identical tricks and dodges always came back and were very
easy to recognize. This led me at the time to the idea of clearly
4 ['By hook or by crook'.]

5 [ The last resource of the stupid'.]
separating the merely formal part of these tricks and dodges tiom
the material and of displaying it, so to speak, as a neat ana-
tomical specimen. I therefore collected all the dishonest tricks
so frequently occurring in argument and clearly presented each
of them in its characteristic setting, illustrated by examples and
given a name of its own. Finally, I added the means to be used
against them, as a kind of guard against these thrusts; and from
this was developed a formal eristical dialectic. Now in this
dialectic, the above-mentioned artifices or stratagems took the
place, as eristical dialectical figures, which was filled in logic by
the syllogistic figures and in rhetoric by the rhetorical. \tVith
both of these they have in common the fact that they arc to a
certain extent inborn in that their practice precedes theory; and
so to exercise them we do not need to have first learnt them.
Accordingly, their purely formal statement would be comple-
mental}' to that technique of reason [Vemurifl] which appears in
the second volume of my chief work, chapter g, as consisting of
logic, dialectic, and rhetoric. Since, as far as I know, no previous
attempt of this kind exists, I could not avail myself of any
preliminary work. Aristotle's Topica was the only work I could
make use of here and there and for my purpose I was able to
apply some of its rules for setting up (Ka-rcwKeva{Etv) and
setting aside (avaaKEva{uv) the statements. But the work of
Th eopilfaStUS,
l A '
..nywVW7"tKOV -
1"7'JS' 7TEpt' '
7"0VS '
Epta1"tKOV) \ '
1\0YOl!S'
8Ewplcxs, 6 mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, must have been

really suitable for this; it has been lost with all his rheto-
rical writings. Plato (Republic, bk. v, p. 12, ed Bip.) also touches
on an ctVTLAoytK~ -rexVYJ 7 that taught lpl{Ew, 8 just as St<xAEK-
nK7} 9 taught 8w:A.eyEa8at.I 0 Of modern books, the one that
best serves my purpose is that of the late Professor Friede-
mann Schneider of Halle, entitled Tractatus logicus singularis in
quo processus disputandi, seu officia, aeque ac VITIA DISPUTA.N-
TIV M e:'=hibentur, u Halle, 1 718. This work is useful in so far as
it exposes in the chapters on the vita many instances of eristical
o ['Theoretical manual concerning disputants'.)
' ['Art of contradiction'.]
8 ['To dispute', 'to argue'.]
o ['Art of conversation'.]
1o ['Discussion ', 'conversation'.]
11 ['Special logical treatise in which the method used in disputation, its laws,
and also the vices of the disputants are expounded '.]

unfairness. Yet he always has in nund only the formal academic
disputations; moreover, his treatment of the subject is on the
whole poor and feeble, as such faculty-fabrications usually are;
and besides, it is in extremely bad Latin. The methodus disputandi
of Joachim Lange which appeared a year later is definitely
better, but contains nothing suitable for my purpose. With the
revision, now undertaken, of that earlier work of mine, I find
that such a detailed and minute consideration of the crooked
ways and tricks that are used by common human nature to
cover up its shortcomings is no longer suited to my tempera-
ment and so I lay it aside. However, to express in more detail
my way of treating the subject for those who might in future feel
disposed to undertake something of the kind, I will here set
down one or two stratagems as specimens, but before so doing
I will give from that same work the outline of what is essential to
every disputation. For this furnishes the abstract framework, the
skeleton so to speak, of the controversy in general and can,
therefore, be regarded as its osteology. On account of its clear-
ness and its visibility at a glance, it is well worth recording
here. It runs:
In every disputation, whether carried on publicly in academic
lecture-rooms and courts of law or in ordinary conversation,
the essential procedure is as follows:
A thesis is stated and is to be refuted; now for this purpose
there are two modes and two courses.
( 1) The modes are ad rem and ad hominem, or ex concessis. 12 Only
by the first do we upset the absolute or objective truth of the
thesis by showing that it does not agree with the nature of the
case in question. By the other, however, we upset merely its
relative truth by showing that it contradicts other statements or
admissions of the man who advocates the thesis, or by showing
that his argmnents are untenable whereby the objective truth
of the case itself is then left really undecided. For instance, if in
a controversy relating to matters of philosophy or natural
science, the opponent (who for this purpose is bound to be an
Englishman) ventures to advance biblical arguments, then we
may refute him with just such arguments, although they are
mere argumenta ad hominem which do not settle anything in the
~:.~
['Arguments in relation to the thing, in relation to the person (with whom
we are carrying on the discussion), on the basis of concessions'.]
matter. It is as if we had paid someone in the very same paper-
money we had received from him. In many cases, this modus
procedendi is comparable to the plaintiff's producing in court a
false promissory note that the defendant on his part forwarded
by a false receipt; yet for all that the loan might have been
made. But just like this latter case, the mere argumentatio ad
hominem often has the advantage of brevity since, in the one case
as in the other, the true and thorough explanation of the matter
would frequently be extremely complicated and difficult.
(2) Further, the two courses are the direct and the indirect.
The former strikes the thesis at its grounds or reasons, the latter at
its results; the former shows that the thesis is not true, the latter
that it cannot be true. We will consider this more closely.
(a) Refuting by the direct way and thus attacking the grounds
or reasons of the thesis, we show either that these themselves
are not true by saying nego majorem or nego minorem 13 through
both of which we attack the subject-matter of the conclusion that
establishes the thesis; or else we admit these grounds or reasons,
but show that the thesis does not follow from them; and so we
say nego consequentiam, 14 in which case we attack the form of the
conclusion.
(b) Refuting by the indirect way and thus attacking the results
of the thesis in order to infer from the falsity of these that of the
thesis itself, by virtue of the law a falsitate rationati ad falsitatem
rationis valet consequentia. 1 s we can make use either of the instance
or else of the apagoge.
(i) The instance, vcnaats, is a mere exemplum in contrarium. 16
It refutes the thesis by indicating things or circumstances which
are understood by its statement, but to which it obviously does
not apply; and so it cannot be true.
(ii) The apagoge is brought about by our provisionally as-
suming the thesis to be true, but then associating it with some
other proposition that is unquestioned and acknowledged as
true, so that the two become the premisses of a syllogism whose
conclusion is obviously false, in that it contradicts either the
u ['I dispute the major proposition'; I dispute the minor proposition .]

['I dispute the conclusion (of the syllogism).']
u ['From the falsity of the consequent follows the falsity of the ground or
rr:ason.']
16 ['Contrary example'.]
nature of things in general, or the state of the case in question
which is definitely acknowledged, or else another statement of
the defender of the thesis. Therefore the apagoge can be ad rem
as well as merely ad lzominem, according to the mode. Now if that
conclusion contradicts truths that are absolutely beyond
question and are even a priori certain, then we have reduced
our opponent's position ad absurdum. In any case, as the other
added premiss is of undoubted truth, the falsity of the con-
dusion must result from his thesis; and so this cannot be true.
Every method of attack in an argument will be reducible to
the methods of procedure that are here formally described.
Therefore these are in dialectics what the regular thrusts, such
as the tierce, the carte, and so on, are in the art of fencing. On
the other hand, the devices or stratagems, compiled by me,
would be comparable possibly to the feints; and finally the
personal outbursts in an argument might be compared to the
so-called irregular cuts of the university fencing-n1asters. As
specimens and examples of those stratagems that have been
collected by me, the following may here be mentioned.
Seventh stratagem: the extension. The opponent's statement is
carried beyond its natural limits and so is taken in a sense wider
than he intended or even expressed in order then conveniently
to refute it in this sense.
Example: A asserts that the English surpass all other nations
in the dramatic art. B makes the plausible instantia in contrarium
that in music and consequently in opera their achievements
arc insignificant. It follows from this, as a guard to this feint,
that, when a contradiction is made, we should at once limit our
avowed statement strictly to expressions in use, or to their
reasonably accepted meaning, and should generally contract
them into the narrowest possible limits. For the more general a
staten1ent becomes, the lllOfe it isopen to attacks.
Eighth stratagem: the tendency to draw conclusions. To the
opponent's proposition we add often tacitly a second which is
related to his through subject or predicate. From these two
premisses we now draw a false and often malicious conclusion
which is laid at the opponent's door.
Example: A praises the French for having expelled Charles
the Tenth. B at once retorts: 'And so you want to expel our
king.' The proposition tacitly added by him as major says: 'All
30 ON LOGIC A~D DIALECTIC
who expel their king are to be praised.' This can be reduced

also to the fallacia a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. 11
~inth stratagem: the diversion. If, in the course of the argu-
ment, we notice that we are getting the worst of it and our
opponent will win, we try to prevent this misfortune in time by a
mutatio controversiae and hence by diverting the discussion on to
another subject, to something of secondary importance, if
necessary even at one bound. vVe now try to foist this on to the
opponent in order to call it in question and make it, instead of
the original subject, the theme of the controversy, so that the
opponent has to abandon his expected victory in order to turn
his attention to this. But here again if we should unfortunately
see a strong counter-argument quickly marshalled against us,
we should promptly do the same once more and thus again
jump to something else. 'Ve can repeat this ten times in a
quarter of an hour unless, of course, our opponent loses
patience. We shall carry out these strategic diversions most
adroitly by gradually and imperceptibly working the contro-
versy round to a subject that is related to the one in question,
if possible to something that actually concerns the opponent
himself, only in another respect. Of course, it is less subtle if we
keep merely to the subject of the thesis, but introduce other
references to it which have nothing whatever to do with those
under discussion; for example by passing from a talk on the
Buddhism of the Chinese to their tea-trade. But now if this too
is not even feasible, we lay hold of some expression which our
opponent may chance to use in order to fasten on to it an
entirely new controversy and thus to be rid of the old one. For
instance, our opponent has expressed the following: 'This is just
where the mystery of the matter lies', and we promptly cut in
and say: 'Ah well if you are talking of mysteries and mysticism,
then I am not your man, for as regards this', and so on, and we
have won all along the line. But if no opportunity is given to
do this, we must go to work even n1ore boldly and suddenly
jump to an entirely different subject somewhat as follows: 'Yes,
and also quite recently you affirmed this', and so on. The
diversion generally is of all the tricks used (often instinctively)
by dishonest disputants the most favourite and familiar to which
17 ['The trick of taking in an unlimited sense what was asserted in a limited'.]

ON LOGIC AND DIALECTIC 31
they almost inevitably resort whenever they get into difficulties.
I had, therefore, compiled and worked out some forty of such
stratagems. But now I dislike throwing light on all these lurking
places of narrow-mindedness and incapacity that are so closely
allied to obstinacy, vanity, and dishonesty. I shall, therefore,
rest content with this specimen and refer the more earnestly to
the above-mentioned grounds for avoiding an argument with
the common ruck of people. At all events, we may try to come
to the aid of another's power of comprehension by arguments;
but as soon as we notice in his rejoinders any obstinacy we
should stop at once. For he will soon become unfair, and what
in theory is a sophism is in practice chicanery. But the strata-
gems here introduced are even more worthless than sophisms.
For in them the will puts on the mask of understanding in order
to play the role thereof. The result is always detestable; for few
things excite such indignation as when we observe a man who
deliberately misunderstands. Whoever does not admit his
opponent's sound arguments betrays an intellect that is either
directly weak or is so indirectly through being suppressed by
the mastery of his own will. We should, therefore, go for such a
person only when duty and obligation require it. In spite of all
this, however, to do justice to the above-mentioned tricks and
dodges, I must confess that we may also act too hastily by
surrendering our opinion to a striking argument of the oppo-
nent. Thus we feel the force of such, but the counter-arguments,
or whatever else could save and sustain our statement itself,
do not as readily occur to us. Now if, in such a case, we at once
give up our thesis as lost, it may well be that, in so doing, we
betray truth, since it might be discovered that after all we had
been right. Through weakness and lack of confidence in our
case, we had yielded to the impression of the moment. Even
the proof we had advanced in favour of our thesis may have
been actually false, but there may be another which is correct.
Aware of this, even sincere lovers of the truth do not readily
yield all at once to a good argument, but still try to offer a
brief resistance; in fact in most instances, they stick to their
statement even when counter-arguments have rendered its
truth questionable. In this respect, they are like the commander
of a force who tries for a while to hold on to a position which
he knows he cannot maintain, in the hope that reinforcements
32 ON LOGIC AND DIALECTIC
will arrive. Thus they hope that, while for the time being they
are defending themselves with inferior arguments, the sound
ones will in the meantime occur to them, or that the mere
plausibility of the opponent's arguments will become evident
to them. Therefore we are almost compelled to be a little unfair
in an argument in that, for the moment, we have to contend
not so much for truth as for our own statement, in as much as
this is a consequence of the uncertainty of truth and of the
imperfection of the human intellect. But now there at once
arises the danger that we may go too far in this direction,
contend too long for a wrong conviction, and finally become
stubborn and unyielding. There is the risk of our giving way
to the baseness of human nature, of our defending our statement
per fas et nefas 1s and thus with the aid of dishonest stratagems,
and of our sticking to it mordicus. 19 May everyone be here pro-
tected by his good genius so that there will be no need for him
afterwards to feel ashamed! However, a clear knowledge of
the nature of the case, as here expounded, certainly leads to
self-culture even in this respect.
r& ['By hook or by crook'.]
19 ('With all our might', 'by main force'.
CHAPTER III
Ideas concerning the Intellect generally

and in all Respects
27
Every method in philosophy which is ostensibly without any
assumption is humbug; for we must always regard something as
given in order to start therefrom. Thus it states the Sos- fLO" 1Tofi
aTw 1 that is the indispen.c;ablc condition of all human action,
even of philosophizing; since we are just as little capable of
floating mentally in ether as we are of so doing physically. But
such a point of departure in philosophizing, such a thing that
is for the time being taken as given, n1ust aftenvards be again
compensated and justified. This will be either subjective and thus
possibly self-consciousness, representation or mental picture,
the subject, the will; or else it will be objective and hence that
which presents itself in the consciousness of other things, thus
the world of reality, external objects, nature, matter, atoms,
even a God, even a mere arbitrarily invented concept such as
substance, the Absolute, or whatever it is supposed to be. And
so to reconcile again the arbitrary procedure here carried out
and to rectify the assun1ption, we must subsequently change
the standpoint and take up the opposite one from which we now
deduce once again in a supplementary philosophical argument
that which was initially taken as given. Ita res accendent lumina
rebus. 2
For example, if we start from the subjective, as did Berkeley,
Locke, and Kant in whom this method of consideration reached
its highest level, we shall nevertheless obtain a philosophy that
is in part very one-sided and to some extent not entirely justified,
although this way has the greatest advantages on account of the
really immediate nature of the subjective. We shall get such a
philosophy unless we supplement it by taking once more as
1 ['Give me a foothold (and I move the earth)' (attributed to Archimedes).]
z ['Thus does one thing throw light on others.' (Lucretius, 1. IIQ9.)]
34 IDEAS CONCERKI:'\G THE INTELLECT
our starting-point what was deduced in it as given, and so by
deducing from the opposite standpoint the subjective from the
objective, as previously the objective had been irom the subjec-
tive. I believe that, in the main, I have furnished this supple-
ment to the Kantian philosophy in the second volume of my
chief work, chapter 22, and in the work On the Will in JVature
under the heading 'Physiology of Plants', where I deduce the
intellect by starting from external nature.
)low if we start the opposite way from the objective and at
once take as our data the very many things around us, such as
matter together with all the forces manifesting themselves
therein~ we soon have the whole of nature since such a method
of consideration furnishes pure naturalism, more accurately
called by me absolute. plt-vsics. Therefore what is given and conse-
quently is absolutely real, as generally understood, consists in
the laws and forces of nature together with matter their bearer.
Specially considered, hov\o'ever, it consists in an immense
number of suns floating freely in infinite space and of planets
revolving round them. Accordingly, the result everywhere is
nothing but spheres, some illuminating, others illuminated. On
the surface of the latter, in consequence of a process of putre-
faction, life has developed which furnishes organic beings of
many different degrees. These appear as individuals that begin
and end in time through generation and death in accordance
v,.;th the laws of nature which govern vital force. Such laws, like
all others, constitute the prevailing order of things which lasts
from eternity to eternity, without beginning and end and with-
out accounting for themselves. Man occupies the highest point of
that gradation of beings; and his existence also has a beginning,
and in its course there are many grievous sorrows and few joys
sparingly meted out; and then, like every other, it has an end
after which it seems as though it had never been. Our absolute
ph;sics, which here conducts the investigation and fulfils the
role of philosophy, now explains to us how, in consequence of
those absolutely existing and valid laws of nature, one pheno-
menon always produces or even supplants another. Here
everything happens quite naturally and is, therefore, perfectly
clear and intelligible, so that to the whole of the world thus
explained we could apply a phrase that Fichte was in the habit
of using when from the professorial throne he produced his
IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT 35
dramatic talents with profound seriousness, impressive empha-
sis, and an air so disconcerting to students: 'It is because it is;
and it is as it is because it is so.' Accordingly from this stand-
point, it seems to be a mere whim still to want to look for other
explanations of a world that is rendered so clear, and to try to
find them in a wholly imaginary metaphysics whereon a
system of morality would again be based that had its sole support
in those fictions of metaphysics because it could not be estab-
lished through physics. On this rests the obvious contempt with
which physicists look down on metaphysics. But in spite of all
the self-sufficiency of that purely objective philosophizing, the
one-sidedness of the standpoint and the necessity to change it
and thus to make the theme of investigation the knowing
subject, together with its cognitive faculty in which alone all
those worlds first have their existence, will sooner or later assert
themselves in many different forms and on many different
occasions. Thus, for example, the view that the validity of all
such knowledge is only relative and conditioned, but not un-
conditioned, as our present-day rationalists take it to be, is the
basis of that expression of the Christian mystics who call the
human intellect the light of nature and declare it to be in the last
resort incompetent. On this account the rationalists look down
on the profound mysteries of Christianity, just as the physicists
ridicule metaphysics. For instance, they consider that the
dogma of original sin is a superstition because their plain and
homely Pelagian intellect has happily made out that no one
can be responsible for what another did six thousand years
before him. For the rationalist confidently follows his light of
nature and so really and quite seriously imagines that forty
or fifty years ago, namely before his papa in nightcap had
procreated him and his simple mama had safely brought him
forth into this world, he was simply and absolutely nothing and
arose out of nothing precisely at the moment. For only thus can
he not be responsible for anything. The sinner and original
sinner!
And so, as I have said, in many different ways, but n10st of all
on the inescapable path of philosophy, speculation that follows
objective knowledge will sooner or later begin to suspect some-
thing and thus to see that all its wisdom, obtained on the ob-
jective side, is accepted on the credit of the human intellect and
36 IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT
consequently is absolutely conditioned thereby. Nevertheless,
such an intellect must have its own forms, functions, and method
of presentation. There follows from all this the necessity here
to change the standpoint and to adopt the subjective method
instead of the objective, and thus to make the intellect itself the
theme of our investigation and put its authority to the test. For
hitherto, this intellect has \Vith absolute self-confidence calmlv
built up its dogmatism and has quite boldly passed a priori
judgement on the world and everything therein, even on its
possibility. Tllis change will in the first instance lead to Locke,
then to the Critique of Pure Reason, and finally to the knowledge
that the light of nature is one that is directed only outwards and
that, if it wanted to bend back and iiJuminate its own interior,
it cannot do so, and so cannot immediately dispel the darkness
that prevails there. Only on the roundabout path of reflection
that is followed by those philosophers, and vvith great difficulty,
docs it obtain information about its own mechanism and nature.
Accordingly, it becomes clear to the intellect that it is originally
destined to grasp mere relations, such heing sufficient for the
service of an individual will, and that it is, therefore, directed
essentially outwards. Even here it is only a superficial force like
electricity; in other words, it grasps merely the surface of
things, but never penetrates their interior. Again for the very
same reason, it is incapable of fully and fundamentally under-
standing and fathoming a single thing of all those that are
objectively clear and real to it, even the smallest and simplest;
on the contrary, in each and every thing the main point remains
for it a mystery. But in this way, the intellect is then led to a
deeper insight which is denoted by the word idealiJm, namely
that this objective world and its order, as apprehended by the
intellect with its operations, does not exist unconditionally and
therefore in itself, but arises by means of the brain's functions
and so exists primarily in the brain alone. Consequently in this
form, it has only a conditioned and relative existence and is,
therefore, a mere phenomenon, a mere appearance. Hitherto,
man had looked for the grounds of his own existence, whereby
he assumed that the laws of knowing, thinking, and experience
were purely objective, that they existed absolutely in and by
themselves, and that he and everything else existed merely in
virtue of them. But now he recognizes conversely that his
intellect, and consequently his existence as well, are the con-
dition of all those laws and what follows therefrom. Finally, he
sees also that the ideality of space, time, and causality, which
has now become clear to him, makes way for an entirely
different order of things from that of nature. Yet he is forced to
regard the order of nature as the result or hieroglyphic of that
other order.
How little suited to philosophical reflection the human

intellect is as a rule, is seen, among other things, in the fact that
even now, after all that has been said on the subject since
Descartes, realism still always confidently faces idealism with the
naive assertion that bodies exist as such not merely in our
representation or mental picture, but also really and actually.
But it is precisely this reality itself, this mode and manner of
existence together with all that it contains, whereof we affirm
that it exists only in the representation and is not to be found
anywhere else, since it is only a certain necessary arrangement
of the nexus of our representations. In spite of all that the earlier
idealists, especially Berkeley, taught, it is only through Kant
that we first obtain a really thorough conviction of it because
he does not dispose of the matter all at once, but goes into
detail, separates the a priori, and everywhere takes into account
the empirical element. Now whoever has once understood the
ideality of the world sees that the statement that such a world
would still exist even if it were not the representation or mental
picture of anyone, is really meaningless, since it states a contra-
diction. For the fact of its being in existence means simply that
it is represented or becomes a mental picture; its existence itself
resides in the representation or mental picture of the subject.
This is precisely what is stated by the expression 'it is object'.
Accordingly, the nobler, older, and better religions, such as
Brahmanism and Buddhism, a]so base their teachings entirely
* If 1behold some object such as a view and think to myself that, if at this
moment my head were chopped off, I know that the object would still be there
unmoved and undisturbed, then this implies fundamentally and at bottom that I
too would still exist. This will be obvious to a few, but let it be said for these.
on idealism and consequently expect even the Inasses to ac-
knowledge this. Judaism, on the other hand, is a veritable
concentration and consolidation of realism.
A piece of fraudulent trickery, introduced by Fichte and
since admitted by the universities, is to be found in the expres-
sion 'the ego'. That which is essentially and positively subjective
is here converted into the o~ject by the substantive part of
speech and the article in front of it. For in reality I or ego
indicates the subjective as such which can, therefore, never
become object, namely the knowing in contrast to, and as a
condition of, all that is known. The wisdom of all languages has
expressed this by treating ego or I not as a substantive; and so
to carry out his purpose, Fichte had simply to strain the nlean-
ing of language. An even more brazen piece of trickery of this
same Fichte is the scandalous misuse of the word set::.en., to set,
to put, to posit, ponere, which, instead of being denounced and
exploded, is frequently employed, even at the present day, by
alinost all philosophasters, on his example and authority, as a
regular expedient for sophisms and false teachings. Set;::.en,
ponere, from which we get propositio, has for ages been a purely
logical expression stating that in the logical sequence of a
disputation or of any other discussion, we assume, presuppose,
and affirm something for the time being and thus ten1porarily
give it logical validity and formal truth, \vhereby its reality, its
material truth and actuality remain absolutely untouched, un-
settled, and undecided. Fichte, however, gradually obtained
surreptitiously for this set::.en a real, but natura1ly obscure and
vague, meaning that was accepted by the duffers and constantly
used by the sophists. Thus since the ego first posited itself and
then the non-ego, to put or to posit is the equivalent of to
create, to produce, in short, to put into the world, we know not
how. Then everything \Ve would like to assume as existing
without reasons or grounds and to impose on others, is just put
or posited, and there it stands before us quite real. This is the
method still in force of the so-called post-Kantian philosophy,
and it is the work of Fichte.
29
The idealilJ' of time, discovered by Kant, is really contained
already in the law of inertia appertaining to mechanics. For at
bottom, this law states that mere time is incapable of producing
any physical effect; thus by itself and alone, time effects no
change in the rest or motion of a body. We see from this that
time is not something physically real, but transcendentally
ideal, in other words, that it has its origin not in things, but in
the knowing subject. If time were inherent in things themselves
as a quality or accident, then its quantum and hence its length
or shortness would necessarily be capable of changing something
in them. But it is quite incapable of doing this; on the contrary,
it passes over things without making the slightest impression
thereon. For in the course of time causes alone are ejfective,
certainly not the course itself. Therefore if a body is withdrawn
from all chemical influences, thousands of years do not bring
about any change in it; as for instance, the mammoth in the
ice-floe on the River Lena, the fly in the amber, a precious
metal in absolutely dry air, Egyptian antiquities (even wigs)
in the dry rock-tomb. Therefore it is the same absolute in-
effectiveness of time '"'hich appears in Inechanics as the law of
inertia. If a body has once received motion, no time can
deprive it thereof or even di1ninish this; such motion is ab-
solutely endless unless physical causes operate against it. In
the same way, a body at rest remains so eternally unless physical
causes make their appearance and set it in motion. Therefore
it follows from this that time is something that does not affect
bodies, indeed that the two are of a heterogeneous nature, since
that reality attaching to bodies cannot be attributed to time.
Accordingly, time is absolutely ideal, that is, it belongs to the
mere representation and to the apparatus thereof. Bodies, on
the other hand, through the manifold variety of their qualities
and of the effects of these, show that they are not merely ideal,
but that at the same time something objectively real, a thing-in-
itself, is revealed in them, however different such may be from
this its phenon1enon.
lvfotion is, in the first instance, a merely phoronomical event,
that is to say, one whose elements are taken solely from time
and space. Matter is that which is movable; it is already an
objectification of the thing-in-itself. But now its absolute in-
difference to rest and motion, enabling it to remain for ever in the
one as in the other as soon as it has assumed this and to be
disposed to fly as well as to rest throughout an eternity, shows
that space and time and thus the opposite extremes of motion
and rest that arise simply from these, do not adhere at all to the
thing-in-itself which manifests itself as matter and endows this
with all its forces. On the contrary, space and time are utterly
foreign to the thing-in-itself and consequently have come not
from what appears in the phenomenon, but from the intellect that
perceives and apprehends this phenomenon. Space and time
belong to this intellect as the forms thereof.
Incidentally, if anyone wishes to have a really viv-id intuition
of this law of inertia, let him irnagine he is standing on the edge
of the world before empty space and is firing a pistol into it.
The bullet will fly in a constant direction throughout all
eternity; billions of years of flight will never weary it; there will
never be any lack of space into which it will continue to fly;
nor will time ever run short for it and come to an end. l\vloreover,
there is the fact that we know, all ..this a priori and, precisely on
this account, with absolute certainly."I think that the transcen-
dental ideality, i.e. the cerebral phantasmagoria, of the whole
thing becomes uncommonly clear.
A consideration of space, analogous and parallel to the fore-
going one of time, might perhaps be associated with the fact
that matter cannot be increased or diminished either by scat-
tering it far and wide or again by compressing it in space; and
also that in absolute space rest and motion in a straight line
coincide phoronomically and are the same thing.
An anticipation of the Kantian doctrine of the ideality of
time is seen in very many staten1ents of ancient philosophers
concerning which I have in other passages already mentioned
what is necessary. Spinoza plainly says: tempus non est affectio
rerum, sed tantum merus modus cogitandi. 3 ( Cogitata metaphysica, c. 4)
The consciousness of the ideality of time really underlies even
the concept of etemiry which has existed from time irnme~orial.
Thus essentially, eternity is the very opposite of time and those
with any insight have always understood its concept in this
way. This they were able to do only as a result of feeling that
time resides merely in our intellect, not in the essence of things-
in-themselves. It is merely through lack of understanding that
the wholly incompetent were incapable of interpreting the
J ['Time is not a modification of things, but only a mere mode of thinking.']

concept of eternity except as an endless time. It is just this that
forced the scholastics to such express utterances as: aeternitas
non est temporis sine fine successio, sed Nunc stans; 4 even Plato had
said so in the Timaeus, and Plotinus repeats it: alWvo~ elKwv
KLVTJT~ o xpovos. 5 },or this purpose, we could call time an
eternity drawn apart and base thereon the statement that, if
there were no eternity, there also could be no time, indeed that
our intellect can produce this only because we ourselves stand in
eternity. Since Kant, the concept of being outside time has in the
same sense been introduced into philosophy; nevertheless, we
should be very cautious in our use of it, for it is one of those that
may well be thought of, but can never be substantiated and
realized by any intuitive perception. 0
,
That time runs on with perfect regularity everywhere and in
all bodies might be quite conceivable if it were something purely

external, objective, and perceivable through the senses as are
bodies. But it is not so; we cannot see or touch it. Moreover, it
is by no means the mere move1nent or other change of bodies;
on the contrary, this is in time which is, therefore, already
presupposed by it as a condition. For a clock goes too quickly
or too slowly, but not time with it; on the contrary, that which
is uniform, regular, and normal and to which quick and slow
refer, is the actual course of time. The clock measures time but
does not make it. If all clocks stopped; if the sun itself stood
still; if all kinds of motion or change ceased, all this would not
for one moment impede the flow .of time, but it would con-
tinue its uniform course and now, unattended by any changes,
would elapse. Yet, as I have said, it is nothing perceivable by
any of the senses, nothing given externally and hence nothing
really objective. The only thing left for us to say is that it is
something residing within us, our own mental process advancing
unint,rruptedly or, as Kant says, the form of the inner sense
and of all our making of representations or mental pictures.
Consequently, time constitutes the very basis and foundation of
this worldly scene. The uniformity and regularity of its course
in all heads shows more than anything that we are all enveloped
in the same dream, indeed that it is one being or entity that
4 ['Eternity is not a succession of time without end, but a permanent Now . .,

s ['Time is the moved image of eternity.']
IDEAS CONCER[';' lNG THE INTELLECT
drean1s it.* Time seems to us to be so entirely a matter of course,
that \Ne are naturally not clearly conscious of it, but notice only
the course of the changes in it which are, it is true, known
purely empirically. It is, therefore, an important step towards
philosophical enlightenment if once we fix our gaze on time
itself and ask quite consciously: 'What is this essence or entity
which cannot be seen or heard, but into which everything must
enter in order actually to exist and which n1oves forward with
inexorable uniformity and regularity, without anything being
able in the very least to retard or accelerate it, such as, on the
other hand, we are able to do with the changes of things occur-
ring in it in order to be finished and done with them in a given
time?' But time seems to us to be so much a matter of course that,
instead of asking such a question, we cannot possibly think of
an existence without it; for us it is the permanent presupposi-
tion of all existence. It is just this that shows that time is a mere
form of our intellect, that is, of our cognitive apparatus, in
which just as in space everything rnust manifest itself: Therefore
along with the brain, time, together with all the ontology of
beings based thereon, is abolished. The same thing may also be
demonstrated in space in so far as I can leave behind n1e all
worlds, however many, yet I can never get outside space~ but
carry this about with me everywhere because it adheres to my
intellect and belongs to the representation-mechanism in my
skull.
Without considerations of this kind whose basis is the
Critique of Pure Reason, no serious progress in xnetaphysics is
possible. And so the sophists who have set them aside, in order
to substitute for them systems of identity and nonsense of all
kinds and again to naturalize them at large, deserve no mercy.
Time is not merely a form a priori of our knowing, but is the
foundation or ground-bass thereof; it is the primary woof for
the fabric of the whole world that manifests itself to us and the
bearer of all our intuitive apprehensions. The other forms of
the principle of sufficient reason arc, so to speak, copies of it;
If, with this subjective origin of time, we were to be very surprised at the
perfect regularity of its course in so many different heads, this would be based on
a misunderstanding. For regularity would necessarily signify here that, in a certain
time, an equal amount of time elapsed and thus the absurd assumption would
have to be made of a second time wherein the first pass~d away quickly or slowly.
it is the archetype of everything. And so all our represenrations
or mental pictures concerning existence and reality are in-
separable from it and we never get away from picturing all
things to ourselves as one after another. The when is still just as
inevitable as the where; and yet everything manifesting itself
in time is mere appearance or phenomenon.
Time is that disposition of our intellect by virtue whereof the
thing we apprehend as the future does not seem to exist at all;
yet this illusion vanishes when the future has become the present.
In some dreams, clairvoyant somnambulism, and second sight,
that deceptive form is temporarily pushed aside and the future
then manifests itself as the present. This is why attempts that
are sometimes made intentionally to frustrate the prophecy of
a man endowed with second sight, even if only in minor inci-
dents, were bound to fail; for he has already seen it actually
existing at the time, just as we perceive only the present; it
therefore has the same constancy and immutability as has the
past. (E..xamples of attempts of this kind are found in Kieser's
Archiv fur thierischen A1agrzetismus, vol. VIII, Pt. III, pp. 7 I, 87, go.)
Accordingly, the necessity of all that happens, in other words,
of everything successively occurring in tin1e, a necessity that is
revealed to us by tneans of the chain of causes and effects, is
merely the way in which we perceive under the form of time
that which exists unifonnly and unaltered. Or again, this
necessity is the impossibility that what exists is yet not identical
with itself, one and unalterable, although we recognize it today
as future, tomorrow as present, and the day after tomorrow as
past. In the fitness and appropriateness of the organism, there
is revealed the unity of the will that objectifies itself in it; and
yet such unity is perceived in our apprehension (that is tied
to space) as a plurality of parts and their conformity to a
purpose. (See On the W'ill in Nature, 'Comparative Anatomy'.)
In the same way, the necessity of all that happens which is
brought about through the causal chain, re-establishes the
unity of the essence-in-itself that is objectified in all such events.
This unity, however, is perceived in our apprehension (that is
tied to time) as a succession of states and thus as past, present,
and future; whereas the essence-in-itself does not know all this,
but exists in the Nunc stans. 6
"f'Permanent now'.]
,
Separations by means of space are in smnnambulistic clair-
voyance much more frequently and thus more easily eliminated
than are those by means of time. For what is merely absent and
dl.stant is much oftener brought to intuitive perception than
what is actually still in the future. In Kant's language this
would be explained by saying that space is merely the form of
the outer sense, time that of the inner. That time and space are
intuitively perceived a priori according to their form, has been
taught by Kant; but that this can be done also according to
their content, is taught by clairvoyant somnambulism.
30
The most illuminating, and at the same time simplest, proof
of the ideality of space is that we cannot abolish it in our thoughts
as we can everything else. We can only empty space; we can
think away from it everything, absolutely everything, and cause
everything to vanish; we can even quite easily imagine that the
space between the fixed stars is absolutely empty. But in no
way can we possibly get rid of space itself; whatever we do and
wherever we put ourselves space is there and nowhere has it an
end, tor it is the very basis and the first condition of all our
representations or mental pictures. This proves quite positively
that space appertains to our intellect itself and is an integral part
thereof. Indeed, it is the part that furnishes the first thread of
the warp for the intellect's fahric whereon the variegated world
of object'; is subsequently laid. For space exhibits itself as soon
as an object is to be represented in my head and then accom-
panies aJI the movements, turns~ and attempts of the intuitively
perceiving intellect as persistently as the spectacles on my nose
accompany all the turns and movements of my person, or as
the shadow accompanies its body. If I notice that something is
with me everywhere and under all circumstances, I conclude
that it is inherent in me, like a peculiar odour, tor example,
which 1 would like to avoid but which is to be found wherever
I go. It is precisely the same with space; whatever I may think,
whatever world I may picture to myself, space is always there
before everything else and will not go away. Now if from this it
becomes obvious that space is a function, indeed a basic
function, of my intellect itself, then the resultant ideality ex-
tends also to everything spatial, to everything that manifests
IDEAS CONCERNING THJ.: INTELLECT 45
itself in space. Yet every such thing in itself may have an

objective existence, but in so far as it is spatial, and thus has
shape, size, and n1ovement, it is subjectively conditioned.
Again, astronomical calculations that prove to be so accurate
and correct are possible only by the fact that space is really in
our head. Consequently, we know things not as they are in
themselves, but only as they appear. This is the great Kant's
great doctrine.
It is the absurdest of all ideas, but in a certain sense the most
fruitful, to regard infinite space as independent of us and thus
as existing absolutely objectively and in itself and to think that
a mere copy of it, as smucthing infinite, comes into our head
through our eyes. J:<""or whoever becomes clearly conscious of
the absurdity of this idea in this way recognizes at once the
mere phantom-existence of this world, since he apprehends it
as a mere brain-phenomenon that disappears as such when the
brain dies in order to leave behind an entirely different world,
namely that of things-in-themselves. The fact that his head is in
space does not prevent him from seeing that space is neverthe-
less only in his head.*
31
What light is for the external physical world, the intellect is
for the inner world of consciousness. For the intellect is related
to the will and so also to the organism that is in fact merely the
objectively and intuitively perceived will, in much the same
way as is the light to the combustible body and to oxygen by
whose combination it blazes forth. And just as this light is the
purer, the less it is mixed with the smoke of the burning body,
so too is the intellect the purer, the more completely it is
separated from the will whence it has sprung. In bolder meta-
phor, it might even be said that life is, as we know, a process of
combustion and the development of light that takes place in
such a process is the intellect.
When I say in a different world', it shows a great want of understanding on

the part of anyone who asks: 'Where then is the other world?' For spau that
imparts a meaning to all \\'here, belongs t"Ssentially to thi.J world outside which
there is no Where. Peace, serenity, and bHss dwell only where there are no Where and
110 Jt"hen.
32
'
Our knowl~dge, like our ~yes, looks only outwards and not
inwards so that \vhen the knower attempts to turn inwards in
order to know hin1se11: he looks into utter darkness and falls
into a complete void. This is due to the following two reasons:
~ 1) The subject of knowing is not something autonomous, a
thing-in-itself; it has no independent, original, and substantial
existence, but is a mere phenomenon, something secondary and
accidental, conditioned in the first instance by the organism
that is the phenomenal appearance of the will. In a word, the
subject of knowing is nothing but the focus wherein all the forces
of the brain converge, as I have explained in the second
volume of my chief work, chapter 22. How then is this subject
of knowing to know itself, for in itself it is nothing? If it turns in-
wards, it recognizes, of course, the will that is the basis of its true
nature. However, for the knowing subject this is not self-knowledge
in the real sense, but knowledge of something else which is yet
different from the knowing subject itself, but is then at once, as
something already known, only a phenomenon. Yet it is such a
phenomenon that has merely time as its form, not space in
addition, as have the things of the external world. But apart
from this, the subject knows the will only as it does external
things in its manifestations and thus in the individual acts of
will and other affections that we understand by the name of
desires, emotions, passions, and feelings. Consequently, it
knows the will still always as phenomenon, though not under
the limitation of space as in the case of external things. For the
above reason, however, the knowing subject cannot know itself
since there is in it nothing except the fact that it is the knower
but, precisely on that account, never the known. It is a pheno-
menon that has no other expression or manifestation than
knowledge; consequently no other manifestation can be known
in it.
( 2) The will in us is certainly a thing-in-itself, existing by
itself, something primary and autonomous, whose phenomenon
manifests itself as organism in the spatially intuitively perceiving
apprehension of the brain. Nevertheless, the will is incapable of
any self-knowledge because, in and by itself, it is something
that merely wills, not something that krwws. For as such the
IDEAS CONCERNI:!'JG THE I1"TELLECT 47
will knows absolutely nothing and consequently not even itself.
Knowledge is a secondary and m~diate function that does not
immediately belong to the \vill, to that which is primary in its
own essential nature.
33
'fhe simplest impartial self-examination, along with the con-
clusions of anatomy, leads to the result that the intellect~ like
its objectification the brain, and the sense-apparatus attached
thereto, are nothing but a greatly enhanced susceptibility to
impressions from without. But the intellect does not constitute
our original and true inner nature; and so in us it is not that
which is in the plant the germinating force, or in the stone
gravity together with chemical forces; only the will proves to
be this. On the contrary, the intellect is in us that which in the
plant may promote or hinder its mere susceptibility to external
influences or to physical and chemical impressions, and what-
ever else may affect its growth and success. In us, however, that
susceptibility is so greatly enhanced that, on the strength of it,
the entire objective world, the world as representation, mani-
fests itself and so to this extent originates as object. To make this
clear, let us picture to ourselves the world without any anitnated
beings. It is then without perception of any kind and so object-
ively does not really exist at all; however, let this be assumed.
Now let us imagine a number of plants that have sprung up
from the ground close to one another. They arc now affected
by influences of many kinds, such as air, wind, the ousting of
one plant by another, moisture, cold, light, warmth, electrical
tension, and so on. Now let us enhance ever more in our
thoughts the susceptibility of these plants to such influences; it
then finally becomes sensation accompanied by the ability to
refer this to its cause; and so in the end it becomes perception.
But the world stands out at once, manifesting itself in space,
time, and causality; yet it remains a mere result of external
influences on the susceptibility of plants. This graphical con-
sideration is well calculated to render clear the merely pheno-
menal existence of the external world. For to whom will it occur
to maintain that the conditions, having their existence in such
an intuitive perception that comes from mere relations between
external impression and vivid susceptibility, present us with the
truly oQ.jective, inner, and original constitution of all those
natural forces that are supposed to act on the plant and hence
present us with the world of things-in-themselves? We can,
therefore, see from this graphic description why the sphere of
the human intellect has such narrow limits, as is shown by Kant
in the Critique of Pure Reason.
On the other hand, the thing-in-itself is only the will. Accord-
ingly, it is the creator and bearer of all the properties and
qualities of the phenomenon. It is undoubtedly charged with
what is moral; but even knowledge and its power and thus the
intellect belong to the phenomenon of the will and therefore
indirectly to it. That the narrow-minded and stupid always
meet with a certain amount of contempt Jnay be due at any rate
in part to the fact that the will in them has so lightened its
burden and taken on for the purpose of its aims only an ounce
or two of intellectual force.
34
Not only is all evidence intuitively perceptual, as I have
already said in 25 and also in my chief work (volume i, 14),
but so too is all true and genuine comprehtnsion of things. This is
proved by the innumerable figurative expressions in all lan-
guages which are the united attempts to reduce everything
abstract to something intuitively perceptual. For the mere
abstract concepts of a thing do not give us any real under-
standing thereof, although they enable us to talk about it, just
as many speak of many things. Some, in fact, do not need for
this purpose any concepts at a11, but manage with mere words,
for example, with the technical terms they have learnt. On the
other hand, to understand anything really and truly, it is
necessary for us to grasp it in intuitive perception, to receive a
clear picture of it, if possible from reality itself, but otherwise
by means of the imagination. Even what is too great or too
complicated to be taken in at a glance, must be conjured up in
our minds through intuitive perception, either partially or by
a representative type that can easily be surveyed, if we are really
to understand it. But what does not admit even of this, must be
made clear at any rate by an attempt at a picture and simile
from the intuitive perception that is so very much the basis of
our knowledge. This is seen also when we think, indeed in
abstracto, of very large numbers and likewise of very great
distances, as in astronomy, which can be expressed only by
such numbers. Yet we do not really understand them directly,
but have of them merely a comparative coRception.
But more than anyone else should the philosopher draw from
that fountain-head, from knowledge of intuitive perception, and
should, therefore, keep his eye always on things themselves, on
nature, the world, and life, and should make these, not books,
the text of his thoughts. Moreover, he should always test and
control in them all ready-made concepts and therefore use
books not as sources of knowledge, but only as aids thereto. For
only at second hand and often somewhat adulterated does he
receive what is given by books; it is indeed only a reflection, a
counterfeit, of the original, namely of the world; and rarely has
the mirror been perfectly clean. On the other hand, nature,
reality, never lies; indeed with her truth is always plain truth.
Therefore the philosopher has to make her his study, namely
her great and clear features and her main and fundamental
character whence his problem is developed. He will accordingly
make the subject of his consideration important and universal
phenomena, in other words, that which is everywhere and at all
times. On the other hand he will leave to the physicist, the
zoologist, the historian, and so on, special, particular, rare,
microscopic, or fleeting phenomena. He is concerned with more
important things; the totality and size of the world, its essential
nature, and fundamental truths are his high aim. Therefore he
cannot at the same time meddle with details and trivialities;
just as a man surveying a landscape from a mountain top can-
not at the same time examine and determine plants that are
growing far down in the valley, but leaves such work to one
who is botanizing down there. To devote himself and all his
strength to a special branch of knowledge, a man must certainly
have a great liking for it and yet also show a great lack of
interest in all the others. For he can do the former only on
condition that he remains ignorant in all the latter; just as a
man who marries has to give up all other women. Minds of the
highest eminence, therefore, will never devote themselves to a
special branch of knowledge; for an insight into the totality
of things is too near to their hearts. They are generals not
captains; conductors not instrumentalists. Yet how could a
great mind find satisfaction in getting to know from the sum-
total of things a definite branch, a single field, exactly and in
its relations to all the rest, but in leaving out of account
everything else? On the contrary, a great intellect obviously
turns to the whole and his efforts are directed to the totality of
things, the world in general, where nothing should be strange
or foreign to him. Consequently, he cannot spend his life
exhausting all the tiny details of one branch of knowledge.
The eye becomes weak after staring for some time at an

object and is no longer capable of seeing anything. In the same
way, the intellect through continuously thinking about the
same thing becomes incapable of further meditation and
comprehension; it grows dull and confused. \Ve must leave it
and come back to it, when we shall find it again fresh and in
clear outline. Therefore when Plato relates in the Symposium
( 220) that, while reflecting on something that occurred to him,
Socrates stood stock still like a statue for twenty-four hours, we
are bound to say to this not only non e vero, but also e mal
lrovato. 7 From the intellect's need for rest we see also why if, as
newcomers and strangers, we look after a lengthy pause into
the daily course of the things of this world and thus have a
fresh and really unprejudiced insight into them, their connec-
tion and significance are made thoroughly and profoundly
clear to us; so that we then see things palpably and plainly and
fail to understand how it is that they are not noticed by all
those who hourly move among them. Such a bright moment
can accordingly be compared to a lucid interval.
' 36
In a higher sense, even the hours of inspiration with their
moments of illumination and real conception are only the Iucida
intervalla of genius. Accordingly, it might be said that genius
dwells only one storey above madness. But yet even the rational
man's reason [ Vemunft] really operates only in lucidis interuallis;
7 ['It is not true; 'it is a poor invention.']

for he is not always rational, Even the prudent are not so all
the time; the scholar does not exhibit his qualities at every
moment; for sometimes he will not be able to recall and muster
in some order the things that are most familiar to him; in short:
nemo omnibus horis sapit. 8 All this seems to point to a certain ebb
and flow of the humours of the brain, or to a relaxation and
tension of its filaments.*
Now if, during a spring-tide of this kind, some new and pro-
found insight suddenly con1es to us, whereby our ideas naturally
attain to a higher degree of animation, the cause of this will
invariably be one of intuitive perception; and an intuitive
insight will underlie every great thought. For words awaken
ideas in others, but pictures or images in us.
37
That we should write down as soon as possible our own
valuable meditations goes without saying. Indeed, if at times
we forget what we have experienced, how much more do we
forget what we have thought! But thoughts come not when
we want them, but when they want to. On the other hand, it is
better not to write down what we obtain ready-made from
without, what has merely been learnt, or what can in any case
be found again in books. We should, therefore, refrain from
making a collection of literary extracts and cuttings; for to
write something down is equivalent to consigning it to oblivion.
But we should deal sternly and despotically with our memory
lest it should forget how to obey. For example, if we cannot
recall some fact, verse, or word, we should not look it up in
books, but worry the n1emory periodically for weeks until it has
fulfilled its obligation. For the longer we have had to try to
recollect it, the more firmly will it afterwards stick in our
memory; what we have with so much effort worked up from
the depths of memory will then be much more readily at our
According as the mergy of the mind is raised or relaxed (in consequence of the
organism's physiological state), the mind soars inUJ very different heights, sometimes
floating up in the ether and surveying the world, sometimes skimming over the
morasses of the earth, often between the two extremes, but nearer to one of them!
Here the will can do nothing.
8 ['No one is wise all the time.']
disposal another time than if we had refreshed our memory
with the aid of books.* Mnemonics, on the other hand, rests
ultimately on the fact that we have more confidence in our wit
than in our memory and therefore transfer the functions of the
latter to the former. In other words, wit must substitute for
something difficult to retain something that is easy to retain in
order, at some future time, to translate the latter back into the
former. Mnemonics, however, is related to natural memory as
an artificial leg to a real one and, like everything, underlies
Napoleon's utterance: tout ce qui n'est pas nature[ est imparfait.9 It
is a good thing initially to make use of words or facts recently
learnt, like a temporary crutch, until they are assimilated in the
direct and naturaltnemory. How our memory starts from the
often immense range of its storehouse to find at once what is
required at the time; how the blind and sometimes long search
for this really takes place; how what was at first vainly sought
comes to us quite automatically and on the spur of the moment
as if it had been whispered to us and often when we discover
a tiny thread attached to it, but otherwise also after a few hours
or days; all this is a mystery to us who are actively concerned
in the matter. To me, however, there seetns to be no doubt that
these very subtle and mysterious operations with such an im-
mense quantity and variety of material for recollection can
never be replaced by an artificial and conscious play with
analogies. Yet in the case of these, the natural memory must
again always remain the primum mobile; 10 but then it has to
retain two things instead of one, the symbol and the symbolized.
In any case such an artificial mem~ry can contain only a rela-
* Memory is a capricious and arbitrary thing, somewhat like a young girl.

Sometimes it refuses quite tmexpectedly to give what it has already furnished a
hundred times, and then later on it presents us with this quite automatically
when we are no longer thinking about it.
A word sticks more firmly in the memory, if we have associated it with a mental
image rather than with a mere concept.
It would be a fine thing if we now knew for all time what we luzvl karnt; but it is
otherwise. Everything we have learnt must from time to time be brushed up by
repetition, otherwise it is gradually forgotten. But as mere repetition is tedious,
we must always learn something in addition. Hence: aut progredi, aut regredi ('either
go forward or go back'].
9 ['Everything that is not natural is imperfect.']

ao ['The first mobile dung', 'the first thing to be moved', 'the first motive'.
tively small store. Generally speaking, however, there are two
ways in which things are stamped on our memory: (a) deliber-
ately by our purposely memorizing them, whereby we can
sometimes make use of mnemonic tricks if it is a case of mere
words or numbers; or (b) they are stan1ped automatically on
the memory without any action on our part by virtue of the
impression they make on us; and then indeed we call them
unforgettable. Just as a wound is often not felt at the time it is
received but only later, so many an event or idea we have
heard or read about makes a deeper impression on us than we
are at once aware of; but later it occurs to us again and again.
The result of this is that it is not forgotten, but is incorporated
in the system of our thoughts, ready to appear at the right
moment. Moreover, it is obvious that in some respect they are
of interest to us. But for this it is necessary for us to have a keen
and acute mind that eagerly assimilates what is objective and
strives for knowledge and insight. The surprising ignorance of
many scholars in things that concern their branch of knowledge
is due ultimately to their lack of objective interest in such
things; and so the observations, remarks, and views concerning
these do not make a vivid ilnpression on them and are, there-
fore, not retained. For speaking generally, they study not con
amore but under self-compulsion. Now the more things there are
in which a man takes a lively objective interest, the more will
be fixed in his memory in this spontaneous manner; and so they
will be at a n1aximum in youth when the novelty of things
enhances an interest in them. This second way is 1nuch more
certain than the first and, moreover, selects entirely by itself
what is of importance to us, although in the case of blockheads
it is restricted to personal affairs.
38
The quality of our thoughts (their formal worth) comes from
within, but their trend or bearing and thus their material fron1
without; so that what we are thinking at any given moment is
the product of two fundamentally different factors. Accordingly,
objects are for the mind what the plectrum is for the lyre; hence
the great variety of thoughts stimulated in different minds
by the same spectacle. When in the heyday of my intellect at
the height of its powers the hour came through favourable
54 IDEAS CONCERNI~G THE INTELLECT
circumstances in which the brain was at its highest tension, my
eye would encounter any object it liked, and this spoke revela-
tions to me; there then ensued a series of ideas that were worth
recording and were written down. But with advancing years,
especially with the powers on the wane, such hours have
become ever rarer; for the objects are the plectrum, but the
intellect is the lyre. The question whether this is well tuned to
a high pitch establishes the great difference of the world as
manifested in every mind. Now just as this depends on physio-
logical and anatmnical conditions, so, on the other hand, mere
chance holds the plectrum by producing the objects that are to
engage our attention. But here a great part of the matter is still
left to our discretion in that we can, partially at any rate,
determine it to our liking by means of the objects with which
we are occupied or surrounded. We should, therefore, give to
them some care and attention and proceed with methodical
deliberateness. Such advice is given in Locke's excellent little
book On the Conduct of the Understanding. Sound serious thoughts
on worthy subjects, however, cannot be conjured up arbitrarily
and at any tin1e. All we can do is to keep the path clear for them
by banishing all futile, foolish, or vulgar ruminations, and by
turning away from all humbug and tomfoolery. And so we can
say that, in order to think of smnething sensible, the quickest
way is not to think of anything absurd or preposterous. We
need only keep the field open to sound ideas and they will come.
Therefore whenever we have a free .moment with nothing to do,
we should not forthwith seize a book, but should for once let
our mind become tranquil, and then in it something good may
easily arise. The remark made by Riemer in his book on Goethe
is very true where he says that our own thoughts come to us
almost always when we arc walking or standing and extremely
rarely when we are seated. Now since the entry generally of
vivid, searching, and valuable ideas is the result more of
favourable internal conditions than of external, it is clear that
several ideas of this kind that relate to entirely different sub-
jects, often appear in rapid succession and even wellnigh
simultaneously in which case they cross and encroach on one
another like the crystals of a druse. In fact, it is possible for u.s
to have the same experience as the man has who courses two
hares at the same time.
39
How limited and inadequate the normal human intellect is
and how slight is clearness of consciousness, can be gathered
from the fact that, in spite of the ephemeral brevity of man's life
that is cast into the stream of endless time, of the precarious
nature of our existence, of the numberless mysteries that every-
where obtrude, of the significant character of so many pheno-
mena, and of the utter inadequacy of life; that, in spite of this,
not all philosophize constantly and unremittingly; in fact, not
even many, or some, or perhaps only a few; no, only here and
there, only the absolute exceptions philosophize. Through this
dream the rest live not so very differently from the animals from
whom, in the long run, they differ only by their foresight and
provision for a few years. Their 1netaphysical need that makes
itself felt is catered for in advance by the authorities through
religions; and whatever these may be, they suffice. Neverthe-
less, it might well be that n1any more philosophize in secret than
is apparent, although this may subsequently prove to be the
case. For ours is truly a sorry plight! To live a span of years full
of trouble, want, anguish, and pain, without in the least
knowing whence, whither, and to what purpose, and in addition to
all this, the priests and parsons of every persuasion with their
respective revelations on the subject together with their threats
to unbelievers. Moreover, there is the fact that we look at and
associate with one another, like masks with masks; we know not
who we are, but are like masks that do not know even them-
selves. And this is precisely how the animals regard us, and we
them.
40
\Ve might almost imagine that half of all our thinking occurred
unconsciously. The conclusion is in most cases drawn without
the premisses having been clearly thought out. This can be
inferred from the fact that sometimes an event, whose conse-
quences we cannot possibly foresee and whose eventual effect on
our affairs we are even less able to judge clearly, nevertheless
does exert an unmistakable influence on our whole frame of
mind by n1aking it either cheerful or melancholy. This can be
only the consequence of an unconscious rumination, as is still
s6 IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT
more obvious in what follows. I have made myself acquainted
with the actual data of a theoretical or practical affair; now
after a few days, without n1y having thought of it again, the
result as to how the matter stands or what is to be done about
it will often occur to me quite automatically and be clear in my
mind. Here the operation whereby this was brought about
remains just as hidden from me as does that of a calculating
machine; it has been simply an unconscious rumination. In the
same way, when I have recently written something on a sub-
ject, but have then dismissed the matter from my mind, an
additional note sometimes occurs to me when I am not thinking
about it at all. In like manner, I can for days search in my
memory for a name that has escaped me; and then when I am
not thinking about it at all, it suddenly occurs to me, as though
it had been whispered in my ear. In fact, our best, most terse,
and most profound thoughts suddenly occur in consciousness
like an inspiration and often at once in the form of a striking
and significant sentence. But they are obviously the results of
long and unconscious meditation and of countless aperfus that
often lie in the distant past and are individually forgotten. Here
I refer to what I have said on the subject in my chief work,
volume two, chapter fourteen. One might almost venture to
put forward the physiological hypothesis that conscious thought
takes place on the surface of the brain and unconscious in the
innermost recesses of its medullary substance.
41
With the monotony of life and its resultant shallowness, we
should after a number of years find it insufferably tedious, were
it not for the steady progress of knowledge and insight as a
whole and for the better and clearer comprehension of all things
and their circumstances, partly as the fruit of maturity and
experience and also in consequence of the changes that we our-
selves undergo through the different periods of our lives. In
this way, things are to a certain extent presented to us from an
ever fresh point of view whence they reveal aspects, as yet
unknown to us, and appear to be different. And so in spite
of a decline in the intensity of our intellectual powers, the dies
diem docet 11 always goes on untiringly and spreads over life an
11 ['One day instructs another.']
ever-fresh charm by invariably presenting what is identical
as something different and new. Therefore Solon's words are
the motto of any old thinker: Y7JPrXUKW s~ UE~ 1ToN\a OtOaaKOftVOS 12
Incidentally, the many different changes in our mood and
temperament, by virtue whereof we daily see things in a
different light, at all times render us the same service. They also
lessen the monotony of our consciousness and thought by acting
thereon in the same way as does the constantly changing illumi-
nation with its endlessly manifold light-effects on a beautiful
piece of country, in consequence whereof the landscape seen by
us a hundred times always delights us afresh. Thus when we
are in a changed mood, what we know appears to be new and
awakens in us fresh ideas and views.
42
Whoever tries to settle something a posteriori and thus by
experiment, although he could see and decide it a priori, for
instance, the necessity of a cause for every change, or mathe-
matical truths, or propositions from mechanics and astronomy
that are reducible to mathematics, or even such as follow fro1n
very well-known and unquestionable laws of nature, renders
himself an object of contempt. A fine example of this is afforded
by our most recent materialists who start from chen1istry and
whose exceedingly one-sided erudition has already caused me
to remark elsewhere IJ that mere chemistry may well qualify a
man to be a druggist, but not a philosopher. They believe they
have made on the empirical path a new discovery in the a priori
truth, which has been expressed a thousand times before them,
that matter is permanent :i and this they boldly announce, despite
a world that does not yet know anything of it, and frankly
demonstrate it on the empirical path. ('The proof of this could be
furnished only by our scales and retorts' says Dr. Louis Buchner
in his book Kraft und Stoff, 5th edn., p. 14, which is the naive
echo of his school.) But here they are so timorous or even so
ignorant that they do not use the only correct and valid word
'matter' [A1aterie], but 'material' [Stoff) that is Inore familiar
to them. Thus the a priori proposition: 'Matter is perma-
nent and therefore its quantum can never be increased or
z ['The older I grow, the more I add to my store of knowledge.']
u [In the preface to the work On the H1ili in Nature.]
diminished' is expressed by them as:' Material is i.Jrunortal ', and

in this they feel original and important, scilicet in their new
discovery. For such little 1nen naturally do not know that dis-
putes have been going on for hundreds and even thousands of
years concerning the pre-eminence and relation of permanent
matter to the ever-present form. They come quasi modo geniti 1
and suffer severely from ot/Jt~-tO{a,IS described by Gellius (XI.
7) as vitium serae emditionis; ut, quod nunquam didiceris, diu ignor-
averis, cum id scire aliquando coeperis, magni facias quo in loco cumque
in loco et quacunque in rie dicere. 16 If only someone, naturally
endowed with patience, \\'ould take the trouble to drub into
these apothecaries' apprentices and barbers' assistants who,
coming from their kitchens of chemistry, know nothing, the
difierence between matter and material. For material is already
qualified matter, in other words, the union of matter with form,
both of which can again be separated. Consequently, matter
alone is that which is permanent, not material which can still
always become something else-not excepting your sixty
chemical elements. The indestructibility of matter can never
be decided by experiments; and so as regards this, we should
be for ever uncertain were it not firmly established a priori. How
wholly and definitely a priori and hence independent of all
experience the knowledge of the indestructibility of 1natter is
and of its passage through all forms, is testified by Shakespeare,
who certainly knew very little physics and had not much general
knowledge; yet he represents Hamlet as saying:
The imperial Caesar, dead, and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
0! that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t'expel the winter's flaw!
Hamlet, Act v, Sc. 1.
He therefore makes the same application of that truth which

our present-day materialists have often served up from the
dispensary and clinic, in that they obviously take pride in the
fact and here consider such a truth to be a result of empiricism,
H ('A!; newborn babes' (1 Peter 2:2;.]
1s ('Learning too Ia te '.]
16 ['The mistake oflearning too late which consists in our repeating, everywhere
and on all occasions, as something important that which we had never previously
learnt and for long had not known, after we finally began to know it'.]
as was previously shown. On the other hand, whoever tries
to demonstrate a priori what can be known only a posteriori from
experience behaves like a charlatan and makes himself ridicu-
lous. A foretaste of this mistake was furnished by examples
from Schelling and his followers when they shot a priori at an
a posteriori fixed target, as someone very neatly expressed it at
the time. Vv e shall become best acquainted with Schelling's
achievements in this direction from his Erster Entwurf einer
Naturphilosophie. Here it is obvious that from nature before us he
abstracted, secretly and quite empirically, universal truths and
then formulated son1e expressions of its character as a whole.
He then appears with these as a priori found principles of the
conceivability of a nature at all, and from them again happily
derives the facts of the case which are met with and underlie
such principles; and accordingly he demonstrates to his students
that nature cannot be other than she is:
Then, the philosopher steps in
And shows, no otherwise it could have been: 1 7
AB an amusing example of this kind, we should read on pp. g6,
97 of the above-mentioned book the a priori deduction of in-
organic nature and gravity. To me it is like a child doing
conjuring tricks; I see clearly how he slips the pellets under the
cup and then later I am supposed to show surprise at finding
them there. Mter such a precedent of the ma'itcr, we shall not
be surprised at meeting his disciples years afterwards on the
same path and at seeing how they try to deduce a priori the
course of nature from vague, empirically grasped concepts, such
as oval-form, spherical-form, and from arbitrarily assumed,
ambiguous analogies, such as egg-animals, trunk-animals, belly
animals, breast animals, and similar tomfoolery. On the other
hand, we clearly see in their serious deductions that they always
cast a glance at what is only certain a posteriori and yet often fla-
grantly violate nature in order to mould her to their whims and
fancies. How worthy the French arc by contrast with their honest
empiricism which admittedly attempts to learn only from nature
and to explore her course, but not to lay down her laws. Merely
on the path of induction they found their division of the animal
kingdom which is as profoundly conceived as it is admirable
17 [Goethe's Faust, Pt. I, Bayard Taylor's translation.]
6o IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT
and which the Germans are quite unable even to appreciate.
They therefore push it into the background in order to bring
forward through queer and curious notions, like those previously
mentioned, their own originality; and then for this they admire
one another-these discerning and impartial judges of intel-
lectual 1nerit! What luck to be born of such a nation!
43
It is quite natural for us to maintain a defensive and negative
attitude to every new opinion on whose subject we have already
given a firm judgement. For such an opinion makes a hostile
encroachment on the hitherto exclusive system of our convic-
tions, disturbs the peace and consolation derived therefrom,
expects us to undertake fresh exertions, and declares as wasted
all our previous efforts. Accordingly, a truth that brings us
back from errors is comparable to a medicine both by its bitter
and nasty taste and by the fact that it does not show its effect
the moment it is taken, but only after some tin1e.
And so if we see an individual obstinately sticking to his
errors, this is much more the case with the great majority; for
on their opinions once formed experience and instruction may
toil in vain for hundreds of years. Thus there are certain uni-
versally popular errors firmly accredited and daily repeated by
millions with the utmost complacency. I have begun to. n1akc a
list of them and request others to add to it.
( 1) Suicide is a cowardly act.
(2) Whoever distrusts others is himself dishonest.
(3) Merit and genius are sincerely modest and unassuming.
(4) Those who are mad are extremely unfortunate.
(5) Philosophy cannot be learnt, but only philosophizing.
(This is the opposite of the truth.)
(6) It is easier to write a good tragedy than a good comedy.
(7) The statement, attributed to Bacon, that a little taste in
philosophy leads possibly to atheism, but fuller draughts
lead back to religion. Is that so? Altez voir! (Bacon, De
augmentis scientiarum, Jib. 1, p. 5).
(8) 'Knowledge is power'. The devil a bit! A man can have
a great deal of knowledge without for that reason posses-
sing the least power, while another has the greatest power
with the least knowledge. Therefore Herodotus very
rightly expresses the opposite statement: xfJlarYJ S
~ I > \ - ' ' e I
OVVJI1} H17't TWV E"JI O:V pW7TOtUL (t.VrYJ 7TO/V\0:
" \\ \ ..J. I ~ \
'f'poVEOJITO: /-LTJOGOS
Kparl..tv rs (lib. rx, c. r6). Occasionally a man's knowledge
gives him power over others, for example, when he knows
their secrets, or they cannot get to the bottom of his; but
.this still does not warrant the statement that knowledge
1s power.
Men repeat most of these to one another without thinking
very much in connection with them and merely because, when
they first heard them, they discovered that they sounded very
wise and clever.
44
\Ve can observe, especially when travelling, how dull and
irksome is the way of thinking of the masses and how difficult
it is to tackle them. For whoever is fortunate enough to be free
to live more with books than with men, has always in view only
the easy communication of ideas and knowledge together with
the rapid action and reaction of minds on one another. In this
way, he may easily forget how utterly different things are in the
world of men and wmnen, the only world of reality, so to speak;
and in the end he even imagines that every insight gained at
once becomes the common property of mankind. But we need
only travel by rail for a day to notice that, where we now happen
to be, certain prejudices, erroneous notions, manners, customs,
and clothes prevail which have in fact been upheld for centuries
and are unknown at the place where we were the day befiJre.
It is the same with provincial dialects. From all this we can
judge how wide the gulf is between books and the masses and
how slowly but surely acknowledged truths reach the crowd.
And so as regards the rapidity of transmission, nothing is less
like physical light than is that of the intellect.
It all comes to this, then, that the masses do very little
thinking because they have no tin1e to practise it; but in this
way, of course, they cling to their errors for a very long time.
On the other hand, they arc not, like the learned world, a
weathercock of daily fluctuating opinions that point in all
IS ['The most grievous affliction among men is for one to understand a great
deal and yet be incapable of anything.']
directions. This is a very fortunate circumstance, for to picture

the great heavy masses in rapid motion is a terrifying thought,
especially when we reflect how everything would be overthrown
and swept away by them if they turned and changed their
course.
Craving for knowledge, \\'hen directed to the universal, is

simply called desire for knowledge; but when it is directed to the
particular, it is called inquisititeness or curiosiry. Boys often show
a desire for knowledge, little girls mere curiosity, the latter to
an astonishing degree and often with tiresome ingenuousness.
The tendency to the particular that is characteristic of the
female sex and their insusceptibility to the universal are here
alreadv in evidence .
46
A happily organized mind and consequently one equipped
with power of judgement has two excellent qualities. The first
is that, of everything seen, experienced, and read by it, what
is important and significant is noted by it and automatically
impressed on the memory, to be brought out in future when
required, whereas the remaining material again flows away.
The memory of such a mind is, accordingly, like a fine sieve
that retains only the larger pieces, whereas that of others is like
a coarse sieve that lets everything through except what is by
chance left behind. The second good quality of such a n1ind,
which is akin to the first, is that what is relevant to a subject, is
analogous or otherwise related thereto, however remote it may
be, always occurs to such a mind at the right moment. This is
due to the fact that in things it grasps what is really essential,
whereby it at once recognizes what is identical and therefore
homogeneous, even in things that are otherwise most varied
and dissimilar.
Intellect is not an extensive quantity, but an intensive; and

so a man in this respect may confidently be a match for ten
thousand. Even a whole host of a thousand blockheads does not
produce one shrewd and intelligent man.
Two closely related faculties, that of judging and of having

ideas of one's own, are what is really lacking in miserable,
commonplace minds whereof the world is full to overflowing.
But these two qualities they lack to such a degree that, for any-
one who does not belong to their set, it is not easy for him to
form any conception of this and thus of the wretchedness of
their existence, of the fastidium sui quo !aboral omnis stultitia. 1 9 But
from this defect, we clearly see, on the one hand, the trivial
nature of all the scribblings of all nations, which are declared
by contemporaries to be literature, and, on the other, the fate
of that which is genuine and true when it makes its appearance
among such men. Thus a11 real musing and meditating is to a
certain extent an attempt to put a great mind on small men;
no wonder that it does not at once succeed. The pleasure
afforded by an au thor always calls for a certain sympathy or
harmony between his way of thinking and the reader's, and it will
be the greater, the more accomplished the reader. And so a
great mind is enjoyed wholly and entirely only by such another.
This is precisely why bad or mediocre authors fill thinking
minds with disgust and aversion. Even conversation with most
people has just the same effect; at every step we feel inadequacy
and disharmony.
While on this subject, let me utter a warning that we should
not underrate a new and possibly true dictum or idea because
we find it in an inferior book or hear it from the lips of a block-
head; for the former has stolen it and the latter has picked it up,
a fact that is naturally concealed. Then there is also the
Spanish proverb: Mas sahe el necio en su casa, que el cuerdo en la
a,~ena (A fool is better acquainted with his own house than is a
clever man with another's). Thus in his own branch, everyone
knows more than we. Finally, it is well known that even a blind
hen occasionally finds a grain of corn. In fact, it is even true
['Of the disgust with it.sdf from which all stupidity suffers.') (See volume one,
111
page 331 for the more accurate quotation from Seneca.)

64 IDEAS CONCERNI:N'G THE INTELLECT
that il y a un mystere dans l' esprit des gens qui n' en ont pas. 20 There-
fore:
n \\ I
01\1\ctKL KaL
\
KTJ7TWpO~
' > \ -~\ I ~
UVT)p JLa/\CX KatptOV H'IT.
( Et hortulanus saepe opportunissima dixit.) 21 *

It 1nay well happen that long ago we once heard from an
unimportant and uneducated man a remark or the description
of some experience, which, however, we have not since for-
gotten. But then, on account of its source, we are inclined to
underrate it or regard it as something that was long ago uni-
versally known. We should now ask ourselves whether we have
ever again heard it in all the time that has since elapsed or have
even read about it. If this is not the case, we should hold it in
esteem. \Vould one underrate a diamond because it might have
been raked out from some muck-heap?
49
There cannot be a musical instrument that docs not add a
touch of something strange to the pure tone, in consequence of
the vibrations in the material of the instrument itself, the tone
itself consisting only of vibrations of the air. In fact through
their impulse, the vibrations in the instrument first produce
those of the air and give rise to an unin1portant secondary
sound. In precisely this way, every tone receives that which is
specifically peculiar to it and thus that which, for example,
distinguishes the tone of the violin from that of the flute. But
the less there is of this inessential admixture, the purer the tone;
and so the human voice has the purest because no artificial
instrument can con1pete with one that is natural. Now in the
same way, there cannot be an intellect that does not add to the
essential and purely objective clement of knowledge something
su~jective and foreign to that elernent, something springing
"' The above is quoted by Gaisford in the preface to Stobacus, Flcrilegium, p. xxx,
according to Gellius, lib. u, c. 6. In the Fl.orilegium itself, vol. t, p. 107, it runs:
llo).).aKt 'TO& Kat p.wpor; av~p KaTa.ra{p,vV El7T.
(Saepe etimn stupidi rum intempesta lcquuntur.)
['Even a foolish man often makes a pertinent remark.']
as a verse of Aeschylus which the editor doubts.
w ['There is a mystery in the minds of those men who have none.']
11 ['Even a gardener often makes a pertinent remark.']
from the man who carries and conditions the intellect, and thus
something individual whereby the purely objective element is
invariably vitiated. The intellect in which this influence is least,
will be the most purely objective and consequently the most
perfect. As a result of this, the productions of every intellect
contain and reproduce really only that which it regularly
apprehends in things and hence the purely objective. This is the
reason why such productions appeal to everyone the mmncnt he
understands them. I have, therefore, said that genius consists
in the objectivity of the mind. Yet an absolutely objective and
thus perfectly pure intellect is just as impossible as is an
absolutely pure tone; the latter because the air cannot become
vibrated by itself, but must in some way be impelled; the fonner
because an intellect cannot exist by itself~ but can appear only
as the instrument of a will, or (speaking literally) because a
brain is possible only as part of an organisn1. An irrational and
even blind will that manifests itself as an organism is the root
and foundation of every intellect; hence the inadequacy and
imperfection of everyone and the characteristics of folly and
perversity without which there can be no human being; and
so also the expression 'no lotus without a stem', and Goethe
says:
The Tower of Babel haunts them still,
They cannot be united!
For every man his crotchet has,
And Copernicus also his. 22
In addition to the tainting and infection of knowledge
through individuality, through the subject's disposition that is
given once for all, we now have that infection that arises
directly from the will and its mood of the moment and thus
from the interests, passions, and emotions of the knower. To
estimate entirely how much the subjective element is added to
our knowledge, we ought to look more frequently at one and
the same event with the eyes of two men with different disposi-
tions and interests. As this is not feasible, we must be content to
observe how very different the same persons and objects appear
to us at different times, in different moods, and on different

occasmns.
~l [Sprichu;Mt/i.ch, Weimar edition, voln, p. 231.]
66 IDEAS CONCERNI::'\iG THE INTELLECT
It would certainly be a fine thing for our intellect if it existed
by itself and were thus an original and pure intelligence and not
merely a secondary faculty, which is necessarily rooted in a will,
but which, in virtue of such a basis, must suffer a contamination
of almost all its knowledge and judgements. But for this, it n1ight
be a pure organ of knowledge and truth. Yet as things now are,
ho\V rarely shall we see quite clearly in a matter wherein we
are in some way interested! It is hardly possible; for in every
argument and every additional datum, the will speaks at once
and indeed without our being able to distinguish between its
voice and that of the intellect itself, for the two are merged into
one ego. This becomes most clear when we try to prophesy the
outcome of some matter that intcrestli us; for interest impairs
the intellect at almost every step, first as fear and then as hope.
Here it is hardly possible to see clearly, for the intellect then
resembles a torch by which one is supposed to read, whereas the
night breeze agitates it. Precisely on this account, a loyal and
sincere friend is of inestimable value in very disturbing circum-
stances because he himself docs not take part in things and
sees them as they are, whereas in our eyes they appear falsified
through the deception of the passions. We can have an accurate
judgement on things that have happened and a correct forecast
of things to come, only when they do not concern us at all and
thus leave our interests absolutely untouched. Moreover, we are
not uncorrupted; on the contrary, without our noticing it, our
intellect is infected and poisoned by the will. This and also the
incompleteness, or even interpolation, of the data explain why
men of intellect and knowledge are sometimes completely
mistaken in prophesying the outcome of political affairs.
With artists, poets, and authors generally, one of the sub-
jective infections of the intellect is also what we are accustomed
to caii ideas of the times or at the present day 'consciousness
of the times', and thus certain views and notions that are in
vogue. The author who is tinged with their colour, has allowed
himself to be impressed by them, whereas he should have
ignored and rejected them. Now when, after a shorter or longer
spell of years, those views have vanished entirely into oblivion,
his works of that period which still exist are deprived of the
support that they had in such views and then often seem to be
inconceivably absurd, or at any rate like an old calendar. It
IDEAS CONCERNI~G THE INTELLECT 67
is only the absolutely genuine poet or thinker who rises superior
to all such influences. Even Schiller had run his eye over the
Critique of Practcal Reason and had been impressed thereby; but
Shakespeare had run his eye simply over the world. And so in
all his plays, but most clearly in those dealing with English
history, we see how the characters, with one or two exceptions
that are not too glaring, are set in motion generally by motives
of self-interest or wickedness. For he wished to show in the
mirror of poetry men, not moral caricatures; and so everyone
recognizes them in the mirror and his works live today and for
all time. The characters in Schiller's Don Carlos can be divided
fairly sharply into white and black, angels and devils. Even now
they seem to be strange and peculiar. What will be the verdict
after another fifty years?
50
The life of planLr is taken up with mere existence; accordingly,
its pleasure is a dull enjoyment that is purely and absolutely
subjective. With animals, knowledge comes as something addi-
tional; yet this remains restricted entirely to motives and indeed
to those that are nearest and immediate. And so they too find
complete satisfaction in mere existence and this suffices to fill
their lives. Accordingly, they can spend many hours in complete
idleness without feeling ill at ease or impatient, although they
do not think, but merely perceive intuitively. Only in the
cleverest of all the animals, in dogs and monkeys, do the need
for occupation and, consequently, boredom make themselves
felt. They therefore like to play and amuse themselves by gaping
and staring at passers-by. Thus they already come within the
category of human window-gapers who everywhere stare at us,
but excite real indignation only when it is observed that they
are students.
Only in man has knowledge, i.e. consciousness of other things
in contrast to mere self-consciousness, reached a high degree
and been enhanced to prudence and reflectiveness through the
appearance of reason [Vernurift]. As a result, his life can be
occupied not only with mere existence, but also with knowledge
as such which is to a certain extent a second existence outside
his own person and in other beings and things. But with him
knowledge is also for the most part restricted to TTWtives which,
however, include distant ones and, when taken in bulk, go by
the name of 'useful knowledge'. On the other hand, free
knowledge, in other words, knowledge devoid of aim or purpose,
does not in him usually go beyond curiosity and a desire to be
entertained; yet it is present in everyone, at least to this extent.
If, however, the n1otives grant him some relaxation, a great
part of his life will be taken up with mere existence. Mere gaping
and idling that are so frequent are evidence of this; and so too
is that sociability that consists tnainly of his being merely with
other people either with exceedingly poor and paltry conversa-
tion or with none at all.* Indeed, although they are not clearly
aware of it, most people resolve in their heart of hearts to
manage with the least possible display of ideas; and this is their
chief maxim and guide to conduct because for them thinking
is so troublesome a burden. Accordingly, they do only just as
much thinking as is rendered absolutely necessary by their
professional business; and then again as much as is required
by their different pastimes, conversation as well as games, both
of which must then be so arranged that they can be carried
on with a minimum of thought. If, however, in their hours of
leisure they lack such facilities, rather than take up a book that
would tax their powers of thought, they will lie down by the
window for hours, gaping at the most trifling events and so
really furnishing us with an illustration of Ariosto's oz:.io fungo
d'uomini ignoranti. 2 3
Only where the intellect already exceeds the necessary
amount, does knowledge become more or less an end in itself.
Accordingly, it is a wholly abnormal occurrence when in any-
one the intellect relinquishes its natural vocation of serving the
will and thus of grasping the mere relations of things, in order
to occupy itself in a purely objective way. But this is just the
origin of art, poetry, and philosophy which are, therefore,
created by an organ that is not primarily intended for them.
Thus the intellect is originally a hireling engaged on a laborious
task and kept busy and in constant demand from morning till
night by ito; lord and master, the will. But if in an hour ofleisure
this hard-driven drudge manages to produce a piece of its work
The commonplace fellow shuns physical exertion, but mental effort even
more so. He is, therefore, so ignorant and so lacking in ideas and judgement.
23 ['The boredom of the ignorant' (Orlanfurioso, XXXIV. 75).]
IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT 6g
spontaneously and of its own accord and without any interested
motive, merely for its own satisfaction and delight, then this is
a genuine work of art and, if carried to great heights, indeed a
work of genius.*
Such an application of the intellect to what is purely objec-
tive underlies in its higher degrees all artistic, poetical, and
philosophical achievements and generally those that are purely
scientific. It already occurs in the comprehension and study of
such works and likewise in the free consideration of any subject,
that is to say, one that is in no way concerned with personal
interests. In fact, such a use of the intellect enlivens even a mere
conversation when the theme thereof is purely objective, that
is to say, is in no way related to the interest and hence the will
No difference of position, rank, or birth is so great as the gulf between the

countless millions who regard and use their brains only as the servant of their bellies,
that is to say, as an instrument for the aims of their will, and those exceedingly
few and rare individuals who have the courage to say: No, my mind is too good
for that; it should be active merely for its own purpose, for comprehending the
marvellous and multicoloured spectacle of this world, in order later to reproduce
it in some form as a picture or an explanation, according to the disposition of the
individual who for the time being carries such a mind. These are the truly Mhle
and the real noblesse of the world; the others are serfs, gleb~ adscripti ['soil-bound
serfs']. Here, of course, are meant only those who have not merely the courage,
but also the call and thw the right to emancipate the intellect from the service of
the will, with the result that it is worth the sacrifice. With the rest where all this
only partially exists, that gulf is not so wide; yet a sharp line of demarcation always
remains, even in the case of a small but decided talent.
\Vhat a nation has to show in the way of wo1 ks of fine art, poetry, and philosophy,
is the product of a surplus of intellect which has existed in it.
The great majority are so constituted that, by their whole nature, they can never
be serious about anything except eating, drinking, and copulating. All that the
rare and more exalted natures have brought into the world either as religion,
science, or art, will be used at once by the great majority as instruments for their
own base ends, for in most cases they wiU make these their masks.
The intellect of ordinary people is kept strictly tied, namely to its fixed point, the will,
so that it resembles a short and therefore rapidly swinging pendulum, or an angle
of elongation with short radius vector. The result is that in things they see really
nothing except just their advantage or disadvantage, the latter, however, the more
clearly whereby there comes a great facility in dealing with things. The intellect of
the genius, on the other hand, sees the things themselves, and in this consists his aptitude.
But in this way, the knowledge of his advantage or disadvantage is obscured or
even suppressed; and so it often happens that other people get through life's
journey much more skilfully than he. Both can be compared to two chess players
in a stranger's house before whom genuine Chinese chessmen, exceedingly
beautiful and artistically carved, have been placed. One loses because his con-
templation of the beautiful figures always distracts and diverts his attention; the
other who has no interest in such things, sees in them mere chessmen and wins.
of the speakers. Every such purely objective use of the intellect
is related to the subjective, in other words, to the use that
concerns, though still indirectly, a personal interest, as dancing
to walking. For it is, like dancing, the expenditure to no purpose
of superfluous energy. On the other hand, the subjective use of
the intellect is certainly the natural; for the intellect has arisen
merely to serve the will. But precisely on this account, we have
it in common with the animals; it is the slave of a pressing need,
bears the stan1p of our wretchedness, and in it we appear to be
very much like glebae adscripti. 2 4 It occurs not merely in our
work and personal activity, but also in all our conversations on
personal and material affairs generally, such as eating, drink-
ing, and other comforts and pleasures, then our livelihood and
everything connected therewith together with advantages of
every kind, even when these concern the community; for this
remains a common weal. 1\-'lost people are, of course, incapable
of using their intellect in any other way because with them it is
merely an instrument in the service of the will and is entirely
used up therein, with nothing left over. This makes them so dull
and tedious~ as serious as animals, and incapable of any objec-
tive conversation. \Ve also see in their faces how short the bond
is between intellect and '"'ill. The expression of thick-headed-
ness, which we so often come across in so depressing a way,
simply indicates that limitation of all their knowledge to the
affairs of their will. We see that there exists just as much
intellect as is needed by the particular will in question for its
aims, and nothing more; this is why they look so vulgar. (Cf.
World as J;Vill and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 31.) Accordingly,
their intellect lapses into idleness as soon as the will stops
spurring it. They take no objectil'e interest in anything at all.
They never give their attention, let alone their consideration,
to any matter that has no reference, at any rate a possible one,
to their person; otherwise, there is nothing that a\vakens in them
an interest. Never once are they to any extent enlivened by a
joke or anything witty; on the contrary, they detest everything
that calls for even merely the least thought. At most, they raise
a laugh by means of coarse jokes; otherwise they are serious-
looking brutes, all because they are capable of only a subjectil'e
:.t4 ['Soil-bound serfs'.]

interest. This is precisely why card-playing is for them a suitable
entertainment, for money of course; because this does not, like
drama, music, conversation, and so on, keep within the sphere
of mere knowledge, but sets in motion the will itself, that which
is primary and is bound to be met with everywhere. For the
rest, they are men of business, tradesmen from the cradle to the
grave, the born porters and carriers of life. Their pleasures are
all sensual since they have no susceptibility for any others. Only
on matters of business should we speak to them, not otherwise.
To be sociable with them is degrading; by so doing we make
ourselves really cheap and common. It is their conversation
which Giordano Bruno describes (at the end of the Gena delle
ceneri) as uili, ignobili, barbare ed indegne conversazioni, zs and which
he vows he will positively avoid. On the other hand, the con-
versation between men who are in any way capable of a purely
objective use of their intellect, even if the purport is ever so easy
and amounts to mere joking, is always a free play of intellectual
powers. Therefore such a conversation is related to that of
others as dancing to walking; in fact, it is like a dance between
two or more; whereas the other kind of conversation resetnbles
a mere marching of men beside or behind one another for the
purpose of arriving at a destination.
This inclination that is always associated with the ability to
make such a free and thus abnormal use of the intellect now
reaches in the man of genius a degree where knowledge becomes
the main thing, the end and purpose of his whole life, whereas his
own existence drops to something of secondary importance, to
the mere means. Thus the normal relation of things is entirely
reversed. Accordingly, the genius by means of his discerning
apprehension of the rest of the world generally lives more in
this than in his own person. The wholly abnormal enhance-
ment of his powers of knowledge makes it impossible for him to
fill his time with n1ere existence and with the aims and objects
thereof. His mind needs constant and vigorous occupation. He
therefore lacks that imperturbability in going through the
broad scenes of daily life; he is wanting in that easy and agree-
able ability to identify himself with everyday life which is given
to ordinary men who go through even the ceremonial part of it
15 ['Common, ignoble, barbarous, and unworthy conversations'.]

with genuine pleasure. Accordingly, genius is a bad thing to
have for ordinary practical life, such as is suitable for normal
intellectual powers, and, like all abnormalities, it is a draw-
back. For with this enhancetnent of intellectual powers, the
intuitive apprehension of the external world has attained to so
great an objective clearness and furnishes so much more than is
required for the service of the will that this abundance becomes
a positive hindrance to such service. A consideration of the
given phenomena, as such and in themselves, always diverts
one from that of their relations to the individual will and to
one another, and consequently disturbs and hinders their calm
comprehension. On the other hand, a wholly superficial con-
sideration of things is sufficient for the service of the will; for
it furnishes nothing but their connection \vith our particular
aims for the time being, and with what is bound up therewith;
consequently it consists of nothing but relations, with the
greatest possible blindness to everything else. This kind of
knowledge is impaired and becomes confused through an
objective and complete apprehension of the true nature of
things. Hence the saying of Lactantius is here confirmed:
Vulgus interdum plus sapit: quia tantum quantum opus est sapit. 26
(Divinae institutiones, lib. rr, c. 5)
Therefore genius is absolutely opposed to qualification for
practical action, especially in the highest scene thereof, the
sphere of world politics; just because the noble perfection and
fine susceptibility of the intellect impede the energy of the will.
But if only such energy that appears as boldness and firmness is
endowed with a capable and straightforward intellect, a correct
judgement, and a modicum of cunning, it will make a statesman
or general and, if it amounts to stubbornness and audacity, will
in favourable circumstances produce even a character famous
in world history. But it is ridiculous to attempt to talk of
genius in connection with such men. It is just the lower grades of
intellectual superiority, such as shrewdness, cunning, and defi-
nite but one-sided talents that enable one to get on in the world
and readily establish one's good fortune, especially when
impudence and effrontery (like the audacity just mentioned)
supplement such talents. :For at all these lower grades of intel-
['The mob often has more sense and understanding because it has only as
:z6
much as is necessary!]
lectual superiority, the intellect still remains always true to its
natural destiny, to the service of its own will, only that it
carries out this duty with greater precision and facility. In the
case of genius, on the other hand, the intellect withdraws from
that service; and so genius is decidedly unfavourable to a
person's good fortune; therefore Goethe represents Tasso as

saymg:
A laurel crown, wherever seen by you,
Is more a sign of sorrow than of luck.
Accordingly, genius is for the man so gifted a direct gain, it is
true, yet not an indirect one.*
51
For the man capable of understanding anything cum
grano salis, 2 7 the relation between the genius and the normal
We clearly see in animals that their intellect is active merely in the service of
their will; and as a rule it is not very different in the case of human beings. Even
in them we sec generally the same thing; in fact in the case of many a man, it is
even seen that he was never active in any other way, but that his attention was
always directed to the petty aims and ends of life and to the means, often so sordid
and unworthy, of attaining them. If a man has a definite surplus of intellect over
and above that necessary for serving the will; and if such surplus then assumes on
its own accord an entirely free activity which is not stirred by the will or concerned
with the aims thereof and the result of which will be a pUrely objective comprehen-
sion of the world and of things-then such a man is a genius. It is stamped on his
countenance, as also is every surplus above the aforesaid meagre measure, al-
though less strongly marked.
The most correct scale for measuring the hierarchy of intelligences is furnished by
the degree with which they apprehend things merely individually or more and more
wriversally. The animal knows only the individual thing as such and so remains
involved entirely in the apprehension of that which is individual. Every human
being, however, summarizes into concepts that which is individual, and precisely
in this does the use of his reason [Vernunft] consist. These concepts become more
and more universal, the higher his intelligence stands. Now if this apprehension
of the universal penetrates into intuitive knowledge and not merely concepts but
also intuitively perceived things are grasped immediately as something universal,
there arises the knowledge of the (Platonic) Ideas. It is aesthetic knowledge and,
when it is self-acting or spontaneous, it becomes genius and attains the highest
degree when it becomes philosophical. For then the whole of life, of beings and
their fleeting nature, of the world and all it contains, appears in its true essence
intuitively grasped. In this form it forces itself on our consciousness as the subject
of meditation. It is the highest degree ofreflectiveness. Therefore between this and
merely animal knowledge are to be found innumerable degrees that are distin-
guished by the fact of our apprehension's becoming ever more universal.
:L7 ['With a grain of salt'.)
individual might perhaps be expressed most clearly in the fol-
lowing manner. The genius is one who has a double intellect, first
for himself and the service of his will, and secondly for the world
whose mirror he becomes by his apprehending it in a purel.J
objective way. The sum total or quintessence of this apprehension
is reproduced in works of art, poetry, or philosophy, after
technical development and improvement have been added.
The normal man, on the other hand, has only the first intellect
that can be called subjective, just as that of genius may be called
objective. Although this subjective intellect may be present in very
different degrees of keenness and perfection, it is still always
separated by a definite gradation from that double intellect of
the genius; in much the same way as the notes of the chest-voice,
however high, are still always essentially different from the
falsetto notes of the head. Like the two upper octaves of the flute
and the harmonics of the violin, these are the unison of the two
halves of the vibration-column of air which is divided by a
nodal point. On the other hand, in the chest-voice and the
lower octave of the flute, only the entire and undivided air-
column vibrates. Therefore this may enable one to understand
that specific peculiarity of genius which is so obviously stamped
on the works and even the physiognomy of the man so gifted.
1\1oreover, it is clear that such a double intellect is in most
cases bound to be a hind\ance to the service of the will; and this
explains the above-mentioned poor aptitude of genius for
practical life. In particular, he lacks that sober circumspection
that characterizes the ordinary simple intellect, whether it be
keen or dull.
52
The brain as a parasite is nourished by the organism without
contributing directly to the internal economy thereof; for up
there in its fixed and well-protected abode it leads a self-
sufficient and independent life. In the same way, the man with
great mental gifts leads a second purely intellectual life apart
from the individual life that is common to all. Such an intel-
lectual life consists in the constant increase, rectification, and
extension not of mere learning and erudition, but of systematic
knowledge and insight in the real sense. It remains untouched
by the fate of his own person, in so far as it is not disturbed by
this in its pursuits. Such a life, therefore, exalts the man and sets
him above fate and its fluctuations. It consists in constant
thinking, learning, experimenting, and practising, and gradu-
ally becomes the chief existence to which the personal is
subordinated as the mere means to an end. An example of the
independent and separate nature of this intellectual life is
furnished by Goethe. In the midst of all the tumult of battle
during the war in the Champagne, he observed phenomena
for the theory of colour; and as soon as he was granted a short
respite in the fortress of Luxemburg during the interminable
misery of that campaign, he took up the notebooks of his theory
of colour. He has thus left for us an ideal that we, the salt of the
earth, should follow by always attending undisturbed to our
intellectual life, however much our personal life may be affected
and shaken by the storm and stress of the world, always bearing
in mind that \Ve are the sons not of the handmaid, but of the
free. As our emblem and family crest I suggest a tree violently
shaken by the storm, but still bearing its red fruit on every
branch, with the inscription: dum cotzvellor mitescunt, zs or even:
conquassata sedferax.z9
To that purely intellectual life of the individual, there
corresponds just such a life of the whole of mankind whose real
life is likewise to be found in the will both as regards its e1npirical
and its transcendent significance. This purely intellectual life
of mankind consists in its advance in knowledge by means of the
sciences and in the perfection of the arts, both of which pro-
gress slowly throughout the ages and centuries and to which
each generation furnishes its contribution as it hurries past.
Like an ethereal addition, this intellectual life hovers, as a
sweet-scented air that is developed from the ferment over the
stir and movement of the world, that real life of nations which
is dominated by the will. Along with the history of the world,
that of philosophy, the sciences, and the arts pursues its inno-
cent and bloodless path.
53
The difference between the genius and normal minds is
certainly only quantitative in so far as it is one of degree; yet we
2-8 ['While I am being pulled and dragged they are ripening.']
:l.9 ['Shaken but fruitful'.]
are tempted to regard it as qualitative when we consider how,
in spite of their difference, ordinary minds nevertheless have a
certain common tendency in their thinking. By virtue of this,
all their thoughts on similar occasions at once pursue the same
path and follow the same track. Hence the frequent agreement
of their judgements which is not based on truth and goes to such
lengths that certain fundamental views, at all times firmly held
by them, are always repeated and brought forward afresh,
whereas the great minds of all times are openly or secretly
opposed to them.
54
A genius is a man in whose head the world as representation has
attained a degree of more clearness and stands out with the
stamp of greater distinctness; and as the most important and
profound insight is furnished not by a careful observation of
details, but only by an intensity of apprehension of the whole,
so mankind can look forward to the greatest instruction from
him. If he develops and perfects himself, he will give this now
in one form and now in another. Accordingly, we can also
define genius as an exceedingly clear consciousness of things
and thus also of the opposite, namely of our own self. Mankind,
therefore, looks up to one so gifted for information about things
and about its own true nature.*
Like everyone else, however, such a man is what he is primar-
ily for himself; and this is essential, inevitable, and unalterable.
On the other hand, what he is for others remains, as something
secondary, subject to chance. In no case can they receive from
his mind more than a reflection by means of an attempt, made
by both sides, to think his thoughts with their minds in which,
however, such thoughts will always remain exotic plants and
consequently stunted and enfeebled.
Through the rarest concurrence of several extremely favourable circumstances,

a man is occasionally born, say once in a century, who has an intellect notiuabry in
excess of the IUJ177Ull measure-this secondary and thus accidental quality with
reference to the will. Now it may be long before he is recognized and acknowledged,
stupidity preventing the one and envy the other. But when once this happens,
people crowd round him and his works in the hope that some light from him may
penetrate the darkness of their own existence, or indeed furnish them with some
information about it-to a certain extent a revelation coming from a higher being (and
be he ever so little).
55
To have original, extraordinary, possibly even immortal
ideas, it is sufficient to become so completely estranged from
the world and things for a few moments that the most ordinary
objects and events appear to be wholly new and unfamiliar,
whereby their true nature is disclosed. But what is here required
is not exactly difficult; on the contrary, it is not in our power
at all and is just the dispensation of genius.*
56
Genius is among other minds what the carbuncle stone is
among precious stones; it radiates its own light, whereas the
others reflect only the light they have received. It may also be
said that the genius is related to others as idioelectrical bodies
are to mere conductors of electricity. Hence the term is not
appropriate to the mere scholar in the real sense, who further
teaches what he has learnt, just as idioelectrical bodies are not
conductors. On the contrary, genius is related to Inere learning
as the text of a song to the notes. A scholar is one who has learnt
much; a genius is one from whom mankind learns what he has
not learnt from anyone. Therefore great minds, whereof there
is hardly one in a hundred millions, are the lighthouses of man-
kind without which men would lose themselves in the infinite
sea of the most egregious errors and demoralization.
However, the simple scholar in the real sense, say the pro-
fessor-in-ordinary of Gottingen, regards the genius in much the
same way as we look at a hare, nan1ely as something palatable
only after it has been killed and prepared for dinner. Thus he
regards the genius as one who must be shot at, so long as he is
alive.
57
Whoever wants to experience the gratitude of his contem-
poraries must keep in step with them. But in this way nothing
great is ever produced. Whoever intends to achieve this must,
therefore, direct his gaze to posterity and confidently elaborate
his work for future generations. Of course, it may well happen
"' By itself alone, genius can no more have original ideas than a woman by
herself can have children; but the external occasion must also appear as the father,
so to speak, in order to render genius fruitful so that it may give birth to something.
j8 IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT
that he will remain unknown to his contemporaries and then
be comparable to the man who, compelled to spend his life on a
lonely island, laboriously erects there a monument for the
purpose of handing on to future seafarers information of his
existence. If this seems to him a hard lot, he can console
himself with the thought that even the ordinary merely practi-
cal man often suffers a similar fate without having to expect any
compensation. Thus if he is in a favourable position, such a man
will be active and productive in a material way. He will earn,
buy, build, cultivate, construct, lay out, establish, arrange, and
embellish with daily effort and unflagging zeal. Here he
imagines he is working for himself and yet in the end only his
descendants, and very often not even his own, reap the benefit of
all this. Accordingly, he too can say: nos, non nobis,3 and his
work has been his reward. It is, therefore, no better for him
than for the man of genius who also naturally hopes for reward
or at any rate for honour, and who in the end has done every-
thing merely for posterity. For this, of course, both have also
inherited a great deal from their ancestors.
Now the compensation I have previously mentioned, which
is the privilege of genius, is to be found not in what he is to
others, but in what he is to himself. Who, indeed, has really and
truly lived more than the man who had moments whose mere
echo is audible through the tumult and confusion of centuries?
Perhaps, after all, it would be most prudent for such a man if,
to be himself undisturbed and unmolested, he allowed himself
to enjoy, as long as he lived, the pleasure of his own thoughts
and works and he appointed the world merely as the heir to his
rich and full existence. The n1cre impression of this, somewhat
like an ichnolith, would then come to the world only after his
death. (Cf. Byron, Prophecy of Dante, beginning of can. IV.) 31
But the advantage a man of genius has over others is not
limited to the activity of his highest powers. A man, who is
Jo ['Through us not for us'.]
ll Byron's lines are:
Many are poets who have never penn'd
Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compress'd
The God within them, and rejoin'd t11e stars
Unlaurell'd upon earth, ...
extraordinarily well built, supple, and agile, performs all his
movements with exceptional ease and even pleasure in that he
takes a direct delight in an activity for which happily he is
specially endowed and which he, therefore, often practises to no
purpose. Moreover, not only as a rope- or solo-dancer does he
take leaps that others are unable to perform, but in the easier
dance steps that the rest do, in fact even in mere walking, he
generally reveals a rare resilience and nimbleness. In the same
way, a man with a truly superior mind will produce not merely
ideas and works that could never come from others and will
show his greatness not in these alone, but, as knowing and
thinking are themselves an activity that is natural and easy to
him, he will at all times take delight in these. Therefore even
smaller things that are accessible to others will be apprehended
by him more easily, quickly, and correctly than by them. Thus
he will take a direct and lively pleasure in every increase of
knowledge, in every problem solved, and in every witty and
terse idea, whether it be his own or another's. And so his mind
is constantly active without any other aim or object and thus
becomes for him a perennial source of pleasure so that boredom,
that ever-present bugbear of ordinary men and women, can
never come upon him. Then there is also the fact that the
masterpieces of his predecessors or of great minds contemporary
with him exist in their fulness really only for him. The ordinary
inferior mind looks forward to the product of a great mind
which is recommended to him in much the same way as a
victim of gout looks forward to a ball. The one goes to the ball
out of pure convention and the other reads the great work in
order to be up to the mark. For La Bruyere is quite right when
he says: tout l' esprit qui est au monde est inutile a celui qui n' en a
point.n Again, all the ideas of a clever man or of a genius are
related to those of an ordinary person, even where they are
essentially the same, as pictures done in vivid and striking
colours are to mere outlines or sketches in feeble water-colours.
All this, then, is part of the reward of genius to compensate him
for a lonely existence in a world that is different from and
repugnant to him. Thus since all greatness is relative, it is im-
material whether I say Caius was a great man or Caius had to
32 ['All the intelligence in the world is useless to him who has none.']
Bo IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT
live among pitiably small men; for Brobdingnag and Lilli put
are different only through their point of departure. Therefore
however great, admirable, and entertaining the author of
immortal works appears to be to his numerous posterity, others
during his lifetime must have seemed to him just as paltry,
pitiable, and uninteresting. This is what I meant when I said
that, if there are three hundred feet from the base to the top of
a tower, there will also certainly be just three hundred fron1 the
top to the base.*
Accordingly, we should not be surprised if we have found men
of genius often unsociable and sometimes stern and forbidding.
For want of sociability is not to blame for this; on the contrary,
their course through this world resembles that of a man out for
a walk on a fine early morning when he contemplates with
delight nature in all her freshness and splendour. Yet he has to
rely on this, for no other society is to be found, except perhaps
a peasant or two bending over the earth and cultivating the
land. Thus it often happens that a man with a great mind
prefers his own monologue to the dialogue that can be had in
the world. Yet if he once condescends to this, it may be that its
emptiness will cause him to revert again to the monologue. For
he forgets the man to whom he is talking, or at any rate cares
little whether or not that n1an understands him, and speaks to
him as does a child to a doll.
Modesty in a great mind would really be to men's liking, but
unfortunately it is a contradictio in adjecto.33 Thus it would compel
such a mind to give preference and attach value to the ideas,
opinions, and views, as well as to the mode and manner of
others, of those others indeed whose number is legion, rather
than to his own; it would force him to subordinate and adapt
his own very different ideas to those of others, or even to suppress
them entirely to enable those others to hold the field. But then
he would produce precisely nothing, or his achievements
would be the same as those of others. Rather is he able to
produce what is great, genuine, and extraordinary only in so
far as he disregards the methods, ideas, and views of his
Great minds, therefore, owe some indulgence to small ones just because they
are great only by virtue ofthe smallness of the others; for everything is relative.
JJ ('Contradiction in the adjective', e.g. in such expressions as 'wooden iron',
'cold fire', 'hot snow'.]
contemporaries, quietly produces what they censure, and dis-
dains what they praise. No man becomes great without this
arrogance; but if his life and work should have fallen on times
that cannot acknowledge and appreciate him, he still always
remains true to hin1self and then resembles some noble traveller
who has to spend the night at a miserable inn; on the next day
he is glad to continue his journey.
At all events, a thinker or poet may be content with his
times if only they allow him to think and write poetry un-
disturbed in his own corner; and with his good fortune if this
grants him a corner in which he can think and write poetry,
without having to bother about others.
For that the brain is a mere labourer in the service of the belly
is, of course, the common lot of almost all who do not live on
the work of their hands; and to this they are well able to recon-
cile themselves. But for great minds, for those whose cerebral
powers exceed the amount required for serving the will, it is
exasperating. Such a man, therefore, will prefer, if necessary,
to live in the n10st restricted circumstances if such grant him
the free use of his time for the development and application of
his powers and so give to him the leisure that is invaluable. It
is naturally different with ordinary men whose leisure is with-
out objective value and is even for them not without its dangers,
a fact of which they seem to be aware. For the technical skill
of our times, which has been raised to unprecedented heights,
increases and multiplies objects of luxury and thus gives to
those favourites of fortune the choice between more leisure and
mental culture, on the one hand, and more luxury and good
living with intense activity, on the other. Characteristically
enough, as a rule they choose the latter and prefer chrunpagne
to leisure. This is also consistent; for to them every In ental
exertion that does not serve the purposes of the will is foolish
and the tendency to such exertion is by them called eccentricity.
Accordingly, they regard a persistence in the aims of the will
and of the belly as a concentricity; for the will is certainly the
centre and indeed the very kernel of the world.
On the whole, however, alternatives of this kind are by ho
means of frequent occurrence. For just as most people do not
have a surplus of money, but only just enough for their needs,
so is it the same with intellect; of this they have just enough for
IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT
the service of their will, that is, for carrying on their business.
When this is done, they are content to be able to gape, or to in-
dulge in sensual pleasures as well as in childish games, such as
cards and dice; or they carry on the dullest discourses, or dress
up and then bow to one another. There are few who have even
a small surplus of intellectual powers. Now just as those with a
small surplus of money give themselves pleasure, so do those
others give themselves intellectual pleasure. They pursue some
liberal study that brings them in nothing, or an art, and are
generally in some way capable of an objective interest; and so it
is possible to converse with them. But with the others, it is
better not to enter into any relations; for with the exception of
those cases in which they give an account of their own ex-
periences, report something about their line of business, or at
any rate contribute something they have learnt from others,
what they have to say will not be worth listening to. What we
say to them will seldom be properly grasped and understood
and will also in most instances run counter to their views. Hence
Balthasar Gracian admirably describes them as hombres que nolo
son-human beings who are not human; and Giordano Bruno
says in these words the same thing: Quanta ditferenza sia di
contrattare e ritrovarsi tra gli uomini, e tra color, che son fttti ad
imagine e similitudine di quelli 34 (Della causa, Dial. 1, p. 224, ed.
Wagner). This agrees marvellously with the statement in the
Kural:Js 'The common people look like human beings; but I
have never seen anything like them.'* To anyone who needs
lively entertainment for the purpose of banishing the dreariness
of solitude, I recommend a dog in whose nwral and intellectual
qualities he will almost always experience delight and satisfac-
tion.
If we bear in mind how much these ideas and even expressions agree, in spite
of a great difference in the times and countries, it cannot be doubted that they have
sprung from the same object. Therefore I was certainly not under the influence of
these passages (one of which had not yet been printed and the other had not been
in my hands for twelve years) when some twenty years ago I was thinking of having
a snuff-box made on the lid of which two fine large chestnuts would be represented,
in mosaic if possible, with a leaf that would show they were horse-chestnuts. This
symbol would at all times give me a graphic description of that very idea .
.H ['What a difference there is whether we have to do with human beings or
with those who are only created in their image and likeness!']
Js [The Kwal of Tiruvalluver, German translation by Karl Grant in Bihlwthea
T arrwlica, Leipzig, 1856.]
On all occasions, however, we wish to guard against being
unjust. I have often been astonished at the cleverness, and
again at the occasional stupidity of my dog; and my experiences
with the human race have been much the same. Times without
number, I have been filled with indignation by their incapacity,
their complete lack of judgement, and their bestiality, and have
had to agree with the old complaint:
Humani generis mater nutrixque profecto
Stultitia est.J6
But at other times, I have again been astonished how, in spite
of such a race, it was possible for useful and fine arts and
sciences of many kinds to come into being, take root, maintain
and perfect themselves, although they always came from
individuals, from the exceptions. I am also astonished to see
how with fidelity and persistence this race has preserved and
protected from destruction the works of great minds such as
Homer, Plato, Horace, and others for two or three thousand
years by copying and keeping them in a safe place. This it has
done, in spite of all the evils and atrocities in its history, where-
by it has shown that it recognized the value of those works. I am
likewise surprised at the special achievements of individuals and
sometimes at the traits of intellect or judgement, as if by
inspiration, in the case of those who in other respects belong to
the masses; occasionally even with the crowd itself when, as
often happens, it judges quite correctly as soon as its chorus
has become full and complete. This is like the sounding of
untrained voices which always proves to be harmonious, if
only there are very many of them. Those who go beyond the
crowd and who are described as having genius, are merely the
Lucida intervalla of the whole human race. Accordingly, they
achieve what is absolutely denied to others; and thus their
originality is so great that not only does their difference from
others become obvious, but even the individuality of each one
of them is so strongly marked that there is a complete difference
of character and mind between all those of genius who have
ever existed. By virtue of such a difference, each genius has in
his works made a present to the world which it could never have
received from anyone else in the whole of mankind. For this
36 ['Folly is indeed the mother and nurse of the human race.']
very reason, Ariosto's simile is so very pertinent and rightly

famous: Natura il fece, e poi ruppe la stampa.37
ss
By virtue of the limited amount of human capacity, every
great mind is so only on condition of his having, even intel-
lectually, some decidedly weak side, some quality wherein he is
sometimes inferior even to mediocre minds. It will be the one
quality that might have stood in the way of his outstanding
ability; yet it will always be difficult to describe in a word what
that quality is even in the case of a given individual. It may be
better expressed indirectly; for example, Plato's weak side is
precisely that wherein Aristotle's strength consists, and vice
versa. Kant's weak side is that wherein Goethe is great, and

v1ce versa.
59
Men are also fond of venerating something, only that in most
cases they come with their veneration to the wrong house,
where it stops until posterity comes along to put it right. After
this has been done, the veneration that is shown by the great
educated public to genius deteriorates in just the same way as
that shown by the faithful to their saints very easily degenerates
into the puerile adoration of relics. Thousands of Christians
adore the relics of a saint whose life and teaching are to them
unknown. The religion of thousands of Buddhists consists much
more in the veneration of the Dalaba (sacred tooth) or other
Dhatu (relics),* or indeed of the Dagoba (stupa) enclosing
them, the sacred Patra (begging-bowl), the footstep in stone,
or the holy tree planted by the Buddha, than in a thorough
knowledge and faithful practice of his exalted teaching. Pet-
rarch's house in Arqua, Tasso's alleged prison in Ferrara,
Shakespeare's house at Stratford with his chair, Goethe's house
in Weimar with its furniture, Kant's old hat, likewise their
respective autographs, are gaped at with awe and attention by
many who have never read the works of those men. They
Cf. Spence Hardy, Eastern Monachism, London, 185o, pp. 224 and 216;
Manual of Budhism, London, 1853, p. 351.
J7 ['Nature stamped it and then smashed the mould.']
cannot do anything more than just gape. Among the more
intelligent, however, is to be found the desire to see the objects
that a man of great intellect had before his eyes. Here by a
strange illusion, there is the mistaken notion that with the
object they bring back also the subject, or that something of
him must cling to the object. Akin to such men are those who
earnestly strive to investigate and become thoroughly acquainted
with the subject-matter of poetical works, for instance with the
Faust legend and its literature, and then with the actual
personal circumstances and events in the poet's life which gave
rise to his work. They resemble the man who sees at the theatre
a fine piece of scenery and then hurries on to the stage to
examine the wooden scaffolding whereby it is supported. In-
stances enough are at the present day afforded by the critical
investigators of Faust and the Faust legend, of Frederica in
Sesenheim, of Gretchen in the W eissadlergasse, of Lottie
Werther's family, and so on. They prove the truth that men are
interested not in the form, that is, the treatment and presenta-
tion, but in the matter; they are concerned with the theme. But
those who make themselves acquainted with the story of a
philosopher's life, instead of studying his thoughts, resemble
those who, instead of studying a painting, are more interested
in the frame and consider the style of its carving and the cost of
gilding it.
So far so good; yet there is another class whose interest is
likewise directed to what is material and personal, but who on
this path go farther, and indeed to the point of complete
futility. Thus a great mind has revealed to them the treasures
of his innermost nature and, by a supreme effort of his powers,
has produced works that will contribute not only to their uplift
and enlightenment, but also to that of their descendants to the
tenth or even twentieth generation. Because he has done this
and has presented mankind with a matchless gift, these rogues
think themselves entitled to sit in judgement on his personal
morals to see whether they might not be able to discover in him
some blot or blemish for relieving the pain felt by them 'in the
overwhelming sense of nothingness' J8 at the sight of so great a
mind. Hence arise, for example, the detailed investigations of
38 [From Schiller's Don Carlos.]

Goethe's life from the moral point of view which have been
carried out in innumerable books and journals, whether he
should or ought to have married this girl or that with whom in
his youth he had had a love-affair; or whether, instead of
honestly devoting himself to the service of his country, he should
not have been a man of the people, a German patriot worthy of
a seat in the Paulskirche, and so on. By such flagrant ingratitude
and malicious backbiting, these intrusive and officious judges
show that morally they are just as much knaves as they are
intellectually, which is saying a good deal.
6o
Talent works for money and fame; on the other hand, it is
not so easy to state the motive that urges the genius to elaborate
his works. Money seldom comes to genius; and it is not fame;
only Frenchmen can mean anything like this. Fame is too un-
certain and is, more closely considered, of little value:
Responsura tuo nunquam est par Jama labori. 39
In the same way, it is not exactly the genius's own delight, for
this is aln10st outweighed by the great effort he has put into the
work. On the contrary, it is an instinct of quite a peculiar kind
whereby the genius is urged to express in works that will endure
that which he perceives and feels without being aware of any
further motive. On the \vhole, it happens with the same
necessity with which a tree bears fruit and nothing further is
required from without except a soil wherein the individual can
thrive. More closely considered, it is as though the will-to-live~
as the spirit of the human species, were in such an individual
conscious of having here reached by some rare chance and for
a brief span of time a greater clearness of intellect, and were
now trying to acquire for the whole species that is also the true
inner nature of this individual at least the results or products of
that clear vision and thought in order that the light radiating
from him might afterwards with good effect pierce the darkness
and dulness of the ordinary man's consciousness. Hence arises
that instinct that urges the genius to complete his works without
regard for any reward, approbation, or sympathy, and in
['The fame that is your due wlll never accord with your work.' (Horace,
39
Satires, n. 8.66.)]
solitude and with no attention to his own well-being to devote
to them the greatest effort and industry. In this way, he is
urged to think more of posterity than of the contemporary
world by which he would merely be led astray. For posterity is
a greater part of the species and in the course of time the few
who are capable of judgement come along individually. Mean-
while, it is often with him as with the artist who laments in
Goethe's Kiinstlers Apotheose:
A friend who'd take delight in me,
A prince who'd prize my talents,
Alas have failed to come my way.
In cloisters did I meet with none
But dull and shallow patrons.
Thus did I always plague myself
Without adepts or pupils.
To make his work, as being a sacred deposit and the real fruit
of his existence, the property of mankind and to hand it on to
a posterity with better judgement, this is his aim which is more
important than all others and for which he wears a crown of
thorns that shall one day sprout into a wreath of laurel. His
efforts are just as decidedly concentrated on the completion
and security of his work as are those of the insect in its final form
on the security of its eggs and the provision for the brood it will
never live to see. It deposits the eggs where, as it well knows,
they will one day find life and nourishment, and then dies
fearlessly and with resignation.
APPENDIX
A : 'The failure of philosophy till now has been necessary and is

explained by the fact that, instead of confining himself to a deeper
comprehension of the world as given, the philosopher wants at once
to go beyond it and attempts to discover the ultimate grounds of all
existence, the eternal relations of things. To think of these things is
quite beyond the capacity of our inteliect whose comprehension is
fit only for what philosophers have at one time called finite things,
at another phenomena, in short, the fleeting forms of this world and
what is suitable for our persons, our purposes, and our preservation.
Our intellect is immanent, and thus our philosophy too should be
immanent and not aspire to supramundane things, but restrict itself
to a thorough understanding of the world as given, which supplies
material enough.'
B: 'If that is so, then in our intellect we have a miserable gift
from nature. Thus it is only fit to grasp the relations which concern
our paltry individual existence and which last only during the
brief span of our temporal life. On the other hand, it is quite
incapable of grasping that which alone is worthy of the interest of a
thinking individual, the explanation of our existence generally and
the interpretation of the circumstances of the world as a whole, in
short, the solution to the riddle of our life-dream; and even if all
this were expounded to it, it would be incapable of comprehending
it. This being so, I do not find it worth my while to cultivate it and
to concern myself with it. It is a thing that is not wortp my stooping
in order to pick it up.'
A: 'My dear sir, if we dispute and contend with nature, we are
usually in the wrong. Just think! Natura nihil Jacit frustra rue super-
vacaneum (et nihillargitur).4 We are simply temporal, finite, transient,
dreamlike, fleeting beings like shadows. What could such beings do
with an intellect that grasped the infinte, eternal, and absolute
relations of things? And how could such an intellect once again
relinquish those relations in order to turn to the petty circumstances
of our ephemeral existence, which are for us the only real ones and
actually concern us, and still be fit for these? By granting us such an
intellect, nature would have not only made an immensefrustra and
mistake, but would also have worked entirely against her purpose
with us. For what good would it do? As Shakespeare says:
we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,
['Nature makes nothing in vain and nothing superfluous (and makes no
4
presents).']
IDEAS CONCERNING THE INTELLECT 8g
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls.
(Hamlet, Act I, Sc. 4)
Would not such a perfect and exhaustive metaphysical insight
render us incapable of all physical insight, of all our affairs and ac-
tions? Would it not rather plunge us for ever into a state of chill
horror, like that of one who has seen a ghost?'
B: 'But you are making a wicked petitio principiiu when you say
that we are merely temporal, transient, and finite beings. We are at
the same time infinite, eternal, and the original principle of nature
herself. Therefore it is worth our while to go on trying to see "if
nature is not ultimately fathomed".' z
A: 'According to your own metaphysics, we are infinite and
eternal only in a certain sense, only as thing-in-itself not as pheno-
menon, only as the inner principle of the world not as individuals,
only as will-to-live not as subjects of individual knowledge. Here it
is a case only of our intelligent nature, not of the will; and, as
intelligences, we are individual and finite; accordingly, our intellect
is also of such a nature. The purpose of our life (if I may venture to
use a metaphorical expression) is practical, not theoretical; our
doing, not our knowing, appertains to eternity. Our intellect exists
to guide these actions of ours and at the same time to hold up a
mirror to our will; and this is what it docs. It is extremely probable
that anything more would render the intellect unfit for this. Indeed
we see already how genius, this small surplus of intellect, is a bar to
the career of the individual so endowed and makes him extremely
unhappy, although inwardly for him it may be a blessing.'
B: 'It is a good thing for you to remind me of genius! To some
extent it overthrows the facts you are trying to vindicate. In the case
of genius, the theoretical side enormously outweighs the practical.
Although the genius cannot grasp eternal relations, he sees some-
what more deeply into the things of this world, attamen est quadam
prodire tenus. 43 This certainly renders the intellect that is favoured
with genius less fit for grasping finite earthly relations; it is like
using a telescope in a theatre. Here seems to be the point where we
agree and our common observations come to a standstill.'
41 ['Begging of the question'.]

.., [From Goethe.)
43 ['But yet it is right to go to the very limit.' (Horace, Epistles, 1. 1.32.)]
CHAPTER 1\"
Some Observations on the Antithesis of

the Thing-in-itself and the Phenomenon
61
Thing-in-itself expresses that which exists independently of per-
ception through any of our senses, and so that which really and
truly is. For Democritus this was formed matter; at bottom, it
was still the same for Locke; for Kant it was an x; for 1ne it is
will.
How Democritus took the matter entirely in this sense and
thus comes at the head of this group, is shown by the following
passage from Sextus Empiricus (Adversus mathematicos, lib. 111,
135) who had his works before him and often quotes from
them verbatim:
i17]p.OKpvro<; S OTt fLEV avatpEi T(l cf>w6p.t:va Tat<; aluO~aatV, Kat
I \ I
Totrrwv 1\EYEL p.7]ov
t:;;: \ ,I.
~awt:a
I 0at ' >\ 10 >\ \ \ I \
K<XT <XI\T) Etav, <X/\1\<X p.ovov K<XT<X oos<Xt'"
(;: I i:,
_,_\ 0' <;;: \ ' A 't t '

a/\7} <; 0 Ell TOt<; OVOW tnT<XPXELV TO aTOfLOVS' HV<Xt KCtL KEVOV, and SO
\ , ' 1': \ I
on. (Democritus autem ea quidem tollit, quae apparent sensibus, et

ex iis dicit nihil ut vere est apparere, sed solum ex opinione; verum autem
esse in iis, quae sunt, atomos et inane). I recommend the reader
to go through. the whole passage, where it further states: lnfi
fLEV ~ 0t
\ VVV 011 '
" KCtOTOV EOTtll 7} OVK EUTLJ! OV> OVVLfLEV Vere quz"dem nOS,
H
1
"'"'
1
f (
quale sit vel non sit unumquodque, neutiquam intelligimus), 2 also lnfi
olov EK((.OTOV ( ean) ytyvu)aKEW lv a7TOp<tJ laT{ (vere scire, quale sit
unumquodque, in dubio est). 3 All this simply states that 'we do not
know things according to what they may be in themselves, but
merely as they appear', and opens up the series that starts from
the most decided materialism, but leads to idealism and ends
with me. A strikingly clear and definite distinction between the
thing-in-itself and the phenomenon, even in the proper Kantian
1 ['Since Democritus denies that which appears to sense-perception, he main-
tains that nothing of this phenomenon appears as it is in reality, but only as it
seems to us. However, the existence of atoms and of the void is truly real.']
:z ['Truly, therefore, we know not how each thing is constituted or is not con-
stituted.']
3 ['It is difficult to know how everything is constituted.']
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANTITHESIS 91
sense, is found in a passage of Porphyry which Stobaeus has
preserved for us in the forty-third chapter of his first book,
third fragment. It runs: Ta KarYJyopmJp,Eva ToD ala8rrroiJ Kai
, 1\ >\ (j ,.. > ,.. \ I 'f \:' ,l..~ I \
EVVI\OV al\'1} W~ EUTL TaVTa, TO 1TaVT'[) EWat ota1TEopvp'T}fJ-VOV 1 TO f.J-ETa-
\ \ EWat
{31\'T}TOV ., etc I'J'1 ,.. 1:' \ ... , \
l OV OE OVTWS OVTOS Kat Ka
8' aUTO
\ Vy;UT'fJKOTOS
,l.. ' , ,.
aVTOV
t
1
\ l , \ 1 ~ ""' ~~ I ~ ' \
-ro E vat aEt EV EaVT<fJ wpvp,Evov waavTws To KaT a TavTa EXEW K. T ,1\.
4 \ t \ W \
(vol. ii, p. 716.)

6!2
Just as we know only the surface of the globe, but not the
great solid mass of its interior, so we know empirically ofthings
and of the world generally nothing but their phenomenal appear-
ance, i.e. the surface. The precise knowledge of this is physics
taken in the widest sense. But that this surface presupposes an
interior that is not merely surface but has cubic content is,
together with the conclusions as to its nature, the theme of
metaphysics. To try to construct in accordance with the laws of the
mere phenomenon the essence-in-itself of things, is an under-
taking comparable to our trying to construct a stereometric
body from mere surfaces and their laws. Every transcendent
dogmatic philosophy is an attempt to construct the thing-in-itself
in accordance with the laws of the phenomenon. This proves to be
like the attempt to cover two absolutely dissimilar figures by
each other, which never succeeds because one or other corner
sticks out, however we turn the figures.
6g
Since every being in nature is simultaneously phenomenon and
thing-in-itself, or even natura naturatas and natura naturans, 6 it is
accordingly capable of a twofold explanation, a physical and a
metaphysical. The physical explanation is always from the cause,
the metaphysical always from the will; for it is this which
manifests itself as a natural force in nature-without-knowledge
and higher up as vital force, but which in animal and man
receives the name of will. Strictly speaking, the degree and
['If it is stated of the sensuous and material that it is extended in all directions
4
and is changeable, then this is actually the case.... But of that which truly is
and exists in itself, it is true to say that it is eternally grounded in itself and likewise
that it always remains the same ... .' (Eclogae, lib. 1, c. 35, ed. Gaisford, p. 281.)]
s ['Created nature'.]
6 ['Creative nature'.]
92 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANTITHESIS
tendency of his intellect and the moral make-up ofhis character
might possibly be deduced in a given man even in a purely
physical way. Thus his intellect could be deduced from the
constitution of his brain and nervous system together with the
blood circulation affecting these; and his character from the
structure and combined action of his heart, vascular system,
blood, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, genitals, and so
on. But for this purpose, of course, we should require a much
more precise knowledge of the laws that regulate the rapport du
physique au moral' than that possessed even by Bichat and
Cabanis (cr. I 02). Intellect and character could then be
reduced to a remoter physical cause, to the condition and dis-
position of his parents, in that these were able to furnish the
germ only for a being like themselves, but not for one higher
and better. Metaphysically, however, the same human being
would have to be explained as the phenomenon of his own
perfectly free and original will that has created for itself the
intellect appropriate to it. Therefore however necessarily all
his deeds proceed from his character in conflict with the given
motives and this again appears as the result of his corporization,
such deeds are nevertheless to be attributed entirely to him. But
now metaphysically the difference between him and his parents
is not absolute.
To understand is always an act of making a representation or

mental picture and therefore remains essentially within the domain
of the representation. Now as this furnishes only phenomena, all
understanding is limited to the phenomenon. Where the thing-
in-itself begins, the phenomenon ends and hence also the repre-
sentation and with this the understanding. But in its place
there comes that which is and exists itself and is conscious of
itself as will. If this becoming conscious of ourselves were
immediate, we should have a wholly adequate knowledge of
the thing-in-itself. This, however, is brought about by the fact
that the will creates for itself the organic body and, by means of
a part thereof, an intellect, but then first through such intellect
' ['Relation of the physicaJ to the moral'.]

finds and recognizes itself in self-consciousness as will. Conse-
quently, this knowledge of the thing-in-itself is primarily con-
ditioned by the separation, already contained therein, of a
knower and a known and then by the form of time that is
inseparable from cerebral self-consciousness; and therefore such
knowledge is not wholly exhaustive and adequate. (Compare
this with chapter 18 of volume two of my chief work.)
Connected with this is the truth which is discussed under the
heading' Physical Astronomy' in my work On the Will in Nature,
and which states that the more clearly we are able to compre-
hend an event or relation, the more does this lie in the mere
phenomenon and docs not concern the thing-in-itself.
The difference between thing-in-itself and phenomenon may
also be expressed as that between the subjective and objective
essence of a thing. Its purely subjective essence is just the thing-
in-itself; but this is not an object of knowledge. For it is essen-
tial to such an object always to be present in a knowing
consciousness as the representation thereof. What manifests
itself there is just the objective essence of the thing. Accordingly,
this is object of knowledge; but as such it is mere representa-
tion and can become this only by means of a representation-
apparatus that must have its own peculiar nature and the laws
resulting therefrom. Consequently, it is a mere phenomenon
that may be related to a thing-in-itself. This holds good also
where there is present a self-consciousness and thus a self-
knowing I or ego. For this also knows itself only in its intellect,
i.e. in its representation-apparatus, and indeed through the
outer sense as organic form and through the inner as will.
It sees the acts of this will repeated by that form as simultan-
eously as are those of this form by its shadow; and from this it
infers the identity of the two, which it calls I or ego. But on
account of this twofold knowledge as also of the great proximity
in which the intellect here stands to its source or root, the will,
the knowledge of the objective essence and thus of the pheno-
menon here differs much less from the subjective, from the
thing-in-itself, than in the case of knowledge by means of the
outer sense, or in the case of the consciousness of other things
in contrast to self-consciousness. Thus in so far as self-con-
sciousness knows through the inner sense alone, there still
adheres to it only the form of time, no longer that of space; and
94 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANTITHESIS
so the form of time and the falling apart into subject and object
are all that separates it from the thing-in-itself.
6s
When we perceive and contemplate some natural creature,
an animal for instance, in its existence, life, and action, it
stands before us as an unfathomable mystery, in spite of all that
zoology and zootomy tell us about it. But then should nature
out of mere obstinacy remain eternally dumb to our question?
Is she not, like everything great, open, communicative, and
even na'ive ? Therefore can her answer ever fail for any reason
except that the question was wrongly put, one-sided, started
from false assumptions, or even contained a contradiction?
Indeed, is it conceivable that there can be a connection of
grounds and consequents where it must eternally and essentially
remain undiscovered? Certainly not. On the contrary, it is
unfathomable because we look for grounds and consequents in
a sphere to which this form is foreign; and so we follow the
chain of grounds and consequents on an entirely wrong track.
Thus we try to reach the inner essence of nature, which con-
fronts us in every phenomenon, by following the guiding line
of the principle of sufficient reason (or ground); whereas this
principle is the mere form with which our intellect apprehends
the phenomenal appearance, i.e. the surface, of things, but
with which we attempt to go beyond the phenomenon. For
within the phenomenon the principle of sufficient reason is
useful and adequate. For instance, the existence of a given
animal may be explained from its generation. Thus, at bottom,
generation is no more mysterious than is the sequence of any
other effect, even the simplest, from its cause, since even in the
case of such an effect the explanation ultimately comes up
against the incomprehensible. In the case of generation, we
lack a few more intermediate links of the connection, but this
makes no essential difference; for even if we had these links, we
should still find ourselves at the incomprehensible. All this is
because the phenomenon remains phenomenon and does not
become the thing-in-itself.
The inner essence of things is foreign to the principle of
sufficient reason; it is the thing-in-itself and this is pure will. It is
because it wills, and wills because it is. It is that which is
absolutely real in every being.
66
The fundamental character of all things is their fleeting
nature and transitoriness. In nature we see everything, from
metal to organism, corroded and consumed partly by its own
existence, partly through conflict with something else, Now
how could nature throughout endless time endure the main-
tenance of forms and the renewal of individuals; the countless
repetition of the life-process, without becoming weary, unless
her own innermost kernel were something timeless and thus
wholly indestructible, a thing-in-itself quite different from its
phenomena, something metaphysical that is distinct from
everything physical? This is the will in ourselves and in every-
thing.
The entire centre of the world is in every living being, and
therefore its own existence is to it all in all. On this rests also
egoism. To imagine that death annihilates it is absolutely
absurd as all existence proceeds from it alone. (Cf. World as
Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 4 I.)
67
We complain of the obscurity in which we pass our lives
without understanding the connection of existence as a whole,
but in particular that between ourselves and the whole. Thus
not only is our life short, but our knowledge is also entirely lim-
ited thereto; for we cannot look back to the time before our
birth or forward to the time after our death. Consequently,
our consciousness is, so to speak, only a flash that momentarily
lights up the night. Accordingly, it really looks as if a demon
had mischievously obstructed from us all further knowledge
in order to gloat over our embarrassment.
But this complaint is not really justified, for its springs from
an illusion, the result of the false fundamental view that the
totality of things came from an intellect and consequently existed
as mere mental picture or representation before it became actual,
and that accordingly as it had sprung from knowledge, it
was bound to be wholly accessible thereto and thus capable
of being fathomed and exhaustively treated. But in truth the
g6 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANTITHESIS
case might rather be that all we complain of not knowing is not
known by anyone, indeed is in itself not even knowable at all,
in other words, is not capable of being represented in anyone's
head. For the representation, in whose domain all knowing is to
be found and to which all knowledge therefore refers, is only
the external side of existence, something secondary and addi-
tional, hence something that was not necessary for the main-
tenance of things generally and thus of the world as a whole,
but merely for the maintenance of individual animal beings.
Therefore the existence of things in general and as a whole
enters knowledge only per accidens and consequently to a very
limited extent. It forms only the background of the picture in
animal consciousness where the objects of the will are the
essential thing and occupy first place. Now it is true that, by
means of this accident, the entire world arises in space and
tin1e, that is, the world as representation which has no such
existence at all outside knowledge. On the other hand, the
innermost essence of this world, that which exists in itself, is
quite independent of such an existence. Now since, as I have
said, knowledge exists only for the purpose of maintaining each
animal individual, its whole nature, all its forms, such as
time, space and so on, are adapted merely to the aims of such
an individual. Now these aims require only the knowledge of
relations between individual phenomena and certainly not that
of the inner essence of things and of the world as a whole.
Kant has shown that the problems of metaphysics which
more or less perplex everyone, are in no way capable of any
direct, or indeed of any satisfactory, solution. Now, in the last
resort, this is due to the fact that such problems have their
origin in the forms of our intellect, in time, space, and causality;
whereas such intellect has merely the business of presenting to
the individual will its motives, in other words, of showing it
the objects of its willing together with the ways and means of
gaining possession thereof. If, hmvever, this intellect is abused
and turned to the essence-in-itself of things, to the totality and
coherence of the world, then the aforesaid forms attaching to it
of the coexistence, succession, and causation of all possible
things give birth to such metaphysical problems as the origin
and purpose of the world, its beginning and end, the problem of
one's own self, of the destruction of this through death or of its
continuation in spite of death, the problem of the freedom of
the will, and many another. Now if we imagine these forms to
be abolished and yet a consciousness of things to exist, then
such problems would not be exactly solved, but would rather
have entirely disappeared and their expression would no longer
have any meaning. For they spring wholly and entirely from
those forms that are not concerned at all with the comprehen-
sion of the world and of existence, but merely with that of our
personal ain1s.
The whole of this consideration furnishes us with an elucida-
tion and objective justification of Kant's doctrine which is
established by him merely from the subjective side, that the
forms of the understanding are merely of immanent, not
transcendent, application. Thus instead of this, we could say
also that the intellect is physical, not metaphysical; in other
words, that, just as it has sprung from the will, belonging as it
does to the objectification thereof, it also exists merely to serve
the will. But this service concerns only things in nature, not any-
thing that lies beyond her. As I have explained and sub-
stantiated in the work On the Will in Nature, every animal
obviously has its intellect merely for the purpose of being able
to discover and obtain its food; and accordingly, this also
determines the measure of such intellect. Matters are no
different with man, only that the greater difficulty of his main-
tenance and the infinite variety of his needs have here rendered
necessary a much greater measure of intellect. Only when this
is exceeded through something abnormal, does there appear a
perfectly free surplus which, if considerable, is called genius. Only
in this way does such an intellect first become really objective J.
but it may go so far as to become to a certain extent even meta-
physical, or at any rate to endeavour so to be. For precisely in
consequence of its objectivity, nature herself, the totality of
things, now becomes its object and problem. Thus in it nature
first begins really to perceive herself as something which is and
yet might not be or might well be otherwise; whereas in the
ordinary merely normal intellect nature does not clearly per-
ceive herself; just as the miller does not hear his mill and the
perfumer docs not notice the odour in his shop. To such an
intellect nature appears as a matter of course and it is held
captive by her. Only at certain brighter moments does it
g8 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANTITHESIS
become aware of nature and is wellnigh terrified by her; but
this soon passes off. Accordingly, we soon see what such normal
minds can achieve in philosophy even when they congregate in
crowds. On the other hand, if the intellect were metaphysical,
originally and by disposition, such minds, especially with their
united strength, could advance philosophy just as they can any
other branch of knowledge.
CHAPTER V
A Few Words on Pantheism
68
The controversy that is at the present time carried on among
professors of philosophy between theism and pantheism could be
given allegorically and dramatically by a dialogue that might
be held in the pit of a playhouse in Milan during the perfor-
mance. One of the speakers, convinced that he is in the large
famous marionette theatre of Girolamo, admires the skill with
which the director has made the marionettes and guides their
play. But the other says: 'Not at all! We are in the Teatro della
Scala; the director and his associates are themselves playing
and are actually concealed in the characters whom we see
before us; and the poet himself is also in the play.'
But it is amusing to see how the professors of philosophy
flirt with pantheism as with forbidden fruit and have not the
heart to grasp it. I have already described their attitude in this
matter in my essay 'On Philosophy at the Uni-versities',! where
we were reminded of Bottom the weaver in Midsummer Night's
Dream. Ah, the life of a professor of philosophy is indeed a
hard one! First he must dance to the tune of ministers and,
when he has done so really well, he can still be assailed from
without by those ferocious man-eaters, the real philosophers.
These are capable of pocketing him and of running off with
him in order to pull him out occasionally as a pocket-Punchi-
nello for the purpose of merriment and diversion during their
expositions.
6g
Against pantheism I have mainly the objection that it states
nothing. To call the world God is not to explain it, but only to
enrich the language with a superfluous synonym for the word
world. It comes to the same thing whether we say 'the world
is God' or 'the world is the world'. Indeed if we start from God,
1 [See volume r, page 186.]

100 A FEW WORDS ON PANTHEISM
as if he were the given thing to be explained, and therefore
say: 'God is the world', then there is to a certain extent an
explanation in so far as it traces the unknown to what is better
known; yet it is only a verbal explanation. But if we start from
what is actually given and thus from the world, and then say:
'the world is God', it is obvious that with this nothing is said,
or at any rate that ignotum is explained per ignotius. 2
And so pantheism presupposes theism as having preceded it;
for only in so far as we start from a God and thus have him
already in advance and are intimate with him, can we ulti
mately bring ourselves to identify him with the world really in
order to dispose of him in a seemly manner. Thus we have
not started dispassionately from the world as the thing to be
explained, but from God as that which is given. But after it was
no longer possible to dispose of this God, the world had to
take over his role. This is the origin of pantheism. For from a
first and impartial view, it will never occur to anyone to regard
this world as a God. It must obviously be an ill-advised God
who could think of no better amusement than to transform
himself into a world like the present one, into such a hungry
world, in order to endure in it grief, misery, privation and death,
aimless and immeasurable, in the form of countless millions of
living, but troubled and tormented beings, all of whom exist
for a while only by devouring one another. For example, we
see such misery in the shape of six million Negro slaves who
on the average receive daily sixty million cuts of the whip on
their bare bodies, in the shape of three million European
weavers who suffer hunger and poverty or feebly vegetate in
stuffy attics or cheerless and dreary workshops, and in many
other forms. What a pastime indeed for a God who as such
must be accustomed to something quite different!*
Accordingly, if we take the so-called progress from theism to
pantheism seriously and not merely as a masked negation, as
previously suggested, it is a transition from the unproved and
hardly conceivable to the absolutely absurd. For however
obscure, indefinite, and confused the concept may be which we
Neither pantheism nor Jewish mythology is enough; if you undertake to

explain the world, then keep your eyes solely thereon.
z ['What is unknown is explained by what is even more unknown.']
A FEW WORDS ON PANTHEISM 101
associate with the word God, two predicates are nevertheless

inseparable from it, namely supreme power and the highest
wisdom. Now it is a positively absurd idea that a being endowed
with these qualities should have put himself in the position
previously described; for our position in the world is obviously
not one in which an intelligent being, let alone an all-wise one,
would place himself. Pantheism is necessarily optimism and is
therefore false. Theism, on the other hand, is merely unproved
and even if it is difficult to conceive that the infinite world is
the work of a personal, and consequently individual, being,
such as we know only from animal nature, it is nevertheless not
exactly absurd. For that an almighty and also all-wise being
should create a tormented world is still always conceivable,
although it is not known why he should do so. Therefore even
if we attribute to him the quality of the highest goodness, the
inscrutable mystery of his decree and decision is the refuge by
which such a: doctrine still always escapes the reproach of
absurdity. On the assumption of pantheism, however, the
creating God himself is the endlessly tortured who on this small
earth alone dies once every second and does so of his own free
will, which is absurd. It would be much more correct to identify
the world with the devil, as has in fact been done by the ven-
erable author of Theologia Germanica in that he says on page 93 of
his immortal work (according to the restored text, Stuttgart,
1851): 'Therefore are the evil spirit and nature one, and where
nature is not overcome, there also is the evil foe not overcome.'
Obviously these pantheists give to Samsara the name God; the
mystics, on the other hand, give the same name to Nirvana. Of
this, however, they relate more than they can know; this the
Buddhists do not do, and so their Nirvana is just a relative
nothing. The Synagogue, the Church, and Islam use the word
God in its proper and correct sense. If there are among the
theists some who understand by the name God Nirvana, we will
not argue with them over the word. It is the mystics who seem
to understand it in this way. Re enim intellecta in verhorum usu
faciles esse dehemus.3
The expression 'the world is an end in itself', which one
often hears at the present time, leaves open the question whether
J['If the matter itself is correctly understood, we will not raise any difficulties
over the words used.']
10!2 A FEW WORDS ON PANTHEISM
it is to be explained by pantheism or mere fatalism. But at all
events it admits of only a physical, not a moral, significance of
the world since, on the assumption of the latter, the world
always presents itself as the means to a higher end. But this very
notion that the world has merely a physical, and no moral,
significance is the most deplorable error that has sprung from
the greatest perversity of the tnind.
CHAPTER VI
On Philosophy and Natural Science
70
JVature is the will in so far as it beholds itself independently of
and apart from itself; for this purpose its standpoint must be an
individual intellect. This is likewise its product.
71
Instead of demonstrating, like the English, the wisdom of God
in the works of nature and of the mechanical instincts of
animals, we should learn to understand from these that every-
thing brought about through the medium of the representation
and thus the intellect, even if such were enhanced to the faculty
of reason, is mere bungling when compared with that which
comes directly from the will as thing-in-itself and is not brought
about by any representation, in other words, when compared
with the works of nature. This is the theme of my es~ay On the
J'Vill in }{atu.re, which I therefore cannot too often recommend
to my readers; in it is to be found more clearly expounded
than anywhere else the real core of my teaching.
72
If we observe how nature, while showing little concern for
individuals, watches with such excessive care over the preserva-
tion of the species by means of the omnipotence of the sexual
impulse and by virtue of the incalculable surplus of seed which
in the case of plants, fishes, and insects is often ready to replace
the individual by several hundred thousand, we arrive at the
assumption that, whereas the production of the individual is
for nature an easy matter, the original generation of a species
is for her one of extreme difficulty. Accordingly, we never see
such generation arise for the first time. Even when generatio
aequivoca 1 occurs (and there is really no doubt that it takes place
I ['Spontaneous generation' (the coming into existence of living beings from

inanimate matter).]
104 ON PHILOSOPHY AND NATURAL SCIENCE
in the case of epizoa and parasites generally), only known
species are produced. Nature is unable to replace the extremely
few extinct species of the fauna now inhabiting the earth, for
example, that of the dodo bird (didus ineptus), although they
were to be found in her scheme of things. We therefore stand
in astonishment that our eagerness has succeeded in playing
her such a trick.
73
In the blazing primordial nebula of which the sun extending
as far as Neptune consisted according to the cosmogony of
Laplace, it was not yet possible for the chemical elements to
exist actu, but only potentia. But the first and original separation
of matter into hydrogen and oxygen, sulphur and carbon,
nitrogen, chlorine, and so on, and also into the different metals,
so similar to one another and yet so sharply separated-this
indeed was the first striking of the world's fundamental chord.
Moreover, I surmise that all metals are the combination of
two absolute elements, as yet unknown, and that they differ
from one another merely through the relative quantum of these
two. On this their electrical resistance also depends in accord-
ance with a law analogous to the one in consequence whereof
the oxygen of the base of a salt stands to its radical in the
inverse ratio of that which the two have to each other in the
acid of the same salt. If we could split metals into those con-
stituents, we should probably be able even to make them; but
there is an obstacle in the way.
74
There still exists the old fundamentally false contrast between
spirit and matter among the philosophically untutored who in-
clude all who have not studied the Kantian philosophy and
consequently most foreigners and likewise many present-day
medical men and others in Germany who confidently philo-
sophize on the basis of their catechism. But in particular, the
Hcgelians, in consequence of their egregious ignorance and
philosophical crudeness, have recently introduced that contrast
under the name 'spirit and nature' which has been resuscitated
from pre-Kantian times. Under this title they serve it up quite
na!vely as if there had never been a Kant and we were still
ON PHILOSOPHY AND NATURAL SCIENCE 105
going about in full-bottomed wigs between clipped hedges and

philosophizing, like Leibniz in the garden at Herrenhausen
(Leibniz, ed. Erdmann, p. 755), on 'spirit and nature' with
princesses and maids of honour, understanding by 'nature' the
clipped hedges and by 'spirit' the contents of the periwigs. On
the assumption of this false contrast, we then have spiritualists
and materialists. The latter assert that, through its form and
combination, matter produces everything and consequently
the thinking and willing in man, whereat the former then raise
a great outcry.
But in point of fact, there is neither spirit nor matter, but a
great deal of nonsense and fancies in the world. The tendency
to gravity in the stone is precisely as inexplicable as is thinking
in the human brain, and so on this score, we could also infer a
spirit in the stone. Therefore to these disputants I would say:
you think you know a dead matter, that is, one that is com-
pletely passive and devoid of properties, because you imagine
you really understand everything that you are able to reduce
to a mechanical effect. But physical and chemical effects are
admittedly incomprehensible to you so long as you are unable
to reduce them to mechanical. In precisely the same way, these
mechanical effects themselves and thus the manifestations that
result from gravity, impenetrability, cohesion, hardness, rigid-
ity, elasticity, fluidity, and so on, are just as mysterious as are
those others, in fact as is thinking in the human head. If matter
can fall to earth without your knowing why, so can it also think
without your knowing why. That which is really intelligible in
mechanics, through and through and to the final limit, does not
go beyond the purely mathematical in every explanation and
is, therefore, restricted to determinations of space and time.
Now these two, together with their whole conformity to law,
are known to us a priori; and so they are mere forms of our
knowing and belong solely to our representations or mental
pictures. Their determinations are, therefore, at bottom subjec-
tive and do not concern the purely objective, that which is
independent of our knowledge, the thing-in-itself. But as soon
as we go, even in mechanics, beyond the purely mathematical;
as soon as we come to impenetrability, gravity, rigidity,
fluidity, or the gaseous state, we are already face to face with
manifestations that to us are just as mysterious as are thinking
ro6 ON PHILOSOPHY AND NATURAL SCIENCE
and willing in man; and thus we are confronted with that which
is directly unfathomable; for every force of nature is such. And
so where is that matter of yours which you know and understand
so intimately that you try to explain everything from it and to
refer everything to it? It is always only the mathematical that
is clearly comprehensible and wholly explicable because it is
that which is rooted in the subject, in our own representation-
apparatus. But as soon as something really objective appears,
something not determinable a priori, then, in the last resort, it
too is at once unfathomable. \Vhat is perceived generally by
our senses and understanding is a wholly superficial phenome-
non that leaves untouched the true and inner essence of things.
This is what Kant meant. Now if you assume in the human head
a spirit, like a deus ex machina, 2 then, as I have said, you must
also concede to every stone a spirit. On the other hand, if your
dead and purely passive matter can as heaviness gravitate, or as
electricity attract, repel, and emit sparks, so too as brain-pulp
can it think. In short, we can attribute matter to every so-called
spirit, but also spirit to all matter, whence it follows that that
contrast is false.
Therefore the philosophically correct division of all things is
not the Cartesian into spirit and matter, but that into will and
representation. But such a division does not run parallel with
the Cartesian, for it spiritualizes everything, in that, on the one
hand, it shifts into the representation or mental picture even that
which is entirely real and objective, thus the body, matter, and,
on the other, refers the essence-in-itself of every phenomenon
to will. .
The origin of the representation of matter in general as the
objective bearer of all properties, itself being entirely without
any, was first discussed by me in my chief work, volume i, 4,
and then more clearly and precisely in the second edition of my
essay On the Principle of Sufficient Reason, 2 1. I mention it here
so that the reader will never lose sight of this new doctrine that
is essential to my philosophy. Accordingly, matter is only the
intellect's function of causality itself objectified, in other words,
projected outwards and thus objectively hypostasized activity in
general, without further definition of its method and nature.
2 ['The god from the machine'. Any person, thing, or concept artificially
introduced in order to solve some difficulty.]
Consequently, with the objective apprehension of the corporeal
world, the intellect from its own resources furnishes all the
forms of this world, namely time, space, and causality, and with
this also the concept of matter which is thought in the abstract
and is devoid of properties and form and, as such, cannot
possibly occur in experience. But as soon as the intellect, by
means of and in these forms, notices a real intrinsic property
(coming always only from the sensation of the senses), that is
to say, something which is independent of its own forms of
knowledge and manifests itself not in activity in general but in a
definite mode of acting, then it is this that the intellect supposes
to be body, that is to say, to be formed and specifically deter-
mined matter, such Inatter thus appearing as something inde-
pendent of the forms of the intellect, that is, as something
absolutely objective. But here we must bear in mind that em-
pirically given matter everywhere manifests itself only through
forces that express then1selves therein, just as conversely every
force is always known only as smnething inherent in matter;
the two together constitute the empirically real body. Neverthe-
less, everything empirically real retains transcendental ideality.
The thing-in-itself that manifests itself in such an empirically
given body, and thus in every phenomenon, has been shown by
me to be will. Now if we again take this as our starting-point,
then, as I have often said, matter is the mere visibility of the will,
but not the will itself. Accordingly, matter belongs to the merely
formal part of our representation, not to the thing-in-itself. For
this very reason, we must think of it as devoid of form and
properties, as absolutely inert and passive. Yet we can think
of it only in the abstract, for mere matter without form and
quality is never given empirically. But just as there is only one
matter that is yet the same, although it appears in the most
varied forms and accidents, so also is the will in all phenomena
ultin1ately one and the same. What matter is objectively, will
is subjectively. All the natural sciences labour under the in-
evitable disadvantage of comprehending nature exclusively
from the objective side and of being indifferent to the subjective.
But the main point is necessarily to be found in the latter; and
it devolves on philosophy.
In consequence of the foregoing, that from which everything
originates and comes into existence must appear precisely as
matter to our intellect, tied as this is to its forms and destined
originally to serve only an individual will and not to know
objectively the true essence of things. In other words, it must
appear to our intellect as something which in general is real,
fills space and time, endures amidst all the changes of qualities
and forms, and is the common substratum of all intuitive per-
ception, although by itself alone it is not intuitively perceivable.
For what this matter may be in itself, remains primarily and
directly an open question. Now if we understand by absolute, a
word so often used, that which can never have come into being
and never pass away, of which, on the other hand, every existing
thing consists and from which it has come, then we must not
look for this in imaginary places; on the contrary, it is quite
clear that matter entirely satisfies all these requirements. Now
after Kant had shown that bodies are mere phenomena, but that
their essence-in-itself remained unknowable, I yet succeeded in
showing that such essence is identical with what we directly
recognize in our self-consciousness as will. Accordingly, I have
described matter (World as Will and Representation, volume ii,
chap. 24) as the mere llisibility of the will. Further, as every force
of nature is, according to n1e, a phenomenon of the will, it
follows that no force can appear without a material substratum
and hence also that no manifestation of force can take place
without some material change. This induced Liebig, the zoo-
chemist, to state that every muscular action, in fact every
thought in the brain, must be accompanied by a chemical
transposition of substance. We, on the other hand, must still
stick to the fact that we always know matter empirically only
through the forces that manifest themselves therein. It is simply
the manifestation of these forces in general, that is, in abstracto; in
itself, it is the visibility of the will.
75
When once we get an opportunity of seeing on a colossal
scale quite simple effects that are daily before our eyes on a
small scale, the spectacle is novel, interesting, and instructive
because only then do we obtain an adequate conception of the
forces of nature which here manifest themselves. Instances of
this kind are lunar eclipses, conflagrations, large waterfalls, the
opening of the canals in the interior of Mont St. Feriol which
supply the Languedoc Canal with water, the crashing and
crushing of ice-floes at the rising of a river, the launching of a
ship, even a hawser some five hundred feet long when its whole
length is suddenly pulled out of the water, as happens when
a ship is being towed. What would it be like, if we were able to
survey by direct intuitive perception the action of gravitation
which we know only from an extremely narrow aspect as
terrestrial gravity and could see it at work on a grand scale
between heavenly bodies
how they play and are enticed
on to the bounds of space.J
Empirical in the narrower sense is the knowledge that stops

at effects without being able to arrive at the causes. For
practical purposes it often suffices, as for example in thera-
peutics.
The nonsense of the natural philosophers of Schelling's
school on the one hand, and the results of empiricism on the
other, have provoked in many such a dread of system and
theory that they expect progress in physics entirely by hand
without the aid of the head and would, therefore, like best of
all simply to experiment without giving any thought to the
matter. They imagine that their physical or chemical apparatus
should do their thinking for them and itself should express the
truth in the language of mere experiments. For this purpose,
experiments are now multiplied ad irifinitum and again in these
the conditions, so that operations are carried on solely with
extremely complicated, and in the end utterly absurd, experi-
ments, namely with such as can never furnish a simple and
straightforward result. Nevertheless, they are to act as thumb-
screws applied to nature in order to force her even to speak. The
genuine research worker, on the other hand, who thinks for
himself, arranges for his experiments to be as simple as possible
so that he may plainly hear nature's clear statement and judge
accordingly. For nature appears always only as a witness.
Examples in support of what has been said are furnished in
3 (From Schiller's Du Grosse der Welt.]

particular by the entire chromatological part of optics, in-
cluding the theory of physiological colours, such as have been
dealt with by the French and Germans in the last twenty years.
Speaking generally, however, it is not the observation of rare
and hidden phenomena that can be produced only by experi-
ments, but the study of those that are obvious and accessible
to everyone, which will lead to the discovery of the most
important truths. Therefore the problem is not so much that of
seeing what no one has yet seen, but rather of thinking in the
case of something seen by everyone that which no one has yet
thought. For this reason, it also takes very much more to be a
philosopher than a physicist.
77
For acoustics the difference of tones in regard to pitch and
depth is qualitative; physics, however, reduces it to one that is
merely quantitative, to that of quicker or slower vibrations, and
accordingly everything is explained from merely mechanical
effect or operation. Thus in music not only the rhythmic
element, the beat, but also the harmonic, the pitch and depth
of tones, is reduced to motion and consequently to the mere
measure of time, and hence to numbers.
Now analogy here furnishes a strong presumption for Locke's
view of nature, namely that everything we perceive by means
of the senses as quality in bodies (Lockes secondary qualities) is
in itself nothing but a difference of what is quantitative, of the
mere result of impenetrability, size, form, rest or motion, and
number of the smallest parts. These properties are admitted by
Locke as the only objectively real and are accordingly called
primary i.e. original qualities. Now in tones this could be plainly
demonst:rated simply because here the experiment admits of
every enlargement in that we can arrange for long and thick
strings to vibrate whose slow vibrations can be counted. Never-
theless, it would be just the same with all qualities. It was,
therefore, first applied to light whose effect and colouring are
deduced from the vibrations of a wholly imaginary ether and
are very accurately calculated. This colossal humbug and
tomfoolery which is recited with unheard-of effrontery, is
repeated especially by the most ignorant in tJ:le republic of
learning with such childlike assurance and confidence that one
would imagine they had actually seen and had in their hands
the ether and its vibrations, atoms and any other fiddlesticks
there might be. From this view, conclusions would follow in
favour of the atomic theory which prevails especially in France
but is also gaining ground in Germany after being countenanced
by the chemical stoicheiometry ofBerzelius. (Pouillet, i, p. 23.) 4
To enter here on a detailed refutation of the atomic theory
would be superfluous, for at best it can be regarded as an
unproved hypothesis.
However small an atom may be, it is still always a continuum
of uninterrupted matter. If you can picture to yourself any-
thing so minute, then why not something large? What then is
the purpose of atoms ?
Chemical atoms are merely the expression of the constant
fixed ratios in which the elements combine with one another.
As this expression had to be given in numbers, it was based on
an arbitrarily assumed unit, the weight of a quantity of oxygen
with which every element combines, For these weight-ratios,
however, the old expression atom was most unfortunately
chosen; and from this there has been developed in the hands of
French chemists, who have learnt their chemistry but nothing
else, a crude atomic theory. This takes the thing seriously,
hypostasizes those mere counters as real atoms, and then, like
Democritus, speaks of their arrangement in different bodies, in
order to explain from this their qualities and differences; and
this without having an inkling of the absurdity of the thing. It
goes without saying that there is in Germany no lack of igno-
rant apothecaries who are also 'an ornament to the profes-
sorial chair' and slavishly imitate those chemists. We must not
be surprised when in their compendiums they tell the students
with downright dogmatism and in all seriousness, as if they
actually knew something about it, that 'the cr;'stal form of bodies
has its basis in a rectilinear arrangement of the atoms.'! (Wohler,
Grundriss der Chemie, Pt. 1, Unorganische Chemie, p. 3). But these
men speak the same language as Kant and from their youth
have heard his name mentioned with reverence; yet they have
never pored over his works, for which reason they are bound to
produce such scandalous rubbish. But we could really do the
.. [Pouillet, EUmenls de physique experimentak et de m!tiorologie.]

French a good turn (une charite) if we were to give them an
accurate translation of Kant's Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der
Naturwissenschaft in order, if it is still possible, to cure them of a
relapse into that Democritism. Even a few passages from
Schelling's Ideen zur Philosophie der Natur, for example, chapters
three and five of the second book, could be given by way of
illustration. For wherever, as here, Schelling stands on Kant's
shoulders, he says much that is good and worth taking to heart.
The Middle Ages have shown us where we get to when we
think without experimenting; and the present century is
destined to show us where we get to when we experiment
without thinking and what results from our restricting the
education of youth to physics and chemistry. Only from a total
ignorance of the Kantian philosophy on the part of the French
and English at all times, and from its being neglected and for-
gotten by the Germans since Hegel's process of blunting the
intellect set in, is it possible to explain the incredible crudeness
of present-dO)' mechanical plrysics. Its adepts try to reduce every
natural force of a higher kind, light, heat, electricity, chemical
process, and so on, to the laws 9f motion, impact, and pressure,
and to geometrical configuration, namely of the imaginary
atoms. With bashful mien, they often call them merely 'mole-
cules' and from the satne feelings of bashfulness they hardly
venture on gravity in their explanations. Even this they deduce,
a la Descartes, from a thrust so that there will be nothing in the
world but pushing and being pushed, the only things they can
understand. They ar.e most amusing when they talk of the mole-
cules of the air or its oxygen. Accordingly, the three states of
aggregation are for them a fine powder, one finer, and a third
still finer; this is what they understand. These men who have
carried out many experiments, have done little thinking and
are, therefore, realists of the crudest kind; they regard matter
and the laws of impact as something absolutely given and
thoroughly intelligible, and so a reference to these seems to them
to be a thoroughly satisfactory explanation. Yet, in point of
fact, those mechanical properties of matter are just as mysterious
as are those others that are to be explained through them; thus,
for example, cohesion is just as difficult to understand as is light
or electricity. The large amount of manual work in experi-
menting really 1nakes our physicists strangers to both thinking
and reading; they forget that experiments can never furnish

them with the truth, but only with the data for its discovery.
Akin to them are the physiologists who deny vital force and
try to substitute for it chemical forces.
According to them, an atom is not merely a bit of matter
without any pores, but, as it must be indivisible, it is either
without extension (in which case it would not be matter), or is
endowed with absolute, i.e. the utmost possible, power of
superior cohesion of its parts. Here I refer the reader to what I
have said on the subject in my chief work, volume ii, chapter 23.
Moreover, if chetnical atoms are understood in the true sense
and thus objectively and as real, then at bottom there is no
longer any chemical combination at all in the real sense, but
every such combination is reduced to a very fine mixture of
different atoms that remain eternally separate. Now, on the
contrary, the peculiar characteristic of a chemical combination
consists precisely in the fact that its product is an absolutely
homogeneous body wherein we cannot find even an infinitely
small part that does not contain both substances in combina-
tion. (Proof of this Kantian proposition is in Schelling's Welt-
seele, pp. I 68- and 137.) Thus water is vastly different from the
explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen because it is the
chemica] combination of the two elements which in the gaseous
state exist together merely as the finest mixture.*
The hydrogen and oxygen arc a mere mixture; if we ignite it, a terrific
detonation, accompanied by intense light and heat, informs us of a great and total
change that affects and strikes at the innermost essence of those two component
parts of the mixture. In fact, we at once find water as their product, a substance
differing fundamentally and in every respect from those two component parts,
but yet homogeneous through and through. We see, therefore, that the change
that occurred here was in keeping with the riotous commotion of the natural
spirits that ushered it in. Thus by the complete surrender of their own peculiar and
opposite natures, those two components of the mixture became so thoroughly
interpenetrated that they now present only one absolutely homogeneous body in
the minutest possible particle of which those two components still always remain
inseparably united so that in this body nothing remains which can be found alone
and by itself. It was, therefore, a chemical and not a mechanical process. It is only
possible with our modern Democrituses to explain this occurrence by saying that the
'atoms' (!)(sic), previously scattered in confusion, have now arranged themselves
in ranks and files, in pairs, or rather, on account of the great inequality of their
numbers, have so sorted themselves that nine nicely arranged oxygen atoms have
grouped themselves round one hydrogen atom in consequence of innate and in-
explicable tactics. The detonation had then been merely the beating of drums for
them to 'fall in', and thus really much ado about nothing. And so I say that this is
114 ON PHILOSOPHY A~D NATURAL SCIENCE
The mania and fixed idea of the French of reducing every-
thing to mechanical events is, of course, strengthened by that
reduction of chemical combinations previously mentioned to
very fine mi.xtures of atoms. But there is no advantage to truth
in whose interests I rather recall the statement of Oken ( Vber
Licht und Wiirme, p. g) 'that nothing, absolutely nothing, in the
universe, which is a world-phenomenon, is brought about
through mechanical principles.' At bottom, there is only a
mechanical mode of acting which consists in the will of one body
to penetrate the space occupied by another. Pressure as well as
impact can be reduced to this; they differ merely in gradualness
or suddenness, although in the latter case the force becomes
'living'; and so everything achieved by mechanics is due to
these. Pulling is only apparent; for example, the rope with
whlch a man pulls a body pushes it, i.e. presses it from behind.
But now from this these men try to explain the whole of nature;
the action of light on the retina is then said to consist of mecha-
nical impacts, now slow, now more rapid. They have imagined
for this purpose an ether that is supposed to push; whereas they
see how, in the most violent storm that overwhelms everything,
the ray of light remains as still and motionless as a ghost. The
Germans would do well to get as far as possible from this
vaunted empiricism and its manual labour and to study Kant's
.A1.etap~sical Rudiments of Natural Science in order to clear it away
once for all not only from the laboratory but also from their
heads. In consequence of its subject-matter, physics frequently
and inevitably encroaches on the problems of metaphysics;
and then our physicists, who know nothing except their electri-
cal playthings, voltaic piles, and frogs' hind legs, reveal such
nonsense, like the vibrating ether and the whole mechanical and atomistic physics
of Leucippus, Democritus, and Descartes, with all their stiff, wooden explanations.
It is not enough for us to know how to put the thumbscrew on nature; we must also
be capbable of understanding her when she speaks out; but we are far from doing
so.
In general, however, if there were atoms, they would have to be without
distinction and qualities, and thus not atoms of sulphur, iron, and so on, but
merely atoms of matter, since differences abolish simplicity. For example, the atom
of iron would necessarily contain something missing in that of sulphur, and
accordingly would be not simple but compound; and generally speaking, change
of quality cannot take place without change of quantity. Ergo: If aJoms are possible
at aU, then they are conceivable only as the ultimate constituents of absolute or
abstract malin", not of definite mawials or elements.
crass cobbler's ignorance and crudeness in matters of philo-

sophy (of which they are called Doctores). Such ignorance is
often accompanied by the impudence with which they
philosophize at random, like crude clodhoppers, on problems
(such as matter, motion, change) which have engaged the
attention of philosophers for thousands of years. They therefore
merit no other reply than the epigram of Goethe and Schiller:
Poor empirical devil ! You do not even know
The dullness in you; it is alas so a priori dull.
78
Chemical analysis is the conquest of cohesion through
affinity. Both are qualitates occultae.
79
I do not regard light either as an emanation or as a vibration;
both hypotheses are mechanical and are akin to the one that
As regards the Kantianforces if repulsion and attraction, I note that the latter
is not, like the former, spent and deadened in its product, namely in matter. For
the force of repulsion whose function is impenetrability, can act only where a foreign
body attempts to penetrate the sphere of the given body and thus not beyond this.
On the other hand, ft is in the nature of the force if attraction not to be abolished by
the limits of a body and consequently to act even beyond the sphere of the given
body; otherwise, as soon as any part of the body became detached, it would at
once be withdrawn from the effect of this force. But this attracts all matter, even
at a distance, since it regards everything as belonging to one body, primarily to
the terrestrial body, and then farther afield. From this point of view, we can certainly
regard gravity also as one of the a priori knowable properties of matter. Yet only in
the closest possible contact of its parts, which we call cohesion, is the power of this
attraction sufficiently concentrated for it to resist the attraction of the terrestrial
body that is millions of times greater, to the extent that the parts of the given
separate body do not fall in a straight line towards the terrestrial body. But if the
cohesion is too weak, this happens and the body crumbles and collapses through
the mere weight of its parts. This cohesion itself, however, is a mysterious state that
we can bring about only through fusion and coagulation, or solution and evapora-
tion, and thus only by transition from the fluid to the solid state.
If in absolute space (i.e. apart from all environment) two bodies approach each
other in a straight line, then plwronornically it is the same thing and there is no
difference whether I say A goes towards B, or vice versa; but dynamically there is
a difference whether the moving cause operates or has operated on A or B; for
according to this difference, the motion ceases as I check A or B. It is the same as
regards circular motion; phoroTUJmically it is all the same whether (in absolute space)
the SWl moves round the earth, or the earth rotates on its own axis; but dynamically
there is the difference just mentioned and also the fact that, on the rotating body,
the tangential foru comes into conflict with the body's cohesion and, by virtue of
that very force, the circulating body would fly away from it unless another force tied
it to the centre of its motion.
explains transparency through pores. On the contrary, light as
such is quite unique, sui generis, and without any real analogue.*
Most clearly akin to it, but at bottom its mere metamorphosis,
is heat whose nature, therefore, might serve to elucidate that of
light.
In fact heat, like light itself, is imponderable; yet it shows a
certain materiality in that it behaves as permanent substance
in so far as it passes from one body and locality to another and
must quit the former in order to take possession of the latter; so
that when it has left a body, it must always be possible to state
where it has gone to and that it is to be found somewhere, even
if only in the latent state. Therefore in this respect, it behaves
like a permanent substance, that is to say like matter.t It is true
that there is no body which is absolutely impervious to heat and
by means of which it could be entirely confined. Nevertheless,
we see it escape slowly or rapidly, according as it is retained by
good or bad non-conductors; and so we have no reason to doubt
that an absolute non-conductor could confine and retain it for
ever. It shows with particular clearness its permanence and
substantial nature when it becomes latent; for then it enters a
state wherein it can be stored for any length of time and later
appear again undiminished as free heat. This becoming latent
and again becoming free irrefutably proves the material nature
of heat and, as it is a metamorphosis of light, that also of light.
Therefore the emanation system is right, or rather comes nearest
to the truth. It is materia im.ponderabilis, as it has been rightly
*Light can be as little explained mechanically as can the force of gravity. At

first the very same attempt was made to explain this also by the impact of an
ether; in fact Newton himself advanced this as a hypothesis, but soon dropped it.
Leibniz, however, who did not admit gravitation, was wholly in favour of it. This
is also confirmed in a letter of his in the uttres et opuscules inidits, edited by Careil
in 1854, p. 63. Descartes is the inventor of ether: 'Aether ille Cartesianus, ~m
EULERUS ad luminis propagandi doctrinam adornavit' ['That Cartesian ether used by
Euler for the theory of the propagation of light'], says Platner in his dissertation
De principio vitali, p. r 7 Light undoubtedly has a certain connection with gravita-
tion, yet indirectly and in the sense of a reflection, as its absolute opposite. It is
essentially a propagating force, just as the other is contractive. Both always act in
straight lines. J,erbaps, in a figurative sense, light can be called the reflex of
gravitation. No body can act through impact which is not at the same time Mai!)'
or ponderable. Light is an imponderable and therefore cannot act mechanically, that
is through impact.
t Wind very easily blows away heat, for example the heat coming from our own
bodies; but it cannot blow away light, or even shake it in any way.
named. In short, we indeed see it migrate and also conceal

itself; but we never see it disappear and can at all times state
what has become of it. Only during incandescence is it con-
verted into light and then it assumes the nature and laws
thereof. This metamorphosis is particularly evident in the
Drummond limelight which, as we know, has been used for the
oxyhydrogen microscope. All suns are a constant source of
fresh heat; yet, as already shown, the existing heat never passes
away, but only wanders and at most becomes latent. Therefore
we might conclude that the world as a whole will become ever
warmer. This is a question I leave unanswered. Thus heat as
such always shows itself as a quantum which cannot be weighed,
it is true, but is nevertheless permanent.* Yet against the view
that it is a material substance which enters into chemical
combination with the warmed body, it may be asserted that
the greater the affinity two substances have for each other, the
more difficult it is to separate them. Now those bodies, that
most easily take up heat, also let it go again most easily, metals
for instance. On the other hand, when heat becomes latent,
this may be regarded as its really chemical combination with
bodies; thus ice and heat furnish us with a new body, namely
water. Since it is actually united with such a body by an over-
whelming affinity, it does not at once pass from this to any
other that approaches it, as it does from other bodies to which
it merely adheres. Whoever wishes to use this for comparisons
of the kind like Goethe's Elective Affinities, may say that a
faithful wife is united to her husband as latent heat is to water;
whereas the faithless coquette is to him as heat is to the metal
in that she has suddenly come from without to remain for as
long as no one else approaches who would covet her more.
To my astonishment, I find that the physicists as a rule
(possibly without exception) regard calorific capacity and specific
heat as the same thing and as synonymous terms. I, on the
contrary, consider them to be opposites. The more specific heat
a body has, the less it can absorb of the heat that is supplied to
it; on the contrary, it again gives it up at once; and so the
That heat is not a rapid vibration of the parts is also dear from the well-known
fact that the colder a body is, the more rapidly it takes up the heat applied to it;
as, on the other hand, it is more difficult to set a body in motion, the more complete
its state of rest.
smaller is its calorific capacit;, and vice versa. If, in order to
bring a body to a definite temperature, it requires more heat
flowing to it from without than does another, then it has
greater calorific capacity; for example, linseed oil has half the
capacity of water. To bring a pound of water to 167F. requires
as much heat as to melt a pound of ice, where the heat becomes
latent. Linseed oil, on the other hand, is brought to a temperature
of 167F. by applying to it half the amount of heat; but then
it can melt only half a pound of ice by again giving up this heat
and falling to 32F. Therefore linseed oil has twice the specific
heat of water and consequently half the capacity; for it can
again give up only the heat that is imparted to it, not the
specific heat. And so the more specific heat, that is, the more heat
peculiar to it, a body has, the smaller its capacity, that is to say,
the more readily it casts off the applied heat that affects the
thermometer. The more heat applied to it and necessary for
this purpose, the greater its capacity, and the less its specific heat,
in other words, the heat that is inalienable and peculiar to it;
accordingly, it again gives up the heat supplied to it. Therefore
a pound of water at a temperature of 167F. melts a pound of
ice, and in so doing falls to 32F.; a pound of linseed oil at a
temperature of 167F. can melt only a half a pound of ice. It
is absurd to say that water has more specific heat than oil.
The more specific heat a body has, the less external heat is
required to raise its ten1perature, but also the less heat it can
give up; it rapidly becomes cool just as it rapidly became warm.
The whole question is perfectly correct in Tob. Mayer's Physik,
350f., but even he in 356 confuses capacity with specific heat
and regards them as identical. The fluid body loses its specific
heat only when it changes its physical condition, namely when
it freezes. Accordingly, it would be latent heat in the case of
fluid bodies; but even solid bodies have their specific heat.
Baumgartner mentions iron-filings.
The fact that heat becomes latent is a striking and inevitable
refutation of the assertion, made by the shallow mechanical
physics of today, that heat is a mere motion, an agitation, of a
body's smallest parts. For how could a mere motion be com-
pletely stopped in order to emerge again after many years of
rest and indeed with exactly the same velocity that it had
previously?
The behaviour of light is not so material as that of heat; on
the contrary, it has only a ghostly phantom nature, in that it
appears and disappears without leaving a trace. In fact, it
exists really only as long as it is coming into being; if it ceases to
be evolved, then it ceases also to eradiate; it has disappeared
and we cannot say where it has gone to. There are vessels
enough whose material is impervious to it, yet we cannot shut
it up and again let it out. At most the Bononian stone and also
some diamonds retain it for a few minutes. Nevertheless, there
is a most recent report of a violet fluor-spar, for this reason
called chlorophan or pyro-emerald, which states that, when it is
exposed to sunlight for only a few minutes, it remains luminous
for three to four weeks. (See Neumann's Chemie, 1842.) This
vividly reminds one of the ancient myth of the carbuncle,
carbunculus, Avxvi-r'YJ~ Incidentally, all the notes on this are
found classified in Philostratorum opera, ed. Olearius, 1709, p. 65,
note I 4; to which I add that it is mentioned in the Sakuntala,
Act n, p. 3 I, of Sir William Jones's translation, and that a more
recent and detailed account of it is found in Benvenuto Cellini's
Racconti, 2nd edn., Venezia, 1829, race. 4, which is found
abbreviated in his Trattato del oreficeria, Milano, 181 I, p. go.
But as all fluor-spar becomes luminous through being warmed,
we must conclude that this stone in general readily converts
heat into light and that, for this very reason, pyro-emerald does
not convert light into heat, as do other bodies, but gives it up
again undigested, so to speak. This applies also to the Bononian
stone and to some diamonds. Therefore only when light, falling
on an opaque body, is converted into heat in accordance with
the body's opacity and has now assumed the more substantial
nature of heat, can we so far give an account of it. But now
light shows a certain materiality in reflection where it follows the
laws of resilience of elastic bodies; and likewise in refraction. In the
latter case, it also reveals its will since of the bodies that are open
to it and are therefore transparent, it prefers and selects those
that are denser.* For it abandons the rectilinear path followed
by it in order to incline in the direction where the greater
quantum of denser diaphanous matter is to be found. Therefore
when passing from one n1edium to another, it is always diverted
On the other hand, see Pouillet, vol. n, p. 18o.

to where the mass lies nearest to it, or to where this is most
concentrated; and so it always strives to approach this. With
the convex glass, the greatest mass is in the middle and there-
fore the light emerges in conical form; with the concave, the
mass is in the periphery and thus the light on emerging spreads
out in the shape of a funnel. If it falls obliquely on a flat surface,
then, when entering or leaving, it is always diverted from its
path towards the mass of that medium and, as it were, extends
to this a hand of welcome or farewell. Also in the case of
diffraction, it shows this tendency towards matter. It is true that
in the case of reflection it is refracted, but a part goes through;
on this depends the so-called polarity of light. Analogous mani-
festations of will on the part of heat could be demonstrated
especially in its reaction to good and bad conductors. The only
hope of investigating the nature of light lies in our following up
its properties which have here been touched on, not in mechani-
cal hypotheses of vibration or emanation which are inappropri-
ate to its nature, let alone in absurd fairy-tales of molecules of
light, that crass creation of the idee fixe of the French which
asserts that every event must be ultimately mechanical and
everything must depend on thrust and counter-thrust. Des-
cartes is still always part and parcel of their lives. I am surprised
they have not yet said that acids consist of little hooks and
alkalies of eyes and that this is why they have entered into so
stable a combination. 'A shallow and insipid spirit moves
through these times'; s it manifests itself in the mechanical
physics in the resuscitated atomic theory of Democritus, in the
denial of vital force, as also of real morality, and so on.
But the impossibility of every mechanical explanation is
already clear from the ordinary everyday fact of perpendicular
reflection. Thus if I stand right in front of a mirror, the rays
from my face fall perpendicularly on to its surface and by the
same path return therefrom to my face. Both happen all the
time and without interruption and consequently simultaneously.
In the case of this occurring mechanically, whether it be
vibration or emanation, the oscillations or streams of light,
striking one another in straight lines and from opposite direc-
s [Apparently a parody by Schopenhauer on Schiller's words: Es geht ein

finstrer Geist durch unser Haus.-Piccolomini. 111. g.]
tions (like two inelastic spheres encountering each other from

opposite directions with equal velocity), would inevitably
impede and eliminate one another, so that no image would
appear; or they would press one another to one side and all
would be confusion. But my image stands before me firm and
unshaken; and so it does not happen mechanically. (Cf. World
as Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 23.) But now the general
assumption (Pouillet, vol ii, p. 282) is that the vibrations are
supposed to be not longitudinal but transversal, in other words,
occur perpendicularly to the direction of the ray. Thus the
vibration with the impression of light does not come from the
spot, but dances where it is and rides on its beam, like Sancho
Panza on the wooden donkey that is shoved under him and
which he cannot shift with his spurs. Therefore instead of
vibration, they are fond of saying waves because they get on
better with these; but only an inelastic and absolutely mobile
body like water forms waves, not an absolutely elastic body
like air or ether. If there were actually anything like inter-
ference, mechanical elimination of light by light, then this
would inevitably show itself especially in the decussation in the
focus of a lens of all the rays emanating from a picture, for at
the focusfrom all angles they impinge on one another in a single
point. But after this decussation or crossing, we see the rays
emerge quite unaltered and present the original image without
loss, merely inverted and the other way round. Indeed, the
imponderability of the imponderables already excludes an
mechanical explanation of their action. That which has no
weight, can also exert no thrust; and that which exerts no thrust
cannot operate through vibration. But the impudence with
which an entirely unproved, thoroughly false, and baseless
hypothesis (actuaJiy based on musical air-vibrations) is circu-
lated, I n1ean the hypothesis that colours depend on the different
velocities of the undulations of the (entirely hypothetical)
ether-all this is just a proof of the complete lack of judgement
on the part of the great majority. Apes imitate what they see;
human beings repeat what they hear.
Their chaleur rayonnante 6 is just an intermediate station on the
path of the metamorphosis of light into heat or, if we prefer it,
6 ['Radiant heat'.]
122 ON PHILOSOPHY AND NATlJRAL SCIENCE
the chrysalis thereof. Radiant heat is light which has given up
the characteristic of affecting the retina but has retained the
other attributes-comparable to a very deep bass string or even
an organ pipe that still visibly vibrates but no longer sounds,
that is, no longer affects the ear-therefore light which shoots
forth in direct rays and traverses several bodies, yet only when
it strikes opaque bodies heats these. The method of the French
of complicating experiments by adding to the conditions may
increase their accuracy and be favourable to correct nleasure-
ments; but it renders judge1nent difficult and even confuses it.
As Goethe has said, this n1ethod is to blame for the fact that
judgement and a comprehension of nature have certainly not
kept pace with empirical knowledge and the accumulation of
facts.
Perhaps the best information on the nature of pellucidity can
be given by those bodies that are transparent only in the fluid
state but opaque in the solid, such as wax, spennaceti, tallow,
butter, oil, and so on. For the present, we can interpret the
facts by saying that the tendency to the fluid state, peculiar to
these as well as to all solid bodies, shows itself in a strong
affinity, i.e. love, for heat, as being the only way to reach that
state. Therefore in the solid state, they at once convert into
heat all the light that falls on them, and so remain opaque till
they have become fluid; but then they are saturated \-vith heat
and therefore let the light through as such.*
This universal tendency of solid bodies to the fluid state may
well have its ultimate ground in the fact that such a state is the
condition of all life, but that the will is always striving upwards
in the scale of its objectification.
The metamorphosis of light into heat and vice versa obtains
striking proof in the behaviour of glass when heated. Thus at a
certain temperature, it becomes incandescent, that is to say, it
converts into light the heat it has received; at a higher tempera-
ture, however, it melts and then ceases to emit light. For now
* Indeed I venture to surmise that it might be possible to explain from a similar
occurrence the everyday phenvrncnon that, as soon as brilliantly white paving-
stones are sprinkled with rain, they appear dark brown, in other words, they no
longer reflect light because, in its desire to evaporate, the water then at once
converts into heat all the light falling on the stones, whereas when dry, they reflect
this. But why does white polished marble not appear dark when it is sprinkled?
Why not also white porcelain ?
the heat is sufficient to fuse it, in which case the greatest part
thereof becomes latent for the purpose of the fluid physical
state; and so no heat remains to be needlessly converted into
light. Yet such conversion occurs when the temperature is
once more raised, in which case the glass-flux itself becomes
luminous; for now it no longer needs to use in any other way
the heat that is still applied to it. (Incidentally, this fact is
mentioned by Babinet in the Rellue des deux mondes, 1 November
1855 without his understanding it in the very least.)
It is stated that the temperature of the air on 1nountain tops
is, of course, very low, but that the direct heat of the sun on the
body is very intense. This may be explained from the fact that
sunlight, still undiminished by the denser atmosphere of the
lower layer, strikes the body and at once undergoes the meta-
morphosis into heat.
The well-known fact that at night all noises and sounds are
louder than in the daytime is usually explained from the
general peace and calm of night. I have forgotten who advanced,
some thirty years ago, the hypothesis that the thing was due
possibly to an actual antagonism between sound and light.
From frequent observation of this phenomenon, one certainly
feels inclined to accept this explanation; methodical experi-
ments alone can decide the question. Now this antagonism
might be explained from the fact that the essential nature of
light, tending to move in absolutely straight lines, diininishes
the elasticity of the air by its penetration thereof. Now if this
were verified, it would be one more step towards our knowledge
of the nature of light. If ether and the system of vibration were
proved, then the explanation that its waves intersected and
impeded those of sound would have everything in its favour.
On the other hand, the final cause would here readily follow
that the absence of light, while depriving animals of the use of
sight, would enhance that of hearing. Alexander v. Humboldt
(cf. Birnbaum, Reich der Wolken, Leipzig, I 859, p. 61) discusses
the matter in a later and revised essay of 1820 to be found in
his Kleinere Schrijten, volume i, 1853 He too is of the opinion
that the explanation from the peace and calm of night does not
suffice; on the other hand, he gives the explanation that, in the
daytime, the ground, rocks, water, and object<i on the earth
were heated unequally, whereby columns of air of unequal density
rose; the sound-waves had to penetrate these successively and
thus became broken and unequal. But at night, I say, the unequal
cooling-offwould inevitably produce the same effect; moreover,
this explanation applies only when the noise comes from a
distance and is so loud that it remains audible; for only then
does it pass through several columns of air. But at night springs,
fountains, and streams murmur at our feet two or three times
more loudly. Generally speaking, Humboldt's explanation
concerns only the propagation of sound, not its immediate
intensification that takes place even in the closest proximity. Then
again, as general rain everywhere equalizes the temperature
of the ground, it must, like night, produce the same intensifica-
tion of sound. But at sea the intensification could not possibly
occur at all; he says it would be less; yet it is difficult to test
this. Therefore his explanation is entirely irrelevant; and so the
intensification of sound at night must be attributed either to
the falling off of day noises or to a direct antagonism between
sound and light.
79a
Every cloud has a contractility; it must be held together by
some internal force, so that it does not entirely disintegrate and
dissolve into the atmosphere. Now such a force may be electrical,
or mere cohesion, gravitation, or something else. But the more
active and effective this force is, the more firmly does it tie up
from within the cloud which thus receives a sharper contour
and generally a more massive appearance. This is the case with
the cumulus, and rain is unlikely; rain clouds, on the other hand,
have blurred contours. With regard to thunder, I have hit upon
a hypothesis which is very bold and may perhaps be called
extravagant. I myself am not convinced of it, and yet I cannot
make up my mind to set it aside, but will submit it to those who
are mainly concerned with physics, so that they m~y first test
the possibility of the thing. If this were once settled, its reality
could hardly be doubted. We are still not quite clear about the
immediate cause of thunder, since current explanations are
inadequate, especially when, with the cracking of a spark from
a conductor, we conjure up in our minds the loud report of
thunder. And so we might venture to put forward the bold and
even reckless hypothesis that the electrical tension in the cloud
electrolyses water, that the explosive mixture of hydrogen and

oxygen thus formed produces little bubbles from the remaining
part of the cloud, and that these are afterwards ignited by the
electric spark. The loud report of thunder corresponds exactly
to such a detonation and the heavy downpour that often im-
mediately follows a violent thunder-clap could also be explained
in this way. Electric shocks in the cloud without previous
electrolysis of the water would be sheet lightning and generally
lightning without thunder.*
H. Scoutetten delivered a memoire sur l' ilectricitl atmospherique
before the Academic des Sciences, an extract of which appeared
in the Comptes rendus of 18 August 1856. Relying on experiments
he had conducted, he states that the vapour that rises from
water and plants during sunlight and forms clouds, consists of
microscopically small bubbles whose content is electrified
oxygen and whose envelope is water. Of the hydrogen that
corresponds to this oxygen he says nothing. But at any rate,
here we should have had to assume in the cloud the one element
of the explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen even without
an electrolysis of water. t
During the electrolysis of the atmospheric water into two
gases, a great deal of heat necessarily becomes latent. From the
* Nevertheless, the tendency is again to regard this as very distant thunder!

Poey has conducted a long dispute over lightning without thunder and thunder
without lighting in the Aca.dimie des sciences, 1856-7; he states (April 1857) that
even the energetic fork-lightning sometimes occurs without thunder (Analyse des
hypothises sur les eclairs sans tonnerre par Poey in the Journal des 'flUl.lhimaliques.) In
Comptes rendus, 27 October 1856, an article, written to correct another on lightning
without thunder and vice versa, assumes, as a settled question and cerw certius
entirely without previous examination, that thunder is simply on a large scale the
noise made by a spark jumping across a conductor. Sheet-lightning is for him a
distant flash. In his Kosmische Physilc, 1856, Joh. Muller states in his old-fashioned
way that thunder is 'the vibration of the air that is agitated during the flashing out
of electricity', and thus the cracking of sparks from the conductor. Thunder,
however, bears no resemblance whatever to the noise of jumping electric sparks;
they are as much alike as are the elephant and the fly. The difference between the
two sounds is not merely quantitative but qualitative (see Birnbaum, &ich de,-
Wolken, pp. 167, 16g). On the other hand, it bears the greatest resemblance to a
series of detonations which may be simultaneous and reach our ears successively
merely on account of the great distance. A battery of Leiden jars?
t If, as is assumed, the clouds consist of hollow bubbles (for water vapour is
really invisible), then, in order to float, these must be filled with a gas that is lighter
than the atmosphere and hence either mere water vapour or hydrogen. The opposite
argument on page 91 of Birnbaum's Reich tier Wolken is false.
126 ON PHILOSOPHY A~D NATURAL SCIENCE
resultant cold it might be possible to explain hail that is still so

problematical; it occurs n1ost frequently as the accompaniment
of a thunder-storm as is seen on page I 38 of the Reich der Wolken.
Naturally, it arises only in consequence of a complicated set of
circumstances, and therefore rarely. Here we see only the
source of the cold that is required to freeze raindrops in the hot
summer season.
8o
No branch of knowledge impresses the masses so much as
does astronomy. Accordingly, astronomers, who for the most part
have mere calculating minds and are in other respects of
second-rate ability, as is usually the case with such men,
frequently assume very great airs with their 'sublimest of all the
sciences', and so on. Even Plato ridiculed these claims of
astronomy and recalled the fact that what looks upwards is not
exactly what is called sublime (Republic, lib. vu, pp. 156, 157,
ed. Bip.). The almost idolatrous worship enjoyed by Newton,
especially in England, is beyond all belief. Even quite recently
in The Times he was called 'the greatest of human beings' and
in another article of the same paper the attempt was made to
console us again by assuring us that after all he was only human!
In 18 I 5 (according to an account in the weekly publication
The Examiner and reprinted in the Galignani of 11 January
1853), one of Newton's teeth was sold to a peer for 730 who
had it set in a ring, a circumstance that reminds one of the
Buddha's sacred tooth. This ludicrous veneration of the great
arithmetician is now due to the fact that people take as the
measure of his merit the magnitude of the masses whose motion
he traced to their laws and these to the natural force that
operates in it. (Moreover, this was not even his discovery but
Robert Hooke's, which he merely authenticated by calcula-
tion.) Otherwise, it is inconceivable why more veneration is
due to him than to anyone else who traces given effects to the
manifestation of a definite force of nature, and why, for example,
Lavoisier should not be just as highly esteemed. On the
contrary, the problem of explaining given phenomena from
many kinds of co-operating natural forces, and even of dis-
covering such forces fron1 these phenomena, is much more
difficult than is the one that has to consider only two such
simply and uniformly operating forces as gravitation and inertia
in non-resisting space. It is precisely on this incomparable
simplicity or scantiness of its material that the mathematical
certainty, trustworthiness, and precision of astronomy rest, by
virtue whereof it astonishes the world through its ability to
announce the existence even of planets that have not yet been
seen. This may have been admirable, yet, when closely con-
sidered, it is only the same intellectual operation that is carried
out every time we determine a cause, as yet unseen, from its
effect that now manifests itself. It is the same operation that was
carried out to an even more admirable degree by that con-
noisseur of wine who, from a glass of wine, knew with certainty
that there must be leather in the barrel. This was denied until
after the barrel was finally emptied when a key was found lying
at the bottom with a small leather strap attached. The intel-
lectual operation here occurring is the same as that taking place
in the discovery of Neptune, and the difference is merely in the
application and thus in the object; it differs merely in the
substance, certainly not in the form. Daguerre's invention, on
the other hand, unless perhaps it was due largely to chance, as
some assert, so that Arago had afterwards to think out the
theory,* is a hundred times more ingenious than the much
admired discovery of Leverrier. But as I have said, the awe of
the crowd is due to the magnitude of the masses in question
and to the immense distances. I would like to take this oppor-
tunity to say that many physical and chemical discoveries can
be of incalculable value and benefit to the whole human race,
whereas it needed very little wit to make them, so little that
occasionally chance alone performed the function thereof. And
so there is a great difference between the intellectual and
material values of such discoveries.
From the point of view of philosophy, we might compare
astronomers to those who attend the performance of a great
opera. Without allowing themselves to be diverted by the music
or the contents of the piece, they merely pay attention to the
machinery of the decorations and are so pleased when they find
out all about its working and the sequence of its operations.
Invenlions often occur through mere groping and testing. The theory of each is
afterwards thought out just as is the proof of an acknowledged truth.
81
The signs of the zodiac arc mankind's family coat of arms; for
they are found as the same pictures and in the same order among
the Hindus, Chinese, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and
so on, and there is some dispute as to their origin. Ideler, Ueber
den Ursprung des Thierkreises, 1838, does not venture to give a
decision as to where it was first found. Lepsius asserted that it
first occurs on monuments between Ptolemaic and Roman times.
But Uhlemann, Grund;:,iige der Astronomie und Astrologie der Alien,
besonders der Aegypter, I 85 7, states that the signs of the zodiac are
found even in the royal tombs of the sixteenth century B.c.
82
In regard to the Pythagorean harmony of the spheres, we
should work out what chord would result if we grouped and
combined a sequence of tones in proportion to the different
velocities of the planets, so that Neptune provided the bass
and Mercury the soprano. In this connection, see Scholia in
Aristotelem, collegit Brandis, p. 496.
83
According to the present state of our knowledge and as
Leibniz and Buffon have also maintained, it seems that the
earth was once in a state of intense heat and fusion and in fact
still is, since only its surface has cooled and hardened. Before
this it was, therefore, like everything intensely hot, also lumi-
nous. As the large planets were also luminous and for an even
longer period, the sun at that time must have been represented
by the astronomers of more remote and ancient worlds as a
double, threefold, or even fourfold star. Now the cooling of the
earth's surface occurs so slowly that not the slightest increase in
this respect is noticeable in historic times; in fact according to
Fourier's calculations, such cooling no longer takes place to any
appreciable extent, since just as much heat as is radiated yearly
by the earth is received back by it from the sun. Therefore, in
the volume of the sun which is 1 ,38h4 72 times that of the earth
and of which the earth was once an integral part, the cooling
down must take place the more gradually in proportion to this
difference in volume, although without compensation from
outside. Accordingly, the radiance and heat of the sun are then
explained from the fact that it is still in the condition in which
the world once was; but their decline proceeds far too slowly
for its influence to be felt even after thousands of years. That
its atmosphere should really be luminous might be explained
indeed from the sublimation of the hottest parts. The same holds
good of the fixed stars; of these the double stars are those that
have planets still in a state of self-luminosity. In consequence
of this assumption, however, all incandescence would gradually
be extinguished and, after billions of years, the whole world
would inevitably be submerged in cold rigidity and darkness;
unless in the meantime new fixed stars condense from the
luminous nebula, and thus another kalpa is ushered in.
84
The following teleological consideration could be deduced
from physical astronomy.
The time necessary to cool or heat a body in a medium of
different temperature increases rapidly in proportion to the
size of the body; accordingly, Buffon attempted to calculate
this in respect of the different masses of the planets which were
assumed to be hot; yet in our day this has been done more
thoroughly and successfully by Fourier. We see this on a small
scale in glaciers that no summer is capable of melting, and
even in the ice in a cellar where a sufficiently large mass of it
is kept. Incidentally, divide et impera7 would appear to have its
best illustration in the effect of summer heat on ice.
The four large planets receive extremely little heat from the
sun; for example, according to Humboldt, the illumination on
Uranus is only 3 A8 of that received by the earth. Consequently,
for the maintenance of life on their surface they are dependent
entirely on their internal heat, whereas the earth depends almost
entirely on the external heat coming from the sun, if one can
rely on Fourier's calculations according to which the effect of
the very intense heat of the earth's interior on its surface
amounts to only a minimum. With the sizes of the four major
planets, varying as they do from eighty to thirteen hundred
times that of the earth, the tin1e necessary for their cooling down
' ('Set at variance and rule.']

is now incalculably long. Within historic times, we have not the
slightest trace of a cooling of the earth that is so small in com-
parison with the major planets. This was most ingeniously
demonstrated by a Frenchman from the fact that, in relation
to the earth's rotation, the moon does not move more slowly
than it did in the earliest times of which we have information.
Thus if the earth had become any cooler, it would necessarily
have contracted to that extent, in which case an acceleration
of its rotation would have arisen, whereas the motion of the
moon remained unaltered. According to this, it seems ex-
ceedingly appropriate that the major planets are remote from
the sun, the minor, on the other hand, are nearer, and the
smallest nearest of all. For these will gradually lose their inter-
nal heat, or at any rate will become so thickly encrusted, that
such heat no longer penetrates to the surface;* and so they need
the external source of heat. As the mere fragments of an
exploded planet, the asteroids are something entirely fortuitous
and abnormal and so are not considered here. But, of course,
in and by itself, this accident is gravely antiteleological. Let us
hope the catastrophe took place before the planet was inhabi-
ted. Nevertheless, we know of nature's lack of consideration; I
cannot vouch for anything. Now this extremely probable
hypothesis, which was advanced by Olbers, is again being
questioned and the reasons for this may be just as much
theological as astronomical.
However, for the proposed teleology to be complete, the four
major planets would have to be so arranged that the largest was
the farthest from, and the smallest the nearest to, the sun; but
in point of fact the reverse is rather the case. It might also be
urged that their mass is much lighter and thus less dense than
that of the minor planets, yet this is not nearly enough to
account for the enormous difference in size. Perhaps it is so
merely in consequence of their internal heat.
The obliquity of the ecliptic is the object of quite special
teleological admiration, since without it no seasonal changes
would occur, but perpetual spring would reign on earth.
Therefore fruits could never ripen and thrive, and consequently
the earth could not be inhabited everywhere almost as far as
* Volcanoes are the safety-valves of the great steam-boiler.

the poles; and so the physico-theologians see in the obliquity of

the ecliptic the wisest of all provisions and the materialists the
happiest of all accidents. This admiration, with which Herder
in particular is inspired (ldeen zur Philosophie der Geschichte, vol.
i, chap. 4), is, however, on closer consideration, a little in-
genuous. For if eternal spring reigned as suggested, the plant
world would certainly not have failed to adapt its nature
accordingly, so that a less intense heat, albeit always constant
and equable, would be suitable to it, just as the now fossilized
flora of the primeval world were adapted to an entirely different
state of the planet and flourished marvellously during it, no
matter in what way this was caused.
That on the moon no atmosphere is discernible through
refraction is a necessary consequence of its small mass that
amounts to only 818 that of our planet. Accordingly, it exerts so
small a force of attraction that our atmosphere placed on it
would retain only 818 of its density. Consequently, it could not
produce any noticeable refraction and would inevitably be just
as feeble and impotent in other respects.
Here may be the place for a hypothesis concerning the lunar
surface, for I cannot make up my mind to discard it, although
I am well aware of the difficulties to which it is exposed; I
regard it only as a daring conjecture and offer it as such. It is
that the water of the moon is not absent but frozen, since
through lack of an atmosphere an almost absolute cold is
produced which does not permit even the evaporation of the
ice to take place, an evaporation that would otherwise be
promoted by that lack of an atmosphere. Thus on account of
the smallness of the moon, -f9 the volume and is the mass of
the earth, we must rF.!gard its internal source of heat as exhausted,
or at any rate as no longer affecting the surface. From the sun
it receives .no more heat than does the earth. For although
once a month it comes nearer to the sun by an amount equal
to its distance from us, in which case it invariably exposes to
the sun only the face that is always turned away from us, this
face thereby receives, according to Madler, merely an illumi-
nation (and consequently also a heating) that is brighter in the
ratio of 101 to 100 than that received by the face that is turned
towards us. This never happens to the latter face even in the
opposite case when, after fourteen days, the moon has again
become n10re distant from the sun by an amount equal to its
distance from us. We have, therefore, to assume that the
influence of solar heat on the moon is no stronger than that of
such heat on the earth; in fact it is even weaker, as it lasts a
fortnight naturally for each face, but is then interrupted by a
night that lasts two weeks and prevents the cumulative effect
of that influence. But now all heating by sunlight is dependent
on the presence of an atmosphere; for it takes place only by
virtue of the metamorphosis of light into heat; and this occurs
when light strikes an opaque body, in other words, one that is
impervious to it as light. Thus it cannot with its lightning
rectilinear speed penetrate an opaque body as it can one which
is transparent and through which it passes to reach the other
body. It is then converted into heat that ascends and radiates
in all directions. Now as this is absolutely without weight
(imponderable), it n1ust be restrained and held together by
the pressure of an atmosphere, otherwise it is dissipated at the
moment it is formed. For however instantaneously light in its
original radiating nature cuts through the atmosphere, its
passage is very slow when, converted into heat, it has to over-
come the weight and resistance of this very atmosphere which,
as we know, is the worst of all conductors of heat. On the other
hand, if the air is r<1;refied, the heat escapes more easily; and if
there is no air at all, it escapes at once. Therefore high moun-
tains, where the pressure of the atmosphere is reduced to half,
are covered with eternal snow, whereas deep valleys, if they
are wide, are the warmest places. What must it be like then
when there is no atmosphere at all? And so as regards tempera-
ture, we should have to assume without hesitation that all the
water on the moon is frozen. But then there arises the difficulty
that, as rarefaction of the atmosphere facilitates ebullition and
lowers the boiling-point, its total absence must greatly. accele-
rate generally the process of evaporation, whereupon- the
frozen water of the moon must have long ago evaporated. Now
this difficulty is met by the consideration that all evaporation,
even that in a vacuum, takes place only by virtue of a very
considerable quantity of heat that becomes latent precisely
through such evaporation. But such heat is lacking on the moon
where the cold must be wellnigh absolute, since the heat
formed by the immediate effect of the sun's rays instantly passes
away, and the little evaporation that is thereby induced is again

stopped at once by the cold, like hoarfrost.* For however much
in itself rarefaction of the air promotes evaporation, it prevents
this even more by the fact that it causes the heat necessary for
such evaporation to escape and we also see this in the Alpine
snows which as little disappear through evaporating as through
melting. Now with a total absence of air, the instantaneous
disappearance of the heat that is formed will in equal propor-
tion be more unfavourable to evaporation than the lack of air
pressure in itself is favourable thereto. As a result of this hypo-
thesis, we should have to regard all the water on the moon as
converted into ice and in particular the whole mysterious grey
part of its surface, always described as maria (seas), as frozen
water.t Its many unevenncsses will then no longer cause any
difficulty and the conspicuous, deep, and often straight furrows
that intersect it could be explained as yawning crevices in the
splintered ice; for their shape greatly favours this explanation.t
Generally speaking, it is not entirely safe to infer an absence
of life from a lack of air and water. Such a conclusion might
even be called narrow and parochial, in so far as it rests on
the assumption of a partout comme chez nous.8 The phenomenon
of animal life might easily be brought about by means other
than respiration and blood circulation; for the essential point
of all life is simply the constant change of matter with per-
manence of form. Of course, we can imagine this as happening
only through the medium of what is fluid and vaporous. But
matter generally is the mere visibility of the will which, however,
* This hypothesis is fully supported by the Leslie experiment, mentioned by

Pouillet, vol. i, p. 368. Thus we see the water in a vacuum freeze becawe evapora-
tion deprived it even of the heat that was necessary to keep it in the fluid state.
t Humboldt (Kosmos, vol. iii, p. 46o) says Sir John Herschel imagines that the
temperature of the moon's surface possibly exceeds considerably that of boiling
water. He explains this in Fiis Outlines of AstTono"!)', 1Rl9, 432.
! When sending a photograph of the moon, Father Secchi writes from Rome on
6 April 1858: tTes remarquable dans Ia PLEJNE LUNE est lefond noir des partiu lissu,
et le grand eclat des parties rahotmses: doit-on croire celles-ci couvertes de GLACES ou de
NEICE? ['Very remarkable in the full moon are the dark ground of the level parts
and the great brilliance of the rough and uneven. Ought one to assume that the
latter are covered with ice or snow?'] (See CfJtnptes rendus, 28 April 1858.) In a very
recent drama there is a passage: 'That I could clamber to thefrozen moon, And
draw the ladder after me! '-poetic instinct.
8 ['Everywhere as with us'.]
everywhere aims at the enhancement step by step of its pheno-
menal appearance. The forms, ways, and means of attaining
this may be very varied. On the other hand, it should again be
borne in mind that most probably the chemical elements not
only on the moon, but also on all the planets, are the same as
those on the earth. For the whole system has been evolved
from the same primordial luminous nebula to which the present
sun once extended. This certainly permits one to surmise a
similarity also of the higher phenomena of the will.
85
The extremely ingenious cosmogorry, i.e. theory of the origin
of the planetary system, which Kant first gave in his Natur-
geschichte des Himmels, 1755, and then more completely in the
seventh chapter of his 'only possible argument', 1 763, was
developed with greater astronomical knowledge and established
on a firmer foundation almost fifty years later by Laplace
(Exposition du systeme du monde~ vol. v, p. 2). However, its truth
rests not only on the basis of the spatial relation which was
insisted on by Laplace, namely that forty-five heavenly bodies
collectively circulate in one direction and siJnultaneously rotate
in precisely the same direction; but it has an even firmer
support in the temporal relation. This is expressed by Kepler~s
second and third laws, in so far as such laws state the fixed rule
and exact formula '"'hereby all the planets in a strictly natural
ratio circulate the more rapidly, the nearer they are to the sun.
In the case of the sun itself, however, mere rotation has taken
the place of circulation and now stands as the maximum of
velocity of that progressive ratio. When the sun still extended
as far as Uranus, it rotated once in eighty-four years; but now,
after undergoing an acceleration through each of its contrac-
tions, it rotates once in twenty-five and a half days.
Thus if the planets were not remnants of a once very large
central body, but each had originated in a different way and
by itself, one could not possibly understand how it had come
exactly into the position that it must precisely occupy accord-
ing to the last two laws of Kepler if it is not either to fall into,
or fly away from, the sun in consequence of Newton's laws of
gravitation and centrifugal force. The truth of the Kant-Laplace
cosmogony depends primarily on this. Thus if, with Newton, we
regard the circulation of the planets as the product of gravita-
tion and a counteracting centrifugal force, then, taking each
planet's existing centrifugal force as fixed and given, there is for
it only one position where its gravitation is in exact equilibrium
with this force, and it accordingly keeps to its orbit. Therefore
it must have been one and the same cause that gave to each
planet its position and at the same time its velocity. The nearer
a planet is to the sun, the more rapidly it must move in its
orbit and hence the more centrifugal force it must acquire, if
it is not to fall into the sun. The farther a planet is from the
sun, the less must its centrifugal force become in proportion as
its gravitation is thereby reduced, otherwise it will fly away
from the sun. Thus a planet could have its position anywhere if
only a cause existed which imparted to it the centrifugal force
that is exactly suited to each position and is thus precisely in
equilibrium with the gravitation at that point. Now as we find
that each planet actually has just the velocity necessary for it
to be where it is, this can be explained only from the fact that
the same cause that gave it its position also determined simul-
taneously the degree of its velocity. Now this can be understood
only from the cosmogony in question; for it makes the central
body contract intermittently and thus detach a ring that is
afterwards formed into a planetary ball. In consequence of
Kepler's second and third laws, the rotation of the central body
must be vigorously accelerated after each contraction and it
bequeathes the velocity thus determined to the planet that is
detached at the place where the next contraction occurs. Now
it can detach the planet at any point of its sphere, for the planet
always acquires exactly the right centrifugal force for this spot,
but for no other. This force proves to be the stronger, the nearer
that spot is to the central body and thus the more intense the
effect of gravitation which attracts it to that body and against
which that centrifugal force has to act. For the speed of rotation
of the body that successively detaches planets had been in-
creased by an amount that was exactly requisite for this.
Moreover, whoever would like to have a graphic illustration of
this necessary acceleration of rotation in consequence of con-
traction, will obtain a delightful example from a large burning
Catherine wheel. At first it rotates slowly; and then the smaller
it becomes, the more rapidly it turns.
In his second and third laws Kepler has expressed merely the
actual relation between a planet's distance from the sun and
the velocity of its orbital n1otion. Now it may concern one and
the same planet at different times or two different planets. By
ultimately assuming Robert Hooke's fundamental idea which
he had at first rejected, Newton deduced this relation from
gravitation and its opposing centrifugal force and from this
showed that it must be so and why. Thus it must be so because,
at such a distance from the central body, the planet must have
precisely such velocity in order not to fall into, or fly away from,
it. Indeed in the descending causal series this is the causa
efficiens; but in the ascending it is only the causafinalis. Now only
the Kant-Laplace cosmogony tells us how the planet came to
acquire precisely at this spot just the necessary velocity, or even
how, with this given velocity, it was placed precisely at the very
spot where gravitation is in equilibrium with that velocity;
only this cosmogony tells us about this cause, this causa efficiens that
lies still higher.
The approximately regular arrangement of the planets will
once more make this clear, so that we shall no longer under-
stand it as being merely regular, but as conforming to law, in
other words, as having followed from a natural law. Something
of the kind is indicated by the following arrangement which was
known even a hundred years before the discovery of Uranus
and depends on our always doubling the nmnber in the upper
row and then adding four to form a number in the lower. The
latter then gives the approximate average distances of the
planets ~hich agree tolerably well with the figures that are
accepted at the present time:
0 3 6 12 24 48 g6 192
7 10 16 28 52 100 196
~ ~ Asteroids 2.J. 0
The regularity of this arrangement is unmistakable, although
only approximately so. Perhaps there is for each planet a
position in its orbit between the perihelion and aphelion where
the rule proves to be absolutely correct; this could then be
regarded as its proper and original position. In any case, this
more or less precise regularity must have been the result of
forces that were active at each successive contraction of the
central body, as well as of the nature of the primordial sub-
stance that formed their very basis. Each new contraction of
the primordial nebulous mass was a result of the acceleration
of rotation which was brought about by previous contractions.
Now the outer zone could no longer follow this accelerated
rotation and therefore tore itself off and remained where it was.
In this way, a repetition of the contraction took place, which
again produced an acceleration, and so on. As the central body
thus became intermittently smaller and smaller, so each time
the amount of contraction was less in proportion, namely
something under half the one that preceded it, since each time
the central body contracted by half its existing dimensions
(- 2). However, it is remarkable that a catastrophe overtook
the very middle planet in consequence whereof only its frag-
ments still exist. It was the boundary between the four major
and the four minor planets.
A corroboration of the theory is also to be found in the fact
that, on the whole, the planets are larger, the farther they are
from the sun, because the zone from which they were formed
into globes was so much greater, although some irregularities
have here crept in in consequence of the accidental differences
in the width of such zones.
A different corroboration of the Kant-Laplace cosmogony is
the fact that the density of the planets decreases approximately
in proportion to their distance from the sun. For this is explained
from the fact that the most distant planet is a remnant of the
sun at the time when this was at its maximum extension and
consequently at its minimum density; thereupon the sun con-
tracted and thus became denser, and so on. The same thing is
confirmed by the fact that the moon later originated in the same
way through the contraction of the earth which was still
vaporous, but, because of this, reached as far as the present
moon, and also that the moon has only~ of the earth's density.
However, the sun itself is not the densest of all the bodies of
the system; and this is explained by the fact that each planet
came into existence from the subsequent formation of a whole
ring into a globe, but that the sun is merely the residuum of
that central body which has not been further compressed after
its last contraction. Yet another special corroboration of the
cosmogony we arc considering is furnished by the circum-
stance that, whereas the inclination of all the planetary orbits
to the ecliptic (earth's orbit) varies between! and 3! degrees,
that of Mercury amounts to 7 o' 6". But this is almost equal
to the inclination of the sun's equator to the ecliptic, which
amounts to 7 go'. This can be explained from the fact that
the last ring that was detached by the sun remained almost
parallel to that body's equator whence it was severed; whereas
the previously detached planets were thrown more out of
equilibrium, or the sun shifted its axis of rotation after they
were detached from it. Venus, as the last but one, has an
inclination of 3! degrees; all the others arc even under two with
the exception of Saturn which has 2t degrees. (See Hun1boldt's
Kosmos, vol. iii, p. 449.) The very strange motion of our 1noon,
where rotation and revolution are one and the same and thus
the same face is always presented to us, can also be understood
solely from the fact that this is precisely the motion of a ring
circulating round the earth. From the contraction of such a
ring, the moon subsequently came into being; but then it was
not, like the planets, set in more rapid rotation by some
accidental impulse.
These cosmogonical considerations primarily give rise to two
metaphysical observations. First in the true essence of all things
a harmony is established by virtue whereof the primordial,
blind, crude, and lowest forces of nature, guided by the most
rigid laws, through their conflict in the matter that is equally
at the mercy cJ them all, and through the accidental conse-
quences accompanying such conflict-such forces, I say, pro-
duce nothing less than the very foundations of a world that is
arranged with admirable appropriateness to be the birthplace
and haunt of living beings. These forces produce to perfection
a world such as could have been achieved only by the most
astute deliberation under the guidance of the most penetrating
intellect and the keenest and precisest calculation. And so we
see here in the most astonishing way how the causa ~fficiens
and the causa finalis, the ai-r{a g avayK7]) and the xapw 'TOV
{3.>..-rlovos of Aristotle, each marching along independently of
the other, combine in the result. The discussion of this observa-
tion and the explanation of its underlying phenomenon from
the principles of my metaphysics arc found in the second volume
of my chief work, chapter 25. I mention it here n1erely to
point out that it suggests to us a scheme wherein we can see by
analogy, or at any rate in general, how all the chance events,
that intervene and clash in the course of an individual's life,
nevertheless accord with one another in a secret and pre-
established harmony. We can see how they do all this in order
to evolve, in reference to the individual's character and to his
true ultimate well-being, a totality just as appropriately
harmonious, as if everything existed only for his sake, as a mere
phantasmagoria for him alone. To throw more light on this
question was the task of the essay to be found in the first volume
and entitled 'On the apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the
Individual'.
The second metaphysical observation raised by that cos-
mogony is that even so far-reaching a physical explanation of the
origin of the world can never do away with the need for a
metaphysical, or take the place thereof. On the contrary, the more
we have found out about the phenomenon, the more clearly do we
observe that we are concerned with this alone and not with the
essence of things-in-themselves. With this, then, we feel the
need for metaphysics as a counterbalance to the physics that
has been carried to such lengths. For at bottom, all the materials,
from which this world has been built up in the presence of our
understanding, are just so many unknown:quantities and appear
precisely as the riddles and problems of metaphysics. Thus we
have the inner essence of those forces of nature whose blind
operation here so appropriately constructs the framework of
the world. Then there is the inner essence of the elements,
chemica1ly different and accordingly acting on one another;
from their conflict that has been most perfectly described by
Ampere, the individual nature of the separate planets has
arisen; geology is concerned with the demonstration of this in
the traces of that conflict. Finally, there is also the inner essence
of the force which ultimately shows itself as organizing, and
produces on the outermost surface of the planet, like a coating
or mildew, vegetation and animal life. With animal life,
consciousness and thus knowledge first appear, the latter again
being the condition of the whole course of events that has so far
developed. For all the things of which these events consist
exist only for and in such knowledge and have reality only in
reference thereto. In fact, the events and changes themselves
could appear only in virtue of the forms (time, space, causality)
that are peculiar to knowledge and therefore e:xlst also only
relatively for the intellect.
Thus, on the one hand, it must be admitted that all those
physical, cosmogonical, chemical, and geological events existed
even before the appearance of a consciousness and so outside
this since, as conditions, they were necessarily bound to precede
such an appearance by a long interval of time. Yet, on the other
hand, it cannot be denied that, as those events first appear in
and through the forms of a consciousness, they are absolutely
nothing outside it and are not even conceivable. In any case,
it might be said that, by virtue of its forms, consciousness is the
condition of the physical events in question, but that again these
condition it by virtue of their matter. At bottom, however, all
those events that cosmogony and geology urge us to assume as
having occurred long before the existence of any knowing
creature are themselves only a translation into the language of
our intuitively perceiving intellect from the essence-in-itself of
things which to it is incomprehensible. For those events have
never had an existence-in-itself, any more than have present
events. But with the aid of the principles a priori of all possible
experience and following a few empirical data, the regressus
leads back to them; it is itself~ however, only the concatenation
of a series of mere phenomena that have no absolute existence.*
Therefore even in their empirical existence, in spite of all the
The geological events that preceded all life on earth did not exist in any con-
sciousness at all, either in their own because they had none or in the consciousness
of another because no such consciousness existed. Therefore through the lack of
any subject, they had absolutely no objective existence, that is, they did not exist
at all; but then what does their having existed signify? At bottom, it is merely
hypothetical, namely, if a consciousness had existed in those primeval times, then
such events would have appeared in it; thus far does the regressus of phenomena
lead us. And so it lay in the very nature of .the thing-in-itself to manifest itself in
such events.
When we say, in the beginning let there have been a lumiwus primordial nebula
that formed itself into a sphere and started to rotate; then suppose it thus became
shaped like a lens and its extreme periphery became detached in the form of a
ring that was then formed into a planetary sphere, and the same process was
repeated again and again-the whole Laplace cosmogony in fact; and when we
add also the earliest geological phenomena up to the appearance of organic nature,
then everything we say is true not in the literal sense, but is a kind of figurative
language. For it is the description of phenomena that have never existed as such;
mechanical accuracy and mathematical precision of the

determination of their appearance, those events still always
retain an obscure and enigmatical core, like an inscrutable
mystery lurking in the background. Thus we see it in the natural
forces that manifest themselves in those events, in the primordial
matter that bears these, and in the necessarily beginningless and
hence incomprehensible existence of such forces. To explain this
obscure and enigmatical core on the empirical path is impossible.
Here, then, metaphysics must appear which, in the will in our
own true nature, makes us acquainted with the kernel and core
of all things. In this sense, Kant has also said that 'the primary
sources of the effects of nature must obviously be dealt with
entirely by metaphysics.' ( Von der wahren Schiitzung der lebendigen
Kriifte, 51.)
And so from the standpoint which we are here considering
and is that of metaphysics, the physical explanation of the
world which is acquired by such an expenditure of effort and
ingenuity appears to be inadequate. In fact, it seems superficial
and, to a certain extent, becomes a mere pretence at explana-
tion, because it consists in a reduction to unknown quantities,
to qualitates occultae. It is comparable to a mere superficial force,
something like electricity, that does not penetrate the inner
essence of things. Indeed it is even like paper-money which has
only a relative value that is based on the assumption of a
different kind of money. Here I refer to the more detailed
discussion of this relation to be found in the second volume of
my chief work, chapter 1 7 There are in Germany shallow
empiricists who try to make their public believe that, speaking
generally, there is nothing except nature and her laws. But this
for they are spatial, temporal, and causal phenomena that, as such, can exi}t posi-
tively only in the mental picture or representation of a brain. This brain has space,
time, and causality as the forms of its knowing and consequently without it, those
phenomena are impossible and have never existed; and so that description merely
states that, if a brain had existed at that time, then the aforesaid events would have
appeared in it. On the other band, in themselves, those events are nothing but the
dull craving, devoid of knowledge, of the will-to-live for its first objectification. Now
after brains come into existence, this will must manifest itself in their range of ideas
and by means of the regressus which is necessarily produced by the forms of their
representations, as those primary cosmogonical, and geological phenomena. In this
way, these acquire for the first time their objective existence; but on this account,
the objective existence is no less in keeping with the .subjective than if it had occurred
simultaneously therewith and not merely after countless thousands of years.
will not do, for nature is not a thing-in-itself, and her laws are
not absolute.
If we place in an imaginary row the Kant-Laplace cos-
mogony, geology from Deluc down to Elie de Beaumont, and
finally the original generation of the vegetable and animal
kingdoms with the commentary of their results, namely botany,
zoology, and physiology, then we have before us a complete
history of nature, since we survey in all its sequence and
continuity the entire phenon1enon of the empirically given
world. This, however, at the outset constitutes the problem of
metaphysics. If mere physics were capable of solving it, it
would already have been well on the way to solution; but this
is for ever impossible. The two points already mentioned,
namely the essence-in-itself of natural forces and the fact
that the objective world is conditioned by the intellect and
also the a priori certain beginninglessness of both the causal
chain and matter, deprive physics of all independence, or are
the stern whereby the lotus of physics is rooted to the soil of
metaphysics.
Moreover, the relation between the latest results of geology
and my metaphysics could be expressed briefly in the following
way. In the very first period of the terrestrial globe which
preceded granite, the objectification of the will-to-live was
restricted to its lowest stages, to the forces of inorganic nature.
Here, however, it manifested itself on the grandest scale and
with blind violence, since the elements, already differentiated
chemically, entered into a conflict whose scene was not the
mere surface but the whole mass of the planet, and whose
phenomena must have been so colossal as to be quite beyond
the powers of one's imagination to describe. The evolutions of
light accompanying those gigantic chemical processes must
have been visible from every planet of our system, whereas the
detonations which took place and would have shattered any
ear naturally could not pass beyond the atmosphere. After this
titanic conflict had died down and the granite as a tombstone
had covered the combatants, the will-to-live, after a suitable
pause and the interlude of the Neptunian deposits of rock,
finally manifested itself at the p.ext higher stage and in the
strongest contrast, in the mute and still life of a mere plant
world. This also appeared on a colossal scale with its towering
and interminable forests whose remains supply us, after millions
of years, with an inexhaustible quantity of coal. This plant
world gradually removed the carbon dioxide from the air
which then first became fit for animal life. Till then, the long
and profound peace of that period of no animals lasted and
finally ended through a natural revolution which destroyed
that plant paradise by engulfing the forests. Now as the air
had become pure, the will-to-live entered the third great stage
of objectification, the anin1al world. In the sea were fish and
cetacea, but on land there were still only reptiles, yet these were
colossal. Again the curtain fell on the scene and there followed
the higher objectification of the will in the life ofwarm-blooded
land animals, although the genera of these no longer exist and
most of them were pachydermata. After another upheaval of
the earth's surface with every living thing thereon, life was once
more kindled afresh. The will-to-live now objectified itself in
an animal world which offered a far greater number and variety
of forms and whose genera still exist, although naturally the
species are no longer to be found. This objectification of the
will-to-live became more perfect through such multiplicity
and variety of forms and ascended as far as the ape. But even
this last primeval world of ours had to perish in order to make
way for the present inhabitants on a restored soil, where the
objectification reached the stage of mankind. Accordingly, the
earth can be compared to a palimpsest that has been written
on four times. Incidentally, a secondary consideration of
interest is to visualize how each of the planets that revolve
round the innumerable suns in space, although still at the
chemical stage where it is the scene of a fearful conflict of the
most violent forces or is passing through an interval of peace,
nevertheless conceals mysterious forces within its interior. From
these there will one day come into existence the plant and
animal worlds with all the inexhaustible variety of their forms.
To such forces that conflict is only the prelude, since it prepares
for them their scene of action and arranges for the conditions of
their appearance. In fact, we can hardly help assuming that
what rages in those seas of fire and tempestuous torrents of
water and will later endow those flora and fauna with life, is
one and the same thing. But in my opinion the stage where
mankind is reached n1ust be the last because here there has
already occurred to man the possibility of denying the will and
thus of turning back from all the ways of the world, whereby
this divina comm.edia then comes to an end. Accordingly, although
there are no physical grounds for guaranteeing that another
world-catastrophe will not occur, there is nevertheless against
it a moral one, namely that such a catastrophe would now be
to no purpose, since the inner essence of the world needs no
higher objectification for the possibility of its salvation from the
world. What is moral, however, is the kernel or ground-bass
of the matter, however little inclined are mere physicists to
grasp this.
86
In order to appreciate in all its greatness the value of the
system. of gravitation which Newton undoubtedly raised to per-
fection and certainty, we must call to mind the dilemma in
which thinkers had been for thousands of years in regard to
the origin of the motion of heavenly bodies. Aristotle repre-
sented the universe as composed of transparent spheres, one
inside the other, the outermost of which carried the fixed stars.
Each of the others carried a planet, whilst the last had the
moon, the earth being the heart of the whole machine. Now
what force it is that incessantly turns this constellation was a
question to which he was unable to say anything except that
there must be somewhere a 11pwrov Ktvovv,9 a reply that was
afterwards indulgently interpreted as his theism, whereas he
does not speak of a God-Creator, but rather of an eternity of
the universe and merely a first power of movement. But even
after Copernicus had substituted the correct construction of
the world-machine for the legendary and Kepler had also dis-
covered the laws of its motion, the old dilemma still persisted
with regard to the moving force. Aristotle had already set up as
many gods for the guidance of the individual spheres. The
Schoolmen had assigned this to certain so-called intelligences,*
a word that is merely a more distinguished name for the angels
in heaven; and each of those intelligences now drove its planet
like a coach. Later, free thinkers like Giordano Bruno and
Vanini intimates in his Amphitheatrum, p. 2 I I, that Aristotle, Physics, Jib. VIII,
speaks of intelligences.
o ['A first mover'.]
V anini could think of nothing better than to make the planets
themselves into living divine beings of some kind.* Then came
Descartes who always tried to explain everything mechanically
and yet knew of no moving force except impact. Accordingly,
he assumed an invisible and intangible substance that revolved
round the sun in layers and pushed the planets forward-the
Cartesian vortices. How childish and crude indeed all this is
and how highly we should esteem the system of gravitation! It
has undeniably demonstrated the moving causes and the forces
that are active therein; and it has done this with such certainty
and precision that even the smallest deviation and irregularity,
the least acceleration or retardation in the motion of a planet
or satellite, can be completely explained and accurately cal-
culated from its most direct cause.
Accordingly, the fundamental idea of making gravitation
that is known to us directly only as weight, the thing that holds
the planetary system together, is, on account of the significance
of the results attaching to it, so exceedingly important that an
inquiry into its origin ought not to be set aside as irrelevant.
In particular, we should, at any rate as posterity, endeavour to
be just since, as the living generation, we are very rarely capable
of being so.
When Newton published his Principia in 1686, it is well known
that Robert Hooke raised a great outcry over his own priority
of the fundamental idea. It is also well known that Hooke's
bitter complaints and those of others extorted from Newton
the promise to mention it in the first complete edition of the
Principia in 1687. This he did with the fewest possible words in
a scholium to Pt. I, prop. 4, corol. 6, where he said in paren-
thesis: ut seorsum collegerunt etiam nostrates Wrennus, Hookius, et
Hallaeus. 10
Even in the year I 666 Hooke had expressed, although only
as a hypothesis, the essential point of the system of gravitation
in a communication to the Royal Society, as is seen from the
principal passage of this which is printed in Hooke's own
words in Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Human Mind, volume
* Vanini, Dialogi, p. 20.
10['As also our countrymen Wren, Hooke, and Halley have independently
concluded'.]
ii, p. 434 In the Q,uarterry Review of August 1828, there is a

really fine and concise history of astronomy which treats Hooke's
priority as a settled question.
In the Biographie universelle by ~Iichaud, running to nearly a
hundred volumes, the article on Newton appears to be a
translation from the Biographia Britannica to which it refers. It
contains in detail the description of the system of the universe
from the law of gravitation, word for word from Robert Hooke's
An Attempt to prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations,
London, 1674, p. 4 Further, the article says the fundamental
idea that gravity extends to all heavenly bodies is already to
be found in Borelli, Theoria motus planetarum e causis physicis
deducta, Florence, 1666. Finally, it gives Newton's long reply to
Hooke's above-mentioned protest over the priority of discovery
On the other hand, the story of the apple, which is repeated ad
nauseam, is without authority. First of all, it is found as a well-
known fact mentioned in Turnor's History of Grantham, p. 160.
Pemberton who knew Newton, although in his dotage, relates
in the preface to his View of Newton's Philosopfry, that the idea
first occurred to him in a garden, but he says nothing about
the apple. This was subsequently a plausible addition. Voltaire
asserts that he personally came to know about it from Newton's
niece and this is probably the source of the story; see Voltaire,
Elimens de philosophie de Neuton, Part n, chapter 3*
To all these authorities who are opposed to the assumption
that the great conception of universal gravitation is a brother
of the thoroughly false theory of homogeneous light, I have now
to add another argument which, of course, is only psychological,
but will carry great weight with the man who also knows human
nature from the intellectual side.
It is a well-known and indisputable fact that Newton had
understood very early, presumably in 1666, the system of
gravitation, possibly by his own methods or by someone else's,
and that he now attempted to verify it by applying it to the
Compare Byron's Works, 1850, p. 8o4, the note to Don Juan, x. 1: 'The
celebrated apple tree, the fall of one of the apples of which is said to have turned
the attention of Newton to the subject of gravity, was destroyed by wind about
four years ago. The anecdote of the falling apple is mentioned neither by Dr.
Stukeley nor by Mr. Conduit, so, as I have not been able to find any authority
for it whatever, I did not feel myself at lilx;rty to use it.' Brewster's Life of Newkm.
p. 344
motion of the moon. However, it is well known that, because
the result did not tally exactly with the hypothesis, he again
dropped this and for many years dismissed the matter from his
mind. Just as well known is the origin of that discrepancy that
deterred him from it; it had arisen simply from Newton's
assuming the moon's distance from us to be nearly one-seventh
too little, and this again because the distance can be computed
in the first place only in the earth's radii, and again the earth's
radius is calculated from the size of the degrees of the earth's
circumference, but only these can be directly measured. Now
Newton assumed, merely from the ordinary geographical
definition, that the degree was in round numbers sixty miles,
whereas in point of fact it is sixty-nine and a half. The result of
this was that the motion of the moon did not agree with the
hypothesis of gravitation, according to which gravitation is a
force that diminishes with the square of the distance. Therefore
Newton gave up the hypothesis and dismissed it from his mind.
Only some sixteen years later in I 682 did he by chance get to
know of the result of Picard's measurement of the degree which
had already been completed some years earlier. According to
this, the degree was approximately one-seventh greater than
he had formerly assumed it to be. Without regarding this as
particularly important, he made a note of it in the academy
where it was communicated to him from a letter and then,
without bothering any more about it, listened attentively to the
lecture that was being given there. Only afterwards did the old
hypothesis occur to him; he again took up his calculations and
then found that the facts tallied exactly with the hypothesis;
as we all know, he went into raptures over this.
Now I ask anyone who is himself a father, who has himself
produced, nourished, and nurtured hypotheses; does a man
treat his children in this way? Docs he, when things go wrong,
at once drive them mercilessly from home, slam the door on
them, and make no more inquiries about them in sixteen years?
In a case of this sort, before saying so bitterly that it is useless,
will he not rather suspect a mistake anywhere, even with God
the Father and creation if need be, before looking for it in his
own precious child that has been reared and nurtured by him?
And here was the very place where one could easily have been
suspicious, namely in the sole empirical datum (together with
one adjusted angle) which was the basis of the calculation, and
the uncertainty of which was so well known that the French
had since 1 66g been engaged on their measurements of the
degree. Newton, however, had quite perfunctorily accepted this
precarious datum from the ordinary statement in miles. Is a
man thus led astray with a true hypothesis that explains the
world ? Never, ~~ it is one of his own ! On the other hand, I can
say also who are treated in this way, namely strange children
who are reluctantly admitted into the house where they are
looked on with envy and jealousy by the man (aided by his
own barren wife who gave birth only once, and then to a
monster). !\1erely for the sake of duty, he admits them to the
test, hoping that they will not pass it. But as soon as this hope
is realized, he drives them fron1 the house with scornful laughter.
This argument is with me at any rate so important that I
recognize in it a complete confirmation of the statements which
attribute to Hooke the fundamental idea of gravitation and
concede to Newton only its verification by calculation. Thus
the same thing happened to poor Hooke as happened to
Columbus; in the one case the name is 'America', and in the
other, 'the Newtonian System of Gravitation'.
Moreover, as .regards the seven-coloured monster previously
touched on, I might certainly be bewildered by the fact that,
forty years after the appearance of Goethe's theory of colour, it
is still wholly in favour and the ancient litany of the foramen
exiguum 11 and the seven colours is for ever being chanted in spite
of all evidence-had I not long ago accustomed myself to
number among the imponderables the judgement of contem-
poraries. Therefore I see in it only a proof of the lamentable
and deplorable nature of the professional physicists on the one
hand, and of the so-called educated public on the other. Instead
of testing and investigating what a great man has said, this
public faithfully repeats the words of those transgressors who
say that Goethe's colour theory is an abortive uncalled-for
attempt, a weakness to be forgotten.
87
The obvious fact of fossilized shellfish, which was known even
to Xcnophanes the Eleatic and on the whole was correctly
u ['The narrow slit'.]
explained by him, is disputed, denied, and even declared to be
a chimera by Voltaire. (See Brandis, Comment. Eleaticae, p. so,
and Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, art. Coquille.) So great,
in fact, was his aversion to admitting anything that might
even be distorted into a corroboration of the Mosaic accounts,
of the Flood in this instance. This example is a warning of
how eagerness and enthusiasm can lead us astray when we
have taken sides.
88a
A complete fossilization is a total chemical change without
any mechanical.
88b
When, in order to enjoy looking at the incunabula of the
globe, I contemplate a piece of granite freshly broken off, I
cannot possibly believe that this primary rock could have
originated in any way through fusion and crystallization in a
dry manner, or again through sublimation, and as little through
precipitation; but it seems to me that it must have come about
by a chemical process of an entirely different kind which now
no longer takes place. The notion of a rapid and simultaneous
con1bustion of a mixture of metals and metalloids combined
with the elective affinity of the products of this combustion
which operates at once-this comes nearest to my conception
of the matter. I wonder if anyone has ever attempted to mix
together silicium, aluminium, and so on in the proportion in
which they constitute the radicals of the earthy minerals of
the three ingredients of granite, and to have them burnt
rapidly under water or in the air.
Of the examples of gmeratio aequiuoca that are visible to the
naked eye, the commonest is the rapid sprouting offungi where-
ever some dead vegetable substance, such as a trunk, branch,
or root is rotting; and in fact at no other spot but here. But then,
as a rule, they are not sporadic, but grow equally in clusters;
so that evidently it is not a seed (spore), cast here and there by
blind chance, which has determined the spot, but the rotting
body there which offered the ubiquitous will-to-live a suitable
material which it at once seizes. It is no argument against this
to say that these very fungi arc afterwards reproduced through
spores, for it holds good of all living beings which have seed and
nevertheless must have at one time originated without seed.
8g
A comparison ofjreshwater fish in widely separated countries
gives perhaps the clearest evidence of nature's original creative
power that she has exercised in a similar manner wherever
locality and circumstances are similar. vVhere we have approxi-
mately the same geographical latitude, topographical altitude,
and finally also the same size and depth of streams, we shall
find, even in the most widely separated localities, exactly the
same, or very similar, species of fish. We need only think of
the trout in the streams of almost all mountainous districts.
The assumption of intentional introduction generally falls to
the ground in the case of these animals. Propagation through
birds that eat but do not digest spawn does not suffice in the
case of great distances, for the process of digestion is completed
in a shorter time than that taken on their flight. I would also
like to know whether it is true with non-digestion and thus with
eating that is unsuitable; for, of course, we digest caviar very
easily, but the crop and gizzard of birds are adapted even to
the digestion of hard grains of corn. If the attempt is made to
shift the origin of freshwater fish back to the last great universal
deluge, then it is forgotten that this consisted of sea-water and
not river-water.
go
V'olre are no more capable of understanding the formation of
cubic crystals from salt water than we are of comprehending
the formation of the chick from the fluid substance in the egg.
Again, between this and generatio aequivoca, Lamarck maintained
that he found no essential difference. Yet such does exist, for
only one definite species emerges from each egg, and so this is
generatio univoca 1 z (Jg op.wvvp.ov Aristotle, .A1etaphysics, Z. 25).
Again it might be objected that each precisely determined
infusion usually produces only a definite species of micro-
scopically small animals.
12 ['The birth of like from like'.]

91
\Nith the most difficult problems of all, whose solution drives

one almost to despair, the few trifling data we have must be
used to the greatest possible advantage, so that from their
combination something is elicited.
In the Chronik der Seuclzen by Schnurrer, 1825, we find that,
after the Black Death had in the fourteenth century depopulated
the whole of Europe and also a great part of Asia and Africa,
there immediately ensued a most unusual fertility of the human
race and twin-births in particular were very common. In
agreement with this, Casper (Die wahrscheinliclze Lebensdauer des
Menschen, 1835), who is upheld by experiences that have four
times been repeated on a large scale, tells us that, in the given
population of a district, the mortality and duration of life
always keep pace with the number of births so that the deaths
and births always and everywhere increase and decrease in the
same ratio. This is established beyond question by records he
has gathered from many countries and their different provinces.
However, he goes astray by confusing generally cause and effect,
in that he regards the increase in births as the cause of the
increase in deaths. According to 1ny way of thinking, however,
and in agreement with the phenomenon which Schnurrer cites
but which is apparently not known to him, it is, on the contrary,
the increase in deaths which entails an increase in births not
through physical influence, but through a metaphysical
relationship. I have already discussed this in the second volume
of my chief work, chapter 41. On the whole, therefore, the
number of births depends on that of deaths.
According to this, there might be a natural law that the
prolific power of the human race, which after all is only a
special form of nature's creative force, is enhanced by a cause
that is antagonistic to it and that it, therefore, thrives on opposi-
tion. Hence mutatis mutandis this law could be subsumed under
Mariotte's to the effect that with compression the resistance
increases to infinity. Now if we assume that this cause, which is
antagonistic to the prolific power, were once to appear through
devastations from epidemics, natural upheavals, and so on, on
an immense and effective scale as had never previously
happened, then the prolific force must subsequently rise again
to quite an unprecedented height. Finally, if in this intensifica-
tion of the antagonistic cause we go on to the extreme limit,
namely to the complete extermination of the human race, then
the prolific power, forced to that limit, will attain a strength
commensurate with the pressure; consequently, it will be
brought to a pitch of intensity where it now achieves the
seemingly impossible. Thus, since generatio univoca or the birth
of like from like is barred to it, it will then vigorously resort to
generatio aequivoca. However, this is no longer conceivable at
the higher grades of the animal kingdom in the same way as it
appears to us at the lowest grades of all. Thus the forms of the
lion, wolf, elephant, ape, or even man, can never have origi-
nated like animalculae, entozoa, and epizoa and raised them-
selves directly from some coagulating, sun-incubated marine
ooze, slime, or decaying organic substance. On the contrary,
their origin can be thought of only as a generatio in utero hetero-
geneo 1 3 and consequently as coming from the uterus or rather
egg of a specially favoured animal couple. After the vital force
of this couple's species had been checked in some way and had
been augmented and enhanced in that couple to an abnormal
degree, there now no longer emerged the likeness of the couple,
but, by way of exception, a form directly akin to it, yet at a
higher stage; and this occurred at a favourable hour, at the
right position of the planets, and with a fortunate combination
of all the atmospheric, tellurian, and astral influences. Thus
the pair had on this occasion produced not a mere individual,
but a species. Naturally, events of this kind could take place
only after the lowest animals of all had, through the usual
generatio aequiuoca, worked their way up to the light of day from
organic putrefaction or the cellular tissue of living plants as
the harbingers and precursors of the generations of animals to
come. Such a set of circumstances must have occurred after
each of those great worl~-upheavals which have already
completely extinguished all life on the planet at least three
times so that it had to be kindled afresh, whereupon it appeared
each time in forms more perfect, that is, more nearly approach-
ing those of existing fauna. But only in the animal series, that
appeared after the last great catastrophe of the earth's surface,
13 ['Generation in the womb of another .]

did events come as far as producing the human race, when they
had got as far as producing the ape after the last catastrophe
but one. We see the batrachia lead the life of a fish before
assuming their own more perfect form and, according to an
observation now fairly generally recognized, every foetus in the
same way passes successively through the classes existing under
its species until it reaches its own. Now why should not every
new and higher species have arisen through the fact that that
enhancement of the foetus-form once exceeded by a stage the
form of the mother carrying it? It is the only mode of origin
of the species which from a rational point of view is conceiv-
able.
But we must imagine this enhancement not as in a single
line, but in several that rise side by side. Thus, for example,
there once emerged from the egg of a fish an ophidian, at
another time from the egg of this a saurian; but at the same
time there came from the egg of another fish a batrachian;
however, from this there then came a chelonian; from the egg
of a third was born a cetacean and eventually a dolphin. Later
on, a cetacean again produced a phoca and ultimately a phoca
once gave birth to a walrus. Possibly the duck-bill came from
the egg of the duck, and some larger mammal from that of an
ostrich. In general, these events must have taken place simul-
taneously in many cou,ntries that were independent of one
another, yet they occurred everywhere in stages which were
at once definite and clear and each of which furnished a fixed
and permanent species. They did not, however, take place in
gradual and obliterated transitional stages, and so not on the
analogy of a tone howling from the lowest to the highest octave,
but on that of a scale rising with definite intervals and pauses.
We will not disguise the fact that we should accordingly have
to imagine the first human beings as having come in Asia from
the pongo (the parent of the orang-utan) and in Africa from
the chimpanzee, though not as apes, but directly as human
beings. It is noteworthy that this origin is taught even by a
Buddhist myth that is to be found in I. J. Schmidt's Forschungen
iiber die Mongo/en und Tibeter, pp. 21o--14, also in Klaproth's
Fragmens bouddhiques in the Nouveau Journal asiatique, March
1831, likewise in Koppen's Die Lamaische Hierarchie, p. 45
The idea, here worked out, of a generatio aequivoca in utero
heterogeneo 14 was first put forward by the anonymous author of
Vestiges of the Natural Jlistory of Creation (6th ed. 1847). Yet he
certainly did not make it really clear and definite because he
closely associated it with untenable assumptions and gross
errors. This springs ultimately from the fact that, with him as an
Englishman, every assumption that goes beyond mere physics
and is, therefore, metaphysical, at once coincides with Hebrew
theism. In his desire to avoid this, he then unduly extends the
province of physics. Thus in his neglect and want of culture with
regard to all speculative philosophy or metaphysics, an
Englishman is absolutely incapable of any intellectual grasp of
nature. He therefore knows of no middle course between
understanding the workings of nature as occurring in accordance
with a strict and possibly mechanical conformity to law, or
else as something previously thought out and skilfully made by
the Hebrew God whom he calls its 'maker'. The priests, the
parsons in England, these craftiest of all obscurantists, are
responsible for this. In that country they have so moulded
people's minds that, even in the best-informed and most
enlightened, the system of fundamental ideas is a mixture of the
crassest materialism with the crudest Jewish superstition that
are together shaken up like vinegar and oil. They can see how
these get on together and that, as a result of an Oxford educa-
tion, my lords and gentle1nen belong in the main to the masses.
But it will never be any better, so long as the education of
the cultured classes is still carried out by the orthodox oxen
of Oxford. Even in the year 1859, we still find Agassiz, the
Americanized Frenchman, holding the same view in his Essay
on Classification. He too is confronted with the same alternative
that the organic world is either the work of the purest chance that
had jumbled it together as a natural freak of physical and chemi-
cal forces, or a work of art cleverly constructed in the light of
knowledge (this ju12ctio animalis), after previous deliberation and
calculation. The one is as false as the other and both depend on
the naive realism that is positively scandalous eighty years after
Kant's appearance. Thus Agassiz philosophizes on the origin of
organic beings like an American cobbler. If those gentlemen have
not learnt and will not learn anything but their natural science,
14 ['Spontaneous generation in the womb of another'.]

then they must not in their writings go a step beyond this, but
must stick strictissime to their empiricism lest, like Mr. Agassiz,
they prostitute themselves and make themselves ridiculous by
talking like old women about the origin of nature.
Now an inference in the other direction from that law which
is advanced by Schnurrer and Casper would be as follows.
It is obvious that, in so far as we succeeded by the most correct
and careful use of all the forces of nature and of everv' tract of
land in reducing the misery of the lowest classes, the number of
these proletarians, very appropriately so called, would increase
and thus the misery would assert itself again and again. For
the sexual impulse always promotes hunger, just as the latter,
when satisfied, always promotes the forn1er. But the above-
mentioned law would guarantee that matters could not reach
the stage where the earth was actually over-populated, an evil
so terrible that the most vivid imagination can hardly picture
it. Thus in consequence of the law in question, after the earth
had received as many human beings as it was capable of
supporting under the best possible conditions, the fertility of
the race would have meanwhile declined to the stage where it
was barely sufficient to replace the deaths, whereupon every
accidental increase of these would again bring the population
below the maximum.
92
In different parts of the world, similar or analogous kinds of
plants and anunals have con1c into existence under similar or
analogous conditions of climate, topography, and atn1osphere.
Therefore several species are very similar to one another, yet
without being identical (and this is the proper concept of the
genus), and Jnany are divisible into races and varieties that
cannot have originated from one another, although the species
remains the same. For unity of the species does not by any
means imply unity of origin and descent from a single pair. On
the whole this is an absurd asswnption. Who will believe that
all oaks are descended from a single first oak, all mice from a
first pair, or all wolves from the first wolf? On the contrary, in
similar circumstances but in different localities, nature repeats
the same process and is much too careful to allow the existence of
a species, especially of the higher kinds, to be quite precarious,
by staking it on a single venture and thereby exposing to a

thousand accidents a work that was for her so difficult to
achieve. Rather does she know what she wants, wills it
decidedly, and accordingly sets to work; but the occasion is
never exclusive and unique.
Now the African elephant, who has never been tamed, whose
ears are very broad and long and cover the back of the neck,
and whose female also has tusks, cannot be a descendant of the
Asiatic, who is so docile and intelligent, whose female has no
tusks, and whose ears are much smaller. Just as little is the
American alligator a descendant of the crocodile from the Nile,
for the two differ in their teeth and in the number of scales on
the back of the neck; just as little also can the Negro be a
descendant of the Caucasian race.
~evertheless, it is extremely probable that the human race
originated in only three places, since we have only three dis-
tinctly separate types that point to original races, natnely the
Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian. Moreover, this
origin could have taken place only in the Old World; for in
Australia nature was unable to produce any apes at all; in
America, however, she produced only the long-tailed monkey,
not the short-tailed, to say nothing of the highest species of
tailless apes who occupy the last stage before man. Natura non
Jacit saltus. 1 s Again, man's origin could have occurred only
within the tropics because in the other zones the new-born
human infant would have perished in the first winter. For
although he had been nursed not without maternal care, he
had yet grown up without any instruction and had inherited no
knowledge from any ancestors. Therefore the infant of nature
had first to recline on her warm bosmn before she ventured to
send it out into the rough and harsh world. Now in the torrid
zones man is black, or at any rate dark brown. This, then, is
the true, natural, and characteristic colour of the human species,
regardless of race, and there has never been a naturally white
race. In fact, to talk of such and childishly to divide people into
white, yellow, and black, as is still done in all books, is evidence
of great prejudice and a lack of thought. I have already briefly
discussed the subject in my chief work volume ii, chapter 44,
15 ['Nature makes no jumps.' (Law of continuity first laid down by Aristotle.)]

and have stated that a white man has never sprung originally
from the womb of nature. Only in the tropics is man at home,
and here he is always black or dark brown. It is only in America
that this is not general because that part of the world has been
inhabited mostly by nations already bleached, principally by
Chinese. However, the savages in the forests of Brazil are dark
brown.* Only after man propagated his stock during a long
period of time outside his only natural habitat between the
tropics and extended it, in consequence of this increase, into
the more frigid zones, did he become fair and finally white.
Therefore only as a result of the climatic influence of the
temperate and frigid zones did the European human stock
gradually become white. \Ve see in the case of the gipsies how
slowly this proceeds; they arc a Hindu stock who have led a
nomadic life in Europe since the beginning of the fifteenth
century and whose colour is roughly midway between that of
the Hindu and ours. In the same way, the families of the
Negro slaves who have propagated for three hundred years have
become somewhat fairer in colour, despite the fact that in this
respect they are checked through their interbreeding with fresh
ebony-coloured immigrants, a renewal that does not happen
to the gipsies. The im1nediate physical cause of this turning pale
when man is driven from his natural habitat is to be found, I
think, in the fact that, ~n a hot climate, light and heat produce
on the rete Malpighi a slow but steady deoxidation of the
carbonic acid that escapes undecomposed through the pores. It
then leaves behind enough carbon for colouring the skin; the
specific odour of Negroes is probably connected with this. The
fact that among the white races the lower classes who work
strenuously are generally darker than the upper is explained
from their perspiring more; the effect of which is analogous to
that of a hot climate, though to a much smaller extent. Accord-
ingly, the Adam of our race must in any case be conceived as
black and it is ludicrous for painters to depict this first human
being as white, a colour that has originated from the skin's
* SQJ)ages are not primitive human beings any more than the wild dogs of South
America are primitive dogs. On the contrary, the latter are dogs that have run
wild and the former arc men who have run wild, descendants of those who lost
their way or were shipwrecked and were of cultured stock. They were incapable of
preserving this culture among themselves.
turning pale. Moreover, as .Jehovah fashioned him in his own

image, he too should be depicted in works of art as dark. Here,
however, he can be given the conventional white beard, as the
thin beard is not associated with a dark colour, but merely with
the Ethiopian race. Yet even in the oldest pictures of the
Madonna and child, as seen in the Levant and still met with
in some old Italian churches, the complexions are dark. In fact,
the whole of God's chosen people was black or dark brown,
and is even now darker than we who are descended from pagan
tribes that immigrated earlier. Present-day Syria, however, was
populated by half-breeds descended partly from northern Asia
! like the Turcornans, for example). In the same way Buddha
and even Confucius are sometimes portrayed as dark. (Davis,

The Chinese, vol. ii, p. 66.) That the white face is a degeneration
and unnatural is shown by the aversion and repugnance that
are excited among some tribes of the interior of Africa when they
first see such a face; to them it looks like a sickly and unhealthy
pining away. A traveller in Africa was very hospitably enter-
tained with milk by Negro girls who also sang: 'Poor stranger,
how we pity you for being so white!' A note to Byron's Don
Juan (can. xn, st. 70) reports the following: 'Major Denham
says that when he first saw European women after his travels in
Mrica, they appeared to him to have unnatural, sickly coun-
tenances.' Yet the ethnographers, after the example of Buffon
(Flourens, Buffon: Histoire de ses travaux et de ses it.Ues, Paris, 1844,
pp. 1 6off.), still always talk quite confidently of the white,
yellow, red, and black races, making colour the principal basis
of their classifications. In point of fact, however, colour is not
the essential thing at all and its difference has no other origin
than the greater or lesser distance and the earlier or later
removal of a stock from the torrid zone where alone the human
race is indigenous. Therefore outside that zone, it can exist only
under artificial care by hibernating in hothouses like exotic
plants; but then it gradually degenerates first of all in colour.
The fact that, after turning pale~ the colour of the Mongolian
race turns out to be somewhat yellower than that of the Cauca-
sian, may certainly be due to a racial difference. The highest
civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and
Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and
even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer
in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated,
for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the
South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is
the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated
early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to
develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all
the arts in their struggle with need, want, and misery, which in
their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they
had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and
out of it all came their high civilization.
Just as the dark colour is natural to man, so too is the vege-
table diet; but only in a tropical climate does he remain true to
the latter as to the former. When he spread to the more frigid
zones, he had to counteract the unnatural climate by an equally
unnatural diet. Right in the north one cannot exist at all with-
out animal food. I have been told that in Copenhagen, if a
punishment of six weeks' imprisorunent on bread and water is
carried out most strictly and without exception, it is regarded
as a danger to life. Therefore man has at the same time become
white and carnivorous. But in this way and also through heavier
clothing, he has assumed a certain foul and offensive state which
other animals, at any rate in their natural state, do not have,
and which he must counteract by constant and particular
cleanliness if he is to av.oid being repulsive and unpleasant. Such
measures, therefore, are possible only to the well-to-do, to those
classes who are comfortably off and are thus aptly called in
Italian gente pulita. 16 Another consequence of the heavier
clothing is that, while all animals, strutting along in their
natural form, covering, and colour, afford a spectacle that is
natural, pleasing, and aesthetic, man in his many different
clothes that are often very odd and strange besides being
frequently shabby and tattered goes about in them like a
caricature. It is a form that is not in keeping with the whole; it
is out of place since it is not, like all other forms, the work of
nature but of a tailor. Consequently, it is an impertinent
interruption of the harmonious whole of the world. The noble
disposition and taste of the ancients sought to mitigate this evil
by making the clothing as light as possible and by so fashioning
16 ['The clean and tidy classes'.]

16o ON PHILOSOPHY AND NATURAL SCIENCE
it that it did not fit the body tightly and become a part thereof.
On the contrary, their clothing hung loosely as something
separate and foreign and enabled the human form to be
recognized as clearly as possible in all its parts. Through the
opposite tendency, the clothing of the Middle Ages and modern
times is inelegant, barbaric, and displeasing. But the most
repulsive are the present-day clothes of women, ladies I mean,
which, imitating the tastelessness of their great-grandmothers,
afford the greatest possible disfigurement of the human form
and which, moreover, under the bundle of the crinoline makes
its breadth equal to its height. An accumulation of unsavoury
odours may well be imagined which are not only offensive and
unpleasant, but even repulsive.*
93
Life may be defined as the state or condition of a body where-
in it at all times retains the form essential (substa;ntial) to it
under a constant fluctuation of matter. If anyone should reply
that a whirlpool or waterfall also retains its form under a
steady fluctuation of matter, I should have to say that with
these the form is certainly not essential, but, following universal
laws of nature, is thoroughly contingent in that it depends on
external circumstances. By varying these, we can at will change
even the form without in this way touching what is essential.
94
Arguments against the assumption of a vital force, which are
nowadays becoming the fashion, deserve, in spite of their
imposing airs, to be called not tnerely false but positively
stupid. For whoever denies vital force, at bottom denies his
own existence and can, therefore, boast of having reached the
very height of absurdity. But in so far as this presumptuous
nonsense has come fr01n physicians and pharmaceutical
chemists, it contains in addition the basest ingratitude. For it
* A physical difference, not yet observed, between man and animals is that the
white of the sclerotic remains permanently visible. Captain Mathew says that this
is not the case with the bushmen now to be seen in London; their eyes are round
and do not show the white. In Goethe's case, on the contrary, the white was usually
visible, even over the iris.
is vital force that overcomes diseases and effects cures for which
these gentlemen afterwards pocket fees and write out receipts.
Unless a characteristic force of nature, to which acting suitably
and appropriately is as essential as bringing bodies together is to
gravity, unless, I say, such a force moves, guides, and arranges
the highly complex machinery of the organism and manifests
itself therein, as does the force of gravity in the phenomena of
falling and gravitation, as does the force of electricity in all the
phenomena produced by the friction-machine or by the
voltaic pile, and so on, then life is a false phantom, a deception;
in fact, every being is then a mere automaton, that is to say, a
play of mechanical, physical, and chemical forces, brought
together in this phenomenon either by chance, or through the
intention of an artificer who is so satisfied with the result.
Physical and che1nical forces certainly do operate in the animal
organism, but what holds these together and guides them so
that an appropriate and suitable organism comes into existence
from them, this is vital force. Accordingly, it controls those
forces and modifies their effect which is, therefore, only sub-
ordinate here. On the other hand, to imagine that those forces
produce an organism solely by themselves is not merely false
but, as I have said, stupid. In itself that vital force is the
will.
Attempts have b~en made to discover a fundamental
difference between vital force and all the other forces of nature
in the fact that it does not again take possession of the body
from which it has once departed. Properly speaking, it is only
by way of exception that the forces of inorganic nature forsake
the body that is once controlled by them. For example,
magnetism can be taken from steel by raising it to a red heat and
restored to it by fresh magnetization. Even more definitely can
the gain and loss of electricity be stated, although it must be
assumed that the body does not receive from without electricity
itself, but only excitation in consequence whereof the electrical
force already present in it now separates out into + E and - E.
On the other hand, a body never loses either its heaviness or its
chemical property. Thus through combination with other
bodies, that quality becomes merely latent and, after their
decomposition, again exists unimpaired. For example, from
sulphur we get sulphuric acid and from this calcium sulphate;
but, through the successive analysis of both, sulphur is again

produced. But after vital force has left a body, it cannot again
take possession thereof. The reason for this, however, is that it
does not, like the forces of inorganic nature, adhere to the mere
substance, but primarily to the form. Its activity consists
precisely in the production and maintenance (i.e. continued
production) of this form. Therefore as soon as vital force departs
from a body, such a body's form is now destroyed, at any rate
in its finer parts. Now the production of the form has its regular
and even systematic procedure in the definite succession of what
is to be produced and thus origin, means, and progress. There-
fore, wherever vital force appears afresh, it must begin its
tissue at the beginning and thus commence really ab ovo.
Consequently, it cannot again take up the work which is left
as it is or is already on the decline; and so it cannot come and
go like magnetism. On this rests the difference in question
between vital force and the other forces of nature.
Vital force is absolutely identical with the will, so that what
appears in self-consciousness as will, is in unconscious organic
life the primum mobile 17 thereof which has been very appropri-
ately described as vital force. ~ferely from the analogy with
this, we infer that the other forces of nature are also funda-
mentally identical with the will, only that in them the will is
at a lower stage of its objectification. Therefore to attempt to
explain organic from inorganic nature and thus life, knowing, and
finally willing, is like trying to deduce the thing-in-itself from
the appearance, this mere phenomenon of the brain. It is as if
we were to try to explain the body from its shadow.
Vital force is the only one which, as an original and primary
force, as something metaphysical, as thing-in-itself, as will, is
untiring and thus needs no rest. Its phenomenal forms, however,
irritability, sensibility, and reproductivity, certainly become
fatigued and need rest. But this is really only because they
produce, maintain, and control the organism first by over-
coming the phenomena of the will at the lower stages, such
phenomena having a prior right to the same matter. This at
once becomes visible in irritability, as that which has to struggle
perpetually with gravity; and so it tires most rapidly; but all
17 ['The first movable thing'; ' the first motive'.]

propping, supporting, sitting, and reclining help to relieve it.
Precisely on this account, these positions of rest are favourable
to thought, to the severest exertion of sensibility, since vital
force can then devote its undivided attention to this function
especially when it is not absolutely taken up with the third, with
reproduction, as is the case during digestion. Nevertheless,
anyone who is capable of thinking for himself will have noticed
that walking in the open is unusually favourable to the stimula-
tion of original ideas. But I ascribe this to the re.spiratory
process which is quickened by that movement and partly
invigorates and accelerates the blood circulation, and to some
extent improves the oxygenation of the blood. In the first place,
the twofold movement of the brain, namely that following
every breath and that following every pulse, thus becomes more
rapid and energetic and its turgor vitalis becomes more intense.
In the second place, a more completely oxygenated blood, free
from carbon dioxide and thus more vital and arterial, permeates
the whole substance of the brain from the ramifications of the
carotids and enhances its inner vitality. Nevertheless, the
stimulation of the power of thought which is produced by all
this lasts only as long as a man does not in the least become
tired through walking. For when the slightest fatigue occurs,
the now enforced exertion of irritability demands vital force;
and in this way the activity of sensibility declines, and indeed
with great fatigue becomes quite feeble.
Again, sensibility rests only in sleep and therefore endures a
longer activity. Whilst irritability also rests at night simul-
taneously with sensibility, vital force, that can act wholly and
entirely and so with all its power only under one of its three
forms, generally assumes that of the power of reproduction. There-
fore the formation and maintenance of the parts, especially the
nutrition of the brain, also all growth, reparation, healing, and
thus the effect of the vis naturae medicatrix xs in all its forms,
particularly in the wholesome crises of illnesses-all these take
place mainly in sleep. Accordingly, one of the main conditions
for lasting health and so also for a long life, is the constant
enjoyment of uninterrupted and sound sleep. Yet it is not a
good thing to continue this as long as possible, for what it gains
rs ['The healing power of nature'.]

in extension it loses in intension, that is, in depth. But it is
precisely deep sleep wherein the organic vital processes just
mentioned are most completely carried out. This can be inferred
from the fact that, when our sleep has been disturbed and cut
short on a particular night and now, as is inevitable, turns out
to be all the sounder on the following night, we then wake up
feeling remarkably invigorated and refreshed. The exceedingly
beneficial depth of sleep cannot be replaced by our prolonging it;
on the contrary, such depth is obtained precisely by our
limiting the duration of the sleep. On this is based the observa-
tion that all who have reached a great age have been early
.
nsers, as a 1so H omer' s d'1ctum m't'T}
, Kat 1TO/\VS' mrvos- 19
I ' \ \Th ere-
.,
fore if we wake early of our own accord, we should not try to

go to sleep again, but should get up and say with Goethe:
'Schlaf ist Schaale, wirf sic fort.' 20 The above-mentioned
beneficial effect of deep sleep reaches its highest degree in
magnetic sleep, as being merely the soundest of all; and hence
this sleep appears as the panacea of many diseases. Like all
functions of organic life, digestion also takes place more easily
and rapidly in sleep, on account of a cessation of the brain's
activity. Therefore a short sleep of ten or fifteen minutes half
an hour after a meal has a wholesome effect which is also
stin1ulated by coffee just because this quickens digestion. On
the other hand, a longer sleep is a disadvantage and may even
become a danger. I explain this by saying that in sleep respira-
tion takes place far more slowly and feebly, on the one hand,
but that, on the other, as soon as the digestion promoted by
sleep has reached the 'Stage of forming chyle, this flows into the
blood and raises the carbon content thereof so that it now
requires this content to be reduced by the process of breathing
more than it does at other times. But this process is enfeebled
by sleep and with it circulation as well as oxygenation. The
consequence of this can be seen quite clearly in those who have
fair complexions and white delicate skins when they have had a
long sleep after a meal. For their faces as well as the sclerotic
assume a somewhat brownish-yellow tinge as a symptom of a
higher carbon content. (We can see from Mayo's Philosoph:J of
19 ['Even copious sleep is a burden and a misery.' ( Od) ssey, xv. 394.)]
1
20 ('Sleep's a shell, to break and spurn!' (Faust, Pt. n, Bayard Taylor's transla-
tion.)]
Living, p. 168, that this theory concerning the disadvantage of
the afternoon siesta is unknown at any rate in England.) For
the san1e reason, full-blooded, short, and stout people run the
risk of apoplexy through having a long midday sleep. One may
even have observed consumption as a result of this as well as of
copious evening meals, a disease that could be easily explained
on the same principle. It is also clear from this why it may
easily be harmful to eat a heavy meal only once a day because
this imposes too much work at one time not only on the stomach
but also on the lungs after such an increased formation of chyle.
Moreover, that respiration abates in sleep can be explained
from the fact that it is a combined function; in other words, it
proceeds partly from the spinal nerves and to that extent is a
reflex n10vement that continues as such in sleep; and partly
from the nerves of the brain where it is then sustained by con-
scious volition whose cessation in sleep slows down respiration
and gives rise even to snoring. This can be seen in more detail
in Marshall Hall's Diseases of the Nervous System, 290-3II,
with which Flourens' Du systeme nerveux, second edition, chapter
11, should be compared. From this part that is played in
respiration by the nerves of the brain, it can also be explained
why breathing becomes easier and slower when we rally our
mental activity for concentrated thinking or reading; this was
observed by Nasse. On the other hand, exertions of irritability,
likewise vigorous emotions such as joy, anger, and so on,
quicken blood circulation and also respiration. Therefore
anger is certainly not altogether harmful and, if only one can
really give vent to it, it even has a beneficial effect on many
natures who for this reason instinctively aim at it; moreover,
it at the same time promotes the discharge of bile.
A further proof of the mutual balancing of the three funda-
mental physiological forces here discussed is afforded by the
undoubted fact that Negroes have more physical strength than
have other races; consequently, what they lack in sensibility
they have in more irritability. They are, of course, in this
respect nearer to animals, for, in proportion to their size, all
these have more muscular strength than has man.
Concerning the different relation of the three fundamental
forces in individuals, I refer to the work On the Will in Nature, at
the end of the chapter on 'Physiology'.
95
Vv e could regard the living animal organism as a machine
without primum mobile, a series of movements without beginning,
a chain of causes and effects of which none is the first, if life
pursued its course without any reference to the external world.
This point of contact, however, is the process of breathing; it
is the most immediate and essential connecting link with the
external world and supplies the first impulse. Movement of life
must, therefore, be regarded as coming from it and it must be
conceived as the first link in the causal chain. Accordingly, a
little air emerges as the first impulse and thus as the first
external cause of life. This air slips in and oxygenates; it then
introduces other processes and so life is the result. Now that
which con1cs from within to meet this external cause, proclaims
itself as a powerful craving, indeed as an irresistible urge, to
breathe, and therefore directly as will. The second external
cause of life is nourishment which also operates initially from
without as motive; yet it is not so pressing and insistent as is air;
only in the stomach does its physiological causal operation
begin. Liebig has worked out the budget of organic nature and
has drawn up a balance of its receipt and expenditure.
g6
Philosophy and physiology have certainly covered a good
distance in the last two hundred years from the glandula pine-
alis21 of Descartes and his spirites animates moving it or even
moved by it to Charles Bell's motor and sensible nerves of the
spinal cord and the reflex movements of Marshall Hall. His fine
discovery of reflex n1ovements, which is explained in his
excellent book On the Diseases of the Nervous System, is a theory of
involuntary or automatic actions, in other words, of those that
are not brought about by means of the intellect, although they
must nevertheless proceed from the will. I have explained in
volume ii, chapter 20 of my chief work how this theory throws
light on my metaphysics by helping to make clear the difference
between will [Wille] and conscious volition [ Willkiir]. Here
are a few more remarks raised by Hall's theory.
When we enter a cold bath, respiration is at once greatly
:u ['Pineal gland .J
speeded up, and when the bath is very cold, this effect lasts
for a while, even after we come out. Marshall Hall in 302 of
his above-mentioned book declares this to be a reflex movement
that is brought about by the cold suddenly acting on the spinal
cord. To this causa ejficiens of the matter, I would like to add the
final cause, that nature wishes to replace as rapidly as possible
so significant and sudden a loss of heat. This then takes place
precisely through an increase of respiration which is the inter-
nal source of heat. The secondary result of this, namely an
increase of arterial, and a decrease of venous, blood together
with the direct effect on the nerves, may be largely responsible
for the incomparably clear, bright, and purely contemplative
disposition that is usually the direct consequence of a cold bath;
the colder the bath, the more is this the case.
rawning is one of the reflex movements. I imagine that its
remoter cause is a momentary lowering of the power of the
brain which is brought about by boredom, mental indolence,
or drowsiness. The spinal cord now gains the ascendancy over
the brain and by its own method produces that curious spasm.
On the other hand, as the stretching of the limbs that often
accompanies yawning is still subject to conscious volition,
although occurring unintentionally, it can no longer be re-
garded as one of the reflex movements. I believe that, just as
yawning in the last resort arises fron1 a deficiency of sensibility,
so stretching results froni an accumulated momentary surplus
of irritability, whereof we thus try to rid ourselves. Accordingly,
it occurs only in periods of strength not of weakness. A fact
worth considering in the investigation of the nature of nervous
activi9 is the case where limbs grow numb which have been
subjected to pressure, as also the remarkable circumstance that
this never occurs in sleep (of the brain).
When the desire to urinate is resisted, it disappears entirely,
but returns later, and the same thing is repeated. I explain
this by saying that keeping the sphincter vesicae 22 shut is a reflex
moven1ent that is maintained as such by the spinal nerves and
consequently without consciousness and free choice. Now when
these nerves become fatigued through the increased pressure
of a full bladder, they relax, but their function is at once taken
22 ['Sphincter of the bladder'.]

over by other nerves that belong to the cerebral system; and
so this occurs with conscious volition and a painful sensation.
It lasts until the former nerves are rested and again take up
their function. This may be repeated several times. While the
cerebral nerves act on behalf of the spinal, and accordingly
conscious functions deputize for those that are unconscious, we
endeavour to obtain some relief by a quick movement of our
legs and arms. I explain this from the fact that, while the
nervous force is thus directed to the active nerves that excite
irritability, the sensible nerves that, as messengers to the brain,
cause that painfu..l sensation, lose something in sensibility.
I am surprised that Marshall Hall does not include laughing
and weeping among reflex movements. For this they undoubtedly
are as definitely involuntary or automatic movements. Thus
we are just as little able to bring them about intentionally as we
are yawning or sneezing, but in the one case as in the other
we can produce only an inferior imitation that is at once
recognized; likewise all four are equally difficult to suppress.
Laughing and weeping have in common with an erection that
is regarded as a reflex movement the fact that they occur on
mere stimulus mentalis. Moreover, laughter can be excited
entirely physically by tickling. Its usual and thus mental
excitation has to be explained from the fact that the brain-
function whereby we suddenly recognize the incongruity of an
intuitively perceptual representation and an abstract represen-
tation that is in other respects appropriate thereto, has a
peculiar effect on the medulla oblongata, or else plays a part
appertaining to the exciter-motor system, whence comes that
strange reflex movement which at the same time convulses
many parts of the body. The par quintum and the nervus vagus
seem to have in this the largest share.
In my chief work (vol. i, 6o) it says: 'Far more than any
other external member of the body, the genitals are subject
merely to the will, and not at all to knowledge. Here, in fact,
the will shows itself almost as independent of knowledge as it
does in those parts which, on the occasion of mere stimuli,
serve vegetative life.' Indeed representations or mental pictures affect
the genitals not as motives, as they normally do the will, but
merely as stimuli just because an erection is merely a reflex
movement; consequently, they affect them directly and only
ON PHILOSOPHY AND NATURAL SCIENCE 16g
so long as they are present. For this very reason, to be effective,
it is necessary for them to be present for a certain length of time.
On the other hand, a representation acting as a motive does
this often after being present for the shortest period of time; and
generally speaking, it is not associated in its effectiveness with
any relation to the duration of its presence. (This and every
distinction between stimulus and motive are found discussed in
my Ethics, 'Freedom of the Will', Pt. m, and also in my essay
On the Principle if Sufficient Reason, 20.) Further, the effect that
a representation has on the genitals cannot, like that of a
motive, be abolished by another representation, except in so far
as the former is removed from consciousness by the latter and is,
therefore, no longer present. But then it happens infallibly, even
when the second representation contains nothing at all that is
contrary to the first, as is required, on the other hand, in the
case of a counter-motive. Accordingly, for the consummation
of coitus, it is not sufficient for a woman's presence to act on the
man as a motive (possibly for the procreation of children, or for
the fulfilment of marital duty, and so on), however powerful
this motive might be as such, but her presence must act
immediately as stimulus.
97
To be audible, a tone .must make at least sixteen vibrations a
second, which seems to me to be due to the fact that its vibra-
tions must be mechanically communicated to the auditory
nerve. For the sensation of hearing is not, like that of seeing, an
excitation brought about by a mere impression on the nerves,
but requires that the nerve itself be pulled again and again.
This must, therefore, occur with a definite rapidity and short-
ness that compel the nerve to turn in a sharp zigzag not in a
rounded curve. Moreover, this must occur in the interior of
the labyrinth and cochlea, since bones are everywhere the
sounding-board of the nerves. However, the lymph that there
surrounds the auditory nerve is inelastic and moderates the
counter-effect of the bone.
g8
When we reflect that, as a result of the most recent researches,
the skulls of idiots as well as of Negroes are generally inferior to
others solely in the width between the temples and that, on the
contrary, great thinkers have unusually wide heads, from which
even Plato's name is derived; further, when we consider that
hair usually begins to turn grey at the temples, more as a result
of mental exertion and grief than of old age, and repeat even a
Spanish proverb: canas son, que no lunares, CUA.NDO comienz:.an
por los aladares (white hair is no blemish, when it begins at the
temples); then we are led to suppose that the part of the brain
lying under the temporal region is particularly active when we
are thinking. Perhaps we shall be able one day to establish a
true craniology, couched in quite different terms from that of
Gall with its crude and absurd psychological basis and its
assumption of brain-organs for moral qualities. Moreover, grey
and white hair are for man what red and vellow leaves are for
'
trees in October; both frequently look quite well, only there
must not be in addition any falling off.
As the brain consists of very n1any delicate folds and fascia
separated by innmnerable interstices and also contains in its
cavities \Vatery hutnours, then, in consequence of gravity, some
of those delicate parts must bend and some must press on one
another, and of course differently with different positions of the
head, the turgor vilalis, however, being unable to eliminate this
entirely. It is true that the dura mater prevents the pressure of
the larger masses on one another (according to Magendie,
Ph)siologie, vol. i, p. 179, and Hempel, pp. 768, 775), since it
is interposed between these, forming the falx cerebri and the
tentorium cere belli; but it passes over the smaller parts. Now if we
imagine the operations of thought to be associated with actual
n1ovements, however small, of the brain's substance, then the
influence of position would necessarily be very great and
immediate through the pressure on one another of the smaller
parts. Now the fact that it is not so, proves that things do not
happen just mechanically. Nevertheless, the position of the head
cannot be a matter of indifference, for not only that pressure of
the brain's parts on one another, but also the greater or lesser
afflux of blood, which is in any case effective, depends on it. I
have actually found that, when vainly attempting to recall to
mind something, I have ultimately succeeded by a vigorous
change of position. Generally the position most favourable to
thinking appears to be the one where the basis encephali comes to
rest quite horizontally. Therefore in deep thought, the head is

bent forward and with great thinkers, like Kant for instance,
this position has becom-e a matter of habit; Cardanus also
mentions this about himself (Vanini, Amphitheatrum, p. 269).
Nevertheless, this may perhaps be attributed partly to the
abnormally greater weight of their brain generally, and in
particular to the marked excess in weight of the front half (in
front of the foramen occipitale) over the rear half, with an
unusually slender spinal cord and consequently slender
vertebrae. This does not occur in the case of those with thick
heads who are at the same time blockheads; and so they carry
their heads quite high. Moreover, heads of this kind betray
themselves by the obviously thick and massive cranial bones, in
consequence whereof the brain-space proves to be very small,
in spite of the size of the head. There is actually a certain way
of carrying the head high with a very straight vertebral
column, which we feel at once to be a physiognomic sign of
stupidity, even without reflection and previous knowledge. This
is probably due to the fact that the rear half of the brain
actually equals, if it does not even exceed, in weight the front
half.Just as the forward position of the head favours deep think-
ing, so does it appear that the opposite position, and thus raising
and even bending it back and looking upwards, is favourable to
the momentary exertion of the memory. For those who en-
deavour to recall something, often assume such an attitude and
with success. Relevant to this is also the fact that very clever dogs
who, as we know, understand a part of human speech, cock
their heads alternately on one side and the other, when their
master speaks to them and try to make out the meaning of his
words. This makes them look highly intelligent and amusing.
99
The view that, apart from a few exceptions, acute illnesses
are nothing but healing processes introduced by nature herself
in order to remove some disorder that has taken root in the
organism, is to me quite clear. For this purpose, the vis naturae
medicatrix, 2 3 vested with dictatorial power, now adopts extra-
ordinary measures which constitute the serious illness. The cold
23 ['The healing power of nature'.]

in the head furnishes us with the simplest type of this universal
course of events. The activity of the outer skin is paralysed
through a chill and thus the very powerful excretion by means
of exhalation is stopped; and this could bring about the ~eath
of the individual. The inner skin, the mucous membrane, begins
at once to deputize for the outer; and this constitutes the cold
in the head, an illness. But obviously this is merely the remedy
of the real, but not serious, disease and thus of the suspension
of the skin's function. This illness, the cold in the head, like
any other, now runs through the same stages, namely first
appearance, aggravation, crisis, and improvement. At first
acute, it gradually becomes chronic and then continues as such
until the fundamental disease, itself not serious, and thus the
paralysis of the skin's function, is over. It is, therefore, dangerous
to drive a head cold inwards. The same course of events consti-
tutes the essential nature of almost all illnesses, and these are
really only the medical remedy of the vis naturae medicatrix.*
Such a process is opposed by allopathy or enantiopathy with
all its force; for its part, homoeopathy endeavours to hasten or
strengthen the process unless, by making a caricature thereof,
it tries to put nature against it, at all events to hasten the reac-
tion that is everywhere the result of every excess and every one-
sided view of things. Accordingly, both claim to understand
things better than does nature herself; yet she certainly knows
the direction as well as the measure of her method of treatment.
Therefore physiatrics should rather be recommended in all cases
that do not come under the above-mentioned exceptions. Only
those cures are radical which nature herself brings about by her
own methods. The expression tout ce qui n' est pas naturel est im-
parfait24 applies here. The methods of physicians are often
directed merely to the symptoms which they take to be the
disease itself; and so after such a cure we feel ill at ease. On the
other hand, if only we give nature the time, she herself will
* MORBUS ipse e.st MEDELA naturae, qua opitulatur j>erturbationibu.s organi.smi:
ergo remedium medici medetur medelae. ['The illness itself is nature's attempt to kal
whereby she comes to the aid of the organism's disorders; hence the remedy of the
physician helps the attempt to heal.'-Schopenhauer's own idea in Latin.]-
There is only one healing power, and this is nature; there is none in pills and oint-
ments. At most, these can prompt nature's healing power where there is something
to be done for it.
:u ['Everything that is not natural is imperfect.']
gradually effect the cure, after which we then feel better than
we did before the illness, or the affected part is stronger than it
was previously. We can observe this, conveniently and without
risk, in the slight illnesses with which we are often afflicted. I
admit that there are exceptions, or cases where only the
physician can help; in particular, the cure of syphilis is a triumph
of medicine. However, by far the most recoveries are simply the
work of nature for which the physician pockets the fee even
when, in spite of his efforts, they are successful. The reputation
and profits of physicians would be in a bad way if the conclu-
sion cum hoc, ergo propter hoc 2 s were not of such general applica-
tion. The good patients of physicians regard their bodies as if
these were clocks or other kinds of machinery; if anything goes
wrong with them, they think that it can be again put right only
by a mechanic. But this is not so; for the body is a self-repairing
machine. Most of the major and minor disorders that occur are
entirely removed automatically by the vis naturae medicatrix.
Therefore let us leave this alone, and peu de mldecins, peu de
midecine. Sed est medicus consolatio animi. z6
100
I explain in the following way the necessity of the metamor-
phosis of insects. The metaphysical force underlying the pheno-
menon of so tiny a c_reature is so small that it cannot
simultaneously carry out the different functions of animal life.
It must, therefore, divide these up in order successively to
fulfil that which with the higher animals takes place simul-
taneously. It accordingly divides the insect life into two halves;
in the first, the larval condition, it manifests itself as the force
of reproduction, nourishment, plasticity. The immediate object
of this larval life is merely the production of the chrysalis; but
as the interior of this is quite fluid, it can be regarded as a
second egg from which the futu~e imago will emerge. Thus the
whole purpose of the larval life is the preparation of the
humours from which the imago can come. In the second half
of the insect life, which is separated from the first by that egg-
like state, the vital force, in itself metaphysical, manifests itself
zs ['Since this, therefore because of this.']
26 ['Few doctors, little medicine. But the physician is certainly a consolation of
the soul.']
as irritability that is increased a hundredfold, in untiring flight,
as greatly enhanced sensibility, in more perfect and often quite
new senses, and in marvellous mechanical instincts, but
principally as generative function that now appears as the
ultimate aim of life. On the other hand, nutrition is greatly
diminished and sometimes even suspended altogether, whereby
life has assumed a wholly ethereal character. And so this
complete change and separation of the functions of life exhibit
to a certain extent two animals that live successively and whose
extremely varied form is in keeping with the difference of their
functions. What it unites is the egg-like state of the chrysalis,
the preparation of whose contents and substance was the
purpose of the first animal's life. Now the predominantly plastic
powers of this animal do the final thing in this chrysalis state by
producing the second form ..And so nature, or rather the meta-
physical element underlying her, carries out in two stages with
these animals that which would be too much for her in one; she
divides her work. Accordingly, we see that metamorphosis is
most complete where the separation of the functions appears to
be most definite, for instance in the case of the Iepidoptera.
Thus many caterpillars eat in a day twice their own weight of
food; many butterflies, on the other hand, and also many other
insects, eat nothing at all in the fully developed state, for
example, the butterfly of the silkworm, and many others.
Metamorphosis is incomplete, on the other hand, in the case of
those insects where nutrition proceeds apace, even in the fully
developed state, for instance in the case of crickets, locusts, bugs,
and others.
101
The phosphorescent light in the sea which is peculiar to
almost all gelatinous radiata (radiares mollasses), like the illumi-
nation of phosphorus itself, springs possibly from a slow process
of combustion. In fact, the breathing of vertebrate animals is
such a process which is replaced by that illumination as a
respiration with the entire surface. Accordingly, it is a slow
external combustion, just as the other is internal. Or possibly
here too an internal combustion takes place whose luminous
development becomes externally visible merely by virtue of the
complete transparency of all these gelatinous animals. Here
one could also boldly conjecture that all breathing with lungs
or gills is accompanied by a phosphorescence and consequently
that the interior of a living thorax is illuminated.
102
If there were not objectively a quite definite distinction
between plant and animal, the question as to what constituted
this difference would have no meaning. For it would merely like
to see reduced to clear concepts this difference which is under-
stood by everyone with certainty yet without clearness. I have
mentioned it in my Ethics, 'Freedom of the Will', Pt. m, and
in the essay On the Principle of Sufficient Reason, 20.
The different animal forms, wherein the will-to-live manifests
itself, are related to one another as is the same idea that is
expressed in different languages and in accordance with the
spirit of each; and the various species of a genus may be regarded
as a number of variations on the same theme. More closely
considered, however, that diversity of animal forms can be
deduced from the different mode of life of each species and the
difference of aims arising out of this. This has been specially
discussed in my essay On the Will in Nature, in the chapter
'Comparative Anatomy'. On the other hand, we cannot by
any means state so definitely in particular the reasons for the
variety of plant forms. I have indicated in a general way in my
chief work, volume i, . 28, how far we are able to do this
approximately. There is, moreover, the fact that we can teleolo-
gically explain something in plants, as for instance the blossoms
of the fuchsia which hang downwards. This is because their pistil
is very much longer than the stamens and so that position
favours the falling and gathering of the pollen. Generally
speaking, however, it may be said that in the objective world, in
the representation of intuitive perception, nothing can manifest
itself at all which does not have in the essence of things-in-
themselves and thus in the will that underlies the phenomenon,
a tendency that is precisely modified to suit. For the world as
representation can furnish nothing from its own resources; but
for this very reason it cannot serve up any fanciful or frivolously
invented fairy-tale. The infinite variety of the forms and even
colourings of plants and their blossoms must yet be everywhere
the expression of a subjective essence that is just as modified; in
other words, the will as thing-in-itself which manifests itself in
them, must be exactly reflected through them.
For the same metaphysical reason and because the human
individual's body is only the visibility of his individual will and
so objectively presents this, but even his intellect or brain, as
being the phenon1enal appearance of his will-to-know, belongs
to that same will, it must really be possible to understand and
deduce not only the nature of his intellect from that of his
brain and from the blood-flow that excites this, but also the
whole of his moral character with all its traits and peculiarities
from the more specific nature of all the rest of his corporization,
thus from the texture, size, quality, and mutual relation of
heart, liver, lungs, spleen, kidneys, and so on, although, of
course, we shall never succeed in actually achieving this. But
the possibility of doing this must exist objectively.* The follow-
ing consideration may serve as a transition to this. Not only do
the passions affect the different parts of the body (see World as
Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 20); but conversely, the
individual state or condition of the separate organs excites the
passions and even the representations or mental pictures
connected therewith. When the vesiculae seminales have a
periodical excess of sperm, lewd and obscene ideas continually
arise without any particular cause. We naturally think that the
reason for this is purely psychic, a perverse tendency of our
thoughts; but it is purely physical and ceases as soon as the
above-mentioned excess is over, through the reabsorption of
the sperm into the blood. Sometimes we are inclined to be
angry and annoyed and to quarrel, and seriously look for the
causes of this. If we find no external cause, we conjure up in our
thoughts some long-forgotten annoyance in order to fret and
fume over this. It is highly probable that this state is the result
of an excess of bile. Sometimes we are inwardly worried and
anxious without any cause and the condition persists; in our
thoughts we look for objects of fear and disquietude, and readily
imagine we have found them. In English they have the expres-
sion 'to catch blue devils'; 27 its source is probably the intes-
tines, and so on.
* Compare 63.
27 [Schopt"nhauer's own English.]
CHAPTER VII
On the Theory of Colours
103
As the indifference of my contemporaries could not possibly
shake my firm belief in the truth and importance of my theory
of colour, I wrote and published it twice, in German in 1816
and in Latin in 1 8go in the third volume of the Scriptores
ophthalmologici minores of J. Radius. As, however, this total lack
of interest leaves me little hope, at my age, of living to see a
second edition of these essays, I will here note down the few
remarks I still have to make on the subject.
Whoever undertakes to discover the cause of a given effect
will, if he goes to work in the proper way, begin by thoroughly
investigating the effect itself, as the data for discovering the
cause can be drawn only from the effect and this alone gives the
direction and clue to his discovery of the cause. Nevertheless,
this has not been done by any of those who prior to me enun-
ciated theories of colour. It was not only Newton who proceeded
to look for the cause without having any precise knowledge of
the effect to be explained, but his predecessors had also done
the same thing. Even Goethe, who examined and explained the
effect, the given phenomenon, the sensation in the eye, certainly
much more thoroughly than did the others, still did not go far
enough in this direction, otherwise he could not have failed to
light upon my truths which are the root of all theory of colour
and contain the grounds and basis of his own. Thus I cannot
except even him when I say that all prior to me, from the most
ancient to the most modern times, were concerned only with
investigating what modification either the surface of a body or
light must undergo, whether through analysis into its component
parts or through cloudiness or other obscuration, in order to
exhibit colour, in other words, to stimulate in our eye that
thoroughly characteristic and specific sensation which cannot
be defined at all, but can be demonstrated only through the
senses. But instead of this, the correct and methodical way is
q8 ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS
obviously to turn first to this sensation to see whether we may
not be able to find out from its more specific nature and from
the conformity to law of its phenomena, what here takes place
physiologically. For in the first place, we have a thorough and
precise knowledge of the effect as that which is given. In any
case, this must also furnish the data for investigating the cause
as that which is sought, in other words, the external stimulus
here which acts on our eye and produces that physiological
occurrence. Thus for every possible modification of a given
effect, it must be possible to demonstrate a modifiability of its
cause exactly corresponding to that effect. Further, where the
modifications of the effect are not separated from one another
by sharp lines of demarcation, such lines should not be drawn
in the cause; but here too the same gradualness of the transi-
tions must take place. Finally, where the effect shows contrasts,
that is, admits of a complete reversal of its mode and manner,
then the conditions for this must also lie in the nature of the
assumed cause, and so on. The application of these general
principles to the theory of colour can easily be made. Everyone
acquainted with the facts will at once see that my theory which
considers colour only in itself, in other words, as a given specific
sensation in the eye, already furnishes data a priori for judging
the theories of Newton and Goethe concerning the objective
aspect of colour, or the external causes that stimulate such a
sensation in the eye. But on closer examination, he will find
that, from the standpoint of my theory, everything is in favour
of Goethe's and against Newton's.
To give here to those acquainted with the facts just one proof
of what has been said, I will explain in a few words how the
correctness of Goethe's primary physical phenomenon already
follows a priori from my physiological theory. If colour in itself,
that is to say, in the eye, is the qualitatively halved, and thus
only partially stimulated, nervous activity of the retina, then
its external cause must be a diminished light, yet one that is
diminished in quite a special way. This cause must have the
peculiar quality of imparting to every colour precisely as much
light as it does darkness or cloudiness (CTKLpOV) to the physio-
logical opposite and complement of that colour. But this can
happen in a sure and certain way that satisfies all cases only if
the cause of the brightness in a given colour is precisely the cause
ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS 179
of what is shady or dark in the complement of that colour. Now
this requirement is perfectly satisfied by the partition of opacity
that is inserted between light and darkness, since, under
opposite illumination, it always produces two colours which are
physiologically complementary and turn out differently accord-
ing to the degree of thickness and density of this opacity.
Together, however, they will always make up white, that is, the
full activity of the retina. Accordingly, with the maximum
tenuity of opacity, these colours will be yellow and violet; with
increasing density, they will change into orange and blue; and
finally, with still greater density, they become red and green.
This last, however, cannot really be demonstrated in this simple
way, although the sky at sunset feebly exhibits it. Finally, if the
opacity is complete, that is to say, becomes so dense as to be
impervious to light, then, with light falling on it, white appears
and with light placed behind it, we have darkness or black.
This method of considering the problem will be found discussed
in detail in 1 1 of my Latin essay on the theory of colours.
It is clear from this that, if Goethe had himself discovered my
physiological colour theory which is fundamental and essential,
in it he would have had a solid support for his basic physical
view. Moreover, he would not have fallen into the error of
absolutely denying the possibility to produce white from
colours, a fact that is testified by experience, although always in
the sense of my theory, never in that of Newton's. But although
Goethe had made a most complete collection of the materials
for the physiological theory of colours, it was not granted to him
to discover the theory itself, which, however, as something
fundamental, is really the main point. Yet this can be explained
from the nature of his mind; thus for this he was too objective.
Madame George Sand is reported as having said somewhere:
chacun a les difauts de ses vertus. 1 It is precisely the astonishing
objectivity of his mind, everywhere stamping his works with the
mark of genius, which stood in his way where it was of value
and prevented him from going back to the subject, in this case
the perceiving eye itself, in order to seize here the final threads
on which hangs the whole phenomenon of the world of colour.
On the other hand, coming from Kant's school, I was prepared
['Everyone has the failings of his virtues.']

r8o ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS
and trained for satisfying this demand in the best way. And so
a year after withdrawing from Goethe's personal influence, I
was able to discover the true, fundamental, and irrefutable
theory of colour. Goethe's propensity was for understanding and
interpreting everything purely objectively; but with this he was
then conscious of having done his part and was quite incapable
of seeing beyond this. Thus in his theory of colours we sometimes
find a mere description where we expect an explanation. And
so the last attainable thing here seemed to him to be a correct
and complete explanation of the objective course of events.
Accordingly, the most general and important truth of his whole
theory of colours is a plain objective fact that he himself quite
rightly calls primat)' phenomenon. With this he regarded every-
thing as done; a correct 'thus it is' was for him always the final
goal; he had no craving for a 'thus it must be'. Indeed he could
even scoff:
Then, the philosopher steps in
And shows, no otherwise it could have been. 2
Now instead of this, he was of course just a poet and not a
philosopher; that is to say, he was not animated by, or possessed
of, an ambition to get to the ultimate grounds and innermost
relation and connection of things in the way we wish. But for
this very reason, he had to leave me the best harvest as gleanings,
for the most important information and explanation in regard
to the essential nature of colour, the ultimate satisfaction and
the key to all that Goethe teaches, arc to be found alone in my
work. Accordingly, after I have deduced, as briefly mentioned,
his primary phenomenon from my theory, it no longer merits
this name. For it is not, as he assumed, something absolutely
given and for ever withdrawn from all explanation; on the
contrary, it is only the cause, such as is required in consequence
of my theory, for producing the effect and thus for halving the
activity of the retina. The only primary phenomenon in the
proper sense is that organic ability of the retina to let its nervous
activity appear in two qualitatively opposite halves, sometimes
equal and sometimes unequal, and to throw them successively
into relief. Here, of course, we must stop, since from this point
;z; [Faust, Pt. 11, Bayard Taylor's translation.]

at best only final causes can be seen, just as in physiology we

generally come across this. And so possibly through colour
we have one more method of distinguishing and recognizing
things.
In addition, my theory of colours has over all others the great
advantage of giving an account of the peculiar nature of the
impression of every colour and of making this known to us as a
definite numerical fraction of the retina's full activity, which is
then either + or -. In this way, we learn to understand the
specific difference of colours and the peculiar nature of each.
Newton's theory, on the other hand, leaves entirely unexplained
that specific difference and peculiar effect of each colour, since,
according to it, colour is just a qualitas occulta (colori.fica) J of the
seven homogeneous lights. Accordingly, it gives each of these
seven colours a name and then leaves it at that; and Goethe, on
his part, is content to divide colours into warm and cold, leaving
the rest to his aesthetic observations. Therefore only in my work
do we obtain between the true nature of every colour and its
sensation a connection which has hitherto always been missed.
Finally, for my theory of colours I may claim yet another
peculiar though superficial advantage. Thus with all newly
discovered truths, possibly without exception, it is soon found
that something very similar has already been said and that it
required only a single step in order to reach them. Indeed, it is
even found sometin1es that the truth had been positively
expressed, yet had escaped notice because such expression had
been made without emphasis. For the author himself had not
recognized its value and grasped how rich in results it would be,
a circumstance that prevented him from properly working it
out. In such cases, therefore, one had, if not the plant, at any
rate the seed. Now my colour theory is a fortunate exception to
this. Never has it occurred to anyone anywhere to regard colour,
this really objective phenomenon, as the retina's halved activity
and accordingly to assign to each individual colour its definite
numerical fraction that makes up unity with the fraction of
another colour, such unity representing white. Indeed, these
fractions are so positively obvious, that Professor Rosas who
wanted to claim them as his own, introduced them as absolutely
3 ['An occult (colour-stimulating) quality'.]

ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS
self-evident in his Handbuch der Augenheilkunde, volume i, 535,
and also p. 308.
But the obvious correctness of the fractions laid down by me
is certainly very useful for the facts of the case, for in spite of all
their certainty, it would nevertheless be difficult really to
establish them. It might perhaps be effected in the following
way. Let us procure perfectly black and perfectly white sands
and mix them in six proportions, each exactly corresponding in
darkness to one of the six principal colours. The result must then
be that the ratio of black sand to white in the case of each colour
corresponds to the numerical fraction I have assigned to that
colour. For example, if we were to take three parts of white sand
and one of black to form a grey corresponding in darkness to
yellow, then a grey corresponding to violet would require a
mixture of the two sands in exactly the opposite proportion;
green and red, on the other hand, would require equal propor-
tions of the two sands. However, the difficulty arises here of
determining which grey corresponds in darkness to each colour.
This could be decided by our observing the colour close to the
grey through a prism in order to see what relation of brightness
to darkness each bears to the other in refraction. If in this respect
they are both alike, then the refraction cannot possibly give any
colour phenomenon.
Our test of the purity of a given colour, whether for example
this particular yellow is exactly so, or has a tinge of green, or
even of orange, has reference to the precise accuracy of the
fraction that is expressed by that colour. But the fact that we
are able to judge this purely arithmetical relation from mere
feeling is proved by music whose harmony rests on the much
greater and more complex numerical relations of simultaneous
vibrations, but whose tones we judge extremely accurately, and
yet arithmetically, purely by ear. Just as the seven tones of the
scale are distinguished from countless others that are possibly
to be found between them through the rational nature of their
vibration numbers, so also are the six colours that are given
names of their own distinguished from countless others lying
between them merely by the rational and simple nature of the
fraction of the retina's activity which manifests itself in them.
Just as I test the accuracy of a tone, when tuning an instrument,
by striking its fifth or octave, so do I test the purity of any given
colour by producing its physiological spectrum whose colour is
often easier to judge than is the given colour itself. Thus, for
example, I have inferred that the green of grass has a marked
tinge of yellow merely from the fact that the red of its spectrum
has a strong touch of violet.
104
After Buffon had discovered the phenomenon of physiological
colours on which the whole of my theory is based, it was
interpreted and explained by Father Scherffer in his Abhandlung
von den ;:;ufiilligen Farben, Vienna, 1765, in accordance with the
Newtonian theory. As this explanation of the facts is found
repeated in many works and even in Cuvier's Anatomie comparee
(le~. 12, art. 1 ), I will here expressly refute it and indeed reduce
it ad absurdum. It starts by saying that, fatigued by a long
contemplation of a colour, the eye loses its susceptibility to
homogeneous light-rays of this kind. It then experiences a
sensation of white that is afterwards intuitively perceived only
to the exclusion of just those homogeneous rays of colour. And
so the eye no longer sees this as white, but experiences instead a
product of the other six homogeneous rays which, together with
that first colour, constitute white; and hence this product is now
said to be the colour that. appears as a physiological spectrum.
But now ex suppositis4 this explanation of the facts can be seen
to be absurd. For after looking at violet, the eye perceives on a
white (or better still grey) surface a yellow spectrum. Now this
yellow had to be the product of the other six homogeneous lights
that remained after the separation of violet; and so had to be
composed ofred, orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo; a fine
mixture for obtaining yellow! These will give a muddy sort of
colour and nothing else. 1-foreover, if yellow is itself a homo-
geneous light, how could it then be the result of that mixture?
But by itself alone one homogeneous light is absolutely the
required colour of the other, such colour following it physio-
logically as spectru!Il, just as yellow is of violet, blue of orange,
red of green, and vice versa; this simple fact already overthrows
Scherffer's explanation; for it shows that what the eye sees on
4 ['From the assumptions'; 'from the premisses'.]

the white surface after looking continuously at a colour is any-
thing but a combination of the six remaining homogeneous
lights; on the contrary, it is always only one of them, for example
yellow, after violet has been intuitively perceived.
Besides, there are many other facts that are at variance with
Scherffer's explanation. For example at the very outset, it is not
true that, by continuously looking at the first colour, the eye
becomes insensitive thereto, and indeed to the extent of being
no longer able to perceive it afterwards even in the white. For
it sees that first colour quite distinctly up to the very moment
when it turns therefrom to the white. Further, it is well known
from experience that we see physiological colours most dis-
tinctly and easily early in the morning immediately after we
have woken up. But it is just at that time, as the result of a long
rest, that the eye is at its maximum strength and is, therefore,
least likely to become fatigued through continuously looking for
several seconds at a colour and to become duli and deadened to
the point of being insensitive thereto. Moreover, there is the
awkward fact that, to see physiological colours, we certahlly do
not need to look at a white surface; for this any colourless
surface is suitable, a grey one being the best, but even a black
will do. In fact, we see the physiological colour even with our
eyes shut! Buffon had already stated this and Scherffer himself
admits it in I 7 of his above-mentioned work. Now here we
have a case where, as soon as a false theory has reached a
definite point, nature stands right in its path and gives it the lie.
It is here that Scherffer becomes very nonplussed and admits to
finding the greatest difficulty. Yet instead of being puzzled at
his theory which can never be consistent, he seizes on all kinds
of wretched and absurd hypotheses, wriggles pathetically, and
ultimately drops the matter.
I will here mention yet another fact that is only rarely
observed because it too furnishes an argument against
Scherffer's theory in that according to this it is absolutely un-
intelligible; but also because it deserves to be shown by a special
brief discussion to be consistent with my theory. Thus if there
are on a large coloured surface some smaller colourless spots,
these will no longer remain colourless when the physiological
spectrum that is required by the coloured surface subsequently
appears. On the contrary, they will appear in the colour of the
whole surface which existed in the first instance, although they
have not been in any way affected by its complement. For
example, from looking at a green wall with small grey windows,
there follows, as spectrum, a red wall with green not grey
windows. According to my theory, we have to explain this by
saying that, after a definite qualitative half of its activity was
brought about on the whole of the retina by the coloured
surface, some small spots were nevertheless excluded from that
excitation. With the cessation of the external stimulus, the
complement of that half of the retina's activity which was
excited by it, subsequently appears as spectrum. The spots that
were excluded from that stimulus then take over in sympathy
that qualitative half of the retina's activity which existed in the
first instance. For now they imitate, as it were, what was done
previously by the whole of the remaining part of the retina,
whereas they alone were excluded from this by the failure of the
stimulus to appear in their case. Consequently, they afterwards
went through the exercise, so to speak.
Finally, if anyone wishes to raise a difficulty by saying that,
when we look at a multicoloured surface, the retina's activity is,
according to my theory, distributed simultaneously in a hundred
places in very different proportions, let him reflect that, when
we listen to the harmony of a large orchestra, or to the rapid
runs of a virtuoso, the ear.-drum and auditory nerve are moved
now in simultaneous vibrations and then in those that most
rapidly succeed one another, according to different numerical
ratios. The intelligence arithmetically grasps and assesses all
these; it receives the aesthetic effect from them and at once
notices every deviation from the mathematical accuracy of a
tone. He will then see that I have not credited with too much
the far more perfect sense of sight.
105
It is only through my theory that full justice has been done
to the essentially subjective nature of colour, although the sense
of this is already expressed in the old proverb des gouts et des
couleurs il ne faut disputer.s But what Kant says about aesthetic
judgement or the judgement of taste here applies to colour,
s ['One must not argue about tastes and colours.']

186 ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS
namely that it is indeed only subjective and yet, like one that
is objective, claims to receive the assent of all those who are
normally constituted. If we did not have a subjective anticipation
of the six principal colours which gives us an a priori standard
for them, we should have no judgement concerning the purity
of a given colour; for its designation would then be merely
conventional through a name of its own, as is actually the case
with many fashionable colours. Accordingly, we should be in-
capable of understanding many things, for instance what
Goethe says of true red, that it is the red of carmine, not the
ordinary scarlet that is yellowish-red; whereas this is now very
easy for us to understand and is then clear to all.
To this essentially subjective nature of colour is ultimately
due the extreme readiness with which chemical colours change.
Sometimes this goes so far that only an exceedingly small
change, or one that cannot even be detected, in the properties
of the object in which the colour is inherent, corresponds to a
total change of that colour. For example, sulphide of mercury
obtained by fusing together mercury and sulphur is black (just
as is a similar combination of lead with sulphur). Only after it
has been sublimated, does it assume the well-known fiery-red
colour; and yet through this sublimation it is not possible to
detect a chemical change. Red mercuric oxide, when merely
warmed, becomes dark brown and yellow nitrate of n1ercury
becomes red. A well-known Chinese cosmetic comes to us on
little pieces of pasteboard and is then dark green; when touched
with a wet finger, it instantly turns to a bright red. Even the
turning red of crabs through boiling is relevant to the point in
question; also the sudden turning of many leaves from green to
red at the first frost, and the turning red of apples on the side
that gets the sunlight. This is attributed to a more vigorous
deoxidation of that side in the same way that some plants have
the stem and the whole framework of the leaf in bright red, but
the parenchyma in green; also in general the diversity of
colours of many petals. In other cases, we can show the chemical
difference that is indicated by the colour to be very small, for
example when tincture of litmus or violets changes colour
through the slightest trace of oxidation or alkalization. In all
this, we now see that, in the chemical sense, the eye is the most
sensitive reagent, for it instantly shows us not only the smallest
traceable changes of the mixture, but even those that no other
reagent can indicate. On this incomparable sensitiveness of the
eye depends generally the possibility of chemical colours, which
in itself is still wholly unexplained. Through Goethe, on the
other hand, we have at last arrived at a correct insight into
physical colours, despite the fact that Newton's much advertised
and false theory rendered this more difficult. Physical colours
are related to chemical exactly as magnetism that is produced
by galvanic apparatus, and is to that extent intelligible from its
immediate cause, is to the magnetism that is fixed in steel and
iron ores. The former gives a temporary magnetism which lasts
only through a complex set of circumstances and ceases to exist
as soon as these disappear; the latter, on the other hand, is
inherent in a body, unalterable, and till now unexplained. It is
just bewitched, like an enchanted prince. Now the same holds
good of the chemical colour of a body.
106
In my theory I have shown that even the production of white
from colours rests exclusively on a ph]siological basis, since it
occurs only by the fact that a pair of colours and hence two
which are complementary, in other words, two into which the
retina's activity is halved and separated, are again brought
together. Now this can happen only if the two external causes
that stimulate in the eye each of the two colours act simul-
taneously on one and the same spot of the retina. I have
mentioned several ways of bringing this about; the easiest and
simplest is when we allow the violet of the prismatic spectrum
to fall on yellow paper. But in so far as we will not rest content
with merely prismatic colours, we shall succeed best by uniting
a transparent with a reflected colour, for example by allowing
light to fall through a reddish-yellow glass on to a mirror of blue
glass. The expression 'complementary colours' has truth and
meaning only in so far as it is understood in the physiological
sense; otherwise it has none at all.
Goethe has wrongly denied the possibility of producing white
from colours generally; but this was because Newton had stated
it from a false argument and in a false sense. If it were true in
the Newtonian sense, or if Newton's theory in general were
correct, then, in the first place, every combination of two of the
r88 ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS
fundamental colours assumed by him would inevitably give us
at once a colour brighter than each of them separately, since
the combination of two homogeneous parts of the white light
that is divided into these would already be a step back towards
the restoration of that white light. But this is not for one moment
the case. Thus if we bring together in pairs the three colours
which are fundamental in the chemical sense and of which all the
rest are composed, then blue and red give us violet that is
darker than either of these; blue and yellow give green that is
indeed much darker than the latter, although it is somewhat
brighter than the former; yellow and red give orange that is
brighter than the latter but darker than the former. Already one
sees here a really adequate refutation of Newton's theory.
But the real, effective, conclusive, and inescapable refutation
thereof is the achromatic refractor; and precisely on this
account Newton very consistently regarded such a thing as
impossible. Thus if white light consists of seven kinds of light
each of which has a different colour and at the same time a
different refrangibility, then the degree of refraction and the
colour of the light are of necessity inseparably associated. Thus
where light is refracted, it must also appear coloured, however
much the refraction be varied and complicated and drawn
apart; only so long as not all the seven rays are again completely
brought together into a heap and thus, according to Newton's
theory, white is recomposed, all effect of refraction then at the
same time being ended and so everything again back in its
place. Now when the invention of achromatism revealed the
very opposite of this result, the Newtonians in their embarrass-
ment seized on an explanation that, with Goethe, we feel
tempted to regard as senseless verbiage; for with the best will
in the world, it is very difficult to attribute to it even an
intelligible meaning, that is, something that can to a certain
extent be represented in intuitive perception. Thus besides the
colour-refraction, there is said to occur a colour-dispersion
different therefrom; and by this is to be understood the distance
of the separate coloured lights from one another, their disper-
sion, which is the most direct cause of the lengthening of the
spectrum. But ex hypothesi 6 this is the e.ffecl of the different
fl ['According to the assumption 1. ]

refrangibility of those coloured rays. Now if this so-called
dispersion, that is, the lengthening of the spectrum and thus of
the sun's image after refraction, is due to the fact that light
consists of different coloured lights each of which has by its
nature a different refrangibility, in other words, is refracted at
a different angle, then this definite refrangibility of each light
must always and everywhere adhere to it as an essential quality.
Therefore the separate homogeneous light must be refracted
always in the same way just as it is coloured always in the same
way. For Newton's homogeneous light-ray and its colour are
absolutely one and the same; it is simply a coloured ray and
nothing else. Hence where there is a light-ray, there also is its
colour; and where there is colour, there too is its ray. If ex
hypotlusi it lies in the nature of every such differently coloured
ray to be refracted at a different angle, then its colour will also
accompany it into this and every angle; consequently the
different colours must make their appearance at every refrac-
tion. And so to attribute any meaning and sense to the
Newtonians' favourite explanation that 'two different kinds of
refracting medium can refract light with equal intensity but
disperse colours in a different degree', we must assume that,
while crown-glass and flint-glass refract light as a whole and
thus white light with equal intensity, yet the parts whereof this
very whole through and through consists are refracted differ-
ently by flint-glass from the way in which they are by crown-
glass and thus alter their refrangibility. A hard nut to crack!
Moreover, they must change their refrangibility in such a way
that, with the use of flint-glass, the most refrangible rays acquire
an even greater refrangibility, whereas the least refrangible
assume one that is even smaller; and therefore that this flint-
glass increases the refrangibility of certain rays and at the same
time diminishes that of certain others and that nevertheless the
whole, which consists of these rays alone, retains its previous
refrangibility. Despite all this, that dogma, which is so difficult
to understand, is still held in universal esteem and respect; and
even at the present day we can see frmn the optical writings of
all nations how seriously people speak of the difference between
refraction and dispersion. Now let us return to truth!
The immediate and essential cause of the achromatism that
is brought about by means of the combination of the convex
rgo ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS
lens from crown-glass, and of the concave lens from flint-glass,
is without doubt entirely physiological. Thus it is the production
of the retina's full activity on those places that are affected by
physical colours, since here two colours, certainly not seven,
namely two which together make up that activity, are brought
on to each other; and so a pair of colours is again united.
Objectively or physically this is brought about in the following
way. Through a refraction that occurs twice in the opposite
sense (by means of concave and convex lenses), there results the
opposite colour-phenomenon, namely a yellowish-red border
with yellow fringe, on the one hand, and a blue border with
violet fringe, on the other. But this refraction, occurring twice
in the opposite sense, at the same time brings those two coloured
margins over each other in such a way that the blue border
covers the yellowish-red, and the violet fringe the yellow;
and so these two physiological pairs of colours, namely one of
t and ! and the other of-! and t of the retina's full activity,
are again united; consequently, colourlessness or achromatism
is also re-established. This, then, is the direct cause of achro-
matism.
But what is the remoter cause? Thus as the required dioptric
result, namely a surplus of refraction that remains colourless, is
brought about by the fact that the flint-glass, acting in the
opposite sense, is able to neutralize with a considerably smaller
refraction the colour-phenomenon of the crown-glass through
an. opposite phenomenon that is just as broad, since its own
colour borders and fringes are originally considerably broader
than those of the crown-glass, the question then arises how it is
that two different kinds of refracting media with equal refrac-
tion give us such a very different width of colour-phenomenon.
A very adequate account of this can be given according to
Goethe's theory, if we go into this more fully and thus more
clearly than did he himself. His deduction of the prismatic
colour-phenomenon from his first principle that he calls
primary phenomenon, is perfectly correct. The only thing is
that he did not go far enough into details, whereas without a
certain amount of precise examination, it is impossible to do
justice to such things. He quite correctly explains the coloured
border-phenomenon that accompanies refraction from a
secondary image accompanying the main one that is displaced
by refraction. But he did not specifically state the position and

mode of acting of this secondary image and did not make this
clear by a sketch. In fact, he speaks throughout of only one
secondary image and the result is that we have to assume that
not merely the light or luminous image, but also the darkness
surrounding it undergoes a refraction. I must, therefore, supple-
ment his facts in order to show how that varied breadth of the
coloured border-phenomenon really arises with equal refraction
but different refracting substances, a phenomenon that the
Newtonians describe by the senseless expression of a difference
of refraction and dispersion.
First of all, a word or two on the origin of these secondary
images that accompany the main image during refraction.
JVatura non facit saltus; 7 this is the law of the continuity of all
changes by virtue of which no transition in nature occurs
suddenly and abruptly whether in space, or time, or in the
degree of any quality or property. Now when light enters and
again emerges from a prism, it is twice diverted suddenly from
its straight path. Are we then to assume that this occurs with
such abruptness and sharpness that the light does not suffer
even the slightest blending with the surrounding darkness, but,
wheeling right across this at large angles, preserves its edges
most distinctly and sharply, so that it emerges with unalloyed
purity and remains wholly intact? Is it not more natural to
assume that, in the first as well as the second refraction, a very
small part of this mass of light does not take up the new align-
ment rapidly enough and so becomes somewhat detached and
now, as it were, remembering as an afterthought the path just
forsaken, accompanies the main image as a secondary one that
floats somewhat over it after one refraction and somewhat under
it after the other? In fact in this connection, we could think of
the polarization of light by means of a mirror that reflects back
one part of it and lets through another.
The following figure shows more particularly how, in
accordance with Goethe's fundamental law, the four prismatic
colours arise from the effect of those two secondary images that
fall off with prismatic refraction. It is those four colours alone
and not seven that really exist.
7 ['Nature makes no jumps.' (Law of continuity ftnt laid down by Aristotle.)]

-- - -....
--Violet
~-
/
/
....
/
/
' ,
/ '\
I Blue
/
/
/' ------ - ... ' '
/ b
I ' White
' I
J
,t,
\
c /
-- -
/
/
'
----
Yellow I
I '
\ I
/
'' /
'' Yellowish-red /
-
/
' .
-... --- - /
/
This figure represents a disc of white paper, some four inches in

diameter, stuck on to a dull black paper, as it appears in nature
and not according to Newtonian fictions, when looked at
through a prism at a distance of about three yards. Now anyone
who wants to know what we are talking about must convince
himself of this by personal inspection. By holding the prism in
front of his eyes and first approaching and then moving away
from the disc, he will almost immediately perceive the two
secondary images. He will see how they follow his movements
and deviate more or less from the main image, and how they
shift over each other. Prismatic experiments generally may be
made in two different ways; either so that refraction precedes
reflection, or vice versa. The former happens when the sun's
image passes through the prism on to the wall; the latter occurs
when we look at a white image through a prism. This n1ethod
is not only less troublesome to carry out, but also shows much
more clearly the actual phenomenon because here the effect of
refraction directly reacht$ the eye. Thus we have the advantage
of receiving the effect at first hand, whereas with the other
method we obtain it only at second hand, after reflection from
the wall has occurred. A second advantage is that the light
comes from an object that is close to us, sharply defined, and
not dazzling. Therefore the white disc here described shows
quite distinctly the two secondary images which accompany it
and which have been brought about by a refraction that occurs
twice and shifts it upwards. The secondary image, resulting
from the first refraction that occurs when the light enters the
prism, trails behind and therefore remains with its extreme edge
in darkness and covered thereby. The other secondary image,
however, resulting with the second refraction and thus when the
light emerges from the prism, moves forward rapidly and thus
is drawn over the darkness. But the manner of acting of both
extends, although more feebly, to that part of the main image
which is weakened by their loss; and so only that part of it which
remains covered by both secondary images and thus retains its
full light, appears white. On the other hand, where one secondary
image alone contends with the darkness, or the main image that
is somewhat weakened by the loss of this secondary image is
already impaired by the darkness, colours result, and moreover
in accordance with Goethe's law. Consequently, we see violet
occur on the upper part where one secondary image alone
advancing rapidly is drawn over the black surface; but under it
we see blue where the main image, nevertheless weakened by
the loss, is operating. On the lower part of the image, however,
where the individual secondary image remains in darkness,
yellowish-red appears; but over this we have yellow where the
weakened main image already shines through. In the same way,
the rising sun, at first covered by the denser lower atmosphere,
appears yellowish-red and is yellow only when it has reached
the more rarefied atmosphere.
Now if we have really grasped and understood this, we shall
not find it difficult to see, at any rate in a general way, why with
the same refraction of light some refracting media, like flint-
glass, give the phenomenon of a wider coloured edge, whilst
others, like crown-glass, give one that is narrower; or, in the
language of the Newtonians, what gives rise to the lack of
uniformity in light refraction and colour dispersion. Thus
refraction is the distance of the main image from its line of
incidence; dispersion, on the other hand, is the distance of the
two secondary images from the main image which occurs here.
But now we find this accidental property existing in varying
degrees in different kinds of light-refracting substances.
Accordingly, two transparent bodies can have the same power
of refraction; in other words, the image passing through them
is deflected an equal amount from its line of incidence. Never-
theless, the secondary images that cause the colour-phenomenon,
194 0~ THE THEORY OF COLOURS
may deviate from the main image more with refraction through
one body than with that through another.
Now to compare this account of the facts with the Newtonian
explanation of the phenomenon which has been so often
repeated and is analysed above, I select the expression of the
latter which is given in the following words in the Miinchner
Gelehrte An;:;eigen of 27 October I 836, after the philosophical
transactions: 'Different transparent substances refract the
various homogeneous lights in very unequal proportion; s so
that the spectrum produced by different refracting media, and
moreover in similar circumstances, acquires a very different
extension.' If the lengthening of the spectrum were the result
of the unequal refrangibility of the homogeneous lights them-
selves, it would necessarily have proved to be everywhere in
accordance with the degree of refraction. Therefore only in
consequence of the greater refractive power of a medium could
there arise a greater lengthening of the image. Now if this is not
the case, but of two media having equal refractive power, one
gives a longer and the other a shorter spectrum, this proves that
the lengthening of the spectrum is not the direct effect of
refraction, but merely that of an accident accompanying refraction.
Now the secondary images here arising are such an accident;
these may very well deviate more or less from the main image
with equal refraction, according to the nature of the refracting
substance.
Ought we not to suppose that considerations of this sort
would inevitably open the eyes of the Newtonians? We should
indeed, if we did not yet know how great and formidable is the
influence which is exercised on branches of knowledge and in
fact on all intellectual attainments by the will, that is, by
tendencies and inclinations and, to speak more precisely, by
evil tendencies. In 1840 Eastlake, the English painter and
Keeper of the National Gallery, produced such an excellent
translation of Goethe's colour theory that it was a perfect
reproduction of the original; it can be read and in fact under-
stood more easily than the original. We must now see how
Brewster reacts to it when writing a criticism of it in the
Edinburgh Review. His behaviour is not unlike that of a tigress
8Yet the sum of these, namely white light, in equal proportion ! I add this as a
supplement.
into whose lair a man enters for the purpose of seizing her cubs.
Is this like the tone of calm and certain conviction in face of a
great man's error? On the contrary, it is the tone of an intel-
lectual bad conscience which suspects with alarm that the other
party is right and is resolved to defend, rni~ Kat >..&~, 9 now as a
national possession the pseudo-science that is thoughtlessly
accepted without investigation. By adhering to it, one is already
compromised. And so if Newton's colour theory is regarded by
Englishmen as a national affair, a good French translation of
Goethe's work would be highly desirable; for we may certainly
hope to see justice done by the French learned world who to
this extent are neutral, although even here there are sometimes
amusing instances of their partiality for the Newtonian colour
theory. For example, in the Journal des savans, April 1836, Biot
relates with cordial approbation how Arago prepared very
cunning experiments in order to ascertain whether the seven
homogeneous lights do have perhaps an unequal velocity of
propagation, so that from the variable fixed stars that are now
nearer, now more distant, red or violet light arrives first and
thus the star appears to assume different colours in succession.
But fortunatelv in the end he had discovered that this was not so .
Sancta simplicitas! 10 A pretty exhibition is given also by M.
Becquerel who in a memoire presente a l'academie des sciences,
13 June 1842, chants afresh the same old tune as if it were
something new : si l' on rifracte un faisceau (sic) de rayons so/aires a
travers un prisme de flint-glass, et qu' on refoive sur un carton blanc
l'image oblongue rifracUe, on distingue ASSEZ JVETTEl. 1ENT
(here is a qualm of conscience) sept sortes de couleurs, ou sept parties
de l' image qui sont colorees chacune a peu pres de [a meme teinte: ces
couleurs sont: le rouge, l' orange, le jaune, le vert, le bleu, ['indigo (this
mixture of i black with ! blue is said to be found in light!) et le
violet; cette derniere etant celle des rayons les plus rifrangibles. II As
M. Becquerel still has the effrontery to chant so fearlessly and
9 ('Tooth and nail'.]

10 ['Sacred simplicity'. (Said to have been uttered by Johann Hus at the stake as
a peasant in blind belief cast a piece of wood into the flames.)]
11 ['If we refract a pencil of solar rays through a prism of flint-glass and receive
on a white card the oblong refracted image, we distinguish clearly eMugh seven kinds
of colours or seven parts of the image each of which is coloured with approximately
the same tint. These colours are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and
violet; the last being that of the most refrangible rays.'
frankly this piece from the Newtonian credo thirty-two years
after the appearance of Goethe's colour theory, we might feel
tempted to declare to him assn:. nettement: 'Either you are blind
or are lying.' But then we should be doing him an injustice, for
it is merely a case ofM. Becquerel preferring to believe Newton
rather than the evidence of his own two eyes. This is the effect
of Newtonian superstition.
But so far as the Germans are concerned, their judgement of
Goethe's colour theory is in keeping with the expectations we
must have from a nation that could for thirty years praise Hegel
as the greatest of all thinkers and sages, that scribbler of
nonsense and absolutely hollow philosophaster, who is devoid
of mind and merit. In fact, they all join in the chorus to such
an extent that the whole of Europe echoes with the noise. I know
quite well that desipere est Juris gentium, 12 in other words, that
everyone has the right to judge in accordance with his intellect
and his wishes. But in return for this, he will have to put up with
being criticized for his opinions by the generations to come and
in advance by his own; for there is still a Nemesis even here.
IOj
At the close of these supplementary remarks on chromatology,

I will quote a few interesting facts which serve to corroborate
Goethe's fundamental law of physical colours, but which he
himself did not notice.
If in a dark room we discharge the electricity of a conductor
into a vacuum glass tube, this electric light appears as a very
beautiful violet. Here as with blue flames, the light itself is at the
same time the cloudy medium. For there is no essential difference
whether the illuminated dimness or cloudiness, through which
we peer into the dark, casts into our eye its own or reflected
light. But since this electric light is here exceedingly faint and
feeble, it gives rise to violet, wholly in accordance with Goethe's
theory, instead of blue being produced even by the feeblest flame
such as that of methylated spirit, sulphur, and so on.
A common everyday proof of Goethe's theory which was
overlooked by him, is that many bottles filled with red wine or
12 ['To be foolish and unwise is man's right.']

dark beer, after standing for a long time in a cellar, often under-
go a noticeable cloudiness of the glass through a deposit on the
inside. In consequence of this, they then appear bright blue
when the light falls on them, and likewise when we hold some-
thing black behind them after they have been emptied. With
light that shines through, on the other hand, they show the
colour of the liquid or, when empty, that of the glass.
The coloured rings that appear when we firmly press together
with our fingers two pieces of polished plate-glass or even
polished convex glasses, may be explained in the following way.
Glass is not without elasticity; and so with that strong com-
pression the surface to some extent gives and is flattened. For a
moment, therefore, it loses its perfect smoothness and evenness,
whereby a gradually increasing cloudiness results. And so here
too we have a cloudy medium and the different degrees of its
cloudiness, with partially incident partially transmitted light,
give rise to the coloured rings. If we release the pressure from
the glass, its former condition is at once restored by the elasticity
and the rings disappear. Newton placed a lens on a glass plate;
and so the rings are called Newtonian. The present-day undula-
tion theory bases its calculation of the oscillation-numbers of
the colours on the curvature of this lens and on the space
between it and its tangent. Here it assumes the air in that
intervening space to be a medium different from glass and
accordingly assumes refraction and homogeneous lights. All this is
quite incredible. (See the description of the facts in Ule's Die
.Natur, 30 June 1859, no. 26.) For this it is not necessary to have
a lens at all; two pieces of plate-glass pressed with the fingers
give the best result and the longer we press them in different
places, the better the result. Here there is no intervening space
at all with its layer of air, for they are stuck together pneumatically.
(We must previously breathe on them.) In the same way, the
colours of soap-bubbles are the effect of varying local cloudi-
nesses of this semi-transparent material; likewise the colours of
a layer of turpentine, old window-panes that have become dull,
and so on.
Goethe had the true objective insight into the nature of

things, a view that is given up entirely to this. Newton was a
mere mathematician, always anxious to measure and calculate,
rg8 ON THE THEORY OF COLOURS
and taking as the basis of this purpose a theory that was pieced
together from the superficially understood phenomenon. This is
the truth; and you can make what faces you like!
Here the greater public may be informed of one more article

with which I have filled the two sides of my sheet in the album
that was published by the city of Frankfurt and deposited in
their library on the occasion of the centenary of Goethe's birth
in 1849. The introduction to it refers to the very impressive
ceremonies with which the day was publicly celebrated in that
city.
THE FRANKFURT GOETHE-ALBUM
No garlanded monuments, nor the firing of salutes, nor the ringing

of bells, let alone banquets and speeches, can suffice to atone for the
grievous and revolting injustice and wrong suffered by Goethe in
connection with his theory of colours. For instead of its perfect truth
and excellence meeting with just and well-merited approbation, it is
generally regarded as an abortive attempt. Professional men merely
laugh at it, as was recently expressed in a periodical; in fact, they
look upon it as a weakness of the great man which is to be treated
with indulgence and covered with oblivion. This unprecedented
injustice and unheard-of perversion of all truth became possible only
by the fact that an apathetic, indolent, and indifferent public,
devoid of all power of judgement and therefore easily imposed on in
this matter, renounced all investigation and examination of their own,
however easy these might be even without previous knowledge, in
order to leave such matters to the professional men', that is, to
those who pursue a branch of knowledge not for its own sake, but for
the purpose of reward. And this public now allows itself to be
impressed by such men with their peremptory utterances and
serious countenances. Now if it was its intention not to judge for
itselfbut, like little children, to let itselfbe guided by authority, then
that of the greatest man, whom along with Kant the nation boasts,
should certainly have carried more weight than that of many
thousands of such men of the trade put together, and especially in a
matter that he had made his chief concern throughout the whole of
his life. Now as regards the decision of these professional men, the
plain unvarnished truth is that they were heartily ashamed of them-
selves when it came to light that they had not only allowed
themselves to be hoaxed by the palpably false, but for over a hundred
years without any inquiries and investigations of their own had
revered, taught, and propagated it in blind faith and with devoted
admiration, until at last an old poet had come along to teach them
something better. Mter this humiliation which they could not get
over, they then grew callous, as is usual with transgressors, arrogantly
refused subsequent information, and, by obstinately sticking for over
forty years to the obviously false and even absurd, discovered and
proved to be such, have gained a respite, it is true, but have increased
their guilt a hundredfold. For veritatem lahorare tzimis saepe, e:rtingui
nunquam, 13 as Livy has said. The day of disillusionment is at hand
and must come; and what then? Then 'we gladly assume what airs
we can.' (Egmont, Act III, Sc. 2.)
In those German states that possess academies of learning, the
ministers of public instruction placed in charge thereof could shov.'
most nobly and sincerely their veneration for Goethe which un-
doubtedly exists, by giving such academies the task of furnishing
within a fixed time a thorough and detailed investigation and
critique of Goethe's colour theory together with their decision as
regards its opposition to Newton's. Perhaps those highly placed
officials might hear my voice and, as it appeals for justice to our
most illustrious dead, they might gratify it without first consulting
those who, by their inexcusable silence, are themselves accessories to
the crime. This is the surest way to remove from Goethe that un-
merited ignominy. It would then no longer be a case of disposing of
the matter with peremptory utterances and serious face5; nor would
the audacious pretence ever again be allowed a hearing that here it
was a question not of judgement, but oflengthy calculations. On the
contrary, the heads of corporations would see themselves faced with
the alternative of either giving truth the palm, or of most seriously
compromising themselves. And so under the influence of such thumb-
screws, we may hope for something from them and, on the other
hand, need not have the least fear. When examined seriously and
honestly, Newton's chimeras obviously do not exist at all, but are
merely seven prismatic colours, invented in favour of the tonic sol-fa;
thus the red that is not one; the simple primary green that appears
in the clearest manner before our eyes, quite naively and openly, as a
mixture of blue and yellow; but in particular, the monstrosity of
homogeneous lights of dark and even indigo colour which are to be
found concealed in clear pure sunlight; and, moreover, their
different refrangibility to which any pair of achromatic opera glasses
13 ['Only too often is truth hard-pressed, but she can never be destroyed.']
will give the lie. Now I ask, how could such fictions be right in face
of Goethe's clear and simple truth and of his explanation of all
physical colour phenomena which has been reduced to one great
natural law? Everywhere and in all possible circumstances nature
furnishes staunch and impartial evidence in favour of that law. We
might just as well be afraid of seeing the refutation of one multiplied
by one! Qui non libere veritatem pronuntiat, proditor veritatis est. 1
1 ['Whoever does not freely and frankly acknowledge the truth is a betrayer
thereof.']
CHAPTER VIII
On Ethics
108
Physical truths can have much external significance, but lack
internal. The latter is the prerogative of intellectual and moral
truths which have as their theme the highest stages of the
objectification of the will, whereas the former have the lowest.
If, for example, we reached certainty concerning what is now
merely surmise, namely that the sun at the equator gives rise to
thermo-electricity, this to the earth's magnetism, and this again
to polar light, such truths would be of great external significance,
but of little internal. On the other hal!d, examples of internal
significance are afforded not only by all superior and genuinely
intellectual philosophemes, but also by the catastrophe of every
good tragedy and even by the observation of human conduct in
its extreme expressions of morality and immorality and thus of
wickedness and goodness. For in all this there stands out the
true essence whose phenomenal appearance is the world; and
at the highest stage of its objectification it brings to light its
inner nature.
109
That the world has only a physical and not a moral signifi-
cance is a fundamental error, one that is the greatest and most
pernicious, the real perversi~y of the mind. At bottom, it is also
that which faith has personified as antichrist. Nevertheless, and
in spite of all religions which one and all assert the contrary and
try to establish this in their own mythical way, that fundamental
error never dies out entirely, but from time to time raises its
head afresh until universal indignation forces it once more to
conceal itself.
But however certain the feeling is of a moral significance of
the world and life, its elucidation and the unravelling of the
contradiction between it and the course of the world are so
202 ON ETHICS
difficult that it was reserved for me to expound the true and
only genuine and pure foundation of morality which is, there-
fore, always and everywhere sound, together with the goal to
which it leads. Here I have the reality of moral events too much
on my side for me to have to be concerned whether this doctrine
could ever again be superseded and displaced by another.
However, so long as my ethics continues to be ignored by the
professors, the Kantian moral principle prevails at the universi-
ties and of its different forms the most popular is now that of the
'Dignity of Man'. I have already expounded the hollowness of
this in my essay On the Basis of Ethics, 8. And so here we say
only this much. If it were asked in general on what this so-called
dignity of man rested, the answer would soon be that it rested
on his morality. Thus the morality rests on the dignity and the
dignity on the morality. But even apart from this, it seems to me
that the notion of dignity could be applied only ironically to a
creature like man who is so sinful in will, so limited in intellect,
and so vulnerable and feeble in body:
Quid superb it homo? cujus conceptio culpa,
]1/asci poerza, labor vita, necesse mori! 1
I would, therefore, like to lay down the following rule in contrast
to the above-mentioned moral principle of Kant. In the case of
every man with whom we come in contact, we should not
undertake an objective estimation of his worth and dignity; and
so we should not take into consideration the wickedness of his
will, the limitation of his intellect, or the perversity of his
notions; for the first could easily excite our hatred and the last
our contempt. On the contrary, we should bear in mind only
his sufferings, his need, anxiety, and pain. We shall then
always feel in sympathy with him, akin to him, and, instead of
hatred or contempt, we shall experience compassion; for this
alone is the aya717J z to which the Gospel summons us. The
standpoint of sympathy or compassion is the only one suitable
for curbing hatred or conten1pt, certainly not that of seeking
our pretended 'dignity'.
1 ['How could man give himself airs? For him conception is already guilt, birth
the punishment, life hard labour, and death his doom.' (Schopenhauer's own
distich.)]
z ['Brotherly love'.]
ON ETHICS 203
I 10
In consequence of their deeper ethical and metaphysical
views, the Buddhists start not from the cardinal virtues, but
from the cardinal vices, as the opposite or negation of which the
cardinal virtues first make their appearance. According to
I. J. Schmidt's Geschichte der Ostmongolen, p. 7, the Buddhist
cardinal vices are lust, idleness, anger, and greed. But probably
arrogance should take the place of idleness; they are stated thus
in the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, I8Ig edn., volume vi, p. 372,
where, however, envy or hatred is added as a fifth. :t\1y correc-
tion of the highly eminent I.J. Schmidt's statement is supported
by its agreement with the teachings of the Sufis who in any case
are under the influence of Brahmanism and Buddhism. These
two lay down the same cardinal vices and indeed very effectively
in pairs, so that lust is seen associated with greed, and anger
with arrogance. (See Tholuck's Bliithensammlung aus der morgerz-
liindischen Arfystik, p. 206.) Even in the Bhagavadgita (chap. 1 6(2 I)
we find lust, anger, and greed laid down as the cardinal vices,
a fact that testifies to the great age of the doctrine. Similarly in
the Prabodha Chandro Da;'a, this philosophical allegorical drama
that is so important for the Vedanta philosophy, these three
cardinal vices appear as the three generals of King Passion in
his war against King Reason [ Vernurifi]. The cardinal virtues
opposed to those cardinal vices would prove to be chastity and
generosity together with meekness and mildness.
Now if we compare these deeply conceived, oriental basic
ideas of ethics with Plato's cardinal virtues that are so famous
and are repeated so many thousands of times, namely justice,
bravery, moderation, and wisdom, we shall find that these arc
without a clear guiding fundamental idea and that they arc,
therefore, superficially chosen and in part even palpably false.
Virtues must be qualities of the will; but wisdom is connected
primarily with the intellect. The crw<Ppocn5VYJ that is translated
by Cicero as temperantia, and into German as Miissigkeit [modera-
tion, temperance], is a very indefinite and ambiguous expression
under which, of course, many different things may be brought,
such as circumspection, prudence, coolness, sobriety, or holding
up one's head. It comes probably from awov EXELV To <PpovE'iv, 3
3 ['To retain prudence'.]
204 ON ETHICS
or as the writer Hierax says according to Stobaeus, Florilegium,
c. 5, 6o (vol. i, p. 134 of the Gaisford edition) : TavTr)v 7'1]v
apET~V awcppoavV1JV EK<XAEaav, UWTYJp{av ovaav cppovr]aEws.4 Bravery
is no virtue at all, although it is sometimes the servant or
instrument thereof; yet it is also just as ready to serve the
greatest baseness and infamy; it is, properly speaking, a
characteristic of temperament. Geulinx (Ethica, in praefatione)
rejected Plato's cardinal virtues and put forward diligentia,
obedientia,justitia, and humilitas; s obviously a bad selection. The
Chinese mention five cardinal virtues, sympathy, justice,
politeness, knowledge, and sincerity (Journal asiatique, vol. ix,
p. 62). Samuel Kidd, China (London, 1841, p. 197) calls them
benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity,
and gives a detailed commentary to each. Christianity has no
cardinal virtues but theological, namely faith, love, and hope.
The point where man's moral virtues and vices first diverge is
that contrast in his fundamental attitude to others which
assumes the character either of envy or of sympathy. For every
man bears within himself these two diametrically opposite
characteristics since they spring from the inevitable comparison
of his own state with that of others. Now according as the result
of this comparison affects his individual character, one or other
quality becomes his fundamental attitude and the source of his
conduct. Thus envy more firmly builds up the wall between
You and I; for sympathy it becomes thin and transparent; in
fact it is sometimes completely demolished by this quality and
then the distinction between I and not-I vanishes.
1I I
Bravery, as previously mentioned, or more precisely the
courage underlying it (for bravery is only courage in war), merits
an even more detailed exan1ination. The ancients reckoned
courage as one of the virtues and cowardice as one of the vices ;
but this does not accord with the Christian sense which is
directed to benevolence, patience, and resignation, and whose
teaching forbids all enmity and, properly speaking, even
resistance; and so with the moderns it has disappeared. Never-
4 ['This virtue was called owtf>pocn)V'YJ, because it was an adherence to prudence
and sobriety.']
s ['Diligence, obedience, justice, humility .]
ON ETHICS 205
theless, it must be admitted that cowardice does not seem to be

really compatible with a noble character because of the excessive
concern for one's own person which is here betrayed. Now
courage is reducible to the fact that, at the present mon1ent, we
willingly encounter threatening evils in order to guard against
greater ones that lie in the future, whereas cowardice does the
opposite. Now the former is the character of patience, consisting
as it does in our being clearly aware that there are even greater
evils than those actually present and that such 1night be brought
on by our rushing away from or warding off those that are
present. Accordingly, courage would be a kind of patience; and
just because it is this that enables us to put up with privations
and self-conquests of every kind, so, by means of it, courage too
is at any rate akin to virtue.
Yet it admits possibly of a higher method of consideration.
Thus we might reduce all fear of death to a want of that natural
metaphysics which is, therefore, merely felt and by virtue
whereof man carries within himself the certainty that he exists
just as much in everything, yes everything, as he does in his own
person whose death can, therefore, do him little harm. Accord-
ingly, from this very certainty there sprang heroic courage and
consequently (as the reader will recall from my Ethics) from the
same source with the virtues ofjustice and loving kindness. Now
this is, of course, equivalent to our seizing the matter from very
high up; yet it is not really possible to explain in any other way
why cowardice appears to be contemptible and personal
courage, on the other hand, noble and sublime. For from a
lower standpoint, it cannot be seen why a finite individual, who
himself is everything in fact is himself the fundamental condition
for the existence of the rest of the world, should not subordinate
everything else to the maintenance of himself. And so a wholly
immanent and thus purely empirical explanation will really
not suffice, since it could be based only on the usefulness of
courage. This may have been the origin of Calderon's once
expressing a sceptical but noteworthy view on courage; in fact
he actually denied its reality; and this he does from the lips of
a wise old minister in the presence of his young king.
Q;le aunque el natural temor

En todos obra igualmente,
206 ON ETHICS
]Vo mostrarle es ser valient.e,
r esto es lo que Jwa el valor.
La hija del aire, Pt. n, Jorn. 2.
For although natural fear is active in everyone in the same way, a

man is brave by his not letting it be seen, and it is just this that
constitutes bravery.
Daughter of the Air, Pt. n, A. 2.
With regard to the differences, previously touched on,
between the value of courage as a virtue among the ancients and
the moderns, it must nevertheless be borne in mind that the
ancients understood by virtue, virtus, apen], every excellence,
every quality praiseworthy in itself, whether moral, intellectual,
or perhaps merely physical. But after Christianity had shown
that the fundamental tendency of life is moral, only moral
excellences were thought of under the concept of virtue.
However, we find the earlier usage in the older Latinists and
also in Italian, as is testified by the well-known meaning of the
word virtuoso. We should draw the express attention of students
to this wider sphere of the concept virtue among the ancients,
as otherwise it may with them easily give rise to a secret
perplexity. For this purpose, I specially recommend two passages
that are preserved for us by Stobaeus, the one emanating
ostensibly from Metopos, a Pythagorean, in the first chapter of
the Florilegium, 64, (vol. i, p. 22 of Gaisford), where the fitness
of every member of our body is declared to be apEnJ; and the
other in his Eclogae ethicae, lib. n, c. 7 (p. 272, ed. Heeren), where
it says quite plainly: UKVTOTCJJ.LOV apETTJV )..i_yea0at Ka8' ?}v a7TOTt::Aeiv
apta'TOJI tmoCrqp..a SvvaTat (sutoris virtus dicitur secundum quam pro bum
calceum novit parare).6 This is why the ethics of the ancients speaks
of vices_ and virtues that find no place in our own.
I I2
Just as there is some doubt about the place of bravery among
the virtues, so also is there about that of avarice among the vices.
However, we must not confuse it with the greed that is expressed
primarily by the Latin word avaritia. We will, therefore, allow
the pro et contra concerning greed to be brought forward and
0 ['That by virtut: whereof a shoemaker knows how to make an excellent shoe,
is described as his virtue (skill, ability).'
ON ETHICS
heard, whereupon the final judgement may be left to the
reader.
A: 'Avarice is not a vice, but its opposite, extravagance, is.
This springs from an animal limitation to the present moment
over which the future, that still exists in mere thought, cannot
gain any power, and is due to the illusion of a positive and real
value of sensual pleasures. Accordingly, future want and misery
are the price the spendthrift pays for these empty, fleeting, and
often merely imaginary pleasures, or for feeding his empty
brainless arrogance on the posturings of his parasites who
secretly laugh at him and on the astonishment of the mob and
of those who are envious of his pomp and show. We should,
therefore, run away from him as from one who is infectious and
should break with him in time after we have discovered his vice
so that, when the consequences later appear, we do not have to
help to bear them, or to play the role of the friends of Timon of
Athens. In the same way, we must not expect that the man who
thoughtlessly runs through his own fortune will leave another's
untouched if it should come into his hands, but alieni appetens,
sui profusus,' as Sallust has very rightly put it (Catilina, c. 5).
Therefore extravagance leads not merely to impoverishment,
but through this to crime; criminals from the well-to-do classes
have almost all become so in consequence of extravagance.
Accordingly, the Koran rightly says (Sura xvii, 1. 27): "Spend-
thrifts are brothers of Satan." (See Sadi, translated by Graf,
p. 254.) Avarice, on the other hand, is attended with superfluity,
and when could that be undesirable? But this must be a good
vice which has good consequences. Thus avarice starts from the
correct principle that all pleasures have a merely negative effect;
that a happiness composed of them is, therefore, a chimera; and
that pains, on the other hand, are positive and very real. And
so the avaricious man denies himself pleasures in order to be
better secured against pains; and accordingly his maxim then
becomes sustine et abstine.s Further, since he knows how in-
exhaustible are the possibilities of misfortune and how in-
numerable the paths of danger, he gathers against these all the
means in order, if possible, to surround himself with a threefold
' r Squandering his own, and coveting another's'.]

8 f' Sustain and abstain.']
208 ON ETHICS
rampart. Who can say where the precautions against accidents
begin to go too far? Only the man who knew where the perfidy
of fate attains its end; and even if these precautions were
excessive, this error would at most bring harm to himself and
not to others. If he will never need the wealth he has accumu-
lated, it will one day benefit others whom nature has endowed
with less foresight. That the money is till then withdrawn from
circulation is no disadvantage at all, for it is not an article of
consumption; on the contrary, it merely represents actual useful
goods; it is not itself these. At bottom, ducats are themselves
only counters; they have no value, but only what they represent
is of value and this cannot be withdrawn from circulation.
Moreover, through his retention of the money, the value of
what is left in circulation is raised by just as much. Now
although, as is asserted, many a miser ultimately loves money
directly and for its own sake, so does many a spendthrift just as
surely like the spending and wasting of money purely for its
O\Vll sake. But friendship, or indeed kinship, with a miser is not
only without danger, but is even of advantage since it may bring
great benefits. For in any case, those nearest to him will after
his death reap the fruits of his self-control. But even while he is
alive, we can, in cases of great need, hope for something from
him, at any rate always more than from the spendthrift who is
penniless, helpless, and loaded with debt. Mas da el duro, que el
desnudo (more is given by the hard-hearted than by the naked)
says a Spanish proverb. In consequence of all this, avarice is not
. '
a VICe.
B: 'It is the quintessence of vices! If physical pleasures seduce
man from the right path, then his sensual nature, the animal
within him, is to blame. Carried away by the excitement and
overcome by the impression of the moment, he acts without
reflection. If, on the other hand, through physical weakness or
old age he has reached a stage where the vices he could never
forsake finally forsake him, in that his capacity for sensual
pleasures has become extinct, then, if he turns to avarice,
intellectual greed survives the sensual. Money, as that which
represents all the good things of this world, and is their
abstractum, now becomes the withered stem to which his dull and
atrophied appetites cling, as egoism in abstracto. They now
regenerate themselves in the love of mammon. From the fleeting
ON ETHICS 209
sensual appetite there has come a well-considered and calcula-
ting greed for money. Like its object, such greed is of a symboli-
cal nature and, also like it, is indestructible. It is the obstinate
love of the pleasures of the world, outliving itself so to speak, the
consummate inconvertibility, the sublimated and spiritualized
lust of the flesh, the abstract focal point wherein all desires and
appetites centre. This point is, therefore, related to those
appetites as the universal concept to particular things. Accord-
ingly, avarice is the vice of old age as extravagance is that of
youth.'
I 13
The disputatio in utramque partern9 just given is certainly
calculated to force us to the juste milieu 10 morality of Aristotle.
The following consideration is also favourable to this.
Every human perfection is akin to a fault into which it
threatens to pass; conversely, however, every fault is akin to a
perfection. And so the error into which we fall in respect of a
man is often due to the fact that, at the beginning of our
acquaintance, we confuse his faults with the perfections akin to
them, or vice versa. The cautious man then seems to us to be
cowardly, the thrifty to be avaricious; or again the spendthrift
appears to be liberal, the lout straightforward and sincere, the
foolhardy to be endowed with noble self-confidence, and so on.
I 14
Vvhoever lives among men and women always feels tempted
afresh to assume that moral baseness and intellectual incapacity
are closely connected in that they spring directly fron1 one root.
This, however, is not so, as I have shown at length in the second
volume of my chief work, chapter 19, no. 8. That illusion which
springs from the fact that we very often find the two together,
can be explained entirely from the very frequent occurrence of
both, in consequence of which it may easily happen that the
two have to dwell under one roof. But it is here undeniable that
they play into each other's hands to their mutual advantage,
whereby we then have the very unpleasant spectacle which is
presented by only too many people, and the world goes on as it
o ('The arguments for and against'.]
to ('The happy mean'.]
210 ON ETHICS
does. In particular, want of intelligence is favourable to the
appearance of falseness, meanness, and malice, whereas
prudence and cleverness are better able to conceal these. On the
other hand, how often a man's perversity of heart prevents him
from seeing truths to which his intelligence would indeed be
quite equal!
Let no one, however, be unduly proud; for everyone, even
the greatest genius, is in some sphere of knowledge decidedly
limited, and thereby proclaims his kinship with the human race
that is essentially wrong-headed and absurd. In the same way,
everyone has within himself something morally bad, and even
the best and indeed the noblest character will at times surprise
us with individual traits of depravity in order, as it were, to
acknowledge his kinship with the human race among whom
there occur' all degrees of baseness, infamy, and even cruelty.
For precisely on the strength of this bad element in him, of this
evil principle, he was bound to become a human being. For the
same reason, the world generally is what my true mirror of it
has shown it to be.
In spite of all this, however, the difference between men
remains immeasurably great, and many a man would be
shocked if he were to see another as he himself is. 0 for an
Asmodeus of morality who for his minion rendered transparent
not merely roofs and walJs, but also the veil of dissimulation,
falseness, hypocrisy, grimace, lying, and deception that is spread
over everything, and who enabled him to see how little genuine
honesty is to be found in the world and how often injustice and
dishonesty sit at the helm, secretly and in the innermost recess,
behind all the virtuous outworks, even where we least suspect
them. Hence we see the four-footed friendships of so many men
of a better nature; for how could we recover from the endless
dissimulation, duplicity, perfidy, and treachery of men if it
were not for the dogs into whose open and honest eyes we can
look without distrust? Our civilized world, then, is only a great
masquerade; here we meet knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors,
barristers, priests, philosophers, and the rest. But they are not
what they represent themselves to be; they are mere masks
beneath which as a rule moneymakers are hidden. One man
dons the mask of the law which he has borrowed for the purpose
from his barrister, merely in order to be able to come to blows
ON ETHICS 211
with another. Again, for the same purpose, a second chooses the
mask of public welfare and patriotism; a third that of religion
or religious reform. Many have already donned for all kinds of
purposes the mask of philosophy, philanthropy, and so on.
Women have less choice; in most cases, they make use of the
mask of maidenly reserve, bashfulness, domesticity, and
modesty. Then there are universal masks without any special
characteristic, the dominoes, as it were, which are, therefore,
met everywhere; we see them in strict integrity, probity, polite-
ness, sincere interest, and grinning friendliness. In most cases,
as I have said, manufacturers, tradespeople, and speculators are
concealed beneath all these masks. In this respect, merchants
constitute the only honest class, for they alone pass themselves
off for what they are; and so they go about unmasked and
therefore stand low in rank. It is very important for us to learn
early in youth that we are living in a masquerade, otherwise we
shall be unable to grasp and get at many things but shall stand
before them quite puzzled ; and indeed those will stand longest
who ex meliore luto .finxit praecordia Titan. 11 Such are the favour
found by baseness and meanness, the neglect suffered by merit,
even by the rarest and greatest, at the hands of the men of its
branch, the odium incurred by truth and great abilities, the
ignorance of scholars in their own branch. Almost invariably,
the genuine article is rejected and the merely spurious sought.
And so young men should be taught that in this masquerade the
apples arc of wax, the flowers of silk, the fish of cardboard, and
that everything is a plaything and a jest. They should be told
that, of two men who are so seriously discussing something, one
is giving nothing but spurious articles, while the other is paying
for them in counters.
But more serious considerations are to be made and worse
things reported. At bottom, man is a hideous wild beast. We
know him only as bridled and tamed, a state that is called
civilization; and so we are shocked by the occasional outbursts
of his nature. But when and where the padlock and chain oflaw
and order are once removed and anarchy occurs, he then shows
himself to be what he is. Meanwhile, whoever would like with-
out such occasions to be enlightened on this point can convince
11 [(Whose) heart was fashioned by Titan out of better clay.' (Juvenal, Sal.Ues,
XIII. 183.)]
212 ON ETHICS
himself from hundreds of ancient and modern accounts that
man is inferior to no tiger or hyena in cruelty and pitilessness.
An important instance from modern times is furnished by the
answer which the British Anti-slavery Society received to their
question in 1840 from the North American Anti-slavery Society
in respect of the treatment of slaves in the slave-holding states
of the North American Union: Slavery and the internal slave-trade
in the United States of North America, being replies to questions
transmitted by the British Anti-slavery Sociery to the American Anti-
slavery Society. London, 1841, 280 pp., price 4-S' in cloth. This
book constitutes one of the gravest indictments against human
nature. None will lay it aside without horror and few without
tears. For whatever its reader may have heard, imagined, or
dreamt about the unhappy state of the slaves or even human
harshness and cruelty in general, will seem to him of no account
when he reads how those devils in human form, those bigoted,
church-going, strict sabbath-observing scoundrels, especially
the Anglican parsons among them, treat their innocent black
brothers who through.. violence and injustice have fallen into
their devil's claws. This book, which consists of dry but
authentic and substantiated accounts, inflames to such a degree
all human feeling that, with it in our hands, we could preach a
crusade for the subjugation and punishment of the slave-
holding states of North America. For they are a disgrace to the
whole of humanity. Another example from our own times, for
to many the past no longer appears to be of any value, is
contained in Tschudi's Reisen in Peru, 1846, in the description of
the treatment of the Peruvian soldiers by their officers.* But we
need not look for examples in the New \Vorld, that reverse side
of the planet. It came to light in 1848 that, within a short space
of time, there had been in England not one case but a hundred
where a husband had poisoned a wife or a wife a husband, or
the two their children one after another, or they had slowly
tortured them to death through hunger and bad treatment.
This they had done merely to receive from the burial clubs the
funeral expenses that were guaranteed to them in case of death.
For this purpose, they registered a child simultaneously in
A most recent instance is found in Macleod's Travels in Eastern .1frica (2 vols.,
London, r86o), where there is an account of the shocking, coldly calculating, and
truly devilish cruelty with which the Portuguese treat their slaves in Mozambique.
ON ETHICS 213
several clubs, sometimes as many as twenty. The reader should
refer to The Times of 20, 22, and 23 September 1848, a paper
which, for this reason alone, presses for the abolition of burial
clubs. On I 2 December I 853 it most emphatically repeats the
same denunciation.
Reports of this kind, of course, belong to the blackest pages
in the criminal records of the human race; yet the source of this
and of everything like it is the inner and innate nature of man,
this God Kct:r leox-!Jv 12 of the pantheists. In the first place, there
is established in everyone a colossal egoism that leaps with the
greatest ease beyond the bounds of justice, as is taught by daily
life on a small scale and by every page of history on a large. Is
there not in the acknowledged necessity of the European balance
of power which is watched with such anxiety a confession that
man is a beast of prey who infallibly falls on a weaker neighbour
as soon as he has espied him? And do we not obtain daily
confirmation of this on a small scale? But allied to the boundless
egoism of our nature is also a store, to be found more or less in
every human breast, of hatred, anger, envy, rancour, and
malice. It is accumulated like the poison in a snake's fang and
merely awaits the opportunity to release itself and then to rave
and rage like an unleashed demon. If for this no great oppor-
tunity presents itself, it will in the end make use of the smallest
by magnifying it in the imagination,
Quantulacunque adeo est occasio, sufficit irae.u

J uvenal, Satires, xm. I 83.
and will then carry things as far as it can and dare. \Ve see this
in everyday life where such eruptions are known by the
expression 'to give vent to one's spleen over something'. More-
over, it will actually have been observed that the subject feels
decidedly better after them if only they have met with no
resistance. Even Aristotle says that anger is not without
pleasure: 7'0 opyl~EaOat ~Su (Rhetoric, I. I I' II. 2) 'l4 where he
adds a passage from Homer who declares anger to be sweeter
than honey. But we indulge really con amore not only in anger
u [' Par excellence'.]

13 ['An opportunity, however small, suffices to make us angry.']
14 ['To be angry is pleasant.']
ON ETHICS
but also in hatred that is related to it as chronic illness to
acute:
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure:
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
Byron, Don Juan, can. xm, st. 6.
Gobineau (Essai sur l'inigalit! des races humaines) called man
l' animal michant par excellence 1 s and people take this amiss because
they feel it is meant for them. But he is right, for man is the only
animal who causes pain to others with no other object than
wanting to do so. Other animals never do this except to satisfy
their hunger or in the heat of conflict. It is said of the tiger that
it kills more than it eats, it strangles everything merely with the
intention of eating it, and it is simply a case where ses yeux sont
plus grands que son estomac, 1 6 as the French express it. No animal
tortures merely for the sake of torturing, but man does and this
constitutes the devilish character that is far worse than the
merely animal. Vve have already spoken of the matter on a
large scale, but on the small, where everyone daily has an
opportunity of observing it, it becomes just as clear. For
example, two young dogs are playing with each other, a peace-
ful and pretty sight; and then a child of three or four appears on
the scene. Almost inevitably, it will at once violently beat with
its whip or stick, thereby showing that, even at that early age,
it is !'animal michant par excellence. Even teasing and practical
joking which are so frequent and purposeless spring from this
source. For example, if we have expressed our displeasure at
some disturbance or other minor annoyance, there will not be
wanting those who for that very reason will bring them about;
l' animal michant par excellence! This is so certain that we should
guard against expressing our annoyance at minor incon-
veniences; on the other hand, we should also beware of
expressing our satisfaction over some trifle. For in the latter
case, they will do what the gaoler did who, on discovering that
his prisoner had performed the difficult trick of taming a spider
and found pleasure in it, at once crushed it; l' animal m!chant par
excellence! Animals, therefore, instinctively fear the sight and
even a sign of man, that animal m!chant par excellence. Even here
1S ['A particularly malicious and spiteful animal'.]
16 ['Its eyes are larger than its stomach.']
ON ETHICS 215
instinct does not deceive, for man alone hunts animals that are
neither useful nor harmful to him. We have already spoken of
human wickedness on a large scale.
And so in the heart of everyone there actually resides a wild
beast which merely waits for the opportunity to rage and rave
and would like to injure and even destroy others, if they even
obstructed its path. It is precisely this that is the source of all
love of conflict and war; and it is just this that always gives
knowledge, its appointed custodian, so much to do in trying to
restrain and keep it somewhat in bounds. In any case, it may
be called the radical evil, which will be useful at any rate to
those for whom words take the place of an explanation. But I
say that it is the will-to-live which, more and more embittered
by the constant suffering of existence, seeks to lighten its own
pain and distress by inflicting them on others. In this way,
however, it gradually develops into real wickedness and cruelty.
We may here add the remark that, just as according to Kant
matter exists only through the antagonism of the forces of
expansion and contraction, so human society exists only through
that of hatred or anger and fear. For our spiteful nature would
possibly make everyone of us a murderer if it were not mixed
with a proper dose of fear in order to keep it within bounds; and
again this alone would make him an object of ridicule and the
plaything of every boy if anger did not already reside within
him and keep watch.
But the worst trait in human nature is always that malicious
joy at the misfortune of others, for it is closely akin to cruelty and
in fact really differs therefrom only as theory from practice. It
appears generally where sympathy should find a place, for this,
as its opposite, is the true source of all genuine righteousness and
loving kindness. In another sense, enl!J is opposed to sympathy,
in so far as it is called forth by the opposite occasion; and so its
opposition to sympathy is due primarily to the occasion and
only in consequence thereof does it appear in the feeling itself.
Therefore, although reprehensible, envy is nevertheless ex-
cusable and generally human, whereas that malicious joy is
devilish and its mockery the laughter of hell. It occurs, as I have
said, precisely where sympathy should occur; envy, on the
other hand, occurs only where there is no occasion for sympathy
but rather for the opposite thereof, and arises in the human
ON ETHICS
breast precisely as that opposite and consequently to this extent

as a human feeling. Indeed, I am afraid that no one will be
found entirely free from it. For it is natural, and in fact in-
evitable, for a man to feel more bitterly his own lack of pleasures
and possessions when he sees those of others; only this should
not excite his hatred for those who are more fortunate than he;
and yet envy in the real sense consists precisely in this. But it
should occur least of all where the gifts of nature are the
occasion and not those of fortune, chance, or other people's
favours. For everything inborn has a metaphysical basis and
thus a justification of a higher order and is, so to speak, by the
grace of God. Unfortunately, however, envy works in quite the
opposite way and is most implacable in the case of personal
merits and advantages.* Therefore intellect and even genius
must in the world first beg for forgiveness wherever they are not
in a position to venture proudly and boldly to despise the world.
Thus if envy ha~ been excited merely through wealth, rank, or
power, it is still often appeased by egoism; for the man with
feelings of egoism sees that, in certain cases, he can hope for
help, pleasure, assistance, protection, advancement, and so on
from the one who excites his envy, or that, at any rate by
associating with him and basking in the brilliance of his high
position, he may even enjoy honour. Moreover, there is still
always the hope of one day obtaining for himself all those good
things. On the other hand, with natural gifts and personal
qualities, such as beauty in women or intellect in men, the envy
directed against these derives no consolation of the one kind
and no hope of the other, so that there is nothing left for it but
A recent article of The Times furnished me with the most candid and vigorous
expression of the matter I have ever come across. It is worth preserving here:
'There is no vice of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no
unkindness, which excites so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends
and neighbours, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime which reason
cannot defend, nor humility mitigate.
"When heaven with such parts has blest him,
Have I not reason to detest him?"
is a genuine and natural expression of the vulgar human mind. The man who
writes as we cannot write, who speaks as we cannot speak, labours as we cannot
labour, thrives as we cannot thrive, has accumulated on his own person all the
offences of which man can be guilty. Down with him! Why cumbereth he the
ground?' The Times, g October 1858.
ON ETHICS 217
to hate bitterly and implacably those who are so favoured and

endowed. Therefore its sole desire is to take revenge on its
object. Here, however, it now finds itself in the unfortunate
position where all its blows prove to be powerless, as soon as one
sees that they have resulted from it. It therefore hides itself as
carefully as do the secret sins of lust and now becomes an in-
exhaustible inventor of tricks, dodges, and devices for masking
and concealing itself so that unseen it may wound its object.
For example, the excellent qualities that eat into its heart, will
be ignored by it with the most open and unaffected airs. It will
not see or recognize them at all; it will never have noticed or
heard of them; and it will thus produce a master of dissimula-
tion. With great subtlety it will completely overlook, as
apparently unimportant, the man whose brilliant qualities are
gnawing at its heart; it will be quite unaware of him and will
occasionally have completely forgotten him. Above all, it will
make every attempt by secret machinations carefully to deprive
those excellent qualities of every opportunity to appear and
make themselves known. From a dark corner it will then
dispatch over them censure, ridicule, contempt, and calumny,
like the toad which from its hole spits forth venom. To the same
extent, it will enthusiastically praise men of no account, or even
the mediocre and inferior work in the same class of achieve-
ments. In short, it becomes a Proteus of stratagems in order to
wound without showing itself. But what good will that do? The
practised eye still recognizes it. It is already betrayed by its fear
of and flight from its object which, the more brilliant this is, the
more it therefore stands alone. For this reason, pretty girls have
no friends of their own sex. Envy is betrayed by its groundless
hatred which explodes most violently on the slightest, and often
only imaginary, occasion. For the rest, however widespread its
family, we recognize it in the universal praise of modesty, that
cunning virtue which is invented for the benefit of trite vul-
garity. Yet through the very necessity it reveals of having to
treat inferior qualities with forbearance, such virtue merely
brings these to light. Of course for our self-esteem and pride,
there can be nothing more flattering than the sight of envy
lurking in its hiding-place and carrying on its machinations.
However, we should never forget that, where envy exists, it is
accompanied by hatred, and we should beware of letting an
218 ON ETHICS
envious man become a false friend. For this reason, our dis-
covery of such a man is for our safety important. \Ve should,
therefore, study him in order to be up to his tricks; for he is to
be found everywhere and always goes around incognito or else,
like the poisonous toad, lurks in dark holes. On the contrary, he
deserves neither consideration nor sympathy, but the rule of
conduct should be:
Envy wilt thou ne'er appease;
So mayst thou scorn it at thy ease.
Thy fame and fortune are its pain;
Thus may its torment be thy gain!
Now if, as we have done, we have kept in mind human
depravity and feel inclined to be horrified thereat, we must at
once cast a glance at the miset;_y of human existence, and again at
the former w-Ren we are shocked at the latter. We shall then find
that they balance each other and shall become aware of eternal
justice by noticing that the world itself is the tribunal of
humanity, and by coming to understand why everything that
lives must atone for its existence first in living and then in dying.
Thus the malum poenae 1 7 tallies with the malum culpae. 1 S From the
same point of view, there also disappears the indignation at the
intellectual incapacity of the masses which in life so often
disgusts us. Therefore miseria humana, nequitia humana, and
stultitia lzumana 19 are wholly in keeping with one another in this
Samsara of the Buddhists and are of equal magnitude. But if, on
a particular occasion, we keep one of them in mind and specially
examine it, it soon appears to exceed in size the other two; but
this is an illusion and is merely the result of their colossal range.
This is Samsara and everything therein denounces it; yet,
more than anything else, the human world where morally
depravity and baseness, intellectually incapacity and stupidity,
prevail to a fearful extent. Nevertheless, there appear in it,
although very sporadically yet always astonishing us afresh,
phenomena of honesty, kindness, and even nobility, as also of
great intellect, the thinking mind, and even genius. These never
go out entirely, but glitter at us like isolated points that shine
11 ['The evil of punishment'.]

18 ['The evil of guilt'.]
19 ['Human misery, human depravity, and human stupidity'.]
ON ETHICS 219
out of the great mass of darkness. We must take them as a pledge

that in this Samsara there lies hidden a good and redeeming
principle which can break through and inspire and release the
whole.
115
The readers of my Ethics know that with me the foundation
of morality rests ultimately on the truth that has its expression
in the Veda and Vedanta in the established mystical formula
tat tvam asi (This art thou) which is stated with reference to
every living thing, whether man or animal, and is then called
the Mahavakya or Great Word.
In fact, we can regard the actions that occur in accordance
with it, for example those of benevolence, as the beginning of
mysticism. Every good or kind action that is done with a pure
and genuine intention proclaims that, whoever practises it,
stands forth in absolute contradiction to the world of phenomena
in which other individuals exist entirely separate from himself,
and that he recognizes himself as being identical with them.
Accordingly, every entirely disinterested benefit is a mysterious
action, a m)'sterium: and so to give an account thereof, men have
had to resort to all kinds of fictions. After Kant had removed all
other props from theism, he left it only this one, namely that it
afforded the best interpretation and explanation of that and all
similar mysterious actions. Accordingly, he admitted theism as
an assumption which theoretically is incapable of proof, it is
true, but for practical purposes is valid. But I am inclined to
doubt whether here he was really quite in earnest. For to
support morality by means of theism is equivalent to reducing
it to egoism, although the English, like the lowest classes of
society with us, see absolutely no possibility of any other
foundation.
The above-mentioned recognition of one's own true nature in
the individuality of another who is o~jectively manifesting
himself, appears with special clearness and beauty in those cases
where a man, beyond all recovery and doomed, is still anxiously,
actively, and zealously concerned over the welfare and rescue
of others. In this connection is the well-known story of a maid-
servant who one night was bitten in the yard by a mad dog.
Giving herself up as past all help, she seized the dog, dragged it
220 ON ETHICS
into the stable, and locked the door so that no one else would
fall a victim. Also that incident in Naples which is immortalized
by Tischbein in one of his water-colour drawings. Fleeing
before the lava as it rapidly streams towards the sea, the son
carries on his back his old father; but as there is only a narrow
strip of land separating the two destructive elements, the father
requests his son to lay him down and save himself by running,
since otherwise both will perish. The son obeys and, as he
departs, casts a farewell glance at his father. All this is portrayed
-
in the picture. Then there is the historical fact, described in a
masterly way by Sir Walter Scott in his Heart of Midlothian,
chapter two. Of two delinquents condemned to death, one who,
through his lack of skill had been the cause of the other's
capture, successfully liberates him in church after the death-
sermon by vigorously overpowering the guard, and this without
making any attempt to save himself. Also in this connection may
be included a scene often depicted in copper-engravings,
although it may give offence to western readers. Here a soldier
is already kneeling to be shot and is driving back with a hand-
kerchief his dog who wants to approacl}. him. In all cases of this
kind, we see an individual, who is approaching with absolute
certainty his immediate personal destruction, think no more of
his own survival and direct all his efforts and exertions to the
preservation of another. How could there be more clearly
expressed the consciousness that this destruction is only that of a
phenomenon and so is itself phenomenon, and that, on the
other hand, the true essence of the one who is perishing is un-
touched by it, continues to exist in the other in whom he so
clearly recognizes just now that essence, as is revealed by his
action? For if this were not so and we had before us one in the
throes of actual annihilation, how could such a being, by the
supreme exertion of his last strength, show such a deep sympathy
and interest in the welfare and continued existence of another?
There are indeed two opposite ways in which we may
become conscious of our own, existence; first in empirical
intuitive perception where it manifests itself from without as an
existence that is infinitely small in a world that is boundless as
regards space and time; as one among the thousand millions of
human beings who run over the globe for a very short time,
renewing themselves every thirty years. The second way is
ON ETHICS 221
absorption in ourselves and becoming conscious of being all in

all and really the only actual being, such being in addition once
again seeing himself, as in a mirror, in the others who are given
to him from withoUt. Now the first method of knowledge
embraces merely the phenomenon which is mediated through
the principium individuationis; but the second is an immediate
awareness of oneself as the thing-in-itself. This is a doctrine
wherein I am supported by Kant as regards the first half, but
by the Veda as regards both. The simple objection to the second
mode of knowledge is certainly its assumption that one and the
same being can be in different places at the same time, and yet
entirely in each place. Now although from the empirical point
of view this is the most palpable impossibility and even an
absurdity, it nevertheless remains perfectly true of the thing-in-
itself. For that impossibility and absurdity rest merely on the
forms of the phenomenon which constitute the principium
individuationis. For the thing-in-itself, the will-to-live, exists
whole and undivided in every being, even in the tiniest; it is
present as completely as in all that ever were, are, and will be,
taken together. To this is due the fact that every being, even
the most insignificant, says to himself: dum ego salvus sim, pereat
mundus. 20 And in fact even if all others perished, the essence-in-
itself of the world would still exist unimpaired and undiminished
in this one being which remained and would laugh at that
destruction as at a sleight of hand. This is, of course, a con-
clusion per impossibile 21 which can with equal justification be
opposed by the one that, if any being even the smallest were
completely annihilated, then in it and with it the whole world
would have perished. In this sense, the mystic Angelus Silesius
says:
I know that God without me cannot for one moment live;
If I to nothing come, he of necessity must his spirit give.
But in order that this truth, or at any rate the possibility that
our own self can exist in other beings whose consciousness is
separate and distinct from ours, may to some extent be seen even
from the empirical standpoint, we need only call to mind
zo ('May the world perish provided I am safe.']

z1 ['Which, it is true, is impossible to carry out'.]
222 ON ETHICS
magnetized somnambulists. After they have woken up, their

identical ego knows nothing of all that they themselves have
said, done, and undergone the moment before. Thus individual
consciousness is so entirely phenomenal a point that even in the
same ego two such may arise, one of which knows nothing of
the other.
Considerations like the foregoing, however, always retain
here in our Judaized West something very strange, but not so in
the fatherland of the hwnan race, where quite a different faith
prevails. According to this, even today, after a burial for in-
stance, the priests chant before all the people and to the
accompaniment of instruments the Vedic hymn that begins:
'The embodied spirit that has a thousand heads, a thousand
eyes, a thousand feet, is rooted in the human breast and at the
same time permeates the whole earth. This being is the world
and all that ever was and will be. It is that which grows through
nourishment and confers immortality. This is its greatness and
therefore it is the most glorious embodied spirit. The elements
of this world constitute one part of its being, and three parts are
immortality in heaven. These three parts have raised themselves
from the world, but one has remained behind and is that which
(through transmigration) enjoys and does not enjoy the fruits of
good and evil deeds', and so on (see Colebrooke, On the Religious
Ceremonies of the Hindus, in the fifth volume of the Asiatic
Researches, p. 345 of the Calcutta edition; also his Miscellaneous
Essa__.vs, vol. i, p. 167).
Now if we compare such hymns with our hymn-books, we
shall no longer be surprised that Anglican missionaries on the
Ganges meet with such pathetically little success and with their
sermons on their 'maker' 22 make no impression on the
u 'Maker' often appears in compound words, such as 'watchmaker', 'shoe-

maker', and so on. Now 'our maker' (in French it would be 1Wirefaiseur) is in
English writings, sermons, and in ordinary life a very common and favourite
expression for 'God'. I ask the reader to note that this is extremely characteristic
of the English conception of religion. But the well-informed will readily imagine
what the feelings must be of the Brahman who is trained in the doctrine of the
sacred Veda and of the Vaisya emulating him, and indeed of the whole Indian
people who are imbued with the belief in metempsychosis and retribution and in
every event of their lives are reminded of these, when the attempt is made to force
suc.h notions on them. To pass from the eternal Brahm that exists, suffers, lives, and
hopes for salvation in each and all, ro that 'maker' out of nothing is an exacting
demand. They will never be persuaded that the world and man have been made
ON ETHICS 223
Brahmans. But whoever wishes to enjoy the pleasure of seeing

how an English officer forty-one years ago boldly and emphati-
cally opposed the absurd and shameless pretensions of those
gentlemen, should read the Vindication of the Hindoos from the
aspersions of the Reverend Claudius Buchanan, with a refutation of his
arguments in favour of an ecclesiastical establishment in British India :
the whole tending to evince the excellence of the moral system of the
Hindoos; by a Bengal officer, London, 1808. With rare frankness
and candour the author discusses the advantages of the Indian
doctrines over the European. The short work that would run to
about eighty pages would be worth translating even now; for it
expounds better and more openly than any other work known
to me the very beneficial and practical influence of Brahmanism,
its effect in life and on the people-a report quite different from
out of nothing. Therefore on page 15 of the book to be eulogized in the text, the
eminent author rightly says: 'The efforts of the missionaries will remain fruitless;
no Hindu worthy of respect will ever pay any attention to their exhortations.'
Similarly on page so, after discussing the fundamental teachings of Brahmanism,
he says: 'It is idle to expect that they will ever give up those views with which they
are imbued and in which they live, move, and have their being, in order to accept
the Christian teaching. Of this I am firmly convinced.' Also on page 68: 'And iffor
this purpose the whole Synod of the English Church were to apply itself, it would
not succeed unless by absolute compulsion in converting more than one in a
thousand of the great Indian population.' The accuracy of this prophecy is now
testified, forty-one years later, by a long letter in The Times of 6 November 1849
signed Civis, which clearly comes from a man who has for many years lived in
India. Among other things it says: 'Not a single instance has ever come to my
knowledge where in India a person of whom we might be proud had been con-
verted to Christianity. Not a single case did I know in which there had not been
one who proved to be a reproach to the faith he accepted and a warning to the one
he renounced. The proselytes who have hitherto been made, few as they are, have,
therefore, merely served to deter others from following their example.' After this
letter had been contradicted, there appeared in confirmation of it a second, signed
Sepahu, in The Times of 20 November, in which it said: 'I have served over twelve
years in the Madras Presidency and during that long period I never saw a single
individual who had been converted, even only nominally, from Hinduism or Islam
to the Protestant religion. Therefore to this extent, I entirely agree with Ciuis and
believe that almost all officers of the army will furnish similar evidence.' This letter
was also vigorously contradicted; but I believe that such contradiction, even if it
did not come from the missionaries, came at all events from their cousins; at any
rate they were very godly opponents. And so even if some things they mention are
not without foundation, I still give more credit to the above extracts of unbiased
witnesses. For in England I have more faith in the red coat than in the black; and
to me everything is eo ipso suspect which is there said in favour of the Church, that
wealthy and comfortable institution for the penniless younger sons of the entire
aristocracy.
224 ON ETHICS
those that emanate from clerical pens which, precisely as such,
deserve little credit. It agrees with what I had heard from
English officers who had spent half their lives in India. For to
know how jealous of, and angry with, Brahmanism is the
Anglican Church, which is always so nervous on account of its
livings and benefices, we ought to be familiar, for example, with
the loud yelping that was raised some years ago in Parliament
by the bishops, and was carried on for many months. Since the
East India authorities, as always on such occasions, showed
themselves exceedingly stubborn, the bishops began their
barking again and again merely because the English authorities,
as was reasonable in India, showed some external marks of
respect for the ancient and venerable religion of the country.
For example, when the procession with the images of the gods
passed by, the guard and its officer turned out and saluted with
drums. Then there was the furnishing of a red cloth to cover the
Car of Juggernaut, and so on. This was discontinued, as also
were the pilgrim-dues raised in this connection; and such steps
were really taken to please those gentlemen. Meanwhile, we
have the incessant fulminations of those self-styled right-
reverend holders oflivings and wearers of full-bottomed wigs at
such things; the really medieval way in which they express
themselves on the original religion of our race, but which today
should be called crude and vulgar; likewise the grave offence
given to them, when in 1845 Lord Ellenborough brought back
to Bengal in a triumphal procession and handed over to the
Brahmans the gate of the pagoda of Sumenaut which had been
destroyed in 1022 by that execrable Mahmud of Ghaznavi. I
say that all this leads one to surmise that to them it was not
unknown how much the majority of Europeans living many
years in India were at heart in favour of Brahmanism, and how
they simply shrugged their shoulders at both the religious and
social prejudices of Europe. 'All this falls off like scales, when-
ever one has lived only two years in India', such a man once
said to me. Even a Frenchman, that very courteous and
cultured gentleman, who some ten years ago in Europe accom-
panied the Devadassi (vulgo Bayaderes), at once exclaimed with
fiery enthusiasm, when I came to speak to him about the
religion of the country: Monsieur, c' est la vraie religion.' z3
z3 ['Sir, this is the true religion.']
ON ETHICS 225
If we go to the root of the matter, even the fantastic and

sometimes strange Indian mythology, still constituting today as
it did thousands of years ago the religion of the people, is only
the teaching of the Upanishads which is symbolized, in other
words, clad in images and thus personified and mythicized with
due regard to the people's powers of comprehension. According
to his powers and education, every Hindu traces, feels, surmises,
or clearly sees through it and behind it; whereas in his mono-
mania the crude and narrow-minded English parson ridicules
and blasphemes by calling it idolatry, fondly imagining that he
alone is on the right side of the fence. The purpose of the
Buddha Sakya Muni, on the other hand, was to separate the
kernel frotn the shell, to free the exalted teaching itself from all
admixture with images and gods, and to make its pure intrinsic
worth accessible and intelligible even to the people. In this he
was marvellously successful and his religion is, therefore, the
most excellent on earth and is represented by the greatest
num her of followers. With Sophocles he can say:
- - 8t:ois fJ-fll Kav o fJ-"f]OEI' c.lJII op..ou

I I t t \ ~\ \ ~~
KpetTOS KCtTCtKT"f]UCtLT EYW OE Kat oLxa
Kfivwv r.lTTodJa TOUT' lmar.aanv K>..los-. 2 4
Ajax, 767-9
On the other hand, incidentally it is extremely droll to see

the cool smile of self-complacency with which some servile
German philosophasters and also many precise and literal
orientalists look down on Brahmanism and Buddhism from the
heights of their rationalistic Judaism. To such little men I would
really like to suggest a contract with the comedy of apes at the
Frankfurt Fair, that is, if the descendants of Hanuman would
tolerate these amongst them.
I think that if the Emperor of China or the King of Siam and
other Asiatic monarchs grant European powers permission to
send missionaries to their countries, they would be perfectly
entitled to do so only on condition that they were allowed to
send just as many Buddhist priests with equal rights to the
European country in question. For this purpose they would
:w ('Even the man who is nothing is capable of gaining strength when in alliance
with the gods; but I ventw-e to gain this glory even without them.']
ON ETHICS
naturally select those who had previous instruction in the
particular European language. We should then have before us
an interesting competition and see who would have most
success.
Christian fanaticism which tries to convert the whole world
to its faith is inexcusable. Sir James Brooke (Rajah of Borneo)
who colonized part of Borneo and ruled there for a time, gave
an address at Liverpool in September 1858 to a meeting of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and thus to the centre
of the missions. In it he said: 'vVith the I\tfohammedans you
have made no headway and with the Hindus you have made no
progress at all, but are still at the very point where you were on
the first day ~vhen you set foot in India.' (The Times, 29
September 1858.) On the other hand, Christian evangelists have
proved to be very useful and praiseworthy in another direction,
in that some have furnished us with admirable and complete
accounts of Brahmanism and Buddhism and with faithful and
accurate translations of sacred books, which could not possibly
have been done except con amore. To these distinguished men I
dedicate the following rhyme:
As teachers you went thither;
As pupils you came hither,
From the meaning veiled, unseen
Off fell the secret screen.
We may therefore hope that one day even Europe will be

purified of all jewish mythology. Perhaps the century has come
in which the peoples ofthejaphetic group oflanguages coming
from Asia will again receive the sacred religions of tluir native
country; for they have again become ripe for these after having
long gone astray.
116
After reading my prize-essay on moral freedom, no thinking
man can be left in any doubt that such freedom is not to be
sought anywhere within nature, but only without. It is some-
thing metaphysical, but in the physical world something that is
impossible. Accordingly, our individual deeds are by no means
free; on the other hand, the individual character of each one of
ON ETHICS 227
us is to be regarded as his free act. He himself is such because he

wills once for all to be such. For the will exists in itself, even in so
far as it appears in an individual. Thus it constitutes the
individual's primary and fundamental willing and is inde-
pendent of all knowledge because it precedes this. From
knowledge it obtains merely the motives wherein it successively
develops its true nature and makes itself known or becomes
visible. As that which lies outside time, however, it itself is
unchangeable so long as it exists at all. Therefore everyone as
such who exists now and under the circumstances of the
moment, which, however, on their part occur with strict
necessity, can ~!ever do anything other than what he is actually
doing at that very moment. Accordingly, the entire empirical
course of a man's life in all its events great and small is as
necessarily predetermined as are the movements of a clock. At
bottom, this results from the fact that the manner in which the
aforesaid metaphysical free act enters the knowing conscious-
ness is an intuitive perception. Such perception has time and
space as its form by means whereof the unity and indivisibility
of that act now manifest themselves as drawn apart into a series
of states and events that occur on the guiding line of the
principle of sufficient reason (or ground) in its four aspects; and
it is precisely this that is called necessary. But the result is a moral
one, in that we know what we are from what we do, just as we
know what we deserve from what we suffer.
Moreover, it follows from this that individuality does not rest
solely on the principium individuationis and so is not through and
through mere phenomenon, but that it is rooted in the thing-in-
itself, the will of the individual; for his character itself is indi-
vidual. But how far down its roots here go, is one of those
questions which I do not undertake to answer.
In this connection, it is worth recalling that in his own way
even Plato describes the individuality of each man as his free
act, since he represents each as being born in consequence of
his heart and character, just as he is by means of metem-
psychosis. (Phaedrus, c. 28. Laws, bk. x, p. 106, ed. Bip.) Even the
Brahmans on their part mythically express the unchangeable
certainty of the inborn character by saying that, when pro-
ducing each man, Brahma engraved on his skull his deeds and
sufferings in written characters according to which the course
ON ETHICS
of his life was bound to follow. They point to the serrated
sutures of the skull-bones as this writing. They say that the
meaning and purport of this are a consequence of his previous
life and actions. (See Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, I 8 I 9 edn., vol. vi,
p. 149, et vol. vii, p. I 35) This same insight appears to underlie
the Christian (even Pauline) dogma of predestination.
Another consequence of the above, which is generally con-
firmed empirically, is that all genuine merits, moral as well as
intellectual, have not merely a physical or otherwise empirical
origin, but also a metaphysical. Accordingly, they are given
a priori and not a posteriori; in other words, they are inborn and
not acquired and consequently are rooted not in the mere
phenomenon, but in the thing-in-itself. Therefore at bottdrn,
everyone does only what is already irrevocably fixed in his
nature, that is to say, in his innate disposition. It is true that
intellectual abilities require cultivation just as many products
of nature need preparation if they are to be enjoyable or other-
wise useful. But in the one case as in the other, no preparation
or cultivation can replace the originaltnaterial. For this reason,
all qualities which have been merely acquired, learnt, or forced
and hence are a posteriori, moral as well as intellectual, arc really
ungenuine and a vain hollow sham without substance. Just as
this follows from correct metaphysics, so too is it taught by a
deeper insight into experience. It is even testified by the great
weight that all attach to physiognomy, and to the external
appearance of everyone who is in any way distinguished and
thus to his innate qualities, and therefore by their great desire
to see him. Naturally those who are superficial and, for good
reasons, vulgar natures will be of the opposite opinion in order
to be able, in the case of everything they lack, confidently to
hope that it will still come to them. This world, then, is not
merely a battle-ground for whose victories and defeats prizes
are distributed in the next, but it is itself already the last judge-
ment in that each brings with him reward and ignominy
according to his merits; and by teaching metempsychosis,
Brahmanism and Buddhism know nothing different from this.
II7
The question has been asked what two men would do each
of whom had grown up quite alone in the wilderness and who
ON ETHICS 229
met each other for the first time. Hobbes, Pufendorf, and
Rousseau have given opposite answers. Pufendorf believed they
would affectionately greet each other; Hobbes, on the other
hand, thought they would be hostile, whilst Rousseau considered
that they would pass each other by in silence. All three are both
right and wrong; for precisely here the immeasurable difference of
the inborn moral disposition of individuals would appear in so clear
a light that we should have, as it were, its rule and measrne.
For there are those in whom the sight of a man at once stirs
feelings of hostility in that their innermost being exclaims
'not-I '. And there are others in whom that sight at once rouses
feelings of friendly interest and sympathy; their true nature
exclaims 'I ~once more!' There are innumerable degrees
between the two. That we are so fundamentally different in this
main point is, however, a great problem and indeed a mystery.
A book, Historische Nachrichten zur Kenrztniss des Menschen im roherz
Zustande, by a Dane named Bastholm furnishes material for
many different observations on this a priori nature of our moral
character. He is struck by the fact that the mental culture and
moral goodness of nations exhibit themselves as quite inde-
pendent of each other, in that the one is often to be found
without the other. We shall explain this from the fact that moral
goodness does no.t by any means spring from reflection whose
development depends on mental culture, but directly from the
will itself, whose nature and disposition are inborn and which
is in itself incapable of any improvement through culture.
Bastholm then describes most nations as very depraved and bad;
on the other hand, he has to report the most admirable general
characteristics of certain savage tribes, for example the
Orotchyses, the inhabitants of the island of Savu, the Tunguses,
and the Pelew Islanders. He then attempts to solve the problem
why it is that some tribes are exceptionally good, while their
neighbours are bad. It seems that it may be explained from the
fact that, as the moral qualities are inherited from the father,
such an isolated tribe in the above cases came from one family
and consequently from the same ancestor who was precisely a
good man, and that it kept itself pure. On many embarrassing
occasions, such as the repudiation of state debts, raids, predatory
incursions, and so on, the English have reminded the North
Americans that they are descended from an English criminal
230 ON ETHICS
colony; although this can be true of only a small number of

them.
I I8
It is wonderful how the individuality of every man (that is, this
definite character with this definite intellect) exactly deter-
mines, like a penetrating dye, all his actions and thoughts down
to the most insignificant, in consequence whereof one man"'s
whole course of life, in other words, his inner and outer record,
turns out to be so fundamentally different from that of another's.
Just as a botanist recognizes the whole plant from one leaf and
Cuvier constructed the enti're animal from one bone, so from
one characteristic action of a man we can arrive at a cotrect
knowledge of his character. And so to some extent, we can
construct him therefrom even when that action concerns a mere
trifle, in fact then often best of all; for in tuore important things
men are more careful, whereas with trifles they follow their own
nature without much thought. If in such things a man shows by
his absolutely arbitrary and egoistic conduct that just and
righteous feelings are foreign to his heart, we should not entrust
a single penny to him without proper security. For who will
believe that a man who in all other matters that are not con-
cerned with property daily shows himself to be unjust, and
whose boundless egoism everywhere peeps out from the little
actions of ordinary life, for which he is not called to account,
like a dirty shirt peeping through the holes of a tattered jacket-
who will believe that such a man will be honourable in the
affairs of mine and thine without any other impulse than that
of justice? Whoever is inconsiderate on a small scale will be
iniquitous on a large. Whoever ignores small traits of character
has only himself to thank if afterwards, to his own detriment, he
gets to know the character in question from its more important
traits. On the same principle, we should also break at once with
so-called good friends, even over trifles, if they betray a
malicious, bad, or mean character; this we should do to guard
against their mean tricks on a large scale which merely await
the opportunity to make their appearance. The same holds good
of servants; we should always hear in mind that it is bet~er to
be alone than among traitors.
ON ETHICS
Actually the foundation and propaedeutic to all knowledge of
men is the firm belief that a man's conduct essentially and on
the whole is not guided by his reasoning faculty and the resolu-
tions thereof. Thus no one becomes this or that person because
he would like to, however keen his desire may be, but his
actions proceed from his inborn and unalterable character, are
more closely and specially determined by motives, and are
consequently the necessary product of these two factors.
Accordingly, we may liken a man's conduct to the course of a
planet which is the result of the tangential force given to it and
of the centripetal force acting from its sun. The former force
represents the character, the latter the influence of motives. This
is almost more than a mere comparison in so far as the tangential
force whence the motion really comes, while limited by gravita-
tion, is, taken metaphysically, the will that manifests itself in
such a body.
Now whoever has understood this will see also that we never
really have more than a conjecture of what we shall do in any
future situation, although we often regard this as a decision.
For example, in consequence of a proposal, a man has most
sincerely and even very willingly incurred the liability to do
something on the occasion of circurnstances that still lie in the
future. But it is by no means certain that he will fulfil the
obligation, unless his nature were such that his given promise,
itself and as such, would always and everywhere be for him a
sufficient motive, in that, through his regard for his honour, it
acted on him like the compulsion of someone else. But apart
from this, what he will do on the occurrence of those circum-
stances may be predetermined simply yet with perfect c.lrtainty
from a correct and precise knowledge of his character and the
external circumstances under whose influence he then comes.
This is, of course, very easy if we have already seen him in a
similar situation; for he will infallibly do the same thing a
second time, naturally always on the assumption that on the
first occasion he had already correctly and completely known
the circumstances. For, as I have often observed, causafmalis non
movet secundum suum esse reale, sed secundum esse cognitum. 2 s (Suarez,
Disputationes metaphysicae, Disp. xxiii, sect. 7 and 8.) Thus what
.1s 'The final cause operates not according to its real being, but only according
to its being as that known.']
232 ON ETHICS
he had not known or understood the first time could not then
affect his will; just as an electrical process stops when some
insulating body impedes the action of a conductor. The un-
changeable nature of character and the necessity of actions
which results therefrom arc impressed with unusual clearness on
the man who on some occasion did not behave as he should have,
in that he lacked decision, firmness, courage, or other qualities
that the moment demanded. Afterwards he recognizes and
sincerely regrets his wrong course of action and perhaps~ says to
himself: 'Yes, if I were asked to do that again, I would act
differently!' He is again asked, and the same thing happens;
and again he acts just as he did previously-to his great
astonishment.* '
Shakespeare's dramas as a ~ule afford us the best illustration
of the truth in question; for he was thoroughly imbued with it
and his intuitive wisdom expresses it in concreto on every page.
Nevertheless, I will now give an example of this wherein he
brings it out with special clearness, yet without intention and
affectation, for, as a genuine artist, he never starts from concepts.
On the contrary, he obviously does this merely to satisfy
psychological truth as he apprehends it immediately and
intuitively; for he was unconcerned whether it wouid be
noticed and properly understood by the few, and had no inkling
that one day in Germany stupid and shallow fellows would
elaborately explain that he had written his plays in order to
illustrate moral commonplaces and platitudes. Here I have in
mind the character of the Earl of Northumberland, which we
see carried through three tragedies without his really appearing
in a principal part. On the contrary, he appears in only a few
scenes that are distributed over fifteen acts; and so, if we do not
read with all our attention, we may easily lose sight of the
character that is depicted in such widely separated passages and
of its moral identity, however firmly the poet kept these in view.
Everywhere he makes this Earl appear with noble knightly
dignity and use appropriate language, and on occasions has put
into his mouth very fine and even sublime passages. For he is
far from doing what Schiller docs, who likes to paint the devil
black and whose moral approval or disapproval of the charac-
Cf. World as Will and Represmlation, vol. ii, chap. 19.

ON ETHICS 233
ters portrayed sounds through their own words. With Shake-
speare and also with Goethe, on the other hand, everyone is,
while he is present and speaks, perfectly right even if he were
the devil himself. In this respect, let us compare the Duke of Alva
in Goethe's work and in Schiller's. And so we already make the
acquaintance of the Earl of Northumberland in Richard JI
where he is the first to hatch a plot against the King in favour
of Bolingbroke who is afterwards Henry IV and whom he
persomilly flatters (Act n, Sc. 3). In the following act he is
reprimanded for having said plain Richard when speaking of
the King, yet he gives the assurance that he did so merely for
the sake of brevity. Shortly afterwards, his subtle and insidious
speech moves the King to capitulate. In the following act he
treats the King during his abdication with such harshness and
contempt that the unhappy and broken monarch once more
loses his patience and exclaims: 'Fiend, thou torment'st me ere
I come to hell!' At the conclusion he reports to the new King
that he has sent to London the decapitated heads of the
adherents of the previous monarch. In the following tragedy,
Henry IV, in just the same way he hatches a plot against the new
King. In the fourth act, we see these rebels united and preparing
for the great battle on the following day and impatiently
waiting only for him and his battalions. Finally, a letter comes
from him stating that he himself is sick, but that he cannot trust
his forces to anyone else; however, they are to continue
courageously and advance bravely to the attack. They do so,
but are considerably weakened by his failure to appear; they
are completely beaten and most of their leaders are captured,
his own son, the heroic Hotspur, falling by the hand of the
Prince of Wales. Again, in the following play, the second part
of Henry IV, we see him furiously angry about the death of his
son and wildly breathing revenge. He therefore stirs up the
rebellion afresh and its leaders are once more assembled. Now
as in the fourth act they have to fight the main battle and merely
await his arrival to join them, a letter comes. In it he states that
he has been unable to collect adequate forces and that for the
present he will seek safety in Scotland; nevertheless he heartily
wishes them great success in their heroic venture. Whereupon
they surrendered to the King under an agreement that was not
kept, and thus they perished.
ON ETHICS
Therefore far from the character being the work of rational
choice and deliberation, the intellect in the case of conduct has
nothing to do except to present motives to the will. But then, as
a mere spectator and witness, such intellect is bound to see how,
from the effect of the motives on the given character, the course
of life shapes itself all of whose events, strictly speaking, occur
with the same necessity as that with which the movements of a
clock take place. On this point I refer to my prize-essay 'On the
Freedt>m of the \Vill '. The illusion of a complete freedom of the
will, which nevertheless occurs here in the case of every single
action, has in that essay been reduced by me to its true signifi-
cance and origin. In this way, I have stated its efficient cause
to which I will here add only the final in the following teleo-
logical explanation '(i)f that natural illusion. Freedom and
originality that really belong only to a man's intelligible
character (whose mere apprehension by the intellect is his
course of life) appear to be inherent in every individual action;
and thus for empirical consciousness the original work is
apparently carried out afresh in every particular action. In this
way, our course of life obtains the greatest possible moral
vovfN.T'YJO'ts, 26 since all the bad sides of our character thus really
make themselves felt; and so conscience accompanies every
deed with the commentary that 'you could act differently',
although its true meaning is: 'You could also be a different
person.' Now, on the one hand, through the unalterable nature
of character and, on the other, through the strict necessity with
which all the circumstances occur in which everyone is suc-
cessively placed, his course of life is precisely determined from
A to Z. And yet the course of one man's life turns out to be
incomparably happier, nobler, and worthier than another's in
all its modifications both subjective and objective. If, therefore,
we are not to eliminate all justice, this leads to the assumption
which is firmly established in Brahmanism and Buddhism that
the subjective conditions with which everyone is born, as well
as the objective conditions under which he is born, are the
moral consequence of a previous existence.
Machiavelli, who certainly does not appear to have concerned
himself with philosophical speculations, is by virtue of the
:.~6 ['Guidance, warning, advice.']

ON ETHICS 235
penetrating keenness of his unique intellect led to the follo\ving
really profound utterance. It presupposes an intuitive know-
ledge of the entire necessity with which, in the case of given
characters and motives, all actions take place. With it he begins
the prologue to his comedy Clitia: Se nel mondo tornassino i medesimi
uomini, come tornano i medesimi casi, non passarebbono mai cento anni,
che noi non ci trovassimo un altra volta insieme, a fare le medesime cose,
che hora. (If in the world the same men returned just as the same
cases recur, a hundred years would never pass without our being
together once more, doing again exactly the same thing as we
are doing now.) However, a reminiscence of what Augustine
says, De civitate dei, lib. xu, c. I 3, seems to have led him to this.
The fatum, Etp..app..iVYJ, of the ancients is nothing but the
certainty which has reached our consciousness that everything
that takes place is firmly bound by the causal chain and there-
fore .happens with strict necessity; and accordingly that the
future is already perfectly fixed, that it is determined certainly
and exactly, and that as little can be changed in it as in the past.
Only the foreknowledge of it can be regarded as fabulous in the
fatalistic myths of the ancients-if here we eliminate the
possibility of magnetic clairvoyance and second sight. Instead
of trying to set aside the fundamental truth of fatalism by
frivolous talk and silly subterfuges, we should attempt clearly
to understand it and recognize it; for it is a demonstrable truth
that furnishes us with an important datum for understanding
our very mysterious and enigmatical existence.
Predestination and fatalism are different not in substance, but
only in the fact that the given character and the determination
of human actions which comes from without proceed from a
being with knowledge in the case of the former, and from one
without knowledge in the case of the latter. In the result they
coincide; that happens which must happen. On the other hand,
the concept of a moral freedom is inseparable fron1 that of
primordial originality. For that a being is the work of another but
is nevertheless free as regards his willing and acting, is some-
thing that may be said in words but cannot be conceived in
thought. Thus whoever called him into existence out of nothing
at the same time created and determined his true nature, that
is to say, all his attributes and qualities. For no one can ever
create without creating something, that is, a being that is
ON ETHICS
precisely determined in every way and in all its attributes. But
from those qualities that are thereby determined, all its mani-
festations and actions subsequently flow with necessity, since
these are only the qualities and attributes themselves which are
brought into play and merely required the occasion or induce-
ment from without in order to make their appearance. As a man
is, so must he act; and hence guilt and merit attach not to his
individual acts, but to his true nature and being. And so theism
and man's moral responsibility ci:re incompatible because such
responsibility always comes home to a man's author and
originator who is really the centre of gravity of that responsi-
bility. Vain attempts have been made to bridge those two
incompatibilities by means of the concept of man's moral
freedom; but the bridge is for ever collapsing. The free being
must also be the original. If our will is free, so too is the primary
andfundamental nature; and conversely. The pre-Kantian dogma-
tism that tried to keep these two predicaments apart was in
precisely this way forced to assume two freedoms, that of the
first world-cause for cosmology and that of the human wiB for
morality and theology. Accordingly, even with Kant, both the
third and fourth antinomies deal withfreedom.
In my philosophy, on the other hand, the plain and simple
recognition of the strict necessitation of actions is in keeping
with the doctrine that the will is that which manifests itself even
in beings without knowledge. Otherwise the obvious necessita-
tion with their action would place this in opposition to willing,
namely if there really were such a freedom of individual action
and this were not rather necessitated just as strictly as is every
other action. On the other hand, as I have just shown, the same
doctrine of the necessitation of the acts of will renders it necessary
for man's existence and essence themselves to be the work of his
freedom and consequently of his will and so for this will to have
aseity. 2 7 Thus, as I have shown, on the opposite assumption all
responsibility would disappear and the moral world, like the
physical, would be a mere machine which its outside constructor
set in motion for ills own amusement. Thus truths are all con-
nected to one another, need and supplement one another,
whereas error stumbles and blunders at every corner.
27(Being by and of itself. All other beings are ab alia, dependent in their existence
on a creator (God).]
ON ETHICS 237
II9
In 20 of my essay' On the Basis of Ethics', I have adequately
investigated the nature of the influence that moral instruction can
have on conduct and what are its limits. Essentially analogous
to this, is the influence of example which, however, is more
powerful than that of precept and thus merits a brief analysis.
Example acts primarily by preventing or promoting; it has
the former effect when it induces a man to leave undone what
he would like to do. Thus he sees that others do not do it, from
which he infers generally that it is not advisable and hence that
it is bound to bring danger to his own person, property, or
honour. He sticks to this and gladly sees himself spared the
necessity of having to make his own investigations. Or he sees
that someone else who has done it suffers from the evil conse-
quences thereof; this is the example acting as a deterrent. On
the other hand, example has an encouraging effect in two
different ways. Thus its effect may be to induce a man to do
what he would like to leave undone and yet to be careful to
show him that omission to do it may land him in danger or
injure him in the opinion of others. Again, the effect of example
may be to encourage him to do what he likes doing, but what
he has hitherto omitted to do from fear of danger or disgrace;
this is the alluring or tempting example. Finally, exan1ple may
also bring to a man's notice sotnething that would otherwise
not have occurred to him at all. In this case, its effect is
obviously in the first instance only on the intellect; here the
effect on the will is secondary and, when it occurs, will be
brought about by an original act ofjudgement, or by confidence
in the man who sets the example. The entire very powerful
effect of example is due to the fact that man, as a rule, has too
little power of judgement and often too little knowledge to
explore his own way himself; and so he willingly follows in the
footsteps of others. Accordingly, everyone will be the more open
to the influence of example, the more he lacks those two qualifi-
cations; and so the guiding star of the n1ajority is the example
of others, and their whole conduct, in great affairs as in small,
is reducible to mere imitation; they do not carry out the smallest
thing on their own judgement. The cause of this is their dread
of any kind of thought or reflection, and their well-grounded
ON ETHICS
want of confidence in their own judgement. At the same time

this surprisingly strong imitative tendency in man is also
evidence of his kinship with the ape. Imitation and habit are
impelling motives of most of the actions of men. The way in
which the example acts, however, is determined by the character
of each; thus the same example can have a tempting effect on
one man and a deterrent effect on another. We are readily
afforded an opportunity of observing this by certain social
improprieties which have gradually taken root and formerly
did not exist. When such a thing is first noticed, one man will
think: 'Ah, hmv can that be allowed? How egoistic, how
inconsiderate; I will certainly take care never to do anything
like that'; but twenty others will think: 'Ah, he does this, so
can I!'
From a moral point of view, example like precept can cer-
tainly promote civil OFlegal improvement, but not an inner
change for the better which is the really moral. For it always
acts only as a personal motive and consequently on the assump-
tion of susceptibility to motives of this kind. But it is precisely
whether a character is predominantly susceptible to this or that
kind of motive which decides in favour of its proper, true, and
yet always only innate morality. Example generally acts as a
means for promoting the appearance of good and bad charac-
teristics; but it does not create them. And so even here Seneca's
words hold good: velle non discitur.zs The doctrine that all
genuine moral qualities, good as well as bad, are innate is better
suited to the metempsychosis of Brahmanism and Buddhism
than to judaism. According to metempsychosis 'man's good and
evil deeds follow him, like his shadow, from one existence to
another'; whereas Judaism requires that man should come into
the world as a moral zero in order to decide now, by virtue of
an inconceivable liberum arbitrium indi.fferentiae 2 9 and thus in
consequence of rational reflection, whether he wants to be an
angel or a devil, or anything else that lies between the two. All
this I know quite well, but I pay not the least attention to it;
for my standard is truth. I am no professor of philosophy and,
therefore, do not recognize my vocation to consist in placing on
:zs ['Willing cannot be taught.' (Epistulae, 81. q .. )]
29 [The freedom of indifference; the ability of the will to choose independently of
antec.erlent determination.]
ON ETHICS 239
a firm footing, first and foremost, the fundamental ideas of
Judaism, even if these should for ever bar the way to all philo-
sophical knowledge. Liberum arbitrium indifferentiae under the
name of 'moral freedom' is the most favourite plaything of
professors of philosophy which must be left to them-to the
clever, the honest, and the sincere.
\
CHAPTER IX
On Jurisprudence and Politics
120
It is a characteristic fault of the Germans to look in the clouds
for that which lies at their feet. An outstanding example of thiit
is furnished by the way in which the professors of philosophy
deal with the Law of Nature. In order to explain the simple
relations of human life which constitute the material and
substance of this, and hence right and wrong, possession, State,
criminal law, and so on, the most extravagant, abstract, and
consequently the vaguest and emptiest concepts are produced,
and from them first one tower of Babel and then another are
built into the clouds according to the special whim of the
particular professor. In this way, the clearest and simplest
relations of life that directly concern us are rendered un-
intelligible, to the great detriment of the young men who are
educated in such a school. These things themselves are extremely
simple and easy to understand, and of this the reader may
convince himself from my discussion of them in the 'Basis of
Ethics', r 7, and in my chief work, The World as Will and
Representation, volume i, 62. But with certain words, such as
right, freedom, the good, to be (this meaningless infinitive of
the copula), and others, the German becomes quite giddy, falls
at once into a kind of delirium, and begins to ~ndulge in futile,
high-flown phrases. He takes the vaguest and thus the hollowest
concepts and artificially strings them together. Instead of this,
he should keep his eye on reality, and intuitively perceive things
and relations as they really are from which those concepts are
abstracted and which, therefore, constitute their only true
substance.
121
Whoever starts from the preconceived opinion that the
concept of right must be positive and now undertakes to define it,
will not make anything of it; for he is trying to grasp a shadow,
ON JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICS 241
pursues a ghost, and looks for a nonens. The concept of right, like
that of freedom, is negative; its content is a mere negation. The
concept of wrong is positive and is equivalent to injury in the
widest sense and hence to laesio. Now such an injury can affect
either one's person, property, or honour. Accordingly, human
rights are easy to determine; everyone has the right to do that
which injures no one.
To have a right or claim to something means simply to be
able to do it, take it, or use it without thereby injuring anyone
else. Simplex sigillum veri. 1 It is clear from this how meaningless
are many questions, for example whether we have the right to
take our own life. But as regards the claims that others may
have on us personally, these rest on the condition of our being
alive and fall to the ground when that condition no longer
applies. It is an extravagant demand that a man who no longer
cares to live for himself, should still go on living as a mere
ma<::hine for the benefit of others.
122
Although the powers of men are different, their rights are
nevertheless equal since these rest not on powers, but, because
of the moral nature of right, on the fact that the same will-to-
live at a similar stage of its objectification manifests itself in
everyone. This, however, holds good only of original and
abstract right which a man has as a human being. The
possessions and honour that everyone acquires through his own
powers are regulated by the amount and nature thereof, and
then endow his right with a wider sphere; and so equality here
comes to an end. The man who is better equipped or more
'active in this respect increases by greater industry not his right,
but only the number of things to which it extends.
123
In my chief work (vol. ii, chap. 47), I have shown that the
State is essentially a mere institution for protecting all from
external attacks and individuals from attacks within its borders.
It follows from this that the necessity of the State rests ulti-
mately on the acknowledged injustice and urifairness of the human
race. In the absence of injustice, no one would think of a State,
1 ['Simplicity is the seal of truth.']
--
"4'~ ON JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICS
for none would need to fear any encroachment of his rights and
a mere union against the attacks of wild animals or the elements
would bear only a feeble resemblance to the State. From this
point of view, we clearly see the narrow-mindedness and
shallowness of the philosophasters who in pompous phrases
represent the State as the highest purpose and the flower of
human existence and thus furnish an apotheosis of Philistinism.
124
Ifjustice prevailed in the world, iCwould be enough for a man
to have built his house, and there would be no need for any
other protection than this obvious right of property. But since
wrong is the order of the day, it is necessary for the man who has
built a house to be also in a position to protect it; otherwise his
right is de facto incomplete. Thus the aggressor has the right of
might which is precisely Spinoza's concept of right, for he
acknowledges no other, but says: Unusquisque tantum juris habet,
quantum potentia valet (Political Treatise, chap. 2, 8) and
uniuscujusque jus potentia ejus de.finitur 2 (Ethics, IV, prop. 3 i,
schol. 1). Hobbes appears to have introduced him to this
concept of right, especially in De cive, chap. I, 14. To this
passage Hobbes adds the strange explanation that God's right
to all things rests merely on his omnipotence. Now in the
ordinary world of citizens, this concept of right has been
abolished in theory as well as in practice; but in the political
world it is abolished only in theory, yet it continues to apply in
practice.* This was strikingly confirmed recently by the North
*\Ve see just now in China the consequences of neglecting this rule, namely,
rebels from within and Europeans from without, and the great.est kingdom in the
world is unarmed and defencele&'> and must pay the penalty for having cultivated
only the arts of peace and not also those of war. Between the operations of creative
nature and those of man there is a characteristic analogy which is not accidental,
but depends on the identity of the will in both. After the animals that live on plants
had made their appearance in the whole of animal nature, there appeared in each
animal class the beasts of prey, necessarily last of all, for the purpose of living on
those others. Now in the same way, after men have won from the soil honestly and
by the sweat of their brows what is necessary for the sustenance of a nation, there
always appear some who, instead of cultivating the soil and living on its produce,
prefer to take their lives in their hands and gamble with their health and freedom
in order to set upon those who are in possession of property honestly acquired and
to appropriate the fruits of their labour. These beasts of prey of the human race are
z['Each has as much right as he has power ... everyone's right is determined by
the power he has.']
American raid on Mexico, although such confirmation was far
surpassed by the earlier raids of the French all over Europe
under their leader Bonaparte. But instead of covering up their
actions by means of public and official lies that are perhaps even
more revolting than the actions themselves, such conquerors
should boldly and freely refer to Machiavelli's doctrine. From
this it may be gathered that between individuals and in the
morality and jurisprudence for these the principle quod tibi fieri
non vis, alteri ne feceris J certainly holds good, but that between
nations and in politics the reverse applies, namely quod tibi fieri
non vis, id alteri tufeceris. 4 If you do not want to be subjugated,
subjugate your neighbour in time, that is to say, as soon as his
weakness offers you the opportunity. For if you let this pass, it
will one day show itself as a deserter in the other man's camp
and he will then subjugate you, although the present sin of
omission will be paid for not by the generation that committed
it, but by the next. This Machiavellian principle is always a
much more decent cloak for the lust of booty than are the
wholly transparent tatters of the most palpable lies in presiden-
tial speeches and even of those that remind one of the well-
known story of the rabbit that is said to have attacked the dog.
At bottom, every state regards another as a gang of robbers who
will fall upon it as soon as there is an opportunity.
125
Between serfdom, as found in Russia, and landed property in
England and generally between the serf and the farmer, tenant,
mortgager, and the like, the difference is to be found more in
the form than in the matter. Whether the peasant belongs to
me or the land from which he must earn his living; whether the
bird is mine or its food, the fruit or the tree, is essentially a
the conquering nations whom we see appear everywhere, from the most ancient
times to the most modern, with varying fortune. For their successes and failures
generally furnish us with the material of the history of the world. Voltaire is, there-
fore, quite right when he says: Dans toutes us grurres il nt s'agit que tk vokr. ['In all
wars it is only a question of stealing.'] That they are ashamed of the whole business
is clear from the fact that every government loudly asserts its unwillingness to resort
to arms except for the purpose of self-defence.
J ['Do not to another what you do not wish should be done to you.']
.. ['Do to another what you do not wish should be done to you.']
244 ON JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICS
matter of indifference, for, as Shakespeare represents Shylock
.
as saymg:
You take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live.
The free peasant, it is true, has the advantage of being able to
depart into the wide world; on the other hand, the serf and
glebae adscriptuss has perhaps the greater advantage that, when
a bad harvest, illness, old age, and incapacity render him
helpless, his master has to look after him. He therefore sleeps
soundly, whereas with a bad harvest, his master tosses and
turns in his bed thinking of ways and means for providing his
serfs with bread. And so even Menander said (Stobacus,
Florilegium, vol. ii, p. g8g, ed. Gaisford):
( Quanto benignum satius est dominum pati,

Quam vivere i7Wpem liberi sub nomine.) 6
Another advantage of the free man is the possibility of im-
proving his position through any talents he may develop; but
the slave too is not entirely deprived of this. If through achieve-
ments of a higher order he becomes valuable to his master, he
is treated accordingly, just as in Rome mechanics, factory
managers, architects, and even physicians were often slaves and
even today in Russia there are said to be great financiers who
are serfs. In consequence of his industry, the slave can also buy
his freedom, as often happens in America.
Poverty and slavery are, therefore, only two forms, one might
almost say two names, for the same thing whose essential nature
is that a man's powers are for the most part employed not for
himself, but for others. The result of this is partly that he is
overloaded with work and also that his needs meet with meagre
satisfaction. For nature has given man only as much strength
as will enable him to gain a living from the earth by a moderate
use of such powers; he has not received a great surplus of
strength. If a not inconsiderable portion of the human race is
s ['One bound to the soil' (cf. p. 6g-7o).]
6 ['It is much better to serve a good master than to live as a free man in misery
and meanness.']
relieved of the common burden of physically maintaining
human existence, the remainder of the race is thereby excessive-
ly burdened and in misery. This, then, is the primary source of
that evil which, either under the name of slavery or that of the
proletariat, has at all times borne heavily on the great majority
of the human race. Its more remote cause, however, is luxury.
Thus in order that a few may have what is an unnecessary and
superfluous refinement; indeed that these may be able to
satisfy artificial needs, a great part of mankind's existing powers
must be devoted to things of this nature and so be withdrawn
from the production of what is necessary and indispensable.
Instead of building cottages for themselves, thousands build
mansions for a few. Instead of coarse materials for themselves
and their families, they weave fine silk materials or even lace
for the wealthy, and generally manufacture a thousand articles
of luxury for the pleasure of the wealthy. A large part of the
population of cities consists of such makers of luxury articles;
and so for them and those who give them such work the peasant
must then plough, sow, and tend his flocks and thus has more
work than had been originally imposed on him by nature.
Moreover, he himself must still devote a great deal of his efforts
and land to wine, silk, tobacco, hops, asparagus, and so on,
instead of to corn, potatoes, and cattle-breeding. Further, many
are withdrawn from agriculture to serve in shipbuilding and
the merchant marine, so that sugar, coffee, tea, and other
things may be procured. Again the production of these super-
fluous things then becomes the cause of the misery of those
millions of Negro slaves who are forcibly torn from their native
land in order to produce by their sweat and agony those objects
of pleasure. In short, a great part of the powers of the human
race is withdrawn from producing all that is necessary in order
to pr?cure for the few that which is entirely superfluous and
unnecessary. Therefore, as long as there is luxury on the one
side, there must necessarily be excessive work and a miserable
existence on the other, whether it be given the name of poverty
or slavery, proletarius or seruus. The fundamental difference
between the two is that slaves have to attribute their origin to
violence, and poor men theirs to cunning. The whole unnatural
condition of society, the universal struggle to escape from
misery, sea navigation that is attended with so much loss of life,
the complicated interests of trade, and finally the wars to which
all this gives rise-all these things have their sole root in lu.xury
which does not even make happy those who enjoy it, but rather
makes them unhealthy, delicate, and bad-tempered. Accord-
ingly, the most effective way to alleviate human misery would
be to diminish luxury, or even to abolish it altogether.
There is unquestionably much truth in this whole train of
thought. Yet it is in effect refuted by another which is, more-
over, confirmed by the testimony of experience. Thus the
human race devotes much labour to luxury; what it loses in this
way in muscular strength (irritability) for its most necessary
purposes, is gradually made good to it a thousandfold by the
nervous strength (sensibility, intelligence) which on this occasion
becomes free (in the chemical sense). For, as sensibility and
intelligence are of a higher order, their achievements surpass a
thousandfold those of irritability:
,/.. \ \ C'l R 1\ \ \ \ \ ' A
ao'f'ov yap V ,_,ov"Evp,a ras 1TOI\I\ctS XEpas VLKff.
(ut vel unum sapiens consilium multorum manuum opus superat.) 7
(Euripides, Antiope.)
A nation of none but peasants would achieve little in the way

of discovery and invention; but the hands of leisure give active
minds. The arts and sciences are themselves the offspring of
lux.ury and repay their debt to it. Their work is that perfection
of technology in all its branches, mechanical, chemical, and
physical, which in our day has brought machinery to a pitch
never previously imagined and achieves, especially through
steam-engines and electricity, things which in times past would
have been attributed to the agency of the devil. For now in
factories and workshops of every kind and occasionally in
agric.ulture machines do a thousand times more work than
could ever have been done by the hands of aql the leisured and
well-to-do classes and cultured brain-workers and thus could
ever have been attained by the abolition of all luxury and the
introduction of a universal peasant life. The products of all
these industries, however, certainly do not benefit the wealthy
alone, but all classes. Things which in former times one could
7['One piece of good advice often achieves greater advantage than does the
work of many hands.']
hardly afford are now obtainable at a low price and in quanti-
ties, and even the life of the humblest classes has greatly gained
in comfort. In the Middle Ages a king of England once borrowed
from a member of the aristocracy a pair of silk stockings in
order to wear them for an audience with the French Ambassa-
dor. Even Queen Elizabeth was highly delighted and astonished
to receive as a New Year's gift in 1560 the first pair of silk
stockings (Disraeli, i. 332); 8 today every shop-assistant has such
things. Fifty years ago ladies wore dresses of calico or cotton
such as are worn today by maid-servants. If further progress at
the same rate is made in the development of machinery, the
result after a time may be that the efforts of human labour will
be almost entirely saved, just as are those of horses to a large
extent even now. For we could, of course, conceive of a certain
universality of mental culture in the human race which, how-
ever, is impossible so long as a large part thereof must apply
itself to heavy physical work. Irritability and sensibility in
general as well as in particular are always and everywhere in
antagonism just because one and the same vital force underlies
both. Further, since artes molliunt mores, 9 wars on a large scale
and rows or duels on a small will then perhaps disappear
entirely from the world, just as both have now become much
rarer. It is not, however, my purpose here to write a Utopia.
But even apart from all these arguments which are given
above in favour of the abolition of luxury and the uniform
distribution of all physical labour, we must mention in opposi-
tion to them the fact that the great flock of the human race
necessarily needs, everywhere and at all times, leaders, guides,
and counsellors in many different guises according to the affairs
in. question, such as judges, governors, military commanders,
officials, priests, physicians, scholars, philosophers, and so on.
All these have the task of leading through the labyrinth of life
this race which for the most part is exceedingly incapable and
perverse. Therefore according to his position and abilities, each
has obtained a general view of the race in a narrower or broader
horizon. Now it is natural and reasonable that these leaders be
left free from all common needs or discomfort, and also from
8 [Curiosities of Literalure.]
o ['The arts mitigate manners and customs.']
physical labour; in fact, in accordance with their much greater
achievements, they should possess and enjoy more than does
the ordinary man. Even wholesale merchants should be included
in that exempted class of leaders in so far as they make far-
sighted preparations in meeting the nation's needs.
126
The question concerning the sovereignty of the people turns
at bottom on whether anyone can originally have the right to
rule a nation against its will. I do not see how this can be
reasonably maintained; and so the people or nation is certainly
sovereign; yet it is a sovereign for ever under age which must,
therefore, be under a permanent guardian and can never itself
exercise its rights without creating infinite dangers, especially as
it very easily becomes, like all minors, the sport of cunning
swindlers and sharpers, who for that reason are called dema-
gogues.
Voltaire says :
Le premier qui jut roi,Jut un soldat heureux. 1o
Originally, of course, all princes were certainly victorious
army commanders and for a long time really ruled in that
capacity. Mter they had standing armies, they regarded the
people as a means to support themselves and their soldiers, and
consequently as a herd of sheep to be tended, so that they would
provide wool, milk, and meat. This is due to the fact that (as
will be discussed in more detail in the following paragraph)
naturally and thus originally might, not right, rules on earth, and
that the former has the advantage over the latter of the jus primi
occupantis. 1 1 Therefore might can never be annulled and actually
abolished from the world, but must always have its place. All
that we can desire and demand is that it will always be on the
side of, and asso~iated with, right. Accordingly, the prince says:
'I rule over you by authority; but in respect thereof my auth-
ority excludes every other, for, beside my own, I shall not
tolerate any other either from without or from within through
one of you trying to oppress the other; and so be satisfied with
my authority.' Just because this was carried out, something
10['The first king was a successful soldier!]

n ['The right of first occupation.']
quite different developed in the course of time out of kingship
and that notion retreated into the background where it is still
occasionally seen floating past like a ghost. Thus in its place has
come the notion of a national father and the king has become
the firm and unshakable pillar on which alone the whole of
law and order and hence the rights of all are supported and thus
maintained.* But the king can achieve this only by virtue of his
inborn prerogative. This gives him and him alone an authority
which is not equalled by any other, which cannot be questioned
or challenged, and which everyone instinctively obeys. He is,
therefore, rightly called 'by the grace of God' and is at all
times the most useful person in the State whose services can
never be adequately repaid by any civil list, however heavy.
But even Machiavelli started so definitely from the earlier
medieval conception of the prince that, regarding the matter as
self-evident, he did not discuss it, but tacitly assumed it and
based all his advice thereon. In general, his book is merely the
practice prevailing at the time which was reduced to theory and
systematically and consistently expounded therein. In this
novel, theoretical, and perfected form, it then gains an extreme-
ly piquant appearance. Incidentally, this also applies to the
immortal little book of La Rochefoucauld, whose theme, how-
ever, is private life, not public, and who gives observations, not
advice. Perhaps some might object to the title of this admirable
little book; its contents are, in the main, not maximes or riflexions,
but aper;us; and therefore they should be so called. Moreover,
even in Machiavelli there is also to be found much that applies
to private life.
127
In itself right is powerless; by nature might rules. The
problem of statesmanship is to associate might with right so
that, by means of the former, the latter may rule. And a hard
problem it is when we bear in n1ind what boundless egoism is
* Stobaeus, 'Florilegium, tit. 44, 41 (vol. ii, p. 201, ed. Gaisford}:

nlpatxt<; ' .J: ' j3llOIJ\EVS"
VOJ!OS: 'Ill, O'TTOTf.
. \ ' ar.o
> ' IE lVCU 7tEV7E
8'lliiOt, llVOJ!taV
, ' ~
TJJLEpWII, 'IJ
f ... ue
a10 OWTO
_. "'l ' ' ~ Q -\. I 1 f' f
OOOV a~ lOS" HJTIV 0 pll(J"'f:V~ Kal 0 VOJ!OS
['When a king died, it was the custom of the Persians to have anarchy for five days
so that the people would see how valuable were the king and the law.']
to be found in almost every human breast, associated in most
cases with an accumulated store of hatred and malice, so that
originally ''E:tKos- 12 far outweighs cfn/\ta. 13 Moreover, it is many
millions of individuals so constituted who are to be kept within
the bounds of law, order, and peace, whereas originally every-
one has the right to say to everyone else: 'I am just as good as
you!' If we consider all this, it must surprise us that, on the
whole, the world pursues its course with such peace and quiet,
law and order, as we see. This, of course, is brought about solely
by the State roachine. For only physical force can always have
an immediate effect, since only this impresses and instils respect
in people, constituted as they normally are. If, to convince our-
selves of this through experience, we once tried to remove all
compulsion and to urge people most clearly and emphatically
to be reasonable, just, and fair-minded, but to act contrary to
their interests, then the impotence of merely moral force would
be obvious, and in most cases only a mocking laugh would be
the answer to our attempt. Therefore physical force alone is
capable of securing respect; but such force is found originally
with the masses, where it is associated with ignorance, stupidity,
and injustice. Accordingly, in such difficult circumstances, the
primary task of statesmanship is to subject physical force to
intelligence and mental superiority, and to make it serve these.
If, however, this intelligence itself is not accompanied by justice
and good intentions, then, where it succeeds, the result is that
the State so established consists of deceivers and deceived. But
this gradually comes to light through progress in the intelligence
of the masses, however much it may be impeded, and then
leads to a revolution. On the other hand, if this intelligence is
accompanied by justice and good intentions, then the result is
a State that is perfect so far as human affairs generally are
concerned. It is very useful for this purpose, if justice and good
intentions not only exist, but are also demonstrable and openly
exhibited and are, therefore, subject to public account and
control. Nevertheless, care must here be taken that, through the
resultant participation of several men, the central power of the
whole State, with which it has to act in home and foreign
u [' Quarrel '.]

u ['Love'.]
affairs, docs not lose in concentration and force, as is almost

invariably the case in republics. Accordingly, the supreme task
of statesmanship is to satisfy all these requirements through the
form of the State. Yet in point of fact, it has also to consider the
given people with their national peculiarities. This is the raw
material whose nature will, therefore, always have a great
influence on the completeness of the work.
It will always be a great thing if statesmanship solves its
problem to the extent of reducing to a minimum wrong and
injustice in the community. To dispose of these entirely without
leaving a trace is merely the ideal aim that can be reached only
approximately. Thus if they are cast out in one direction, they
creep back in another; for unrighteousness and injustice are in
human nature deep-rooted. Attempts are made to reach that
goal by the artificial form of the constitution and the perfection
of legislation; yet they remain an asymptote simply because
fixed concepts never exhaust all the particular cases and cannot
be brought down to the individual. For such concepts resemble
the stones of a mosaic, not the delicate brushwork of a painting.
Moreover, all experiments here are dangerous since we have to
deal with the most difficult material, the human race. To handle
it is almost as dangerous as handling a fulminating high
explosive. In this respect, the freedom of the press is certainly for
the state machine what the safety-valve is for the steam-engine.
For by means of it, every dissatisfaction is at once ventilated in
words and such grievance is soon exhausted if in it there is not
very much substance. If, however, there is, then such ventilation
is a good thing and enables the matter to be known in time and
to be put right. This is very much better than forcing down the
grievance so that it simmers, ferments, expands, and finally ends
in an explosion. On the other hand, the freedom of the press
may nevertheless be regarded as a permission to sell poison,
poison for the heart and mind. For what is there that cannot be
put into the heads of the masses who lack knowledge and
judgement, especially if we pretend that there are for them gains
and advantages? And when something has been put into a
man's head, what outrage is there which he is not capable of
committing? And so I am very much afraid that the dangers of
a free press outweigh its advantages, especially where there are
legal ways of dealing with complaints and grievances. But in
any case, a condition of such freedom should be the strictest
prohibition of each and every anonymity.
Generally speaking, one might even advance the hypothesis
that the nature of right is analogous to that of certain chemical
substances. These cannot be exhibited pure and isolated, but at
most only with a small admixture that serves as a vehicle for
them or gives them the necessary consistency, such as, for
example, fluorine, even alcohol, prussic acid, and many others.
Accordingly, if it is to gain a footing in the world of reality and
even prevail, right necessarily needs a small addition of arbitrary
force and might so that, in spite of its merely ideal and thus
ethereal nature, it may be able to operate and exist in this real
and material world without evaporating and vanishing into the
sky, as happens with Hesiod. All birthright, all privileges
through inheritance, every national religion, and many other
things, may be regarded as such a necessary chemical base or
alloy; since only on an arbitrarily established foundation of this
kind could right be enforced and consistently carried into effect.
Such a foundation would thus be, so to speak, the 36~ fLO' 1rofJ
aTw 14 of right.
The artificial and arbitrarily chosen plant-system ofLinnaeus
cannot be replaced by a natural one, however much such a
system accorded with reason and frequently as the attempt may
have been made, because such a system never affords us the
certainty and firmness of definition possessed by the artificial
and arbitrary. In the same way, the artificial and arbitrary
basis of the constitution of the State, as previously referred to,
cannot be replaced by a purely natural one. Doing away with
the aforesaid conditions, such a natural basis would try to put
the privileges of personal merit in place of those of birth, the
results of rational investigation in place of the national religion,
and so on. Thus however much all this accorded with reason,
it would still lack that certainty and firmness of definition which
alone ensure the stability of the community. A state constitution
that embodied abstract right would be an excellent thing for
natures other than human. But since the great majority are
extremely egoistic, unjust, inconsiderate, deceitful, and some-
times even wicked; and since, in addition, they are endowed
14 ['Give me a foothold (and I shall move the earth).' (A saying of Archimedes.)]

with very meagre intelligence, there arises from this the
necessity of a power which is concentrated in one man, is itself
above all law and right, and is wholly irresponsible; a power to
which all submit and which is regarded as something of a
higher order, a ruler by the grace of God. In the long run, only
in this way can mankind be curbed and governed.
On the other hand, we see in the United States of America
the attempt to manage entirely without any such arbitrary
foundation and thus to let abstract right rule, pure and un-
alloyed. But the result is not attractive; for, in spite of all the
material prosperity in the country, we there find as the prevail-
ing attitude sordid utilitarianism with ignorance as its inevitable
companion which has paved the way to stupid Anglican
bigotry, shallow conceit, and coarse brutality, in combination
with a silly veneration of women. And in that country even
worse things are the order of the day, such as revolting Negro
slavery coupled with the utmost cruelty to the slaves, the most
iniquitous suppression of the free blacks, lynch-law, assassina-
tion frequent and often unpunished, duels of unprecedented
brutality, sometimes open ridicule of all rights and laws,
repudiation of public debts, shocking political defrauding of a
neighbouring state followed by predatory incursions into its
rich territory. Such raids had then to be covered up by the
highest authorities with lies that were known as such and
laughed at by everyone in the country. Then there is the ever-
growing ochlocracy, and finally we have all the pernicious
influence which the above-mentioned denial of integrity in high
places is bound to exercise on private morality. And so this
specimen of a pure constitution of right on the other side of the
planet says very little in favour of republics, but even less do
those imitations of it to be found in Mexico, Guatemala,
Colombia, and Peru. A special and paradoxical disadvantage
of republics is that in them it is bound to be more difficult for
men of superior intellect to gain high positions and thus reach
direct political influence than it is in monarchies. For always,
everywhere, and in all circumstances, all those with narrow,
feeble, and vulgar minds arc at once in league or instinctively
united against men of superior intellect and regard them as their
natural foe; they are firmly held together by their common fear
of such men. Now in a republican constitution the numerous
host of inferior minds will easily succeed in suppressing and
excluding those of superior inteJlect in order not to be outflanked
by them. And in spite of all having equal original rights, men
of inferior ability outnumber the others by fifty to one. In a
monarchy, on the other hand, this natural and universal league
of the narrow-minded against those of superior intellect is one-
sided and thus only from below; whereas from above, mental
ability and talent are naturally supported and protected. For
in the first place, the monarch himself is far too high and firmly
established, to be frightened by competition from anyone else.
Then he himself serves the State more by his will than by his
intellect; for the latter can never be equal to so many claims
and demands. He must, therefore, always make use of the
brains of others; and, seeing that his interests are firmly bound
up with those of his country and are inseparable from and
identical with them, he will naturally give preference and show
favour to the best because they are his most suitable instru-
ments, that is, as soon as he has the ability to find them, which
is not very difficult if only an honest search is made. In the same
way, even ministers are too far ahead of junior politicians to
regard them with jealousy; and so for analogous reasons, they
will gladly single out and set to work men of outstanding
intellect in order to make use of their powers. In this way,
therefore, intellect always has in monarchies much better
chances against stupidity, its implacable and ever-present foe,
than it has in republics; but this is a great advantage.
In general, however, the monarchical form of government is
natural to man in almost the same way as it is to bees and ants,
to cranes in flight, to wandering elephants, to wolves in a pack
in search of prey, and to other animals. All these place one of
their number in charge of the adventure. Every human under-
taking attended with danger, every military campaign, every
ship, must obey one commander; one will must everywhere be
the leader. Even the animal organism is constructed mon-
archically; the brain alone is the guide and governor, the
TrrEfLOVtKov. Although heart, lungs, and stomach contribute
much more to the continued existence of the whole, these
Philistines cannot for that reason guide and direct. This is the
business of the brain alone and must proceed from one point.
Even the system of planets is monarchical. On the other hand,
the republican system is as unnatural to man as it is unfavour-
able to higher intellectual life and thus to the arts and sciences.
In accordance with all this, we find everywhere in the world
and at all times that nations have always been governed
monarchically, whether they were civilized or savage or some-
thing between the two.
~
OUK aya 011 7TO"VKO,pct11t7}"
J J ()' \ I I "
E"tS KOLpa.J10S E"UTW 1
Ets {3aat.\n)s. 1 s
(Iliad, II. 204-5.)
How would it be possible at all for us to see many millions and
even hundreds of millions, everywhere and at all times, the
willing and obedient subjects of one man, or even occasionally
of a woman, and provisionally even of a child, if there were not
in man a monarchical instinct that urged him to that which is
proper and suitable? For this is not the result of reflection;
everywhere one man is the king and, as a rule, his dignity is
hereditary. He is, so to speak, the personification or monogram
of the whole people who in him attain individuality. In this
sense he can rightly say: l'etat c'est moi. 1 6 For this reason, we see
in Shakespeare's historical dramas the kings of England and
France address each other as France and England, and also the
Duke of Austria use the word Austria (King John, Act III, Sc. 1 ),
regarding themselves, so to speak, as the incarnation of their
nationalities. This is precisely in accordance with human nature
and therefore the hereditary monarch cannot possibly separate
the welfare of himself and his family from that of the country,
as is the case, on the other hand, with those who arc elected, in
the States of the Church for instance. The Chinese can conceive
of only a monarchical government; they simply do not under-
stand what a republic is. When a Dutch legation was in China
in 1658, it was obliged to represent the Prince of Orange as its
king; otherwise the Chinese would have been inclined to regard
Holland as a nest of pirates living without a lord or master.
(See Jean Nieuhoff, L'Ambassade de Ia compagnie orientale des
Provinces unies vers l' Empereur de la Chine, translated by Jean le
Charpentier, Leiden, 1665, chap. 45.) Stobaeus headed a
zs ['Government by many is not a good thing; there should be only one ruler,
one king.']
16 ['I am the State.']
chapter of his own with the words: on ~eaAAtaTov -!] f.WVapxla. 17
(Florilegium, tit. 4 7; vol. ii, pp. 256-63), and in it he collected
the best passages from the ancients wherein the advantages of
the monarchy are explained. Republics are unnatural and
artificial productions and have sprung from reflection; and so
in the whole history of the world they occur only as rare
exceptions. Thus there were the small republics of Greece,
Rome, and Carthage which were all conditioned by the fact
that five-sixths, or perhaps even seven-eighths, of the population
consisted of slaves. Even in 1840, the United States of America
had three million slaves to a population of sixteen millions.
Moreover, the duration of the republics of antiquity was very
short compared with that of monarchies. Republics generally
are easy to establish, but difficult to maintain; with monarchies
the very reverse is true.
If we want Utopian plans, then I say that the only solution to
the problem is a despotism of the wise and noble, of a genuine
aristocracy and true nobility, attained on the path of generation
by a union between the noblest men and the cleverest and most
brilliant women. This is m;' idea of Utopia, my Republic of Plato.
Constitutional kings undoubtedly resemble the gods of
Epicurus who, without meddling in human affairs, sit up in
their heaven in undisturbed bliss and serenity. They have now
become the fashion, and in every petty German principality a
parody of the English constitution is set up, complete with
Upper and Lower Houses down to the Habeas Corpus Act and
trial by jury. Proceeding from the English character and
English circumstances and presupposing both, these forms are
natural and appropriate to the English people. But it is just as
natural for the German people to be divided into many branches
under as many actually ruling princes, with an emperor over
them all who maintains peace at home and represents the unity
of the State abroad. These things are natural to the Germans
because they have proceeded from the German character and
German circumstances. I am of the opinion that, if Germany is
not to meet Vwith the fate ofltalv, . . she must restore as effectivelv.
as possible the imperial dignity that was abolished by her arch-
enemy, the first Bonaparte. For German unity is bound up with
17 ['On monarchy being the best thing.']

it, and without it will always be only nominal or precarious.
But since we no longer live in the times of Gunther of Schwarz-
burg when the choice of an emperor was a serious business, the
imperial throne should pass alternately to Austria and Prussia
for the duration of the emperor's life. In any case, the absolute
sovereignty of small states is illusory. Napoleon I did for
Germany precisely what Otto the Great did for Italy (see
Annotazione alta secchia rapita); that is to say, he divided it into
small and independent states on the principle of divide et
imperia. 1s The English show their great judgement in their
sticking firmly and religiously to their ancient institutions,
customs, and usages, even at the risk of carrying such tenacity
to excess and making it ridiculous. They do so just because such
things are not hatched out of an idle head, but have come
gradually from the force of circumstances and the wisdom of
life itself and are, therefore, suited to them as a nation. On the
other hand, the German Fritz allows himself to be persuaded
by his schoolmaster that he must go about in an English tail-
coat and that nothing else will do. Accordingly, he bullies his
father into giving him one and then looks ridiculous enough in
it with his awkward manners and stiff nature. But the tail-coat
will be for him too tight and uncomfortable, and indeed all too
soon when he sits on a jury. Trial by jury came from the most
barbarous English Middle Ages, from the times of Alfred the
Great, when the ability to read and write still exempted a man
from the death-penalty.* It is the worst of all criminal courts
where, instead of learned and experienced judges who have
grown grey in the daily unravelling of the tricks and dodges of
thieves, murderers, and scoundrels and have thus learnt how to
get on to the track of things, gaping tailors and shoemakers are
to be found. It is hoped to find out the truth from the deceptive
tissue of lies and pretence with the aid of their coarse, crude,
unpractiscd, and dull intellect which is not even accustomed to
any sustained attention, whereas all the time they are thinking
of their doth and leather and are anxious to get home. They
* German. lawJ'tTS state that, under the Anglo-Saxon kings, there was still no jury
in the proper sense, nor was there one under the first Norman kings; but that it was
gradually perfected and first appeared as we know it between the reigns of Edward
III and Henry IV.
18 ['Set at variance and rule.']
have absolutely no clear idea of the difference between proba-
bility and certainty; on the contrary, they set up in their stupid
heads a kind of calculus probabilium 19 whereby they then con-
fidently condemn others to death. The remarks are applicable
to them which Samuel Johnson made about a court-martial
that had been convened to settle an important matter. He had
little confidence in it and said that possibly not one of its
members had ever in his life spent one hour by himself in
balancing probabilities. (Boswell, Life of Johnson, ann. 1 78o,
aetat. 71.) But does anyone suppose that tailors and shoemakers
would be really impartial? The malignum vulgus 20 impartial? As
if partiality and bias were not to be feared ten times more from
those of the same class as the accused than from criminal judges
who are complete strangers to him, live in an entirely different
sphere, enjoy security of tenure, and are conscious of the dignity
of their office. But now to allow crimes against the State and its
head and also offences against the press laws to be tried by jury,
is really like setting a thief to catch a thief.
128
Everywhere and at all times, there has been much discontent
with governments, laws, and public institutions, but for the
most part only because we are always ready to make these
responsible for the misery that is inseparably bound up with
human existence itself. For mythically speaking, it is the curse
that was laid on Adam and through him on his whole race. But
never has that false delusion been made more mendaciously and
impudently than by the demagogues of the Jetztzeit. 21 Thus as
the enemies of Christianity, such men are optimists; to them
the world is an end in itself, and so in itself, that is, according
to its natural constitution, is admirably arranged and a veritable
abode of bliss. On the other hand, they attribute entirely to
governments the crying and colossal evils of the world. They
think that, if only governments did their duty, there would be a
heaven on earth, in other words, that all could gorge, guzzle,
IQ ['Theory or calculus of probabilities'.]

:w ['Spiteful mob.']
2 ['Of the present time' (Schopenhauer purposely used this expression by way
of condemning cacophonous words to which he drew attention in his essay on the

mutilation of the German language).]
propagate, and die without effort and anxiety. For this is the
paraphrase of their 'end in itself'; this is the goal of the 'endless
progress of mankind' which they are never tired of proclaiming
in pompous phrases.
129
Formerly the mainstay of the throne was faith; today it is
credit. The Pope himself may hardly attach more importance to
the confidence of the faithful than to that of his creditors. If in
former times men deplored the guilt of the world, they now look
with dismay on the debts of the world; just as formerly they
prophesied the Day of Judgement, so they now prophesy the
great aEaax6Etet, 22 universal State bankruptcy, confidently
hoping, however, that they themselves will not live to see it.
130
It is true that, ethically and rationally, the right of possession
has an incomparably better foundation than has the right of
birth. Yet the right of possession is akin to and part of that of
birth; and hence it would hardly be possible to cut away the
latter without endangering the former. The reason for this is
that most property is inherited and is, therefore, a kind of birth-
right; just as the old nobility bears only the name of the family
estate and so through this expresses merely its possession.
Accordingly, if all owners of property were prudent instead of
envious, they would also support the maintenance of the rights
of birth.
Therefore the nobility, as such, afford a double advantage,
namely by helping to support the right of possession on the one
hand, and the birthright of the king on the other. For the king
is the first nobleman in the land and, as a rule, treats a nobleman
as a humble relation, a treatment that is quite different from
that shown to a commoner, however much he may be trusted.
It is also quite natural for him to have more confidence in those
whose ancestors were in most cases the first ministers and always
the closest associates of his own. And so a nobleman rightly
appeals to his name when, in the case of anything arousing
suspicion, he repeats the assurance of his loyalty and devotion
.u ['Repudiation of debts'.]
26o ON JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICS
to his king. As my readers know, the character is certainly
inherited from the father; and so it is narrow-minded and
ridiculous to show no interest in whose son a man is.
131
\'Vith rare exceptions, all women are inclined to be extrava-
gant; and so every existing fortune must be protected from their
folly, except in those rare cases where they thetnselves have
earned it. For this very reason, I am of the opinion that women
never grow up entirely and should always be under the actual
care of a man, whether of a father, husband, son, or the State,
as is the case in India. Accordingly, they should never be able
to dispose arbitrarily of any property that they themselves have
not earned. On the other hand, I regard it as unpardonable and
pernicious folly to let a mother become even the appointed
trustee and administratrix of her children's share of the father's
inheritance. In most cases, such a woman will squander on her
paramour all that the father of the children has earned out of
consideration for them by the labour and industry of his whole
life. It will be all the same whether or not she marries the man.
Homer gives us this warning:
Ola8a y&.p, otos 8vp.os iJ,j_ aT~8eaat yvvatKos
Kdvov f3ovAETat, olKov dAAEtv, OS KEV oTrVlot,
Jlalowv 8 7rpOTepwv Kai Kovp,8loto cf>lAoto
, , fLfLVTJTt
0 VKETt I
TE 8VT)OTOS",
I , 1:' ' \ \ - ZJ
OVOE fLET/\1\~.
(Odyss~, xv. 2o-3.)

After the death of her husband, the actual mother often becomes
a stepmother. Yet in general it is only stepmothers and not
stepfathers who have such a bad reputation which has given
rise to the word 'stepmotherly' ; 2 4 whereas there has never been
any mention of stepfathcrly. Even in the time of Herodotus
(lib. IV, c. 154), stepmothers had that reputation; and they have
managed to retain it ever since. At all events, a woman always
needs a guardian and should, therefore, never herself be one.
But generally a wife who has not been fond of her husband will
zJ ['Know what kind of a disposition dwells in woman's heart. She v.rill add only
to the house of the man with whom she lives. When he is dead, she thinks no longer
of her children or of the consort of her youth and does not inquire about him.']
l.i [The German stie.fm.UlUT"lich means also grudging, niggard.]
not have any affection for the children she has had by him, that
is to say, after the materna] love has passed which is merely
instinctive and is therefore not to be credited to her moral
qualities. Further, I am of the opinion that in a court of law a
woman's evidence, caeteris paribus,zs should carry less weight
than a man's so that, for example, two male witnesses would
carry the same weight as three or even four female. For I believe
that, taken as a whole, the female sex in a day spouts three
times as many lies as does the male, and moreover with a show
of plausibility and frankness which is quite beyond the reach of
the male. The Mohammedans, of course, go too far in the other
direction. A young educated Turk once said to me: 'We regard
woman merely as the soil in which the seed is sown; and hence
her religion is a matter of indifference. We can marry a
Christian without requiring that she be converted.' When I
asked him whether dervishes were married, he replied: 'Of
course they are; the Prophet was married and they cannot hope
to be holier than he.'
Would it not be better if there were no days of rest at all, but
as many more hours of rest instead? What a wholesome effect
the sixteen hours of a tedious and therefore dangerous Sunday
would have if twelve of them were divided among all the week-
days! Two hours on Sunday would always be enough for
religious worship and more is hardly ever given to it, still less
to devout meditation. The ancients had no weekly day of rest.
But, of course, it would be very difficult actually to keep for the
people these daily two hours of leisure that are purchased in
this way and to protect them from interference.
132
Ahasuerus, the wandering Jew, is nothing but the personifi-
cation of the whole Jewish race. Since he sinned grievously
against the Saviour and \'\rorld-Redeemer, he shall never be
delivered from earthly existence and its burden and moreover
shall wander homeless in foreign lands. This is just the flight
and fate of the small Jewish race which, strange to relate, was
driven from its native land some two thousand years ago and
has ever since existed and wandered homeless. On the other
as [' Other things being equal '.J

hand, many great and illustrious nations with which this petti-
fogging little nation cannot possibly be compared, such as the
Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Etruscans
and others have passed to eternal rest and entirely disappeared.
And so even today, this gens extorris, 26 this john Lackland among
the nations, is to be found all over the globe, nowhere at home
and nowhere strangers. Moreover, it asserts its nationality with
unprecedented obstinacy and, mindful of Abraham who dwelt
in Canaan as a stranger but who gradually became master of
the whole land, as his God had promised him (Genesis 1 7: 8), it
would also like to set foot somewhere and take root in order to
arrive once more at a country, without which, of course, a
people is like a ball floating in air.* Till then, it lives parasitically
on other nations and their soil; but yet it is inspired with the
liveliest patriotism for its own nation. This is seen in the very
firm way in which Jews stick together on the principle of each
for all and all for each, so that this patriotism sine patria inspires
greater enthusiasm than does any other. The rest of the Jews
are the fatherland of the Jew; and so he fights for them as he
would pro ara et Jocis, 27 and no community on earth sticks so
firmly together as does this. It follows from this that it is absurd
to want to concede to them a share in the government or
administration of any country. Originally amalgamated and
one with their state, their religion is by no means the main issue
here, but rather merely the bond that holds them together, the
point de rallieme.nt,zs and the banner whereby they recognize one
another. This is also seen in the fact that even the converted
Jew who has been oaptized does not by any means bring upon
himself the hatred and loathing of all the rest, as do all other
In the Old Testament, Numbers 13 ff. and Deuteronomy 2, we have an
instructive example of the course of events in the gradual population of the earth,
namely of the way in which mobile hordes who had emigrated sought to displace
people already domiciled and occupied the good land. The latest step of this kind
was the migration of population or rather conquest of America, in fact the continuous
driving back of the Arn~rican aboriginals. We see it also in Australia. The role of
the Jews in their settling in the Promised Land and that of the Romans in settling
in Italy is essentially the same, namely that of a people who had immigrated and
continually made war on their former neighbours, finally subduing them; only that
the Romans carried their conquests incomparably further than did the Jews .
.z6 [' Refugeerace '.]
.z 7 ['for hearth and home'.]
z.S ['Rallying-point'.]
apostates. On the contrary, he continues as a rule to be their
friend and companion and to regard them as his true country-
men, naturally with a few orthodox exceptions. Even in the case
of the regular and solemn Jewish prayer for which ten must be
present, a Jew turned Christian, but no other Christian, may
be present if one of the ten is missing. The same holds good of
all the other religious acts. The case would be even clearer if
Christianity were to decline and cease altogether; for then the
Jews would not on that account cease to exist and to hang
together as Jews, separately and by themselves. Accordingly, it
is an extremely superficial and false view to regard the Jews
merely as a religious sect. But if, in order to countenance this
error, Judaism is described by an expression borrowed from the
Christian Church as 'Jewish Confession', then this is a funda-
mentally false expression which is deliberately calculated to
mislead and should not be allowed at all. On the contrary,
'Jewish Nation' is the correct expression. The Jews have
absolutely no confession; monotheism is part of their nationality
and political constitution and is with them a matter of course.
Indeed it is quite clear that monotheism and Judaism are
convertible terms. The fact that the well-known faults attaching
to the Jewish national character, of which a surprising absence
of all that is expressed by the word verecundia 29 is the most
conspicuous, although this fault is far more useful in the world
than is perhaps any positive quality; the fact, I say, that such
faults are to be attributed mainly to the long and unjust
oppression they have suffered, excuses them, it is true, but does
not do away with them. I am bound to praise absolutely the
rational Jew who, on giving up old myths, humbug, and
prejudices by being baptized, quits an association that brings
him neither honour nor advantage (although the latter occurs
in exceptional cases), even if he should not take the Christian
faith very seriously. For is this not the case with every young
Christian who repeats his credo at his confirmation? To save
him even this step, however, and to bring to an end in the
gentlest manner the whole tragi-comic state of affairs, the best
way is certainly for marriages to be permitted and even en-
couraged between Jews and Gentiles. The Church cannot
z9 ['Modesty, shyness'.]
object to this for there is the authority of the apostle himself
(I Corinthians 7: 12-1 6). Then in the course of a hundred
years, there will be only a very few Jews left and soon the ghost
will be exorcized. Ahasuerus will be buried and the chosen
people will not know where their abode was. This desirable
result, however, will be frustrated if the emancipation of the
Jews is carried to the point of their obtaining political rights,
and thus an interest in the administration and government of
Christian countries. For then they will be and remain Jews
really only con amore. Justice demands that they should enjoy
with others equal civil rights; but to concede to them a share in
the running of the State is absurd. They are and remain a
foreign oriental race, and so must always be regarded merely as
domiciled foreigners. When some twenty-five years ago the
emancipation of the Jews was debated in the English Parlia-
ment, a speaker put forward the following hypothetical case.
An English Jew comes to Lisbon where he meets two men in
extreme want and distress; yet it is only in his power to save
one of them. Personally to him they are both strangers. Yet if
one of them is an Englishman but a Christian, and the other a
Portuguese but a Jew, whom will he save? I do not think that
any sensible Christian and any sincere Jew will be in doubt as
to the answer. But it gives us some indication of the rights to be
conc~ded to the Jews.
In no affair does religion intervene so directly and obviously

in practical and material life as in the oath. It is bad enough that
in this way the life and property of one man are made dependent
on the metaphysical convictions of another. Now if, as is to be
feared, at some future date all religions were to decline and all
faith to cease, how would it then be with regard to the oath?
It is, therefore, worth while to inquire whether there is not a
purely moral significance of the oath which is independent of
all positive faith and is yet to be reduced to clear concepts, and
which, as something supremely sacred in pure gold, might
surpass that universal brand of the Church; although compared
with the pomp and pithy language of the religious oath, it might
appear to be somewhat bald and dispassionate.
The undoubted aim of the oath is to counter in a merely
moral way the all-too-frequent duplicity and mendacity of man
by making him vividly conscious of the moral obligation,
acknowledged by him, to speak the truth, after he has been
strengthened by some extraordinary consideration which here
arises. I will endeavour to make clear in accordance with my
ethics the purely moral sense of the emphasis of this duty, a
sense that will be free from everything transcendent and
mythical.
In my chief work, volume i, 62, and in greater detail in my
prize-essay 'On the Basis of Ethics', 1 7, I have laid down the
paradoxical yet true principle that in certain cases a man is
granted the right to tell a lie, and I have supported it by means
of a detailed explanation and argument. Those cases are where
(a) he had the right to use force against others and (b) wholly
unauthorized questions were put to him framed in such a way
that he would jeopardize his interests as much by refusing to
answer them as by giving a straightforward reply. Just because
in such cases there is undoubtedly a justification to tell a lie,
it is necessary in important matters whose decision depends on
a man's statement and also in promises whose fulfilment is of
great importance, for him first to make an express and solemn
declaration that, in this particular instance, he does not admit
the existence of the above-mentioned cases; that he therefore
knows and realizes that here no violence is being done to him
or threatened but right prevails; likewise that he admits that
the question put to him is fully authorized; and finally that he
is aware that everything depends on his present statement
concerning the question. This declaration implies that, if in such
circumstances a man tells a lie, he is committing a grave wrong
and is clearly conscious of so doing. For now he is in the position
of one in whose honesty and integrity confidence has been
placed, and to whom has been given in this instance full
authority which he can use equally for doing right or wrong.
Now if he tells a lie, he is clearly conscious of being one who,
when he has free authority, uses this with the coolest delibera-
tion for the purpose of doing wrong. Peijury furnishes him with
this testimony about himself. Now there is in addition the
circumstance that, since no man is without the need for some
kind of metaphysics, everyone carries the conviction, though
vague, that the world has not merely a physical, but at the same
time and in some way a metaphysical, significance and also
that, in regard to such significance, our individual conduct,
according to its merely moral aspect, has consequences quite
different from, and far more important than, those accruing to
it by virtue of its empirical effectiveness, and is, therefore, really
of transcendent significance. I refer here to my prize-essay 'On
the Basis of Ethics', 21, and merely add that the man who
denies that his own conduct has any other than empirical
significance, will never make the statement without feeling an
inner conflict therewith and exercising self-restraint. Summon-
ing a man to take an oath now places him explicitly in the
position where he has to regard himself in this sense as a merely
moral being, conscious of the extreme importance to himself of
the decisions he has given in this capacity. In this way, all other
considerations with him should now dwindle away to vanishing
point. It is immaterial here whether the conviction, thus
aroused, of a metaphysical, and at the same time moral,
significance of our existence is only felt in a dull way, or is
clothed and hence animated in all kinds of myths and fables, or
else is brought to the clearness of philosophical thought. Again,
it follows from this that, essentially, it is not a question whether
the form of the oath expresses this or that mythological con-
nection, or is entirely abstract, like theje lejure3 that is custom-
ary in France. The form should be selected in accordance with
the degree of mental development of the man who is taking the
oath, just as it is chosen according to the difference of his
positive belief. If the matter is considered in this way, then even
the man professing no religion could very well be permitted to
take an oath.
3o ['I swear on oath'.]

CHAPTER X
On the Doctrine of the lndestructibilitv

of our True Nature by Death
134
Although I have dealt with this subject consistently and fully
in my chief work, I still think that a further short selection of
isolated observations will always throw some light on that
discussion and will not be without value to many a reader.
One must read Jean Paul's Selina to see how an exceedingly
eminent mind wrestles with the absurdities of a false conception
which obtrude themselves on him, and how he will not give it
up because he has set his heart on it and yet is always disturbed
by the inconsistencies he is unable to digest. I refer to the
conception of the continued individual existence of our entire
personal consciousness after death. It is just that wrestling and
struggling of Jean Paul's which show that such notions, made
up of \vhat is false and true, are not wholesome errors as is
maintained; they are, on the contrary, decidedly harmful and
pernicious. For the true knowledge, based on the contrast
between phenomenon and thing-in-itself, of the indestructibility
of our real nature- a nature that is untouched by time,
causality, and change-is rendered impossible by the false
contrast between body and soul as also by raising the whole
personality to a thing-in-itself that is said to last for ever.
Not only is this the case, but also that false conception cannot
even be definitely regarded as the representative of truth
because our faculty of reason constantly rebels at the absurdity
that underlies it, and in so doing has also to give up the
truth that is amalgamated with it. For in the long run, what
is true can exist only in all its purity; mixed with errors, it
partakes of their weakness, just as granite disintegrates when
its feldspar is decayed, although quartz and mica are not
subject to such decay. The substitutes of truth are, therefore, in
a bad way.
268 ON DOCTRINE OF THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY
1 35
If in daily intercourse we are asked, by one of the many who

would like to know everything but who will learn nothing, about
continued existence after death, the most suitable answer and
above all the most correct would be: 'Mter vour death vou will
I I
be what you were before your birth.' For it implies the absurdity
of the demand that the kind of existence which has a beginning
ought to be without an end; but in addition it contains the hint
that there may be two kinds of existence and accordingly two
kinds of nothing. However, we could also reply: 'Whatever you
will be after your death, and it might be nothing, will then be
just as natural and appropriate to you as is your individual
organic existence to you now; and so at most you might have
to fear the moment of transition. Indeed, as a mature considera-
tion of the matter leads to the result that complete non-
existence would be preferable to an existence such as ours, the
thought of a cessation of our existence, or of a time when we
shall no longer exist, cannot reasonably disturb us any more
than can the idea that we might never have come into existence.
Now as this existence is essentially personal, the end of the
personality is accordingly not to be regarded as a loss.'
On the other hand, the man who had followed the plausible
thread of materialism on the objective and empirical path, and
now turned to us in terror at the total destruction through death
which stared him in the face, would probably derive from us
some consolation in the briefest manner and in keeping with
his empirical way of thinking, if we pointed out to him the
difference between matter and the metaphysical force that is
always temporarily taking possession thereof. For instance, we
could show him how, as soon as the proper temperature occurs,
the homogeneous formless fluid in the bird's egg assumes the
complex and precisely determined shape of the genus and
species of its bird. To a certain extent, this is indeed a kind of
generatio aequivoca; and it is exceedingly probable that the
ascending series of animal forms arose from the fact that, once
in primeval times and at a happy hour, it jumped to a higher
type from that of the animal to which the egg belonged. At all
events, something different from matter most definitely makes
its appearance here, especially as, with the smallest unfavour-
ON DOCTRINE OF THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY 269
able circumstance, it fails to appear. In this way, it becomes
obvious that, after an operation that is completed or subsequent-
ly impeded, this something can also depart just as unimpaired
from matter. This suggests a permanence of quite a different
kind from that of the persistence of matter in time.
136
No individual is calculated to last for ever; it is swallowed up
in death; yet in this way we lose nothing, for underlying the
individual existence is one quite different whose manifestation
it is. This other existence knows no time and so neither duration
nor extinction.
If we picture to ourselves a being who knew, understood, and
took in at a glance everything, the question whether we con-
tinued to exist after death would probably have for him no
meaning at all, since beyond our present, temporal, individual
existence duration and cessation would no longer have any
significance and would be indistinguishable concepts. Accord-
ingly, neither the concept of extinction nor that of duration
would have any application to our true nature, or to the thing-
in-itself manifesting itself in our phenomenal appearance, since
such concepts are borrowed from time that is merely the form
of the phenomenon. However, we can picture to ourselves the
indestructibility of that core of our phenomenon only as a continued
existence of it and really in accordance with the schema of matter
as that which persists and continues in time under all the
changes of forms. Now if we deny to that core this continued
existence, then we regard our temporal end as an annihilation
in accordance with the schema of form that vanishes when the
matter carrying it is withdrawn from it. Yet both are a p.Er&f3ca:n;;
El~ aMo ylvo~, J a transference of the forms of the phenomenon
to the thing-in-itself. But we can hardly form even an abstract
notion of an indestructibility that would not be a continuance,
because we lack all intuitive perception for verifying such a
notion.
In point of fact, however, the constant arising of new beings
and the perishing of those that exist are to be regarded as an
illusion, produced by the apparatus of two polished lenses
' ['Transition to another genus'.]

(brain-functions) through which alone we are able to see some-
thing. They are called space and time and, in their mutual
interpenetration, causality. For all that we perceive under these
conditions is mere phenomenon; but we do not know how
things may be in themselves, that is, independently of our
perception. This is really the core of the Kantian philosophy;
and we cannot too often call to mind that philosophy and its
contents, after a period in which mercenary charlatanry had by
its process of obscurantism driven philosophy from Germany
with the willing help of those for whom truth and intellect are
the least important matters in the world, whereas salaries and
fees are the weightiest.
This existence, which is in no way concerned with the death
of the individual, does not have time and space as its forms, but
everything that for us is real appears therein; and so to us death
manifests itself as an annihilation.
Everyone feels that he is something different from a being

whom another once created out of nothing. From this there
arises for him the assurance that death may bring to an end his
life but not his existence.
By virtue of the cognitive form of time, man (i.e. the affirma-
tion of the will-to-live at the highest stage of its objectification)
appears as a race of human beings who are always being born
afresh and then dying.
Man is something different from an animated nothing; and
so too is the animal.
How can we imagine, on seeing the death of a human being,
that here a thing-in-itself becomes rwthing? On the contrary,
that only a phenomenon comes to an end in time, this form of
all phenomena, without the thing-in-itself being thereby
affected, is the immediate intuitive knowledge of everyone.
Therefore at all times, attempts have been made to state it in
the most varied forms and expressions all of which, however,
are taken from the phenmnenon in its proper sense and merely
refer thereto.
Whoever imagines that his existence is limited to his present
life considers himself to be an animated nothing; for thirty
years ago he was nothing and thirty years hence he will again
be nothing.
If we had a complete knowledge of our own true nature
through and through to its innermost core, we should regard it
as ridiculous to demand the immortality of the individual, since
this would be equivalent to giving up that true inner nature in
exchange for a single one of its innumerable manifestations, or
fulgurations.
138
The more clearly conscious a man is of the frailty, vanity, and
dreamlike nature of all things, the more clearly aware is he also
of the eternity of his own true inner nature. For really only in
contrast thereto is that dreamlike nature of things known; just
as we perceive the rapid motion of the ship we are in only by
looking at the fixed shore and not at the ship itself.
139
The present has two halves, an objective and a subjective. The
objective half alone has as its form the intuition of time and
therefore rolls on irresistibly; the subjective half stands firm and
is, therefore, always the same. From this arise our vivid re-
collection of what is long past and the consciousness of our
immortality, in spite of the knowledge of the fleeting nature of
our existence.
From my initial proposition:' the world is my representation',
we have, to begin with, the proposition: 'first I am and then the
world'. We should stick firmly to this as an antidote to con-
fusing death with annihilation.
Everyone thinks that his innermost core is something that
contains and carries about the present moment.
Whenever we may happen to live, we always stand with our
consciousness in the centre of time, never at its extremities; and
from this we might infer that everyone carries within himself
the immovable centre of the whole of infinite time. At bottom,
it is this that gives him the confidence with which he goes on
living without the constant dread of death. Now whoever is able
most vividly to conjure up in his own mind, by virtue of the
strength of his memory and imagination, that which is long past
in the course of his life, becomes more clearly conscious than
others of the identiry of the now in all time. Perhaps even the
converse of this proposition is more correct. But at all events,
such a more vivid consciousness of the identity of all now is an
essential requirement for a philosophical turn of mind. By
means of it, we apprehend that which is the most fleeting of all
things, the Now, as that which alone persists. Now whoever is
aware in this intuitive way that the present moment, the sole form
of all reality in the narrowest sense, has its source in us and thus
springs from within and not from without, cannot have any
doubt about the indestructibilitv of his own true nature. On the
'
contrary, he will grasp that, with his death, the objective world
together with the intellect, the medium of its presentation,
certainly does perish for him, but that this does not affect his
existence; for there was just as much reality within as without.
He will say with perfect understanding: lyw lftt 7Tfiv ro yyovos,
Kat ov, Ked. laoftGov.z (See Stobaeus, Florilegium, tit. 44,42;
vol. i, p. 201.)
\.Vhoever refuses to admit all this, must assert the contrary
and say: 'Time is something purely objective and real, existing
quite independently of me. I am thrown into it only acciden-
tally, have got possession of a small portion of it, and have thus
arrived at a transient reality just as did thousands of others
before me who are now no more, and I too shall very soon be
nothing. Time, on the other hand, is that which is real; it then
goes on without me.' I think that the fundamental absurdity of
such a view is obvious from the definite way in which it has been
expressed.
In consequence of all this, life may certainly be regarded as a
dream and death as an awakening. But then the personality,
the individual, belongs to the dreaming and not to the waking
consciousness; and so death presents itself to the former as
annihilation. Yet at all events, from this point of view death is
not to be regarded as the transition to a state that to us is
entirely new and strange, but rather only as the return to our
own original state, of which life was only a brief episode.
If, however, a philosopher should perhaps imagine that in
dying he would find a consolation peculiar to him alone, or at
z ['I am all that was, and is, and will be.' (Inscription on the temple of Isis at
Sais.)]
any rate a diversion in the fact that for him a problem would be
solved on which he had been so often engaged, then probably
he would be no better off than the man whose lamp is blown
out when he is just on the point of finding the thing he has been
looking for.
For in death consciousness assuredly perishes, but certainly
not that which had till then produced it. Thus consciousness
rests primarily on the intellect, but this on a physiological
process. For it is obviously the function of the brain and, there-
fore, conditioned by the co-operation of the nervous and
vascular systems, n10re specifically by the brain that is nourished,
animated, and constantly agitated by the heart. It is through
the ingenious and mysterious structure of the brain which
anatomy describes but physiology does not understand, that the
phenomenon of the objective world and the whole mechanism
of our thoughts are brought about. An individual consciousness and
thus a consciousness in general is not conceivable in an im-
material or incorporeal being, since the condition of every conscious-
ness, knowledge, is necessarily a brain-function really because
the intellect manifests itself objectively as brain. Therefore just
as the intellect appears physiologically and consequently in
empirical reality, that is, in the phenomenon, as something
secondary, as a result of the life-process, so too psychologically
it is secondary, in contrast to the will that is alone the primary
and everywhere the original thing. Even the organism itself is
really only the will m~nifesting itself intuitively and objectively
in the brain and consequently in the brain-forms of space and
time, as I have often explained especially in the essay On the
Will in .Nature and in my chief work, volume ii, chapter 20.
Therefore as consciousness is not directly dependent on the will,
but is conditioned by the intellect, the latter being conditioned
by the organism, there is no doubt that consciousness is ex-
tinguished by death, as also by sleep and every fainting fit.*
But let us take courage! for what kind of a consciousness is this?
A cerebral animal consciousness, one that is somewhat more
highly developed, animal in so far as we have it essentially in
common with the whole animal kingdom, although in us it
It would, of course, be delightful if the intellect did not perish with death, for
we should then bring ready and complete into the next world aU the Greek we had
learnt in this.
reaches its summit. As I have shown often enough, as regards
its origin and purpose, this consciousness is a mere P.TJXCt.vrJ of
nature, a remedy or expedient for helping our animal essence
to satisfy its needs. On the other hand, the condition into which
death returns us is our original state, that is, the one peculiar to
our true nature whose primary force manifests itself in the
production and maintenance of the life that is now ceasing.
Thus it is the condition or state of the thing-in-itself in contrast
to the phenomenon. Now in this original state, such an ex-
pedient as cerebral knowledge, as being extremely mediate and
therefore furnishing mere phenomena, is without doubt
entirely superfluous; and so we lose it. Its disappearance is
identical with the cessation for us of the phenomenal world,
whose mere mediun1 it was, and it can serve no other purpose.
If in this original state of ours the retention of that animal
consciousness were even offered to us, we should reject it, just
as a lame man who had been cured would scorn to use crutches.
Therefore whoever deplores the impending loss of this cerebral
consciousness that is merely phenomenal and adapted to the
phenomenal, is comparable to the converted Greenlanders who
did not want heaven when they heard that no seals were there.
Moreover, all that is said here rests on the assumption that
we cannot even picture to ourselves a not unconscious state except
as one of knowing which consequently carries within itself the
fundamental form of all knowledge, the separation into subject
and object, into a knower and a known. But we have to bear in
mind that this entire form of knowing and being known is
conditioned merely by our animal, and therefore very secondary
and derived, nature and is thus by no means the original state of
all essence and existence, a state that may, therefore, be quite
different and yet not without consciousmss. However, in so far as
we are able to pursue our own present nature to its innermost
core, even it is mere will, but this in itself is something without
knowledge. Now if through death we forfeit the intellect, we are
thereby shifted only into the original state which is without
knowledge, but is not for that reason absolutely without conscious-
mss; on the contrary, it will be a state that is raised above and
beyond that (orm where the contrast between subject and
object vanishes because that which is to be known would here
be actually and immediately identical with the knower himself;
and thus the fundamental condition of all knowing (that very
contrast) is wanting. By way of elucidation, this may be
compared with World as Will and Representation, volume ii,
chapter 22. Giordano Bruno's statement is to be regarded as
another expression of what is said here and in that work: La
divina mente, e la unita assoluta, senza specie alcuna eella medesima lo
che intende, e lo ch'e inteso.J (Ed. \Vagner, vol. i, p. 287.)
Fron1 time to time, everyone will perhaps feel in his heart of
hearts a consciousness that an entirely different kind of existence
would really suit him rather than this one which is so un-
speakably wretched, temporal, transient, individual, and pre-
occupied with nothing but misery and distress. On such an
occasion, he then thinks that death might lead him back to that
other existence.
Now if, in contrast to this method of consideration which is

directed inwards, we again look outwards and apprehend quite
objectively the world that presents itself to us, then death
certainly appears to be a passing into nothing; but, on the other
hand, birth is apparently a proceeding out of nothing. Yet the
one like the other cannot be unconditionally true, since it has
only the reality of the phenomenon. That in some sense we
should survive death is certainly not a greater tniracle than that
of generation which we daily see before us. That which dies
passes away to the source whence all life comes, its own included.
In this sense, the Egyptians called Orcus Amenth.es which
according to Plutarch (De l'iis et Osiris, chap. 29), signifies
o Aaf'f3avwv Kat s,Sov~, 'the taker and the giver', in order to
express that it is the same source whither everything returns and
whence everything proceeds. From this point of view, our life
might be regarded as a loan received from death; sleep would
then be the daily interest on that loan. Death openly proclaims
itself as the end of the individual, but in him there dwells the
seed for a new being. Accordingly, of all that dies, nothing dies
for ever; but also nothing that is born receives an entirely and
3['The divine mind, the absolute unity without any distinctions, is in itself that
which knows and that which is known.']
fundamentally new existence. That which dies perishes, but a
seed is left behind out of which a new being proceeds; and this
now enters existence without knowing whence it comes and why
it is precisely as it is. This is the mystery of palingenesis and
chapter 41 of volume ii of my chiefwork may be regarded as its
explanation. It is accordingly clear to us that all beings living
at this moment contain the real kernel of all that will live in the
future; and so to a certain extent these future beings already
exist. Similarly, every anin1al standing before us in the prime of
life seems to exclaim to us: 'Why do you complain of the
fleeting nature of all those who are alive? How could I exist if
all those of n1y species who existed before me had not died?'
Accordingly, however much the plays and masks may change
on the world's stage, the actors in all of them nevertheless
remain the same. We sit together, talk, and excite one another;
eyes gleam and voices grow louder. Thousands of years ago,
others sat in just the same way; it was the same and they were
the same. It will be just the same thousands of years hence. The
contrivance that prevents us from becoming aware of this is
time.
We might very well distinguish between metempsychosis as the
transition of the entire so-called soul into another body, and
palingenesis as the disintegration and new formation of the
individual, since his will alone persists and, assutning the shape
of a new being, receives a ne\\-' intellect. The individual, there-
fore, decomposes like a neutral salt whose base then combines
with another acid to form a new salt. The difference between
metempsychosis and palingenesis which is assumed by Servius,
the commentator of Virgil, and is briefly stated in Wernsdorf's
Dissertatio de metempsych.osi, p. 48, is obviously false and valueless.
From Spence Hardy's lvfanual of Budh.ism (pp. 394-6, to be
compared with pp. 429, 4-40, and 445 of the same book) and
also from Sangermano's Burmese Empire, p. 6, as well as the
Asiatic Researches, vol. vi, p. 179 and vol. ix, p. 256, it appears
that there are in Buddhism, as regards continued existence after
death, an exoteric and an esoteric doctrine. The former is just
metempsychosis as in Brahmanism, but the latter is a palingenesis
which is much more difficult to understand and is very much in
agreement with my doctrine of the metaphysical permanence of
the will in spite of the intellect's physical constitution and
fleeting nature in keeping therewith. llAtyyvala occurs even
in the New Testament.4
Now if, to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of palin-
genesis, we make use of my chief work, volume ii, chapter 43,
the matter, more closely considered, will then appear to be that,
throughout all time, the male sex has been the guardian or
keeper of the will of the human species, the female sex being the
guardian of the intellect, whereby the human species then
obtains perennial existence. Accordingly, everyone now has a
paternal and a maternal element; and just as these were united
through generation, so are they disintegrated in death; and so
death is the end of the individual. This individual it is whose
death we deplore so much, feeling that he is actually lost
because he was a mere combination which irretrievably ceases.
Yet in all this we must not forget that the inheritableness of the
intellect from the mother is not so decided and absolute as is
that of the will from the father, on account of the secondary and
merely physical nature of the intellect and of its entire depen-
dence on the organism, not only in respect of the brain, but also
otherwise. All this has been discussed in the above-mentioned
chapter of my chief work. Incidentally, it may be mentioned
here that I am in agreement with Plato in so far as he distin-
guishes in the so-called soul between a mortal and an immortal
part. But he is diametrically opposed to me and to truth when,
after the manner of all philosophers prior to me, he regards the
intellect as the immort~l part, the will, on the contrary, that is,
the seat of the appetites and passions, as the mortal. We see this
in the Timaeus, pp. 386, 387, and 395, ed. Bip. Aristotle states
the same thing.*
But however strangely and precariously the physical Inay
prevail through generation and death, together with the
obvious constitution of individuals from will and intellect and
the subsequent dissolution of these, the metaphysical underlying
* De anima (1. 4, p. 408), right at the beginning, he lets out incidentally his own
opinion that the voiJs is the real soul tmd immortal, which he supports with false
assertions. He says that hati1lg and loving belong not to the soul, but to its organ, the
perishable part!
[' Regeneration'_ In the N. T. the word does not express either metempsychosis
or indestructibility of the will through death. In general, it is found only in two
passages, Matthew 19: 28 in the sense of' resurrection of the dead', and Titus 3: 5,
in the sense of'conversion of the old man into the new'.]
the physical is of a nature so entirely different that it is not
affected by this and we may take courage.
Accordingly, every man can be considered fron1 two opposite
points of view; from the one, he is an individual, beginning and
ending in time, fleeting and transitory, OKLiiS Olletp,S besides
being afflicted with pangs and failings; from the other, he is the
indestructible primary being that objectifies itself in every
existing thing and as such can say like the statue of Isis at Sais:
yw ~lftt 7Tf5.v -ro y~yov<5s, KetL ov, Kai a6~-t~vov. 6 Such a being,
of course, might do something better than manifest itself in a
world such as this. For it is the world of finiteness, suffering,
and death. What is in it and comes out of it must end and die.
But what is not out of it and will not be out of it, pierces through
it, all-powerful like a flash of lightning which strikes upwards
and then knows neither time nor death. To reconcile all these
antitheses is really the theme of philosophy.*
* To think that life is a romance which, like Schiller's Der Geisterseher, lacks the
sequel and moreover breaks off in the middle of the context, like Sterne's Sentimental
Journey, is both aesthetically and morally an idea that is impossible to digest.
For us death is and remains something negative, the cessation of life; but it must
also have a positive side that nevertheless remains hidden from us because our
intellect is quite incapable of grasping it. We therefore know quite well what we
lose, hut not what we gain through death.
The loss of the intellect which the will suffers through death, the will being the
kernel of the now perishing phenomenon and as thing-in-itself indestructible, is the
Lethe ofjust this individual will. Without it the will would recall the many phenom-
ena whereof it had already been the kernel.
When a man dies, he should cast off his individuality like an old garment and
rejoice at the new and better one which he will now assume in exchange for it,
after receiving instruction.
If we reproached the World Spirit for destroying individuals after a brief existence,
he would say: 'Now just look at these individuals; look at their faults, their
absurdities, their vicious and detestable qualities! Am I to allow these to go on for
ever?'
To the Demiurge I would say: 'Instead of ceaselessly making by half a miracle
new human beings and destroying them while they are still alive, why are you not
satisfied once for all with those that exist and why do you not let them go on living
to all eternity?'
Probably his reply would be: 'If they want to go on making new ones, l must
provide for room. Ab, if only this were not the case! Although, between ourselves,
a race living and going on in this way for ever, without any further object than just
to exist thus, would be objectively ridiculous and subjectively wearisome, much
more than you imagine. Just picture it to yourself! '
1: 'Why, they might get on and succeed in every way.'
s ['The dream of a shadow'.]
6 ['I am all that was, and is, and will be.']
141
Short concluding Diversion in the Form of a Dialogue

THRASYMACHOS: To be brief, what am I after my death? Now,
be clear and precise!
PHILALETHES: Everything and nothing.
THRASYMACHOS: There we have it! A contradiction as the
solution to a problem. The trick is played out.
PHILALETHES: To answer transcendent questions in the language
created for immanent knowledge can certainly lead to con-
tradictions.
THRASYMACHos: What do you call transcendent, and what
immanent knowledge? It is true that I know these expressions
from my professor, but only as predicates of Almighty God with
whom his philosophy was exclusively concerned, as is only right
and proper. Thus ifhe is within the world, he is immanent; if he
resides somewhere outside, he is transcendent. Sec, that is
clear, that is intelligible! We then know what we have to stick
to. No one any longer understands Kantian jargon. The time-
consciousness of the present time, from the metropolis of German

sctence-
PHILALETHES (aside) :-German philosophical humbug-
THRASYMACHOS :-through a whole succession of great men,
especially the great Schleiermacher and Hegel's gigantic mind,
has been brought back from all this or rather carried so far
forward that it has left it all behind and knows nothing more
about it. And so what is it all about?
PHILALETHES: Transcendent knowledge is that which, going
beyond all possibility of experience, endeavours to determine
the nature of things as they are in themselves; inunanent know-
ledge, on the other hand, is that which keeps within the bounds
of the possibility of experience, but thus can speak only of
phenon1ena. You as an individual end at your death; but the
individual is not your true and ultimate essence, but rather a
mere manifestation thereof. It is not the thing-in-itself, but only
its phenomenon which manifests itself in the form of time and
accordingly has a beginning and an end. On the other hand,
your true essence-in-itself does not know either time, beginning,
end, or the limits of a given individuality; and so it cannot be
excluded from any individuality, but exists in each and all.
28o ON DOCTRINE OF THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY
Therefore in the first sense, you become nothing through your
death; in the second, you are and remain everything. Therefore
I said that after your death you would be everything and
nothing. In so short a time, your question hardly admits of a
more correct answer than this, which nevertheless certainly
contains a contradiction just because your life is in time, but
your immortality is in eternity. Therefore this can also be called
an indestructibility without continuance, which again leads to
a contradiction. But this is always the case when the transcen-
dent is to be brought into immanent knowledge; for then a kind
of violence is done to such knowledge because it is wrongly
applied to that for which it is not born.
THRASYMACHOS: Listen, without a continuance of my indivi-
duality, I would not give a farthing for all your immortality.
PHILALETHES: Perhaps we can still bargain with you. Suppose I
guaranteed you the continuance of your individuality, yet made
it a condition that a completely unconscious death-sleep of three
months should precede the reawakening of that individuality.
THRASYMACHOS: That would do.
PHILALETHES: Now as in a state of complete unconsciousness we
have absolutely no measure of time, it is quite immaterial to us
whether three months or ten thousand years elapsed in the
world of consciousness while we were lying in that death-sleep.
For on waking up, we must accept on faith and trust the one
thing as well as the other; and so it must be a matter of in-
difference to you whether your individuality is given back to
you after three months or after ten thousand years.
THRASYMACHOS: In the last resort, of course, that is undeniable.
PHILALETHES: Now if after the lapse of the ten thousand years,
someone forgot to wake you up, I believe that such a misfortune
would not be great after you had become so accustomed to that
very long non-existence which followed a very brief existence.
But it is certain that you could not feel anything of it; and you
would be quite consoled about the matter ifyou knew that the
mysterious mechanism, maintaining in motion your present
phenomenal appearance, had not for one moment ceased
during those ten thousand years to produce and set in motion
other phenomenal appearances of the same kind.
THRASYMACHos: Indeed? And in this way you mean quite
furtively and imperceptibly to cheat me of my individuality?
You cannot swindle me in this way. I have stipulated for myself
a continuance of my individuality, and no motives and
phenomena can console me for the loss thereof. It lies nearest to
my heart and I will not let it go.
PHILALETHES: Then you regard your individuality as so agree-
able, admirable, perfect, and incomparable that there can be
none more perfect whereof it might perhaps be asserted that
one could live better and more easily in it than in yours.
THRASYMACHOs: Now look, whatever my individuality may be,
I am this.
For me there is nothing in the world like me;
For God is God, and I am I.
I, I, I, want to exist! That is of importance to me and not an
existence concerning which one must first convince me by
arguments that it is mine.
PHILALETHEs: Now look! That which exclaims 'I, I, I want to
exist' is not you alone but everything, absolutely everything,
that has even only a trace of consciousness. Consequently, this
desire in you is precisely that which is not individual, but is
without distinction common to all. It springs not from individ-
uality, but from existence generally, is essential to everything
that exists, indeed is that whereby it exists, and accordingly is
satisfied by existence in general to which alone it refers, and not
exclusively through any definite individual existence. For it is
certainly not directed .to such individual existence, although
this always appears so, because it cannot arrive at consciousness
otherwise than in an individual being and therefore it always
seems to refer to this alone. Yet this is a mere illusion to which
indeed the individual's narrow-mindedness clings, but which
reflection can destroy. We can also be freed from it by reflection.
Thus what craves so impetuously for existence is merely
i11direct{y the individual; directly and properly speaking, it is the
will-to-live in general, which is one and the same in all. Now as
existence itself is the will's free work, in fact is the mere reflection
of the will, it cannot escape therefrom. The will for the time
being is satisfied by existence in general, in so far as the eternally
unsatisfied will can be satisfied. To it individualities are equal;
it does not really speak of them, although to the individual who
is immediately aware of it only in himself, it appears to speak of

them. A consequence of this is that the will guards this its own
existence more carefully than it otherwise would and thereby
ensures the maintenance of the species. It follows from this that
individuality is no perfection but a limitation, and that to be
rid of it is, therefore, no loss, but rather a gain. Therefore give
up a fear that would seem to you to be childish and utterly
ridiculous if you knew thoroughly and to its very foundation
your own nature, namely as the universal will-to-live, which you
are.
THRASYMACHOS: You yourself and all philosophers are childish
and utterly ridiculous, and it is only for amusement and pastime
that a serious and sedate fellow like me embarks on a quarter of
an hour's talk with fools of this sort. I have more important
things to do. Goodbye and God help you!
CHAPTER XI
Additional Remarks on the Doctrine

of the Vanity of Existence
142
This vanity finds its expression in the whole form of existence;
in the infinite nature of time and space as opposed to the finite
nature of the individual in both; in the transitory and passing
present moment as reality's sole mode of existence; in the
dependence and relativity of all things; in constant becoming
without being; in constant desire without satisfaction; in the
constant interruption of efforts and aspirations which constitutes
the course of life until such obstruction is overcome. Time and
the fleeting nature of all things therein, and by 1neans thereof, are
merely the form wherein is revealed to the will-to-live, which as
the thing-in-itself is imperishable, the vaniry of that striving.
Time is that by virtue whereof at every moment all things in our
hands come to naught and thereby lose all true value.
1 43
What has been, no longer is; it as little exists as that which has
never been. But everything that is, is the next moment already
regarded as having been. And so the most insignificant present
has over the most significant past the advantage of realiry,
whereby the former is related to the latter as something to
nothing.
To his astonishment, a man all of a sudden exists after
countless thousands of years of non-existence and, after a short
time, must again pass into a non-existence just as long. The
heart says that this can never be right, and from considerations
of this kind there must dawn even on the crude and uncultured
mind a presentiment of the ideality of time. But this, together
\vith the ideality of space, is the key to all true metaphysics
because it makes way for an order of things quite different from
that which is found in nature. This is why Kant is so great.
284 DOCTRINE OF VANITY OF EXISTENCE
Of every event in our life, only for one moment can it be said
that it is; for ever afterwards we must say that it was. Every
evening we are poorer by a day. Perhaps the sight of this
ebbing away of our brief span of time would drive us mad, if in
the very depths of our being we were not secretly conscious that
the inexhaustible spring of eternity belongs to us so that from it
we are for ever able to renew the period of life.
On considerations such as the foregoing, we can certainly
base the theory that to enjoy the present moment and to make
this the object of our life is the greatest wisdom because the
present alone is real, everything else being only the play of
thought. But we could just as well call it the greatestfolg; for
that which in the next moment no longer exists, and vanishes as
completely as a dream, is never worth a serious effort.
144
Our existence has no foundation to support it except the
ever-fleeting and vanishing present; and so constant motion is
essentially its form, without any possibility of that rest for which
we are always longing. We resemble a man running down hill
who would inevitably fall if he tried to stop, and who keeps on
his legs only by continuing to run; or we are like a stick balanced
on a finger tip; or the planet that would fall into its sun if it
ceased to hurry forward irresistibly. Thus restlessness is the
original form of existence.
In such a world where there is no stability of any kind, no
lasting state is possible but everything is involved in restless
rotation and change, where everyone hurries along and keeps
erect on a tightrope by always advancing and moving, happiness
is not even conceivable. It cannot dwell where Platds 'constant
becoming and never being' is the only thing that occurs. In the
first place, no one is happy, but everyone throughout his life
strives for an alleged happiness that is rarely attained, and even
then only to disappoint him. As a rule, everyone ultimately
reaches port with masts and rigging gone; but then it is im-
material whether he was happy or unhappy in a life which
consisted merely of a fleeting vanishing present and is now over
and finished.
However, it tnust be a matter of surprise to us to see how, in
the human and animal worlds, that exceedingly great, varied,
DOCTRINE OF VANITY OF EXISTENCE 285
and restless motion is produced and kept up by two simple
tendencies, hunger and the sexual impulse, aided a little perhaps
by boredom, and how these are able to give the primum mobile 1
to such a complicated machine that sets in motion the many-
coloured puppet-show.
Now if we consider the matter more closely, we first of all see
the existence of the inorganic attacked at every moment and
finally obliterated by chemical forces. On the other hand, the
existence of the organic is rendered possible only through the
constant change of matter which requires a continuous flow and
consequently assistance from without. Thus in itself, organic life
already resembles the stick which is balanced on the hand and
must always be in motion; and it is, therefore, a constant need,
an everrccurring want, and an endless trouble. Yet only by
means of this organic life is consciousness possible. AU this is
accordingly finite existence whose opposite would be conceivable
as infinite, as exposed to no attack from without, or as requiring
no help from without, and therefore as aEt waa:uTw~ ov, 2 in
eternal rest and calm, ovTE ytyvofLEvov, ouT a1ToAAVfLEvov, 3
without change, without time, without multiplicity and diver-
sity, the negative knowledge of which is the keynote of Plato's
philosophy. Such an existence must be that to which the denial
of the will-to-live opens the way.
145
The scenes of our life are like pictures in rough mosaic which
produce no effect if we stand close to them, but which must be
viewed at a distance if we are to find them beautiful. Therefore
to obtain something that was eagerly desired is equivalent to
finding out how empty and insubstantial it was, and if we are
always living in expectation of better things, we often repent at
the same time and long for the past. On the other hand, the
present is accepted only for the time being, is set at naught, and
looked upon merely as the path to the goal. Thus when at the
end of their lives most men look back, they will find that they
have lived throughout ad interim; they will be surprised to see
that the very thing they allowed to slip by unappreciated and
['The first impulse', 'the prime mover'.]
z [' Ever remaining unchanged '.]
3 ['Neither coming into being nor passing away' .J
unenjoyed was just their life, precisely that in the expectation
of which they lived. And so the course of a man's life is, as a rule,
such that, having been duped by hope, he dances into the arms
of death.
In addition, there is the insatiability of the individual will by
virtue whereof every satisfaction creates a fresh desire and its
craving, eternally insatiable, goes on for ever. At bottom, how-
ever, it is due to the fact that, taken in itself, the will is lord of
the worlds to whom everything belongs; and so no part could
give it satisfaction, but only the whole which, however, is
endless. Meanwhile, it must awaken our sympathy when we
consider how very little this lord of the world obtains in its
individual phenomenon; usually only just enough to maintain
the individual body. Hence the profound woe and misery of the
individual.
146
In the present period of intellectual impotence which is
distinguished by its veneration for every species of inferiority
and describes itself most appropriately by the homemade word
Jetztzeit, as cacophonous as it is pretentious, as if its Now were
the Now Ket:r'gox~v,s the Now for whose production alone all
previous Nows have existed-in such a period even the pan-
theists have the effrontery to say that life is, as they call it, an
'end in itself'. 6 If this existence of ours were the final aim and
object of the world, it would be the silliest that had ever been
laid down, whether by ourselves or anyone else.
Life presents itself primarily as a task, namely that of gaining
a livelihood, de gagner sa vie. When this problem is solved, what
has been gained is a burden, and there comes the second prob-
lem of how to dispose of what we have got in order to ward off
boredom. Like a bird of prey on the watch, this evil pounces on
every life that has been made secure. The first problem, there-
fore, is to acquire something and the second is to prevent it
from making itself felt after it has been acquired, otherwise it is
a burden.
['Now-time' (a cacophonous word condemned by Schopenhauer).]
s (' Par excellence '.]
6 [The German &lbstzweck is another cacophonous expression censured by
Schopenhauer.]
If we attempt to take in at a glance the whole world of
humanity, we sec everywhere a restless struggle, a vast contest
for life and existence, with the fullest exertion of bodily and
mental powers, in face of dangers and evils of every kind which
threaten and strike at anv moment. If we then consider the
'
reward for all this, namely existence and life itself, we find some
intervals of painless existence which are at once attacked by
boredom and rapidly brought to an end by a new affliction.
Behind need and want is to be found at once boredom, which
attacks even the more intelligent animals. This is a consequence
of the fact that life has no genuine intrinsic worth, but is kept in
motion merely by want and illusion. But as soon as this comes to
a standstill, the utter barrenness and emptiness of existence
become apparent.
That human existence must be a kind of error, is sufficiently
clear from the simple observation that man is a concretion of
needs and wants. Their satisfaction is hard to attain and yet
affords him nothing but a painless state in which he is still
abandoned to boredom. This, then, is a positive proof that, in
itself, existence has no value; for boredom is just that feeling of
its emptiness. Thus if life, in the craving for which our very
essence and existence consist, had a positive value and in itself
a real intrinsic worth, there could not possibly be any boredom.
On the contrary, mere existence in itself would necessarily fill
our hearts and satisfy us. Now we take no delight in our
existence except in striving for something when the distance and
obstacles make us think that the goal will be satisfactory, an
illusion that vanishes when it is reached; or else in a purely
intellectual occupation where we really step out of life in order
to contemplate it from without, like spectators in the boxes.
Even sensual pleasure itself consists in a constant striving and
ceases as soon as its goal is attained. Now whenever we are not
striving for something or are not intellectually occupied, but are
thrown back on existence itself, its worthlessness and vanity are
brought home to us; and this is what is meant by boredom. Even
our inherent and ineradicable tendency to run after what is
strange and extraordinary shows how glad we are to see an
interruption in the natural course of things which is so tedious.
Even the pomp and splendour of the great in their luxury and
entertainments are at bottom really nothing but a vain attempt
to get beyond the essential wretchedness of our existence. For
after all, what are precious stones, pearls, feathers, red velvet,
many t::andles, dancers, the putting on and off of masks, and so
on? No man has ever yet felt entirely happy in the present, for
he would have been intoxicated.
1.47
The most perfect phenomenon of the will-to-live, which
manifests itself in the exceedingly ingenious and complex
n1echanism of the human organism, must crumble to dust, and
thus its whole essence and efforts are in the end obviously given
over to annihilation. All this is the naive utterance of nature,
always true and sincere, that the whole striving of that will is
essentially empty and vain. If we were something valuable in
itself, something that could be unconditioned and absolute, it
would not have non-existence as its goal. The feeling of this also
underlies Goethe's fine song:
High upon the ancient tower
Stands the hero's noble spirit.
The necessity of death can be inferred pri1narily from the fact that
man is a mere phenomenon, not. a thing-in-itself and thus not
ov-rw~ ov.1 If he were, he could not perish. But that the thing-in-
itself at the root of phenomena of this kind can manifest itself
only in them, is a consequence of its nature.
\.Yhat a difference there is between our beginning and our
end! the former in the frenzy of desire and the ecstasy of sensual
pleasure; the latter in the destruction of all the organs and the
musty odour of corpses. The path from birth to death is always
downhill as regards well-being and the enjoyment oflife; bliss-
fully dreaming childhood, light-hearted youth, toilsome man-
hood, frail and often pitiable old age, the torture of the !ast
illness, and finally the agony of death. Does it not look exactly
as if existence were a false step whose consequences gradually
become more and more obvious?
We shall have the most accurate view oflife if we regard it as
a desengaiio, a disillusionment; everything points to this clearly
enough.
7 ['That which truly is' (expression used by Plato).]
I47a
Our life is of a microscopical nature; it is an indivisible point
that we see drawn apart by the two powerful lenses of space
and time, and thus very considerably magnified.
Time is a contrivance in our brain for giving the utterly futile
existence of things and ourselves a semblance of reality by means
of continuance and duration.
How foolish it is to regret and deplore the fact that in the past
we let slip the opportunity for some pleasure or good fortune!
For what n1ore would we have now? Just the shrivelled-up
mummy of a memory. But it is the same with everything that
has actually fallen to our lot. Accordingly, theform of time itself
is precisely the means well calculated to bring home to us the
vani!J of all earthly pleasures.
Our existence and that of all animals is not something
standing fast and remaining firm, at any rate temporally; on
the contrary it is a mere existentia jluxa which continues only
through constant fluctuation and change and is comparable to
a whirlpool. It is true that the form of the body has a precarious
existence for a while, but only on condition that matter con-
stantly changes, the old being evacuated and the new assimi-
lated. Accordingly, the principal business of all those beings is
to procure at all times matter that is suitable for this influx. At
the same time, they are conscious that such an existence as
theirs can be maintained only for a while in the aforesaid
manner and so with the approach of death, they endeavour to
carry it forward to another being that will take their place.
This striving appears in self-consciousness in the form of sexual
impulse and manifests itself, in the consciousness of other things
and thus in objective intuitive perception, in the form of genital
organs. We can compare this impulse to the thread of a pearl
necklace where those rapidly succeeding individuals would
correspond to the pearls. If in our imagination we accelerate
this succession and always see in the whole series as well as in
the individuals only the form permanent, but the substance or
matter constantly changing, we then become aware that we
have only a quasi-existence. This interpretation is also the basis
of Plato's doctrine of Ideas that alone exist and of the shadow like
nature of the things that correspond to them.
290 DOCTRINE OF VA!'JITY OF EXISTENCE
That we are mere phenomena as distinct from things-in-
themselves, is illustrated and exemplified by the fact that the
conditio sine qua non of our existence is the constant excretion and
accretion of matter, as nourishment the need for which is
always recurring. For in this respect, we resemble phenomena
which are brought about through smoke, flame, or a jet of water
and which fade away or stop as soon as the supply fails.
It can also be said that the will-to-live manifests itself simply in
phenomena that become absolutely nothing. But this nothing
together with the phenon1ena remains within the will-to-live
and rests on its ground. This is, of course, obscure and not easy
to understand.
If from contemplating the course of the world on a large scale
and especially from considering the rapid succession of genera-
tions of people and their ephemeral mock-existence we turn and
look at human life in detail, as presented say by the comedy, then
the impression this now makes is like that of a drop of water,
seen through a microscope and teeming with infusoria, or that
of an otherwise visible little heap of cheese-mites whose strenuous
activity and strife make us laugh. For, as in the narrowest space,
so too in the briefest span of time, great and serious activity
produces a comic effect.
CHAPTER XII

of the Suffering of the World
148
If suffering is not the first and immediate object of our life, then
our existence is the most inexpedient and inappropriate thing in
the world. For it is absurd to assume that the infinite pain, which
everywhere abounds in the world and springs from the want and
misery essential to life, could be purposeless and purely acci-
dental. Our susceptibility to pain is well nigh infinite; but that to
pleasure has narrow limits. It is true that each separate piece of
misfortune seems to be an exception, but misfortune in general
is the rule.
149
Just as a brook forms no eddy so long as it meets with no
obstructions, so human nature, as well as animal, is such that
we do not really notice and perceive all that goes on in accor-
dance with our will. If we were to notice it, then the reason for
this would inevitably be that it did not go according to our will,
but must have met with some obstacle. On the other hand,
everything that obstructs, crosses, or opposes our will, and thus
everything unpleasant and painful, is felt by us immediately, at
once, and very plainly. Just as we do not feel the health of our
whole body, but only the small spot where the shoe pinches, so
we do not think of all our affairs that are going on perfectly
well, but only of some insignificant trifle that annoys us. On this
rests the negative nature of well-being and happiness, as
opposed to the positive nature of pain, a point that I have often
stressed.
Accordingly, I know of no greater absurdity than that of most
metaphysical systems which declare evil to be something nega-
tive;* whereas it is precisely that which is positive and makes
Lcibniz is particularly strong on this point and endeavours ( Thiodick, 153)
to strengthen his case by a palpable and pitiable sophism.
292 DOCTRINE OF SUFFERING OF THE WORLD
itself felt. On the other hand, that which is good, in other words,
all happiness and satisfaction, is negative, that is, the mere
elimination of a desire and the encling of a pain.
In agreement with this is the fact that, as a rule, we find
pleasures far below, but pains far beyond, our expectation.
Whoever wants summarilv to test the assertion that the
pleasure in the world outweighs the pain, or at any rate that the
two balance each other, should compare the feelings of an
animal that is devouring another with those of that other.
150
The most effective consolation in any misfortune or suffering
is to look at others who are even more unfortunate than we; and
this everyone can do. But what then is the result for the whole of
humanity?
We are like lambs playing in the field, while the butcher eyes
them and selects first one and then another; for in our good days
we do not know what calamity fate at this very moment has in
store for us, sickness, persecution, impoverishment, mutilation,
loss of sight, madness, death, and so on.
History shows us the life of nations and can find nothing to
relate except wars and insurrections; the years of peace appear
here and there only as short pauses, as intervals between the
acts. And in the same way, the life of the individual is a per-
petual struggle, not merely metaphorically with want and bore-
dom but actually with others. Everywhere he finds an opponent,
lives in constant conflict, and dies weapon in hand.
I 51
Not a little is contributed to the torment of our existence by
the fact that time is always pressing on us, never lets us draw
breath, and is behind everyone of us like a taskmaster with a
whip. Only those who have been handed over to boredom are
not pressed and plagued by time.
152
However, just as our body would inevitably burst if the pres-
sure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so if the pressure
of want, hardship, clisappointment, and the frustration of effort
were removed from the lives of men, their arrogance would rise,
DOCTRINE OF SUFFERING OF THE WORLD 293
though not to bursting-point, yet to manifestations of the most
unbridled folly and even madness. At all times, everyone indeed
needs a certain amount of care, anxiety, pain, or trouble, just as
a ship requires ballast in order to proceed on a straight and
steady course.
Work, worry, toil, and trouble are certainly the lot of almost all
throughout their lives. But if all desires were fulfilled as soon as
they arose, how then would people occupy their lives and spend
their time? Suppose the human race were removed to Utopia
where everything grew automatically and pigeons flew about
ready roasted; where everyone at once found his sweetheart and
had no difficulty in keeping her; then people would die ofbore-
dom or hang themselves; or else they would fight, throttle, and
murder one another and so cause themselves more suffering
than is now laid upon them by nature. Thus for such a race, no
other scene, no other existence, is suitable.
153
On account of the negative nature of well-being and pleasure
as distinct from the positive nature of pain, a fact to which I just
now drew the reader's attention, the happiness of any given life
is to be measured not by its joys and pleasures, but by the
absence of sorrow and suffering, of that which is positive. But
then the lot of animals appears to be more bearable than that of
man. We wiJl consider the two somewhat more closely.
However varied the forms in which man's happiness and un-
happiness appear and impel him to pursuit or escape, the
material basis of all this is nevertheless physical pleasure or pain.
This basis is very restricted, namely health, nourishment, pro-
tection from wet and cold, and sexual satisfaction, or else the
want of these things. Consequently, in real physical pleasure
man has no more than the animal, except in so far as his more
highly developed nervous system enhances the susceptibility to
every pleasure but also to every pain as well. But how very much
stronger are the emotions stirred in him than those aroused in
the animal! How incomparably more deeply and powerfully are
his feelings excited! and ultimately only to arrive at the same
result, namely health, nourishment, clothing, and so on.
This arises primarily from the fact that, with him, everything
is powerfully enhanced by his thinking of the absent and the
future, whereby anxiety, fear, and hope really come into exis-
tence for the first time. But then these press much more heavily
on him than can the present reality of pleasures or pains, to
which the animal is confined. Thus the animal lacks reflection,
that condenser of pleasures and pains which, therefore, cannot
be accumulated, as happens in the case of man by means of his
memory and foresight. On the contrary, with the animal, the
suffering of the present moment always remains, even when tills
again recurs innumerable times, merely the suffering of the
present moment as on the first occasion, and cannot be accumu-
lated. Hence the enviable tranquillity and placidity of animals.
On the other hand, by means of reflection and everything con-
nected therewith, there is developed in man from those same
elements of pleasure and pain which he has in common with the
animal, an enhancement of susceptibility to happiness and
unhappiness which is capable of leading to momentary, and
sometimes even fatal, ecstasy or else to the depths of despair and
suicide. More closely considered, things seem to take the
following course. In order to heighten his pleasure, man de-
liberately increases his needs that were originally only a little
more difficult to satisfy than those of the animal; hence luxury,
delicacies, tobacco, opium, alcoholic liquors, pomp, display,
and all that goes with this. Then in addition, in consequence of
reflection, there is open to man alone a source of pleasure, and
of pain as well, a source that gives him an excessive amount of
trouble, in fact almost more than is given by all the others. I
refer to ambition and the feeling of honour and shame, in plain
words, what he thinks of other people's opinion of him. Now in
a thousand different and often strange forms this becomes the
goal of almost all his efforts that go beyond physical pleasure or
pain. It is true that he certainly has over the animal the advan-
tage of really intellectual pleasures which admit of many
degrees from the most ingenuous trifling or conversation up to
the highest achievements of the mind. But as a counterweight
to this on the side of suffering, boredom appears in man which
is unknown to the animal, at any rate in the natural state, but
which slightly attacks the most intelligent only if they are
domesticated, whereas with man it becomes a real scourge. We
see it in that host of miserable wretches who have always been
concerned over filling their purses but never their heads, and
for \Vhom their very wealth now becomes a punishment by
delivering them into the hands of tormenting boredom. To
escape from this, they now rush about in all directions and
travel here, there, and everywhere. No sooner do they arrive at
a place, than they anxiously inquire about its amusements and
clubs, just as does a poor man about its sources of assistance; for, of
course, want and boredom are the two poles of human life.
Finally, I have to mention that, in the case of man, there is
associated with sexual satisfaction an obstinate selection, pecu-
liar to him alone, which rises sometimes to a more or less pas-
sionate love and to which I have devoted a lengthy chapter in
the second volume of my chief work. In this way, it becomes for
him a source of much suffering and little pleasure.
Meanwhile, it is remarkable how, through the addition of
thought which the animal lacks, so lofty and vast a structure of
human happiness and unhappiness is raised on the same narrow
basis of joys and sorrows which the animal also has. With
reference to this, his feelings are exposed to such violent emo-
tions, passions, and shocks, that their stamp can be read in the
permanent lines on his face; and yet in the end and in reality, it
is only a question of the same things which even the animal
obtains, and indeed with incomparably less expenditure of
emotion and distress. But through all this, the measure of pain
increases in man much more than that of pleasure and is now
in a special way very greatly enhanced by the fact that death is
actually known to him. On the other hand, the animal runs away
from death merely instinctively, without really knowing it and
thus without ever actually coming face to face with it, as does
man who always has before him this prospect. And so although
only a few animals die a natural death, most of them get only
just enough time to propagate their species and then, if not
earlier, become the prey of some other animal. On the other
hand, man alone in his species has managed to make the so-
called natural death the rule to which there are, however,
important exceptions. Yet in spite of all this, the animals still
have the advantage, for the reason I have given. Moreover, man
reaches his really natural term of life just as rarely as do the
animals, because his unnatural way of living, his struggles and
passions, and the degeneration of the race resulting therefrom
rarely enable him to succeed in this.
Animals are much more satisfied than we by mere existence;
the plant is wholly satisfied, man according to the degree of his
dullness. Consequently, the aniJnal's life contains less suffering,
but also less pleasure, than man's. This is due primarily to the
fact that it remains free from care and anxiery together with their
torment, on the one hand, but is also without real hope, on the
other. And so it does not participate in that anticipation of a
joyful future through ideas together with the delightful phantas-
magoria, that source of most of our joys and pleasures, which
accompanies those ideas and is given in addition by the imagin-
ation; consequently in this sense it is without hope. It is both
these because its consciousness is restricted to what is intuitively
perceived and so to the present moment. Thus only in reference
to objects that already exist at this moment in intuitive percep-
tion, docs the animal have an extremely short fear and hope;
whereas man's consciousness has an intellectual horizon that
embraces the whole of life and even goes beyond this. But in
consequence of this, animals, when compared with us, seem to
be really wise in one respect, namely in their calm and undis-
turbed enjoyment of the present moment. The animal is the
embodiment of the present; the obvious peace of mind which it
thus shares frequently puts us to shame with our often restless
and dissatisfied state that comes from thoughts and cares. And
even those pleasures ofhope and anticipation we have just been
discussing arc not to be had for nothing. Thus what a man
enjoys in advance, through hoping and expecting a satisfaction,
afterwards detracts from the actual enjoyment of this, since the
thing itself then satisfies him by so much the less. The animal,
on the other hand, remains free from such pleasure in advance
as well as from that deduction of pleasure, and therefore enjoys
the real and present thing itself, whole and undiminished. In
the same way, evils press on the animal merely with their own
actual weight, whereas for us they are often increased tenfold by
fear and foresight, 7] TTpoaOoKla Twv KetKwv. 1
It is just this complete absorption in tile present moment, peculiar to
animals, which contributes so much to the pleasure we derive
from our domestic pets. They are the present moment personi-
fied and, to a certain extent, make us feel the value of every
1 ' The dread of evil '.

unburdened and unclouded hour, whereas with our thoughts
we usually pass it over and leave it unheeded. But the above-
mentioned capacity of animals to be more satisfied than we by
mere existence is abused by egotistic and heartless man, and is
often exploited to such an extent that he allows them absolutely
nothing but bare existence. For example, the bird that is
organized to roam through half the world, is confined to a
cubic foot of space where it slowly pines to death and cries; for
l'uccello nella gabbia
Canta non di piacre, ma di rabbia, 2
and the highly intelligent dog, man's truest and most faithful
friend, is put on a chain by him! Never do I see such a dog
without feelings of the deepest sympathy for him and of pro-
found indignation against his master. I think with satisfaction
of a case, reported son1e years ago in The Times, where Lord -
kept a large dog on a chain. One day as he was walking through
the yard, he took it into his head to go and pat the dog, where-
upon the animal tore his arm open from top to bottom, and
quite right too! What he meant by this was: 'You are not my
master, but my devil who makes a hell of my brief existence!'
May this happen to all who chain up dogs.
154
If the result of the foregoing remarks is that the enhanced
power of knowledge renders the life of man more woe-begone
than that of the animal, we can reduce this to a universal law
and thereby obtain a much wider view.
In itself, knowledge is always painless. Pain concerns the will
alone and consists in checking, hindering, or thwarting this; yet
an additional requirement is that this checking be accompanied
by knowledge. Thus just as light illuminates space only when
objects exist to reflect it; just as a tone requires resonance and
sound generally becomes audible at a distance only through
waves of the vibrating air that break on hard bodies so that its
effect is strikingly feeble on isolated mountain tops and a song
in the open produces little effect; so also in the same way must
l ['Ill is the humour of the bird in a cage;

He sings not for pleasure, but only from rage.']
the checking of the will, in order to be felt as pain, be accom-
panied by knowledge which in itself, however, is a stranger to all
.
pam.
Thus pJrysical pain is already conditioned by nerves and their
connection with the brain; and so an injury to a limb is not felt
if its nerves leading to the brain are severed, or when the brain
itself loses its powers through chloroform. For the very same
reason, we consider that, as soon as consciousness is extinguished
when a person is dying, all subsequent convulsions are painless.
It follows as a matter of course that mental pain is conditioned by
knowledge; and that it increases with the degree of knowledge
can easily be seen, and moreover in the above remarks as also in
my chief work, volume i, 56. We can, therefore, figuratively
express the whole relationship by saying that the will is the
string, its thwarting or checking the vibration thereof, know-
ledge the sounding-board, and pain the tone.
Now according to this, only that which is inorganic and also
the plant are incapable of feeling pain, however often the will
n1ay be checked in both. On the other hand, every animal, even
an infusorian, feels pain because knowledge, however imper-
fect, is the true characteristic of animal existence. As knowledge
rises on the animal scale, so too does susceptibility to pain. It is,
therefore, still extremely small in the case of the lowest animals;
thus, for example, insects still go on eating when the back part
of the body is nearly torn off and hangs by a mere thread of gut.
But even in the highest animals, because of an absence of con-
cepts and thought, pain is nothing like that which is suffered by
man. Even the susceptibility to pain could reach its highest
point only when, by virtue of our faculty of reason and its
reflectiveness, there exists also the possibility of denying the will.
For without that possibility, such susceptibility would have been
purposeless cruelty.
1 55
In early youth we sit before the impending course of our life
like children at the theatre before the curtain is raised, who sit
there in happy and excited expectation of the things that are to
come. It is a blessing that we do not know what will actually
come. For to the man who knows, the children may at times
appear to be like innocent delinquents who are condemned not
to death, it is true, but to life and have not yet grasped the
purport of their sentence. Nevertheless everyone wants to reach
old age and thus to a state of life, whereof it may be said: 'It
is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of
all happens.'
156
If we picture to ourselves roughly as far as we can the sum
total of misery, pain, and suffering of every kind on which the
sun shines in its course, we shall admit that it would have been
much better if it had been just as impossible for the sun to
produce the phenomenon of life on earth as on the moon, and
the surface of the earth, like that of the moon, had still been in a
crystalline state.
We can also regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in
the blissful repose of nothingness. At all events even the man
who has fared tolerably well, becomes more clearly aware, the
longer he lives, that life on the whole is a disappointment, 1la] a
cheat, 3 in other words, bears the character of a great mystifica-
tion or even a fraud. \'\-'hen two men who were friends in their
youth meet again after the separation of a lifetime, the feeling
uppermost in their minds when they see each other, in that it
recalls old times, is one of complete disappointment with the whole
of {!fe. In former years under the rosy sunrise of their youth, life
seemed to them so fair in prospect; it made so many promises
and has kept so few. So definitely uppermost is this feeling when
they meet that they do not even deem it necessary to express it
in words, but both tacitly assume it and proceed to talk on that
basis.
Whoever lives two or three generations, feels like the spectator
who, during the fair, sees the performances of all kinds of
jugglers and, if he remains seated in the booth, sees them re-
peated two or three times. As the tricks were meant only for one
performance, they no longer make any i1npression after the
illusion and novelty have vanished.
We should be driven crazy if we contemplated the lavish and
excessive arrangements, the countless flaming fixed stars in
infinite space which have nothing to do but illuminate worlds,
J [Schopenhauer's own words.]

such being the scene of misery and desolation and, in the
luckiest case, yielding nothing but boredom-at any rate to
judge from the specimen with which we are familiar.
No one is to be greatly envied, but many thousands are to be
greatly pitied.
Life is a task to be worked off; in this sense defunctus4 is a fine
.
expressiOn.
Let us for a moment imagine that the act of procreation were
not a necessity or accompanied by intense pleasure, but a
matter of pure rational deliberation; could then the human race
really continue to exist? Would not everyone rather feel so much
sympathy for the coming generation that he would prefer to
spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate would not like to
assume in cold blood the responsibility of imposing on it such a
burden?
The world is just a hell and in it human beings are the tor-
tured souls on the one hand, and the devils on the other.
I suppose I shall have to be told again that my philosophy is
cheerless and comfortless simply because I tell the truth, whereas
people want to hear that the Lord has made all things very well.
Go to your churches and leave us philosophers in peace! At any
rate, do not demand that they should cut their doctrines accord-
ing to your pattern! This is done by knaves and philosophasters
from whom you can order whatever doctrines you like.*
Brahma produces the world through a kind of original sin, but
himself remains in it to atone for this until he has redeemed him-
self from it. This is quite a good idea! In Buddhism the world
comes into being in consequence of an inexplicable disturbance
(after a long period of calm) in the crystal clearness of the
blessed and penitentially obtained state of Nirvana and hence
through a kind of fatality which, however, is to be understood
ultimately in a moral sense; although the matter has its exact
analogue and corresponding picture in physics, in the inexpli-
cable arising of a primordial nebula, whence a sun is formed.
Accordingly, in consequence of moral lapses, it also gradually
becomes physically worse and worse until it assumes its present
To put professors of philosophy out of countenance with their orthodox

optimism is as easy as it is agreeable.
4 ['One who has fini<~hed with the bwiness of life'.]
sorry state. An excellent idea! To the Greeks the world and the
gods were the work of an unfathomable necessity; this is fairly
reasonable in so far as it satisfies us for the time being. Onnuzd
lives in conflict with Ahriman; this seems not unreasonable. But
that a God Jehovah creates this world of misery and affliction
animi causas and de gaiete de coeur,6 and then applauds himself
with a Travra KaAa Alav,7 this is something intolerable. And so
in this respect, we see the religion of the jews occupy the lowest
place among the dogmas of the civilized world, which is wholly
in keeping with the fact that it is also the only religion that has
absolutely no doctrine of immortality, nor has it even any trace
thereof. (See vol. i of this work, pages 1 25-26.)
Even if Leibniz's demonstration were correct, that of all
possible worlds this is nevertheless always the best, we should
still not have a Tlliodiet!e. For the Creator has created indeed not
merely the world, but also the possibility itself; accordingly, he
should have arranged this with a view to its admitting of a
better world.
But generally, such a view of the world as the successful work
of an all-wise, all-benevolent, and moreover almighty Being is
too flagrantly contradicted by the misery and wretchedness that
fill the world on the one hand, and by the obvious imperfection
and even burlesque distortion of the most perfect of its phen-
omena on the other; I refer to the human phenomenon. Here
is to be found a dissonance that can never be resolved. On the
other hand, these very instances will agree with, and serve as a
proof of, our argument if we look upon the world as the work of
our own guilt and consequently as something that it were better
never to have been. Whereas on the first assumption human
beings become a bitter indictment against the Creator and
provide material for sarcasm, they appear on the second as a
denunciation of our own true nature and will, which is calcu-
lated to humble us. For they lead us to the view that we, as the
offspring of dissolute fathers, have come into the world already
burdened with guilt and that, only because we have to be con-
tinually working off this debt, does our existence prove to be so
5 ['Because he feels inclined to'. J

6 ['out of sheer wantonness'.]
7 ('(And God saw) every thing (that he had made, and, behold it) was very
good.' (Genesis 1 : 31.)]

wretched and have death as its finale. Nothing is more certain
than that, speaking generally, it is the great sin of the world which
produces the many and great sufferings of the world; and here I
refer not to the physically empirical connection, but to the
metaphysical. According to this view, it is only the story of the
Fall of Man that reconciles me to the Old Testament. In fact,
in my eyes, it is the only metaphysical truth that appears in the
book, although it is clothed in allegory. For to nothing docs our
existence bear so close a resemblance as to the consequence of a
false step and guilty Just. I cannot refrain from recommending
to the thoughtful reader a popular, but exceedingly profound,
dissertation on this subject by Claudius which brings to light the
essentially pessimistic spirit of Christianity and appears in the
fourth part of the Wandsbecker Bote with the title 'Cursed be the
ground for thy sake.'
To have always in hand a sure compass for guiding us in life
and enabling us always to view this in the right light without
ever going astray, nothing is more suitable than to accustom
ourselves to regard this world as a place of penance and hence a
penal colony, so to speak, an pyaaT1}pwv,a as it was called even
by the oldest philosophers (according to Clement of Alexandria,
Stromata, lib. III, c. 3, p. 399). Among the Christian Fathers
Origen expressed it thus with commendable boldness. (See
Augustine, De civitate dei, lib. XI, c. 23.) This view of the world
also finds its theoretical and objective justification not merely in
my philosophy, but in the wisdom of all ages, in Brahmanism,
Budcihism,* Empedocles, and Pythagoras. Cicero also mentions
(Fragmenta de philosophia, vol. xii, p. 3 I 6, ed. Bip.) that it was
taught by ancient sages and at the initiation into the Mysteries,
nos ob aliqua scelera suscepta in vita superiore, poenarum luendarum
causa natos esse.9 Vanini, whom it was easier to burn that to
refute, gives the strongest expression to this by saying: Tot
Nothing can be more conducive to patience in life and to a placid endurance
of men and evils than a Buddhist reminder of this kind: ' This is SamsaTa, the world of
lust and craving and thus of birth, disease, old age, and death; it is a world that
ought not to be. And this is here the population of Samsara. Therefore what better
things can you expect?' I would like tCI prescribe that everyone repeat this four
times a day, fully conscious of what he is saying.
a[' Penitentiary'.)
0['That, on account of definite mistakes made in a previous life, we are oom to
pay the penalty'.]
tantisque homo repletus miseriis, ut si Christianae religioni non repug-
naret, dicere auderem: si daemones dantur, ipsi, in hominum corpora
transmigrantes, sceleris poenas luunt. 10 (De admirandis naturae arcanis,
Dial. 50, p. 353.) But even in genuine Christianity which is
properly understood, our existence is regarded as the conse-
quence of a guilt, a false step. If we have acquired that habit, we
shall adjust our expectations from life to suit the occasion and
accordingly no longer regard as unexpected and abnormal its
troubles, vexations, sufferings, worries, and misery, great and
small. On the contrary, we shall find such things to be quite in
order, well knowing that here everyone is punished for his
existence and indeed each in his own way.* For one of the evils
of a penitentiary is also the society we meet there. What this is
like will be known by anyone who is worthy of a better society
without my telling him. A fine nature, as well as a genius, may
sometimes feel in this world like a noble state-prisoner in the
galleys among common criminals; and they, like him, will there-
fore attempt to isolate themselves. Generally speaking, how-
ever, the above-mentioned way of looking at things will enable
us to regard without surprise and certainly without indignation
the so-called imperfections, that is, the wretched and contempt-
ible nature of most men both morally and intellectually, which
is accordingly stamped on their faces. For we shall always
remember where we are and consequently look on everyone
primarily as a being who exists only as a result of his sinfulness
and whose life is the atoneJnent for the guilt of his birth. It is
just this that Christianity calls the sinful nature of man. It is,
therefore, the basis of the beings whom we meet in this world as
our fellows. Moreover, in consequence of the constitution of the
world, they are almost all, more or less, in a state of suffering
and dissatisfaction which is not calculated to make them more
sympathetic and amiable. Finally, there is the fact that, in
almost all cases, their intellect is barely sufficient for the service
The correct standard for judging any man is to remember that he is really a being
who should not exist at all, but who is atoning for his existence through many
different forms of suffering and through death. What can we expect from such a
being? We atone for our birth first by living and secondly by dying. This is also
allegorized by original sin.
10 ['Man is so full of many great afflictions that, if it were not repugnant to the
Christian religion, I would venture to assert that, if there are demons, they are cast
into human bodies and pay the penalties for their sins.']
of their will. Accordingly, we have to regulate our claims on the
society of this world. Whoever keeps firmly to this point of view,
might call the social impulse a pernicious tendency.
In fact, the conviction that the world and thus also man is
something that really ought not to be, is calculated to fill us with
forbearance towards one another; for what can we expect from
beings in such a predicament? In fact from this point of view, it
might occur to us that the really proper address between one
man and another should be, instead of Sir, Monsieur, and so on,
Leidensgefiilzrte, socii malorum, compagnon de miseres, "V' fellow-
sufferer. However strange this may sound, it accords with the
facts, puts the other man in the most correct light, and reminds
us of that most necessary thing, tolerance, patience, forbearance,
and love of one's neighbour, which everyone needs and each of
us, therefore, owes to another.
156a
The characteristic of the things of this world and cspeciall y of
the world of men is not exactly imperfection, as has often been
said, but rather distortion, in everything, in what is moral,
intellectual, or physical.
The excuse, sometimes made for many a vice, namely' that it
is natural to man', is by no mean.<; adequate, but the proper
rejoinder should be: 'just because it is bad, it is natural; and just
because it is natural it is bad.' To understand this aright, we
must have grasped the meaning of the doctrine of original sin.
When judging a human individual, we should always keep to
the point of view that the basis of such is something that ought
not to be at all, something sinful, perverse, and absurd, that
which has been understood as original sin, that on account of
which he is doomed to die. Tllis fundamentally bad nature is
indeed characterized by the fact that no one can bear to be
closely scrutinized. What can we expect from such a being? If,
therefore, we start from this fact, we shall judge him more
indulgently; we shall not be surprised when the devils lurking
in him bestir themselves and peep out, and we shall be better
able to appreciate any good point that has nevertheless been
found in him, whether this be a consequence of his intellect or of
anything else. In the second place, we should also be 1nindful of
his position and remember that life is essentially a condition of
want, distress, and often misery, where everyone has to fight
and struggle for his existence and therefore cannot always put
on a pleasant face. If, on the contrary, man were that \vhich all
opti1nistic religions and philosophies would like to make him,
namely the work or even the incarnation of a God, in fact a
being that in every sense ought to be and to be as he is, what a
totally different effect would inevitably be produced by the
first sight, the closer acquaintance, and the continued inter-
course with every human being from that which is now
produced!
Pardon's the word to all (Cymbeline, Act v, Sc. 5). vVe should
treat with indulgence every human folly, failing, and vice,
bearing in mind that what we have before us are simply our own
follies, failings, and vices. For they are just the failings of man-
kind to which we also belong; accordingly, we have in ourselves
all its failings, and so those at which we are just now indignant,
merely because they do not appear in us at this particular
moment. Thus they are not on the surface, but lie deep down
within us and will c01ne up and show themselves on the first
occasion, just as we see them in others; although one failing is
conspicuous in one man and another in another, and the sum
total of all bad qualities is undoubtedly very much greater in
one man than in another. For the difference in individualities
is incalculably great.
CHAPTER XIII
On Suicide
157
As far as I can see, it is only the monotheistic, and hence jewish,
religions whose followers regard suicide as a crime. This is the
more surprising since neither in the Old Testament nor in the
New is there to be found any prohibition or even n1erely a
definite conden1nation of suicide. Teachers of religion have,
therefore, to base their objection to suicide on their own philo-
sophical grounds; but their arguments are in such a bad way
that they try to make up for what these lack in strength by the
vigorous expressions of their abhorrence and thus by being
abusive. We then of necessity hear that suicide is the greatest
cowardice, that it is possible only in madness, and such like
absurdities; or else the wholly meaningless phrase that suicide
is 'wrong', whereas there is obviously nothing in the world over
which every man has such an indisputable right as his own
person and life. (Cf. 121.) As I have said, suicide is even
accounted a crime and connected with this, especially in vulgar
bigoted England, are an ignominious burial and the confisca-
tion of legacies; for which reason a jury almost invariably
brings in a verdict of insanity. First of all, we should allow moral
feeling to decide the matter and compare the impression made
on us by the news that an acquaintance of ours had committed
a crime, such as murder, cruelty, fraud, or theft, with that made
by the report of his voluntary death. Whereas the former report
arouses lively indignation, the greatest resentment, and a de-
mand for punishment or revenge, the latter will move us to
sorrow and sympathy often mingled with a certain admiration
for his courage rather than with the moral condemnation that
accompanies a bad action. Who has not had acquaintances,
friends, and relations who have voluntarily departed from the
world? And should we all regard these with abhorrence as
criminals? Nego ac pernego! 1 I am rather of the opinion that the
' ['I say no, certainly not.']
ON SUICIDE 307
clergy should be challenged once and for all to tell us with what
right they stigmatize as a crime an action that has been com-
mitted by many who were honoured and beloved by us; for they
do so from the pulpit and in their writings without being able to
point to any biblical authority and in fact without having any
valid philosophical arguments, and they refuse an honourable
burial to those who voluntarily depart from the world. But here
it should be stipulated that we want reasons and shall not accept
in their place mere empty phrases or words of abuse. If criminal
law condemns suicide, that is not an ecclesiastically valid
reason and is, moreover, definitely ridiculous; for what punish-
ment can frighten the man who seeks death? If we punish the
attempt to commit suicide, then we are simply punishing the
want of skill whereby it failed.
Even the ancients were far from regarding the matter in that
light. Pliny (Historia natura/is, lib. XXVIII, c. 1; vol. iv, p. 351
ed. Bip.) says: Vitam quidem non adeo expetendam censemus, ut quoque
modo trahenda sit. Quisquis es talis, aeque moriere, etiam cum obJcoen.us
vixeris, aut nefandus.Quapropter hoc primum quisque in remediis animi
sui habeat: ex omnibus bonis, quae homini tribuit natura, nullum melius
esse tempestiva morte: idque in ea optimum, quod illam sibi quisque
praestare poterit.z He also says (lib. II, c. 7; vol. i, p. 125) : ne Deum
quidem posse omnia. Namque nee sibi potest mortem consciscere, si velit,
quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae poenis etc.J In Massilia and
on the island of Ceos, the cup of hemlock was even publicly
handed to the man who could state convincing reasons for
quitting life (Valerius Maximus, lib. n, c. 6, 7 and 8).* And
how many heroes and sages of antiquity have not ended their
lives by a voluntary death! It is true that Aristotle says (Nico-
machean Ethics, v. 15) suicide is a wrong against the State,
On the island of Ceos it was the custom for old peopk to die voluntarily. See
Valerius Maxim us, lib. II, c. 6. Heradides Ponticus, Fragmenla de rebus publicis, IX.
Aelianus, Variae historiae, Ill. 37 Strabo, lib. X, c. 5, 6, ed. Kramer.
z ['We are of the opinion that one should not love life so much as to prolong it at
all costs. Whoever you may be, you who desire this will likewise die, even though
you may have lived a (good or) vicious and criminal life. Therefore may everyone
above all keep as a remedy for his soul the fact that, of all the blessings conferred by
nature on man, none is better than an opportune death; and the best thing is that
everyone can procure for himself such a death.']
J ['Not even God is capable of everything. For even if he wanted to, he cannot
C'.Ome to a decision about his own death. Yet with so much suffering in life, such a
death is the best gift he has granted to man.']
ON SUICIDE
although not against one's own person. Yet in his exposition of

the ethics of the Peripatetics, Stobaeus quotes the sentence
(Eclogae ethicae, lib. n, c. 7, vol. iii, p. 286): (,[>VKTov bE Tov f3iov
yiyvEa8at TOtS p.v &ya8o'is EV Ta'is ayav aTvxiatsTo'is- S KaKOLS Kai
b Ta'is ayaJ' EVTvxiats (Vitam autem relinquendam esse bonis in nimiis
quidem miseriis, pravis vero in nimium quoque secundis). 4 And sin1ilarl y
On page 3 I 2: L..ILO
A '
Kat.' yap.1JGU' K(XL rrato07TOL'T)GG
'>:
I
1
'
at, Kat 1TOI\LTVG I () \ \ I
a8at etc. Kat Ka8oAov T~V apErryv ctGKOVJ!Ta Kat J.LEVHV EV Ttp f3CfJ,
\ I\
Kat 1Tcti\LV, H
' I: I
OEOL, 'TT'OTE
I S: > >
UL
I > \ \
at-ayKct') a1Tal\l\a'}'1Jaa
I 0C(L ~.J.. -
T.vp7JS 7rpOVO-
1
~aaVTCI. etc. (Ideoque et uxorem ductu.mm, et liberos procreaturum, et ad

civitatem accessumm etc. atque omnino virtutem colendo tum vitam
servaturum, tum iterum, cogente necessitate, relicturum etc.) s
We find suicide extolled as a noble and heroic action even bv
'
the Stoics, as can be proved from hundreds of passages, the most
vigorous of which arc from Seneca. Further with the Hindus, it
is well known that suicide often occurs as a religious action,
particularly as widow-burning, selt:destruction under the wheels
of the Juggernaut Car, self-sacrifice to the crocodiles of the
Ganges or the sacred temple-tanks, and otherwise. It is precisely
the same at the theatre, that mirror of life; for example, in the
celebrated Chinese play L'Orphelin de la Chine (translated by
Saint-Julien, 1834), we see almost all the noble characters end in
suicide without there being any suggestion or its occurring to the
spectator that they had committed a crime. In fact, at bottom
on our own stage it is not otherwise, for example, Palmira in
Mahomet, Mortimer in Maria Stuart, Othello, Countess Terzky.
And Sophocles says:
\ I
1\VUEL p, >o< oatp,(JJJ',
\: I ''
ora~
' \
Eyw EI\W. 6
() 1\
Is Hamlet's monologue the meditation of a crime? He merely

states that, if we were sure of being absolutely annihilated by
death, we would undoubtedly choose it in view of the state of
the world.' Ay, there's the rub.' 7 But the reasons against suicide
4 (' 'fbat the good must quit life when their misfortune is too great, but the bad
also when their good fortune is too great'.]
s ['Therefore a man must marry, have children, devote himself to the service of
the State, and generally preserve his life in the cultivation of skill and ability, but
again quit it under the compulsion of necessity.']
6 ['God will release me when I myself wish it.' (Not Sophocles, but Euripides,
Bacchae, 498.)]
1 [Hamlet, Act m, Sc. 1.]
ON SUICIDE
which are advanced by the clergy of the monotheistic, i.e.
Jewish, religions and by the philosophers who accommodate
themselves to them, are feeble sophisms which can easily be
refuted. (See my essay On the Basis of Ethics, 5.) The most
thorough refutation of then1 has been furnished by Hume in his
essay On Suicide, which first appeared after his death and was at
once suppressed in England by the disgraceful bigotry and
scandalous power of the parsons. And so only a few copies were
sold secretly and at a high price, and for the preservation of this
and another essay by that great man we are indebted to the
Basel reprint: Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul, by
the late David H ume, Basel, I 799, sold by James Decker, I 24
pp., 8vo. But that a purely philosophical essay, coldly and
rationally refuting the current reasons against suicide and
coming from one of the leading thinkers and authors of England,
had to be secretly smuggled through that country like a for-
bidden thing until it found refuge abroad, brings great discredit
on the English nation. At the same time, it shows what kind of a
conscience the Church has on this point. I have expounded in
my chief work, volume one, 69, the only valid moral reason
against suicide. It lies in the fact that suicide is opposed to the
attainment of the highest moral goal since it substitutes for the
real salvation from this world of woe and misery one that is
merely apparent. But it is still a very long way from this aberra-
tion to a crime, such as the Christian clergy would like to stamp it.
In its innermost core, Christianity bears the truth that suffer-
ing (the Cross) is the real purpose of life; and therefore as
suicide opposes such purpose, Christianity rejects it, whereas
antiquity, from a lower point of view, approved and even
honoured it. That reason against suicide is, however, ascetic and
therefore applies only to an ethical standpoint much higher than
that which European moral philosophers have ever occupied.
But if we descend from that very high point, there is no longer
any valid moral reason for condemning suicide. It seems, there-
fore, that the extraordinarily lively zeal of the clergy of the
monotheistic religions against suicide,* a zeal that is not
* On this point all are unanimous. According to Rousseau, Oeuvres, vol. IV, p.
275, Augustine and Lactantius were the first to declart: suicide to be a sin. but took
their argument from Plato's Phaedo ( 139), since shown to be as trite as it is utterly
groundless, that we are on duty or are slaves of the gods.
310 ON SUICIDE
supported either by th~ Bible or by valid grounds, must have a

hidden foundation. Might it not be that the voluntary giving up
of life is a poor compliment to him who said 7TctvTa KMa >..tav? 8
So once again, it is the customary and orthodox optimism of
these religions which denounces suicide in order not to be
denounced by it.
On the whole, we shall find that, as soon as a point is reached

where the terrors of life outweigh those of death, man puts an
end to his life. The resistance of the latter is nevertheless con-
siderable; they stand, so to speak, as guardians at the gate of
exit. Perhaps there is no one alive who would not already have
made an end of his life if such an end were something purely
negative, a sudden cessation of existence. But it is something
positive, namely the destruction of the body, and this frightens
people back just because the body is the phenomenon of the
will-to-live.
However, the struggle with those guardians is not, as a rule,
so difficult as it may seem from a distance and indeed in conse-
quence of the antagonism between mental and bodily sufferings.
Thus if physically we suffer very severely or continuously, we
become indifferent to all other troubles; only our recovery is
uppermost in our thoughts. In the same way, severe mental
suffering makes us indifferent to physical; we treat it with con-
tempt. In fact, if physical suffering should predominate, this is a
wholesome diversion, a pause in the n1ental suffering. It is
precisely this that makes suicide easier, since the physical pain
associated with this loses all importance in the eyes of one who is
tormented by an excessive an10unt of mental suffering. This
becomes particularly noticeable in those who are driven to
suicide through a purely morbid deep depression. It does not
cost such men any self-restraint at all; they need not make a
resolute rush at it, but, as soon as the warder appointed to look
after them leaves them for two minutes, they quickly put }n end
to their life.
s ['(And God saw) every thing (that he had made, and behold, it) was very
good.' (Genesis 1 : 3 1.)]
ON SUICIDE 311
1 59
If in heavy horrible dreams anxiety reaches its highest degree,
it causes us to wake up, whereby all those monstrous horrors of
the night vanish. The same thing happens in the dream of life
when the highest degree of anxiety forces us to break it off.
r6o
Suicide can also be regarded as an experiment, a question we
put to nature and try to make her answer, namely what change
the existence and knowledge of man undergo through death.
But it is an awkward experiment, for it abolishes the identity of
the consciousness that would have to listen to the answer.
CHAPTER XIV

of the Affirmation and Denial of
the Will-to-Live
161
To a certain extent, it can be seen a priori, vulgo it is self-evident,

that that which now produces the phenomenon of the world
must also be capable of not doing this and consequently of
remaining at rest; in other words, that to the present St<xaToA~
there must also be a avaToA~. 1 Now if the former is the pheno-
menon of the will-to-live, the latter will be that of the will-not-
to-live. Essentially this will also be the same as the magnum
SakhepaF of the Veda teaching (in the Oupnekhat, vol. i, p. 1 63),
as the Nirvana of the Buddhists, and also as the l:rrlKerva 3 of
the Neoplatonists.
Contrary to certain silly objections, I observe that the denial of
the will-to-live does not in any way assert the annihilation of a
substance, but the mere act of not-willing; that which hitherto
willed no longer wills. As we know this being, this essence, the
will, as thing-in-itself merely in and through the act of willing,
we are incapable of saying or comprehending what it still is or
does after it has given up that act. And so for us who are the
phenomenon of willing, this denial is a passing over into nothing.
The affirmation and denial of the will-to-live is a mere Velle et
JVolle.4 The subject of these two acts is one and the same and
consequently, as such, is not annihilated either by the one act or
by the other. Its velle 1nanifests itself in this world of intuitive
perception which is for that very reason the phenmnenon of its
own thing-in-itself. On the other hand, we know of no pheno-
1 ['Expansion' and ' contraction'.)

:z [Sanskrit mahd sushuplil}, the great and profound sleep, the periodical entry of
the world into the Brahman.]
J ['The Beyond'.]
4
('Willing and not-willing'.]
DOCTRINE OF AFFIRMATION, ETC. 313
menon of nolle except merely that of its appearance and in fact
in the individual who already belongs originally to the pheno-
menon of velle. And so as long as the individual exists, we still see
nolle always in conflict with velle. If the individual has come to
an end and nolle has triumphed in him, this has been a pure
declaration of nolle (this is the meaning of the Papal Canoniza-
tion). Of this we can only say that its phenomenon cannot be
that of velle; but we do not know whether it appears at all, that
is, whether it maintains a secondary existence for an intellect
which it would first have to produce. Since we know the intellect
only as an organ of the will in the affirmation thereof, we do not
see why, after the suppression of such affirmation, it should
produce the intellect; and we cannot make any statement about
the subject thereof, for we have known this positively only in the
opposite act, the velle, as the thing-in-itself of its phenomenal
world.
162
Between the ethics of the Greeks and that of the Hindus there
is a striking contrast. The former {although with the exception
of Plato) has for its object the ability to lead a happy life, vita
heata; the latter, on the other hand, the liberation and salvation
from life generally, as is directly expressed in the very first sen-
tence of the Samkhya K arika.
We shall obtain a contrast which is akin to this and is more
marked and vivid, if in the gallery at Florence we contemplate
the fine antique sarcophagus whose reliefs depict the whole
series of ceremonies of a wedding from the first proposal to where
Hymen's torch lights the way to the torus, and then picture
next to it the Christian coffin, draped in black as a sign of mourn-
ing and with the crucifix on top. The contrast is highly signifi-
cant. In opposite ways both attempt to comfort and console for
death, and both are right. The one expresses the affirmation of the
will-to-live to which life remains sure and certain throughout all
time, however rapidly the forms may change. The other ex-
presses through the symbols of suffering and death the denial of
the will-to-live and salvation from a world where death and the
devil reign; donee voluntas fiat noluntas.s
s ['Until willing becomes not-willing'.]
314 DOCTRINE OF AFFIRMATION, ETC.
Between the spirit of Graeco-Roman paganism and that of
Christianity is the proper contrast of the affirmation and denial
of the will-to-live, according to which, in the last resort,
Christianity is fundamentally right.
163
My ethics is related to all the ethical systems of European
philosophy as the New Testainent to the Old, according to the
ecclesiastical conception of this relation. Thus the Old Testa-
ment puts man under the authority of the law which, however,
docs not lead to salvation. The New Testament, on the other
hand, declares the law to be inadequate, in fact repudiates it
(e.g. Romans 7, Galatians 2 and 3). On the contrary, it preaches
the kingdom of grace which is attained by faith, love of one's
neighbour, and complete denial of oneself; this is the path to
salvation from evil and the world. For in spite of all protestant-
rationalistic distortions and misrepresentations, the ascetic
spirit is assuredly and quite properly the soul of the New Testa-
ment. But this is just the denial of the will-to-live; and that
transition from the Old Testament to the New, from the
dominion of the law to that of faith, from justification through
works to salvation through the ~~Iediator, from the don1inion of
sin and death to eternal life in Christ, signifies, sensu proprio, the
transition from the merely moral virtues to the denial of the
will-to-live. Now all the philosophical systems of ethics prior to
mine have kept to the spirit of the Old Testament with their
absolute (i.e. dispensing with ground as well as goal) moral law
and all their moral commandments and prohibitions to which
the commanding Jehovah is secretly added in thought, different
as their forms and descriptions of the matter may prove to be.
My ethics, on the other hand, has ground, basis, purpose, and
goal; it first demonstrates theoretically the metaphysical ground
of justice and loving kindness and then indicates the goal to
which these must ultimately lead if they are completely carried
out. At the same time, it frankly and sincerely admits the
abominable nature of the world and points to the denial of the
will as the path to redemption therefrom. It is, accordingly,
actually in the spirit of the New Testament, whereas all the
others are in that of the Old and thus theoretically amount to
mere Judaism (plain despotic theism). In this sense, my teaching
could be called Christian philosophy proper, paradoxical as this
may seem to those who do not go to the root of the matter, but
stick merely to the surface.
164
\Vhoever is capable of thinking somewhat more deeply ,...-ill
soon see that human desires cannot begin to be sinful first at that
point where, in their individual tendencies, they accidentally
cross one another and cause evil from one quarter and malice
from another. On the contrary, he will see that, if this is so, they
must already be sinful and bad origina1ly and according to their
true nature and consequently that the entire will-to-live itself is
detestable. Indeed, all the misery and horrors whereof the world
is full are merely the necessary result of all the characters in
which the will-to-live objectifies itself under circumstances
which occur on the unbroken chain of necessitv and furnish the
'
characters with motives. Those horrors and misery are, there-
fore, the mere commentary to the affirmation of the will-to-live.
(Cf. Theologia Germanic a, p. 93) That our existence itself implies
a guilt is proved by death.
165
A noble character will not readily complain about his own
fate; on the contrary, \\'hat Hamlet says in praise of Horatio will
apply to him:
for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing.
This can be understood from the fact that such a man, recog-
nizing his own true nature in others and thus sharing their fate,
almost invariably sees around him an even harder lot than his
own and so cannot bring himself to complain of the latter. An
ignoble egoist, on the other hand, who limits all reality to him-
self and regards others as mere masks and phantoms, will take
no part in their fate, but will devote the whole of his sympathy
and interest to his own; the results of this will then be great
sensitiveness and frequent complaints.
It is precisely that recognition of oneself in another's pheno-
menal appearance from which, as I have often shown, justice
and loving kindness proceed in the first instance, and which
finally leads to giving up the will. For the phenomena, wherein
this will manifests itself, are so definitely in a state of suffering,
that whoever extends his own self to all of them can no longer
will its continuance; just as one who takes all the tickets in a
lottery must necessarily suffer a great loss. The affirmation of
the will presupposes the restriction of self-consciousness to one's
own individuality and reckons on the possibility of a favourable
career in life from the hand of chance.
166
If in our conception of the world we start from the thing-in-
itself, the will-to-live, we find as its kernel and greatest concen-
tration the act of generation. This presents itself as the first
thing, the point of departure; it is the punctum saliens 6 of the
world-egg and the main issue. What a contrast, on the other
hand, if we start from the empirical world that is given as
phenomenon, from the world as representation! Here that act
manifests itself as something quite individual and special, of
secondary significance, in fact as a matter concealed and
covered up which is of no importance and merely slips in, a
paradoxical anomaly that often affords material for laughter.
However, it might even seem to us that here the devil wanted
merely to hide his game, for copulation is his currency and the
world his kingdom. For has it not been observed how illico post
coitum cachinnus auditur Diaboli? 7 Seriously speaking, this is due
to the fact that sexual desire, especially when through fixation
on a definite woman it is concentrated to amorous infatuation,
is the quintessence of the whole fraud of this noble world; for it
promises so unspeakably, infinitely, and excessively much, and
then performs so contemptibly little.
The woman's share in generation is, in a certain sense, more
innocent than the man's, in so far as the man gives to the being
to be procreated the will that is the first sin and hence the source
of all wickedness and evil, whereas the woman gives kTUJwledge
which opens up the way to salvation. The act of generation is
the world-knot, for it states: 'The will-to-live has affirmed itself
6 [First trace of the heart in an embryo-Oxford English Dictionary.]
7 ['Directly after copulation the devil's laughter is heard.']
anew.' In this sense, a standing Brahmanical phrase laments:
'Alas, alas, the lingam is in the yoni!' Conception and preg-
nancy, on the other hand, say: 'To the will is once more given
the light of knowledge'; whereby it can again find its way out;
and so the possibility of salvation has once more appeared.
From this is explained the remarkable phenomenon that,
whereas every woman would die of shame if surprised in the act
of generation, she nevertheless bears her pregnancy in public
without a trace of shame and even with a kind of pride. For as
everywhere else an infallibly certain sign is taken as equivalent
to the thing signified, so also docs every other sign of the com-
pleted coitus shame and confuse the woman in the highest
degree; pregnancy alone does not. This can be explained from
the fact that, according to what has been said, pregnancy in a
certain sense entails, or at any rate offers, the prospect of an
expiation of the guilt or debt that was contracted by the coitus.
And so this bears all the shame and disgrace of the matter,
whereas the pregnancy, so closely related to it, remains pure and
innocent, and to a certain extent even becomes sacred.
Coitus is mainly the affair of the man; pregnancy is entirely
that of the woman. From the father the child receives the will,
the character; from the mother, the intellect. The latter is the
redeeming principle, the former the binding. The sign of the
constant existence of the will-to-live in time, in spite of all in-
crease in illun1ination through the intellect, is the coitus. The
sign of the light of knowledge and indeed in the supreme degree
of clearness, which is presented afresh to this will and holds open
to it the possibility of salvation, is the renewed coming into
existence of the will-to-live as man. The sign of this is pregnancy
which, therefore, goes about frankly and freely and even proud-
ly, whereas coitus like a criminal creeps into a corner.
167
Some Fathers of the Church have taught that even marital
cohabitation should be permitted only when it occurs for the
sake of procreating children, 1ri p,&Jl"fl r.atOo7TotlCf,s as is said by
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Jib. III, c. 1 1. (The relevant
8 L'l-'or the mere procreation of children'.]

passages are found collected in P. E. Lind, De coelibatu Christian-
arum, chap. 1.) Clement .of Alexandria, Stromata, lib. m, c. 3,
attributes this view to the Pythagoreans. However, such a view
is, strictly speaking, incorrect; for if coitus is no longer desired
for its own sake, the denial of the will-to-live has already
appeared and then the propagation of the human race is super-
fluous and senseless in so far as its object is already attained.
Moreover, to place a human being in the world so that he
should exist therein and to do so without any subjective passion
and without lust and physical ardour, merely from sheer
deliberation and cold-blooded intention, would be morally a
very questionable action. Indeed, few would take this upon
themselves and perhaps one might even say of it that it was
related to generation from mere sexual impulse as is cold-
blooded and deliberate murder to a mortal blow given in anger.
The condemnation of all unnatural sexual satisfaction rests
really on the opposite ground, since through it the impulse is
gratified and thus the will-to-live is affirmed, but propagation is
suppressed, which alone keeps open the possibility of the denial
of the will. This is the reason why pederasty was recognized as a
grave sin only with the appearance of Christianity whose
tcndencv is ascetic.
'
168
A monaster._.~ is an assemblage of those who have embraced
poverty, chastity, obedience (i.e. renunciation of one's own will)
and who, by living together, try to lighten to some extent exis-
tence itself, but even more so that state of severe renunciation.
For the sight of those who hold similar views and undergo the
same renunciation strengthens their resolve and consoles them,
and the companionship of living together within certain limits
is suited to human nature and is an innocent relaxation in spite
of many severe privations. This is the normal conception of
monasteries. And who can call such a society an association of
fools and simpletons, as one is bound to according to every
philosophy except mine?
The inner spirit and meaning of genuine monastic life, as of
asceticism generally, are that a man has recognized himself as
worthy and capable of an existence better than ours and wants
to strengthen and maintain this conviction by despising what
this world offers, casting aside all its pleasures as worthless, and
now awaiting calmly and confidently the end of this life that is
stripped of its empty allurements, in order one day to welcome
the hour of death as that of salvation. The Sannyasis have
exactly the same tendency and significance, and so too have the
Buddhist monks. Certainly in no case does practice so rarely
correspond to theory as in that of monasticism just because its
fundamental idea is so sublime; and abusus optimi pessimus.9 A
genuine monk is exceedingly venerable, but in the great
majority of cases the cowl is a mere mask behind which there is
just as little of the real monk as there is behind one at a mas-
querade.
169
The notion that we should submit and surrender entirely and
without reserve to the individual will of another is a psychic
means of facilitating the denial of our own will and is thus a
suitable allegorical vehicle of the truth.
I 70
The number of regular Trappists is naturally small; but yet
half of mankind consists of involuntary Trappists; poverty,
obedience, absence of all pleasures and even of the most neces-
sary means of relief, and frequently also chastity that is forced
or brought about through want or some defect, are their lot.
The difference is sin1ply that the Trappists pursue the matter of
their own free choice, methodically and without hope of any
change for the better; whereas the other way is to be ranged
with what I have described in my ascetic chapters by the ex-
pression 8u-rEpo~ 17',\oiJs-. 10 Therefore by virtue of the basis of
her order, nature has already taken adequate care to bring this
about, especially if we add to the evils that spring directly from
her those others that are produced by the discord, dissension,
and malice of men in war and peace. But this very necessity of
involuntary suffering for eternal salvation is also expressed by
that utterance of the Saviour (Matthew 19: 24): dJKO'TTwrpov
Jan, KaJJ-'YJ,\ov 8ta -rpv'TT~JJ-a-ro~ pacp{8o~ 8t,\8iv, ~ 'TT,\ouawv ds -r~v
o ['The worst is the abuse of the best.']

10 ('The next best course'.]
f3aatAetav Tou 8eou elaeA8e'iv. (Facilius est, Junem ancorarium per
foramen acus transire, quam. divitem regnum divinum ingredi.) 11 There-
fore those who were greatly in earnest about their eternal
salvation,' chose voluntary poverty when fate had denied this
to them and they had been born in wealth. Thus Buddha
Sakya Muni was born a prince, but voluntarily took to the
mendicant's staff; and Francis of Assisi, the founder of the men-
dicant orders who, as a youngster at the ball, where the
daughters of all the notabilities were sitting together, was asked:
'Now, Francis, will you not soon make your choice from these
beauties?' and who replied: 'I have made a far more beautiful
choice!' 'Whom?' 'La poverta'; whereupon he abandoned every
thing shortly afterwards and wandered through the land as a
mendicant.
Whoever through such considerations realizes how neces-
sary to our salvation misery and suffering usually are will see
that we should envy others their unhappiness rather than their
happiness.
For the same reason, the stoicism of the disposition which
defies fate is also, it is true, a good arn1our against the sufferings
of life and helps us to endure the present; but it stands in the
way of true salvation, for it hardens the heart. Indeed, how can
this be improved by sufferings if it is surrounded by a crust of
stone and does not feel them ? Moreover, a certain degree of
this stoicism is not very rare. Often it may be affectation and
amount to a bonne mine au mauvais jeu; 12 where, however, it is
genuine and unfeigned, it springs in most cases from a mere
want of feeling, from a lack of energy, brightness, sensitiveness,
and imagination, all of which are requisite to a great agony of
sorrow. The phlegmatic and sluggish temperament of the
Germans is particularly favourable to this kind of stoicism.
With regard to the man who commits them, unjust or mali-

cious actions are a sign of the strength of his affirmation of the
will-to-live and accordingly of the distance separating him from
11 [' It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of God.']
'"'['A smile in the face of adversity,.]
true salvation, from denial of the will-to-live, and consequently

from redemption from the world. They are also a sign of the
long school of knowledge and suffering he has still to go through
before he attains salvation. In respect of the man who has to
suffer such actions, they are physically an evil, it is true, but
metaphysically a blessing and at bottom a benefit, for they help
to lead him to his true salvation.
I 72
WORLD-SPIRlT: Here then is the task of your labours and
sufferings; for these you shall exist, as do all other things.
MAN: But what have I from existence? If my existence is occu-
pied, I have trouble; if it is unoccupied, I have boredom. How
can you offer me so miserable a reward for so much labour and
suffering?
WORLD-SPIRIT: And yet this reward is the equivalent of all your
troubles, and it is precisely this by virtue of its inadequacy.
MAN: Indeed? This really exceeds my powers of comprehension.
WORLD-SPIRIT: I know.-(aside) Should I tell him that the value
of life consists precisely in its teaching him not to will it? For
this supreme dedication life itself must first prepare him.
172a
As I have said, looked at as a whole, each human life reveals
the qualities of a tragedy and we see that, as a rule, life is
nothing but a series of disappointed hopes, frustrated plans, and
errors recognized too late, and that the truth of the mournful
verse applies to it:
Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death and make him understand,
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.
All this agrees entirely with my view of the world which regards
existence itself as something that were better not to be, a kind of
mistake from which a knowledge of it is to bring us back. Man
in general, ci aJ'Bpw-rros, is already in the wrong in so far as he
exists and is man; consequently it is wholly in keeping with this
that each individual human being, TIS av8pw7To~, also finds
himself generally in the wrong when he surveys his life. That he
sees it in general is his salvation, and for this he must begin by
recognizing it in the individual case, i.e. in his own individual life.
For quidquid valet de genere, valet et de specie. 12
Life is to be regarded entirely as a sharp scolding which is
administered to us, although, with our forms of thought that are
calculated for quite different ends, we cannot understand how it
could be possible for us to need it. Accordingly, we should look
back with satisfaction on our deceased friends, bearing in mind
that they have got over their scolding and heartily wishing that
it has had the desired effect. From the same point of view, we
should look forward to our own death as a desirable and happy
event instead of, as is generally the case, with fear and trem-
bling.
A happy life is impossible; the best that man can attain is a
heroic life, such as is lived by one who struggles against over-
whelming odds in some way and some affair that will benefit the
whole of mankind, and who in the end triumphs, although he
obtains a poor reward or none at all. For in the end, he is turned
to stone like the prince in Gozzi's Re corvo, but he has a noble
bearing and magnanimous look. His memory lasts and is cele-
brated as that of a hero; his will, mortified by toil and trouble,
failure, and the world's ingratitude throughout his life, is extin-
guished in Nirvana. (In this sense, Carlyle wrote On Heroes and
Hero-worship, London, 1842.)
I 73
Now if through considerations such as the above and so from
a very lofty standpoint, we see a justification for the sufferings
of mankind, this nevertheless does not extend to the animals
whose sufferings are considerable, brought on for the most part
through man, but often also without his agency. (See World as
Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 28.) And so the question
then forces itself on us as to the purpose of this troubled and
tormented will in its thousands of different forms without the
freedom to salvation which is conditioned by reflectiveness.The
suffering of the animal world is to be justified merely from the
u ['What applies to the genus applies also to the species.' (Logical rule.)]
fact that the will-to-live must devour its own flesh because in the
phenomenal world absolutely nothing exists besides it, and it is
a hungry will. Hence the gradation of its phenomena each of
which lives at the expense of another. Further, I refer to 153
and 154 which show that the capacity for suffering is in the
animal very much less than in man. Now what might be added
beyond this would prove to be hypothetical or even mythical
and may, therefore, be left to the reader's own speculation.
CHAPTER XV
On Religion
174
A Dialogue
DEMOPHELES: Bctvveen ourselves, my dear fellow, I do not like
the way in which you occasionally show your philosophical
ability by being sarcastic and even openly derisive about reli-
gion. Everyone's faith is to him sacred and so should be to you.
PHILALETHES: Nego consequentiam! 1 I do not see why, because of
the stupidity of others, I should have respect for falsehood and
imposture. I respect truth everywhere, but not that which is
opposed thereto. Never on this earth will truth shine so long as
you shackle men's minds in such a way. My n1otto is: vigeat:
veritas, et pereat mundus,z like that of the lawyers: fiat justitia, et
pereat mundus.3 Every faculty should have for its device an analo-
gous motto.
DEMOPHELES: Then I suppose that the device of the doctors
would be: fiant pilulae, et pereat mundus, 4 which could be most
easily brought about.
PHILALETHES: Heaven forbid! Everything must be taken cum
grano salis.s
DEMOPHELES: Good; but that is just why I wanted you to under-
stand and see religion also cum grano salis. I wanted you to see
that the needs of the people must be met in accordance with
their powers of comprehension. Religion is the only way to
proclaim and make plain the high significance of life to the
crude intellect and clumsy understanding of the masses who are
immersed in sordid pursuits and material labour. For, as a rule,
a man originally has no interest for anything except the satis-
faction of his physical needs and desires, and thus for some
1 ('I dispute the conclusion (of the syllogism).']
1 ['May truth endure and the world perish over it.')
3 ['May justice come to pass and the world perish over it.']
4 ['May pills be made and the world perish over them.'J
5 ['With a grain of salt'.]
ON RELIGION
amusement and pastime. Founders of religions and philosophers
come into the world to shake man out of his lethargy and to
point out to him the lofty meaning of existence; philosophers for
the few who are exempt, founders of religions for the majority,
for humanity at large. For cpt'Aoaoov 1r'Aij8os &Ovvarov dvm, 6
as even Plato said, and you should not forget this. Religion is the
metaphysics of the people, which we must certainly let them
have and, therefore, must externally respect; for to discredit it is
equivalent to taking it away from them. Just as there is a popu-
lar poetry and in proverbs a popular wisdom, so must there be
also a popular metaphysics. For people positively need an inter-
pretation of life, which must be appropriate to their powers of
comprehension. It is, therefore, always an allegorical way of
expressing the truth; and in practical affairs and as regards
feelings, that is, as a guide to conduct and a comfort and con-
solation in suffering and death, it probably achieves just as
much as could truth itself if we were to possess it. Do not take
offence at its preposterous, burlesque, and apparently absurd
form; for in your culture and learning you have no idea what
roundabout ways are needed to bring home profound truths to
people in their crude ignorance. The different religions are
simply different systems wherein the people grasp and picture
to themselves the truth which in itself is incon1prehensible to
them; yet for them the truth becomes inseparable from such
systems. Therefore, my dear fellow, do not take it amiss when I
say that to ridicule religion is both narrow-minded and unfair.
PHI LA LETHES: But is it not just as narrow-minded and unfair to
demand that there shall be no other system of metaphysics than
just this one that is cut to suit the people's needs and powers of
comprehension? Why should its teachings be the landmark of
human investigation and the guide to all thinking so that the
metaphysics of the few, of the exempt as you call them, must
result in confirming, establishing, and explaining the meta-
physics of the masses? And so why should the highest powers of
the human mind remain unused and undeveloped, and in fact
be nipped in the bud, so that their activity may not thwart the
metaphysics of the people? And fundamentally is it any different
as regards the pretensions of religion? Is it right and proper for
6 ['It is impossible for the crowd to be philosophically enlightened.']

ON RELIGION
one to preach tolerance and even tender forbearance, who is the
very en1bodiment of intolerance and ruthlessness? I call to
witness courts for heretics, inquisitions, religious wars, crusades,
Socrates' cup of poison, the deaths of Bruno and Vanini at the
stake. And is all this today a thing of the past? What can be
more opposed to genuine philosophical effort, to the sincere
investigation of the truth, to this noblest calling of the noblest
men, than this conventional metaphysics which is invested with
a monopoly by the State? Its precepts and dogmas are incul-
cated so earnestly, deeply, and firmly at the earliest age into
every mind that, unless that mind is miraculously elastic, they
remain indelibly impressed. In this way, its faculty of reason is
once for all confused and deranged, in other words, its capacity
for original thought and unbiased judgement, weak enough as
it is, is for ever paralysed and ruined as regards everything
connected therewith.
DEMOPHELES: This really means, I suppose, that people have
then gained a conviction which they will not give up in order to
accept yours instead.
PHILALETHES: Ah! if only it were a conviction based on insight.
\Ve could then bring arguments to bear, and the field of battle
would be open to us with equal weapons. But religions ad-
mittedly appeal not to conviction with arguments, but to faith
with revelations. ,l\;ovv the capacity tor faith is strongest in child-
hood; and so 1nen are primarily concerned with taking posses-
sion of this tender age. In this way, 1nuch more than by threats
and the accounts of miracles, do the doctrines of faith strike
root. Thus if in early childhood a boy is repeatedly told certain
fundamental views and doctrines with unusual solemnity and an
air of the loftiest earnestness never before seen by him; and if, at
the same time, the possibility of doubting them is entirely
passed over or else touched on merely to point to it as the first
step to eternal perdition, then the in1pression will prove to be so
deep that, as a rule, in other words in almost all cases, he will be
wellnigh as incapable of doubting those doctrines as he is of
doubting his own existence. And so of many thousands, hardly
one will possess the strength of mind seriously and honestly to
ask himself whether this or that is true. Those who were never-
theless capable of so doing were, therefore, called strong minds,
esprits forts, more appropriately than was supposed. But for the
ON RELIGION
remainder there is nothing so absurd or revolting that the firmest
belief in it will not strike root in them if it is implanted in that
way. If, for example, the killing of a heretic or an unbeliever
were an essential thing to the future salvation of his soul, almost
everyone would make this the principal affair of his life, and, in
dying, would draw consolation and strength from remembering
that he had succeeded; just as formerly almost every Spaniard
regarded an auto-da-fe as a work most pious and pleasing to God.
We have in India a counterpart to this in the religious fraternity
of the Thugs which was only recently suppressed by the English,
who carried out a number of executions. Its members practised
their sense of religion and veneration for the goddess Kali by
assassinating on every occasion their own friends and travelling
companions in order to take possession of their property. They
were quite seriously under the impression that in this they were
doing something praiseworthy and conducive to their eternal
salvation.? Accordingly, the power of early inculcated religious
dogmas is so strong that it can stifle conscience and ultimately
all compassion and every hwnanc feeling. But if you want to see
with your own eyes and at close quarters what early inculcation
of faith does, consider the English. Look at this nation, more
highly favoured by nature than all the others and better en-
dowed with intelligence, understanding, power of judgement,
and strength of character; see how debased they are beyond all
others, in fact, how positively contemptible they become,
through the stupid superstition of their Church which appears
among their other abilities positively like a fixed idea or mono-
mania. For this they have to thank simply the fact that educa-
tion is in the hands of the clergy who take good care to inculcate
on their minds at the earliest age all the articles of faith in a way
that amounts to a kind of partial paralysis of the brain. This,
then, expresses itself throughout their lives in that idiotic
bigotry whereby even otherwise highly intelligent and sensible
men among them degrade themselves, and we know not what
to think or make of them. If we now consider how essential it is
to such masterpieces that the inculcation of faith is done at the
tender age of childhood, the missionary business will no longer
7 Illustrations of the History and Practice of the Thugs, London, 1837; also Edinburgh
Review, Oct.-Jan. 1836-7.
ON RELIGION
appear merely as the height of human importunity, arrogance,
and impertinence, but also as an absurdity in so far as it does
not confine itself to races who are still in a state of childhood, like
the Hottentots, Kaffirs, South Sea Islanders, and others, and
among whom it has accordingly met with real success. In India,
on the other hand, the Brahmans treat the discourses of the
missionaries with condescending smiles of approbation or with
a shrug of the shoulders; and, generally speaking, the efforts of
the missionaries to convert these men have ended in failure,
notwithstanding the most suitable opportunities. An authentic
report in the Asiatic Journal, volume xxi of I 826, states that,
'after so many years of missionary activity, not more than three
hundred living converts were to be found in the whole of India
(where the British possessions alone have a population of one
hundred and fifty millions, according to The Times, April I 852).
At the same time, it is admitted-that the Christian converts are
-
marked by their extreme immorality. Just three hundred bribed
mercenary souls out of so many millions! Nowhere in India do
I see that things have since gone any better for Christianity,s
although in schools devoted exclusively to secular English in-
struction, and yet contrary to stipulation, the missionaries now
try to work on children's minds as they think best in order to
smuggle in Christianity; against this, however, the Hindus are
most jealously on their guard. For, as I have said, childhood is
the only time for sowing the seeds of faith, not manhood,
especially where an earlier faith has already taken root. But the
acquired conviction which grown-up converts pretend to have, is,
as a rule, only the mask of some personal interest. And just
because one feels that this could hardly ever be otherwise, a man
who changes his religion at a mature age is everywhere despised
by most people, although in this way they show that they regard
religion not as a matter of rational conviction, but merely of
faith early implanted before any test could be applied. But that
they are right in this matter follows also from the fact that not
merely the blindly believing masses, but also the priests of every
religion, who, as such, have studied its sources, foundations,
dogmas, and controversies, all stick faithfully and zealously as a
body to the religion of their particular country; and so it is the
a cr. us.
ON RELIGION
rarest thing in the world for a priest of one religion or confession
to go over to another. For example, we see the Catholic clergy
perfectly convinced of the truth of all the tenets of their Church
and the Protestant clergy just as convinced of the truth of theirs,
and both defend the dogmas and precepts of their confession
with equal zeal. Nevertheless, this conviction is regulated by the
country in which each is born; thus to the South Gern1an priest
the truth of the Catholic dogma is perfectly obvious, but to the
North German that of the Protestant. And so if such convictions
are based on objective grounds, these must be clirnatic and like
plants, some of which thrive only in one place, others only in
another. But now the people everywhere accept on faith and
trust the convictions of those who are locally convinced.
DEMOPHELES: No harn1 is done and it makes no essential dif-
ference; for example, Protestantism is actually more suited to
the North, Catholicism to the South.
PHILALETHES: So it seems; but I have taken a higher point of
view and keep in mind a more important object, namely pro-
gress of the knowledge of truth in the human race. For this it is
a terrible thing that, wherever anyone is born, certain state-
ments are inculcated in him in his earliest youth on the assurance
that he may never have any doubts about them without running
the risk of forfeiting his eternal salvation. Thus I refer to state-
ments that affect the foundation of all our other knowledge and
accordingly for this fix for all time the point of view. In the
event of such statements themselves being false, the point of view
is for ever distorted. Moreover, as their corollaries everywhere
affect the whole system of our knowledge, this is then thoroughly
falsified and adulterated by then1. Every literature proves this,
most strikingly that of the Middle Ages, but also that of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to an excessive degree. Look
at even the greatest minds of all those periods and see how
paralysed they were by such false fundamental notions, but
especially how all insight into the true constitution and working
of nature was, so to speak, boarded up lor them. For during the
whole Christian period, theism lies like a nightmare on all
intellectual, and especially philosophical, efforts and impedes or
cripples all progress. God, devil, angels, and demons conceal the
whole of nature from the scholars of those times; no investiga-
tion is carried out to the end, no matter is thoroughly examined,
330 ON RELIGION
but everything that transcends the most evident and obvious
causal nexus is at once set at rest by those personalities, for it is
precisely as Pomponatius expresses himself on such an occasion:
certe phil~sophi nihil verisimile habent ad haec, quare necesse est, ad
Deum, ad angelos et daemones recurrere9 (De incan/ationibus, chap. 7).
Here, of course, we may suspect this man of irony, for his perfidy
is known to us in other ways, yet in this connection he has ex-
pressed only the general mode of thought of his age. If, on the
other hand, a man had a rare elasticity of mind which alone is
capable of bursting the fetters, he and his writings were burnt,
as happened to Bruno and Vanini. But how completely para-
lysed the ordinary mind is by that early preparation in meta-
physics can be most strikingly seen and on its ludicrous side
when such a mind undertakes to criticize the teaching of a
strange and unfamiliar creed. \Ve then find that such a tnan is,
as a rule, merely concerned to point out carefully that its dogmas
do not agree with those of his own creed. For he is at great pains
to explain that they not only do not say, but also certainly do
not mean, the same thing as is expressed in the dogmas of his
own creed. Here in all his simplicity he imagines that he has
demonstrated the false nature of the alien creed. It never reallv
occurs to him to put the question which of the two may be right;
on the contrary, his own articles of faith are for him sure and
certain principles a priori. An amusing example of this kind was
furnished by the Reverend ~1orrison in the Asiatic Journal,
volume xx, where he criticizes the religion and philosophy of the
Chinese; it is delightful.
DEMOPHELES: So that is your higher point of view; but I can
assure you that there is an even higher. Primum viz,ere, deinde
philosophari 10 has a more comprehensive meaning than at first
sight appears. The first thing is to restrain the rough and evil
dispositions of the masses in order to prevent thetn fron1 com-
mitting acts of extreme injustice, cruelty, violence, and disgrace.
Now if we wished to wait until they had recognized and grasped
the truth, we should undoubtedly come too late. For even
supposing that the truth had already been discovered, it would
o ['Assuredly the philosophers have nothing plausible to offer on this matter; it is,
therefore, necessary to go back to God, angels, and demons.']
ro ['First live, then philosophize.']
ON RELIGION 331
be beyond their powers of comprehension. In any case, an alle-
gorical clothing of it, a parable, a myth, serves their purpose. As
Kant has said, there must be a public standard of right and
virtue; and in fact this must at all times flutter high overhead.
After all, it is immaterial what heraldic figures are put on it, if
only it signifies what is n1eant. Such an allegory of the truth is
always and everywhere to mankind as a whole a suitable sub-
stitute of the truth itself which is for ever inaccessible to them
and generally of philosophy which they can never grasp; not to
mention the fact that this daily changes its frame and has not
yet in any form met with general recognition. And so, my dear
Philalethes, practical aims in every respect take precedence of
theoretical.
PHILALETHES: This agrees closely enough with the ancient
advice of Timaeus of Locri, the Pythagorean: ras- if;vxas-
a7reipyopv if;ev8at AoyOLS'' E i' KCX 1-t~ ayrJTCXL &.Aa8at 1 I {De anima
mundi, p. 104, Stephan us), and I almost suspect that you want
to impress on me, as is the vogue just now,
But still the time may reach us, good my friend,
When peace we crave and more luxurious diet, 12
and your recommendation is really that we should take timely

precautions so that the surging masses of the turbulent and dis-
contented may not disturb us at table. But this entire point of
view is as false as it is popular and extolled at the present time,
and so I hasten to enter a protest against it. It isfalse that the
State,justice, and the law cannot be upheld without the assistance
of religion and its articles of faith, and that justice and the police
need religion as their necessary con1plement for the purpose of
carrying out law and order. False it is, even if it is repeated a
hundred times. For an effective and striking instantia in con-
trarium rJ is afforded by the ancients, especially the Greeks. Thus
they had nothing at all of what we understand by religion. They
had no sacred records and no dogma which was taught, whose
acceptance was demanded of everyone, and which was incul-
cated in early youth. Just as little was morality preached by the
11
['We curb and restrain souls with deceptive and misleading words when true
ones are of no avail.']
12
[Goethe's Faust, Pt. 1, Bayard Taylor's translation.]
11 ['Instance to the contrary'.]
332 ON RELIGION
ministers of religion, and the priests did not bother about morals
or generally what people did or omitted to do. Not at all! On
the contrary, the duty of the priests extended only to temple
ceremo~es, prayers, hymns, sacrifices, processions, lustrations,
and the like, and the object of all these was anything but the
moral improvement of the individual. The whole of religion so
called consisted rather in the fact that some of the di majorum
gentium, 14 especially in the cities, had temples here and there in
which they were worshipped in the aforesaid manner for the
sake of the State, such a cult being at bottom an affair of the
police. Except the functionaries taking part, no one was in any
way compelled to attend or even to believe in it. In the whole
of antiquity there is no trace of an obligation to believe in any
dogma. Only the man who publicly denied the existence of the
gods, or otherwise reviled them, was liable to be punished; for
he gave offence to the State that served them; but apart from
this, it was left to everyone to think of them what he liked. If
anyone felt disposed to win the favour of those gods, privately
through prayers or sacrifices, he was free so to do at his own
expense and risk. If he did not do so, no one raised any objec-
tion, least of all the State. With the Romans, everyone had at
home his own Lares and Penates which in reality were merely
the venerated busts of his ancestors. (Apuleius, De deo Socratis,
chap. 15, vol. ii, p. 23 7, ed. Bip.) Of the immortality of the soul
and a life after death, the ancients had no firm and clear ideas,
least of all those fixed by dogma, but quite loose, fluctuating,
indefinite, and problematical notions, each in his own way; and
just as varied, individual, and vague were the ideas about the
gods. Thus the ancients did not really have religion in our sense
of the word. But did anarchy and lawlessness for that reason
prevail among them? Are not law and civil order so much their
work that they still constitute the basis of our own? \Vas not
property completely safeguarded, although it consisted for the
most part of slaves? Did not this state of affairs last for over a
thousand years ?
I cannot, therefore, acknowledge and must object to the
practical aims and necessity of religion in the sense indicated by
you and universally popular al the present time, namely that it
['Gods of the larger families or tribes'.]

ON RELIGION 333
is an indispensable foundation to all law and order. For such a
point of view, the pure and sacred striving for light and truth
would appear quixotic, to say the least, and even criminal, if in
its feelings of justice it should venture to denounce the faith of
authority as the usurper that has taken possession of the throne
of truth and maintains it by keeping up the deception.
DEMOPHELES: But religion is not opposed to truth; for it itself
teaches this. Since the sphere of its action is not a small lecture-
room but the world and mankind at large, religion must con-
form to the needs and powers of comprehension of so large and
mixed a public. It cannot allow truth to appear naked or, to
use a medical simile, it may not administer it pure and un-
alloyed, but must make use of a mythical vehicle as a solvent or
menstruum. In this respect, you can also compare truth to cer-
tain chemical substances which in themselves are gaseous, but
which for medicinal uses as well as for preservation or dispatch
must be bound to a firm solid base, since they would otherwise
volatilize. For example, chlorine gas is applied to all such
purposes only in the form of chlorides. But in case truth, pure,
abstract, and free from everything mythical, should remain for
ever unattainable to us all, even to the philosophers, it could
be compared to fluorine which cannot even be exhibited by
itself alone, but can appear only in combination with other sub-
stances. Or, to speak less scientifically, truth that generally
cannot be expressed except mythically and allegorically, is like
water that cannot be carried about without a vessel; but
philosophers who insist on possessing it, pure and unalloyed, are
like the man who breaks the vessel in order to have the water
simply by itself. Perhaps this is actually the case. At any rate,
religion is truth allegorically and mythically expressed and thus
rendered accessible and digestible for mankind at large. For
people could never bear the truth pure and unmixed, just as we
cannot live in pure oxygen, but require an addition of four
times the amount of nitrogen. Thus to speak without figurative
expression, the profound meaning and lofty aim of life can be
revealed and presented only symbolically because men are in-
capable of grasping these in their proper significance. Philoso-
phy, on the other hand, should be, like the mysteries of the
Eleusinia, for the few and the elect.
PHILALETHEs: I understand; the whole thing amounts to truth
334 ON RELIGION
appearing in the guise of falsehood; but in so doing it enters

into an alliance that is injurious to it. What a dangerous weapon
is put into the hands of those who are given authority to employ
falsehood as the vehicle of truth! If this is the case, I am afraid
that the damage done by falsehood will be greater than any
advantage ever produced by the truth. If, of course, the allegory
could be given admittedly as such, that would be all right; but
this would deprive it of all respect and thus of all effectiveness.
It must, therefore, assert and maintain that it is true sensu
proprio, whereas at best it is true sensu allegorico. Here are to be
found the irreparable harm and the permanent drawback; and
. this is why religion has always come into conflict with the noble
and dispassionate aspiration to pure truth, and will do so again
and again.
DEMOPHELES: Oh no! for this too has been thought of. If religion
may not exactly acknowledge its allegorical nature, it gives
sufficient indication thereof.
PHILALETHES: And how does it do that?
DEMOPHELEs: In its mysteries. At bottom, even 'mystery' is only
the theological terminus technicus for religious allegory and all
religions have their mysteries. Properly speaking, a mystery is
an obviously absurd dogma which nevertheless conceals within
itself a sublime truth. In itself, this truth is wholly unintelligible
to the ordinary understanding of the crude and uncultured
masses, who now accept it in this disguise on faith and trust,
without allowing themselves to be led astray by the absurdity
that is obvious even to them. In this way, they now participate
in the kernel of the matter in so far as it is possible for them to
do so. I may add by way of explanation that even in philo-
sophy the attempt has been made to use a mystery, for example
when Pascal, who was at the same time pietiest, mathematician,
and philosopher, says in this threefold capacity that God is
everywhere centre and nowhere periphery. Even Malebranche
has quite rightly observed that la liberte est un mystere. 1 s One
could go farther and assert that really everything in religions is
mystery. For to inculcate into the minds of the people in their
crude state truth sensu proprio is absolutely impossible; only a
mythical and allegorical reflection thereof can fall to their lot
u ['Freedom is a mystery.']
ON RELIGION 335
and enlighten them. Naked truth is out of place in the presence
of the profane mob; she can appear before them only in a thick
veil. For this reason, it is quite unreasonable to expect a religion
to be true sensu proprio; and incidentally in our day, the ration-
alists as well as the supernaturalists are absurd, since both start
from the assumption that religion must be true sensu proprio. The
former then prove that it is not so, and the latter obstinately
assert that it is; or rather the former cut out and arrange the
allegorical so that it could be true sensu proprio but would then be
a platitude; whereas the latter, without any further preparation,
wish to assert that it is true sensu proprio, a point which cannot
possibly be enforced, as they should know, without the Inquisi-
tion and the stake. On the other l"\and, myth and allegory are
the real elements of religion; but under this condition, which is
absolutelv' necessarv' on account of the intellectual limitation of
the masses, religion adequately satisfies man's ineradicable
metaphysical need, and takes the place of pure philosophical
truth which is infinitely difficult, and perhaps for ever im-
possible, to reach.
PHILALETHES: Ah yes, somewhat in the same way that a wooden
leg takes the place of a natural; it supplies what is missing,
hardly does duty for this, claims to be regarded as a natural one,
is more or less ingeniously put together, and so on. A difference,
on the other hand, is that a natural leg, as a rule, preceded a
wooden, whereas religion has everywhere had the start of
philosophy.
DEMOPHELES: All this may be true, but for the man who has no
natural leg, a wooden one is of great value. You must bear in
mind that man's metaphysical needs positively demand satis-
faction because the horizon of his thoughts must come to an end
and cannot remain unbounded. As a rule, man has no power of
judgement for weighing up arguments and then deciding what
is false and what true. Moreover, the labour imposed on him by
nature and her urgency leaves him no time for investigations of
this sort, or for the cultivation of the mind which they pre-
suppose. And so with him it is not a case of conviction from
reasons and arguments; on the contrary, he is referred to belief
and authority. Even if a really true philosophy had taken the
place of religion, it would still be accepted merely on authority
by at least nine-tenths of mankind and so would again be a
ON RELIGION
matter of faith; for Plato's </>tf..oao</>oll 7Tf..ij8o'> a8vva'TOJ.I Elvat I6
will always be true. Now authority is established by time and
circumstances alone; and so we cannot bestow it on that which
has in its favour nothing but reasons and arguments. Conse-
quently, we must grant it to that which has obtained it in the
course of history, although this may be only truth that is
presented in an allegorical form. Now supported by authority,
this form of truth appeals first to the really metaphysical ten-
dency in man and thus to the theoretical need that arises from
the pressing enigma of our existence and from the consciousness
that, behind the physical aspect of the world, there must some-
how be something metaphysical, something unchangeable,
which serves as the basis of constant change. Then again this
kind of truth appeals to the will, to the fear and hope of mortals
who live in constant sorrow and affiiction. It accordingly creates
for them gods and demons whom they can invoke and appease
and whose favour they can win. Finally, it appeals to that
moral consciousness undeniably existing in m'an and gives con-
firmation and support to this from without. In the absence of
such support, that moral consciousness could not easily main-
tain itself in the struggle with so many temptations. It is pre-
cisely from this side that religion affords an inexhaustible source
of consolation and comfort in the innumerable sorrows and
afflictions of life, which does not forsake man even in death, but
rather reveals at precisely this time its full effectiveness.
Accordingly, religion resembles one who takes by the hand a
blind man and leads him; for he himself cannot see and the
main thing is that he should reach his destination, not that he
should see everything.
PHILALETHES: This side is certainly the brilliant point of religion.
If it is afraus, 11 then it is really a piafraus; s that is undeniable.
Accordingly, for us, priests become something between im-
postors and teachers of morals. For, as you yourself have quite
rightly explained, they dare not teach the real truth even if it
were known to them, which is not the case. Thus at all events
there may be a true philosophy, but certainly not a true religion;
I mean true in the proper sense of the word and not merely so
16 ['It is impossible for the cro ...:d to be philosophically enlightened.']
11 ['Fraud'.]
1B ['Pious fraud'.]
ON RELIGION 337
through the flower or allegory, as you have described it; on the
contrary, in this sense, every religion will be true, only in dif-
ferent degrees. But it is certainly quite in keeping with the
inextricable mixture of prosperity and misfortune, honesty and
deceit, good and evil, magnanimity and meanness, which the
world generally offers us, that the most important, sublime, and
sacred truth cannot appear except in combination with a lie,
indeed can even borrow strength therefrom as from that which
has a more powerful effect on men and, as revelation, must be
introduced by a lie. One might even consider this fact as the
monogram of the moral world. However, we will not abandon
hope that one day mankind will reach the point of maturity and
culture where it is able to produce the true philosophy on the
one hand, and to assimilate it on the other. Yet if simplex sigillum
veri, 19 the naked truth must be so simple and intelligible that one
must be able to impart it in its true form to all without amalga-
mating it with myths and fables (a pack oflies), in other words,
without disguising it in the form of religion.
DEMOPHELES: You have no adequate conception of the pitiable
incapacity of the masses.
PHILALETHES: I am expressing it only as a hope, but I cannot
give it up. Then truth in a simple and intelligible form would
naturally drive religion from the place which the latter had so
long occupied as deputy but had in precisely this way kept open
for the former. Religion will then have fulfilled its mission and
completed its course; it can then dismiss the race that it has
brought to years of discretion and itself expire in peace; such
will be the euthanasia of religion. But as long as religion lives, it
has two faces, one of truth and one of deception. According as
we look at the one or the other, we shall be friendly or hostile to
it. We must, therefore, regard religion as a necessary evil, the
necessity of which rests on the deplorable feeble-mindedness of
the great majority who are incapable of grasping the truth and
so, in an urgent case, need a substitute for it.
DEMOPHELES: Really, one would imagine that you philosophers
already had truth cut and dried and that the only thing to do
was to grasp it.
PHILALETI-IES: If we have not got the truth, this is to be attri-
buted mainly to the pressure under which, at all times and in all
19 ['Simplicity is the seal of truth.']
ON RELIGION
countries, philosophy has been kept by religion. 1\tlen have tried
to render impossible not only the expression and communica-
tion of truth, but even the contemplation and discovery thereof
by putting children in their earliest years into the hands of the
priests to have their minds manipulated by them. The track,
whereon the fundamental ideas are to run in future, is laid down
by the priests with such firmness that, in the main, such ideas
are fixed and definite for the whole of life. When I take up the
works of even the most eminent minds of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, I must confess to being sometimes
shocked, especially when I come. from my oriental studies, to
see how they are everywhere paralysed and hemmed in on all
sides by the fundamental Jewish conception. I ask myself how
anyone with such a preparation can think out the true philoso-
phy.
DEMOPHELES: And even if this true philosophy were discovered,
religion would not then disappear from the world, as you
imagine. For there cannot be one system of metaphysics for all;
the natural difference in intellectual powers and the additional
difference in their development will never admit of this. The
great majority must necessarily attend to the heavy physical
labour that is inevitably required for procuring the infinite
number of things that are needed by the whole race. Not only
does this leave them no time for education, learning, or con-
templation, but, in virtue of the decided antagonism between
irritability and sensibility, much intense physical exertion blunts
the mind, makes it heavy, dull, clumsy, awkward, and thus
incapable of grasping any other than quite simple and palpable
relations and situations. At least nine-tenths of the human race
fall under this category. But men nevertheless need a system of
metaphysics, i.e. an account of the world and our existence,
because such is one of their most natural needs. Indeed they
require a popular metaphysics and, to be capable of this, it must
combine many rare qualities. Thus it must be easily intelligible
and at the same time possess in the right places a certain ob-
scurity and even impenetrability. Then a correct and adequate
morality must be associated with its dogmas; above all, how-
ever, it must afford inexhaustible consolation in suffering and
death. It follows from all this that it will not be possible for
religion to be true sensu proprio, but only sensu allegorico. Further,
ON RELIGION 339
it must still have the support of an authority that is impressive
on account of its great age, its universal acceptance, its records
and documents together with their tone and enunciation. These
are qualities that can be united only with such infinite difficulty
that many a man would not be so ready and willing, if he con-
sidered the matter, to help to undermine a religion, but would
bear in mind that it is the people's most sacred treasure. Who-
ever wishes to form an opinion on religion, should always keep
an eye on the nature of the masses for whom it is intended and
thus picture to himself the extent of their moral and intellectual
depravity and inferiority. It is incredible how far this goes and
how persistently a tiny spark of truth will continue to glow
faintly even under the crudest covering of monstrous fables and
grotesque ceremonies. It clings as ineradicably as does the odour
of musk to everything that has once been in contact therewith.
As an illustration of this, consider, on the one hand, the profound
Indian wisdom that is recorded in the Upanishads, and then
look at the strange and extravagant idolatry in the India of
today, as seen in its pilgrimages, processions, and festivals, and
at the mad and grotesque antics of the Sannyasis. Yet it is
undeniable that, in all these ravings and strange gestures, there
still lies deeply concealed something that accords with, or is a
reflection of, that profound wisdom just mentioned. But it had
to be dressed up in this form for the brutal masses. In this con-
trast, we have before us the two poles of mankind, the wisdom
of individuals and the bestiality of the many, both of which,
however, find their agreement in what is moral. Ah, who is not
reminded here of the saying of the Kural: 'The common people
look like human beings; but I have never seen anything like
them.' (I. 1071) ? The more highly cultured man rna y still inter-
pret religion for himself cum grano salis; 20 the scholar, the thinker
may secretly exchange it for a philosophy. Yet even here, one
philosophy will not suit everybody, but, by the laws of elective
affinity, each will attract that public to whose culture and
mental capacity it is suited. Thus there is at all times an inferior
school-metaphysics for the educated multitude and a higher for
the elite. For example, even Kant's lofty teaching had to be
degraded and made worse for the schools by men like Fries, Krug,
Salat, and others. In short, here if anywhere, Goethe's maxim
:w ['With a grain of salt'.]
ON RELIGION
is true' one thing will not suit everyone.' Pure faith in revelation
and pure metaphysics are for the two extremes; for the inter-
mediate stages there are also mutual modifications of the two in
innumerable combinations and gradations. This is rendered
necessary by the immense difference placed by nature and edu-
cation between one man and another. Religions fill and rule the
world and the great masses of mankind obey them. At the same
time, there slowly proceeds the silent succession of philosophers
who are at work on the unravelling of the great mystery for the
few who, by aptitude and education, are qualified to under-
stand them. On an average, one is produced every century; as
. soon as he has been genuinely discovered, he is always welcomed
with exultation and listened to with attention.
PHILALETHES: This point of view seriously reminds me of the
mysteries of the ancients which you have already mentioned.
The intention underlying these seems to be to remedy that evil
which springs from the difference in intellectual capacity and
education. Their plan here was to pick out from the masses, to
whom the unveiled truth was absolutely inaccessible, a few to
whom such truth might be disclosed up to a certain point; from
these again others were selected to whom still more could be
revealed because they were capable of understanding more, and
so on up to the epopts. Thus there were p.tKpa, Kat p.d,ova, Kat
p.i.yta-ra p..va-r~pta. 21 The whole thing was based on a correct
recognition of the intellectual inequality of men.
DEMOPHELEs: To a certain extent, the education in our lower,
middle, and high schools corresponds to the different degrees of
initiation into the mysteries.
PHILALETHES: Yes, but only very approximately, and even so
only as long as Latin was used exclusively for writing about the
subjects of higher knowledge. But since this has ceased to be the
case, all the mysteries are profaned.
DEMOPHELES: However that may be, I wanted to remind you as
regards religion that you should look at it more from the practi-
cal side than from the theoretical. At all events, personified
metaphysics may be the enemy of religion, yet personified
morality will be its friend. Possibly the metaphysical element in
all religions is false, but in all the moral element is true. This can
u ['The small, greater, and greatest mysteries'.]

ON RELIGION 341
be surmised already from the fact that in the former they clash
with one another, whereas in the latter they agree.
PHILALETHES: Which furnishes an illustration of the logical rule
that a true conclusion can follow from false premisses.
DEMOPHELES: Now stick to the conclusion and always bear in
mind that religion has two sides. If, when looked at merely
from the theoretical and thus intellectual side, it could not be
valid, nevertheless from the moral it shows itself to be the means
of guiding, restraining, and appeasing that race of animals who
are gifted with the faculty of reason and whose kinship with the
ape does not rule out that with the tiger. As a rule, religion is at
the same time a sufficient satisfaction for their dull metaphysical
needs. You do not seem to me to have an adequate idea of the
immense difference, the wide gulf, between your man who is
learned, versed in the art of thinking, and enlightened, and the
dull, clumsy, sluggish, and indolent consciousness of humanity's
beasts of burden. Their thoughts have once for all taken the
direction of concern and interest for their own livelihood and
cannot be moved in any other direction. Their muscular strength
is taxed so exclusively that the nervous force which constitutes
intelligence sinks to a very low ebb. Such men must have some-
thing firm to hold on to on the slippery and thorny path of life,
some beautiful fable whereby things are imparted to them which
their crude understanding cannot possibly imbibe except in
picture and parable.
PHILALETHES: Do you believe that justice and virtue are lies and
frauds and that we must, therefore, embellish them with a tissue
of fables?
DEMOPHELES: Far from it! But men must have something to
which they attach their moral feelings and actions. Profound
explanations and subtle distinctions are beyond them. Instead
of expressing the truth of religions sensu allegorico, we might call
it, like Kant's moral theology, hypotheses for a practical pur-
pose, or introductory schemes, regulative principles, after the
manner of the physical hypotheses of currents of electricity for
explaining magnetism, or of atoms for explaining the propor-
tions o_f chemical combinations,* and so on. We guard against
Even the poles, equator, and parallels in the firmament are of this nature; in
the heavens there is nothing like these, for the heavens do not revolve.
342 ON RELIGION
establishing these as objectively true, yet we make use of them
in order to establish a connection between phenomena; for, as
regards the experiments and the results, they achieve approxi-
mately the same thing as does truth itself. They are the guiding
stars for conduct and subjective con1posure during meditation.
If you regard religion in this way and bear in mind that its aims
are predominantly practical, and only to a limited extent
theoretical, it will appear to you as worthy of the highest
respect.
PHILALETHES: Such respect would, of course, ultimately rest on
the principle that the end justifies the means. Yet I do not feel
inclined to make a compromise on this basis. At all events,
religion may be an excellent means for taming and training
that perverse, obtuse, and malicious race of bipeds; but in the
eyes of the friend of truth, every fraud, even though it be pious,
is objectionable. Lies and falsehood would appear to be a strange
means of inculcating virtue. Truth is the flag to which I have
taken my oath; I shall remain faithful to it everywhere and
whether or not I succeed, I shall fight for light and truth. If I
see religion in the ranks of the enemy, I shall--
DEMOPHELES: But you do not find it there! Religion is no decep-
tion; it is true and the most important of all truths. But because,
as I have said, its doctrines are of such a lofty nature that the
masses could never grasp them directly; because, I say, its light
would dazzle the ordinary eye, it appears wrapped in the veil of
allegory and teaches what is not exactly true in itself but is, of
course~ true as regards the lofty meaning contained in it. Under-
stood in this way, religion is the truth.
PHILALETHES: That would be all right if only religion were
allowed to declare itself to be true merely allegorically. But it
appears with the claim to be positively and absolutely true in
the literal sense of the word. Herein lies the deception and it is
here that the friend of truth must adopt a hostile attitude.
DEMOPHELES: But this is indeed a conditio sine qua non. 22 If religion
were to admit that only the allegorical meaning of its teachings
were in it the element of truth, it would be deprived of all
effectiveness and its inestimable and beneficial influence on the
hearts and morals of mankind would be lost by such rigorous
treatment. And so instead of insisting on this with pedantic
n ['Absolutely necessary condition'.]
ON RELIGION 343
obstinacy, look at its great achievements in the practical sphere,
in morality and kindly feeling as the guide to conduct and the
support and consolation to suffering humanity in life and death.
How much you will then guard against casting suspicion on
something through theoretical fault-finding and thus finally
wresting from the people something which for them is an in-
exhaustible source of consolation and relief and which they need
so much in fact, with their harder lot, even more than we. For
this reason it should be positively sacred and inviolable.
PHILALETHES: With that argument we could have defeated and
routed Luther when he attacked the sale of indulgences. For
think of how many who obtained irreplaceable consolation and
complete tranquillity through tickets of indulgence so that they
cheerfully and confidently died, fully trusting in a whole pack
of them which they firmly held in their hands, convinced as they
were that here they had so many cards of admission to all the
nine heavens. \Vhat is the use of grounds of consolation and
tranquillity which are constantly overshadowed by the Damocles
sword of disillusion? Truth, my friend, is the only sound thing;
it alone remains steadfast and staunch; its consolation alone is
solid; it is the indestructible diamond.
DEMOPHELES: Yes, if you had truth in your pocket, ready to bless
us with it on demand. But what you have are only metaphysical
systems where nothing is certain except the headaches they cost.
Before we take something away from a man, we must have
something better to put in its place.
PHILALETHES: If only I did not have to hear the same thing over
and over again! To free a man from an error is not to take
something away from him, but to give him something; for the
knowledge that something is false is just a truth. But no error is
harmless; on the contrary, sooner or later, every error will land
in trouble the man who harbours it. Therefore do not deceive
anyone, but rather confess that you do not know what no one
knows and leave everyone to form for himself his own creeds.
Perhaps they will not turn out so bad, especially as they will rub
off one another's corners and rectify one another. In any case, a
variety of many different views lay the foundation for tolerance.
But those who are endowed with knowledge and ability may
take up the study of philosophers, or even themselves carry the
history of philosophy a stage further.
344 ON RELIGION
DEMOPHELES: That, indeed, would be a fine business! A whole

race of metaphysicians explaining things by the light of nature,
quarrelling with one another, and eventually coming to blows!
PHILALETHES: Good gracious, a few blows here and there are the
spice oflife, or at any rate a very small evil when compared with
such things as priestly domination, plundering of the laity, per-
secutions of heretics, courts of inquisition, crusades, religious
wars, massacres of St. Bartholomew, and so on. These have
been the results of privileged popular metaphysics, and so I stick
to the fact that we cannot expect grapes from a bramble-bush,
or salvation from frauds and lies.
DEMOPHELES: How often am I to repeat that religion is anything
but frauds and lies, but rather truth itself, only in the garment
of myth and allegory? But as regards your plan that everyone
should be his own religious founder, I still had to tell you that
such a particularism was totally opposed to human nature and
would, therefore, abolish all social order. Man is an animal
metaphysicum; in other words, he has a predominantly strong
metaphysical need. Accordingly, he sees life primarily in its
metaphysical significance and wants to feel that everything is
deduced therefrom. Therefore, strange as it may sound in view
of the uncertainty of all dogmas, agreement in the fundamental
views of metaphysics is for him the main point to the extent that
a genuine and lasting community is possible only among those
who in these matters are of the same opinion. As a result of this,
nations are identified and differentiated much more by religions
than by governments or even by languages. Accordingly, the
fabric of society, the State, stands perfectly firm only when a
universally acknowledged system of metaphysics serves as its
foundation. Naturally, such a system can be only popular
metaphysics, i.e. religion. It then becomes part and parcel of
the constitution of the State, of all the communal expressions in
the life of the people, and also of all the solemn acts in private
life. This was the case in ancient India, among the Persians,
Egyptians, and jews, and also the Greeks and Romans; it is still
the case with the Brahmans, the Buddhists, and the Moham-
medans. It is true that in China there are three faiths, of which
the most widespread, Buddhism, is the least cultivated by the
State. In China, however, there is a saying of universal applica-
tion and daily use that 'the three doctrines are only one', in
ON RELIGION 345
other words, that in the main point they agree. The Emperor
also follows all three simultaneously and in union. Finally,
Europe is the confederation of Christian states; Christianity is the
basis of each ofits members and the common bond of all. There-
fore, although Turkey is situated in Europe, she is not really
reckoned as part thereof. Accordingly, the European princes
are so 'by the grace of God', and the Pope is the vice-regent of
God; and as his position and authority were the highest, he con-
sidered all thrones as held in fee only from him. In the same
way, archbishops and bishops, as such, had temporal power,
and even today have a seat and vote in the Upper House.
Protestant rulers are, as such, the heads of their Churches; in
England a few years ago, this was an eighteen-year-old girl.
Through defection from the Pope, the Reformation upset the
political structure of Europe, but in particular dissolved the real
unity of Germany by abolishing the community of faith. And so
after that unity had actually crumbled, it had later to be
restored by artificial and purely political bonds. Thus you see
how closely connected are faith and its unity with the social
order of every state. Faith is everywhere the support of the laws
and constitution and therefore the foundation of the social
structure that could hardly continue to exist at all if religion did
not lend weight to the authority of the government and to the
dignity and reputation of the ruler.
PHILALETHES: Oh yes, for princes the good Lord is the Santa
Claus with whom they send big children to bed when all else is
of no avail; and so they think a great deal of him. Very well;
meanwhile I would like to advise every ruling prince seriously
and attentively to read through the fifteenth chapter of the first
book of Samuel twice a year on a definite day, so that he will
al'\rays have in mind what it means to establish the throne on
the altar. Moreover, since the ultima ratio theologorum, 2 3 the stake,
has gone out of use, that means of government has lost much of
its effectiveness. For, as you know, religions are like glow-worms
in that they need darkness in order to shine. A certain degree of
general ignorance is the condition of all religions, is the only
element in which they can live. On the other hand, as soon as
astronomy, natural science, geology, history, knowledge of
:u ['The ultimate argument of theologians'.]

ON RELIGION
countries and peoples, spread their light everywhere and finally
even philosophy is allowed to have a word, every faith founded
on miracles and revelation is bound to disappear, whereupon
philosophy takes its place. In Europe the day of knowledge and
science dawned towards the end of the fifteenth century with
the arrival of Romaic scholars; its sun rose ever higher in the
very fruitful sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and dispersed
the mist of the Middle Ages. To the same extent, Church and
faith were bound gradually to collapse; and so in the eighteenth
century English and French philosophers could stand up
directly against them until finally, under Frederick the Great,
Kant arrived. He deprived religious faith of the support of
philosophy it had had hitherto, and emancipated this ancilla
theologiae 2 4 in that, with German thoroughness and imperturb-
ability, he attacked the matter, whereby it assumed a less
frivolous air, yet one that was the more serious. As a result, we
see Christianity in the nineteenth century greatly weakened
almost completely without serious faith, and even fighting for
its very existence; whereas an.xious princes try to help it by
means of artificial stimulants as does a doctor a dying patient by
means of musk. But listen to a passage from Condorcet's Esquisse
d'un tableau des progres de !'esprit humain, which see1ns to be written
as a warning to our times: Le zele religieux des philosophes et des
grands n' itait qu' une diz,otion politique: et toute religion qu' on se permet
de difendre comme une croyance qu'il est utile de laisser au peuple, ne peut
plus esplrer qu'une agonie plus ou moins prolongee 2 s (5th epoch). In
the whole course of the events I have described, you can always
observe that faith and knowledge are related as are the two
scales of a balance, so that when the one goes up the other goes
down. In fact, the balance is so sensitive that it indicates even
momentary influences. For example, at the b~ginning of the
nineteenth century, the predatory incursions of French hordes
under the leadership of Bonaparte and the great efforts that were
subsequently necessary to expel and punish that gang of robbers,
had brought about a temporary neglect of the sciences and thus
z4 ['Handmaid of theology'.]
z5 ['The religious zeal of philosophers and great men was only a political devout-
ness; and every religion we venture to defend, as a faith which it is useful to let the
people have, can no longer hope for anything but a more or less prolonged death-
struggle.']
ON RELIGION 347
a certain decline in the general spreading of knowledge. \Vhen
this happened, the Church at once began again to raise its head
and faith immediately showed fresh signs of life which were, of
course, in part only of a poetical nature, in keeping with the
times. On the other hand, in the peace of more than thirty years
that followed, leisure and prosperity encouraged to a rare
degree the cultivation of the sciences and the spread of know-
ledge, the result of which, as I said, is the threatened decline
and disintegration of religion. Perhaps even the time, so often
prophesied, will soon cmne when in Europe mankind bids fare-
well to religion, like a child who has outgrown his nurse and
whose further instruction now devolves on a private tutor. For
there is no doubt that religious doctrines based merely on
authority, miracles, and revelation, are an expedient that is
appropriate only to the childhood of mankind. But everyone
will admit that a race whose entire duration does not amount to
more than about a hundred times the life of a man of sixty,
according to the consistent statement of all the data of physics
and history, is still in its first childhood.
DEMOPHELES: Oh if, instead of taking an undisguised pleasure at
prophesying the downfall of Christianity, you would consider
how infinitely grateful humanity in Europe should be to this
religion which, after a long interval, followed it from its true
and ancient home in the East. Through Christianity Europe
acquired a tendency which had hitherto been foreign to her, by
virtue of a knowledge of the fundamental truth that life cannot
be an end in itself, but that the true purpose of our existence lies
beyond it. Thus the Greeks and Romans had placed this purpose
positively in life itself and so in this sense can certainly be called
blind heathens. Accordingly, all their virtues are reducible to
what is serviceable to the common welfare, to what is useful.
Aristotle says quite naively: ' Those virtues must necessarily be
the greatest which are the most useful to others.' (avayK'Y) S
p.eylaTCXS dvcxt apETfx) TCXS' TOtS" aAAOLS' XfYTJCJLJ-LWTlXTCXS". Rhetoric, lib. I,
c. g.) Thus with the ancients a love of one's country was the
highest virtue, although it is really very doubtful, since narrow-
mindedness, prejudice, vanity, and an understandable self-
interest have a large share in it. Just before the above-mentioned
passage, Aristotle enumerates all the virtues in order to explain
them individually. They are justice, courage, moderation,
ON RELIGION
magnificence (p.EyaAo11p7TEta), magnanimity, liberality, gentle-

ness, reasonableness, and wisdom. How different from the
Christian virtues! Even Plato, incomparably the most transcen-
~ dent philosopher of pre-Christian antiquity, knows of no higher
virtue than justice and he alone recommends it absolutely and
for its own sake; whereas with all the other philosophers, the aim
of all virtue is a happy life, vita beata, and morality the way to
attain this. Christianity in Europe rescued humanity from this
crude and shallow identification of itself with an ephemeral,
uncertain, and hollow existence,
coelumque tueri
]ussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. 2 6
Accordingly, Christianity preached not merely justice, but
loving kindness, sympathy, compassion, benevolence, forgive-
ness, love of one's enemy, patience, humility, renunciation, faith,
and hope. In fact it went further; it taught that the world is
evil and that we need salvation. Accordingly, it preached a con-
tempt for the world, self-denial, chastity, giving up of one's own
will, that is, turning away from life and its delusive pleasures.
Indeed, it taught one to recognize the sanctifying force of
suffering; an instrument of torture is the symbol of Christianity.
I am quite ready to admit that this serious and only correct
view of life was spread in other forms all over Asia thousands of
years earlier, just as it is even now independently of Christianity;
but for humanity in Europe it was a new and great revelation.
For it is well known that the population of Europe consists of
Asiatic races who as wanderers were driven from their homes
and gradually settled in Europe. In their distant wanderings,
they lost the original religion of their homeland and thus the
correct view of .\ife; and so in a new climate they then formed
their own somewhat crude religions, principally the druidic,
odinic, and Greek religions whose metaphysical content was
insignificant and very shallow. :N1eanwhile, there developed
among the Greeks a quite special, one might say instinctive,
sense of beauty which was peculiar to them alone of all the
nations that have ever existed on earth; a sense that was fine
and correct. Thus in the mouths of their poets and the hands of
16 ['And caused it to look to heaven and to raise its eyes to the stars. (Ovid,
Meti11MTplwses, I. 85-6.)]
ON RELIGION 349
their sculptors, their mythology assumed an exceedingly beauti-
ful and delightful form. On the other hand, the serious, true,
and deep significance of life was lost to the Greeks and Romans;
they went on living like big children until Christianity came
and recalled them to the serious side of life.
PHILALETHES: And to judge the result, we need only compare
antiquity with the Middle Ages that followed it, say the age of
Pericles with the fourteenth century. We can hardly believe that
in the two instances we have before us beings of the same species.
In the one case, we have the finest development of humanity,
admirable state institutions, wise laws, shrewdly allotted offices,
rationally regulated freedom, all the arts at their best including
poetry and philosophy, the creation of works which, even after
thousands of years, stand as matchless examples, almost as works
of a higher order of beings whom we can never approach, and,
with all this, a life embellished by the noblest fellowship as por-
trayed in Xenophon's Banquet. Now look at the other case, if you
can. You see a time when the Church had shackled the minds,
and force and violence the bodies, of men so that knights and
priests could lay the entire burden oflife on the third estate, their
common beast of burden. There you find the right of might,
feudalism and fanaticism in close alliance, and in their train
shocking ignorance and mental obscurity, a corresponding
intolerance, dissension in matters of faith, religious wars,
crusades, persecution of heretics, and inquisitions. As the form
of fellowship, however, you see chivalry, a hotchpotch of rough-
ness, coarseness, silliness, apishness with its humbug and foolery,
pedantically cultivated and worked up into a system, namely
its degrading superstition and apish veneration of women.
Gallantry, a survival of this veneration, is paid for by well-
merited feminine arrogance and provides all Asiatics with
lasting material for laughter, in which the Greeks would have
joined. In the golden Middle Ages, of course, the whole thing
was carried to a formal and methodical service of women; it
imposed deeds of heroism, cours d' amour,Z7 bombastic troubadour
songs, and so on, although it should be observed that these last
17 [By this phrase Schopenhauer may have meant 'love-making'. However, he
may have had in mind a meaning mentioned in Robert, Dictwnnaire alphahitique a
analogique de la langue ftan;aise: a proven~l society dealing with and judging on
questions of courtly love.]
350 ON RELIGION
farces, having an intellectual side, were chiefly at home in
France, whereas with the dull and worldly Germans the knights
distinguished themselves more by drinking and stealing. Goblets
and castles were the business of these robber-barons, although
at the courts there was no lack of insipid love-songs. How had
the scene changed in this way? Through migration and
Christianity.
DEMOPHELES: I am glad you reminded me of this. 1\.1igration
was the source of the evil, and Christianity the dam on which it
broke. Christianity first became the means of taming and con-
trolling the crude and savage hordes that swarmed in through
the flood of migration. The raw human being must first kneel
and learn veneration and obedience; only thereafter can he be
civilized. This was done in Ireland by St. Patrick and in Ger-
many by Winfried the Saxon who became a true Boniface. It
was migration, this last advance of Asiatic tribes into Europe,
followed only by the fruitless attempts of those under Attila,
Genghis Khan, and Timur, and, as a comic epilogue, by the
gipsies, it was migration that had swept away the humanity of
antiquity. But Christianity was the very principle that worked
against roughness and coarseness; just as even later, throughout
the Middle Ages, the Church with its hierarchy was highly
necessary for setting a limit to the coarseness and barbarism of
those endowed with physical force, namely the princes and
knights. It became the ice-breaker of these mighty floes. Yet the
aim generally of Christianity is not so much to make this life
pleasant as to render us worthy of a better. It looks away over
this span of time, over this fleeting dream, in order to lead us to
eternal salvation. Its tendency is ethical in the highest sense of
the word, a sense till then unknown in Europe, as I have shown
by comparing the morality and religion of the ancients with
those of the Christians.
PHILALETHES: And for a good reason, so far as theory is con-
cerned; but look at practice! In comparison with the Christian
centuries that followed, the ancients were unquestionably less
cruel than the Middle Ages v.rith their exquisite tortures and
numberless burnings at the stake. Moreover, the ancients were
very tolerant, had a particularly high regard for justice, fre-
quently sacrificed themselves for their country, showed every
kind of magnanimity and generosity, and such a genuine
ON RELIGION 351
humanity that even to this day an acquaintance with their
thoughts and actions is called the study of the
humanities. The
fruits of Christianity were religious wars, religious massacres,
crusades, inquisitions, together with other courts for heretics,
extermination of the original natives of America, and the intro-
duction of African slaves in their place. Among the ancients
nothing analogous to, or in any way like, them is to be found;
for the slaves of the ancients, the familia, the vernae,zs were
a contented race, faithfully devoted to their master, and as
different from the unfortunate Negro slaves of the sugar planta-
tions, who are an indictment against mankind, as are their two
colours. The tolerance of pederasty which was certainly repre-
hensible and with which we mainly reproach the morals of the
ancients, is a trifle when compared with the Christian atrocities
I have just named. Even among the moderns, this vice has not
become anything like so rare as would appear on the surface.
All things considered, can you maintain that mankind has
actually become morally better through Christianity?
DEMOPHELES: If the result has not been everywhere in keeping
with the purity and truth of the teaching, this may be due to the
fact that such has been too noble and sublime for mankind and
consequently the aim was too high. Naturally it was easier to
comply with heathen and also with Mohammedan morality.
But then it is precisely what is sublimest that is everywhere
most open to fraud and abuse: abusus optimi pessimus. 2 9 And so
even those lofty teachings have at times served as a pretext for
the most infamous deeds and really atrocious crimes. The
decline of the old state institutions as also of the arts and sciences
of the Old World, is, as I have said, attributable to the invasion
of foreign barbarians. Accordingly, it was inevitable that
ignorance and coarseness would gain the upper hand and that,
as a result, violence and fraud would seize power so that knights
and priests became a burden to mankind. It is, however, ex-
plained partly from the fact that the new religion taught one to
seek eternal instead of temporal salvation, preferred simplicity
of heart to knowledge, and was not in favour of any worldly
pleasures, even those that are contributed to by the arts and
~['Dependants'; 'slaves born in the house'.]

V) ['The worst is the abuse of the best.')
352 ON RELIGION
sciences. Yet in so far as the latter were of service to religion,
they were encouraged and to a certain extent flourished.
PHILALETHEs: In a very narrow sphere. But the sciences were
untrustworthy companions and as such were kept in check. On
the other hand, dearly beloved ignorance, that element so
necessary to religious doctrines, was carefully cultivated.
DEMOPHELES: And yet what mankind had till then acquired in
the way of knowledge and had recorded in the writings of the
ancients, was rescued from destruction by the clergy alone,
especially in the monasteries. What would have happened if
Christianity had not appeared shortly before the migration of
peoples?
PHILALETHES: It would really be an exceedingly useful inquiry
to attempt to balance accurately, impartially, frankly, and dis-
passionately the advantages and disadvantages accruing from
religions. for this, of course, a much greater mass of historical
and psychological data is necessary than is available to either of
us. Academies might make it the subject of a prize-essay.
DEMOPHELES: They will take good care not to do that.
PHILALETHES: I am surprised that you say that, for it is a bad
sign for religions. Besides, there are also academies whose ques-
tions carry the implied condition that the prize goes to the man
who best knows how to voice their views. If only a statistician
could in the first place tell us how many crimes are prevented
annually by religious motives, and how many by others; of the
former there would be very few. For if a man feels tempted to
commit a crime, it is certain that the first thing to enter his head
is the punishment fixed for it and the probability of his being
caught. The second point he considers is the risk to his reputa-
tion. If I am not mistaken, he will ruminate for hours on those
two obstacles before any religious considerations ever occur to
him. But if he gets over those first two hurdles, I think that
religion alone will very rareJy deter him from the crime.
DEMOPHELEs: But I think that it will do so very often, especially
if its influence already works through the medium of custom, so
that a man at once recoils from grave misdeeds. The early
impression sticks. For instance, think of the number, especially
those of noble birth, who often make heavy sacrifices to fulfil a
given promise, determined solely by the fact that, in their child-
hood, their fathers often seriously impressed on them that 'a
ON RELIGION 353
man of honour, or a gentleman, or a cavalier, keeps his word
always and inviolably.'
PHILALETHEs: Without a certain innate probitas, 30 this too has
no effect. Speaking generally, you should not attribute to reli-
gion what results from innate goodness of character by virtue
whereof one man's sympathy for another, who would be affected
by the crime, prevents him from committing it. This is the
genuine moral motive and as such is independent of all religions.
DEMOPHELES: But even this seldom has any effect with the masses
unless it is clothed in religious motives, whereby it is un-
doubtedly strengthened. Yet even without such a natural
foundation, religious motives by themselves alone often prevent
crime. This too need not surprise us in the case of the crowd
when we see that even those of superior education are some-
times under the influence not so much of religious motives
which are based, at any rate allegorically, on truth, as of the
absurdest superstition and allow themselves to be guided by it
throughout their lives; for instance, not undertaking anything
on a Friday, not sitting down thirteen at table, obeying chance
omens, and so on. If this is the case with educated men, how
much more is it so with the masses? You simply cannot form an
adequate conception of the extreme limitation of uncultured
minds in which things look very dark especially when, as occurs
only too often, a bad, unjust, and malicious heart forms the
foundation. Such men who constitute the great mass of the
human race, must somehow be guided and controlled for the
time being, even if only by actually superstitious motives, until
they become susceptible to those that are better and more
correct. The direct effect of religion is testified, for example, by
the fact that very often, especially in Italy, a thief arranges for
stolen property to be restored through his father confessor, for
the priest makes this the condition of absolution. Again, think
of the oath where religion shows the most definite influence.
Now it may be that a man expressly takes up the position of a
merely rrwral being and sees himself solemnly appealed to as such;
the oath seems to be taken in this way in l',rance where the
formula is merely je le jure, and also with the Quakers whose
solemn yes or no is accepted instead of the oath. Or it may be
JO ['Probity, integrity'.]
354 ON RELIGION
that a man actually believes in the forfeiture of his eternal
happiness which he expresses in this case, a belief that is then
only a way of clothing the former feeling. At all events, religious
conceptions are a means of rousing and drawing out his moral
nature. How often it happens that false oaths are taken in the
first instance, but, when it comes to the point, are suddenly
rejected whereby truth and right then gain the day.
PHILALETHES: And even more often have false oaths actually
been taken, whereby truth and right were trampled under foot
with the clear knowledge of all the witnesses to the act. The oath
is the metaphysical asses' bridge of the lawyers which they
should cross as rarely as possible. But if this is unavoidable, it
should be done with the greatest solemnity, never without the
presence of a priest and in fact in a church or chapel adjoining
the court of law. In extremely doubtful or suspicious cases, it is
expedient to allow even school-children to be present. For this
reason, the French abstract form of oath is of no use at all.
Abstraction from what is positively given should be left to every-
one's own train of thought according to the degree of his culture
and education. However, you are right when you mention the
oath as an undeniable example of the practical efficacy of reli-
gion. Yet in spite of all you have said, I cannot help doubting
whether such efficacy goes much beyond this. Just imagine if all
the criminal laws were suddenly declared by public proclama-
tion to be abolished; I do not think that either you or I would
have the courage to go home alone, even only from here, under
the protection of religious motives. On the other hand, if, in the
same manner, all religions were declared to be untrue, we should
go on living as before under the protection of the laws alone
without any special increase in our fears and our precautionary
measures. But I will also tell you that religions very often have a
decidedly demoralizing influence. In general, it could be said
that what is added to the duties to God is withdrawn from those
to humanity; for it is very easy and convenient to make amends
for a want of good behaviour towards humanity by adulation
for God. Accordingly, we see in all ages and countries that the
majority find it much easier to obtain heaven by begging and
praying than to merit it by doing good deeds. In every religion
it soon comes about that the primary objects of the divine will
are declared to be not so much moral actions as faith, temple
ON RELIGION 355
ceremonies and the many different kinds of divine worship;
indeed these are gradually regarded even as substitutes for
moral actions, especially when they are associated with the
emoluments of the priests. Animal sacrifices in the temple,
having masses read, erecting chapels or roadside shrines, soon
become the most meritorious works so that through them even
serious crimes are expiated, as also through penance, subjection
to priestly authority, confessions, pilgrimages, donations to
temples and their priests, the building of monasteries, and so on.
In the end, the priests thus seem to be almost the middlemen in
the business with venal gods. And even if matters do not go
quite so far, where is the religion whose followers do not regard
at least prayers, hymns of praise, and the many different devo-
tional exercises as at any rate a partial substitute for moral
conduct? Look at England, for example, where the Christian
Sunday, established by Constantine the Great in opposition to
the Jewish Sabbath, is nevertheless mendaciously identified
therewith by impudent priestcraft even as regards the name.
This is done so that Jehovah's commands for the Sabbath, that
is, the day on which the worn-out Almighty had to rest from his
six days' labour (and so it is essentially the last day of the week),
may be applied to the Sunday of the Christians, the dies solis,
this first day that gloriously opens the week, this day of devotion
and joy. In consequence of this fraud, 'Sabbath-breaking' or
'the desecration of the Sabbath', that is to say, the slightest
occupation, whether for business or pleasure, all games, music,
sewing, darning, and all secular works, are in England reckoned
as grave sins. Surely the ordinary man must believe that, if only,
as his spiritual guides impress on him, he follows 'a strict
o~servance of the holy Sabbath and a regular attendance on
divine service', in other words, if only on Sundays he idles away
his time inviolably and thoroughly and does not fail to sit in
church for two hours to hear the same litany for the thousandth
time and to rattle it off a tempo-that if only he does all this, he
can reckon on some indulgence with regard to one thing or
another which he occasionally permits himself to do. Those
devils in human form, the slave-owners and slave traders in the
Free States of North America (they should be called the Slave
States), are, as a rule, orthodox and pious Anglicans who would
regard it as a grave sin to work on Sundays and who, confident
ON RELIGION
of this and of their regular attendance at church, hope for

eternal happiness. The demoralizing influence of religions is,
therefore, less problematical than is the moralizing. On the
other hand, how great and certain would that moralizing in-
fluence have to be, to make amends for the cruelties to which
religions, especially the Christian and Mohammedan, have
given rise and for the misery they have brought on the world!
Think of the fanaticism, the endless persecutions, then the
religious wars, that bloody madness of which the ancients had
no conception. Think of the crusades which were a quite in-
excusable butchery and lasted for two hundred years, their
battle cry being: 'It is the will of God.' Their object was to
capture the grave of him who preached love, tolerance, and
indulgence. Think of the cruel expulsion and extermination of
the Moors and Jews from Spain; of the blood baths, inquisi-
tions, and other courts for heretics; and also of the bloody and
terrible conquests of the Mohammedans in three continents.
Then think of the Christians in America whose inhabitants were
for the 1nost part, and in Cuba, entirely extenninated. According
to Las Casas, twelve million people were murdered in forty
years, all in majorem Dei gloriam Jt of course and for the purpose
of spreading the Gospel because what was not Christian was not
even regarded as human. It is true that I have previously
touched on these things, but when even in our day the Neueste
Nachrichten aus dem Reiche Gottes arc printed, 32 we will not weary
of recalling these older items of news. In particular, let us not
forget India, that sacred soil, that cradle of the human race, or
at any rate that part thereof to which we belong, where first
Mohammedans and then Christians furiously and most cruelly
attacked the followers of mankind's sacred and original faith.
The ever-deplorable, wanton, and ruthless destruction and dis-
figurement of ancient temples and images reveal to us even to
this day traces of the monotheistic fury of the Mohammedans
which was pursued from Mahmud of Ghazni of accursed
memory down to Aurangzeb the fratricide. These were after-
wards most faithfully imitated by the Portuguese Christians
through the destruction of temples as well as by the autos-da-fi
31 ['For the greater glory of God'.)
3Z A periodical reporting on the achievements of the missionaries. Its fortieth
annual number appeared in 1856.
ON RELIGION 357
of the Inquisition at Goa. Also we should not forget God's
chosen people who, after they had stolen by Jehovah's express
command the gold and silver vessels lent to them by their old
and trusty friends in Egypt, now made their murderous and
predatory attack on the 'Promised Land', with the murderer
Moses at their head,* in order to tear it away from the rightful
owners, by the same Jehovah's express and constantly repeated
command, showing no mercy and ruthlessly murdering and
exterminating all the inhabitants, even the women and children
(Joshua, chaps. I o and I 1). And all this simply because they
were not circumcised and did not know Jehovah. This was
sufficient ground for justifying every atrocity and cruelty to
them; just as for the same reason in earlier times, the infamous
blackguardism of the patriarch Jacob and his chosen people
towards Hamor, King of Shalem, and his people is gloriously
narrated for us (Genesis 34), just because the people were un-
believers. t This is really the worst side of religions, namely that
*Tacitus (Hisroriae, lib. v, c. 2) andjustinus (lib. XXXVI, c. 2) have handed down
to us the historical basis of the Exodus, the reading of which is as instructive as it is
entertaining and from which we may infer how matters are with regard to the
historical basis of the other books of the Old Testament. In the passage quoted, we
see that Pharoah would no longer tolerate in Egypt proper the jewish people, a
sneaking dirty race afflicted with filthy diseases (scabies) that threatened to prove
infectious. He therefore had them put on board ship and dumped on the Arabian
coast. It is true that a detachment of Egyptians was sent after them, not to bring
back the precious fellows who had been deported, but to recover from them what
they had stolen; thus they had stolm from the temples the golden vessels. Who
would lend anything to such a rabble? It is also true that the above-mentioned
detachment was annihilated by a natural event. On the coast of Arabia there was
great scarcity, principally of water. Then a bold and venturesome fellow appeared,
and offered to procure everything if they would follow and obey him. He said he
had seen wild asses, and so on. I regard this as the historical basis, since it is ob-
viously the prose on which the poetry of the Exodus was built. Although Justinus
(i.e. Trogus Pompeius) here commits a monstrous anachronism (that is, according
to our assumptions that are based on the Exodus), this does not disturb me, for to
me a hundred anachronisms are still not so questionable as a single miracle. We see
also from the two Roman authors how much the Jews were at all times and by all
nations loathed and despised. This may be due partly to the fact that they were the
only people on earth who did not credit man with any existence beyond this life and
were, therefore, regarded as cattle, as the dregs of humanity, but as past masters at
telling lies.
t Whoever wants to know, without understanding Hebrew, what the OJd
Testament is, must read it in the Septuagint which is the most accurate, most
genuine, and at the same time finest of all translations; for it has an entirely different
tone and colour. The style of the LXX is for the most part noble and naive; nor has
it anything ecclesiastical and there is no trace of anything Christian. Compared with
it, the Lutheran translation appears to be both vulgar and bigoted; it is often
ON RELIGION
the believers of every religion regard themselves as justified in

committing every crime against those or all the others and have,
therefore, treated them with the greatest wickedness and cruelty;
thus the Mohammedans against the Christians and Hindus, the
Christians against the Hindus, ~1ohammedans, American
natives, Negroes, Jews, heretics, and others. Perhaps I go too
far when I say all religions, for in the interest of truth I must add
that the fanatical cruelties arising from this principle are really
known to us only frmn the followers of the monotheistic reli-
gions, thus Judaism and its two branches, Christianity and
Islam. We hear nothing of the kind about Hindus and Budd-
hists. Although we know that in about the fifth century of our
era Buddhism was driven by the Brahmans from its original
home in the Indian peninsula and then spread over the whole of
Asia, yet we have no definite infonnation, as far as I know, of
any crimes of violence, wars, and atrocities whereby this was
carried out. This may, of course, be attributable to the ob-
scurity in which the history of those countries is veiled; yet the
extremely mild character of those religions which constantly
inculcate forbearance to all living things and also the circum-
stance that, on account of its caste system, Brahmanism does not
really allow proselytes, entitle us to hope that their followers
refrained from shedding blood on a large scale and from every
kind of cruelty. Spence Hardy in his admirable book, Eastern
Monachism, p. 412, praises the extraordinary tolerance of the
Buddhists and adds the assurance that the annals of Buddhism
afford fewer instances of religious persecution than do those of
any other religion. Indeed, intolerance is essential only to mono-
theism; an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not
allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are
inaccurate, sometimes intentionally, and maintains throughout a canonical and
devotional tone. In the above-mentioned passages, Luther has ventured to make
qualifications that could be called falsifications; thus where he puts 'verbannen'
(exile), the Greek word is it/>Ov1JC1av [murdered, killed], and so on.
Moreover, the impression left on me after studying the LXX is <Jne of cordial
affection and deep veneration for the i!Eyas {3acn>..Evs Napovxw8o,oaop [the great
King Nebuchadnezzar], although he was somewhat too lenient with a people
whose God gave or promised them their neighbours' lands. They then obtained
possession of these by murder and rapine, and there erected a temple to God. May
every people, whose God makes neighbouring countries 'lands of promise', find
their Nebuchadnezzar in good time and their Antiochus Epiphanes as well, and
may they be treated without any more ceremony!
ON RELIGION 359
naturally tolerant; they live and let live. In the first place, they
gladly tolerate their colleagues, the gods of the same religion,
and this tolerance is afterwards extended even to foreign gods
who are, accordingly, hospitably received and later admitted,
in son1e cases, even to an equality of rights. An instance of this
is seen in the Romans who willingly admitted and respected
Phrygian, Egyptian, and other foreign gods. Thus it is only the
monotheistic religions that furnish us with the spectacle of
religious wars, religious persecutions, courts for trying heretics,
and also with that of iconoclasm, the destruction of the images
of foreign gods, the denwlition of Indian temples and Egyptian
colossi that had looked at the sun for three thousand years; all
this just because their jealous God had said: 'Thou shalt make
no graven image', and so on. But to return to the main point,
you are certainly right in insisting on man's strong metaphysical
need. Religions, however, seem to me to be not so much a satis-
faction as an abuse thereof. At any rate, we have seen that, as
regards the cncourage1nent of morality, their use is to a great
extent problematical, whereas their disadvantages, and es-
pecially the atrocities that have followed in their train, are as
clear as the light of day. Of course, it is quite a different matter
if we take into consideration the use of religions as supports to
thrones; for in so far as these are granted by the grace of God,
throne and altar are intimately associated. Accordingly, every
wise prince who loves his throne and family, will always appear
at the head of his people as a paragon of true religious feeling,
just as even l\1achiavelli in the eighteenth chapter of his work
urgently recommends princes to cultivate religious feeling.
Moreover, it might be mentioned that revealed religions are
related to philosophy precisely as are sovereigns by the grace of
God to the sovereignty of the people, so that the two first terms
of this comparison stand in natural alliance.
DEMOPHELES: Ah, do not adopt that tone, but rcmcn1ber that
you would thus be playing the tune of ochlocracy and anarchy,
the arch-enemy of all law and order, of all civilization and
humanity.
PHILALETHES: You are right; they were just sophisms, or what
the fencing masters call irregular cuts; and so I retract what I
said. But see how arguments can sometimes make even an honest
man unjust and malicious. Therefore let us stop.
ON RELIGION
DEMOPHELES: I cannot help regretting that, after all my efforts,
I have not changed your attitude with regard to religions. On
the other hand, I can also assure you that all you have stated has
not in the least shaken my conviction of the great value and
necessity of religions.
PHILALETHES: I believe you, for as it says in Hudibras:
He that complies against his will,

Is of his own opinion still.
But I console myself with the thought that in controversies and
mineral baths the after-effect is the only real one.
DEMOPHELES: Well, I wish you a blessed after-effect.
PHILALETHES: Perhaps it might be, if only I could swallow a
Spanish proverb.
DEMOPHELES: What does that say?
PHILALETHES: Detras de la cruz estti el Diablo.
DEMOPHE!.ES: What is that in plain language, you old Spaniard?
PHI LA LETHES: Behind the cross stands the devil.'
DEMOPHELES: Come, we do not want to part from each other
with sarcasms. Let us rather see that religion, like Janus, or
better still like Tama the Brahman god of death, has two faces
and, like him, one very friendly and one very stern. Each of us
has kept his eye only on one of them.
PHILALETHES: You are quite right, old chap!
I 75
Faith and Knowledge
As a branch of knowledge, philosophy is not in the least con-
cerned with what should or may be believed, but merely with
what can be known. Now if this should be something quite
different from what we have to believe, then this would be no
disadvantage even to faith; for it is faith because it teaches what
we cannot know. If we could know it, then faith would appear
as something useless and ridiculous, rather like advancing a
doctrine of faith in connection with mathematics.
On the other hand, it might be urged that faith can still teach
more, much more, than can philosophy, yet nothing that is
inconsistent with the results thereof, since knowledge is of
sterner stuff than faith, so that if the two come into collision, the
latter breaks.
ON RELIGION
In any case, the two are fundamentally different and, for their
mutual advantage, must remain strictly separate so that each
may go its own way without taking any notice of the other.
176
Revelation
The ephemeral generations of human beings arise and pass
away in quick succession, whilst the individuals, beset with
anxiety, want, and pain, dance into the arms of death. They
never weary of asking what is the matter with them and what is
the meaning of the whole tragi-comic farce. They cry to heaven
for an answer, but it remains silent. On the other hand, priests
and parsons come along with their revelations.
Of the many hard and deplorable things in the fate of man,
not the least is that we exist without knowing whence, whither,
and to what purpose. Whoever has grasped and seen through
the sense of this evil and is thoroughly imbued with it, will
hardly be able to resist a feeling of irritation towards those who
pretend to have special information about this matter, which
they wish to convey to us under the name of revelations. I
would like to advise these revelation-gentlemen not to talk so
much at the present time about revelation, otherwise one of
these days it might easily be revealed to them what revelation
really is.
But whoever can seriously think that beings who were not
human had ever given information concerning the existence and
purpose of our race and the world, is still only a big child. There
is no revelation other than the thoughts of sages, although these
are subject to error, as is the lot of everything human. These are
often clothed in strange allegories and myths that are then called
religions. To this extent, therefore, it is immaterial whether a
man lives and dies relying on his own ideas or on those of others;
for they are always only human ideas and opinions in which he
puts his trust. As a rule, however, men are weak and prefer to
trust others who allege supernatural sources rather than rely on
their own minds. Now if we keep in view the exceedingly great
intellectual difference between one man and another, then to
some extent the thoughts of one might well be regarded by
another as revelations.
On the other hand, the fundamental secret and cunning of all
ON RELIGION
priests, at all times and throughout the world, whether they be
Brahmans or Mohammedans, Buddhists or Christians, are that
they have rightly recognized and understood the great strength
and ineradicability of man's metaphysical need. They now
pretend to possess the means to satisfy this by saying that the
word of the great riddle has in some extraordinary way reached
them direct. Once men have been talked into this idea, the
priests can guide and control them at will. And so the more
prudent rulers enter into an alJiance with them; the others are
themselves ruled by them. But if, as the rarest of all exceptions,
a philosopher ascends the throne, there arises the most em-
barrassing disturbance in the whole comedy.
I 77
On Christianity
To judge this religion fairly, we must also consider what
existed before it and was set aside by it. First there was Graeco-
Roman paganism. Considered as popular metaphysics, it was
an extremely insignificant phenomenon without any real,
definite dogmatic system or any decidedly expressed ethics, in
fact without any true moral tendency and sacred writings, so
that it hardly merited the name of religion, but was rather a
mere play of the imagination, a product of the poets from popu-
lar fairy-tales, and for the most part an obvious personification
of the powers of nature. We can hardly believe that grown men
ever took this childish religion seriously, yet evidence of their so
doing is furnished by many passages from the ancients, especially
by the first book of Valerius :rviaximus, but also by very many
from Herodotus. Of these I will mention only those in the last
book, chapter 65, where he expresses his own opinion and talks
like an old woman. As time went on and philosophy progressed,
this seriousness had naturally disappeared and thus it was
possible for Christianity to supplant that State religion, in spite
of its external supports. Yet even in the best Greek period, this
State religion was certainly not taken as seriously as was the
Christian in more modern times, or as are Buddhism, Brah-
manism, or even Islam in Asia. Consequently, the polytheism
of the ancients was something quite different from the mere
plural of monotheism. This is evident from the Frogs of Aristo-
phanes, where Dionysus appears as the most pitiable poltroon
ON RELIGION
and coxcomb imaginable and is made an object of ridicule; and
this play was publicly performed at his own festival, the
Dionysia. The second thing that Christianity had to supplant
was Judaism whose crude dogma was sublimated and tacitly
allegorized by the Christian. Christianity generally is of an
entirely allegorical nature; for that which in things profane is
called allegory is in religions styled 'mystery'. It must be ad-
mitted that Christianity is far superior to those two earlier
religions not only in morals, but even in dogmatics. In morals the
teachings of caritas, gentleness, love of one's enemy, resignation,
and denial of one's own will, are exclusively its own, in the West
of course. What better thing can be offered to the masses who,
of course, are incapable of directly grasping the truth, than a
fine allegory which is perfectly adequate as a guide for practical
life and as an anchor of hope and consolation? A small ad-
mixture of absurdity, however, is a necessary ingredient for such
an allegory, in that it helps to indicate its allegorical nature. If
the Christian dogmas are understood sensu proprio, then Voltaire
is right; if, on the other hand, they are taken allegorically, they
are a sacred myth, a vehicle for conveying to the people truths
that would otherwise be quite beyond their reach. \Ve might
compare them to the arabesques of Raphael as well as to those
of Runge, which represent the palpably unnatural and im-
possible, but from which a deep meaning is nevertheless ex-
pressed. Even the assertion of the Church that, in the dogmas
of religion, the faculty of reason is wholly incompetent, blind,
and unsound, means at bottom that these dogmas are of an
allegorical nature; and so they are not to be judged by the
standard that only the faculty of reason, taking everything sensu
proprio, can apply. The absurdities in dogma are just the dis-
tinctive mark and sign of the allegorical and mythical; although,
as in the present instance, they spring from the fact that two
such heterogeneous doctrines as those of the Old and New
Testaments had to be tied together. That great allegory came
about only gradually on the occasion of external and chance
circumstances. It was expounded under the quiet influence of a
deep-lying truth whereof 1nen were not clearly conscious, until
it was perfected by Augustine. He penetrated its meaning most
deeply and was then able to grasp it as a systematic whole and
to make good what was missing. Accordingly, only the
ON RELIGION
Augustinian doctrine, confirmed also by Luther, is perfect
Christianity, not the primitive Christianity, as present-day
Protestants imagine who take 'revelation' sensu proprio and,
therefore, restrict it to one individual; just as it is not the seed
but the fruit that is good to eat. However, the bad point of all
religions is always that they dare not be openly and avowedly
allegorical, but only covertly so; accordingly, they have to state
their teachings in all seriousness as being true sensu proprio. Now
with the essentially necessary absurdities in them, this intro-
duces a constant deception and is a great drawback. What is
even worse is that in time there comes a day when they are no
longer true sensu proprio, and then they are overthrown. To this
extent, it would be better for them to admit forthwith their
allegorical nature; but how is one to bring home to the people
that something can be simultaneously true and not true? Now
as we find that all religions are more or less of such a nature, we
have to acknowledge that the absurd is to a certain degree
suited to the human race, is in fact an element of life, and that
deception and mystification are indispensable to man, as is also
confirmed by other phenomena.
An example and proof of the above-mentioned source of the
absurd, springing from the combination of the Old and New
Testaments, are afforded, among other things, by the Christian
doctrine of predestination and grace, as elaborated by Augustine,
that guiding star of Luther. In consequence of that doctrine,
one man has an advantage over another in respect of grace,
which then amounts to a privilege received at birth and brought
ready-made into the world, and this indeed in the most impor-
tant of all matters. But the offensive and absurd nature of this
teaching springs merely from the Old Testament assumption
that man is the work of another's will and is thereby created out
of nothing. On the other hand, with regard to the fact that
genuine moral qualities are actually inborn, the matter assumes
quite a different and more rational significance under the
Brahmanic and Buddhist assumption of metempsychosis.
According to this, the advantage one man has at birth over
another and thus what he brings with him from another world
and a previous life, is not another's gift of grace, but the fruit of
his own deeds that were performed in that other world. Con-
nected with that dogma of Augustine's is yet another, that out
ON RELIGION
of the mass of the human race, which is corrupt and depraved
and is, therefore, destined to eternal damnation, only very few
indeed, and these in consequence of election by grace and of
predestination, are deemed righteous and therefore blessed; the
rest, however, go to well-merited perdition, to the eternal tor-
ments ofhell.H Taken sensu proprio, the dogma here is revolting;
for not only does it cause a young man scarcely twenty years old
to suffer endless torture, by virtue of its punishments of eternal
hell, for his lapses or even his unbelief, but there is also the fact
that this almost universal damnation is really the effect of
original sin and thus the necessary consequence of the Fall. But
in any case, this must have been foreseen by him who in the
first instance had not created human beings better than they are
and had then laid a trap for them into which he must have
known they would fall, since all things without exception are
his work and from him nothing remains hidden. Accordingly,
out of nothing he had summoned into existence a feeble race
subject to sin in order then to hand it over to endless torture.
Finally, there is also the fact that the God who prescribes for-
bearance and forgiveness of every trespass and offence, even to
the extent ofloving one's enemy, himself practises none of these,
but rather does the very opposite. For a punishment that occurs
at the end of things, when all is over and done with for all time,
cannot aim either at improvement or determent and is, there-
fore, revenge pure and simple. But considered from this point
of view, the whole race even appears to be expressly created and
positively destined for eternal torment and damnation, with the
exception of the few who, through election by grace, are saved,
no one knows why. But apart from these, it looks as if the
Almighty had created the world so that the devil should get it,
in which case he would have done far better to leave things
alone. So much for dogmas when they are taken sensu proprio;
whereas understood sensu allegorico, all this is yet capable of an
adequate explanation. In the first place, as I have said, the
absurd and even revolting aspect of this teaching is merely a
consequence of Jewish theism with its creation out of nothing
and its really paradoxical and shocking denial, connected there-
with, of the doctrine of metempsychosis, a doctrine that is
JJ See Wiggers's Augustinismus rmd Pelagianismus, p. 335

ON RELIGION
natural, is to a certain extent self-evident, and so is accepted at
all times by almost the entire human race with the exception of
the Jews. Just to remove the colossal drawback arising from this
and to tone down the revolting aspect of the dogma, Pope
Gregory I in the sixth century very wisely formed the doctrine
of purgatory, which is in essence already found in Origen (cf.
Bayle in the article Origene, Note B), and formally incorporated
it in the articles of the Church. In this way, the thing was greatly
moderated and to some extent took the place of metempsychosis;
for the one like the other furnishes a process of purification.
With the same object, there was introduced also the doctrine of
the restitution or restoration of all things (&.7ToKaraarcuns-
1Tctvrwv) whereby in the final act of the world-comedy even the
sinners, all and sundry, are restored in integrum.J4 It is only the
Protestants with their stern belief in the Bible who will not be
dissuaded from their eternal punishments in hell. 'Much good
may it do them!' might be said by anyone in a spiteful mood.
The only consolation is that they just do not believe in it, but
let the matter rest for the time being, thinking in their hearts
that things will not be quite so bad as that.
In consequence of his rigid systematic mind, through his strict
dogmatizing of Christianity and his fixed definition of doctrines
that in the Bible are only hinted at and always float on an
obscure foundation, Augustine gave them such hard contours
and Christianity so harsh a construction that at the present
time these views cause offence and are, therefore, now opposed
by rationalism in .our day as they were by Pelagianism in his.
For example, De civitate dei, lib. xu, c. 2 I, the argument taken
in abstracto runs really as follows: A God creates a being out of
nothing, gives him inhibitory commands, and, because these are
not obeyed, tortures him throughout eternity with every
imaginable agony and affliction, for which purpose he then
inseparably binds body and soul (De civitate dei, lib. XIn, c. 2;
c. 11 in .fine and 24 in .fine), in order that the torture may never
through disintegration destroy this being and thus let him
escape. On the contrary, he must live for ever to endure eternal
torment, this poor fellow who was created out of nothing, and at
any rate has a claim to his original nothing, which last retreat that
J4 ['To their original state of perfection'.]

OX RELIGION
in any event cannot be very bad should remain assured to him
by rights as his inherited property. At any rate, I cannot help
sympathizing with hin1. Now if in addition we take the rest of
Augustine's doctrines, namely that all this does not really
depend on what a man does or omits to do, but was previously
settled by election through grace, then we do not know what
more is to be said. Naturally our highly educated rationalists
then say: 'But all this is not true and is a mere bugbear; on the
contrary, we shall always make progress and rise stage by stage
to ever greater perfection.' It is a pity that we did not begin
earlier, for then we should already be there. But our bewilder-
ment at such statements is still further increased when we listen
meanwhile to the voice of Vanini, a wicked heretic who was
burnt at the stake: Si nollet Deus pessimas ac nifarias in orbe vigere
actiones, procul dubio uno nutu extra mundi limites omnia jlagitia exter-
minaret projligaretque: quis enim nostrum divina.e potest resistere volun-
tati? quomodo invito Deo patrantur scelera, si in actu quoque peccandi
scelestis vires subministrat? Ad haec, si contra Dei voluntatem homo
labitur, Deus erit inferior homin.e, qui ei adversatur, et pra.evalet. Hinc
deducunt, Deus ita desiderat hunc mundum qualis est, si meliorem vellet,
meliorem haberet.Js (Amphitheatrum mundi, exercit. 16, p. 104) He
had previously said on page I 03: Si Deus vult peccata, igitur facti:
si non vult, tam.en committuntur; erit ergo dicendus improvidus, vel
impotens, vel crudelis, cum voti sui compos fieri aut n.esciat, aut nequeat,
aut negligat.J 6 At the same time, it is clear why, even at the
present day, the dogma of free will is clung to mordicus,J7
although all serious and honest thinkers from Hobbes to me
have rejected it as absurd, as is seen in my essay 'On the
Freedom of the \Viii' which was avvarded a prize. It was
JS ['If God did not want the worst and meanest actions to haunt the world, he
would undoubtedly with a wave of the hand drive away and banish all deeds of
infamy from the limits of the world; for who of us can resist the divine will? How
can we assume that crimes would be committed against the will of God if, when a
sin is committed, he endows criminals with the strength to commit it? If, however,
man commits an offence without God's willing it, then God is weaker than man
who opposes him and has the power to do so. From this it follows that God wants
to have the world as it is, for if he wanted a better world, he would have a better.'
J6 ['If God wills sins, it is he who commits them; if he d()('_s not will them, they
are nevertheless committed. Consequently, it must be said of him that he is either
improvident, or impotent, or cruel. For he neither knows how, nor is able, nor cares,
to carry out his decree.']
J7 ['Frantically', 'with might and main'.)
ON RELIGION
certainly easier to burn than to refute Vanini. The former was
preferred after his tongue had been previously cut out; the
latter is still open to anyone who may care to make the attempt,
yet it must be done seriously with thoughts and ideas, not with
hollow verbiage.
Augustine's conception of the exceedingly large number of
sinners and of the extremely small number of those meriting
eternal bliss is in itself correct. It is again found in Brahmanism
and Buddhism where, however, in consequence of metempsy-
chosis, it causes no offence. For in Brahmanism only very few
indeed attainfinal emancipation, in Buddhism Nirvana (both are
equivalent to our eternal bliss). Yet these few are not privileged,
but have already come into the world with the accumulated
merit of former lives, and now continue along the same path.
All the rest, however, are not hurled into the eternally burning
lake of fire and brimstone, but are moved only into worlds that
are appropriate to their conduct. Accordingly, anyone who asked
the teachers of these religions where and what all those others
now are who have not attained salvation, would receive the
following answer: 'Look about you and you will see them here;
this is their scene of action, this is Samsara, that is, the world of
craving, birth, pain, old age, sickness and death.' If, on the
other hand, we understand merely sensu allegorico the Augus-
tinian dogma in question, namely that of the very small number
of the elect and the very large one of the eternally damned, in
order to interpret it in the sense of our philosophy, then it agrees
with the truth that certainly only a few reach the denial of the
will and thus emancipation from this world (just as only a few
Buddhists attain Nirvana). On the other hand, what the dogma
hypostasizes as eternal damnation, is just this world of ours; this
is the place to wruch all those others are relegated. It is bad
enough; it is purgatory; it is hell and in it there is no lack of
devils. Just consider what men sometimes inflict on men, with
what excruciating agonies one will slowly torture another to
death, and then ask yourselves whether devils could do more.
Those who are not converted and persist in the affirmation of
the will-to-live, will likewise stay in the world for ever.
But really, if an Asiatic were to ask me what Europe is, I
should have to reply that it is that part of the world which is
completely ruled by the unheard-of and incredible notion that
ON RELIGION
the birth of a human being is his absolute beginning and that
he has come from nothing.
Fundamentally and apart from the mythologies of the two
religions, Buddha's Samsara and Nirvana are identical with
Augustine's two civitates into which the world is divided, namely
the civitas terrena and the civitas coelestis, as described by him in
the books De civitate dei, especially lib. XIV, c. 4 et ultim.; lib. xv,
C. I and 2I; Jib. XVIII injine; lib. XXI, C. I.
In Christianity the devil is an extremely necessary person as a
counterpoise to Almighty God who is ail-good and all-wise; for
with such a God it is impossible to see how the predominant,
countless, and measureless evils of the world could come about
unless there were a devil to be responsible for them. Therefore
since the rationalists have abolished him, the resultant draw-
back on the other side has made itself 1nore and more felt, as
was to be foreseen and was foreseen by the orthodox. For we
cannot take away a pillar without endangering the rest of the
structure. This also confirms what is ascertained in other ways,
namely that jehovah is another term for Ormuzd and Satan for
Ahriman who is inseparable from him; but the name Ormuzd
is itself another term for Indra.
Christianity has the peculiar disadvantage of not being, like
other religions, a pure doctrine, but is essentially and mainly a
narrative or history, a series of events, a complex of the facts,
actions, and sufferings of individuals; and this very history
constitutes the dogma, belief in which leads to salvation. Other
religions, Buddhism in particular, have, of course, a historical
supplement in the lives of their founders; this, however, is not
part of the dogma itself, but merely accompanies it. For exam-
ple, we can compare the Lalitavistara with the Gospel in so far
as it contains the life of Sakya Muni, the Buddha of the present
world-period. But this remains something quite separate and
distinct from the dogma and so from Buddhism itself, just
because the lives of previous Buddhas were also quite different
and those of future Buddhas will again be quite different. Here
the dogma has not by any means grown up with the life of the
founder and is not based on individual persons and facts, but is
universal and applies equally to all times. Therefore the
Lalitavistara is not a gospel in the Christian sense, no glad tidings
of a fact of salvation, but the life of him who gave instructions as
370 ON RELIGION
to how everyone could redeem himself. It is the historical nature
of Christianity that makes the Chinese scoff at the missionaries
as so many story-tellers.
Another fundamental defect of Christianity to be mentioned
in this connection and not to be explained away which daily
manifests its deplorable consequences, is that it has most un-
naturally separated man from the animal world, to which in
essence he nevertheless belongs. It now tries to accept man
entirely by himself and regards animals positively as things;
whereas Brahmanism and Buddhism, faithful to truth, definitely
recognize the evident kinship of man with the whole of nature
in general and the animals in particular and represent him, by
metempsychosis and otherwise, as being closely connected with
the animal world. The important part played generally by
animals in Brahmanism and Buddhism, compared with their
total nullity in Jewish Christianity, pronounces sentence on the
latter in respect of perfection, much as we in Europe may be
accustomed to such an absurdity. To palliate that fundamental
defect, but actually aggravating it, we find a trick which is as
despicable as it is shameless and has already been censured in
my Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, 'Basis of Ethics', 19 ( 7).
I refer to the trick of describing in terms quite different from
those used in the case of man all the natural functions which
animals have in common with us and which, more than any-
thing else, testify to the identity between their nature and ours,
such as eating, drinking, pregnancy, birth, death, dead body,
and so on. It is positively a vile and mean trick. Now the funda-
mental defect just mentioned is a consequence of creation out of
nothing, according to which the Creator (Genesis I and g) hands
over to man all the animals, just as if they were mere things and
without any recommendation to their being properly treated,
such as even the seller of a dog often adds when parting with the
animal he has reared. The Creator hands them over so that man
may rule over them and thus may do what he likes with them;
whereupon in the second chapter he appoints man as the first
professor of zoology by commissioning him to give animals the
names they are to bear in future. Again this is merely a symbol
of their entire dependence on him, that is, of their being without
any rights. Holy Ganga! mother of our race! Such stories have
on me the same effect as do Jew's pitch and foetor Judaicus! The
ON RELIGION 371
fault lies with the Jewish view that regards the animal as some-
thing manufactured for man's use. But unfortunately the con-
sequences of this are felt even to this day because they have
passed over into Christianity. For this very reason, we should
give up crediting this religion with the most perfect morality.
It really has a serious and fundamental imperfection in that it
restricts its precepts to man and leaves the whole of the animal
world without any rights. And so in protecting them from the
rough and callous masses who are frequently more bestial than
the beasts, the police have to take the place of religion; and
since this is not enough, societies for the protection of animals
arc today being formed all over Europe and America. On the
other hand, such would be the most superfluous thing in the
world in the whole of uncircumcised Asia, where religion affords
sufficient protection to animals and even makes them the sub-
ject of positive beneficence. For example, the fruits of this are
seen in the large hospital for animals in Surat to which even
Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews can send their sick
animals. After a successful cure, however, such people are very
rightly not allowed to take them away again. In the same way,
whenever a Brahman or Buddhist has a piece of personal good
fortune, he does not proceed to rattle off a Te Deum, but goes to
the market-place to buy birds in order to open their cages at the
city-gates. There are frequent opportunities for observing this
in Astrakhan where the followers of all religions meet; and they
do a hundred similar things. On the other hand, look at the
revolting and outrageous wickedness with which our Christian
mob treat animals, laughing as they kill them without aim or
object, maiming and torturing them, and even working the very
marrow out of the poor bones of their old horses who are their
direct bread-winners, until they sink and succumb under the
lashes. It might truly be said that men are the devils of this
earth and animals the tortured souls. These are the consequences
of that installation scene in the Garden of Paradise. For the
mob can be got at only by force or religion; but here Christianity
leaves us shamefully in the lurch. I heard from a reliable source
that, when asked by a society for the protection of animals to
preach a sermon against cruelty to them, a Protestant clergy-
man replied that, with the best will in the world, he could not
do so because in this matter religion gave him no support. The
372 ON RELIGION
man was honest and right. In a circular dated 27 November
1852, the very laudable Munich society for the protection of
animals endeavours, with the best intentions, to quote from the
Bible 'precepts preaching consideration for animals', and
mentions Proverbs 1 2 : I o; Ecclesiasticus 7: 24; Psalms I 4 7: 9;
104: 14; Job 38:41; Matthew ro:2g. But this is only a pious
fraud that reckons on our not turning up the passages; only the
first well-known passage says something relevant, although it is
weak. The others, it is true, speak of animals, but not of con-
sideration for them. What does the first passage say? 'A right-
eous man regardeth the life of his beast.' 'Regardeth the life'!
\..Yhat an expression! One is merciful to a sinner or an evil-doer,
but not to an innocent faithful animal who is often his master's
bread-winner and gets nothing but his bare fodder. Merciful
indeed! We owe to the animal not mercy but justice, and the
debt often remains unpaid in Europe, the continent that is so
permeated with the foetor Judaicus that the obvious and simple
truth 'the animal is essentially the same as man' is an offensive
paradox.* The protection of animals is, therefore, left to the
police and to societies formed for the purpose, but these can do
very little against that widespread ruffianism of the mob, where
it is a question of poor things who cannot complain and in a
hundred cases of cruelty hardly one comes to light, especially as
the punishments are too lenient. Flogging was recently sug-
gested in England and this seems to me to be a thoroughly
suitable punishment. Yet what can we expect from the 1nasses
when there are scholars and even zoologists who, instead of
acknowledging the identity (intimately known to them) of the
essential natures of man and animal, are bigoted and narrow-
minded enough to carry on a heated controversy with honest
and reasonable colleagues who put man in the proper animal
class or demonstrate the great similarity between him and the
chimpanzee and orang-utan? But it is really revolting when in
his Scenen aus dem Geisterreich, vol. ii, Sc. I, p. 15, the pious J ung-
Stilling with his exceedingly Christian turn of mind adduces the
In their exhortations the societies for the protection of animals are for ever
using the bad argument that cruelty to animals leads to cruelty to human beings,
as though man were a direct object of moral duty, the animal being merely in-
direct, in itself a mere thing.' For shame! (Sec The Two Fundammtal Problems of
Ethics, 'Basis of Ethics', 8 and 19 (7).)
ON RELIGION 373
following comparison: 'Suddenly the skeleton shrivelled up
into the indescribably hideous form of a dwarf, just as does a
large garden spider when we bring it into the focus of a burning-
glass and its pus-like blood now hisses and boils in the glowing
heat.' And so this man of God perpetrated such an infamous
deed or calmly watched it, which in this case amounts to the
same thing; in fact he sees so little wrong in it that he tells us
about it quite casually and calmly! These are the effects of the
first chapter of Genesis and generally of the whole Jewish way
of looking at nature. With the Hindus and Buddhists, on the
other hand, the Malzavakya (the great word) 'tat tvam asi' (this
art thou) applies and is always to be expressed over every animal
in order that we may have before us, as a guide to our conduct,
the identity of his inner nature and ours. Go away from me with
your most perfect of all moral systems!
When I was a student at Gottingen, Blumenbach in his lec-
tures on physiology spoke very seriously to us about the horrors
of vivisection and pointed out to us what a cruel and shocking
thing it was. He therefore said that it should very rarely be
resorted to and only in the case of very important investigations
that are of direct use. But it must then be done with the greatest
publicity in the large lecture-hall after an invitation has been
sent to all the medical students, so that the cruel sacrifice on the
altar of science may be of the greatest possible use. Every quack,
however, now considers himself entitled to carry out in his
torture-chamber the cruellest tortures on animals in order to
decide problems whose solution has long since appeared in
books, but which he is too lazy and ignorant to look up. Our
doctors no longer receive, as they did formerly, a classical educa-
tion which endowed them with a certain humanity and a touch
of nobility. Nowadays, they go off as soon as possible to the
university, where they want to learn to be medicine-men, and
then have a good time in the world.
Here the French biologists appear to have set the example
and the Germans vie with them in inflicting on innocent
animals, often in large numbers, the cruellest tortures in order
to settle purely theoretical and often very futile questions. I will
now illustrate this with a few examples which have particularly
disgusted me, although they are by no means isolated cases; on
the contrary, a hundred similar instances could be enumerated.
374 ON RELIGION
In his book tlber die Ursachen der Knochenformen ( 185 7), Professor
Ludwig J:."'ick of Marburg reports that he removed the eye-balls
of young animals to obtain a confirmation for his hypothesis
through the fact that the bones now grow into the cavities! (See
Central Blatt of 24 October 1857.)
Deserving of special mention is the atrocity, perpetrated in
Nuremberg by Baron von Bibra and reported by him tanquam re
bene gesta 38 to the public with inconceivable naivete in his
Vergleichende Untersuchungen iiber das Gehirn des Menschen und der
Wirbelthiere (Mannheim, 1854, pp. 131 ff.). He deliberately
arranged for the death by starvation of two rabbits in order to
carry out a useless and superfluous research as to whether the
chemical constituents of the brain underwent a change in their
proportions through death by starvation! For the benefit of
science, n' est-ce-pas? Does it never occur to these gentlemen of
the scalpel and crucible that they are human beings first and
chemists afterwards? How can we sleep in peace while harmless
animals from the mother's breast are kept under lock and key to
suffer a slow and agonizing death by starvation? Do we not
have a nightmare in ot;tr sleep? And is this not happening in
Bavaria where, under the auspices of Prince Adalbert, the
admirable and highly eminent councillor Perner is setting the
whole of Germany a brilliant example in his defence of animals
against cruelty and brutality? Is there no society in Nuremberg
affiliated with the highly beneficial one that is active in Munich?
If Bibra's cruel act could not be prevented, was it left un-
punished? At any rate, anyone who has still as much to learn
from books as has that von Bibra, should remember that to
extort the final answers on the path of cruelty* is to put nature
on the rack in order to enrich his knowledge, to extort her
For instance, he carries out detailed investigations on the ratio of the weight
of the brain to that of the rest of the body; whereas since Sommering with clear
insight discovered it, it is generally known and not in dispute that we have to
estimate the weight of the brain not in relation to that of the whole body but to that
of the rest of the nervous system. (Cf. Blumcnbach, Institutiones physiologicae, edit.
quart., 1821, p. 173. First learn something and then join in the discussion. This is
meant incidentally for all those fellows who write books that prove nothing but
their ignorance.) Obviously this requires preliminary knowledge which we should
have before we undertake experimental investigations on the brains of human
beings and animals. But, of course, it is easier to torture poor animals slowly to
death than to learn something.
l8 ['As though he had made out a very good case'.]
ON RELIGION 375
secrets which have probably long been known. For such know-
ledge there are still many other innocent sources without his
having to torture to death poor helpless animals. What in all the
world has the poor harmless rabbit done that it should be
seized and sacrificed to the torture of a slow death by starva-
tion? No one is justified in practising vivisection who does not
already know and understand all that is to be found in books on
the question under investigation.
It is obviously high time that in Europe Jewish views on
nature were brought to an end, at any rate as regards animals,
and that the eternal essence, lilJing in all animals as well as in us, be
recognized as such and treated with consideration and respect.
Bear this in mind and remember that it is seriously meant and
that not one word will be withdrawn, even if you were to cover
with synagogues the whole of Europe! A 1nan must be bereft
of all his senses or con1pletely chloroformed by the foetor
Judaicu.s, not to see that, in all essential respects, the animal is
absolutely identical with us and that the difference lies merely
in the accident, the intellect, not in the substance which is the
will. The world is not a piece of machinery and animals are not
articles manufactured for our use. Such views should be left to
synagogues and philosophical lecture-rooms which in essence
are not so very different. On the other hand, the above know-
ledge furnishes us with the rule for the correct treatment of
animals. I advise the zealots and parsons not to say much
against it here, for this time on our side we have not only truth,
but also morality.*
The greatest benefit of railways is that millions of draught-
horses are spared a miserable existence.
It is unfortunately true that the human being who has been
driven northwards and whose skin has thus become white
requires animal food, although there are vegetarians in England.
But the death of the animals we eat should be rendered quite
painless by the administration of chloroform and of a swift blow
on the lethal spot. We should do this not out of 'the righteous
man's regard for the life of his beast' as the Old Testament
expresses it, but from our bounden duty to the eternal essence
They send missionaries to the Brahmans and Buddhists to inspire them with the
'true faith'; but when these men hear how animals are treated in Europe,they have
the deepest loathing for Europeans and their religious doctrines.
ON RELIGION
that lives in all animals as it lives in us. All animals to be
slaughtered should be chloroformed beforehand; this would be
a noble course to follow and an honour to mankind. Here the
higher scientific knowledge of the West would go hand in hand
with the higher morality of the East, since Brahmanism and
Buddhism do not limit their precepts to 'one's neighbour', but
take under their protection 'all living beings'.
In spite of all Jewish mythology and the intimidation of
priests, the immediate and certain truth that is self-evident to
everyone whose mind is not crazy and fuddled through foetor
Judaicus, must ultin1ately gain acceptance and can no longer be
suppressed, even in Europe. I refer to the truth that animals are
in all essential respects identical with us and that the difference lies
merely in the degree of intelligence, i.e. cerebral activity, the
latter also admitting of great differences between the various
species of animals. In this way, we shall see a more humane
treatment of animals. For only when that simple and un-
doubtedly sublime truth has reached the masses will animals
cease to appear as creatures without rights, and thus be exposed
to the malicious whim and cruelty of every coarse ruffian; and
only then will it not be open to any medical quack to put to the
test every odd and eccentric caprice of his ignorance by the
most horrible tortures on numberless animals, as happens at the
present time. It must be acknowledged, of course, that animals
are now in most cases chloroformed and are thus spared pain
during the operation, after which they can be dispatched by a
quick death. This method, however, is necessarily excluded in
the case of operations which are performed on the activity of the
nervous sytem and its sensitiveness and which are now so fre-
quent, for the very thing to be observed would thus be stopped.
Alas the animal most frequently taken for vivisection is morally
the noblest of all, the dog, who is, moreover, rendered more
susceptible to pain by his highly developed nervous system.*
A word on cruelty to the chained-up dog, man's only true companion and most
faithful friend, the most splendid conquest he ever made, as Fr. Cuvier says. This
highly intelligent creature with fine feelings is, like a criminal, tied up on a chain
where from morning till night he experiences the constantly renewed and never
satisfied longing for freedom and movement and his life is a slow torment I Through
such cruelty he ultimately ceases to be a dog and is changed into a loveless, savage,
faithless animal, a cringing creature trembling at the sight of the devil man. I
would sooner have the dog stolen from me than always be confronted with such
ON RELIGION 377
The unconscionable treatment of animals must be stopped in
Europe. The jewish view of the animal world must, on account
of its immorality, be expelled from Europe. What i~ more
obvious than that we and the animals are to all intents and
purposes absolutely the same? To fail to recognize this, a man
must be bereft of all his senses, or rather he will not see, since to
him a gratuity is more acceptable than truth.
178
On Theism
Just as polytheism is the personification of the individual
parts and forces of nature, so is monotheism that of the whole of
nature, at one stroke.
When I try to imagine that I am standing before an individual
being to whom I say: 'My Creator, at one time I was nothing,
but you have brought me forth so that I am now something and
indeed I am I'; and I add: 'I thank you for this benefit'; and
finally say: 'If I have been worthless and good-for-nothing, it is
my fault' -then I must confess that, in consequence of philo-
sophical and Indian studies, my mind has become incapable of
sustaining such an idea. Moreover, this is the counterpart to
what Kant presents to us in the Critique of Pure Reason (in the
section 'Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof'): 'We
cannot suppress or support the idea that a being whom we
picture as the highest among all possible beings, should say to
himself:" I am from eternity to eternity, there is nothing beside
me except that which is something merely through my will; hut
whence am I?''' Incidentally, this last question, just like the
whole of the above-mentioned section, has not prevented pro-
fessors of philosophy since Kant's time from making the Absolute,
or in plain language, that which has no cause, the constant and
main theme of all their philosophizing. This is for them a really
good idea. Speaking generally, these men are incurable and I
cannot too often advise the reader to waste no time on their
writings and lectures.
It is all the same whether we make an idol out of wood, stone,
or metal, or make it up from abstract concepts. It remains
suffering whereof I was the cause. (See my remarks on Lord - and his chained-up
dog, 153.) All caged birds are also a scandalous and stupid cruelty. It should be
fOrbidden and here too the police should take the place of humanity.
ON RELIGION
idolatry, the moment we have before us a personal being to whom
we make sacrifices and whom we invoke and thank. At bottom
it is not so different whether we sacrifice our sheep or our in-
clinations. Every form of worship or prayer is incontestable
evidence of idolatory'. And so the mystical sects from all religions
agree in abolishing for their adepts all forms of worship.
I 79
The Old and New Testaments
Judaism has as its fundamental characteristics realism and
optimism which are closely related and are the conditions of
theism proper. For this regards the material world as absolutely
real and life as a pleasant gift bestowed on us. Brahmanism and
Buddhism, on the other hand, have as their fundamental
characteristics idealism and pessimism, for they assign to the world
only a dreamlike existence and regard life as the consequence of
our guilt. In the doctrine of the Zendavesta whence, as we know,
Judaism has sprung, the pessimistic element is represented by
Ahriman. But in Judaism he has only a subordinate position as
Satan who is nevertheless, like Ahriman, the author and
originator of snakes, scorpions, and vermin. Judaism at once
makes use of him to correct its fundamental error of optimism,
namely for the Fall, which now introduces into that religion
the pessimistic element that is required in the interests of the
most obvious and palpable truth and is its most correct funda-
mental idea; although it transfers into the course of existence
what must be represented as underlying and preceding it.
A striking confirmation that Jehovah is Ormuzd is furnished
by the first book of Ezra in the Septuagint, thus d it:pEv5; A
(6:24), omitted by Luther: 'Cyrus the king had a house of the
Lord built at Jerusalem, where sacrifices are made to him
through the perpetual fire.' Also the second book of the Macca-
bees, chapters I and 2 and I 3: 8, shows that the religion of the
Jews was that of the Persians, for it is narrated that the Jews
who were led away into Babylonian captivity had, under the
guidance of Nehemiah, previously concealed the consecrated
fire in a dried-out cistern, where it went under water and was
later rekindled through a miracle, to the great edification of the
Persian king. Like the Jews, the Persians also abhorred the
worship of images and, therefore, never presented the gods in
ON RELIGION 379
that form. (Spiegel, Ober die Zendreligion, also tells us of the close
relationship between the Zend religion and Judaism, but thinks
that the former comes from the latter.) Just as Jehovah is a
transformation of Ormuzd, so is Satan the corresponding trans-
formation of Ahriman, that is, the adversary or opponent,
namely ofOrmuzd. (Luther has' opponent' where the Septuagint
has 'Satan', e.g. I Kings I I : 23.) It appears that the service of
Jehovah originated under Josiah with the assistance of Hilkiah,
in other words, it was acquired from the Parsecs and completed
by Ezra on the return from the Babylonian exile. For up till
the time of Josiah and Hilkiah and also under Solmnon, there
obviously prevailed in J udaea natural religion, Sabianism, the
worship of Belus, of Astarte, and others. (See the books of the
Kings on Josiah and Hilkiah.) *
Incidentally, as confirmation of the origin of Judaism from
the Zend religion, it may be mentioned that, according to the
Old Testament and other Jewish authorities, the cherubim are
creatures with the head of a bull on which jehovah is mounted.
(Psalms 99: 1. In the Septuagint, 2 Kings 6: 2 and 22 : I 1 ;
bk. 4, 19: 15: o Ka8"'JJ.LVo) 1rl. Twv XEpoupEI.p...) 39 Such animals,
half-bull, half-man, also half-lion, are very similar to the des-
cription of Ezekiel (chapters 1 and ro), and are found on_pieces
of sculpture in Persepolis, but especially among the Assyrian
statues found in Mosul and Nimrod. Even in Vienna, there is a
carved stone representing Ormuzd riding such a bull-cherub.
Could the otherwise inexplicable favour, which was shown (according to Ezra)
by Cyrus and Darius to the Jews whose temple they allowed to be restored, be due
possibly to the fact that the Jews, who in Babylon had hitherto worshipped Baal,
Astarte, Moloch, and others, adopted Zoroastrianism after the victory of the
Persians and now served Ormuzd under the name ofJehovah? In support of this is
the fact that Cyrus prays to the God of Israel, which would otherwise be absurd
(1 Ezra 2:3 in the Septuagint). All the preceding books of the Old Testament are
composed later and thus after the Babylonian captivity, or at any rate the Jehovah
doctrine is inserted at a later date. Moreover, from 1 Ezra 8 and g, we become
acquainted with the most infamous side ofJudaism. Here the conduct of the chosen
people is in keeping with the revolting and iniquitous example of Abraham their
ancestor. Just as he expelled Hagar with Ishmael, so were the women, whom the
Jews had married during the Babylonian captivity, turned adrift with their
children, because they were not of l\1oses' stock. Anything more infamous can
hardly be imagined, unless perhaps that villainy of Abraham is invented to cover
up the greater infamy of the whole race.
39 ['(Lord God of Israel) which dwellest between the cherubims .' (2 Kings
rg: 15).]
380 ON RELIGION
Particulars of this are to be found in the Wiener Jahrbiicher der
Litteratur, September 1833, Records of Travels in Persia. More-
over, the detailed explanation of that origin has been furnished
by J. G. Rhode in his book, Die heilige Sage des Zendvolks. All this
sheds light on the genealogical tree of Jehovah.
The New Testament, on the other hand, must somehow be of
Indian origin, as is testified by its thoroughly Indian ethics
which carries morality to the point of asceticism, by its pessi-
mism and its avatar. It is precisely through these that it is
definitely and diametrically opposed to the Old Testament, so
that there was only the story of the Fall to provide a link which
could connect the two. For when that Indian teaching found its
way into the Promised Land, there arose the problem of uniting
Jewish monotheism and its 1ravra KaAa Alav"0 with the know-
ledge of the corruption and desolation of the world, of its need
for deliverance and redemption through an avatar, together
with a morality of self-denial and repentance. And a solution to
the problem was as far as possible successful, namely to the
extent that two such different and even antagonistic doctrines
could be united.
As ivy needs support and something to hold on to, it twines
round a rough-hewn post, everywhere adapting itself to the
irregular shape and reproducing this, yet clothing the post with
life and grace, so that we are presented with a pleasant sight
instead of the bare post. In the same way, Christ's teaching that
has sprung from Indian wisdom has covered the old and quite
different trunk of crude judaism and what had to be retained of
the original form is changed by that teaching into something
quite different, true and alive. It appears to be the same, but
is something really different.
Thus the Creator, who creates out of nothing and is separate
from the world, is identified with the Saviour and through him
with mankind. He stands as their representative, for in him they
are redeemed, just as they had fallen in Adam and had since
been entangled in the bonds of sin, corruption, suffering, and
death. For here, as well as in Buddhism, the world manifests
itself as all this, no longer in the light of Jewish optimism
40['(And God saw) every thing (that he had made, and, behold, it) was very
good.' (Genesis 1 :31.))
ON RELIGION 381
that had found 'all things very good' (1r&v-ra KaAd 'Alav). On
the contrary, the devil himself is now called the 'prince of
this world'' 0 apxwv TOU KO(jf.LOV TOlJTOV (John I 2: 3 I)' ruler of
the world. The world is no longer an end, but a means; the
kingdom of eternal joys lies beyond it and beyond death.
Renunciation in this world and the direction of our hopes to a
better are the spirit of Christianity. But the way to such a world
is opened by reconciliation i.e. by salvation from our world and
its ways. In morality the command to love one's enemy takes
the place of the right to retaliate, the promise of eternal life
replaces the promise of innumerable progeny, and instead of a
visitation of the sins of the father on the children unto the third
and fourth generations, we have the Holy Spirit that over-
shadows and shelters all.
Thus we see the doctrines of the Old Testament rectified and
given a fresh interpretation by those of the New, whereby an
essential and fundamental agreement with the ancient religions
of India is brought about. Everything that is true in Christianity
is found also in Brahmanism and Buddhism. But in these two
religions we shall search in vain for the Jewish view of a being
who has sprung from nothing and is endowed with life, of a thing '-
produced in time which cannot be humble enough in its thanks
and praises to Jehovah for an ephemeral existence full of misery,
worry, and want. For in the New Testament the spirit of Indian
wisdom can be scented like the fragrance of a bloom which has
been wafted over hills and streams from distant tropical fields.
On the other hand, from the Old Testament there is nothing
corresponding to this except the Fall which had to be added at
once as a corrective to optimistic theism and to which the New
Testament was attached. For the Fall is the only point which
offers itself to the New Testament and on to which it can hold.
Now just as for a thorough knowledge of a species that of its
genus is required, the latter itself, however, being again known
only in its species, so for a thorough understanding of Christ-
ianity, a knowledge is required of the other two world-denying
religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism; moreover, as sound and
accurate a knowledge as possible. For just as in the first place
Sanskrit gives us a really thorough understanding of Greek and
Latin, so do Brahmanism and Buddhism enable us to under-
stand Christianity.
ON RELIGION
I even cherish the hope that biblical scholars familiar with
Indian religions will one day come forward and be able to
demonstrate through very special features the relationship of
these to Christianity. Meanwhile, I draw attention merely
tentatively to the following. In the Epistle of James Qames
3: 6), is the expression 'the course of nature', o Tpoxos Tfjs
y~va~ws (literally 'the wheel of generation and birth') which
has always been a crux interpretum:u But in Buddhism the wheel
of metempsychosis is a very familiar conception. In Abel
Remusat's translation of the Foe Kue Ki, it says on p. 28: la roue
est l' embleme de la transmigration des ames, qui est comme un cercle sans
commencement ni fin; p. 1 79 : la roue est un embleme familier aux
Bouddhistes, il exprime le passage successif de l' arne dans le cercle des
divers modes d' existence. On page 282 the Buddha himself says: qui
ne connazt pas la raison, tombera par le tour de la roue dans la vie et la
mort.4 2 In Burnouf's Introduction a l'histoire du Bouddhisme, vol. i,
p. 434, we find the significant passage: Il reconnut ce que c' est que
la roue de La transmigration qui porte cinq marques, qui est a la fois
mobile et immobile; et ayant triomphe de toutes les voies par lesqeulles
on entre dans le monde, en les ditruisant, etc. 43 In Spence Hardy's
Eastern Monachism (London, 1850), we read on page 6: 'Like
the revolutions of a wheel, there is a regular succession of death and
birth, the moral cause of which is the cleaving to existing ob-
jects, whilst the instrumental cause is karma (action).' See also
pages I 93 and 223, 224, of the same work. Also in Prabodha
Chandrodaya (Act IV, Sc. 3) it says: 'Ignorance is the source of
Passion who turns the wheel of this mortal existence.' In the descrip-
tion of Buddhism by Buchanan according to the Burmese texts
(in the Asiatic Researches, vol. vi, p. 181 ), it says of the constant
arising and passing away of successive worlds that' the successive
destructions and reproductions of the world resemble a great
wheel, in which we can point out neither beginning nor end.'
4I ['A difficulty for commentators'.]

n ['The wheel is the emblem of the transmigration of souls which is like a circle
without beginning and end ... The wheel is an emblem familiar to Buddhists; it
expresses the soul's successive passage in the circle of different forms of existence
... He who is unacquainted with the truth will lapse through the turning of the
wheel into life and death.']
43 ['He recognized what is the wheel of transmigration which has five marks and
is at the same time mobile and immobile; and after he had triumphed over all the
paths by which one enters the world in that he destroyed them ... ']
ON RELIGION
(The same passage, only longer, appears in Sangermano's
Description of the Burmese Empire, Rome, I 833, p. 7.) *
According to Graul's glossary, Hansa is a synonym for
Sannyasi. Possibly the name Johannes (from which we get Hans)
might be connected with it (and with his sannyasi-life in the
wilderness).
A wholly external and accidental resemblance of Buddhism
to Christianity is that it no longer prevails in the land of its
origin; and so both are bound to say: 1rpocf>~r7Js v rfj wl~
7Tct.rpl8t rtp.~v ovK ;XEL (vales in propria patria honore caret). 44
If, to explain that agreement with Indian doctrines, we
wished to indulge in conjectures of all kinds, we could assume
that the gospel note on the flight to Egypt was based on some-
thing historical; that Jesus was educated by Egyptian priests
whose religion was of Indian origin and from whom he had
accepted Indian ethics and the notion of an avatar; and that he
subsequently had endeavoured to adapt these to the Jewish
dogmas in his own native land and to graft them on to the
ancient stem. It might be supposed that a feeling of his own
moral and intellectual superiority had finally induced him to
regard himself as an avatar and accordingly to call himself the
Son of Man in order to indicate that he was more than a mere
human being. It is even conceivable that, with the intensity and
purity of his will and in virtue of the omnipotence generally
associated with the will as thing-in-itself and known to us from
animal magnetism and the magic effects connected therewith,
he had been able to perform miracles so called, in other words,
to act by means of the metaphysical influence of the will. In
this case, the instruction given by the Egyptian priests would
have stood him in good stead. Legend would then have ampli-
fied and exaggerated these miracles. For a miracle proper
would be everywhere a dimenti -ts that nature gave herself. t
Manu, xn. 124. Sancara, p. 103. Obry, Nirvana; pp. 30 and 31 he says: 'La
transmigraJum porte en Sanscrit le nom vague de Samsara, cercle ou mouvemmt circulaire der
naissances.' ['Transrrilgration has in Sanskrit the vague name of Samsara, circle or
circular movement of births.'] .
t For the masses miracles are the only arguments they understand; and so all
founders of religions perform them.
Scriptures contain miracles for the purpose of authenticating their contents; but
44 ['A prophet hath no honour in his own country.' (John 4:44.)]
s ['Denial', 'contradiction'.]
ON RELIGION
Meanwhile, only on such assumptions can we to some extent
explain how Paul, whose chief epistles must indeed be genuine,
can in all seriousness represent as God incarnat~ and as identical
with the world-creator one who at the time was so recently
deceased that xnany of his contemporaries were still alive.
For apotheoses of this nature and magnitude, which are
otherwise seriously meant, require many centuries for their
gradual maturity. On the other hand, we could advance
an argument against the genuineness of the Pauline Epistles
as a whole.
I might conclude that in general our gospels are based on
something original or at any rate on a fragment from the time
and associations of Jesus himself precisely from the objection-
able prophecy of the end of the world and of the glorious return
of the Lord in the clouds, which were to take place even in the
lifetime of some who were present when the promise was made.
That this promise remained unfulfilled is an exceedingly
annoying circumstance which not only gave offence in later
times, but already caused embarrassment to Paul and Peter.
This is discussed in detail in the eminently readable book by
Reimarus entitled Vom Zwecke Jesu und seiner ]finger, 42-4.
Now if the gospels had been written some hundred years later
without existing contemporary documents, one would have
taken good care not to introduce prophecies whose objection-
able non-fulfilment was at that ti1ne already quite evident. Just
as little would one have introduced into the gospels all those
passages whence Reimarus very shrewdly construes what he
calls the first system of disciples and according to which Jesus
was for them only a temporal deliverer of the Jews, unless the
authors of the gospels had worked on the basis of contemporary
documents that contained such passages. For even a merely oral
tradition among the faithful would have shed some things which
would land the faith in difficulties. Incidentally, Reimarus has
there comes a time when they produce the opposite effect.

The gospels tried to support their credibility through the account of miracles, but
in this way they undermined their authenticity.
The miracles in the Bible should demonstrate its truth, hut they have the opposite
effect.
Theologians try either to allegorize the miracles of the Bible or to put them on a
natural footing in order somehow to be rid of them. For they feel that miraculum
sigillum mendacii. ['A miracle is a sign of falsehood!]
ON RELIGION
inexplicably overlooked the passage John 1 1 : 48 (to be com-
pared with I :50 and 6: I 5) which is above all favourable to his
hypothesis, likewise Matthew 27:28-30, Luke 23: 1-4, 37, 38,
and John 19: 19-22. But if we wished seriously to assert this
hypothesis and follow it up, we should have to assume that the
religious and moral elements in Christianity were put together
by Alexandrian Jews acquainted with Indian and Buddhist
doctrines, and that a political hero with his melancholy fate was
then made the point of contact with those doctrines, in that the
originally earthly Messiah was transformed into a heavenly.
But there is certainly very much to be said against this. Never-
theless, the mythical principle, advanced by Strauss for the
explanation of the gospel story, certainly remains the correct
one, at any rate for the details thereof; and it will be difficult to
make out how far the principle extends. Generally with regard
to what is mythical, we must explain it from examples that lie
nearer at hand and are less doubtful. Thus, for instance, in the
whole of the Middle Ages, in France as well as in England, King
Arthur is a remarkable figure, finn, assertive, and very active,
who appears always with the same character and the same
retinue. With his Round Table, his knights, his unprecedented
deeds of heroism, his eccentric seneschal, his faithless spouse and
her Lance lot of the Lake, and so on, he has for centuries formed
the constant theme of poets and writers of fiction. .All these
authors present us with the same persons having the same
characters, and even in the events they agree fairly well; only
in the costumes and manners do they differ markedly from one
another, namely in accordance with the age in which ~ach of
them lived. Some years ago, the French I\1inistry sent M. de Ia
Villemarque to England to inquire into the origin of the myths
of this King Arthur. As regards the fundamental facts, the
result was that, at the beginning of the sixth century, there
lived in Vvales a petty chieftain named Arthur who persistently
fought the Saxon invaders but whose trivial deeds are, however,
forgotten. From this there emerged, heaven knows why, a
splendid figure, celebrated throughout many centuries in
innumerable songs, romances, and novels. See Contes populaires
des anciens Bretons, avec un essay sur l'origine des !popees sur la table
ronde, by Th. de Ia Villemarque, two volumes, 1842; also The
Lift cif King Arthur from Ancient Historians and Authentic Documents
386 ON RELIGION
by Ritson, 1825, in which he appears as a remote, indistinct,

and nebulous figure, yet not without a real core. It is almost
exactly the same with Roland, who is the hero of the entire
Middle Ages and is celebrated in innumerable songs, epic
stories, and works o( fiction, and even by the Pillars of Roland,
unti] finally he furnishes Ariosto with his material and thence
rises transfigured. Now this is mentioned by history only on one
solitary occasion and in three words, namely that Einhard
reckons him to be one of the notabilities who remained at
Roncevaux as Hroudlandus, Britannici limitis praefectus; 46 and this
is all we know of him. In the same way, all that we really know
of Jesus Christ is the passage in Tacitus (Annals, lib. xv, c. 44).
Yet another example is afforded by the Cid, the world-famous
Spaniard, who is glorified by legends and chronicles, but above
all by folk-songs in the famous and very beautiful Romancero,
and finally also by Corneille's best tragedy. Here, too, in the
main events, they agree fairly well, especially as regards Chimene.
On the other hand, the meagre historical data tell us nothing
about him except to say that he was a bold and gallant knight
and distinguished leader, but of a very cruel, treacherous, and
even mercenary character, serving one side and then the other,
and more often the Saracens than the Christians, almost like a
condottiere, yet wedded to a Chimene. Details can be seen in
Recherches sur l' histoire de l' Espagne, by Dozy, 1 849, vol. i, who
appears to be the first to arrive at the correct source. What
indeed may be the historical foundation of the Iliad? In fact, to
go fully into the matter, Jet us recall the anecdote about Newton
and his apple the groundlessness of which I discussed in 86;
yet is has been repeated in a thousand books. Even Euler, in the
first volume of his Letters to a German Princess, did not fail to paint
the story con amore. If generally it should be a matter of great
importance with regard to all history, then our race must not be
given, as it unfortunately is, to such infernal lying.
r8o
Sects
A.ugustinism with its dogma of original sin and everything
connected therewith is, as I have said, the real Christianity
46 [' Hrouland, commander of the British border district'.]
ON RELIGION
easily understood. Pelagianism, on the other hand, is the attempt
to reduce Christianity to crude and shallow Judaism with its

optlmtsm.
The contrast between Augustinism and Pelagianism which
permanently divides the Church, could be traced to its ultimate
ground, namely to the fact that the former speaks of the essence-
in-itself of things, whereas the latter speaks of the phenomenon,
taking this, however, to be the essence. For example, the
Pelagian denies original sin, for he argues that the child who has
not yet done anything at all must be innocent. Thus he does not
see that, as a phenomenon, the child certainly does begin to
exist, but not as a thing-in-itself. It is the same as regards the
freedom of the will, the expiatory death of the Saviour, grace, in
short, everything. In consequence of its obvious and shallow
nature, Pelagianism always predominates, now more than ever
as rationalism. The Greek Church is moderated in a Pelagian
sense and likewise, since the Concilium T ridentinum, 47 the Catholic,
which thereby endeavoured to set itself up in opposition to the
Augustinian, and thus mystically minded, Luther, and also to
Calvin. To the same extent, the Jesuits are semi-Pelagian. On
the other hand, the Jansenists are Augustinian and their point
of view might well be the most genuine form of Christianity.
For since Protestantism has rejected celibacy and generally
asceticism proper as well as the representatives thereof, namely
the saints, it has become a blunted, or rather disjointed,
Christianity with its point broken off; it ends in nothing.*
181
Rationalism
The centre and heart of Christianity consist of the doctrine of
the Fall, original sin, the depravity of our natural state, and the
corruption of man according to nature. Connected with this are
intercession and atonement through the Redeemer, in which
we share through faith in him. But Christianity thus shows itself
to be pessimisn1 and is, therefore, diametrically opposed to the
In Protestant churches the most conspicuous object is the pulpit, in Catholic, the
flllar. This symbolizes thAt Protestantism appeals in the first instance to the under-
standing, whereas Catholicism appeals to faith .
, ('Council of Trent' (1545~3).]
ON RELIGION
optimism of Judaism as also of Islam, the genuine offspring
thereof; on the other hand, it is related to Brahmanism and
Buddhism. In Adam all have sinned and are damned; whereas
in the Saviour all are redeemed. This also expresses that the real
essence and true root of man reside not in the individual, but in
the species which is the (Platonic) Idea of man, the individuals
being merely the phenomenal appearance of that Idea spread
out in time.
The fundamental difference in religions is to be found in the
question whether they are optimism or pessimism, certainly not
whether they are monotheism, polytheism, Trimurti, Trinity,
pantheism, or atheism (like Buddhism). :For this reason, the
Old and New Testaments are diametrically opposed and their
amalgamation forms a queer centaur. The Old Testament is
optimism, the New pessimism. As }h-eviously shown, the former
comes from the doctrine of Ormuzd, the latter, according to its
inner spirit, is related to Brahmanism and Buddhism and so, in
all probability, can somehow be historically derived therefrom.
The former is in the major key, the latter in the minor. The only
exception in the Old Testament is the Fall, but there it remains
unused like an hors d'oeuvre until Christianity again takes it up as
its only suitable point of contact.
But our present-day rationalists, following in the footsteps of
Pelagius, use all their efforts to obliterate the above-mentioned
fundamental characteristic of Christianity which Augustine,
Luther, and Melanchthon had very accurately interpreted and
systematized as far as they could. They endeavour to do away
with exegesis in order to reduce Christianity to an insipid,
egoistical, optimistic Judaism with the addition of a better
morality and future life, as is required by an optimism that is
consistently maintained. This is done so that the splendour and
delight may not too quickly cOine to an end, and death may be
put off which cries out all too loudly at the optimistic view of
things and, like the marble statue, comes ulti1nately to the happy
and cheerful Don Juan. These rationalists are honest men, yet
they are trite and shallow fellows who have not an inkling of the
profound meaning of the New Testament myth and cannot go
beyond Jewish optimism. They understand this, and it is to
their liking. They want the naked dry-as-dust truth both in the
historical and the dogmatic. Vve can compare them to the
ON RELIGION
euhemerism of antiquity. What the supernaturalists offer us is,
of course, fundamentally a mythology; but this is the vehicle of
profound and important truths which could not in any other
way be brought within the reach of the understanding of the
masses. On the other hand, how remote these rationalists are
from all knowledge, indeed from every inkling, of the meaning
and spirit of Christianity, is shown, for example, by their great
apostle W egscheider in his naive Institutiones tluologiae christianae
dogmaticae where ( 1 I 5 with notes and remarks) he does not
scruple to set up Cicero's dull and shallow twaddle in the books
De officiis in opposition to the profound utterances of Augustine
and the reformers concerning original sin and the essential
depravity of man as met with in nature; for such twaddle is
much more to his taste. One must really marvel at the naivete
and simplicity with which this man displays his dryness,
shallowness, and even total lack of insight into the spirit of
Christianity. But he is only unus e multis: 8 Bretschneider has
removed original sin frmn his exegesis of the Bible, whereas
original sin and salvation constitute the essence of Christianity.
On the other hand, it is undeniable that the supernaturalists are
occasionally something much worse, namely priests in the worst
sense of the word. May Christianity then see how it is to steer
between Scylla and Charybdis. The common error of the two
sides is that in religion they look for the plain, dry, literal, and
unvarnished truth. But only philosophy aspires to this. Religion
has only a truth that is suited to the people, one that is indirect,
symbolical, and allegorical. Christianity is an allegory that
reflects a true idea, but in itself the allegory is not what is true.
To assume this, however, is the error into which both super-
naturalists and rationalists fall. The former try to maintain that
the allegory in itself is true; the latter model it and give it a
fresh interpretation until it can be true in itself according to
their standard. Each side accordingly disputes with the other
and uses pertinent and powerful arguments. The rationalists say
to the supernaturalists: 'Your doctrine is not true.' The super-
naturalists retort: 'Your doctrine is not Christianity', and both
are right. The rationalists imagine that they take reason [ Ver-
nurifi] as their standard, but in point of fact they take for this
48 ['One of many'.]
390 ON RELIGION
purpose only reason that is restricted and confined to the
assumptions of theism and optin1ism, something like Rousseau's
Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard, this prototype of all rationalism.
Thus of the Christian dogma they will admit nothing except
what they regard as true sensu proprio, namely theism and the
immortal soul. But it: with the effrontery of ignorance, they
appeal here to pure reason, we must serve them up with the
Critique of Pure Reason in order to force them to the view that
these dogmas of theirs, which have been selected for retention as
rational, are based merely on a transcendent application of
immanent principles and accordingly constitute only an un-
critical, and hence untenable, philosophical dogmatism. On
every page the Critique of Pure Reason opposes this, and shows it
to be quite futile; and so its very title proclaims its antagonism
to rationalism. Accordingly, whereas supernaturalism has
allegorical truth, no truth at all can be attributed to rationalism.
The rationalists are quite wrong. \Vhoever wishes to be a
rationalist must be a philosopher and, as such, emancipate him-
self from all authority; he must go forward and shrink from
nothing. But if he wants to be a theologian, then he must be
consistent and not abandon the foundation of authority, even
when this calls on him to believe the incomprehensible and
inexplicable. One cannot serve two masters; and so it must be
either reason or holy scripture. Juste milieu 49 here means falling
between two stools. Either believe or philosophize! Whatever is
chosen must be entirely accepted. To believe up to a certain
point and no further and likewise to philosophize up to a certain
point and no further-these are half-measures that constitute
the fundan1ental characteristics of rationalism. On the other
hand, the rationalists are morally justified in so far as they go to
work quite honestly and deceive only themselves; whereas the
supernaturalists, with their claim of truth sensu proprio for a mere
allegory, often try to mislead others intentionally. Yet by their
efforts, the truth contained in the allegory is saved, whereas in
their northern hmudrum dullness the rationalists throw this out
of the window and with it the whole essence of Christianity. In
fact, they ultimately arrive step by step at the stage to which
Voltaire had soared eighty years ago. It is often amusing to see
49 ['The happy mean'.]

ON RELIGION 391
how, when fixing the attributes of God (his quidditas or essence),
where the mere word and shibboleth 'God' no longer suffice,
those rationalists carefully aim at hitting the juste milieu between
a human being and a force of nature; which is, of course, very
difficult. :rvioreover, in this struggle between rationalists and
supernaturalists, the two parties obliterate each other, as did the
armed men from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus. Here
from a certain direction active hypocrisy deals the matter its
death-blow. Thus just as in the carnivals of Italian cities crazy
masks are seen running about arnong rnatter-of-fact people who
are seriously going about their business, so too in Germany we
now see Tartuffes or religious hypocrites flocking among the
philosophers, physicists, historians, critics, and rationalists, in
the garb of a period that is already centuries in the past; and the
effect is burlesque, especially when they harangue.
Those who imagine that the sciences can go on progressing
and become ever more widespread, without this preventing
religion from lasting and flourishing eternally, labour under a
grave error. Physics and metaphysics are the natural foes of
religion which is, therefore, their enemy and strives at all times
to suppress them, just as they endeavour to undermine it. It is
positively ridiculous to attempt to speak of peace and harmony
between the two; it is a bellum ad internecionem.so Religions are the
offspring of ignorance who do not long survive their mother.
Omar indeed understood this when he burnt the Alexandrian
library, his reason being that the contents of the books were
either contained in the Koran or were superfluous. This excuse
is regarded as silly, but it is very shrewd if only it is understood
cum grano salis,s 1 where he then states that if the sciences go
beyond the Koran, they are the enemies of religions and so are
not to be tolerated. It would be much better for Christianity if
the Christian rulers had been as cunning as Omar. However,
it is now a little too late to burn all books, to abolish academies,
and to chill to the marrow universities with a pro ratione voluntas,sz
in order to bring mankind back to where it stood in the Middle
Ages. For with a handful of obscurantists nothing can be done;
today we see them like men who want to put out the light in
so ['War of life and death'.]
.sa ['With a grain of salt'.]
s:t ('My will (to do something) is my reason (for doing it).']
392 ON RELIGION
order to steal. For it is obvious that nations are gradually
thinking of shaking off the yoke of faith; the symptoms of this
are seen everywhere, although in each country they are
differently modified. The cause is too much knowledge that has
spread among them. Knowledge of every kind which daily
increases and in all directions becomes ever more widely
diffused) broadens to such an extent everyone's horizon, accord-
ing to his range) that it is bound in the end to reach a size at
which the myths that constitute the skeleton of Christianity
shrink so that faith can no longer cling to them. Mankind out-
grows religion just as it does the clothes of childhood; there is no
stopping it; the garment is splitting and bursting. Faith and
knowledge in the same mind do not go well together; they are
like a wolf and a sheep in one fold, and of course knowledge is
the wolf that threatens to devour its neighbour. We see religion
in its death-agony cling to morality for which it would like to
pass itself off as the mother; but this will not do at all! Genuine
morals and morality are not dependent on any religion, although
every religion sanctions them and thereby affords them support.
Driven in the first instance from the middle classes, Christianity
takes refuge in the lowest where it appears as a conventicle
institution) and in the upper, where it is a matter of politics; but
we should bear in mind that here Goethe's words apply:
We feel intention and are put out of tune.

(Tasso, II. I.)
Here Condorcet's passage mentioned in 174 will again suggest

itself to the reader.
Faith is like love; it cannot be forced. It is, therefore, a
hazardous undertaking to try to introduce or establish it by
measures of state. For just as the effort to force love engenders
hatred, so does the attempt to force belief result in a positive
unbelief.* Only quite indirectly and thus by preparations
What a bad conscience religion must have can be judged from the fact that it is
forbidden under pain of heavy penalties to deride and make fu:n of it.
European governments forbid every attack on the established religion. They them-
selves, however, send to the countries of Brahmanism and Buddhism missionaries who
zealously attack those religions root and branch, to make room for their own
imported religion. And then they yell and raise an outcry when a Chinese emperor
or a mandarin of Tun kin chops off the heads of such people.
ON RELIGION 393
carried out well in advance can faith be developed and en-
couraged, that is, by our preparing for it a good soil in which it
will thrive; such a soil is ignorance. Therefore in England, from
very early times down to our own, care has been taken that two-
thirds of the nation are unable to read; and so to this day there
prevails in that country a blind and implicit faith such as we
should look for in vain elsewhere. But if even in England the
government takes public instruction out of the hands of the
clergy, it will soon be all over with the faith. And so generally
through being constantly undermined by the sciences, Christ-
ianity is gradually approaching its end. Meanwhile, there
might be some hope for it from the reflection that only those
religions perish which have no scriptures. The religion of the
Greeks and Romans, those world-powers, has perished. The
religion of the contemptible little Jewish race, on the other hand,
has been preserved; and in the same way that of the Zend
people is preserved among the Guebres. The religions of the
Gauls, Scandinavians, and ancient Germans, on the contrary,
have disappeared. Brahmanism and Buddhism, however, con-
tinue to exist and flourish; they are the oldest of all the religions
and have full and detailed scriptures.
182
A religion which has as its foundation a single event, and in fact
tries to make the turning-point of the world and of all existence
out of that event that occurred at a definite time and place, has
so feeble a foundation that it cannot possibly survive, the
moment men come to reflect on the matter. How wise in
Buddhism, on the other hand, is the assumption of the thousand
.Buddhas, lest it appear as in Christianity, where Jesus Christ
has redeemed the world and no salvation is possible without
him; but four thousand years, whose monuments exist in Egypt,
Asia, and Europe in all their greatness and glory, could not know
anything of him, and those ages with all their glories went to the
devil without ever seeing him! The many Buddhas are necessary
because at the end of each kalpa the world perishes and with it
the teaching, so that a new world requires a new Buddha.
Salvation always exists.
That civilization is at its highest level among Christian nations
is due not to Christiani!J's being favourable to it, but to the fact
394 ON RELIGION
that that religion has declined and now has little influence. So
long as it had influence, civilization was very backward, as for
instance in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, Islam,
Brahmanism, and Buddhism still have a decisive influence on life;
in China the influence is still at a minimmn and so the civiliza-
tion there is somewhat like that in Europe. All religion is
antagonistic to culture.
In previous centuries religion was a forest behind which
armies could halt and take cover. The attempt to repeat this in
our day has met with a sharp rebuff. For after so many fellings,
it is now only scrub and brushwood, behind which rogues and
swindlers occasionally hide themselves. We should, therefore,
beware of those w,ho would like to drag it into everything and
should n1eet them with the proverb previously quoted: detras de
la cruz estd el diablo.sJ
SJ ['Behind the cross stands the devil.']
..
CHAPTER XVI
Some Remarks on Sanskrit Literature
183
Much as I admire and respect the religious and philosophical
works of Sanskrit literature, only rarely have I been able to find
any pleasure in the poetical works. Indeed, at times it seemed
to me that these were as inelegant and monstrous as is the
sculpture of the same peoples. Even their dramatic works I
appreciate mainly on account of the most instructive elucida-
tions and verifications olthe religious belief and n10rals which
'-'
they contain. All this may be due to the fact that, by its very
nature, poetry is untranslatable. For in it thoughts and words
have grown together as firmly and intimately as pars uterina et
pars foetalis placentae, 1 so that we cannot substitute foreign
equivalents for the words without affecting the ideas. Yet all
metre and rhyme arc in reality a comprotnise between language
and thought; but by its nature such a compromise can be
carried out only on the native soil of the thought, not on the
foreign ground to which it tnight be transplanted, and certainly
not on one as barren as are usually the minds of translators.
After all, what greater contrast can there be than that between
the free effusion of a poet's inspiration which already appears
clot.d automatically and instinctively in metre and rhyme and
the translator's painful, cold, and calculating distress as he
counts the syllables and looks for the rhymes? Moreover, as
there is now in Europe no lack of poetical works that directly
appeal to us, but a very great dearth of correct metaphysical
views, I am of the opinion that translators from Sanskrit should
devote their efforts 1nuch less to poetry and much more to the
Vedas, Upanishads, and philosophical works.
184
When I consider how difficult it is, with the aid of the best
and most carefully trained scholars and of the excellent philo-
1 ['The part of the uterus and the part of the foetus in the placenta'.]
396 REMARKS ON SANSKRIT LITERATURE
logical resources achieved in the course of centuries, to arrive at
a really precise, accurate, and vivid appreciation of Greek and
Roman authors whose languages are those of our predecessors
in Europe and are the mothers of tongues still living; when, on
the other hand, I think of Sanskrit as a language spoken in
remote India thousands of years ago and that the means for
learning it are still relatively very imperfect; finally, when I
consider the impression made on me by the translations from
Sanskrit of European scholars, apart from very few exceptions,
then I am inclined to suspect that perhaps our Sanskrit scholars
do not understand their texts any better than do the fifth-form
boys of our own schools their Greek texts. Since, however, these
scholars are not boys but men of knowledge and understanding,
it is possible that on the whole they make out fairly well the
sense of what they really understand, whereby much may, of
course, creep in ex ingenio. 2 It is even much worse with regard
to the Chinese of European sinologists who often grope about
in total darkness. Of this we are convinced when we see how
even the most painstaking correct one another and demonstrate
one another's colossal mistakes. Instances of this kind are
frequently found in the Foe Kue Ki of Abel Remusat.
On the other hand, when I reflect that Sultan Mohammed
Dara Shikoh, brother of Aurangzeb, was born and brought up
in India, was a scholar and thinker, and craved for knowledge;
that he, therefore, probably understood Sanskrit as well as we
understand Latin; and that, in addition, a number of the most
learned pundits collaborated with him, this predisposes me to
a high opinion of his Persian translation of the Upanishadsef the

Veda. Further, when I see with what profound veneration, in
keeping with the subject, Anquetil-Duperron handled this
Persian translation, rendering it word for word into 4tin,
accurately keeping to the Persian syntax in spite of the Latin
grammar, and content merely to accept the Sanskrit words left
untranslated by the Sultan in order to explain these in a
glossary, I read this translation with the fullest confidence,
which is at once delightfully confirmed. For how thoroughly
redolent of the holy spirit of the Vedas is the Oupnekhat! How
deeply stirred is he who, by diligent and careful reading, is now
a ['From natural talent'.]

REMARKS ON SANSKRIT LITERATURE 397
conversant with the Persian-Latin rendering of this incom-
parable book! How imbued is every line with firm, definite, and
harmonious significance! From every page we come across
profound, original, and sublime thoughts, whilst a lofty and
sacred earnestness pervades the whole. Here everything breathes
the air of India and radiates an existence that is original and
akin to nature. And oh, how the mind is here cleansed and
purified of all Jewish superstition that was early implanted in it,
and of all philosophy that slavishly serves this! With the
exception of the original text, it is the most profitable and
sublime reading that is possible in the world; it has been the
consolation of my life and will be that of my death. With regard
to certain suspicions that have been raised about the genuine-
ness of the Oupnekhat, I refer to my Two Fundamental Problems of
Ethics, 'Basis of Ethics', 22, second footnote.
Now if I compare this with the European translations of
sacred Indian texts or of Indian philosophers, then (with vet)'
few exceptions, such as the Bhagar1adgita by Schlegel and some
passages in Colebrooke's translations from the Vedas) these have
the opposite effect on me. They furnish us with periods whose
sense is universal, abstract, vague, and often indefinite, and
which are disjointed and incoherent. I get a n1ere outline of the
ideas of the original text with little pieces of padding, wherein
I notice something foreign. Contradictions appear from time to
time and everything is modern, empty, dull, flat, destitute of
meaning, and occidental. It is Europeanized, Anglicized,
Frenchified, or even (what is worst of all) enveloped in a fog
and mist of German. Thus instead of furnishing us with a clear
and de~nite meaning, they give us mere words that are diffuse
and high-sounding. For example, even the most recent by Rocr
in the Bibliotheca Indica, No. 4 I, Calcutta, 1853, is one where we
really recognize the German who, as such, is already accustomed
to writing one period after another and then leaves it to others
to think in them something clear and definite. Only too often is
there in them also a trace of the foetor ]udaicus. All this lessens
my confidence in such translations especially when I remember
that the translators pursue their studies as a profession, whereas
the noble Anquctil-Dupcrron did not seck a living here, but was
urged to undertake this work 1ncrely through love of science
and knowledge. I also reflect that Sultan Dara Shikoh's reward
3g8 REMARKS ON SANSKRIT LITERATURE
was to have his head cut off by his imperial brother Aurangzeb,
in majorem Dei gloriam.J I am firmly convinced that a real
knowledge of the Upanishads and thus of the true and esoteric
dogmas of the Vedas, can at present be obtained only from the
Oupnekhat; we may have read through the other translations and
yet have no idea of the subject. It also appears that Sultan Dara
Shikoh had at his disposal much better and more complete
Sanskrit manuscripts than had the English scholars.
I8S
The Sanhita of the Veda certainly cannot be by the same
authors or from the same period as that of the Upanishad. Of this
we arc fully convinced when we read the first book of the Sanhita
of the Rig- Veda, translated by Rosen and that of the Sarna- Veda
translated by Stevenson. Thus both consist of "prayers and
rituals that breathe a somewhat crude Sabianism. Here lndra
is the supreme god who is invoked and with him the sun, moon,
winds, and fire. The most servile adulations, together with
requests for cows, food, drink, and victory, are repeated to these
in all the hymns, and for this purpose sacrifices are made to
them. These and donations to the priests are the only virtues
that are commended. As Ormuzd (from whom Jehovah
subsequently came) is really lndra (according to I. J. Schmidt)
and moreover Mithra is the sun, so the fire worship of the
Guebres came to them with lndra. The Upanishad is, as I have
said, the product of the highest human wisdom and is intended
only for learned Brahmans; and so Anquetil renders ' Upanishad'
by the words secretum tegendum. The Sanhita, on the other hand,
is exoteric; although indirectly it is for the people, since its
contents are liturgy and thus public prayers and sacrificial
rituals. Accordingly, the Sanhita affords us exceedin~y insipid
reading, to judge from the specimens already mentioned. For in
his essay On the Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus, Colebrooke has
certainly translated hymns from other books of the 'Sanhita,
which breathe a spirit akin to the Upanishad, in particular the
fine hymn in the second essay: 'The Embodied Spirit', and so
on, a trans~ation of which I gave in I I 5
J ['For the greater glory of God'.)
" ['A secret to be concealed.' (The real meaning of' Upanishad' is 'confidential
secret meeting '.)]
t86
At the time when the great rock-temples were being cut in
India, the art of writing had possibly not yet been invented and
the numerous bands of priests dwelling in them were the living
receptacles of the Vedas, of which each priest or each school
knew a portion by heart and handed it down, as was done by
the Druids. Later the Upanishads were composed in those very
temples and thus in the most dignified surroundings.
187
The Samkhya philosophy which is regarded as the forerunner of
Buddhism, and which in Wilson's translation we have before us
in extenso in the Karika of Ishvara Krishna (although always
through a cloud on account of the imperfection of even this
translation), is interesting and instructive. For the principal
dogmas of all Indian philosophy, such as the necessity for
salvation from a tragic existence, transmigration according to
deeds, knowledge as the fundamental condition of salvation,
and so on, are presented to us in all their fullness and complete-
ness and with that lofty earnestness with which they have been
considered in India for thousands of years.
Nevertheless, we see the whole of this philosophy impaired by
a false fundamental idea, namely the absolute dualism between
Prakriti and Purusha. But this is also the very point wherein the
Samkhya differs from the Vedas. Prakriti is evidently the natura
naturanss and at the same time matter in itself, in other words,
without any form, such as is merely conceived and not intuitively
perceived. So understood, it can be regarded as actually
identical with the natura naturans in so far as it gives birth to
everything. Purusha, however, is the subject of knowing; for it is
the mere spectator who is inactive and perceives. Yet the two
are now taken to be absolutely different from, and independent
of, each ?ther, whereby the explanation why Prakriti toils and
struggles for the salvation of Purusha proves to be inadequate
(1. 6o). Further, in the whole work, it is taught that the salvation
of Purusha is the final goal; on the other hand, it is suddenly
Prakriti that is to be saved (ll. 62, 63). All these contradictions
would disappear if we had a common root for Prakriti and
s ['Creating nature'. (Term used by Spinoza and other philosophers.)]
Purusha to which everything pointed, even in spite of Kapila;
or ifPurusha were a modification ofPrakriti, thus if somehow or
other the dualism were abolished. To give any sense and
meaning to the thing, I can see nothing but the will in Prakriti
and the subject of knowing in Purusha.
A peculiar feature of pedantry and narrowness in the Samkhya
is the system of numbers, the summation and enumeration of
qualities and attributes. This, however, appears to be customary
in India, for the very same thing is done in the Buddhist
scriptures.
188
The moral meaning of metempsychosis in all Indian religions is
4
not merely that in a subsequent rebirth we have to atone for
every wrong we commit, but also that we must regard every
wrong befalling us as thoroughly deserved through our misdeeds
in a former existence.
189
That the three upper castes are called twice born may yet be
explained, as is usually suggested, from the fact that the investi-
ture with the sacred thread which is conferred on the youths of
those castes when they come of age is, so to speak, a second
birth. But the real reason is that only in consequence of great
merits in a previous life does a man come to be born in those
castes; and that he must, therefore, have existed in such a life as
a human being. On the other hand, whoever is born in a lower
caste, or even in the lowest, may have previously been even an
animal.
You laugh at the aeons and kalpas of Buddhism! Christianity,
of course, has taken u~ a standpoint, whence it surveys a brief
span of time. Buddhism's standpoint is one that presents it with
the infinity of time and space, which then becomes its theme.
Just as the Lalitavistara, to begin with, was fairly simple and
natural, but became more complicated and supernatural with
every new edition it underwent in each of the subsequent
councils, so did the same thing happen to the dogma itself whose
few simple and sublime precepts gradually became jumbled,
confused, and complicated through detailed discussions, spatial
and temporal representations, personifications, empirical local-
izations, and so on. For the minds of the masses like it so, in that
they want to indulge in fanciful pursuits and are not satisfied
with what is simple and abstract.
The Brahmanistic dogmas and distinctions of Brahm and
Brahma, of Paramatma and Jivatma, Hiranya-Garbha, Praja-
pati, Purusha, Prakriti, and the like (these are admirably and
briefly expounded in Obry's excellent book Du Nirvana indien
1856), are at bottom merely mythological fictions, made for the
purpose of presenting objectively that which has essentially and
absolutely only a subjective existence. For this reason, the Buddha
dropped them and knows of nothing except Samsara and
Nirvana. For the more jumbled, confused, and complex the
dogmas became, the more mythological they were. The rogi or
Sannyasi best understands who methodically assumes the right
posture, withdraws into himself all his senses, and forgets the
entire world, himself included. What is then still left in his
consciousness is primordial being. But this is more easily said
than done.
The depressed state of the Hindus, who were once so highly
cultured, is the result of the terrible oppression which they
suffered for seven hundred years at the hands of the Moham-
medans who tried forcibly to convert them to Islam. Now only
one-eighth of the population of India is Mohammedan. (Edin-
burgh Review, January 1858.)
190
The passages lib. III, c. 20 and lib. VI, c. 1 1 in the Life of
Apollonius of Tyana are also indications that the Egyptians
(Ethiopians), or at any rate their priests, came from India.
It is probable that the mythology of the Greeks and Romans is just
as remotelv' related to the Indian as are Greek and Latin to
Sanskrit, and as is the Egyptian Inythology to both. (Is Coptic
from the Japhetic or Semitic group of languages?) Zeus,
Poseidon, and Hades are probably Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
The latter has a trident whose object is unexplained in the case
of Poseidon. The Nile key, crux ansata, 6 the sign of Venus ~' is
just the lin gam and yoni of the followers of Shiva. Osiris or Isiris
6 [' Cross provided with a ring ' ; 'ansate cross '.]
is possibly Ishvara, Lord and God. Egyptians and Indians
worshipped the lotus.
Might not Janus (about whom Schelling* gave a university
lecture and whom he declared to be the primary and original
One) be Yama the god of death who has two and sometimes
four faces? In time of war the portals of death are opened.
Perhaps Prajapati is Japheth.
The goddess Anna Purna of the Hindus (Langles, Monuments
de l' Hindoustan, vol. ii, p. 107) is certainly the Anna Perenna of the
Romans. Baghis, a nickname of Shiva, reminds one of the seer
Bakis (ibid., vol. i, p. 178). In the Sakuntala (Act VI, end p. 131)
the name Diuespetir occurs as a nickname of lndra; this is
obviously Diespiter.'
There is much to be said in favour of the identity of the Buddha
with Woden; according to Langles (Monuments, vol. ii) Wednes-
day (\Vodensday) is sacred to ~ Mercury and the Buddha.
Corban, in the Oupnekhat sacrificium, occurs in St. Mark 7: I I :
Kopf3av (o l.an Swpov), Latin: Corban, i.e. munus Deo dicatum.s
But the following is the most important. The planet ~ Mercury
is sacred to the Buddha, is to a certain extent identified with him,
and Wednesday is Buddha's day. Now Mercury is the son of
Maya, and Buddha was the son of Maya the Queen. This cannot
be pure chance! 'Here lies a minstrel' say the Swabians. See,
however, Manual of Budhism, p. 354, note, and Asiatic Researches,
vol, i, p. 162.
Spence Hardy (Eastern Monaclzism, p. I 22) reports that the
robes that are to be presented to the priests at a certain cere-
mony must be woven and made up in one day. Herodotus,
lib. 11, c. 122, gives a similar account of a garment that is
presented to a priest on a ceremonial occasion.
The autochthon of the Germans is Mannus; his son is Tuiskon.
In the Oupnekhat (vol. ii, p. 347, and vol. i, p. g6) the first human
being is called Man.
It is well known that Satyavrati is identical with Menu or
Schelling's explanation of Janus (in the Berlin Academy) is that he signifies

'chaos as primary unity'. A much more thorough explanation is given by Walz,
De religUm.e Romanorum antiquissima, (in the prospectus ofTiibingen University) 1845
'[Jupiter.]
s ['Corban, that is to say, a gift' (An Aramaic word inserted by the Persian
translators and not occurring in the Sanskrit text).]
Manu, and, on the other hand, with Noah. Now the father of
Samson is Manoah (Judges 13); Manu, Manoah, Noah; the
Septuagint has Mavwl and Nw. Might not N oe be exactly the
same as Mance with the omission of the first syllable?
Among the Etruscans Jupiter was called Tina (Moreau de
Jones at the Academy of Moral and Political Science, Decen1ber
185o). Perhaps this might be connected with the Chinese Tien.
The Etruscans had the Anna Perenna of the Hindus.
All these analogies are thoroughly investigated by Wilford
and Burr in the Asiatic Researches.
CHAPTER XVII
Some Archaeological Observations
191
The name Pelasger, undoubtedly connected with Pelagus, is the
general description for the small isolated Asiatic tribes who were
supplanted and dispersed, and were the first to reach Europe,
where they soon entirely forgot their native culture, tradition,
and religion. On the other hand, favourably influenced by a
fine and temperate climate and good soil as also by the many
coasts of Greece and Asia Minor, they attained, under the name
of the Hellenes, a perfectly natural evolution and purely human
culture whose perfection has never occurred elsewhere. Accord-
ingly, they had nothing hut a half-comic, childlike religion;
seriousness took refuge in the Mysteries and the tragedy. To
that Greek nation alone arc we indebted for a correct inter-
pretation and natural presentation of the human form and
features, for the discovery of the only correct and regular
proportions of architecture, fixed by them for all time, for the
development of all genuine forms of poetry together with the
invention of really beautiful metres, for the establishment of
philosophical systems in all the main directions of human
thought, for the clements of mathematics, for the foundations of
a rational legislation, and generally for the normal presentation
of a truly fine and noble human existence. For this select little
people of the Muses and Graces was, so to speak, endowed with
an instinct for beauty which extended to everything, to faces,
forms, postures, dress, weapons, buildings, vessels, implements,
utensils, and so forth, and never on any occasion forsook them.
We shall, therefore, always be remote from the canons of good
taste and beauty to the extent that we ren1ove ourselves from
the influence of the Greeks, especially in sculpture and archi-
tecture. The ancients will never become obsolete; they are and
remain the lodestar for all our efforts, whether in literature or
the plastic arts, and we must never lose sight of this. Discredit
and disgrace await the age that dares to set aside the ancients.
SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 405
If, therefore, some perverted, wretched, and materially minded
'modem age' 1 should desert the ancient school in order to feel
more at ease in its overweening presumption, then it is sowing
the seeds of ignomy and dishonour.
We may possibly characterize the spirit of the ancients by saying
that, as a rule, they tried in all things to keep as near as possible
to nature; whereas the spirit of modern times might be charac-
terized as an attempt to get as far from her as possible. Consider
the dress, customs, implements, dwellings, vessels, art, religion,
and mode of life of the ancients and of the moderns.
On the other hand, the Greeks are far behind us in mechani-
cal and technical arts as well as in all branches of natural
science, for such things require time, patience, method, and
experience rather than high intellectual powers. And so from
most of the works on natural science by the ancients there is
little we can learn except to realize what they did not know.
Whoever wants to know how incredibly ignorant in physics and
physiology the ancients were, should read the Prohlemata
Aristotelis; they are a real specimen ignorantiae veterum. z It is true
that the problems are often correctly, and sometimes cleverly,
conceived, but the solutions are for the most part pathetic
because he knows no elements of explanation except always
,e ,
TO ~pp,ov
,
Kct.t
'~
~vxpov,
, , {; , , vypov.
TO r.:, 7]pov Kct.L
. , 3
Like the ancient Germans, the Greeks were a race which had
immigrated from Asia into Europe, a nomadic tribe; and,
remote from their native lands, both educated themselves
entirely from their own resources. But see what the Greeks became
and what the ancient Germans! Just compare, for example, their
mythologies; for the Greeks later established their poetry and
philosophy on their mythology; their first teachers were the
ancient minstrels Orpheus, Musaeus, Amphion, Linus, and
finally Homer. Then came the Seven Wise Men and finally the
philosophers. Thus the Greeks, so to speak, went through the
three classes of their school; there is no mention of such a thing
among the ancient Germans before the migration.
No ancient German literature, or JVihelungen, or other poets
of the Middle Ages should be taught in German gymnasia. It is
1 [Schopenhauer uses the cacophonous word]et;:t;:eit, which he often condemns.)
.:~ ['Specimen of the ignorance of the ancients'.)
) ['Hot and cold, dry and moist'.]
406 SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS
true that these things are well worth noting and reading, but
they do not contribute to the cultivation of taste and take up
time that should be devoted to ancient and really classical
literature. Now, my noble German patriots, if you put ancient
German doggerel in place of Greek and Roman classics, you will
rear none but lazy and idle loungers. To compare these Nibel-
ungen with the Iliad is rank blasphemy from which the ears of
youth, more than anything else, should be spared.
192
The Ode of Orpheus in the First Book of the Eclogues of
Stobaeus is Indian pantheism, playfully embellished by the
plastic sense of the Greeks. It is, of course, not by Orpheus, yet
it is old; for a part of it is already mentioned in the pseudo-
Aristotelean De mundo, a book that has recently been attributed
to Chrysippus. It might well be based on something genuinely
Orphean; in fact one feels tempted to regard it as a document
of the transition of Indian religion to Hellenistic polytheisn1.
In any case, we can take it as an antidote to the much-lauded
hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus, which is given in the same book and
has an unmistakable Jewish odour, and thus gives so much
pleasure. I can never believe that Cleanthes, a Stoic and so a
pantheist, made this nauseous adulation, but suspect that the
author was some Alexandrian jew. At all events, it is not right
so to misuse the name of the son of Kronos.
Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos express the same fundamental
idea as Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; but this idea is too natural
for us to have to infer for that reason a historical relationship.
193
In Homer the many phrases, metaphors, similes, and expres-
sions, occurring without end, are inserted so stiffly, rigidly, and
mechanically, as though this had been done by routine and rule
of thumb.
1 94
The fact that poetry is older than prose, since Pherecydes was
the first to write philosophy and Hecataeus of Miletus * the first
*Herodotus mentions him in another connection, vt. 137.

SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 407
to write history in prose, and that this was regarded by the

ancients as a memorable occasion, may be explained as follows.
Before men wrote at all, they tried to perpetuate, unadulterated,
facts and ideas worth preserving by recording them in verse.
Now when they began to write, it was natural for them to put
down everything in verse, for they simply did not know that
memorable occasions were preserved in any other way than in
verse. Those first prose-writers departed from this as from some-
thing that had become superfluous.
I94a
Freemasonry is the sole vestige, or rather analogue, of the
Mysteries of the Greeks. Admission into it is the p.vE'iaBat 4 and
the TEAETat; s what is learnt are the p.va-rljpux, 6 and the different
degrees are the p.tKpa, P."d~ova Kat ,.dytaTa p.van)pta.7 Such
analogy is neither accidental nor hereditary, but is due to the
thing springing from human nature. With the :t\.1ohammedans
Sufism is an analogue of the Mysteries. As the Romans had no
Mysteries of their own, people were initiated into those of
foreign gods, especially of Isis, whose religious cult reached
Rome at an early date.
1 95
Our clothes have a certain influence on almost all our
attitudes, gestures, and bearing. The ancients were not similarly
influenced by theirs, for they were probably induced, in keeping
with their aesthetic sense, by the feeling of such a drawback to
keep their clothing loose and not tight-fitting. For this reason,
when an actor wears an antique costume, he has to avoid all
the movements and attitudes which are in any way caused by
our clothes and have then become a habit. There is, therefore,
no need for him to assume an air of puffed-up pomposity, as
does a French buffoon when playing his Racine in toga and
tunic.
['To be initiated'.]
s ['Initiations'; mystic rites'.]
fl ['Mysteries'.]
7 ('Small, greater, and greatest m}-steries'.]
CHAPTER XVIII
Some Mythological Observations
196
It may be a consequence of the primary and original relation-
ship of all the beings of this phenomenal world by means of
their unity in the thing-in-itself; at all events, it is a fact that
collectively they bear a similar type and, in the case of all of
them, certain laws are laid down as the same, if only in a general
way they are adequately comprehended. From this it is easy to
see that not only the most heterogeneous things can be mutually
explained or made clear, but also striking allegories are found
even in descriptions where they were not intended. Goethe's
incomparably beautiful tale of the green serpent affords us an
exquisite example of this. Every reader feels almost compelled
to look for an allegorical meaning to it. And so immediately
after the tale was published, this was undertaken most seriously
and zealously and in many different ways, to the great amuse-
ment of the poet who, in this instance, had had no allegory in
mind. An account of this is found in the Studien zu Goethes
Werken, 1849 by Diintzer. Moreover, this was known to me long
ago through personal statements from Goethe. The fable of
Aesop owes its origin to that universal analogy and typical
identity of things, and it is due to this that the historical can
become allegorical and the allegorical historical.
More than anything else, however, the mythology of the
Greeks has from the earliest times provided material for
allegorical explanations and interpretations. For it invites one
to this by furnishing patterns for the graphic demonstration of
practically every fundamental idea. In fact it contains to a
certain extent the archetypes of all things and relations which,
precisely as such, always and everywhere make their appear-
ance. It has originated actually from the playful urge of the
Greeks to personify everything; and so even in the earliest times,
in fact by Hesiod himself, those myths were interpreted alle-
gorically. For instance, it is simply a moral allegory when he
SOME MYTHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 409
enumerates ( Theogony, 11. 2 1 1 ff.) the children of night and
shortly afterwards (11. 226 ff.) those of Eris, namely effort,
exertion, injury, 1 hunger, pain, conflict, murder, quarrelling,
lying, injustice, dishonesty, harm, and the oath. Again, his
description of personified night and day, of sleep and death, is
physical allegory (ll. 746-65).
For every cosmological, and even metaphysical, system it will
be possible, for the reason stated, to find in mythology an
allegory. In general we have to regard most myths as the
expressions of truths that are dimly divined rather than of those
that are clearly conceived. For those early and original Greeks
were just like Goethe in his youth; they were absolutely in-
capable of expressing their ideas except in metaphors and
similes. On the other hand, I must dismiss with Aristotle's
rebuff: &A,\<X 1Tpt p.f.v TU!V f..W0LKWS aoqn~op.vwv ovK a.g,ov
P.Ta a1rovSfjS' aK<YTTE'iv (sed ea, quae mythice hlaterantur, non est
operae pretium serio et accurate considerare), 2 Metaphysics, 11. 4, the
serious and laboured explanation, worked out by Creuzer with
endless prolixity and tormenting tedium and verbosity, that
mythology is the depository of physical and metaphysical truths
which have been intentionally stored therein. But here Aristotle
also appears as the very opposite of Plato who likes to concern
himself with myths, yet in an allegorical way.
And so the following attempts of mine at allegorical inter-
pretations of a few Greek myths may be taken in the sense I have
explained.
In the first great fundamental characteristics of the system of

the gods, we can see an allegory of the highest ontological and
cosmological principles. Uranus is space, the first condition of all
that exists and hence the first procreator with Gaea, the bearer
of things. Kronos is time. He enfeebles and emasculates the
procreative principle; time annihilates every procreative force
or, more precisely, the capacity to produce new foml.S; the
1 According to my own conjecture, I read >..wfJY! [maltreatment] instead of ).~8Y]

(forgetfulness].
1. ['As far as mythical drivel is concerned, it is not worth while senously to
consider it.']
410 SOME MYTHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS
primary generation of living species ceases after the first world-
period. Zeus, who is withdra\vn from the voracity of his father,
is matter; it alone eludes the mighty force of time which destroys
all else; it persists and is permanent. But from it all things
proceed; Zeus is the father of gods and 1nen.
Now for some more detail: Uranus does not allow the children
he has begotten with mother earth to see the light, but conceals
them in the bowels of the earth (Hesiod, Theogony, 11. 156 ff.).
This may be applied to nature's first animal products which we
come across only in the fossil state. But in the bones of the
megatheria and mastodons we can just as well see the giants
whom Zeus had hurled down into the underworld; in fact even
in the eighteenth century it was said that in then1 the bones of
the fallen angels were recognized. But there actually seems to
underlie the Theogony of Hesiod an obscure notion of the first
changes of the globe and of the conflict between the oxydized
surface capable of life and the ungovernable forces of nature
that are driven by it into the interior and control the oxydizable
substances.
Further, Kronos, the crafty and wily, ay~ev~op.~YJc:;, emascu-
lates Uranus through cunning. This may be interpreted by
saying that time, which steals over and gets the better of
everything, and secretly takes away from us one thing after
another, finally deprived even heaven, which with nwther
earth, i.e. with nature, created things, of the power originally
to produce new forms. But those already created continue to
exist as species in time. Kronos, however, swallows up his own
children; as time no longer produces species, but turns out
merely individuals, she gives birth simply to mortal beings. ,(eus
alone escapes from this fate; matter is permanent. But at the
same time, heroes and sages are immortal. The following is a
more detailed sequence of the foregoing events. After heaven
and earth, i.e. nature, have lost their pm-ver of original creation
which produced new forms, such power is transformed to
Aphrodite who springs from the foam of Uranus's amputated
genitals that had fallen into the sea and who is just the sexual
production of mere individuals for the maintenance of existing
species; since now new ones can no longer come into existence.
For this purpose, Eros and Him eros arise as the aider and
abettor of Aphrodite ( Tlzeogorry, II. 173-201 ).
198
The connection, indeed the unity, of human nature with
animals and the rest of nature, and consequently of the micro-
cosm with the macrocosm, is expressed in the puzzling and
mysterious sphinx, the centaurs, the Ephesian Artemis with the
many different animal forms placed under her innumerable
breasts, just as it is seen also in the Egyptian figures with human
bodies and animal heads, and in the Indian Ganesha. Finally,
we see it also in the Ninevitical bulls and lions with human
heads which remind us of the Avatar as man-lion.
rgg
The Iapetides exhibit the four basic qualities of human
character together with their attendant sufferings. Atlas, the
patient one, must bear. Menoetius, the valiant one, is over-
powered and hurled to perdition. Prometheus, the prudent and
clever one, is put in chains~ in other words, is impeded in his
activity, and the vulture, i.e. sorrow, gnaws at his heart.
Epimetheus, the thoughtless and heedless one, is punished by his
own folly.
Humanforesiglzt is quite properly personified in Prometheus, the
thought for the morrow, an advantage that man has over the
animal. Therefore Prometheus has the gift of prophecy; it
signifies the ability to show prudence and foresight. He thus
grants to man the use of fire which no animal has, and lays the
foundation for the arts of life. But man must atone for this
privilege of foresight by the incessant torment of care artd anxiery,
which to the animal is unknown. This is the vulture gnawing at
the liver of the shackled Prometheus. Epimetheus, who is after-
wards created as a corollary, represents anxiery and worry ajier the
event, the reward of frivolity and thoughtlessness.
Plotinus (Enneads, iv, lib. 1, c. 14) gives us an entirely different
interpretation of Prometheus, which is metaphysical yet full of
meaning. Prometheus is the world-soul, makes man, and thus
himself falls into bonds that only a Hercules can loosen, and so
forth.
Again, the enemies of the Church in our times would be
pleased with the following interpretation. IlpofL1J8v~ OafLWT'IJ~ j
J ['Prometheus in chains'.]
is the faculty of reason which is shackled by the gods (religion);
only by the downfall of Zeus can it be liberated.
200
The fable of Pandora has never been clear to me; in fact it has
always seemed to me to be absurd and preposterous. I suspect
that it was misunderstood and distorted even by Hesiod himself.
As her name already implies, Pandora has in her box not all the
evils, but all the blessings, of the world. When Epimetheus
hastily opens it, all the blessings fly out, all except hope which
is saved and left behind for us. In the end, I had the satisfaction
of finding a couple of passages of the ancients which accord with
this view of mine, namely an epigram in the anthology (Delectus
epigrammatum graecorum, edited by Jacobs, c. 7, ep. 84), and a
passage of Babrius quoted there which begins with the words:
ZEvs Jv '1Tl0cp ret xfY'laTa mxVTa av.U~as. (Babrius, Fahulae,
58.1.)
201
The particular epithet Aty6</>wvo,,s attributed by Hesiod to
the Hesperides in two passages of his Theogony (11. 275 and 518),
together with their name and their stay that was so long deferred
after evening, has suggested to n1e the notion, certainly very
strange, that bats might be meant by the name Hcsperides.
Thus such an epithet answers very well to the short whistling
tone of these animals.* Moreover, it would be more appropriate
to call them EcnTEploEs6 than IIVKTEplos,7 as they fly about
much more in the evening than at night, for they go out in
search of insects, and EC!'1Teploes is the exact equivalent of the
Latin vespertiliones.s I was, therefore, reluctant to suppress the
idea, for it might be possible that, by having his attention drawn
to it in this way, someone may still find something to confirm it.
Indeed if the cherubim are winged oxen, why should the
Tpl{mTETplyam. ~eaTa 'ttEp ai VVKTEpto.o~. Herodotus, JV. 183. ['To squeak; they
squeak like bats!]
['Zeus collecting in a vessel all the good things ... '1
5 ['Clear-voiced', 'screaming'.]
6 ['Daughters of the evening', 'Hesperides '.]
7 ['Daughters of the night', 'bats'.]
8 [.Bats'.]
Hesperides not be bats? Perhaps they are Alcithoe and her
sisters who were changed into bats. (See Ovid's Metamorphoses,
IV. 391 ff.)
202
The nocturnal studies of scholars may be the reason why the
owl is the bird of Athena.
203
It is not without reason and sense that the myth represents
Kronos as devouring and digesting stones; for it is time alone
that digests the otherwise wholly indigestible, all grief, vexation,
loss, and mortification.
203a
The overthrow of the Titans, whom Zeus thundered down
into the underworld, seems to be the same story as that of the
downfall of the angels who rebelled against Jehovah.
The story ofidomeneus who sacrifices his son ex voto9 and that
of Jephthah are essentially the same.
{Typhon and Python are probably the same, since Horus and
Apollo are the same, Herodotus, lib. u, c. 144.)
Just as in Sanskrit there are to be found the roots of the
Gothic and Greek languages, is there perhaps an older myth-
ology whence both the Greek and Jewish mythologies have
sprung? If we wanted to give free play to our wit, we might even
mention that the doubly long night, when with Alcmene Zeus
begat Hercules, arose from the fact that, farther east, Joshua
commanded the sun to stand still before Jericho. Zeus and
Jehovah played so much into each other's hands; for the gods
of heaven, like those on earth, are at all times secretly on
friendly terms. But how innocent was the amusement of Father
Zeus in comparison with the bloodthirsty deeds of jehovah and
his chosen predatory people!
204
Thus in conclusion, I put my very subtle and exceedingly odd
allegorical interpretation of a well-known myth that has been
9 ['In consequence of a vow'.]
immortalized especially by Apuleius, although, on account of
its subject-matter, such interpretation is open to the ridicule of
all who wish to avail themselves of the expression du sublime au
ridicule il ny a qu'unpas.xo
From the culminating point of my philosophy, well known as
the standpoint of asceticism, the affirmation of the will-to-live is
seen to be concentrated in the act of procreation, which is its
most decided expression. Now the significance of this affirma-
tion is really that the will, originally without knowledge and
hence a blind urge, does not in its willing and passion allow
itself to be disturbed or restrained after knowledge of its own
true nature has dawned on it through the world as representa-
tion. On the contrary, it now wills, consciously and deliberately,
precisely what it hitherto willed as an urge and impulse devoid
of knowledge. (See Ht'orld as Hlill and Representation, vol. i, 54.)
Accordingly, we now find that the ascetic, who denies life
through voluntary chastity, differs empirically from the one
who, through the act of procreation, affirms life, in that, with
the former, there occurs without knowledge and as a blind
physiological function, namely in sleep, that which is consciously
and deliberately performed by the latter and, therefore, is done
with the light of knowledge. Now it is in fact very remarkable
that this abstract philosopheme, which is in no way associated
with the spirit of the Greeks, and the empirical circumstances
illustrating it, have their exact allegorical description in the
beautiful fable of Ps_yche who was to enjoy Amor only without
seeing him, yet who, dissatisfied with this, positively wanted to
see him, regardless of all warnings. In this way, after an in-
evitable pronouncement of mysterious forces, she came to
endless misery which could be expiated only through her
wandering into the underworld and there carrying out difficult
and arduous tasks.
o ['From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.'J

1
CHAPTER XIX
On the Metaphysics of the

Beautiful and Aesthetics
205
As I have dealt in sufficient detail in my chief work with the
conception of the (Platonic) Ideas and with the correlative
thereof, namely the pure subject of knowing, I should regard it
as superfluous here to return to it once more, did I not bear in
mind that this is a consideration which in this sense has never
been undertaken prior to me. It is, therefore, better not to keep
back anything which might at some time be welcome by way of
their elucidation. In this connection, I naturally assume that
the reader is acquainted with those earlier discussions.
The real problem of the metaphysics of the beautiful may be
very simply expressed by our asking how satisfaction with and
pleasure in an object are possible without any reference thereof
to our willing.
Thus everyone feels that pleasure and satisfaction in a thing
can really spring only from its relation to our will or, as we are
fond of expressing it, to our aims, so that pleasure without a
stirring of the will seems to be a contradiction. Yet the beautiful,
as such, quite obviously gives rise to our delight and pleasure,
without its having any reference to our personal aims and so to
our will.
My solution has been that in the beautiful we always perceive
the essential and original forms of animate and inanimate
nature and thus Plato's Ideas thereof, and that this perception
has as its condition their essential correlative, the will-free subject
of knowing, in other words a pure intelligence without aims and
intentions. On the occurrence of an aesthetic apprehension, the
will thereby vanishes entirely from consciousness. But it alone
is the source of all our sorrows and sufferings. This is the origin
of that satisfaction and pleasure which accompany the appre-
hension of the beautiful. It therefore rests on the removal of the
entire possibility of suffering. If it should be objected that the
416 ON METAPHYSICS OF THE BEAUTIFUL
possibility of pleasure would then also be abolished, it should
be remembered that, as I have often explained, happiness or
satisfaction is of a negative nature, that is, simply the end of a
suffering, whereas pain is that which is positive. And so with
the disappearance of all willing from consciousness, there yet
remains the state of pleasure, in other words absence of all pain
and here even absence of the possibility thereo For the
individual is transformed into a subject that merely knows and
no longer wills; and yet he remains conscious of himself and of
his activity precisely as such. As we know, the world as will is
the first world (or dine prior), and the world as representation, the
second (ordine posterior). The former is the world of craving and
therefore of pain and a thousand different woes. The latter,
however, is in itself essentially painless; moreover, it contains a
spectacle worth seeing, altogether significant, and at least
entertaining. Aesthetic pleasure* consists in the enjoyment
thereof. To become a pure subject of knowing means to be quit
of oneself; t but since in most cases people cannot do this, they
are, as a rule, incapable of that purely objective apprehension
of things, which constitutes the gift of the artist.
However, let the individual will leave free for a while the
power of representation which is assigned to it, and let it exempt
this entirely from the service for which it has arisen and exists so
that, for the time being, such power relinquishes concern for the
will or for one's own person, this being its only natural theme
and thus its regular business, hut yet it does not cease to he
energetically active and to apprehend clearly and with rapt
attention what is intuitively perceptible. That power of repre-
sentation then becomes at once perfectly objective, that is to say,
the true mirror of objects or, more precisely, the medium of the
objectification of the will that manifests itself in the objects in
* Complete satisfaction, the final quieting, the true desirable state, always
present themselves only in the picture, the work of art, the poem, or music. From
this, of course, one might be assured that they must exist somewhere.
t The pure subject of knowing occurs in our forgetting ourselves in order to be
absorbed entirely in the intuitively perceived objects, so that they alone are left in
consciOusness.
ON METAPHYSICS OF THE BEAUTIFUL 417
question. The inner nature of the will now stands out in the
power of representation the more completely, the longer
intuitive perception is kept up, until it has entirely exhausted
that inner nature. Only thus does there arise with the pure
subject the pure object, that is, the perfect manifestation of the
will that appears in the intuitively perceived object, this mani-
festation being just the (Platonic) Idea thereof. But the appre-
hension of such an Idea requires that, while contemplating an
object, I disregard its position in time and space and thus its
individuality. For it is this position which is always determined
by the law of causality and puts that object in some relation to
me as an individual. Therefore only when that position is set
aside does the object become the Idea and do I at the same time
become the pure subject of knowing. Thus through the fact that
every painting for ever fixes the fleeting moment and tears it
from time, it already gives us not the individual thing, but the
Idea, that which endures and is permanent in all change. Now
for that required change in the subject and object, the condition
is not only that the power of knowledge is withdrawn from its
original servitude and left entirely to itself, but also that it
nevertheless remains active with the whole of its energy, in spite
of the fact that the natural spur of its activity, the impulse of the
will, is now absent. Here lies the difficulty and in this the rarity
of the thing; for all our thoughts and aspirations, all our seeing
and hearing, are naturally always in the direct or indirect
service of our countless greater and smaller personal aims.
Accordingly it is the will that urges the power of knowledge to
carry out its function and, \vithout such impulse, that power at
once grows weary. Moreover, the knowledge thereby awakened
is perfectly adequate for practical life, even for the special
branches of science which are directed always only to the
relations of things, not to the real and true inner nature thereof;
and so all their knowledge proceeds on the guiding line of the
principle of sufficient reason [or ground], this element of
relations. Thus wherever it is a question of knowledge of cause
and effect, or of other grounds and consequents, and hence in all
branches of natural science and mathematics, as also of history,
inventions, and so forth, the knowledge sought must be a
purpose of the will, and the more eagerly this aspires to it, the
sooner will it be attained. Similarly, in the affairs of state, war,
matters of finance or trade, intrigues of every kind, and so on,
the will through the vehemence of its craving must first compel
the intellect to exert all its strength in order to discover the
exact clue to all the groundc; and consequents in the case in
question. In fact, it is astonishing how far the spur of the will
can here drive a given intellect beyond the usual degree of its
powers. And so for all outstanding achievements in such things,
not merely a fine or brilliant mind is required, but also an
energetic will which must first urge the intellect to laborious
effort and restless activity, without which such achievements
cannot be effected.
Now it is quite different as regards the apprehension of the
objective original essence of things which constitutes their
(Platonic) Idea and must be the basis of every achievement in
the fine arts. Thus the will, which was there so necessary and
indeed indispensable, must here be left wholly out of the
question; for here only that is of any use which the intellect
achieves entirely of itself and from its own resources and
produces as a free-will offering. Here everything must go
automatically; knowledge must be active without intention and
so must be will-less. For only in the state of pure knowing, where
a man's will and its aims together with his individuality are
entirely removed from him, can that purely objective intuitive
perception arise wherein the (Platonic) Ideas of things are
apprehended. But it must always be such an apprehension
which precedes the conception, i.e. the first and always intuitive
knowledge. This subsequently constitutes the real material and
kernel, as it were the soul, of a genuine work of art, a poem, and
even a real philosophical argument. The unpremeditated, un-
intentional, and indeed partly unconscious and instinctive
element that has at all times been observed in the works of
genius, is just a consequence of the fact that the original artistic
knowledge is one that is entirely separate from, and independent
of, the will, a will-free, will-less knowledge. And just because
the will is the man himself, we attribute such knowledge to a
being different from him, to genius. A knowledge of this kind
has not, as I have often explained, the principle of sufficient
reason [or ground] for its guiding line and is thus the antithesis
of a know ledge of the first kind. By virtue of his objectivity, the
genius with reflectiveness perceives all that others do not see. This
gives him as a poet the ability to describe nature so clearly,
palpably, and vividly, or as a painter, to portray it.
On the other hand, with the execution of the work, where the
purpose is to communicate and present what is knov.rn, the will
can, and indeed must, again be active, just because there exists
a purpose. Accordingly, the principle of sufficient reason [or
ground] here rules once more, whereby the means of art are
suitably directed to the ends thereof. Thus the painter is
concerned with the correctness of his drawing and the treatment
of his colours; the poet with the arrangement of his plan and
then with expression and metre.
But since the intellect has sprung from the will, it therefore
presents itself objectively as brain and thus as a part of the body
which is the objectification of the will. Accordingly, as the
intellect is originally destined to serve the will, the activity
natural to it is of the kind previously described, where it remains
true to that natural form of its knowledge which is expressed by
the principle of sufficient reason [or ground], and where it is
brought into activity and maintained therein by the will, the
primary and original element in man. Knowledge of the second
kind, on the other hand, is an abnormal activity, unnatural to
the intellect; accordingly, it is conditioned by a decidedly
abnormal and thus very rare excess of intellect and of its
objective phenomenon, the brain, over the rest of the organi~m
and beyond the measure required by the aims of the will. Just
because this excess of intellect is abnormal, the phenomena
springing therefrom sometimes remind one of madness.
Here knowledge then breaks with and deserts its origin, the
will. The intellect which has arisen merely to serve the will and,
in the case of almost all men, remains in such service, their lives
being absorbed in such use and in the results thereof, is used
abnormally, as it were abused, in all the free arts and sciences;
and in this use are set the progress and honour of the human
race. In another way, it can even turn itself against the will, in
that it abolishes this in the phenomena of holiness.
However, that purely objective apprehension of the world
and of things which, as primary and original knowledge, under-
lies every artistic, poetical, and purely philosophical conception,
is only a fleeting one, on subjective as well as objective grounds.
For this is due in part to the fact that the requisite exertion and
attention cannot be maintained, and also to the fact that the
course of the world does not allow us at all to remain in it as
passive and indifferent spectators, like the philosopher according
to the definition of Pythagoras. On the contrary, everyone must
act in life's great puppet-play and almost always feels the wire
which also connects him thereto and sets him in motion.
207
Now as regards the objective element of such aesthetic intuitive
perception, the (Platonic) Idea, this may be described as that
which we should have before us if time, this formal and sub-
jective condition of our knowledge, were withdrawn, like the
glass from the kaleidoscope. For example, we see the develop-
ment of the bud, blos!'om, and fruit and are astonished at the
driving force that never wearies of again going through this
cycle. Such astonishment would vanish if we could know that,
in spite of all that change, we have before us the one and un-
alterable Idea of the plant. However, we are unable intuitively
to perceive this Idea as a unity of bud, blossom, and fruit, but
are obliged to know it by means of the form of time, whereby it
is laid out for our intellect in those successive states.
208
If \o\'e consider that both poetry and the plastic arts take as
their particular theme an individual in order to present this with
the greatest care and accuracy in all the peculiarities of its
individual nature down to the most insignificant; and if we then
review the sciences that work by means of concepts, each of which
represents countless individuals by determining and describing,
once for all, the characteristic of their whole species; then on
such a consideration the pursuit of art might seem to us insignifi-
cant, trifling, and almost childish. But the essence of art is that
its one case applies to thousands, since what it implies through
that careful and detailed presentation of the individual is the
revelation of the (Platonic) Idea of that individual's species.
For example, an event, a scene from human life, accurately and
fully described and thus with an exact presentation of the
individuals concerned therein, gives us a clear and profound
knowledge of the Idea of humanity itself, looked at from some
point of view. For just as the botanist plucks a single flower from
ON METAPHYSICS OF THE BEAUTIFUL 4:21
the infinite wealth of the plant world and then dissects it in
order to demonstrate the nature of the plant generally, so does
the poet take from the endless maze and confusion of human
life, incessantly hurrying everywhere, a single scene and often
only a mood or feeling, in order then to show us what are the
life and true nature of man. We therefore see that the greatest
minds, Shakespeare and Goethe, Raphael and Rembrandt, do
not regard it as beneath their dignity to present with the
greatest accuracy, earnestness, and care an individual who is
not even outstanding, and to give down to the smallest detail a
graphic description of all his peculiarities. For only through
intuitive perception is the particular and individual thing
grasped; I have, therefore, defined poetry as the art of bringing
the imagination into play by means of words.
If we want to feel directly and thus become conscious of the
advantage which knowledge through intuitive perception, as
that which is primary and fundamental, has over abstract
knowledge and thus see how art reveals more to us than any
science can, let us contemplate, either in nature or through the
medium of art, a beautiful and mobile human countenance full
of expression. What a much deeper insight into the essence of
man, indeed of nature generally, is given by this than by all the
words and abstractions they express! Incidentally, it may be
observed here that what, for a beautiful landscape is the sudden
glimpse of the sun breaking through the clouds, is for a beautiful
countenance the appearance of its laughter. Therefore, ridete,
puellae, ridete! 1
209
However, what enables a picture to bring us more easily than
does something actual and real to the apprehension of a
(Platonic) Idea and so that whereby the picture stands nearer
to the Idea than does reality, is generally the fact that the work
of art is the object which has already passed through a subject.
Thus it is for the mind what animal nourishment, namely the
vegetable already assimilated, is for the body. More closely
considered, however, the case rests on the fact that the work of
plastic art does not, like reality, show us that which exists only
1['Laugh, girls, laugh!' (Presumably taken from Martial's Epigrammata,
II. 41.}]
once and never again, thus the combination of this matter with
this form, such combination constituting just the concrete and
really particular thing, but that it shows us the form alone, which
would be the Idea itself if only it \vere given completely and
from every point of view. Consequently, the picture at once
leads us away from the individual to the mere form. This
separation of the form from matter already brings it so much
nearer to the Idea. But every picture is such a separation,
whether it be a painting or a statue. This severance, this
separation, of the form from matter belongs, therefore, to the
character of the aesthetic work of art, just because the purpose
thereof is to bring us to the knowledge of a (Platonic) I dea. It is,
therefore, essential to the work of art to give the form alone
\vithout matter, and indeed to do this openly and avowedly.
Here is to be found the real reason why wax figures make no
aesthetic impression and are, therefore, not works of art (in the
aesthetic sense) ; although, if they are well made, they produce
a hundred times more illusion than can the best picture or
statue. If, therefore, deceptive imitation of the actual thing were
the purpose of art, wax figures would necessarily occupy the
front rank. Thus they appear to give not merely the form, but
also the matter as well; and so they produce the illusion of our
having before us the thing itself. Therefore, instead of having
the true work of art that leads us away frmn what exists only
once and never again, i.e. the individual, to what always exists
an infinite number of times, in an infinite number of individuals,
i.e. the mere form or Idea, \ve have the wax figure giving us
apparently the individual himself and hence that which exists
only once and never again, yet without that which lends value
to such a fleeting existence, that is, without life. Therefore the
wax figure causes us to shudder since its effect is like that of a
stiff corpse.
It might be imagined that it was only the statue that gave
form without matter, whereas the painting gave matter as well,
in so far as it imitated, by means of colour, matter, and its
properties. This, however, would be equivalent to under-
standing form in the purely geometrical sense, which is not
what was meant here. For in the philosophical sense, form is the
opposite of matter and thus e1nbraces also colour, smoothness,
texture, in short every quality. The statue is certainly the only
thing that gives the purely geometrical form alone, presenting
it in marble, thus in a material that is clearly foreign to it; and
so in this way, the statue plainly and obviously isolates the form.
The painting, on the other hand, gives us no matter at all, but
the mere appearance of the form, not in the geometrical but in
the philosophical sense just stated. The painting does not even
give this form, but the mere appearance thereof, namely its
effect on only one sense, that of sight, and even this only from
one point of view. Thus even the painting does not really
produce the illusion of our having before us the thing itself, that
is, form and matter; but even the deceptive truth of the picture
is still always under certain admitted conditions of this method
of presentation. For example, through the inevitable falling
away of the parallax of our two eyes, the picture always shows
us things only as a one-eyed person would see them. Therefore
even the painting gives only the form since it presents merely the
effect thereof and indeed quite one-sidedly, namely on the eye
alone. The other reasons why the work of art raises us more
readily than does reality to the apprehension of a (Platonic) Idea
will be found in my chief , ..,ork volume ii, chapter 30.
Akin to the foregoing consideration is the following where,
however, the form must again be understood in the geometrical
sense. Black and white copper engravings and etchings corre-
spond to a nobler and more elevated taste than do coloured
engravings and water colours, although the latter make a
greater appeal to those of less cultivated taste. This is obviously
due to the fact that black and white drawings give the form
alone, in abstracto so to speak, whose apprehension is (as we
know) intellectual, that is, the business of the intuitively
perceiving understanding. Colour, on the other hand, is merely
a matter of the sense-organ and in fact of quite a special
adaptation therein (qualitative divisibility of the retina's
activity). In this respect, we can also compare the coloured
copper engravings to rhymed verses and black and white ones
to the merely metrical. I have stated the relation between these
in my chief work volume ii, chapter 37
210
The impressions we receive in our youth are so significant and
in the dawn of life everything presents itself in such idealistic
424 ON METAPHYSICS 01;- THE BEAUTIFUL
and radiant colours. This springs from the fact that the indivi-
dual thing still makes us first acquainted with its species, which
to us is still new; and thus every particular thing represents for
us its species. Accordingly, we apprehend in it the (Platonic)
Idea of that species to which as such beauty is essential.
21 I
The word schon [meaning 'beautiful'] is undoubtedly con-
nected with the English 'to show' and accordingly would mean
'showy', 'what shows well',z what looks well, and hence stands
out clearly in intuitive perception; consequently the clear
expression of significant (Platonic) Ideas.
The word malerisch [meaning 'picturesque'] at bottom has
the same meaning as schon [or 'beautiful']. For it is attributed
to that which so presents itself that it clearly brings to light the
(Platonic) Idea of its species. It is, therefore, suitable for the
painter's presentation since he is concerned with presenting and
bringing out the Ideas which constitute what is objective in the
beautiful.
212
Beauty and grace of the human fonn are in combination the
clearest visibility of the will at the highest stage of its objectifica-
tion and for this reason are the supreme achievement of plastic
art. Yet every natural thing is certainly beautiful, as I have said
in World as Will and Representation, volume i, 41 ; and so too is
every animal. If this is not obvious to us in the case of some
animals, the reason is that we are not in a position to contem-
plate them purely objectively and thus to apprehend their Idea,
but are drawn away therefrom by some unavoidable association
of thoughts. In most cases, this is the result of a similarity that
forces itself on us, for example, that between man and monkey.
Thus we do not apprehend the Idea of this animal, but see only
the caricature of a human being. The similarity between the
toad and dirt and mud seems to act in just the same way.
Nevertheless, this does not suffice here to explain the unbounded
loathing and even dread and horror which some feel at the
sight of these animals, just as do others at the sight of spiders.
z [These three English phrases are Schopenhauer's own words.]

On the contrary, this seems to be grounded in a much deeper
metaphysical and mysterious connection. In support of this
opinion is the fact that these very animals are usually taken for
sympathetic cures (and evil spells) and thus for magical pur-
poses. For example, fever is driven away by a spider enclosed in
a nutshell which is worn round the patient's neck until it is dead;
or in the case of grave and mortal danger, a toad is laid in the
urine of the patient, in a well-closed vessel, and is buried in the
cellar of the house at midday, precisely at the stroke of twelve.
Yet the slow torture to death of such animals demands an
expiation from eternal justice. Now again this affords an
explanation of the assumption that, whoever practises magic,
makes a compact with the devil.
213
In so far as inorganic nature does not consist of water, it has
a very sad and even depressing effect on us when it manifests
itself without anything organic. Instances of this are the districts
that present us with merely bare rocks, particularly the long
rocky valley without any vegetation, not far from Toulon,
through which passes the road to Marseilles. The African desert
is an instance on a large and much more impressive scale. The
gloom of that impression of the inorganic springs primarily from
the fact that the inorganic mass obeys exclusively the law of
gravitation; and thus everything here tends in that direction.
On the other hand, the sight of vegetation delights us directly
and in a high degree, but naturally the more so, the richer,
n1ore varied, more extended it is, and also the more it is left to
itself. The primary reason for this is to be found in the fact that
the law of gravitation seems in vegetation to be overcome since
the plant world raises itself in a direction which is the very
opposite to that of gravitation. The phenomenon of life thus
immediately proclaims itself to be a new and higher order of
things. We ourselves belong to this; it is akin to us and is the
element of our existence; our hearts arc uplifted by it. And so it
is primarily that vertical direction upwards whereby the sight
of the plant world directly delights us. Therefore a fine group
of trees gains immensely if a couple of long, straight, and
pointed fir trees rise fron1 its middle. On the other hand, a tree
lopped all round no longer affects us; indeed a leaning tree has
less effect than has one that has grown perfectly straight. The
branches of the weeping willow (saule pleureur) which hang down
and thus yield to gravity have given it this name. Water
eliminates the sad and depressing effect of its inorganic nature
to a large extent through its great mobility which gives it an
appearance of life and through its constant play with light;
moreover, it is the primary and fundamental condition of all
life. Again, what makes the sight of vegetable nature so delight-
ful is the expression of peace, calm, and satisfaction which it has;
whereas animal nature often presents itself in a state of unrest,
want, misery, and even conflict. Therefore vegetable nature so
readily succeeds in putting us into a state of pure knowing
which delivers us from ourselves.
It is remarkable to see how vegetable nature, even the most
ordinary and insignificant, at once displays itself in beautiful
and picturesque groups, the moment it is withdrawn from the
influence of human caprice. We see this in every spot which has
escaped or has not yet been reached by cultivation, even though
it bears only thistles, thorns, and the commonest wild flowers.
In cornfields and market-gardens, on the other hand, the
aesthetic element of the plant world sinks to a minimum.
214
It has long been recognized that every work intended for
human purposes and thus every utensil and building must have
a certain resemblance to the works of nature in order to be
beautiful. But here we are mistaken in supposing that such
resemblance must be direct and lie immediately in the forms,
so that, for instance, columns should represent trees or even
human limbs, vessels should be shaped like shellfish, snails, or
the calices of flowers, and vegetable or animal forms should
appear everywhere. On the contrary, this resemblance should
not be direct, but only indirect; in other words, it should reside
not in the forms, but in the character thereof which can be the
same, in spite of their complete difference. Accordingly,
buildings and utensils should not imitate nature, but be created
in her spirit. Now this shows itself when each thing and each
part answers its purpose so directly that such is at once pro-
claimed by it. All this happens when the purpose is attained on
the shortest path and in the simplest way. This obvious appro-
priateness or fitness is thus the characteristic of the product of
nature. Now in this, of course, the will works outwards from
within and has made itself the complete master of matter;
whereas in the human work, acting from without, the will
attains its end and first expresses itself through the medium of
intuitive perception and even of a conception of the purpose of
the thing, but then by overcoming and subduing a matter that
is foreign, in other words, originally expresses another will.
Nevertheless, in this case the above-mentioned characteristic of
the product of nature can still be retained. Ancient architecture
shows this in the exact suitability of each part or member to its
immediate purpose which it thus naively displays. It shows it
also in the absence of everything useless and purposeless, in
contrast to Gothic architecture which owes its dark and
mysterious appearance precisely to the many pointless etnbel-
lishments and appendages, in that we attribute to these a
purpose which to us is unknown. The same may be said of every
degenerate style of architecture which affects originality and
which, in all kinds of unnecessary devious ways and in arbitrary
frivolities, toys with the n1eans of art without understanding
their purpose. The same applies to antique vases whose beauty
springs from the fact that they express in so naive a way what
they are intended to be and do; and it applies also to all the
other utensils of the ancients. Here we feel that, if nature were
to produce vases, amphorae, lamps, tables, chairs, helmets,
shields, armour, and so on, they would look like that. On the
other hand, look at the scandalous, richly gilded, porcelain
vessels, women's apparel, and other things of the present day.
By exchanging the style of antiquity, already introduced, for
the vile rococo, men have given evidence of their contemptible
spirit and have branded their brows for all time. For this is
indeed no trifling matter, but stamps the spirit of these times.
A proof of this is furnished by their literature and the mutilation
of the German language through ignorant ink-slingers who, in
their arbitrary arrogance, treat it as do vandals works of art,
and who are allowed to do so with impunity.
215
The origin of the fundamental idea for a work of art has been
very appropriately called its corueption; for it is the most essential
thing just as is procreation to the origin of man; and like this it
requires not exactly time, but rather mood and opportunity.
Thus the object in general, as that which is the male, practises
a constant act of procreation on the subject, as that which is the
female. Yet this act becon1es fruitful only at odd happy moments
and with favoured subjects; but then there arises from it some
new and original idea which, therefore, lives on. And as with
physical procreation, fruitfulness depends much more on the
female than on the male; if the former (the subject) is in the
mood suitable for conceiving, almost every object now falling
within its apperception will begin to speak to it, in other words,
to create in it a vivid, penetrating, and original idea. Thus the
sight of a trifling object or event has sometimes become the seed
of a great and beautiful work; for instance, by suddenly looking
at a tin vessel, Jacob Boehme was put into a state of illumination
and introduced into the innermost depths of nature. Yet
ultimately everything turns on our own strength; and just as no
food or medicine can impart or replace vital force, so no book
or study can furnish an individual and original mind.
216
An improviser, however, is a man who omnibus horis sapit,J since
he carries round a complete and well-assorted store of common-
places of all kinds; thus he promises prompt service for every
request according to the circumstances of the case and the
occasion and provides ducenti versus, stans pede in uno.4
217
A man who undertakes to live on the favour of the Muses, I
mean on his gifts as a poet, seems to me to be somewhat like a
girl who lives by her charms. For base profit and gain both
profane what should be the free gift of their innermost nature.
Both suffer from exhaustion, and in most cases both will end
ignominiously. And so do not degrade your muse to a whore,
but
'I sing, as sings the bird
Who in the branches lives.
3 ['Who knows something at any hour' (Cf. 36, footnote 8).]
4 ['Two hundred verses (Lucilius dictated often when on the point of going away
and thus) standing on one foot! (Horace, Satires, r. 4.10.)]
The song that from his throat is heard,
Is reward that richly gives' ,s
should be the poet's motto. For poetic gifts belong to the

holidays, not to the work-days of life. If, then, they should feel
somewhat cramped and checked by an occupation which the
poet carries on at the same time, they may yet succeed. For the
poet does not need to acquire great knowledge and learning, as
is the case with the philosopher; in fact poetic gifts are in this
way condensed, just as they are diluted by too much leisure and
through being exercised ex professo. 6 The philosopher, on the
other hand, for the reason stated, cannot very well carry on
another occupation at the same time, for to make money with
philosophy has other serious and well-known drawbacks. For
this reason the ancients n1ade it the mark of the sophist in
contrast to the philosopher. Solomon too should be commended
when he says: '\.Visdom is good with an inheritance: and by it
there is profit to them that see the sun' (Ecclesiastes 7: II).
\.Ve have the classics of antiquity, that is to say, minds whose
writings pass through thousands of years in the undiminished
lustre and brilliance of youth; and this is due for the most part
to the fact that with the ancients the writing of books was not a
trade or profession. Only in this way is it possible to explain why
the superior works of those classical authors are not accom-
panied by any that are inferior. For, unlike even the best of
modern authors, they did not, after the spirit had evaporated,
still bring to market the residue in order to make some money
from it.
Music is the true universal language which is everywhere

understood; and so it is constantly spoken in all countries and
throughout the centuries most eagerly and earnestly, and a
significant and suggestive melody very soon finds its way round
the globe. On the other hand, a melody that is poor and says
nothing soon dies away and is forgotten; which shows that the
contents of a melody are very easy to understand. Nevertheless,
s [Goethe's poem Der Sanger.]
6 ('Professionally'.]
430 ON METAPHYSICS OF THE BEAL'TIFUL
it speaks not of things, but simply of weal and woe as being for
the will the sole realities. It therefore says so much to the heart,
whereas to the head it has nothing direct to say; and it is an
improper use if this is required of it, as happens in all descriptive
music. Such music should, therefore, be rejected once for all,
even though Haydn and Beethoven have been misguided into
using it. Mozart and Rossini have, to my knowledge, never done
this. For to express passions is one thing and to paint objects
another.
Even the grammar of this universal language has been given
the most precise rules, although only since Rameau laid the
foundation for it. On the other hand, to explain the lexicon, I
mean the undoubted importance of the contents of this grammar
in accordance with the foregoing, in other words, to make
intelligible to our reason, if only in a general way, what it is that
music says in melody and harmony and what it is talking about,
this was never even seriously attempted until I undertook to do
it; which only shows, as do so many other things, how little
inclined men are generally to reflect and think and how
thoughtlessly they live their lives. Their intention everywhere
is merely to enjoy themselves, and indeed with the least possible
expenditure of thought. Such is their nature. It therefore seems
to be so ludicrous when they imagine they have to play at being
philosophers, as may be seen in our professors of philosophy,
their precious works, and the sincerity of their zeal for philos-
ophy and truth.
Speaking generally and at the same time popularly, we may

venture to state that on the whole music is the melody to which
the world is the text. But we obtain the proper meaning thereof
only through my interpretation of music.
But the relation of the art of music to the definite exterior that
is always imposed on it, such as text, action, march, dance,
sacred or secular festival, and so on, is analogous to that of
architecture as a fine art, in other words, as art intended for
purely aesthetic purposes, to the actual buildings which it has
to erect and with whose utilitarian purposes it must, therefore,
try to connect the aims that are peculiar to it, such purposes
being foreign to architecture itself as an art. For it achieves its
aims under the conditions imposed by those utilitarian purposes
and accordingly produces a temple, palace, arsenal, playhouse,
and so on, in such a way that the building in itself is beautiful as
well as suitable for its purpose and even proclaims this through
its aesthetic character. Music, therefore, stands to the text, or to
the other realities imposed on it, in an analogous subjection,
although this is not so unavoidable. It must first of all adapt
itself to the text, although it certainly does not require this and
in fact without it moves much more freely. However, music
must not only adapt every note to the length and meaning of
the words of the text, but must also assume throughout a
certain homogeneity with the text and likewise bear the character
of the other arbitrary aims imposed on it and accordingly be
church, opera, military, dance, or other music. But all this is
just as foreign to the nature of music as are human utilitarian
purposes to purely aesthetic architecture. Therefore both music
and architecture have to adapt themselves to such utilitarian
purposes and to subordinate their own aims to those that are
foreign to them. For architecture this is almost always un-
avoidable, but not for music which freely moves in the concerto,
the sonata, and above all the symphony, its finest scene of action
wherein it celebrates its saturnalia.
Further, the wrong path, on which our music happens to be,
is analogous to that taken by Roman architecture under the
later emperors, where the overloading with decorations and
embellishments partly concealed, and to some extent perverted,
the simple and essential proportions. Thus our music gives us
much noise, many instruments, much art, but very few clear,
penetrating, and touching ideas. Moreover, in the shallow
compositions of today which are devoid of meaning and melody,
we again find the same taste of the times which puts up with an
obscure, indefinite, nebulous, unintelligible, and even senseless
way of writing. The origin of this is to be found mainly in our
miserable Hegelry and its charlatanism.
Give me Rossini's music that speaks without words! In
present-day compositions more account is taken of harmony
than of melody. Yet I hold the opposite view and regard melody
as the core of music to which harmony is related as the sauce to
roast meat.
220
Grand opera is really not a product of the pure artistic sense,
but rather of the somewhat barbaric notion of the enhancement
of aesthetic pleasure by the accumulation of the means, the
simultaneous use of totally different impressions, and the
intensification of the effect through an increase of the operative
masses and forces. Music, on the other hand, as the most
powerful of all the arts, is by itself alone capable of completely
occupying the mind that is susceptible to it. Indeed, to be
properly interpreted and enjoyed, the highest productions of
music demand the wholly undivided and undistracted attention
of the mind so that it may surrender itself to, and become
absorbed in, them in order thoroughly to understand its
incredibly profound and intimate language. Instead of this, the
mind during a piece of highly complicated opera music is at the
same time acted on through the eye by means of the most
variegated display and magnificence, the most fantastic pictures
and images, and the most vivid impressions of light and colour;
moreover, it is occupied with the plot of the piece. Through all
this it is diverted, distracted, deadened, and thus rendered as
little susceptible as possible to the sacred, mysterious, and
profound language of tones; and so such things are directly
opposed to an attainment of the musical purpose. In addition
to all this, we have the ballet, a performance which is often
directed more to lasciviousness than to aesthetic pleasure.
Moreover, through the narrow range of its means and the
monotony arising therefrom, the spectacle soon becomes
extremely tedious and so tends to exhaust one's patience. In
particular, through the wearisome repetition, often lasting a
quarter of an hour, of the same second-rate dance melody, the
musical sense is wearied and blunted so that it is no longer left
with any susceptibility for subsequent musical impressions of a
more serious and exalted nature.
It is possible that, although a thoroughly musical mind does
not desire it, notwithstanding that the pure language of tones is
self-sufficient and needs no assistance, it may be associated with
and adapted to words, or even to an action produced through
intuitive perception so that our intui~vely perceiving and
reflecting intellect, which does not like to be completely idle,
may yet obtain an easy and analogous occupation. In this way,
even the attention is more firmly fixed on the music and follows
it; at the same time, a picture or image of intuitive perception,
a model or diagram so to speak, like an example to a universal
concept, is adapted to what the tones say in their universal
language of the heart, a language that is without picture or
image; indeed such things will enhance the impression of the
music. It should nevertheless be kept within the limits of the
greatest simplicity, as otherwise it acts directly against the
principal musical purpose.
The great accumulation of vocal and instrumental parts in
the opera certainly acts in a musical way; yet the enhancement
of the effect, from the mere quartet up to those orchestras with
their hundred instruments, bears no relation at all to the
increase in the means. For the chord cannot have more than
three, or in one case four, notes and the mind can never appre-
hend more at the same time, no matter by how many parts of
the most different octaves those three or four notes may all at
once be given. From all this we can explain how a fine piece of
music, played on)y in four parts, may sometimes move us more
deeply than does the whole opera seria7 whose quintessence is
furnished by it;just as a drawing sometimes has more effect than
has an oi) painting. However, what mainly depresses the effect
of the quartet is that it lacks the extent of the harmony, in other
words the distance of two or more octaves between the bass and
the lowest of the three upper parts, just as from the depths of
the double bass this extent is at the disposal of the orchestra.
But for this reason, the effect of the orchestra is immensely
enhanced if a large organ, reaching down to the limit of
audibility, constantly plays the ground-bass to it, as is done in
the Catholic church in Dresden. For only thus docs the harmony
produce its full effect. But generally speaking, simplicity which
usually attaches to truth, is a law that is essential to all art, all
that is beautiful, all intellectual presentation or description; at
any rate to depart from it is always dangerous.
Strictly speaking, therefore, we could call the opera an un-
musical invention for the benefit of unmusical minds into which
music must first be smuggled through a medium that is foreign
to it, possibly as the accompaniment to a long, spun-out, vapid
7 ['Serious opera in the grand style' ]

434 ON ~fETAPHYSICS OF THE BEAUTIFUL
love-story and its wishy-washy poetry. For the text of the opera
cannot possibly endure a poetry that is condensed and full of
spirit and ideas, because the composition is unable to keep up
with this. But to try to make music entirely the slave of bad
poetry is the wrong way which is taken especially by Gluck
whose opera music, apart from the overtures, is, therefore, not
enjoyable at all without the words. Indeed it can be said that
opera has become the ruin of music. For not only must the
music bend and submit in order to suit the development and
irregular course of events of an absurd and insipid plot; not
only is the mind diverted and distracted from the music by the
childish and barbaric pomp of the scenery and costumes, the
antics of the dancers, and the short skirts of the ballet-girls; no,
but even the singing itself often disturbs the harmony, in so far
as the vox humana, which musically speaking is an instrument like
any other, will not co-ordinate and fit in with the other parts,
but tries to dominate absolutely. This is, of course, all right
where it is soprano or alto, because in this capacity the melody
belongs essentially and naturally to it. But in the bass and tenor
arias the leading melody in most cases devolves on the high
instruments; and then the singing stands out like an arrogant
and conceited voice, in itself merely harmonic, which the
melody tries to drown. Or else the accompaniment is transferred
contrapuntally to the upper octaves, entirely contrary to the
nature of the music, in order to impart the melody to the tenor
and bass voices; yet the ear always follows the highest notes and
thus the accompaniment. I am really of the opinion that solo
arias with orchestral accompaniment are suitable only for the
alto or soprano and that male voices should, therefore, be
employed only in the duet with these or in pieces of many parts,
unless they sing without any accompaniment or with a mere
bass accompaniment. Melody is the natural prerogative of the
highest voices and instruments and must remain so. Therefore
when in the opera a soprano aria comes after a forced and
artificial baritone or bass aria, we at once feel with satisfaction
that the former alone accords with nature and art. The fact that
great masters like Mozart and Rossini are able to mitigate and
even to overcome that drawback does not dispose of it.
A much purer musical pleasure than that afforded by the
opera is that of the sung mass. Its words which in most cases are
not distinctly heard, or its endlessly repeated alleluias, glorias,
eleisons, amens, and so on, become a mere solfeggio in which
the music, preserving only the general ecclesiastical character,
moves freely and is not, as in the case of operatic singing, im-
paired in its own sphere by miseries of every kind. Here un-
checked it therefore develops all its forces since, unlike Protestant
morality, it does not always grovel on the ground with the
oppressive puritan or methodist character of Protestant church
music, but like a seraph soars freely with its great pinions. The
mass and symphony alone give pure and unalloyed musical
pleasure, whereas in the opera the music is tortured by the
shallow drama and its pseudo-poetry and tries to get on as best
it can with the foreign burden that has been imposed on it.
Although not exactly commendable, the sneering contempt with
which the great Rossini has sometimes treated the text is at any
rate genuinely musical. But speaking generally, since grand
opera, by lasting three hours, continues to blunt our musical
susceptibility, whilst the snail's pace of an often very insipid
action puts our patience to the test, it is in itself essentially of a
wearisome and tedious nature. This defect can be overcome
only by the extraordinary excellence of the particular per-
formance; and so in this class only masterpieces can be enjoyed
and everything mediocre is to be condemned. The attempt
should be made to concentrate and contract opera in order to
limit it, if possible, to one act and one hour. Fully aware of this,
the authorities at the Teatro della Vaile in Rome when I was
there hit upon the bad expedient of arranging alternately the
acts of an opera and a comedy. The maximum duration of an
opera should be two hours, that of a drama, on the other hand,
three because the requisite attention and mental exertion hold
out longer, since it wearies us much less than does the incessant
music, which in the end becomes nerve-racking. The last act of
an opera is therefore, as a rule, a torment to the audience and
an even greater one to the singers and musicians. Accordingly,
we might imagine that here we are looking at a large audience
who are assembled for the purpose of self-torture, and who
pursue it to the end with patience and endurance, an end for
which all have long since secretly sighed, with the exception of
the deserters. ,~
The overture should prepare us for the opera by announcing
the character of the music and the course of the events. Yet this
should not be done too explicitly and distinctly, but only in the
way in which we foresee coming events in a dream.
221
A vaudeville is comparable to one who parades in clothes he
has picked up in a second-hand shop. Every article has already
been worn by someone else for whom it was made and whom it
fitted; moreover, we see that the different articles do not belong
to one another. It is analogous to a harlequin's jacket that has
been patched together out of the rags and tatters that are cut
from the coats of respectable people. It is a positive musical
abomination that should be forbidden by the police.
222
It is worth noting that in music the value of the composition
outweighs that of the performance, whereas in drama the very
opposite applies. Thus an admirable composition, only mod-
erately yet clearly and correctly played, gives much more
pleasure than does the most excellent performance of a bad
composition. On the other hand, a bad theatrical piece, per-
formed by outstanding actors, has much more effect than does
the most admirable piece that is played by mere amateurs.
The task of an actor is to portray human nature in all its
most varied aspects, in a thousand extremely different charac-
ters, yet all these on the common basis of his individuality which
is given once for all and can never be entirely effaced. Now for
this reason, he himself must be a capable and complete specimen
of human nature, and least of all one so defective or dwarfed
that, according to Hamlet's expression, he seems to be made
not by nature herself, but 'by some of her journeymen'. Never-
theless, an actor will the better portray each character, the
nearer it stands to his own individuality; and he will play best
of all that character which corresponds to this. And so even the
worst actor has a role that he can play admirably, for he is then
like a living face among masks.
To be a good actor, it is necessary for a man ( 1) to have the
gift of being able to turn himself inside out and to show his
inner nature; (2) to have sufficient imagination in order to
picture fictitious circumstances and events so vividly that they
stir his inner nature; and (3) to have enough intelligence,
experience, and culture to enable him to have a proper under-
standing of human characters and relations.
'Man's struggle with fate', which our dull, hollow, puffed-up,

and sickly-sweet modern aesthetes have for about fifty years
unanimously stated to be the universal theme of tragedy, has
for its assumption the freedom of the will, that folly of all the
ignorant, and also the categorical imperative whose moral
purposes or comn1ands, in spite of fate, are now to be carried
out. In all this, the aforesaid gentlemen then find their edifica-
tion. But that pretended theme of the tragedy is a ridiculous
notion just because it would be the struggle with an invisible
opponent, a tilter or jouster in a magic hood of mist, against
whom every blow would, therefore, hit the air and into whose
arms we should be cast in trying to avoid him, as happened to
Laius and Oedipus. Moreover, fate is all-powerful; and thus to
fight it would be the most ludicrous of all presumptions, so that
Byron is perfectly right in saying:
'To strive, too, with our fate were such a strife
As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle.'
Don]uan, v. 17.
Shakespeare also understood the matter thus:
'Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be, and be this so! '
Twelfth Night, Act 1, the close.
Incidentally, this verse is one of those exceedingly rare ones that
gain in translation:
']etzt kannst du deine Macht, o Schicksal zeigen:
Was sein soil muss geschehn, und Keiner ist sein eigen.'
With the ancients the concept of fate is that of a necessity
which is hidden in the totality of things. Without any considera-
tion either for our wishes and prayers or guilt and merit, this
necessity guides human affairs and draws together on its secret
bond even those things that are outwardly most independent of
one another, in order to bring them whither it will so that their
obviously fortuitous coincidence is in a higher sense necessary.
Now just as, by virtue of this necessity, everything is pre-
ordained (fatum), so too is a previous knou!/edge of it possible
through oracles, seers, dreams, and so on.
Providence is Christianized fate and thus fate transformed
into the purpose of a God which is directed to the greatest good
of the world.
224
I regard as the aesthetic purpose of the chorus in the tragedy
firstly that, along with the view of things which the chief
characters have who are stirred by the storm of passions, that
of calm and disinterested deliberation should be mentioned; and
secondly, that the essential moral of the piece, which is success-
ively disclosed in concreto by the action thereof, may at the same
time also be expressed as a reflection on this in abstracto and
consequently in brief. Acting in this way, the chorus is like the
bass in music which, as a constant accompaniment, enables one
to perceive the fundamental note of each single chord of the

progression.
225
Just as the strata of the earth show us in their impressions the
forms of living creatures from a world of the remotest past,
impressions that preserve throughout countless thousands of
years the trace of a brief existence, so in their comedies have the
ancients left us a faithful and lasting impression of their gay life
and activity. The impression is so clear and accurate that it
seems as if -they had done this with the object of bequeathing
to the remotest posterity at least a lasting picture of a fine and
noble existence whose transitory and fleeting nature they
regretted. Now if we again fill with flesh and blood these frames
and forms which have been handed down to us, by presenting
Plautus and Terence on the stage, then that brisk and active
life of the remote past again appears fresh and bright before us,
just as ancient mosaic floors, when wetted, stand out once more
in the brilliance of their old colours.
226
The only genuine German comedy, coming from and
portraying the true nature and spirit of the nation, is, with the
exception of Minna von Barnhelm, IfHand's play. The merits and
qualities of these pieces, like those of the nation they faithfully
portray, are more moral than intellectual, whereas the very
opposite could be stated of French and English comedies. The
Germans are so rarely original that, when once they prove to be,
we should not pitch into them, as did Schiller and the Schlegels
who were unjust to Iffiand and even against Kotzebue went too
far. In the same way, men are to-day unjust to Raupach,
whereas they show their approbation for the farces of wretched
bunglers.
227
The drama generally, as the most perfect mirror of human
existence, has a threefold climax in its way of interpreting this
and consequently in its purpose and pretension. At the first and
most frequent stage, it stops at what is merely interesting; the
characters call for our sympathy in the pursuit of their own aims
that are similar to ours. The action proceeds through the
intrigue, the characters, and chance; and wit and the jest are
the spice of the whole. At the second stage, the drama becomes
sentimental; sympathy is excited for the heroes and indirectly
for ourselves. The action becomes pathetic and yet at the end it
returns to peace and contentment. At the highest and most
difficult stage, the tragic is contemplated. The severe suffering
and misery of existence are brought home to us and here the
vanity of all human effort is the final conclusion. We are pro-
foundly shaken and, either directly or as an accompanying
harmonic note, there is stirred in us a turning away of the will
from life.
Naturally I have not taken into consideration the drama of
political tendency which flirts with the momentary whims of
the flattering and sugary populace, that favourite product of
our present-day writers. Such pieces soon lie as dead as old
calendars, often in the following year. Yet this does not worry
those writers, for the appeal to their 11use contains only one
prayer: 'Give us this day our daily bread'.
228
All beginning, it is said, is difficult; in the art of drama, how-
ever, the opposite applies and all ending is difficult. This is
proved by the innumerable dramas which promise well in the
first half, but then become obscure, halting, uncertain, especially
in the notorious fourth act, and finally peter out in a forced or
unsatisfactory ending, or in one that was long foreseen by every-
one, or sometimes, as in Emilia Gaiotti, in one that is revolting
and sends the audience home in a thoroughly bad mood. This
difficulty of the ending is due in part to the fact that it is always
easier to entangle affairs than to unravel them; but also to some
extent to the fact that at the beginning we give the poet carte
blanche, whereas at the end we make definite demands. Thus it is
to be either perfectly happy or wholly tragic, whereas human
affairs do not readily take so decided a turn. Then again it must
work out naturally, correctly, and in an unforced manner; and
yet this must not be foreseen by anyone. The same applies to
the epic and the romance; in the drama only its more compact
nature makes it more apparent in that this increases the difficulty.
The e nihilo nihil fitS applies also to the fine arts. For their
historical pictures good painters have as their models real
human beings and take for their heads actual faces drawn from
life which they then idealize either as regards their beauty or
their character. Good novelists, I believe, do the same thing;
they base their characters on actual human beings of their
acquaintance who serve as their models and whom they now
idealize and complete in accordance with their own intentions.
The task of the novelist is not to narrate great events, but to
make interesting those that are trifling.
A novel will be of a loftier and nobler nature, the more of inner
and the less of outer life it portrays; and this relation will, as a
characteristic sign, accompany all gradations of the novel from
Tristram Sliandy down to the crudest and most eventful knight
or robber romance. Tristram ShaTldy has, in fact, practically no
action at all; but how little there is in La Nouvelle Heloise and
~Vilhelm Meister! Even Don Quixote has relatively little; it is very
insignificant and tends to be comical; and these four novels are
at the top of their class. Consider further the wonderful novels
8 ('Nothing comes from nothing.' (Cf. Lucretius, 1. 545.)]

of jean Paul and see how much inner life they set in motion on
the narrowest foundation of the outer. Even the novels of Sir
Walter Scott have a considerable preponderance of inner over
outer life and indeed the latter always appears only for the
purpose of setting the former in motion; whereas in inferior
novels it is there for its own sake. Art consists in our bringing
the inner life into the most intense action with the least possible
expenditure of the outer; for the inner is really the object of our
interest.
229
I frankly admit that the great reputation of the Divina
Commedia seems to me to be exaggerated. The extravagant
absurdity of the fundamental idea is largely responsible for this,
and as a result the most repulsive aspect of Christian mythology
is in the Inferno at once brought vividly to our notice. Then again
the obscurity of the style and allusions also contributes its share:
Omnia enim stolidi magis admirarltur, amantque,
lnversis quae sub verbis latitantia cernunt.9
Nevertheless, the brevity of style, often bordering on the laconic,
the energy of expression, but even more the incomparable
power of Dante's imagination, are certainly very remarkable.
By virtue thereof he imparts to the description of impossible
things a palpable truth that is consequently akin to that of a
dream. For as he cannot have had any experience of such
things, it seems that he must have dreamt them in order to be
able to paint them in such vivid, exact, and distinct colours.
On the other hand, what are we to say when, at the end of the
eleventh canto of the Inferno, Virgil describes the breaking of
the day and the setting of the stars, but forgets that he is in hell
and under the earth and that only at the end of this main part
will he quindi uscire a riveder le stelle? 10 The same blunder is found
once more at the end of the twentieth canto. Are we to assume
that Virgil carries a watch and therefore knows what at the
moment is going on in heaven? To me this seems to be a worse
9 ['Fools admire and like to excess all that is said to them in flowery language
and in queer and puzzling words.' (Lucretius, I. 641-2.)]
10
['Come out from there to see the stars again.' (Dante, Inferno, can. XXIV
last line.)]
case of forgetfulness than the well-known one concerning Sancho
Panza's ass, of which Cervantes was guilty.
The title of Dante's work is very original and striking and
there is little doubt that it is ironical. A comedy indeed~ Truly
the world would be such, a comedy for a God whose insatiable
lust for revenge and studied cruelty in the last act gloated over
the endless and purposeless torture of the beings whom he
uselessly and frivolously called into existence, namely because
they had not turned out in accordance with his intention and
in their short life had done or believed otherwise than to his
liking. Moreover, compared with his unexampled cruelty, all
the crimes so severely punished in the Inferno would not be
worth talking about. Indeed, he himself would be far worse than
all the devils we encounter in the Inferno; for naturally these are
acting only on his instructions and by virtue of his authority.
And so Father Zeus will hardly be grateful for the honour of
being summarily identified with him, as is done strangely
enough in several passages (e.g. can. XIV, 1. 70 ;-can. XXXI,
l. 92). In fact, the thing is carried to absurdity in the Purgatorio,
can. VI, l. 118: o sommo Giove, Che fosti in terra per noi crocifisso. u
What on earth would Zeus say to this? "Q 1rmrot! 12 The Russian
servile nature of the submissiveness ofVirgil, Dante, and every-
one to his comn1ands and the trembling obedience with which
his ukazes are everywhere received are positively revolting. Now
this slavish mentality is carried by Dante himself in his own
person to such lengths (can. XXXIII, 11. I og-so) that he is guilty
of a total lack of honour and conscience in a case that he himself
relates with pride. Thus for him honour and conscience no
longer mean anything, the moment they interfere in any way
with the cruel decrees of Domeneddio. And so for obtaining a
statement, there is the promise he firmly and solemnly gave to
pour a tiny drop of relief into the pain of one of those deliberate-
ly planned and cruelly executed tortures; after the tortured
victim fulfilled the condition imposed on him, the promise was
shamelessly and boldly broken by Dante in a manner devoid of
honour and conscience, in majorem Dei gloriam.u This he does
because he considers it absolutely inadmissible to ease in the
11 ['Exalted Jupiter, who for us were crucified on earth'.]
u ('Alas!']
IJ ['To the greater glory of God'.]
slightest degree a pain that is imposed by God, even though
here it meant only the wiping away of a frozen tear, an act that
he was not expressly forbidden to do. He therefore refrains from
doing it, however solemnly he had vowed and promised to do
so the moment before. In heaven such things may be customary
and praiseworthy, I do not know; but whoever behaves in this
way on earth is called a scoundrel. Incidentally, it is clear from
this how difficult it is for every morality that has no other basis
than the will of God; for then good can become bad and bad
good as rapidly as are the poles of an electro-magnet reversed.
The whole of Dante's Inferno is really an apotheosis of cruelty and
here in the last canto but one lack of honour and conscience is
glorified in the aforesaid manner.
'\Vhatever's true in every place
I speak with bold and fearless face.'
Goethe.
Moreover, for the created the thing would be a divina tragedia,
and indeed without end. Even though the prelude preceding it
may prove to be pleasant and amusing in places, this is never-
theless infinitesimally small in comparison with the endless
duration of the tragic part. One cannot help thinking that
Dante had at the back of his mind a secret satire on this pretty
world order, otherwise it would need a quite peculiar taste to
delight in painting revolting absurdities and never-ending
scenes of execution.
For me my beloved Petrarch comes before all the other
Italian poets. In depth and intensity of feeling and in the direct
expression thereof which goes straight to the heart, no poet on
earth has ever surpassed him. His sonnets, triumphs, and
canzones are, therefore, incomparably dearer to me than are
the fantastic farces of Ariosto and the hideous caricatures of
Dante. The natural flow of his language, coming straight from
the heart, speaks to me in a manner quite different from that of
Dante's studied and even affected paucity of words. Petrarch
has always been and will remain the poet of my heart. That our
super-excellent 'Jetz.tzeit' 14 ventures to speak disparagingly of
him merely confirms me in my opinion. As a superfluous proof
['Present-day' (A cacophonous word here ~d ironically by Schopenhauer).]

of this, we may also compare Dante and Petrarch in domestic
attire so to speak, that is to say in their prose, by placing
Petrarch's beautiful books, De vita solitaria, De contemtu mundi,
Con.solatio utriusque fortunae, and so on, so rich in ideas and truth,
and also his letters next to Dante's barren and tedious scholasti-
cism. Finally, Tasso does not seem to me to be worthy of taking
the fourth place beside the three great poets of Italy. Let us as
posterity try to be just, even though as contemporaries we
cannot be.
230
With Homer things always receive those predicates that
belong to them generally and absolutely, not those that are re-
lated or analogous to what is just taking place. For example, the
Achaeans are always called the well-shod, the earth always the
nourisher of life, heaven the wide, the sea wine-dark. This is
the characteristic of that objectiviry which in Homer is so uniquely
expressed. Like nature herself, he leaves the objects untouched by
human events and moods. Whether his heroes rejoice or mourn,
nature pursues her course unconcerned. On the other hand,
when subjective men are -sad, the whole of nature seems to them
to be sombre and gloomy, and so on. Not so with Homer.
Of the poets of our time, Goethe is the most objective, Byron
the most subjective. The latter always speaks only of himself and
even in the most objective kinds of poetry, such as the drama
and epic, he describes himself in the hero.
Goethe, however, is related to Jean Paul as the positive pole
to the negative.
231
Goethe's Egmont is a person who takes life easily and who
must atone for this error. But by way of compensation, the same
attitude of mind also enables him to take death easily. The
folk-scenes in Egmont are the chorus.
232
At the Academy of Arts in V enicc, there is among the frescoes
painted on canvas a picture which actually shows the gods
enthroned on clouds at golden tables and on golden seats, and
underneath are the guests who, insulted and disgraced, are
hurled into the depths of night. It is quite certain that Goethe
saw this picture when he wrote Iphigenia on his first Italian
JOUrney.
232a
The story in Apuleius, of the widow with a vision of her
husband who had been murdered at the chase, is wholly
analogous to that of Hamlet.
Here I would like to insert a conjecture concerning Shake-
speare's masterpiece. It is, of course, very bold, yet I would
like to submit it to the judgement of those who really know.
In the famous monologue: 'To be or not to be', we have the
words: 'when we have shuffled off this mortal coil', which have
always been considered obscure and even puzzling, and yet
have never been thoroughly explained. Should there not have
been originally 'shuttled off'? This verb itself no longer exists,
but 'shuttle' is an implement used in weaving. Accordingly,
the meaning might be: 'when we have unwound and worked
off this coil of mortality'. A slip of the pen could easily occur. 1s
233
History, which I always like to think of along with poetry as
the opposite thereof (wropovfLVOV-'1TE1TOt'l),dvov),I 6 is for time
what geography is for space. And so the latter is just as
little a science in the proper sense as is the former, because it
too has for its object not universal truths, but only particular
things; on this point I refer the reader to my chief work,
volume ii, chapter 38. It has always been a favourite study of
those who want to learn something without undergoing the
effort required by the real branches of knowledge which tax
and engross the intellect. But in our day, it is more popular
than ever, as is shown by the countless history-books that
appear every year. Whoever, like myself, cannot help always
seeing the same thing in all history, just as at every turn of the
kaleidoscope we always see the same things under different
configurations, cannot share that passionate interest, although
he will not find fault therewith. The only thing that is ludicrous
and absurd is the desire of many to make history a part of
1S [See Friedrich Kormann's remarks in SchopenhauC'-]ahrbuch, xxxv. 90.]
&6 ['Investigated-invented'.]
philosophy, and even to make it into philosophy itself, by

imagining that it can take the place of this. Social intercourse,
as is customary in the world, can be regarded as an explanation
of the special liking for history which has at all times been a
peculiarity of the greater public. Thus, as a rule, such inter-
course consists in the fact that one man narrates something,
whereupon another gives an account of something different;
and on this condition everyone is certain of the attention of the
rest. Here also, as in history, we see the mind occupied
exclusively with the particular thing as such. As in the sciences,
so too in every nobler conversation the mind rises to the
universal. However, this does not deprive history of its value.
Human life is so short and fleeting and spread over countless
millions of individuals who plunge in crowds into the ever-
open, ever-waiting jaws of the monster oblivion that it is a
most praiseworthy endeavour to rescue something of it, that is,
the memory of the most interesting and important things,
leading events and prominent people, from the general ship-
wreck of the world.
On the other hand, history might be regarded as a con-
tinuation of zoology in so far as, with the animals collectively,
a consideration of the species suffices, whereas with man, as
having an individual character, we must also become acquain-
ted with individuals and with the particular events that
condition them. From this the essential imperfection of history
at once follows, for the individuals and events are countless and
endless. A study of them shows that the sum total of that which
is still to be learnt is by no means reduced by all that has been
learnt about them. With all the sciences proper, it is possible
to arrive at a completeness of knowledge. When the history of
China and India lies before us, the endlessness of the material
will reveal to us the mistaken path and force the misguided
student to see that we must recognize the many in the one, the
rule in the individual case, and the activity of races in the
knowledge of mankind, but not that we must enumerate facts
ad infinitum.
From one end to the other, history is a narrative of nothing
but wars, and the same theme is the subject of all the most
ancient works of art as of the most modern. The origin of all
war, however, is the desire to steal; and so Voltaire quite rightly
says: dans toutes les guerres il ne s' agit que de voler. 11 Thus as soon
as a nation feels an excess of strength, it falls on its neighbours and
enslaves them so that, instead of living by its own labour, it
may appropriate the result of theirs, whether this merely
exists now or includes the future product as well. This furnishes
the material for world history and its heroic deeds. In French
dictionaries, in particular, artistic and literary fame should
first be discussed under the word 'gloire' , 1s and then under the
words 'gloire militaire' 19 there should be simply ' Vtryez hutin.' 20
It seems, however, that when two very religious peoples, the
Hindus and Egyptians, felt an excess of strength, they used it
in most instances not for predatory campaigns or heroic deeds,
but for buildings that defy the ravages of thousands of years and
render their memory sacred.
In addition to the above-mentioned imperfections of history,
there is also the fact that Clio, the muse of history, is as
thoroughly infected with lies and falsehood as is a common
prostitute with syphilis. It is true that the modern critical
investigation of history endeavours to cure this, but with its
local means it overcomes only isolated symptoms that break
out here and there; moreover, much quackery 21 often creeps
in which aggravates the evil. It is more or less the same as
regards all history, with the exception of sacred history of
course. I believe that the events and persons in history re-
semble those that actually existed about as much as the
portraits of writers on the title-pages of their books in most
cases resemble the authors themselves. And so they are like
them only in rough outline, so that they have a faint resem-
blance, often distorted entirely by one feature that is false; but
sometimes there is no resemblance at all.
The newspapers are the seconds-hand of history; yet this is
often not only of baser metal, but is seldom right. The so-called
'leading articles' in the papers are the chorus to the drama of
contemporary events. Exaggeration of every kind is as essential
17 ['In all wars it is only a question of stealing.']

18 ('Glory'.]
10 ['Military glory'.]
:w ['See "Booty"'.]
.zt [Schopenhauer uses the word Quacksalberei and may have had in mind a play
on the word Quecksilber (mercury).]
to journalism as it is to dramatic art; for as much as possible
must be made of every event; and so by virtue of their profession
all journalists are alarmists; this is their way of making them-
selves interesting, whereby they resemble small dogs who at
once start barking loudly at everything that stirs. We accord-
ingly have to regulate our attention to their alarm-trumpet so
that they will not upset our digestion; and we should know
generally that the newspaper is a magnifying glass, and tllis
even in the best case; for it is very often a mere phantasmagoria.
In Europe world history is still accompanied by a quite
peculiar chronological daily indicator which, with the intuitive
presentation of events, enables us to recognize every decade at
first sight and is under the direction of tailors. (For example, a
reputed portrait of Mozart, which was exhibited at Frankfurt
in 1856 and showed him in his early years, was at once recog-
nized by me as not genuine because the clothes he was wearing
belonged to a period twenty years earlier.) Only in the present
decade has this indicator got out of order because our own day
does not even possess enough originality to invent, like any
other, a fashion of dress of its own, but presents only a
masquerade in which people as living anachronisms run round
in all kinds of costumes of earlier periods that were long ago
discarded. Even the period preceding it had the necessary
intelligence to invent the dress-coat.
More closely considered, the matter is that, just as everyone
has a physiognomy whereby we provisionally judge him, so
too has every age one that is no less characteristic. For the
spirit of any particular time is like a sharp east wind that blows
through everything; and so we find a trace of it in all that is
done, thought, or written, in n1usic and painting and in the
flourishing of this or that art. It impresses its stamp on each
and every thing. Thus, for example, there had to be the age of
phrases without sense as also that of music without melody and
of forms without aim and purpose. At best, the thick walls of a
convent can stop access to the east wind provided that it docs
not blow them down. Therefore, the spirit of a period gives it
also its external physiognomy. The ground-bass to this is
always played by the architecture of the times; in the first
place, all ornaments, vessels, furniture, implements, and
utensils of every kind, and finally even clothes and also the
way of trimming hair and beards are regulated by it.* As I have

said, through a want of originality in all these things, the
present age bears the stamp of a lack of character. But the most
lamentable thing is that it has mainly selected as its model the
crude, stupid, and ignorant Middle Ages from which it
occasionally wanders over into the period of Francis I of France
and even of Louis XIV. How its external appearance, preserved
in pictures and buildings, will one day impress posterity! Its
mercenary mob-flatterers call it by the characteristically
melodious name of Jet;;,t.zeit or 'now-time', as though it were
the present Ka:r' gox~v, 22 the present finally attained and prepared
by all the past. Think of the reverence and awe with which
posterity will contemplate our palaces and country-houses that
have been built in the most wretched rococo style of the period
of Louis XIV! But when it looks at the portraits and daguerreo-
types, it will hardly know what to make of the shoeblack-
physiognomies with Socratic beards and of the bucks and
dandies dressed up like the peddling Jews of my youth.
Part of the general lack of taste in this age is seen in the fact
that, in the monuments which are erected to great men, these
are shown in modern dress. For the monument is erected to the
ideal not the real person, to the hero as such, to the bearer of
this or that quality, to the author of certain works or actions.
It is not erected to the man who was once pushed and hustled
round the world and was burdened with all the faults and
failings attaching to our nature; and just as these things should
not be glorified, so one should not throw a glamour over the
coat and trousers he once wore. As an ideal person, however, he
should stand in human form, dressed merely in the 1nanner of
the ancients, and should, therefore, be half in the nude. And
only so is it appropriate to sculpture which relies on the mere
form and requires that the human figure be complete and not
dwarfed or stunted.
* As a semi-mask, the beard should be forbidden by the police. Moreover, as a
distinctive mark of sex in the centre of the face, it is obscene and therefore pleases
women. It was always the barometer of mental culture with the Greeks and
Romans. Of the latter, Scipio Africanus was the first to shave (Pliny, Historia
naluralis, lib. vn, c. 59) and under the Antonines the beard ventured to show itself
again. Charlemagne would not tolerate it, bur in the Middle Ages it reached its
culminating point in Henry IV. Louis XIV abolished it.
:r.a ['Par exullence'.]
And while talking of monuments, I will also observe that it
is an obvious lack of taste, in fact an absurdity, to put a statue
on a pedestal ten to twenty feet high where no one can ever
see it clearly, especially as it is usually made of bronze and is,
therefore, of darkish colour. Seen from a distance, it is not
clear; but when we approach it, it is so high up that it has a
clear sky as its background, which dazzles the eyes. In Italian
cities, especially in Florence and Rome, the statues stand in
large numbers in the squares and streets, but are all on quite
low pedestals so that they can be clearly seen. Even the
colossal statues on Monte Cavallo are on a low pedestal. Thus
even here we see the good taste of the Italians. The Germans,
on the other hand, are fond of a tall confectioner's stand with
reliefs to illustrate the exhibited hero.
234
At the conclusion of this chapter on aesthetics, a place may
be found for my opinion of Boisseree's collection of paintings of
the old Lower Rhine school, which now happens to be in
Munich.
To be enjoyable, a genuine work of art does not really need
to have the preamble of a history of art. Yet with no class of
paintings is this so much the case as with those that are here
discussed. At any rate, we shall correctly estimate their value
only when we have seen what painting was like before Jan van
Eyck. Thus it was in the style that came from Byzantium and
so on a gold ground, in distemper, with figures devoid of life
and movement, stiff and rigid and moreover with massive
aureoles containing the name of the saint. As a true genius,
Van Eyck returned to nature, gave to the paintings a back-
ground, to the figures a lifelike attitude, demeanour, and
grouping, to the faces expression and truth, and to the folds
correctness. Furthermore, he introduced perspective and
generally attained in technical execution the highest possible
perfection. Some of his successors, such as Schoreel and Hem-
ling (or Memling), stuck to this path; others returned to the
old absurdities. Even he himself had always to retain as many
of these as were obligatory in accordance with ecclesiastical
opinion. For example, he still had to make aureoles and massive
rays oflight; but we see that he eliminated as much as he could.
Accordingly, he is always at war with the spirit of his times and
so too are Schoreel and Hemling; consequently they are to be
judged with regard to their time. It is this that is responsible
for the fact that the subjects of their pictures are often meaning-
less, absurd, always trite and commonplace, and ecclesiastical;
for example, 'The Three Kings', 'The Dying Mary', 'St.
Christopher', 'St. Luke painting the Virgin Mary', and so on.
It is likewise the fault of their time that their figures hardly
ever have a free and purely human attitude and countenance,
but generally make ecclesiastical signs and gestures, in other
words, the forced, studied, humble, and creeping movements
of the beggar. Moreover, those painters were not acquainted
with antiquity and hence their figures rarely have beautiful
faces; on the contrary, these arc in most cases ugly; nor do
they ever have beautiful limbs. There lacks an atmospheric
perspective, although the linear is for the most part correct.
They have made nature the source of everything, just as she
was known to them; accordingly, the expression of the faces is
true and honest, but it never says much and not one of their
saints has in his countenance a trace of that sublime expression
of true holiness, one that only the Italians give, especially
Raphael and Correggio in his earlier pictures.
Accordingly, the pictures in question could be objectively
criticized by saying that they have for the most part the highest
technical perfection in the presentation of what is real and
actual, of heads as well as of garments and material, almost as
much as was attained long afterwards in the seventeenth
century by the Dutch school proper. On the other hand, the
noblest expression, supreme beauty and true grace have
remained foreign to them. But as these are the ends of art to
which technical perfection is related as the means, they are
not works of art of the highest rank. In fact, they are not
absolutely enjoyable, for the foregoing defects together with the
pointless subjects and general ecclesiastical gestures, must
always first he deducted and put to the account of the times.
Their principal merit, yet only in the case of Van Eyck and
his best pupils, consists in the most deceptive imitation of
reality which is obtained through a clear glance into nature
and an iron diligence in painting. Then there is the vividness
of their colours, a merit that is exclusively peculiar to them.
With such colours no painting has been done either before or
since them; they are glaring and fiery and bring to light the
greatest energy of colour; and so after four hundred years,
these pictures look as if they were painted yesterday. If only
Raphael and Correggio had known of such colours! But they
remained a secret of the school and have, therefore, been lost.
They should be chemically examined.
CHAPTER XX
On Judgement, Criticism,
Approbation and Fame
235
Kant has stated his aesthetics in the Critique of Judgement;
accordingly, in this chapter I shall also add to the aesthetic
remarks, already given, a brief critique of judgement, but only
of the empirically given faculty, mainly in order to say that for
the most part there is no such thing, since it is almost as rare a
bird as is the phoenix for whose appearance we have to wait
five hundred years.
236
With the expression taste which is not tastefully chosen, we
mean that discovery or even mere recognition of what is
aesthetically right, such as occurs without the guidance of any
rule since either no rule extends so far, or it was not known
to the man exercising it or to the mere critic as the case may be.
Instead of taste, one could say aesthetic feeling, did this not
contain a tautology.
The taste that interprets and judges is, so to speak, the female
element to the male one of productive talent or genius. Not
capable of producing or generating, taste consists in the ability to
receive, in other words, to recognize, as such, what is right,
beautiful, and appropriate, and also the opposite thereof and
thus to distinguish the good from the bad, to discover and
appreciate the former and to reject the latter.
237
Authors can be divided into meteors, planets, and fixed stars.
The meteors produce a loud momentary effect; we look up,
shout 'see there!' and then they are gone for ever. The planets
and comets last for a much longer time. They often shine more
brightly than the fixed stars and are taken for these by the
454 ON JUDGEMENT, CRITICISM, ETC.
inexperienced, although this is only because they are near.
However, they too n1ust soon give up their place; in addition,
they have only borrowed light and a sphere of influence that is
limited to their own satellites (contemporaries). They wander
and change; a circulation of a few years is all they have. The
fixed stars alone are constant and unalterable; their position
in the firmament is fixed; they have their own light and are at
all times active, because they do not alter their appearance
through a change in our standpoint, for they have no parallax.
Unlike the others, they do not belong to one system (nation)
alone, but to the world. But just because they are situated so
high, their light usually requires many years before it becomes
visible to the inhabitants of the earth.
To estimate a genius, we should take not the faults and

shortcomings in his productions or the poorer of his works in
order then to rate him low, but only his best work. For even in
what is intellectual, the weakness and perversity of human
nature stick so firmly that indeed the most brilliant mind is
not always entirely free from them. Hence the grave defects
to be seen even in the works of the greatest men and so Horace
says: quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. 1 On the other hand, what
distinguishes the genius and should, therefore, be the standard
for judging hin1, is the height to which he was able to soar when
tin1e and the Inood were favourable and which for ever remains
beyond the reach of ordinary talents. In the same way, it is
very hazardous to draw a parallel between great men in the
same class, for instance, great poets, great musicians, philoso-
phers, and artists, because here one is almost inevitably unjust,
at any rate for the moment. We then have in view the charac-
teristic excellence of the one and inunediately find that this is
wanting in another, whereby the latter is disparaged. If,
however, we start again from this man and his characteristic
yet quite different excellence, we shall seek in vain for this in
the former and accordingly both will then suffer unmerited
depreciation.
1 ['(I am mortified) whenever the great Homer nods.' (Ars poetica, 359.)]
ON JUDGEMENT, CRITICISM, ETC. 455
238a
There are critics each of whom imagines that it rests with
him to say what is supposed to be good and what bad, since he
regards his penny trumpet as the trombone of fame.
Just as a medicine does not effect its purpose when the dose
is too large, so is it the same with censure and criticism if these
exceed the measure of justice.
239
A misfortune for intellectual merit is that it has to wait until
what is good is praised by those who themselves produce only
what is bad. Indeed, speaking generally, it has to receive its
crown at the hands of mankind's power of judgement, a quality
with which the majority are as much endowed as is a castrated
man with the power of procreation; I mean one that is only a
feeble and fruitless analogue to the real thing, so that the
actual quality itself is to be reckoned as one of the rare gifts of
nature. Therefore what La Bruyere says is unfortunately as true
as it is neat: Apres l' esprit de discernement, ce qu'il y a au monde de
plus rare, ce sont les diamans et les perles. 2 Faculty of discernment,
esprit de discernement, and accordingly power of judgement; it is
these that are wanting. They do not know how to distinguish
the genuine from the spurious, the oats from the chaff, gold
from copper. They do not perceive the wide gulf between the
ordinary and the rarest mind. No one is taken for what he is,
but for what others make of him. This is the dodge for keeping
down those with outstanding intellects; mediocrities use it to
prevent for as long as possible distinguished minds from coming
to the top. The result of this is the drawback that is expressed in
the old-fashioned verse:
'Now here on earth 'tis the fate of the great,
When they no longer live, we them appreciate.'
If any genuine and excellent work appears, it first finds in its
path and already in occupation of its place that which is bad
and is considered good. Now when after a long and hard
struggle, it actually succeeds in vindicating for itself a place and
2['Next to the power of judgement the rarest things in the world are diamonds
and pearls.']
in coming into vogue, it will again not be long before men
drag up some affected, brainless, and boorish imitator, in order
quite coolly and calmly to put him on the altar next to genius.
For they see no difference, but quite seriously imagine that their
imitator is just such another great man. For this reason,
Yriarte begins his twenty-eighth fable of literature with the
words:J
Siempre acostumbra hacer el vulgo necio
De lo bueno y lo malo igual aprecio.
(At all times have the vulgar herd
Equally relished the good and the bad.)
Soon after Shakespeare's death, his dramas had to make way
for those of Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher,
and for a hundred years had to yield the supremacy to these.
In the same way, Kant's serious philosophy was supplanted
by Fichte's humbug, Schelling's eclecticism, and Jacobi's
mawkish and pious drivel, until in the end things went to such
lengths that an utterly wretched charlatan like Hegel was put
on a level with, and even rated much higher than, Kant. Even
in a sphere that is accessible to all, we see the incomparable
Sir Walter Scott soon pushed aside from public attention by
unworthy imitators. For at bottom the public everywhere has
no sense for what is excellent and thus no idea how infinitely
rare are those capable of really achieving something in poetry,
art, or philosophy; yet their works alone are worthy of our
exclusive attention. Therefore Horace's verse
mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non D, non concessere columnae4
should daily be ruthlessly rubbed into the bunglers of poetry
and likewise of all the other higher branches of knowledge.*
These, indeed, are the weeds that do not allow the corn to
come up so that they themselves may spread over everything.
In Jacquu u Fatalisu Diderot says that all the arts are pursued by bunglers-a
very true statement indeed.
J[Tomas de Yriarte (175Q-91), a Spanish poet, and keeper of archives in the
War Office at Madrid.]
4 ['Neither gods, nor men, nor even advertising pillars permit the poet to be a
mediocrity! (Ars fJCitica, 372-3.)]
There then occurs what is finely and originally described by
Feuchtersleben who died at so early an age:
'Nothing's being done!' they insolently exclaim,
And yet the great work matures all the same.
Unseen it appears and drowned by their cry,
Quietly in modest griefit passes by.
That deplorable want of judgement is seen just as much in
the sciences, in the tenacious life of false and refuted theories.
When once they are accepted, they defy truth for fifty or even
a hundred years, just as does a stone pier the waves of the sea.
Even after a hundred years, Copernicus had not replaced
Ptolemy. Bacon, Descartes, and Locke were extremely slow
and a long time in making their way. (We need only read
d'Alcmbcrt's famous preface to the Encyclopedie.) It was the
same with Newton; consider, for instance, the anger and
contempt with which Leibniz attacked Newton's system of
gravitation in his controversy with Clarke, especially 35,
ng, 118, 120, 122, 128. Although Newton lived almost forty
years after the appearance of the Principia, his doctrine was at
the time of his death partially acknowledged, but only in
England, whereas outside his own country, he could hardly
count on twenty followers, according to the preamble to
Voltaire's account of his theory. It was precisely this account
that contributed most to the recognition of Newton's system
in France some twenty years after his death. Until then,
people in that country had stuck firmly, steadfastly, and
patriotically to the Cartesian vortices; whereas only forty years
previously the same Cartesian philosophy had been forbidden
in French schools. Again the Chancellor d' Aguesseau refused
Voltaire the imprimatur for his account of the Newtonian
doctrine. On the other hand, Newton's absurd colour theory
is in our own day still in complete command of the field forty
years after the appearance of Goethe's theory. Although Hume
started very early and wrote in a thoroughly popular style, he
escaped notice and was ignored until he was fifty. Kant had
written and taught all his life and yet he became famous only
after he was sixty. Artists and poets naturally have more scope
than have thinkers because their public is at least a hundred
times greater. Yet what did the public think of Mozart and
Beethoven during their lifetime? \Vhat was thought of Dante
and even of Shakespeare? If the latter's contemporaries had
somehow recognized his worth, at least one good and reliable
portrait of him would have come down to us from an age when
the art of painting flourished; whereas there now exist only
very doubtful paintings, a very bad copper engraving, and an
even worse bust on his tomb.s In the same way, the manu-
scripts left by him would exist in hundreds instead of being
restricted, as now, to a few signatures on legal documents. All
Portuguese are still proud of Camoes, their only poet; yet he
lived on alms that were collected for him every evening in the
street by a Negro boy whom he had brought from the Indies.
In time, no doubt, full justice will be done to everyone (tempo e
galant-uomo),6 but it is as slow and late in coming as it formerly
was from the Imperial Chamber at Wetzlar, and the tacit
condition is that he must no longer be alive. For the precept
of Jesus ben Sirach is faithfully followed: ante mortem ne laudes
hominem quemquam.7 For whoever has created immortal works
must, for his own consolation, apply to them the Indian myth
that the minutes of the lives of the immortals seem to be like
years on earth, and likewise the years on earth are only minutes
of the immortals.
This deplorable want of a power of judgement is seen also in
the fact that in every century the excellent work of earlier times
is certainly respected, whereas that of its own is not appreciated,
and the attention that is due to such work is devoted to inferior
products. Every decade goes round with them for the purpose
of being laughed at by the one that follows. And so when
genuine merit makes its appearance in their own times, men
are slow to recognize it; and this shows that they neither under-
stand, nor enjoy, nor really appreciate even the long-acknow-
ledged works of genius which they respect and admire on
authority. The proof of this is that when anything bad, Fichte's
philosophy for instance, is once established, it remains in vogue
for a generation or two. Only when its public is very large does
its fall more rapidly ensue.
s A. Wivell, An Inquiry into the Histmy, Authmtici!J, and Characteristics ofShakspeare's

PortTaits; with twenty-one engravings, London, 1836.
6 ['Time is a man of honour (though no one else is).' (Italian proverb.)]
7 ['Judge none blessed before his death.' (Ecclesiasticus 1 1 : 28.)]
240
Now just as the sun needs an eye to see its light, and music an
ear to hear its notes, so is the value of all masterpieces in art
and science conditioned by the mind which is akin and equal
to them and to which they speak. Only such a mind possesses
the magic word whereby the spirits hidden in such works are
stirred and reveal themselves. The ordinary man stands before
them as before a sealed magic cabinet, or before an instrument
which he does not know how to play and from which he can,
therefore, draw only confused and irregular notes, however
much he may like to deceive himself on this. Just as the effect
of an oil painting differs according as it is seen in a dark
corner or as the sun shines on it, so is the impression of the same
masterpiece different according to the mental capacity of the
man who is looking at it. Consequently, really to exist and live,
a fine work requires a sensitive mind, and one well conceived
needs a mind that can think. But afterwards the man who
presents such a work to the world, may only too often feel like
a maker of fireworks who has enthusiastically let off the fire-
works that took him so much time and trouble to prepare, only
to learn that he came to the wrong place and that all the
spectators were inmates of an institution for the blind. And yet
perhaps he is better off than he would be if his public had been
none but makers of fireworks; for in that case it might have
cost him his head if his display had been extraordinarily good.
241
Homogeneity is the source of all pleasure. To our sense of
beauty our own species and again our own race therein are
unquestionably the most beautiful. In intercourse with others,
everyone has a decided preference for those who resemble him,
so that to one blockhead the society of another is incomparably
preferable to that of all the great minds taken together.
Accordingly, everyone is bound to take the greatest pleasure
primarily in his own works simply because they mirror his own
mind and echo his own thoughts. Then after these, the works
of those like him will be to his taste ; and so the dull, shallow,
and eccentric man, the dealer in mere words, will express his
sincere and hearty approbation only of what is dull, shallow,
46o ON JUDGEMENT, CRITICISM, ETC.
eccentric, and merely verbose. On the other hand, he will
accept the works of great minds only on authority, because he
is forced to through fear; in his heart of hearts he really dis-
likes them. 'They do not appeal to him'; indeed they are
distasteful to him; yet this he will not admit even to himself. The
works of genius can be really enjoyed only by favoured and
gifted minds; their first recognition, however, calls for con-
siderable intellectual superiority when they still exist without
authority. Accordingly, if we consider all this, we ought not
to be surprised that approbation and fame are so late in coming
to them, but rather that they ever come to them at all. Indeed,
only by a slow and complicated process does this happen,
since every inferior mind is forced, and as it were tamed, into
gradually acknowledging the superiority of the one placed
immediately above it; and so this goes on upwards until by
degrees a result is reached where the weight of the voices defeats
their number; and this is the very condition of all genuine,
i.e. merited fame. But till then the greatest genius, even after
he has undergone his trials, must be in much the same position
as would a king among a crowd of his own people who do not
know him personally and will, therefore, not obey him when
his chief ministers do not accompany him. For no subordinate
official is capable of receiving his commands direct, since such
a man knows only the signature of his immediate superior. This
is repeated all the way up to the very top where the secretary
of the cabinet attests the signature of the minister and the
latter that of the king. With the masses, the reputation of a
genius is conditioned by analogous stages. Therefore at the
very beginning, its progress most readily comes to a standstill
because the highest authorities, of whom there can be only a
few, are very often missing. On the other hand, the further
down one goes, the more there are to whom the command
applies and so his fame is no longer brought to a standstill.
We must console ourselves over this state of affairs with the
thought that it should be regarded as fortunate when the great
majority form a judgement not on their own responsibility, but
only on the authority of others. For what kind of judgements
would we get on Plato and Kant, Homer, Shakespeare, and
Goethe, if everyone judged according to what he actually
had and enjoyed in them, and if it were not the compelling
force of authority that made him say what was fit and proper,
however little at heart he may feel inclined to do so? Without
such a state of affairs, it would be impossible for true merit of
a high order to gain a reputation at all. At the same time, it is
also fortunate that everyone has enough judgement of his own,
as is necessary for him to recognize the superiority and to
submit to the authority of the man immediately above him.
In this way, the many ultimately submit to the authority of
the few and there results that hierarchy of judgements whereon
is established the possibility of a firm and ultimately far-
reaching fame. For the lowest class to whom the merits of a
great mind are quite inaccessible, there is in the end only the
monument which through the impression on their senses stirs
in them a faint notion of those merits.
242
The fame of merit of a higher order is as much opposed by
enl!J as by a want of judgement. For even in the lowest kinds of
work, envy is at the outset opposed to fame and stays with it
to the very end; and so it greatly contributes to the depravity
and wickedness of the world and its ways and Ariosto is right in
describing it as
questa assai piu oscura, che serena
Vita mortal, tutta d' inuidia puma. 8
Thus envy is the soul of that league of all the mediocrities which
is formed secretly and informally, flourishes everywhere, and in
every branch of knowledge is opposed to the distinguished and
outstanding individual. Thus in his own sphere of activity no
one will hear of or tolerate such eminence, but the universal
watchword of mediocrity is everywhere: si quelqu'un excelle parmi
nous, qu'il aille exceller ailleurs. 9 Therefore in addition to the
rarity of an excellent work and to the difficulty it finds in
being understood and acknowledged, there is that envy of
thousands who all agree to suppress it and, where possible, to
stifle it altogether.
There are two ways of behaving towards merit; either to
8 ('In this life of man which is more sombre and melancholy than b.r:ight and
cheerful and is so full of envy.']
9 ['If anyone makes his mark among us, let him go and do so elsewhere.']
have some of one's own, or to admit none in others. On
account of its greater convenience, the latter is in most cases
preferred.
Thus as soon as eminent talent in any branch of knowledge
makes itself felt, all the mediocrities therein unanimously
strive to cover it up, to deprive it of opportunity, and in every
way to prevent it from being known, displayed, and brought to
light, just as if it were high treason against their incapacity,
shallowness, and amateurishness. In most cases, their system of
suppression is for a long time successful, simply because the
genius, who offers them his work with childlike trust and
confidence so that they may enjoy it, is least able to hold his
own against the tricks and dodges of mean fellows who are
thoroughly at home only in what is common and vulgar. In
fact, he never even suspects or understands them; and then,
bewildered and dismayed by the reception he gets, he begins to
have doubts about his own work and mav then lose confidence
'
in himself and abandon his attempts, unless his eyes are
opened in time to those worthless fellows and their activities.
Not to look for instances from the too recent past or from
remote and legendary antiquity, let us see how the envy of
German musicians for a whole generation steadfastly refused to
acknowledge the great Rossini's merit. At a large choral society
dinner I once witnessed how they sneeringly chanted through
the menu to the melody of his immortal Di Tanti Palpiti.
Impotent envy! The melody overpowered and engulfed the
vulgar words. And so, in spite of all envy and jealousy, Rossini's
wonderful melodies have spread over the whole globe and have
refreshed and regaled every heart, as much then as they still
do today and will do in secula seculorum. 10 We see also how
German medical men, especially the reviewers and critics,
boil with rage when a man like Marshall Hall lets it be known
that he realizes he has achieved something. Envy is a sure sign
of a want of something; and so when it is directed against
merit, it is a sign of a want thereof. The attitude of envy towards
outstanding merit has been very well described by my admir-
able Balthasar Gracian in a lengthy fable; it is found in his
Discreto under the title 'Hombre de ostentacion '. In the story
10 ['For centuries to come'.]

all the birds are enraged and in league against the peacock
with his magnificent feathers. ' If only we can manage', said
the magpie, 'to prevent him from making his cursed parade
with his tail, his beauty will soon be entirely eclipsed, for what
no one sees is as good as non-existent', and so forth. Accordingly,
the virtue of modesty was also invented merely as a weapon of
defence against envy. In my chief work, volume ii, chapter 37,
I have discussed at length how at all times there are bunglers
who insist on modesty and are so heartily delighted at the
modesty of a man of merit. Goethe's well-known statement
which is distasteful to n1any, namely that 'only bunglers are
modest', has already been expressed by Cervantes who in an
appendix to his Viage al Parnaso gives as one of the instructions
for poets: Que todo poeta, d quien sus versos hubieren dado d entender
que lo es, se estime y tenga en mucho, atmiendose d aquel refran:
ruin sea el que por ruin se tiene. (Every poet whose verses
have suggested to him that he is one, should have a high
opinion of himself, relying on the proverb that a knave is one
who regards himself as such.) In many of his sonnets, the only
place where Shakespeare could speak of himself, he declares
that what he writes is immortal and says so with a confidence
equal to his ingenuousness. Collier, his modern critical editor,
says in his introduction to the sonnets, pp. 4 73-4: 'In many
there are to be found most remarkable indications of self-
confidence, and of assurance in the immortality of his verses,
and in this respect the author's opinion was constant and
uniform. He never scrupled to express it-and perhaps there
is no writer of ancient or of modern times who for the quantity
of such writings left behind him, has so frequently or so
strongly declared his firm belief that what he had written in this
department of poetry, "the world would not willingly let die".'
A method which is frequently used by envy for underrating
the good and is at bottom the mere reverse of this, is the dis-
honourable and unscrupulous praising of the bad; for as soon
as the bad gains currency, the good is lost. This method may be
effective for quite a long time, especially if it is carried out on a
large scale; however, a day of reckoning ultimately comes and
the temporary credit given to inferior productions is paid for
by the lasting discredit of their infamous eulogists who for that
reason prefer to remain anonymous.
As the same danger threatens the direct underrating and
censuring of good work, although more remotely, many are
too shrewd to run the risk of doing this. When, therefore,
eminent merit makes its appearance, the first result is often
only that all the rivals are thereby as deeply piqued as were the
birds by the peacock's tail, and enter into a profound silence
which is as unanimous as ifit had been arranged by agreement;
the tongues of all are paralysed; it is Seneca's silentium livoris.II
This malicious and spiteful silence, technically known as
ignoring, is where the matter n1ay rest for a long time when the
immediate public of such achievements, as is the case in the
higher branches of learning, consists of none but competitors
and rivals (professional men) and consequently the greater
public exercises its franchise only indirectly through them and
does not itself investigate the matter. If, however, that silentium
livoris is finally interrupted by praise, then even this will only
rarely be done without any interested motive on the part of
those who here dispense justice:
'No recognition can ever come
From the many or the one,
If it does not help to show
What the critic too might know.'
Goethe, Westostlicher Diwan.
Thus, at bottom, everyone must deprive himself of the fame

he gives to son1eone else in his mvn or a kindred branch of
knowledge; he can praise him only at the expense of his own
acceptance and importance. Consequently, in and by them-
selves, men are certainly not disposed and inclined to praise
and eulogize, but rather to blame and find fault, for they
thereby indirectly praise themselves. If, however, praise does
come from mankind, there must be other considerations and
motives. Now as the infamous way of comrades cannot be
meant here, the effective consideration then is that what is
nearest to the merit of one's own achievements are the correct
appreciation and recognition of those of others, in accordance
with the threefold gradation of minds which is drawn up by
Hesiod and Machiavelli. (See n1y Fourfold Root of the Principle
II ['The silence of envy'.]

ON JUDGEMENT, CRITICISM, ETC.
of Sufficient Reason, 20.) Now whoever abandons the hope of
making good his claim to the first class, will gladly seize the
opportunity of occupying a place in the second. Almost
entirely on this docs the certainty rest with which every merit
can look forward to its ultimate recognition. Frmn this also
comes the fact that, after the high value of a work is once
recognized and can no longer be concealed or denied, all then
vie with one another in praising and honouring it because in
this way they bring honour to themselves, in accordance with
the observation of Xenophanes: uoc/>ov E lJI(tt 8EZ TtJV myvwuop.Evoll
Tov uo6v. 1z They therefore hasten to seize for themselves the
next best thing to the prize of original merit that is beyond
their reach, namely its correct appreciation. It is much the same
here as with an army that has been forced to surrender;
whereas previously in the fight everyone wanted to be in
the forefront, in the rout he now wants to be the first to run
away. Thus everyone now hastens to offer his approbation
to that which is acknowledged as praiseworthy likewise by
virtue of the recognition, often concealed from himself, of the
law of homogeneity which I discussed in 241, so that it may
seem as though his way of thinking and looking at things is
homogeneous with that of the famous man, and that at any
rate he may save the honour of his taste which is the only
thing left to him.
From this it is easy to sec that fame is admittedly very
difficult to attain, but when once attained is easy to keep; and
also that a reputation that comes quickly soon disappears, for
here also quod cito fit, cito perit. r 3 It is obvious that achievements
whose value could be so easily recognized by the ordinary
average man and so willingly accepted by rivals, would not
be very much above the productive ability of either. For
tantum quisque laudat, quantum se posse sperat imitari.I4 Moreover,
on account of the law of homogeneity, already frequently
mentioned, a reputation that quickly appears is a suspicious
sign, for it is the direct approbation of the masses. Phocion
knew what this meant, for when he heard the loud popular
applause over his speech, he asked friends who were standing
n ['One must be a sage to recognize a sage.' J
1
l ('What rapidly originates rapidly perishes.']
" ['Everyone praises only as much as he himself hopes to achieve.' J
1
near him whether he had unintentionally said something bad
and worthless (Plutarch, Apophthegms). For opposite reasons, a
reputation that is to endure for long, will be very late in matur-
ing and the centuries of its duration must often be purchased at
the price of the approbation of contemporaries. For whatever
is to keep its position for so long, must have an excellence that
is difficult to attain; and even merely to acknowledge this calls
for men of intellect who do not always exist, at any rate in
sufficient numbers to make themselves heard, whereas envy is
always on the watch and will do everything to stifle their voice.
Moderate merits, on the other hand, are soon recognized; but
then there is the danger that their possessor outlives them and
himself, so that fame in his youth may mean for him obscurity
in his old age. On the other hand, with great merits, a man will
remain long in obscurity, but in return for this will then attain
to brilliant fame in his old age.* Should this, however, occur
only after his death, he is to be reckoned among those of whom
Jean Paul says that extreme unction is their baptism; and he
has to console himself with the saints who are also canonized
only after their death. Thus what Mahlmann has said so well
in his Herodes vor Bethlehem proves to be true:
'What's truly great in the world, it seems,
Is never that which delights at once.
The idol whom the mob creates
Its altar very soon vacates.'
It is noteworthy that this rule has its most direct confirmation
in paintings since, as connoisseurs know, the greatest master-
pieces do not at once attract the eye or make a great impression
on the first occasion, but do so only after repeated visits; and
th<m the impression they make is ever greater.
Moreover, the possibility of an early and correct appreciation
of any given works depends primarily on their description and
nature, thus according as these are high or low and consequently
difficult or easy to understand and to judge aright, and accord-
ing as they have a large or small public. This latter condition
depends, it is true, for the most part on the former, yet partly
also on whether the given works are capable of being repro-
duced in large numbers as are books and musical compositions.
Death entirely appeases envy; old age half does.
By the combined action of these two conditions, achievements,
which serve no useful purpose and are the only ones here con-
sidered, will therefore form the following series in regard to the
possibility of an early recognition and appreciation of their
value. In it first come those who have the best hope of an early
appreciation of their worth: rope-dancers, circus-riders, ballet-
dancers, conjurers, actors, singers, virtuosi, composers, poets
(both on account of the reproduction of their works), architects,
painters, sculptors, and philosophers. The last place of all is
unquestionably taken by philosophers because their works
promise not entertainment but only instruction, presuppose
knowledge, and call for much exertion on the part of the
reader. Thus their public is exceedingly small and their fame is
more impressive in its length than in its breadth. Generally
speaking, as regards the possibility of its duration, fame stands
roughly in inverse ratio to the possibility of its early appearance,
so that the above series would, therefore, apply in the reverse
order. Poets and composers will then come next to the philoso-
pher because of the possibility of preserving all written works
for all time. Nevertheless, first place belongs by right to the
philosopher because achievements in this branch of knowledge
are very much rarer and of great importance, and an almost
perfect translation of them can be made into all languages.
Sometimes the fame of philosophers outlives even their own
works. This happened to Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus,
Democritus, Parmenides, Epicurus, and many others.
On the other hand, works serving some useful purpose or
contributing directly to the enjoyment of the senses, will find
no difficulty in being properly appreciated; and in any town a
distinguished pastry-cook will not be left for long in obscurity,
to say nothing of having to appeal to posterity.
False fame is also to be classed with that which quickly
appears. It is the artificial fame of a work which is set on foot by
unfair praise, the help of friends, corrupt critics, hints from
above and collusion from below, all of which correctly pre-
supposes that the masses have no power of judgement. This
kind of fame resembles ox-bladders whereby a heavy load is
kept afloat. They bear it afloat for a longer or shorter period,
according as they are well sewn up and inflated; but the air
gradually escapes from them and the body sinks. This is the
inevitable fate of works that do not have within themselves the

source of their fame; the false praise dies away, the collusion
comes to an end, and the critic finds that the reputation is not
established; this vanishes and its place is taken by a disdain and
contempt that are the greater. On the other hand, genuine works
having the source of their fame within themselves and, therefore,
being at all times capable of always kindling admiration, are
like bodies of low specific gravity which keep themselves up of
their own accord and thus float down the stream of time.
The whole history of literature, ancient and modern, cannot
afford us any instance of false fame which could in any way be
compared with that of the Hegelian philosophy. Never at any
time has the thoroughly bad, the palpably false and absurd,
indeed the obviously senseless, and, moreover, the extremely
wearisome and repulsive, to judge by its spokesman-never, I
say, has such stuff been lauded to the skies with such shoclcing
audacity and brazen effrontery as the highest wisdom and as
the grandest thing the world has ever seen, as has this utterly
worthless pseudo-philosophy. There is no need for me to say
that the sun shone down on all this. It should, however, be
noted that with the German public all this was a complete
success; and here is to be found the scandal. For over a quarter
of a century, this shamelessly fabricated fame has been regarded
as the genuine article and the bestia trionfante 1 s has flourished
and ruled to such an extent in the republic of German scholar-
ship that even the few opponents of this folly did not dare to
speak of its wretched author except in terms of the deepest
respect as a rare genius and a great mind. But we shall not
refrain from inferring what follows from all this; for in the
history of literature, this period will always figure as a per-
manent blot of shame on the nation and the age and will be
the laughing-stock of centuries; and rightly so! Indeed, it is
certainly open to periods as well as to individuals to praise the
bad and spurn the good, but Nemesis will overtake them both
and the executioner's bell will not fail to toll. At the time
when the chorus of hirelings was systematically spreading the
fame of that mind-destroying philosophaster and his unholy
and senseless scribblings, men must have at once seen, that is,
xs ['Triumphant beast'.]
ON JUDGEMENT, CRITICISM, ETC.
if there were in Germany any with some measure of discern-
ment, what that praise was like, and that it originated solely
from intention and certainly not from insight. For it over-
flowed in profusion and to excess and spread to the four
quarters of the globe; it gushed forth from the mouths of all,
unreservedly, unconditionally, immoderately, and in full, till
words failed them. Still not content with their own many-
voiced paeans of praise, these hired applauders in the rank and
file were for ever an.xiously on the look-out for every grain of
foreign uncorrupted praise in order to glean it and hold it
aloft. Thus if some famous man had allowed himself to be
tricked or forced into uttering one little word of praise or
approbation, or even an opponent, either through fear or
charitable feeling, had sugared his criticism, then they all
sprang to their feet to pick it up and show it off in triumph.
-
Only intention goes to work in this way; and thus do hopeful
hirelings, paid applauders, and sworn literary conspirators
praise for wages. On the other hand, the sincere praise that
comes merely from insight, bears quite a different character.
Feuchtersleben has finely expressed what precedes it:
'See how they wriggle and turn and screw,
So as not to revere what's good and true!'
Thus it is very slow and late in coming; it comes singly and
sparingly Ineasured out, dispensed in drams, and always tied
up with restrictions, so that anyone receiving it may well say:
\~ I < ~~ ~ I J6
X HI\E:<X J.LEV 7' EOtTJV
I\ ) J
1
I >
V1TEp<tY'}v 0 OVK EO'TJVEV.
Iliad, XXll. 495

And yet the man dispensing it parts with it reluctantly. For it
is a reward finally wrested and unwillingly wrung from dull,
inflexible, tenacious, and envious mediocrity by the greatness
of genuine merit which can no longer be concealed. As Klop-
stock sings, it is the laurel that was worthy of a nobleman's
sweat; as Goethe says, it is the fruit
'Of that courage that sooner or later
Defeats the resistance of a dull world.'*
Fame is the admiration which is extorted from men against their will and is
bound to assert itself.
J6 ['Only the lips are moistened, not the palate.']
Accordingly, it is related to that shameless and fulsome
flattery of schen1ers as the noble and sincere bride, who was
hard to win, is to the paid prostitute whose thickly laid-on
white and red must have been at once recognized in the
Hegelian reputation if, as I said, there were in Germany any
who were discerning. If there were, then Schiller's song would
not have been realized in so flagrant a manner to the disgrace
of the nation.
'I saw fame's sacred garlands
Desecrated on a common brow.'
(Die !deale.)
The Hegelian glory, here selected as an example of false

fame, is certainly a unique fact even in Germany. And so I ask
public libraries carefully to preserve like mummies all its
documents, as well as the opera omnia of the philosophaster
himself and those of his votaries, for the instruction, warning,
and amusement of posterity and as a memorial to this age and
countrv .
If, however, we take a wider view and have in mind the
praise of contemporaries of all times, we shall find that this is
really always a whore, prostituted and polluted by a thousand
contemptible \\'retches to whose lot it has fallen. \'Vho could
still desire such a street-walker? \Vho would want to be proud
of her favours? \Vho will not treat her with disdain? On the
other hand, a man's reputation with posterity is a proud and
demure beauty who yields only to him who is worthy of her,
to the victor and rare hero. That is how the matter stands.
Incidentally, we can infer from this how badly off this race of
bipeds must be; for it requires generations and even centuries
before there can come from the hundreds of millions a few
minds who are capable of distinguishing the good from the
bad, the genuine from the spurious, gold from copper, and
accordingly who are called the tribunal of posterity. Moreover,
another circumstance favourable to this tribunal is that the
implacable envy of incapacity and the purposeful flattery of
meanness and infamy are silenced, whereby insight obtains a
hearing.
Do we not see, in keeping with that wretched state of the
human race, men of great genius, whether in poetry, philo-
sophy, or the arts, always stand out like isolated heroes, who
alone keep up a desperate struggle against the onslaught of an
army of opponents? For the dullness, coarseness, perversity,
silliness, and brutality of the vast majority of the race are for
ever opposed to their work in every form and thus constitute
that hostile army to which the heroes ultimately succumb.
Every hero is a Samson. The strong are overcon1e by the wiles
and intrigues of the many and the weak. If the strong man
loses patience, he crushes them and himself. Or he is merely a
Gulliver among the Lilliputians whose im1nense number
ultimately overwhelms him. Whatever such isolated heroes
may achieve is hardly recognized; it is tardily appreciated and
then only on the score of authority; and it is again easily set
aside, at any rate for a while. It is for ever confronted with
what is false, insipid, and absurd, all of which is better suited
to the taste of the great majority and thus generally holds the
field, even though the critic may stand before them and call
out, as did Hamlet when he held up to his wretched mother
the nvo portraits and said: 'Have you eyes? have you eyes?'
Alas they have none! \Vhcn I see people enjoying the works of
great masters and how they applaud, I am often reminded of
the so-called comedy of trained apes who behave something
like human beings, but now and then reveal that they never-
theless lack the real inner principle of those gestures, in that
they allow their irrational nature to peep through.
In consequence of all this, the expression, often used, that a
man 'is superior to his century' is to be interpreted as meaning
that he is superior to the hmnan race generally. For this
reason, he is immediately known only by those who in ability
are themselves considerably above the average. But they arc
too rare to be capable of existing at any time in large numbers.
If, therefore, such a man is not in this respect particularly
favoured by fate, he is 'misunderstood and underrated by his
own century'; in other words, he will remain unaccepted
until time has gradually brought together the voices of those
rare minds who are capable of judging a work of a high order.
After this, posterity will then say: 'the man was superior to
his century' instead of 'superior to mankind'. Thus mankind
will be glad to put on to a single century the responsibility for
its own faults. It follows from this that whoever has been
superior to his own century would indeed have been so to any
other, provided that, in any particular century, some fair and
capable critics in his sphere of achievetnents had by a rare
stroke of good fortune been born simultaneously with him; just
as when Vishnu, according to a beautiful Indian myth,
incarnates himself as a hero, Brahma at the same time comes
into the world as the minstrel of his deeds; and so Valmiki,
Vyasa, and Kalidasa are incarnations of Brahma. 17 In this
sense, it can be said that every immortal work tests whether its
age will be capable of recognizing it. In most cases the age does
not pass the test any better than did the neighbours of Philemon
and Baucis who showed the door to the unrecognized gods.
Accordingly, the correct standard for assessing the intellectual
worth of an age is given not by the great minds who appeared
in it, for their abilities are the work of nature and the possibility
of cultivating them was a matter of chance circumstances, but
by the reception their works met with at the hands of their
contemporaries. Therefore it is a question whether they met
with prompt and warm approbation, or this was tardy and
grudging, or left entirely to posterity. This, then, will be the
case especially when there are works of a high order. For the
above-mentio!led stroke of good fortune will the more certainly
fail to appear, the fewer there are generally who have access
to the particular sphere in which a great mind is working.
Here is to be found the imn1ense advantage poets enjoy in
respect of their reputation, in that they are accessible to almost
everyone. If only it had been possible for Sir Walter Scott to
be read and criticized by about a hundred persons, then
possibly any common scribbler would have been preferred to
him; and when subsequently the matt?,d been cleared up, it
would also have been said in his honour that he was 'superior
to his century'. Now if envy, dishonesty, and the pursuit of
personal aims are added to the incapacity of those hundred
persons who, in the name of the age, have to judge a work,
then such a work has the melancholy fate of one who pleads
his case before a tribunal all of whose judges are corrupt.
Accordingly, the history of literature shows generally that
those who made knowledge and insight their aim, remained
1' Polier, Mytho~gu des lndqus, vol. i, pp. 172--90.

unappreciated and forsaken, whereas those who paraded with
the mere se1nblance of such things obtained the admh ation of
their contemporaries together with the emoluments.
For an author's effectiveness is conditioned primarily by his
acquiring the reputation that he must be read. Now by tricks
and intrigues, chance and a congenial nature, a hundred
worthless fellows will quickly gain such a reputation, whereas a
worthy writer attains it slowly and tardily. Thus the former
have friends since the masses always exist in large numbers
and stick closely together; the latter, however, has only
enemies because intellectual superiority is everywhere and in all
circumstances the most unpopular thing in the world, especially
with ignorant bunglers in the same branch of knowledge, who
would like themselves to be regarded as something.* If the
professors of philosophy imagine that here I am hinting at
them and at the tactics they have employed for over thirty
years in reference to my works, then they have hit the mark.
Now since all this is the case, a principal condition for
achieving something great, for producing something that will
outlive its generation and century, is that a man shall not pay
the least attention to contemporaries or to their opinions, views,
and the praise or censure arising therefrom. Yet this condition
occurs automatically, as soon as the rest are hand in glove with
one another; and this is fortunate. For if, in producing such
works, a man were to take into account the general opinion or
views of professional colleagues, they would at every step lead
him away from the correct path. And so whoever wants to go
down to posterity must withdraw from the influence of his own
times; but for this, of course, he must also in most cases renounce
any influence on them and be ready to purchase the fame of
centuries at the price of the approbation of his contemporaries.
Thus when some new, and therefore paradoxical, truth
comes into the world, men generally will oppose it obstinately
and as long as possible; in fact, they will go on denying it even
when they waver and are almost convinced. Meanwhile, it
continues to work quietly and, like an acid, eats into everything
round it until all this is undermined. Now and again, a crash
As a rule, the quantity and quality of the public who read a work will be in
inverse ratio; thus, for example, the value of a work of poetry cannot be inferred
at all from its numerous editions.
is heard; the old error comes tottering down and suddenly
there stands out the new fabric of thought like a monument
uncovered, acknowledged and admired by all. All this, of
course, usually takes place very slowly. For, as a rule, everyone
notes the man who !s worth listening to only when he no
longer exists, so that the cries of hear, hear! resound after the
speaker has departed. 1
On the other hand, a better fate is in store for the works of
ordinary individuals. They arise in the course of, and in
connection with, the general culture of their times and are,
therefore, in close alliance with the spirit of their age, that is,
with just the prevailing views. They are calculated to meet the
needs of the moment and so if they have any merit, this is soon
recognized; and as they are closely associated with the cultural
epoch of their contemporaries, they soon meet with interest.
Justice, indeed frequently more than this, is done to them and
they afford little scope for envy since, as I have said, tantum
quisque laudat, quantum se posse sperat imitari. 18 But those eminent
and remarkable works which are destined to belong to the
whole of mankind and to live for centuries, are too advanced
when they are -produced and are, on that account, foreign to
the cultural epoch and spirit of their times. They do not belong
to, and are in no way connected with, them; and so they do
not gain the interest of those who live and work in such times.
They belong to a different age, to a higher cultural stage,
which is still a long way off. Their course is related to that of
ordinary works, as is the orbit of Uranus to that of Mercury.
And so for the time being, no justice is done to them; men do
not know what to do with them and, therefore, leave them alone
in order to proceed at their own snail's pace. Indeed, worms
on the ground do not see the bird on the wing.
Of the books that are written in a language, only about one
in a hundred thousand becomes a part of its real and permanent
literature. And what a fate this one book often has to endure
before it sails past those hundred thousand and arrives at its
due place of honour! Such a book is the work of an unusual
and decidedly superior mind and for that reason is specifically
different from the others, a fact that sooner or later comes to
light.
['Everyone praises only as much as he himself hopes to achieve.']
Do not let us suppose that this state of things will ever be any
better. It is true that the miserable constitution of the human
race assumes in every generation a somewhat different forn1,
but it is always the same. Men with distinguished minds rarely
attain their end during their lifetime because, at bottom, they are
really understood only by those who are already akin to them.
Now as it is very rare for even only one out of many millions
to tread the path of immortality, he must necessarily be very
lonely and the journey to posterity runs through a terribly
dreary and solitary region like the Libyan Desert; it is well
known that only those who have seen it have any conception
of its effect. Meanwhile, for this journey I recommend above all
things light baggage, otherwise much will have to be discarded
on the way. Thus we should always bear in mind the words of
Balthasar Gracian: lo bueno, si breve, dos z,ezes buena (the good is
doubly good, if it is short), which are specially recommended
to the Germans.
Great minds are related to the short span of time wherein they
live as are large buildings to the narrow plot of ground on
which they stand. Thus large buildings are not seen to their full
extent because we are too close to them; for an analogous
reason, we do not notice great minds; but when a century has
passed, they are acknowledged and wanted back.
Indeed, we see a great difference between the life of the
perishable son of time and the imperishable work he has
produced; analogous to that of the mortal mother, like Semele
or Maya, who gave birth to an immortal god, or to the opposite
relation between Thetis and Achilles. For there is a great
contrast between the perishable and the imperishable. A man's
brief span of time, his needy, hard, and unstable existence,
will seldom allow him to see even the beginning of his immortal
offspring's brilliant career or to be taken for what he is. On
the contrary, a man of posthumous fame ren1ains the very
opposite of a nobleman whose fame precedes him.
For a famous man, however, the difference between the
fame he enjoys from contemporaries, and that which he will
receive from posterity, amounts in the end merely to his
admirers being separated from him through space in the first
case and time in the second. For even in the case of con-
temporary fame, a man does not, as a rule, actually see his
admirers in front of him. Thus veneration cannot stand close
proximity, but almost always dwells at a distance since, in the
presence of the person admired, it melts like butter in the sun.
Accordingly, even in the case of the man who is famous among
his contemporaries, nine-tenths of the people living near him
will esteem him only on the strength of his rank and fortune,
and in any casd the remaining tenth will become dimly aware
of his excellent qualities in consequence of information that
comes to them from a distance. On this incompatibility
between veneration and the presence of the person and
between fame and life we have a very fine letter in Latin by
Petrarch. It is the second in the Venetian edition of 1492 of his
Epistolae familiares and is addressed to Thomas Messanensis.
He says, among other things, that all the learned men of his
time held to the rule of treating with disdain all the writings
of an author whom they had met in person even only once.
Accordingly, if very famous men are, as regards being recog-
nized and admired, always to be at a distance, then this can be
one either of time or of space. Of course, they sometimes obtain
information of their reputation from the latter, but never from
the former. In return for this, however, great and genuine
merit is able with certainty to anticipate its fame with posterity.
In fact, whoever produces a really great thought is at the
moment of its conception already aware of his connection with
the generations to come. He thus feels the extension of his
existence through centuries and so lives with posterity as well
as for it. On the other hand, if we are seized with admiration
for a great mind whose works we have just studied and would
like to have him back, to see him, speak to him, and possess
him among us, then even this longing does not remain un-
requited. For he too has longed for a posterity which would
acknowledge him and pay him the honour, gratitude, and
affection that were denied to him by envious contemporaries.
243
Now if intellectual works of the highest order meet with
recognition only before the tribunal of posterity, an opposite
fate is in store for certain brilliant errors. Coming from men of
talent, these appear to be so plausibly established, and to be
defended with so much intelligence and knowledge, that they
ON JUDGEMENT, CRITICISM, ETC. 4:77
acquire fame and prestige with their contemporaries and
maintain their position, at any rate for as long as their authors
are alive. Of this nature there are the many false theories, false
criticisms, and also poems and works of art in a false taste or
style that are introduced by contemporary prejudice. The
reputation and acceptance of all such things are due to the
fact that men do not yet exist who know how to refute them or
to demonstrate the false element in them. In most cases,
however, the next generation produces such men and then the
glory enjoyed by those errors comes to an end. Only in isolated
cases does it last for any length of time; as has been and still
is the case, for example, with Newton's theory of colour.
Other instances of this nature are the Ptolemaic system of the
universe, Stahl's chemistry, F. A. Wolff's dispute about the
personality and identity of Homer, possibly also Niebuhr's
destructive criticism of the history of the Roman Emperors,
and so on. Thus the tribunal of posterity is the proper court of
appeal against the judgements of contemporaries, whether or
not the case be favourable. It is, therefore, so rare and difficult
to satisfy contemporaries and posterity to the same extent.
Generally speaking, we should keep in view this unfailing
effect of time on the rectification of knowledge and opinions
in order to set our minds at rest whenever serious errors appear
and are spread on all sides either in art and science or in
practical life, or whenever a false and even thoroughly perverse
proceeding is adopted and men give it their approval. Thus we
should not be angry, still less despondent, but should bear in
mind that they will cmne back from it and need only time and
experience in order themselves to recognize of their own accord
that which a man with keener vision saw at the first glance. If
truth speaks from the facts of things, there is no need for us to
come at once to its aid with words, for time will help it with a
thousand tongues. Its length will naturally depend on the
difficulty of the subject and on the plausibility of what is false;
but it too will come to an end and in 1nany cases it would be
useless to attempt to forestall it. In the worst case, things will
happen ultimately in the theoretical as in the practical, where
sham and deception, emboldened by success, are driven to
ever greater lengths until discovery almost inevitably occurs.
Thus even in the theoretical, the absurd grows to greater
heights through the blind assurance of blockheads until in the
end it has become so great that even the dullest eye recognizes
it. We should, therefore, say to such men: 'the crazier, the
better!' We can also derive some encouragement by looking
back at all the whims and crotchets that had their day and
were then cgmpletely shelved. In style, grammar, and ortho-
graphy, there are such whims that have a life of only three or
four years. In the case of more egregious errors, we are, of
course, bound to lament the shortness of human life, but shall
always do well to lag behind our own times when we see these
about to go backwards. For there are two different ways of not
standing au niveau de son temps, 19 either below or above them.
t9 [' On a level with our times .]

CHAPTER XXI
On Learning and the Learned
244
When we see the many different institutions for teaching and
learning and the vast throng of pupils and masters, we might
imagine that the human race was very much bent on insight
and truth; but here appearances are deceptive. The masters
teach in order to earn money and aspire not to wisdom, but to
the semblance and reputation thereof; the pupils learn not to
acquire knowledge and insight, but to be able to talk and chat
and to give themselves airs. Thus every thirty years a new
generation appears in the world, a youngster who knows
nothing about anything. It now wants to devour, summarily in
all haste, the results of all human knowledge that has been
accumulated in thousands of years, and then to be cleverer than
all the past. For this purpose, the youngster goes off to the
university and picks up books, indeed the newest and latest, as
the companions of his time and age; only everything must be
short and new, just as he himself is new! He then begins to judge
and criticize for all he is worth. Here I have not taken into
account at all the professional studies proper.
245
Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a
rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of
honour to have information about everything, every stone,
plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively
and individually. It never occurs to them that information is
merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value. On
the other hand, a philosophical mind is characterized by the
way in which it thinks. With the impressive erudition of those
great pundits, I sometimes say to myself: 'Ah, how little they
must have had to think about, to have been able to read so
much!' Even when it is reported of the elder Pliny that he was
480 ON LEARNING AND THE LEARNED
always reading or being read to, at table, when travelling, or in
his bath, the question suggests itself to me whether the man was
so lacking in ideas of his own that those of others had to be
incessantly imparted to him, just as a consomml is given to a man
suffering from 'consumption in order to keep him alive. Neither
his undiscerning gullibility, nor his inexpressibly repulsive,
almost unintelligible, paper-saving, notebook style is calculated
to give me a high opinion of his ability to think for himself.
246
Now just as a great deal or reading and learning is prejudicial to
one's own thinking, so do much writing and teaching cause a man
to lose the habit of being clear and eo ipso thorough in his
knowledge and understanding because he is left with no time in
which to acquire these. In his utterances he must then fill up
with words and phrases the gaps in his clear knowledge. It is
this, and not the dryness of the su~ject, that makes many books
so infinitely tedious. For it is asserted that a good cook can
produce something appetizing even from the sole of an old shoe;
in the same way a good author can make the driest subject
interesting and entertaining.
247
By far the greatest number of scholars look upon their stock
of knowledge as a means, not as an end; and so they will never
achieve in it anything great because, to do this, it is necessary
for the man who pursues a branch of knowledge to regard this
as an end and to look upon everything else, even existence itself,
as only a means. For everything that is not pursued for its own
sake is only half-pursued; and in the case of every kind of work
true excellence can be attained only by that which was produced
for its own sake and not as a means to further ends. In the same
way, new and great ideas and insight will be achieved only by
those who have, as the immediate object of their studies, the
attainment of their own knowledge and are quite unconcerned
about that of others. But scholars, as a rule, study for the purpose
of being able to teach and write; and so their heads resemble a
stomach and intestines whence the food again passes away
undigested. Their teaching and writing will, therefore, be of
little use; for others cannot be nourished with undigested refuse
ON LEARNING AND THE LEARNED 481
and leavings, but only with the milk that has been secreted from
the blood itself.
248
The wig is indeed the well-chosen symbol of the pure scholar
as such. It adorns the head with a copious quantity of false hair
in the absence of one's own, just as erudition consists in fur-
nishing the mind with a great mass of other people's ideas.
These, of course, do not clothe the mind so well and naturally;
nor are they so useful in all cases and suited to all purposes; nor
have they such firm roots; nor, when they are used up, are they
at once replaced by others from the same source, as are those
which have sprung from one's own soil. Therefore in Tristram
Shandy Sterne boldly asserts that 'an ounce of a man's own wit is
worth a ton of other people's.'
Actually the most perfect erudition is related to genius as a
herbarium to the plant world, that is always renewing itself and
is eternally fresh, young, and changing. There is no greater con-
trast than that between the erudition of the commentator and
the childlike naivete of the ancient author.
249
Dilettanti, dilettanti! Those who pursue a branch of know-
ledge or art for the love and enjoyment thereof, per il loro
diletto, 1 are disparagingly so called by those who take up such
things for the sake of gain because they are attracted only by the
money that is to be earned from them. This disparagement is
due to their base conviction that no one will seriously tackle a
thing unless he is spurred on by want, hunger, or some other
keen desire. The public is of the same mind and thus of the same
opinion; and from this result its general respect for 'profes-
sionals' and its distrust of dilettanti. But the truth is that the
dilettante treats his subject as an end, whereas the professional
a~ such treats his as a mere means. But a matter will be
followed really seriously only by the man who is directly in-
terested in it, is occupied with it out of pure love for it, and
pursues it con amore. The greatest work has always come from
such men, not from paid servants.
1 ['For their pleasure'.]
250
Thus Goethe was also a dilettante in the theory of colours.
Here I wish to say a word or two about this.
Being stupid and being useless and worthless are permitted;
ineptire est juris gentium. 2 On the other hand, to speak of stupidity
and worthlessness is a crime, a shocking breach of good manners
and decency. A wise precaution! I must, however, disregard
this for once in order to speak plainly to my countrymen. For I
must say that the fate of Goethe's colour theory is a glaring
proof either of dishonesty or of a complete lack of judgement on
the part of the German learned world. In all probability, both
these precious characteristics have been working hand in hand.
The great educated public looks for a life of pleasure and
amusement and, therefore, lays aside that which is not a novel,
a comedy, or a piece of poetry. If, by way of exception, it wants
to read for instruction, it first waits for something positive in
writing from those who know better that here some instruction
is really to be found. It imagines that those who know better are
the professional men and, therefore, confuses those who live on a
thing with those who live for it, although the two are rarely the
same. In Le Neveu de Rameau Diderot says that those who teach
a certain branch of knowledge are not the men who seriously
study and understand it, for the latter have no time left for
teaching it. Those who teach it live merely on it, and for them it
is 'an efficient cow providing them with butter'.J When a
nation's greatest intellect has made something the principal
study of his life, as did Goethe the theory of colours, and it finds
no favour, then it is the duty of governments that pay academies
to order them to have the matter investigated by a commission.
In France this is done in connection with matters of far less
importance. Otherwise, what is the point of these academies
which make such a great show and in whose halls many a block-
head sits and assumes a pompous manner? New and important
truths rarely come from them; and so they should at least be
capable of judging important achievements and be compelled
to speak ex officio. So far Herr Link, a member of the Berlin
Academy, has furnished us with a sample of his academic power
1 ['To be foolish and silly is the right of mankind.' (Cf. 106 al end.)]
3 [From Schiller's epigram Wissensch'!fi.]
of judgement in his Propyliien der Naturkunde, vol. i, 1836. Con-
vinced a priori that Hegel, his colleague at the university, is a
great philosopher and that Goethe's colour theory is a piece of
amateurish bungling, he brings the two together on page 4 7 of
his book, and says: 'Hegel exhausts himself in the most excessive
outbursts when the question turns on Newton, perhaps out of
condescension for Goethe, a bad business merits a strong word.'
This Herr Link, therefore, has the audacity to talk about a
wretched charlatan's condescension to the nation's greatest intel-
lect. As samples of his power of judgement and ludicrous pre-
sumption, I add the following passages from the same book
which elucidate the foregoing: 'In profundity of thought Hegel
surpasses all his predecessors; it can be said that their philosophy
vanishes before his' (page 32). On page 44 he concludes his
description of that pitiable Hegelian chair-buffoonery with these
words: 'This is the sublime edifice on the deepest foundations of
the loftiest metaphysical sagacity known to science. Expressions
such as" the thinking of necessity is freedom";" the mind creates
for itself a world of morality where freedom again becomes
necessity" fill the kindred spirit with reverence, and are rightly
recognized. They ensure immortality to him who uttered them.'
As this Herr Link is not only a member of the Berlin Academy,
but also one of the notabilities, perhaps even one of the celeb-
rities, of the German republic of learning, these expressions,
especially as they have nowhere been censured, can also be
regarded as a specimen of German power of judgement and German
justice andjairness. Accordingly, it will not be difficult to see how
it was possible, for more than thirty years, for my works to be
considered as not even worth a passing glance.
But the German savant is also too poor to be honourable and

straightforward. His method and course of action are, there-
fore, to twist and turn, to be accommodating and renounce his
convictions, to teach and write what he does not believe, to
fawn and flatter, to take sides and form cliques, to show
deference to ministers, bigwigs, colleagues, students, publishers,
reviewers, in short, to respect anything but truth and the merit
of others. In this way, he often becomes a considerate bungler;
and in consequence dishonesty has so gained the upper hand in
German literature in general and in philosophy in particular
that it is to be hoped a point will be reached where it will be-
come ineffective and incapable of still deceiving anyone.
Moreover, it is the same in the republic oflearning as in other

republics; the plain unassuming man is liked who quietly goes
his own way and does not try to be cleverer than others. People
unite against the eccentric mind who is a menace; and what a
majority they have on their side!
In the republic of learning, things on the whole are much the
same as in the republic of Mexico, where everyone is bent only
on his own advantage and seeks prestige and power for himself,
being quite unconcerned about all the rest who may be ruined
over it. Likewise in the republic of learning, everyone wants to
put himself forward in order to gain prestige and a reputation.
The only thing wherein all agree is not to let a man with a really
eminent mind come to the top, should he show himself; for he
becomes a menace to them all simultaneously. From this it is
easy to see how it fares with all branches of knowledge.
Between professors and independent scholars there has existed

from time immemorial a certain antagonism which could be
illustrated perhaps through that between dogs and wolves.
Through their position, professors have great advantages for
obtaining information about their contemporaries. Indepen-
dent scholars, on the other hand, have through their position
great advantages for obtaining information about posterity
because, for this purpose, among other and much rarer things a
certain amount of leisure and independence are needed.
As it takes a long time for mankind to discover to whom it
should give its attention, the two can work side by side.
On the whole, the stall-feeding of professorships is the most
suitable for those who ruminate and go over the same thing
again and again. On the other hand, those who find their own
fodder at the hands of nature are much better off in the open.
254
Of human knowledge in general and in every branch thereof,
by far the greatest part exists always only on paper, in books,
this paper-memory of mankind. Only a small part of it is at any
given moment actually living in the minds of some. This springs
in particular from the shortness and uncertainty of life and also
from men's indolence and love of pleasure. Every generation
rapidly hurries past and obtains of human knowledge just what
it needs; and then it soon disappears. Most men of learning are
very superficial. A new generation full of hope then follows; it
knows nothing of anything but has to learn everything from the
beginning. Again, it takes just as much as it can grasp or use on
its short journey and then it too departs. How bad it would be,
therefore, for human knowledge if there were no writing and
printing! And so libraries alone are the sure and permanent
memory of the human race, all of whose individual members
have only a very limited and imperfect memory. Hence most
scholars are as unwilling to have their knowledge examined as
are merchants to have their accounts scrutinized.
Human knowledge is immense in all directions, and, of that
which would generally be worth knowing, no individual can
know even a thousandth part.
Accordingly, all branches of knowledge have become so
extended and enlarged that, whoever wants to 'do something',
needs to pursue only one special branch and to disregard all
else. Then he will, of course, be in his own subject superior to
the vulgar masses, but will belong to them in everything else. If
we add to this a neglect of the ancient languages which is daily
becoming more frequent whereby general education in the
humanities is disappearing, for a smattering of them is useless,
we shall then see scholars who are really dunces and blockheads
outside their special branch of knowledge. In general such an
exclusive specialist is analogous to a workman in a factory
whose whole life is spent in making nothing but a particular
screw, hook, or handle, for a definite instrument or machine, in
which he certainly reaches an incredible dexterity. The specialist
scholar can also be compared to a man who lives in his own
house but never leaves it. In it he knows everything exactly,
every little step, corner, and beam, just as in Victor Hugo's
4B6 ON LEARNING AND THE LEARNED
Notre Dame Quasimodo knows all about the cathedral. Outside
the house, everything is to him strange and unknown. True
education for humanity, on the other hand, positively requires
versatility and a wide view and therefore certainly some degree
of all-round knowledge for a scholar in the higher sense. But
whoever wants to be a philosopher as well, must gather into his
mind the remotest ends of human knowledge; for where else
could they ever come together? l\1inds of the first rank will
never be specialist scholars. To them as such the whole of
existence is given as their problem and on this subject each of
them will provide mankind with new information in some form
and in some way. For only that man can merit the name of
genius who takes as the theme of his achievements the totality
of things, their essential and universal aspect, not he who spends
his whole life attempting to explain some special relation of
things to one another.
2 55
The abolition of Latin as the universal language of scholars
and the introduction of the petty provincialism of national
literatures have been a positive misfortune for the stock of
human knowledge in Europe. Because there was a learned
public at all in Europe only through the Latin language, all
books that appeared first made a direct appeal to everyone.
Now the number of minds in the whole of Europe who are
capable of really thinking and judging is in any case so small
that, if their forum is further broken up and torn apart by
language boundaries, their beneficial effect will be immensely
weakened. The interpretations that are fabricated by literary
hacks, in accordance with the arbitrary selection of publishers,
are a poor substitute for a universal language of scholars. That
is why, after a brief period of splendour, Kant's philosophy
became stuck in the quagmire of German critical faculty,
whereas over it the will-o'-the-wisps ofFichte's, Schelling's, and
finally even Hegel's sham erudition enjoyed their flickering life.
That is why Goethe's colour theory met with no justice. That is
why I have been passed by and ignored. That is why the English
nation, so intellectual and discerning, is still degraded by the
most scandalous bigotry and priestly tutelage. That is why
France's glorious physics and zoology lack the support and
control of an adequate and worthy system of metaphysics. Even
more instances could be mentioned. Very soon, however, this
great disadvantage will be followed by a second and even greater,
namely that the study of the ancient languages will cease
altogether. The neglect of them is already gaining the upper
hand in France and even in Germany. In the eighteen-thirties
the Corpus juris was translated into German; and this was an
unmistakable sign of the appearance of ignorance in the
foundation of all scholarship, the Latin language, and thus of
the advent of barbarism. Things have now gone to such lengths
that Greek and even Latin authors are edited with German notes;
this is positively disgraceful and scandalous. The real reason for
this (however much the gentlemen may give themselves airs) is
that editors are no longer able to write Latin, and in their hands
dear young people like to follow the path of indolence, ignor-
ance, and barbarism. I had hoped to see this kind of thing
duly and severely censured in the literary journals; but imagine
my astonishment when I saw that it got away without any cen-
sure at all, as if it were quite in order! This means that the
reviewers are just ignorant clients or else sponsors of the editors
or of the publisher. The most considerate turpitude is thoroughly
at home in every kind of German literature.
I have still to censure, as specially vulgar, a thing that is daily
making its appearance with greater audacity. I refer to the fact
that in scientific works and really learned periodicals that come
even from academies, passages from Greek and (proh pudor)4
Latin authors are quoted in a German translation. Good
heavens! Are you writing for cobblers and tailors? I believe you
are! simply in order to have a 'very good sale'. Then permit me
most humbly to observe that you are in every sense of the word
common fellows. Be more honourable and have less money in
your pockets, and let the illiterate man feel his inferiority in-
stead of your bowing and scraping to his money-box! German
translations are precisely the same substitute for Greek and
Latin authors as is chicory for coffee; moreover, we dare not
place any reliance whatever on their accuracy.
And so if it comes to this, then goodbye to humanity, noble
taste, and lofty sentiment! Barbarism will come again in spite
4 ['What a scandal ! ']

of railways, telegraphs, and balloons. Finally, we shall suffer in
this way the loss of yet another advantage that was enjoyed by
all our ancestors. Thus Latin discloses to us not only Roman
antiquity, but also directly the whole of the Middle Ages in all
European countries and modern times down to the middle of
the eighteenth century. Thus, for example, Scotus Erigena of
the ninth century, John of Salisbury of the twelfth, Raymond
Lull of the thirteenth, and hundreds of others speak to us
directly in the language that was peculiar and natural to them
whenever they thought about scientific and learned matters.
Therefore even now they come quite near to me; I am in direct
contact with them and really make their acquaintance. How
would it have been, had each of them written in the language
that was peculiar to his times and country? I should not be able
to understand even a half of what they wrote and a real intel-
lectual contact with them would be impossible. I should see
them as shadows on a distant horizon, or even through the
telescope of a translation. To prevent this, Bacon, as he himself
expressly states, afterwards translated his Essays into Latin
under the title Sermones fideles in which, however, he was assisted
by Hobbes. (See Thomae Hobbesii vita, Charleville, 1681, p. 22.)
Incidentally, it should be mentioned here that, if patriotism
tries to assert itself in the realm of knowledge, it is objectionable
and should be expelled. For what can be more impertinent than
for a man to want to weigh in the balance his preference for the
nation to which his precious self happens to belong and to do so
in the sphere of what is purely and universally human where
only truth, clearness, and beauty should be admitted and now,
from such considerations, to wish either to do violence to truth,
or to be unjust to the great minds of foreign countries in order
to praise and extol the smaller minds of his own? But we daily
come across instances of this vulgar feeling in the authors of all
the nations of Europe. Such a sentiment has, therefore, been
ridiculed by Y riarte in the thirty-third of his most delightful
literary fables.
256
To improve the quality of students at the expense of their
already excessive quantity, it should be laid down by law that ( 1)
no one be allowed to go to the university before his twentieth
ON LEARNING AND THE LEARNED 4B9
year. He would first have to pass there an examen rigorosum in the
two ancient languages before being given a certificate of matri-
culation. Through this, however, he would have to be released
from military service and would thus have his first doctarum
praemia frontium. A student has far too much to learn that he
could thoughtlessly throw away a whole year or more on the
profession of arms which is so different from his own vocation;
not to mention that his military training undermines the respect
that every illiterate person, whoever he may be, owes the scholar
from first to last. In fact, it is just the same barbarism that
Raupach has described in the comedy Vor hundert Jahren in the
'Old Dessauer's' cunning brutality to a candidate. This very
natural exemption of the learned professions from military
service will not result in a reduction in the size of armies. On the
contrary, it will reduce the number of bad doctors, inferior
lawyers and judges, and all kinds of ignorant pedagogues and
charlatans the more certainly, since every circumstance of a
soldier's life has a demoralizing effect on the future scholar.
(2) It should also be laid down by law that everyone in his first
year at the university must attend lectures devoted entirely to
philosophy; he should certainly not be admitted to those of the
three principal faculties before his second year; but to these the
students of theology would have to devote two years, those of
law three, and those of medicine four. On the other hand,
instruction at the gymnasia or high schools could be limited to
the ancient languages, history, mathematics, and literary style,
and could be the more thorough, especially in the first. But
since an aptitude for mathematics is quite special and peculiar
and does not by any means run parellel to the other mental
faculties, and in fact has nothing in common with them,s there
should be an entirely separate class of students for instruction in
this subject. In this way, the pupil in the sixth form for all the
other subjects could be in the fourth for mathematics and also
vice versa without detriment to his honour. Only thus can
everyone learn something about it in accordance with his
ability in that particular direction.
s In this connection see Sir William Hamilton's fine essay in the form of a review
of a book by Whewell in the Edinburgh Review ofJanuary 1836; also later edited in
his name with a few other essays; also in German under the title Vber den Werth und
Unwerth der Mathematik, 1836.
The professors, of course, will not countenance the above
proposals, for they are concerned more with the quantity than
the quality of the students. Nor will they support the following
proposal. Graduations should take place absolutely gratuitously
so that the doctor's degree which has been discredited by the
professors' greed for gain might be restored to honour. In return
tor this, the subsequent state examinations for doctors could be
abolished.
CHAPTER XXII
On Thinking for Oneself
257
Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a
very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount
of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth
much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantlv
and repeatedly thought over. For only by universally combining
what we know, by comparing every truth with every other, do
we fully assimilate our own knowledge and get it into our power.
We can think over only what we know, and so we should learn
something; but we know only what we have thought out.
Now it is true that we can arbitrarily apply ourselves to
reading and learning, but not really to thinking. Thus just as a
fire is kindled and sustained by a draught of air, so too must
thinking be through some interest in its theme, which may be
either purely objective or merely subjective. The latter exists
solely in connection with our personal affairs; the former, how-
ever, is only for minds who think by nature, to whom thinking
is as natural as breathing, but who are very rare. Thus with
most scholars there is so little of it.
258
The difference between the effect produced on the mind by
thinking for oneself and that produced by reading is incredibly
great; and thus it is for ever increasing the original disparity
between minds, by virtue whereof we are driven to the one or to
the other. Thus reading forces on the mind ideas that are as
foreign and heterogeneous to the tendency and mood it has at
the moment, as is the seal to the wax whereon it impresses its
stamp. Thus the mind is totally compelled from without to
think first of one thing and then of another, for which it has
absolutely no inclination or disposition. When, on the other
hand, a man thinks for himself, his mind follows its own natural
492 ON THINKING FOR ONESELF
impulse, as this has been more specifically determined for the

moment either by external environment or by some recollec-
tion. Thus the environment of intuitive perception does not
impress on the mind one definite idea as does reading, but gives
it merely the material and the occasion to think what is in
accordance with its nature and present disposition. Therefore
the mind is deprived of all its elasticity by much reading as is a
spring when a weight is continually applied to it; and the surest
way not to have thoughts of our own is for us at once to take up
a book when we have a moment to spare. This practice is the
reason why erudition makes most men more stupid and simple
than they are by nature and also deprives their literary careers
of every success.* As Pope says, they remain:
For ever reading, never to be read.
The Dunciad, III. I 93-4.
Scholars are those who have read in books, but thinkers, men
of genius, world-enlighteners, and reformers of the human race
are those who have read directly in the book of the world.
259
At bottom, only our own fundamental ideas have truth and
life; for it is they alone which we really and thoroughly under-
stand. The ideas of someone else which we have read are the
scraps and leavings of someone else's meal, the cast-off clothes
of a stranger.
The idea of another which we have read is related to our own
that occurs to us as the impression in stone of a plant from the
primeval world to the blossoming plant of spring.
200
Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking. When we
read, we allow another to guide our thoughts in leading
strings. Moreover, many books merely serve to show how many
false paths there are and how seriously we could go astray if we
allowed ourselves to be guided by them. But whoever is guided
by genius, in other words thinks for himself, thinks freely and of
his own accord and thinks correctly; he has the compass for
Those who write are so numerous, those who think so rare.

ON THINKING FOR ONESELF 493
finding the right way. We should, therefore, read only when the
source of our own ideas dries up, which will be the case often
enough even with the best minds. On the other hand, to scare
away our own original and powerful ideas in order to take up a
book, is a sin against the Holy Ghost. We then resemble the
man who runs away from free nature in order to look at a
herbarium, or to contemplate a beautiful landscape in a copper

engravmg.
Even if occasionally we had been able very easily and con-
veniently to find in a book a truth or view which we very
laboriously and slowly discovered through our own thinking
and combining, it is nevertheless a hundred times more valuable
if we have arrived at it through our own original thinking. Only
then does it enter into the whole system of our ideas as an
integral part and living member; only then is it completely and
firmly connected therewith, is understood in all its grounds and
consequents, bears the colour, tone, and stamp of our whole
mode of thought, has come at the very time when the need for it
was keen, is therefore firmly established and cannot again pass
away. Accordingly, Goethe's verse here finds its most perfect
application and even explanation:
What from your fathers' heritage is lent,
Earn it anew, really to possess it! 1
Thus the man who thinks for himself only subsequently be-
comes acquainted with the authorities for his opinions when
they serve merely to confirm him therein and to encourage him.
The book-philosopher, on the other hand, starts from those
authorities in that he constructs for himself an entire system
from the opinions of others which he has collected in the course
of his reading. Such a system is then like an automaton com-
posed of foreign material, whereas that of the original thinker
resembles a living human being. For it originated like this, since
the external world fertilized the thinking mind that afterwards
carried it and gave birth to it.
The truth that has been merely learnt sticks to us like an
artificial limb, a false tooth, a nose of wax, or at best like a
rhinoplastic nose formed from someone else's flesh. On the
1 [Faust, Part 1, Bayard Taylor's translation.]
other hand, the truth acquired through our own thinking is like
the natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. On this rests the
distinction between the thinker and the mere scholar. The
intellectual gain of the man who thinks for himself is, therefore,
like a beautiful painting that vividly stands out with correct
light and shade, sustained tone, and perfect harmony of colours.
The intellectual acquisition of the mere scholar, on the other
hand, is like a large palette full of bright colours, systematically
arranged perhaps, but without harmony, sequence, and signi-
ficance.
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head

instead of with one's own. Now for our own thinking, whence a
coherent and connected whole, a system though not strictly
rounded off, endeavours to evolve, nothing is more detrimental
than too strong an influx of other people's ideas through con-
stant reading. For each of them has sprung from the mind of
another, belongs to another system, bears another tint; and
never do they flow of themselves into a totality of thought,
knowledge, insight, and conviction. On the contrary, they set
up in the head a slight Babylonian confusion of tongues, and a
mind so crammed is now robbed of all clear insight and thus is
wellnigh disorganized. This state can be observed in many
scholars and results in their being inferior to many illiterate men
as regards common sense, correct judgement, and practical tact.
The latter have always subordinated to, and incorporated in,
their own thinking the little knowledge that has come to them
from without through experience, conversation, and a little
reading. Now it is just this that the scientific thinker also does to a
greater degree. Although he needs much knowledge and must,
therefore, read a great deal, his mind is nevertheless strong
enough to master all this, to assimilate it, to incorporate it into
his system of ideas, and thus to subordinate it to the organically
consistent totality of his vast and ever-growing insight. Here his
own thinking, like the ground-bass of an organ, always domi-
nates everything and is never drowned by the notes and tones of
others, as is the case with the minds of mere pundits and poly-
histors, where fragments of music in all keys run into one
another, so to speak, and the fundamental note can no longer be
detected at all.
262
Those who have spent their lives in reading, and have drawn
their wisdom from books, resemble men who have acquired
precise information about a country from many descriptions of
travel. They are able to give much information about things,
but at bottom they have really no coherent, clear, and thorough
knowledge of the nature of the country. On the other hand,
those who have spent their lives in thinking are like men who
have themselves been in that country. They alone really know
what they are talking about; they have a consistent and
coherent knowledge of things there and are truly at home in
them.
263
The ordinary book-philosopher is related to the man who
thinks for himself as a critical historian to an eyewitness; the
latter speaks from his own immediate apprehension of things.
At bottom, therefore, all who think for themselves are of one
accord and their difference springs only from that of their
standpoint; but where this alters nothing, they all say the same
thing. For they state merely what they have objectively appre-
hended. To my agreeable surprise I have often subsequently
found stated in the ancient works of great men propositions
which, on account of their paradoxical nature, I hesitated to lay
before the public. The book-philosopher, on the other hand,
reports the statement of one man, the opinion of another, the
objection of a third, and so on. He compares, carefully weighs,
and criticizes all these and endeavours to get at the truth of
things; and in this respect he is exactly like the critical historian.
Thus for example he will start investigations on whether
Leibniz had for a while ever been a Spinozist, and such like.
Very clear instances of what is said here are furnished for the
curious admirer by Herbart's Analytische Beleuchtung der Moral
und des Naturrechts and also by his Briefe iiber die Freiheit. We
might marvel at the great trouble such a man takes, for it seems
that, if only he would keep his eye on the matter itself, he would
soon reach the goal through a little thinking for himself. But
ON THINKING FOR ONESELF
there is a small difficulty here since such a thing does not depend
on our will; we can at any time sit down and read, but not
think as well. Thus it is the same with ideas as with human
beings; we cannot always send for them at will, but must wait
for them to come. Thinking about a subject must occur auto-
matically through a happy and harmonious concurrence of
external occasion with inner mood and interest; and it is
precisely this that will never come to those men. This finds its
illustration even in those ideas that concern our personal in-
terest. If we have to come to a decision in such a matter, we
cannot sit down to it at any arbitrarily chosen moment, think
over the reasons, and then decide. For at that very moment, our
consideration o the matter is often not firm, but wanders to
other things; and for this even our disinclination in the matter
is sometimes responsible. We should, therefore, not try to force
it, but wait till the mood for it comes automatically. This will
often come unexpectedly and repeatedly, and every different
mood at a different time casts a fresh light on the subject. It is
this slow procedure that is understood by the expression maturil)'
of decisions. For the task must be apportioned and in this way
much that was previously overlooked will occur to us; and even
the disinclination disappears since things often seem to be much
more endurable when they are kept clearly in view. Likewise in
what is theoretical, the proper time must be awaited and not
even the man endowed with the greatest mind is capable at all
times of thinking for himself. Therefore he does well to use the
rest of the time for reading; but, as I have said, reading is a
substitute for original thinking and supplies the mind with
material, since someone else thinks for us, although always in a
way that is not our own. For this reason, we should not read too
much lest the mind become accustomed to the substitute and
cease to know the thing itself, and thus get used to paths already
well worn and become estranged from its own train of thought
by following that of another. Least of all should we, for the sake
of reading, withdraw entirely from the spectacle of the real
world. For here the occasion and mood for original thought
occur incomparably more frequently than in reading. That
which is intuitively perceptual and real is, in its original nature
and force, the natural object of the thinking mind and is most
readily capable of deeply stimulating it.
According to these observations, it will not surprise us to
learn that the man who is capable of thinking for himself and
the book-philosopher can easily be recognized even by their
style of delivery; the former by the stamp of earnestness, direct-
ness, and originality, by all his ideas and expressions that spring
from his own perception of things; the latter, on the other hand,
by the fact that everything is second-hand, consists of traditional
notions, trash and rubbish, and is flat and dull, like the impres-
sion of an impression. His style, consisting of conventional, and
even banal, phrases and current new-fangled words, resembles
a small state whose circulation consists of none but foreign coins
because it does not mint any of its own.
264
Mere experience is as little able to replace thinking as is
reading. Pure empiricism is related to thinking as eating to
digestion and assimilation. When empiricism boasts that it alone
through its discoveries has advanced human knowledge, it is as
if the mouth were to boast that the existence of the body were
solely its work.
265
The works of all really capable minds differ from the rest in
their character of decisiveness and difiniteness, together with the
distinctness and clearness springing therefrom, since they at all
times clearly and definitely knew what they wanted to express;
it may have been in prose, verse, or tones. The rest lack that
decisiveness and clearness; and in this respect they can be at
once recognized.
The characteristic sign of all first-rate minds is the directness
of all their judgements and opinions. All that they express and
assert is the result of their own original thinking and every-
where proclaims itself as such even by the style of delivery.
Accordingly, like princes, they have an imperial immediacy in
the realn1 of the mind; the rest are all mediatized, as is already
seen from their style which has no stamp of originality.
Therefore every genuine and original thinker is to this extent
like a monarch; he is immediate and perceives no one who is his
superior. Like the decrees of a monarch, his judgements spring
from his own supreme power and come directly from himself.
ON THINKING FOR ONESELF
For he no more accepts authorities than does the monarch take
orders; on the contrary, he admits nothing but what he himself
has confirmed. On the other hand, minds of the common ruck
who labour under all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and
prejudices, are like the crowd which silently obeys laws and
orders.
266
Those who are so eager and hasty to decide debatable ques-
tions by quoting authorities, are really glad when they can
bring into the field the intellect and insight of someone else
instead of their own, which they lack. Their number is legion;
for as Seneca says: unus quisque mavult credere, quamjudicare. 2 And
so in their controversies, authorities are the weapons generally
chosen with which they pitch into one another; and whoever is
involved in these is ill-advised to defend himself against them
with grounds and arguments. For against such weapons they are
horny Siegfrieds immersed in the flood of an inability to think
and judge. They will, therefore, hold up to him their authorities
as an argumentum ad verecundiam, 3 and will cry victoria!
267
In the realm of reality, beautiful, happy, and agreeable as it
may have been, we always move only under the influence of
heaviness which must constantly be overcome; whereas in the
realm of ideas we are bodiless spirits without weight and pres-
sure. Therefore no happiness on earth can compare with that
which a fine and fruitful mind finds in itself at a happy hour.
268
The presence of an idea is like that of a loved one. We
imagine that we shall never forget it and that the beloved can
never become indifferent to us; but out of sight, out of mind !
The finest thought runs the risk of being irretrievably forgotten
if it is not written down, and the beloved ofbeing taken from us
unless she has been wedded .
.z ['Everyone prefers to believe rather than to give his own opinion.' (De vita
/Hala, 4.)]
I,
J [An argument that avails itself of human respect for great men, ancient customs
and authority generally in order to strengthen one's point.]

269
There are plenty of ideas that are of value to the man who
thinks them; but of them only a few have the power to act
through repercussion or reflection, that is to gain the reader's
interest after they have been written down.
270
But here only that is of real value which we have in the first
instance thought out for ourselves. Thus we can divide thinkers
into those who think primarily for themselves and those who think
at once for others. The former are the genuine self-thinkers in the
double meaning of the term; they are the real philosophers. For
they alone take the matter seriously; and the pleasure and
happiness of their existence consists in just thinking. The others
are the sophists; they wish to shine and seek their fortune in what
they hope to obtain from others in this way; this is where they
are in earnest. We can soon see from his whole style and method
to which of the two classes a man belongs. Lichtenberg is an
example of the first; Herder belongs to the second.
271
The problem of existence is very great and very close to us; this
existence that is dubious, questionable, tormented, fleeting, and
dream-like. It is so great and so near that, the moment we
become aware of it, it overshadows and hides all other problems
and purposes. Now in this connection, we see how all men, ""ith
few and rare exceptions, are not clearly conscious of the problem;
in fact, they do not appear to have grasped it at all, but are
much more concerned about everything else. They live for the
day and think only of the scarcely longer span of their personal
future, for either they expressly decline to consider the problem,
or else, with regard thereto, they willingly make a compromise
through some system of popular metaphysics with which they
are satisfied. If we carefully consider all this, we may form the
opinion that only in a much wider sense can man be called a
thinking being; and then we shall not be very surprised at any
trait of thoughtlessness or simplicity. On the contrary, we shall
realize that the intellectual horizon of the normal man tran-
scends, it is true, that of the animal which is unaware of the
future and the past and whose existence is, so to speak, a single
present. But we shall also realize that the human mental horizon
is not so incalculably far removed from the animal's as is
generally assumed.
It is in accordance with the foregoing that, even in conversa-
tion, we find the thoughts of most people to be clipped as short
as chopped straw, so that out of them a longer thread cannot be
spun.
If this world were populated with really thinking beings, it
would be impossible for all kinds of noise to be permitted and
given such unlimited scope, even the most terrible and purpose-
less. But if nature had intended man for thinking, she would not
have given him ears, or at any rate would have furnished them
with air-tight flaps, as with bats whom for this reason I envy.
But like the rest, man is really a poor animal whose powers are
calculated merely for the maintenance of his existence. For this
reason, he needs ears which are always open and, even unasked,
announce the approach of a pursuer both by night and by day.
CHAPTER XXIII
On Authorship and Style
272
First there are two kinds of authors, those who write for the sake
of the subject and those who write for the sake of writing. The
former have had ideas or experiences which seem to them worth
communicating; the latter need money and thus write for
money. They think for the purpose of writing. We recognize
them by the way in which they spin out their thoughts as long as
possible and also an1plify ideas that are half-true: queer, forced,
and indefinite. They are frequently fond of twilight in order to
appear other than they are; and so their writing lacks definite-
ness and absolute clearness, and one soon observes that they
write in order to fill up paper. We can sometimes see this even
in our best authors, for example in some passages of Lessing's
Dramaturgie and also in many of Jean Paul's novels. As soon as
we observe this, we should throw the book away, for time is
precious. In point of fact, as soon as an author writes for the
purpose of covering paper, he is cheating the reader, for he
professes to write because he has something to say. Copy-money
and the reservation of copyright are at bottom the ruin of
literature. Anything worth writing is written only by those who
write solely for the sake of the subject. What an inestimable
boon it would (be if in all branches of literature there existed
only a few admirable books! But we can never come to this as
long as fees and cash are to be earned. For it is as though a
curse lay on the money since every author degenerates as soon
as he writes in any way for the sake of profit. The most excellent
works of great men are all from the time when they still had to
write for nothing, or for very little money. Therefore here too
the Spanish proverb applies: honra y prouecho no caben en un saco.
(Honour and money do not go into the same purse.) The
wretchedness of present-day literature in Germany and abroad
has its root in the writing of books for money. Everyone who
needs money sits down and writes a book and the public is
502 ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE
stupid enough to buy it. A secondary consequence of this is the
ruin of language.
A great many inferior writers live solely on the public's folly
of not wanting to read anything except what has just been
printed; I refer to journalists. How aptly named! In plain lang-
uage they would be called 'journeymen', ['day-labourers'].*
273
Again we can say that there are three kinds of authors; first
those who write without thinking. They write from memory,
from reminiscences, or even directly from the books of others.
This class is the most numerous. Secondly, those who think
while they are writing; they think in order to write. They are
very numerous. Thirdly, those who have thought before they
started to write; they write merely because they have thought.
They are rare.
That author of the second class who puts off his thinking
until he writes, is comparable to the sportsman who goes out at
random and is unlikely to bring home very much. On the other
hand, the writing of an author of the third and rare class will be
like a battue where the game has been caught in advance and
put into an enclosure whence it is afterwards let out in flocks
into another space that is also enclosed. Here it cannot escape
the sportsman, so that all he now has to do is to aim and shoot
(his description). This is the pursuit that produces something.
But again, even of the small number of authors who really
and seriously think before they write, there are indeed very few
who think about things themselveJ; the rest think only of books, of
what has been said by others. Thus to think at all, they need the
more direct and powerful stimulus through the ideas which are
furnished by others and now become their immediate theme.
* What characterizes great authors (of the superior kind) as well as artists and is,
therefore, common to them all, is that they are in eanust about their subject. The rest
arc not serious about anything except their advantage and emolument.
If an author acquires fame through a book he has written from inner inclination
and impulse, but afterwards, on the strength of it, becomes a prolific writer, then
he has sold his reputation fen filthy lucre. As soon as a man writes because he wants to
make something, he writes badly.
Only in this century are there authors by profession. Hitherto there were authors
by inclination and qualification.
ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE
They therefore always remain under the influence thereof and
consequently never attain to real originality. Very rare authors,
on the other hand, are stimulated to think by the things them-
selves, to which their thinking is, therefore, immediately directed.
Only among them are to be found those who will survive and
become immortal. It goes without saying that here we are
speaking of the higher branches of knowledge, not of authors
who write about the distilling of brandy.
Now only that author is worth reading who, when he writes,
takes the material directly from his own head. But makers of
books, writers of compendiums, the ordinary run of history-
writers, and others take their material directly from books,
whence it goes straight to their finger tips without even paying
transit duty in their heads or undergoing examination, to say
nothing of elaboration. (How learned would many a man be if
only he knew all that existed in his own books!) The meaning of
what they are talking about is, therefore, often so vague that in
vain do we rack our brains to make out what they arc ultimately
thinking. But they are thinking of nothing at all. Sometimes the
book from which they copy is written in just the same way, so
that writing of this sort resembles the plaster cast of a cast, and
in the end Antinous becomes the mere outline of a face that is
hardly recognizable. VVe should, therefore, read compilers as
rarely as possible, though it is difficult to avoid them entirely
since compilations include even those compendiums which in a
small space contain the accumulated knowledge of many
centuries.
There is no greater error than to imagine that the finally
spoken word is always the more correct, that everything written
later is an improvement on everything previously written, and
that every change is a step in the right direction. "tv1en who
think, those of correct judgement, and those who take their
subject seriously are only exceptions; everywhere in the world
dregs and riff-raff are the rule. These are always at hand and
eagerly endeavour in their own way to bowdlerize and 'im-
prove' what has been said by thinkers after mature considera-
tion. And so whoever wants to obtain information on a subject
should beware of at once rushing after the latest books, on the
assumption that the sciences are always making progress and
that, when these newest books were written, the older ones had
been used. They have been, of course, but how? Often the
writer of the new book does not thoroughly understand the
older works, yet he is reluctant to use their exact words and
therefore 'corrects' and spoils what the older authors have said
very much better and more clearly, for they wrote from their
own vivid knowledge of the subject. He frequently omits the
best things they have said, their most striking explanations of
the subject, and their most felicitous remarks, because he does
not recognize their value, nor does he appreciate how pregnant
they arc. Only the shallow and insipid appeal to him. An older
and excellent book has often been supplanted by newer and
inferior works which have been written for the sake of money,
but put in a pretentious appearance and are puffed up by their
authors' colleagues and comrades. To assert himself and exert
his authority, everyone tries to bring out in the sciences some-
thing new which often consists merely in his overthrowing what
was hitherto regarded as correct in order to put in its place his
own stuff and humbug. Occasionally, this succeeds for a time,
and then a return is made to the old and correct theory. Those
modern writers are not serious about anything in the world
except their own precious persons; it is this that they wish to
assert. Now this is said to be done quickly by a paradox; the
sterility of their minds recommends to them the path of nega-
tion. Truths, long since recognized and ackowledged, are now
denied, for example, vital force, the sympathetic nervous sys-
tem, generatio aequivoca, Bichat's separation of the effect of the
passions from that of intelligence. A return is made to crass
atomism and the like. Therefore the course of science is often retro-
grade. To authors of this class belong also those translators who
at the same time correct and touch up their author, which to
me always seems to be an impertinence. I feel like saying to
such men: 'Write books yourselves which are worth translating
and leave as they are those of others!' lf possible, therefore, we
should read the real originators, founders, and inventors of
things, or at any rate those great authors who are the acknow-
ledged masters of their subject. We should buy books second-
hand rather than read their purport in new ones. But, of course,
since inventis aliquid addere facile est, 1 we shall, after a good
1 ['It is easy to enrich what has been discovered.']

grounding in the subject, have to make ourselves acquainted
with the more recent additions. In general, therefore, the rule
holds good, here as everywhere, that the new is seldom good
because the good is new only for a short time.*
What the address is to a letter, the title should be to a book;
and so its primary object should be to bring the book to the
notice of those members of the public who may be interested in
its contents. The title should, therefore, be descriptive; and as
it is essentially brief, it should be concise, laconic, pregnant,
and, if possible, a monogram of the contents. Accordingly, those
titles are bad which are lengthy, meaningless, ambiguous,
obscure, or even false and misleading, which last may involve
their book in the same fate that overtakes a wrongly addressed
letter. But the worst are the stolen titles, those that are already
borne by other books; for in the first place, they are a plagiarism
and in the second, the most convincing proof of a complete and
total lack of originality. For whoever has not enough originality
to invent a new title for his book, will be even less capable of
giving it new contents. Akin to them are the titles that have
been imitated, that is, half-stolen, for example, Oersted wrote
On the Mind in Nature long after I wrote On the Will in Nature.
How little honesty there is among authors is seen in the
unscrupulous way in which they interpolate and tamper with
the quotations from the works of others. I find that passages
quoted from my works are generally falsified, and here only my
most professed and avowed followers form an exception to this.
The falsification often occurs through carelessness, for the
trivial and trite expressions and turns of phrase of such authors
are already on the tips of their pens and are written down from
force of habit. Sometimes it is the result of an impertinence that
attempts to correct and improve me; but only too often it is the
result of an evil intention, and then it is base and disgraceful, a
piece of knavery like the counterfeiting of coin, which once for
all deprives its author of the character of a man of honour.
To ensure the public's permanent attention and interest, we must either write
something of permanent value, or keep on writing something new which for that
very reason will prove to be ever inferior.
If near the top I will repose,
'!'hen every mass must I compose.
Tieck.
so6 ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE
274
A book can never be more than the image and impression of
the author's ideas. The value of these will be either in the
subject-matter and hence in that about which he has thought; or it
will be in the form, that is, in the elaboration of the material and
so in what he has thought about the subject-matter.
The subject-matter is very varied and so too are the merits
which it imparts to books. Included here is all empirical material
and thus everything founded on historical or physical fact,
taken in itself and in the widest sense. The characteristic feature
is to be found in the object; and so the book can be important
whoever its author mav be.
I
On the other hand, with regard to the \'\'hat of a book, the

characteristic feature is to be found in the author, the subject.
The matters dealt with can be those that are accessible and
known to everyone; but the form of interpretation, the What of
the thinking, here imparts value to the book and is to be found
in the subject (the author). And so if from this point of view a
book is excellent and incomparable, so too is its author. It
follows from this that the merit of an author who is worth
reading is the greater, the less this is due to the subject-matter
and hence the better known and more hackneyed this is. Thus,
for instance, the three great Greek tragedians have all worked
at the same subject-matter.
If, therefore, a book is famous, we should carefully note
whether it is so on account of the subject-matter or of the form.
In virtue of the subject-matter, quite ordinary and shallow men
may produce very important works, since to them alone was
such matter accessible; for example, descriptions of distant
countries, rare natural phenomena, experiments, historical
events which they witnessed or in connection with which they
spent much time and went to a great deal of trouble in searching
and specially studying the sources.
On the other hand, where it is a question of the form, since the
subject-matter is accessible or even very well known to every-
one; and thus where only the essence of the thought concerning
the matter can give value to the work, then only the eminent
mind is capable of producing something worth reading. For the
others will always think only what everyone else can think. They
give the impression of their own minds, but of this everyone
himself already possesses the original.
The public, however, shows much more interest in the
subject-matter than in the form and for this reason is backward
in higher culture. It shows this tendency most ludicrously in the
case of poetical works, in that it carefully investigates the real
events or the poet's personal circumstances that served as the
occasion of such works. In fact, to the public such events and
circumstances are ultimately of more interest than are the
works themselves. Thus it reads more about Goethe than the
poet's works, and studies more industriously the Faust legend
than the poem Faust. And when Burger says that 'they will
carry out learned investigations as to who Leonora really was',
we see this literally fulfilled in the case of Goethe, for we already
have many learned disquisitions on Faust and the Faust legend.
They are and remain of a material nature. This preference for
the material as opposed to the form is as if one were to ignore
the form and painting of a beautiful Etruscan vase in order to
investigate the chemical properties of its clay and colours.
The attempt to produce an effect through the subject-matter, an
attempt which panders to that evil tendency of the public,
becomes thoroughly objectionable in those branches of litera-
ture where merit should lie expressly in the form, and thus in
poetical works. Nevertheless, we frequently see inferior drama-
tists endeavouring to fill the house by means of the subject-
matter. For instance, they introduce on the stage some famous
man, however bare of dran1atic events his life may have been;
in fact, they sometimes do this without even waiting till the
persons appearing with him are dead.
The distinction, here discussed, between subject-matter and
form asserts itself even as regards conversation. Thus a man is
enabled to converse well primarily by his intelligence, judge-
ment, wit, and vivacity, qualities which give form to the
conversation. But then its subject-matter will soon come under
consideration, namely that whereof we can speak to the man and
thus his knowledge. If this is very little, only an exceptionally
high degree of the above-mentioned qualities of form can
render his conversation valuable. For as regards its subject-
matter, it then refers only to those human and natural circum-
stances and things that are known to everyone. It is the very
soB ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE
opposite when a man lacks those qualities of form, but never-
theless has knowledge of some kind which will impart value to his
conversation. But such will then depend entirely on the subject-
matter of the conversation, according to the Spanish proverb:
mas sabe el necio en su casa, que el sabio en la agena. 2
275
The actual life of a thought lasts only till it has reached the
extreme point of words; it is then petrified and thereafter is
dead; but it is indestructible, like the fossilized animals and
plants of the primeval world. Its momentary life proper can also
be compared to that of the crystal at the moment of crystalliza-
tion.
Thus as soon as our thinking has found words, it is then no
longer sincere or profoundly serious. When it begins to exist for
others, it ceases to live in us, just as the child is separated from
the mother when it enters an existence of its own. Indeed the
poet says:
I must not be confused when you gainsay!
Whme' er we speak, we start to go astray.
(Goethe.)
276
The pen is to thinking what the stick is to walking; but the
easiest walking is without a stick and the most perfect thinking
occurs when there is no pen in the hand. Only when we begin
to grow old do we like to make use of a stick and to take up a
pen.
277
In the head in which it has once gained a footing or has even
been born, a hypothesis leads a life like that of an organism in so
far as it assimilates from the external world only what is homo-
geneous and beneficial to it; on the other hand, what is hetero-
geneous and injurious is either not allowed to approach at all
or, if it is unavoidably introduced, is again thrown off wholly
intact.
l ['A fool is better acquainted with his own house than is a clever man with that
of another.' (See 48.)]
ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE 509
278
Like algebra, the satire should operate merely with abstract
and indeterminate, not with concrete, values or quantities. We
are no more entitled to practise it on living human beings than
we are permitted to practise anatomy, on pain of having in
danger our own skin and life.
279
To be immortal, a work must have so many excellent qualities
that it will rarely be possible to find anyone who will grasp and
appreciate them all; on the contrary, one man will recognize
and admire one excellent quality, another another; and the
credit of the work is thereby maintained throughout many
centuries, in spite of constantly changing interests. For it is
admired first in one sense and then in another and is never
exhausted. However, the author of such a work; namely he who
claims to survive in future generations, can only be one who not
merely seeks in vain his peer among his contemporaries all over
the world and is very obviously and noticeably different from
everyone else, but also one who, even if he travelled for several
generations like the wandering Jew, would still always find
himself in the same position; in short, one to whom Ariosto's
\-vords actually apply: lo fece natura, e poi ruppe lo stampo.J Other-
wise it would be impossible to see why his ideas should not
perish like all others.
280
At almost all times there prevails in art as in literature some
false fundamental view, fashion, or mannerism which is admired.
Men of ordinary mentality eagerly endeavour to adopt and
practise it. The man of insight recognizes and rejects it and
remains out of fashion. After a few years, however, even the
public comes to recognize the foolery for what it is and then
laughs at it. The admired make-up of all those stilted and
affected works falls off like bad plaster from a wall that was
covered with it and then, like this, they stand out. Therefore we
3 ['Nature stamped it and then smashed the mould.']

should not be annoyed but pleased when some false funda-
mental view that has long been secretly operating is now
decidedly, loudly, and clearly expressed. For its false nature is
soon recognized, felt, and finally also expressed. It is as if an
abscess had burst.
281
Against the unconscionable ink-slinging of our times and thus
against the ever-rising flood of useless and inferior books, the
literary journals should act as a dam. For they should judge in-
corruptibly, fairly, and strictly, and should ruthlessly scourge
every piece of bungled work from an incompetent writer, every
piece of scribbling whereby an empty head tries to come to the
aid of an empty purse, and consequently nine-tenths of all the
books that are published. In this way, they would fulfil a duty
by opposing the itch to write and by counteracting trickery and
fraud instead of encouraging such things by their mean and
scurvy tolerance that is in league with author and publisher in
order to rob the public of time and money. As a rule, authors
are professors or men of letters who, with their low salaries and
poor fees, write because they are in need of money. Now as their
aim is a common one, they have a common interest, stick
together, and support one another; each has a good word for
the other-. The result of this is seen in all those laudatory accounts
of inferior books that constitute the subject-matter of the
literary journals, whose motto should therefore be: 'Live and
let live!' (And the public is simple enough to prefer reading
what is new to what is good.) Is or was there ever one which can
boast of never having praised the most worthless scribblings, of
never having censured or run down what is excellent, or of
never having craftily treated a meritorious work as unimpor-
tant, for the purpose of diverting public attention therefrom?
Is there a journal which always conscientiously aims at selecting
the books to be announced in accordance with their importance,
and not on the recommendation of friends, out of deference to
colleagues, or even because of publishers' palm-oil? Does not
everyone who is not a mere tiro at once look back almost
mechanically at the name of the publishing firm, as soon as he
finds a book that is highly praised or severely censured? Reviews
of books are written generally in the interests of publishers and
ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE 51 I
booksellers instead of in those of the public. If, on the other
hand, there existed a literary journal, as called for in the fore-
going, then every bad author, every brainless compiler, every
plagiarist of other people's books, every hollow, incapable,
place-hunting philosophaster, every colourless and conceited
poetaster, would have his itching fingers paralysed by the pros-
pect of the pillory, where his miserable piece of bungling would
soon have to stand. This would be a real benefit to literature
where inferior work is not merely useless, but positively harm-
ful. Now most books are bad and should never have been
written; consequently, praise should be as rare as blame now is
under the influence of personal considerations and the maxim
accedas socius, laudes lauderis ut absens.4 It is absolutely wrong to
attempt to extend to literature the tolerance that we must neces-
sarily show to the stupid and brainless who in society swarm
everywhere. For in literature such men are impudent and
impertinent intruders, and to suppress here what is bad is a duty
to what is good; whoever fails to see what is bad will also fail to
see what is good. Generally speaking, politeness that springs from
society is in literature a strange and often very harmful element,
for it demands that the bad shall be called good, and thus is
directly opposed to the aims of both science and art. Naturally,
such an ideal literary journal of the kind that I would like to see,
could be written only by those who combined incorruptible
honesty with rare knowledge and an even rarer power ofjudge-
ment. Accordingly, even the whole of Germany could hardly
produce one such literary journal; but then it would stand out as
a just Areopagus and every one of its members would have to be
elected by all the others. Instead of this, literary journals are
now run by university guilds or literary cliques, and perhaps in
secret even by publishers and booksellers, for the benefit of the
book-trade; and there are, as a rule, a few coalitions of inferior
minds who prevent good work from rising to the top. Even
Goethe said that nowhere was there more dishonesty than in
literature; I have gone into this more fully in On the Will in
Nature, 'Physiology and Pathology'.
Above all, that shield of literary knavery, anonymity, would
therefore have to be discarded. It was introduced into literary
4['Become a pal and praise, so that you are again praised when you are away.'
(Horace, Satires, n, 5, 72.)]
journals on the plea of protecting the honest reviewer, the
monitor of the public, from the pique and animosity of the
author and his promoters. But for one such case there will be a
hundred where it merely serves to absolve from all responsibility
the man who cannot back up what he says, or even to hide the
shame of the person who, for a financial consideration from the
publisher, is mercenary and mean enough to recommend to
the public an inferior book. It often serves also to conceal the
obscurity, insignificance, and incompetence of the critic. It is
incredible to see the audacity of the fellows and the sharp
practices at which they do not shrink when they know they are
safe under the cover of anonymity. Just as there are universal
medicines, so is the following a universal anti-critique against all
anonymous reviewers, it matters not whether they have praised
the bad or censured the good. 'Your name, you scoundrel! For
to mask and disguise yourself and to attack those who go about
undisguised is not the act of an honourable man, but of knaves
and rascals. Therefore your name, you scoundrel!' probatum est.s
In the preface to his ]vouvelle Heloise Rousseau said: tout
honnete homme doit avouer les liz1res qu'il publie.6 In plain language
this means that 'every honest man puts his name to what he
writes', and universally affimative propositions may be con-
verted per contrapositionem.7 How very much more this applies to
polemical writings, such as are reviews in most cases! Therefore
Riemer is quite right when he says on page xxix of the preface
to his Mittheilungen iiber Goethe: 'An open opponent who shows
his face is an honourable and reasonable man with whom we
can come to an understanding, make it up, and be reconciled.
On the other hand, a hidden opponent is a mean and cowardly
rascal who has not the courage to admit that he is the author of a
criticism. His opinion is, therefore, not even of any concern to
him, but he is merely interested in the secret delight of venting
his spleen with impunity and without being recognized.' This
may have been Goethe's opinion, for he often expressed it
through Riemer. Rousseau's rule applies generally to every line
that is printed. Should a masked man be allowed to harangue a
s ['It is approved and recommended.']
6 ['Every man of honour ought to endorse and be responsible for the books he
publishes.']
7 ['By contra position .)
crowd or address a meeting? Should we also allow him to
attack others and shower reproaches on them? Would he not be
at once kicked out of doors by the others?
No sooner is the freedom of the press finally attained in
Germany, than it is most disgracefully abused. It should at
least be conditioned by a prohibition of every kind of anonymity
and pseudonymity, so that everyone might be held responsible,
at least with his honour if he still has any, for what he publicly
proclaims through the far-reaching trumpet of the press, and
also that, if he is without honour, his words might be neutralized
by his name. It is obviously dishonourable to attack anony-
mously those who have not so written. An anonymous reviewer
is a fellow who will not stand by what he tells to, or conceals from,
the world concerning other people and their work and who,
therefore, withholds his name. And is anything like this
tolerated? No lie is so shameless that an anonymous reviewer
will not venture ~o use it; indeed he is not responsible. All
anonymous reviewing aims at falsehood and imposture. There-
fore just as the police do not allow us to walk about the streets in
masks, so should they not tolerate anonymous writing. Anony-
mous literary journals are the very place where ignorance with
impunity sits in judgement on scholarship, and stupidity on
intelligence, and where the public is deceived and through the
praise of inferior work is cheated of its time and money, again
with impunity. For is not anonymity the stronghold of all
literary, and especially publicist, rascality? It must, therefore,
be pulled down to the very ground, in other words, so that every
article in a journal shall always be accompanied by the name of
the author and the editor shall accept the heavy responsibility
for the correctness of the signature. Since even the most insigni-
cant man is known in the place where he lives, two-thirds of the
lies in journals would thus disappear and the audacity of many
a venomous tongue would be kept within bounds. Just now in
France the matter is being tackled in this way.
But as long as that prohibition docs not exist, all honest
authors should unite in proscribing anonymity by publicly
branding it with the mark of their utmost contempt, daily and
hourly expressed. They should make it known in every possible
way that anonymous reviewing is contemptible and dishonour-
able. Whoever writes and carries on a controversy anonymously,
is eo ipso presumed to be trying to deceive the public or to injure
the reputation of others without risk to himself. And so when-
ever we speak of an anonymous reviewer, even when we do this
quite incidentally and do not otherwise find fault with him, we
should use only such expressions as: 'the cowardly, anonymous
rogue at such and such a place', or 'in that periodical the
masked, anonymous scoundrel', and so on. This is really the
right and proper tone in which to speak of such fellows in order
to put them out of conceit with their business. For obviously
everyone can claim some personal consideration only in so far
as he enables us to see who he is, so that we know with whom we
are dealing, but not the man who slinks around disguised in a
mask, and who is then pert and saucy. On the contrary, such a
man is ipso facto proscribed and outlawed. He is '08vaaEvs
Oirr,r;,s Mr. Nobody [Herr JViemand], and it is up to everyone to
declare that ~1r. Nobody is a scoundrel. We should, therefore,
at once call every anonymous reviewer a knave and a cur,
especially in anti-critiques, and not talk of' the honoured and
respected reviewer', as do some of the pack of defiled authors
through cowardice. 'A cur who withholds his name! ' must be
the cry of all honourable authors. And now if anyone distin-
guishes himself by removing the mist-cap from such a fellow
who has run the gauntlet, and by seizing his ear and dragging
him forward, then the night-owls will be delighted to see such
sport. When a slander comes to our ears, the first outburst of
indignation is usually the question 'Who said that?' But
anonymity returns no answer.
A particularly absurd impertinence of such anonymous
critics is their use of the royal pronoun 'We', whereas they
should speak not only in the singular, but in the diminutive and
in all humility, in such phrases as' my mean and unworthy self,
my cowardly cunning, my masked incompetence, my wretched
rascality', and so on. It is proper for masked swindlers, for those
blind worms that hiss from the dark holes of a 'literary local
sheet', to speak of themselves in this way, and one should now
put a stop to their business. Anonymity in literature is what
material swindling is in ordinary life. 'Your name, you scoun-
drel, or hold your tongue!' must be the cry. Until then, we may
[Odysseus took the name 'Ovn~ , 'No man', in order to escape from Poly
pbemus.]
add at once to every unsigned criticism the word 'cheat'. The

business may bring in money, but certainly not honour. For in
his attacks Mr. Anonymous is just plain Mr. Rogue, and we can
bet a hundred to one that, whoever refuses to give his name,
does so for the purpose of deceiving the public.* Only anony-
mous books are we justified in anonymously reviewing.
Generally speaking, with the disappearance of anonymity,
ninety-nine literary rascalities out of a hundred would disappear.
Until the business is proscribed, we should, whenever the occa-
sion arises, hold the man running it (the head and principal of
the Institute of Anonymous Reviewing) directly responsible for
the sins committed by those in his pay, and should adopt a tone
that his business gives us the right to use.t For my part, I would
sooner run a gambling den or a brothel than such a hovel of
. .
anonymous rev1ewmg.
282
Style is the physiognomy of the mind and such is more in-
fallible than is that of the body. To imitate another's style is
equivalent to wearing a mask. However fine this may be, it soon
becomes insipid and insufferable because it is lifeless, so that
even the ugliest living face is better. Therefore those authors,
who write in Latin and imitate the style of the ancients, are
really like those who wear masks. Thus we certainly hear what
they have to say, but do not see in addition their physiognomy
or style. But this we do see in the Latin works of those who think
for themselves, in those who have not been content to imitate, such
From the very beginning, an anonymous reviewer has to be regarded as a
swindler who is out to deceive. Reviewers in respectable literary journals are sensitive
of this and sign their reviews. The anonymous reviewer wishes to deceive the public
and to injure the reputation of authors, the former often for the benefit of a pub-
lisher or bookseller and the latter for giving vent to his envy. In short, the literary
roguery of anonymous reviewing must be stopped.
t The man who edits and publishes anything should himself be made directly
responsible for the sins of an anonymous reviewer, just as if he had written it him-
self, in th~ same way as a foreman is held responsible for the bad work of the men
under him. We should treat such a fellow without ceremony, as his trade d~rves.
Anonymity is literary swindling to which we should exclaim at once: 'You rogue,
if you will not own up to what you say against other people, then hold your
slanderous tongue!' An anonymous review has no more authority than has an
anonymous letter and, like this, should be accepted with the same suspicion. Or are
we to assume that the name of the man who lends it, to run such a real sociiti
ano1!)'71l.t, is a guarantee of the truthfulness of his fellows?
as, for instance, Scotus Erigena, Petrarch, Bacon, Descartes,
Spinoza, Hobbes, and others.
Affectation in style is like making faces. The language in which
a man writes is the physiognomy of his nation; it establishes
great differences, for example, from the Greek to the Caribbean.
We should discover faults of style in the writings of others in
order to avoid them in our own.
2839
To form a provisional estimate of the value of an author's
mental products, it is not absolutely necessary to know the
subject of his thoughts or what he has thought about it, for this
would entail our reading through all his works. On the contrary,
it is enough to know in the first place how he has thought. Now
his sryle is an exact impression of this how, this essential nature
and general qualiry of his thinking. Thus a man's style shows the
formal nature of all his ideas and this must always remain the
same, no matter what the subject of his thoughts, or what he
thinks about it. Here we have, so to speak, the dough from which
he kneads all his forms, however varied they may be. To the
man who asked Eulenspiegel how long it would take to reach
the next place, he gave the apparently absurd answer 'walk!'
with the object of first finding out from his pace how far he
would go in a given time. In the same way, I read a few pages
of an author and then know to what extent he can be useful to
me.
Secretly aware of this state of affairs, every mediocre writer
tries to mask his style which is peculiar and natural to him. This
compels him in the first place to give up all naivete, whereby this
remains the prerogative of superior minds who feel their own
superiority and are, therefore, sure of themselves. Thus those
comn1onplace minds arc quite unable to resolve on writing just
as they think because they suspect that their work might then
appear very silly and simple. But yet it might still be of some
value. And so if only they would go to work honestly and tell us
simply the few ordinary things they have thought, just as they
have thought them, they would be readable and, in their
9 [In this long paragraph, common errors in German are discussed. No attempt
has been made to translate the example~ that are given by Schopenhaucr for the
purpose of illustrating the points which he raises.)
appropriate sphere, even instructive. But instead of this, they

try to appear as though they have gone much further and more
deeply in their thoughts than is actually the case. Accordingly,
they express what they have to say in affected and intricate
turns of phrase, new-coined words, and long and complicated
periods that go round and round the thought and disguise it.
They hesitate between the wish to communicate the thought
and the desire to conceal it. They would like to embellish it so
that it might look learned or profound and we might think
there is much more in it than we are aware of at the time. They
accordingly write it down piecemeal in short, ambiguous, and
paradoxical sentences that appear to suggest much more than
they state (splendid instances of this kind are afforded by
Schelling's works on the philosophy of nature). Or they express
their thought in a long rigmarole of words with the most
insufferable prolixity, as if it needed a marvellous amount of
preparation to make its profound meaning intelligible, whereas
it is quite a simple and even trivial idea. (Examples in profusion
are afforded by Fichte in his popular works and in their philo-
sophical manuals by a hundred other wretched dunces who are
not worth mentioning.) Or again, they endeavour to write in
some style which they have assumed and is supposed to be very
grand, for example in a really profound and scientific style
Kar, ~oX7]v, 10 where we are tormented to death by the narcotic
effect of the long-spun periods with no ideas in them. (Examples
of this are given especially by those most shameless of all
mortals, the Hegelians, in their Hegel-journal, vulgo Jahrbiicher
der wissenschaftlichen Litteratur.) Or they have even aimed at a
smart and clever style of writing where they then seem to want
to go crazy; and there are many other instances. All such
attempts whereby they try to put off the nascetur ridiculus mus, 11
often make it difficult for one to discover from their works what
they really mean. Moreover, they write down words and even
whole periods in which they think nothing but yet hope that
someone else will think something. Underlying all such eflorts is
simply the untiring endeavour to sell words for thoughts in new
ways and by means of new expressions or such as are used in a
10 ['Par excellence'.]
11 ['(Mountains are in labour and) a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.'
'Much ado about nothing.' (Horace, Ars poetica, 139.)]

new sense, turns of phrase and combinations of every kind, to
produce the appearance of intellect in order to make up for the
painfully felt want thereof. It is amusing to sec how, for this
purpose, first one mannerism and then another is attempted, so
that it may be put on as a mask that represents intellect. For a
time, this may deceive the inexperienced until even it is recog-
nized as a dead mask, is laughed at, and then exchanged for
another. We then see authors write in a dithyrambic style, as if
they were tipsy, and then on the very next page in a pompous,
serious, profoundly erudite style, amounting to the most pon-
derous prolixity and verbosity, like that of the late Christian
Wolff, although in modern guise. Longest of all lasts the mask
of obscurity and unintelligibility, yet only in Germany where it
was introduced by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and finally
brought to its highest pitch in Hegel, always with the greatest
success. And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one
understands, just as, on the other hand, nothing is more difficult
than to express important ideas so that everyone is bound to
understand them. The unintelligible is akin to the unintelligent and
it is always infinitely more probable that beneath it is to be
found concealed a mystification rather than great profundity of
thought. The actual presence of brains, however, renders
unnecessary the above-mentioned tricks; for this allows a man
to show himself as he is and at all times confirms the words of
Horace:
scrihendi recte sapere est et principium etfons.u.
But those authors are like certain metal workers who experiment
with a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold,
the one and only metal that can never be replaced. On the
contrary, there is nothing against which an author should be
more on his guard than the obvious endeavour to exhibit more
intellect than he has. For this arouses in the reader the suspicion
that the author has very little, since always and in every way a
man affects only what he does not actually possess. For this
reason, we are praising an author when we say that he is naive,
since it means that he is at liberty to show himself as he is. What
is naive is generally attractive, whereas a want of naturalness is
12 ['A condition of good writing is that a man thinks rationally and sensibly.
(Ars poetica, gog.)J
ON~AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE 519
everywhere repulsive. \Ve see also that every real thinker is
anxious to express his ideas as purely, clearly, positively, and
briefly as possible. Accordingly, simplicity has always been a
sign not only of truth, but also of genius. Style obtains beauty
from the thought it expresses; but with those pseudo-thinkers
the thoughts are supposed to become beautiful through the
style. Indeed style is the mere silhouette of the thought; obscure
or bad writing is equivalent to dull or confused thinking.
Therefore the first rule of good style is that an author should
haz1e something to say; in fact, by itself alone, this rule is almost
sufficient, and what a long way we can go with it! The neglect
of this rule, however, has been a fundamental characteristic of
philosophical authors and generally of all who reflect in Ger-
many, especially since the time of Fichte. Thus we notice that
such writers want to appear to say something, whereas they have
nothing to say. This method of writing which was introduced
by the pseudo-philosophers of the universities, can be observed
everywhere even among the leading literary notabilities of the
age. It is the mother of that strained and vague style where
there are two or even more meanings in the sentence; likewise
of that prolix and ponderous style, the stile empese; 13 again of the
useless flood of \'\'ords; finally also of that trick of concealing the
direst poverty of thought under a never-ending chatter that
clatters like a windmill and stupefies. \Ve can read such stuff for
hours without getting hold of any clearly expressed and definite
idea. Choice samples of this kind of writing are furnished almost
everywhere by those notorious Halle'sche ]ahrbiicher, later known
as the Deutsche ]ahrbiicher. \Vhoever has anything worth saying,
does not need to disguise it in affected and unnatural expres-
sions, intricate phrases, and obscure allusions. On the contrary,
he can express it simply, clearly, and naively and thus be certain
that it will not fail in its effect. Thus whoever uses the foregoing
artificial means thereby betrays his poverty of thought, intellect,
and knowledge. Meanwhile German patience and placidity
have become accustomed to reading page after page of such
idle displays of words without having any special idea of what
the writer really means. They imagine that all this is as it should
be, and fail to see that he writes for the sake of writing. On the
u ['Stiff and starchy style '.1

other hand, a good author, fertile in ideas, soon gains the con-
fidence of his reader that he is in earnest and really has something
to say when he speaks. This gives the intelligent reader patience
to follow him attentively. just because such an author really has
something to say, he will always express himself in the simplest
and most straightforward manner. :For his object is to awaken
in the reader the very thought that he himself has, and no other.
Accordingly, he will be able to say with Boileau:
Ma pensee au grand jour parlout s'offre et s'expose,
Et mons vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose; r
whereas the same poet's words: et qui parlant beaucoup ne disent
jamais rien 1s apply to those authors previously described. Now
another characteristic of those writers is that, where possible,
they avoid all positive and decided expressions so that, in case of
need, they can always effect their escape. Hence in all cases
they choose the more abstract expression, whereas men of intellect
select the more concrete because the latter expression brings
things nearer to distinct perceptibility, which is the source of all
evidence. There are many instances demonstrating that pre-
ference for the abstract; but a particularly absurd one is where
we find almost everywhere in the German literature of the last
ten years the verb bedingen [to condition] instead of bewirken [to
produce] or verursachen [to cause] because, being abstract and
indefinite, this says less (namely 'not without this' instead of
'through this'), and thus always leaves open the little back-
door that is agreeable to those whose secret awareness of their
own incapacity imbues them with a constant dread of all positive
and decided expressions. With others, however, there is here at
work simply the national tendency to imitate at once every
stupidity in literature, as also every impudent trick in ordinary
life; and such tendency is seen in the rapidity with which these
two evils spread on all sides. Both in what he writes and what he
does, an Englishman consults his own judgement, whereas the
German is the last person of whom this could be said to his
credit. In consequence of this state of affairs, the words bewirken
and verursachen have almost entirely disappeared from the books
1['What I think can venture into the full light of day,
And my verse, whether good or bad, has always something to say.']
IS[' And who speak a lot and never say anything'.]
ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE 5~1
that have been published in the last ten years and men every-
where speak only of bedingen. The thing is worth mentioning on
account of its characteristic absurdity.
The du1lness and tediousness of the writings of ordinary
commonplace minds could be inferred even from the fact that,
when they talk, they are always only half-conscious and thus
do not themselves really understand the meaning of their own
words; for with them such words arc something acquired and
picked up ready-made. They therefore put together whole
phrases (phrases banales) rather than words. From this arises that
palpable lack of clearly expressed ideas which characterizes
them just because the die for stamping such ideas, namely their
own clear thinking, is wanting in them. Instead of these, we find
a vague and obscure tissue of words, current phrases, hackneyed
and fashionable expressions.* In consequence of this, the foggy
stuff they write is like a page printed with worn-out type. On
the other hand, men of intellect actually speak to us in their
writings and are, therefore, able to stimulate and sustain us;
they alone quite consciously and intentionally choose and put
together individual words. Their style is, therefore, related to
that of ordinary writers as is a picture actually painted to one
that has been produced by a stencil. Thus in the one case, there
is to be found a special purpose in every word, as also in every
touch of the brush, whereas in the other, everything is put down
mechanically. t The same distinction can be observed in music.
For it is always and everywhere the omnipresence of intellect
in all its parts which characterizes the work of genius; it is
analogous to the omnipresence of Garrick's soul in all the
muscles of his body, as was observed by Lichtenberg.
With regard to the above-mentioned tediousness of ordinary
works, however, the general observation can be made that of
this there arc two kinds, objective and subjective. Objective
It is the same with striking expressions, original sayings, and felicitous turns of
phrase as with clothes. When they are new, they are showy and very effective. But
they are at once taken up by everyone and thus in a short time become worn and
faded, so that in the end they are entirely without effect.
t The scribblings of commcmplace minds are laid on as if by a stencil and thus consist
of nothing but ready-made expressions and phrases which happen to be in vogue
and fashion and arc put down on paper without anything being thought in connec-
tion with them. The superior mind fashions every phrase expressly for the case with
which he is at present concerned.
tediousness always springs from the defect we are discussing,
from the fact that the author has absolutely no perfectly clear
ideas or knowledge to convey to us. For whoever has such ideas,
works directly to the attainment of his purpose, namely their
communication. And so he always furnishes us with clearly
expressed conceptions and in consequence is not diffuse, futile,
colourless, confused, and thus tedious. Even when his funda-
mental idea is erroneous, it is in such a case clearly thought out
and carefully considered, and so is at any rate formally correct,
and his work, therefore, always has some value. On the other
hand, an objectively tedious work is, for the same reasons, always
worthless. Subjective tediousness, however, is merely relative; it
is based on the reader's lack of interest in the question dealt
with, but such want of interest may be due to some narrowness
of view on his part. Therefore even an excellent work may be
subjectively tedious to this man or that, just as, on the other
hand, the most inferior work can be subjectively engrossing to
this or that person because he is interested in the question dis-
cussed or in the writer.
It would generally be a good thing for German authors if they
were to see that, where possible, one should think like a great
mind, but like everyone else should speak the same language.
One should use common words to say uncommon things; but
those authors do the very opposite. Thus we find them trying to
wrap up trivial ideas in grand words and to clothe their very
common ideas in the most uncommon expressions and in the
most far-fetched, affected, and fantastic phrases. Their sentences
constantly stalk and strut on stilts. As regards this pleasure in
bombast and generally in that high-flown, bloated, affected,
hyperbolical, and acrobatic style, their type is Pistol, the
standard-bearer in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II, Act v,
Scene 3, to whom his friend Falstaff calls out impatiently: 'I
pray thee, now, deliver them (the news) like a man of this
world!' I commend the following announcement to those who
are fond of examples: 'We are shortly publishing a theoretically
practical, scientific physiology, pathology and therapy of
pneumatic phenomena known by the name of windiness and
flatulence wherein these are systematically described and
explained in their organic and causal connection, according to
their being and essence, as also with all the genetic factors,
internal and external, which condition them, in the fullness of
their appearance and activity, both for scientific and human
knowledge generally. A free translation with notes, corrections,
and explanatory commentaries of the French work L' Art de
peter.' 16
There is no expression corresponding exactly to the French
stile empese; but the thing itself is none the less frequent. When
associated with affectation, it is in books what affected pom-
posity, airs and graces, and affectation are in society, and is just
as intolerable. Poverty of intellect likes to cloak itself in this
style, just as in ordinary life stupid people like to be demure and
formal.
Whoever writes in an affected style, is like a man who dresses
himself up to avoid being confused and mixed up with the
crowd, a risk that is never run by the gentleman, even when he is
in his worst clothes. Therefore just as the plebeian is recognized
by a certain showiness of attire and by his being tirl a qualre
epingles, l7 so is the commonplace writer by his pretentious and
affected style.
It is nevertheless false for us to try to write exactly as we
speak. On the contrary, every style of writing should bear a
certain trace of kinship with the lapidary style that is the
ancestor of them all. Therefore to write exactly as we speak is
just as reprehensible as is the opposite fault of our trying to speak
as we write; for this makes us pedantic and at the same time
scarcely intelligible.
Obscurity and vagueness of expression are always and every-
where a very bad sign; for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
they come from vagueness of thought, which again springs
almost invariably from an original incongruity, inconsistency,
and thus incorrectness of the thought itself. When a correct idea
arises in the mind, it strives for distinctness and will not be long
in reaching this; for what is clearly thought out easily finds its
most appropriate expression. Whatever a man is capable of
thinking can always be expressed in clear, intelligible, and
unambiguous words. Those who construct difficult, obscure,
involved, and ambiguous sentences, certainly do not know what
they want to say; on the contrary, they have of it only a dull
16 ['The art of farting '.]
1' ['Spick and span'; 'as if out of a bandbox'.]
consciousness that is still struggling for an idea. Often they wish
to conceal from themselves and from others the fact that they
really have nothing to say. Like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel,
they want to appear to know what they do not know, to think
what they do not think, and to say what they do not say. Will
anyone who has something real and positive to convey, endeav-
our to speak vaguely or distinctly? Even Quintilian (Institu-
tiones oratoriae, lib. u, c. 3) says: plerumque accidit ut faciliora sint ad
intelligendum et lucidiora multo, quae a doctissimo quoque dicuntur . ..
Erit ergo etiam obscurior, quo quisque de~rior. 1 8
In the same way, we should not express ourselves in riddles,
but should know whether or not we want to say a thing.
Indecision in the way in which they express themselves makes
German authors so unattractive and uninteresting. An excep-
tion is allowed only in those cases where one has to convey
something that is in some way unlawful and prohibited.
Every excess of an impression often produces the very opposite
of what was intended; in the same way, words certainly help to
make ideas intelligible, yet only up to a certain point. If they
are piled up beyond this, they again render ever more obscure
the ideas that are to be conveyed. To determine that point is the
problem of style and the business of the faculty of judgement;
for every superfluous word has an effect that is the very opposite
of the one intended. In this sense, Voltaire says that l' adjectif est
l'ennemi du substantif. 19 But naturally many authors try to conceal
beneath a flood of words their poverty of ideas.
Accordingly, we should avoid all prolixity and the insertion
of every unimportant remark that is not worth reading. We
must be sparing of the reader's time, effort, and patience; and
we shall in this way lead him to believe that what we have
written is worthy of his attention and will repay the effort he
has to devote to it. It is always better to leave out something
good than to insert something meaningless and futile. Hesiod's
words 'TTAEov ijp.tav 'TTavTo!> (Opera et dies, l. 40) zo here find their
right application. In any case, do not say everything! Le secret
18 ['It often happens that what is said by an expert is easier to understand and
far more lucid ... Consequently, a man will be the more obscure, the more worth-
less he is.']
19 ['The adjective is the enemy of the substantive.']
ao ['The half is more than the whole.']

pour etre ennuyeux, c' est de tout dire. 21 Hence, if possible, nothing but
the quintessence, nothing but the main points, nothing that the
reader would think of by himself. To use many words for the
purpose of conveying few ideas is everywhere the infallible sign
of mediocrity; whereas that of an eminent mind is the inclusion
of many ideas into few words.
Truth is most beautiful when naked and the impression it
makes is the deeper, the simpler its expression. This is, to some
extent, because it takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's
entire mind which is not distracted by any secondary idea, and
also because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or
deceived by the tricks of rhetoric, but that the whole effect
comes from the thing itself. For instance, what declamation on
the vanity and emptiness of human existence will make a greater
impression than Job's homo, natus de muliere, brevi vivit tempore,
repletus multis miseriis, qui, tanquamflos, egreditur et conteritur, etfugit
velut umbra? 22 For this reason, Goethes' naive poetry is incom-
parably greater than Schiller's rhetorical verses. Hence too the
powerful effect of many popular songs. Therefore as in architec-
ture we have to beware of being excessively ornate, so in the arts
of speech we must guard against all unnecessary rhetorical
refinement, all useless amplifications, and generally all super-
fluity of expression; thus we must aspire to chastity of style.
Everything that is superfluous has a harmful effect. The law of
simplicity and naivete applies to all the fine arts, since these are
compatible even with what is the most sublime.
Dullness and insipidiry assume all forms with the object of
hiding behind them. They exist in the guise of haughtiness,
bombast, a tone of superiority and fine airs, and in a hundred
other forms, but not in that of naivete, since here they would stop
short and produce mere silliness and stupidity. Even a good
head dare not be naive, for it would appear dry and poor; and so
naivete remains the robe of honour for genius, just as nakedness
is that of beauty.
Genuine brevity of expression consists in our always saying
only what is worth saying and, on the other hand, in avoiding
11 ['The secret of being dull and tedious consists in our saying everything.']
22 ['Man that is born of a woman is offew days, and full of trouble. He cometh
forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow. and continueth not.'
(Job 14: 1-2.)]
ON Al.JTHORSHIP AND STYLE
lengthy and involved explanations of what everyone can add
for himself in his thoughts. It also entails a correct discrimina-
tion between what is necessary and what is superfluous. On the
other hand, we should never sacrifice to brevity clearness, not to
mention grammar. To mar the expression of an idea, or even to
obscure and stunt the meaning of a period, for the sake of
economy of words, is a deplorable lack of intelligence. But this is
precisely the business of that false brevity which is the fashion
nowadays and consists in the omission of what is useful and
expedient and even grammatically or logically necessary. In
Germany at the present time inferior literary hacks are smitten
with this brevity as with a mania and practise it with incredible
folly and stupidity. Thus to save a word and to kill two birds
with one stone, they make one verb or one adjective simul-
taneously serve several different periods, indeed in different
ways. The reader must then go through all these without under-
standing them groping in the dark as it were, until the last word
is reached which throws some light on the matter. Or again by
many other quite improper word economies, they try to produce
what their silliness and stupidity imagine to be brevity of
expression and conciseness of style. Thus by economizing on a
word which would have at once thrown light on a period, they
make a riddle thereof, which the reader tries to unravel by
going through it over and over again. In particular, the parti-
cles wenn and so are proscribed by them and must everywhere
be made good by putting the verb first, and this without the
necessary discrimination, too subtle for their minds of course,
whether or not this turn of the sentence is suitable. The result of
this is often not only inelegant roughness and affectation, but
also incomprehensibility. Akin to this, is a grammatical blunder
which is nowadays a universal favourite and is best shown by an
example. In order to say: kame er zu mir, so wiirde ich ihm sagen,
and so on, nine-tenths of our present-day ink-slingers write:
wiirde er ,zu mir kommen, ich sagte ihm, and so on, which is not only
inelegant, but wrong; for only an interrogative period can really
begin with wurde, a hypothetical sentence being at most only in
the present and not in the future. But now their talent for
brevity of expression does not go beyond counting words and
devising tricks for expunging at any price some word, or even
only a syllable. It is solely in this respect that they attempt con-
ciseness of style and pithiness of enunciation. Accordingly, every
sylJable whose logical, grammatical, or euphonic value escapes
their dull brains, is promptly lopped off; and as soon as one ass
has performed such a heroic deed, a hundred others follow and
cheerfully emulate him. And nowhere is there any opposition to
this folly, but as soon as one fellow has made a really asinine
blunder, others admire it and hasten to imitate it. Accordingly,
in the 184os these ignorant ink-slingers entirely eliminated from
the German language the perfect and pluperfect by everywhere
replacing them with the imperfect for the sake of their beloved
brevity, so that this remains the only preterite in the language.
This they did at the expense not only of all the finer shades of
accuracy or even only of all grammatical correctness of phrase
but also of all common sense, since sheer nonsense is the result.
Therefore of all those mutilations of the language, this is the
most scurl!)' because it attacks logic and hence the meaning of
speech. It is a linguistic infamy.* I am willing to bet that in the
last ten years whole books have appeared in which not a single
pluperfect, and perhaps not even a perfect, tense is to be found.
Do these gentlemen really imagine that imperfect and perfect
have the same meaning and that each can, therefore, be used
indiscriminately? If this is their opinion, a place must be found
for them in the fourth form of a grammar-school. What would
have become of ancient authors if they had written so carelessly?
Almost without exception this outrage is committed on the
language in all the newspapers and for the most part in learned
periodicals as weli.t For, as I have already mentioned, in
Germany every folly in literature and every impudent trick in
ordinary life find hosts of imitators, and no one dares to stand
Of all the infamies perpetrated today on the German language, the elimination
of the perfect and the substitution of the imperfect is the most pernicious; for it
directly affects the logical aspect of speech, destroys its sense, abolishes fundamental
distinctions, and causes it to say something different from what was intended. In
German the imperfect and perfect may be put only where we should put them in
Latin; for the leading principle is the same in both languages, namely to distinguish
an uncompleted action still going on from one that is completed and already lies
entirely in the past.
t In the Gottingische Anzeigen which claims to be literary and learned (Feb. 1856), I
found, instead of the pluperfect subjunctive, so definitely required if there is to be
any sense in the phrase, the simple imperfect in the phrase er schien instead of er
~de geschimm haben, all for the sake of that beloved brevity. My retort was:
rruserable wretch! '
on his own feet, just because the power of judgement is not at
home with us, but with neighbours who come to visit us, a fact
I cannot conceal. Through this extirpation of those two impor-
tant tenses, a language sinks to the level of the coarsest and
crudest. To put the imperfect instead of the perfect is a sin not
merely against German grammar but against the universal
grammar of all languages. And so it would be a good thing if for
German authors a small school were established in which one
taught the difference between the imperfect, perfect, and
pluperfect and that between genitive and ablative; for with the
utmost unconcern the latter is invariably written instead of the
former. For instance, das Leben von Leibniz and der Tod von
Andreas liofer are written instead of Leibnizens Leben, Hofers Tod.
How would such a blunder be taken in other languages? \Vhat,
for example, would the Italians say if an author confused di and
da (i.e. genitive and ablative)? But since in French these two
particles are represented by the dull and colourless de and a
knowledge of modern languages on the part of German writers
of books does not usually go beyond a small modicum ofFrench,
they imagine they are allowed also to impose on the German
language that French weakness and, as is usual with follies, they
meet with approbation and imitation.* For the same worthy
reason, because the French language is so poor that the preposi-
tion pour has to do duty for four or five German prepositions, the
preposition fur is used by our brainless ink-slingers wherever
gegen, urn, auf, or some other preposition should be used, or even
where there should be no preposition at all, merely for the sake
of aping and imitating the French pour. In this connection
things have come to such a pass that five times out of six the
preposition fur is wrongly used. t Von instead of aus is also a
The ablative with z>on has become a regular synonym for the genitive. Everyone
imagines he is at liberty to use which he likes. Gradually it will entirely replace the
genitive and everyone will write like a Franco-German. Now this is scandalous;
grammar has lost all authority and the arbitrary action of scribblers has taken its
place. The genitive in German is expressed by tks and der, and von expresses the
ablative. Take note of this, my dear fellows, once for all when you want to write
German and not Franco-German jargon!
t Soon fiir will be the only preposition in German. There arc no limits to its
abuse. Liebe fur Andere instead of zu. Beleg fur x instead of .;:u. wird fur die Reparalur
der Maucrn gebraucht instead of zur. Professor fur Pf.)'Sik instead of der. ist fii.r die
Untersuchung erfo7derlich instead of zur. die Jury hat ihnfii.r schuldig erkannt : aburulat [is
superAuous]. Fur den 1 2ten die.ses erwart.e: man tkn Herzog instead of am or zum.
Gallicism. Also turns of phrase such as Diese Menschen, sie haben
keine Urtheilskraft instead of Diese Menschen haben keine Urtheils-
kraft, and generally the introduction of the meagre grammar of
an agglutinated patois like French into the much nobler German
language constitute pernicious Gallicisms. But this does not apply,
as some narrow-minded purists imagine, to the introduction of
individual foreign words that are assimilated and enrich the
language. Almost half the German words can be derived from
Latin, although there is still some doubt as to which words were
Bdtriige fur Geologie instead of zur. Rilcksicht fur Jemanden instead of gegen. &if fiir
etwas instead of zu. Er brauchl es fiir seine Arbeit instead of zu. Die Steuerlast fiir
wu:rtrliglich finden. Grund fiir etwas instead of zu. Liebe fiir Musik instead of zur.
Dasjenige, was frUher fiir oothig erschienen, jetzt . . (Po.stzeitung). fiir nOthig finden,
erachten is found almost without exception in an the books and papers of the last ten
years, but is a blunder of which in my young days no sixth-form boy would have
been guilty. For in German we say oothig erachten; on the other hand, we say fiir
twth.ig halten. When such a writer requires some preposition, he does not for one
moment stop to think, but writesfiir, whatever it may signify. This preposition has
to stand up and take the place of an the others. Gesuchfiir die Gestattung instead of um.
Filr die Dauer instead of auf. Fti.r <kn Fall instead of auf. Gleichgiiltigfiir instead of gegen.
Mitleid filr mich instead of mit mir (in a criticism of me!) Rechenschaft fiir eine Sack
geben instead of von. Dafiir bifiihigl instead of dazu. Fur den Fall des Todes des Her;:ogs
muss sein Bruder auf den Thron kommen instead of im. Fur Lord R. wird ein neuer Englischer
Gesandter ernannt werden instead of an Stell!. Schlusselfii:! das Versliindniss instead of zum.
Die Griinde fur die sen Schritt instead of zu. ist eine Beleidigung fiir den Kaiser instead of
des Kaisers. Der Konig von Korea will an Fran.kreich ein GrundsWckfur ei11e Niederlassung
abtreten (Postzeitung). This means that France is giving the King a colony for a plot
of land. Er reistfiJ.T sein Vergniigen instead of zum. Er fand es fiir zweckmii.ssig (Postzei-
tung). Beweisfur instead of Beweis dcr Sack. 1st nicht ohne Einfiussfilr die Dauer des
Lebens instead of auf (Prof. Suckow in Jena). FU1 einige <:_eit verreist! (Fur means pro
and can be used only where pro can be used in Latin.) Indignation fiJ.T die Grausam-
keiten instead of gegen (Postaitung). Ahneigungfor instead of gegen. Filr schuldig erlce~~Mn
and also erkliiren, ubi abundat [where it is superfluous]. Das Motive dafiir instead of
dazu. VerwendungfiJ.T diesen zweck instead of zu. Unempfindlichkeitfiir Eindriicke instead
of gegen. Title: Beitriige fiir die Ku.nde des Indischen Alterthum.s instead of zur. Die
Verdienste unsers Kcnigsfiir Laru:lwirtschaft, Handel wul Gewerbe instead of um (Postzei-
t.ung). Ein Heilmittelfur ein Uebel instead of gegcn. Nez4s Werk: das .Manuskript dtifiir ist
ftrtig instead of dazu. Schritt fur Schritt instead of vor is written by everybody and is
meaningless. Freundschaftliche Gesimumg fiJ.T instead of gegen. Even Freundschqft fii:!
Jemand is wrong; it must be gegen. The German preposition gegen means adversus as
well as contra. Unempfindlichkeit fw <kn Schmer zensrzif instead of gegen. Er wurde fii.r todt
gesagt! filr z.ui.irdig erachten, ubi ahwu:/at (where it is superfluous]. Eine Maske erkannte
erfii.r <kn Kaiser instead of als.fiJ.T einen <:_week bcstimmt instead of zu. Dafiir ist es jetzt
rwch nicht an dcr Zeit instead of dazu. Sie erleiden eine fiir die jetzige Kiilte sehr harte
Behandlung instead of hei. Riidcsichtfiir lhre Gesurulheit instead of auf. Riicksichlfiir Sie
instead of gegen. Erfordernissfiir den Azifschwung instead of zu. Neigung und Beruffiir
Komi>die instead of zur. These last two by a famous German scholar. (J. Grimm
&de uber Schiller, according to an extract in the Litterarische Blauer, jan. t86o.)
actually taken from the Romans and which came to us merely
from Sanskrit, the great mother Janguage. The proposed school
of language for German authors might set prize questions and
problems, for example, on the difference in meaning between
the two questions: Sind Sie gestern im Theater gewesen? and Waren
Sie gestern im Theater?
Yet another example of mistaken brevity is furnished by the
false use of the word nur, which has gradually become general.
It is well known that its meaning is definitely limiting and
restrictive and states 'only' in the sense of' not more than'. Now
I do not know who was the first queer fellow to use it in the sense
of' not otherwise', which is quite a different idea. But on account
of that lucrative word economy, this blunder at once met with
the most zealous imitation, so that now the wrong use of the
word is by far the most frequent, although in this way the writer
often states the very opposite of what he intended. For example,
Ich kann es nur loben means 'I cannot do more than praise it (I
cannot therefore reward or imitate it).' Ich kann es nur miss
billigen, 'I can do nothing but disapprove of it (therefore I
cannot punish it)'. In this connection we have also the now
universal adverbial use of many adjectives, such as iihnlich and
einfach, which may boast of a few old examples but nevertheless
always sounds to me like a discord. For in no language are we
allowed to use adjectives as adverbs with no more to it than that.
What would be said if a Greek author wrote op.oto~ instead of
op.o'-w~, &rrAoii~ instead of &rrAws, or if in other languages one
were to write:
similis instead of similiter, simplex instead of simpliciter,

pareil , pareille- simple , simplement,
" ment, "
like ~) ,, likely, simple ,, , simply,
somigli- , , somiglian- semplice , , semplicemente.
ante kmente,
It is only the German who does not stand on ceremony and who
treats the language in accordance with his whims, narrow-
mindedness, and ignorance, all of which is in keeping with the
nation's intellectual physiognomy.
These are no light matters; they are the mutilation of
grammar and of the spirit of the language by worthless ink-
slingers, nemine dissentiente. 2 3 Sclwlars, so called, who should
oppose this, men of superior education, eagerly imitate the
writers of periodicals and newspapers. It is a competition in
lack of sense and lack of ears. The German language has fallen
entirely among squabblers; everyone grabs what he can and
every miserable ink-slinger pounces on it.
As far as possible, we should distinguish everywhere between
the adjective and the adverb and therefore should not write
sicher when sicherlich is meant.* Speaking generally, we should
never make the slightest sacrifice to brevity at the expense of
distinctness and precision of expression; for it is the possibility of
these that gives a language its value. Only by virtue of these
does it succeed in expressing precisely and unequivocally every
nuance and modulation of an idea and thus enable it to appear
as if in a wet clinging garment and not in a sack. It is precisely
in these that a fine, powerful, and pregnant style consists which
makes the classical author. It is this very possibility of distinctness
and precision of expression which is entirely lost through our
chopping and mincing the language by cutting off prefixes and
affixes and likewise those syllables that distinguish the adverb
from the adjective, by leaving out the auxiliary, by using the
imperfect instead of the perfect, and so on. All this has now
seized every German pen like a raging monomania and all vie
with one another in this business with a brainlessness such as
could never become general in England, France, and Italy; and
there is no opposition of any kind. This chopping and mincing
of the language is as if someone were to cut up valuable
material into small pieces in order to be able to pack it more
tightly. In this way, the language is turned into a miserable,
half-intelligible jargon, and German will soon be this.
But this mistaken attempt at brevity is seen most strikingly in
the mutilation of individual words. Wage-earning book-com-
pilers, scandalously ignorant literary hacks and mercenary
newspaper-writers clip German words in every way, just as
* Sicher instead of gewiss: it is an adjective whose adverb is sicherlich. Sidl1' must

not be wed as an adverb instead of gewiss, as is now done everywhere without any
justification.
Only Germans and Hottentots take such liberties and write siclur instead of
si.cherlich, and then instead of gewiss.
Zl ['Without anyone protesting'.]
sharpers clip coins, all simply for the sake of their beloved
brevity as they understand it. In these attempts they are like
those boisterous babblers who, in order to splutter out a great
deal in a short time and in one breath, suppress and swallow
letters and syllables and, hastily gasping for breath, reel off their
sentences in a moan and thus only half-pronounce the words. In
much the same way, letters are cut out from the middle, and
whole syllables from the beginning and end, of words by those
writers for the purpose of cramming a great deal into a small
space. Thus in the first place, the diphthongs that help prosody,
pronunciation, and euphony and the lengthening h are every-
where cut out; and so everything that can be severed is removed.
This vandalism and destructive mania of our word-nibblers
have been turned on to the final syllables -ung and -keit, simply
because they do not understand or feel their meaning and
importance. With their thick skulls they cannot possibly observe
that fine sense with which our ancestors applied those modula-
tions of syllables when they instinctively formed the language.
Thus, as a rule, they distinguished by -ung the subjective, the
action [flandlung], from the objective, the object [Gegenstand];
whereas by -keit they expressed in most cases that which endures,
permanent qualities; thus the former in Todtung, ,(,eugung,
Befolgung, Ausmessung, and so on; the latter in Freigebigkeit,
Gutmiithigkeit, Freimiithigkeit, Unmoglichkeit, Dauerhaftigkeit, and so
on. Just consider, for example, the words Entschliessung, Ent-
schluss, and Entschlossenheit. Far too stupid, however, to recognize
such things, our 'present time' [jetz.tzeitigen] crude language
reformers write Freimuth; but then they should also write
Gutmuth and Freigabe, as well as Ausfuhr instead of Au~fiihrung,
Durclifuhr instead of Durclifiihrung. It is rightly called Beweis
[proof]; on the other hand, it is not Nachweis [information], as
touched up by our stupid duffers, but Nachweisung [indication].
For Beweis is something objective (mathematischer Beweis,Jaktischer
Beweis, unwiderleglicher Beweis, and so on); whereas Nachweisung
is something subjective, something coming from the subject, in
other words, the act of indicating. They usually write Vorlage
when they mean not the document to be submitted, as this word
states, but the act of submitting and hence Vorlegung. The
difference is analogous to that between Beilage and Beilegung,
Grundlage and Grundlegung, Einlage and Einlegung, Versuch and
Versuchung, Eingabe and Eingebung, and hundreds of similar
words.* But when even the law courts sanction the dilapidation
of the language by writing not only Vorlage instead of Vorlegung,
but also Vollzug instead of Vollziehung, and t order someone to
appear in Selbstperson, that is, in his own person and not in some-
one else's,! we need not be surprised when we see a journalist
report the Einzug einer Pension, when he means its Ein;:,iehu.ng, and
that in consequence it will not make its entrance [Einzu.g] in
future. For of course, on him is entirely lost the wisdom of the
language, which speaks of the -(iehung [drawing] of a lottery,
but of the -(u.g [train] of an army. But what can we expect from
such a newspaper writer when even the learned Heidelberger
Jahrbiicher (No. 24 of 185o) speak of the Einzug seiner Cuter? At
any rate, there might be some excuse for them for it is only a
professor of philosophy who so writes. I am surprised that I have
not yet found Absatz [deduction] instead of Abset;:,ung [dismissal,
removal], Ausfuhr [export] instead of Ausfiihrung [performance],
Empfang [reception) instead of Empfiingniss [conception], or even
the Abtritt [w .c.] of a house instead of its Ahtretung [conveyance],
which would be just as consistent as this language reformer is
respectable and might give rise to delightful misunderstandings.
.(.u:riickgabe instead of .(.uriickgebung; similarly Hingebung, Vergebung; Vollzug

instead of Vollzuhrmg. Gahe is the thing given; Gebung is the act of giving. These are
the lexical refinements of the language.
t Ein Vergleich zwischen den .Niederlantkn und Deutschland (Heidelberger Jahrbilcher),
where a comparison [Vergleichung] not a compromise is meant.
t The law courts write Ladung instead of Vorladung [summons]; but guns and
ships are loaded [Ladung], banquets have an invitation [Einladung], and the law
courts a summons [Vorladung]. The courts should always remember that the reputa-
tion of their judgement is in their hands and that they should, therefore, not
frivolously compromise with this. In England and France men are more prudent
in this respect and always stick to the old legal style. Hence almost every decree
begins with Whereas or PursuanJ to.
Ersatz instead of Ersetzung, Hingahe instead of Hingebung; then they must also
write Ergabe instead of Ergebung. Instead of sorgfaltig a writer puts sorglich; yet it
comes not from Serge [grief, worry], but from Sorgfalt [care, solicitude]. Jakob
Grimm writes Einstimmungen instead of Uebereinstimmungen in his short work Ueber
die .Narnm cks Dormers, 1855 (according to a passage quoted from it in the Central-
blatt), whereby two entirely different concepts are identified! The bad German is the
'grimness' in the poor fellow! (They are asses who have no ears, harri.bile dictu ! -
horrible to relate!) How am I to retain my respect for such a German scholar even
if the reputation persistently circulated about him for thirty years had inspired me
with such respect? Read and see what language was used by Winckelmann, Lessing,
Klopstock, Widand, Goethe, Burger, and Schiller, and emulate it, not the stupidly
invented jargon of present-day literary beggars and of the professors who go with
But in a much-read newspaper I have actually found, and in-
deed severa] times, Unterbruch instead of Unterbrechung, whereby
one might be misled into thinking that here is meant the
ordinary hernia in contrast to the inguinal rupture.* Indeed,
the newspapers least of all have cause for clipping words, since
the longer these are, the more columns they will fill and, if this
is done through harmless syllables, they can in return send
fewer lies into the world. But speaking quite seriously, I must
here draw attention to the fact that certainly more than nine-
tenths of those who read at all read nothing but the newspapers
and therefore almost inevitably model thereon their spelling,
grammar, and style. In their innocence they even regard such
language mutilation as brevity of expression, facile elegance,
and astute and subtle improvements of language. In fact,
because the newspaper is printed, it is generally regarded by
young people of the uneducated classes as an authority.
Seriously speaking, therefore, so far as the State is concerned,
care should be taken that nlwspapers are, from the point of
view of their language, absolutely faultless. For this purpose, a
censor could be appointed who, instead of receiving a salary,
would have to fine the newspaper-man a golden louis for every
word mutilated or not to be found in the works of good authors;
also for every grammatical and even merely syntactical mistake
and for every preposition used in an incorrect combination or a
wrong sense. For impudently scorning all grammar and for the
them to the school oflanguage! In a much-read weekly paper (Kiadderadatsch) I saw

schadlos [unharmed] for rmschii.dlich [harmless]! The scribbler had counted the
letters and, in his excitement at saving a few, had overlooked the fact that be had
written the very opposite of what he wanted to say, namely the passive instead of
the active. The ruin of the language has been always and everywhere the constant
attendant and infallible symptom of a decline in literature and is certainly so even
now.
Verbarui (valid only in the surgical sense) instead of Verbindung. Dichtheit instead
of Dichtigkeit . ./'yfitleid instead of Mitlddmschaft, Ueber instead of Uebrig, ich bin gestan-
den instead of habe geslaruien, mir eriibrigt instead of bleibt ubrig, Nieder instead of Niedrig,
Abschlag instead of abschliigige Antwort (Benfey in the Giittingische Gelehru Anzeigen,.
Die Frage ist von instead of nach. When someone in Germany has once produced a
real folly of this kind, a hundred fools at once rush at it as if it were a godsend in
order to adopt it. If there existed any power of judgement then, instead of being
adopted, such a stupidity would be pilloried. The irifamous clipping of sylklbles
threatens to ruin the language. In a newspaper I found an impossible word behoben
instead of at.!.fgehoben! They do not shrink from any nonsense if a syllable is to be
gained.
scribbler who writes hinsichts instead of hinsichtlich, the fine
should be three golden louis and double that amount for a
repetition of the offence. Commonplace minds should keep to
the beaten track and not undertake to reform the language. Or
is the German language outlawed, a trifling affair, that is not
worth the protection of the law, such as is enjoyed by every
muck-heap? Wretched Philistines! What on earth will become
of the German language if scribblers and journalists retain
powers of discretion to play fast and loose with it according to
their whim and want of understanding? But the mischief we are
considering is by no means limited to newspapers; on the
contrary, it is universal and is carried on in books and learned
periodicals with the same enthusiasm and with little more
thought and consideration. We find prefixes and affixes ruth-
lessly suppressed, for example, Iiingabe for Hinge bung;* Missver-
stand for Missverstiindniss; Wandeln for Verwandeln; Laujfor Verlauf
Meiden for Vermeiden; Rathschlagen for Berathsclllagen; Schliisse for
Besch/Usse; Fiihrung for Auifiihrung; Vergleich for Vergleichung;
Zehrung for Ausz.ehrung, and hundreds of other tricks of this kind;
some even worse. t Even in very learned works we find the same
* We can say: Du Ausgebung der neuen Ausgabe wird erst ilber acht Tage statfjinden.
t Sachverhalt instead of SachverhiillniJs: Verhalt is not a word at all; there is only
Verhaltung (retention of urine) which we naturally think of in connection with
Verhalt. Ansprache everywhere instead of Anrede; but ansprechen is precisely adire [to
call on] instead of alloqui [to address]. Instead of Unbild we have Unbill which is no
word at all, for there is no such word as Bill; here they are thinking of Billig! It
reminds me of someone who, in my youth, had put ungeschlachtet instead of unges-
chlacht [uncouth]. I do not see anyone stand up to this systematic dilapidation and
mutilation of the language by the literary mob. We certainly have German scholars
who are puffed-up with patriotism and Germanism, but I do not see them writing
correct German themselves and keeping clear of the embellishments of language
which are here criticized and come from that mob. We have Stiindig instead of
Bestiinclig, as if Stand and Bestand were the same thing! Why not reduce the whole
language to one word? Instead of die umgeworftnen Biiume, die geworfenen Biiume;
Liingsschnitt instead of Liingifaser; f;'Orgiingige Bestdtigung instead of vorhergiingige.
Ceblichen instead of ahgeblichen (of colourj, but that which loses colour without our
intention fades [bleicht ah], intransitive verb; whereas that which loses colour with
our intention is bleached [geblichen], transitive verb. This is the richness of the lan-
guage which they have thrown away. Billig instead of wohlfeil comes from shop-
keepers; this vulgarity has become universal. ,Zeichnen instead of unter zeichnen;
vorragen instead of hervorragen. They cut off syllables everywhere and do not know
what these are worth. And who are these correctors of the language of our classical
authors? A miserable race, incapable cf producing genuine works of their own,
whose fathers lived only by the grace of vaccines without which they would be cut
off at an early age by the natural smallpox that eliminated all weaklings in their
fashion. For example, in the Chronologie der Aegypter by Lepsius,
1849, it says on page 545: Manethosfiigte seinem Geschichtswerke ...
eine Uebersicht ... , nach Art iigyptischer Annalen, zu. Thus to save a
syllable, he used the verb zufiigen (irifligere) for the verb hinzufiigen
f addere). In 1837 the same Herr Lepsius gave a title to an essay:
Ober den Ursprung und die Verwandtschaft der Zahlworter in der lndo-
germanischen, Semitischen, und Koptischen Sprache. But it must be
Zahlenworter because it comes from Zahlen [numbers], like
,Zahlens.:psteme, Zahlenverhiiltniss, Zahlenordnung, and so on. It does
not come from the verb zahlen (from which we get bezahlen [to
pay]), as in ,Zahltag, Zahlbar, Zahlmeister, and so on. Before these
gentlemen take up the Semitic and Coptic languages, they
should first learn properly to understand German. On the other
hand, all bad authors at the present time mutilate the German
language with this clumsy business of clipping off syllables every-
where; and it will not be possible to put it right again. Therefore
such language' reformers' must be chastised like school-children,
irrespective of the person. And so every well-disposed man of
insight should take my part against German stupidity for the
sake of the German language. How would such arbitrary and
even impudent treatment of the language, as indulged in at the
present time by every ink-slinger in Germany, be received in
England, France, or Italy, which is to be envied its Academia
della crusca? For example, let us see in the Biblioteca de'Classici
ltaliani (Milan, 1804, etc. Tom. cxlii) the life of Benvenuto
youth and thus kept the race strong. We now see the consequences of that act of
grace in the long-bearded dwarfs who continue to swarm everywhere; and their
minds are as small as their bodies. I have found nahebei instead of beinahe and
Unrergrund des TMaters instead of Hintergrund. Thus our literary rabble are capable
of any assurance and presumption in their mutilation of the language. One fellow
writes: Die Arifgabe des Kopernikanismus, but he refers not to the problem or task, but
to giving it up [Arifgebung]! Likewise the Postzeitung, 1858, had Die Azifgabe dieses
Unternehmens instead of Aujgebung. Another speaks of the Abnahme cines arifgehtmgten
Bildes, where he means Abnehmung. Abnahme means imminutio [a lessening]. If you
write Nac"weis instead of Nachwtisung, then, to be consistent, you must v.Tite Veru'eis
instead of Veru..>ei.sung; and this might be most welcome to many a delinquent under
sentence. Instead of Verfii.lschung, Fiilschung which in German means exclusively a
Falsum, a forgery! Eriibrigt instead of bleibtiibrig. To make one word out of two is to
rob the language of a concept. Instead of Verhesserung they write Besserung and steal
a concept from the language. A thing can be suitable and useful, but still be capable
of improvement [Verbesserung]. On the other hand, in a sick person and in a sinner
we hope to see a change for the better [ Besserung]. Von instead of au.s, Schmied instead
of Schmidt, the sole correctness of which is proved by the name of a hundred thousand
families. But an ignorant pedant is the most insufferable thing under the sun.
Cellini, how the editor takes into consideration every variation,
even the slightest, from the pure Tuscan and how, if it concerns
even one letter, he at once criticizes it in a footnote. It is the
same with the editors of the Moralistes fran;ais, 1838. For
example, Vauvenargues writes: Ni le digout est une marque de
sante, ni l' appltit est une maladie; z4 whereupon the editor remarks
that it must be n' est. With us everyone writes what he likes! If
Vauvenargues wrote: La dijficulte est a les connaftre, the editor
observed: // faut, je crois, 'de les connaitre'. In an English news-
paper I found a speaker severely censured for having said 'my
talented friend' which is not English; and yet we have 'spirited'
from 'spirit'. So strict are other nations with regard to their
languages.* On the other hand, every German scribbler boldly
concocts any fantastic word and, instead of having to run the
gauntlet in the papers, he meets with approbation and imita-
tors. No writer, not even the meanest ink-slinger, hesitates to
use a verb in a sense never before assigned to it. If only it is used
in such a manner that the reader can at all events guess what is
meant, then it passes for an original idea and finds imitators.t
Without any regard for grammar, usage of language, meaning,
and common sense, every fool writes down whatever passes
through his head and the crazier it is the better! I have just read
'Centro-America' instead of 'Central America'. Once again a
This strictness of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Italians i.s certainly not

pedantry but prudence, so that every ink-slinging rascal shall not be permitted to
desecrate the national shrine of language, as is done in Germany.
t The worst of it is that in Germany there is absolutely no opposition to such
mutilations of the language which come often from the lowest literary circles.
Frequently hatched out in political journals, mutilated or shamelessly misused
words pass without let or hindrance and with honour into the learned periodicals
coming from universities and academies, and even into every book. No one resists
or feels called upon to protect the language, but all try to outdo one another in
folly. The real scholar, in the narrower sense, should recognize his mission and pledge
his honour in resisting error and deception of every kind, in acting as a break~ater
against the current of all kinds of stupidity, in never sharing the infatuation of the
masses or taking part in their follies, but in walking always in the light of scientific
knowledge, and in setting others a shining example of truth and thoroughness. It
is this that constitutes the digni9' of the scholar. Our professors, on the other hand,
imagine that this dignity consists in titles and ribbons, but when they accept these,
they put themselves on a level with post-office officials and similar uneducated
state servants. Every scholar should disdain such titles and treat them with a
certain aloofuess, as does the theoretical, i.e. purely intellectual, dass in face of
everything practical that serves urgent needs.
2 ['Neither is disgust a sign of health, nor is appetite a disease.']
letter is saved at the expense of the above-mentioned powers! It
means that in all things the German hates rule, law, and order.
He is fond of individual arbitrary action and of his own whim,
mixed with a somewhat absurd reasonableness according to his
own precise discrimination. Therefore I doubt whether the
Germans will ever learn to walk always on the right in streets
and on roads and paths, as everyone invariably does in the
United Kingdom and the British colonies-no matter how great
and obvious would be the advantage of observing this rule. Even
in clubs and other social centres, we can see how fond many
people are of wantonly breaking the most suitable laws of
society, even without any advantage to their own comfort and
convenience. But Goethe says:
'Tis common to live according to desire;
The noble to law and order should aspire.
(Nachlass, vol. xvii, p. 297.)
The mania is universal; all rush ruthlessly and mercilessly to

demolish the language; in fact everyone tries to cut off a bit
wherever he can, no matter how, just as if he were out shooting
birds. Thus at a time when in Germany there is not one living
author whose works show any promise of immortality, makers
of books, literary hacks, and newspaper writers dare to reform
the language. \Ve then see the present generation which, in
spite of all its long beards, is impotent, that is, is incapable of
any intellectual production of a higher order, devote its leisure
to the most wanton and shameless mutilation of the language in
which great authors have written, in order to set up for them-
selves a memorial as notorious as that of Herostratus. If in the
past the master minds ofliterature ventured individually to put
forward a well-considered improvement of language, every ink-
slinger, every newspaper-writer, or every editor of an obscure
aesthetic sheet now thinks himself entitled to put his paws on the
language in order to tear out, according to his whim, what does
not please him, or else to insert new words.
As I have said, the mania of these word-clippers is directed
principally to the prefixes and affixes of all words. Now what
they try to attain by such amputation must, of course, be brevity
and thus a greater pregnancy and energy of expression; for,
after all, the economy in paper is much too trifling. They would,
therefore, like to contract as much as possible what they have to
say. For this purpose, however, quite a different procedure is
required from that of word-nibbling, namely an ability to think
concisely and to the point; but this is precisely what none of
them has at his command. Moreover, striking and convincing
brevity, energy, and pregnancy of expression are possible only if
the language possesses for every concept a word and for every
modification and even nuance of this concept a modification of
the word which exactly corresponds to it. For only in a correct
application of this is it possible for every period, as soon as it has
been expressed, to awaken in the listener the precise and exact
idea intended by the speaker, without leaving him, even for one
moment, in doubt as to what is meant. Now for this purpose,
every radical word of the language must be a modi.ficabile multi-
modis modificationibus,zs so that it can fit all the nuances of the
concept and thus the subtleties and elegances of an idea, like a
wet clinging garment. Now this is rendered possible principally
by those very prefixes and affixes; they are the modulations of
every fundamental concept on the keyboard of the language.
The Greeks and Romans, therefore, by means of prefixes
obtained a modulation and shade of meaning of almost all verbs
and of many substantives. Every main verb in Latin can furnish
examples of this; for instance, from ponere we get as modifica-
tions imponere, deponere, disponere, exponere, componere, adponere, sub-
ponere, superponere, seponere, praeponere, proponere, interponere,
transponere, and so on. We see the same thing in German ; thus
the substantive Sicht is modified into Aussicht, Einsicht, Durchsicht,
Nachsicht, Vorsicht, Hinsicht, Absicht, and so on. Or again, the verb
suchen is modified into aufsuchen, aussuchen, untersuchen, besuchen, er-
suchen, versuchen, heimsuchen, durchsuchen, nachsuchen, and so on.*
This, then, is what the prefixes achieve; if, through an attempt
at brevity, we omit them and in any given case say merely ponere,
or Sicht, or suchen, instead of all the above-mentioned modifica-
tions, then it is impossible to express all the finer determinations
of a very wide basic concept, and heaven knows what inter-
pretation the reader will give them. Thus the language is made
poor and also stiff and crude. Nevertheless, this is precisely the
"' Fiilrren is modified into miifiihren, ausfiihren, verfiihren, einfiihren, au.ffiihren, abfiihren,
dwchfiihren.
~s ['Something capable of modification through modifications of many kinds'.]
trick of the smart and clever language reformers of the 'present
time' [Jetztzeit]. In their gross ignorance, they really imagine
that our sensible and thoughtful forefathers had laid down these
prefixes out of pure idle folly; and for their part they think they
have committed a stroke of genius by eagerly and hastily
clipping them off wherever they perceive only one thing. Now
in the language there is no prefix without a meaning, none that
does not help to carry the fundamental concept through all its
modulations. In this way, it renders possible precision, lucidity,
and elegance of expression which can then lead to an energy
and pregnancy thereof. On the other hand, through the cutting
off of the prefixes from several words one word is made, whereby
the language is impoverished. But more than this; not only
words, but concepts are lost in this way, since we then lack the
means for fixing these, and now in our speaking and even in our
thinking we have to be content with the apeu pres, 26 whereby we
lose energy of speech and clearness of thought. Thus we cannot
reduce the number of words, as happens through such clipping,
without at the same time extending the meaning of those that
are left; and again this does not happen without our depriving
the meaning of its distinctness and precision, and consequently
without our playing into the hands of ambiguity and thus of
confusion. In this way, all precision and clearness, not to men-
tion energy and pregnancy, of expression are then rendered
impossible. An illustration of this is furnished by the extension
of the meaning of the word nur which I have already censured
and which at once gives rise to ambiguity and sometimes to
falseness of expression. What does it matter if a word has two
more syllables when the concept is thereby more clearly defined?
Is it possible to believe that there are those with warped minds
who write indifference when they mean indifferentism, just to save
a couple of syllables?
Those very prefixes which carry a radical word through all
the modifications and nuances of its applicability are, there-
fore, an indispensable means to all clearness and definiteness of
expression and thus to genuine brevity, energy, and pregnancy
of speech. It is the same as regards affixes and thus the different
kinds of final syllables of substantives which are derived from
36 ['Approximation .]
verbs, as already illustrated in the words Versuch and Versuchung,
and so on. The two methods of modulating words and concepts
have, therefore, been very sensibly, wisely, and prudently
impressed on the language and its words by our ancestors. But
in our times, they have been followed by a generation of crude,
ignorant, and incapable scribblers who, by dilapidating words,
unite in making a business of destroying that ancient work of
art. For, of course, these pachydermata have no sense for the
artificial means that are intended to help in expressing finely
shaded ideas; but they are naturally well versed in the counting
of letters. If, therefore, such a pachyderm has the choice
between two words, one of which through its prefix or affix
exactly fits the concept or idea to be expressed, whereas the
other expresses it only approximately and in a general way and
yet has three letters less, he will without hesitation seize on the
latter and be satisfied with the apeu pres, so far as the sense is
concerned. His thinking does not require those refinements, for
it is done indiscriminately and in bulk; it needs only a few
letters, for on these depend the brevity and power of expression
and the beauty of the language! For example, if he has to say:
So etwas ist nicht vorhanden, he will say: So etwas ist nicht da, for the
sake of this marvellous economy of letters. Their principal
maxim is always to sacrifice the fitness and accuracy of an
expression to the brevity of another which has to serve as a
substitute; whence there must gradually result an exceedingly
feeble and ultimately incomprehensible jargon. And so the only
real advantage the Germans have over other European nations,
namely their language, is wantonly reduced to naught. Thus it
is the only language in which we can write almost as well as we
can in Greek and Latin; and it would be ludicrous to attribute
this good quality to the other principal languages of Europe
which are mere patois. Compared with them, German, there-
fore, has something uncommonly noble and sublime. But how
could such a pachyderm have any feelings for the delicate
essence of a language, that precious and sensitive material which
is handed down to thinking minds for the purpose of taking up
and preserving a precise and fine idea? Counting letters, on the
other hand, is something that pachydermata like! See, then,
how these noble sons of the 'present time' [Jetztzeit] 'revel in
mutilating the language! Just look at them! Look at their bald
heads, long beards, spectacles instead of eyes, a cigar in their
animal mouths as a substitute for ideas, on their backs a baggy
sack like jacket instead of a coat, loafing about instead of working
hard, arrogance instead of knowledge, insolence and cama-
raderie instead ofmerit.* Noble 'present time', splendid race of
epigones, reared on the mother's milk of Hegelian philosophy!
You want to thrust your paws into our ancient language as an
everlasting souvenir, in order that the marks may as an ichnolith
preserve for all time the trace of your dull and shallow existence.
But Dt meliora! 2' Be off, you pachydermata! This is the German
language, the language in which human beings have expressed
themselves, indeed great poets have sung and great thinkers
have written. Paws off! or you shall starve! (This is the only thing
that terrifies them.)
Punctuation has also fallen a victim to the 'present day'
[jetztzeitige] tinkering with the language by boys who have run
away from school too soon and have grown up in ignorance,
tinkering that has already been censured. Today punctuation
is almost universally treated with deliberate and complacent
carelessness. It is difficult to say what the scribblers really have
in mind, but in all probability folly is supposed to represent a
French amiable Ugerete, zs or else to attest and presuppose ease of
interpretation. In printing, punctuation stops are treated as if
they were made of gold, and so about three-quarters of the
necessary commas are left out (find your way out if you can!);
but where there should be a full stop, there is only a comma, or
at most a semicolon, and so on. The direct result of this is that
we have to read every period twice. Now in the punctuation is
to be found a part of the logic of every period in so far as this is
thereby marked. Such deliberate carelessness is, therefore,
positively criminal, but most of all when, as frequently happens
at the present time, it is applied even by si Deo placet 2 9 philologists
Up to about forty years ago, smallpox carried off two-fifths of the children,
thus all the weaker, and left only the stronger who had withstood this fiery ordeal.
Vaccines have taken the former under their protection; and now look at the long-
bearded dwarfs who run everywhere between your legs, and whose parents were
kept alive solely by the grace of those vaccines!
7.7 ['God forbid! ']

:~& ['Lightness'.]
:9 ['If it please God'; 'DJ volente! ']
to the editions of ancient authors, whereby the understanding
of them is made very much more difficult. In its more recent
editions, not even the New Testament has been spared. But if
the purpose of the brevity, to which you aspire by clipping
syJlables and counting letters, is to save the reader's time, then
you will achieve this much better by enabling him to recognize
at once through adequate punctuation which words belong to one
period and which to another.* It is obvious that a lax punctua-
tion, such as is permitted by the French language on account of
its strictly logical and hence abrupt word-order and by English
because of the great poverty of its grammar, is not applicable to
relative ancient languages which, as such, have a complicated
and scientific grammar that renders possible more artistic
periods; such languages are Greek, Latin, and German. t
To return to the brevity, conciseness, and pregnancy of
expression we are really considering here, actually these result
solely from an abundance and significance of ideas and therefore
least of all need that contemptible clipping of words and phrases
which is resorted to as a means of abbreviating expression and
which I have here rightly censured. For weighty pregnant ideas
and hence those that are generally worth recording in writing
are bound to furnish material and substance enough to fill out
In their Latin prospectuses grammar-school professors leave out three-
quarters of the necessary commas, whereby they render their rough and unpolished
Latin even more difficult to understand. We see how delighted with the idea these
fools are. A real sample of slovenly punctuation is the Plutarch edited by Sin ten is.
The punctuation marks are almost all left out, as if it were the intention to make it
more difficult for the reader to understand.
t As I have quite rightly placed these three languages together, attention should
here be drawn to the height of that silly national vanity of the French which for
centuries has afforded the whole of Europe with material for laughter; here is its
nonplus ultra. In 1857 a book was published in its fifth edition for use at universities:
.Notions eUTMntaires tk grammaire comparu, pour seroir d l'etude tks trois langras classiqras,
ridigi sur l'Uwitatum du ministre de l'inlruction puhlique, p. Eggre, membre de l'institut,
etc., etc. And (credite posteri! [believe it posterity!], the third classical language here
17Uant is French! And so this most wretched Romance jargon, this very bad mutila-
tion of Latin words, this language that should look up with veneration to Italian,
her older and much nobler sister, this language that has as its exclusive characteris-
tic the nauseating nasal sounds of en, on, and un, as well as the hiccoughing and
unspeakably disagreeable accent on the last syllable, whereas all other languages
have the long penultimate that acts gently and smoothly, this language where there
is no metre but only rhyme constitutes the form of poetry which often ends in l or
on-this miserable language, I say, is here classed with Greek and Latin as a langue
classique! I call upon the whole of Europe to join in a general Jude in order to
humiliate these most shameless of all fools.
adequately the periods that express them, even in the gram-
matical and lexical completeness of all their parts. It will be
done so adequately that they will never be deemed hollow,
empty, or feeble. On the contrary, the diction will everywhere
remain brief and pregnant, whilst the idea therein will find its
intelligible and suitable expression and will even develop and
move with grace. We should, therefore, not contract words and
forms of speech, but enlarge our ideas. In the same way, a man
who is convalescent should be able to wear again the clothes
that formerly fitted him by regaining his fullness of figure and
not by cutting them to a smaller size.
With the low and degraded state ofliterature and the neglect
of the ancient languages, there is today a fault of style, namely
subjectiviry, which is becoming ever more frequent, but is indi-
genous only to Germany. Subjectivity of style consists in an
author's being satisfied that he himself knows what he means
and wants to say, the reader being left to unravel the mystery
as best he can. Unconcerned about the reader, he writes as
though he were holding a monologue, whereas it should be a
dialogue, .and in fact one wherein he has to express himself the
more clearly, as he cannot hear the questions of the other part-
ner. For this reason, style should not be subjective but objective;
and it is, therefore, necessary for the words to be set down so that
they compel the reader to think exactly what the author has
thought. But this will come about only if the author has always
borne in mind that ideas observe the law of gravity in so far as
they travel from head to paper much more easily than from
paper to head; and so in this they must be helped by all the
means at our disposal. If this has been done, the words have a
purely objective effect, like that of a finished picture in oils;
whereas the subjective style is not much more certain in its
effect than are the spots on a wall, where only the man whose
imagination has been accidentally stirred by them sees figures,
the rest seeing only dots and blobs. The difference we are dis-
cussing extends to the whole method of expressing ideas in lan-
guage, but is often traceable even in particular cases. For example,
quite recently I read in a new book: 'I have not written to
increase the number of existing books.' This states the opposite
of what the author meant and moreover is nonsense.
Whoever writes carelessly thereby confesses at the very outset

that he himself does not attach any great value to his own ideas.
For only if we are convinced of the truth and importance of our
ideas does the necessary enthusiasm arise to be intent on their
clearest, finest, and most powerful expression, everywhere with
untiring persistence, just as we use silver and gold receptacles
only for sacred objects or priceless works of art. Therefore the
ancients, whose thoughts have survived in their own words for
thousands of years and who thus bear the honoured title of
classics, always wrote carefully. Indeed Plato is said to have
written the introduction to his Republic seven times, differently
modified. The Germans, on the other hand, are more con-
spicuous than other nations by their carelessness of style as also
of dress, and both kinds of slovenliness spring from the same
source that resides in the national character. But just as neglect
of dress betrays a disrespect for the company in which a man
moves, so is a cursory, hasty, careless, and bad style evidence of
an offensive want of respect for the reader, which he then rightly
punishes by refusing to read the book. But especially amusing
are those reviewers who, in the most careless style of the literal]'
hack, criticize the work of others. This is as if one were to sit in
court in dressing-gown and slippers. On the other hand, how
carefully written are the Edinburgh Review and the Journal des
savants! Just as I hesitate at first to enter into conversation with
one who is badly and shabbily dressed, so do I lay a book aside
the moment I am struck by the carelessness of its style.
Up to about a hundred years ago, scholars, especially those in
Germany, wrote in Latin, where a blunder would have been
discreditable. But most men were very anxious to write elegant
Latin and many succeeded in so doing. After they had thrown
off these fetters and had acquired the great convenience of being
able to write in their own tongue, one would have expected
them to be most anxious to do this with the greatest possible
accuracy and elegance. This is still the case in France, England,
and Italy, but not in Germany where, like paid hacks, men
hasten to scribble down what they have to say in the first
expressions that come to their unwashed mouths, without style
and indeed without grammar and logic. Everywhere they put
the imperfect instead of the perfect and pluperfect, the ablative
instead of the genitive. They invariably use the one particle fur
instead of all the others, which is, therefore, wrong five times
out of six; in short, they commit all the asinine stupidities of
style about which I have already had something to say.
285a
I regard as a corruption of the language the wrong use of the
word Frauen instead of ~Veiber, which is becoming ever more
general, whereby the language is once more impoverished. For
Frau means uxor, wife, spouse, whereas Weib means mulier,
woman. (Girls are not Frauen, although they would like to be.)
Such a confusion was said to have existed in the thirteenth
century, and only later were separate names supposed to have
been given. Women no longer want to be called Weiher for the
same reason that Jews wish to be called Israelites and cutters
habit-makers, and merchants call their cash-desks their offices.
Every joke or witticism goes by the name of humour, since to the
word is attributed not that which attaches to it, but to the thing.
It is not th~ word that has brought the thing into contempt, but
vice versa; therefore after two hundred years, the parties
interested would again suggest an exchange of words. But in no
case can the German language become one word poorer on
account of a feminine whim. And so in this matter we must not
let women and their shallow literary tea-table friends have their
own way, but rather bear in mind that this feminine mischief
or ladyhood in Europe may in the end lead us into the arms of
Mormonism. Moreover, the word Frau seems to me elderly and
worn-out and sounds like the word grau [grey]. Hence videant
mulieres ne quid detrimenti res publica capiat. Jo
286
Few write in the way that an architect builds who has pre-
viously sketched and thought out his plan down to the
['Let women take care that the State suffers no harm.' (Parody of the well-
.)0
known ' VUkant consuks .. )]

smallest detail. On the contrary, the majority write only as one
plays dominoes. Thus just as in this game the pieces are added
to one another partly by design and partly by chance, so is it the
same with the sequence and connection of their sentences. They
hardly know, even approximately, what form their work as a
whole will take, and where it will lead. Many do not know even
this, but write in the way that coral insects build. Period is
added to period, and heaven knows where it all ends. Moreover,
life at the present time [Jetztzeit] is a great galopade which in
literature shows itself as extreme superficiality and slovenliness.
287
The leading principle of good style should be that a man can
have onlv one clear idea at a time and, therefore, should not be
expected to think of two or more things at one and the same
moment. But this is expected of him by the writer who inserts
these, as parenthetical clauses, into the gaps that are made when
a main period is broken up for this purpose. He is thus unneces-
sarily and wantonly confused by the writer. This is done mainly
by German authors and better by their language than by other
living languages, a circumstance that renders the thing possible,
it is true, but not praiseworthy. No prose reads so easily and
pleasantly as does French because, as a rule, it is free from this
fault. A French author arranges his ideas generally in the most
logical and natural order possible, and thus presents them to the
reader one after the other for his convenient consideration. In
this way, the reader is able to give his undivided attention to
each of the ideas in turn. The German author, on the other
hand, weaves his ideas into one another to form a period that is
for ever crossed and twisted because he tries to say six things at
once, instead of bringing them forward in succession. Say what
you have to say one thing after another, not six things all at
once and in confusion! Instead of trying to attract and hold his
reader's attention, our German author demands that he break
the above-mentioned law of the unity of apprehension and
think of three or four ideas simultaneously, or, since that is not
possible, in rapidly vibrating variation. In this way, an author
lays the foundation of his stile empese that is then perfected by
pretentious and pompous expressions for conveying the simplest
matters and by other artificial methods of this kind.
The true national character of the Germans is ponderosity. It
shows itself in the way in which they walk, in their actions, their
language, their talking, their narrating, their understanding
and thinking, but especially in the style of their writing, in the
pleasure they derive from long, cumbersome, and involved
periods. With these the memory patiently learns, quite alone
and for five minutes, the lesson inflicted on it until finally at the
end of the period the intellect comes to a conclusion and the
riddles are solved. This pleases them and if they can also
introduce fastidiousness, bombast, and affected UEJ.LVOTTJ~,3 1 the
author revels in them; but heaven grant the reader patience!
But above all they strive generally for the greatest possible
vagueness and indefiniteness of expression, so that everything
seems to be in a fog. The object appears to be first, to leave open
a back-door to every proposition; secondly, to assume an air of
importance that pretends to say more than has been thought.
But really underlying this characteristic are drowsiness and
stupidity, and it is precisely these that make foreigners dislike
all German writings because they arc averse to groping in the
dark, a thing that seems to be so congenial to the Germans.*
Through those long periods which are enriched by paren-
thetical clauses inserted in one another like a set of boxes and
are stuffed with these like roast geese with apples, and which we
dare not tackle without previously looking at the clock, it is
really the memory which in the first instance is taxed; whereas it is
rather our understanding and judgement which should be called
into play, but whose activity in precisely this way is impeded
and impaired. For such periods furnish the reader with nothing
but half-completed phrases which his memory must now care-
fully collect and preserve, like the bits of a tom-up letter, until
they are later supplemented by their other respective halves and
then acquire a meaning. Consequently, he must go on reading
for a while without thinking anything, but merely memorizing
Instead of von Seitm seiuns, which is not German. Instead of .?_either they write
the meaningless Seither, and gradually begin to use this instead of &itdem. Should I
not call them asses? Our language-reformers have no notion of euphony and
cacophony; on the contrary, they try to pile the consonants more and more closely
together by cutting out the vowels, and thus to produce words whose pronunciation
affords their animal mouths an exercise that is repulsive to watch. Sundzoll! As they
understand no Latin, they do not know the difference between liquid sounds and
other consonants.
3 1 ['Solemnity', dignity'.]
everything, in the hope that at the end he will be given a light
whereby he shall then receive something to think about. He
gets so much to learn by heart before he obtains something to
understand. This is obviously bad and an abuse of the reader's
patience. But the unmistakable preference of con1monplace
minds for this kind of writing is due to the fact that it enables
the reader to understand, only after a certain amount of time
and trouble, what he would otherwise have understood at once.
In this way, it now looks as if the writer had more depth and
intelligence than the reader. This is also one of those tricks
previously mentioned whereby mediocrities unconsciously and
instinctively endeavour to conceal their intellectual poverty and
produce a semblance of the opposite. In this respect, their
inventiveness is really astonishing.
But obviously it is contrary to all sound reason to cut across
one idea by another, like a wooden cross. Yet this is done when
an author interrupts what he has begun to say in order to insert
something quite different and thus deposits with his reader a
half-finished period, still without meaning, until its completion
follows. It is like the host who puts in the hands of his guest an
empty plate in the hope that something will appear on it.
Intermediate commas really belong to the same family as do
footnotes and parentheses in the middle of the text; fundamen-
tally in fact all three differ only in degree. If Demosthenes and
Cicero sometimes inserted such parenthetical periods, they
would have done better to refrain from so doing.
The height of absurdity is reached in this phrase structure
when the parenthetical clauses are not even organically inserted,
but are wedged in by directly breaking up a period. Jf, for
example, it is impertinent to interrupt others, so too is it to
interrupt oneself, as happens in a phrase structure which has
for some years been used and liked by all bad, careless, and
hasty writers who have -their eyes on their bread and butter. It
will be found five times on every page of their works, and con-
sists in-we should, if we can, give rule and example at the same
time-our breaking up a phrase in order to glue in another
between the parts. This they do, however, not merely from
laziness, but also from stupidity, since they regard it as an
amiable llgereti that enlivens what they have to say. ln rare
isolated cases it may be pardonable.
550 ON AUTHORSHIP AXD STYLE
288
Incidentally, it tnight be observed in logic with the theory of
analytical judgements that they should not really occur in good
style because they produce a silly effect. This is most conspicuous
when something is predicated of the individual which by right
already belongs to the species; for example, when we speak of
an ox which had horns, of a doctor whose business it was to cure
patients, and so on. Therefore they are to be used only where an
explanation or a definition is to be given.
289
Similes are of great value in so far as they refer an unknown
relation to a known. Even the more lengthy similes which grow
into the parable or allegory, are only the reference of some
relation to its simplest, most visible, and most palpable presen-
tation. Even the formation of concepts rests at bottom on similes
in so far as it results from our taking up what is similar in things
and discarding what is dissimilar. Further, every case of mental
grasp in the real sense ultimately consists in a seizing of relations
(un saisir de rapports) ; but we shall the more purely and clearly
grasp every relation when we again recognize it as the same in
widely varying cases and between quite different things. Thus
as long as a relation is known to me as existing only in a partie-
Jar case, I have merely an individual knowledge of it and thus
one of intuitive perception. But as soon as I grasp the same
relation even only in two different cases, I have a concept of its
whole nature and hence a deeper and more complete knowledge.
Just because similes are such a powerful lever for knowledge,
the furnishing of surprising and yet striking similes is evidence
of profound intelligence. Accordingly, Aristotle says: TToAv 8
I \ .J. \ l I \ ~ II > >1\ \ II
ftYLGTOJ TO f-LTa'f'optKOJ f. VCt. f-LOVOJ yap TOVTO Otn"f. 7Tap a/\1\0V f.GTl
1 1 1
\f3A -~..~ A/. \ \ '\" A.' \ ff

1\a W f.V'f'VLaS TE G7Jf-LLOJ! E"G-rtV TO yap EV fUTa'f'EpELV TO OfLOLOV
1
8f.wpc:'iv lanv (at Ionge maximum est, metaphoricum esse: solum enim
hoc neque ab alio licet assumere, et boni ingenii signum est. Bene enim
transferre est simile intueri.)3 2 De poetica, c. 22. Similarly: Kat v
cptAoaocp{~ TO OftOLOV, Kat ~ 7TOAV DLEXOVGL, efwpE'iv evaToxov (etiam
Jz ['It is by far the greatest thing to find metaphors. For this alone cannot be
learnt from others, but is the mark of genius. For to make good similies, one must
recognize the homogeneous.']
ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE 55 1
in philosophia simile, vel in Ionge distantibus, cernere perspicacis est.) 3 3
Rhetoric, III. 1 1.
28ga
How great and admirable were those original minds of the
human race who, wherever it may have been, invented the
grammar of language, that most wonderful work of art, who
created the partes orationis and distinguished and established
genders and cases in substantives, adjectives and pronouns, and
tenses and n1oods in verbs. Here they finely and carefully
separated imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect between which
there are also the aorists in Greek. All this was done with the
noble object of having for the complete and worthy expression
of human thought an appropriate and adequate material
organ which could take up and accurately reproduce every
nuance and modulation thereof. Let us consider, on the other
hand, our present-day reformers of that work of art, those dull,
stupid, and crude German journeymen of the scribblers'
guild. To save space, they attempt to set aside as superfluous
those nice and precise distinctions and accordingly lump all the
preterites together into the imperfect and then talk in nothing
but imperfects. In their eyes, the inventors of grammatical
forms, whom I have just con1mended, must have been real
fools and duffers who did not see that we can treat everything,
absolutely everything, alike, and manage with the imperfect
as the one and only universal preterite. In their view, the Greeks
must seem so simple because, not content with three preterites,
they added the two aorists. * Further, they zealously cut off
all prefixes as useless excrescences, and clever will be the man
who can make anything of what is left! Essential logical particles
such as nur, wenn, urn, zwar, und, and so on, which would have
shed light on a whole period, arc expunged for the purpose
of saving space, and the reader is left in the dark. This, however,
is welcome to many an author who purposely tries to write
* What a pity our ingenious language reformers did not live among the Greeks!
They would have cut up Greek grammar to such an extent that a Hottentot
grammar would have been the result.
33['Also in philosophy the ability to discover the homogeneous, even in widely
separated things, is a sign of sagacity.']
obscurely so that it will be difficult to understand him, since the
miserable fellow imagines he will thereby inspire the reader with
respect. In short, to save syllables, they impudently venture to
comnut every grammatical and lexical mutilation of the lan-
guage. There is no end to the paltry tricks they employ to
expunge here and there a syllable under the silly and erroneous
notion that they thereby achieve brevity and conciseness of
expression. But, my dear simpletons, brevity and conciseness of
expression depend on things quite different from the mere
deletion of syllables, and call for qualities which you neither
understand nor possess. But for this they are not blamed; on
the contrary, they are at once imitated by a whole host of even
bigger donkeys. That the above-mentioned 'improvements'
of the language meet with great and universal imitation, indeed
almost without exception, can be explained from the fact that
the clipping of syllables whose meaning is not understood, calls
for just as much intelligence as is possessed by the stupidest
fool.
Language is a work of art and should be regarded as such
and thus objectively. Everything expressed therein should, there-
fore, be according to rules and in keeping with its purpose. In
every sentence it must be possible actually to demonstrate, as
'
objectively lying therein, what it ought to state. We should not
regard language merely subjectively and express ourselves in a
perfunctory manner, in the hope that others will guess what
we mean. This is done by those who never indicate the case,
who express all preterites by the imperfect, who leave out the
prefixes, and so forth. What a difference, indeed, there is
between those who once invented and distinguished the tenses
and moods of verbs, and the cases of substantives and adjectives,
and those miserable fellows who would like to throw all this out
of the window in order to be left with a Hottentot jargon, well
suited to them, for expressing themselves so casually! They are
the mercenary ink-slingers of the present period of literature
which is bankrupt of all intelligence.
The mutilation of the language which comes from journalists
meets with submissive and admiring imitation on the part of
scholars in literary journals and books. Instead of this, they
should try to stop the business at any rate by their opposite
example and thus by preserving and retaining good and
genuine German. But no one does this; not one do I see oppos-
ing it. Not a single person comes to the aid of the language
which is so badly treated by the lowest literary rabble. No; they
follow like sheep and follow the asses. This is because no nation
is so little inclined as are the Germans to judge for themselves
and accordingly to condemn, for which life and literature hourly
give occasion. (On the contrary, they imagine that, by their
prompt imitation of every brainless mutilation of the language,
they show themselves to be 'abreast of the times', up to the
mark, and authors after the latest fashion.) They are without
gall, like pigeons;H but whoever is without gall is without
understanding. This already gives birth to a certain acrimonia
which in life, art, and literature necessarily evokes every day a
hearty condemnation and ridicule of a thousand things, a
condemnation that prevents us from imitating them.
34[Cf. Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act u, Sc. 2, at the end: 'But I am pigeon-liver'd,

and lack gall.']
CHAPTER XXIV
On Reading and Books
290
Ignorance degrades a man only when it is found in company
with wealth. A poor man is subdued by his poverty and dis-
tress; with him his work takes the place of knowledge and
occupies his thoughts. On the other hand, the wealthy who are
ignorant live merely for their pleasures and are like animals, as
can be seen every day. Moreover, there is the reproach that
wealth and leisure have not been used for that which bestows
on them the greatest possible value.
291
When we read, someone else thinks for us; we repeat merely
his mental process. It is like the pupil who, when learning to
write, goes over with his pen the strokes made in pencil by the
teacher. Accordingly, when we read, the work of thinking is
for the most part. taken away from us. Hence the noticeable
relief when from preoccupation with our thoughts we pass to
reading. But while we are reading our mind is really only the
playground of other people's ideas; and when these finally
depart, what remains? The result is that, whoever reads very
much and almost the entire day but at intervals amuses himself
with thoughtless pastime, gradually loses the ability to think
for himself; just as a man who always rides ultimately forgets
how to walk. But such is the case with very many scholars; they
have read themselves stupid. For constant reading, which is at
once resumed at every free moment, is even more paralysing
to the mind than is manual work; for with the latter we can
give free play to our own thoughts. Just as a spring finally loses
its elasticity through the constant pressure of a foreign body, so
does the mind through the continual pressure of other people's
ideas. Just as we upset the stomach by too much food and
thereby do harm to the whole body, so. can we cram and
strangle the n1ind by too n1uch mental pabulum. For the more
ON READING AND BOOKS 555
we read, the fewer the traces that are left behind in the mind
by what has been read. It becomes like a blackboard whereon
many things have been written over one another. Hence we
never come to ruminate;* but only through this do we assimi-
late what we have read, just as food nourishes us not by being
eaten but by being digested. On the other hand, if we are for
ever reading without afterwards thinking further about what
we have read, this does not take root and for the most part is
lost. Generally speaking, it is much the same with mental
nourishment as with bodily; scarcely a fiftieth part of what is
taken is assimilated; the rest passes off through evaporation,
respiration, or otherwise.
In addition to all this, is the fact that thoughts reduced to
paper are generally nothing more than the footprints of a man
walking in the sand. It is true that we see the path he has
taken; but to know what he saw on the way, we must use our
own eyes.
There is no literary quality, such as for instance power of

persuasion, wealth of imagery, gift of comparison, boldness or
bitterness or brevity or grace or facility of expresson, no wit,
striking contrasts, curtness, naivete, and so on, which we can
acquire by reading authors who have such qualities. But in
this way we can bring about such qualities in ourselves, in the
event of our already possessing them as a tendency or inclina-
tion and thus potentia; and we can become aware of them. We
can see all that may be done with them and can be strengthened
in the inclination or even in the courage to usc them. From
instances we can judge the effect of their application and thus
learn their correct use. Only then do we really possess such
qualities actu. This, then, is the only way whereby reading fits
us for writing, in that it teaches us the use we can make of our
own natural gifts, always on the assumption, of course, that we
possess them. On the other hand, without such qualities, we
learn nothing through reading except cold, dead mannerisms,
and become shallow and superficial imitators.
In fact a strong and steady flow of new reading merely serves to speed up the
process of forgetting all that has been previously read.
ON READING AND BOOKS
292a
In the interests of our eyes, health officials should see to it
that the smallness of print has a fixed minimum beyond which
no one should be allowed to go. (When I was in Venice in
1818 at a time when genuine Venetian chains were still being
made, a goldsmith told me that those who made the catenafina
would become blind after thirty years.)
293
As the strata of the earth preserve in their order the living
creatures of past epochs, so do the shelves of libraries preserve
in their order past errors and their expositions. Like the living
creatures, those books were in their day very much alive and
made a great stir. But they are now stiff and fossilized and are
considered only by the literary paleontologist.
294
According to Herodotus, Xerxes wept at the sight of his
immense army when he thought that, of all those thousands,
not one would be alive after a hundred years. Who would not
weep at the sight of the bulky Leipzig catalogue of new publica-
tions when he considers that, of all those books, not one will be
any longer alive even after ten years?
295
It is the same in literature as in life; wherever we turn, we
at once encounter the incorrigible rabble of mankind, every-
where present in legions, filling and defiling everything, like
flies in summer. Hence the immense number of bad books,
these rank weeds of literature, which deprive the wheat of
nourishment and choke it. Thus they use up all the time, money,
and attention of the public which by right belong to good books
and their noble aims, while they themselves are written
merely for the purpose of bringing in money or for procuring
posts and positions. They are, therefore, not merely useless
but positively harmful. Nine-tenths of the whole of our present-
day literature have no other pbject than to extract from the
pockets of the public a few shillings. Author, publisher, and
reviewer have positively conspired to bring this about.
It is a cunning and low, but not unprofitable, trick which
literary men, bread-and-butter writers, and scribblers have
succeeded in playing on the good taste and true culture of the
age. For they have gone to the length of having the whole of the
elegant world in leading-strings so that it has been taught and
trained to read a tempo; in other words, everyone has to read the
same thing, the newest and latest, in order to have something
to talk about in his social set. For this purpose inferior novels
and similar productions come from pens once famous, like
those of Spindler, Bulwer, Eugene Sue, and others. But what
can be more miserable than the fate of such a literary public
which considers itself in duty bound at all times to read the
latest scribblings of the most ordinary minds who write n1erely
for money and therefore always exist in crowds; of a public
which in consequence n1ust be content only to know by name
the works of rare and superior minds of all times and countries?
In particular, the belletristic daily press is a cunningly devised
plan for robbing the aesthetic public of the time it should devote
to the genuine productions of this branch of literature, so that
such time may be spent on the daily bunglings of commonplace
Ininds.
Because people read always only the newest instead of the
best of all times, authors remain in the narrow sphere of
circulating ideas and the age becomes more and more silted up
in its own mire.
In regard to our reading, the art of not reading is, therefore,
extren1ely important. It consists in our not taking up that which
just happens to occupy the larger public at any ti1ne, such as
political or literary pamphlets, novels, poems, and the like,
which make such a stir and even run to several editions in the
first and last years of their life. On the contrary, we should bear
in mind that whoever writes for fools always finds a large
public; and we should devote the all too little time we have for
reading exclusively to the works of the great minds of all
nations and all ages, who tower above the rest of mankind and
whom the voice of fame indicates as such. Only these really
educate and instruct.
We can never read the bad too little and the good too often.
Inferior books are intellectual poison; they ruin the mind.
One of the conditions for reading what is good is that we
sss ON R EADI!':'G AND BOOKS
must not read what is bad; for life is short and time and energy
are limited.
295a
Books are written on this or that great mind of antiquity and
the public reads them, but not his works. This is because it will
read only what has just been printed and because similis simili
gaudet, 1 and the shallow and insipid twaddle of one of our
blockheads is more agreeable and to its liking than are the
thoughts of the great mind. But I am grateful to fate that it
introduced me in my youth to a fine epigram of A. W. von
Schlegel which has since become my guiding star:
Carefully read the ancients, the true and genuine ancients;
What the moderns say of them is not of much account.
Oh, how one commonplace mind is like another! How they are
all cast in one mould! The same thought, and nothing else,
occurs to each of them on the same occasion! In addition, we
have their mean and sordid personal aims. The worthless
twaddle of such miserable fellows is read by a stupid public if
only it has just been printed, and the works of great minds
are left unread on the shelves of libraries.
The f<;>lly and waywardness of the public are incredible, for
it leaves unread the works of the noblest and rarest minds in
every branch of knowledge and of all ages and countries, in
order to read the scribblings of commonplace minds which daily
appear and, like flies, are hatched out every year in swarms.
All this it does merely because they are quite new and hot
from the press. Such productions, indeed, should be ignored and
treated with contempt on the very day of their birth, as they
will be after a few years. They will then be for all time merely
a theme for laughter at past generations and their rubbish.
296
At all times, there are two literatures which proceed to-
gether somewhat independently of each other, one real and the
other merely apparent. The former grows into permanent
literature; it is pursued by those who livefor learning or poetry;
it goes its own way seriously and quietly but extremely slowly,
1 ['Birds of a feather flock together.']
and in Europe produces in a century scarcely a dozen works
which, however, endure. The other kind of literature is pursued
by those who live on learning or poetry. It gallops along to the
accompaniment of much noise and shouting on the part of
those who are interested, and every year brings to market
many thousands of works. But after a few years, one asks where
thev are and what has become of their fame which was so
premature and so loud. We can, therefore, describe the latter
as flowing or drifting literature and the former as stationary
and permanent.
2g6a
To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the
time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken
for the assimilation and mastering of their contents.
To expect that a man should have retained all that he had
ever read is like expecting him to carry about in his body all
that he had ever eaten. From the latter he has lived physically
and from the former mentally and has thus become what he is.
But just as the body assimilates what is homogeneous to it, so
will everyone retain what interests him, that is, what suits his
system of ideas or his aims. Everyone naturally has the latter,
but very few have anything like the former. They therefore
take no objective interest in anything and thus nothing of what
they read strikes root; they retain nothing.
Repetitio est mater studiorum. 2 Every important book should
at once be read through twice partly because the matters
dealt with, when read a second time, are better understood in
their sequence, and only when we know the end do we really
understand the beginning; and also because, on the second
reading, we approach each passage in the book in a mood and
frame of mind different from that which we had at the first.
Thus the impression proves to be different, and it is as if we are
looking at an object in a different light.
The works are the quintessence of a mind; and so even if a man
has the greatest mind, his works will always be incomparably
more valuable than his acquaintance. In essential points they
will even replace and indeed far surpass this. Even the writings
2 ['Repetition is the mother of studies.']

s6o ON READING AND BOOKS
of a mediocre mind can be instructive, entertaining, and worth
reading, just because they are his quintessence, the result and
fruit of all his thought and study; whereas associating with him
may not satisfy us. Thus we can read books by those in whose
company we should find no pleasure; and so great mental
culture gradually causes us to find entertainment almost entirely
in books and no longer in people.
There is for the mind no greater relaxation than reading
the ancient classics. As soon as we have taken up any one of
them even for only half an hour, \Ve at once feel revived,
relieved, purified, elevated, and strengthened, as if we had
enjoyed drinking at a fresh rock-spring. Is this due to the
ancient languages and their perfection, or to the greatness of
the minds whose works remain unimpaired and unaffected
after thousands of years? Perhaps it is the effect of both
together. But this I do know, namely that if, as is now threat-
ened, men were to give up learning the ancient languages, then
a new literature would appear consisting of barbarous, shallow,
and worthless writings, such as had never previously existed,
especially as German, which possesses some of the excellent
qualities of the ancient languages, is zealously and methodically
dilapidated and mutilated by the worthless scribblers of the
'present- time' [Jetztzeit], so that, crippled and impoverished,
it gradually degenerates into a wretched jargon.
There are two histories, one of politics and the other of literature
and art. The former is the history of the will, the latter that of
the intellect. The former is, therefore, generally alarming and
even terrifying; dread, fear, distress, deception, and horrible
murder en masse. The latter, on the other hand, is everywhere
delightful and serene, like the intellect in isolation, even where
such history gives a description of mistaken paths. Its main
branch is the history of philosophy. This is really its grow1d-bass
whose notes are heard also in the other kind ofhistory and which,
even here, fundamentally guides opinion; but this rules the
world. Rightly understood, philosophy is, therefore, the most
powerful material force, although it works very slowly.
297
In the history of the world half a century is always a con-
siderable period because its material always continues to flow,
since there is always something happening. On the other hand,
the same period of time in the history of literature is often of
no account at all just because nothing has happened; for the
attempts of bunglers do not concern it. Therefore in such a
case, we are where we were fifty years ago.
To make this clear, let us picture the progress of knowledge in
the human race in the form of a planetary orbit. Then the
wrong paths, which the race often takes soon after every inlpor-
tant advance, may be represented by Ptolemaic epicycles.
After running through each of these, the human race is again
where it was before it made the deviation from the planetary
path. The great minds, however, who actually lead the human
race further along the planetary orbit, do not make the
epicycle which happens to be made by others. This is the
reason why posthumous fame is often bought at the price of
losing the approbation of contemporaries and vice versa. For
example, such an epicycle is the philosophies of Fichte and
Schelling, crowned at the conclusion by the Hegelian caricature
thereof. This epicycle deviated from the circular path at the
point where Kant had continued to follow it and where I have
again taken it up in order to carry it further. But in the mean-
time, those sham philosophers and a few others. with them ran
through their epicycle that is just completed. The public that
ran through it with them has now become aware that it is
precisely at the point whence the epicycle had started.
Associated with this state of affairs, is the fact that, approxi-
mately every thirty years, we see the scientific, literary, and
artistic spirit of the times declare itself bankrupt. During such
a period, the errors in question have increased to such an extent
that they collapse under the weight of their own absurdity and
the opposition to them has at the same time become stronger.
The position is thus now changed, but often there follows an
error in the opposite direction. To show this course of things
in its periodical recurrence would be the proper pragmatic
material for the history of literature; but such a history gives it
little thought. Moreover, on account of the relative shortness of
such periods, their data are often difficult to bring together
from remoter times; and so we can n1ost conveniently observe
the matter in our own age. If we wanted an instance of this
from the exact sciences, we could take Werner's Neptunian
s62 ON READING AND BOOKS
geology. But I adhere to the example which has already been
mentioned and lies close at hand. Kant's brilliant period was in
German philosophy immediately followed by another wherein
the attempt was made to impress instead of to convince, to be
showy and hyperbolical and moreover incomprehensible
instead of clear and thorough, indeed to form an intrigue
instead of to look for the truth. With all this, it was impossible
for philosophy to make any progress. Finally, this whole
school and method ended in bankruptcy. For in Hegel and
his companions the audacity of scribbling nonsense on the one
hand and that of corrupt and unscrupulous eulogizing on the
other, together with the obvious intention of the whole pretty
business, had reached such colossal proportions that the eyes
of all were ultimately bound to be opened to the whole charla-
tanry; and as, in consequence of certain disclosures, protection
from above was withdrawn from the whole business, so too was
the applause. Fichte's and Schelling's antecedents of this
pseudo-philosophizing, the poorest there has ever been, were
dragged by it into the abyss of discredit. Thus the complete
philosophical incompetence in Germany in the first half of
the century that followed Kant is now perfectly clear, whereas
to foreigners one boasts of the philosophical gifts of the Ger-
mans, especially since an English author has had the malicious
irony to call them a nation of thinkers.
Now whoever wants from the history of art proofs of the
general scheme of epicycles which is here put forward, need
only consider Bernini's flourishing school of sculpture in the
eighteenth century, especially in its further development in
France. It represented common nature instead of antique
beauty, postures of the French minuet instead of antique sim-
plicity and grace. It became bankrupt when, after Winckel-
mann's criticism, there followed a return to the school of the
ancients. Again, a proof from painting is furnished by the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, which regarded art as a mere
means and instrument of mediaeval piety and, therefore, chose
for its sole theme ecclesiastical subjects. But these were now
treated by painters who lacked the true earnestness of that
faith yet, in consequence of the aforesaid erroneous view, took
as models Francesco Francia, Pietro Perugino, Angelo da
Fiesole, and others like them, and indeed valued these more
highly than the really great masters who followed them. With
reference to this error, and because an analogous attempt had
at the same time asserted itself in poetry, Goethe wrote the
parable Pfaffinspiel. This school was also recognized as based on
fads and whims, became bankrupt, and was followed by a
return to nature, announcing itself in genre-pictures and all
kinds of scenes from life, although they sometimes strayed into
vulgarity.
In keeping with the course of human progress which we have
described, there is the history of literature which is for the most
part the catalogue of a cabinet of abortions. The spirit in which
these are preserved the longest is pigskin. On the other hand,
we need not look there for the few successful births. They re-
main alive and are met with everywhere in the world where
they go about as immortals, eternally fresh and youthful. They
alone constitute the real literature, described in the previous
paragraph, whose history, poor in personalities, we learn in our
early years from the lips of the cultured and not first from com-
pendiums. As a remedy for the now prevailing monomania
of reading the history of literature in order to be able to chatter
about everything without really knowing anything, I recom-
mend an eminently readable passage from Lichtenberg, vol. ii,
p. 302, of the old edition. J
J [The passage from Lichtenberg is as follows:

'I believe that in our day the history of the sciences is pursued too minutely, to
the great detriment cf science itself. People like to read it, but it really leaves the
mind not exactly empty but without any power of its own, jw;t because it makes it
so full. Whoever has felt the urge not to cram but to strengthen his mind, to
develop his powers and aptitudes, to broaden his views, will have found that there
is nothing more feeble and spiritless than conversation with a so-called man of
letters in that branch of knowledge wherein he himself has not thought but knows
a thousand circumstances appertaining to its history and literature. It is almost
like reading a cookery-book when we are hungry. I believe also that the so-called
history of literature will never thrive among those who think and feel their own
worth and the value of real knowledge. They are more interested in using their own
faculty of reason than in wanting to know how others have used theirs. The saddest
thing about the business, as we shall find, is that, just as the inclination for literary
investigations grows in a branch of knowledge, so does the power of extending that
knowledge itself diminish, but the pride of possessing the knowledge increases. Such
men think they themselves are more in possession of the branches of knowledge
than are the real possessors. It is certainly a well-established observation that true
knowledge or science never makes its possessor proud. On the contrary, only those
allow themselves to be inftated with pride who, through inability to extend the
branch of knowledge itself, are engaged in clearing up obscure points in its history,
But I would like someone to attempt one day a tragic history

of literature wherein he would describe how the different nations,
each of which is most proud of the great authors and artists
of whom it boasts, how, I say, they treated them during their
lifetime. In such a history he would bring to our notice the
endless struggle that the good and genuine of all times and
countries had to wage against the ever-prevailing bad and
absurd; the martyrdom of almost all the true enlighteners of
mankind and of almost all the great masters in every branch of
knowledge and art would be described. He would show us how,
with few exceptions, they passed their lives in poverty and
misery without recognition, without interest and sympathy,
without followers, while fame, honour, and wealth went to the
unworthy ones in their branch of knowledge. And so he would
show us how things happened to them as happened to Esau
who, while hunting and killing game for his father, was deprived
of his father's blessing by Jacob sitting at home and disguised
in his cloak. Nevertheless we shall see how, in spite of all this,
love for their cause buoyed them up until finally the bitter
struggle of such an educator of the human race was over, the
immortal laurel beckoned to him, and the hour struck which
also meant for him:
The heavy armour turns to a cloak of flight,
Brief is the sorrow, and endless the delight."
or are able to narrate what others have done. For they regard this occupation,
which is mainly mechanical, as the exercise of the branch of knowledge itself. I
could support all this by examples, but they would be odious.']
4 [Schiller, Jungfrau DOn Orleans.]
CHAPTER XXV
On Language and Words
298
The voice of animals serves only to express the will in its
stirrings and movements; but that of man serves also the
expression of knowledge. In this connection, the voice of animals,
with the exception of a few birds, almost invariably makes a
disagreeable impression on us.
With the origin of human speech, it is quite certain that
interjections were the first things to express not concepts but, like
the noises of animals, feelings or movements of the will. Their
different forms appeared at once and from their variety there oc-
curred the transition to substantives, verbs, personal pronouns,
and so on.
The word of man is the most durable material. If a poet has
incorporated in exactly suitable words his most momentary and
transient feeling, such lives in them for thousands of years and
is aroused afresh in every reader who is susceptible to it.
2g8a
It is well known that languages, especially from a grammatical
point of view, are the more perfect the older they are, and that
by degrees they become ever inferior, from the lofty Sanskrit
down to English jargon, that cloak of ideas which is patched and
compiled from scraps of different materials. This gradual
degradation is a serious argument against the favourite theories
of our fatuous and ridiculous optimists concerning 'mankind's
steady and constant progress to something better'. For this
purpose, they would like to distort and falsify the history of the
race of bipeds, but this is indeed a problem that is very difficult
to solve. However, we cannot help picturing to ourselves the
first race of men, sprung somehow from the womb of nature,
as in a state of complete and childish ignorance and consequent-
ly as crude and dull. Now how is such a race supposed, to have
invented these extremely ingenious structures of language,
s66 ON LANGUAGE AND WORDS
these many different and complex grammatical forms, even
assuming that the vocabulary was gradually accumulated? On
the other hand, we see men everywhere adhere to the language
of their fathers and only very gradually make minor alterations
in it. Experience, however, does not tell us that languages are
perfected grammatically in the course of successive generations,
but rather, as I have said, the very opposite of this; thus they
are for ever becoming simpler and worse. Nevertheless, are we
to assume that the life of a language is like that of a plant which,
sprouting from a single seed, a simple, insignificant, young
shoot, slowly develops, reaches its zenith, and then gradually
grows old and declines, but that, in the case of language, we
have information only of this decline and not of the previous
growth? This is only a figurative hypothesis and, moreover,
one that is quite arbitrary; a simile, but not an explanation!
Now to arrive at such an explanation, the most plausible thing
seems to me the assumption that man invented language
instinctively, since there is originally in hun an instinct by virtue
whereof he produces, without reflection and conscious intention,
the instrument that is absolutely necessary for the use of his
faculty of reason and the organ thereof. \Vhen language once
exists and that instinct is no longer brought into use, the latter
is in the course of generations gradually lost. Now all works
that are produced from 1nere instinct, such as the cell-structures
of bees and wasps, the lodges of beavers, and the nests of birds,
appearing in such a variety of always appropriate and suitable
forms, have their own characteristic completeness and per-
fection, in that they are and achieve precisely what their purpose
demands, so that we marvel at the profound wisdom inherent
in them. It is the same with the first and original language that
had the great perfection of all works of instinct. To trace this
for the purpose of bringing it into the light of reflection and
clear consciousness, is the work of grammar which first appeared
thousands of years later.
299
The learning of several languages is not only an indirect, but
also a direct, means of acquiring culture; an intellectual means
that is profoundly effective. Hence the utterance of Charles V:
'When one knows many languages, just as many times is one a
ON LANGUAGE AND WORDS 567
man. (Qjlot linguas quis callet, tot homines valet.) The thing itself
is due to the following.
For every word in a given language there is not the exact
equivalent in every other; and so not all the concepts described
by the words of one language are exactly the same as those
expressed by the words of another; although this is often the
case, sometimes surprisingly so, as for example with au>Jrry~ts
and conceptio, Schneider and tailleur; but they are often concepts
that are merely similar and cognate, yet different through some
modification. Meanwhile, the following examples may help
to make clear what I n1ean:
a7Tal8vTos, rudis, roh, coarse.
opJ.L~, impetus, Atulrang, pressure.
J.L'IJXIn}, Mittel, medium, means.
seccatore, Qualgeisl, importun, tiresome person.
ingenieux, sinnreich, clever.
Geist, esprit, wit.
~Vitzig, facetus, plaisant,funn_y.
Malice, Bosheit, wickedness.
Countless other, and certainly even more striking, examples

may be added to the list. With the method, usual in logic, of
rendering concepts perceptible through circles, this close
identity could be expressed by circles which cover one another
approximately, but yet are not quite concentric, thus:
~\ ,
)
Son1etimes the word for a concept is wanting in one language,
whereas it is to be found in most, if not all, other languages. A
positively scandalous example of this is furnished in French by
the absence of a word for the verb to stand. Again, for some
concepts there is only in one language a word which then
passes into the others, such as the Latin 'affect', the French
naif, and the English 'comfortable', 'disappointment', 'gentle-
man', and many others. Sometimes a foreign language.expres-
ses a concept with a nuance which our own language does
s68 ON LANGUAGE AND WORDS
not give to it and with which we then exactly conceive it.
Everyone, who is concerned with the precise expression of his
own ideas, will then use the foreign word without paying any
attention to the yelping of pedantic purists. In all cases where,
in one language, not exactly the same concept is expressed by a
definite word as in the others, the clictionary renders this by
several expressions that are akin to one another, all of which
aim at the meaning of the word, yet not concentrically, but
close to it on different sides, as in the above figure. In this way,
the limits between which it lies are plotted; thus, for example,
the Latin word honestum will be rendered by 'fair', 'decent',
'respectable', 'honourable', 'glorious', 'esteemed', 'virtuous',
and so on. The Greek word awcppwv can be treated analogously.*
This is the reason for the necessarily defective nature of all
translations. We are hardly ever able to translate from one
language into another any characteristic, pregnant, and sig-
nificant passage in such a way that it would produce the
same effect precisely and completely. Poems cannot be translated,
but merely recast, which is always a precarious proceeding.
Even in mere prose the best of all translations will at most be
related to the original as the transposition of a given piece of
music into another key is to the piece itself. Those who under-
stand music know the importance of this. Every translation,
therefore, remains dead and its style is forced, stiff, and un-
natural; or it becomes free, in other words, rests content with an
apeu pres and is, therefore, incorrect. A library of translations is
like a picture gallery of copies. Even the translations of the
authors of antiquity are a substitute for them just as is chicory
coffee for the real thing.
Accordingly in learning a language, the chief difficulty lies
in getting to know every concept for which it has a word, even
when our own language does not possess a word that corre-
sponds exactly to this, as is often the case. When learning a
foreign language we must, therefore, mark out in our minds
several entirely new spheres of concepts. Consequently concept-
spheres arise where there were previously none; and so we learn
not merely words, but gain concepts and ideas. This is especially
the case when we learn the ancient languages, since the mode
The Greek awfpc!cnNr] [prudence] has no adequate equivalent in any language.

ON LANGUAGE AND WORDS s6g
of expression of the ancients is much more different from our
own than is that of modem languages from one another. This is
shown by the fact that, when we translate into Latin, we must
resort to turns of phrase quite different from those possessed
by the original. In fact in many cases, the idea to be rendered
into Latin has to be entirely remoulded and recast; here it is
broken down into its ultimate elements and is again recomposed.
The great improvement derived by the mind from learning the
ancient languages is due precisely to this process of recasting.
Only after we have correctly grasped all the concepts which
the language to be learnt expresses through separate individual
words; only when we directly call to mind in the case of each
word of the language exactly the concept that corresponds
thereto and do not first translate the word into a word of our
own language and then think of the concept expressed by
this word-a concept that never corresponds exactly to the
first one and likewise in respect of whole phrases-only then
have we grasped the spirit of the language to be learnt and have
made a great step forward in our knowledge of the nation that
speaks it. For just as the style of the individual is related to his
spirit, so is the language related to the spirit of the nation that
speaks it.* But a man is a complete master of a language only
when he is capable of translating into it not merely books but
himself, so that, without suffering a loss of individuality, he is
able to convey in it what he wants to say and is then just as
agreeable and interesting to foreigners as he is to his own
countrymen.
Those of limited ability will not readily master a foreign
language in the real sense of the term. They learn the foreign
words, it is true, but always use them only in the sense of their
approximate equivalent in their own tongue, and invariably
retain the idioms and phrases peculiar thereto. However, it is
the spir-it of the foreign language which they are unable to
master; and this is really due to the fact that their thinking itself
does not take place from their own resources, but is for the most
part borrowed from their mother tongue, whose current
idioms and phrases are for them equivalent to original ideas.
To be really master of several modem languages and to read them with ease is
a way of setting ourselves free from that national narrow-mindedness which usually
sticks to everyone.
ON LANGUAGE AND WORDS
And so even in their own language they always merely make
use of hackneyed phrases (phrases banales, abgenut.<:,te Redensarten);
and even these are put together with so little skill that we see
how imperfectly aware they are of their meaning and how little
their whole thinking goes beyond the mere words, so that it is
not very much more than parrot chatter. For the opposite rea-
son, originality of idiom and individual fitness of every expres-
sion used by a man are an infallible symptom of outstanding
intellect.
From all this it is clear that, with the learning of every
foreign language, new concepts are formed to give meaning
to new symbols; that concepts are separated which previously
combined to form a wider, and thus less definite, concept
simply because only one word existed for them; that connec-
tions and references, previously not known, are discovered
because the foreign language expresses the concept of its own
characteristic trope or tnetaphor; that accordingly by means
of the newly acquired language, we become conscious of an
immense number of nuances, analogies, variations, differences,
and relations of things; and that we thus obtain a more compre-
hensive view of everything. Nov~- it follows from this that in each
language we think differently; that in consequence, through the
study of each new language, our thinking undergoes a fresh
modification, a new shading; and that polyglottism with its
many indirect uses is, therefore, a direct means of mental culture,
since it corrects and perfects our views through the striking
number of the aspects and nuances of concepts. It also increases
the skill and quickness of our thinking since through our
learning many languages the concept becomes ever more
separated from the word. The ancient languages, by virtue of
their great difference from our own, achieved this to an incom-
parably greater degree than the modern, a difference that does
not allow us to translate word for word, but requires that we
shall remould our whole idea and recast it in another form. (This
is one of the many reasons for the importance oflearning ancient
languages.) Or, if I may use a chemical simile, whereas transla-
tion from one modern language into another demands at most
that the period to be translated is decomposed into its nearest
and first ingredients and is recomposed therefrom, translation
into Latin very often requires a decomposition into its remotest
and ultimate elements (the pure content of thoughts), whence it
is then regenerated into entirely different forms. For example,
what is expressed by substantives in the one case is expressed
by verbs in the other, and vice versa. The same process takes
place when we translate from ancient into modern languages;
and from this we can see how remote is an acquaintance with
ancient authors which is made by means of such translations.
The Greeks dispensed with the advantage of language study,
whereby they certainly saved a great deal of time, which they
then spent less economically, as is testified by the long daily
saunterings of the free citizens in the &yopa. 1 This reminds us
even of the la;:,;:,aroni and of all the stir and movement in the
I tal ian pia;:,;:a.
Finally from what has been said, it can readily be seen that
imitating the style of the ancients in their languages, which in
grammatical perfection far surpass our own, is the best possible
way of preparing ourselves for the expression of our ideas
skilfully and perfectly in our own mother tongue. In fact, this
is absolutely necessary if a man is to become a great author;
just as it is necessary for the budding sculptor and painter,
before proceeding to works of their own, to train and educate
themselves by imitating the models and examples of antiquity.
It is only through writing Latin that we learn to treat diction
as a work of art whose material is language which must, there-
fore, be treated with the greatest care and caution. Accordingly,
increased attention is then given to the meaning and value of
words, their combination and grammatical forms. We learn
to weigh these carefully and exactly and thus to handle the
precious material which is capable of assisting the expression
and preservation of valuable ideas. We learn to have respect
for the language in which we write, so that we do not set
about it in an arbitrary and capricious fashion for the purpose
of remodelling it. Without this preliminary schooling, writing
readily degenerates into mere jargon.
The man who does not understand Latin resembles one who
happens to be in a fine country during foggy weather; his
horizon is extremely limited. He sees clearly only those things
that are quite near to him; a few steps beyond and everything
1 ['Market-place'.]
572 ON LANGUAGE AND WORDS
is lost in vagueness and indefiniteness. The horizon of the Latin
scholar, on the other hand, is very wide and covers recent
centuries, the Middle Ages, and antiquity. Greek and also
Sanskrit naturally extend the horizon very much further.
Those who do not understand Latin belong to the crowd, even
if they are great virtuosi on the electrical machine and have in
their crucibles the basic ingredient of hydrofluoric acid.
In your authors who understand no Latin, you will soon
have none but blustering barber's assistants. They are well on
the way to this with their Gallicisms and their phrases that must
be light and facile. Well, my noble Germans, to coarseness and
vulgarity you have turned and coarseness and vulgarity are
what you will find. A positive indication of indolence and a
hotbed of ignorance are the editions of Greek, and even
(horrihile dictu) z Latin, authors which have the audacity to
appear with German notes! What an infamous business! How
can any pupil learn Latin if in the meantime he is always
spoken to in his mother tongue? In schola nil nisi latineJ was,
therefore, a good old rule. The humour of the situation is that
the professor cannot write Latin with ease and the pupil cannot
read it with ease, whatever stand you may take. Behind them,
therefore, are indolence and her daughter ignorance, nothing
else; and it is scandalous. The one has learnt nothing, and the
other will learn nothing. Cigar smoking and pot-house politics
have in our day ousted scholarship and learning, just as for
big children picture-books have taken the place of critical
reviews and literary journals.
2gga
The French, including the academies, treat the Greek lan-
guage scandalously. They take over its words for the purpose of
disfiguring them. For example, they write etiologie, esthitique, and
so on, whereas it is in French alone that the two letters ai are
together pronounced as in Greek. Again we have hradype,
Oedipe, Andromaque, and many others; that is to say, they write
Greek words as would a French peasant youth who had caught
them from the lips of a foreigner. It would really be quite
pleasant if French scholars would at any rate try to look as
1 ['Horrible to relate,.]
3 ['In school only Latin should be spoken.']
though they understood Greek. To see the noble Greek lan-
guage recklessly mutilated for the benefit of a nauseating
jargon, such as is French by itself (this shockingly spoilt Italian
with the long hideous end-syllables and the nasal sound), is
like watching a large West Indian spider devour a humming
bird, or a toad a butterfly. Now as the gentlemen of the
Acaden1y always address one another with the title mon illustre
confrere, which through mutal reflection has an impressive
effect especially at a distance, I request the illustres confreres for
once to consider the matter carefully. And so I ask them either
to leave Greek alone and to manage with their own jargon,
or to use Greek words without mutilating them; the more so as,
when they contract and distort these, we frequently have great
difficulty in guessing the Greek word that is so expressed, and
thus in unravelling the meaning of the expression. I ought to
mention in this connection the exceedingly barbarous practice,
customary among French scholars, of fusing together a Greek
and a Latin word; pomologie for example. Well, my illustres
confreres, such things savour of barber's assistants. In this censure
I am perfectly justified, for in the republic of learning political
boundaries are of as little consequence as they are in physical
geography; and the boundaries of languages exist only for those
who are ignorant; but louts and Philistines should not be
tolerated in this republic.
goo
It is right and even necessary that an increase of concepts
should be accompanied by an addition to the vocabulary of a
language. If, on the other hand, the latter occurs without the
former, it is merely a sign of poorness of intellect which would
indeed like to produce something and, as it has no new ideas,
comes forward with new words. The enrichment of the language
in this way is now very much the order of the day and a sign
of the times. But new words for old concepts are like a new
dye on an old garment.
Incidentally, and merely because the example happens to be
under discussion, we should use the words 'former and latter'
only when, as above, each of these expressions represents
4 ('My illustrious colleague'.]
several words and not when it represents only one, where it is
better to repeat that one word. Generally speaking, the Greeks
did not hesitate to do this, whereas the French are most anxious
to avoid it. The Germans sometimes get mixed up with their
formers and latters to such an extent that we no longer know
what is before and what behind.
301
We look down on the written characters of the Chinese; but as
the task of all these is to create in the rational minds of others
concepts through visible signs, it is obviously a very roundabout
proceeding first to present to the eye only a symbol of their
audible symbol and first of all to make this the supporter of the
concept, whereby our written character is only a symbol of the
symbol. And so the question is asked what advantage the au-
dible symbol has over the visible to induce us to leave the
straight path from the eye to the faculty of reason and to go the
long way round of letting the visible symbol speak to the mind
of another first by means of the audible; whereas it would
obviously be simpler to make the visible symbol, after the
manner of the Chinese, the direct supporter of the concept
and not the mere symbol of the sound. It would be simpler
because the sense of sight is susceptible to more and finer
modifications than is that of hearing and also because it permits
a co-existence of impressions whereof the affections of hearing,
on the other hand, as being given exclusively in time, are not
capable. Now the reasons, here asked for, would probably be
the following: ( 1) By nature, we resort first of all to the audible
symbol in order to express primarily our emotions, but sub-
sequently also our ideas. In this way, we arrive at a language
for the ear before we have even thought of inventing one for the
eye. But later on, where it becomes necessary, it is shorter to
reduce the visible language to the audible than to invent, or
let us say learn, an entirely new, and indeed quite different,
language for the eye, especially as it was soon discovered that
the thousands of words could be reduced to very few sounds and
thus be easily expressed by means thereof. (2) It is true that the
eye can apprehend a greater diversity of modifications than
can the ear; but without organs we cannot produce such modi-
fications for the eye as we can for the ear. Moreover, we could
never produce the visible sym bois and make them change as
rapidly as we can the audible by virtue of the tongue's volubility.
Evidence of this is given also by the imperfect nature of the
finger-language of deaf-mutes. Therefore from the very first,
this makes hearing the essential sense of language and thus of
our faculty of reason. Accordingly, at bottom, there are only
external and accidental grounds, not those that have sprung
from the essential nature of the question itself, why the direct
path is here, by way of exception, not the best one. Conse-
quently, if we consider the matter in the abstract, purely
theoretically, and a priori, the method of the Chinese would be
the really correct one; so that one could reproach them only
with a little pedantry in so far as they have here taken no
account of the empirical circumstances that recommend a
different path. Meanwhile, experience has brought to light a
very great advantage of the Chinese characters, namely that,
to express ourselves therein, we do not need to know Chinese,
but everyone reads them off in his own language, just as we
read off our numerical symbols which in general are for
numerical concepts what the Chinese characters are for all
concepts, and algebraical signs are even for abstract concepts
of quantities. Therefore, as I was assured by an English tea-
merchant who had been to China five times, Chinese charac-
ters are throughout the Indian Ocean the common medium
whereby merchants of very different nations understand one
another, although they have no language in common. My
English friend was even definitely of the opinion that in this
capacity those characters would one day spread all over the
world. An account which agrees entirely with this is given by
J. F. Davis in his work The Chinese, London, I8g6, chap. rs.
302
The deponent verbs are the only irrational and even absurd
feature of the language of the Romans; and it is much the same
as regards the middle voice in Greek.
But a special defect in Latin is thatfieri represents the passive
of facere. This implies and implants in the rational mind of the
person learning the language the fatal error that everything
which is or at any rate has come into existence, is something
made [ein Gemachtes]. In Greek and German, on the other hand,
ylyvEuOat and werden are not regarded directly as the passives of
1TOLEv and machen. In Greek I can say: ovK Eun 1riiv yEVOp.EVov
1rowvp.EVov; but this could not be rendered literally into
Latin as it can be into German: nicht jedes Gewordene ist ein
Gemachtes [not everything that has originated is something that
has been made].
gog
The consonants are the skeleton and the vowels the flesh of
words. The former (in the individual) is unchangeable, the
latter very changeable, in colour, character, and quantity.
Therefore in the course of centuries or even when passing
from one language into another, words generally preserve their
consonants but readily change their vowels; and so in ety-
mology we should pay much more attention to the consonants
than to the vowels.
Of the word superstitio we find all kinds of etymologies
collected in Delrio's Libri disquisitionum magicarum, lib. I, c. 1,
and also in Wegscheider's /nstitutiones theologiae christianae
dogmaticae, Prolegomena, c. 1, 5, d. I suspect however, the
origin of the word to be in its having from the first expressed
merely a belief in ghosts, namely: defunctorum manes circumvagari,
ergo mortuos adhuc SUPERSTITES esse.s
I hope I am not saying anything new when I observe that
p.op</>~ andforma are the same word and are related in the same
way as are renes and Nieren, horse and Ross. Likewise of the simi-
larities between Greek and German, one of the most significant
is that in both the superlative is formed by st (-uno~), whereas
such is not the case in Latin. I would sooner doubt that we
already know the etymology of the word ann [poor], namely
that it comes from Epijp.o~, eremus, Italian enno; for arm means
'where there is nothing' and hence 'deserted', 'empty'.
(Jesus ben Sirach 1 2 : 4: EP7Jp..Wuovm for 'to make poor', 'to
impoverish'.) On the other hand, I trust that it is already
known that Unterthan [subject, vassal] comes from the Old
English Thane, vassal, which is frequently used in Macbeth. The
German Luft [air] comes from the Anglo-Saxon, preserved in
the English words lofty, the loft, le grenier, since originally the
s ['That the spirits of the departed wander about and hence the dead are still
standing near or surviving'.]
upper part, the top, the atmosphere, was expressed by the
word Luft just as we still have in der Luft for oben. The Anglo-
Saxon first has retained in English its more general meaning,
but in German it survives in the word Furst, princeps.
Further, I consider the words Aberglauben (superstitions] and
Aberwitz (mania, craziness] to have come from Ueberglauben and
Ueberwitz by way of Oberglauben and Oberwitz (like Ueberrock,
Oberrock; Ueberhand, Oberhand), the 0 being then corrupted
into A, as conversely A has been corrupted into 0 in Argwohn
[suspicion] instead of Argwahn. I also believe that Hahnrei
[cuckold] is a corruption of Hohnrei, an expression that we see
retained in English as an exclamation of derision, o hone-a-rie!
It occurs in Letters and Joumals of Lord Byron: With Notices of his
Life, by Thomas Moore, London, 1830, vol. i, p. 441. Generally
speaking, English is the storehouse where we again find archaic
German words and also the original meaning of those German
words that are still in use; for example, the above-mentioned
Furst in its original meaning of' the first', princeps. In the new
edition of the original text of Deutsche Theologie I know and
therefore understand many words merely from the English. It
is surely no new idea that Eplzeu comes from Evoe.
Es kostet MICH is nothing but a solemn, affected, and time-
honoured error of speech. Kosten, like the Italian costare, comes
from constare. Therefore es kostet mich is me constat instead of
mihi constat. Dieser Uwe kiistet mich cannot be said by the owner
of the menagerie, but only by the man who is being eaten by
the lion.6
The resemblance between coluber [serpent] and Kolibri
[humming-bird] must be entirely fortuitous, or else, since
humming-birds are to be found only in America, we should
have to look for its source in the earliest history of the human
race. Different or even antagonistic as the two animals are,
since the Kolibri (humming-bird] is often the praeda colubri, 7
a confusion is conceivable in this case, analogous to that in
consequence whereof aceite in Spanish means 'oil', not 'vinegar'
[Essig]. Moreover, we find an even more striking agreement
between many names, originally American, and those of
European antiquity, for example between the Atlantis of
6 [The transitive verb kosten means 'to taste', 'to sample'.]
7 ['The prey of the scrpcn t '.]
Plato and Aztlan, the ancient indigenous name for 1\Iexico,
which is still to be found in the names of the Mexican towns
of Mazatlan and Tomatlan; and between the name of the
mountain Sorata in Peru and Soractes (Italian Sorate) in the
Appennines.
303a
Our German scholars of today (according to an article in
the Deutsche Vierteljahrs-Schrift October-December 1855) divide
the German (diuske) language into the following branches: ( 1) the
Gothic; (2) the Norse, i.e. Icelandic, whence we get Swedish and
Danish; (3) the North Gennan, whence we have Low German and
Dutch; (4) the Friesian; (5) the Anglo-Saxon; (6) the High
German, which is said to have appeared at the beginning of the
seventh century and is divided into Old, Middle, and Modern
High German. This entire system is by no means new, but
has already been proposed, also with a denial of Gothic origin,
by Wachter, Specimen glosarii germanici, Leipzig, 1727. (See
Lessing's Kollektanea, vol. ii, p. 384) But I believe that in this
system there is more patriotism than truth, and I back that of
the honest and discerning Rask. Coming from Sanskrit,
Gothic is divided into three dialects, Swedish, Danish, and
German. Nothing is known of the language of the ancient
Germans and I venture to surmise that such a language was
entirely different from the Gothic and so also from modern
German. The Germans are Goths, at a7ry rate so far as language
is concerned. Nothing annoys me more than the expression
Indo-Germanic languages, that is, the language of the Vedas
brought into line with some jargon of the aforesaid idlers. Ut
nos poma natamus fS The so-called Germanic, more correctly
Gothic, mythology together with the myth of the Nibelungen and
so on, was to be found much more highly developed and genuine
in Iceland and Scandinavia than among our German idlers,
and indeed Norse antiquities, objects found in tombs, runic
characters, and so forth, when compared with the German, are
evidence of every kind of higher cultural development in
Scandinavia.
s ['See how we apples swim ! 'J

It is remarkable that no German words are found in French
as they are in English, for in the fifth century France was
occupied by Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks, and was ruled
by Frankish kings.
Niedlich [neat, dainty] from Old German Neidlich = Beneidens-
werth [to be envied]. Teller [plate] from patella. Viande from the
Italian vivanda. Spada, espada, epee, from amxOTJ, sword, used in
this sense, for example, by Theophrastus in Ethici characteres,
chap. 24, 1Tpt 8tAia.s. Affe [ape] from Aftr because the first
apes introduced to the Germans by the Romans were described
by this word. Kram [goods, chattels] from Kpa,_,a. [mixture],
KpavJ'V~-Lt [to mix, to compound]. Taumeln [to stagger] from
temulentus [intoxicated]. Vulpes and Wolf are probably connected
in some way due to the confusion of two species of the genus
canis. It is highly probable that Welsch is merely a different
pronunciation of Galisch [Gaelic], i.e. Celtic, and meant to the
ancient Germans the non-German, or rather non-Gothic,
language; whence it now means Italian in particular, thus
the Romance language. Brod [bread] comes from f3pwp.a.. Vola
and {3ovAo,_,a.t or rather {3ovAw are radically the same word.
Heute [today] and oggi both come from hodie, and yet do not
bear any resemblance to one another. The German Gift
[poison] is the same as the English gift; thus it comes from
geben [to give] and states what is administered [eingegeben];
hence also verge ben [to confer, bestow] instead of vergiften [to
poison]. Parlare probably con1es from perlator, bearer, messenger;
hence the English word parley. To qye is evidently connected
with 8Evw, SEuEtv [to wet, to smear], just as tree is with Spv.
Geier [vulture] is from Garhuda, the eagle of Vishnu. Maul
[muzzle] from mala. Katze [cat] is the contracted form of
catus. Schande [disgrace] is from scandalum which is probably
related to the Sanskrit chandala. Ferkel [young pig] is from
ftrculum [dish, course] because it comes on to the table whole.
Pliirren [to snivel] is from pleurer and plorare. Fullen, Fohl.en is
from pullus. Poison and Ponzonna from Potio. Ba~y from Bambino.
Brand, Old English; brando, Italian. Knife and canif are the same
word, possibly of Celtic origin. Ziffer, cifra, chijfre, ciphre,
probably come from the Welsh and hence Celtic Cyfrinach,
Mystery. (Pictet, .A1ystere des bardes, p. 14.) The Italian tuffare
[mergere) and the German taufen [to baptize] are the same word.
Ambrosia appears to be related to Amriti; the Aesir are probably
akin to alaa [fate, destiny]. Aa.fipvop.ctt is identical with
labbern [to gabble] both as regards the word and the sense .
.ftoMis is Aile. Seve is Saft [sap]. It is strange that the word
Geiss [she-goat] is ,Zieg [goat] reversed. The English bower,
Laube, is the German Bauer meaning 'cage' as in Vogelbauer.
I know that Sanskrit scholars and philologists are inclined to
derive etymology from its sources in quite a different way;
nevertheless I hope that it is still possible to glean many a
fruitful morsel from my dilettantism in the subject.
CHAPTER XXVI
Psychological Remarks
34
Every animal, especially every human being, needs a certain
fitness and proportion between his will and his intellect in
order to be able to exist and make his way in the world. Now
the more precisely and correctly this has been arranged by
nature, the more safely and agreeably will he go through the
world. Meanwhile, a mere approximation to the really correct
point is enough to protect him from ruin. There is, accordingly,
a certain latitude within the limits of the correctness and
fitness of the aforesaid proportion. Now in this connection the
following is the recognized standard. As the destiny of the
intellect is to light and guide the steps of the will, the more
vehement, impetuous, and passionate the inner impulse of a
will, the more perfect and penetrating must be the intellect
which is assigned to it. This must be so in order that the
vehemence of striving and willing, the ardour of passions, and
the intensity of emotions may not lead a man astray or pre-
cipitate him into ill-considered, false, and ruinous action. All
this will inevitably be the case if the will is very violent and the
intellect very weak. A phlegmatic character, on the other hand,
and thus a weak and dull will, can manage to exist with a
limited intellect; a moderate man requires a moderate intellect.
Generally speaking, every case of a want of proportion between
a will and its intellect, that is to say, every deviation from the
above-mentioned normal proportion, tends to make a man
unhappy, whether the want of proportion be due to an excess
of intellect or to an excess of will. Thus an abnormally strong
and superior development of the intellect and its resultant dis-
proportionate preponderance over the will, such as constitute
the essential nature of real genius, are not merely superfluous
to the needs and aims of life but are positively detrimental
thereto. Then in youth, excessive energy in apprehending the
objective world, accompanied by a lively imagination and
582 PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
lacking all experience, will cause the mind to become susceptible
to extravagant notions and even chimeras and will easily cram
it therewith. The result of all this will then be an eccentric and
even fantastic character. Now even when this has been given
up and, through the teaching of experience, has later dis-
appeared, the genius will never really feel at home in the
ordinary outside world, will not fit conveniently into the life
of the ordinary citizen and move about as comfortably as does
the man of normal intellect; on the contrary, he will often
make curious mistakes. For the commonplace intellect is so
thoroughly at home in the narrow sphere of its ideas and its
apprehension of the world that no one can get the better of it
in that sphere and its knowledge remains always faithful to its
original purpose of serving the will. Therefore it constantly
attends to this without ever giving way to extravagant aims.
The genius, on the other hand, is at bottom a monstrum per
excessum, as I have already mentioned in the discussion of that
subject, just as, conversely, the passionate and impetuous man
without intellect and understanding is a brainless barbarian, a
monstrum per defectum.
305
The will-to-live, as constituting the innermost core of every-
thing that lives, manifests itself most conspicuously and can,
therefore, be observed and looked at most distinctly, as regards
its true nature, in the highest and cleverest animals. For below
this stage it does not appear so clearly and has a lower degree
of objectification; but abo1.Je and thus in man, prudence and
discretion have made their appearance along with the faculty
of reason and with this the ability to dissimulate, which at once
casts a veil over him. In him, therefore, the will appears naked
and undisguised only in the outbursts of emotions and passions.
This is the very reason why passion alvvays finds credence
when it speaks, no matter what it may be, and rightly so. For
the same reason, the passions are the main theme of poets
and the show-piece of actors. But our pleasure in dogs, mon-
keys, cats, and others rests on what I said at first about the
higher and cleverer animals; the complete naivete of all their
expressions is what affords so much amusement and delight.
What a characteristic and peculiar pleasure there is at the
PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
sight of every free animal pursuing its business without let or
hindrance, going in search of its food, tending its young, or
consorting with others of its species! With all this it is so entirely
what it should and can be. It may be only a tiny bird, yet I am
long able to watch it with pleasure; or it may be a water-rat,
frog, or better still a hedgehog, weasel, roe, or stag! That the
sight of animals is so pleasant is due mainly to the fact that we
are very delighted to see before us our own true nature so
greatly simplified.
There is in the world only one mendacious and hypocritical
being, namely man. Every other is true and sincere, in that it
frankly and openly declares itself to be what it is and expresses
itself as it feels. An emblematic or allegorical expression of this
fundamental difference is that all animals go about in a state
of nature; and this greatly contributes to the delightful impres-
sion on us when we look at them. At the sight of animals,
especially when they are free, my heart always goes out to
them. Man, on the other hand, has through his clothes become
a caricature, a fright, a monster, a creature repulsive to look
at, the sight of whom is made even more repulsive by the white
colour that is not natural to him and by all the loathsome
consequences of an unnatural flesh diet, spiritous liquors,
tobacco, debaucheries, and diseases. There he stands as a blot
on nature! The Greeks felt this and reduced their clothing to
the minimum.
so6
Mental anguish causes palpitations of the heart and these
cause mental anguish. Grief, care, and mental agitation have
an embarrassing and painful effect on the vital process and the
working of the organism, whether it be blood circulation,
secretions, or digestion. Conversely, if the workings of the
organism are impeded, obstructed, or otherwise disturbed by
physical causes in the heart, the intestines, the vena portarum, 1
the seminal vesicles, or elsewhere, there arise uneasiness of
mind, anxiety, morose humour, groundless melancholy; and
we therefore have the state called hypochondria. Again, anger
also makes one shout, stamp, and gesticulate violently; on the
(' Portal veins'.]

other hand, these bodily manifestations increase anger or
kindle it on the slightest provocation. I need hardly say how
much all this confirms my doctrine of the unity and identity of
the will with the body, according to which the body is nothing
but the will manifesting itself in the spatial intuitive perception
of the brain.
307
Very many things that are attributed to force of habit are due
rather to the constancy and unchangeable nature of the
original and inborn character. According to this, we always do
under similar circumstances the same thing which, therefore,
takes place with the same necessity the first time as it does the
hundredth. Real force of habit, on the other hand, actually
rests on indolence or inertia which seeks to spare the intellect and
the will the trouble, difficulty, and even danger of a fresh
choice. Such indolence, therefore, makes us do today what we
did yesterday and a hundred times before and of which we
know that it leads to the attainment of its object.
But the truth of the matter lies deeper; for it is to be under-
stood in a meaning stricter and more literal than at first sight
appears. The power of inertia is for bodies, in so far as they are
moved merely by mechanical causes, precisely what force of
habit is for bodies that are moved by motives. The actions we
perform from mere habit really occur without any separate
individual motive that operates for the particular case; and
so during such actions we do not really think about them. Of
every action that has become a habit, only the first instances
have had a motive whose secondary after-effect is the present
habit. This now suffices to enable the action to continue, just
as a body that is moved by a thrust needs no further thrust to
continue its motion but goes on moving to all eternity, provided
the motion is not impeded by anything. The same applies to
animals in that their training is an enforced habit. The horse
continues quite calmly to pull its cart without being driven.
This motion is still always the effect of the strokes of the whip by
which it was initially driven, and it is perpetuated as a habit in
accordance with the law of inertia. All this is actually more
than a mere simile; it is the identity of the thing, namely the
will, at widely different stages of its objectification according to
which the same law of motion now assumes such different
forms.
308
Viva muchos anos ! 2 is a usual greeting in Spanish, and all
over the world it is quite customary to wish anyone a long
life. This indeed cannot be explained from a knowledge of
what life is, but rather from what man is by nature, namely
will-to-live.
The wish which everyone has that he may be remembered
after his death and which rises to a desire for posthumous fame in
the case of those who aim high, seems to spring from an attach-
ment to life. When this sees itself cut off from all possibility of
real existence, it then seizes the only kind of existence that is
left, although such is only ideal; and thus it grasps a shadow.
309
With everything that we do, we desire more or less the end;
we are impatient to be done with it and are glad when it is
finished. Only the end in general, the end of all ends, do we
wish, as a rule, to put off as long as possible.
310
Every parting gives us a foretaste of death, and every time
we again meet someone we have a foretaste of resurrection.
This is why even those who were indifferent to one another
are so pleased when they again meet after twenty or thirty
years.
311
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul
arises from the feeling that there is in every individual some-
thing which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is,
therefore, absolutely and irretrnvab!J lost. Omne individuum
ineffabile. 3 This applies even to the individual animal, where it
is most acute1y felt by one who has accidentally caused the
z ['May you live many years!']
l ['Every individual is unfathomable and inscrutable. 'J
s86 PSYCHOLOGIC AL REMARKS
death of a favourite pet. The parting look given by the animal
then causes him heart-rending grief.
31 I a
It may happen that, even after a short time, we mourn the
loss of our enemies and opponents almost as much as that of
our friends, namely when we miss them as witnesses of our
brilliant successes.
312
The sudden announcement of a great stroke of good fortune
can easily have a fatal effect. This is due to the fact that our
happiness and unhappiness are merely a proportional number
between our claims and what has fallen to our lot; and accord-
ingly, we do not feel as such the good things which we possess
or of which we are quite certain in advance. For all pleasure
is really only negative and has only the effect of eliminating
pain, whereas pain or evil is the really positive thing and is
directly felt. With the possession of things or with the certain
prospect thereof, our claims at once rise and our capacity for
further possessions and prospects increases. If, on the other
hand, our spirits are depressed by constant misfortune and our
claims are reduced to a minimum, sudden good fortune here
finds no capacity for its reception. Thus as such good fortune is
not neutralized by any pre-existing claims, it now apparently
acts positively and consequently with all its force, whereby it
may have a disruptive effect on our feelings, in other words,
prove fatal. Hence the well-known caution in announcing good
fortune; first we cause the man to hope for it, then offer him
the prospect, and finally make it known to him only piecemeal
and gradually. For each part of the good news thus loses its
strength, in that it was anticipated by a claim, and still leaves
room for more. As a result of all this, it might be said that our
stomach for good fortune is indeed bottomless, but has a
narrow opening. The foregoing remarks are not directly
applicable to sudden misfortune; and so its fatal effect is much
rarer because hope here is still always opposed to it. In cases
of good fortune, fear does not play an analogous part because
we are instinctively more inclined to hope than to fear, just as
our eyes automatically turn to light and not to darkness.
313
Hope is the confusion of the wish for an event with its
probability. But perhaps no man is free from the folly of the
heart which so deranges the intellect's correct appreciation of
probability that a case of a thousand to one against is regarded
as easily possible. And yet a hopeless misfortune is like a quick
death-blow, whereas a hope that is always frustrated and
constantly revived resembles a kind of slow death by torture.*
Whoever is abandoned by hope has also been abandoned by
fear; this is the meaning of the word 'desperate'. Thus it is
natural for a man to believe what he wants and to believe it
because he wants it. Now if this beneficial and soothing
characteristic of his nature is eradicated by the very hard and
repeated blows of fate and he is even brought to believe con-
versely that what he does not want is bound to happen, and
what he wants can never happen just because he wants it,
then this is really the state which has been called desperation.
3 14
That we are so often mistaken in others is not always entirely
the fault of our own judgement, but in most cases arises from
Bacon's intellectus luminis sicci non est, sed recipit infusionem a
voluntate et affectibus ;4 for without knowing it, we are at the very
outset prejudiced for or against them by trifles. It is often due
also to the fact that we do not stop at the qualities actually
discovered in them, but from these infer others, which we
regard as inseparable from the former, or else as incompatible
with them. For example, from perceiving generosity we infer
justice, from godliness, honesty, from lying, deception, from
deception, stealing, and so on. This opens the door to many
errors partly because of the strangeness of human characters
and also because of the one-sidedness of our point of view. It is
true that character is generally consistent and coherent, but
the roots of all its qualities lie too deep for us to be able to
Hope is a state to which our whole being (namely will and intellect) tends; the
will by its desiring the object of hope; the intellect by its reckoning such object as
probable. The greater the share of the latter factor and the smaller that of the
former, the better it will be for hope. If the ratios are reversed, the worse it will be.
4['The intellect is no light that would bum dry (without oil), but receives its
supply from the will and from the passions.']
s88 PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
determine from isolated data which qualities can coexist in a

given case, and which cannot.
315
The ordinary use of the word person in all European languages
for describing the human individual is unconsciously striking
and to the point. For persona really means a mask as worn by
actors; and it is certain that no one shows himself as he is, but
everyone wears a mask and plays a part. Generally speaking,
the whole of our social life is the continuous performance of a
comedy. This renders it insipid for men of substance and merit,
whereas blockheads take a real delight in it.
316
We often happen to blurt out something which might in
some way be dangerous to us; but we are not deserted by our
reticence and discretion in the case of those things that might
make us ridiculous, because here the effect follows close on the
cause.
317
Unjust treatment kindles in the natural man an ardent thirst
for revenge, and it has often been said that revenge is sweet. This
is confirmed by the many sacrifices that are made, merely in
order to enjoy it and without any intention of thereby obtaining
amends. The painful death of the Centaur N essus was made
sweet by the certain prevision of an exceedingly clever revenge
for the preparation of which he used his last moments; and the
same idea, in a modern plausible account, is contained in
Bertolotti's novel Le due sorelle, which has been translated into
three languages. Sir Walter Scott expresses this same human
tendency both forcibly and appropriately: 'Revenge is the
sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.' I
will now attempt to give a psychological explanation of the
craving for revenge.
All suffering that is inflicted on us by nature, chance, or
fate, is not, ceteris paribus,s so painful as that brought upon us
by the arbitrary action of others. This is because we acknow-
s ['Other things being equal'.]

ledge nature and chance to be the original masters of the world.
We see that what has befallen us through them would likewise
have befallen everyone else; and so in sufferings from this
source we bewail the common lot of mankind rather than our
own fate. On the other hand, the suffering caused by the
arbitrary action of another has, in addition to the pain or
damage itself, something quite peculiar and bitter, namely the
consciousness of the other man's superiority, whether through
force or cunning, and of our own impotence. If possible, the
damage inflicted is made good by reparation, but that addi-
tional bitterness, namely the thought: 'I have to put up with
this from you', which often causes more pain than does the
injury itself, can be neutralized only by revenge. Thus by
inflicting injury, either by force or cunning, on the man who has
injured us, we show our superiority and thereby annul evidence
of his. This gives our feelings the satisfaction for which they
thirsted. Accordingly, there will be a great thirst for revenge
where there is much pride or vanity. But just as every fulfilled
desire reveals itself more or less as a disappointment, so too
does the desire for revenge. In most cases, the pleasure to be
hoped for from revenge will through compassion be gall and
wormwood to us. Indeed, the revenge we have taken will
afterwards often wring our hearts and torment our conscience.
The motive for revenge no longer operates and we are left with
the evidence of our own wickedness.
318
The pain of an unfulfilled desire is small in comparison with
that of remorse; for the former stands before the ever-open and
immeasurable future, whereas the latter stands before the
irrevocably closed past.
3 19
Patience, patientia, Geduld, but in particular the Spanish
sufrimiento, is so called from su.ffering;6 consequently, it is
passivity, the opposite of the activity of the mind. Where such
activity is great, it can hardly be reconciled with patience. It
is the inborn virtue of phlegmatic persons and also of the
6 [ Pati, to suffer.]
mentally indolent and mentally poor and of women. Never-
theless, the fact that patience is so very useful and necessary
betokens a melancholy state of affairs in this world.
320
~.\1oney
is human happiness in abstracto; and so the man who is
no longer capable of e~joying such happiness in concreto, sets his
whole heart on money.
'
321
All obstinacy is due to the fact that the will has forced itself
into the place of knowledge.
322
Peevishness or bad temper is something very different from
melancholy. From cheerfulness to melancholy is a much
shorter path than from bad temper to melancholy.
Afelancholy attracts; bad temper repels.
Hypochondria torments us not only with anger and annoyance
without cause over the things of the present; not only with
groundless anxiety over artificially invented misfortunes of the
future, but also with unmerited reproaches concerning our own
actions in the past.
The immediate effect of hypochondria is a constant seeking
and speculating on what might make us angry or annoyed. The
cause is an inner morbid discontent, frequently with the addition
of an inner restlessness or uneasiness due to temperament. If
the two reach the highest degree, they lead to suicide.
323
The following remarks may help to elucidate more fully
Juvenal's verse which was cited in 114:
Quantulacunque adeo est occasio, sufficit irae. 7
Anger at once creates a deception which consists in a mon-
strous exaggeration and distortion of its cause. Again this
7 ['An opportWlity, however small, suffices to make us angry.']

PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS 591
deception itself intensifies the anger and is once more magnified
by this intensified anger itself. The intensification of action and
reaction thus continues until the furor brevisB is reached.
To guard against this, men of quick and impulsive temper
should endeavour to prevail on themselves to dismiss the
matter from their minds for the time being as soon as they
begin to feel annoyed. For when after an hour they return to
it, it will long since have ceased to appear so bad and will
perhaps seem to be of no importance.
324
lfatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head. The
ego does not have either in its power; for its heart is unchange-
able and is moved by motives and its head judges in accordance
with immutable rules and objective data. The ego is merely
the association of a particular heart with a particular head,
the ~VyJ.LCt.. 9
Hatred and contempt are definitely antagonistic and
mutually exclusive. There are even many cases where one man's
hatred has no source other than the esteem and respect that are
enforced by another's excellent qualities. On the other hand,
if we attempted to hate all the miserable creatures we met, we
should have too much to do; whereas we can despise them, one
and all, with the greatest ease. True genuine contempt is the
very reverse of true genuine pride; it remains entirely concealed
and gives no hint of its existence. For whoever shows contempt,
thereby gives a sign of some regard in so far as he wants to let
the other man know how little he esteems him. In this way,
he betrays hatred which excludes and only feigns contempt.
Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is a firm conviction of
the other man's worthlessness and is compatible with con-
sideration and indulgence. By means of these, we avoid irritat-
ing the object of our contempt and do so for the sake of peace
and security; for everyone can do harm. If, however, this pure,
cold, and sincere contempt once shows itself, it is reciprocated
with the fiercest hatred, since the man who is held in scorn
does not have it in his power to retaliate with the same weapon.
s ['Bridparoxysrn of rage' (Horace, Epistles, 1. 2. 62).)

Q ['Bond', 'bridge'.]
324a
Every incident, even if very insignificant, which stirs a
disagreeable emotion, will leave in our mind an after-effect
which, as long as it lasts, obstructs a clear and objective view
of things and circumstances; in fact, it tinges all our thoughts,
just as a very small object, brought close to our eyes, limits and
distorts our field of vision.
325
What makes people hard-hearted is the fact that everyone has
enough troubles of his own to bear, or thinks he has. Therefore
an unusual state of happiness makes most people sympathetic
and benevolent. But a state of happiness that has always
existed, and has become permanent, often has the opposite
effect since it removes men so far from suffering that they are
no longer able to feel any sympathy therewith. The result is
that the poor show themselves more ready to help than the
wealthy.
On the other hand, what makes people so very inquisitive,
as can be seen from their peeping and prying into the affairs
of others, is boredom, the opposite pole of life to suffering;
although there is often some envy at work as well.
326
If we wish to discover our own sincere feelings for a man, we
should note the impression made on us by the first sight of an
unexpected letter from him.
327
It seems at times that we both want and do not want some-
thing and are accordingly simultaneously pleased and worried
about the same event. If, for example, in some matter we have
to pass a decisive test, where to come off victorious will be very
much to our advantage, we both want and fear the moment of
this trial. Now if, while waiting for it, we hear that it has been
postponed for the time being, we shall be simultaneously
pleased and worried; for it is contrary to our intention and yet
affords us momentary relief. It is the same when we expect an
important and decisive letter and it fails to arrive.
In such cases, there are really two different motives acting
on us, namely the stronger but more distant, the desire to pass
the test and obtain a decision; and the weaker but nearer,
the desire to be left in peace for the present and to continue to
enjoy the advantage that the state of hopeful uncertainty has
at any rate over the possible unsuccessful outcome of the affair.
Accordingly, there occurs here in the moral that which
happens in the physical when in our range of vision a smaller
but nearer object conceals the larger but more remote.
328
The faculty of reason merits also the name of prophet; for it
holds before us the future occurrence as the eventual con-
sequence and effect of our present actions. It is precisely in
this way that it is calculated to keep us in check when desires
of sensual passion, outbursts of anger, or cupidity and covetous-
ness are likely to lead us astray into doing what we should
inevitably regret in times to come.
329
The course and events of our individual lives are, as regards
their true meaning and connection, comparable to the rougher
works in mosaic. So long as we stand close to such works, we
do not really recognize the objects depicted and do not perceive
either their significance or beauty; only at a distance do these
stand out. In the same way, we frequently do not understand
the true connection of important events in our own lives while
they are going on or shortly after they have occurred, but only
long afterwards.*
Is this because we need the magnifying glass of the imagina-
tion ; or the whole can be surve,ed only at a distance; or the
passions must be cooled off; or only the school of experience
matures our judgement? Perhaps all of these together; but it is
certain that the correct light concerning the actions of others
and sometimes even our own, often dawns on us only after
We do not easily recognize the significan.ce of events and persons when they
are actually present. It is only when they lie in the past that they stand out in all
their significance after being given prominence by recollection, narrative, and
description.
many years. And just as it is in our own lives, so is it also in
history.
330
States of human happiness often resemble certain groups of
trees which look very beautiful when seen from a distance;
but, if we go up to them and walk among the trees, that beauty
vanishes. We do not know where it was and are standing
between trees. This is the reason why we so often envy the
position of others.
331
Why is it that, in spite of all mirrors, a man does not really
know what he looks like and therefore cannot picture to
himself his own features as he can those of every acquaintance?
This is a difficulty that faces yvw8t aavrov 10 at the very outset.
Undoubtedly this is due partly to the fact that he never sees
himself in the mirror except with his face turned straight
towards it and perfectly motionless, whereby the very significant
play of the eyes, but with it the really characteristic feature of
his face, is for the most part lost. But together with this physical
impossibility, there appears to be at work an ethical that is
analogous thereto. A man cannot look in the mirror at his own
image with the eyes of a stranger; and yet this is the condition
for an objective view of it. For this look rests ultimately on moral
egoism with its deeply felt rwt-1 (cf. Two Fundamental Problems
of Ethics, 'Basis of Ethics', 22) ; and yet these are necessary
if he is to perceive purely objectively all the defects and as they
really are, whereby only then does the image truly and faith-
fully present itself. Instead of this, whenever a man sees himself
in the mirror, that very egoism at all times whispers in his ear
a precautionary 'it is not another ego but my ego that I see.'
This acts as a noli me tangere 1 1 and prevents him from taking the
purely objective view which apparently cannot be brought
about without the ferment of a grain of malice.
332
~o one knows what forces for suffering and acting he has
within himself until an occasion puts them into operation; just
10('Know thyself.']
u ['Touch me not!']
as from the calm water, lying like a mirror in the pond, we do
not see with what raging and roaring it is capable of rushing
down intact from the rocks, or how high it can rise as a foun-
tain; and we also do not suspect the heat that is latent in ice-
cold water.
333
Existence without consciousness has reality only for other
beings in whose consciousness it manifests itself; immediate
reality is conditioned by one's own consciousness. Therefore
man's real individual existence also resides primarily in his
consciousness. But as such, this is necessarily a consciousness
which forms representations and is, therefore, conditioned by
the intellect and by the sphere and material of the intellecfs
activity. Accordingly, the degrees of clearness of consciousness,
and thus of thoughtfulness and reflection, can be regarded as
those of the realiry of existence. But in the human race itself, these
degrees of reflectiveness or clear consciousness of our own and
other people's existence, are very varied according to the
natural powers of the mind, their cultivation, and the amount
of leisure for meditation.
Now as regards the real and original difference of mental
powers, a comparison between them cannot very well be made
as long as we do not consider particulars, but stick to what is
general. For this difference cannot be seen from a distance and
is not so easily apparent externally as are the differences in
education, leisure, and occupation. But even proceeding
merely in accordance with these, we have to admit that many
a man has a degree of existence at least ten times higher than that
of another and, therefore, exists ten times as much.
Here I will not speak of savages whose life is often only one
stage above that of the apes in trees; but let us consider, say,
a porter in Naples or Venice (in the North concern over the
winter makes man more thoughtful and therefore more
reflective), and survey the course of his life from beginning to
end. Driven by need and poverty, borne by his own strength,
meeting the needs of the day and even of the hour by hard
work, great effort, constant tumult, privation in its many
forms, no thought for the morrow, relaxation and rest after
exhaustion, much bickering and quarrelling with others, not
a moment for reflection, sensual pleasure in a mild climate and

with food just bearable, and then finally, as the metaphysical
element, some crass superstitions of his Church; on the whole,
therefore, a fairly dull consciousness of driving, or rather of
being driven, through life. This troubled, restless, and confused
dream constitutes the lives of many millions. They know only
for the purpose of what at the moment they will. They do not
reflect on the connection and sequence in their existence, not
to mention that of existence itself; to a certain extent, they
exist without really becoming aware of it. Accordingly, the
existence of the proletarian or slave who goes on living without
thinking, is considerably nearer than is ours to that of the
animal, which is confined entirely to the present. Such a
proletarian existence, however, is for that very reason less
harrowing and distressing. In fact, since by its nature all
pleasure is negative, that is, consists in our being freed from
want or pain, the constant and rapid interchange between
difficulties and their removal which always accompanies the
work of the proletarian and then appears in a stronger form with
the final exchange of his work for rest and the satisfaction of his
needs, is a constant source of pleasure. The cheerfulness, seen
much more often in the faces of the poor than in those of the
wealthy, is a sure proof of the richness and fertility of that
source.
Now let us consider the rational and reflective merchant
who spends his life speculating, cautiously carries out carefully
considered plans, establishes a firm, provides for wife, family,
and descendants, and also takes an active part in the life of the
community. It is obvious that this man exists with a much
greater degree of consciousness than does the other; that is to
say, his existence has a higher degree of reality.
Let us then look at the scholar who investigates, say, the
history of the past. Such a man is already conscious of existence
as a whole; he sees beyond the period of his own life and person
and reflects on the course of the world.
Finally, let us think of the poet or even philosopher in whom
reflectiveness has reached so high a degree that, instead of being
urged to investigate some particular phenomenon in existence,
he stands in astonishment before existence itself, this great
sphinx, and makes this his problem. In him consciousness has
been enhanced to a degree of clearness where it has become a
consciousness of the world. Thus in him the mental picture or
representation has gone beyond all reference to the service of
his will and now holds before him a world that calls upon him
to investigate and consider much more than to take part in its
affairs. Now if the degrees of consciousness are those of reality,
then when we describe such a man as the 'most real of all
beings', this expression will have sense and significance.
Between the extremes here sketched and the intervening
stages everyone will be able to find his own position.
334
Ovid's verse
Pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram, 1 z
applies in the real and physical sense only to animals; but in

the figurative and spiritual, alas, it applies also to almost all
human beings. Their musings, thoughts, and aspirations are
identified entirely with a desire for physical pleasure and well-
being, or indeed with personal interests whose sphere often
embraces many different things, it is true, but which neverthe-
less ultimately derive their importance only from the relation
to those thoughts. Beyond this, however, they do not go. This
is testified not only by their mode of life and conversation, but
even by their mere look, the expression on their faces, the
way in which they walk, and their gesticulations. Everything
about them exclaims: in terram prona/13 Accordingly, Ovid's
next lines:
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri
Jussil, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus, 14
apply not to such people, but only to nobler and more highly
gifted natures, to those who think and really look about them,
and who occur only as the exceptions of the race.
12 ['While the animals bend down and turn their faces to the earth' (Meta-
morphoses, 1. 84).]
13 ['Bent down to the earth!' (Sallust, Catalina.)]
14 ['To man alone he gave a sublime countenance and bade him look up with
exalted gaze to the stars in the heavens.' (Metam01phoses, 1. Bs-6.)]

sg8 PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
335
Why is common an expression of contempt, and 'uncommon',
'extraordinary', 'distinguished' are expressions of approba-
tion? Why is everything common contemptible?
Common means originally that which is peculiar and common
to all, that is, to the whole species, and hence that which is
already associated therewith. Accordingly, whoever possesses
no other qualities than those of the human species generally,
is a common man. 'Ordinary person' is a much milder expression
intended more for intellectual qualities, whereas the expression
'common person' is concerned rather with moral qualities.
What value, indeed, can a being have who is no different
from millions of his kind? !vfillions? nay an infinitude of
beings, an endless number, whom nature incessantly bubbles
forth from her inexhaustible spring, in secula seculorum; 1 s she is
as generous with them as is a blacksmith with the sparks flying
round him.
It is obviously quite right that a being who has no other
qualities than just those of the species, shall not be entitled to
any existence other than that in and through the species.
I have discussed more than once (e.g. Two Fundamental
Problems of Ethics, 'Freedom of the Will', Pt. III (2); World as
Will and Representation, volume 1, 55) that, whereas animals
have only the character of the species, to man alone belongs
the individual character in the proper sense of the term. In
most people, however, there is only very little that is really
individual; they can be sorted entirely into classes. Ce sont des
especes. 16 Their thinking and willing, like their faces, are that
of the whole species, or at all events of the class to which they
belong. For this reason, they are trivial, trite, and common,
and exist in thousands. Vve can also say fairly accurately in
advance what they are doing and talking about. They have no
characteristic hall-mark; they are like manufactured articles
mass-produced.
Should not their existence, like their true nature, be merged
also in that of the species? The curse of vulgarity reduces man
IS ['Century after century'.]

16 ['They arc:: specimens.' J
to the level of the animal by granting him an essential nature
and existence only in the species.
But it goes without saying that everything great, exalted, and
noble will, by its very nature, exist in isolation in a world
where no better expression could be found for describing what
is mean and objectionable than the one that declares everything
ordinarily existing to be 'common'.
336
The will, as the thing-in-itself, is the common substance of
all beings, the universal element of things. Accordingly, we
have it in common with everyone else, even with the animals
and with still lower forms of existence. In the will as such we
are, therefore, like everything, in so far as each and every
thing is filled to overflowing therewith. On the other hand,
what raises one being above another, one human being above
another, is knowledge, to which our assertions and observations
should, therefore, be restricted as far as possible, and which
alone should be in evidence. For the will, as that which we all
have, is precisely what is common; and so every violent manifesta-
tion thereof is common, that is, it reduces us to a mere sample of
the species; for we then reveal merely the character thereof.
Hence all anger is common, boisterous hilarity, all hatred, all
fear, in short, every emotion, that is, every movement of the
will, when it becomes so strong that in consciousness it decidedly
outweighs knowledge, and causes one to appear more as a
willing than a knowing being. In giving way to such an
emotion, the greatest genius becomes like the commonest son
of earth. On the other hand, whoever wishes to be positively
uncommon and therefore great, must never let the predominant
movements of the will take complete possession of his conscious-
ness, however much he may be solicited to do so. For instance,
he must be capable of perceiving the spiteful and malicious
attitude of others without feeling his own provoked thereby.
Indeed, there is no surer sign of greatness than when a man
refuses to take any notice of offensive or insulting remarks, in
that he simply attributes them, as he does countless other
errors, to the poor knowledge of the speaker and, therefore,
merely perceives them without feeling them. Graciin's words
can also be explained from this: 'Nothing lowers a man so
6oo PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
much as when he shows himself to be simply a human being'
(el mayor desdoro de un hombre es dar muestras de que es hombre).
According to the foregoing, a man has to conceal his will as
he does his genitals, although both are the very root of our true
nature. We should merely display knowledge, just as we show
only our faces, on pain of becoming common.
Even in the drama, where passions and emotions are its
special and peculiar theme, these nevertheless readily appear
common and vulgar. This is particularly noticeable in the
French tragedians who have aimed at nothing higher than a
description of the passions and attempt to conceal the vulgarity
of their subject first behind a fatuous and ridiculous pathos and
then behind epigrammatic witticisms. The famous Mademoi-
selle Rachel, as Mary Stuart in her outburst against Elizabeth,
reminded me of a Billingsgate woman, although she played the
part superbly. In her performance, the last scene of farewell
also lost everything sublime, that is, everything truly tragic, of
which the French have not the least conception. The same
part was played incomparably better by the Italian actress
Ristori; for, in spite of great differences in many respects,
Italians and Germans nevertheless agree as regards their
feelings for what in art is profound, serious, and true, and are
thus opposed to the French who everywhere betray their want
of such feelings. What is noble, i.e. what is uncommon and
indeed sublime, is brought into the drama primarily through
knowing as opposed to willing. For the sublime element hovers
freely over all those movements of the will and makes them even
the material of its contemplation. Shakespeare, in particular,
shows this everywhere, especially in Hamlet. Now if knowledge
reaches the point where the vanity of all willing and striving
dawns on it and the will consequently abolishes itself, it is
then that the drama becomes really tragic and hence truly
sublime and attains its supreme purpose.
337
According as the energy of the intellect is exerted or relaxed,
life seems to it so short, petty, and fleeting that no event therein
can be worth our interest, but everything remains insignificant,
even pleasure, wealth, and fame; and this to such an extent
that, however a man may have failed, he cannot possibly
have lost much in this way. On the other hand, life may seem
to the intellect so long and i1nportant, so all in all momentous
and difficult, that we accordingly devote ourselves to it body
and soul in order to share in its good things, to make sure of
the prizes of its struggles, and to carry out our plans. This is
the immanent view of life and is what Gracian meant when he
said, tomar muy de veras el vivir (to take life very seriously). But
for the other view, the transcendent, Ovid's words are a good
expression: non est tanti ; 17 and an even better expression is
Plato's olh~ n nvv &v8pwrdvwv aeu5v lan p.~y&">-.7]~ a1rov8fj~ (nihil,
in rebus humanis, magno studio dignum est). 18
The first attitude results really from the fact that in con-
sciousness knowledge has gained the ascendancy where it now
frees itself from the mere service of the will, objectively appre-
hends the phenomenon of life, and cannot fail to see clearly
the vanity and futility thereof. In the second attitude, however,
willing is uppermost and knowledge exists merely to illuminate
the objects thereof and to shed light on the paths to them. A
man is great or sn1all according as the one view of life pre-
dominates or the other.
338
Everyone regards the limits of his field of vision as those of
the world; this is the illusion, as inevitable intellectually as it is
in physical vision, which regards heaven and earth as touching
at the horizon. To this, among other things, is due the fact that
everyone measures us with his own standard, which is often
that of a mere tailor, and we have to put up with this; as also
the fact that everyone falsely imputes to us his own mediocrity
and insignificance, a fiction that is acknowledged once for all.
339
There are some concepts which very rarely exist in any mind
with clearness and precision, but manage to exist merely
through their name. This then really indicates only the place
of such a concept yet without it they would be entirely lost.
For instance, the concept wisdom is of this kind. How vague it
17 ['It is not so important.' (Meta:mcrphoses, VI. 386.)]

s ['No human affair is worth our troubling ourselves very much about it.'J
is in almost all minds! \Ve have only to look at the explanations
of philosophers.
J1lisdom seems to indicate not merely theoretical but also
practical perfection. I would define it as the complete and
correct knowledge of things, as a whole and in general, with
which a n1an is so thoroughly imbued that it now appears
even in his actions, in that they are everywhere guided by it.
340
Everything original, and thus everything genuine, in man as
such operates unconsciously, like the forces of nature. That
which has passed through consciousness has thus become a
representation or mental picture; consequently its expression
is, to a certain extent, the communication of a representation.
Accordingly, all genuine and sound qualities of character and
intellect are originally unconscious and only as such do they
tnake a profound impression. Everything that is done con-
sciously is smnething touched up and intentional and, therefore,
degenerates into affectation, i.e. deception. \Vhat a man does
uncmlSciously costs him no effort, but no amount of effort can
take its place. Of this sort is the birth of original conceptions
which underlie all genuine achievements and constitute their
very core. Therefore only what is inborn is genuine and sound;
and everyone who wants to achieve something must comply'
with the rules without knowing them in everything he undertakes,
whether in conduct, writing, or mental culture.
341
Many a man certainly owes good fortune in his life simply to
the circumstance that he has a pleasant smile with which he
wins hearts. Yet it would be better to be careful and to realize
from Hamlet's memorial 'that one 1nay smile, and smile, and
be a villain'.
342
Men of great and brilliant qualities think little of admitting
their shortcomings and weaknesses or of letting them be seen.
They regard them as something for which they have paid; or
they even think that they will do their shortcomings an honour
rather than that these will bring discredit to them. But this
will be particularly the case when they are shortc01nings that
are directly connected with their great qualities, as conditiones
sine quibus non, 19 according to the words of George Sand already
quoted: chacun a les difauts de ses vertus. 20
On the other hand, there are those of good character and
faultless intellect who never admit their few and trifling
weaknesses but carefully conceal them, and who are very
sensitive to any hint of their existence. This is because their
whole merit consists in the absence of defects and infirmities
and is at once impaired by any defect that is brought to light.
343
With moderate abilities modesty is mere honesty; but with
great talent it is hypocrisy. It is, therefore, just as becoming for
great talent openly to express its own feelings of superiority
and not to conceal its awareness of unusual powers, as it is
for moderate ability to be modest. Very fine examples of this
are furnished by Valerius Maximus in the chapter Defiducia sui.
344
Even in his ability to be trained, man surpasses all animals.
Mohammedans are trained to pray five times a day with their
faces turned to Mecca and never fail to do so. Christians are
trained to cross themselves, to bow, and to do other things on
certain occasions. Indeed, speaking generally, religion is the
chif d'oeuvre of training, namely training the ability to think;
and so, as we know, a beginning in it cannot be made too early.
There is no absurdity, however palpable, which cannot be
firmly implanted in the minds of all, if only one begins to
inculcate it before the early age of six by constantly repeating it
to them with an air of great solemnity. For the training of
man, like that of animals, is completely successful only at an
early age.
Noblemen are trained to hold nothing sacred but their word
of honour, to believe rigidly, firmly, and quite seriously in the
grotesque code of knightly honour, to set their seal to it by
dying for it if required to do so, and to regard the king actually
19 eEssential conditions'.]
20
['Everyone has the failings of his virtues.']
as a being of a higher order. Our compliments and expressions
of politeness, especially the respectful attentions paid to ladies,
are due to training, as also is our esteem for birth, rank, and
titles. In the same way, we take due umbrage at anything said
against us; for instance, Englishmen are trained to regard as a
deadly insult the reproach that they are not gentlemen and still
more that they are liars; Frenchmen resent the reproach of
cowardice (Lache), Germans that of stupidity, and so on. Many
are trained to a strict and inviolable integrity in one respect,
but boast of little honour in every other. Thus many a man
does not steal money, but will take everything that can be
directly enjoyed. Many a merchant deceives without the least
scruple, but would certainly not steal.
344a
The doctor sees man in all his weakness; the lawyer sees
him in all his wickedness; and the theologian sees him in all his
folly and stupidity.
345
There is in my mind a standing opposition party which
subsequently attacks everything I have done or decided, even
after mature consideration, yet without its always being right
on that account. It is, I suppose, only a form of the corrective
spirit of investigation; but it often casts an unmerited slur on
me. I suspect that it also happens to many another; for who
does not have to say to himself
quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut le
Conatus non poeniteai, votique peracti? 21
346
That man has great power of imagination whose cerebral activiry
in intuitive perception is strong enough not to be always in need
of sense stimulation in order to become active.
Accordingly, the power of imagination is the more active,
the less external intuitive perception is brought to us through
the senses. Long periods of solitude in prison or in a sick-room,
u ['What have you begun with such skill that you ought not to regret the attempt
and the success of the wish?' (Juvenal, Satires, 10. 5-6.)]
PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS 6os
quiet, twilight, and darkness promote its activity and under
their influence it begins to play of its own accord. Conversely,
when much real material is given to intuitive perception from
without as on a journey, in the tumult and turmoil of the
world, or in broad daylight, the power of imagination ceases
to work and, even when urged to, does not become active; it
seems to realize that this is not its proper time.
Yet, to be fruitful, that power must have received much
material from the external world; for this alone fills its store-
house. But it is the same with the nourishment of the imagina-
tion as with that of the body. When this has just received from
without much food which it has to digest, it is at that moment
least capable of doing any work and prefers to rest from its
labours. Yet the body is indebted to this very nourishment for
all the powers which it afterwards manifests at the right time.
347
Opinion observes the law of oscillation; if it goes beyond the
centre of gravity on the one side, it must afterwards go as far
on the other. Only with time does it find and stop at the real
point of rest.
348
In space distance diminishes everything by contracting it,
whereby its defects and drawbacks vanish; and so in a convex
mirror or camera obscura everything appears to be more beautiful
than it is in reality. In time the past has just the same effect;
scenes and events of long ago together with those who took
part in them, seem most delightful in our memory, where
everything inessential and disturbing is dropped. The present,
that is without such advantages, always seems to be defective.
Again in space small objects close to us appear to be large;
and if they are very near, they occupy our whole field of
vision. But as soon as we are some distance from them, they
become small and insignificant. It is the same as regards time;
the little incidents and accidents that occur in our daily lives
appear to be large, significant, and important so long as they
are present and close to us and accordingly stir our emotions,
anxiety, annoyance, and passions. But as soon as the restless
6o6 PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
stream of time has made them more remote, they are un-
important, not worth considering, and are quickly forgotten;
for their size depended merely on their being close to us.
349
As joy and sorrow are not representations or mental pictures
but affections of the will, they do not lie in the domain of
memory and we cannot recall those affections themselves, which
means that we cannot renew them. On the contrary, we can
again bring to mind merely the representations by which they
were accompanied, but in particular recall our expressions
that were at the time provoked by them in order to gauge
from them what those emotions were. And so our memory of
joys and sorrows is always imperfect and, when they are over,
they are to us a matter of indifference. This is why it is always
futile when we try sometimes to revive the pleasures or pains
of the past; for the real and essential nature of both lies in the
will. In itself and as such, however, the will has no memory,
such being a function of the intellect which by its nature
furnishes and contains nothing but mere representations; but
these are not the subject we are considering. It is strange that
on our bad days we can very vividly recall the happy days that
are past; on the other hand, we have on our good days only a
very imperfect and bleak picture of the bad.
350
So far as memo!.V is concerned, a confusion rather than a real
congestion of what has been learnt is to be feared. Its capacity
is not reduced by what has been learnt, just as the forms into
which sand has been successively moulded do not diminish its
capacity to be moulded into fresh forms. In this sense memory is
unfathomable; yet the greater and more varied a man's
knowledge, the more time he will need to find out what is
suddenly demanded of him. For he is like a merchant who has
to hunt for the required article from a large and miscellaneous
store; or properly speaking, he has to recall from the many
trains of thought which are possible to him that one which, in
consequence of previous training and practice, leads to the
required subject. For memory is not a reservoir for preserving
things, but merely an ability to exercise mental powers. There-
fore the mind always possesses all its knowledge only potentia,
not actu; and on this subject I refer to 45 of the second
edition of my essay On the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
350a
On occasions my memory will not reproduce a word of a
foreign language, a name, or a technical term, although I
know it quite well. After I have worried about it for a longer
or shorter time, I dismiss the matter entirely from my mind.
Then within an hour or two, in rare instances even later and
sometimes only after four to six weeks, the word I have been
looking for usually occurs to me while I am thinking of some-
thing quite different; and it occurs as suddenly as if it had been
whispered by someone. (It is then a good thing to fix it for the
time being by a mnemonic sign until it is again stamped on the
memory proper.) After observing and admiring for very many
years this phenomenon, I have now come to the following as
its probable explanation. After a painful and fruitless search,
my will retains the craving for the word and therefore appoints
for it a watcher in the intellect. Now as soon as, in the course
and play of my thoughts, a word having the same initial letter
or some other resemblance to the one sought accidentally
occurs, the watcher springs forward and supplies what is
required to make up the word sought; it seizes it and suddenly
drags it forward in triumph without my knowing how and
where this was done; and so it comes as if it had been whispered
in my ear. It is the same as when a child cannot repeat a word
and the teacher finally suggests the first or even second letter,
whereupon the word con1es to him. \Vhere this n1ethod fails,
the word in the end is systematically sought by our going
through all the letters of the alphabet.
lmage_s and pictures of intuitive perception are more firmly
retained in the memory than are mere concepts; and so those
gifted with imagination learn languages more easily than
others; for they at once associate the intuitively perceptual
image of the thing with the new word, whereas others connect
it only with the equivalent word in their own language.
6o8 PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
We should endeavour as far as possible to refer to an
intuitively perceptual image or picture that which we wish to
assimilate in our memory, whether it be direct, or an example
of the thing, a mere simile, analogue, or anything else. For
everything intuitively perceptual sticks much more firmly
than do things that are thought only in abstracto, or even mere
words. What we have experienced is, therefore, very much
better retained than what we have read.
The word mnemonics appertains not only to the art of con-
verting the direct retention into an indirect by means of a
witticism, but also to a systematic theory of memory which
would explain all its peculiarities, and derive these from its
essential nature and then from one another.
351
Only now and then do we learn something; but all day long
we are forgetting.
In this connection, our memory is like a sieve that holds
less and less through use and with the passage of time. Thus
the older we grow, the more rapidly does what we still commit
to memory vanish therefrom; whereas what was fixed in it in
our early years is still retained. An old man's reminiscences
are, therefore, the more distinct, the further they go back into
the past; and they become less and less clear, the nearer they
approach the present; so that his memory, like his eyes, has
become long-sigh ted (1rpeafiv~). zz
352
There are moments in life when the sensuous perception of
the present and our environment reaches a rare and higher
degree of clearness without any special external cause, but
rather through an enhanced susceptibility coming from within
and explainable only physiologica1ly. In this way, such
moments subsequently remain indelibly impressed on the
memory and are preserved in their entire individuality. We
do not know why it should be just these mmnents out of so
many thousands like them. On the contrary, they seem to be
zz [As an old man (rrpiapvs) he suffers from presbyopia, or long-sightedness.]

quite as accidental as are the solitary specimens of complete
extinct animal species which are preserved in layers of rock, or
the insects that were once accidentally crushed between the
pages of a book when it was shut. However, memories of this
nature are always delightful and pleasant.
How fine and significant many of the scenes and events of
our early life appear to be when we recall them, although at
the time we let them pass without attaching to them any
particular value! But, whether appreciated or not, they were
bound to pass away; they are just the pieces of mosaic whence
the picture of recollection of our lives is composed.
353
Scenes long past sometimes start up suddenly and vividly in
the memory, apparently without cause. In many cases, this
may be due to a faint odour of which we arc not clearly
conscious, but which we now detect precisely as we did
previously. For it is well known that odours awaken tnemory
with particular ease and that everywhere the nexus idearum 2 3
needs only an exceedingly small impulse. Incidentally, the
eye is the sense of the understanding (Fourfold Root of the
Principle of Sufficient Reason, 21); the car that of the faculty of
reason (see above 301); and here, as we see, the sense of smell
is that of memory. Touch and taste are realistic and tied to
contact; they have no ideal side.
354
One of the peculiarities of memory is that slight intoxication
enhances the recollection of past times and scenes to such a
degree that we recall all their circumstances mo~e perfectly
than we could have done in a state of soberness. On the other
hand, the recollection of what we ourselves said or did while
intoxicated is less perfect than it would otherwise be; in fact,
it does not exist at all after we have been really drunk. Thus
intoxication enhances recollection, but furnishes it with little
material.
zJ ['Association of ideas'.]
6to PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
355
Delirium falsifies intuitive perception; madness thoughts

and ideas.
356
That the lowest of all mental activities is arithmetic is proved
by the fact that it is the only one that can be performed even
by a machine. In England at the present time, calculating
machines are frequently used for the sake of convenience. Now
all analysisfinitorum et infinitorum 24 ultimately amounts to repeated
reckoning. It is on these lines that we should gauge the 'mathe-
matical profundity', about which Lichtenberg is very amusing
when he says: 'The so-called professional mathematicians,
supported by the childish immaturity of the rest of mankind,
have earned a reputation for profundity of thought that bears
a strong resemblance to that for godliness which the theologians
claim for themselves.'
357
Men of very great ability will, as a rule, get on better with
those of very limited intellect than with ordinary people, for
the same reason that the tyrant and the mob, grandparents
and grandchildren, are natural allies.
358
Men are in need of external activity because they have none
that is internal. On the other hand, where the latter takes
place, the former is rather an inopportune and indeed often
confounded disturbance and hindrance, and the prevailing
desire is for leisure and peace and quiet from without. From that
need for external activity can also be explained a restlessness
and pointless mania for travel on the part of those who have
nothing to do. What chases them through all the countries of
their travels is the same boredom that in their own country
drives and herds them together in a way that is really quite
14 ['Analysis of finite and infinite numbers'.]

comic to watch.* An excellent confirmation of the truth of this
was once afforded by a stranger, a man about fifty, who told
me all about his two-year pleasure trip to distant countries and
continents. When I remarked that he must have endured great
hardships, privations, and dangers, he gave me the extremely
naive reply, at once and without any ceremony but with the
assumption of the enthymemes, that not for one moment was
he bored.
359
I am not surprised that people are bored when they are
alone; they cannot laugh when they are by themselves; even
the very idea of such a thing seems to them absurd. Is laughter,
then, only a signal for others and a mere sign, like a word?
Lack of imagination and of mental keenness generally, (dull-
ness, avet.tCJ8'Y)CJtCf. Ket.i. f3pMV'T~~ ifroxijs 2 5 as Theophrastus says,
Ethici characteres, c. 27) is what prevents them from laughing
when they are alone. The animals do not laugh either alone or
.
m company.
Myson, the misanthrope, when laughing to himself, was once
surprised by one of those men. He was then asked why he was
laughing, since he was alone. 'That is the very reason why I
am laughing' was Myson's reply.
360
Nevertheless, a man who with a phlegmatic temperament is
merely a blockhead would with a sanguine nature be a fool.
361
Whoever does not go to the theatre resembles a man who
dresses without a mirror; but worse still is he who makes his
decisions without consulting a friend. For a man may have the
most excellent and accurate judgement in everything except
in his own affairs because here the will at once confuses the
intellect. We should, therefore, consult others for the same
Moreover, boredom is the source of the gravest evils; if we go to the root of the
matter, gambling, drinking, extravagance, intrigues, and so on, have their origin
in boredom.
zs ['Mental apathy and dullness'.]
6J2 PSYCHOLOGICAL REMARKS
reason that a doctor cures everyone but himself; when ill he
calls in a colleague.
361a
The everyday natural gesticulation, such as accompanies any
lively conversation, is a language of its own and indeed one
that is much more universal than that of words, in so far as it
is independent of the latter and is the same in all countries.
It is true that each nation makes use of it according to its
vivacity and that in the case of some, the Italians, for example,
such language has been supplemented by a few merely con-
ventional gesticulations of its own which are, therefore, of only
local application. Its universal nature is analogous to logic and
grammar since it is due to the fact that the gesticulation
expresses the formal, and not the material part of any con-
versation. Yet it is distinguished from them by the fact that it
relates not merely to what is intellectual, but also to what is
moral, i.e. the stirrings of the will. Accordingly, it accompanies
the conversation as does a correctly progressive ground-bass
the melody; and, like this bass, it helps to enhance the effect
of the conversation. Now the most interesting thing about this
is the absolute identity of the particular gesture in use whenever
the formal part of the conversation is the same, however
different its material part and thus its subject-matter, namely the
business under discussion. And so when from my window I
see two men carrying on a lively conversation without hearing
what they are saying, I am well able to understand its general,
i.e. merely formal and typical, sense. For I infallibly perceive
that the speaker is now arguing, advancing his reasons, then
limiting them, then driving them home, and drawing his con-
clusions in triumph. Or else I see him giving an account and a
palpable description of some wrong that has been done to him,
the lively way in which he complains of the callous, stupid, and
intractable nature of opponents. Again, I can see him telling
the other man about the fine plan he made and carried out, or
complaining how through an unkind fate he failed. I can now
see him admitting his helplessness in the present case or saying
how, in the nick of time, he noticed the machinations of others,
saw through them, and, by asserting his rights or applying
force, frustrated them and punished their authors; and a
hundred similar things. But what the mere gesticulation gives
me is really the essential substance of the conversation in
abstracto, either morally or intellectually, thus its quintessence,
its true subject-matter, which, in spite of the most different
occasions and thus of the most varied material, is identical. It
is related to this as the concept to the individual things that
are covered by it. As I have said, the most interesting and
amusing thing is the absolute identity and stability of the
gestures for expressing the same circumstances, even when they
are used by men of very different temperament. Thus the
gestures are absolutely like the words of a language and the
same for everyone and, like these, undergo only such modifica-
tions as do words through minor differences of pronunciation
or even of education. Yet there is certainly no convention or
agreement underlying these standing and universally observed
forms of gesticulation. On the contrary, they are natural and
original, a true language of nature, although they may be
established by imitation and custom. It is well known that an
actor, and to a lesser extent a public speaker, has to make a
careful study of them which, however, must consist mainly in
observation and imitation. For the matter cannot be reduced
to abstract rules, with the exception of a few quite general
leading principles, as for example the one that the gesture
must not come after the word, but rather just before it,
announcing it, as it were, and thus attracting attention.
The English have a characteristic contempt for gesticulation
and regard it as something vulgar and beneath their dignity.
But this seems to be just one of those silly prejudices of English
prudery. For here we are speaking of a language which nature
gives everyone and everyone understands. Accordingly, to do
away with it summarily merely out of deference to that much-
lauded gentlemanly feeling and to declare it taboo might be a
precarious proceeding.
CHAPTER XXVII
On Women
362
The true praise of women is in my opinion better expressed by
Jouy's few words than by Schiller's well-considered poem, Wiirde
der Frauen, which produces its effect by means of antithesis and
contrast. Jouy says: Sans les femmes, le commencement de notre vie
seroit privi de secours, le milieu de plaisirs, et La fin de consolation.'
The same thing is expressed more pathetically by Byron in his
Sardanapalus, Act 1, Sc. 2:
The very first
Of human life must spring from woman's breast,
Your first small words are taught you from her lips,
Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last sighs
Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing,
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care
Of watching the last hour of him who led them.
Both express the right point of view for the value of women.
363
The sight of the female form tells us that woman is not
destined for great work, either intellectual or physical. She
bears the guilt of life not by doing but by suffering; she pays
the debt by the pains of childbirth, care for the child, sub-
missiveness to her husband, to whom she should be a patient
and cheerful companion. The most intense sufferings, joys,
and manifestations of power do not fall to her lot; but her life
should glide along more gently, mildly, and with less import-
ance than man's, without being essentially happier or un-
happier.
364
Women are qualified to be the nurses and governesses of our
earliest childhood by the very fact that they are themselves
J('Without women the beginning of our life would be cut off from help, the
middle from pleasures, and the end from consolation.']
ON WOMEN
childish, trifling, and short-sighted, in a word, are all their
lives grown-up children; a kind of intermediate stage between
the child and the man, who is a human being in the real sense.
Just see how, for days on end, a girl will fondle and dance with
a child and sing to it, and imagine what a man with the best
will in the world could do in her place!
With girls nature has had in view what in a dramaturgic

sense is called a stage-effect or sensation. For she has endowed
them for a few years with lavish beauty, charm, and fullness
at the expense of the rest of their lives. This she has done so
that, during those few years, they might capture a man's
imagination to the extent that he is carried away into giving
in some form an honourable undertaking to look after them for
the rest of their lives. Mere rational deliberation would not
appear to give a sufficiently adequate guarantee to induce him
to take such a step. Accordingly, nature has endowed women,
as she has every other creature, with the weapons and instru-
ments needed for the security of their existence and for as
long as they require them, a course wherein she has proceeded
with her usual parsimony. For just as the female ant after
copulation loses her wings which are now superfluous and, as
regards breeding, even dangerous, so does the woman generally
lose her beauty after one or two confinements, and probably
for the same reason.
Accordingly, young girls in their hearts regard their domestic
or business affairs as something secondary and indeed as a
mere piece of fun. They consider love, conquests, and every-
thing connected therewith, such as dress, cosmetics, dancing~
and so on, to be their only serious vocation.
366
The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and more
slowly does it come to maturity. A man does not arrive at a
maturity of his rational faculty and mental powers much before
his twenty-eighth year; woman attains it at the age of eighteen.
But it is, in consequence, a very meagre and limited faculty of
reason. And so throughout their lives women ren1ain children,
ON WOMEN
always see only what is nearest to them, cling to the present,
take the appearance of things for the reality, and prefer
trivialities to the most important affairs. Thus it is the faculty
of reason by virtue whereof man does not, like the animal, live
merely in the present, but surveys and considers the past and
future; and from all this spring his foresight, wariness, care,
anxiety, and frequent uneasiness. In consequence of her weaker
faculty of reason, woman shares less in the advantages and dis-
advantages that this entails. Rather is she an intellectual myope,
since her intuitive understanding sees quite clearly what is
near, but has a narrow range of vision into which the distant
object does not enter. Thus everything that is absent, past, or
future has a much feebler effect on women than on men,
whence arises the tendency to extravagance which occurs much
more frequently in women and occasionally borders on
.
craziness. ' -ro' avvol\ov
1.~twr] ' ' ' Ean
' "' ' 'fJuaH.
oa.1Tctii'Y)pov ,.~.. ' 2 I n t heu
.
hearts, women imagine that men are born to earn money,
whilst they are meant to get through it, if possible during the
man's lifetime, but at any rate after his death. They are
strengthened in this belief by the fact that the man hands over
to them for housekeeping what he has earned. However many
disadvantages all this may entail, there is yet one good point,
namely that woman is more absorbed in the present than man
and, therefore, enjoys this better if only it is bearable. The
result of this is that cheerfulness which is peculiar to woman and
makes her suited for the recreation, and if necessary the
consolation, of the man who is burdened with cares.
In difficult and delicate matters, it is by no means a bad
thing to consult women, after the manner of the ancient
Germans. For their way of apprehending things is quite
different from man's, more particularly as they like to go the
shortest way to the goal and generally keep in view what lies
nearest to them. But just because this lies under men's noses,
it is generally overlooked by them, in which case it is then
necessary for them to be brought back to it so that they may
regain the near and simple view. Moreover, women are
decidedly more matter-of-fact than men and thus do not see
in things more than actually exists, whereas when the passions
a ['Woman is by nature extravagant.' (Menander, MonosticJwi, 97.))

ON WOMEN
of men are aroused, they easily magnify what is present or
add something imaginary.
From the same source may be traced the fact that women
show more compassion and thus more loving kindness and
sympathy for the unfortunate than do men; on the other hand,
they are inferior to men in the matter of justice, honesty, and
conscientiousness. For in consequence of their weak faculty of
reason, that which is present, intuitively perceptual, immedi-
ately real, exercises over them a power against which abstract
ideas, established maxims, fixed resolves, and generally a
consideration for the past and future, the absent and distant,
are seldom able to do very much. Accordingly, they certainly
have the first and fundamental thing for virtue; on the other
hand, they lack the secondary, the often necessary instrument
for it. In this respect, they might be compared to an organism
which had liver, it is true, but no gall-bladder. Here I refer
to my essay 'On the Basis of Ethics', 17. In accordance with
the foregoing, we find that injustice is the fundamental failing
of the female character. It arises primarily from the above-
mentioned want of reasonableness and reflection and is further
supported by the fact that, as the weaker, they are by nature
dependent not on force but cunning; hence their instinctive
artfulness and ineradicable tendency to tell lies. For just as
nature has armed the lion with claws and teeth, the elephant
and boar with tusks, the bull with horns, and the cuttle-fish
with ink that blackens water, so for their defence and pro-
tection has she endowed women with the art of dissimulation.
She has bestowed on them in the form of this gift all the force
she has given to men in the form of physical strength and power
of reason. Dissimulation is, therefore, inborn in women and
is thus almost as characteristic of the stupid as of the clever
woman; and so to make use of it on every occasion is as natural
to her as it is to the above-mentioned animals to make im-
mediate use of their weapons when they are attacked, and to a
certain extent she feels that here she is exercising her right.
Therefore an entirely truthful and unaffected woman is perhaps
impossible. For the same reason, they so easily see through
dissimulation in others that it is not advisable to try it on them.
But from that fundamental failing and its attendant qualities
arise falseness, faithlessness, treachery, ingratitude, and so on.
ON WOMEN
Women are much more often guilty of perjury than men; and
in general it might be questioned whether they should be
allowed to take the oath. From time to time one repeatedly
comes across the case where in a shop a lady, who wants for
nothing, secretly pilfers and pockets things.
367
Young, strong, and handsome men are called by nature for
the propagation of the human race so that it may not degener-
ate. Herein is nature's firm will and the passions of women are
its expression. In age and force, that law comes before any
other. Therefore woe to him who so arranges his rights and
interests that they stand in its way; whatever he may say or
do, they will be mercilessly crushed on the first important
occasion. For the secret, unexpressed, indeed unconscious but
innate, morality of won1en is as follows: 'We are justified in
deceiving those who imagine they have acquired a right over
the species by the fact that they barely provide for us, the
individuals. The constitution, and consequently the welfare,
of the species are placed in our hands and entrusted to our
care by means of the next generation coming from us; we will
conscientiously carry this out.' \\'omen, however, are by no
means conscious of this supreme principle in abstracto but only
in concreto; and for it they have no other expression than their
course of action when the opportunity occurs. Here their
conscience is generally less disturbed than we suppose, for in
the darkest recesses of their hearts they feel that, through a
breach of duty to the individual, they have so much better
fulfilled that to the species, whose rights are infinitely greater.
The more detailed discussion of this is given in volume ii,
chapter 44 of my chief work.
Because, at bottom, women exist solely for the propagation
of the race with which their destiny is identified, they live
generally more in the species than in individuals. At heart,
they take more seriously the affairs of the species than those of
individuals. This gives to their whole nature and action a
certain frivolity and generally an attitude which is funda-
mentally different from that of the man and gives rise to that
discord and disharmony which are so frequent and almost
normal in marriage.
ON WOMEN
368
Between men there is by nature merely indifference; but
between women there is already by nature hostility. This is
due to the fact that with men the odium figulinumJ is limited to
their particular guild, whereas with women it embraces the
whole sex since they all have only one line of business. Even
when they meet in the street, they look at one another like
Guelphs and Ghibellines. :rvloreover on first acquaintance, two
women meet each other obviously with more stiffness and dis-
simulation than do two men in a similar situation. Therefore
the compliments between two women prove to be far more
ridiculous than those between men. Again, whereas the man,
as a rule, speaks with a certain consideration and humanity,
even to one who is far beneath him in rank, it is intolerable
to see how proudly and disdainfully, for the most part, a
woman of rank and position behaves towards one in a lower
position (who is not in her service) when she speaks to her.
It may be due to the fact that all difference of rank is 1nuch
more precarious with women than with men and can much
more rapidly be altered and abolished. For whereas with men
a hundred things turn the scale, with wmnen only one thing
decides, namely \vhat man they have charmed. There is also
the fact that, on account of the one-sidedness of their calling,
they stand much nearer to one another than do men and for
that reason endeavour to stress class distinctions.
369
Only the male intellect, clouded by the sexual impulse,
could call the undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped,
and short-legged sex the fair sex; for in this impulse is to be
found its whole beauty. The female sex could be more aptly
called the unaesthetic. They really and truly have no bent and
receptivity either for music, poetry, or the plastic arts; but when
they affect and profess to like such things, it is mere aping for
the sake of their keen desire to please. This is why they are
incapable of taking a purely objective interest in anything, and I
think the following is the reason for this. In everything man
aspires to a direct mastery over things, either by unde~tanding
3 ['Professional jealousy'; literally 'one potter's hatred of another'.]
ON WOMEN
or controlling them. But woman is always and everywhere

driven to a merely indirect mastery by means of the man who
alone has to be directly mastered by her. It therefore lies in the
nature of women to regard everything merely as a means to
win the man; and their interest in anything else is always only
simulated, a mere roundabout way; in other words, it ends in
coquetry and aping. Thus even Rousseau said: les femmes, en
general, n' aiment aucun art, ne se connoissent a aucun, et n' ont aucun
genie (Lettre a d' Alembert, note xx). Everyone who has gone
beyond appearances will also have noticed it. We need only
observe the direction and nature of their attention at a concert,
an opera, and a play, and see, for instance, the childlike
ingenuousness with which they carry on their chatting during
the finest passages of the greatest masterpieces. If the Greeks
did not really admit women to the play, they were right; at
least it would have been possible to hear something in their
theatres. For our own times it would be proper to add to the
taceat mulier in ecclesias a taceat mulier in theatro, or to substitute it
and put it in large letters on the curtain in the theatre. \Ve
cannot expect anything else from women when we reflect that
the most eminent minds of the whole sex have never been able
to produce a single, really great, genuine, and original achieve-
ment in the fine arts, or to bring anywhere into the world a
work of permanent value. This is most striking in regard to
painting, for its technique is at any rate just as suited to them
as it is to men and thus they pursue it with diligence; yet they
cannot boast of a single great painting, just because they lack all
objectivity of mind, the very thing that is most directly de-
manded of painting. Everywhere they remain in the subjective.
In keeping with this, is the fact that the average woman is not
even susceptible to painting in the real sense; for natura non
Jacit saltus.6 In his book, Examen de ingenios para las sciencias
(Amberes, 1603) which has been famous for three hundred
years, Huarte denies women all higher abilities. In the preface
(p. 6) he says: la compostura natural, que la muger tiene en el celebro,
4 ['Women in general do not like any art, are no judges of any, and have no
genius.']
s ['Let your women keep silence in the churches.' ( 1 Corinthians, 14: 34)]
6 ['Nature makes no jumps (she proceeds very gradually from one species to
another).']
ON WOMEN 621
no es capa;:, de mucho ingenio ni de mucha sabiduria; then c. 15 (p.

382) : quedando la muger en su disposicion natural, todo genero de
letras y sabiduria, es repugnante a su ingenio;-(pp. 397, 398): las
hembras (por ra;:,on de la frialdad y humedad de su sexo) no pueden
alcanfar ingenio profundo : solo veemos que hablan con alguna
aparencia de habilidad, en materias livianas y faciles, 7 and so on.
Isolated and partial exceptions do not alter the case but,
generally speaking, women are and remain the most downright
and incurable Philistines. And so with the positively absurd
arrangement whereby they share the position and title of the
man, they are constantly spurring him on in his ignoble ambition.
Moreover, on account of the same quality, their predominance
and the way they set the fashion are the ruin of modern society.
In respect of the first, we should be guided by the saying of
Napoleon I: Les femmes n'ont pas de rang; 8 and for the rest,
Chamfort quite rightly says: Elles sont faites pour commercer avec
nos faiblesses, avec notre folie, mais non avec notre raison. ll existe
entre elles et les hommes des s;mpathies d'epiderme, et tres-peu de
sympathies d' esprit, d' ame et de caratere. 9 They are the sexus sequior, 10
the sex that takes second place in nery respect. We should
accordingly treat their weakness with forbearance; but to show
them excessive reverence and respect is ridiculous and lowers
us in their own eyes. When nature split the human race into
two halves, she did not make the division precisely through the
middle. In spite of all polarity, the difference between the
positive and negative poles is not merely qualitative but also
quantitative. Thus did the ancients and oriental races regard
woman; and her proper place was accordingly much more
correctly recognized by them than by us with our old French
gallantry and absurd veneration of women, this culminating
point of Christian-Germanic stupidity. It has merely served to
7 ('The natural organization that woman has in her brain is not suitable for
much intellect, or even for much learning ... in so far as woman keeps to her
natural disposition, every kind of literature and knowledge is repugnant to her
mind ... Women (on account of the frigidity and humidity peculiar to their sex),
cannot attain to profound intellect; and we merely see them talk with a certain
appearance of deftness about trivial and easy things.']
8 ['Women have no station in life.']
11 [' Th~y are made to deal with our weaknesses, our folly, but not with our
faculty of reason. Between them and men there is only a superficial sympathy and
very little sympathy of mind, soul, and character.']
10 ['Inferior sex'.]
ON WO~fEN
make women so arrogant and inconsiderate that we are some-

times reminded of the sacred apes at Benares who, conscious
of their sanctity and invulnerability, think that they are at
liberty to do anything and everything.
Woman in the West, especially what is called the 'lady',
finds herself in a fausse position; for woman, rightly called by
the ancients the sexus sequior, is by no means qualified to be the
object of our respect and veneration, to carry her head
higher than man and have equal rights with him. We see well
enough the consequences of this Jausse position. It would
accordingly be very desirable even in Europe for this number
two of the human race to be again assigned to her natural
place and for this lady-nonsense to be stopped, which not only
the whole of Asia ridicules, but Greece and Rome would also
have laughed at. From a social, civil, and political point of
view, the consequences of this would be of incalculable benefit.
As a superfluous truism, the Salic law ought not to be necessary.
The European lady proper is a being who should not exist at
all; on the contrary, there should be housewives and girls who
hope to become so and thus are brought up not to arrogance,
but to domesticity and submissiveness. Just because there are
ladies in Europe, the women of the lower classes, and thus the
great majority of the sex, are much more unhappy than those
in the East. Even Lord Byron says (Letters and Journals by
Th. Moore, vol. ii, p. 454): 'Thought of the state of women
under the ancient Greeks-convenient enough. Present state,
a remnant of the barbarism of the chivalry and feudal ages-
artificial and unnatural. They ought to mind home-and be
well fed and clothed-but not mixed in society. Well educated,
too, in religion-but to read neither poetry nor politics-
nothing but books of piety and cookery. Music-drawing-
dancing-also a little gardening and ploughing now and then.
I have seen them mending the roads in Epirus with good
success. Why not, as well as hay-making and milking?'
370
In our monogamous continent, to marry means to halve one's
rights and double one's duties. Yet when the laws conceded to
women equal rights with men, they should also have endowed
them with a man's faculty of reason. On the other hand, the
ON WOMEN
more the rights and honours which the laws confer on woman
exceed her natural position, the more they reduce the number
of women who actually share these privileges; and they deprive
all the rest of as many natural rights as they have given in
excess to those privileged women. For with the unnaturally
favourable position which is given to woman by the monogam-
ous institution and the marriage laws connected therewith, in
that they generally regard the woman as the absolute equal
of man, which she in no sense is, prudent and cautious men
very often hesitate to make so great a sacrifice and to enter
into so unequal an agreement.* And so whereas among the
polygamous races every woman is provided for, among the
monogamous the number of married women is limited and
many women are left without support. In the upper classes
they vegetate as useless old maids, but in the lower they have
to do hard and unsuitable work, or become prostitutes who
lead a life as joyless as it is disreputable, but who in such
circumstances become necessary for the satisfaction of the male
sex. They thus appear as a publicly recognized class or profes-
sion whose special purpose is to protect from being seduced
those women who are favoured by fortune and have found or
hope to find husbands. In London alone there are eighty
thousand women of this class. What, then, are they but women
who have become the most fearful losers through the monogam-
ous institution, actual human sacrifices on the altar of
monogamy? All such women who are so badly off are the
inevitable offset to the European lady with her pretensions and
arrogance. Accordingly for the female sex, considered as a
whole, polygamy is a real benefit. On the other hand, no valid
reason can be given why a man should not have a second wife
when his first is suffering from chronic illness, is barren, or has
Much greater, however, is the number of those who are in no position to
marry. Each of such men produces an old maid who is often without means of sub-
sistence and in any case is more or less unhappy, because she has missed the proper
vocation of her sex. On the other hand, many a man has a wife who, soon after the
marriage, contracts a chronic disease that lasts for thirty years; what is he to do?
For another man his wife has become too old; for a third, his wife has now become
thoroughly hateful to him. All these in Europe are not allowed to have a second
wife, as indeed they are in the whole of Asia and Africa. If, in spite of the monoga-
mous institution, a strong healthy man always [feels] his sexual impulse ... H04c
nimis vulgaria et cmm.ihus nota sunt.
('Such things, however, are trivial and known to all.']
624 ON WOMEN
gradually become too old. What gains so many converts for
the Mormons seems to be precisely the removal of this unnatural
monogamy.* Moreover, giving woman unnatural rights has
also imposed on her unnatural duties whose breach, however,
makes her unhappy. Thus considerations of position or means
render marriage inexpedient to n1any a man, unless perhaps
there are brilliant conditions attached thereto. He will then
want to obtain a woman of his choice under different con-
ditions that will place on a firm footing her lot and that of the
children. Now even if these are ever so fair, reasonable, and
suited to the case, and she consents by not insisting on the
disproportionate rights that marriage alone offers, she thus
becomes, to a certain extent, disreputable, because marriage
is the basis of civil society, and she must lead a sad life. For,
human nature being what it is, we attach a wholly exaggerated
value to the opinion of others. If, on the other hand, she does
not consent, she runs the risk either of having to be married to
a man she detests or of drying up as an old maid; for the time
during which a man is willing to provide for her is very limited.
As regards this side of our monogamous institution, Thomasius'
profound essay De concubinatu is well worth reading. From it
we see that, among all cultured peoples and at all times down
to the Lutheran Reformation, concubinage was a permitted
institution; in fact it was, to a certain extent, even legally
recognized, with no dishonour attaching to it. From this
position it was overthrown merely by the Lutheran Reforma-
tion which recognized in its abolition a further means for
justifying marriage of the clergy; whereupon the Catholic
side could not be left behind.
Polygamy is not a matter of dispute at all, but is to be taken as
a fact that is met with everywhere; its mere regulation is the
problem. For where are there actual monogamists? We all
live in polygamy at any rate for a time, but in most cases always.
Consequently, as every man needs many women, nothing is
more just than that it should be open to him, indeed incumbent
on him, to provide for many women. In this way, woman is
also brought back to her correct and natural standpoint as a
subordinate being and the lady, that monster of European
* As regards the sexual relation, no continent is so immoral as Europe in conse-
quence of unnatural monogamy.
ON WOMEN
civilization and Christian-Germanic stupidity with her ridicul-
ous claims to respect and veneration, disappears from the
world. There are then only women, but of course no longer any
unfOrtunate women of whom Europe is now full. The Mormons
are right.
37 1
In Hindustan no woman is ever independent, but each is
under the guardianship of a father, husband, brother, or son,
in accordance with the Law of Manu, chap. 5, I. 148. That
widows burn themselves on the corpses of their husbands is of
course shocking; but that they squander on their lovers the
fortune which has been acquired by the husband through the
incessant hard work of a lifetime, and in the belief that he
was working for his children, is also shocking . .~.\1ediam tenuere
beati. 11 As in animals, so in man, the original maternal love is
purely instinctive and therefore ceases with the physical helpless-
ness of the children. In its place, there should then appear one
based on habit and reasoning; but often it fails to appear,
especially when the mother has not loved the father. The
father's love for his children is of a different kind and is more
enduring. It rests on his again recognizing in them his own
innermost self and is thus of metaphysical origin.
With almost all ancient and n10dern races on earth, even
with the Hottentots,* property is inherited merely by the male
descendants; only in Europe has a departure been made from
this, yet not with the nobility. Property acquired by the long
and constant hard work of men subsequently passes into the
hands of women who in their folly get through it or otherwise
squander it in a short time. This is an enorntity, as great as it is
frequent, which should be prevented by restricting woman's
right of inheritance. It seems that the best arrangement would
"'Chez les Hottentots, tousles biensd'un pert descendent al'aini des fils, ou passent dans /.a
mbnefamille au plru proche des males. JaTTUlis ils ne sont dWisis,jamais lesfemmes ne sont
appelies a la succession. (Ch. G. Leroy, uttm philosophiquu sur /'intelligence et la per-
fictibiliti des animtWX, avec quelques lettres sur l'hcmme. Nouvelle Edit., Paris, an X
(18o2), page 2g8.)
['With the Hottenlots all the property of a father passes to the eldest son, or in
the same family to the nearest male relations. Never is it divided, and never do the
women inherit it.']
11 ['The fortunate and happy keep to the mean.']
ON WOMEN
be for women, whether as widows or daughters, always to
inherit only a life annuity secured by mortgage, not landed
property or capital, unless there are no male descendants at
all. Those who earn and acquire wealth and property are
men, not women; and therefore women are not entitled to
their absolute possession, nor arc they capable of managing
them. At any rate, women should never be free to dispose of
inherited property in the real sense, namely capital, houses,
and land. They always need a guardian; and so in no case
whatever should they receive the guardianship of their children.
The vanity of women, even if it may not be greater than that of
men, is bad because it is centred entirely on material things,
on their personal beauty, and then on finery, pomp, and dis-
play; and hence society is so very much their element. This
makes them inclined to extravagance, especially with their weak
powers of reasoning; thus an ancient writer has said: Tvvf,
\ I \ ' ' "' \ .1. I
TO O'UVO"OV 0'TL OCf.1TCU7JpOV 'f'VO'f:L I Z (S Brune k'
.. S Gnomzet
.. poetae
graeci, l. 115). The vanity of men, on the other hand, is often
centred on non-material virtues and merits, such as under-
standing, intellect, learning, courage, and the like. In the
Politics, II. g, Aristotle explains what great disadvantages arose
for the Spartans from the fact that too much was conceded to
their women who had the right of inheritance, the dowry, and
great freedom and independence, and how all this greatly
contrjbuted to the decline of Sparta. Was not the ever-growing
influence of women in France from the time of Louis XIII
responsible for the gradual corruption of the court and govern-
ment which produced the first revolution, the consequences of
this being all the subsequent upheavals? At all events, a false
position of the female sex, such as has its most acute symptom
in our lady-business, is a fundamental defect of the state of
society. Proceeding from the heart of this, it is bound to spread
its noxious influence to all parts.
That woman by nature is meant to obey may be recognized
from the fact that every woman placed in the position of
complete independence, which to her is unnatural, at once
attaches herself to some man by whom she allows herself to be
guided and ruled, because she needs a master. If she is young,
he is a lover and if old, a father confessor.
n ['Woman is by nature extravagant.']
CHAPTER XXVIII
On Education
372
In consequence of the nature of our intellect, concepts should
arise through abstraction from intuitive perceptions, and hence
the latter should exist before the former. If this course is
actually taken, as is the case with the man who has for his
teacher and book merely his own experience, then he knows
quite well what intuitive perceptions there are which belong
to, and are represented by, each of his concepts. He knows both
exactly, and accordingly deals accurately with everything that
happens to him. We can call this way the natural education.
On the other hand, with artificial education, the head is
crammed full of concepts by being lectured and taught and
through reading, before there is yet any extended acquaintance
with the world of intuitive perception. Experience is then
supposed subsequently to furnish the intuitive perceptions to
all those concepts; but until then, the latter are falsely applied
and accordingly people and things are judged from the wrong
point of view, seen in the wrong light, and treated in the
wrong way. In this manner, education produces distorted and
biased minds, which is the reason why in our youth, after much
learning and reading, we enter the world partly as simpletons
and partly as cranks, and then behave nervously at one moment
and rashly at another. For our minds are full of concepts which
we now attempt to apply, but almost invariably introduce in an
ill-judged and absurd way. This is the consequence of that
varpov -rrp6upov 1 whereby we obtain first of all concepts and
last of all intuitive perceptions, in direct opposition to the
natural course of our mental development. For instead of
developing in the child the capacity to discern, judge, and
think for himself, teachers are merely concerned to cram his
head full of the ready-made ideas of others. A long experience
' ['Confusion of the earlier with the later or of ground with consequent'.]
ON EDUCATION
has then to correct all those judgements which have resulted
from a false application of concepts. Seldom is this entirely
successful; and thus very few scholars have the ordinary com-
mon sense that is frequently found among the quite illiterate.
373
According to what has been said, the chief point in education
is that an acquaintance with the world, to obtain which can be
described as the purpose of all education, may be started at the
right end. But this depends, as I have shown, mainly on the
fact that in each thing intuitive perception precedes the concept;
further that the narrower concept precedes the wider; and that
the whole instruction thus takes place in the order in which the
concepts of things presuppose one another. But as soon as in this
sequence something is skipped, there result defective concepts
and from these come false ones and finally a distorted view of
the world peculiar to the individual, which almost everyone
entertains for some time and many all their lives. Whoever
applies the test to himself will discover that a correct or clear
understanding of many fairly simple things and circumstances
dawned on him only at a very mature age and sometimes quite
suddenly. Till then there had been here in his acquaintance
with the world an obscure point which had arisen from his
skipping the subject in the early period of his education,
whether such had been artificial through instructors or merely
natural through his own experience.
Accordingly, one should try to examine the really natural
sequence of knowledge, so that children may be made acquaint-
ed with the things and circumstances of the world methodically
and in accordance with that sequence, without getting into
their heads absurd ideas which often cannot again be dislodged.
Here one would first have to prevent children from using
words with which they did not associate any clear concept.*
But the main point should be always that intuitive perceptions
* Even children frequently have the fatal tend~cy to be satisfied with words
instead of trying to understand things, and a desire to learn by heart such words in
order to get themselves out of a difficulty when the occasion arises. Such tendency
afterwards remains when they grow up, and this is why the knowledge of many
scholars is mere verbiage.
ON EDUCATION
precede concepts, and not vice versa, as is usually and un-
fortunately the case; as if a child were to come into the world
feet first, or a verse be written down rhyme first! Thus while
the child's mind is still quite poor in intuitive perceptions,
concepts and judgements, or rather prejudices, are impressed
on it. He then applies this ready-made apparatus to intuitive
perception and experience. Instead of this, the concepts and
judgements should have crystallized out from intuitive per-
ception and experience. Such perception is rich and varied
and, therefore, cannot compete in brevity and rapidity with
the abstract concept which is soon finished and done with
everything; and so it will be a long tin1e in correcting such pre-
conceived notions, or perhaps it may never bring this to an
end. For whichever of its aspects it shows to be contradictory to
those preconceived notions, its declaration is rejected in advance
as being one-sided, or is even denied; and people shut their
eyes to it so that the preconceived notion may not come to any
harm. And so it happens that many a man carries round
throughout his life a burden of absurd notions, whims,
crotchets, fancies, and prejudices that ultimately become fixed
ideas. Indeed, he has never attempted to abstract for himself
fundamental concepts from intuitive perception and experi-
ence, because he has taken over everything ready-made; and
it is just this that makes him and countless others so shallow and
insipid. Therefore instead of this, the natural course of forming
knowledge should be kept up in childhood. No concept must
be introduced except by means of intuitive perception; at any
rate it must not be substantiated without this. The child would
then obtain few concepts, but they would be well grounded and
accurate. He would then learn to measure things by his own
standard instead of with son1eone else's. He would never
conceive a thousand caprices and prejudices whose eradication
is bound to require the best part of subsequent experience and
the school oflife; and his mind would once for all be accustomed
to the thoroughness and clearness of its own judgement and
freedom from prejudice.
Children generally should not become acquainted with life
in every respect from the copy before getting to know it from
the original. Therefore instead of hastening to place only
books in their hands, let us make them gradually acquainted
6so ON EDUCATION
with things and human circumstances. Above all, we should
endeavour to introduce them to a clear grasp of real life and
to enable them to draw their concepts always directly from the
world of reality. They should form such concepts in accordance
with reality and not get them from anywhere else, from books,
fairy-tales, or the talk of others, and subsequently apply them
ready-made to real life. For in that case, their heads will be
full of chimeras and to some extent they will falsely interpret
reality, or vainly attempt to remodel it in accordance with
such chimeras and thus go astray theoretically or even practic-
ally. For it is incredible how n1uch harm is done by early
implanted chimeras and by the prejudices arising therefrom.
The later education which is given to us by the world and real
life must then be used mainly for eradicating such prejudices.
Even the answer, given by Antisthenes according to Diogenes
Laertius, rests on this (vr. 7): JpwTTJBEi~ TL Twv p..cxBw}..(xTwJ
,
avayKatoTo:Tov, "-~..
E'f'TJ, "-ro Ket.Ka, aTTop..a
env~ " (Interrogatus quaenam
esset disciplina maxime necessaria, 1\1ala, inquit, dediscere.) z.
374
Just because early imbibed errors are often deeply engraved
and indelible and the power of judgement is the last thing to
reach maturity, we should keep children up to the age of
sixteen free from all theories and doctrines where there may be
great errors. Thus they should be kept from all philosophy,
religion, and general views of all kinds and be allowed to
pursue only those subjects where either no errors are possible
as in mathematics, or none is very dangerous as in languages,
natural science, history, and so on. Generally they should at
every age study only those branches of knowledge which are
accessible and thoroughly intelligible thereto. Childhood and
youth are the time for collecting data and making a special
and thorough acquaintance with individual and particular
things. On the other hand, judgement generally must still
remain suspended and ultimate explanations be deferred. As
power of judgement presupposes maturity and experience, it
z ['When asked what was the most necessary thing to take up, he rcpliet.l " to
unlearn what is bad'".]
ON EDUCATION
should be left alone and care should be taken not to anticipate
it by inculcating prejudices, whereby it is for ever paralysed.
On the other hand, since memory is strongest and most
tenacious in youth, it should be specially taxed; yet this should
be done with the most careful selection and scrupulous fore-
thought. For what is well learnt in youth sticks for all time; and
so this precious faculty should be used for the greatest possible
gain. If we call to mind how deeply engraved in our memory
are those whom we knew in the first t\velve years of our life
and how the events of those years and generally most of what
we experienced, heard, and learnt at the time, are also indelibly
impressed on the memory, it is a perfectly natural idea to base
education on that receptivity and tenacity of the youthful
mind by strictly, methodically, and systematically guiding all
impressions thereon in accordance with precept and rule. Now
since only a few years of youth are allotted to man and the
capacity of the memory generally, and even more so that of
the individual, is always limited, it is all-important to fill it
with what is most essential and vital in any branch of knowledge
to the exclusion of everything else. This selection should be
made and its results fixed and settled after the most mature delib-
eration by the most capable minds and masters in every branch of
learning. Such a selection would have to be based on a sifting
of what is necessary and important for a man to know generally
and what is important and necessary for hi1n in any particular
profession or branch of knowledge. Again, knowledge of the
first kind would have to be classified into graduated courses or
encyclopeclias, adapted to the degree of general education that
is intended for everyone in accordance with his external
circumstances. It would begin with a course limited to the
barest primary education and end with the comprehensive
list of all the subjects taught by the philosophical faculty.
Knowledge of the second kind, however, would be left to the
selection of the real masters in each branch. The whole would
provide a specially-worked-out canon of intellectual education
which would naturally need to be revised every ten years. Thus
by such arrangements, youth's power of memory would be
used to the greatest possible advantage and would furnish
excellent material for the power of judgement when this
subsequently appeared.
ON EDUCATION
375
Maturity of knowledge, that is, the perfection this can reach
in every individual, consists in the fact that a precise con-
nection has been brought about between all his abstract
concepts and his intuitively perceiving faculty. Thus each of his
concepts rests, directly or indirectly, on a basis of intuitive
perception and only through this does such a concept have any
real value. Nloreover, this maturity consist() in his being able to
bring under the correct and appropriate concept every intuitive
perception that happens to him; it is the work of experience
alone and consequently of time. For as we often acquire our
knowledge of intuitive perception and our abstract knowledge
separately, the former in the natural way and the latter through
instruction and what others tell us whether good or bad, there
is often in our youth little agreement and connection between
our concepts that are fixed by mere words and our real know-
ledge that has been obtained through intuitive perception.
Only gradually do the two approach and mutually correct
each other; and maturity of knowledge exists only when they
have completely grown together. Such maturity is quite
independent of the other greater or less perfection of every-
one's abilities which rests not on the connection between
abstract and intuitive knowledge, but on the intensive degree
or both.
376
For the practical man the most necessary study is the
attainment of an exact and thorough knowledge of the real
ways of the world. But it is also the most wearisome, since it
continues until he is very old without his coming to the end of
his study; whereas in the sciences he masters the most important
facts when he is still young. In that knowledge the boy and
the youth have to learn as novices the first and most difficult
lessons; but even the mature man often has to make up for
many lessons. This difficulty in itself is serious, but it is doubled
by novels which describe a state of affairs and a course of
human actions, such as, in fact, do not occur in real life. These
are now accepted with the credulity of youth and are assimil-
ated in the mind, whereby the place of mere negative ignorance
ON EDUCATION
is now taken by a whole tissue of false assumptions, as positive
error, which afterwards confuses even the school of experience
itself and causes the teachings thereof to appear in a false light.
If previously the youth groped about in the dark, he is now
misled by a will-o' -the-wisp; and even more often is this the
case with a girl. Through novels a thoroughly false view of life
is foisted on them and expectations have been aroused which
can never be fulfilled. In many cases, this has the most per-
nicious influence on their whole life. In this respect, those who
in their youth have had neither the time nor the opportunity
to read novels, such as artisans, mechanics, and the like, have
a decided advantage. There are a few novels which are excep-
tions and do not merit the above reproach; in fact they have the
opposite effect. For example, we have above all Gil Blas and
the other works of LeSage (or rather their Spanish originals);
then the Vicar of Wakefield, and to some extent the novels of
Sir Walter Scott. Don Quixote may be regarded as a satirical
presentation of that false path itself.
CHAPTER XXIX
On Physiognomy
377
That the outer man is a graphic reproduction of the inner and
the face the expression and revelation of his whole nature, is
an assumption whose a priori nature and hence certainty are
shown by the universal desire, plainly evident on every
occasion, to see a man who has distinguished himself in some-
thing good or bad, or has produced an extraordinary work; or,
failing this, at least to learn from others what he looks like.
Therefore, on the one hand, people rush to the places where
they think he is; on the other, newspapers, especially the
English, endeavour to give minute and striking descriptions of
him. Thereafter, painters and engravers give us a graphic
representation of him and finally Daguerre's invention, so
highly valued on that account, affords the n1ost complete
satisfaction of that need. Likewise in ordinary life, we all test
the physiognomy of everyone we meet and secretly try to
know in advance from his features his moral and intellectual
nature. Now all this could not be the case if, as some foolish
people imagine, a man's appearance were of no importance;
if, in fact, the soul were one thing and the body another, the
body being related to the soul as the coat to the man himself.
On the contrary, every human face is a hieroglyphic which
can certainly be deciphered, in fact whose alphabet we carry
about ready-made. & a rule, a man's face says more of interest
than does his tongue; for it is the compendium of all that he
will ever say, since it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts
and aspirations. The tongue also expresses only the thoughts
of one man, but the face expresses a thought of nature herself.
Everyone is, therefore, worth attentive observation, although
he may not be worth talking to. Now if every individual is
worth looking at as a particular thought or idea of nature, so
is beauty in the highest degree; for it is a higher and more
general concept of nature, her idea of the species. This is why
ON PHYSIOGNOMY
beauty so powerfully catches the eye; it is nature's principal
and fundamental thought, whereas the individual is only a
subordinate idea, a corollary.
All tacitly start from the principle that everyone is what he
looks like. This principle is correct, but the difficulty lies in its
application. The ability to apply it is partly innate and partly
to be gained from experience; yet no one is master of it and
even the most practised are caught unawares. However,
whatever Figaro may say, the face does not lie; it is we who
read from it what is not there. To decipher the face is certainly
a great and difficult art and its principles can never be learnt
in abstracto. The first condition is for us to look at our man with
a purely objective eye, which is not so easy. Thus as soon as the
slightest trace of dislike or affection, fear or hope, or even the
thought of the impression we ourselves are making on him, in
short, anything subjective, is mixed up with our view of him,
the hieroglyphic becomes confused and false. Just as the sound
of a language is heard only by the man who does not under
stand it, since otherwise the thing described would at once
displace from consciousness the sign describing it, so a man's
physiognomy is seen only by one \vho is still a stranger to him,
in other words, has not become accustomed to his face by
frequently seeing or even speaking to him. Accordingly, it is,
strictly speaking, only at the first glance that we have the
purely objective impression of a face and thus the possibility of
deciphering it. Just as odours affect us only when they first
occur and we obtain the taste of a wine really only with the
first glass, so faces make their full impression on us only the
first time. We should, therefore, pay careful attention to such
impression and should make a note of it and even write it
down in the case of those who are personally of importance to
us, that is, if we can trust our own sense of physiognomy.
Subsequept acquaintance and intercourse will obliterate that
impression, but the sequel will one day confirm it.
Meanwhile, we will not conceal from ourselves the fact that
that first sight is usually extremely unpleasant. But then how
worthless the majority are! With the exception of beautiful,
good natured, and intellectual faces and thus of the exceedingly
few and rare, I believe there will often be stirred in those of fine
feelings a sensation akin to a shock at the sight of a new face,
6g6 ON PHYSIOGNOMY
since it presents something unpleasant in a new and surprising
combination. Actually it is, as a rule, a sorry sight. Indeed,
there are some whose faces bear the stamp of so naive a
vulgarity and baseness of character, as well as such animal
limitation of intelligence, that one wonders how they like to
go about with such a face and not prefer to wear a mask. In
fact, there are faces the mere sight of which makes us feel
defiled. And so we cannot blame those whose privileged
position permits them to withdraw and cut themselves off so
that they are entirely removed from the painful sensation of
'seeing new faces'. With the metaphysical explanation of the
matter, one must also take into account the fact that everyone's
individuality is precisely that whereby he is to be reclaimed and
corrected through his existence itself. On the other hand, if we
wish to be satisfied with the psychological explanation, let us ask
ourselves what kind of physiognomy we are to expect from
those in whose hearts there has very rarely arisen throughout
their lives anything but petty, mean, and miserable thoughts,
and vulgar, selfish, envious, wicked, and malicious desires.
Each of these has set its mark on the face during the time that
it lasted. Through much repetition, all these marks have in the
course of time become deeply wrinkled and furrowed, so to
speak. Therefore the sight of most men is such that they
startle us when we first see them and only gradually do we
become accustomed to such faces, that is, so dead to their
impression, that it no longer has any effect on us.
But that slow process of forming the permanent facial
expression through innumerable, fleeting, and characteristic
strainings and contractions of the features is the very reason
why intellectual countenances are only of gradual formation.
Only in old age do men of intellect attain their exalted expres-
sion, whereas the portraits of them in their youth show only the
first traces of this. On the other hand, what I have just said
about the first shock is in keeping with the previous remark
that only the first time does a face make its true and full
impression. Thus to get a purely objective and genuine impres-
sion, we must not yet stand in any relation to the person; in
fact, where possible, we must not yet have spoken to him. For
every conversation puts us to some extent on a friendly footing,
introduces a certain rapport, a mutual subjective relation, and
ON PHYSIOGNOMY
this has at once a detrimental effect on the objective nature of
our perception. Moreover, as everyone is anxious to gain for
himself esteem or friendship, so will the man to be observed
at once apply all the different arts of dissimulation already
familiar to him. With his airs he will play the hypocrite, flatter
us, and thereby so corrupt us that soon we shall no longer see
what the first glance had clearly shown us. Accordingly, it is
then said that 'most people gain on closer acquaintance', yet
it should be 'delude on closer acquaintance'. But when serious
instances later occur, the judgement of our first glance is often
justified and scornfully vindicates itself. If, on the other hand,
the' closer acquaintance' is at once hostile, it will not be found
that men have gained thereby. Another cause of the so-called
gain on closer acquintance is that, as soon as we converse
with the man whose first sight warned us of him, he no longer
shows us merely his own true nature and character, but also his
education, that is, not merely what he really is by nature, but
also what he has appropriated to himself from the common
property of the whole of mankind. Three-quarters of what he
says do not belong to him, but have come to him from without.
We are then often surprised to hear such a Minotaur speak so
humanly. But ifwe come to an even 'closer acquaintance', his
'bestiality', promised by his face, will soon 'make a brilliant
revelation' . 1 Whoever is gifted with a keen sense of physiognomy
must, therefore, carefully note its utterances which preceded all
closer acquaintance and were thus pure and genuine. For a
man's face states exactly what he is, and if it deceives us, the fault
is ours not his. On the other hand, a n1an's words say merely
what he thinks, more often only what he has learnt, or even
what he merely pretends to think. There is also the fact that,
when we speak to him, or merely hear him speak to others, we
disregard his real physiognomy since we ignore it as the sub-
stratum, as that which is positively given, and note merely its
pathognornical side, the play of his features when he is speaking;
but he so arranges this aspect that the good side is always
turned outwards.
Now when Socrates said to a young man who was introduced
to him for the purpose of having his abilities tested: 'Speak so
1 [From Goethe's Fcmst, Pt. 1.]

ON PHYSIOGNOMY
that I may see you', he was indeed right (assuming that by
seeing' he understood not merely 'hearing'), in so far as,
only when a man speaks, do his features especially his eyes
become animated and his intellectual resources and abilities
set their mark on the play of his countenance. In this way, we
are then in a position to make a provisional estimate of the
degree and capacity of his intelligence, which was precisely the
aim of Socrates. On the other hand, it must be emphasized
first that this does not extend to the man's moral qualities which
lie deeper, and secondly that what we gain objectively in the
clearer development of his countenance through the play of
his features when we speak to him, we again lose subjectively
through the personal relation into which he at once enters with
us and which produces a slight fascination; and this, as I
have already explained, does not leave us dispassionate and
unprejudiced. Therefore from this last point of view, it might
be more correct to say: 'Do not speak so that I may see you.'
For to get a pure and fundamental conception of a man's
physiognomy, we must observe him when he is alone and left
to himself. Society of every kind and conversation with others
cast on him a reflection which is not his own and is often to his
advantage, since he is set going by action and reaction and
thereby becomes flushed. On the other hand, alone and left to
himself, plunged in the depths of his own thoughts and sensa-
tions, only then is he entirely and absolutely himself. A penetrat-
ing eye for physiognomy can then take in at a glance a general
view of his entire inner nature. For in and by itself, his face
bears the stamp of the fundamental tone of all his thoughts and
aspirations, the arret irrlvocab[ez of what he has to be and of which
he is wholly aware only when he is alone.
The study of physiognomy is, therefore, one of the principal
means to a knowledge of mankind, since in the narrower sense
it is the only thing wherein the arts of dissimulation are not
enough; for only mimicry, the pathognomical, lies within their
province. For this reason, I recommend that we observe
everyone when he is alone and is given up to his own thoughts
and before anyone has spoken to him. One of the reasons for this
is that only then do we have before us, pure and unalloyed, the
:a ['Irrevocable decree' (Legal term}.]

ON PHYSIOGNOMY
physiognomical element, since in conversation the pathog-
nomical at once slips in, and he then applies all the arts of
dissimulation he has learnt by heart. Another reason is that
every personal relation, even the most fleeting, makes us biased
and thus subjectively vitiates our judgement.
I have still to observe that, on the path of physiognomy
generally, it is much easier to discover a man's intellectual
abilities than his moral character. Thus they tend to have a
much more outward direction and have their expression not
only in the face and the play of its features, but also in the gait,
in every movement in fact, however slight. It might be possible
to distinguish from behind a blockhead, a fool, and a man of
intellect. The blockhead would be characterized by a leaden
sluggishness of all his movements; folly is stamped on every
gesture; so too are intellect and a studious nature. The words of
La Bruyere are based on this: II ny a rien de si delie, de si simple,
et de si imperceptible, ou il5 ny entrent des manieres qui nous decelent:
un sot ni n' entre, ni ne sort, ni ne s' assied, ni ne se !eve, ni ne se tait, ni
n'est sur sesjambes, comme un homme d'esprit.J This, incidentally, is
the explanation of that instinct sur et prompt4 which, according
to Helvctius, commonplace minds have for the purpose of
recog11izing and running away from men of intellect. But the
matter itself rests primarily on the fact that the larger and more
developed the brain and the thinner in relation thereto the
spinal cord and nerves, the greater are the intelligence and also
at the same t!me the mobility and suppleness of all the limbs.
For these are then controlled by the brain more directly and
definitely, and consequently everything is drawn more on a
single thread whereby the purpose of every movement is
precisely expressed therein. The whole thing is analogous to,
and indeed connected with, the fact that, the higher an animal
stands in the scale of beings, the more easily it can be killed by
injury to a single spot. Take for example the batrachia and see
how sluggish, lethargic, and slow they are in their movements;
they are also unintelligent and at the same time extremely
J ['There is nothing so subtle, so simple, and so imperceptible wherein manners

and demeanour are not to be found which reveal and betray us. A blockhead
cannot enter, go out, sit down, get up, be quiet, or stand on his feet as can a man
of intelligence.']
4 ['Sure and prompt instinct'.]
ON PHYSIOGNOMY
tenacious of life. All this is explained from the fact that in spite
of a very small brain, they have very thick spinal cord and
nerves. Generally speaking, gait and movement of the arms are
mainly a function of the brain because, by means of the nerves
of the spinal cord, the external limbs obtain their movement,
and even the smallest modification thereof, from the brain.
This is why voluntary and arbitrary movements fatigue us and
like the pain, such fatigue has its seat in the brain, not, as we
imagine, in the limbs then1selves; and it therefore induces
sleep. On the other hand, movements of organic life, of the
heart, lungs, and so on, which are not stimulated by the brain
and are, therefore, spontaneous and involuntary, proceed
without causing fatigue. Now as the one brain is concerned
with both thinking and controlling the limbs, the character of
its activity is expressed in the one as in the other, according to
the individual's constitution; stupid people move like automata,
\vhereas in those of intellect every joint is eloquent. Mental
qualities, however, are not nearly so well recognized from
gestures and movements as they are from the face, the shape
and size of the brow, the contraction and mobility of the
features, and above all the eye, ranging from the small, dull,
lustreless pig's eye through all gradations up to the radiant and
flashing eye of the genius. The look of sagacity and prudence, even
of the most acute, differs from that of genius in that the former
bears the stamp of service to the will, whereas the latter is free
therefrom. One can accordingly well believe the anecdote
which is narrated by Squarzafichi in his life of Petrarch and is
taken from Joseph Brivius, a contemporary of the poet. Once
at the court of the Visconti when Petrarch was present with
many noblemen and gentlemen, Galeazzo Visconti told his
son who was then still a boy and later became the first Duke of
1\.filan, to pick out the wisest of those present. The boy looked at
them all for a while, then seized Petrarch by the hand, and led
him to his father, to the great admiration of all present. For
so clearly does nature set the seal of her dignity on the privileged
of 1nankind, that a child recognizes it. I would, therefore, like
to advise my discriminating countrymen that, when they again
feel inclined to trumpet abroad for thirty years a commonplace
head as a great mind, they will not choose for the purpose such
a publican's physiognOiny as Hegel's, on whose countenance
ON PHYSIOGNOMY
nature had written in her most legible handwriting the words
'commonplace fellow', so familiar to her.
Now the question concerning the intellectual is different from
that of the moral, the man's character, which physiognomically
is much more difficult to recognize. Being metaphysical, it lies
incomparably deeper and, indeed, is connected with the con-
stitution and the organism, yet not so directly with a definite
part and system thereof as is the intellect. There is also the fact
that, whereas everyone openly exhibits and endeavours on every
occasion to show his intellect as something with which he is
generally satisfied, moral qualities are rarely exposed quite
freely to the light of day, but are often intentionally concealed.
Long practice in this makes a man a great n1aster of the art.
But, as I have explained, evil thoughts and unworthy aspira-
tions gradually leave their mark on the face, especially in the
eyes. Accordingly, if we judge by physiognomy, we can easily
guarantee that a man will never produce an immortal work,
but not that he will never commit a serious crime.
CHAPTER XXX
On Din and Noise
378
Kant wrote an essay on the living forces; but I would like to
write a dirge and threnode thereon, for their excessively frequent
usc in knocking, hammering, and banging has been throughout
my life a daily torment to me. There are certainly those, quite
a number in fact, who smile at such things because they are not
sensitive to noise. Yet they are the very people who are also not
sensitive to arguments, ideas, poetry, and works of art, in short,
to mental impressions of every kind; for this is due to the tough-
ness and solid texture of their brain substance. On the other
hand, in the biographies or other accounts of the personal
statements of almost all great authors, such as Kant, Goethe,
Lichtenberg, Jean Paul, I find complaints about the torture
which thinkers have to endure from noise. If such complaints
are not to be found in some authors, this is merely because the
context did not lead up to them. I explain the matter as follows.
A large diamond cut up into pieces is equal in value to just so
many small ones; and an army dispersed and scattered, in
other words disbanded into small bodies, is no longer capable
of anything. In the same way a great mind is no more capable
than an ordinary one, the moment it is interrupted, disturbed,
distracted, and diverted. For its superiority is conditioned by
its concentrating all its powers, as does a concave mirror all
its rays, on to one point and object; and it is precisely here that
it is prevented by a noisy interruption. This is why eminent
minds have always thoroughly disliked every kind of distur-
bance, interruption, and diversion, but above all the violent
disturbance caused by din and noise. Others, on the contrary,
are not particularly upset by such things. The most sensible and
intelligent of all European nations has even laid down an
eleventh commandment, the rule 'never interrupt!' 1 Din is the
1 [Schopenhauer's actual words.]

ON DIN AND NOISE
most impertinent of all forms of interruption, for it interrupts,
in fact disrupts, even our own thoughts. However, where there is
nothing to interrupt, din will naturally not be particularly felt.
At times, I am tormented and disturbed for a while by a moder-
ate and constant noise before I am clearly conscious thereof,
since I feel it merely as a constant increase in the difficulty of
thinking, like a weight tied to my foot, until I become aware of
what it is.
Passing now from the genus to the species, I have to denounce
as the most inexcusable and scandalous noise the truly infernal
cracking of whips in the narrow resounding streets of towns;
for it robs life of all peace and pensiveness. Nothing gives me
so clear an idea of the apathy, stupidity, and thoughtlessness of
men as the toleration of this whip-cracking. This sudden sharp
crack which paralyses the brain, tears and rends the thread of
reflection and murders all thoughts, must be painfully felt by
anyone who carries in his head anything resembling an idea.
All such cracks must, therefore, disturb hundreds in their
mental activity, however humble its nature; but they shoot
through a thinker's meditations as painfully and fatally as the
executioner's axe cuts the head frmn the body. No sound
cuts through the brain so sharply as does this cursed whip-
cracking; one feels in one's brain the very sting of the lash and
it affects the brain as does touch the mimosa pudica, and last~ as
long. With all due respect to the most sacred doctrine of
utility, I really do not see why a fellow, fetching a cart-load of
sand or manure, should thereby acquire the privilege of nipping
in the bud every idea that successively arises in ten thousand
heads (in the course of half an hour's journey through a town).
Hammering, the barking of dogs, and the screaming of children
are terrible, but the real n1urderer of ideas is only the crack of a
whip. It is meant to crush every good moment for meditation
which anyone may at times have. If to urge on draught animals
there existed no means other than this most abominable
of all noises, there would be some excuse for it, but quite the
contrary is the case. This cursed whip-cracking is not only
unnecessary, but even useless. Thus the intended psychic effect
on the horses is entirely blunted and fails to occur because,
through constant abuse of the whip, they have grown accus-
tomed thereto. The horses, accordingly, do not go any faster;
ON DIN AND NOISE
and this is also seen especially in the case of cabmen who are on
the look-out for a fare and incessantly crack their whips while
driving at the slowest pace. The slightest touch of the whip has
more effect. But assuming that it were absolutely necessary
constantly to remind the horses of the whip's presence by
sounding it, then a sound a hundred times quieter would
suffice for the purpose. For it is well known that animals notice
the slightest scarcely perceptible indications, both audible and
visible, the most surprising examples being furnished by trained
dogs and canaries. Accordingly, the matter proves to be a
piece of pure wantonness and in fact an insolent disregard for
those who work with their heads on the part of those members
of the community who work with their hands. That such an
infamy is tolerated in towns is a crude barbarity and an iniquity,
the more so as it could very easily be stopped by a police order
to the effect that every whip-cord should have a knot at the
end. There can be no harm in drawing the attention of the
proletarians to the mental work of the classes above them, for
they have a mortal dread of all such work. A fellow who rides
through the narrow streets of a populous town with free
post-horses or oa a free cart-horse, or even accompanies
animals on foot, and keeps on cracking with all his might a
whip several yards long, deserves to be taken down at once and
given five really good cuts with a stick. All the philanthropists in
the world, and all the legislative assemblies which on good
grounds abolish all corporal punishment, will not persuade me
to the contrary. But something even worse can often enough
be seen, namely a carter who, alone and without horses, walks
through the streets and incessantly cracks his whip. This
fellow has become so accustomed to the crack of a whip, thanks
to inexcusable leniency and toleration. With the universal
tenderness for the body and all its gratifications, is the thinking
mind to be the only thing that never experiences the slightest
consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect? Carters,
porters, messengers, and the like are the beasts of burden of the
human community; they should certainly be treated humanely
with justice, fairness, consideration, and care, but they should
not be allowed to thwart the higher endeavours of the human
race by wantonly making a noise. I would like to know how
many great and fine thoughts have already been cracked out of
ON DIN AND NOISE
the world by these whips. If I had to give an order, there would
soon be established in the heads of carmen an indelible nexus
idearum 2 between cracking a whip and getting a whipping. Let
us hope that the more intelligent and refined nations will make
a start in this direction and that, by way of example, the
Germans will then be made to follow suit.* Meanwhile, Thomas
Hood (Up the Rhine) says: 'For a musical people, they are the
most noisy I ever met with.' That they are so, however, is not
due to their being more inclined than others to make a noise,
but to the apathy and insensibility (the result of obtuseness)
of those who have to listen to it. They are not thereby disturbed
in their thinking or reading for the very reason that they do not
think, but merely smoke, such being for them a substitute for
thinking. The universal toleration of unnecessary noise, for
example the extremely vulgar and ill-mannered slamming of
doors, is simply a sign of mental bluntness and a general want
of thought. In Germany it seems as though it were positively
the intention that no one should come to his senses on account
of noise; pointless drumming, for example.
Finally, as regards the literature that deals with the subject
of this chapter, I can recommend only one work, but it is a fine
one, namely a poetical epistle in terze rime by the famous
painter Bronzino entitled De' romori, a Messer Luca A1artini.
Here a detailed and amusing description is given in a tragi-
comic style of the torment that one has to endure from the
many different noises of an Italian town. This epistle is found
on page 258 of the second volume of the Opere hurlesche del
Berni, Aretina ed altri, apparently published at Utrecht in 1 771.

According to a Bekmmtmachung des Miinchener Thin'schutzvereins of Dec. 1858,

unnecessary whipping and cracking of whips are most strictly forbidden in
Nuremberg.
l ['Association of ideas'.J
CHAPTER XXXI
Similes, Parables, and Fables
379
The concave mirror can be used for many different similes;
for example, it can be compared to genius, as has been done
already, in so far as this too concentrates its force on to one
spot in order, like the mirror, to cast outwards a deceptive but
embellished picture of things, or generally to add light and
warmth to astonishing effects. The elegant scholar of varied
learning, on the other hand, is like the convex diverging mirror
which simultaneously displays just beneath its surface all
objects and also a reduced i1nage of the sun, and casts these at
everyone in all directions. The concave mirror, on the other
hand, is effective in only one direction and requires that the
person looking at it shall take up a definite position.
In the second place, every genuine work of art can be com-
pared to a concave mirror in so far as what it really comnluni-
cates is not its own tangible self, its empirical substance, but
son1ething lying outside it which cannot be grasped with the
hands, but only pursued by the imagination, as the real spirit
of the thing that is hard to catch. In this connection see my
chief work volume ii, chapter 34
Finally, a despairing lover may also compare his heartless
beloved epigrammatically to a concave mirror. Like her it
shines, kindles, and consumes, yet itself remains cold.
380
Switzerland is like a genius; beautiful and elevated; yet little
suited to bearing nutritious fruits. On the other hand, Pomerania
and the fens of Holstein are extremely fertile and productive,
but flat, tedious, and dull, like useful Philistines.
380a
In a field of. riperung corn I stood at a spot where some
thoughtless foot had trampled a gap. There amid the countless
SIMILES, PARABLES, AND FABLES
heavy-eared cornstalks, all exactly alike and perfectly straight,
I saw a variety of blue, red, and violet flowers which in their
natural setting and with their foliage were very beautiful to
look at. But, I thought, they are useless, unproductive, and
really mere weeds, which are only tolerated here because they
cannot be got rid of. Yet it is they alone that lend beauty and
charm to this scene. Thus their role is in every respect the same
as that played by poetry and the fine arts in serious, useful, and
productive civil life; and so they can be regarded as the emblem
of these.
381
There are on earth some really beautiful landscapes; but in
them human affairs and figures are everywhere in a bad way,
and so one must not dwell on them.
g81a
A town with architectural embellishments, monuments,
obelisks, fountains, and so on, and yet having wretched and
miserable pavements, as is usual in Germany, resembles a woman
who is decked out in gold and jewelry, but wears a tattered and
dirty dress. If you want to make your towns as beautiful as
those of Italy, then first pave them as the Italians pave theirs.
Incidentally, do not put statues on pedestals as tall as houses,
but in this respect copy the Italians.
g82
We should take the fly as the symbol of brazen impudence and
effrontery. For whereas all animals are more afraid of man than
of anything else and get as far away from him as possible, the
fly sits on his nose.
383
Two Chinamen in Europe went to the theatre for the first
time. One was busy endeavouring to understand the working
of the machinery and succeeded in his efforts. The other, in
spite of his ignorance of the language, tried to unravel the
meaning of the piece. The astronomer resembles the former,
the philosopher the latter.
384
I stood on a mercury trough and with an iron ladle drew off
a few drops. I threw them up and again caught them in the
ladel. When I missed, they fell back into the trough and nothing
was lost except their momentary form; and so success and
failure left me somewhat indifferent. Thus is the natura naturans
or inner nature of all things related to the life and death of
individuals.
385
Wisdom that exists in a man only theoretically without
becoming practical is like a double rose which by its colour and
perfume delights others, but drops away and dies without
going to seed.
No rose without a thorn. But many a thorn without a rose.
386
The dog is quite rightly the symbol of faithfulness; but among
plants the fir-tree should be. 'For it alone stays with us in fine
weather as in foul. It docs not forsake us when the sun with-
draws his favours, as do all the other trees, plants, insects, and
birds, to return when the heavens again smile at us.
386a
Behind a wide-spreading apple-tree in full bloom, a straight
fir-tree raised its dark and tapering head. Said the apple-tree
to the fir: 'Look at the thousands of gay blossoms that com-
pletely cover me~ What have you to show by comparison? Dark
green needles~' 'That is quite true', replied the fir,' but when
winter comes, you will be denuded of your foliage and I shall
be as I am now.'
387
As I was botanizing one day under an oak, I found among the
other plants and of the same height as they one which was dark
in colour and had tightly closed leaves and a straight stiff stem.
When I touched it, it said to me in a firm voice: 'Leave me
alone! I am not a plant for your herbarium as are the others
to whom nature has granted only one year of life. My life is
measured in centuries, for I an1 a little oak tree.' It is the same
for the man whose effect is to endure for centuries. As a child,
a youth, or often even as a man, and indeed throughout his
life, he appears to be like his fellows and is just as unimportant
as they. But let time come and bring those who will appreciate
him! He will not die like the others.
388
I came across a wild flower, marvelled at its beauty and at
the perfection of all its parts, and exclaimed: 'But all this in
you and in thousands like you blossoms and fades; it is not
noticed by anyone and in fact is often not even seen by any eye.'
But the flower replied: 'You fool! Do you imagine I blossom in
order to be seen? I blossom for my own sake because it pleases
me, and not for the sake of others; my joy and delight consist
in my being and in my blossoming.'
g8g
At the time when the earth's surface still consisted of an even
and uniform crust of granite and no germ as yet existed for the
formation of any living thing, the sun rose one morning. Iris,
the messenger of the gods, came flying along in the name of
Juno and, while hurrying past, exclaimed to the sun: 'Why do
you bother to rise? There exists no eye to perceive you and no
pillar of Memnon to resound!' To which he replied: 'But I
am the sun and I rise because it is I; let anyone see me who
can!'
390
A beautiful, verdant, and flowering oasis looked around and
saw nothing but the desert. In vain did she try to perceive
another like herself and burst out lamenting: 'Luckless and
lonely oasis that I am! I must remain alone! Nowhere is there
the like of me! Nowhere is there even an eye that would see
me and rejoice in my meadows, springs, palm trees, and shrubs!
Nothing surrounds me but the dreary lifeless desert of sand and
rock! Of what use to me in my loneliness are my excellent
qualities, beauties, and riches?'
The old grey mother desert then replied: 'My child, if things
were different, if I were not the dreary arid desert, but were
flourishing, green, and covered with life, then you would not
6so SIMILES, PARABLES, AND FABLES
be an oasis, a favoured spot, whereof the traveller speaks highly
while he is still far off. On the contrary, you would be just a
small part of me and, as such, insignificant and unnoticed. And
so endure with patience that which is the condition of your ,
distinction and glory.'
391
Whoever ascends in a balloon does not feel himself rise, but
sees the earth sink more and more beneath him. What can this
be? A mystery that is understood only by those who share the
feeling.
392
As regards the estimation of a man's greatness, opposite laws
apply to mental and physical greatness. Through distance the
latter is diminished, whereas the former is enlarged.
393
Nature has covered all things with the varnish of beaut)', just
as she has breathed a delicate bloom on dark plums. Painters
and poets are most anxious to strip off this varnish in order to
store it up and offer it to us to be enjoyed at our leisure. We
then greedily take it in before we enter into real life. But when
subsequently we do enter it, it is then natural for us to see
things stripped of that varnish with which nature had covered
them. For the artists have used it all up and we have enjoyed
it in advance. Accordingly, things now seem to us unfriendly
and devoid of charm; in fact they are often repulsive. It would
be better, therefore, to leave that varnish on things, so that we
should find it for ourselves. It is true that we should then not
enjoy it all at once in large doses, accumulated in the form of
complete paintings or poems. Instead of this, we should see all
things in that serene and beautiful light in which even now a
child of nature sometimes sees them, one who has not, by means
of the fine arts, enjoyed in advance his aesthetic pleasures and
the charm of life.
394
Mainz cathedral is so shut in by the houses built round it,
that there is no spot from which we can see it as a whole. To me
SIMILES, PARABLES, AND FABLES 65 1
this is a symbol of everything great and beautiful in the world,

which should exist only for its own sake, but is soon misused by
needs and wants. These come from all directions in order to
lean oq it and support themselves by it; and in this way they
mask it and spoil its effect. Naturally this is not surprising in a
world of want and need to which everything must always be of
service and which seize on all things for the purpose of making
their instruments. Not even that is excepted which could have
been produced only by their momentary absence. I refer to
beauty and to the truth that is sought for its own sake.
We find a special illustration and confirmation of this when
we consider the institutions, great and small, rich and poor,
which are founded in all ages and countries for the maintenance
and advancement of human knowledge and generally of those
intellectual efforts that ennoble our race. Wherever such
institutions may be, it is not long before crude animal wants and
needs stealthily approach in order to get possession of the
emoluments that are allotted for the p~rpose, under the
pretence of wanting to serve those ends. This is the origin of
the charlatanry that is frequently met with in all branches of
knowledge. However varied the forms it takes, its true nature
is that the charlatan cares nothing for the subject itself, but
strives merely for the semblance thereof, for the sake of his own
personal, egoistical, and material ends.
395
For the education and improvement of her children a
mother had given them Aesqp's fables to read. But they very
soon returned the book to her and the eldest, wise beyond his
years, expressed himself as follows : 'This is no book for us !
It is far too childish and stupid. No longer can we be made to
believe that foxes, wolves, and ravens can speak; we have long
since got beyond such stuff!' Who does not recognize in these
young hopefuls the enlightened rationalists of the future?
396
One cold winter's day, a number of porcupines huddled
together quite closely in order through their mutual warmth
to prevent themselves from being frozen. But they soon felt the
effect of their quills on one another, which made them again
move apart. Now when the need for warmth once more brought
them together, the drawback of the quills was repeated so that
they were tossed between two evils, until they had discovered
the proper distance from which they could best .tolerate one
another. Thus the need for society which springs from the
emptiness and monotony of men's lives, drives them together;
but their many unpleasant and repulsive qualities and in-
sufferable drawbacks once more drive them apart. The mean
distance which they finally discover, and which enables them
to endure being together, is politeness and good manners.
Whoever does not keep to this, is told in England to 'keep his
distance'. By virtue thereof, it is true that the need for mutual
warmth will be only imperfectly satisfied, but, on the other
hand, the prick of the quills will not be felt. Yet whoever has
a great deal of internal warmth of his own will prefer to keep
away from society in order to avoid giving or receiving trouble
and annoyance.
SOME VERSES
I am conscious of an act of self-denial in offering to the public verses

that cannot claim to have any poetical merit, for it is not possible to
be simultaneously a poet and a philosopher. It is done simply for the
benefit of those who, in the course of time, will take so lively an
interest in my philosophy that they will want to have some personal
acquaintance with its author; but it will then no longer be possible
to make this. Now as a man under the guise of metre and rhyme
ventures to show his true subjective inner nature more freely in
poems than in prose, and generally communicates his feelings in a
more purely human and personal way, at any rate in a manner
quite different from that of philosophemes, and thus to some extent
comes nearer to the reader, so to those of the future who will take an
interest in my work I make the sacrifice of setting down here some
attempts at poetry, mainly from the years of my youth. I do so in the
expectation that they will feel grateful, and here I request the others
to regard this as a private matter between us which here happens to
be made public. To have verses printed is in literature what singing
solo is in company, namely an act of personal sacrifice. It is solely the
foregoing consideration that has induced me to do this.
Weimar, r8o8
Sonnet
Perpetual winter's night will never end;
And tarries the sun as though he ne'er would come;
The tempest emulates the hooting owls;
And weapons clank on crumbling walls.
And open tombs their ghosts dispatch:
And spread around, they try to scare my soul,
That it may never be redeemed;-
y et to them I will not turn my gaze.
The day, the day I will with strident voice proclaim!
Night and ghosts from it will flee:
The morning star is ushering it in.
Soon it is light e'en in the darkest depths:
Radiant colour will the world suffuse,
And boundless space is bathed in brightest blue.
654 SOME VERSES
Rudolstadt, I 813
The Rocks in the Valley of Schwar ;:;burg
As I was strolling one sunny day alone in the vale of the woodland
hill,
I saw the jagged crags grey and torn from the throng of the forest's
offspring.
Behold through the murmuring foaming sylvan brook a mighty
rock the others greets:
'Brothers, oldest sons of creation, rejoice with me that today
The light of the quickening sun plays round us warmly and
graciously
As when at first he rose and warned us on the birthday of the
world.
Many a lingering winter has vested us with a cap of snow and
beard of icicles.
Many of our mighty brethren have since been deeply covered and
engulfed
By the common foe, thick-growing plants,- fleeting sons of time,
For ever pullulating anew.
Alas, those mighty brethren are for ever robbed of that fair light
They saw with us aeons before this brood of plants from putre-
faction came.
Brothers, this brood pushes and presses on all sides
And threatens us with ruin and decay. Stand and hold fast with
all your strength;
Unite and raise your heads to the sun,
That he may long throw light on you!'
Sunbeam through Cloud and Storm

How peaceful thou art in the storm that bends and scatters all,
Ray of the bright and warming sun, firm, unshaken, and calm!
Smiling like thee, gentle, firm, and eternally clear like thee,
The sage is calm and serene in the storm and stress of troubled
and tormented life.
J1orning in the H ar;:;
Heavy with mist and black with cloud,
The Harz did wear a sombre look;
Grey and lowering did the world appear.-
And then came forth the sun to smile,
And all was filled with mirth and love.
He hovers on the mountain slope,
SOME VERSES 6ss
And there he rests in peace and calm,
In deep and blissful rapture.
And then he shines on mountain top,
And circles round the crest;
How he is cherished by the peak!
Dresden, 1815
To the Sistine Madonna
She bears him to the world, and startled
He beholds the chaos of its abominations,
The frenzy and fury of its turmoil,
The never-cured folly of its striving,
The never-stilled pain of its distress,-
Startlcd: yet calm and confident hope and
Triumphant glory radiate from his eye, already
Heralding the abiding certainty of salvation.
IBI9
Bold Verses
(written on the journey from Naples to Rome in April 181g. My
chief work had appeared in November 1818)
From long and deeply harboured pains 'twas unfolded from my
very heart.
Long did I strive to hold it firm; and yet I know success is finally
mme.
Howe'er you view the work, its life you cannot imperil.
It you may hold up but never will destroy.
Posterity will erect a monument to me.
1820
To Kant*
With my eyes I followed thee into the blue sky,
And there thy flight dissolved from view.
Alone I stayed in the crowd below,
Thy word and thy book my only solace.-
'When Kant died, it was one of those clear and cloudless days, of which we
have only a few. Only a small light speck of cloud floated in the zenith of the azure
blue sky. It was related that a soldier drew the attention of all on the Schmiede-
briicke with these words: "Look, there is Kant's soul soaring to heaven!'" (C. F.
Reusch, Kant unJ seine Tischgenossen, p. 11.)
SOME VERSES
Through the strains of thy inspiring words
I sought to dispel the dreary solitude.
Strangers on all sides surround me.
The world is desolate and life interminable.
' (Unfinished.)
Berlin, 1829
The Riddle of T urandot 1
'Tis a goblin engaged to serve us,

To aid us in our many cares and wants.
In ruin we should all have died,
Were he not daily at our beck and call.
Yet training we must strictly have to steer him
That his strength may be always shackled.
Not for one hour dare we let him out of sight or mind.
For devilish ruse and perfidy arc his way.
Mischief he broods and treachery he plots.
Our life and luck he ensnares
And slowly the grisly deed he prepares.
If he succeeds in bursting his chains,
And is rid of his long-lamented fetters,
He hastens to avenge the thraldom,
And his rage is equal to his joy.
Then he is master and we arc his slaves.
And now we vainly try to regain our ancient rights.
The curb is off and the spell is broken.
The slave's wild fury is unleashed,
And now fills all with terror and death.
In a brief span and a few short hours of horror
It greedily devours the master and his house.
830
The L_ydian Stone, a Fable
On a black stone the gold was rubbed,
Yet no yellow streak was left.
'"Tis not fine gold!" they all exclaimed.
And as base metal it was cast aside.
'Twas later found that this black stone
Despite its colour no touchstone was.
The gold unearthed \\'as now to honour restored.
Genuine stone alone can genuine gold essay.
1 [See Gerhard Klamp's remarks in Schopenhauer-Jahrb~h, xlii. 121-.4.. ]
SOME VERSES
r831
The Flower Vase
'Behold, only for a few days or hours do we bloom',
Exclaimed a lustrous bunch of flowers.
'Yet to be so near to Orcus strikes us not with terror.
At all times we exist and have like thee eternal life.'
Frankfurt am Main, 1837

In a copy of the tragedy Numancia by Cervantes which I picked up
at an auction, the previous owner had written the following sonnet
by A. W. von Schlegel. After reading the tragedy I wrote beside the
sonnet the stanza and called it 'Chest-voice', the former being called
'Falsetto'.
Falsetto
Wearied with endless battles Rome's legions
Were by Numancia fearlessly and freely opposed.
The hour of invincible fate was drawing nigh,
As Scipio was training his warriors afresh.
Arms favour not the brave, surrounded by bastions and pining away.
In league with death and to rob the triumph of its spoils,
They dedicate themselves and wife and child
To the yawning chasm of a flame.
Thus falling a victim does Hispania triumph.
Worthily buskined and having shed their blood
Her heroes proudly wander to the shades below.
He weeps whom neither Libya nor Hyrcania bred;
Here on the last Numantian's urn wept the last of Rome.
A. W. v. Schlegel.
Chest-voice
A city's suicide has Cervantes here portrayed.
When all is broken and destroyed,
A return to nature's fount is all we have.
1845
Antistrophe to the 73rd Venetian Epigram
I need not marvel that dogs by many are maligned;
For alas too often does the dog put man to shame.
SOME VERSES
1857
Power of Attraction
Wilt thou waste wit and wisdom to gain a retinue of men?
Give them what's good to gorge and guzzle,
And they will throng to thee in crowds.
185 6
Finale
I now stand weary at the end of the road;
The jaded brow can hardly bear the laurel.
And yet I gladly see what I have done,
Ever undaunted by what others say.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works of Schopenhauer
Gerrnan Editions :
Schopenhauers samtliche Werke. Ed. Paul Deussen. 13 vols. Munich :
R. Piper, 1911-42.
Sclu;penhauers siimtliche ~Yerke. Ed. Arthur Hubscher. 7 vols. Wies-
baden: F. A. Brockhaus, 1946-so. The best edition for scholars
and students.
Schopenhauers handschriftlicher Nachlass. Ed. Arthur Hubscher. 5 vols.
Frankfurt am Main: \Valdemar Kramer, 1966-. (vols. 1, 2, 3,
and 5 already published.)
Translations:
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sujfuient Reason. Trans. E. F. J.
Payne. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1974
On the Will in Nature. Trans. Madame K. Hillebrand. London: G.
Bell & Sons, I 897. Ably translated but out of print.
The World as Will and Representation. Trans. E. F.J. Payne. New York:
Dover Publications, Inc., 1966.
On the Freedom of the Will. Trans. Konstantin Kolenda. New York:
Library of Liberal Arts, Bobbs-MerrilJ, 1960.
On the Basis of Morality. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. New York: Library of
Liberal Arts, Bobbs-~ferrill, I 965.
The Pessimist's Handbook: A Collection of Popular Essays. Trans. T.
Bailey Saunders. Ed. Hazel Barnes. Bison Books. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1964.
Works on Schopenhauer
Beer, Margrieta. Schopenhauer. London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1914.
Copleston, Frederick, S. J., Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessi-
mism. London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1947.
Deussen, Paul. Elements of Afetaphysics. London: Macmillan & Co.,
1894
Doring, W. 0. Schopmhauer. Hamburg: Hansischer Gildenverlag,
1947
Gardiner, Patrick. Schopenhauer. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1963. An excellent introduction.
66o SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hubscher, Arthur. Arthur Schopenhauer: Mensch und Philosoph in
seinen Briefen. \'Vies baden: F. A. Brockhaus, I 960.
- - Schopenhauer: Biographie cines Weltbildes. Stuttgart: Reclam,
1967. '
- - Schopenhauer-Bildnisse: Eine lkonographie. Frankfurt am 1-fain:
Waldemar Kramer, 1968. Contains over sixty reproductions
of portraits.
Pfeiffer, K. Arthur Schopenhauer: Personlichkeit und f1'erk. Leipzig: A.
Kroner, 1925.
Richter, Peyton E. Perspectives in Aesthetics: Plato to Camus. New York:
The Odyssey Press, Inc., 1967. A useful work of reference.
Saltus, Edgar E. The Philosophy of Disenchantment. New York:
Belford Co., 1885 (New York: A.M.S. Press, Inc.).
Schmidt, K. 0. Das Erwachen aus dem Lebens- Traum. Pfullingen: Baum
Verlag, 1957.
Taylor, Richard. The Will to Live. New York: Anchor Books, 1962.
A fine introduction.
Wagner, G. F. Schopenhauer-Register. Stuttgart: Fr. Frommann, rg6o.
A splendid concordance of Schopenhauer's works. Essential to
the student.
Whittaker, Thomas. Schopenhauer. London: Constable, I 920.
Zimmern, Helen. Arthur SchopeTlhauer: His Life and His Philosophy.
London: Longmans, Green & Co., I 876.
Zint, Hans. Schopenhau.er als Erlebnis. Munich: E. Reinhardt, 1954.
Jahrbucher der Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft (first Yearbook pub-
lished in 1912). An international journal edited since 1937 by
Dr. Arthur Hi.ibscher, President of the Schopenhauer-Gesell-
schaft.

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Parerga

Translated from the German

CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD

III. Ideas concerning the Intellect generally and in

VII. On the Theory of Colours 177

IX. On Jurisprudence and Politics 240

X. On the Doctrine of the Indestructibility of our

XII. Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the

XIV. Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the

XX. On Judgement, Criticism, Approbation, and

Eleusis servat quod ostendat revisentibus.

[' Eleusis keeps something that it can disclose only on a second

On Philosophy and its Method

['War of all against all'.]

:!('Under what auspices'.]

J ['Great thoughts come from the heart .]

:From my point of view, the following would be of use con-

7 ['What follows on physics'. An allusion to the etymology of the term 'meta-

On Logic and Dialectic

4 ['By hook or by crook'.]

8Ewplcxs, 6 mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, must have been

and also the vices of the disputants are expounded '.]

u ['I dispute the major proposition'; I dispute the minor proposition .]

who expel their king are to be praised.' This can be reduced

17 ['The trick of taking in an unlimited sense what was asserted in a limited'.]

Ideas concerning the Intellect generally

How little suited to philosophical reflection the human

J ['Time is not a modification of things, but only a mere mode of thinking.']

That time runs on with perfect regularity everywhere and in

all bodies might be quite conceivable if it were something purely

4 ['Eternity is not a succession of time without end, but a permanent Now . .,

itself in space. Yet every such thing in itself may have an

When I say in a different world', it shows a great want of understanding on

The eye becomes weak after staring for some time at an

7 ['It is not true; 'it is a poor invention.']

* Memory is a capricious and arbitrary thing, somewhat like a young girl.

9 ['Everything that is not natural is imperfect.']

diminished' is expressed by them as:' Material is i.Jrunortal ', and

He therefore makes the same application of that truth which

directions. This is a very fortunate circumstance, for to picture

Craving for knowledge, \\'hen directed to the universal, is

Intellect is not an extensive quantity, but an intensive; and

Two closely related faculties, that of judging and of having

page 331 for the more accurate quotation from Seneca.)

( Et hortulanus saepe opportunissima dixit.) 21 *

No difference of position, rank, or birth is so great as the gulf between the

:.t4 ['Soil-bound serfs'.]

15 ['Common, ignoble, barbarous, and unworthy conversations'.]

Through the rarest concurrence of several extremely favourable circumstances,

very reason, Ariosto's simile is so very pertinent and rightly

38 [From Schiller's Don Carlos.]

A : 'The failure of philosophy till now has been necessary and is

41 ['Begging of the question'.]

Some Observations on the Antithesis of

_,_\ 0' <;;: \ ' A 't t '

on. (Democritus autem ea quidem tollit, quae apparent sensibus, et

(vol. ii, p. 716.)

To understand is always an act of making a representation or

' ['Relation of the physicaJ to the moral'.]

A Few Words on Pantheism

1 [See volume r, page 186.]

Neither pantheism nor Jewish mythology is enough; if you undertake to

associate with the word God, two predicates are nevertheless

On Philosophy and Natural Science