they condition each other reciprocally, and are also in common conditioned
by great activity of the mind. Both are produced, as we have just seen,
not by what is really present, but by the anticipation of the future. But
since pain is essential to life, and its degree is also determined by the
nature of the subject, sudden changes, because they are always external,
cannot really alter its degree. Thus an error and delusion always lies at
the foundation of immoderate joy or grief, and consequently both these
excessive strainings of the mind can be avoided by knowledge. Every
immoderate joy (_exultatio, insolens lætitia_) always rests on the
delusion that one has found in life what can never be found there—lasting
satisfaction of the harassing desires and cares, which are constantly
breeding new ones. From every particular delusion of this kind one must
inevitably be brought back later, and then when it vanishes must pay for
it with pain as bitter as the joy its entrance caused was keen. So far,
then, it is precisely like a height from which one can come down only by a
fall. Therefore one ought to avoid them; and every sudden excessive grief
is just a fall from some such height, the vanishing of such a delusion,
and so conditioned by it. Consequently we might avoid them both if we had
sufficient control over ourselves to survey things always with perfect
clearness as a whole and in their connection, and steadfastly to guard
against really lending them the colours which we wish they had. The
principal effort of the Stoical ethics was to free the mind from all such
delusion and its consequences, and to give it instead an equanimity that
could not be disturbed. It is this insight that inspires Horace in the
well-known ode—
“_Æquam memento rebus in arduiis_
Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
_Ab insolenti temperatam_
_Lætitia._”
For the most part, however, we close our minds against the knowledge,
which may be compared to a bitter medicine, that suffering is essential to
life, and therefore does not flow in upon us from without, but that every
one carries about with him its perennial source in his own heart. We
rather seek constantly for an external particular cause, as it were, a
pretext for the pain which never leaves us, just as the free man makes
himself an idol, in order to have a master. For we unweariedly strive from
wish to wish; and although every satisfaction, however much it promised,
when attained fails to satisfy us, but for the most part comes presently
to be an error of which we are ashamed, yet we do not see that we draw
water with the sieve of the Danaides, but ever hasten to new desires.
“_Sed, dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur_
_Cætera; post aliud, quum contigit illud, avemus;_
_Et sitis æqua tenet vitai semper hiantes._”—LUCR. iii. 1095.
Thus it either goes on for ever, or, what is more rare and presupposes a
certain strength of character, till we reach a wish which is not satisfied
and yet cannot be given up. In that case we have, as it were, found what
we sought, something that we can always blame, instead of our own nature,
as the source of our suffering. And thus, although we are now at variance
with our fate, we are reconciled to our existence, for the knowledge is
again put far from us that suffering is essential to this existence
itself, and true satisfaction impossible. The result of this form of
development is a somewhat melancholy disposition, the constant endurance
of a single great pain, and the contempt for all lesser sorrows or joys
that proceeds from it; consequently an already nobler phenomenon than that
constant seizing upon ever-new forms of illusion, which is much more
common.
§ 58. All satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is always
really and essentially only _negative_, and never positive. It is not an
original gratification coming to us of itself, but must always be the
satisfaction of a wish. The wish, _i.e._, some want, is the condition
which precedes every pleasure. But with the satisfaction the wish and
therefore the pleasure cease. Thus the satisfaction or the pleasing can
never be more than the deliverance from a pain, from a want; for such is
not only every actual, open sorrow, but every desire, the importunity of
which disturbs our peace, and, indeed, the deadening ennui also that makes
life a burden to us. It is, however, so hard to attain or achieve
anything; difficulties and troubles without end are opposed to every
purpose, and at every step hindrances accumulate. But when finally
everything is overcome and attained, nothing can ever be gained but
deliverance from some sorrow or desire, so that we find ourselves just in
the same position as we occupied before this sorrow or desire appeared.
All that is even directly given us is merely the want, _i.e._, the pain.
The satisfaction and the pleasure we can only know indirectly through the
remembrance of the preceding suffering and want, which ceases with its
appearance. Hence it arises that we are not properly conscious of the
blessings and advantages we actually possess, nor do we prize them, but
think of them merely as a matter of course, for they gratify us only
negatively by restraining suffering. Only when we have lost them do we
become sensible of their value; for the want, the privation, the sorrow,
is the positive, communicating itself directly to us. Thus also we are
pleased by the remembrance of past need, sickness, want, and such like,
because this is the only means of enjoying the present blessings. And,
further, it cannot be denied that in this respect, and from this
standpoint of egoism, which is the form of the will to live, the sight or
the description of the sufferings of others affords us satisfaction and
pleasure in precisely the way Lucretius beautifully and frankly expresses
it in the beginning of the Second Book—
“_Suave, mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis,_
_E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem:_
_Non, quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas;_
_Sed, quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est._”
Yet we shall see farther on that this kind of pleasure, through knowledge
of our own well-being obtained in this way, lies very near the source of
real, positive wickedness.
That all happiness is only of a negative not a positive nature, that just
on this account it cannot be lasting satisfaction and gratification, but
merely delivers us from some pain or want which must be followed either by
a new pain, or by languor, empty longing, and ennui; this finds support in
art, that true mirror of the world and life, and especially in poetry.
Every epic and dramatic poem can only represent a struggle, an effort, and
fight for happiness, never enduring and complete happiness itself. It
conducts its heroes through a thousand difficulties and dangers to the
goal; as soon as this is reached, it hastens to let the curtain fall; for
now there would remain nothing for it to do but to show that the
glittering goal in which the hero expected to find happiness had only
disappointed him, and that after its attainment he was no better off than
before. Because a genuine enduring happiness is not possible, it cannot be
the subject of art. Certainly the aim of the idyll is the description of
such a happiness, but one also sees that the idyll as such cannot
continue. The poet always finds that it either becomes epical in his
hands, and in this case it is a very insignificant epic, made up of
trifling sorrows, trifling delights, and trifling efforts—this is the
commonest case—or else it becomes a merely descriptive poem, describing
the beauty of nature, _i.e._, pure knowing free from will, which
certainly, as a matter of fact, is the only pure happiness, which is
neither preceded by suffering or want, nor necessarily followed by
repentance, sorrow, emptiness, or satiety; but this happiness cannot fill
the whole life, but is only possible at moments. What we see in poetry we
find again in music; in the melodies of which we have recognised the
universal expression of the inmost history of the self-conscious will, the
most secret life, longing, suffering, and delight; the ebb and flow of the
human heart. Melody is always a deviation from the keynote through a
thousand capricious wanderings, even to the most painful discord, and then
a final return to the keynote which expresses the satisfaction and
appeasing of the will, but with which nothing more can then be done, and
the continuance of which any longer would only be a wearisome and
unmeaning monotony corresponding to ennui.
All that we intend to bring out clearly through these investigations, the
impossibility of attaining lasting satisfaction and the negative nature of
all happiness, finds its explanation in what is shown at the conclusion of
the Second Book: that the will, of which human life, like every
phenomenon, is the objectification, is a striving without aim or end. We
find the stamp of this endlessness imprinted upon all the parts of its
whole manifestation, from its most universal form, endless time and space,
up to the most perfect of all phenomena, the life and efforts of man. We
may theoretically assume three extremes of human life, and treat them as
elements of actual human life. First, the powerful will, the strong
passions (Radscha-Guna). It appears in great historical characters; it is
described in the epic and the drama. But it can also show itself in the
little world, for the size of the objects is measured here by the degree
in which they influence the will, not according to their external
relations. Secondly, pure knowing, the comprehension of the Ideas,
conditioned by the freeing of knowledge from the service of will: the life
of genius (Satwa-Guna). Thirdly and lastly, the greatest lethargy of the
will, and also of the knowledge attaching to it, empty longing,
life-benumbing languor (Tama-Guna). The life of the individual, far from
becoming permanently fixed in one of these extremes, seldom touches any of
them, and is for the most part only a weak and wavering approach to one or
the other side, a needy desiring of trifling objects, constantly
recurring, and so escaping ennui. It is really incredible how meaningless
and void of significance when looked at from without, how dull and
unenlightened by intellect when felt from within, is the course of the
life of the great majority of men. It is a weary longing and complaining,
a dream-like staggering through the four ages of life to death,
accompanied by a series of trivial thoughts. Such men are like clockwork,
which is wound up, and goes it knows not why; and every time a man is
begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew, to repeat the
same old piece it has played innumerable times before, passage after
passage, measure after measure, with insignificant variations. Every
individual, every human being and his course of life, is but another short
dream of the endless spirit of nature, of the persistent will to live; is
only another fleeting form, which it carelessly sketches on its infinite
page, space and time; allows to remain for a time so short that it
vanishes into nothing in comparison with these, and then obliterates to
make new room. And yet, and here lies the serious side of life, every one
of these fleeting forms, these empty fancies, must be paid for by the
whole will to live, in all its activity, with many and deep sufferings,
and finally with a bitter death, long feared and coming at last. This is
why the sight of a corpse makes us suddenly so serious.
The life of every individual, if we survey it as a whole and in general,
and only lay stress upon its most significant features, is really always a
tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy. For
the deeds and vexations of the day, the restless irritation of the moment,
the desires and fears of the week, the mishaps of every hour, are all
through chance, which is ever bent upon some jest, scenes of a comedy. But
the never-satisfied wishes, the frustrated efforts, the hopes unmercifully
crushed by fate, the unfortunate errors of the whole life, with increasing
suffering and death at the end, are always a tragedy. Thus, as if fate
would add derision to the misery of our existence, our life must contain
all the woes of tragedy, and yet we cannot even assert the dignity of
tragic characters, but in the broad detail of life must inevitably be the
foolish characters of a comedy.
But however much great and small trials may fill human life, they are not
able to conceal its insufficiency to satisfy the spirit; they cannot hide
the emptiness and superficiality of existence, nor exclude ennui, which is
always ready to fill up every pause that care may allow. Hence it arises
that the human mind, not content with the cares, anxieties, and
occupations which the actual world lays upon it, creates for itself an
imaginary world also in the form of a thousand different superstitions,
then finds all manner of employment with this, and wastes time and
strength upon it, as soon as the real world is willing to grant it the
rest which it is quite incapable of enjoying. This is accordingly most
markedly the case with nations for which life is made easy by the
congenial nature of the climate and the soil, most of all with the Hindus,
then with the Greeks, the Romans, and later with the Italians, the
Spaniards, &c. Demons, gods, and saints man creates in his own image; and
to them he must then unceasingly bring offerings, prayers, temple
decorations, vows and their fulfilment, pilgrimages, salutations,
ornaments for their images, &c. Their service mingles everywhere with the
real, and, indeed, obscures it. Every event of life is regarded as the
work of these beings; the intercourse with them occupies half the time of
life, constantly sustains hope, and by the charm of illusion often becomes
more interesting than intercourse with real beings. It is the expression
and symptom of the actual need of mankind, partly for help and support,
partly for occupation and diversion; and if it often works in direct
opposition to the first need, because when accidents and dangers arise
valuable time and strength, instead of being directed to warding them off,
are uselessly wasted on prayers and offerings; it serves the second end
all the better by this imaginary converse with a visionary spirit world;
and this is the by no means contemptible gain of all superstitions.
§ 59. If we have so far convinced ourselves _a priori_, by the most
general consideration, by investigation of the primary and elemental
features of human life, that in its whole plan it is capable of no true
blessedness, but is in its very nature suffering in various forms, and
throughout a state of misery, we might now awaken this conviction much
more vividly within us if, proceeding more _a posteriori_, we were to turn
to more definite instances, call up pictures to the fancy, and illustrate
by examples the unspeakable misery which experience and history present,
wherever one may look and in whatever direction one may seek. But the
chapter would have no end, and would carry us far from the standpoint of
the universal, which is essential to philosophy; and, moreover, such a
description might easily be taken for a mere declamation on human misery,
such as has often been given, and, as such, might be charged with
one-sidedness, because it started from particular facts. From such a
reproach and suspicion our perfectly cold and philosophical investigation
of the inevitable suffering which is founded in the nature of life is
free, for it starts from the universal and is conducted _a priori_. But
confirmation _a posteriori_ is everywhere easily obtained. Every one who
has awakened from the first dream of youth, who has considered his own
experience and that of others, who has studied himself in life, in the
history of the past and of his own time, and finally in the works of the
great poets, will, if his judgment is not paralysed by some indelibly
imprinted prejudice, certainly arrive at the conclusion that this human
world is the kingdom of chance and error, which rule without mercy in
great things and in small, and along with which folly and wickedness also
wield the scourge. Hence it arises that everything better only struggles
through with difficulty; what is noble and wise seldom attains to
expression, becomes effective and claims attention, but the absurd and the
perverse in the sphere of thought, the dull and tasteless in the sphere of
art, the wicked and deceitful in the sphere of action, really assert a
supremacy, only disturbed by short interruptions. On the other hand,
everything that is excellent is always a mere exception, one case in
millions, and therefore, if it presents itself in a lasting work, this,
when it has outlived the enmity of its contemporaries, exists in
isolation, is preserved like a meteoric stone, sprung from an order of
things different from that which prevails here. But as far as the life of
the individual is concerned, every biography is the history of suffering,
for every life is, as a rule, a continual series of great and small
misfortunes, which each one conceals as much as possible, because he knows
that others can seldom feel sympathy or compassion, but almost always
satisfaction at the sight of the woes from which they are themselves for
the moment exempt. But perhaps at the end of life, if a man is sincere and
in full possession of his faculties, he will never wish to have it to live
over again, but rather than this, he will much prefer absolute
annihilation. The essential content of the famous soliloquy in “Hamlet” is
briefly this: Our state is so wretched that absolute annihilation would be
decidedly preferable. If suicide really offered us this, so that the
alternative “to be or not to be,” in the full sense of the word, was
placed before us, then it would be unconditionally to be chosen as “a
consummation devoutly to be wished.” But there is something in us which
tells us that this is not the case: suicide is not the end; death is not
absolute annihilation. In like manner, what was said by the father of
history(71) has not since him been contradicted, that no man has ever
lived who has not wished more than once that he had not to live the
following day. According to this, the brevity of life, which is so
constantly lamented, may be the best quality it possesses. If, finally, we
should bring clearly to a man’s sight the terrible sufferings and miseries
to which his life is constantly exposed, he would be seized with horror;
and if we were to conduct the confirmed optimist through the hospitals,
infirmaries, and surgical operating-rooms, through the prisons,
torture-chambers, and slave-kennels, over battle-fields and places of
execution; if we were to open to him all the dark abodes of misery, where
it hides itself from the glance of cold curiosity, and, finally, allow him
to glance into the starving dungeon of Ugolino, he, too, would understand
at last the nature of this “best of possible worlds.” For whence did Dante
take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he
made a very proper hell of it. And when, on the other hand, he came to the
task of describing heaven and its delights, he had an insurmountable
difficulty before him, for our world affords no materials at all for this.
Therefore there remained nothing for him to do but, instead of describing
the joys of paradise, to repeat to us the instruction given him there by
his ancestor, by Beatrice, and by various saints. But from this it is
sufficiently clear what manner of world it is. Certainly human life, like
all bad ware, is covered over with a false lustre: what suffers always
conceals itself; on the other hand, whatever pomp or splendour any one can
get, he makes a show of openly, and the more inner contentment deserts
him, the more he desires to exist as fortunate in the opinion of others:
to such an extent does folly go, and the opinion of others is a chief aim
of the efforts of every one, although the utter nothingness of it is
expressed in the fact that in almost all languages vanity, _vanitas_,
originally signifies emptiness and nothingness. But under all this false
show, the miseries of life can so increase—and this happens every day—that
the death which hitherto has been feared above all things is eagerly
seized upon. Indeed, if fate will show its whole malice, even this refuge
is denied to the sufferer, and, in the hands of enraged enemies, he may
remain exposed to terrible and slow tortures without remedy. In vain the
sufferer then calls on his gods for help; he remains exposed to his fate
without grace. But this irremediableness is only the mirror of the
invincible nature of his will, of which his person is the objectivity. As
little as an external power can change or suppress this will, so little
can a foreign power deliver it from the miseries which proceed from the
life which is the phenomenal appearance of that will. In the principal
matter, as in everything else, a man is always thrown back upon himself.
In vain does he make to himself gods in order to get from them by prayers
and flattery what can only be accomplished by his own will-power. The Old
Testament made the world and man the work of a god, but the New Testament
saw that, in order to teach that holiness and salvation from the sorrows
of this world can only come from the world itself, it was necessary that
this god should become man. It is and remains the will of man upon which
everything depends for him. Fanatics, martyrs, saints of every faith and
name, have voluntarily and gladly endured every torture, because in them
the will to live had suppressed itself; and then even the slow destruction
of its phenomenon was welcome to them. But I do not wish to anticipate the
later exposition. For the rest, I cannot here avoid the statement that, to
me, _optimism_, when it is not merely the thoughtless talk of such as
harbour nothing but words under their low foreheads, appears not merely as
an absurd, but also as a really _wicked_ way of thinking, as a bitter
mockery of the unspeakable suffering of humanity. Let no one think that
Christianity is favourable to optimism; for, on the contrary, in the
Gospels world and evil are used as almost synonymous.(72)
§ 60. We have now completed the two expositions it was necessary to
insert; the exposition of the freedom of the will in itself together with
the necessity of its phenomenon, and the exposition of its lot in the
world which reflects its own nature, and upon the knowledge of which it
has to assert or deny itself. Therefore we can now proceed to bring out
more clearly the nature of this assertion and denial itself, which was
referred to and explained in a merely general way above. This we shall do
by exhibiting the conduct in which alone it finds its expression, and
considering it in its inner significance.
The _assertion of the will_ is the continuous willing itself, undisturbed
by any knowledge, as it fills the life of man in general. For even the
body of a man is the objectivity of the will, as it appears at this grade
and in this individual. And thus his willing which develops itself in time
is, as it were, a paraphrase of his body, an elucidation of the
significance of the whole and its parts; it is another way of exhibiting
the same thing-in-itself, of which the body is already the phenomenon.
Therefore, instead of saying assertion of the will, we may say assertion
of the body. The fundamental theme or subject of all the multifarious acts
of will is the satisfaction of the wants which are inseparable from the
existence of the body in health, they already have their expression in it,
and may be referred to the maintenance of the individual and the
propagation of the species. But indirectly the most different kinds of
motives obtain in this way power over the will, and bring about the most
multifarious acts of will. Each of these is only an example, an instance,
of the will which here manifests itself generally. Of what nature this
example may be, what form the motive may have and impart to it, is not
essential; the important point here is that something is willed in general
and the degree of intensity with which it is so willed. The will can only
become visible in the motives, as the eye only manifests its power of
seeing in the light. The motive in general stands before the will in
protean forms. It constantly promises complete satisfaction, the quenching
of the thirst of will. But whenever it is attained it at once appears in
another form, and thus influences the will anew, always according to the
degree of the intensity of this will, and its relation to knowledge which
are revealed as empirical character, in these very examples and instances.