evil with evil, not with reference to the future, which is the character
of punishment, but merely on account of what has happened, what is past,
as such, thus disinterestedly, not as a means, but as an end, in order to
revel in the torment which the avenger himself has inflicted on the
offender. What distinguishes revenge from pure wickedness, and to some
extent excuses it, is an appearance of justice. For if the same act, which
is now revenge, were to be done legally, that is, according to a
previously determined and known rule, and in a society which had
sanctioned this rule, it would be punishment, and thus justice.
Besides the suffering which has been described, and which is inseparable
from wickedness, because it springs from the same root, excessive
vehemence of will, another specific pain quite different from this is
connected with wickedness, which is felt in the case of every bad action,
whether it be merely injustice proceeding from egoism or pure wickedness,
and according to the length of its duration is called _the sting of
conscience_ or _remorse_. Now, whoever remembers and has present in his
mind the content of the preceding portion of this Fourth Book, and
especially the truth explained at the beginning of it, that life itself is
always assured to the will to live, as its mere copy or mirror, and also
the exposition of eternal justice, will find that the sting of conscience
can have no other meaning than the following, _i.e._, its content,
abstractly expressed, is what follows, in which two parts are
distinguished, which again, however, entirely coincide, and must be
thought as completely united.
However closely the veil of Mâyâ may envelop the mind of the bad man,
_i.e._, however firmly he may be involved in the _principium
individuationis_, according to which he regards his person as absolutely
different and separated by a wide gulf from all others, a knowledge to
which he clings with all his might, as it alone suits and supports his
egoism, so that knowledge is almost always corrupted by will, yet there
arises in the inmost depths of his consciousness the secret presentiment
that such an order of things is only phenomenal, and that their real
constitution is quite different. He has a dim foreboding that, however
much time and space may separate him from other individuals and the
innumerable miseries which they suffer, and even suffer through him, and
may represent them as quite foreign to him, yet in themselves, and apart
from the idea and its forms, it is the one will to live appearing in them
all, which here failing to recognise itself, turns its weapons against
itself, and, by seeking increased happiness in one of its phenomena,
imposes the greatest suffering upon another. He dimly sees that he, the
bad man, is himself this whole will; that consequently he is not only the
inflicter of pain but also the endurer of it, from whose suffering he is
only separated and exempted by an illusive dream, the form of which is
space and time, which, however, vanishes away; that he must in reality pay
for the pleasure with the pain, and that all suffering which he only knows
as possible really concerns him as the will to live, inasmuch as the
possible and actual, the near and the distant in time and space, are only
different for the knowledge of the individual, only by means of the
_principium individuationis_, not in themselves. This is the truth which
mythically, _i.e._, adapted to the principle of sufficient reason, and so
translated into the form of the phenomenal, is expressed in the
transmigration of souls. Yet it has its purest expression, free from all
foreign admixture, in that obscurely felt yet inconsolable misery called
remorse. But this springs also from a second immediate knowledge, which is
closely bound to the first—the knowledge of the strength with which the
will to live asserts itself in the wicked individual, which extends far
beyond his own individual phenomenon, to the absolute denial of the same
will appearing in other individuals. Consequently the inward horror of the
wicked man at his own deed, which he himself tries to conceal, contains,
besides that presentment of the nothingness, the mere illusiveness of the
_principium individuationis_, and of the distinction established by it
between him and others; also the knowledge of the vehemence of his own
will, the intensity with which he has seized upon life and attached
himself closely to it, even that life whose terrible side he sees before
him in the misery of those who are oppressed by him, and with which he is
yet so firmly united, that just on this account the greatest atrocity
proceeds from him himself, as a means for the fuller assertion of his own
will. He recognises himself as the concentrated manifestation of the will
to live, feels to what degree he is given up to life, and with it also to
innumerable sufferings which are essential to it, for it has infinite time
and infinite space to abolish the distinction between the possible and the
actual, and to change all the sufferings which as yet are merely _known_
to him into sufferings he has _experienced_. The millions of years of
constant rebirth certainly exist, like the whole past and future, only in
conception; occupied time, the form of the phenomenon of the will, is only
the present, and for the individual time is ever new: it seems to him
always as if he had newly come into being. For life is inseparable from
the will to live, and the only form of life is the present. Death (the
repetition of the comparison must be excused) is like the setting of the
sun, which is only apparently swallowed up by the night, but in reality,
itself the source of all light, burns without intermission, brings new
days to new worlds, is always rising and always setting. Beginning and end
only concern the individual through time, the form of the phenomenon for
the idea. Outside time lies only the will, Kant’s thing-in-itself, and its
adequate objectification, the Idea of Plato. Therefore suicide affords no
escape; what every one in his inmost consciousness _wills_, that must he
_be_; and what every one _is_, that he _wills_. Thus, besides the merely
felt knowledge of the illusiveness and nothingness of the forms of the
idea which separate individuals, it is the self-knowledge of one’s own
will and its degree that gives the sting to conscience. The course of life
draws the image of the empirical character, whose original is the
intelligible character, and horrifies the wicked man by this image. He is
horrified all the same whether the image is depicted in large characters,
so that the world shares his horror, or in such small ones that he alone
sees it, for it only concerns him directly. The past would be a matter of
indifference, and could not pain the conscience if the character did not
feel itself free from all time and unalterable by it, so long as it does
not deny itself. Therefore things which are long past still weigh on the
conscience. The prayer, “Lead me not into temptation,” means, “Let me not
see what manner of person I am.” In the might with which the bad man
asserts life, and which exhibits itself to him in the sufferings which he
inflicts on others, he measures how far he is from the surrender and
denial of that will, the only possible deliverance from the world and its
miseries. He sees how far he belongs to it, and how firmly he is bound to
it; the _known_ suffering of others has no power to move him; he is given
up to life and _felt_ suffering. It remains hidden whether this will ever
break and overcome the vehemence of his will.
This exposition of the significance and inner nature of the _bad_, which
as mere feeling, _i.e._, not as distinct, abstract knowledge, is the
content of _remorse_, will gain distinctness and completeness by the
similar consideration of the _good_ as a quality of human will, and
finally of absolute resignation and holiness, which proceeds from it when
it has attained its highest grade. For opposites always throw light upon
each other, and the day at once reveals both itself and the night, as
Spinoza admirably remarks.
§ 66. A theory of morals without proof, that is, mere moralising, can
effect nothing, because it does not act as a motive. A theory of morals
which does act as a motive can do so only by working on self-love. But
what springs from this source has no moral worth. It follows from this
that no genuine virtue can be produced through moral theory or abstract
knowledge in general, but that such virtue must spring from that intuitive
knowledge which recognises in the individuality of others the same nature
as in our own.
For virtue certainly proceeds from knowledge, but not from the abstract
knowledge that can be communicated through words. If it were so, virtue
could be taught, and by here expressing in abstract language its nature
and the knowledge which lies at its foundation, we should make every one
who comprehends this even ethically better. But this is by no means the
case. On the contrary, ethical discourses and preaching will just as
little produce a virtuous man as all the systems of æsthetics from
Aristotle downwards have succeeded in producing a poet. For the real inner
nature of virtue the concept is unfruitful, just as it is in art, and it
is only in a completely subordinate position that it can be of use as a
tool in the elaboration and preserving of what has been ascertained and
inferred by other means. _Velle non discitur._ Abstract dogmas are, in
fact, without influence upon virtue, _i.e._, upon the goodness of the
disposition. False dogmas do not disturb it; true ones will scarcely
assist it. It would, in fact, be a bad look-out if the cardinal fact in
the life of man, his ethical worth, that worth which counts for eternity,
were dependent upon anything the attainment of which is so much a matter
of chance as is the case with dogmas, religious doctrines, and
philosophical theories. For morality dogmas have this value only: The man
who has become virtuous from knowledge of another kind, which is presently
to be considered, possesses in them a scheme or formula according to which
he accounts to his own reason, for the most part fictitiously, for his
non-egoistical action, the nature of which it, _i.e._, he himself, does
not comprehend, and with which account he has accustomed it to be content.
Upon conduct, outward action, dogmas may certainly exercise a powerful
influence, as also custom and example (the last because the ordinary man
does not trust his judgment, of the weakness of which he is conscious, but
only follows his own or some one else’s experience), but the disposition
is not altered in this way.(80) All abstract knowledge gives only motives;
but, as was shown above, motives can only alter the direction of the will,
not the will itself. All communicable knowledge, however, can only affect
the will as a motive. Thus when dogmas lead it, what the man really and in
general wills remains still the same. He has only received different
thoughts as to the ways in which it is to be attained, and imaginary
motives guide him just like real ones. Therefore, for example, it is all
one, as regards his ethical worth, whether he gives large gifts to the
poor, firmly persuaded that he will receive everything tenfold in a future
life, or expends the same sum on the improvement of an estate which will
yield interest, certainly late, but all the more surely and largely. And
he who for the sake of orthodoxy commits the heretic to the flames is as
much a murderer as the bandit who does it for gain; and indeed, as regards
inward circumstances, so also was he who slaughtered the Turks in the Holy
Land, if, like the burner of heretics, he really did so because he thought
that he would thereby gain a place in heaven. For these are careful only
for themselves, for their own egoism, just like the bandit, from whom they
are only distinguished by the absurdity of their means. From without, as
has been said, the will can only be reached through motives, and these
only alter the way in which it expresses itself, never the will itself.
_Velle non discitur._
In the case of good deeds, however, the doer of which appeals to dogmas,
we must always distinguish whether these dogmas really are the motives
which lead to the good deeds, or whether, as was said above, they are
merely the illusive account of them with which he seeks to satisfy his own
reason with regard to a good deed which really flows from quite a
different source, a deed which he does because he is good, though he does
not understand how to explain it rightly, and yet wishes to think
something with regard to it. But this distinction is very hard to make,
because it lies in the heart of a man. Therefore we can scarcely ever pass
a correct moral judgment on the action of others, and very seldom on our
own. The deeds and conduct of an individual and of a nation may be very
much modified through dogmas, example, and custom. But in themselves all
deeds (_opera operata_) are merely empty forms, and only the disposition
which leads to them gives them moral significance. This disposition,
however, may be quite the same when its outward manifestation is very
different. With an equal degree of wickedness, one man may die on the
wheel, and another in the bosom of his family. It may be the same grade of
wickedness which expresses itself in one nation in the coarse
characteristics of murder and cannibalism, and in another finely and
softly in miniature, in court intrigues, oppressions, and delicate plots
of every kind; the inner nature remains the same. It is conceivable that a
perfect state, or perhaps indeed a complete and firmly believed doctrine
of rewards and punishments after death, might prevent every crime;
politically much would be gained thereby; morally, nothing; only the
expression of the will in life would be restricted.
Thus genuine goodness of disposition, disinterested virtue, and pure
nobility do not proceed from abstract knowledge. Yet they do proceed from
knowledge; but it is a direct intuitive knowledge, which can neither be
reasoned away, nor arrived at by reasoning, a knowledge which, just
because it is not abstract, cannot be communicated, but must arise in each
for himself, which therefore finds its real and adequate expression not in
words, but only in deeds, in conduct, in the course of the life of man. We
who here seek the theory of virtue, and have therefore also to express
abstractly the nature of the knowledge which lies at its foundation, will
yet be unable to convey that knowledge itself in this expression. We can
only give the concept of this knowledge, and thus always start from action
in which alone it becomes visible, and refer to action as its only
adequate expression. We can only explain and interpret action, _i.e._,
express abstractly what really takes place in it.
Before we speak of the _good_ proper, in opposition to the _bad_, which
has been explained, we must touch on an intermediate grade, the mere
negation of the bad: this is _justice_. The nature of right and wrong has
been fully explained above; therefore we may briefly say here, that he who
voluntarily recognises and observes those merely moral limits between
wrong and right, even where this is not secured by the state or any other
external power, thus he who, according to our explanation, never carries
the assertion of his own will so far as to deny the will appearing in
another individual, is _just_. Thus, in order to increase his own
well-being, he will not inflict suffering upon others, _i.e._, he will
commit no crime, he will respect the rights and the property of others. We
see that for such a just man the _principium individuationis_ is no
longer, as in the case of the bad man, an absolute wall of partition. We
see that he does not, like the bad man, merely assert his own
manifestation of will and deny all others; that other persons are not for
him mere masks, whose nature is quite different from his own; but he shows
in his conduct that he also recognises his own nature—the will to live as
a thing-in-itself, in the foreign manifestation which is only given to him
as idea. Thus he finds himself again in that other manifestation, up to a
certain point, that of doing no wrong, _i.e._, abstaining from injury. To
this extent, therefore, he sees through the _principium individuationis_,
the veil of Mâyâ; so far he sets the being external to him on a level with
his own—he does it no injury.
If we examine the inmost nature of this justice, there already lies in it
the resolution not to go so far in the assertion of one’s own will as to
deny the manifestations of will of others, by compelling them to serve
one’s own. One will therefore wish to render to others as much as one
receives from them. The highest degree of this justice of disposition,
which is, however, always united with goodness proper, whose character is
no longer merely negative, extends so far that a man doubts his right to
inherited property, wishes to support his body only by his own powers,
mental and physical, feels every service of others and every luxury a
reproach, and finally embraces voluntary poverty. Thus we see how Pascal,
when he became an ascetic, would no longer permit any services to be
rendered him, although he had servants enough; in spite of his constant
bad health he made his bed himself, brought his own food from the kitchen,
&c. (“Vie de Pascal, par sa Sœur,” p. 19). Quite in keeping with this, it
is reported that many Hindus, even Rajas with great wealth, expend it
merely on the maintenance of their position, their court and attendants,
and themselves observe with the greatest scrupulousness the maxim that a
man should eat nothing that he has not himself both sowed and reaped. Yet
a certain misunderstanding lies at the bottom of this; for one man, just
because he is rich and powerful, can render such signal services to the
whole of human society that they counterbalance the wealth he has
inherited, for the secure possession of which he is indebted to society.
In reality that excessive justice of such Hindus is already more than
justice; it is actual renunciation, denial of the will to
live,—asceticism, of which we shall speak last. On the other hand, pure
idleness and living through the exertions of others, in the case of
inherited wealth, without accomplishing anything, may be regarded as
morally wrong, even if it must remain right according to positive laws.
We have found that voluntary justice has its inmost source in a certain
degree of penetration of the _principium individuationis_, while the
unjust remain entirely involved in this principle. This penetration may
exist not only in the degree which is required for justice, but also in
the higher degree which leads to benevolence and well-doing, to love of
mankind. And this may take place however strong and energetic in itself
the will which appears in such an individual may be. Knowledge can always
counterbalance it in him, teach him to resist the tendency to wrong, and
even produce in him every degree of goodness, and indeed of resignation.
Thus the good man is by no means to be regarded as originally a weaker
manifestation of will than the bad man, but it is knowledge which in him
masters the blind striving of will. There are certainly individuals who
merely seem to have a good disposition on account of the weakness of the
will appearing in them, but what they are soon appears from the fact that
they are not capable of any remarkable self-conquest in order to perform a
just or good deed.
If, however, as a rare exception, we meet a man who possesses a
considerable income, but uses very little of it for himself and gives all
the rest to the poor, while he denies himself many pleasures and comforts,
and we seek to explain the action of this man, we shall find, apart
altogether from the dogmas through which he tries to make his action
intelligible to his reason, that the simplest general expression and the
essential character of his conduct is that _he makes less distinction than
is usually made between himself and others_. This distinction is so great
in the eyes of many that the suffering of others is a direct pleasure to
the wicked and a welcome means of happiness to the unjust. The merely just
man is content not to cause it; and, in general, most men know and are
acquainted with innumerable sufferings of others in their vicinity, but do
not determine to mitigate them, because to do so would involve some
self-denial on their part. Thus, in each of all these a strong distinction
seems to prevail between his own ego and that of others; on the other
hand, to the noble man we have imagined, this distinction is not so
significant. The _principium individuationis_, the form of the phenomenon,
no longer holds him so tightly in its grasp, but the suffering which he
sees in others touches him almost as closely as his own. He therefore
tries to strike a balance between them, denies himself pleasures,
practises renunciation, in order to mitigate the sufferings of others. He
sees that the distinction between himself and others, which to the bad man
is so great a gulf, only belongs to a fleeting and illusive phenomenon. He
recognises directly and without reasoning that the in-itself of his own
manifestation is also that of others, the will to live, which constitutes
the inner nature of everything and lives in all; indeed, that this applies
also to the brutes and the whole of nature, and therefore he will not
cause suffering even to a brute.(81)
He is now just as little likely to allow others to starve, while he
himself has enough and to spare, as any one would be to suffer hunger one
day in order to have more the next day than he could enjoy. For to him who
does works of love the veil of Mâyâ has become transparent, the illusion
of the _principium individuationis_ has left him. He recognises himself,
his will, in every being, and consequently also in the sufferer. He is now
free from the perversity with which the will to live, not recognising
itself, here in one individual enjoys a fleeting and precarious pleasure,
and there in another pays for it with suffering and starvation, and thus
both inflicts and endures misery, not knowing that, like Thyestes, it
eagerly devours its own flesh; and then, on the one hand, laments its
undeserved suffering, and on the other hand transgresses without fear of
Nemesis, always merely because, involved in the _principium
individuationis_, thus generally in the kind of knowledge which is
governed by the principle of sufficient reason, it does not recognise
itself in the foreign phenomenon, and therefore does not perceive eternal
justice. To be cured of this illusion and deception of Mâyâ, and to do
works of love, are one and the same. But the latter is the necessary and
inevitable symptom of that knowledge.