which is explained above, is the _good conscience_, the satisfaction which
we experience after every disinterested deed. It arises from the fact that
such a deed, as it proceeds from the direct recognition of our own inner
being in the phenomenon of another, affords us also the verification of
this knowledge, the knowledge that our true self exists not only in our
own person, this particular manifestation, but in everything that lives.
By this the heart feels itself enlarged, as by egoism it is contracted.
For as the latter concentrates our interest upon the particular
manifestation of our own individuality, upon which knowledge always
presents to us the innumerable dangers which constantly threaten this
manifestation, and anxiety and care becomes the key-note of our
disposition; the knowledge that everything living is just as much our own
inner nature, as is our own person, extends our interest to everything
living; and in this way the heart is enlarged. Thus through the diminished
interest in our own self, the anxious care for the self is attacked at its
very root and limited; hence the peace, the unbroken serenity, which a
virtuous disposition and a good conscience affords, and the more distinct
appearance of this with every good deed, for it proves to ourselves the
depth of that disposition. The egoist feels himself surrounded by strange
and hostile individuals, and all his hope is centred in his own good. The
good man lives in a world of friendly individuals, the well-being of any
of whom he regards as his own. Therefore, although the knowledge of the
lot of mankind generally does not make his disposition a joyful one, yet
the permanent knowledge of his own nature in all living beings, gives him
a certain evenness, and even serenity of disposition. For the interest
which is extended to innumerable manifestations cannot cause such anxiety
as that which is concentrated upon one. The accidents which concern
individuals collectively, equalise themselves, while those which happen to
the particular individual constitute good or bad fortune.
Thus, though others have set up moral principles which they give out as
prescriptions for virtue, and laws which it was necessary to follow, I, as
has already been said, cannot do this because I have no “ought” or law to
prescribe to the eternally free-will. Yet on the other hand, in the
connection of my system, what to a certain extent corresponds and is
analogous to that undertaking is the purely theoretical truth, of which my
whole exposition may be regarded as merely an elaboration, that the will
is the in-itself of every phenomenon but itself, as such, is free from the
forms of the phenomenal, and consequently from multiplicity; a truth,
which, with reference to action, I do not know how to express better than
by the formula of the Vedas already quoted: “Tat twam asi!” (This thou
art!) Whoever is able to say this to himself, with regard to every being
with whom he comes in contact, with clear knowledge and firm inward
conviction, is certain of all virtue and blessedness, and is on the direct
road to salvation.
But before I go further, and, as the conclusion of my exposition, show how
love, the origin and nature of which we recognised as the penetration of
the _principium individuationis_, leads to salvation, to the entire
surrender of the will to live, _i.e._, of all volition, and also how
another path, less soft but more frequented, leads men to the same goal, a
paradoxical proposition must first be stated and explained; not because it
is paradoxical, but because it is true, and is necessary to the
completeness of the thought I have present. It is this: “All love (αγαπη,
_caritas_) is sympathy.”
§ 67. We have seen how justice proceeds from the penetration of the
_principium individuationis_ in a less degree, and how from its
penetration in a higher degree there arises goodness of disposition
proper, which shows itself as pure, _i.e._, disinterested love towards
others. When now the latter becomes perfect, it places other individuals
and their fate completely on a level with itself and its own fate. Further
than this it cannot go, for there exists no reason for preferring the
individuality of another to its own. Yet the number of other individuals
whose whole happiness or life is in danger may outweigh the regard for
one’s own particular well-being. In such a case, the character that has
attained to the highest goodness and perfect nobility will entirely
sacrifice its own well-being, and even its life, for the well-being of
many others. So died Codrus, and Leonidas, and Regulus, and Decius Mus,
and Arnold von Winkelried; so dies every one who voluntarily and
consciously faces certain death for his friends or his country. And they
also stand on the same level who voluntarily submit to suffering and death
for maintaining what conduces and rightly belongs to the welfare of all
mankind; that is, for maintaining universal and important truths and
destroying great errors. So died Socrates and Giordano Bruno, and so many
a hero of the truth suffered death at the stake at the hands of the
priests.
Now, however, I must remind the reader, with reference to the paradox
stated above, that we found before that suffering is essential to life as
a whole, and inseparable from it. And that we saw that every wish proceeds
from a need, from a want, from suffering, and that therefore every
satisfaction is only the removal of a pain, and brings no positive
happiness; that the joys certainly lie to the wish, presenting themselves
as a positive good, but in truth they have only a negative nature, and are
only the end of an evil. Therefore what goodness, love, and nobleness do
for others, is always merely an alleviation of their suffering, and
consequently all that can influence them to good deeds and works of love,
is simply the _knowledge of the suffering of others_, which is directly
understood from their own suffering and placed on a level with it. But it
follows from this that pure love (αγαπη, _caritas_) is in its nature
sympathy; whether the suffering it mitigates, to which every unsatisfied
wish belongs, be great or small. Therefore we shall have no hesitation, in
direct contradiction to Kant, who will only recognise all true goodness
and all virtue to be such, if it has proceeded from abstract reflection,
and indeed from the conception of duty and of the categorical imperative,
and explains felt sympathy as weakness, and by no means virtue, we shall
have no hesitation, I say, in direct contradiction to Kant, in saying: the
mere concept is for genuine virtue just as unfruitful as it is for genuine
art: all true and pure love is sympathy, and all love which is not
sympathy is selfishness. Ερος is selfishness, αγαπη is sympathy.
Combinations of the two frequently occur. Indeed genuine friendship is
always a mixture of selfishness and sympathy; the former lies in the
pleasure experienced in the presence of the friend, whose individuality
corresponds to our own, and this almost always constitutes the greatest
part; sympathy shows itself in the sincere participation in his joy and
grief, and the disinterested sacrifices made in respect of the latter.
Thus Spinoza says: _Benevolentia nihil aliud est, quam cupiditas ex
commiseratione orta_ (Eth. iii. pr. 27, cor. 3, schol.) As a confirmation
of our paradoxical proposition it may be observed that the tone and words
of the language and caresses of pure love, entirely coincide with the
tones of sympathy; and we may also remark in passing that in Italian
sympathy and true love are denoted by the same word _pietà_.
This is also the place to explain one of the most striking peculiarities
of human nature, _weeping_, which, like laughter, belongs to those
qualities which distinguish man from the brutes. Weeping is by no means a
direct expression of pain, for it occurs where there is very little pain.
In my opinion, indeed, we never weep directly on account of the pain we
experience, but always merely on account of its repetition in reflection.
We pass from the felt pain, even when it is physical, to a mere idea of
it, and then find our own state so deserving of sympathy that we are
firmly and sincerely convinced that if another were the sufferer, we would
be full of sympathy, and love to relieve him. But now we ourselves are the
object of our own sympathy; with the most benevolent disposition we are
ourselves most in need of help; we feel that we suffer more than we could
see another suffer; and in this very complex frame of mind, in which the
directly felt suffering only comes to perception by a doubly circuitous
route, imagined as the suffering of another, sympathised with as such, and
then suddenly perceived again as directly our own,—in this complex frame
of mind, I say, Nature relieves itself through that remarkable physical
conflict. _Weeping_ is accordingly _sympathy with our own selves_, or
sympathy directed back on its source. It is therefore conditional upon the
capacity for love and sympathy, and also upon imagination. Therefore men
who are either hard-hearted or unimaginative do not weep easily, and
weeping is even always regarded as a sign of a certain degree of goodness
of character, and disarms anger, because it is felt that whoever can still
weep, must necessarily always be capable of love, _i.e._, sympathy towards
others, for this enters in the manner described into the disposition that
leads to weeping. The description which Petrarch gives of the rising of
his own tears, naïvely and truly expressing his feeling, entirely agrees
with the explanation we have given—
“I vo pensando: e nel pensar m’ assale
_Una pietà si forte di me stesso_,
Che mi conduce spesso,
Ad alto lagrimar, ch’i non soleva.”(82)
What has been said is also confirmed by the fact that children who have
been hurt generally do not cry till some one commiserates them; thus not
on account of the pain, but on account of the idea of it. When we are
moved to tears, not through our own suffering but through that of another,
this happens as follows. Either we vividly put ourselves in the place of
the sufferer by imagination, or see in his fate the lot of humanity as a
whole, and consequently, first of all, our own lot; and thus, in a very
roundabout way, it is yet always about ourselves that we weep, sympathy
with ourselves which we feel. This seems to be the principal reason of the
universal, and thus natural, weeping in the case of death. The mourner
does not weep for his loss; he would be ashamed of such egotistical tears,
instead of which he is sometimes ashamed of not weeping. First of all he
certainly weeps for the fate of the dead, but he also weeps when, after
long, heavy, and incurable suffering, death was to this man a wished-for
deliverance. Thus, principally, he is seized with sympathy for the lot of
all mankind, which is necessarily finite, so that every life, however
aspiring, and often rich in deeds, must be extinguished and become
nothing. But in this lot of mankind the mourner sees first of all his own,
and this all the more, the more closely he is related to him who has died,
thus most of all if it is his father. Although to his father his life was
misery through age and sickness, and though his helplessness was a heavy
burden to his son, yet that son weeps bitterly over the death of his
father for the reason which has been given.(83)
§ 68. After this digression about the identity of pure love and sympathy,
the final return of which upon our own individuality has, as its symptom,
the phenomenon of weeping, I now take up the thread of our discussion of
the ethical significance of action, in order to show how, from the same
source from which all goodness, love, virtue, and nobility of character
spring, there finally arises that which I call the denial of the will to
live.
We saw before that hatred and wickedness are conditioned by egoism, and
egoism rests on the entanglement of knowledge in the _principium
individuationis_. Thus we found that the penetration of that _principium
individuationis_ is the source and the nature of justice, and when it is
carried further, even to its fullest extent, it is the source and nature
of love and nobility of character. For this penetration alone, by
abolishing the distinction between our own individuality and that of
others, renders possible and explains perfect goodness of disposition,
extending to disinterested love and the most generous self-sacrifice for
others.
If, however, this penetration of the _principium individuationis_, this
direct knowledge of the identity of will in all its manifestations, is
present in a high degree of distinctness, it will at once show an
influence upon the will which extends still further. If that veil of Mâyâ,
the _principium individuationis_, is lifted from the eyes of a man to such
an extent that he no longer makes the egotistical distinction between his
person and that of others, but takes as much interest in the sufferings of
other individuals as in his own, and therefore is not only benevolent in
the highest degree, but even ready to sacrifice his own individuality
whenever such a sacrifice will save a number of other persons, then it
clearly follows that such a man, who recognises in all beings his own
inmost and true self, must also regard the infinite suffering of all
suffering beings as his own, and take on himself the pain of the whole
world. No suffering is any longer strange to him. All the miseries of
others which he sees and is so seldom able to alleviate, all the miseries
he knows directly, and even those which he only knows as possible, work
upon his mind like his own. It is no longer the changing joy and sorrow of
his own person that he has in view, as is the case with him who is still
involved in egoism; but, since he sees through the _principium
individuationis_, all lies equally near him. He knows the whole,
comprehends its nature, and finds that it consists in a constant passing
away, vain striving, inward conflict, and continual suffering. He sees
wherever he looks suffering humanity, the suffering brute creation, and a
world that passes away. But all this now lies as near him as his own
person lies to the egoist. Why should he now, with such knowledge of the
world, assert this very life through constant acts of will, and thereby
bind himself ever more closely to it, press it ever more firmly to
himself? Thus he who is still involved in the _principium
individuationis_, in egoism, only knows particular things and their
relation to his own person, and these constantly become new _motives_ of
his volition. But, on the other hand, that knowledge of the whole, of the
nature of the thing-in-itself which has been described, becomes a
_quieter_ of all and every volition. The will now turns away from life; it
now shudders at the pleasures in which it recognises the assertion of
life. Man now attains to the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation,
true indifference, and perfect will-lessness. If at times, in the hard
experience of our own suffering, or in the vivid recognition of that of
others, the knowledge of the vanity and bitterness of life draws nigh to
us also who are still wrapt in the veil of Mâyâ, and we would like to
destroy the sting of the desires, close the entrance against all
suffering, and purify and sanctify ourselves by complete and final
renunciation; yet the illusion of the phenomenon soon entangles us again,
and its motives influence the will anew; we cannot tear ourselves free.
The allurement of hope, the flattery of the present, the sweetness of
pleasure, the well-being which falls to our lot, amid the lamentations of
a suffering world governed by chance and error, draws us back to it and
rivets our bonds anew. Therefore Jesus says: “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.”
If we compare life to a course or path through which we must unceasingly
run—a path of red-hot coals, with a few cool places here and there; then
he who is entangled in delusion is consoled by the cool places, on which
he now stands, or which he sees near him, and sets out to run through the
course. But he who sees through the _principium individuationis_, and
recognises the real nature of the thing-in-itself, and thus the whole, is
no longer susceptible of such consolation; he sees himself in all places
at once, and withdraws. His will turns round, no longer asserts its own
nature, which is reflected in the phenomenon, but denies it. The
phenomenon by which this change is marked, is the transition from virtue
to asceticism. That is to say, it no longer suffices for such a man to
love others as himself, and to do as much for them as for himself; but
there arises within him a horror of the nature of which his own phenomenal
existence is an expression, the will to live, the kernel and inner nature
of that world which is recognised as full of misery. He therefore disowns
this nature which appears in him, and is already expressed through his
body, and his action gives the lie to his phenomenal existence, and
appears in open contradiction to it. Essentially nothing else but a
manifestation of will, he ceases to will anything, guards against
attaching his will to anything, and seeks to confirm in himself the
greatest indifference to everything. His body, healthy and strong,
expresses through the genitals, the sexual impulse; but he denies the will
and gives the lie to the body; he desires no sensual gratification under
any condition. Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step in
asceticism or the denial of the will to live. It thereby denies the
assertion of the will which extends beyond the individual life, and gives
the assurance that with the life of this body, the will, whose
manifestation it is, ceases. Nature, always true and naïve, declares that
if this maxim became universal, the human race would die out; and I think
I may assume, in accordance with what was said in the Second Book about
the connection of all manifestations of will, that with its highest
manifestation, the weaker reflection of it would also pass away, as the
twilight vanishes along with the full light. With the entire abolition of
knowledge, the rest of the world would of itself vanish into nothing; for
without a subject there is no object. I should like here to refer to a
passage in the Vedas, where it is said: “As in this world hungry infants
press round their mother; so do all beings await the holy oblation.”
(Asiatic Researches, vol. viii.; Colebrooke, On the Vedas, Abstract of the
Sama-Veda; also in Colebrooke’s Miscellaneous Essays, vol. i. p. 79.)
Sacrifice means resignation generally, and the rest of nature must look
for its salvation to man who is at once the priest and the sacrifice.
Indeed it deserves to be noticed as very remarkable, that this thought has
also been expressed by the admirable and unfathomably profound Angelus
Silesius, in the little poem entitled, “Man brings all to God;” it runs,
“Man! all loves thee; around thee great is the throng. All things flee to
thee that they may attain to God.” But a yet greater mystic, Meister
Eckhard, whose wonderful writings are at last accessible (1857) through
the edition of Franz Pfeiffer, says the same thing (p. 459) quite in the
sense explained here: “I bear witness to the saying of Christ. I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, will draw all things unto me (John xii. 32). So
shall the good man draw all things up to God, to the source whence they
first came. The Masters certify to us that all creatures are made for the
sake of man. This is proved in all created things, by the fact that the
one makes the use of the other; the ox makes use of the grass, the fish of
the water, the bird of the air, the wild beast of the forest. Thus, all
created things become of use to the good man. A good man brings to God the
one created thing in the other.” He means to say, that man makes use of
the brutes in this life because, in and with himself, he saves them also.
It also seems to me that that difficult passage in the Bible, Rom. viii.
21-24, must be interpreted in this sense.
In Buddhism also, there is no lack of expressions of this truth. For
example, when Buddha, still as Bodisatwa, has his horse saddled for the
last time, for his flight into the wilderness from his father’s house, he
says these lines to the horse: “Long hast thou existed in life and in
death, but now thou shalt cease from carrying and drawing. Bear me but
this once more, O Kantakana, away from here, and when I have attained to
the Law (have become Buddha) I will not forget thee” (Foe Koue Ki, trad.
p. Abel Rémusat, p. 233).
Asceticism then shows itself further in voluntary and intentional poverty,
which not only arises _per accidens_, because the possessions are given
away to mitigate the sufferings of others, but is here an end in itself,
is meant to serve as a constant mortification of will, so that the
satisfaction of the wishes, the sweet of life, shall not again arouse the
will, against which self-knowledge has conceived a horror. He who has
attained to this point, still always feels, as a living body, as concrete
manifestation of will, the natural disposition for every kind of volition;
but he intentionally suppresses it, for he compels himself to refrain from
doing all that he would like to do, and to do all that he would like not
to do, even if this has no further end than that of serving as a
mortification of will. Since he himself denies the will which appears in
his own person, he will not resist if another does the same, _i.e._,
inflicts wrongs upon him. Therefore every suffering coming to him from
without, through chance or the wickedness of others, is welcome to him,
every injury, ignominy, and insult; he receives them gladly as the
opportunity of learning with certainty that he no longer asserts the will,
but gladly sides with every enemy of the manifestation of will which is
his own person. Therefore he bears such ignominy and suffering with
inexhaustible patience and meekness, returns good for evil without
ostentation, and allows the fire of anger to rise within him just as
little as that of the desires. And he mortifies not only the will itself,
but also its visible form, its objectivity, the body. He nourishes it
sparingly, lest its excessive vigour and prosperity should animate and
excite more strongly the will, of which it is merely the expression and
the mirror. So he practises fasting, and even resorts to chastisement and
self-inflicted torture, in order that, by constant privation and
suffering, he may more and more break down and destroy the will, which he
recognises and abhors as the source of his own suffering existence and
that of the world. If at last death comes, which puts an end to this
manifestation of that will, whose existence here has long since perished
through free-denial of itself, with the exception of the weak residue of
it which appears as the life of this body; it is most welcome, and is
gladly received as a longed-for deliverance. Here it is not, as in the
case of others, merely the manifestation which ends with death; but the
inner nature itself is abolished, which here existed only in the
manifestation, and that in a very weak degree;(84) this last slight bond
is now broken. For him who thus ends, the world has ended also.
And what I have here described with feeble tongue and only in general
terms, is no philosophical fable, invented by myself, and only of to-day;
no, it was the enviable life of so many saints and beautiful souls among
Christians, and still more among Hindus and Buddhists, and also among the
believers of other religions. However different were the dogmas impressed
on their reason, the same inward, direct, intuitive knowledge, from which
alone all virtue and holiness proceed, expressed itself in precisely the
same way in the conduct of life. For here also the great distinction
between intuitive and abstract knowledge shows itself; a distinction which
is of such importance and universal application in our whole
investigation, and which has hitherto been too little attended to. There
is a wide gulf between the two, which can only be crossed by the aid of
philosophy, as regards the knowledge of the nature of the world.
Intuitively or _in concreto_, every man is really conscious of all
philosophical truths, but to bring them to abstract knowledge, to
reflection, is the work of philosophy, which neither ought nor is able to
do more than this.