HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Schopenhauer is not one of the philosophers who have founded a school,
though he has had many disciples and enthusiastic admirers. The
pessimism that was for a time a watchword with certain literary groups
has passed as a mode, and his true significance must be sought
elsewhere. Of the thinkers who have followed him in his pessimism, two
indeed stand out as the architects of distinct systems, Eduard von
Hartmann and Philipp Mainlaender (both already incidentally referred to);
but while they are to be classed unquestionably as philosophers, their
systems contain an element that their master would have regarded as
mythological. Schopenhauer declared as clearly as any of the Greeks that
the phenomenal world is without beginning and without end. Kant's
positing of an 'antinomy' on this point he regarded as wholly without
rational justification. What Kant calls the 'antithesis,' namely, the
infinite series, can be logically proved for phenomena. The 'thesis,'
which asserts a beginning in time, is defended by mere fallacies. Now
Hartmann and Mainlaender both hold, though in different fashions, that
there is a world-process from a beginning to an end, namely, the
extinction of consciousness. This is the redemption of the world. Their
affinity, therefore, seems to be with the Christian Gnostics rather than
with the pure philosophers of the Greek tradition, continued in modern
times by Bruno, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer.
Whatever may be thought of the pessimism by which Schopenhauer's mood is
distinguished from that of his precursors, few will fail to recognise
that special doctrines of his system contain at least a large portion of
truth. His theories of Art, of Genius, and of Love are enough to found
an enduring reputation for any thinker, even if there were nothing else
of value in his writings. But there is much else, both in systematic
construction and in the illumination of detail. I have been inclined to
put forward first of all the translation into idealistic terms of the
universal sentiency held by the Ionian thinkers to be inherent in the
primordial elements of nature. While they viewed the world as an
objective thing having psychological qualities, Schopenhauer, after the
long intermediate process of thought, could treat it as phenomenal
object with a psychological or subjective essence. For both doctrines
alike, however, mind or soul is immanent. Still, it must be allowed that
a difference remains by which Schopenhauer was even more remote than
they were from the later Greek idealism. As they were not materialists,
so they did not exclude reason from the psychical properties of their
substances. Schopenhauer, while he rejected the materialism of their
ancient and modern successors alike, took the step of formally
derationalising the elements of mind. This, no doubt, is unsustainable
ultimately, if reason is ever to emerge from them. Yet the one-sidedness
of the position has had a peculiar value in combating an equally
one-sided rationalistic idealism. This is recognised by clear-sighted
opponents. And Schopenhauer's calling the non-rational or anti-rational
element in the world 'will' helps to make plainer the real problem of
evil. There is truth in the Hegelian paradox that 'pessimism is an
excellent basis for optimism.' An optimist like Plotinus saw that, even
if good comes of evil, the case of the optimist must fail unless evil
can be shown to be a necessary constituent of the world. The Platonic
and Neo-Platonic 'matter,' a principle of diremption or individuation,
like time and space for Schopenhauer, was an attempt to solve this
problem; but something more positive seemed to be needed as the source
of the stronger manifestations of evil. To the strength of these Plato
drew attention in a passage (_Republic_, x. 610[5]) where it is
acknowledged that injustice confers a character of vitality and
sleeplessness upon its possessor. In the notion of a blind and vehement
striving, Schopenhauer supplies something adequate; only, to maintain a
rational optimism, it must be regarded as a necessary element in a
mixture, not as the spring of the whole.
[5] Cited in one of the introductory essays to Jowett and Campbell's
edition, vol. ii.
Much might be said on the teleology by which he tries to educe
intelligence from the primordial strife. Against his view, that it is
evolved as a mere instrument for preserving races in a struggle, another
may be set that is ready to hand in a dialogue of Plutarch.[6] The
struggle among animals, it is there incidentally argued, has for its end
to sharpen their intelligence. Both these theories are on the surface
compatible with evolution. If, leaving aside the problem of mechanism,
we try to verify them by the test of results, the latter undoubtedly
seems the more plausible. For if the struggle was a means to the
improvement of intelligence, nature has succeeded more and more;
whereas, if her intention was to preserve races, she has continually
failed. This argument is at any rate perfectly valid against
Schopenhauer himself; for he holds in common with the optimistic
teleologists that 'nature does nothing in vain.'
[6] _De Sollertia Animalium_, 27.
I will conclude with a few detached criticisms on the ethical doctrine
which he regarded as the culmination of his system. The antithesis, it
may first be noted, between the temporary release from the vehemence of
the will that is gained through art, and the permanent release through
asceticism, is not consistently maintained. Schopenhauer admits that the
knowledge which for the ascetic is the 'quietive' of the will has to be
won anew in a perpetual conflict. 'No one can have enduring rest on
earth.' Again, revision of his doctrine concerning the reality of the
individual would, I think, necessitate revision also of the position
that not only asceticism but 'all true and pure love, nay, even freely
rendered justice, proceeds from seeing through the _principium
individuationis_.' If the individual is in some sense ultimately real,
then love must be to a certain extent literally altruism. We are brought
down to the elementary fact, in terms of the metaphysics of ethics, that
the object of love is a real being that is itself and not ourselves,
though having some resemblance to us and united in a larger whole. An
objection not merely verbal might indeed be taken to Schopenhauer's
metaphysics of ethics strictly on his own ground. If it is purely and
simply the essence of ourselves that we recognise in everything, does
not this reduce all love finally to a well-understood egoism? The
genuine fact of sympathy seems to escape his mode of formulation. And,
in the end, we shall perhaps not find the ascetic to be the supreme
ethical type. Of the self-tormenting kind of asceticism, it is not
enough to say with Schopenhauer that, since it is a world-wide
phenomenon of human nature, it calls for some account from philosophy.
The account may be sufficiently rendered by historical psychology; the
result being to class it as an aberration born of the illusions incident
to a certain type of mind at a certain stage. Indeed, that seems to be
the conclusion of the Buddhists, who claim to have transcended it by
finding it superfluous for the end it aims at. Let us then take, as our
example of the completed type, not the monks of the Thebaid, but the
mild ascetics of the Buddhist communities. Does not this type, even in
its most attractive form, represent a 'second best'? Is not the final
judgment that of Plato, that to save oneself is something, but that
there is no full achievement unless for the life of the State also the
ideal has been brought nearer realisation? When there is nothing in the
world but irredeemable tyranny or anarchy, flight from it may be the
greatest success possible as far as the individual life is concerned;
but this is not the normal condition of humanity. Finally, may not some
actual achievement, either practical or, like that of Schopenhauer,
speculative, even if accompanied by real imperfections of character,
possess a higher human value than the sanctity that rests always in
itself?
SELECTED WORKS
_English Translations_
_The World as Will and Idea._ Translated by R. B. HALDANE and J. KEMP. 3
vols. 1883-6.
_Two Essays_: I. _On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient
Reason_. II. _On the Will in Nature_. Bohn's Philosophical Library,
1889.
_Religion: A Dialogue, and other Essays._ Selected and translated by T.
BAILEY SAUNDERS. 3rd ed., 1891. [A series of other volumes of
selections excellently translated by Mr. Saunders has followed.]
_Selected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer._ With a Biographical
Introduction and Sketch of his Philosophy. By E. BELFORT BAX. 1891.
_The Basis of Morality._ Translated with Introduction and Notes by A. B.
BULLOCK. 1903.
_Biographical and Expository_
_Arthur Schopenhauer: His Life and Philosophy._ By HELEN ZIMMERN. 1876.
_Life of Arthur Schopenhauer._ By Professor W. WALLACE. 1890.
_La Philosophie de Schopenhauer._ Par TH. RIBOT. 2nd ed., 1885.
_Arthur Schopenhauer._ Seine Persoenlichkeit, seine Lehre, sein Glaube.
Von JOHANNAES VOLKELT. 3rd ed., 1907.
_Schopenhauer-Lexikon._ Von JULIUS FRADENSTAeDT. 2 vols., 1871.
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh
University Press