The volume now before the reader is a tardy addition to a series in
which I have endeavoured to present Schopenhauer's minor writings in
an adequate form.
Its contents are drawn entirely from his posthumous papers. A
selection of them was given to the world some three of four years
after his death by his friend and literary executor, Julius
Frauenstädt, who for this and other offices of piety, has received
less recognition than he deserves. The papers then published have
recently been issued afresh, with considerable additions and
corrections, by Dr. Eduard Grisebach, who is also entitled to
gratitude for the care with which he has followed the text of the
manuscripts, now in the Royal Library at Berlin, and for having drawn
attention--although in terms that are unnecessarily severe--to a
number of faults and failings on the part of the previous editor.
The fact that all Schopenhauer's works, together with a volume of his
correspondence, may now be obtained in a certain cheap collection of
the best national and foreign literature displayed in almost every
bookshop in Germany, is sufficient evidence that in his own country
the writer's popularity is still very great; nor does the demand for
translations indicate that his fame has at all diminished abroad. The
favour with which the new edition of his posthumous papers has been
received induces me, therefore, to resume a task which I thought, five
years ago, that I had finally completed; and it is my intention to
bring out one more volume, selected partly from these papers and
partly from his _Parerga_.
A small part of the essay on _The Art of Controversy_ was published in
Schopenhauer's lifetime, in the chapter of the _Parerga_ headed _Zur
Logik und Dialektik_. The intelligent reader will discover that a good
deal of its contents is of an ironical character. As regards the last
three essays I must observe that I have omitted such passages
as appear to be no longer of any general interest or otherwise
unsuitable. I must also confess to having taken one or two liberties
with the titles, in order that they may the more effectively fulfil
the purpose for which titles exist. In other respects I have adhered
to the original with the kind of fidelity which aims at producing
an impression as nearly as possible similar to that produced by the
original.