The World as Will and Idea Volume II Part 18

7 See _s.e.xt. Empir. Pyrrhon. hypotyp._, lib. i. c. 13, ????e?a fa???e???? a?tet??? ??a?a???a? (intelligibilia apparentibus opposuit Anaxagoras).

8 That the a.s.sumption of a limit of the world in time is certainly not a necessary thought of the reason may be also proved historically, for the Hindus teach nothing of the kind, even in the religion of the people, much less in the Vedas, but try to express mythologically by means of monstrous chronology the infinity of this phenomenal world, this fleeting and baseless web of Maya, for they at once bring out very ingeniously the relativity of all periods of time in the following mythus (Polier, _Mythologie des Indous_, vol.

ii. p. 585). The four ages, in the last of which we live, embrace together 4,320,000 years. Each day of the creating Brahma has 1000 such periods of four ages, and his nights have also 1000. His year has 365 days and as many nights. He lives 100 of his years, always creating; and if he dies, at once a new Brahma is born, and so on from eternity to eternity. The same relativity of time is also expressed in the special myth which is quoted in Polier's work, vol.

ii. p. 594, from the Puranas. In it a Rajah, after a visit of a few seconds to Vishnu in his heaven, finds on his return to earth that several millions of years have elapsed, and a new age has begun; for every day of Vishnu is 100 recurrences of the four ages.

9 Kant said, "It is very absurd to expect enlightenment from reason, and yet to prescribe to her beforehand which side she must necessarily take" ("Critique of Pure Reason," p. 747; V. 775). On the other hand, the following is the naive a.s.sertion of a professor of philosophy in our own time: "If a philosophy denies the reality of the fundamental ideas of Christianity, it is either false, or, _even if true, it is yet useless_." That is to say, for professors of philosophy. It was the late Professor Bachmann who, in the Jena _Litteraturzeitung_ for July 1840, No. 126, so indiscreetly blurted out the maxim of all his colleagues. However, it is worth noticing, as regards the characteristics of the University philosophy, how here the truth, if it will not suit and adapt itself, is shown the door without ceremony, with, "Be off, truth! we cannot make _use_ of you. Do we owe you anything? Do you pay us? Then be off!"

10 By the way, Machiavelli's problem was the solution of the question how the prince, _as a prince_, was to keep himself on the throne in spite of internal and external enemies. His problem was thus by no means the ethical problem whether a prince, as a man, ought to will such things, but purely the political one how, if he so wills, he can carry it out. And the solution of this problem he gives just as one writes directions for playing chess, with which it would be folly to mix up the answer to the question whether from an ethical point of view it is advisable to play chess at all. To reproach Machiavelli with the immorality of his writing is just the same as to reproach a fencing-master because he does not begin his instructions with a moral lecture against murder and slaughter.

11 Although the conception of legal right is properly negative in opposition to that of wrong, which is the positive starting-point, yet the explanation of these conceptions must not on this account be entirely negative.

12 I specially recommend here the pa.s.sage in Lichtenberg's "Miscellaneous Writings" (Gothingen, 1801, vol. ii. p. 12): "Euler says, in his letters upon various subjects in connection with natural science (vol. ii. p. 228), that it would thunder and lighten just as well if there were no man present whom the lightning might strike. It is a very common expression, but I must confess that it has never been easy for me completely to comprehend it. It always seems to me as if the conception _being_ were something derived from our thought, and thus, if there are no longer any sentient and thinking creatures, then there is nothing more whatever."

13 Lichtenberg says in his "_Nachrichten und Bemerkungen von und uber sich selbst_" (_Vermischte Schriften, Gottingen_, 1800, vol. i. p.

43): "I am extremely sensitive to all noise, but it entirely loses its disagreeable character as soon as it is a.s.sociated with a rational purpose."

14 That the three-toed sloth has nine must be regarded as a mistake; yet Owen still states this, "_Osteologie Comp._," p. 405.

15 This, however, does not excuse a professor of philosophy who, sitting in Kant's chair, expresses himself thus: "That mathematics as such contains arithmetic and geometry is correct. It is incorrect, however, to conceive arithmetic as the science of time, really for no other reason than to give a pendant (_sic_) to geometry as the science of s.p.a.ce" (Rosenkranz in the "_Deutschen Museum_," 1857, May 14, No. 20). This is the fruit of Hegelism. If the mind is once thoroughly debauched with its senseless jargon, serious Kantian philosophy will no longer enter it. The audacity to talk at random about what one does not understand has been inherited from the master, and one comes in the end to condemn without ceremony the fundamental teaching of a great genius in a tone of peremptory decision, just as if it were Hegelian foolery. We must not, however, fail to notice that these little people struggle to escape from the track of great thinkers. They would therefore have done better not to attack Kant, but to content themselves with giving their public full details about G.o.d, the soul, the actual freedom of the will, and whatever belongs to that sort of thing, and then to have indulged in a private luxury in their dark back-shop, the philosophical journal; there they may do whatever they like without constraint, for no one sees it.

16 This chapter, along with the one which follows it, is connected with -- 8 and 9 of the first book.

17 Illgen's "_Zeitschrift fur Historische Theologie_," 1839, part i, p.

182.

_ 18 Gall et Spurzheim_, "_Des Dispositions Innees_," 1811, p. 253.

19 This chapter is connected with -- 12 of the first volume.

20 This chapter is connected with -- 13 of the first volume.

21 This chapter and the one which follows it are connected with -- 9 of the first volume.

22 This chapter is connected with the conclusion of -- 9 of the first volume.

23 This chapter is connected with -- 14 of the first volume.

24 A princ.i.p.al use of the study of the ancients is that it preserves us from _verbosity_; for the ancients always take pains to write concisely and pregnantly, and the error of almost all moderns is verbosity, which the most recent try to make up for by suppressing syllables and letters. Therefore we ought to pursue the study of the ancients all our life, although reducing the time devoted to it. The ancients knew that we ought not to write as we speak. The moderns, on the other hand, are not even ashamed to print lectures they have delivered.

25 This chapter is connected with -- 15 of the first volume.

26 This chapter is connected with -- 16 of the first volume.

27 This chapter is connected with -- 15 of the first volume.

28 [Bayard Taylor's translation of Faust, vol. i. 180. Trs.]

29 This chapter is connected with -- 18 of the first volume.

30 This chapter is connected with -- 19 of the first volume.

31 It is remarkable that Augustine already knew this. In the fourteenth book, "_De Civ. Dei_," c. 6, he speaks of the _affectionibus animi_, which in the preceding book he had brought under four categories, _cupiditas_, _timor_, _laet.i.tia_, _trist.i.tia_, and says: "_Voluntas est quippe in omnibus, imo omnes nihil aliud, quam voluntates sunt: nam quid est cupiditas et laet.i.tia, nisi voluntas in eorum consensionem, quae volumus? et quid est metus atque trist.i.tia, nisi voluntas in dissensionem ab his, quae nolumus? cet._"

32 By those who place mind and learning above all other human qualities this man will be reckoned the greatest of his century. But by those who let virtue take precedence of everything else his memory can never be execrated enough. He was the cruelest of the citizens in persecuting, putting to death, and banishing.

33 The _Times_ of 18th October 1845; from the _Athenaeum_.

34 This chapter is connected with -- 20 of the first volume.

_ 35 Spallanzani, Risultati di esperienze sopra la riproduzione della testa nelle lumache terrestri_: in the _Memorie di matematica e fisica della Societa Italiana_, Tom. i. p. 581. _Voltaire, Les colimacons du reverend pere l'escarbotier_.

36 Cf. Ch. 22.

_ 37 __Tout ce qui est relatif a l'entendement appartient a la vie animale,__ __ dit Bichat, et jusque-la point de doute; __ __tout ce qui est relatif aux pa.s.sions appartient a la vie organique,__ __-et ceci est absolument faux._ Indeed!-_decrevit Florentius magnus_.