The World as Will and Idea Volume III Part 7

_What reason is to the individual that is history to the human race._ By virtue of reason, man is not, like the brute, limited to the narrow, perceptible present, but also knows the incomparably more extended past, with which it is linked, and out of which it has proceeded; and only thus has he a proper understanding of the present itself, and can even draw inferences as to the future. The brute, on the other hand, whose knowledge, devoid of reflection, is on this account limited to the present, even when it is tamed, moves about among men ignorant, dull, stupid, helpless, and dependent. a.n.a.logous to this is the nation that does not know its own history, is limited to the present of the now living generation, and therefore does not understand itself and its own present, because it cannot connect it with a past, and explain it from this; still less can it antic.i.p.ate the future. Only through history does a nation become completely conscious of itself. Accordingly history is to be regarded as the rational consciousness of the human race, and is to the race what the reflected and connected consciousness is to the individual who is conditioned by reason, a consciousness through the want of which the brute is confined to the narrow, perceptible present. Therefore every gap in history is like a gap in the recollective self-consciousness of a man; and in the presence of a monument of ancient times which has outlived the knowledge of itself, as, for example, the Pyramids, or temples and palaces in Yucatan, we stand as senseless and stupid as the brute in the presence of the action of man, in which it is implicated in his service; or as a man before something written in an old cipher of his own, the key to which he has forgotten; nay, like a somnambulist who finds before him in the morning what he has done in his sleep. In this sense, then, history is to be regarded as the reason, or the reflected consciousness, of the human race, and takes the place of an immediate self-consciousness common to the whole race, so that only by virtue of it does the human race come to be a whole, come to be a humanity. This is the true value of history, and accordingly the universal and predominating interest in it depends princ.i.p.ally upon the fact that it is a personal concern of the human race.

Now, what language is for the reason of individuals, as an indispensable condition of its use, writing is for the reason of the whole race here pointed out; for only with this does its real existence begin, as that of the individual reason begins first with language. Writing serves to restore unity to the consciousness of the human race, which is constantly interrupted by death, and therefore fragmentary; so that the thought which has arisen in the ancestor is thought out by his remote descendant; it finds a remedy for the breaking up of the human race and its consciousness into an innumerable number of ephemeral individuals, and so bids defiance to the ever hurrying time, in whose hand goes forgetfulness. As an attempt to accomplish this we must regard not only written, but also _stone_ monuments, which in part are older than the former. For who will believe that those who, at incalculable cost, set in action the human powers of many thousands for many years in order to construct the pyramids, monoliths, rock tombs, obelisks, temples, and palaces which have already existed for thousands of years, could have had in view the short span of their own life, too short to let them see the finishing of the construction, or even the ostensible end which the ignorance of the many required them to allege? Clearly their real end was to speak to their latest descendants, to put themselves in connection with these, and so to establish the unity of the consciousness of humanity. The buildings of the Hindus, the Egyptians, even the Greeks and Romans, were calculated to last several thousand years, because through higher culture their horizon was a wider one; while the buildings of the Middle Ages and of modern times have only been intended, at the most, to last a few centuries; which, however, is also due to the fact that men trusted more to writing after its use had become general, and still more since from its womb was born the art of printing. Yet even in the buildings of more recent times we see the desire to speak to posterity; and, therefore, it is shameful if they are destroyed or disfigured in order to serve low utilitarian ends. Written monuments have less to fear from the elements, but more to fear from barbarians, than stone ones; they accomplish far more. The Egyptians wished to combine the two, for they covered their stone monuments with hieroglyphics, nay, they added paintings in case the hieroglyphics should no longer be understood.

Chapter x.x.xIX.(25) On The Metaphysics Of Music.

The outcome, or result, of my exposition of the peculiar significance of this wonderful art, which is given in the pa.s.sage of the first volume referred to below, and which will here be present to the mind of the reader, was, that there is indeed no resemblance between its productions and the world as idea, _i.e._, the world of nature, but yet there must be a distinct _parallelism_, which was then also proved. I have yet to add some fuller particulars with regard to this parallelism, which are worthy of attention.

The four voices, or parts, of all harmony, the ba.s.s, the tenor, the alto, and the soprana, or the fundamental note, the third, the fifth, and the octave, correspond to the four grades in the series of existences, the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the brute kingdom, and man. This receives an additional and striking confirmation in the fundamental rule of music, that the ba.s.s must be at a much greater distance below the three upper parts than they have between themselves; so that it must never approach nearer to them than at the most within an octave of them, and generally remains still further below them. Hence, then, the correct triad has its place in the third octave from the fundamental note. Accordingly the effect of _extended_ harmony, in which the ba.s.s is widely separated from the other parts, is much more powerful and beautiful than that of _close_ harmony, in which it is moved up nearer to them, and which is only introduced on account of the limited compa.s.s of the instruments. This whole rule, however, is by no means arbitrary, but has its root in the natural source of the tonal system; for the nearest consonant intervals that sound along with the fundamental note by means of its vibrations are the octave and its fifth. Now, in this rule we recognise the a.n.a.logue of the fundamental characteristic of nature on account of which organised beings are much more nearly related to each other than to the inanimate, unorganised ma.s.s of the mineral kingdom, between which and them exists the most definite boundary and the widest gulf in the whole of nature. The fact that the high voice which sings the melody is yet also an integral part of the harmony, and therein accords even with the deepest fundamental ba.s.s, may be regarded as the a.n.a.logue of the fact that _the same_ matter which in a human organism is the supporter of the Idea of man must yet also exhibit and support the Ideas of gravitation and chemical qualities, that is, of the lowest grades of the objectification of will.

That music acts directly upon the will, _i.e._, the feelings, pa.s.sions, and emotions of the hearer, so that it quickly raises them or changes them, may be explained from the fact that, unlike all the other arts, it does not express the Ideas, or grades of the objectification of the will, but directly the _will itself_.

As surely as music, far from being a mere accessory of poetry, is an independent art, nay, the most powerful of all the arts, and therefore attains its ends entirely with means of its own, so surely does it not stand in need of the words of the song or the action of an opera. Music as such knows the tones or notes alone, but not the causes which produce these. Accordingly, for it even the human voice is originally and essentially nothing else than a modified tone, just like that of an instrument; and, like every other tone, it has the special advantages and disadvantages which are a consequence of the instrument that produces it.

Now, in this case, that this same instrument, as the organ of speech, also serves to communicate conceptions is an accidental circ.u.mstance, which music can certainly also make use of, in order to enter into a connection with poetry; but it must never make this the princ.i.p.al matter, and concern itself entirely with the expression of what for the most part, nay (as Diderot gives us to understand in _Le Neveu de Rameau_), essentially are insipid verses. The words are and remain for the music a foreign addition, of subordinate value, for the effect of the tones is incomparably more powerful, more infallible, and quicker than that of the words. Therefore, if words become incorporated in music, they must yet a.s.sume an entirely subordinate position, and adapt themselves completely to it. But the relation appears reversed in the case of the given poetry, thus the song or the libretto of an opera to which music is adapted. For the art of music at once shows in these its power and higher fitness, disclosing the most profound ultimate and secret significance of the feeling expressed in the words or the action presented in the opera, giving utterance to their peculiar and true nature, and teaching us the inmost soul of the actions and events whose mere clothing and body is set before us on the stage.

With regard to this superiority of the music, and also because it stands to the libretto and the action in the relation of the universal to the particular, of the rule to the example, it might perhaps appear more fitting that the libretto should be written for the music than that the music should be composed for the libretto. However, in the customary method, the words and actions of the libretto lead the composer to the affections of the will which lie at their foundation, and call up in him the feelings to be expressed; they act, therefore, as a means of exciting his musical imagination. Moreover, that the addition of poetry to music is so welcome to us, and a song with intelligible words gives us such deep satisfaction, depends upon the fact that in this way our most direct and most indirect ways of knowing are called into play at once and in connection. The most direct is that for which music expresses the emotions of the will itself, and the most indirect that of conceptions denoted by words. When the language of the feelings is in question the reason does not willingly sit entirely idle. Music is certainly able with the means at its own disposal to express every movement of the will, every feeling; but by the addition of words we receive besides this the objects of these feelings, the motives which occasion them. The music of an opera, as it is presented in the score, has a completely independent, separate, and, as it were, abstract existence for itself, to which the incidents and persons of the piece are foreign, and which follows its own unchanging rules; therefore it can produce its full effect without the libretto. But this music, since it was composed with reference to the drama, is, as it were, the soul of the latter; for, in its connection with the incidents, persons, and words, it becomes the expression of the inner significance of all those incidents, and of their ultimate and secret necessity which depends upon this significance. The pleasure of the spectator, unless he is a mere gaper, really depends upon an indistinct feeling of this. Yet in the opera music also shows its heterogeneous nature and higher reality by its entire indifference to the whole material of the incidents; in consequence of which it everywhere expresses the storm of the pa.s.sions and the pathos of the feelings in the same way, and its tones accompany the piece with the same pomp, whether Agamemnon and Achilles or the dissensions of a bourgeois family form its material. For only the pa.s.sions, the movements of the will, exist for it, and, like G.o.d, it sees only the hearts. It never a.s.similates itself to the natural; and therefore, even when it accompanies the most ludicrous and extravagant farces of the comic opera, it still preserves its essential beauty, purity, and sublimity; and its fusion with these incidents is unable to draw it down from its height, to which all absurdity is really foreign.

Thus the profound and serious significance of our existence hangs over the farce and the endless miseries of human life, and never leaves it for a moment.

If we now cast a glance at purely instrumental music, a symphony of Beethoven presents to us the greatest confusion, which yet has the most perfect order at its foundation, the most vehement conflict, which is transformed the next moment into the most beautiful concord. It is _rerum concordia discors_, a true and perfect picture of the nature of the world which rolls on in the boundless maze of innumerable forms, and through constant destruction supports itself. But in this symphony all human pa.s.sions and emotions also find utterance; joy, sorrow, love, hatred, terror, hope, &c., in innumerable degrees, yet all, as it were, only _in abstracto_, and without any particularisation; it is their mere form without the substance, like a spirit world without matter. Certainly we have a tendency to realise them while we listen, to clothe them in imagination with flesh and bones, and to see in them scenes of life and nature on every hand. Yet, taken generally, this is not required for their comprehension or enjoyment, but rather imparts to them a foreign and arbitrary addition: therefore it is better to apprehend them in their immediacy and purity.

Since now, in the foregoing remarks, and also in the text, I have considered music only from the metaphysical side, that is, with reference to the inner significance of its performances, it is right that I should now also subject to a general consideration the means by which, acting upon our mind, it brings these about; therefore that I should show the connection of that metaphysical side of music, and the physical side, which has been fully investigated, and is well known, I start from the theory which is generally known, and has by no means been shaken by recent objections, that all harmony of the notes depends upon the coincidence of their vibrations, which when two notes sound together occurs perhaps at every second, or at every third, or at every fourth vibration, according to which, then, they are the octave, the fifth, or the fourth of each other, and so on. So long as the vibrations of two notes have a rational relation to each other, which can be expressed in small numbers, they can be connected together in our apprehension through their constantly recurring coincidence: the notes become blended, and are thereby in consonance. If, on the other hand, that relation is an irrational one, or one which can only be expressed in larger numbers, then no coincidence of the vibrations which can be apprehended occurs, but _obstrepunt sibi perpetuo_, whereby they resist being joined together in our apprehension, and accordingly are called a dissonance. Now, according to this theory, music is a means of making rational and irrational relations of numbers comprehensible, not like arithmetic by the help of the concept, but by bringing them to a knowledge which is perfectly directly and simultaneously sensible. Now the connection of the metaphysical significance of music with this its physical and arithmetical basis depends upon the fact that what resists our _apprehension_, the irrational relation, or the dissonance, becomes the natural type of what resists our _will_; and, conversely, the consonance, or the rational relation, which easily adapts itself to our apprehension, becomes the type of the satisfaction of the will. And further, since that rational and irrational element in the numerical relations of the vibrations admits of innumerable degrees, shades of difference, sequences, and variations, by means of it music becomes the material in which all the movements of the human heart, _i.e._, of the will, movements whose essential nature is always satisfaction and dissatisfaction, although in innumerable degrees, can be faithfully portrayed and rendered in all their finest shades and modifications, which takes place by means of the invention of the melody.

Thus we see here the movements of the will transferred to the province of the mere idea, which is the exclusive scene of the achievements of the fine arts, for they absolutely demand that the _will itself_ shall not interfere, and that we shall conduct ourselves as pure _knowing_ subjects.

Therefore the affections of the will itself, thus actual pain and actual pleasure, must not be excited, but only their subst.i.tutes, that which is agreeable to _the intellect_, as a _picture_ of the satisfaction of the will, and that which is more or less repugnant to it, as a _picture_ of greater or less pain. Only thus does music never cause us actual sorrow, but even in its most melancholy strains is still pleasing, and we gladly hear in its language the secret history of our will, and all its emotions and strivings, with their manifold protractions, hindrances, and griefs, even in the saddest melodies. When, on the other hand, in reality and its terrors, it is our _will itself_ that is roused and tormented, we have not then to do with tones and their numerical relations, but are rather now ourselves the trembling string that is stretched and tw.a.n.ged.

But, further, because, in consequence of the physical theory which lies at its foundation, the musical quality of the notes is in the proportion of the rapidity of their vibrations, but not in their relative strength, the musical ear always follows by preference, in harmony, the highest note, not the loudest. Therefore, even in the case of the most powerful orchestral accompaniment, the soprano comes out clearly, and thus receives a natural right to deliver the melody. And this is also supported by its great flexibility, which depends upon the same rapidity of the vibrations, and shows itself in the ornate pa.s.sages, whereby the soprano becomes the suitable representative of the heightened sensibility, susceptible to the slightest impression, and determinable by it, consequently of the most highly developed consciousness standing on the uppermost stage of the scale of being. Its opposite, from converse causes, is the ba.s.s, inflexible, rising and falling only in great intervals, thirds, fourths, and fifths, and also at every step guided by rigid rules. It is therefore the natural representative of the inorganic kingdom of nature, which is insensible, insusceptible to fine impressions, and only determinable according to general laws. It must indeed never rise by one tone, for example, from a fourth to a fifth, for this produces in the upper parts the incorrect consecutive fifths and octaves; therefore, originally and in its own nature, it can never present the melody. If, however, the melody is a.s.signed to it, this happens by means of counterpoint, _i.e._, it is an _inverted_ ba.s.s-one of the upper parts is lowered and disguised as a ba.s.s; properly speaking, it then requires a second fundamental ba.s.s as its accompaniment. This unnaturalness of a melody lying in the ba.s.s is the reason why ba.s.s airs, with full accompaniment, never afford us pure, undisturbed pleasure, like the soprano air, which, in the connection of harmony, is alone natural. We may remark in pa.s.sing that such a melodious ba.s.s, forcibly obtained by inversion, might, in keeping with our metaphysic of music, be compared to a block of marble to which the human form has been imparted: and therefore it is wonderfully suitable to the stone guest in "Don Juan."

But now we shall try to get somewhat nearer the foundation of the genesis of melody, which can be accomplished by a.n.a.lysing it into its const.i.tuent parts, and in any case will afford us the pleasure which arises from bringing to abstract and distinct consciousness what every one knows in the concrete, so that it gains the appearance of novelty.

Melody consists of two elements, the one rhythmical, the other harmonious.

The former may also be described as the quant.i.tative, the latter as the qualitative element, since the first is concerned with the duration, and the second with the pitch of the notes. In the writing of music the former depends upon the perpendicular, and the latter upon the horizontal lines.

Purely arithmetical relations, thus relations of time, lie at the foundation of both; in the one case the relative duration of the notes, in the other the relative rapidity of their vibrations. The rhythmical element is the essential; for it can produce a kind of melody of itself alone, and without the other, as, for example, on the drum; yet complete melody requires both elements. It consists in an alternating _disunion and reconciliation_ of them, as I shall show immediately; but first, since I have already spoken of the harmonious element in what has been said, I wish to consider the rhythmical element somewhat more closely.

_Rhythm_ is in time what _symmetry_ is in s.p.a.ce, division into equal parts corresponding to each other. First, into larger parts, which again fall into smaller parts, subordinate to the former. In the series of the arts given by me _architecture_ and _music_ are the two extreme ends. Moreover, according to their inner nature, their power, the extent of their spheres, and their significance, they are the most heterogeneous, indeed true antipodes. This opposition extends even to the form of their appearance, for architecture is in s.p.a.ce alone, without any connection with time; and music is in time alone, without any connection with s.p.a.ce.(26) Now hence springs their one point of a.n.a.logy, that as in architecture that which orders and holds together is _symmetry_, in music it is _rhythm_, and thus here also it holds true that extremes meet. As the ultimate const.i.tuent parts of a building are the exactly similar stones, so the ultimate const.i.tuent parts of a musical composition are the exactly similar beats; yet by being weak or strong, or in general by the measure, which denotes the species of time, these are divided into equal parts, which may be compared to the dimensions of the stone. The musical period consists of several bars, and it has also two equal parts, one rising, aspiring, generally going to the dominant, and one sinking, quieting, returning to the fundamental note. Two or several periods const.i.tute a part, which in general is also symmetrically doubled by the sign of repet.i.tion; two parts make a small piece of music, or only a movement of a larger piece; and thus a concerto or sonata usually consists of three movements, a symphony of four, and a ma.s.s of five. Thus we see the musical composition bound together and rounded off as a whole, by symmetrical distribution and repeated division, down to the beats and their fractions, with thorough subordination, superordination, and co-ordination of its members, just as a building is connected and rounded off by its symmetry. Only in the latter that is exclusively in s.p.a.ce which in the former is exclusively in time. The mere feeling of this a.n.a.logy has in the last thirty years called forth the oft-repeated, daring witticism, that architecture is frozen music. The origin of this can be traced to Goethe; for, according to Eckermann's "Conversations," vol. ii. p. 88, he said: "I have found among my papers a page on which I call architecture a rigidified music; and really there is something in it; the mood which is produced by architecture approaches the effect of music." Probably he let fall this witticism much earlier in conversation, and in that case it is well known that there were never wanting persons to pick up what he so let fall that they might afterwards go about decked with it. For the rest, whatever Goethe may have said, the a.n.a.logy of music and architecture, which is here referred by me to its sole ground, the a.n.a.logy of rhythm with symmetry, extends accordingly only to the outward form, and by no means to the inner nature of the two arts, which is entirely different. Indeed it would be absurd to wish to put on the same level in essential respects the most limited and the weakest of all the arts, and the most far-reaching and powerful. As an amplification of the a.n.a.logy pointed out, we might add further, that when music, as it were in a fit of desire for independence, seizes the opportunity of a pause to free itself from the control of rhythm, to launch out into the free imagination of an ornate _cadenza_, such a piece of music divested of all rhythm is a.n.a.logous to the ruin which is divested of symmetry, and which accordingly may be called, in the bold language of the witticism, a frozen _cadenza_.

After this exposition of _rhythm_, I have now to show how the nature of melody consists in the constantly renewed _disunion and reconciliation_ of the rhythmical, and the harmonious elements of it. Its harmonious element has as its a.s.sumption the fundamental note, as the rhythmical element has the species of time, and consists in a wandering from it through all the notes of the scale, until by shorter or longer digressions it reaches a harmonious interval, generally the dominant or sub-dominant, which affords it an incomplete satisfaction; and then follows, by a similarly long path, its return to the fundamental note, with which complete satisfaction appears. But both must so take place that the attainment of the interval referred to and the return to the fundamental note correspond with certain favourite points of the rhythm, otherwise it will not work. Thus, as the harmonious succession of sounds requires certain notes, first of all the tonic, next to it the dominant, and so on, so rhythm, on its part, requires certain _points of time_, certain numbered bars, and certain parts of these bars, which are called strong or good beats, or the accented parts of the bar, in opposition to the weak or bad beats, or unaccented parts of the bar. Now the disunion of these two fundamental elements consists in this, that because the demand of one is satisfied that of the other is not; and their reconciliation consists in this, that both are satisfied at once and together. That wandering of the notes until they find a more or less harmonious interval must so take place that this interval is attained only after a definite number of bars, and also at an accented part of the bar, and in this way becomes for it a kind of resting-point; and similarly the return to the keynote must take place after a like number of bars, and also at an accented part of the bar, and thus complete satisfaction is then attained. So long as this required coincidence of the satisfaction of both elements is not attained, the rhythm, on the one hand, may follow its regular course, and, on the other hand, the required notes may occur often enough, but yet they will remain entirely without that effect through which melody arises. The following very simple example may serve to ill.u.s.trate this:-

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music]

Here the harmonious sequence of notes finds the keynote just at the end of the first bar; but it does not receive any satisfaction from this, because the rhythm is caught at the least accented part of the bar. Immediately afterwards, in the second bar, the rhythm has the accented part of the bar, but the sequence of notes has arrived at the seventh. Thus here the two elements of melody are entirely _disunited_; and we feel disquieted.

In the second half of the period everything is reversed, and in the last note they are _reconciled_. This kind of thing can be shown in every melody, although generally in a much more extended form. Now the constant disunion and reconciliation of its two elements which there takes place is, when metaphysically considered, the copy of the origination of new wishes, and then of their satisfaction. Thus, by flattery, music penetrates into our hearts, for it presents the image of the complete satisfaction of its wishes. More closely considered, we see in this procedure of melody a condition which, to a certain extent, is _inward_ (the harmonious) meet with an _outward_ condition (the rhythmical), as if by an _accident_,-which is certainly brought about by the composer, and which may, so far, be compared to rhyme in poetry. But this is just the copy of the meeting of our wishes with the favourable outward circ.u.mstances which are independent of them, and is thus the picture of happiness. The effect of the _suspension_ also deserves to be considered here. It is a dissonance which delays the final consonance, which is awaited with certainty; and thus the longing for it is strengthened, and its appearance satisfies all the more. Clearly an a.n.a.logue of the heightened satisfaction of the will through delay. The complete cadence requires the preceding chord of the seventh on the dominant; because the most deeply felt satisfaction and the most entire relief can only follow the most earnest longing. Thus, in general, music consists of a constant succession of more or less disquieting chords, _i.e._, chords which excite longing, and more or less quieting and satisfying chords; just as the life of the heart (the will) is a constant succession of greater or less disquietude through desire and aversion, and just as various degrees of relief. Accordingly the harmonious sequence of chords consists of the correct alternation of dissonance and consonance. A succession of merely consonant chords would be satiating, wearisome, and empty, like the languor produced by the satisfaction of all wishes. Therefore dissonances must be introduced, although they disquiet us and affect us almost painfully, but only in order to be resolved again in consonances with proper preparation. Indeed, in the whole of music there are really only two fundamental chords, the dissonant chord of the seventh and the consonant triad, to which all chords that occur can be referred. This just corresponds to the fact, that for the will there are at bottom only dissatisfaction and satisfaction, under however many forms they may present themselves. And as there are two general fundamental moods of the mind, serenity, or at least healthiness, and sadness, or even oppression, so music has two general keys, the major and the minor, which correspond to these, and it must always be in one of the two. But it is, in fact, very wonderful that there is a sign of pain which is neither physically painful nor yet conventional, but which nevertheless is suitable and unmistakable: the minor. From this we may measure how deeply music is founded in the nature of things and of man. With northern nations, whose life is subject to hard conditions, especially with the Russians, the minor prevails, even in the church music. Allegro in the minor is very common in French music, and is characteristic of it; it is as if one danced while one's shoe pinched.

I add further a few subsidiary remarks. When the key-note is changed, and with it the value of all the intervals, in consequence of which the same note figures as the second, the third, the fourth, and so on, the notes of the scale are a.n.a.logous to actors, who must a.s.sume now one _role_, now another, while their person remains the same. That the actors are often not precisely suited to these _roles_ may be compared to the unavoidable impurity of every harmonic system (referred to at the end of -- 52 of the first volume) which the equal temperament has introduced.

Perhaps some may be offended, that, according to this metaphysic of it, music, which so often exalts our minds, which seems to us to speak of other and better worlds than ours, yet really only flatters the will to live, because it exhibits to it its nature, deludes it with the image of its success, and at the end expresses its satisfaction and contentment.

The following pa.s.sage from the "_Vedas_" may serve to quiet such doubts: "_Etanand sroup, quod forma gaudii est,_ t?? _pram Atma ex hoc dic.u.n.t, quod quocunque loco gaudium est, particula e gaudio ejus est_"

(_Oupnekhat_, vol. i. p. 405; _et iterum_, vol. ii. p. 215).

SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FOURTH BOOK.

"_Tous les hommes desirent uniquement de se delivrer de la mort: ils ne savent pas se delivrer de la vie._"

-_Lao-tsen-Tao-te-King_, ed. STAN. JULIEN, p. 184.

Chapter XL. Preface.

The supplements to this fourth book would be very considerable if it were not that two of its princ.i.p.al subjects which stand specially in need of being supplemented-the freedom of the will and the foundation of ethics-have, on the occasion of prize questions being set by two Scandinavian Academies, been fully worked out by me in the form of a monograph, which was laid before the public in the year 1841 under the t.i.tle, "The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics." Accordingly I a.s.sume an acquaintance on the part of my readers with the work which has just been mentioned, just as unconditionally as in the supplements to the second book I have a.s.sumed it with regard to the work "On the Will in Nature." In general I make the demand that whoever wishes to make himself acquainted with my philosophy shall read every line of me. For I am no voluminous writer, no fabricator of compendiums, no earner of pecuniary rewards, not one whose writings aim at the approbation of a minister; in a word, not one whose pen is under the influence of personal ends. I strive after nothing but the truth, and write as the ancients wrote, with the sole intention of preserving my thoughts, so that they may be for the benefit of those who understand how to meditate upon them and prize them.

Therefore I have written little, but that little with reflection and at long intervals, and accordingly I have also confined within the smallest possible limits those repet.i.tions which in philosophical works are sometimes unavoidable on account of the connection, and from which no single philosopher is free; so that by far the most of what I have to say is only to be found in one place. On this account, then, whoever wishes to learn from me and understand me must leave nothing unread that I have written. Yet one can judge me and criticise me without this, as experience has shown; and to this also I further wish much pleasure.

Meanwhile the s.p.a.ce gained by the said elimination of two important subjects will be very welcome to us. For since those explanations, which every man has more at heart than anything else, and which therefore in every system, as ultimate results, form the apex of its pyramid, are also crowded together in _my_ last book, a larger s.p.a.ce will gladly be granted to every firmer proof or more accurate account of these. Besides this we have been able to discuss here, as belonging to the doctrine of the "a.s.sertion of the will to live," a question which in our fourth book itself remained untouched, as it was also entirely neglected by all philosophers before me: it is the inner significance and real nature of the s.e.xual love, which sometimes rises to a vehement pa.s.sion-a subject which it would not have been paradoxical to take up in the ethical part of philosophy if its importance had been known.

Chapter XLI.(27) On Death And Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature.

Death is the true inspiring genius, or the muse of philosophy, wherefore Socrates has defined the latter as ?a?at?? e?et?. Indeed without death men would scarcely philosophise. Therefore it will be quite in order that a special consideration of this should have its place here at the beginning of the last, most serious, and most important of our books.

The brute lives without a proper knowledge of death; therefore the individual brute enjoys directly the absolute imperishableness of the species, for it is only conscious of itself as endless. In the case of men the terrifying certainty of death necessarily entered with reason. But as everywhere in nature with every evil a means of cure, or at least some compensation, is given, the same reflection which introduces the knowledge of death also a.s.sists us to _metaphysical_ points of view, which comfort us concerning it, and of which the brute has no need and is incapable. All religious and philosophical systems are princ.i.p.ally directed to this end, and are thus primarily the antidote to the certainty of death, which the reflective reason produces out of its own means. Yet the degree in which they attain this end is very different, and certainly _one_ religion or philosophy will, far more than the others, enable men to look death in the face with a quiet glance. Brahmanism and Buddhism, which teach man to regard himself as himself, the original being, the Brahm, to which all coming into being and pa.s.sing away is essentially foreign, will achieve much more in this respect than such as teach that man is made out of nothing, and actually begins at birth his existence derived from another.

Answering to this we find in India a confidence and a contempt for death of which one has no conception in Europe. It is, in fact, a hazardous thing to force upon a man, by early imprinting them, weak and untenable conceptions in this important regard, and thereby making him for ever incapable of taking up correct and stable ones. For example, to teach him that he recently came out of nothing, and consequently through an eternity has been nothing, but yet for the future will be imperishable, is just the same as to teach him that although he is through and through the work of another, yet he will be held responsible through all eternity for his actions. If, then, when the mind ripens and reflection appears, the untenable nature of such doctrines forces itself upon him, he has nothing better to put in its place, nay, is no longer capable of understanding anything better, and thus loses the comfort which nature had destined for him also, as a compensation for the certainty of death. In consequence of such a process, we see even now in England (1844), among ruined factory hands, the Socialists, and in Germany, among ruined students, the young Hegelians, sink to the absolutely physical point of view, which leads to the result: _edite_, _bibite_, _post mortem nulla voluptas_, and so far may be defined as b.e.s.t.i.a.lism.

However, after all that has been taught concerning death, it cannot be denied that, at least in Europe, the opinion of men, nay, often even of the same individual, very frequently vacillates between the conception of death as absolute annihilation and the a.s.sumption that we are, as it were, with skin and hair, immortal. Both are equally false: but we have not so much to find a correct mean as rather to gain the higher point of view from which such notions disappear of themselves.

In these considerations I shall first of all start from the purely empirical standpoint. Here there primarily lies before us the undeniable fact that, according to the natural consciousness, man not only fears death for his own person more than anything else, but also weeps violently over the death of those that belong to him, and indeed clearly not egotistically, for his own loss, but out of sympathy for the great misfortune that has befallen them. Therefore he also censures those who in such a case neither weep nor show sadness as hard-hearted and unloving. It is parallel with this that revenge, in its highest degree, seeks the death of the adversary as the greatest evil that can be inflicted. Opinions change with time and place; but the voice of nature remains always and everywhere the same, and is therefore to be heeded before everything else.

Now here it seems distinctly to say that death is a great evil. In the language of nature death means annihilation. And that death is a serious matter may be concluded from the fact that, as every one knows, life is no joke. We must indeed deserve nothing better than these two.

In fact, the fear of death is independent of all knowledge; for the brute has it, although it does not know death. Everything that is born brings it with it into the world. But this fear of death is _a priori_ only the reverse side of the will to live, which indeed we all are. Therefore in every brute the fear of its destruction is inborn, like the care for its maintenance. Thus it is the fear of death, and not the mere avoidance of pain, which shows itself in the anxious carefulness with which the brute seeks to protect itself, and still more its brood, from everything that might become dangerous. Why does the brute flee, trembling, and seek to conceal itself? Because it is simply the will to live, but, as such, is forfeited to death, and wishes to gain time. Such also, by nature, is man.

The greatest evil, the worst that can anywhere threaten, is death; the greatest fear is the fear of death. Nothing excites us so irresistibly to the most lively interest as danger to the life of others; nothing is so shocking as an execution. Now the boundless attachment to life which appears here cannot have sprung from knowledge and reflection; to these it rather appears foolish, for the objective worth of life is very uncertain, and at least it remains doubtful whether it is preferable to not being, nay, if experience and reflection come to be expressed, not being must certainly win. If one knocked on the graves, and asked the dead whether they wished to rise again, they would shake their heads. Such is the opinion of Socrates in "Plato's Apology," and even the gay and amiable Voltaire cannot help saying, "_On aime la vie; mais le neant ne laisse pas d'avoir du bon_;" and again, "_Je ne sais pas ce que c'est que la vie eternelle, mais celle-ci est une mauvaise plaisanterie_." Besides, life must in any case soon end; so that the few years which perhaps one has yet to be vanish entirely before the endless time when one will be no more.

Accordingly it appears to reflection even ludicrous to be so anxious about this span of time, to tremble so much if our own life or that of another is in danger, and to compose tragedies the horror of which has its strength in the fear of death. That powerful attachment to life is therefore irrational and blind; it can only be explained from the fact that our whole inner nature is itself will to live, to which, therefore, life must appear as the highest good, however embittered, short, and uncertain it may always be; and that that will, in itself and originally, is unconscious and blind. Knowledge, on the contrary, far from being the source of that attachment to life, even works against it, for it discloses the worthlessness of life, and thus combats the fear of death. When it conquers, and accordingly the man faces death courageously and composedly, this is honoured as great and n.o.ble, thus we hail then the triumph of knowledge over the blind will to live, which is yet the kernel of our own being. In the same way we despise him in whom knowledge is defeated in that conflict, and who therefore clings unconditionally to life, struggles to the utmost against approaching death, and receives it with despair;(28) and yet in him it is only the most original being of ourselves and of nature that expresses itself. We may here ask, in pa.s.sing, how could this boundless love of life and endeavour to maintain it in every way as long as possible be regarded as base, contemptible, and by the adherents of every religion as unworthy of this, if it were the gift of good G.o.ds, to be recognised with thankfulness? And how could it then seem great and n.o.ble to esteem it lightly? Meanwhile, what is confirmed by these considerations is-(1.) that the will to live is the inmost nature of man; (2.) that in itself it is unconscious and blind; (3.) that knowledge is an advent.i.tious principle, which is originally foreign to the will; (4.) that knowledge conflicts with the will, and that our judgment applauds the victory of knowledge over the will.

If what makes death seem so terrible to us were the thought of not being, we would necessarily think with equal horror of the time when as yet we were not. For it is irrefutably certain that not being after death cannot be different from not being before birth, and consequently is also no more deplorable. A whole eternity has run its course while as yet we were not, but that by no means disturbs us. On the other hand, we find it hard, nay, unendurable, that after the momentary intermezzo of an ephemeral existence, a second eternity should follow in which we shall no longer be.

Should, then, this thirst for existence have arisen because we have now tasted it and have found it so delightful? As was already briefly explained above, certainly not; far sooner could the experience gained have awakened an infinite longing for the lost paradise of non-existence.

To the hope, also, of the immortality of the soul there is always added that of a "better world"-a sign that the present world is not much good.

Notwithstanding all this, the question as to our state after death has certainly been discussed, in books and verbally, ten thousand times oftener than the question as to our state before birth. Yet theoretically the one is just as near at hand and as fair a problem as the other; and besides, whoever had answered the one would soon see to the bottom of the other. We have fine declamations about how shocking it would be to think that the mind of man, which embraces the world, and has so many very excellent thoughts, should sink with him into the grave; but we hear nothing about this mind having allowed a whole eternity to pa.s.s before it came into being with these its qualities, and how the world must have had to do without it all that time. Yet no question presents itself more naturally to knowledge, uncorrupted by the will, than this: An infinite time has pa.s.sed before my birth; what was I during this time?

Metaphysically, it might perhaps be answered, "I was always I; that is, all who during that time said I, were just I." But let us look away from this to our present entirely empirical point of view, and a.s.sume that I did not exist at all. Then I can console myself as to the infinite time after my death, when I shall not be, with the infinite time when I already was not, as a well-accustomed, and indeed very comfortable, state. For the eternity _a parte post_ without me can be just as little fearful as the eternity _a parte ante_ without me, since the two are distinguished by nothing except by the interposition of an ephemeral dream of life. All proofs, also, for continued existence after death may just as well be applied _in partem ante_, where they then demonstrate existence before life, in the a.s.sumption of which the Hindus and Buddhists therefore show themselves very consistent. Kant's ideality of time alone solves all these riddles. But we are not speaking of that now. This, however, results from what has been said, that to mourn for the time when one will be no more is just as absurd as it would be to mourn over the time when as yet one was not; for it is all the same whether the time which our existence does not fill is related to that which it does fill, as future or as past.

But, also, regarded entirely apart from these temporal considerations, it is in and for itself absurd to look upon not being as an evil; for every evil, as every good, presupposes existence, nay, even consciousness: but the latter ceases with life, as also in sleep and in a swoon; therefore the absence of it is well known to us, and trusted, as containing no evil at all: its entrance, however, is always an affair of a moment. From this point of view Epicurus considered death, and therefore quite rightly said, "? ?a?at?? ?de? p??? ?a?" (Death does not concern us); with the explanation that when we are death is not, and when death is we are not (_Diog. Laert._, x. 27). To have lost what cannot be missed is clearly no evil. Therefore ceasing to be ought to disturb us as little as not having been. Accordingly from the standpoint of knowledge there appears absolutely no reason to fear death. But consciousness consists in knowing; therefore, for consciousness death is no evil. Moreover, it is really not this _knowing_ part of our _ego_ that fears death, but the _fuga mortis_ proceeds entirely and alone from the blind _will_, of which everything living is filled. To this, however, as was already mentioned above, it is essential, just because it is will to live, whose whole nature consists in the effort after life and existence, and which is not originally endowed with knowledge, but only in consequence of its objectification in animal individuals. If now the will, by means of knowledge, beholds death as the end of the phenomenon with which it has identified itself, and to which, therefore, it sees itself limited, its whole nature struggles against it with all its might. Whether now it has really something to fear from death we will investigate further on, and will then remember the real source of the fear of death, which has been shown here along with the requisite distinction of the willing and the knowing part of our nature.