Arthur Schopenhauer

“ ON MAN S NEED OF METAPHYSICS.
WITH the exception of man, no being wonders at its own existence ; but it is to them all so much a matter of course that they do not observe it. The wisdom of nature speaks out of the peaceful glance of the brutes ; for in them, the will and the intellect are not yet so widely separated that they can be astonished at each other when they meet again. Thus here the whole phenomenon is still firmly attached to the stem of nature from which it has come, and is partaker of the unconscious omniscience of the great mother. ”

“ On the other hand, the energy with which we apprehend what is present in perception, in which really all that is essential in all things generally is virtually contained and represented, is apprehended, fills the consciousness in one moment with its whole power. Upon this depends the infinite superiority of genius to learning ; they stand to each other as the text of an ancient classic to its commentary. All truth and all wisdom really lies ultimately in perception. ”

“ If a philosopher tries to begin by thinking out the methods in accordance with which he will philosophise, he is like a poet who first writes a system of aesthetics in order to poetise in accordance with it. ”

“ In respect of this quality our intellect may be compared to a telescope with a very narrow field of vision; just because our consciousness is not stationary but fleeting. The intellect apprehends only successively, and in order to grasp one thing must let another go, retaining nothing but traces of it, which are ever becoming weaker. The thought which is vividly present to me now must after a little while have escaped me altogether ”

“ It is true it sometimes happens that conceptions occupy consciousness without their signs, as when we run through a train of reasoning so rapidly that we could not think the words in the time. But such cases are exceptions, which presuppose great exercise of the reason, which it could only have obtained by means of language. How much the use of reason is bound up with speech we see in the case of the deaf and dumb, who, if they have learnt no kind of language, show scarcely more intelligence than the ourang-outang or the elephant. ”

“ A physical system which asserted that its explanations of things in the particular from causes, and in general from forces were really sufficient, and thus exhausted the nature of the world, would be the true Naturalism. From Leucippus, Dernocritus, and Epicurus down to the Systeme de la Nature, and further, to Delamark, Cabanis, and to the materialism that has again been warmed up in the last few years, we can trace the persistent attempt to set up a system of physics without metaphysics, that is, a system which would make the phenomenon the thing in itself. ”

“ Not merely that the world exists, but still more that it is such a wretched world, is the punctum pruriens of metaphysics, the problem which awakens in mankind an unrest that cannot be quieted by scepticism nor yet by criticism. ”

“ The brute can never stray far from the path of nature ; for its motives lie only in the world of perception, where only the possible, indeed only the actual, finds room. On the other hand, all that is only imaginable, and therefore also the false, the impossible, the absurd, and senseless, enters into abstract conceptions, into thoughts and words. ”

“ These inner and essential imperfections of the intellect are further increased by a disturbance which, to a certain extent, is external to it, but yet is unceasing the influence exerted by the will upon all its operations whenever it is in any way concerned in their result. Every passion, indeed every inclination and aversion, tinges the objects of knowledge with its colour. ”

“ For intellect is a differentiating, and therefore a separating principle. Its different grades, far more than those of mere culture, give to each man different conceptions, in consequence of which each man lives to a certain extent in a different world, in which he can directly meet those only who are like himself, and can only attempt to speak to the rest and make himself understood by them from a distance. ”

“ In order to write concisely let a man improve his style and shun all useless gossip and chatter, and then he will not need to cut out syllables and letters on account of the dearness of paper. But to write so many useless pages, useless sheets, useless books, and then to want to make up this waste of time and paper at the cost of the innocent syllables and letters that is truly the superlative of what is called in English being penny wise and pound foolish. ”

“ If we search in the writings of the Stoics which re main to us, all of which are unsystematically composed, for the ultimate ground of that irrefragible equanimity which is unceasingly demanded of us, we find no other than the knowledge that the course of the world is entirely independent of our will, and consequently, that the evil which befalls us is inevitable. If we have regulated our claims by a correct insight into this, then mourning, rejoicing, fearing, and hoping are follies of which we are no longer capable. ”

“ But if a proposition has absolute universality, the perception to which it appeals is not empirical but a priori. Thus Logic and Mathematics alone are absolutely certain sciences ; but they really teach us only what we already knew beforehand. For they are merely explanations of that of which we are conscious a priori, the forms of our own knowledge, the one being concerned with the forms of thinking, the other with those of perceiving. Therefore we spin them entirely out of ourselves. All other scien tific knowledge is empirical. ”

“ Only the worst knowledge, abstract, secondary knowledge, the conception, the mere shadow of true know ledge, is unconditionally communicable. If perceptions were communicable, that would be a communication worth the trouble ; but at last every one must remain in his own skin and skull, and no one can help another. To enrich the conception from perception is the unceasing endeavour of poetry and philosophy. However, the aims of man are essentially practical ”

“ In practical life the intuitive knowledge of the under standing is able to guide our action and behaviour directly, while the abstract knowledge of the reason can only do so by means of the memory. Hence arises the superiority of intuitive knowledge in all cases which admit of no time for reflection ; thus for daily intercourse, in which, just on this account, women excel. Only those who intuitively know the nature of men as they are as a rule, and thus comprehend the individuality of the person before them, will understand how to manage him with certainty and rightly. ”

“ Without it the intellect would no longer have the unity of consciousness, as a mirror in which now this and now that successively presents itself, or at the most only so much as a convex mirror whose rays unite in an imaginary point behind its surface. ”

“ The complete certainty of the a priori sciences, logic and mathematics, depends principally upon the fact that in them the path from the reason to the consequent is open to us, and it is always certain. This gives them the character of purely objective sciences, i.e., sciences with regard to whose truths all who understand them must judge alike ; and this is all the more remarkable as they are the very sciences which rest on the subjective forms of the intellect, while the empirical sciences alone have to do with what is palpably objective. ”

“ Accord ingly philosophy is nothing but the correct and universal understanding of experience itself, the true exposition of its meaning and content. To this the metaphysical, i.e., that which is merely clothed in the phenomenon and veiled in its forms, is that which is related to it as thought to words. Such a deciphering of the world with reference to that which manifests itself in it must receive its confirmation from itself, through the agreement with each other in which it places the very diverse phenomena of the world, and which without it we do not perceive. ”

“ Moreover, the insight of such a man is often so puerile, so weak and silly, that we must suppose that the excessive strain upon the faculty of indirect knowledge, which is concerned with abstractions, directly weakens the power of immediate perceptive knowledge, and the natural and clear vision is more and more blinded by the light of books. At any rate the constant streaming in of the thoughts of others must confine and suppress our own, and indeed in the long run paralyse the power of thought if it has not that high degree of elasticity which is able to withstand that unnatural stream. ”

“ These are the abstract motives, the mere thoughts, which are by no means always drawn from his own experience, but often come to him only through the talk and example of others, through tradition and literature. Having become accessible to thought, he is at once exposed to error. But every error must sooner or later do harm, and the greater the error the greater the harm it will do. The individual error must be atoned for by him who cherishes it, and often he has to pay dearly for it. ”

“ Physics cannot stand on its own feet, but requires a metaphysic to lean upon, whatever airs it may give itself towards the latter. For it explains the phenomena by something still more unknown than they are themselves ; by laws of nature, resting upon forces of nature, to which the power of life also belongs. Certainly the whole present condition of all things in the world, or in nature, must necessarily be explicable from purely physical causes. ”

“ Every philosophy which, instead of starting from this, takes for its starting-point arbitrarily chosen abstract conceptions, such as, for example, absolute, absolute sub stance, God, infinity, finitude, absolute identity, being, essence, &c., &c., moves in the air without support, and can therefore never lead to a real result. Yet in all ages philosophers have attempted it with such materials ; and hence even Kant sometimes, according to the common usage, and more from custom than consistency, defines philosophy as a science of mere conceptions. ”

“ For from conceptions nothing more can ever be drawn than the perceptions from which they are derived contain. If we desire pure conceptions, i.e., such as have no empirical source, the only ones that can be produced are those which concern space and time, i.e., the merely formal part of perception, consequently only the mathematical conceptions, or at most also the conception of causality, which indeed does not originate in experience, but yet only comes into consciousness by means of it (first in sense-perception) ; therefore experience indeed is only possible by means of it ”

“ Indeed behind the reproach of atheism, in itself absurd, and for the most part malicious, there lies, as its inner meaning and truth, which gives it strength, the obscure conception of such an absolute system of physics without metaphysics. Certainly such a system would necessarily be destructive of ethics ; and while Theism has falsely been held to be inseparable from morality, this is really true only of metaphysics in general, i.e., of the knowledge that the order of nature is not the only and absolute order of things. ”

“ For a German indeed it is good to have somewhat long words in his mouth ; for he thinks slowly, and they give him time to reflect. But this prevailing economy of language shows itself in yet more character istic phenomena. For example, in opposition to all logic and grammar, they use the imperfect for the perfect and pluperfect ; they often stick the auxiliary verb in their pocket ; they use the ablative instead of the genitive ; for the sake of omitting a couple of logical particles they make such intricate sentences that one has to read them four times over in order to get at the sense ”

“ Eeligions are necessary for the people, and an inestim able benefit to them. But if they oppose themselves to the progress of mankind in the knowledge of the truth, they must with the utmost possible forbearance be set aside. And to require that a great mind a Shakspeare ; a Goethe should make the dogmas of any religion im plicitly, bond fide et sensu proprio, his conviction is to require that a giant should put on the shoe of a dwarf. ”

“ It is rather the case that the greatest advances of physics will make the need of metaphysics ever more felt ; for it is just the corrected, extended, and more thorough knowledge of nature which, on the one hand, always undermines and ultimately over throws the metaphysical assumptions which till then have prevailed, but, on the other hand, presents the problem of metaphysics itself more distinctly, more correctly, and more fully, and separates it more clearly from all that is merely physical ”

“ In order to have thoughts they must read something; just as lifeless bodies are only moved from without ; while the man who thinks for himself is like a living body that moves of itself. Indeed it is dan gerous to read about a subject before we have thought about it ourselves. For along with the new material the old point of view and treatment of it creeps into the mind, all the more so as laziness and apathy counsel us to accept what has already been thought, and allow it to pass for truth. ”

“ It is the will which holds together all thoughts and ideas as means to its ends, and tinges them with the colour of its own character, its mood, and its interests, commands the attention, and holds in its hand the train of motives whose influence ultimately sets memory and the association of ideas in activity ”

“ Lastly, the great individual diversity of intelligence we are speaking about shows itself excellently in the degrees of the clearness of understanding, and accordingly in the distinctness of the whole thinking. To one man that is to understand which to another is only in some degree to observe ; the one is already done and at the goal while the other is only at the beginning ; to the one that is the solution which to the other is only the problem. This depends on the quality of thought and knowledge, which was already referred to above. ”

“ In fact, the pendulum which keeps in motion the clock of metaphysics, that never runs down, is the consciousness that the non-existence of this world is just as possible as its existence. Thus, then, the Spinozistic view of it as an absolutely necessary existence, that is, as something that absolutely and in every sense ought to and must be, is a false one. Even simple Theism, since in its cosmological proof it tacitly starts by inferring the previous non-existence of the world from its existence, thereby assumes beforehand that the world is something contingent. ”

“ The world of perception has made its impression, and thereby laid the foundation of all the subsequent thoughts of the individual. He may by reflection make clearer what he has apprehended ; he may yet acquire much knowledge as nourishment for the fruit which has once set ; he may extend his views, correct his conceptions and judgments, it may be only through endless combinations that he becomes completely master of the materials he has gained ”

“ The two kinds of knowledge always stand to each other in the relation of paper money and hard cash ; and as there are many cases and circumstances in which the former is to be preferred to the latter, so there are also things and situations for which abstract knowledge is more useful than intuitive. If, for example, it is a conception that in some case guides our action, when it is once grasped it has the advantage of being unalterable, and therefore under its guidance we go to work with perfect certainty and consistency. ”

“ We can only present to ourselves in perception particular scenes of the past, but the time that has passed since then and its content we are conscious of only in the abstract by means of conceptions of things and numbers which now represent days and years, together with their content. The memory of the brutes, on the contrary, like their whole intellect, is confined to what they perceive, and primarily consists merely in the fact that a recurring im pression presents itself as having already been experienced, for the present perception revivifies the traces of an earlier one. ”

“ Whatever torch we may kindle, and whatever space it may light, our horizon will always remain bounded by profound night. For the ultimate solution of the riddle of the world must necessarily be concerned with the things in themselves, no longer with the phenomena. ”

“ Thus then the life of the brute is a continuous present. It lives on without reflection, and exists wholly in the present ; even the great majority of men live with very little reflection. Another consequence of the special nature of the intellect of the brutes, which we have explained is the perfect accordance of their consciousness with their environment. Between the brute and the external world there is nothing, but between us and the external world there is always our thought about it, which makes us often inap proachable to it, and it to us. ”

“ But wisdom also, the true view of life, the correct eye, and the searching judgment, proceeds from the way in which the man apprehends the perceptible world, but not from his mere abstract know ledge, i.e., not from abstract conceptions. The basis or ultimate content of every science consists, not in proofs, nor in what is proved, but in the unproved foundation of the proofs, which can finally be apprehended only through perception. ”