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Schopenhauer's Philosophy Author(s): Robert Adamson Source: Mind, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1876), pp. 491-509 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2246412 . Accessed: 04/05/2011 20:43
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Schopenhauer'sPhilosophy.

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One reallyglaringinstancemay be given. He says (pp. 49, 50) that the axiom which is termed the Principleof Contradiction, and which "has been commonlyregarded as the is axiom of metaphysics, but the consequence of fundamental in a law of thought,mathematical its form," viz., "the law whose expression is x5 x." This law, regarded as one of of thought, simply states that to think an attribute a thing twice overis to do no morethan to thinkit once;-,to say of a thingthatit is " black, black," is to say no morethan that it truth, is simplyblack. This is doubtless a very elementary but to regard it as the source of the Law of Contradiction surelyargues a strangeinversionof order. Howeverthat law be regarded, nothing can well be consideredmore ultimate. one thing fromanother withoutit; We could not distinguish than these symbols, we could not even, to go no further distinguishx fromwhat is not x without making use of it. of And yet Boole gives a demonstration this dependence, a every step of which demands the law several demonstration times over.
J. VENN.

V.-SCHOPENHAUER'S

PHILOSOPHY.

CRITICS of historyare still somewhatundecided as to the of groundsof the wide and rapidlyincreasing popularity the philosophyof Schopenhauer.* In 1840 he may be said to unknown; at his death in 1860 but a small have been utterly band of devoted and zealous disciples had begun their proliterature pagandist labours. Now a complete controversial has grown up around his theories,and one can scarcelyopen to workwithoutfindingreference his name any philosophical and thoughts, To take but one example among many, the Renan's thinking, most recent productsof French speculative Dialogues Philosophiquesand Quinet's L'Esprit Nouveau,are conditionedby the attitudetaken up towardswhat throughout may be called Schopenhanuerism. maybe due to the admirable No doubt some of this celebrity qualitiesof Schopenhauer'sstyle; but stylealone never secured attentionfora thinker'sresults. It may be said also thatthe

* ArthurSchopenhauer was born at Dantzic in 1788, arnd died at has in Frankfort 1860. An admirablesketchof his life and character 1876. Fuller details Arthur Schopenhauer, been givenbyMiss Zimmern, Umgange dargestellt, will be foundin Gwinner'sA. S. auspersnlWichem ihn. A. lnd and in Frauenstiidt Lindner, S., vonihm,iiber

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withthe pessimist, spiritof the age seems to be impregnated was apparentmainlyin the literatureof view of thingswlhich afterall, is a deduction time; but pessimism, Schopenhauer's and it is in the system itself that interestis fromthe system, to achieved by felt. Nor is it sufficient pointto the popularity and to grant to Schopenthe Philosophyof the Unconscious, has in many hauer only a reflectedfame. Von Hartmaann essential points amended and in every way improved the but the same causes which secured systemof his predecessor, successforhis workhave broughtintofreshnoticethewriting,s of of the earlier thinker. The most important these causes, of it seems to us, is to be foundin the presentcondition the and science. questionas to the relationbetweenphilosophy The historianZeller, at the close of his surveyof German takes occasion to censure what he calls its onephilosophy, sided idealistic tendency, and marks out as the special problemformodernspeculativethoughtthe union in method and natural research. The relations and resultof metaphysic between these two aspects of thought have changed of late, advance in and that,not so muchon accountof the wonderful withinthe past quarterof a celntury, knowledgeof particulars as because there have been added to the stock of scientific certainconceptions which truths,or (may one say?)hypotheses, to seem to embracethe sum of existence, and therefore yield the explaan answerto the perennial problem of metaphysic, nationof experienceas a whole. There is in consequence a sotendencyto substitutefor metaphysicpropprly growilng called a species of speculative physical science, in which, however, careful analysis will always detect an unsuspected principle.* It mustneverbe residuumof purelymetaphysical forgottenthat,howevermuch philosophymay owe to science in the way of material,it has a method or way of looking at its and an object peculiarly own. The only satisfactory things, the means of reconciling two apparently opposed forcesis the discoveryof the one principlewhichlies at the basis of both, whichcontainsin itself the powerof developthe one identity and manifold. The philosophy of ment into the different Schopenhauerand Von Hartmannhas to a remarkableextent and seems to contain a principle of recognisedthis necessity, the desired kind. In their system the fundamentalmetaphysicalunityseems to be in harmonywith the most recent and it is on this account mainly that they physicalconceptions, such wide attention. have attracted
* As an example of thisone mightpoint to the recentwork of ProUniverse. and Tait, Tue Unsee?z fessorsStewart

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has himselfgiven a clear and definitestateSchopenhauer mentof what he understandsby Philosophyand of whatwe may expect from it. " Philosophy,"he says, " is the complete andaccurateexpressionofthe essence of the worldin the most world general notions." It penetrates beyolnd phenomenal the presentedto us and reachesthe realityof whichthatis but the manifestation.All metaphysicis the result of a deep-rooted want in humannature,a desire to attainto ultimatereality,to know Being as opposed to the ceaseless Becomingof the world of the senses. From the same need springreligions, whichare onlythe preliminary stages of philosophy. " Religionsare the childrenof ignoranceand do not long survive their mother." All thatis true and valuable in them is taken up into philosophy,whichexpoundsthe essence of the worldin its ultimate it terms. Philosophy consequently ofno church, is indifferent is to religion. Nor does it trouble itself with the whyof the universe; it handles only the OTl, the fact. Existence must be taken for granted; that there is a universe must be preat supposed. Why thereshould be anything all is a question to whichnioanswercan everbe given,forit is in itselfabsurd. Philosophymust begin with experience,with phenomena,in order to penetrateto what lies beyond,and, when realityhas been reached, must then return synthetically, showing the world relation between the real essence and the phenomenal fromwhichthe investigation took its start. This conception of Philosophy is at least comprehensive. Schopenhauer, has further, leftus in no doubt as ,tohis place in the historical successionof great thinkers. He bases his own systemon the philosophy Kant, and claims to be the only post-Kantian of writer who has truly apprehended and successfullycarried forwardthe great thought of his predecessor. A certain knowledge of Kant is thereforepresupposedin the student little of Schopeinhauer's works, and his early essays containa criticism the Kantian doctrine. of beyonid the It will not be necessary to point out more than briefly of salientpointsin the philosophy Kant, which Schopenhauer of has used in the construction his own system. The OGritique of Pare Reason may in one aspect be regarded as merelyan analysisof experience,as an analysis of the nature and conin so nectionof the elementsinvolved cognition properly called. was shortly-thatsensations received The resultof suchanalysis formsof intuition, into the pure a _priori Space and Time, were cognised as objects by being wroughtinto the synthesisof experience through the Categories. In this process were of involved,first all, the particularmanifoldsensationsof the or several senses,whichare a postorio'ri given,resultingin fact 33

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fromthe actionof real things upon the faculty sensibility. of But, secondly,such sensations can be experiencedonlywhen receivedinto two generalforms, which,as universalconditions, do not themselvesbelong to any sense, alnd which are not generalor abstractnotions. They are in fact pure intuitions, and ca priori, i.e., conditionsnecessary for the receptionof sensations by any intelligence. Again, this manifold of sensation is a mere i7rvlpov, mere indefinite a multiplicity, whichbecomesmatterof knowledgeonlythrough necessary its relation to the unity of consciousnessor the Ego, which is the one identity amid all difference. The mass of sensationis reduced into objectsby being connectedwith this Tinity, and the definite modes of such connectionare the Categories, the universal conditions thought,throughwhich alone objects of can be known. This is Kant's theory the processof knowof ledge. Cognition or rational explanation is essentiallythe discovery of identityamid difference, The identity in all experience is the Ego or Unity of Self-consciousness; the modes in which it expresses itself are the Categories; the special matterto whichthese Categories apply are sensations in Time and Space. It followedat once, according to Kant, that knowledge was limited to the phenomenal. Things-inthemselves are not sensations, cannot be received into the forms of Space and Time, and therefore cannot be reduced to theunityof self-consciousness.They lie beyondexperience; for yet theirexistencemustbe postulated, the matterof sensation bears on its face the character somethinggiven. That of which gives is the thing-in-itself.It need scarcelybe said that this doctrineof the Thing-in-itself the hardestin the is Kantian philosophy. Kant's own expressionswith regard to it are exceedingly lax, and at times so contradictory that it is not surprising thereshould be wide difference opinion as to of his real meaning. That things-in-themselves, however,give rise to sensationsis both the commonly received acceptation of Kant's doctrineand that taken by Schopenhauer. Further be discussionmay therefore omitted. But the thing-in-itself appears on another side of Kant's system. The Ego or the is unity of self-consciousness for him merelya logical unity; internalsense gives kniowledge only of varying states, it cani never attain knowledge of the real Ego. Accordinglythere comes forwardthe opposition of noumenal and phenomenal Ego as well as of noumenaland phenomenalobject. If then we wereto give a brief formula the Kantian philosophy, for so far as it was used by Schopenhauer,it would be expressed somewhat thus: Inner and Outer Experience, which is the abstractexpressionforthe cognised systemof things,may be

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resolved logically into Subjects knowing and Phenomena known; but beyond what is experiencedthere is a realmof real objects,amongwhichthe Ego has its place. It is fromthis result that Schopenhauerstarts. "Kant's principalmerit," he says in the openingof his critiqueof the Kantian philosophy,"is the separation of the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself."There remains now for philosophy of really is, only the determination what the thing-in-itself and this Schopeiihauerclaims to have accomplished. At the same time he is not entirelysatisfied with Kant's critical procedure. It was a grave error in Kant even to appear to say thatthereis a causal connectionbetween things-in-themselves and phenomena,for cause is a relation applicable only to phenomena themselves. The table of the Categories is of by absurd,and thewholedoctrine theCategoriesis vitiated an erroneous theoryof abstractthought. Accordingto Schopenand therehauer,abstractnotionsare formedfromintuitions, fore cannot be involved in the process of knowledge itself. There is onlyone category, that of Cause or necessarycon-necwithSpace and Time,forms 'a priori element the tion,which, in knowledge. All that Kant included under the head of Schematismand much of the TranscendentalDialectic are dismissedwithcontempt,and he is blamed by Schopenhauer fornot havingdeduced his doctrineof the thing-in-itself from the simpleproposition-No object withouta subject. an a No object without subject, No subjectwithout objectfact merely expressin technicaltermsthe fundamental thatour whetherperception,understanding or cognitiveconsciousness, reason, containsnothing beyond these two factors,a subject knowing and things known. But to be an object for the subjectand to be a Representation(Vorstellung) are one and the same thing. All our Representationsare objects of the subject,and all objects of the subject are our Representations. are Further,representations connectedin an order regularand determinableat priori, whence it follows that no individual, thingcan ever be an object forus. independent, self-existent make up whatis now called the docThese two propositionis trineof Relativity: to the second of themSchopenhauer gives the special name Principleof Sufficient Reason, forit expresses and the fact that our experience is knit togetherin definite necessaryconnections. All necessarytruthsare specifications and may be dividedinto fourclasses, of this generalprinciple, forthereare fourformsin whichthe Principlemanifests itself, four classes of objects to which it applies :-(l) Empirical objects or intuitions,where the principle takes the formof the law of Causality-every change must have a cause; 33 *

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(2) Abstract notions,where the principle is that of Reason and Consequent, logical as opposed to real connection; (3) Space and Time, the formal element of intuition,in applicationto whichthe Principleyields mathematical truths; (4) ITier acts of will, where the Principle is the law of Motive, motivebeing the cause of whichactionis the effect. From this restatement the Kantian result there follows of the first the two propositions of that make up Schopenhauer's system:-The World is Representation. Experienceis summedup in the one wordVorstellung, which itselfcontainsin inseparableunitythe two factors,subjectand object. Of these the subject can never be known; it knows in everything that is knowable, but it is a contradiction terms to suppose that it can know itself. Consequently predicate ino of experiencecan properly applied to it; it can neitherbe be said to be one nor many. Objects on the other hand are of constructed the activity the intellect by workingupon sensa. tions or bodilyaffections.A sensationbecomesan intuition or of object of knowledge, whenby the activity the understanding it is referred space and regardedas the effect some cause. to of Not indeed that thereis any causal nexus between objects and sensations; sensationsin order to become objects are simply projectedoutwardsby the mind's own action. The origin of the whole process is to be found in the affections our own of body,whichcannotbe cogniseduntilso projectedand presented as an intuition. Realityis solelytheworkof theunderstanding, whichobjectifies organicaffections the body. The one the of function understanding recognition causal connection, of is of and its correlateregardedas externalis what we call Matter. "One mustbe desertedby all the gods," says Schopenhauer, "to imagine that there exists outside of us a real world of objects, corresponding our Representations." Object and to Representation one and the same. are With this purely subjective idealism Schopenhauertries to remain content, but he cannotfreehimself fromthe difficulties inherentin the position. He is compelledto use the curious expressioli that organic changes are caused from without. When we probe this somewhatdeeper, we find him to mean that sensationsin order to be known must be projected outwards and referred ,omething cause. But to whatthing? to as The only thing in experienceis the intuition constructed from sensation and therefore posteriorto it in order of existence. it Further, must be asked whetheror not the selnsations are known before being referredto some cause. If they are known,then they are alreadyobjects, so far as object means matterof knowledge; if theyare not knownuntil constructed

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then there is nothingfor such intuitioiisto into intuitions, cauLse. From this dilemma Schopenhaueronly saves himself of theory the originof organic by a later and totallydifferelnt however,equally at variancewithhis first affections-a theory, proposition. One morequestionmustbe put withregardto these orga-nic affections. They are definedto be states of the body. Are theyknown to be states of the body? To this Schopenhauer returns a most confused and confusinganswer. The body itselfis evidentlyonlyone object amongotherobjects,and canl to a be cognisedas object onlythrough processsimilar thatgone cannotbe for through otherintuitions. The organicaffections knownas states of the body in this sense. Still Schopenhauer body as knowni bodilyaffections,-the theyare somehow thiniks, object,and ani both a mediate,i.e., a constructed is therefore immediate object, as giving the means necessary for this compelledto admitthat,when construction. And he is finally the body is called an immediateobject, the word object is wheli taken in a special, unique sense-which is unfortunate proposition. olle thinksof his first are, Formidableas these difficulties Schopenhauerproceeds in to land himself a still more serious perplexity. Causalityis a relation among representations; it simply expresses the demand of the understandingthat for every change there should be an adequate ground in the preceding phenomena. save as the result But, he goes on to state,changeis impossible of-active Force. Phenomenaare the resultsof certainnatural and not subject to the which are themselvesiunknown forces, law of causality. "Of the inneressence of any phenomenon," he says, "we bave not the slightestknowledge. We call it out Natural Force, and it lies altogether of the fieldof causal explanation,which merely names the constancy of the expression of a force a law of Nature." "The force itself remainsa secret." " To causal explanationNature appears as a collectionof inexplicableforces,and it can only give the to rtules accordinig wbich phenomena succeed one another." If this be true, then phenomenahave no connectionsamong and their relationsare merelyarbitrary, the causal themselves, judgmenthas no applicationto them. The theoryin fact is in sheer contradictionto Schopenhauer'searlier position of by idealism. Objects are constructed the mind's own activity and yet these objects are the resultof natural out of sensations, forces. But force and result are unintelligible and unknown unilessit be supposedthatthereexists betweenthem a relation of cause and effect. From thinkingany such connectionwe are once for all cut off by the maxim that causality applies

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solely to representations.Further, our knowledgeis merely as how subjective, containedwithinthe circleof representations, can we ever step beyond to affirm existenceof Forces? the In all fairness, too, it mustbe insistedthat,if suchforceslie at the basis of phenomena, what they in the firstinstance give is, rise to are the organicaffections;and this,as we find, or at least appears to be, Schopeuhauer's view. It does not, however, escape the criticismthat he therebyattributesto forces, which lie beyond experience,existence and causal and also overthrows action,whichare predicatesof experience, his previoustheory that the intuitionis to be looked upon as cause. Finally, it is important observe that the relation to is between the natural forcesand representations not one of immediacy, and that therefore the one cannot be regarded as merelythe manifestations the other. One can hardlyavoid of the conclusion that Schopenhauer, despite his careful and appresometimes acute criticisms Kant, had not sufficiently of no ciated thatthinker's results. He has manifestly glimmering of what is trulythe crucial point in the Kantian system, the Deduction of the Categories, their relation to the unity of of consciousnesson the one hand and to the manifold sense on the other, with the resulting truth that experience is but a networkof thought into which material has fallen. in This want of appreciation appears most strongly Schopenhauer's doctrineof the relationbetween Notion and Intuitioni. To him these are absolutely distinct; notions are secondary formations, drawnfromintuitionsby the processeswhich are laid downin the old text-booksof logic-compariso formally son, attentionto similars,abstractionand so on. The most the poorest abstractnotions,Being, Unity,etc., are therefore and last. As if it were not evident that these notions are involvedin the verysimplestexperiencewithwhichconsciousness starts! Withoutthemexperiencewould be impossible; of of the theyare the elements rationalcognition, conditions all -of intelligence. To Schopenhauerthewhole theory the Categories as the constitutive elementsof experiencemusttherefore and seem an absurdity, he does not hesitateso to describeit. All thatis containedunderthe first proposition-The World is Representation, may be looked upon as the explanationof the Phenomenal. WeO have now to get Schopenhauer'sstatement of what the Thinag-in-itself really is; and upon this he as statement foundshis claimto originality a thinker. In ourcognitiveexperience nevertouchthereal; things. we in-themselvesare not to be known on any terms by any of intelligence. But in inner experience, the consciousness in internalstates,we do come across something that is morethaln

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phenomenal; this is the Will. I know that I will; self-consciousness is the knowledge of the Will or of the subject willing. It is throughour volitionthatwe have a real place in the universe. The will in its severalacts has an inner and an outer side, an inner for immediateconsciousness and an outerforintelligence. The inneris the act ofwillingproperly so called, the outeris bodilymotion. These two are not to be thoughtas different; theyare one and the saLue thing,which only appears in different ways,either immediately consciousto ness or mediately to intuition. And, as each act of will is forintuition motionof the body,so the whole will is in outer a manifestation whole body. The body,to use his technical the expression, the objectification the will. is of The identityof the will and the body may appear a little hard to understand,and not unreasonablysome proofof it mightbe demanded. This,however, Schopenhauerdeclinesto give. The knowledge of the identity, says, is of a quite he peculiarkind; it is a philosophic truth p6ar excellence, to be not subsumed under any higher principle, and thereforeto be taken forgranted, Let it then be granted thatin knowingthe body we know the Will and its manifestation intelligence. There is here to a specimenonce forall of the relationbetweenthe real and the phenomenal. The real thing,the thing-in-itself, Will; its is manifestations phenomena. This proposition the essence are is of-Schopenhaner's philosophy. It is at once noticeablethat,in throwing the results of the investigation into a general formula, have gone beyondthe premisses. The onlythingwe in-itselfto which we had attained was our own Will. Must not each one, then, in logical consistencylook upon his own will as the onlyrealityin rerumncatral,and land himselfin theoretical Egoism ? Schopenhaner makes no attemptto disprove such a conclusion. Those who adhere to it, he says, are not to be convincedby argument, but ought to be sent to a where it is to be hoped their follywill be cured. mad-house, We must, by natural analogy, ascribe to each phenomenal body resemblingour own a Will as the realityof Whichit is onlythe appearance. The same analogical reasoningmustbe extended to all phenomenal objects; their inner essence is Thus at the root of e-xistence all its varied formsthereis in Will, supporting tbem, or rathermanifesting itself in them, This Will, not being phenomenal, not being given in Repre. is sentation, not in Time or Space, is not individualised, is and not subject to the law of Causality. Neverthelesswe must say that it is olsF,for all conditions multiplicity foreign are of
Will.
-

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which springs all to its nature. It is the great identity from diversity. The modesof its appearancemaybe many,but it is one,and is in all and each of themthe same. As the scholastics said of the soul,it is all in thewholeand all in every p:irt. It is the sameWill that appearsin us and in everyanimateanldinanimate object. Phenomenaldifferences merelymarkthe various stages in the evolutionor self-realisation this Will. For it of is the essence of will to strive; it is a power incessantly struggling to live, i.e., to give itself manifestation. In the lowest stage of its existence it realises itself in the various physicalforces, whichare its forms, and the actionof which is determinedmechanically. All causes are merely occasional causes; theydo not excite the primitivewill to action, but give definitedirectionto its act. A higher stage than the physicalis attainedin chemicalforces, whichare not explicable by mechanicalcauses. In vegetable life and in the lower side of animateexistence,the law of cause takes a stillhigherform, and becomes that of stimulus. Finally,when the Will, iu its colnstant struggleto give itselfexpression, has attainedto the manifestation itself in a complex organismendowed with of a brain,there arises the power of representation, the law and of cause becomes the law of motive,for motive as thoroughly determines actioln mechanicalimpulsedetermines direcas the tion of motion. Thus the blind efforts the Will result in organismsof of whichthe severalparts represent innerstrivings. The feet, its forexample,are objectifications the will to walk, the eye of of the will to see, the brain of the will to know. Wheneverbrain has been formed, intelligencearises, for intellectis but the functionof the brain, anid with intelligencesprings up at a strokethe phenomenal world, the worldas we know it. At first sighttheremightappear to be a complete opposition between this theoryof the genesis of the universe and the doctrinethat individualthings are mere representationis and dependent on brain or colnsciousness. But, thoughSchopenhauer never completely evades this difficulty, has a certain he loopholeby whichto escape. The Will, beforethe creationof itself in individuals, brain, does not manifest but in general or Ideas in the old Platonic sense, and these reveal type-forms, themselvesto intelligenceas ilndividuals. the :Evidently whole theoryof the one Will as the Thing-initself turnsupon the knowledgewe have of our own will, and the questionwhichnaturallypresemits itself is-Gralnting that we have some consciousness of ourselvesas willing,is this a knowledge of the thing-in-itself To this Schopenhauer's ? aniswer most distinct. "The kinowledge have of my will, is I

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though immediate,is yet not to be severedfromthat of my body. I know mywill not in its totality,not as unity,not accordingto its essence,but I know it only in its completely individualacts, in time." It followsthat,in knowingmywill, know the Will in itself. Further,when I know my I do niot will, it is not will in general of which I alm conscious,but frequently myselfexercisingvolition: in fact,as Schopenhauer expressesit,I knowthe Subject-willing. The cognitivesubject has knowledgeof the subjectof will. Are these two subjects the same? To this Schopenhauer's answer oughtto be that as said, the subject theyare notthesame; for, he has repeatedly know itself. But his answeris thattheyare the same, can-not of alid that this identity the two subjects is the miracle Kar' 4oxyv, not to be explained, simply to be posited. He has already postulated another miracle,the identityof will and whichrequirestwo miraclesto startwith body. A philosophy is not likelyto presentus witha verycoherentsystem. We are said to know Will as the reality. Intelligenceis fashionedby the will and completelysubordinateto it. But the will as we know it is a rational will, will determinedby motives,or by representations. Evidentlythis will cannot be and accordingly is Schopenhauer compelled reality, theultimate of and vital actionsas representatives the will. to selectinstinct Between these,however,and the higher formwhichwe corand rectlycall will, thereis completedifference the same name can be applied to them only by analogy. The startingpoint, then,so faras it rests on whatis given in consciousnessis not satisfactory. Aiid what can be made of the rapid leap by whichthe whole universeis subsumed under the category of thatthe extensionof will and its manifestation?The criticism the termwill to all formsof forceis merelya false metaphor is so obvious that one need not linger on it. Schopenhauer attemptsto defend the designationof all force as will, and insistsupon callingthe genus by the name of its most important species. The questionis morethanone of nomenclature, to and it is but to call attention a simplerule of logic to point of out that whatis characteristic one species cannotbe true of underthe genus. all contained Howeverinadequateand unsatisfactory may be the process has reached his fundamental proposiby whichSchopenhauer of tion, his conception the universe presents itself as one of the two possible modes of regardingthe totalityof things. of turns upon the concepThe ultimatedistinction philosophy the tion of what lies at the basis of phenomena--whether substanceof the worldis to be regarded as Thought, Intelligence, Mind, or as blind unconscious Force. The problem

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which any theoryof the universe as the evolution of blind forcehas to solve is that of the relationbetweenthis forceand consciousthought. We thinkphenomena definite in relations; theworldas knownis a synthesis involving subjectthinking the and the objects thought. Is it conceivable that this known universe should spring from somethingwhich is absolutely blank, void of all those qualities which are only elementsof thought Is it not rather the case that in any attemptto ? exhibitsuch evolutionthere has been an unconscious transto ference theblank substanceof all the thought-relations that give meaningto existence? To such criticism Schopenhauer's theoryis peculiarlyopen, forhe has cut offfrom himselfall means of retreat. The Will in itself lies beyond the sphere of Space, Time and Causality,for these are subjectiveforms whichspringinto being onlywhen a brain has been evolved. It can have no individuality, distinctionor difference, no no end towardswhichit works. But we findthat the Natural Forces, which are forms of Will, are distinctfrom one another,and therefore individual. Even if are theycalled Ideas or stagesof the evolutionof will, not the less are they stages, grades marked off from and relatedto one another. Relation,however,is only possible in arnd thought;, cannotapply to what lies beyondthought. How again are the actionsand reactionsof these forces conceivable if theyare out of space and time, and subject to no law of causality. The confusion even moreapparentwhen it is asked how is the Will comes to assume definiteforms. No proposition is more insistedon by Schopenhauer thanthat the production of any effect requiresthe concurrence a primitive of forceand some occasioningcause whichdirectsthe force. The will,therefore, mustbe acted upon by some cause beforeit could take definite form. But whencecomes thiscause? The willis the all; there is nothingoutsideof it to determine actionin any direction. its The will has in itself no power of development any definite to result,and the Ideas or stages are nothing but the scholastic substantialforms,abstractedfromindividuals and forthwith hypostatised. Schopenhauernever directlyfaces the problem ho-wcoinsciousnesscan resultfwrom unconsciousforce; he merely asserts that the fact is so, but at anotherpoint he comes upoii one of the crucialquestionsfor any mechanical theory, What is to be made of the notion of End or Final Caase in Nature? Organismsdisclose unityof plan carriedout Withdiversityof instrumeit. Is such unity explicable otherwisethan on the of supposition thoughtas that which realisesitself in things?

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Nothing at first sight seems simpler than Schopenhauer's in solution. Unityof plan, he says, requiresa manifold space or time to discloseitself. This is exactly accounted for frobn the factthatit is the one will manifesting itself to intelligence in phenomena. The unity is merelymechanical; teleological unityis introducedby the understanding. Let this pass as an display or explanationof unityof plan; but organicstructures seem to display correspondences with what lies out of themselves,withthe environment.The eye seems to be constructed forthe receptionof light,and so on. How is this apparently artisticarrangement be accountedfor? Afteran elaborate to discussion Schopenhauercomes to the followingnotable conclusion:-""We cannotthink a final cause otherwisethan as an end aimed at, i.e., as a motive. Final cause in natureis a motive acting upon an essence by whom it is not known." Now, motive is Representation. We have, therefore,the curious result that the will, the thing-in-itself, lyingbeyond thought, is determinedby thought,and consequentlythat alongside of unconsciouswill there is somehow unconscious thought. To pursuefurther this line of criticismseems unnecessary. to It mustbe sufficiently evidentthat, in the attempt evolve a unconscious universe of thought-relations from an absolutely substance or force,there have been already presupposedall the elements that go to form the ultimate synthesis of intelligenceand its objects. Realityis onlygiven in and by Thought: thisis the first proposition philosophy. of the Two points,which appear to call for special attention, position assigned to the cognitivesubject,and the subordinationof the Intellectto theWill, comeforward moreprominently in Schopenhauer'spracticalphilosophy, whichwe nowpass. to a The worldof knowledge is a dream,individuality chimera of the imagination. Nothing is permanentbut the Will and the Ideas. These ideas or type-forms unchangeableand are incognisable by ordinaryintelligence,for they do not come under the Law of Reason. Yet undercertain circumstances these ideas can be known. To have this knowledge the subjectmustcease to be individualand must lose the relation of subordination will. And all this,according to Schopento hauer, is possible. - The subject may become, he says, a of pure will-lessintelligence, rising above the limitations the Law of Reason, and resting in the contemplationof the object itself. When we, so to speak, lose ourselves in the fixityof our attention to any object, when consciousness is absolutely filled with the external thing, then the object is seized apart fromits necessaryrelations,and the subject

504

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to is freedfromits subordination the will; thenwe grasp the Idea. This is the attitude of genius, of Art; it expresses that in thatabsorption thethingconternplated, unconsciousness, which has at all times been signalised as the true mark of artistic genius. It is what Plato, in the Ion, has called divine inspiration. But this doctrineof genius is one that cannotbe held by Schopenhauer. The whole theory of the will-less subject cognising the Ideas is inconsistentwith his earlier to and propositions, it is no defence say,as Frauenstadthas said, and its that the subject onlyfreesitselffrom own individuality to remainsin subordination the universalwill. This is neither in Schopenhauer's view, lnor.satisfactory itself. The only and, even if therewere subject we can know is the in-dividual; an absolute subject, none the less has it freed itself entirely of contemplafromthe will-for the accompaniment cesthetic and that, as we shall find,can tion is unialloyedsatisfaction, of neverbe a concomitant the Will. A metaphysical principle, if truly comprehensive,must of alwaysyield the solutioln the ethicalproblemof existence.in What is man's place and function this world? What has he to do in this life, and what hope has he of a life beyond the grave? To such questions Schopenhauer has indeed a definite answer, True realitybelongs only to the universal,to the aimless Will, incessantlystriving to realise itself. This reality is eternal,for Birth and Death, Beginningand End, apply only to the phenomenal. Our present existenceis but an episode which death is the awakening. in this long life,a dreamfrom As ieraclitus long ago said:-" While we live our souls are dead withinus, but when we die we are restoredto life. In our life and in our death are both living and dying. We live the death of the gods, and die their life." Nay even or in what we call our presentlife thereis nothingpermanent real; the dead past is ever behind us, the unborn future beforeus; the present momentis but the fleetingtransition betweentwo unrealities. The will,whichis beyondthe sphere oftime,liveson forever; so also thepuresubjectofknowledge; is but the individual passes away, for individuality a subis a jective form, delusion. Immortality onlyforthe thing-initself; and to him whose vision is clear to philosophictruth deathis but a powerless spectre,and the dogmas of eternal old lifeaiid punishment wives' tales. Not onlyis this lifea mere episode in the blissfulrepose of episode. Man's the universal will; it is a uselesslyinterrupting is greatestmisfortane to have been born. Not to have been born at all, says an old Greek poet, is .the

Schopenhanter's Philosophy.

505

happiest fate, and next to that is to die young. For what is our existence? An endless misery. A happylife is forthe individual nothingbut the dream of the beggar in which he is a king,but fromwhichhe mustawake to the knowledge that his escape frommiserywas only a fleeting vision. The balance in this world is always on the side of wretchedlness. We are the playthingsof fortune,the sport of the gods. Existence,in short, a miserable sham. The worldis fullof is suffering; is indeed the worstof all possible worlds. it Nor has this pessimism merely an empirical basis. The evil is deeplyrooted and incurable; For the Will-of which this world it the manifestation-is a will to live, a striving force. But strivingsprings from want, from dissatisfaction, and therefore from suffering. As the will is eternal,so suffering is eternal. No satisfaction desireis ever permanent; it of onlyrouses newdesires. Man is an accumulation a thousand of a for wants; his lifeis a struggle existence, constantsuccession of cravings, temporarygratifications, and renewed desires. Pleasure is impossiblewithout pain; it presupposespain, and is therefore secondary and negativein nature. The will, tlhen, is in its very essence pain, suffering and evil. Man is the creatureof this will, for his character,his noumenal Ego, is determined him,and character, Heraclitus has said, is for as for destiny. Freedomis onlyforthe thing-in-itself; man it is a mere delusion. Free choice is an intellectualprocess,and intellectis subordinateto Will. There is onlyone waygiven man may be saved fromthis servitude. under heaven whereby While we rest convincedof our own individuality, the end towardswhichthewill strivesis made our own aim; we affirm the will to live, we rest in the position of egoism. When this affirmation the will to live is pushed beyond the limits of of our own individuality, and invades, suppresses the will of another (say in cannibalism, which Schopenhauerthinks the grossest form of egoism), wrong is done. The individual has not recognisedthat his will is trulyidenticalwith the will that the will in shortis injuringitself. he is busy suppressing, The uneasy feeling on the part of an evil-doer,the germ of is conscience, the dim perceptionthathis will is identicalwith the will of the one injured, that he is both aggressor and of aggrieved. When thisidentity the one Ego withall others has been recognised, when it is seen thatour trueselfis not in our own person but equallyin others,then the affirmation of the will to live takes the formof sympathy, fellow-feeling; whenceflowlove and all ethicalaction. Yet, howevernoble may be the resultsof enlightenedsymerroneousposition,for it is still pathy,it is a fundamentally

506

Schopenhauer'sPhilosophy.

of affirmation the will to live, it is still desire to continue state of things. Ignorance of the vanityanid this miserabile of worthlessness all thingsstill obscures the vision. But "he from whose eyes the veil of Maya has been lifted, who recognises in all beings his own inner and true self, must of sufferings all living beings as his own, considerthe infinite and take to himselfthe pang of the whole world. He knows the whole, grasps its essence, and finds it summed up in aimless striving, inner contradiction and cease]ess transition, He he constantsuffering. sees, wherever mayturnhis eye, an an agonised humanity, agonised brute creation,and a fading world. All this,too,lies as near to him as his own personality does to the egoist. How shall such a one continueto affirm the will to live ?" The knowledgethat all we here consider real is worthless and evanescentacts as a quietive, and becomes the motive the will to live. The Intellect at power leading us to deity and refuses any longerto serve the last assertsits supremacy, evil genius, out of whomcomes nothing good. By no action, however,can escape be made, for to act is again to employ Will. Safetyis to be found only in utter will-less-ness,in gradually to the glorious consumquiescence,approximating mation of Nirwana, or absorptioninto infinitenothingness. This Nirwana is to be attainedby ascetic practices, among of whichfirst all stands absolute chastity. For, if the human race would only cease, therewould no longerbe this miserable world; there would be no more human misery. Suicide, whichmightseem to be the logical as it is the real outcome is of the theory, not accordingto Schopenhauerso efficacious a means of eradicatingthe human race, and against it he is unusuallyvehement. The stubbornwill to live must be furtherrooted-out by voluntary poverty, by meek submission to injury and by of mortification the flesh. The most powerfulascetic means and the higheststage of negationof will is attained is fasting, in death by fasting. For one who has reached this stage, death, says Schopenhauer,destroysnot onlythe phenomenal, but the essence; for such a one there is completeNirwana, completeannihilation. The whole theory of Pessimism, with its practical conproposisequences,stands or falls with the threefundamental tions-that realityis to be found onlyin the universal; that of pain is the necessaryaccompaniment will, pleasure being mere negation; and that intellect is completelysubordinate to will. that But is it true,even on Schopenhaner'sown principles,

Schopenhatuer's Philosophy.

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realityis only in the universal,that this worldis but a fleeting sea? The vision,a mere ripple on the surfaceof the infinite Will in itselfis eternaland permanent,because it lies beyond time; but, as we have been so oftentold,the cognitive subject is equally beyondthe sphere of time, equally eternal. With the universal will co-exists the noumenal subject. Subject and object, however, also know,are inseparablyconnected; we the one involvesthe other. Where thereis a cognitive subject, there must be cognised objects. The world of objects must be eternal and real. The same result may be reached in itselfin the worldas aniother way. The will to live manifests we know it. But it is an eternal strivingforce; fromits verynature its realisationcannot begin at any pointof time. Consequentlythe world as we know it is just as real and permanentas the Will fromwhich it springs; and we have again the-result that in place of blind forcethere is at the of root of existencethe synthesis intelligenceand its objects, of thoughtrealisingitself. So muchfor the first proposition. The second,the doctrine of pleasure and pain, is not original; it is as old as Plato, is fromwhomit seems to be taken. And its refutation as old to as Aristotle. For, afterall, it is but a hasty generalisation include all pleasure under the title avawrXIprWctC, satisfaction of want,and so removalof pain. Man is not morean accumufromthe lation of wantsthan a systemof powersand faculties, unmixedpleasure. One instance exerciseof whichhe mayderive in of such pleasurecomesforward prominently Schopenhauer's of doctrine esthetic Emotion,whichhe admits to be freefrom pain. He does not, however,groundhis pessimismso much on the negativenatureof pleasureas on the positive and permanent of character paimnThe will is an incessantcraving,an undyinig want. But is this on his own theory possible ? The will is ro 7raV,the All. How can that which comprehendseverything be in wanlt? Want impliesdefect,need of somethingoutside of self; but what is outside of the absolute-? If the will in itselfdesires anything,it is not trulyuniversal; if it is truly it universal, can desirenothing. From this dilemmaSchopenhauer's philosophycan hardlyextricateitself. Moreover, the will is a will to manifestitself; and its manifestation this is attained its desire, its want is filled world. It has therefore up. What morecan it possiblydesire? In truth Schopenhauer'spessimism springs not fromany the discontented logical basis, but partlyfrom character the of of man, and partlyfromthe felt imperfection individual life, of whichthe true explanationis far other than what he has

508

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given. There is always in life an inner discord, a want of harmnony between the realityand the ideal of reason. As Emerson says, " Each man sees' his own life defaced and disfigured, the lifeof man is not, to his imagination.... as seen fromthe point of the intellector Everythinlg beautiful is as truth. But all is sour if seen as experience." We are neverwhatwe mightbe; and, had we tot withinus the potentialityof something higher,we should not feel the paltriness of whatwe actually attain. All progress but approximation is to realisation thetrueidea ofhumanity of the fuller which forms the innerbut hiddennatureof each one. The world is doubtless and full of suffering wrong,but it does not therefore become our dutyto withdrawfromit, or to spend our lives in vain to attempts eradicate our own humanity. It is a world for in and nobleeffort, whichalone truepleasurecanbe found. strife We have reservedto the close the crowning of inconsistency Schopenhauer'sphilosophy. No propositionis more strongly insisted upon than that of the subordination Intellect to of Will. It is the very keystone of his system. The Will is real, the Intellect phenomenal. The intellectis the servant of will; in fact,to use his own illustration, one stands to the the otheras the hammerto the smith. Now would it not be hammerthat shouldhave in itself the considereda remarkable power to annihilatethe smith,and in so doing to annihilate itself? Yet this is precisely the action of the intellectupon the will. The intellectualconvictionof the wretchednessof lifeacts as a motiveupon the will, and determinesit to deny the desireto live, i.e., to deny,sublate,or destroyitself. But Pessimismwas a deductionfromthe fact that the will to live is was eternal. The will, we now'find, not eternal,and consequentlyPessimismhas no foundation. Not onlyis individuality destroyedby this negation of the will; the very essence of there is absolute nothinglness. the universe is suippressed, Suicide is the veritable climaxof Schopenhaner'ssystem,for ends by destroying itself. his philosophy On the whole,then,one cannot admit that Schopenhauer's systemhas made good the claim put, forwardfor it by its author and his followers. It has not reached a true and well-groundedprinciple. The fundamentalconception of a all mighty Will, pulsing through existence, and throwingoff forms infinite again to absorb them into its own nothingness, and contradiction, has shownitself to be fullof incQnsistency and has landed at last in a gigalntic paradox. Instead ofblind, uniconscious Force, we have seen him invariablycompelledto postulate active creativeThought, the divina intelligentiaof Bruno. And,if one desiredto present the greatItalialn thinker,

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the true counter theory to his materialisticPantheism, one by might use the lines so frequentlyquLoted Bruno as the epitome of his own system:liquentes ac camposque ecelum terras, Principio
Titaniaqueastra lunae, globum Lucentemque infusaper artus intusalit,totamque Spiritus miscet. et molem, magnose corpore Mensagitat

ROBERT ADAMSON.

VI.-THE

LIFE

OF JAMES MILL.

(II.)

QUITTING the perplexitiesof Mill's Edinburgh life we have to now to followhinm London, where his career is traceableat at the records furnishing intervalswithtolerable minuteness, the same timeglimpsesof previousparts of his history.*
* For Mill's commencement London,as well as for laterincidents in of to I in his career, am able to refer letters his to Dr. ThomasThomson, been preserved. The whichhave fortunately the celebratedchemist, as the between twowill be apparent we proceed. of extent the intimacy and family, have beenput intomyhandsby Dr. Thomson's These letters one of Dr. Thomas with them I received two printedbiographies, Thomson,and the other of his elder brother,Dr. James Thomson, withMill who of ninister Eccles (in Berwickshire), was equallyintimate beingboth havetheverybestauthority, in earlydays. The biographies writtenby the late Dr. Robert Dundas Thomson,lecturer at St. of Thomas's Hospital, son of Dr. James Thomson, and son-in-law his in as Dr. ThomasThomson, well as his assistant Glasgow,during last article(MIND, whenmyfirst years. I had not receivedthese memoirs the a No. I.) was written. They throw littleadditionallightuipon early biographyof Mill, without, however,resolving entirely the chief unicertainties. editors engagedas assistant Thomsonwere successively The brothers 1796till 1800,the period of pubto the Encyclopat1ia Britannica, from to licationof the Supplement the ThirdEdition: the chiefeditorbeing Bishop of Brechin and Primusof Scotland. George Gleig, afterwards and largelyto the work-James,theological contributed Both brothers the compositions, miscellaneous articles,Thomas, his firstscientific of works. The contributions the brothers of foundation his subsequent intothe FourthEdition,whichbeganto be pub. seem to have extended lished in 1805. The allowanceforthe editorialpart of the workwas withhouse, coal and candle,in the offce. The pay to con?50 a-year, was tributors threeguineasa sheet. Mention is made, ii both memoirs,of the fact that, besides the standingTheological (debating)Society,there was, in Edinburgh,a of composed six personsSelect LiterarySocietyfor generalsubjects, James Mill, JohnBarclay,the anatomist, James and ThomasThomson, and a of afterwards Liverpool, medicalwriter, Dr. Miller, JamesCarter, was who,I suppose, JamesMiller the editorofthe FourthEditionofthe somewhatin the enumeration). differ Encycloptwdia (the two memoirs as in friends Edinburgh, regarded These representMill's most intimate

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