We will now attempt some definition of the leading conception of 'Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,' the great work on which Schopenhauer rested his reputation. Anything like a full analysis would be beyond our limits, but it may be possible briefly to convey a sufficient idea of its nature and scope, to indicate the writer's place in the history of speculation. His own claim was to be regarded as the immediate successor of Kant, and such, no doubt considered merely as a metaphysician, he was. Philosophically however, he is chiefly interesting as a representative of Indian thought in the west, and a consequent precursor of that fusion of the European spirit of experimental research, with the Eastern genius for abstract speculation, which, fostered by the mutual intercourse of both peoples, is beginning to exert so powerful an influence upon each. Or, to put the matter somewhat differently, he may be described as helping to indicate that transition of the European mind from a monotheistic to a pantheistic view of the universe, which began with Giordano Bruno, and of which the end is not yet.
Every philosophy and religion aiming to give a rational account of the universe must be either mundane or extra-mundane; it must either regard the cause of the Cosmos as contained in the Cosmos itself, or refer the existence of the latter to the interposition of some external agent. At a certain stage of man's intellectual progress the latter conclusion seems absolutely forced upon him. Having fully mastered the truth that every effect implies a cause, for ordinary common sense is not easily convinced that cause and. effect are either unrelated, or, as has been recently maintained, identical, he is irresistibly impelled to seek the cause of every effect which he witnesses. Finding himself surrounded by phenomena inexplicable in the actual state of his knowledge, he naturally ascribes them to a cause external to the universe, and independent of it. The flaming thunderbolt, for instance, seems sufficient evidence of the existence of some agent by whom it is hurled upon the earth. No javelin of wood and iron, the reasoner knows well, could be cast forth without the immediate or mediate agency of an arm, and why a javelin of fire? It requires a considerable intellectual advance, ere he is able to discern that the same degree of evidence does not exist for the fact and for the hypothesis by which it is sought to be explained,that the former is a matter of observation, and the latter of inference. The recognition of this truth signalises the birth of philosophy, which, alike in its speculative and practical aspect, may be defined for our present purpose as the endeavour to substitute knowledge for hypothesis: and the idea of an extraneous agency as the cause of the Universe being necessarily an hypothesis, although a very plausible one, the tendency of philosophical speculation, as such, is necessarily to weaken this notion.
It is perceived in turn, that if the connection of the assumed cause and the effect is necessary, the two are inseparable, and that to deny the inevitableness of their connection is to assert that the supposed extraneous cause of the Universe might conceivably have been unattended by any effect whatever. It obviously follows that if the Universe is not to be explained on the hypothesis of such extraneous agency, it can only be explicable as the result of forces immanent in itself; and as all these forces admit of being comprehended under the general title of Universe, and regarded as modifications of a single existence, the tendency of this course of speculation must be to establish an absolute unity of cause, and a virtual identity of cause and effect—the natura naturans and natura naturata of Spinoza. This mental process is exhibited with great clearness in the gradual transition from the naturalistic polytheismof the primitive Hindoos to Brahminical Pantheism; and on the experimental side, not less evidently in the history of European science.
The great significance of Schopenhauer arises from his active participation in this characteristic intellectual movement of his age, and from his having at the same time formulated the doctrine of universal unity in a manner practically original and peculiar to himself. His claim could not be better stated than in his own words.
'My age,' he says, 'after the teaching of Bruno, Spinoza, and Schelling, had perfectly understood that all things are but one: but the nature of this unity, and the rationale of its appearance as plurality, were, reserved for me to explain.'
The theory thus referred to admits of being very briefly stated. It is fully conveyed by the hardly translatable title of Schopenhauer's principal work: ' Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.' As all philosophers must, he here makes a distinction between the actual substratum, the real essence of existence, and the merely phenomenal form of its manifestation. Spinoza had called the former natura naturans, the latter natura naturata, and had elsewhere described phenomena as the modes of the one infinite and eternal Substance. Schopenhauer endeavours to define this Substance itself, and declares it to be a Will. Fromthe idea of Will, action is inseparable; and the existence of the phenomenal world is, according to him, sufficiently explained by regarding it as the result of the craving of the eternal Will, the substratum of all existence, to manifest itself in an external form. This Will, in a word, is a will to live.
So far there is nothing original in Schopenhauer's doctrine, beyond its lively and characteristic method of expression. It is precisely the same as the Buddhist teaching, which refers all existence to desire, and differs but slightly from the religious mysticism which points out that the recognition of Divine attributes implies the necessity of creation, since love and wisdom must be dormant without an object to call them forth.
Schopenhauer's peculiarity however is, that while other thinkers have usually assumed Intelligence as an attribute of Will, Intelligence is to him but a mere phenomenon.
'This resolution,' he says, 'of the so long indivisible Ego or Soul into two heterogeneous constituents, is for philosophy what Lavoisier's resolution of water into oxygen and hydrogen has been for chemistry.'
' The world in itself,' to borrow Mr. Oxenford's condensation of Schopenhauer's principle, 'is one enormous Will, constantly rushing into life.'
Will is the condition of all existence, sentient and insentient. 'Others,' he proudly says, 'have asserted the Will's freedom, I prove its omnipotence.'
We cannot do better than translate M. Eibot's terse and lucid summary of Schopenhauer's teaching on this capital point.
'Since Will is the centre of ourselves and of all things, we must give it the first rank. It is its due, although since Anaxagoras Intelligence has usurped its place. In the volume which completes his great work, Schopenhauer has written an interesting chapter on the “Pre-eminence of the Will,” and on the inferiority of the thinking principle considered as a mere “cerebral phenomenon.” To speak more exactly, Intelligence is only a tertiary phenomenon. The first place belongs to the Will, the second to the organism, which is its immediate objectivation, the third to thought, which is a function of the brain, and consequently of the organism. Therefore one may say Intelligence is the secondary phenomenon, the organisation the primary phenomenon; the Will is metaphysical, the Intelligence is physical; the Intelligence is the semblance, the Will the thing in itself; and in a still more metaphorical sense: Will is the substance of the man, Intelligence the accident; Will is the matter, Intelligence the form; Will is the heat, Intelligence the light.'
This is shown by the following facts:
' 1. All knowledge presupposes a subject and an object, but the object is the primitive and essential element, it is the prototype whose ectype is the subject.If we examine our knowledge we shall see that what is most generally known in us is the Will with its affections: to strive, to desire, to fly, to hope, to fear, to love, to hate; in a word, all that relates to our well or ill-being, all that is a modification of willing or not willing. Therefore even in our Will is the primitive and essential element.
' 2. The basis of consciousness in every animal is desire. This fundamental fact is shown by the tendency to preserve life and well-being, and to reproduce. It is this tendency which, according as it is thwarted or gratified, produces joy, anger, fear, hatred, love, selfishness, &c. This fundament is common to the polypus and to man. The difference between animals springs from a difference in understanding. Therefore Will is the primitive and essential, Intelligence the secondary and accidental fact.
' 3. If we examine the animal series we shall see that as we descend Intelligence becomes feebler and more imperfect, while the Will undergoes no similar degradation. In the smallest insect the Will is entire, it wills what it wills quite as completely as man. Will is always identical with itself, its function is of the very simplest kind; to will, or not to will.
' 4. Intelligence tires; Will is indefatigable. Intelligence being secondary and physical, is, as such, subject to the force of inertia, which explains why intellectualwork requires moments of repose, and why age causes degeneracy of the brain, followed by imbecility or insanity. When we see men like Swift, Kant, Walter Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, and so many others sink into childishness, or into a state of intellectual feebleness, how can we deny that Intelligence is a pure organ, a function of the body, while the body is a function of the Will?
' 5. Intelligence plays its secondary part so well that it can only adequately accomplish its function while the Will is silent and does not interpose; it has long been remarked that “passion is the declared enemy of prudence.” Bacon justly says:
'“The eye of the human understanding is not a naked organ of perception (lumen siccum), but an eye imbued with moisture by Will and Passion. Man always believes what he determines to believe.”
' 6. The functions of Intelligence, on the contrary, are augmented by the stimulation of the Will, when both act in concert. This is another common remark, that “Necessity is mother of the arts.” “Facit indignatio versum ” &c. Even in animals, facts quoted by those who have observed them, show that when Will commands, Intelligence obeys. But the converse is not true. Intelligence is eclipsed by Will, as the moon by the sun.
' 7. If Will took its origin from Intelligence, as isgenerally admitted, there ought to be much will where there is much knowledge and reason. But it is not always thus, as the experience of all ages exemplifies. Intelligence is the instrument of Will, as the hammer is that of the smith.
' 8. Let us consider on the one hand the virtues and faults of Intelligence, on the other those of Will; history and experience teach that they are entirely independent of each other. Among examples which crowd upon us,' we will mention only one, Francis Bacon. Intellectual gifts have always been held as presents from Nature or the gods. Moral virtues are considered as innate, as really interior and personalThus all religions have promised eternal rewards, not to the virtues of the mind, which are exterior and accidental, but to the virtues of character, which are the man himself. And lasting friendships are far oftener those whose foundation rests on an accord of Will, than those whose foundation is an analogy of Intelligence. Hence the power possessed by the spirit of party, sect, faction, &c.
' 9. We should also remember the difference that every one makes between the heart and the head. The heart, the primum mobile of animal life, is rightly used as synonymous with the Will. We say heart whenever there is Will, head whenever there is Knowledge. We embalm the hearts of heroes, nottheir brains; we preserve the skull of a poet, a philosopher.
'10. On what does the identity of personality rest? Not on the matter of the body, which changes in a few years; nor on the form, which changes entirely and in all its parts; nor on the consciousness, for that rests on memory; age and maladies, physical and mental, -destroy it. It can therefore only rest on the identity of the Will and the immortality of character. “Man is incarnate in the heart, not in the head.”
'11. The Will to live, with the consequent horror -of death that results, is a fact anterior to, and independent of, all intelligence.
' 12. The secondary and dependent nature of Intelligence is plainly shown by its character of intermittence and periodicity. In profound sleep all consciousness ceases. Only the centre of our being, the metaphysical principle, the primum mobile, does not stop, or life would cease. While the brain rests, #nd with it the intelligence, the organic functions continue their work. The brain, whose proper office is to know, is a sentinel placed in the head by Will, to guard the outer world through the window of the senses; hence its condition of constant effort and continual tension, and hence the necessity of relieving it at its post.'—Th. Eibot, ' La Philosophic de Schopenhauer,' pp. 69-72.
Schopenhauer's philosophy is therefore a phase of Pantheism, a modification of the system represented in Europe by Bruno,1 Spinoza, and Schelling, though differentiated from their philosophies by a bisection of the Soul, Ego, or First Principle, into two factors described as Will and Intelligence,—a separation capable, according to himself, of resolving the contradictions charged against Pantheism in general. If we first inquire into the genesis of this theory, which did not of course come spontaneously into being without intellectual antecedents, we shall probably find that it may be defined with equal propriety as an engrafting of Indian Pantheism upon Kant, or vice versa. Schopenhauer himself magnanimously pointed out that he had been in some degree anticipated by the Wolfian philosopher Crusius, to whom he applied the humorous imprecation, Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere. Kant, his first master, had taught him the illusiveness of space and time, and the unreality of the world of phenomena. In the Upanishads, the Vedanta philosophy, and such other documents of Indian wisdom as were accessible to the European world in his youth, of which his early note-books show him to have been an enthusiastic student, he found the same ideas reiterated in a mystical form congenial to his imagination and combined with that pessimistic view of life co-nate with his hypochondriacal temperament. The peculiar stress he was led to place upon the Will as the real cause of existence may be logically defensible, but was no doubt in the first instance subjective, the reflection of his own individuality. ' An enormous Will, constantly rushing into life,' would be no bad description of his own spiritual constitution. He must also throughout his life have been painfully conscious of the discordance of his philosophical principles with his habitual practice.
1 Intelligentia est divina quaedam vis, insita rebus omnibus cum acta cognitionis, qua omnia intelligunt, sentiunt, et quomodocunque -cognoscunt.—Bruno.
' I preach sanctity,' he said, ' but I am myself no saint.'
The Will, the blind instinctive impulse, was with him continually getting the upper hand of the regulating faculty, the Reason. It was natural therefore, that he should regard the former as the primary substance, the latter as the accident or phenomenon.
' Intelligence,' as his teaching is condensed by M. Ribot, ' has but one end, the conservation of the individual. All else is ornament and superfluity.'
This being so, the Will recognised by Schopenhauer as the basis of Being must be a Will to Live, and the question immediately arises whether this Will be a good one or a bad one. Schopenhauer's answer is apparent from what we have already told in his biography. He holds with the Indian and Singhalese schools ofBuddhism (northern Buddhism seems to teach otherwise) that desire is the root of all evil, and that all desire may be reduced to the affirmation (Bejahung) of the Will to Live. By suppressing desire we suppress evil, hut we suppress existence also. The whole world therefore'lieth in wickedness;' it is a world that ought never to have been. The ethical and practical bearings of this conception will be better discussed elsewhere. We may remark here, however, upon the practical disadvantages under which Schopenhauer is placed in comparison with Spinoza, by the primary importance he assigns to Will, and his divorce between volition and intelligence. No foundation is thus left for his universe but a blind unintelligent force, which could not reasonably be an object of reverence, even were itti operation as beneficial as, according to Schopenhauer, it is the reverse. No religion consequently remains, except that of simple philanthropy and self-denial. To Spinoza, on the contrary, Will and Intelligence alike, along with the entire material and spiritual universe, are but the manifestations of an infinite Substance, which, as infinite, must necessarily be manifested in an infinity of ways utterly beyond our comprehension. To Schopenhauer the universe has a centre, and that centre is a mere blind impulse. To Spinoza, as has been finely said, the centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. The one, therefore, fully provides for the religious reverence the other abolishes. At the same time it must be added that the acceptance of Schopenhauer's view of the Will as the ultimate cause, and the denial of all qualities to it beyond instinctive impulse, by no means bind the disciple to the acceptance of his pessimistic view of the universe. As Schopenhauer himself admits, the appreciation of phenomena varies greatly as the interpreter is by temperament Svkoxos or Zvctkokos. Schopenhauer's disciple may be as enchanted with the beauty, harmony, and convenience of the world as his master is impressed with its misery and wretchedness; yet, if accepting his postulate of Will as the prime factor of Being, he is still speculatively his disciple. Very few of Schopenhauer's followers have consistently adopted his pessimism. Eduard von Hartmann, a writer of singular power and genius, who gave Schopenhauer's views a great development in his ' Philosophie des Unbewussten,' in his last publication betrays a wish to recede from the advanced views he at one time held upon the subject.
It need hardly be added that, although Schopenhauer's cardinal principle is the omnipotence of Will, the freedom of the individual will is strenuously denied by him. All phenomena being but manifestations of the one primary force, are necessarily conditioned by it. No man can change his character, for the character is the Will itself exhibited in a phenomenal form.
' The absolute Will,' says Mr. Oxenford, interpreting him, ' which lay beyond the jurisdiction of causality, has forced itself into the world of phenomena in an individual shape, and it must take the consequences, that is to say, a subjugation to that law of cause and effect by which the whole world of phenomena is governed. The character, which is the Idea of the human individual, just as gravitation is one of the Ideas of matter, is born with him, and cannot be altered. The knowledge of the individual may be enlarged, and consequently may be put in a better track, by learning that his natural desires will be more gratified if he obeys the laws of society than if he rises against them; but the character remains the same.'
This admission however seems to involve a larger concession to Intelligence than is quite consistent with the spirit of Schopenhauer's philosophy. His theory too, while thoroughly necessarian as respects the irresistible influence of motive upon action, is opposed to necessarianism, in the less refined and more popular aspect presented in the common phrase ' Man is the creature of circumstances.' He must have concurred with Mr. Mill ('Autobiography,' p. 169), that though our character is formed by circumstances, our desires:can do much to shape those circumstances,' and that, ' our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing.'
A better opportunity will occur of discussing Schopenhauer's relation to such practical problems as the above. For the present it must suffice to say that he was by no means indifferent to them, that in fact the kernel of his philosophy consists in its practical application. It would be an utter error to conclude that because, in common with almost all other metaphysicians, he held the world of sensuous perceptions to be phenomenal and illusive, he was therefore a mere trifier with empty abstractions, or a propounder of dialectical juggles. On the contrary, he is the most concrete of writers and thinkers, invariably resorts when possible to some illustration derived from visible or tangible objects, and is never weary of ridiculing and denouncing those philosophers who deal solely in abstractions.
' All thought at first hand' he says, ' is performed by means of images of sensible objects. Writing and discourse themselves strive to convey to another's mind the same distinct realisation of an object which the writer or operator has, or should have, before his own. If they fail to achieve this, they are naught. A book can at best only impart truth at second-hand.'
In this spirit he laid the greatest stress upon scientific research, as bringing the student into immediate contact with concrete reality. He especially venerated Bichat, who had, he considered, already expressed his own great principle of the duality of the Will and the intelligence under a physiological form; the anatomist's
* organic life' being the physiological equivalent of Schopenhauer's 'Will,' and his 'animal life' of the latter's ' Intelligence.'
It is interesting to speculate what reception he -would have given to the great scientific discoveries and theories which have since his time so profoundly modified the course of European thought. He died in the year of the discovery of the spectroscope. One of the last things he read was a review of' The Origin of Species' in the Times, and, as Dr. Asher points out, he had to a certain extent anticipated the generalisation of the universal
* struggle for existence,' with its corollary of ' the survival of the fittest,' a conclusion perfectly in harmony with his own conception of the absolute Will perpetually bursting into life. But he does not appear to have attained to the recognition of this conflict as a factor in the gradual evolution of species. This evolution he admitted, but his account of the process was singularly lame: a serpent, for instance, might have laid lizard's eggs ' in a happy hour,' the lizards would propagate the new type until the occurrence of a similarinterruption of continuity, and so on. This was an equivalent to an acknowledgment that he could give no rational account of the matter. He was probably tempted to make light of physiological difficulties by his deep perception of the substantial identity of the moral and intellectual nature in man and animals, on which he is never tired of enlarging. The other great scientific generalisation of our time; the theory of accumulated hereditary impressions by which Mr. Spencer has virtually settled the controversy between the champions of experience and intuition, would probably have been eagerly welcomed by him. He insisted much on heredity, and had a theory of his own that the male parent represents the primal Will, the female the functional Intelligence, which, however, seems to rest on no more solid basis than his preference for his father over his mother.
To sum up, Schopenhauer is a powerful though eccentric representative of the general tendency of philosophic minds to find rest in the conception of the Universe as Unity. He has not, as he flattered himself, supplied the metaphysical demonstration of this doctrine, and his alleged great discovery is at best a dubious one. But he has devised an original formula which will often be found convenient, has vivified every subject he has touched, and has rendered philosophy the inestimable service of recalling her to concreterealities from barren dialectic. His reverence for the manifestations of Nature as absolute truth, and the study of them as the sole real source of Knowledge, shines forth from every page of his writings. If he misconceived the character and purposes of Nature, it must be owned that she had denied him the especial faculties requisite for the recognition of her grandeur and benevolence. There is something plausible in his pessimism until we consider on how exceedingly contracted and partial, and consequently deceptive view of the universe it is based. Schopenhauer, though so merciless to the foibles of philosophers, was not exempt from the nearly universal one of assuming that all the facts of existence can be comprehended in a formula with as much accuracy as the composition of water can be expressed by chemical notation.
His philosophy may in one aspect be viewed as a sublime example of the cardinal proposition of speculative thought, the ideality and unreality of apparent existence, the utter dependence of the preconceived object, be it in appearance never so substantial and majestic, upon the perceiving subject. Such a system, elaborated with however rigid logic, fails to commend itself to the instincts of a world of beings diverse in mental constitution from its author. For mankind in the mass it remains an idle play of ingenuity, or an empty abstraction. Such exercises of the reason, however, have ere this paved the way for faith; they have shown themselves the precursors, if not the actual parents of mighty religions, commending themselves to the needs and instincts of humanity at large, and in this manner wielding the influence denied to them in their character of philosophical speculations. Schopenhauer may yet prove the Kapila of a new Buddha.