Now although some portions of both the Essays published in the present volume have of course become antiquated, owing to the subsequent development of the empirical sciences, while others—such as, for instance, Schopenhauer's denunciation of plagiarism in the cases of Brandis and Rosas in the beginning of Physiology and Pathology[2]—can have no interest for the reader of the present day, I have nevertheless given them just as he left them and refrained from all suppression or alteration. And if, on the whole, the "Will in Nature" may be less indispensable for a right understanding of our philosopher's views than the "Fourfold Root," being merely a record of the confirmations which had been contributed during his lifetime by the various branches of Natural Science to his doctrine, that the thing in itself is the will, the Second Essay has nevertheless in its own way quite as much importance as the First, and is, in a sense, its complement. For they both throw light on Schopenhauer's view of the Universe in its double aspect as Will and as Representation, each being as it were a résumé of the exposition of one of those aspects. My plea for uniting them in one volume, in spite of the difference of their contents and the wide lapse of time (seventeen years) which lies between them, must be, that they complete each other, and that their great weight and intrinsic value seem to point them out as peculiarly fitted to be introduced to the English thinker.
In endeavouring to convey the Author's thoughts as he expresses them, I have necessarily encountered many and great difficulties. His meaning, though always clearly expressed, is not always easy to seize, even for his countrymen; as a foreigner, therefore, I may often have failed to grasp, let alone adequately to render, that meaning. In this case besides, the responsibility for any want of perspicuity cannot be shifted by the translator on to the Author; since the consummate perfection of Schopenhauer's prose is universally recognised, even by those who reject, or at least who do not share, his views. An eminent German writer of our time has not hesitated to rank him immediately after Lessing and Göthe as the third greatest German prose-writer, and only quite recently a German professor, in a speech delivered with the intent of demolishing Schopenhauer's philosophy, was reluctantly obliged to admit that his works would remain on account of their literary value. Göthe himself expressed admiration for the clearness of exposition in Schopenhauer's chief work and for the beauty of his style.
The chief obstacle I have encountered in translating these Essays, did not therefore consist in the obscurity of the Author's style, nor even in the difficulty of finding appropriate terms wherewith to convey his meaning; although at times certainly the want of complete precision in our philosophical terminology made itself keenly felt and the selection was often far from easy: it lay rather in the great difference in the way of thinking and of expressing their thoughts which lies between the two nations. The regions of German and English thought are indeed separated by a gulf, which at first seems impassable, yet which must be bridged over by some means or other, if a right comprehension is to be achieved. The German writer loves to develop synthetically a single thought in a long period consisting of various members; he proceeds steadily to unravel the seemingly tangled skein, while he keeps the reader ever on the alert, making him assist actively in the process and never letting him lose sight of the main thread. The English author, on the contrary, anxious before all things to avoid confusion and misunderstanding, and ready for this end not only to sacrifice harmony of proportion in construction, but to submit to the necessity of occasional artificial joining, usually adopts the analytical method. He prefers to divide the thread of his discourse into several smaller skeins, easier certainly to handle and thus better suiting the convenience of the English thinker, to whom long periods are trying and bewildering, and who is not always willing to wait half a page or more for the point of a sentence or the gist of a thought. Wherever it could be done without interfering seriously with the spirit of the original, I have broken up the longer periods in these essays into smaller sentences, in order to facilitate their comprehension. At times however Schopenhauer recapitulates a whole side of his view of the Universe in a single period of what seems intolerable length to the English reader: as, for instance, the résumé contained in the Introduction to his "Will in Nature,"[3] which could not be divided without damage to his meaning. Here therefore it did not seem advisable to sacrifice the unity and harmony of his design and to disturb both his form and his meaning, in order to minister to the reader's dislike for mental exertion; in keeping the period intact I have however endeavoured to make it as easy to comprehend as possible by the way in which the single parts are presented to the eye.
As regards the terms chosen to convey the German meaning, I can hardly hope to have succeeded in every case in adequately rendering it, still less can I expect to have satisfied my English readers. Several words of frequent occurrence and of considerable importance for the right understanding of the original, have been used at different times by different English philosophers in senses so various, that, until our philosophical terminology has by universal consent attained far greater precision than at present, it must always be difficult for the writer or translator to convey to the reader's mind precisely the same thought that was in his own. To prevent unnecessary confusion however, by leaving too much to chance, I will here briefly state those terms which give most latitude for misapprehension, explaining the sense in which I employ them and also the special meaning attached to some of them by Schopenhauer, who often differs in this from other writers. They are as follows.
(a.) Anschauung (anschauen, literally 'to behold') I have rendered differently, according to its double meaning in German. When used to designate the mental act by which an object is perceived, as the cause of a sensation received, it is rendered by perception. When used to lay stress upon immediate, as opposed to abstract representation, it is rendered by intuition. This last occurs however more often in the adjective form.
(b.) Vorstellung (vorstellen, literally 'to place before') I render by representation in spite of its foreign, unwelcome sound to the English ear, as being the term which nearest approaches the German meaning. The faculty of representation is defined by Schopenhauer himself as "an exceedingly complicated physiological process in the brain of an animal, the result of which is the consciousness of a picture there."
(c.) Auffassung (auffassen, literally 'to catch up') has so many shades of meaning in German that it has to be translated in many different ways according to the relation in which it stands in the context. It signifies apprehension, comprehension, perception, viewing and grasping.
(d.) Wahrnehmung (wahrnehmen, from wahr, true, and nehmen, to take), is translated by apprehension or perception, according to the degree of consciousness which accompanies it.
But the two words which have proved most difficult to translate, have been Vernehmen and Willkühr.
(e.) Vernehmen means, to distinguish by the sense of hearing. This word conveys a shade of thought which it is almost impossible to render in English, because we have no word by which to distinguish, from mere sensuous hearing, a sort of hearing which implies more than hearing and less than comprehension. The French entendre comes nearer to it than our hearing, but implies more comprehension than vernehmen.