THE first edition of this little book appeared in the year 1836 under the pen-name of “Mises” and was published by my friend, long since dead, the book-dealer and composer, Ch. F. Grimmer. It made its way quietly, like the first edition of its author’s life, of which the little book was a part, while cherishing the expectation of a second. With the years of the one first edition, the copies of the other, without being yet quite exhausted, are diminishing.
While I dedicate this second edition, issued from another friendly publishing house, and under my own name, to the beloved daughters of my departed friend, in whom is continued for us that knew him all that we loved in him, I believe, in the sense of the very view which is set forth in this book, that I am giving it back to my friend in the way he would best like. He has, indeed, a perpetual spiritual claim upon the earlier material; for it originated mainly as the result of talks with him about an idea of our mutual friend Billroth, which, though cursorily expressed and held by the latter, yet took deep root in the heart of the author. It was a little seed, a tree has grown from it; he has helped to loosen the earth for it.
Let me here add a wish: that there might be a revival of my friend’s songs, so beautiful and so forgotten, as well as of this half-forgotten little book. The creation of both went on so hand in hand during a period of daily companionship, that they seem to echo and re-echo in my memory like intermingled melodies. Simple as their charm is, may they have a duration even beyond that of the music of the future; for sound drowns beauty, yet beauty outlives sound, and what begins loud cannot so end. But if I did not believe that the same is true of truth as of beauty, how should I hope for a future for the opinions of this book?
The reason for exchanging the former pen-name now for the author’s own, was personal. The little paper at its first appearance was a divergence from the chief characteristics of the author’s other works; but it became the firstling of a series of later writings, appearing under his own name, which, in their contents, conform to it more or less, and to which it may therefore be added by the ascription of a common origin. Finally, their grouping results from the consideration that they combine with the work before us to form a connected theory of life which partly supports, partly is supported by the contents of this book. A further carrying out of this view, only briefly developed here, may be found in the third part of the Zend-Avesta.
This edition has only been altered in unimportant respects, extended in several, from the former.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
IT is sufficient to remark that, except by the addition of a note upon page 57, and the omission of an easily controverted appendix (on the principle of divine vision) at the close of the last edition, the present one only differs from the former in unimportant changes of a few words.
The fourth edition, the first after the author’s death, is a faithfully rendered reprint of the third, changed only in form.
THE PUBLISHERS.