The Misery of the World as Idea—Pessimism. The fundamental irrationality of the Will reveals the absolute misery of the World as Idea. The despair of pessimism follows from the very nature of the Will; for it must be remembered that Schopenhauer’s pessimism does not merely mean that the appearances of life are illusory, but that reality itself is irrational. The World as Idea is the objectification of such misery. Willing has its source in want, and want arises from suffering. Moreover the proportion of our wants that are satisfied is very small. To one that is supplied there are many that are not. Furthermore, while our desires last long, their satisfaction is short and scanty, “like the alms thrown to a beggar that keeps him alive to-day that his misery may be prolonged to-morrow.” Our ever-springing wants make lasting peace impossible. The finite world is not adequate to the infinite craving which it contains, and there is no equation between the cares and the satisfactions of life. The greatest evil that can befalla creature is to have been born; and this is a thousand-fold worse in man than in any other. To live is to go from willing to attaining and then to willing again. Attainment means new striving, and the Will shows “the ache of the not-yet-satisfied.” After all is said and done, satisfaction destroys not only the desire, but the satisfaction itself. There is no meaning in life. Pain is positive; pleasure is negative, and is merely the absence of or respite from pain.
The Way of Deliverance. The relief from misery that Schopenhauer offers is tinged with the grim despair of life itself. It is an escape that he finds, rather than a haven—an escape that consists in giving up all that life means. Why not, then, give up life, since it is misery and torment? But escape is not in suicide, for the act of taking one’s own life is the performance of the greatest act of affirmation of the Will; and in the Buddhistic doctrine the suicidal soul only passes by re-birth (metempsychosis) into another form of Will. Schopenhauer uses two phrases that have become classic in the description of the two attitudes possible to man: (1) if man is merely a part of the World as Idea he is “affirming the Will to life”; and (2) if he seeks a way of deliverance he “is denying the Will to life.” Suicide is an act of affirmation of the Will to life.
How may the Will be denied? and since we are in essence Will, the question takes this form, How may the Will deny the Will? This question presupposes a transcendental freedom which may be sought in two ways: one in which the freedom is temporary and the other in which it is permanent.
1. The temporary deliverance of the Will may be found in artistic contemplation (Schiller’s disinterestedcontemplation). Art deals not with particular forms, but eternal types (Platonic Ideas). Art isolates an eternal object from out the stream of the world’s changes, and places it beyond all relations of time, place, and cause. Art not only removes its object from the World as Idea, but it removes the contemplator as well. The contemplating subject and the contemplated object thus become one, and the subject is temporarily saved, for he is elevated above all desire and pain. This, however, is possible not to the majority of men, but only to those few possessing æsthetic fancy, and for them only at intervals. Music is ranked by Schopenhauer as the highest form of art,—even above poetry,—and it is not surprising therefore that among the Schopenhauerian worshipers have been many prominent musicians.
2. But artistic ecstasy is too fleeting and restricted to offer lasting deliverance from the affirmation of the Will to life and the World as Idea. Another act of transcendental freedom will bring man into more complete freedom; but this act is a miracle and a mystery, since it is the complete transformation of our nature. This act must be supernatural, and the church is right in calling it a new birth and a work of grace. Complete freedom from the Will comes through moral deliverance.
This lasting escape from the Will is open to the man who appreciates two facts: that all striving for happiness is vain; and that all men are alike manifestations of the Will. To take this double view of life involves the feeling of sympathy with others in their misery. Sympathy is thus the only true moral motive and the fundamental ethical feeling. The Will in us ismoral if we feel another’s hurt as our own. But sympathy is only a palliative, and it does not remove the cause of disease. The misery still exists, and our sympathy has only changed its form. Even though our sympathy goes out to the whole world, the endless tragedy would still pass on.
In the moral deliverance sympathy can be made complete by absolute denial, and this will come by asceticism, mortification, and complete eradication of want and desire. The Hindu sannyasi shows the way. This is the mystery of the Will. But Schopenhauer is not quite sure that extreme asceticism can be made effective, since we are full of Will. At the close of his work he says that even if we could be completely ascetic the result would be Nothingness. “In thy Nothing I hope to find the ALL.” Schopenhauer despairs of deliverance for himself, but does not count it unachievable by others. Absolute deliverance even by asceticism seems impossible to him. The only hope is that through art and science the Will may be some time overcome.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY[73]
The Return to Realism. If the history of mankind had terminated with the nineteenth century, the last tendency of thought to be recorded would have been the return to Realism. The abbreviated account which follows of the philosophy of the nineteenth century will explain and illustrate this tendency. Before we set this forth, however, it may be well to define again the nature of Realism. What is Realism? In general it is the belief that reality or realities exist quite independent of anybody’s knowing them. Moreover, Realism has the distinction of being one of the four great types of metaphysical thought. These types are Realism, Mysticism, Critical-rationalism, and Idealism.[74] In other words, Realism is an attitude of mind possible to a whole civilization. This is what is meant by a great philosophical type. The Idealism of the period which we have just studied is such a type. Although Germany had been the leading representative of Idealism, the spread of philosophical and literary Idealism had been world-wide. All nations had shared in it. But when the great events and the romancing spirit of that periodhad passed, the reaction to Realism was likewise felt the world over. It is the period of this reaction that we are briefly to consider.