Schopenhauer

by Margrieta Beer

Schopenhauer's use of the factor of sympathy in explaining morality, differs considerably from that of the English philosophers of the eighteenth century, in whose systems of ethics sympathy played a large part. The sympathy, which Hume presupposes as "a principle in human nature, beyond which we cannot hope to find any principle more general," is sympathy with the pleasure resulting from the effects of virtuous action.

Adam Smith, who also regarded sympathy as the ultimate element into which moral sentiments may be analysed, approached more nearly to the position of Schopenhauer. Morality arises in its simplest form from direct sympathy or "fellow-feeling" with the passions of others, which a spectator feels from imagining himself in their situation. It is of two kinds, and moves the spectator to enter into the sentiments of the person concerned, and also moves the person concerned "to bring down his emotions to what the spectator can go along with." It is a power which enables us to take a disinterested view of our own conduct by putting ourselves in another's position.

In Schopenhauer's view sympathy is a positive principle of conduct. It is based upon the recognition of the identity of all living beings. It alone makes moral conduct possible, and moves us to feel and act towards others as to ourselves.

So far Schopenhauer has described the first stage in the progress of morality, that which is attained in ordinary virtue. The higher stage, that which he calls holiness, is attained through asceticism, the denial of the will to live. On the path of virtue man has learned to make no distinction between his own person and that of others, to take as much interest in the sufferings of others as in his own. He is even ready to sacrifice his own individuality, whenever such sacrifice will benefit humanity. It is no longer the changing joy and sorrow of his own personality which concerns him, but the joy and sorrow of all. He attains to a vision of the real nature of life, and realises the vain striving, the inward conflict, and incessant suffering in which it consists. And with this knowledge he finds it impossible to assert the egoistic desires of his own nature. His will turns away from life. He shudders at the pleasures which recognise the assertion of life. He attains to the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, and indifference.

The attainment of this goal is the hardest end of all to achieve. Only the saint, the perfect man, ever attains it completely and finally. Weaker and less perfect natures are ever drawn back to life by the sting of the desires, for the veil of Mâyâ, the mist of illusion, still clings about their feet. The vanity and bitterness of life still holds them, although the entrance to all suffering stands open while they are not yet purified by complete and final renunciation. They cannot tear themselves free from the illusions of life, from the allurements of hope, and the sweetness of pleasure. Those who see through the deceptions of life, and recognise the real nature of the world, are already on the way to consolation. They withdraw from the struggle of life, and no longer wish to assert their own individuality. The loftiest goodness means refraining from all willing.

This is the transition from virtue to asceticism. A man who has reached so far ceases to will anything, he guards himself against desire, and strives to attain complete indifference to everything. He gives the lie to his own body, and no longer desires any gratification. Voluntary and complete chastity and poverty are necessary steps in this asceticism. Man is at once the priest and the sacrifice. Every kind of volition is suppressed intentionally. The body is nourished sparingly, lest its vigour and well-being should arouse the will. Every step is taken to break and destroy the will, which is recognised as the source of all suffering. Death when it comes at last is welcomed as a longed-for deliverance, and hailed with gladness.

In this picture of the life of holiness and asceticism Schopenhauer shows the strong influence which Indian philosophy had exercised upon his thought. This is the ideal life, the life of the saint, as portrayed by the early Christian mystics, and in the Indian religious books.

Virtue and holiness proceed from inward, direct and intuitive knowledge, and not from abstract knowledge, as so many earlier philosophers asserted. The chasm between the two kinds of knowledge can be bridged only by philosophy. Everyone is conscious intuitively of philosophical truths, but philosophy is necessary to bring them to abstract knowledge and reflection. Hence Schopenhauer is at enmity with all rational religion. For religion has to do primarily not with the intellect, but with the will and the feelings. He felt this so deeply that he left the rational element almost entirely out of his definition of virtue. We learn the meaning of virtue, in his view, through the sympathy, which makes us feel intuitively the underlying identity in the lives of other beings with our own life. It is possible to express abstractly the inner nature of holiness and asceticism as the denial of the will to live, but this abstract theory has been known directly, and carried into practice by countless saints and ascetics, who all possessed the same inward knowledge, though they used very different language with regard to it, according to their dogmas. Whether a saint is moved by the grossest superstition, or whether he be a philosopher, makes no difference. His conduct testifies to his saintliness, and this proceeds from an intuitive and direct realisation of the nature of the world. The dogmas he holds are merely for the satisfaction of his intellect. It is therefore not necessary that a saint should be a philosopher, just as it is not necessary that a great sculptor should be himself a beautiful man.

The use of philosophy is to gather up the whole nature of the world in concepts, abstractly and universally, and thus to store up "a reflected image of it in permanent concepts always at the command of reason." Intuitive knowledge, on the other hand, is expressed most perfectly in deeds and conduct, not in abstract conceptions. To understand it fully, therefore, we must know examples in experience and actual life. A mere description of a beautiful soul is cold and abstract. Schopenhauer refers as models to the biographies of the early Christian and of the Buddhist saints, and in later times to the biography of Spinoza. He holds up with especial admiration the life of St. Francis of Assisi. These records of the lives of simple, self-denying men, mixed as they are with superstition, are for the philosopher far more significant and important than the lives of the great fighters and conquerors of the world. The life of St. Francis is of greater import than that of Alexander the Great. It is the ethical aspect of action which is important, and therefore the most significant life which the world can show is not the conqueror of the world, but he who has in himself subdued the world. It is the quiet, unobserved life of the man who has learned to deny the will to live that is most profoundly instructive.