The Philosophy of Disenchantment Part 5

_December 23, 1855._

... A gentleman has written to me from Zurich to say that in the club to which he belongs my works are read with such admiration that the members are crazy to get a picture of me of any kind, nature, or description, and that the artist who takes it has but to forward it C. O. D.... You see that my fame is spreading like a conflagration, and not in arithmetical ratio either, but in geometric, and even cubic....

_March 28, 1856._

... R., too, kissed my hand,--a ceremony to which I cannot accustom myself; yet it is one, I suppose, that forms part of my imperial dignity....

_June 6, 1856._

... Becher sent his son and nephew here, and Baehr sent his son also, and that only that these young people may in their old age be able to boast that they had seen and spoken to me....

_June 11, 1856._

... Professor Baehr, of Dresden, was here yesterday, and, penetrated with the most praiseworthy enthusiasm, wished to exchange his beautiful silver snuff-box for my forlorn old leather one. I refused, however. He told me of a certain Herr von Wilde, who was a perfect fanatic on the subject of my philosophy, and who, at the age of eighty-five, died with my name on his lips.

My Buddha, re-gilded, glittering on his pedestal, gives you his benediction.

_August 14, 1856._

... Four pages and a half of Tallendier about me.[5] You have seen it, I suppose. French chatter, personal details, etc., but where the devil did he hear that I am "tout etonne du bruit que font mes ecrits dans le monde?" I am so little astonished, that Emden told Nordwall, to the latter's intense surprise, that I had predicted to him my future celebrity fully twenty years ago....

Now, mediocrity may, of course, be praised, but, as Balzac has put it, it is never discussed. And Schopenhauer, in the matter of discussion, came in for his full share. He was praised and abused by turn. Like every prominent figure, he made a good mark to fire at. Certain critics said that he had stolen from Fichte and Sch.e.l.ling everything in his philosophy that was worth reading, others abused him personally; and one writer, a woman with whom he had refused to converse, and who had probably expected to pay her hotel bill with the protocol of his conversation, wrote a quant.i.ty of scurrilous articles about him. But _censura perit, scriptum manet._ The criticisms are forgotten, while his work still endures and, moreover, grows each year into surer and stronger significance.

Among his visitors at the time was M. Foucher de Carsil, and the portrait which that gentleman subsequently drew of him is so graphic that it is impossible to resist the temptation of making the following extract:[6]--

"When I first saw him, in 1859, at the Hotel d'Angleterre, at Frankfort, he was then an old man, with bright blue and limpid eyes. His lips were thin and sarcastic, and about them wandered a smile of shrewd intelligence. His high forehead was tufted on either side with puffs of white hair that gave to his physiognomy, luminous as it was with wit and malice, a stamp of n.o.bility and distinction. His garments, his lace _jabot_, his white cravat, reminded me of that school of gentlemen who lived toward the close of the reign of Louis XV. His manners were those of a man accustomed to the best society; habitually reserved and timid even to suspicion, he rarely entered into conversation with any save his intimates and an occasional sympathetic traveler. His gestures were abrupt, and in conversation they became at once petulant and suggestive. He avoided discussions and combats in words, but he did so that he might the better enjoy the charm of familiar conversation. When he did speak, his imagination embroidered on the heavy canvas of the German tongue the most subtle and delicate arabesques that the Latin, Greek, French, English, or Italian languages were capable of suggesting. Indeed, when he cared to talk, his conversation possessed swing and precision, and joined thereto was a wealth of citation, an exact.i.tude of detail, and such tireless flow of wit, as held the little circle of his friends charmed and attentive until far into the night. His words, clear-cut and cadenced, captivated his listener wholly: they both pictured and a.n.a.lyzed, a tremulous sensitiveness heightened their fervor, they were precise and exact on every topic. A German, who had traveled extensively in Abyssinia, was so astonished at the minute details which he gave on the different species of crocodiles, and their customs, that he thought that in him he recognized a former companion.

"Happy are they who heard this last survivor of the conversationalists of the eighteenth century! He was a contemporary of Voltaire and of Diderot, of Helvetius and of Chamfort; his brilliant thoughts on women, on the part that mothers hold in the intellectual qualities of their children; his theories, profoundly original, on the connection between will and mind; his views on art and nature, on the life and death of the species; his remarks on the dull and wearisome style of those who write to say nothing, or who put on a mask and think with the thoughts of others; his pungent reflections on the subject of pseudonyms, and on the establishment of a literary censure for those journals which permitted neologisms, solecisms, and barbarisms; his ingenious hypotheses on magnetic phenomena, dreams, and somnambulism; his hatred of excess of every kind; his love of order; and his horror of obscurantism, 'qui, s'il n'est pas un peche contre le Saint Esprit en est un contre l'esprit humain,' make for him a physiognomy entirely different from any other of this century."

A few tags and tatters of these conversations have been preserved by Dr. Frauenstadt,[7] and in them Schopenhauer is discovered sprawled at ease, and expressing himself on a variety of topics with a _disinvoltura_ and freedom of epithet which recalls the earlier essayists. With them, as with him, periphrasis was avoided. Spades were spades, not horticultural implements; and in one dialogue Frauenstadt compliments his master in having, in breadth and reach of his polemic, nothing in common with contemporary regard for ears polite. Citations of this cla.s.s, however, may well be omitted. A thinker in slippers, and especially _in puris naturalibus_, is generally unattractive even to those the least given to prudishness. But beyond certain instances of this description, the scholar and man of the world is usually very discernible. At times he is profound, at others vivacious; for instance, he is asked what man would be if Nature, in making the last step which leads to him, had started from the dog or the elephant; to which he answers, in that case man would be an intelligent dog or an intelligent elephant, instead of being an intelligent monkey. As may be imagined, there was about Schopenhauer very little of the Sunday-school theologian, and religion was in consequence seldom viewed by him from an orthodox standpoint; when, therefore, Schleiermacher was quoted before him to the effect that no man can be a philosopher who is not religious, he observed very quietly, "No man who is religious can become a philosopher,--metaphysics are useless to him, and no true philosopher is religious; he is sometimes in danger, but he is not fettered, he is free." Elsewhere he said, "Religion and philosophy are like the two scales of a balance; the more one rises, the more does the other descend."

In Schopenhauer's opinion, the greatest novels were "Tristram Shandy,"

"Wilhelm Meister," "Don Quixote," and the "Nouvelle Helose." To "Don Quixote" he ascribed an allegorical meaning, but as an intellectual romance he preferred "Wilhelm Meister" to all others. He believed in clairvoyance, but not that man is a free agent; and it may be here noted that, according to the most recent scientific opinion, man is a free agent, _at most_, about once in twenty-four hours. "Everything that happens, happens necessarily," he would say; and it was with this maxim, of whose truth he had a variety of every-day examples, and with the aid of the theory of the ideality of time, that he explained second sight. "Everything is now that is to be," he said; "but with our ordinary eyes we do not see it; the clairvoyant merely puts on the spectacles of Time."

In the "Paranesen und Maximen," in which Schopenhauer chats quietly with the reader and not with the disciple, many quaint and forcible suggestions are to be found. For instance, among other things, he says, "I accord my entire respect to any man who, when unoccupied, and waiting for something, does not immediately begin to beat a tattoo with his fingers, or toy with the object nearest his hand. It is probable that such a man has thoughts of his own." His advice, too, on the manner in which we should think and work is quite Emersonian in its directness. It was, it may be added, the manner in which he thought and worked, himself: "Have compartments for your thoughts and open but one of them at a time; in this way each little pleasure you may have will not be spoiled by some lumbering care; neither will one thought drive out another, and an important matter will not swamp a lot of smaller ones."

Such, vaguely outlined, was this great and interesting figure. With the appearance of the "Parerga" his work was done. He lived ten years longer in great seclusion, receiving only infrequent visits. "There, where two or three are gathered together," he would say, and suggested that his friends and believers should meet and consult without him.

Such literary labor as he then performed consisted mainly in strengthening that which he had already written, and in making notes and suggestions for future editions. At the age of seventy-two he died, very peacefully though suddenly, leaving all his fortune to charitable purposes.

In these pages no attempt has been made to enter into the details of biography, for that pleasant task has been already well performed by other and better equipped pens. The present writer has therefore only sought to present such a view of Schopenhauer as might aid the general reader to a clearer understanding of the doctrine which he was the first to present, and which will be briefly considered in the next chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: _Briefe uber die Schopenhauer'sche Philosophie._]

[Footnote 4: "Yes, yes, Sarastro reigns herein."--Air from the _Magic Flute_.]

[Footnote 5: An article in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.]

[Footnote 6: _Hegel et Schopenhauer._ Paris: Hachette et Cie.]

[Footnote 7: _Arthur Schopenhauer. Von ihm, Ueber ihn._ Berlin.]

CHAPTER III.

THE SPHINX'S RIDDLE.

In the Munich beer halls, when one student is heard laying down the law about something which he does not understand to a companion who cares not a rap on the subject, it is very generally taken for granted that the two are talking metaphysics. Indeed, metaphysics has a bad name everywhere. In itself, it suggests nothing very enticing, and even its nomenclature seems to bring with it a sort of ponderosity which is very nearly akin to the repulsive.

This prejudice, of course, is not without its reason. The philosophers, nearly one and all, seem to have banded themselves into a sort of imaginary freemasonry, whose portals they bar to any one refusing to robe his thoughts in a garment of technical speech. Moreover, at the very gateway of their guild there looms before the timorous the fear of a hideous initiation, the cold douche of logic, and the memorizing of hateful terms. There can therefore be no stronger proof of Schopenhauer's ability than that which is contained in the fact that he successfully eluded all these stale abuses, and turned one of the heaviest kinds of writing into one of the most agreeable.

Indeed, Schopenhauer is not only one of the most profound thinkers of the essentially profound nineteenth century, but, what is still more noteworthy, he is an exceptionably fascinating teacher. His s.p.a.cious theories and tangential flights are, of course, not such as charm the reader of the penny dreadful; but any one who is interested in the drama of evolution and the tragi-comedy of life will, it is believed, find in him a fund of curious information, such as no other thinker has had the power to convey.

He has, it is true, made the most of the worst; but beyond this reproach, but one other of serious import remains to be brought against him, and that is that though he has been dead and buried for very nearly a quarter of a century, he is still on the outer margin of his epoch. For this he is not, of course, entirely to blame. There are among thinkers many pleasant optimists still, who form a respectable majority; to be sure, a wise man once said that in considering a new subject the minority were always right; but, disregarding for the moment the fallacy of believing that this world is the best one possible, it cannot but be admitted that scientific pessimism is still in its infancy. It has yet many prejudices to disarm, and many errors of its own to correct. Like meaner things, it must mature. For this it has ample time.

Berkeley says that few men think, yet all have opinions; and it is now very frequently a.s.serted that when more is thought, not only there will not be such a diversity of opinion, but at that time Pessimism, as the religion of the future, will begin its sway.

It has been elsewhere noted that the effect of Kant's philosophy was not dissimilar to that of a successful operation on cataract, and the aim of the "World as Will and Idea" is to place in the hands of those on whom that operation has been satisfactorily performed a pair of such spectacles as are suitable to convalescent eyes. Schopenhauer is therefore in a measure indebted to Kant, as also, it may be added, to Plato, and the sacred books of the Hindus.

In saying, however, that Schopenhauer is indebted to Kant, it is well to point out that Schopenhauer begins precisely where Kant left off.

Kant's great merit consisted in distinguis.h.i.+ng the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself, or in other words, in showing the difference between that which seems and that which is.[8] For the inaccessible thing-in-itself he had no explanation to offer. He called it the _Ding an sich_, regarded it as the result of an unintelligible cause, and then left it to be a bugbear to every student of his philosophy.

This unpleasant _Ding an sich_ was exorcised, and well-nigh banished for good and all, by Fichte and Hegel; but Schopenhauer reestablished the incomprehensible factor on a fresh basis, christened it "Will," and a.s.serted it to be the creator of all that is, and at once independent, free, and omnipotent; in other words, the interior essence of the world of which Christ crucified is the sublime symbol. Thus disposed of, the _Ding an sich_ may now be left to take care of itself, and the examination of the great theory begun.

Schopenhauer opens his philosophy with the formula, "The world is my idea;" a formula which, it may be noted, condenses in the fewest possible words all that is worth condensing of the idealism of Germany.

Beginning in this manner it is evident that he proposes to show neither whence the world comes nor whither it tends, nor yet why it is, but simply, _what it is_. The question has been asked before. According to Schopenhauer, the world is made up of two zones, the real and the ideal; and it may here be said that over the real and the ideal Schopenhauer successfully read the banns.

To return, however, to the opening formula. "The world is my idea" is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and thinks, but which, however, is appreciable only by man. When appreciated, it is at once clear that what we know is neither a sun nor an earth, for we have at best an eye which sees the one, and a hand which feels the other. In brief, we are unacquainted with either forms or colors; we have but senses which represent them to us, while objects exist for us merely through the medium of the intelligence. Indeed, as Schopenhauer has said, no other truth is more certain and less in need of proof than this,--that the whole world is simply the perception of a perceiver; in a word, idea.

Emerson says that the frivolous make themselves merry with this theory; and it must be admitted that at first it does not seem quite satisfactory to be told that the world in which we live is nothing more nor less than a cerebral phenomenon, which man carries with him to the tomb, and which, in the absence of a perceiver, would not exist at all.

To arrive, however, at a clear understanding of the purely phenomenal existence of the exterior world, it will suffice to represent to one's self the world as it was when entirely uninhabited. At that time it was necessarily without perception. Later, there sprang up a great quant.i.ty of plants, upon which the different forces of light, air, humidity, and electricity acted according to their nature. If, now, it be remembered how impressionable plants are to these agents, and how thought leads by degrees to sensation and thence to perception, immediately then the world appears representing itself in time and s.p.a.ce. Or, reverse the argument and imagine that the dream of the poet is realized, that nations have disappeared, and that every living thing has ceased to be, while beneath the sun's unchanging stare, and enveloped in the sky's bland, pervasive blue, the earth with her continents and archipelagoes continues to revolve in s.p.a.ce. Under such circ.u.mstances it would naturally seem as though the universe subsisted still. But if the question is examined more closely, it will perhaps be admitted that these things remain as they are only on condition of being seen and felt. For supposing one spectator present, but of a different mental organization from our own, then the entire scene is changed; suppress him, and the whole spectacle tumbles into chaos.

This doctrine, as it will be readily understood, does not in any sense deny the reality of the world in the ordinary acceptation of the term; it maintains merely that every object is conditioned by its subject; or, to explain the theory less technically, it will be sufficient to reflect that for the world, or for anything else, to be an object, there must be some one as subject to think it; for instance, the dreamless sleep proves that the earth exists only to the thinking mind, and should all Nature be rocked in an eternal slumber, there could then be no question of an exterior world.

If it be asked in what this perception consists, which represents the exterior world, we find that it is limited to three fundamental concepts, that of time, s.p.a.ce, and their concomitant causality; but inasmuch as time and s.p.a.ce are the receptacle of every phenomenon, once their ideality is established, the ideality of the world is proven at the same moment, and with it the truth of the formula, "The world is my idea."

Now the ideality of time is established, according to Schopenhauer, by what is known in mechanics as the law of inertia. "For what," he asks in the "Parerga," "does this law teach? Simply, that time alone cannot produce any physical action, that alone and in itself it alters nothing either in the repose or movement of a body. Were it either accidentally or otherwise inherent in things themselves, it would follow that its duration or brevity would affect them in a certain measure. But it does nothing of the sort; time pa.s.ses over all things without leaving the slightest trace, for they are acted upon only by the causes that unroll themselves _in_ time, but in no sense by time itself. When, therefore, a body is withdrawn from chemical action, as the mammoth in the ice fields, the fly in amber, and the Egyptian antiquities in their closed necropoli, thousands of years may pa.s.s and leave them unaffected.

Indeed," he adds elsewhere, "the living toads found in limestone lead to the conclusion that even animal life may be suspended for thousands of years, provided this suspension is begun in the dormant period and maintained by special circ.u.mstances."

The "London Times," 21st September, 1840, contains a notice to the effect that, at a lecture delivered by Mr. Pettigrew, at the Literary and Scientific Inst.i.tute, the lecturer showed some grains of wheat which Sir G. Wilkenson had found in a grave at Thebes, where they must have lain for three thousand years. They were found in an hermetically sealed vase. Mr. Pettigrew had sowed twelve grains, and obtained a plant which grew five feet high, and the seeds of which were then quite ripe.

Many other instances are given of this absolute inactivity; for example, let a body once be put in motion, that motion is never arrested or diminished by any lapse of time; it would be never ending were it not for the reaction of physical causes. In the same manner a body in repose would remain so eternally did not physical causes put it in motion. It follows, therefore, that time is not a real existence, but only a condition of thought, or purely ideal.

In regard to the ideality of s.p.a.ce, Schopenhauer says, "The clearest and most simple proof of the ideality of s.p.a.ce is that we can never get it out of our thoughts, as we might anything else. We can fancy s.p.a.ce as having no longer anything to fill it, we can imagine that everything within it has disappeared, we can represent it as being, between the fixed stars, an absolute void, but s.p.a.ce itself we can never get rid of; whatever we do, however we turn, there it is in endless expansion.

This fact certainly proves that s.p.a.ce is a part of our intellect; or, in other words, that it is the woof of the tissue upon which the different objects of the exterior world apply themselves. As soon as I think of an object, s.p.a.ce appears with it and accompanies every movement, every turn and _detour_ of my thought, as faithfully as the spectacles on my nose accompany every movement, every turn and _detour_ of my person, or just in the same manner as the shadow accompanies the body. If I notice that a thing accompanies me everywhere, and under all circ.u.mstances, I naturally conclude that it is in some way connected with me; as if, for instance, wherever I went I noticed a particular odor from which I could not escape. s.p.a.ce is precisely the same; whatever I think of, what ever I imagine, s.p.a.ce comes first and yields its place to nothing. It must, therefore, be an integral part of my understanding, and its ideality in consequence must extend to everything that is thinkable."