The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

To him who has thoroughly grasped this, and can distinguish between the will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation, the events of the world will have significance only so far as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man, but not in and for themselves.

He will not believe with the vulgar that time may produce something actually new and significant ; that through it, or in it, something absolutely real may attain to existence, or indeed that it itself as a whole has beginning and end, plan and development, and in some way has for its final aim the highest perfecH^ faccbrdi^to their conception) of the last generation ol inan^ whose life is a brief thirty yeara.

Therefore he win just as little, with, Homerj. people a. whole Olympus mfh gods to^uide the,.eye.nts of time, as, with Ossian, he \mi take the forms of the. clouds for individual beijigs ; far^ hs we have said,.

Jbeth have just as much meaning as regafdsTHe^ Idea which appears in thenk In the manifold ibimsliTTiuman life and in the unceasing change of events, he will regard the Idea only as the abiding and essential, in which the will to live has its fullest objecTHE PLATONIC IDEA :p. 237

tivity, and which shows its different sides in the capacities, the passions, the^ errors and the excellences of the Imman race ; in self-interest, hatred, love, fear, boldness, frivolity, stnpidity, slyness, wit, genius, and sp forth, all oF whwh crowding together and combining in Idiousands of forms (mdivTduals), continually create, the.

Matory^of-the great and the little world, in which it is all the same yjligl^r they are ^t in motion by nuts or bj crowns.

Finally, he will find that in jibe wpr^^^ it is the same as in the dramas of Gozzi, in all of which the same persons appear, with liSF intention, and with a like fate; the motives^ and mcidents are certainly different' Tn ^ch piece, but the spirit of the incidents is the same ; the actors in one piece know nothing pf the” incidents of another, although they performed in it themselves ; therefore, after all experience of former pieces.

Pantaloon has become no more agile dr generous, Tartaglia no more consci^lTdus^Bnghella'no rudre courageous, and Columblne nd'mdfe mddHt." ~

Sii^ose we were allowed for once a clearer glance into the kingdom of the possible, and over the whole chain of causes and effects ; if the earth-spirit appeared and showed us in a picture all the greatest men, enlighteners of the world, ai^ heroes, tha^chance ^srioyed before they were ripe for their work ; then the great events thai''wduld have changed the Wstorj of the world and brought in periods of the highest culture aud enlightenment, but which the blindest chancej the most insignificant accident, hindered at the oi^et ; lastly, the splendid powers of great men, that would have ehfrcEed wEdTe' ^es jpf the world,, h JiF.which,, . either misle.d^ error or passion, or compelledjy^ necessity^they squandered uselessly on unworthy or unfruitful objects, or evpp '\yapted in play. If we saw all this, we would shudder and lament atJ^TThougETor'the lost' treasures of whole periods of the world. But the earth-spirit would smfle and say, “ Ihe source from v^ich the individuals and' their powers

p. 238

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

BK. III.

proceed is inexhaustible and uneixdiug as time and space; for, like these forms of all phenomena, they also are only pnenomena, visibility of the will. No finite measure can exhaust that infinite source; therefore an undiminished eternity is always open for the return of any event or work~tEal'~was"hippe3^1h the ^ud. In this worid of phenomena true loss is just as lil^ejpossible as true gain' Th£j^I alone is ; it is the thing in-itself, and the source _of all these phenomena. Its self-knowledge and its assertion or denial, which is then decided upon, is the only event in-itself.” ^