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

eyes, that he knows the inner nature of things a^art from all their relations, is the gift of genius, is inborn ; but that he is able to lend us this gift, to let us see with his eyes, is acquired, and is the technical side of art. Therefore, after the account which 1 Have^^veiTiir the preceding pages of the inner nature of sesthetical knowledge in its most general outlines, the following more exact philogophical i^eatment of. the beautiful and the sublime will explain them both, in nature and in art, without separatingp. 253 them further.. First of all we shall consider what takes place in a man when he is affected by the beautiful and the sublime; whether he derives this emotion directly from nature, from life, or partakes of it only through the medium of art, does not make any essential, but merely an external, difference.

§ 38. In the sesthetical mode of contemplation we have found two insepatahle coTistituent parts — the knowledge of the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea, that is, as the enduring form of this whole species of things ; and the self-consciousness of the knowing person, not as individual, but as pure will-less svlject of htwwledge. The condition under which both these constituent parts appear always united was found to be the abandonment of the method of knowing which is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, and which, on the other hand, is the only kind of knowledge that is of value for the service of the wiU and also for science. Moreover we shall see that the pleasure which is produced by the contemplation of the beautiful arises from these two constituent parts, sometimes more from the one, sometimes more from the other, according to what the object of the sesthetical contemplation may be.

Aj^willing arises from want, therefore from deficiency, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish endsjit; yet~ for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten winch we denied^, Furâer, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite ; the satisfactW" Is _ sti^ and scantily me^ured puii» But even the final satisfaction is itself only apparent; eveiy satisfied wish at onc^ mak^ room for a new one ; both are illusions ; the one is known^ to’’^e'‘^7''£K^ other not yet. No attainedr oTi^Je^of d(^e""can~ gn^astm^salis^^^ but merely a fleeting gratification ; it is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that his misery may Be-proIongM tdl tlie morrow. Therefore, so long as our consciousness 5 filled" "by our will, so long lis we are

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THE WORLD AS IDEA.

BK. III.

given np to the throng of desires mth their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we can never hiave "lasting happiness nor peaceT^TFls essentially all the same whe^er we pursue or flee, fear injury dr" seek enjoyment ; the care for the cdnstanE" demands of the wiU, in whatever form it maj~B^ contmualiy occumes "a^ sways the consciousness ; but without peace no true well-being is possible. The sub^ ject of willing is thus constantly stretched on the fivolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sTeve of the Danaids, is the ever-longing Tantalus.

But when, some external cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing, delivers knowledge from the slavery of the will, the attSafion is no longer directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends things free from their relation to the will, and thus observes them without personal interest^ ^Kdut "subjectivity, purely objectively, gives itself entirely up to them so far as they are ideas, but not in so far as they are motives. Then all at once the' peace which we were always seeking, but which" always fled from us on the former path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord, and it is well with us. It is the painless state which Epicurus prized as the highes^t g;ood and as the state of the gods ; for we are for the moment set free from the miserable striving of the will; we keep the Sabbath'oT the penal servitude of willing; the wheel of Ixion stands still.