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

of life. The transition from one key to an entirely different one, since it altogetterDreaks &e connection with what wjrat"^e^rej|_^^^^e“^3e^Sh, for the individual en3s*” in it ; but the v^l which appeared in this individual lives afterTiim' as T)Sore him, appearing in other

VOL. I.

p. 338

THE WORLD ^5 IDEA.

BK. in.

individnals, whose consciousness, however, has no connection with his.

But it must never be forgotten, in the investigation of all these analogies I have pointed out, that music has no direct, but merely an indirect relation to them, for it never expresses the phenomenon, but only the inner nature, the in-itself of all phenomena, the will itself.

It does not therefore express this or that particular and definite joy, this or that sorrow, or pain, or horror, or delight, or merriment, or peace of mind ; but joy, sorrow, pain, horror, delight, merriment, peace of mind themselves, to a certain extent in the abstract, their essential nature, without accessories, and therefore without their motives. Yet we completely understand them in this extracted quintessence.

Hence it arises that our imagination is so easily excited by music, and now seeks to give form to that invisible yet actively moved spiritworld which speaks to us directly, and clothe it with flesh and blood, i.e., to embody it in an analogous example.

This is the origin of the song with words, and finally of the opera, the text of which should therefore never forsake that subordinate position in order to make itself the chief thing and the music a mere means of expressing it, which is a great misconception and a piece of utter perversity; for music always expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves, and therefore their differences do not always affect it.

It is precisely this universality, which belongs exclusively to it, together with the greatest determinateness, that gives music the high worth which it has as the panacea for all our woes. Thus, if music is too closely united to the words, and tries to form itself according to the events, it is striving to speak a language which is not its own.

Ho one has kept so free from this mistake as Bossini; therefore his music speaks its own language so distinctly and purely that it requires no words, and produces its full effect when rendered by instruments alone.

According to all this, we may regard the phenomenal world, or nature, and music as two different expressions of the same thing, which is therefore itself the only medium of their analogy, so that a knowledge of it is demanded in order to understand that analogy.

Music, therefore, if regarded as an expression of the world, is in the highest degree a universal language, which is related indeed to the universality of concepts, much as they are related to the particular things. Its universality, however, is by no means that empty universality of abstraction, but quite of a different kind, and is united with thorough and distinct definiteness.

In this respect it resembles geometrical figures and numbers, which are the universal forms of all pos.sible objects of experience and applicable to them all a priori, and yet are not abstract but perceptible and thoroughly determined.

All possible efforts, excitements, and manifestations of will, all that ^es on in the lie¥rt’ of" hiaii and 'tTial*T‘eas6ii~mcIudes m the wide, negative cbhcept of feeling^ may be expressed by the infinite number of possible meloHiesT^ut* tilways in the univemah in the mere forui,3vTtKouF1EKe^ ihafenaT, always according to the thing-in-itself, not the phenomenon, the inmost soul, as it were, of the phenomenon, without the body.

This deep relation which music has to the teue nature of all things also explains the fact that suitable music played to any~scene7aHion7*evenfr or^ r^ rounding seems to disclose to {iii1t3~nrosT~secret' meamh^' and appears as the most accurate and distinct commentary upon it, This is so truly the case, that whoever gives himself up entirely to the impression of a symphony, seems to see all the possible events of life and the world take place in himself, yet if he reflects, he can find no likeness between the music and the things that passed before his mind.

For, as we have said, music is distinguished from all the other arts by the fact that it is not a copy of the phenomenon, or, more accurately, the adequate objectivity of will, but is the direct copy of the