The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp
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The translator’s English as printed (R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
wit.hstAnirlfnp f>elf-adat)tation of all the phenomena of will to each other as regards their species, which consSEat^~~their teleological aspect, there yet remains an unceasing conflict between those phenomena as individuals, which is visible q.t every gr^de, and makes the worl^ a constant battle-field of all those manifestations of one and the same will, whose inner contradiction with itself h(^ru^Adsible tl^ropgh fl;.
In music also there is something corresponding to this. A complete, pure, harmonious system of tones is not only physically but arithmetically impossible. The numbers themselves by which the tones are expressed have inextricable irrationality. There is no scale in which, when it is counted, every fifth will be related to the keynote as 2 to 3, every major third as 4 to 5, every minor third as 5 to 6, and so on.
For if they are correctly related to the keynote, they can no longer be so to each other; because, for example, the fifth must be the minor third to the third, &c. For the notes of the scale may be compared to actors who must play now one part, now another.
Therefore a perfectly accurate system of music cannot even be thought, far less worked out; and on this account all possible music deviates from perfect purity ; it can only conceal the discords essential to it by dividing them among all the notes, i.e., by temperament On this see Chladni’s “Akustik,” § 30, and his “ Kurze Uebersicht der Schall- und Klanglehre.” ^
I might still have something to say about the way in which music is perceived, namely, in and through time alone, with absolute exclusion of space, and also apart from the influence of the knowledge of causality, thus without understanding ; for the tones make the aesthetic impression as effect, and without obliging us to go back to their causes, as in the case of perception. I do not wish, however, to lengthen this discussion, as I have perhaps already gone too much into detail with regard to ^ Cf. Cb. xxxix. of Supplement.
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some things in this Third Book, or have dwelt too much on particulars. But my aim made it necessary, and it will be the less disapproved if the importance and high worth of art, which is seldom sufficiently recognised, be kept in mind. For if, according to our view, the whole visible world is just the objectification, the mirror, of the will, conducting it to knowledge of itself, and, indeed, as we shall soon see, to the possibility of its deliverance ; and if, at the same time, the world ^ idea, if we regard it in isolation^ aQ.(L ireeing_cmiaelv^3 from~*all volition. allow it alone to take jpossession of our conscm^ness, is the most joy;^i''i“g and the only Innocent side of life ; we must regardart as hl^er* asc^tpffie more complete developnieht of all Tor it achieves essenti^y just what is achieved by the visible world itscif^onlY mth greater concentration, more perfectly, with intention and
{ntelll^ence^~and ’ flvw^fe'Toay ’'hej cOTed^Td^^ full significance of the word, the flower of Ufe.^ If the whole world as idea is only the visibility ol will, the work of art is to render this visibility more distinct. It is the camera obscura whicli~show8 the objects more purely, and enaSleFus to survey them and comprehend them better, it is the play within the play, the stage upon the stage in"* Bnmfet.^’ ' w,-..-.. ,,. .
The pleasure we receive from all beauty, the consolation which art affords, the enthusiasm of the artist, which enables him to forget the cares of life, — the latter an ^vantage of the man of genius over other men, which alone repays him for the suffering that increases in proportion to the clearness of consciousness, and for the desert loneliness among men of a different race, — all this rests~on the facTTEanhe~m.TEself of iiie, the will, existenceTtseB7^," as we shall see farther on, a constant i^i^bW,~~parfi|y^ miserable, parfiy terrible; while, on the contrary, as idea alone, purely contemplated^ or co^ed by art, free from pain^ it presents to us a drama full of signiflcance^ This pui^y knowable side of the world,
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THE WORLV AS IDEA.
BK. IIL
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