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

phenomenon of will, thus to life; and it is essential to this to exhibit itself in individuals which come into being and pass awaj, ^ fleeting phenomena appea^g^ m tlm fbfm~or“Gme — phenomena of that which in itself knows no time, hut must exhibit itself precisely in the way we have said, in order to objectify its peculiar nature. Birth and death belong in like manner to life, and hold the_ halmice as reBiprbcaT'~c6nditioh¥"br 'each^th^~orJTr one likes the expression, as poles of the whole 2>henomenon of lite. "The wisesF~oF all m^liblo^~s, the'lndian, ex- ^esses” this by giving td^he~ver:^~go3~~tHat~symboIi8'e3 destruction, death Brahmiii' the 'mOStnslnlnl "and the lowest god of the Trimurti, symbolises generation, coming into being, ~^d~TisEnu~^Qiamta1nifg~6r pr^erviug), by giving, I say, to Siva as an attribute not only the "hecklace of skulls, but also the lingam, the symbol of generation, which appears here as the counterpart of death, lEhui signifying that generation and death are essentially correlativesf whicii reciproc^y^heutralise and annul each

Greeks and llomaiis to adorn their costly sarcophagi, just as we see them now, with feasts, dances, marriages, the chase, fights of wild beasts, bacchanalians, &a ; thus with representations of the full ardour of life, which they place before us not only in such revels and sports, but also in sensual groups, and even go so far as to represent the sexual intercourse of satyrs and goats. Clearly the ain was to point in the most impressive manner away fron the death of the mourned individual to the immortal lift of nature, and thus to indicate, though without abstraci knowledge, that the whole of nature is the phenomenor and also the fulfilment of the^lH’to Iim ’ The form' 6i

356 THE WORLD y45 WILL. BK. IV.

this phenomenon is time, space, and causality, and by means of these individuation, which carries with it that the individual must come into being and pass away. But this no more affects the will to live, of whose manifestation the individual is, as it were, only a particular example or specimen, than the death of an individual injures the whole of nature.

For it is not the individual, but only the species that Nature cares for, and for the preservation of which she so earnestly strives, providing for it with the utmost prodigality through the vast surplus of the seed and the great strength of the fructifying impulse.

The individual, on the contrary, neither has nor can have any value for Nature, for her kingdom is infinite time and infinite space, and in these infinite multiplicity of possible individuals.

Therefore she is always ready to let the individual fall, and hence it is not only exposed to destruction in a thousand ways by the most insignificant accident, but originally destined for it, and conducted towards it by Nature herself from the moment it has served its end of maintaining the species.

Thus Nature naively expresses the great truth that only the Ideas, not the individuals, have, properly speaking, reality, i.e., are complete objectivity of the will.

Now, since man is Nature itself, and indeed Nature at the highest grade of its self-consciousness, but Nature is only the objectified will to live, the man who has comprehended and retained this point of view may well console himself, when contemplating his own death and that of his friends, by turning his eyes to the immortal life of Nature, which he himself is.

This is the significance of Siva with the lingam, and of those ancient sarcophagi with their pictures of glowing life, which say to the mourning beholder, Natura non contristatur.

That generation and death are to be regarded as something belonging to life, and essential to this phenomenon of the will, arises also from the fact that they both exhibit themselves merely as higher powers of the expresTHE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 357