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

The Greeks called the character and its expression, i.e., morals, r)dr). But this word comes from e0o9, custom ; they chose it in order to express metaphorically the constancy of character through the constancy of custom. To yap r)6o<; ano rov e6ov<} t7)p errwvvfiiav. tjOiKt] yap KoXeirai Bia to edi^eadat (a voce i.e., consuetudo ri6o<} est appellatum ; ethica ergo dicta est airo too eOi^eaOai, sivi ab assuescendo) says Aristotle (EtL Magna, i. 6, p. 1 1 86, and Eth. Eud., p. 1220, and Eth. Nia, p. 1103, ed. Ber.) Stobaeus quotes: ol Be Kara Zrjvcova rpoTTiKCK' 1)00^ ea-rt trrjyr) ^lov a<j> at Kara fiepoi TTpa^eK peovat {Stoici autem, Zenonis castra seguentes, metor phorice ethos dejmiuni vitce fontem, e quo singvice manant actiones), ii. ch. 7. In Christian theology we find the dogma of predestination in consequence of election and non-election (Rom. ix. 1 1—24), clearly originating from the knowledge that man does not change himself, but his life and conduct, i.e., his empirical character, is only the unfolding of his intelligible character, the development of decided and unchangeable natural dispositions recognisable even in the child ; therefore, as it were, even at his birth his conduct is firmly determined, and

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remains essentially the same to the end This we entirely agree with ; but certainly the consequences which followed from the union of this perfectly correct insight with the dogmas that already existed in Jewish theology, and which now gave rise to the great difficulty, the Gordian knot upon which most of the controversies of the Church turned, I do not undertake to defend, for even the Apostle Paul scarcely succeeded in doing so by means of his simile of the potter’s vessels which he invented for the purpose, for the result he finally arrived at was nothing else than this : —

“ Let mankind Fear the gods 1 They hold the power In everlasting hands :

And they can use it As seems good to them.”

Such considerations, however, are really foreign to our subject. Some explanation as to the relation between the character and the knowledge in which all its motives lie, will now be more to the point.

The motives which determine the manifestation of the character or conduct influence it through the medium of knowledge. But knowledge is changeable, and often vacillates between truth and error, yet, as a rule, is rectified more and more in the course of life, though certainly in very different degreea Therefore the conduct of a man may be observably altered without justifying us in concluding that his character has been changed. What the man really and in general wills, the striving of his inmost nature, and the end he pursues in accordance with it, this we can never change by influence upon him from without by instruction, otherwise we could transform him. Seneca says admirably, veUe non discitur ; whereby he preferred truth to his Stoic philosophers, who taught Bi8aKT7]v eivat Tr)v apeTrjv (doceri posse virtutem). From without the will can only be affected by motivea But

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THE WORLD AS WILL.

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these can never change the will itself ; for they have power over it only under the presupposition that it is precisely such as it is. All that they can do is thus to alter the direction of its effort, i.e., bring it about that it shall seek in another way than it has hitherto done that which it invariably seeks. Therefore instruction, improved knowledge, in other words, influence from without, may indeed teach the will that it erred in the means it employed, and can therefore bring it about that the end after which it strives once for all according to its inner nature shall be pursued on an entirely different path and in an entirely different object from what has hitherto been the case. But it can never bring about that the will shall will something actually different from what it has hitherto willed; this remains unchangeable, for the will is simply this willing itself, which would have to be abolished. The former, however, the possible modification of knowledge, and through knowledge of conduct, extends so far that the will seeks to attain its unalterable end, for example, Mohammed’s paradise, at one time in the real world, at another time in a world of imagination, adapting the means to each, and thus in the first case applying prudence, might, and fraud, and in the second case, abstinence, justice, alms, and pilgrimages to Mecca. But its effort itself has not therefore changed, still less the will itself. Thus, although its action certainly shows itself very different at different times, its willing has yet remained precisely the same. VeUe non discitur.