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

itself, as is indicated by the word self-renunciation ; and, finally, the “in-itsel£” of its nature suppresses itself. But this, the one, real, and direct expression of the freedom of the will in itself in the phenomenon, cannot be distinctly explained here, but will form the subject of the concluding part of our work.

Now that we have shown clearly in these pages the unalterable nature of the empirical character, which is just the unfolding of the intelligible character that lies outside time, together with the necessity with which actions follow upon its contact with motives, we hasten to anticipate an argument which may very easily be drawn from this in the interest of bad dispositions. Our character is to be regarded as the temporal unfolding of an extra- temporal, and therefore indivisible and unalterable, act of will, or an intelligible character. This necessarily determines all that is essential in our conduct in life, i.e., its ethical content, which must express itself in accordance with it in its phenomenal appearance, the empirical character ; while only what is unessential in this, the outward form of our course of life, depends upon the forms in which the motives present themselves. It might, therefore, be inferred that it is a waste of trouble to endeawiw to improve dne’i~3macter, an3~tHat it is wiser to submit to the inevitable, and gratify every inclina^n at once, even if it is bad But this is precisely the same thing as the theory of an inevitable fate which is called apyog ^709, and in mme fe^'nt timesT Turkish faith, Its, true refutation, as it is supposed to have been given by Chrysippus, is explame31)y Oicero in his boofe ch, 12, 13,

Though everything may be_ regarded as irrevocably predetermined liy fate, yet it is so, pnly through ffie medium of the chain of causes; therefore in no cMe cah~ iTTe^delennmeJ shall appear without its cause. Thus it is not sipaply the event that is

p. 390

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

predetermined, but the event as the consequence^ of preceding causes ; so that fate does not decide the con~ sequence alone, but also the means as the consequence of which it is destined to appear. Accordingly, if some means is not present, it Ts cm-tain that the consequent alsowiil not be present: each is always present in acc^3^ce^wIiEKjhe"detennination of Jâie, burthis is never

^own to us till alterwards.“ —

Xsevenls'ajways falce place according to fate, i.e., according'l.o the infinite concatenation of causes, jq our actions Sways taKe place according to our intelligihle^.idMa’acten But just as we do not know the former beforehand, so no a priori insight is given us into the latter, but we only come to know ourselves as we come to know other persons a posteriori through experience. If the intelligible character involved that we could only form a good resolution after a long conflict with a bad disposition, this conflict would have to come first and be waited for. Eeflection on the unalterable nature of the character, on the unity of the source from which all our actions flow, must not mislead us into claiming the decision of the character in favour of one side or the other ; it is in the resolve that follows that we shftll_8ee what ^manner of men we are, and mirror ourselves in our ^tions._ This is the ^planation of the satisfaction or the anguish of soul with which we look back on the course of our past life. Both are experienced, not because these past deeds have still an existence ; they are past, they have been, and now are no more; but their great importance for us lies in their significance, lies in the fact tliat these deeds are the expression of the character, the mirror of the will, in which we look and recognise our inmost self, the kernel of our will. Because we experience this not before, but only after, it behoves us to strive~and fight in time, in oi-der that the picture we produce by our deeds may be_ such that the con^lempTanonlSrit'^nTajrcart^^ ai powibi^ instead of hara83ing_,us. The significance of

p. 391