The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
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.
We saw that the inner being of unconscious nature is a constant striving without end and without rest And this appears to us much more distinctly when we consider the nature of brutes and man. Willing and striving is its whole being, which may be very well TOinpafed to an unquenchable thirst TBiit tlie basis of all willing is need, deficiency, and thus pain. ConsequentIy,"tHe nature of brutes and man is subject to pain originally and through its very being. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of desire, because it is at once deprived of them by a too easy satisfaction, a terriWe void and ennui comes over it, i.e„ its being a,nd exi^ ehce itself becomes an unbearable burden to it Thus ite life swings like a pendulum backwards and forwards between pain and ennui. This has also had to express iteSF very oddly in this way ; after man had transferred all pain and torments to hell, there then remained nothing over for heaven but ennui.
But the constant striving which constitutes the inner nature of every manifestation of will obtains its primary and most general foundation at the higher grades of objectification, from the fact that here the will manifests itself as a living body, with the iron command to nourish it; and what gives strength to this command is just that this body is nothing but the objectified will to live
p. 403
itself. Man, as the most complete objectification of that will, is in like measure also the most necessitous of all beings : he is through and through concrete willing and needing; he is a concretion of a thousand necessities. With these he stands upon the earth, left to himself, uncertain about everything except his own need and misery. Consequently the care for the maintenance of that existence under exacting demands, which are renewed every day, occupies, as a rule, the whole of human life. To this is directly related the second claim, that of the propagation of the species. At the same time he is threatened from all sides by the most different kinds of dangers, from which it requires constant watchfulness to escape.' With cautious steps and casting anxiqus^fflces round him he pursues his path, for a Uiousamd_ accidents and a thousand enemije.3.Jie in wait,T^ Thus he
^nt while yet a savage, thus he goes in civilised life ; there is no security foJ!.him.
“ Qualibus in tenebris vilm, quantisque periclis Degitur hocc’ cevi, qnodcunque est I ” — Luca. ii. 15.
The life of the great majority is only a constant struggle foiTthis existence itself, with the certainty of losing ft at last. But what enables them to endure this wearisWe _ba,ltle is not sq^ much ..the^iovq_j)f , life_ feai of death, which yet stands in thq bacl^round as inevitable, and^may com§ , upoa . Jthein .at anx.®o^SnlT^ Xife itself Ts^ a sea, full of rocks and whirlpools, wfirch man avoids with thg. ^eatcst care. an3 solicitude, although he knows that even if he succeeds in getting through wi^ ad Eis efforts and skid, he yet by domg sd^diues nearer at every step to the greatest, the total, inevitable, and irremediable ^sTupwreclc. death : nay, even steers right upon it : this is the final goal of the laborious voyage, and worse for him than all the rocks from w escaped.
ISfow it is well worth observing that, on the one hand.
p. 404
THE WORLD AS WILL.
BK. IV.
the suffering and misery of life may easily increase to such an extent that death itself, in the flight from which the whole of life consists, becomes desirable, and we hasten towards it voluntarily ; and again, on the other hand, that as soon as want and suffering permit rest to a man, ennui is at once so near that he necessarily requires diversion. The striving after existence is whaf, .eccqpigg^^ all U^ tEings and niamfains' tliem in motion. But when existence is assured^ tSeP^^^iey ^now not* what to dio witli it ; thus the second thing that sets them in motion is the efl'ort to get free irom the burden “of existence^ it cease to be felt, “ to kill time,” i.e., to escape from ennui. Ac^rdm^;^we see ‘tnat almbs^^^ who are secure from want and care, now that_ at last they have thrown off all other burdens, become a burden to themselves, and regard as a gain every hour they succeed in getting througF, ahH lEhuT'every of tirie very
No commentary for this page under the selected tracks.
There is commentary on page 1.