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.
ejulavit, intuitus in ccelum latum). And again : — Zrjvo^ fiev TTUK t)a KpovLovof;, aurap ot^vv ei^ov aireipeairjp {Jovit quidem Jilius eram Saturnii ; verum cerumnam haieham infinitam). The ceaseless efforts to banish suffering accomplish no more than to make it change its form. It is essentially deficiency, want, care, ipx... the teaintenance of IfieT IF we succeed, which is very difficult, in removing pain in this form, it immediately assumes a tHouiand others, varjihg according to age and circumstances, such as lust, passionate love, jealousy, envy, hatred, anxiety, ambition, covetousness, sickness, &c., &c. If at last iFcaif iind*^iFrahce in'no^btFer form, it comes in The "sadl^grey^garments of tediousness and ennui, against vr^cFwFtheF strive in various ways. If finally ^ succeed in driving this away, we shall hardly do so without letting^ain‘'enleiriFbne oT'its’^rlier forms, and the dance begin again from the beginning ; for all hiinmn life is tossednKcky^^ and forward^ between pain and eionuL depressing as this view of life is, I will draw attention, by the way, to an aspect of it from which com sblatibn map be drawn, and perh^s even a stoi^ indifference to one’s own present ills may be attained. !^or dur impatience at these anses foiTtKe most part from the fact that we regaid them as brought about byF^ain of causes \^ich might easily be different. We do not general]^ grieve over ills which are^'drrectly necessary and quite universal ; for example, the necessity of age and ofp. 407 death, and many daily inconveniences. It is rather the consideration of thei accidental nature of the circumthat gives it its sting.
But if we have recognised that pain, as such, is movitabie and e3sentral"*1K*‘Trfe7ancr ^at ndlliingji^ pends upon 'ch1m'ce'"But~rC^ f^Kion, SEe^form under •which iT^esents itself/t^rthus ourl^sent sorrow fills a place that, without it, would at once be occupied by another wEicE now is ^cludedTiy it, and that therefore fate can affect us little in what is essential ; such a reflection, if it were to become a living conviction, might produce a considerable degree of stoical equanimity, and very much lessen the anxious care for our own well-being Butj m fact, such a powerful control of reason over directly felt suffering seldom or never occurs.
Besides, through this view of the inevitableness of pain, of the supplanting of one pain by another, and the introduction of a new pain through the passing away of that which preceded it, one might be led to the paradoxical but not absurd hypothesis, that in every individual the measure of Ae_£^n es^ntial to him was determined once for all by his nature, a measure which could neither remain empty, nor be more than filled, however much the ftS5]|^_Jhe_su^ingjni^Gr[cEan^^‘'“TE^Tu3juffer^ and well-being wo^ by no means be determined from without, but onlyTihrough that measure, ^at natural deposition, which rndeed"mdgEtTxperiehce~ce1flaiir¥d3iSons and diminutions from the physical condition at different times, but yet, on the whole, would remain the same, and would jus^ be what ^ called the temperament, or, more accurately, the degree in which he might be evicoKo^ or fivavtoXoy, as Plato expresses it in the First Book of the Republic, i.e., in an easy or This hypothesis is supported not only by the well-known experience that great suffering makes all lesser ills cease to felt, and conversely that freedc^^rom great suffering makes even the most trifling inconvemences torment us stances that brought some sorrow just to us.
4o8
THE WORLD AS WILL.
BK. IV.
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