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

Tlecause“£r’gemime~en(Iunng happiness is not possible, it cannot be the subject of art. Certainly the aim of the ^d^lj^is the description of such ^happiness, but one also sees that the idyll as such cannot continue. Tlie poet always Ends tbat it either becomes epical in his hands, and in this case it is a very insignificant epic, made up of trifling sorrows, trifling delights, and trifling efforts — this is the commonest case — or else it becomes a merely descriptive poem, describing the beauty of nature, i.e., pure knowing free from will, which certainly, as a matter^ of feet, is the onlj^ pure happiness, which is hmtKer preceded by suffering ”or want, n oiT ^ce^ariTy f bl Ib wedn^^^p^^mtanc^~s(hr 0 w^ emptinerss, or satiety ; but ^is happines3"bannot~ffirtiie wholelife, but is only possible at moments. What we see in ^etry we find again in music Tin the melodies of which we have recognised the universal expression of the inmost histprynof ~tffe’~selt^c6hscious_will. th^ most secret life, longing, snaring, and delight; the_ebb and

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THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. Tyi.

flow of the human heart. Melody is always a deviation from the keynote through a thousand capricious wanderings, even to the most painful discord, and then a final return to the keynote which expresses the satisfaction and appeasing of the will, but with which nothing more can then be done, and the continuance of which any longer would only be a wearisome and unmeaning monotohy '^frespondirig 'tb enhuir ’

”!MI~thaF weTmtend to bring out clearly through these investigations, the impossibility of attaining lasting satisfaction and the negative nature~~bf all happmessT finds its explanalmn in what is shown at the conclusion of the Second Book.: that the will, of which human life, like every phenomenon, is the obiectification. is a stoiying without aim or end. We find the stamp of this endlessness imprmted -Uppxi jXQTie parte of its whole manir festation, from its most universal form, endless time aS^" space, up to the most perfect oF all" phehomem,’^e ^e and efTorte of man. We may theoretically assume three SdEremes of Tiuman life, and treat them as elements of actual human life. First, the powerful will, the strong passions (Eadscha-Guna). It appears in great historical characters ; it is described in the epic and the drama. But it can also show itself in the little world, for the size of the objects is measured here by the degree in which they influence the will, not according to their external relations. Secondly, pure knowing, the comprehension of the Ideas, conditioned by the freeing of knowledge from the service of will: the life of genius (Satwa-Guna). Thirdly and lastly, the greatest lethargy of the will, and also of the knowledge attaching to it, empty longing, life-benumbing languor (Tama-Guna). The life of the individual, far from becoming permanently fixed in one of these extremes, seldom touches any of them, and is for the most part only a weak and wavering approach to one or the other side, a needy desiring of trifling objects, constantly recurring, and so

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escaping ennui It is really incredible how meaningless and void of signi5cSce~^en~~Ioolced"at from without, how dull and unenlightened by inteUect when^TefTSiMa within, ~is"ffie^urse of the life of the great^a|ority of men. It is a weary longing and complaining, a dreamlike staggering through the four ages of life to deaths accompanied by a series of trivial thoughts. Such m^ are like clockwork, which is wound up, and goes it mows not why; ancT^very time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew, to repeat the same old piece it has pla^d innumeraVde times before, passage after passage, m^asure~aftef meaiuH^ ihsignificant variations. E^iy '~mdI\ddimT.~"(^eiy ~ being arid “his course^ of life, is but mo^er short dream oF the endless spirit, of natP-re^ the persistent will to live ; is only another fleeting form, which it carelessly sketches on its infinite page^ space and time ; allows to remain for a time so short that it vanish^esTnte notHing in comparison with these, and then obliterates to make new room. And yet, and here lies the serious side of life, every one of these fleeting forms, these empty fancies, must be paid for by the whole will to live, in all its activity, with many and deep sufferings, and finally with a bitter death, long "feared apd comihg^at lasK This is why the sight of a corpse makes us suddenly so serious.