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.
§ 59.
If we have so far convinced ourselves a priori, by the most general consideration, by investigation of the primary and elemental features of human life, that in its whole plan it is capable of no true blessedness, but is in its very nature suffering in various forms, and throughout a state of misery, we might now awaken this conviction much more vividly within us if, proceeding more a posteriori, we were to twn to more definite instances, call up pictures to the fancy, and illustrate by examples the unspeakable mise^ which experience and history present, wherever one may look and in whatever direction on© may seek.
But the chapter would have no end, and would carry us far from the standpoint of the universal, which is essential to philosophy ; and, moreover, such a description might e^Mily be token for a niere^de£lamation on human misery, such as has ..often begn . given, and, as such, might be .clmrgfid jdlh.j)iier3idfidines8,„b.§cau^^^^^ started from particular facts. ]^om ^ch a. reproa.ch_and suspicion our^perfectly cold and philosophical investigation of the inevitable suffering which is founded in the nature of life is^free, for it stori^ from the universal and is conducted a priori.
But confirmation cTpo^fiori is everywhere easily obtained.
Every one who has awakened from the first dream of youth, yvhq^hafTcoijrsnKfed^^^ own~exp©nince”and"tTud~bf "others, who has studied himself m life, in the historyHori'K'p^r ahd’of his 0 ^(ITinally’m £he works of the great poets, will, if his judgment is not paralysed bj some indelibly imprinted prejudice, certainly arrive at the cohcluiion that this Human world 18 the kmgdom of chance and error, which rule'wItH^ but mercy In great things and in small, and along with whiA foUy and wickedness also vmlff the scou^e. it arises that everything better only struggles through, with diffi« culty ; what is noble and wise seldom attains to expression, becomes effective and claims attentioja, but the absurd mlH the perverse in the sphere of thought, the dulTand t^teleM in the sphere of art, the wicked and decmtf id in l^e sphere of action, really assert a supremacy, only toturbed by short interruptions. ^ the other hand, everything tfiaT is excellent is always a mere exception, one case in millions, and therefore, if it presents J-tseirin ariasfing wort, this, when it has outlived the enmity^ its coniemjpfariM, exists in isolation, is preserved lâe a meteoric stone, sprung from an order of things different from dbat wliich prevails here.
But as far as the l^e of &e individual is coRcerned, every, bio^aphy is the history of suffering, for every life is, as a rule, a continual series of great and small misfortunes, which each one cohc'ealg as mucE’~as possible, because he knows that others can seldom feel sympathy or compassion, but almost always saHsFactTbn aOEe’ sighFbr the woes from which they are themselves for the moment exempt.
But perhaps at the end of Tif^ IT a man is sincere and in full possession of his faculties, he will never wish to have it to live^over agam,~t)ut "rather than this, he will much prefer absolute annihilation.
The essential content of the famous solil(> quy in “ Hamlet ” is briefly this : Our state is so wretched that absolute annihilation would be decidedly preferable If suicide really offered us this, so that the alternative “ to be or not to be,” in the full sense of the word, was placed before us, then it would be unconditionally to be chosen as “ a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But there is something in us which tells us that this is not the case: suicide is not the end; deatlf is’hbtT absolute ahnihilatidn ^Ih”lTIce*'manner7^^at ~wa3~"sard by the father”of history ^ has not since him been contradicted; that no marTTias ever lived whoTSsTnot wiSbed more ffian once that he had"nbt to ' Kve" bhh follbwmg day ^ Herodot. vli. 46.
According to this, the brevity of life, which is so constant lamented, may be the best q^uality it poMesses.
If, finally, we shoifld bring clearly to a man’s sight the terrible sufferings and miseries to which his life is constantly exposed, he would be seized with horror; and if we were to conduct the confirmed optimist through the hospitals, infirmaries, and surgical operating-rooms, through the prisons, torture-chambers, and slave-kennels, ovw batfle-fields and places of execution; if we were to open to him all the dark abodes of misery, where it hides itself from the glance of cold curiosity, and, finally, allow him to glance into the starving dungeon of Ugolino, he, too, would uiiderstand at last the nature of this “ best of possible worlds.
For whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world ? And yet he made a very proper hell of it And when, on the other hand, he came to the task of describing heaven and its delights, he had an insurmountable difficulty before him, for our world affords no materials at all for this.
Therefore there remained nothing for him to do but, instead of describing the joys of paradise, to repeat to us the instruction given him there by his ancestor, by Beatrice, and by various saints. But from this it is sufficiently clear what manner of world it is.
Certainly human life, like all bad ware, is covered over with a false lustre : what suffers always conceals itself ; on the other hand, whatever pomp or splendour any one can get, he makes a show of openly, and the more inner contentment deserts him, the more he desires to exist as fortunate in the opinion of others : to such an extent 3oes folly go, and the opinion of others is a chief aim of the efforts of every one, although the utter nothingness of it is expressed in the fact that in almost all languages vanity, vanitas, originally signifies emptiness and nothingness.
But under all this false show, the miseries of life can so increase — and this happens every day — that the death which hitherto has been feared above all things is
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