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

If, however, as a rare exception, we meet a man who possesses a considerable income, but uses very little of it for himself and gives all the rest to the poor, while he denies himself many pleasures and comforts, and we seek to explain the action of this man, we shall find, apart altogether from the dogmas through which he tries to make his action intelligible to his reason, that the simplest general expression and the essential character of his conduct is that he makes less distinction than is muodly made between himself and others. This distinction is so great in the eyes of many that the suffering of others is a direct pleasure to the wicked and a welcome means of happiness to the unjust. The merely just man is content not to cause it; and, in general, most men wrong, even if

p. 481

know and are acquainted with innumerable sufferings of others in their vicinity, but do not determine to mitigate them, because to do so would involve some self-denial on their part Thus, in each of all these a strong distinction seems to prevail between his own ego and that of others ; on the other hand, to the noble man we have imagined, this distinction is not so significant. The principium individxmtionis, the form of the phenomenon, no longer holds him so tightly in its grasp, but the suffering which he sees in others touches him almost as closely as his own. He therefore tries to strike a balance between them, denies himself pleasures, practises renunciation, in order to mitigate the sufferings of others. He sees that the distinction between himself and others, which to the bad man is so great a gulf, only belongs to a fleeting and illusive phenomenon. He recognises directly and without reasoning that the in-itself of his own manifestation is also that of others, the will to live, which constitutes the inner nature of everything and lives in all ; indeed, that this applies alat to the brutes and the whole of nature, and therefore he will not cause suffering even to a brute.^

He is now just as little likely to allow others to starve, while he himself has enough and to spare, as any one would be to suffer hunger one day in order to have more the next day than he could enjoy. For to him who does worksjaf love the veil of Mdya has Income trani^arent,

^ The right of man over the life at once dieterwuae^ t.bp and powers of the brutes rests on use man ma]g^ make of the powiaiai the fact that, ^cause^^^wjUu-llML oF the brutes without wrong; a growing Cmit^ however^ wHiidlia. nftenltranssuffering increases in jyU^e^ pg^Sagure ; gressed, especiaj^ in the^j£aa£L-iif lTie"’pâlti >«^ch tbe brute^su^era besSts bl Burden amTH^ogs used in tffrbuj^ ^eath 6r work is^ not so the ch we^ to which^^^t fl^F^man would suffer ^ merely] ^ s^Sies Tor enjing^ himself the flesm “ br'^ cruelty to animals is ^rineipaHy jeTherefore vote^ In my oprnion, that man inaj. assertion of his ff<^"hot’^xten3~to yiyise^lpiJ^ parexrstehce to thereHehri5t"]denj;hig tlcular^ of the .6*1 the other ¥and, the insect does not will to five as a whole endures fess^ suffer so much thrpu^ ffs W

Buffennjg'm this Wigr ttet tf' the a man suffers from its sting. Th# opposite cbtiree were adopted. Thjs Hindus do not understand tma.

THE WORLD ^5 WILL.

BK. IV.

p. 182