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

49*

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

been expressed by the admirable and unfathomably prpfound Angelas Sileshu, in the little poem entitled, “ Man finn^'air'for God;” It runs^ " ManT~airToves thee; around thee great is the throng. All things flee to thoe that they may attain to God.” But a yet greater mystic, Meister Eckhard, whose wonderful writings are at last accessible (1857) through the edition of Franz Pfeifier, says the same thing (p. 459) q^uite in the sense explained here: “T^T)ear witness to the saying of Christ. I, if I be lifted upTromTItEe^ear th, all thin^gs unto me (J ohn xii 32). So shall the good man draw all things up to God, to the source whence they first came. The Masters certify to us that all creatures are made for the sake of man. This is proved in all created things, by the fact that the one makes the use of the other; the ox makes use of the grass, the fish of the water, the bird of the air, the wild beast of the forest. Thus, all created things become of use to the good man. A good man brings to God the one created thing in the other.” He means to say, that man makes use of the brutes in this life because, in and with himself, he saves them also. It also seems to me that that difficult passage in the Bible, Rom. viii 2 1-24, must be interpreted in this sense.

In Buddhism also, there is no lack of expressions of this truth. For example, when Buddha, still as Bodisatwa, has his horse saddled for the last time, for his flight into the wilderness from his father’s house, he says these lines to the horse: “Long hast thou existed in life and. Jn death, but now thou shall ~ cease from caCTying j,nd drawing^ Bear me but this qnco_iii,Qre, O lKantakana, away from here, and when I have attained to the Law (have become Buddh^ I will not forget thee ” (Foe Koue Ki, trad. p. Abel Rdmusat, p. 2 3 3). ~

Asceticism then shows itself further in voluntary and intentional poverty, which not only arises per accidens, because the possessions are given away to mitigate the sufferings of others, but is here an end in itself, is meant

p. 493

to serve as a constant mortification of will, so that the satisfaction of ,trl]L.e....'gisJie8. tne sweet of life, shall not again arouse the will, against which self^SLOwTe'3^’~Tra3 conceived a horror.

He who has attained to tKfi point, still always feels, as a living body, as concrete manifestation of will, the natural disposition for every kind of volition ; but he intentionally suppresses it, for he compels himself to refrain from doing all that he would like to do, and to do all that he would like not to do, even if this has no fuither end than that of serving as a mortification of will.

Since he himself denies the will which appears in his own person, he will not resist if another does the same, i.e., inflicts wrongs upon him.

Therefore every suffering coming to him from without, through chance or the wickedness of others, is welcome to him, every injury, ignominy, and insult; he receives them gladly as the opportunity of learning with certainty that he no longer asserts the will, but gladly sides with every enemy of the manifestation of will which is his own person.

Therefore he bears such ignominy and suffering with inexhaustible patience and meekness, returns good for evil without ostentation, and allows the fire of anger to rise within him just as little as that of the desires. And he mortifies not only the will itself, but also its visible form, its objectivity, the body.

He nourishes it sparingly, lest its excessive vigour and prosperity should animate and excite more strongly the will, of which it is merely the expression and the mirror.

So he practises fasting, and even resorts^, to chastisement and self-inflicted tortur^ in order that, by instant privation and suffering, he may more and more break down and destroy the will,. j?h,joh„ he, recognises and abhors as the source of his own suffering existence and thj^ of the world If at last death comes, which puts an end to this manifestation of thaF will, whose existence here Tiaa~long since perished through free^nial of itself, with the exception oT^e l^ak residue~ont