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

It will further assist us much in obtaining a more definite and full knowledge of what we have expressed abstractly and generally, according to our method of exposition, as the denial of the will to live, if we consider the moral teaching that has been imparted with this intention, and by men who were full of this spirit ;

THE ASSERTION AND DBlrlAC OF THE WILL. 499 and this will also show how old our view is, though the pure philosophical expression of it may be quite new. The teaching of this kind which lies nearest to hand is Christianity, the ethics of which are entirely in the spirit indicated, and lead not only to the highest degrees of human love, but also to renunciation. The germ of this last side of it is certainly distinctly present in the writings of the Apostles, but it was only fully developed and expressed later. We find the Apostles enjoining tlm love of our neighbour as ourselves, beni^ volence, the requital of hatred with love and_wejj,-dqmg, patience, meekness, the endurance~of all possible injuries without resistance, ahstenuouine^i ^in~ nourishment to keep down lust, resistance to sensual desire,"if~pjqsi^j|ir altogether. We already see here the first degrees of asceticism, or denial of the will proper. This last expression denotes that which in the Gospels is^c^led denying ourselves and taking up the crossTMalt. xvi. 24, 25 ; Mark viii. 34, 3 5; Luke ixr2 37 24, xiv. 26, 27, 33). This tendency soon developed itself more and more, and wa£ tlie origin of hermits, anchorites, and monasticism— aix.-.i3ikiiLJwJ]Lich in itseff was pure and holy, but for .tha^ '^.’^suitable for the great 2majority of men ; therefore what developed out of Jt could only be hypocrisy and~wicEedhes37i^r aSusics optimi pessimus. In more developed Christianity, we see that seed of asceticism unfold into the full flower in the writings of the Christian saints and mystics. These preach. besid.ea.„iiliaJj>uregJLi(^Ye^^ jesi^atipa, voluntary and absolute poverty, genuine calmness, perfect indifference to all worldly .thin^,^ to Qur own will and being born again in God, entire forgetting of our own person, and sinking ourselves in the contemplation of God. “XTuTT exposition of this will be found in reunion’s “ Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Interieure.” But the spirit of this development of Christianity is certainly nowhere so fully and powerfully

expressed as in the writings of the German mystics, in the works of Meister Eckhard. and in that justly famous book “ Die Deutsche Theologie of which Luther says in the mtroduction to it which he wrote, that with the exception of th^ Bible and St Augustine, he had learnt more from it" of what God, CErisC~and man are than from any other bookr~ Yet we only got the genuine and wrrect text of it in the 3’’ear 1851, in the Stutigarreditioh. bj The~i^ecepts and doctrines which are laid 3down there are the most perfect exposition, sprung from deep inward conviction of what I have presented as the denial of the will. _ It should” therefore be studied more closely in that form before it is dogmatised about with Jewish-Protestant assurance. Tauler’s “Nachfolgung des armen Leben Christi,” and also his “ Medulla Animse,” are written in the same admirable spirit, though not quite equal in value to that work. In my opinion the teaching of these genuine Christian mysticsl when compared with the teaching of the New jfestSnent, is jis alcohol fo~wlDe, or what. becomes visible in the New ifestament as through a veil and mist appears to us in the works of the mystics without cloak or disguise, in full clearness and distinctness. Finally, tlie'Ne^Tfestament might Ise regarded as the first initiation, the mystics as the second, — a-fiiKpa xai fieyaXa fivcrTtjpta.

We find, however, that which we have called the denial of the will to live more fully developed, . more yarigusly expressed, and more vividly represented in the ancient Sanscrit writings than could be the case in the Christian THiurch and the Western world. That this important ethical view'of l^fe^coulf here attain to a fuller development and a more distinct expression is perhaps principally to be ascribed to the fact that it was not confined by an element quite foreign to it, as Christianity IS by the Jewish theology, to which its sublime author had necessarily to adopt and accommodate it, partly consciously, partly, it may be, unconsciously. Thus Chris