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

tianity is made up of two very different constituent parts, and I should like to call the purely ethical part especially and indeed exclusively Christian, and distinguish it from the Jewish dogmatism with which it is combined. If, as has often been feared, and especially at the present time, that excellent and salutary religion should altogether decline, I should look for the reason of this simply in the fact that it does not consist of one single element, but of two originally different elements, which have only been combined through the accident of history. In such a case dissolution had to follow through the separation of these elements, arising from their different relationship to and reaction against the progressive spirit of the age. But even after this dissolution the purely ethical part must always remain uninjured, because it is indestructible. Our knowledge of Hindu litCTature is still very imperfect. Yet, as we find their.^_thical. t^ching variously and powerfully expressed in j^e Vedas, Puranas, poems, nTyths, legends of their saints, maxims and precepts,^ we see that it inculcates love of our neighbour with complete renunciation of ^If-Tove j love generallyj, not confined to mankind, but including all living creatures ]_J^ne; yolence, even to the giving awuynS^ hard- won wages of daily toil; unlimited patience towards all who injure us; the requital of all wickedness, however base, with goodness and love ; voluntary and glad en(^rance all ignominy ; abstjngnce Tfbff alT animal food;, per-; feet chastity and renunciation of all sensual ple^mg

' See, for example, Oupnek'hat, ■tudio Anquetil du Perron,” vol. iL, Nos. 138, 144, 145, 146. “Mythologie des Indous,” par Mad. de Polier, vol. ii., ch. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. “ Asiatisches Magazin,” by Klaproth : in the first volume, “ Ueber die Fo-Religion,” also **Baghnat Geeta” or “Gesprache zwischen Krishna und Arjoon ; ” in the second volume, “ Moha-Mudgava.” Also, “Institutes of Hindu Law, or the

Ordinances of Menu,” from the Sanscrit, by Sir William Jones (Gherman by Hiittner, 1797), especially the sixth and twelfth chapters. Fi^ nally, many passages in the “Asiatic liesearches.” (In the last forty years Indian literature has grown so much in Europe, that if I were now to complete this note to the first edition, it would occupy several page*.)

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THE WORLD i4S WILL.

BK. IV

for him who strives after true holiness ; the surrender of all possessions, the forsaking of every dwelling-pla^ and of all relatives ; deep unbroken solitude, spent in silent contemplation, with voluntary penance and terrible slow self-torture fornEKe^aEsoTute mortification of the will, torture which extends to yoluutarj^^d^^ by starvation, or by men giving themselves up to crocodiles, or flinging themselves over the sacred precipice in the Himalayas, or being buried alive, or, finally, Sy flinging themselves under the wheels , of the huge car of an idol drawn along amid the singing, shouting, and dancing of ba3’^adere8.

And even yet these precepts, whose origin reaches back more than four thousand years, are carried out in practice, in some cases even to the utmost extreme,^ and this notwithstanding the fact that the Hindu nation has been broken up into BO many parts.

A religion which demands the greatest sacrifices, and which has yet remained so long in practice in a nation that embraces so many millions of persons, cannot be an arbitrarily invented superstition, but must have its foundation in the nature of man. But besides this, if we read the life of a Christian penitent or saint, and also that of a Hindu saint, we cannot sufficiently wonder at the harmony we find between them.

In the case of such radically different dogmas, customs, and circumstances, the inward life and effort of both is the same. And the same harmony prevails in the maxims prescribed for both of them.

For example, Tauler speaks of the absolute poverty which one ought to seek, and which consists in giving away and divesting oneself completely of everything from which one might draw comfort or worldly pleasure^ clearly because all this constantly affords new nourishment to the will, which it is intended to destroy en-