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

of suffering, however different they may appear to the InS^I^wKcrfomrslhe mnciple of are m themselves one, the manifestation of. that ope yp to live which objectifies its conflict with itself by means of the principium individuationis. They have learned to know both sides in full measure, thebadness and the rniiery; and since at last they see the identity~of the two, they reject them both at once7~lihev^deh^ihe will lto liygi,,,. In what myths and dogmas they account to their reason for this intuitive and direct knowledge and for their own change is, as has been said, a matter of no importance,

Matthias Claudius must without doubt have witnessed a change of mind of this description when he wrote the remarkable essay in the " Wandsbecker Boten ” (pt. i p. 1 1 5) with the title “ Bekehrungsgeschichte des * * * ” (History of the Conversion of * * * ”), which concludes thus : “ Man’s way of thinking may pass from one point of the periphery to the opposite point, and again back to the former point, if circumstances mark out for him the path. And these changes in a man are really nothing great or interesting, but that remarJcable, catholic, transcendtvXal change in which the whole circle is irreparably broken up and all the laws of psychology become vain and empty when the coat is stripped from the shoulders, or at least turned outside in, and as it were scales fall from a man’s eyes, is such that every one who has breath in his nostrils forsakes father and mother if he can hear or experience something certain about it.”

The approach of death and hopelessness are in other respects not absolutely necessary for su*i3i a puriHcatibn through suffering. Even without them the'^knowledgâof ffiTcontradiction of the will to live with itself can, through

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f’Teat misfortune and pain, force^n entrance^ and the vanity oT all strivin^_ become recognised.. Hence it has often happened that men who have led a very restless life in the full strain of the passions, kings, heroes, and adventurers, suddenly change, betake themselves to resignation and penance, become hermits or monks. To this class belong all true accounte of conyersmnsj for exan^ile. tlmF of Eaymond Lully, who had long wooed a fair lady, and was at last adinitted to her chamber, anticipating the fulfilment of all his wishes, wlien she, opening her Jjodicg, showed him her bosom frightfully eaten with cancer. From that moment, as if he had looked into heUj, he. was changed ; he forsook ^e court of the king of M^orc^ anJwent into the desertjo do penance.^ This conversion w very like that of the AbbOJanc^T^iich I have briefly related in the 48th chapter of the Supplement. If we consider how in both cases the transition from the pleasure to the horror of life was the occasion of it, this throws some light upon the remarkable fact that it is among the French, the most cheerful, gay, sensuous, and frivolous nation in Europe, that by far the strictest of all monastic orders, the Trappists, arose, was re-established by Ranc6 after its fall, and has maintained itself to the present day in all its purity and strictness, in spite of revolutions. Church reformations, and encroachments of infidelity.

But a knowledge such as that referred to above of the nature of this existence may leave us again along with the occasion of it and the will to live, and with it the previous character may reappear. Thus we see that the passionate Benvenuto Cellini was changed in this way, once when he was in prison, and again when very ill ; but when the suffering passed over, he fell back again into his old state. In general, the denial of the will to live by no means proceeds from suffering with the necessity of an effect from its cause, but the will remains free ;

^ Bruckeri Hist. Philos.* tomi iv. pars. i. p. lop. 511 for this is indeed the one point at which its freedom appears directly in the phenomenon; hence the astonishment which Asmus expresses so stron^y at the “transcendental change.” In the case of every suffering, it is always possible to conceive a will which exceeds it in intensity and is therefore unconquered by it. Thus Hato speak^ i^h^ " Phjedon moment £f_their_execution feast, drinkj anS Indulge in sensuous pleasure,^ asserting life even to the deatb. SEabespeare shows us in Cardinal Beaufort the fearful end of a profligate, who dies~fuir'br’despair, for no suffering or death can break his will, which is vehement to the extreme of wickedness.^

The more intense the will is,, the more glaring is the conIKct of its, manifestation, and. thn3„JiEe_gr®?’i®fj5. suffering. A world which was the . jaanifestation of a far mbfe'intense will to live than this world manifests would produce so much the greater suffering; would tEus'be'a helL