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

that our condition is originally and essentially an incurable one, from which we need salvation; then, that we ourselves essentially belong to evil, and are so firmly bound to it that our works according to law and precept, i.e., according to motives, can never satisfy justice nor save us ; but salvation is only obtained through faith, i.e., through a changed mode of knowing, and this faith can only come through grace, thus as from without.

This means that the salvation is one which is quite foreign to our person, and points to a denial and surrender of this person necessary to salvation. Works, the result of the law as such, can never justify, because they are always action following upon motives.

Luther demands (in his book “Be Zibertate Christiana”) that after the entrance of faith the good works shall proceed from it entirely of themselves, as symptoms, as fruits of it ; yet by no means as constituting in themselves a claim to merit, justification, or reward, but taking place quite voluntarily and gratuitously.

So we also hold that from the ever -clearer penetration of the priwipium individuaiionis proceeds, first, merely free justice, then love, extending to the complete abolition of egoism, and finally resignation or denial of the will.

I have here introduced these dogmas of Christian theology, which in themselves are foreign to philosophy, merely for the purpose of showing that the ethical doctrine which proceeds from our whole investigation, and is in complete agreement and connection with all its parts, although new and unprecedented in its expression, is by no means so in its real nature, but fully agrees with the Christian dogmas properly so called, and indeed, as regards its essence, was contained and present in them. It also agrees quite as accurately with the doctrines and ethical teachings of the sacred books of India, which in their turn are presented in quite different forms. At the same time the calling to mind of the dogmas of the Christian Church serves to explain and illustrate

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THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

the apparent contradiction between the necessity of all expressions of character when motives are presented (the kingdom of Nature) on tlie one hand, and the freedom of the will in itself, to deny itself, and abolish the character with all the necessity of the motives based upon it (the kingdom of grace) on the other hand.

§ 71. I now end the general account of ethics, and with it the whole development of that one thought which it has been my object to impart ; and I by no means desire to conceal here an objection which concerns this last part of my exposition, but rather to point out that it lies in the nature of the question, and that it is quite impossible to remove it. It is this, that after our investigation has brought us to the point at which we have before our eyes perfect holiness, the denial and surrender of all volition, and thus the deliverance from a world whose whole existence we have found to be suffering, this appears to us as a passing away into empty nothingness.

On this I must first remark, that the conception of nothing is essentially relative, and always refers to a definite something which it negatives. This quality has been attributed (by Kant) merely to the nihil privativum, which is indicated by — as opposed to -f, which — , from an opposite point of view, might become -f, and in opposition to this nihil privativum the nihil negativum has been set up, which would in every reference be nothing, and as an example of this the logical contradiction which does away with itself has been given. But more closely considered, no absolute nothing, no proper nihil negativum is even thinkable ; but everything of this kind, when considered from a higher standpoint or subsumed under a wider concept, is always merely a nihil privativum. Every nothing is thought ^__guch only iu_ relation to _gom^thing, and presupposes this relatiou,jind thus also this^ someUiiii^. logical contradiction is only a relative nothing. It is hb thought of the reason, Tint it is not on that account an ahsoTule hotlTrnjjy'

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