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

past and of the eventual future, as such, and in connection with the present. The special memory which this demands is therefore an orderly, connected, and thinking retrospective recollection. This, however, is only possible by means of general conceptions, the assistance of which is required by what is entirely individual, in order that it may be recalled in its order and connection.

For the boundless multitude of things and events of the same and similar kinds, in the course of our life, does not admit directly of a perceptible and individual recollection of each particular, for which neither the powers of the most comprehensive memory nor our time would be sufficient.

Therefore all this can only be preserved by subsuming it under general conceptions, and the consequent reference to relatively few principles, by means of which we then have always at command an orderly and adequate survey of our past.

We can only present to ourselves in perception particular scenes of the past, but the time that has passed since then and its content we are conscious of only in the abstract by means of conceptions of things and numbers which now represent days and years, together with their content.

The memory of the brutes, on the contrary, like their whole intellect, is confined to what they 'perceive,, and primarily consists merely in the fact that a recurring impression presents itself as having already been experienced, for the present perception revivifies the traces of an earlier one. Their memory is therefore always dependent upon what is now actually present.

Just on this account, however, this excites anew the sensation and the mood which the earlier phenomenon produced. Thus the dog recognises acquaintances, distinguishes friends from enemies, easily finds again the path it has once travelled, the houses it has once visited, and at the sight of a plate or a stick is at once put into the mood associated with them.

All kinds of training depend upon the use of this perceptive memory and on the force of habit, which in the case of animals is specially strong. It is therefore just as dine230 FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER V.

rent from human education as perception is from thinking. We ourselves are in certain cases, in which memory proper refuses us its service, confined to that merely perceptive recollection, and thus we can measure the difference between the two from our own experience.

For example, at the sight of a person whom it appears to us we know, although we are not able to remember when or where we saw him ; or again, when we visit a place where we once were in early childhood, that is, while our reason was yet undeveloped, and which we have therefore entirely forgotten, and yet feel that the present impression is one which we have already experienced. This is the nature of all the recollections of the brutes.

We have only to add that in the case of the most sagacious this merely perceptive memory rises to a certain degree of phantasy, which again assists it, and by virtue of which, for example, the image of its absent master floats before the mind of the dog and excites a longing after him, so that when he remains away long it seeks for him everywhere. Its dreams also depend upon this phantasy.

The consciousness of the brutes is accordingly a mere succession of presents, none of which, however, exist as future before they appear, nor as past after they have vanished; which is the specific difference of human consciousness. Hence the brutes have infinitely less to suffer than we have, because they know no other pains but those which the present directly brings.

But the present is without extension, while the future and the past, which contain most of the causes of our suffering, are widely extended, and to their actual content there is added that which is merely possible, which opens up an unlimited field for desire and aversion. The brutes, on the contrary, undisturbed by these, enjoy quietly and peacefully each present moment, even if it is only bearable.

Human beings of very limited capacity perhaps approach them in this. Further, the sufferings which belong purely to the present can only be physical. Indeed the brutes do not properly

Bpeaking feel death : they can only know it when it appears, and then they are already no more. Thus then the life of the brute is a continuous present. It lives on without reflection, and exists wholly in the present ; even the great majority of men live with very little reflection.

Another consequence of the special nature of the intellect of the brutes, which we have explained is the perfect accordance of their consciousness with their environment. Between the brute and the external world there is nothing, but between us and the external world there is tlways our thought about it, which makes us often inapproachable to it, and it to us.

Only in the case of children and very primitive men is this wall of partition so thin that in order to see what goes on in them we only need to »ee what goes on round about them. Therefore the brutes are incapable alike of purpose and dissimulation; they rtserve nothing.

In this respect the dog stands to the mm in the same relation as a glass goblet to a metal one, aid this helps greatly to endear the dog so much to us, for it affords us great pleasure to see all those inclinations anc emotions which we so often conceal displayed simply and openly in him.

In general, the brutes always play, as it Wire, with their hand exposed ; and therefore we contenrjlate with so much pleasure their behaviour towards each other, both when they belong to the same and to diffesnt species. It is characterised by a certain stamp of innocence, in contrast to the conduct of men, which is withcrawn from the innocence of nature by the entrance of reaon, and with it of prudence or deliberation.

Hence huma. conduct has throughout the stamp of intention or delibeate purpose, the absence of which, and the consequent letermination by the impulse of the moment, is the fundaiental characteristic of all the action of the brutes. No brue is capable of a purpose properly so-called. To conceiv and follow out a purpose is the prerogative of man, and it s a prerogative which is rich in consequences. Certain/ an instinct like that of the bird of passage or the