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

ment, and manifold application of which is the material of all his works, even if written much later, can arise in him only up to the thirty-fifth or at the latest the fortieth year of his life, and are really the result of combinations he has made in his early youth. For they are not mere connections of abstract conceptions, but his own intuitive comprehension of the objective world and the nature of things.

Now, that this intuitive apprehension must have completed its work by the age mentioned above depends partly on the fact that by that time the ectypes of all (Platonic) Ideas must have presented themselves to the man, and therefore cannot appear later with the strength of the first impression ; partly on this, that the highest energy of brain activity is demanded for this quintessence :>f all knowledge, for this proof before the letter of the ipprehension, and this highest energy of the brain is dependent on the freshness and flexibility of its fibres and the apidity with which the arterial blood flows to the brain.

Jut this again is at its strongest only as long as the arteial system has a decided predominance over the venous ystem, which begins to decline after the thirtieth year, ntil at last, after the forty-second year, the venous y'stem obtains the upper hand, as Cabanis has admirably ad instructively explained.

Therefore the years between venty and thirty and the first few years after thirty are >t the intellect what May is for the trees ; only then do ie blossoms appear of which all the later fruits are the ivelopment. The world of perception has made its lpression, and thereby laid the foundation of all the ibsequent thoughts of the individual.

He may by i Section make clearer what he has apprehended; he uy yet acquire much knowledge as nourishment for the flit which has once set ; he may extend his views, correct h conceptions and judgments, it may be only through edless combinations that he becomes completely master c the materials he has gained ; indeed he will generally p>duce his best works much later, as the greatest heat 701+ II. K

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begins with the decline of the day, but he can no longer hope for new original knowledge from the one living fountain of perception. It is this that Byron feels when h€ breaks forth into his wonderfully beautiful lament :

M No more — no more — oh ! never more on me The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,

Which out of all the lovely things we see Extracts emotions beautiful and new,

Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee : Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew I

Alas ! 'twas not in them, but iu thy power

To double even the sweetness of a flow Br."

Through all that I have said hitherto I hope I have placed in a clear light the important truth that since al abstract knowledge springs from knowledge of perception, it obtains its whole value from its relation to the latter, thus from the fact that its conceptions, or the abstractions which they denote, can be realised, t.*., proved, through perceptions ; and, moreover, that most depends upon th< quality of these perceptions. Conceptions and abstractions which do not ultimately refer to perceptions an like paths in the wood that end without leading out of it The great value of conceptions lies in the fact that b; means of them the original material of knowledge is mor easily handled, surveyed, and arranged. But althoug many kinds of logical and dialectical operations are po: sible with them, yet no entirely original and new knov ledge will result from these ; that is to say, no knowledj whose material neither lay already in perception nor w; drawn from self-consciousness. This is the true meanii of the doctrine attributed to Aristotle : Nihil est in \ tellectu, nisi quod antea fuerit in sensu. It is also t meaning of the Lockeian philosophy, which made for ev an epoch in philosophy, because it commenced at last t serious discussion of the question as to the origin of c knowledge. It is also principally what the " Critique Pure Reason " teaches. It also desires that we should i

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