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

this takes many years to happen, so that one grants it majority indeed soon after the twentieth year, yet has placed full maturity, years of discretion, not before the fortieth year. But while this psychical education, resting upon help from without, is still in process of growth, the inner physical energy of the brain already begins to sink again.

This has reached its real calminating point about the thirtieth year, on account of its dependence upon the pressure of blood and the effect of the pulsation upon the brain, and through this again upon the predominance of the arterial over the venous system, and the fresh tenderness of the brain fibre, and also on account of the energy of the genital system.

After the thirty-fifth year a slight diminution of the physical energy of the brain becomes noticeable, which, through the gradually approaching predominance of the venous over the arterial system, and also through the increasing firmer and drier consistency of the brain fibre, more and more takes place, and would be much more observable if it were not that, on the other hand, the psychical perfecting, through exercise, experience, increase of knowledge, and acquired skill in the use of it, counteracts it — an antagonism which fortunately lasts to an advanced age, for the brain becomes more and more like a worn-out instrument.

But yet the diminution of the original energy of the intellect, resting entirely upon organic conditions, continues, slowly indeed, but unceasingly : the faculty of original conception, the imagination, the plastic power, the memory, become noticeably weaker ; and so it goes on step by step downwards into old age, garrulous, without memory, half-unconscious, and ultimately quite childish.

The will, on the contrary, is not affected by all this becoming, this change and vicissitude, but is from beginning to end unalterably the same. Willing does not require to be learned like knowing, but succeeds perfectly at once. The new-born child makes violent movements, rages, and cries ; it wills in the most vehement manner,

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though it does not yet know what it wills. For the medium of motives, the intellect, is not yet fully developed. The will is in darkness concerning the external world, in which its objects lie, and now rages like a prisoner against the walls and bars of his dungeon.

But little by little it becomes light : at once the fundamental traits of universal human willing, and, at the same time, the individual modification of it here present, announce themselves.

The already appearing character shows itself indeed at first in weak and uncertain outline, on account of the defective service of the intellect, which has to present it with motives ; but to the attentive observer it soon declares its complete presence, and in a short time it becomes unmistakable.

The characteristics appear which last through the whole of life ; the principal tendencies of the will, the easily excited emotions, the ruling passion, declare themselves. Therefore the events at school stand to those of the future life for the most part as the dumbshow in " Hamlet" that precedes the play to be given at the court, and foretells its content in the form of pantomime, stands to the play itself.

But it is by no means possible to prognosticate in the same way the future intellectual capacities of the man from those shown in the boy ; rather as a rule the ingenia prcecocia, prodigies, turn out blockheads ; genius, on the contrary, is often in childhood of slow conception, and comprehends with difficulty, just because it comprehends deeply.

This is how it is that every one relates laughing and without reserve the follies and stupidities of his childhood. For example, Goethe, how he threw all the kitchen crockery out of the window (Dichtung und Wahrheit, vol. i. p. 7) ; for we know that all this only concerns what changes.

On the other hand, a prudent man will not favour us with the bad features, the malicious or deceitful actions, of his youth, for he feels that they also bear witness to his present character. I have been told that when Gall, the phrenologist and investigator of man, had to put himself into connection