engineering and the work of schopenhauer were studied more than once in france
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PhilosophyTRANSCRIPT
Engineering and the work of Schopenhauer were studied more than
once in France, when pessimism replaced today, quite unfavorably
moreover, by wild and arbitrary theories of Nietzsche and his school
by the worship of brute force and the theory of will to power, when
the great metaphysician root quadruple of sufficient reason was
fashionable in the literary world, and even intellectual in society to
the claims of dilettantism. Among these works of criticism or
scholarship should be mentioned first of all Etudes few really worthy
of Schopenhauer that he had spent the masters of our French
philosophical literature.
The best known and most popular is undoubtedly the work of M.
Ribot, already a classic volume, which obtained a legitimate and
resounding success. This is a great work, a monograph just
remarkable and has been the greatest honor to the eminent director
of the philosophical journal. It is difficult, it seems, to summarize with
clarity, sharpness and impartiality, as an original philosophy, as
subtle, complex, and shocking all the intellectual habits and beliefs of
all persons other than the metaphysical speculations. It is these that
caters Ribot, and the influence of the volume was to be beneficial
because it gives a very clear idea of the doctrine, trends and
personalities of Schopenhauer to Reader who has never read a line of
the master. Other hand, the high intellectual author of these beautiful
studies of experimental psychology that shine at the forefront of
modern productions of the French school are known, and we know
that the strength, originality and harmonious homogeneity of thought
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have emerged vividly in larger works, but that begs to Schopenhauer,
despite its simplicity, remains one of the finest works of M. Ribot, and
German authors of some pedantic and aggressive monographs could
gain something if they deigned to assimilate lucidity, exposure safety
and impeccable composition, all the qualities of order and measure
that distinguish masterful and definitive work of M. Ribot.
Latest French book on Schopenhauer, the beautiful book by Mr.
Bossert, is also a work of the highest order as deep and sagacious
than pleasant reading 3t physiognomy so curious of the great German
pessimist is studied with infinite: picturesque first and relief.
There are also excellent things and pages quite as charming literary
mastery in the early study of Caro on pessimism, quite extensive
summary table where the portrait he draws of Schopenhauer in the
foreground. The author of legal studies on present times was no
superficial mind, we have enough amateur philosopher foolishly
mocked his lifetime and has never existed in the imagination of its
critics.
It was, instead, a professional metaphysician, loving great speculative
problems, perfectly capable of understanding the austere but
compelling and pathetic beauty c was also, unfortunately, a
philosopher without striking personality, and concerns of current
morality often affect the sharpness of its judgments. Thus in his
study, by no means negligible, very distinguished literary point of
view, sometimes charming to read, one is shocked at every moment
by the bias of search especially social and aesthetic consequences of
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pessimism bias statement even before a serious refutation of the
philosophy of Schopenhauer we have demonstrated the good law and
the merits. This is not how we judge and a man of genius, a thinker
such as metaphysician World as Will and Representation is
condemned.
How much deeper, more meaningful, more sagacious, testing
Renouvier appear on pessimism. The majestic head of the French
school of criticism, the illustrious and eminent philosopher whose
incessant labor and immense talent, depth and originality of views,
the powerful unity of doctrine, are worthy of philosophical unanimous
admiration of the world, the author of this test classification systems,
gigantic work, has repeatedly occupied the theory and ideas of the
German metaphysician, first in the extraordinary synthesis we just
quote liter, a monument of learning, understanding and speculative
thought, and in other books, most recent publication, meaning and no
less great value, but mainly in this book so curious title: History and
solving problems metaphysical where all the chapter in which
Renouvier studied philosophy of Schopenhauer is a masterpiece of
analysis and synthetic reconstruction masterpiece where the wealth
of ideas is so great and lively, where each line contains many new
insights, profound comments that the intelligence of the reader feels
a sort of vertigo by browsing. But the face of Schopenhauer stands
sharper, yet precise in admirable books Alfred Fouillée.
No philosophical work in France appears larger, more beautiful, more
worthy of admiration than Fouillee, and we are pleased to express
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once again the enthusiastic admiration she inspires us and see also
that admiration of his disciples we claim very modestly humble place
among the faithful - this admiration spreads in most foreign media
and more indifferent to high speculation it penetrates the deepest
layers of the public and becomes so unanimous, it finally looks like
the popularity and fame.
Glory! that if any legitimate wage worker there thinking, the most
mediocre pamphleteers or vaudeville has often while public dispute
and refuses to do so stubborn meanness philosophers and thinkers. It
is good, however, it is just as beneficial and occasionally a man of
genius whose stupid crowd is unable to understand the works, trends
and the ideal that continues to be admired and known, and it is
especially an excellent example of a metaphysical turn benefits of
this unanimity of votes incompetent whose specialist in the smallest
areas of sciences, boasts too often. For so long fools of all parties
affectèrent not just ignore the immense work done by the philosophy
of our country to France, but treat lightly the key issues and the
rationale for the philosophy itself . The intellectual and moral
authority exercised by a man today as the illustrious author of the
Future of metaphysics makes it almost impossible that great disdain.
Even the ordinary newspaper reader, one whose tales of our public
prints are the only intellectual nourishment knows vaguely that
contemporary France has a great philosopher, a metaphysician of
genius, a thinker who is the equal of the most famous masters of the
speculative thought, the pride of our country, the truest and noblest
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glory of our time. All taunts, all the attacks of jealous mediocrity and
worries can not prevail against a certain fact: never had na
philosophy in France and many prominent representatives of a truly
meritorious zeal, if we consider the indifferent reception our scholar
subject to their work, and no public admires most sincerely that the
author of these lines the high value and meaning of the philosophical
movement that occurs over the past twenty years in the country of
Descartes and Malebranche, where noble traditions of speculative
thought once seemed abandoned forever.
But despite the immense talent, originality, brilliance, depth of
metaphysicians such as MM. Bergson, Boutroux Ribot, Liard,
Bourdeau, Lévy-Bruhl, Durkheim, Gabriel Séailles and many others,
not to mention the famous masters who now rest Supreme sleep
Vacherot Ravaisson Saisset, Secretan, Renouvier Brochard, the
immensity of the work done, the multiplicity of issues that are
currently discussed, the power of moral influence on the European
philosophical movement, perfect control exerted in the study of all
the phenomena of social life artistic or intellectual, a thinker as Alfred
Fouillee assure him without any doubt, an absolute supremacy in the
world of high philosophical thought, as well as in irrational and
instinctive judgment of the crowd.
It is for us that Kant was once for Germany, that Herbert Spencer was
in the Anglo-Saxon peoples, the most famous of the metaphysical
tradition of his country and his race representative, Master respected,
admired all entered into living immortality, the thinker whose work
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and glory will only grow, which has created quite a flourishing school
and whose name and popular shows at once, dominating the tumult
of political factions and selfish interests.
And it is only justice. Because, as I said in all sincerity, Mr. Alfred
Fouillée is a genius in every sense of the word we use today too often
without rhyme or reason. He built a new system of the universe, he
rebuilt the world on a new plan, he created one of those vast
metaphysical syntheses where Enigma first - the origins and destinies
- seems resolved to a brilliant intuition and where the mysterious
image of the universe, of the Totality of Being, the assembly of
existing or possible realities, this great picture where each of us finds
himself, according to his beautiful voice, fighting, suffering, enjoying,
magnet, a victorious moment, always sure to be defeated at the end,
where the image of the World appears clearer, more vivid, more
accessible to our weak eyes.
The immanent force of achievement in becoming a steerable,
ennobled and used for the Cause of the noblest ideal, by force to
move from. potentiality to actuality he attributes to the essential
ideas, base and starting point for all his worldview - Fouillee wanted
to abolish the ancient barriers that still existed between Matter and
Spirit, between the physical universe and human consciousness,
between psychology and cosmology, positive science and the science
of the soul, Thought and Action. In any case, even in the judgment of
those who, like the author of these lines remain faithful to principles
of philosophical dualism, Mr. Alfred Fouillée restored harmony so
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ardently sought, individual life with the universal life and by that very
fundamental and ultimate unit of the World: the admirable
demonstration of sociological element that lies at the bottom of the
instinct of speculative research, it is only the need of the universal
and the Universe is the largest of the groups to which we belong, it
completely redesigned the method and purpose of social science task
already outlined by the pathetic Guyau, this noble thinker, died too
young, having written three or four books that remain some of the
purest masterpieces of philosophy and of French letters,
metaphysician whose remarkable Fouillee spoke so eloquently, flame
and sublime emotion in a book that is also a genuine masterpiece.
But the principles of metaphysics reform, renewal of philosophy
sociological element, the principles laid down by Guyau with both
safety and authority are still qu'ébauchés in his work. This is Fouillee
who developed a series of immortal works are all related to the same
doctrine of ideas forces immanent monism, with clearly idealistic
tendencies in their scientific rigor, which animates the whole
philosophical work of this illustrious thinker. Among his works should
include everything from the philosophy of Plato, this monument of
scholarship and creative thinking at a time when the whole Platonic
wisdom saw to the last volume published by Fouillee.
And sociological trend of speculative investigation is itself one of the
aspects in which we displayed the doctrine of Mr. Alfred Fouillée, one
solution of the eternal problem that better than anyone, he
understood and expressed the complexity and multiplicity of different
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perspectives he has, because who would dare to enumerate or even
assess the possible attributes of Being?
A doctrine like that of Schopenhauer, a philosophy which exerted a
preponderant and decisive influence on the destinies of speculative
thought, and which, despite its absolute originality, appears as a new
phase, as a logical consequence of the great reform accomplished
decline eighteenth century by Immanuel Kant, a grandiose system,
ingenious, and it must be said, also disconcerting when considered
from the standpoint of good common sense and bourgeois logic,
would inevitably attract the attention of a historian and a critic of
philosophical ideas here that e Alfred Fouillée, whose erudition,
knowledge and high understanding of all contemporary doctrines
amazes us as much as his creative gifts.
On several occasions, the philosopher of yours Psychology key ideas
studied trends they metaphysical ideas of the great World as Will and
Representation. First in a most substantial and most instructive
chapter of his History of Philosophy, classic work that Fouillee recently
completed, adding a conclusion that is a pure masterpiece of
eloquence, ingenious synthesis, light penetration and prophetic future
destiny of metaphysics. In the consecrated part in this huge and
critical synthesis, in the Philosophy of Plato, this admirable
monograph where the whole doctrine of the Master inspired and
sagacious leading, for many centuries, souls thirsting for absolute
truth eternal Banquet relives historical, still influences the visible and
lively of Platonic thought on modern philosophy, Fouillee in some
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wonderful pages of lucidity, depth, synthetic brevity, summed up the
value and significance, the basic principles and importance of the
metaphysics of Schopenhauer. But it is especially in a truly
extraordinary work by the brilliance, variety, abundance of ideas, the
work translated into all languages, admired and commented by
professional philosophers around the world, especially in his Essay
critical contemporary moral systems that Fouillee track has a
definitive portrait of Schopenhauer, that's where he studied with a
master's authority and wisdom that will certainly exceeded per
person, initial trends this great doctrine. Perhaps the illustrious author
of Psychology of the European peoples not it makes enough justice to
the metaphysical value and above the purely aesthetic and literary
value of Schopenhauer as a thinker and writer, this value is absolutely
exceptional, numerous studies he continued at different times of his
own career & g critic and historian, however, remain what we wrote
most remarkable deepest and most comprehensive French language
on this subject, and in this connection ideas, as in all possible
philosophical scholarship and speculation upper regions is in the
works of Alfred Fouillée the French reader should seek accurate and
reliable information.
We meet, we could convince s, effort and talent made by French
commentators Schopenhauer, it is deeply regrettable nevertheless
unable to report, in a study of the author of The World as Will and
translations as a representation similar studies published on
Germany.
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They allow the public can still interest in the problems of high
speculation, to fully assimilate the thought of Schopenhauer, enter
some subtleties that have escaped the most authoritative
investigation among the French critics. In any case, the Teutonic
items of higher value inspired by this great philosophy complement
the notion that we're formed. Among those whose immediate
translation is required for the scientific reputation of our beloved
country, we must mention first three magisterial monographs, each
interesting in various ways, one of Paulsen, one of Volkelt, and the
volume of the collection the great modern philosophers who
established once the immense fame of Mr. Kuno Fischer, where it
examines the work and biography of Schopenhauer with
thoroughness, concern least characteristic details, scientific
consciousness almost exaggerated, but also with authority, a force of
deduction and incomparable erudition. Dare I confess, despite my
appreciation for the famous professor who so nobly spoken of our
great Descartes, despite the beautiful pages that contains its study
Schopenhauer - some are even beautiful - dare I say very clearly that
I put quite the same level as this critical biography (though it is
usually quoted before all others), the admirable studies of two other
German philosophers contemporaries, both well known in their
homeland, almost ignored in France.
The book of Mr. Volkelt professor at Leipzig, is a beauty unmatched
analysis. There is superb clarity, relief, picturesque ressemblance.de
and lengths, scholarly essays, but tiring for the audience, which
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increase the classic work of Kuno Fischer, are totally absent, which is
rare in a book German. This is an absolutely outstanding job, deep,
interesting and invoice ingenious composition of simple and clever,
easy to read, run by a professional metaphysician, as competent as
the insufferable pedants who swarm the country of Kant and Fichte,
of Schelling and Schopenhauer, but advantageously differs from its
counterparts by a freshness, clarity and a talent for writing almost
comparable to the talent of the philosopher he exposes us the history
and doctrine, with such verve, method and sober eloquence.
I would say the same of the study Paulsen, and since the opportunity
offered to me to mention the name of the famous philosopher, why
not say that we should have as long a translation of his admirable
Introduction to Philosophy. This is one of the masterpieces of modern
speculative thought, a major philosophical books this time, as the
author is, undoubtedly, one of the foremost metaphysicians of the
time. This is a great mind and a writer value offline thinker of the first
order, of such magnitude as Germany, the Peerage of high
speculation, do not have right now more robust, more ingenious or
more powerful. Again his famous Einleitung in die Philosophie is a true
masterpiece, it is essential to make it known in France. And many
other German studies among all the literature aroused the genius of
Schopenhauer, how many biographies, reviews, essays, or other work
could also deserves to be translated and understood. The literate
public would find as much profit as interest in reading outstanding
analytical studies such as those of Schopenhauer and Richard Uber
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Mebuis Bottgen (Der Grundproblem Schopenhauerschen der
Philosophie), even in reading biographies such as impeccable history
of life Schopenhauer by Grisebach, not to mention personal memories
of the famous Master Frauenstadt which literary property bequeathed
his work el who profited elsewhere to publish immediately in an
absurd and incomplete edition, Frauenstadt Mr. Kuno Fischer panned
with as spiritual ferocity in his classic work, aggravating
circumstances that can not prevail against the fact some privacy very
noble, very pure and disinterested which existed between the great
man and his first admirer. It is true that we do not have either one of
the admirable translation of correspondence Schopenhauer himself,
correspondence of which there are several editions in Germany.
And Hartmann himself, the most illustrious disciple of the Master, the
creator of a whole system that claims to complete the work of
Schopenhauer. Hartmann devotes many pages admirable philosophy
of pessimism, the great metaphysician of the unconscious is so pon
known yet.
To do away with these grievances inspired only by love, the most
ardent and sincere intellectual interests of France, my adopted
country very dear and worthy to be loved, let me also want the
French publication of some metaphysical systems disciples of
Schopenhauer, for example the famous Philosophie der Erlosung of
Mailander that we would see how far can go the logic of the doctrine
of Master consequences, the destructive force of pessimism and
suction fanatic absolute nothingness.
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The publication of these remarkable works, despite the unequal value
they have, in any case we prove the futility of gossip about the
alleged decline of German philosophy. No, a thousand times no, if the
era of the great creative geniuses there seems to be over, fitness,
feeling and metaphysical gifts, will weaken and does not diminish the
country of Kant, Schopenhauer and Hegel, which is also the country
Wundt, Lotze, Lange and many other eminent thinkers, already in the
past, too, but we insist on ignoring. Germany still has many
philosophers of talent, superior intelligences speculative and can
boast of an activity, a production and a metaphysical scholarship
which can not find the equivalent in any other country. Because we
do not even know the names of current celebrities supreme
knowledge, do not have at least the ridiculous claim to deny their
effort and their very existence. The archi-known impartial study of
bed almost classical works, which I have just quoted securities, we
would also refute many objections because they probably qualify
paradoxical and arbitrary sustained thesis in this book. This thesis has
yet found many advocates among the most prominent critics of
contemporary Germany each had the courage to use, as we do here,
the word of optimism that seems an easy joke in bad taste, when
applied to the author of Aphorisms on wisdom in life. But all agreed
more or less in his monumental work, and sometimes contradictory,
as the very existence of positive elements, patterns of belief and
hope, professions eudemonists faith that we only coordination in the
small work present with more depth and more disdain yet received
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opinions and conventional definitions. We would like to briefly
summarize the impression conveyed to us the critical appreciation
Schopenhauer's doctrine was subject under the most different skies.
Although we were not able to indicate here that the general trends of
French or German commentators, a conclusion can be deduced from
this brief review, especially gi we add a few thoughts inspired by the
attitude of criticism Slavic countries.
Too often without them realizing complete themselves, critics of
Schopenhauer made the Master responsible for uncompromising
theories that some of his fanatical supporters, with the exclusiveness
of all sectarian and there philosophy as in all areas of human activity,
alas! drawn its principles. To view the philosophical system of the
metaphysician Mainlander, whose work I have had the opportunity to
speak during this study, and who enjoys fame in Germany dune
comparable to the philosophy of the unconscious Edward Hartmann,
the famous Philosophie der Erlösung is infinitely curious and
significant. It is at home in Mailander Hartmann, moreover, that
human consciousness, despite all the talent spent by the authors (and
they have a lot of one and the other) faces the dangerous chimeras -
and how unnecessary! - Cosmic suicide, extinction of Being, absolute
nothingness, chimeras against which the lucid and biting Engineering
Master rebelled always in secret, even when we preached
renunciation and ultimate sacrifice.
Schopenhauer is that if it is overwhelmed with pain rending spectacle
of universal suffering, if none of the miseries of this world escapes his
14
gaze, he is appalled by the existence, no wants to destroy item
forever, but ennoble, purify, directing crs better future and the true
joy that he conceived the possibility within the Nirvana, higher form of
being, of the Ideal and realized winner. Schopenhauer fears, fears and
despises our own life, precarious, miserable and sordid, he not hate
the concept of Being in itself, and it can not be repeated too often,
what he preaches with such tragic eloquence : it is the destruction of
our abominable world, subject to the ephemeral representation and
insatiable desire, still unsatisfied, but not the total destruction of
Reality.
By positive evidence we have reported in its doctrine, worship he
dedicated to the genius of Art, Virtue and Waiver, this great man
leaves poor humanity a way out, he tells her a port of refuge and
liberation, it lays the foundation of a doctrine of renewal and life force
reconquered. His philosophy is not the absolute nihilism, wild, barren,
and hate not adaptable to the conditions of life taught by Edward
Hartmann and especially Mailander.
The fiery breath of Mercy, the great light of the mystical hope vivify,
animate, and will partially open before her the bronze doors of the
Future and Eternity. This philosophy remains the same, we have tried
to show, a doctrine of life, as well as the doctrine of the Sublime
Master of Pure Reason.
Also admit we do not understand the reasons for the strong
opposition that still raises in northern countries, especially in Slavic
countries, where the works of Schopenhauer, however, are
15
widespread, all of his theories. We readily admit the intense antipathy
must inspire the implacable monism Schopenhauer a diametrically
opposed thinker in his world, for example Mr. Lutoslawski, one of the
most gifted and most famous among young Polish philosophers
whose system staff is one of the most intriguing attempts to
reconstruct the Greek atomism, a renewed science and safety of any
modern method. Mr. Lutoslawski has synthesized his doctrine in a
book entitled The Power of Soul (Seelenmacht) and published in
German, work that we consider for our part as one of the highest
manifestations, the most original Slavic genius, robust beautiful and
harmonious metaphysical construct whose daring delights us because
the author is fighting intellectuals abuse of the present time, this
fanatical cult of monism presented as the sole explanation of the
world, an assumption contradicted by the constitutive laws of the
mind as well as by the positive achievements of science.
But how, for example, the obvious disdain and antipathy manifested
towards Schopenhauer the most learned, the wisest and most
authoritative among the philosophers of the nation, Mr. Struve,
metaphysician of the first order, impeccable and impartial judge of all
binding s speculative issue and made the important question of all
philosophy, strangely ignored and misunderstood by the Polish
society, whether literate, if cultivated as other points of view, of
incomparable and inestimable services? Through the initiative, the
talent, tireless work of a life devoted entirely to the supreme science,
the defense of its interests and spread its influence, Mr. Struve,
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seconded elsewhere in Celtic generous task by several other
prominent philosophers, has created a whole philosophical movement
in Polish literature, where the total absence of metaphysical books
shocked as an anomaly and a strange gap.
This movement is growing every year becomes more intense and
beneficial, it even required the creation of a philosophical journal
interesting and well written appearing in Warsaw - something quite
new in the land of Mickiewicz and M . Sienkiewicz, M. Weryho
philosopher of great talent, great thinker, is the editor of the
magazine in question. Henri Struve was one of the promoters and
initiators of this intellectual revolution, whose equivalent is also
produced in Russia, on a larger scale and with more impact and has
himself published an Introduction to the philosophy that
unprecedented work of any kind in the literary history of the Polish
nation, a monument of erudition, wisdom and deep understanding of
the necessities of life philosophy. All questions of metaphysics, ethics
and aesthetics, and all the details of the universal science are
exposed and studied with a masterful authority and unparalleled skill.
This beautiful work marks an important date in the history of the
Slavic civilization. Well! Mr. Struve, too, despite his immense talent
and high impartiality remains visibly hostile to the author of The
World as Will and Representation.
Another philosopher. Russian one, for which I have always had the
deepest esteem, does not grant either Schopenhauer place deserves
it. I mean Mr. Schelpanow who served and still serves well nobly, the
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interests of the perennial philosophy, in one of the most backward
regions, but the most backward in intellectual point of view of modern
Russia - I mean the Ukraine and its metropolis Kiev - where strictly
individual initiative of the eminent professor Moscow awakened or
rather has created in the minds of some cultivated country need and
desire of metaphysical speculation - and note that in a big city like
Kiev, Mr. Schelpanow even at the local university is the only
professional philosopher. How not to admire the work done by these
brave defenders of universal science admirable that the genius of
Plato traditions, Descartes and Kant emmortaisée, but should be
taught gradually, starting with the most notions rudimentary, when
addressing even young companies.
Moscow and many other metaphysicians share tendentious hostility
Mr. Schelpanow, hostility does not diminish, it is necessary to say,
esteem particular we profess to eminent writer of Kiev, not more
Moreover, the enthusiasm of some Russian philosophers of the past,
for example, the admirable Strakhow a recent admirers of Hegel,
however, only increases our admiration.
Talent alone and not any individual opinions, metaphysics as any
other order of ideas or intellectual labor. We're referring to the Slavic
comments and attitude of philosophical criticism in Russia and Poland
that because it s seems to be set at a point of view wrong considering
only the negative aspects of the philosophy of Schopenhauer. The
test that we are releasing today, precisely because it remains in
agreement with the conclusions of the main German critics, aims to
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correct this view to unraveling one of the paradoxes and revolts
inflamed Schopenhauer, principles generators survive its apparent
nihilism and even the analysis of the most illustrious masters of
French haute speculation, we believe, despite our respect for their
work and for their genius, failed to highlight or to discern very clearly.
CHAPTER II.
DOCTRINE AND INFLUENCE OF SCHOPENHAUER
The time seems right to judge in all fairness, unbiased biased
whatsoever, the great work and tumultuous genius Schopenhauer. Its
place in the intellectual history of the modern world and in the annals
of speculative thought, it is not disputed by anyone, even by
opponents of his doctrine, far outnumber his supporters. And how
surprised? Since it is a philosophy which, in appearance at least,
condemn and fight the same principle of Being and the joys of life,
these ephemeral joys, perishable and disappointing, whose
problematic conquest remains yet among so many disappointments,
struggles and tragic suffering, purpose, and the dark Ideal for
suffering humanity, the supreme illusion, ever, no matter what, black
slave race will want to deny or abdicate. It really seems that the
desire for happiness, harsh and feverish search for joy, lurent of all
time, reflection, and the accuracy of the absolute elusive picture. So
long ignored, misunderstood and despised, the philosophical work of
Arthur Schopenhauer practiced for nearly half a century, a major
influence on the evolution of ideas and the currently prevailing
worldview and for such, at least, that it is developing slowly among
19
the elite of an era and a generation, for the vast majority of our fellow
mercenary and obscure crowd, and also to be pitied of an immense
pity for his ignorance even his gigantic folly, his fierce bestiality and
eternal slavery, the crowd, today as in the days of barbarism, we
believe that age continues to stagnate, without suspecting the
conquests of the science, thought stamped philosophical investigation
masterpieces already made by the immortal arts, consolation and
delight of this world.
Never forget, when we talk about the most misleading chimeras here,
the glory of artistic, literary or scientific, never forget that its pure
rays do not penetrate the unfathomable abyss of ignorance and
darkness where vegetate nations - and that perhaps one day will
reach the light, do not forget, even when we talk about the most
resounding glory, that it remains limited and ignored the crowd. Keep
in our memories salutary notion of this simple fact: relativity and the
nothingness of what we call the posthumous immortality rather
foolishly, or current celebrity genius. Let us although the lifetime of
Plato, Descartes, Kant and Schopenhauer, some scholars or some
readers, hostile or benign, only knew the existence of the great
geniuses of these masters like none other, and whose Glory is really
brilliant and so pure that seems universal. And if we say that the
opinion of the minority so-called intellectual is the only one that
matters, I'll start, nobody knows anything, then it is moving the issue
and the fact that I reported the tragic eloquence none the less
certain. Yes, millions of creatures lived down here the dream of
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existence or are still suffering without hearing only pronounce the
name of Plato or Shakespeare, Kant, or Dante, Descartes or Balzac.
It seems superfluous to recall here that Schopenhauer, in his lifetime,
was misunderstood, for many years, misunderstood even by the elite,
the intellectual superiority still seems so questionable and that was so
hard to recognize the genius of the great German metaphysician, in
which the humanity of all ages and all races, is liable for this
masterpiece called the World as Will el representation as a
masterpiece without equal, where s' says the Supreme conquest
which can claim the human mind: a new conception of the universe,
an original explanation of the eternal riddle, a total vision of the Body
of things and synthesis of the Cosmos. How injustice and brutal
indifference which was first welcomed all the gigantic attempt to
Schopenhauer, even among the literate public of his time! Our
readers will certainly remember. What good recall the successive
phases of this sad story?
Schopenhauer was a great philosophical genius, he brought the world
a new word and doctrine, however, related to very speculative
ancient traditions. How could he expect a host other than the one
whose first gratified incompetence, routine and the silliness of his
contemporaries?
For many years the great thinker whose system of the Universe was
to operate the latest one of the most extraordinary metaphysical
revolutions of that time above -. Because even those who decry the
attack or slander, suffered its influence - during the best years of
21
youth, vitality and life force yet triumphant, and when his work was
already done, however, the age at which a thinker, an artist or a
writer can fully enjoy the thrill of victory Schopenhauer knew only the
tune of bitter defeat, the most painful of all those who stand before us
to learn about life paths test: feeling scorned, mocked and beaten,
while the certainty an authentic genius, clear consciousness of
overwhelming superiority, and accentuated by the mediocrity of those
who overcome, our enemies, our rivals, while our sense of unknown
strength burns our heart of its flame invincible. This bitterness
intolerable for some souls too shady or too proud, already rich in
excruciating pain for the soul most sincerely Stoic (as contempt and
disdain are the worst insults, and nothing clears the memory), the
profound metaphysician World as Will and Representation exhausted
him to the last drop.
His masterpieces remained unsold, misunderstood, unknown;
scholarly spheres, literary philosophical one, ignorant to the name of
the one who believed himself a reformer called to guide humanity
towards new destinies, the literate public, or so called such, persisted
careful not to buy his books. The formidable conspiracy of silence
crushed his weight, easily finding aids to laziness of mind happy and
fundamental ignorance of the crowd, let alone the deaf animosity of
fate so long enemy. And it is hardly necessary to point out here once
again the strange contradiction between the grandiose goal that
would reach the great thinker and Parerga Paralipomena, and
contempt of the crowd, between the mean failure and the significance
22
of work of Schopenhauer as a whole, the vast horizons that reveals to
us the atmosphere of tragic beauty and sublime revolt that prevails.
Not sure, a thousand times no, a man of genius like Arthur
Schopenhauer would not have had to suffer this disdain of the crowd,
this tenacity with which the fame that so often strikes at the door
makers and fools, s 'obstinately refused to cross the threshold of his
house for him, which, more than any other among the high
personalities of his time, deserves to be praised, glorified, admire'
and loved it!
A thinker of this magnitude, a metaphysician pure Kantian tradition -
because we know that Schopenhauer, so proud, so bitter yet never
thought to deny the intellectual debt he had contracted despite all his
genius, as well as all of us very obscure and humble, to the great man
there Pure Reason, creator and initiator of all modern philosophy - a
philosophy that has penetrated so deeply into the mysterious and
serene regions of the Absolute and Eternity should have despised her
turn foolish contempt of his contemporaries, vain satisfactions of
vanity and pride and pleasure that order so obviously provide less
than the votes of the public or the glamor of fame. He should have
resigned to isolation, loneliness, silence stubborn about his
personality and his work.
It does not have the strength, and suffered cruelly ...
But finally, after so long a period of darkness, waiting feverishly for a
chimerical glory and whose fate was yet to carry out him as a sacred
23
debt, here it appears slowly on the horizon this being so sad and
empty a man of genius isolated, embittered cl unknown behold it
illuminates the decline of what might be called for when even happy,
comparing to the existence of the vast majority of human beings, if
there was always something fatuous el a huge dose of silliness in
presumptuous claim to appreciate the reasons for sadness and joy of
our fellowmen.
And, obviously, there was the moral nature of Schopenhauer in his
psychic personality and individual temperament, an inexhaustible
source of bitterness and melancholy. However, his hatred and fear of
life seem to vanish under the beneficent influence of this very sweet
chimera of glory that the first rays drunk and soothe the most
stubborn souls who, for him, appeared so late in the time,
everywhere, the evening mists rise, where the icy breath of the grave
already withered crops and the flowers fall, but also seems to give
them more price and value.
We do not intend to trace the well-known biography of Arthur
Schopenhauer, in this sketch, whose purpose is to indicate in his work
some synthetic and generally unnoticed aspects, but which require
the attention of all fans and to all the friends of philosophy, when
deeper doctrine, metaphysical system and the moral teaching of this
extraordinary man. I do not dwell on the successive phases that
crossed this rather rapid progression of celebrity Master momentous
event of his individual destiny, from the mysterious and solemn
moment when he deigned to smile this dreadful and
24
incomprehensible power whose reality is yet more certain than any
other, because each of us experiences the effects and humanity
among the mirages, the struggles and disappointing or sublime
visions of history, was venerated under various names of Fate,
Destiny, Hasard, the adverse or favorable Chance, beneficent or
hostile, from the day on which the Lot, so long enemy, granted to
Schopenhauer the revenge that the great man, unknown to the days
of his youth, still claiming with so much bitterness and anger. without
hope perhaps itself the realization of his dream. Yet it triumphed, as
we know, the lifetime of Schopenhauer. After disrepute, also
exaggerated, as any movement of reaction, which struck the
flourishing philosophical school time. so great and noble, moreover, of
the German idealism of the nineteenth century, one that seems to
identify with the genius of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel especially,
deeply forgotten and unjustly despised in turn, and was. in a still
recent past, the Supreme Master of European thought, which remains
equal to his greatest enemy, here ion discovered the work ignored,
disdained, moisissant on the dusty shelves of libraries, and the
gigantic work sublime Schopenhauer. The high light of a new
doctrine, the invincible force of truth and discovery of one of these
essential truths and indestructible against which the time or human
ingratitude can not prevail, the dazzling beauty of a brilliant idea,
hatched in a large intelligence and developed with a talent as a writer
equal to the force that inspires speculation, yes, light, beauty,
splendid joy of victory, the joy of a victory obtained by more human
25
genius, confusion, emotion, irresistible allure of a huge emerging
glory, all that springs suddenly old books for an unknown philosopher,
barely mentioned by the historians of modern metaphysics, despised
by professional, totally ignored by the public, and whose immortal
works, widespread today around the world, found neither buyers nor
readers could even detractors.
But, again, here is the long-awaited revenge, complete, dazzling, and
worthy of a superior man who enjoyed. We discover his philosophical
system, is passionate about his books, where an extraordinary literary
mastery argued with such skill and originality power of speculative
thought and richness of metaphysical ideas. It says, we analyze the
works, ideas, doctrine, the conception of the world, the vast cosmic
synthesis and paradoxes of Schopenhauer! Indescribable enthusiasm,
and the furious attacks of the envious and foolish revive and make it
more intense, one similar to that which caused the once great, cloudy
and formidable Hegel, personal enemy, the bane of Schopenhauer,
and whose enthusiasm author of The World as Will and
Representation always speak with rudeness and harshness so
distressing, really unfortunate, because we can not repeat too much
Hegel was, too, a great genius, a general enthusiasm of youth
literate, of anyone who thinks, who suffer, who meditate and aspire
major problems to solve, a veritable delirium of admiration, sympathy
and curiosity, is pervasive and compensates Schopenhauer insults,
disdain of the past.
26
Nothing more moving in its childishness, more human, more touching
than the story of the last years of the great German philosopher, and
this unexpected development of his fame and influence which marks
the events. We find the details in the biographies of many Germanic
Master. For us, it must be said, high personality Schopenhauer was
very little studied in this subjective point of view, yet so important to
the overall understanding of the ideas of a reformer, a contemplative
also obviously inspired and vibrant the slightest impression of life.
However, I repeat, in outline and general appearance of late Celtic
period and final victory, is known to us. For almost overnight,
Schopenhauer became famous: faithful disciples, enthusiastic
admirers come to Frankfurt to present their respectful homage to the
genius who seems to have found the word of all riddles, the cosmic
origins as well that of Love, Art and Beauty of the Earth. With
spontaneous and sincere candor of genius, which always involves at
whoever has the formidable privilege a certain dose relies charming
simplicity, Schopenhauer is pleased with these childish
demonstrations daily increasing admiration of new generations, he
enjoys these impressions with unexpected delight, he fully enjoys its
popularity it enjoys all the sensations of pride, triumph, vanity
satisfied that success can give sensations lower, but still intense and
ennobled by the consciousness of a great work accomplished, the
certainty of having conquered the spell. Finally, after several years of
valuable hand when the man who was Shakespeare really knew the
illusion of pessimism and perhaps the reality of happiness and glory
27
possible here, the soul reconciled with fate, trusting in the future
immortal work he bequeathed to humanity and whose breath of
misfortune and bad luck do not ever doubt it had Schopenhauer
sleeps Supreme sleep.
This sublime intelligence, which had penetrated so deeply by délaies
vain appearances of the material world to the bottom of the
primordial Being, to dark areas of the LORD and the Absolute, the
mysterious Will of which all proceeds and where all returns and fades,
this flame shining in the clear, bitter and disillusioned gaze of the
great pessimist el that, even through death, yet illuminates the road
of humanity, the flame was extinguished forever in the night without
waking.
And the influence of Schopenhauer really reached its peak after the
death of the philosopher. All the late nineteenth century is dominated
by its dark and despotic genius. The reflection of his work, the echo of
his faint voice quivered for eternity, more vivid than ever, on this
glorious tomb whose generations had not had time to unlearn the
way. Track of his theories, always original and vibrant, its worldview,
of duty, and the ideal of truth is found, we find its influence, to say all
in a word, in areas of intellectual activity social and the most foreign
to the great metaphysical speculations appearance.
These are not only the professors of philosophy whom he had
dedicated a fierce hatred and somewhat unfair, frankly, because if
there are pedants among them, as in any other social class, no
among classes contemporary society, can not compete with it as
28
current intellectual culture are not only professionals Supreme
Science dealing with Schopenhauer month as amateurs, dilettantes,
literary critics, moralists lounge, journalists, columnists, vaudeville,
etc.. Needless to note that these improvised judges, who arrogate to
themselves the right to decide without appeal a work they are too
often unable to understand the attribute morose and sublime
metaphysical pessimism inconceivable nonsense he can not be held
responsible any degree unnecessary retract his thought is more
disguised and distorted, but is not in this transformation and this
alteration as is the influence and sustainability dune doctrine, what is
commonly called the glory, and what Schopenhauer coveted his life
with so much sadness and enthusiasm? It cites all about, to rhyme
and several generations of young people admire and choose to
intellectual guide and Supreme Master; hundreds of volumes
published in all countries of the world, even the most extravagant (for
which therefore the great theory of the Will does she not penetrated?)
devoted to refuting or apology Arthur Schopenhauer. The greatest
artist, the most extraordinary creative genius of modern times, who's
telling the Art centuries to come, as Ideal and typical model, a lively
and picturesque synthesis of all the arts: music, poetry, painting and
plastic together into one grand vision of beauty perfect and complete,
Richard Wagner himself proclaims his pupil is obviously inspired his
doctrine cl ready to immortal accents Tristan dying of love, despair
and regret, the noble fierce pride and pessimism.
29
But another time and here begins an inevitable reaction occurs and
slowly erases loud and ephemeral popularity of one who understood
better than anyone the horror and anguish of the tragic event live -
because living is already a and undeserved ordeal - a person who, for
a moment, one could believe, at least, had brought forth from the
depths of the collective soul of thinking humanity, a spark of pity
sincere awareness of our infinite misery, perhaps hope for a possible
renewal. The silence of eternity indifferent already surrounds its
opaque fog his memory and his work. Of course, the one and the
other are only grow in the esteem and admiration of philosophers and
even scholars, but its action on the crowd already belongs to the past,
and I repeat here the necessary restriction made early this study:
when we speak of crowd there, always imply a kind of elite. The
crowd at the exact meaning of what tarnished, the people, the vast
majority of our fellow men, alas! reads nothing, knows nothing and is
still languishing in the darkness of the most complete barbarism. A
man of the people with us as the Lapps or Kaffirs do not even know
that Plato, Descartes or Kant existed. And how moral and intellectual
action Schopenhauer on the society of the time, action was profound
yet now seems ineffective, insignificant and small!
No modern thinker, however, exercised to the extent and limits of the
possible, more legitimate and more beneficial. And here are the
results obtained, the harvest and the salary of engineering: the
modern world has retained none of the teachings of noble thinker and
philosopher sublime. For cruel and stupid humanity, eternal victim
30
and accomplice of the ruthless will to live, the example, the word and
doctrine of Schopenhauer, despite their overwhelming response
remain null, void and non-existent. The moral of the Master
penetrated nor spirits, nor in the morals of the time, it caused only
disdainful pity men of action who vaguely know the main lines,
inspiration and method dialectic, it seems all an extravagant paradox
and reality gives him every moment of cruel denials.
As before, as in yesterday's reality or eternal time, this time is also a
fundamental and innate illusion, a priori forms of sensibility devoid of
reality itself superior truth familiar every spirit somewhat grown since
the revolution effected by Kant, as of old, blind, stupid and criminal
Will living continues unabated painful work that Fate
incomprehensible assigns. It deploys its wonders tips, perversity and
hatred with the same harshness, the same stubbornness and even
dementia. Not only among the visions of terror, murder, destruction
that seem essential conditions of animal life on this earth of slavery
and shame, but in human relations, political, individual and social
civilized world, or supposedly so, never him for life has emerged with
more violence, frenzy and bestiality. Throughout the fittest
oppressing the idea of justice and law, ruthless competition, and the
negation of the Ideal, the exclusive worship of success and victory
obtained in-out price, and the master and ruler of money world, and
all infamies, all crimes, all baseness completed and accepted in
advance to conquer some of that money so quickly remove death to
those who hold the illusory power. Throughout the living beings,
31
throbbing Celtic will whose law governs the impenetrable harmonious
rhythm constellations pursuing their mysterious road paths Infinity,
which will in the tiny and dark regions of earthly life suffers and seeks
the happiness with equal ardor in a man of genius or in the most
disgusting gross crawling on the bark muddy abominable our little
planet, all human beings, too, despite the redemption of the Savior
who died on the cross, destroy suffering and hatred, despite the
warning fair, sages and prophets, of those who, having dispelled the
illusion of appearances, discover the deep source of pain and hurt,
and tell us the issue and everywhere human creatures devour, to
fight, tear, cling to a horrible existence, rebel with a wild fury against
the very idea of a possible abdication of selfishness. Never affirmation
of Being, the Will-live to use the terminology of Schopenhauer himself
- not spread its iniquity resources, more cynically. It is in vain that the
sublime moralist pessimism liberating taught the Western world the
wisdom of renunciation hatched long among Asiatic barbarism, which
does not draw that also hangs strong profits or real progress. It is in
vain that we prove, in the immortal masterpieces, the nothingness of
all ambitions, all desires, all mirages here below. In vain he believed
convince humanity that sad fact, so simple for him, bright certainty of
falsehood so aggressive in the judgment of the crowd: the will to live
is identified with the desire, or desire is itself eternally and
necessarily painful qu'effort sterile aspiration, disappointment and
suffering. Still must contend with the fierce lust of other wills,
spouting sparks the same mystical home, it always spreads around
32
you suffering and evil will always suffer, since it is the desire. Ah! if
you want to live a better life and which may appear light ignored a
happiness that seems impossible, renounce life, or at least to that
cosmic order and Fate Fatal and we require that n ' is selfishness,
pain, crime and madness. Not fight, do more hate, no longer want the
property lying immediately vanish as our feeble hands reach to grasp.
Return to First Source, dispel the eternal illusion, break the chains of
slavery. It is in the immolation of our desires and our hopes that you
will find some promise and pledge of a new, single life worth living,
and whose illusory happiness and freedom in this world are only the
infamous parody, or disappointing symbol for abdicating its own
essence, the Will can break the Destin and deliver the world.
Humanity listened for a moment, or at least pretend to bed hearing
the words of the wise disillusioned and disdainfully, she continued her
way among the same mistakes, the same inequities and the same
tests. Love, ambition, greed, stupidity, vanity and violence, Desire
and Regret of Bliss impossible, burn, devastate and always oppress
the poor human souls thirsting for happiness and joy. No chimeras, no
mirages that delight or fill with terror weak eyes, tomorrow vanished
into eternal night, no grand illusions has abdicated its omnipotence
misleading, or fatal attraction ... No, humanity has given up nothing
and advice pessimism qu'héroïques also remain useless and
ineffective.
The philosopher fashion, the dawn of the twentieth century begins
among many concerns and political or social inequities in a
33
depressing atmosphere of unease and lying, which replaces thinker
Schopenhauer in public favor as influence and reputation for
boldness, the writer who symbolizes the aspirations of avant-garde
and speculative daring literate youth, this is no longer the sublime
rebellious, bitter and charitable who formerly taught in the name of
the invincible suffering the universal pity is not Schopenhauer, but the
hard, bitter and cruel Friedrich Nietzsche, the enemy of Christianity
and kindness, the apologist of brutal force, the critic of all chimeras
which believed reformers and sages of the past. The merciless and
eloquent Prussian writer, whose morality is a total negation of the
concept of morality, in a radical transmutation of values that once
gave a price and meaning to human life, unhappy and pathetic
Nietzsche n ' made elsewhere, building the doctrine of the Superman
and the cult of the vital power which summarizes that continue
printing in him a well unpleasant anti-humanitarian leadership, the
initial theory of the Will conceived as a principle of world gasoline Be
the theory that forms the basis and starting point of the philosophy of
Schopenhauer. Woe to the vanquished! Woe to the weak! woe to
those who suffer! who despair and weep! This was summed up in
vulgar terms, the currency of the philosopher Zarathustra, striking
antithesis of the wise according to Schopenhauer, but so well adapted
to trends and the deepest aspirations of the modern world that he
found no difficulty in aggressive doctrine of Return eternal, the living
image of his ideal despicable. For Nietzsche, the flame of a genuine
literary genius, eloquence, the beautiful lyricism, pathos and beauty
34
of symbols conceal the horror but proclaimed by the vile crowd,
really, what more could inspire a doctrine melancholy sort of disgust?
The horrible time of transition in which we live the dream of
existence, which began then, however, the lifetime of Schopenhauer,
this regime of murder and blood reign over the world, and this
nightmare of armed peace seems to be the normal condition of all
civilization, progress, when in fact even at the worst times of
barbarism and darkness, humanity never knew of such slavery, the
era in which we live could certainly not choose guide and advocate
more appropriate to its value and its deep soul.
***
Yet a third period began in the history of pessimism. After being
attacked, commented, vilified or hated by so many fools, having been
for nearly half a century, to the ignorant crowd, the designated
representative of the ultra-advanced and ultra-revolutionary trends of
speculative thought Schopenhauer is no longer discussed by person
here that an era of peace and healing begins for this great memory
and this immortal work. Yes, finally! finally! - And thanks be fair and
conducive to intended - Schopenhauer is the philosopher most
fashionable one cite the people of the world, when they want to
demonstrate erudition, one mock journalists when want to flaunt or
civic virtue, admired by the confidence the snobs of any kind,
harmless race, certainly, but still hateful because it distorts and
shrinks its level cloud and sublime genius designs.
35
And visionary pathetic World as Will and Representation, haughty and
austere asceticism Platonic moralist is not only the most fashionable
intellectual revolutionary, but it is already, for his opponents and his
supporters as one of classics of the nineteenth century and of all
ages. Yes, Schopenhauer, a classic and as such seems strong backlog
probably some severe judges, who should nevertheless reserve for
themselves lucid severity - this may seem a paradoxical assertion or
exaggerated. How challenging yet the obvious and overwhelming
truth?
It now belongs to the race of great philosophical genius which no one
discusses the dreaded wisdom. Because it seems to personify the
most noble effort, the most sublime of earthly aspirations and glory
around a bit mysterious deaths names immortal masters, hovers
above the vicissitudes of time, contemporary struggles, passions ,
loves and hates the present. Yes. Schopenhauer now appears to us
the equal of Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus and Epictetus, Marcus
Aurelius, Seneca and Epicurus, St. Anselm and St. Augustine,
Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz and Berkeley, Hume and Spencer,
Malebranche and Fichte, Hegel and Schelling, perhaps even great, the
incomparable Kant, his master and the master of us all. Certainly,
intellectual strength and metaphysical significance of these
philosophers as diverse engineering can not claim the same tribute of
gratitude and glory, but each of them truly embodies some
tendencies of the human mind or some clearly defined period of
thought speculative. Each of them was really creative in the sense
36
that each glimpse of the eternal riddle as an unseen side to him. Each
built a new and fruitful hypothesis, embracing In Totality of Being el
the things Ensemble. Each bequeathed us a doctrine of life, based not
on vague and arbitrary sentences mandatory, but following some
great universal principle of Unity. Each rebuilt the universe on a new
plan, each spoke during the fleeting dream of his earthly life of these
imperishable words against which nothing can prevail neither
forgotten nor change the world, nor the labor of centuries, or even
ingratitude and contempt for our fellow man. It is argued in vain to
conquer and assign a philosophy of argumentation and scientific
certainty that the supreme knowledge (have the courage to say)
rigor, can not achieve, precisely because the object of metaphysics is
the definition of the Absolute and the understanding of the universe,
visible manifestation of the absolute, the very immensity of the loose
company excluded the possibility of a definitive and accurate
solution, as it may require in the special sciences, whose purpose is
never more than a piecemeal analysis of the phenomena of Being.
The great speculative systems still retain this hypothetical that lends
them a beauty, moral significance, eloquence, perfectibility which can
not claim other sciences, always limited by their definition and
purpose of their experimental investigations. All large syntheses
developed by the Masters of the perennial philosophy, are, in fact,
that funky assumptions, keyed alike, our dazzled eyes, the endless
vistas of eternity and immensity, at the same time that they
penetrate to the inner essence of life, until ultimate bottom and hid,
37
that is the radical end of the analysis possible, the deep source where
all that exists derives its reason for living. Again, there is nobility,
grandeur, the inestimable beauty, the action force on elite, austere
grace and sustainability philosophy souls. But how deny? Among the
main explanations of the total Reality, among these immortal systems
which are the common heritage of our slave race, the treasure of
superior wisdom which are enriched in turn successive generations,
the doctrine of Schopenhauer, this gigantic and so clear and so clear
philosophy of the Will, the principle of the World, mysterious essence
of universal existence, is one of the most fruitful explanations, and
more inspired mystery of origins and destinies.
Because we can not stress enough on this important capital, an
explanation of the secret of the world, an overview of the universe
and a doctrine of life for us consolation and support from pain and
earthly ties, that's what should make any philosopher worthy of the
name, and this is the merit that can claim more than any other, the
philosophy of Schopenhauer. It presents) read this very rare feature:
the perfect homogeneity of the legal practice, and the powerful
speculative theory which is the basic frame and base. The ethics of
Schopenhauer is the rational result, logic and irrefutable conclusion
established in the premises of his metaphysical system, inspiration
and unity of dialectics that really gets any impartial a kind of awe
player. No, most certainly, nobody has penetrated the secret of the
world more, no flame great inspiration dissipated as a powerful breath
opaque mists that hide us under the disappointing mirage of vain
38
appearances, eternal truth. And this gigantic work was accomplished
by the extraordinary man who could say with pride: the fact of the
possibility of a moral law ence world of lies set egoism depends on
the reckless assertion: there is a metaphysics. He who denies the
reality destroyed without noticing the evidence and any legal
existence dune. But Schopenhauer knew that, despite all the
negatives and all the revolts of human pride, the sacred law that
pulsates at the bottom of souls, and whose beneficent memory, as
well as the sublime aspect of the starry sky, moved him up tears
illustrated reformer of modern thought, this imperishable law had
found in his own doctrine and a new indestructible foundation.
For these various reasons, the teaching and doctrine of Arthur
Schopenhauer grow more each day, as the crowd is not interested in
the false image it once in training, his work appears footprint of such
nature of beauty, tragic serenity, calm, depth and genius, that, now,
the faithful disciples of this great man have the right to admire the
aspect of eternity, sub specie aeternitatis .
And it is appropriate for kids reasons to rejoice deeply passenger
discrediting of this immortal work, the period of reaction it undergoes
at this time, as any manifestation of human genius. The influence,
indirect, though, and passing it may have on the arts, ideas, manners,
and the chatter of an era coming to an end. Listen to the sublime
complaint Tristan dying of despair, crying her abandonment and love
deceived in the infinite distress of those eternal illusion of love was
marked at the front of the dreaded sign, those for whom the world is
39
a desert when creature adored and betrayed no remorse dying of
pain under the indifferent eyes of distant stars, where the soft star
that shines for them in a human eye has moved away, taking with it
the strength to live, dreams of gold and the divine lie. Because there
is there a spell more powerful than Brengane itself potion, and the
omnipotence of the Will-to-live has created countless worlds as his
overwhelming burden crushing a poor soul helpless, so weak cl so
tired, the inevitable time when love appears ...
Here is the great masterpiece of Richard Wagner, this lyrical drama
Tristan and Isolde, directly, immediately inspired by the doctrine of
Schopenhauer, whose poem as well as the music, superhuman
beauty, traverse the centuries as living testimony to the creative
force that throbbed in the philosophy of despair, metaphysical
masterpiece whose light and flame were hatched around him flowers
changing colors, penetrating fragrance, the colors vibrant and lasting
of Heads work of art ... Tristan's farewell to the beloved gone, the
ungrateful who despises and forgets evoke in ourselves the thrill of
the great tragic emotions, because it is the invisible soul of
Schopenhauer and present, who meddles the voice of the dying, and
address in the world, and the long-awaited glory, an eternal farewell.
Let us once more lulled by pure sob and inspired songs that stand on
the vast sea, hovering over the waves wrath and mingling with the
breath of the storm and the confused voices of the material world, the
noble accents human pain, the sadness of farewell, bitterness
40
inexorable separations, the sustainability of faithful love, the
atrocious suffering souls despised ...
In these immortal tears in the complaint and that unappeased yet
soothes the denouement of noble masterpiece of Richard Wagner,
which worshiped in return for receiving a last kiss, the last farewell of
one who did not survive the absence, in these sublime harmonies
exhales, peaked, and then seems to vanish, the influence of
Schopenhauer's philosophy on art, ideas, aesthetic, intellectual and
emotional activity of the living world . The main principles of the
metaphysics of the Will, his assertion in the various types of cosmic
life or earthly organization, the pathos that emerges, the depths of
suffering, distress and despair reveals she suddenly and the salvation
and deliverance which discovers in his own depths, in this eternal
miracle of renunciation and sacrifice, where Christian morality had
already designated the same ideal of wisdom and happiness possible,
all that has sublime and again (because the only genuine innovations
are those found) in the doctrine of Schopenhauer symbolizes an
unforgettable vision of concrete and painful beauty evoked by a
masterpiece of dramatic work and lyrical link that surpass the
emotion.
Then a kind of silence slowly envelops the prestigious work of the
great German philosopher. The crowd away from the tomb, lay let
rest soothed his ashes, artists, poets and amateurs looking elsewhere
inspired motifs and their enthusiasms.
41
Other moralists, other thinkers have this irrational enthusiasm that
fades so quickly, others less austere voice, but harder, of course,
more aggressive, speak words that seem the antithesis of your noble
doctrine, and are received with transports of enthusiasm, they find
immediate application, not only in the fictions of art immortal but also
in world politics, class struggle and individuals disappointing melee
passions and interests of the present. This is not the annihilation of
the eternal Will to life we are taught but his fierce and exclusive
worship. This is no longer the universal pity we are taught to cherish
and spread, but the contempt and hatred of the poor, the outcast, the
loser, the eternal outcast.
This is no longer the great rest, the supreme calm, dreamless sleep
within the Nirvana, once the illusion of time struck down like the
others, which is promised us some revenge, but the Back endless
same suffering the same trials, the tragedy of Destin renewed
through the mirage centuries for the sole benefit of a chosen few, the
miserable fate of slaves without number is dismal and fatal ransom.
Nietzsche is the idol of the day. Once again we find victory. Superman
unleashed in the illusory world of reality his fierce selfishness,
fratricidal struggles, fights and foolish pride.
Zarathustra inspired thinkers and artists, politicians, statesmen and
even the dreamers of the present time, the Dream and Reality kl, Art
and life belong to him! . Woe to the humble! shame and contempt for
those who succumb especially those who are reaching out on behalf
of the Society and Mercy, both exiled queens! This is the ruthless law
42
of the new squealed that the world has chosen. And yet here I speak
of the elite of modern society, because human brutes, always and
instinctively knew this doctrine, and do not want another.
CHAPTER III.
DENIAL AND STATEMENT OF LIFE
Schopenhauer's philosophy, if you want to summarize in a brief form
the ultimate teaching that emerges, resulting in an absolute and
radical negation of life. This is indisputable and certain, and to
pretend otherwise would be an attempt paradox easy manifestation
of intellectual mediocrity very supportive today, but that has always
had a gift for us especially annoying.
However, it should be understood and there in the very notion of
nothingness so hateful a foreign element and the deepest aspirations
of the human soul a more rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the
fateful conclusion philosopher of pessimism was brought there may
discover the beginnings of a possible reconciliation with destiny, the
germ of a fragile hope.
Such a discovery would certainly remain the point without profit to
human knowledge, or for the solution of the most exciting moral
problems, the same one that gives value and meaning to life. If
careful consideration of speculative results by the most lucid, the
most brilliant, the most pathetic and the most inspired of all
misanthropic and pessimistic all, if the inquiry that we would like to
outline briefly, making it not be on the principles, which we assume
43
known to the reader, but the conclusions of the metaphysical system
of Schopenhauer, if we undertake the study allowed us to observe in
the most fierce critic of humanity and living conditions where the it
develops in man of genius who spoke about the suffering of the world,
the hardest and the most severe sentences and who dreamed of
destroying the very principle of be his last refuge, if we find kid
Schopenhauer invincible and unnoticed trend itself to an impossible
happiness, towards a notion of joy that attracts and tempts despite
him the consequences of this simple observation can be significant
and are in effect.
When we read the wonderful masterpieces of metaphysical
construction and bitter literary eloquence which are almost unique
effort in the history of human thought, how now we just give a cursory
glance appears however difficult, almost impossible! It seems at first
that the conclusion generally accepted won with an overwhelming
evidence. No, certainly not more tragic indictment, no more burning
was up against injustice, cruelty, brutality and illogicality of this
terrible world we live our earthly exile, where everything is despair,
crime or madness, where the depths of distress dig at every step of
learning these roads do not lead to any port of peace, happiness or
salvation possible. Because there was, at once, poignant, admirable,
and terrible in this picture of the immense human misery initial terror
of existence, there was wonderful and sublime Schopenhauer is that
his description of the World and countless aches that plague while
being pushed to paroxysm of disenchantment lucid remains ruthlessly
44
true, fair and persuasive is that the inimitable accent of Truth it
throbs.
Hence the thrill Shakespearean horror it causes, hence the despotic
influence she exerted over the minds and souls, the kind of
fascination that draws to its terrible depths unfortunate who have
suffered, cried and including the ultimate truth lies precisely in the
suffering and despair. This tragic truth, we had all interview, but we
do not dare proclaim aloud, and behold, a man of genius is this
courage and justifies the curse that falls on the world by any doctrine
of the Universe, an original and profound philosophy.
The physical world whose ugliness, hostility and blind omnipotence
overwhelm us, the world of force and matter, the outside world that
seems to be the only reality is that the apparent world, the world as
representation as it dies and is reborn with each creature designs in
the making. As such, it has no stability, no reality, no continuity, it
takes us, puny and miserable, and cosmic systems that revolve roads
of infinity in this refluxing torrent, this whirlwind of events perishable,
the show already filled with bitterness and melancholy soul of old
Heraclitus Point object without a subject, that is the great principle of
eternal Idealism Schopenhauer found after his glorious predecessors,
Plato, Berkeley, Descartes, Kant, but he never settled in an
imperishable form of clarity, sharpness and intuitive evidence.
Laws that because we attest, a so tyrannical power, the very
existence of the visible universe, are the conditions under which we
participate in the illusion and mystery of Being. The appearance
45
offered the world comes from the constitution of our intelligence,
innate way all creatures of our species must represent things. But as
an immediate consequence of this assumption is a first evidence of
truth, the material world, infinite, immeasurable, wonderful and
terrible we ourselves are part, is a world of phenomena and
appearances of truth relative. The material is a true lie, according to
the definition of strong and admirable Master el under the
multicolored fabric of visions that causes, or disappointing exquisite,
always prophetic, as the iron law of universal determinism encloses
all sides lurk the ultimate reality, the hidden depths of Being and Life,
One Substance whose very name has changed, the thing in itself, the
noumenon Mysterious Kant denied our slave race the power of an any
intuition, understanding even approximately, a transient vision.
This thing in itself that the philosophers, thinkers and sages of all
times and of all races really cl anxiously sought among the ghosts of
material reality, in vain arabesques (sensible appearances so quickly
dissipated, the breath time which is itself a supreme illusion, this
basic truth is called Will. It is the Lord, the immutable, the mysterious,
the true Wanting to which all proceeds and to which everything
returns, and only remain in this world where everything goes,
whereas all the splendor and overwhelming all sizes that radiate in
the path of the stars among the splendours of suns, planets and Milky
Ways are just confused and clear images both Remember that the
infinite continues the eternal dreamer called the human mind. But he
46
wakes up in the supreme moment of deliverance and visions of his
dream vanish immediately.
Will alone is free, so there is only the will and, apart from the
appearance it takes for perishable creatures, chained forever
connected by Time, Space and Universal causal forms priori principle
of sufficient reason in itself the world's only desire.
Schopenhauer proclaimed this fundamental truth, starting and deep
source of all his doctrine on several occasions, with an eloquence,
zeal and strength of Platonic dialectic incomparable. Should be
attached in support of this assertion a few quotes that awaken in the
memory of fans Master emotions unlike any other in their first
readings?
This world with all its phenomena is the objectification of the will, and
the will, it is not a phenomenon or an idea or an object, but a thing in
itself, is not subject to report consequences principle is the law of any
idea.
These few lines taken at random from the treaty of free will
summarize the already gigantic construction, future work that found
its final expression in this monument of speculative thought entitled
The World as Will and Representation.
Against this definition of the Essence of the world reserve any
criticism can not prevail, it is legitimate, since it corresponds to one of
the key observations of the experimental sciences.
47
Moreover, as Schopenhauer says, the word will is chosen faute de
mieux, and the hypothetical nature of this latest attempt does not
diminish our eyes to the deeper meaning and greater truth, the size
and the same sustainability living philosophy, we believe in the
problematic character that fans vote again its ambitious and
grandiose investigations, so beautiful and so relaxing from the harsh
precision Science and distressing pettiness of Determinism.
Also, when Schopenhauer identifies the Will to live, source of being,
with suffering, that is to say, when he pronounces a verdict on the
moral essence of being, in this world of invisible, inaccessible to
human judgment, we can say that, without exceeding that assigns to
each of us the beneficent power of metaphysical reverie rights, yet he
gets all his predecessors in these regions of the arbitrary and the
unreal beauty which cloud sublime and pathetic beyond any rational
assessment.
Yes, really, when a philosopher says that the thing in itself, that the
entire universe, in its first reality is that desire and when he develops
his thesis with power and splendor of such a dialectic in eloquence
that illuminates the immortal pages of The World as Will and
Representation, he may not incur blame kid from supporters of
dualism, opponents of monism and assumptions remain beautiful and
fertile, dune metaphysical truth that is well worth the truth
experimental sciences.
But if he considers that the purpose of Ultimate Reality seems to
envelop with the vague and uncertain criterion of human morality, it
48
lends more to the discussion, it causes the same, especially if the
ultimate verdict of the philosopher is a conviction against which
Nature and Instinct Soul, everything around us and everything that
beats in us, protest and revolt. Again, the metaphysician who says:
Here is the explanation of the World seems to me in solving problems
and troubling mystery here is the principle of Being and Thought, the
original source from which the stream of springs events and things,
all the taunts and all baffles critics remain powerless to destroy his
work inevitably incomplete, but still beneficial and lucid. For his
philosophical system enlightens us and says the universe, and its
value is measured by the amount of phenomena he explains. There,
the metaphysician remains within the proper sphere of action and
noble independence. A very typical example of this truth, readily
confused with unpleasant paradoxes, is provided by the same
doctrine of Schopenhauer, and it should be emphasized particularly
on this issue, much larger than is generally believed, of especially as
it merges with the object of this study.
The philosophy which teaches us that the Noumenon of Kant, the
absolute approached, the initial cause of Being is that Will, we can not
oppose any evidentiary objection, any more than Herbert Spencer
bringing the same design of primordial essence of the world to the
concept of the Force, Leibniz that of a dynamic and spiritual atomism
both Fichte than ego subjective. Reminiscent Creator and the
Cosmos. (I choose bias here an example of a doctrine of subjective
idealism with exasperated particularly vulgar minds and bourgeois
49
logic, but the metaphysical foundations are certainly as legitimate as
those of materialism.) The metaphysician tells us a picture of the
world, it brings us always incomplete unknown solution of the eternal
riddle, picture, always a temporary solution, but who cares! Any
explanation of the world, every major system of the universe, that is
to say, every great philosophical doctrine contains some truth, since it
establishes the principle of universal intelligibility of mysterious forces
whose hierarchy escapes us.
It can not be said of the innate tendency for any philosopher who
encouraged him to establish a relationship of mutual influence and
immediate reaction between the metaphysical principle of the World
and our ephemeral creatures bounded sensitivity and fragile, and our
ability to suffering is joy. Note also that the dilemma of this report,
particularly difficult to establish conceivable words, a rational and
precise manner, this dilemma is likely that two solutions which
necessarily bring all others: Pessimism or optimism, there is none
and there can be others. the Universe can be designed, analyzed,
understood, and rebuilt in a thousand different ways. Relations that
are imposed with the overwhelming vastness of the world and the
totality of being, fatalism Statutes can only appear in two different
and antithetical aspects. Or life seems good and desirable, acceptable
in any case. or we utter conviction, we deem bad, cruel and hateful. It
is worth living, or the annihilation becomes the supreme wisdom, the
ultimate goal and the single issue and no return.
50
And neither optimism nor pessimism can not be refuted an absolute
refutation of even they can not convince those whose temperament,
their ideas, their moral nature make refractory to initial trend of these
two great doctrines. Because if Schopenhauer shows us a series of
dazzling and eloquent analyzes didactic descriptions that the will is
the essence of the world, we certainly find no compelling argument
that can refute his system, and prove him wrong. But if he continues
to show up wanting to establish an absolute identity between wanting
and suffering, if Acut convince us that all is pain and disappointment
in this world, how does he manage to convince us, if our whole being
aspiring to happiness, the Triumph and Joy, claims to have proven
many times, effects, drunkenness and pleasure, excitement and
charm like no other. If our soul refuses to believe that life is an evil, if
it refuses to renounce the illusion, if it finds an incomplete pessimism
doctrine and also unacceptable that the uncompromising optimism
of Leibniz, of Read or Cousin despite the genius of Schopenhauer,
despite the terrifying truth that contains its doctrine, pessimism will
point taken on its trends and intimate convictions.
Was accustomed, nowadays, foolishly enough to mock the traditional
division of the faculties of rallies in three clearly differentiated groups:
sensitivity ', intelligence and will.
However, in good faith and sincerity in all philosophical. no
classification is better suited to the same truth, none match, a more
accurate and sagacious way to the various modes of our present life,
as have developed innate forms of psychic organization and our
51
reactions exerted on it incomprehensible universe, even assuming
that it is not anything other than the dune psychic manifestation
Force and any immanent ... Yes, you can feel, or want to understand
life. The world can be designed, felt or wanted by the perishable
creature in a few moments contemplating changing mirages. The
cycle of sensations, thoughts and feelings of human s is driven
entirely. All reactions I shudder against his multiple storms senses,
the Soul and the Spirit, is expressed in the story of the three basic
sciences which lead the initial three trends that some popular science
books have some little discredited by isolating each of these faculties
with a stupid and superficial formalism, while in reality they
complement and connect into a living synthesis.
Sensitivity, reason and moral sense are the living unity of the Self.
Aesthetics is the science that is the sensitivity, which reflects its inner
essence and the highest inspirations, one of the creative instinct, just
as a similar harmony, Metaphysics is the science par excellence
rational since it is in the Company's satisfaction that burning need
universal unit that turmoil and the sketchy science can not give him
the same, finally, that the morality or ethics expressed that there has
noblest and deepest in the human will, always tending to another
goal. This is a great discovery, we will say it can be and that we can
offer at reduced prices, opening any textbook school philosophy. But
there is no question here of any discovery. While it is nice to make a
new method or a known truth, sometimes it is useful to recall certain
truths already very old but we forget too often under the guise of
52
innovation and modernism. The old division of philosophical sciences
into three distinct groups is the number of these beneficial truths
unjustly despised and a quick study, but careful conclusions, which
apply to Schopenhauer in the regions of pure metaphysics as well as
in those of aesthetics and morality, we provide some decisive in
support of the thesis that we would like to develop ourselves and
present perhaps the greatest philosopher of the system in a new light
arguments.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SPELL OF BEAUTY
The definition of beauty, origin and ultimate goal of Art, inexhaustible
enthusiasm where its elected draw inspiration, as we present in
Schopenhauer's aesthetics, if it is characterized by a strong imitated,
if asserts itself immortal pages that are among the most perfect
productions of the Master, strikes us by way of novelty or absolute
originality. It remains agree with the overarching Science of Beauty
principles, any recent Science moreover, we know - at least, as a
theoretical study of the creative faculty which corresponds to human
sensibility, separate faculty of intelligence and will.
And in Baumgarten, the German philosopher of the eighteenth
century, which is the inventor (the word: aesthetics, whose fortune it
fast and brilliant, so much so that some estimable people, but
singularly devoid of basic education, is are very sincerely that term so
popular today, designated always study the beauty and art - in
53
Baumgarten himself in Salzer, in Mengs, in Hemstertuis, Schiller,
Herder, Hegel and Kant, admirable, suggestive and profound
definitions are thorough and clearly determined the concept of beauty
and the psychological mechanism of creation and aesthetic
enjoyment. The main merit of Schopenhauer as a theorist of Beauty,
is that its aesthetic relates to the whole of his philosophical doctrine is
that it stems directly from its general conception of the world and
destiny and that, given el accepted metaphysics of the Will, no other
definition of Art are possible. If the world is really identical to that
which Schopenhauer tells us the tragic and grandiose vision, artistic
genius and ideal living must be really as defined by the poet and
Parerga Paralipomena.
All Platonic Schopenhauer assigns to eternal ideas, always pure and
immutable meaning is known, an invincible and unchanging in a world
where everything goes youth. They are for us the first manifestation
of the essence of the world, intermediaries between the primordial
Unity principles which all proceeds and emanates and changing
multiplicity of phenomena. This definition also involved, obviously,
deep mystical theories of emanation as they develop in the rain and
sublime systems school of Alexandria, neo Platonists, but especially
the admirable Plotinus This giant speculative thought, so little known,
and which was undoubtedly the most powerful genius of antiquity in
this way to understand the hierarchy of universal forces and
significance of ideas also derives logically aesthetics, theory of art
and beauty Schopenhauer built with a dazzling talent writer and that
54
no professional writer can equal never perhaps. As he himself says in
the chapter entitled The independent representation of the principle
of Will, Book III, Die Welt als Wille: It must be stored in the opinion of
Plato who recognizes own existence as Ideas and who gives things
located in time and space (that is to say, everything the individual
sees as real) no more reality than ghosts or as dreams and adds
further: the idea is the most perfect objectivity of the will,
accordingly, the history of humanity, the tumult of events, changing
times, the forms of human life, so different depending on the country
and the centuries, it is only the accidental form, the phenomenon in
which lies wrinkled adequate objectivity of the will. But Art stops the
wheel of time, relationships go for him, it is only essential, it is only
the idea which is its object. And finally, this chapter aesthetic is
certainly one of the most extraordinary masterpiece Schopenhauer
parties if this results in clear, compelling and memorable definition
objects of artistic genius are considered such ideas eternal, persistent
and essential forms of the world.
And again, most definitely, all these general aesthetic considerations
are of great beauty and intellectual power worthy of the philosopher
of genius who seems to have inherited more than any other of the
highest traditions of the Kantian idealism, but they can not compete
with the radical innovation qualities which distinguish, for example, all
purely metaphase system Schopenhauer's concept of the Universe el
ontology.
55
Aesthetics Master pessimistic merely repeat in a new form, with
eloquence and fierce intensity that Schopenhauer brought in
everything and that makes his work so alive and moving, the
fundamental insights of those who, before him had thought about the
strange phenomena of aesthetic pleasure, the mysterious and
majestic concept of beauty, image (the Absolute, joy and
enchantment of exile here below. intuitive, passionate and painful
search Concert and absent perfection in the real world or supposedly
so, and radiating one and one for more comprehensive and eloquent
distant regions of absolute ideas, expression of undying Model with
people and things by there tell us only uncertain and insufficient
copies, clumsy imitations, relentless pursuit of the characteristic of
the general and symbolized Universal and understood in its deepest
essence and intimate, in any concrete, fuller and truer picture those
whose vain phantoms of material existence in our place and annoying
drafts lamentable eyes. Here, certainly, the foundation of any rational
and worthy of the name aesthetics.
And we easily end up with similar initial aspirations Lessing, Kant and
Hegel, Ruskin, in Richard Wagner or in Taine, in all illustrious masters
who created the science of beauty and called it new for so bright it
may now be the hopes of those who discovered more than once.
But where Schopenhauer is really incomparable, where more than all
his predecessors and where it really delivered new and profound
words whose memory will be wiped away and that upset our deep
understanding of Beauty is in the sublime pages he devotes to the
56
Mission Art immortal purpose of Liberation, Appeasement and
Consolation that the artist must pursue first. Nobody has expressed
more forcefully, eloquently and engineering the spell that emerges
from this supreme conquest of Perfect Beauty, entry passage, set into
a work of imagination, Eternity embrace a perishable creature the
Absolute manifesting this singular phenomenon, a kind of
intermediary between the reality of this world and the mysterious
world of the hereafter, which is called a work of art.
Nobody expressed with a more persuasive emotion, a touching
sincerity of accent, a stronger and more sober eloquence both pines,
nobility, size, durability and charm like none other, Fine arts, and
everything they provide to the human soul, exiled, and bruised at
every step in real life, all they give him comfort, hope, consolation
and courage. Amongst the dazzling and pathetic visions aroused his
genius, Art rayon and hovers over the miseries, sufferings and trials of
universal existence. Our eyes, veiled with tears or filled with terror,
stand up anxiously towards pure light it sheds on the world of slavery
and the ineffable boon of moral healing, healing, albeit temporary, of
Divine oblivion, penetrates and sanctifies our poor wounded hearts.
Our sorrows, our despair, our cruel, our disappointments, our
remorse, our agonizing regret, this is all just a memory whose
melancholy shadows merge gradually with ghosts soothed and distant
smile, whose Art evokes our eyes immemorial theory. Yes, Art is truly
superior to life, since it allows to forget.
57
We ask the Art of Being a faithful mirror of reality. It is a more
powerful and more accurate reproduction of Platonic ideas which
objective will, and for that very reason a living symbol of the world
the essence, it reveals the most secret funds of nature, it expresses
the quintessence of be, the thing in itself mysterious and elusive.
But the metaphysics of Schopenhauer taught us, the thing in itself of
Kant, the mysterious Noumenon, the essence of the world lies in the
principle of life and suffering, blind aspiration and insatiable lust is the
will . And will, only pain, vain and fruitless effort to impossible
Happiness and is the source of disappointing fateful and imperishable
illusions where living creatures and the countless worlds of cosmic
systems draw strength and obligation continue their unnecessary and
tragic pilgrimage roads of infinity and eternity. With eloquence,
indignation, a grand emotion, Schopenhauer proves nothing, cruelty
and lies to live; moral lead to an absolute negation of life, wisdom,
holiness and effort of genius consists in conquer and destroy.
Consequently, how the faithful reproduction of this cursed Will
harmful and lamentable, can we enter it with admiration, healing and
moral welfare of this kind is the result and reward of creating or
aesthetic contemplation ?
There is certainly an inconsistency which so far escaped the countless
commentators of the great German philosopher, and all fallacies and
paradoxes all will fail to abolish. If the Will is a living Evil, how the
enlarged image, synthesized, more truthful, so even more appalling,
existence can it affect our soul as a principle and beneficent restorer?
58
Person, perhaps, have read and reread as often as the author of this
extraordinary masterpiece lines called The World as Will el as
representation. The arguments against its detractors Schopenhauer
are known to me, I confess, however, they never convinced me, at
least if one insists on defining the mystery of art, by placing the point
of view of absolute pessimism, that is to say, the radical negation of
Happiness and Joy. For it is this denial that ends pessimism sincere.
All the arguments of Schopenhauer also bring to this axiom purely
arbitrary: we have as individuals no other knowledge than is subject
to the principle of sufficient reason and this form excludes knowledge
of Platonic ideas: he s follows that if we are able to rise to the
knowledge of particular things up of ideas, it can only be reached by a
change in the subject.
It is this change that consist precisely the mystery and enchantment
of art immortal. She is the living symbol of its action conducive and
beneficial.
CHAPTER VI.
There SOLUTION OF GREATER PROBLEM
Yet it remains the centerpiece of our fragile inexorable fate, and
sooner or later the inevitable law takes us back to his empire,
penitent and obedient, as runaway slaves. However, we can not
repeat too often among the cynical denials of reality insulting the
Ideal, and when the greatest geniuses of our race, titans such as the
thinker of the World as Will and Representation we ordered and
59
despair of dying, the agony of the soul which is renunciation, leak
slave, escape followed by tragic reprisals, but who cares! liberation is
possible, even down here. Yes, misery, pain, grief, betrayal and the
forfeiture of all that our souls liked the spring, the great weariness,
the punishment (live, that's the truth, that our fate at all, it n 'are no
more.
And the heartbreaking struggle that lasts from cradle to grave, each
of us is sure to be defeated at the end of combat. But a ray of hope
shines in the darkness, but we escape the tyranny of Leg-oïsme.des
insatiable appetites of the ardent desire and forever unfulfilled. The
Magic of Art gives us forget for a truce favorable. The sweetness of
love and the sanctity of the moral law, in making us participate in
pain as the apparent joys of others, commanding us to reduce
suffering and spread happiness, makes us more free, reconciles us
more , reveals some features over the idol which the Master denied
the existence itself and whose face is slowly emerging among the
shadows and mysteries of the Absolute, whose mysterious smile
attracts living creatures since the illusion of the world deploys its
wonders, whose eyes seemed to say: Yes, I am the eternal Joy, poor
fools, perishable creatures who dare doubt me, me who aspires to
everything that exists! I am so the inspiration, the initiator, the ruler
of your destiny your negations themselves seem to plead my case ...
What is actually the purpose for which aspires will, tired of so many
fruitless efforts when seeking refuge in forgetfulness of art or good?
This omission, Celtic issue can they be extra pain, increased pain?
60
Certainly not, or, if so, the philosopher unmask once again the perfidy
of the nature enemy she would show us that tends to trap his victims
the illusion of good and beauty. Schopenhauer, however, like all
thinkers and philosophers all worthy of the name, loudly proclaimed,
moved with gratitude and sublime eloquence of a prisoner who
escapes to the tormentors, holiness, nobility and efficiency of Art and
of Morals. Doubt is therefore possible that, and no matter that
illustrates metaphysician does not get. Realized exactly, or rather did
not want to deduct the total consequences of his aesthetics and his
doctrine of duty. Delivering the will of the yoke of selfishness and
servitude, allowing him to reject, if only for a few hours truce
beneficent, the overwhelming burden of anxiety disorder,
disappointing worries, desires inapaisées always, never satisfied
appetites, Art as well as the Moral demonstrate the possibility and
existence of a world where suffering appears diminished, Joy
accessible Happiness from potency to act, evil overwhelmed and
defeated pain.
But the ecstasy of aesthetic contemplation vanished with this tragic
brevity that seems fatal ransom Youth, Beauty, Love and enthusiasm,
because what makes life worth lived is Specifically, alas! what
happens and fades the fastest, here, spring roses, flowers fast
summer or fall harvest we were barely allowed to breathe the divine
fragrances have their bright attire is a memory.
But the moral law, altruism and sublime pity, they take us away from
the material world, where each fighter fights, fight hard, hope and
61
victory finally succumbed and out, arms in hand, on behalf the foolish
selfishness (is it not a miracle, like no other, this single concept of
selflessness, concern for the pain of others, our duty towards other
creatures, the notion that man alone is capable, among countless
living beings, all hate, destroy and devour?) but the moral law, if it
ennobles, purifies and enlarges our existence, making it participate in
the joys and sorrows, and the work the aspirations, regrets, or the
high expectations of our fellow, we do not intake and also a
passenger appeasement, a temporary healing, uncertain and
precarious happiness?
Admittedly, alas! because if the power of oblivion, thereby escaping
the tyranny of instinct, ambition, anxiety the next day slavery to me,
is already a huge conquest pain, mistress Sovereign World, it still
reign in the atrocious shared universe that fate assigns us to prison,
and the soul of the wise issued regrets, remorse, selfishness,
however, continues to suffer from a noble, but still intense and tragic.
suffering Cosmic thrills him pain, complaints of countless martyrs
resonate painfully in the depths of his being, poverty, slavery,
injustice and the despair overwhelm. He cries all the tears of the
world, his heart bleeds for all human injuries, his soul breaks the
appalling performances distress and delirium perishable creatures
which he sacrificed the chimera of personal happiness and his
sacrifice, resolute and accomplished with so much effort, a
superhuman renunciation of a painful and laborious mystical crisis,
has neither issued nor appeased or made completely happy or better.
62
If defeated his own pain, the wise, peaceful hero or mated, while it
remains among the living world, could crush a universal and lasting
victory fateful Act of Will who live the Act is also unnecessary
agitation, defeat certain and inevitable torture.
Evil takes its course, the pain gets his revenge. More than ever, even
admiring the beauty, even following the precepts of good, we suffer,
we despair, we agonize in the throes of a long ordeal ... Now this is
not bankrupt our ideal fragile, which encourages us to revolt and
despair but the desire of the sacred among all ideal, that of universal
joy. As neither beauty nor goodness can not abolish suffering. They
are still, though far superior to vulgar egotism, of course, forms of
human activity subject to the will to live, and there is still Evil,
Betrayal and the Event supreme.
The third and most noble of our faculties (although Schopenhauer has
delighted his former priority and supremacy of old) thought that
mysterious gift of understanding life, alone, in short, that a gulf
between the humans and other creatures, able to feel and want, and
suffering as we, alas! but not thinking, intelligence, will we finally
cross the dreaded threshold replions prohibited, those where the
supreme truths shine dune ineffable light, which finally beats the
flame of absolute, where initiation and ends our destinies are fulfilled,
while the latter sails are torn.
The thinker, not without a very painful still struggle, is free from
selfishness, the primary illusion of the absorbent and fierce
individualism, later, he sought healing and the answer to the riddle in
63
soothed and serene spheres of art, he believed, like all of us, to
discuss port, reach the goal dreamed accepting voluntary servitude of
duty and virtue, and the wait was always disappointed and deceived,
not a complete disappointment, it is true, but still tragic and
heartbreaking. Everywhere, even in pure and sublime atmosphere of
Beauty or the Good, the pain reappeared, the symbolic flower
fragrance that kills the dark colors of despair and mourning, funeral
roses have bloomed again.
And spirit winner, not just illusions of the senses and materials
mirages, coarse traps in their same skill but also winner subtle
stratagems which unfolds the tip of Will Live - omnipotence of genius
or ineffable greatness Mercy - the mind understands, finally, the
ultimate truth, he acquired irrefutable certainty, it recognizes that the
world is absolutely bad and. reached this level of insight and wisdom
binder, he feels in himself the strength to choose between the will to
live and the will to live.
***
The final verdict is pronounced, the highest degree of stoic pride
available to a human being is achieved. The tragic and final word,
inspired and indestructible, hanging over the world condemns it, the
fate of which she beat the immemorial trick. And this supreme award
which is also the supreme wisdom is a conviction. The real duty, true
beauty, the only happiness lies in the destruction of the desire to live,
this is the complete deliverance. Destroy-ourselves spark negative,
the principle of Being. Only then we will suffer more. And that is why
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the judgment of Schopenhauer, Buddhism, with its destructive rage,
his mystical renunciation and the depths of nothingness he hinted to
his followers, this is why Buddhism seems to be already the symbolic
expression, early and instinctive philosophy. Nirvana is the goal, the
harbor and refuge for our fragile ...
In itself, in its unfathomable depths, in its dreamless sleep in the night
without stars, we find rest, deliverance, the end of the long ordeal,
the peace and sanctity of silence that the existence interrupts The
world in which we live, where we agonize instead, can not improve, it
can not escape the fateful Act; hope and the chimera of progress, that
is to say, an improvement of life undeserving as contemptuous
indulgence of the wise. Mon Being better than Being, so that after
laborious investigations of science, after the tumult and the
nightmare centuries, as reward for his hard work, the sad humanity
receives only this advice: the annihilation of Will Live, and with it the
destruction of the world that exists only in the minds where he
represents.
Negative doctrine was never absolute, more radical, more persuasive
than the latter, as the splendor of the form in which it is expressed
only by the force of philosophical thought and admirable unity that
animates throughout to another. Never a harsher sentence
implacable, will not stigmatized injustice in the world and test fate.
We really reached the bottom of disillusionment and despair,
intellectual nihilism can not go there, because already in this
annihilation Schopenhauer taught the limits of earthly world are
65
exceeded. Master of modern pessimism guide us in these spheres of
dream, contemplation and mystical ecstasy and inexpressible in
terms of human language, whose extraordinary visions of the great
Neoplatonic philosophers, the admirable school of Alexandria, so little
known and so worthy of being, that of Proclus, the Sirianus,
moderatus of Gades, of Alcinous, Saccas of Ammonius, of Porphyry,
but especially the huge, dark and formidable Plotinus emulate and
rival of Plato, we can only give a rough idea. The cycle of human
faculties and aspirations is traversed and all roads led to the abysses
of horrors, and horror. Twice the invincible hope will shine on the
perilous road to difficult paths long learning, two different stages,
under the light of stars suitable and beneficial but uncertain one and
the other too far from us, alas! to dispel the darkness twice, the ghost
of happiness rose up before us.
Our trembling hands are outstretched towards him, burdened with
chains, broken by the pain. Under the pure breath of the Ideal winner,
our infinite distress subsided for a moment, we thought discover the
desired cure, but soon the last spectra have vanished, and now
finally, irrefutable, undeniable, all-powerful as eternity here is the
solution of the great problem: Happiness is impossible. Continues as
the test of life, as we suffer here, we must destroy the same desire
and the strength to live. Benefactor, the friend of humanity and
nature is one who aspires to extinguish the fire devouring Being and
suffering, and any rational philosophy ends with an absolute negation.
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Since the fierce complaints prophets from inflamed, fiery sermons
wise Brahman or early Buddhist teaching human disregard for the
pain and hatred of life martyrs, the sweetness of nothingness and the
rest of the abyss from sublime meditations and disenchanted prince
Hamlet thinking problems of destiny and suffering on the terraces of
Elsinore where the ghost appears to him the duty for the first time
since Aeschylus or Ezekiel, from Shakespeare or Byron, humanity n '
had not heard a fierce that it most ardent more eloquent indictment,.
No, never more pathetic accents, more trembling with fear, most
sincerely tragic, more impressive and more painful had sounded
under the arch of heaven to these infinite spaces, where as human
eyes looked for a sign of hope support, a promise of renewal, a
consolation, albeit pale and trembling as the clarity of distant stars.
Everything is wanting to live, impulsive, useless and purposeless. In
the rhythm of the constellations as in the beating of a loving heart
poor tomorrow burned; any nest that eternal pain, toil without penalty
and without truce, nothing is true, nothing exists except the
mysterious power to live and suffer. And for the hundredth time, the
anxious questioning of desperate soul who asks: Where is the cure,
not illusory and temporary, but true and sincere? the philosopher who
has not only taught but demonstrated despair to the origin and the
end of everything, the wise answered yet: Destruction of Evil is the
only cure. Do not attempt to abolish but to ennoble life. Neither hope
nor mercy possible. Nothingness, nothingness again and again.
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Alone will appease him only give you peace alone will not betray
you ... But this is really one of the most significant facts and most
important of the intellectual history of mankind. At the same time
Schopenhauer came to the logical conclusion of his doctrine, finding
no arbitrary cleverly deduced, based on irrefutable and I appalling
reality of daily existence as well as the most sublime dialectic, the
supreme moment he must finish the work of his whole life, summed
up in a few pages the synthetic feel of his masterpiece, driven by an
instinct, an irresistible call of his genius really painful throbbing soul
of the world, Here they can not help to push again, despite
everything, despite the horrible truth of his hatred and his revolt,
despite the victory of his philosophy and the certainty that he is right,
the cry of hope that s' off not as a living being will continue to live and
suffer here, looking for the meaning of life and the chimera of
happiness.
We remember the memorable lines, so often cited, commented,
thousand dissimilar ways and that alone generated a whole literature
and a whole school of philosophy, the significant and pathetic
confession that closes the work of Schopenhauer capital.
After recognizing that merely to metaphysics in the world, can not be
formed even symbolic notions of what is beyond the world, the great
philosopher thereby recognizes that if his philosophy ends with a
negation, this denial, although qu'assimilable nothingness after the
rudimentary terminology of human language does not imply the
notion of absolute nothingness. It leaves the state open question the
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great problem of happiness, the supreme good and the au-away. A
purely intellectual attitude and essentially Kantian skepticism,
imposed by Schopenhauer's speculative loyalty, but a quick winging
far outweighs the absolute nihilism precisely at the solemn moment
when it seemed sure to triumph.
Recall once more some of the wonderful thoughts that complete one
of the greatest works of human genius, by making penetrate suddenly
bright light of infinite space and hopes immortal.
Buddhists use to do much because the purely negative term Nirvana
which is the negation of this world If Nirvana is defined as zero, this
means if anything that this world contains no specific event that can
be used to define or construction of Nirvana.
When, therefore, pure universal sympathy by love, man has come to
understand the universal identity of all waxes, delete-all illusory
principle of individuation, to recognize oneself in all beings and all
beings in itself, then the destruction of the product will (bliss in
death), this state of perfect indifference where the thinking subject
and object disappear thought, where there is neither will nor
representation, nor the world. This is what the Hindus expressed by
empty words as absorbed in Brahma, Nirvana. We readily
acknowledge that what remains after the complete abolition of the
will is absolutely nothing for those who are still full of will to live. But
for those in whom the will is abolished and converted our current
world, so real world with its suns and milky way, what is it? Nothing.
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It is he who is nothingness. Thus says Schopenhauer, whose profound
wisdom and mercy are burning smile Nietzsche, Master of current
generations.
Simple and sublime words, inspiring words for centuries that will
inform the work of philosophers and the dark fate of our slave race,
prolific words that may create the metaphysics of time to come, as
the speculative scope and moral significance they borrow the genius
of the German philosopher el essential tendencies of his doctrine are
immeasurable, incalculable eh beneficent influence almost certainly
unsuspected Schopenhauer himself.
And the fiercest critic el most eloquent of the world and of human
destiny, the most formidable pessimistic because he had not only
genius, but also a huge talent writer, the bitter and deep thinker, the
rebel whose superb disdain and rage negation spared no chimera, no
illusions, no shelters dismal humanity, the great and gloomy
Schopenhauer himself is obliged, by the omnipotence of eternal
dialectic which merges with life itself, to recognize there the tomb, it
is true, in the unknown regions where we finally be addressed after
the big wreck, to discern, too, in the firmament of eternity , an
invariant star. Our captive and miserable race ever also had not lost
sight of the worst trials, the most hostile darkness, the collective soul
of generations believed in it, lived in hope and the certainty of the
review and find her. It is the star of joy, pure and sacred star of
happiness, happiness away our world, but not (the immense universe
or the vast realm of the possible and feasible.
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And it is in vain that the illustrious German misanthrope wanted to
convince us of the futility of our belief and our long hopes, it is in vain
that we did, in an immortal masterpiece, demonstration despair and
pessimism. It is in vain that he always denied this if dim light, barely
noticeable, but which nevertheless exists, trembles and shimmers on
the horizon and whose pale light illuminates only our way. Himself
believed already seen in the light smile of beauty or the peaceful eyes
and mild Goodness getting ready to martyr himself drew on the
magical influence it exudes the strength to think, to suffer, to teach
and issue here as the gates of eternity, when our guide thought
deteriorate during the night of nothingness, it flourishes, it spreads, it
springs from all sides, in dazzling and mystical dawn.
For no doctrine of life, no philosophy, that is to say, no explanation of
the universe can not be based on an absolute negation. The
possibility of the world, some tragic, harmful and imperfect as it is,
alas! must have its raison d'être in the absolute, in a positive
principle, otherwise this world, already so atrocious and cruel, but
where the idea, at least, and the dream of Joy continues, this world
perish.
And no morals can not dominate Ames if it preaches only
nothingness, destruction and absolute nihilism, if it is not, even in his
cries of despair and revolt, even in its advice of asceticism and
renunciation, word of life, renewal and hope. How could it be
otherwise? Negation can not be exercised on the ontological concept
very clearly defined, a Although any, primordial, hidden power just
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maybe, but only supports and explains the miracle of Being.
Humanity can not undergo countless tests, penalties and torments of
life, physical torture and torment of the soul, all the horror and terror
of all our destinies which Schopenhauer has not exaggerated the
intensity, if among so many evil and darkness, there remained still
the mysterious and invincible principle of happiness possible, the
cessation of suffering, the winner today in ideal or thousands of
centuries in the reality of the present moment or unknown cosmic
evolution terms.
The initial strength of each of which we felt the power, to so few and
brief lull and bliss on hours, or even at times when we suffered less,
Celtic are bedridden, as certain also obvious that the suffering and
universal effort, anime, exalts, console, reconcile prevents disappear
forever race live; mysterious power, such as its active intensity
eternal Thought of Aristotle, the divine Mind, the perfect Thought the
source of all virtue and all Beauty absent from our miserable world,
certainly, but that exists and attracts an irresistible attraction!
The concept of happiness is indestructible in nature and in the soul,
rhythm and harmony of the worlds draw the symbol on the path of
the stars, roads infinity, countless creatures seek primitive and crude
realization the satisfaction of instinct and man finally, if limited, so
criminal, so despicable it is still owns the sublime intuition and
continues the impossible dream. Its universality in all regions can be
likened to one of these ontological truths absolute antithesis and
negation are unprovable. - Especially since we can not too often
72
repeat, pure negation can create nothing, a system of life which every
positive element of perseverance in Being, therefore even obscure
welfare is absent an inherently evil world is inconceivable, impossible
and self-contradictory.
Radical suffering is Non-Being, has meaning and reality that if one
accepts the premise also do Being completing his destiny, by
synthesizing with its opposite in the dark and mysterious work of
cosmic becoming. Because it is perhaps deserved punishment coarse
invectives which Schopenhauer overwhelmed Hegel, the illustrious
philosopher Berlin, if forgotten today, and whose genius undoubtedly
equaled that of his enemy, because this genius was very noble, very
big and very pure, this is the revenge of Hegel that we should
remember the famous Hegelian formula to explain the evolution of
the thought of Schopenhauer and the apparent contradiction which
condemns the superior logic of things and truth .
But this apparent contradiction is n, it becomes one more proof of the
strong philosophical unity of the work she summed up in the final
synthesis, absolute integrity dune conscious thought of his strength,
ready to admit all views that require the dialectic of the
metaphysician, while he rebuilt the changing world. It is this broad
and admirable synthesis, with endless opportunities it suddenly
revealed to us, who finished the work of Schopenhauer.
And find there all the more reason to respect his integrity as a thinker
and philosopher of his genius. As it is, without doubt, are connecting
to the Absolute, hence the visible world, an initial synthesis where
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theses and antitheses of human judgments are reconciled and agree
in a Supreme Reality. As far as Schopenhauer himself, with the same
fiery lust and even bitterness grieves, we believe that the world is
evil, that life is cruel, unjust and atrocious that our destiny is all too
terrible incomprehensible, ephemeral and unnecessary. We believe
that pessimism is right and the worldview he proposes as a doctrine
of life is just, rational and productive. But this doctrine is incomplete
as all those who seek to embrace the absolute in a formula of human
knowledge. Emule, student and follower of Kant glorious, our master,
the most humble to the most famous as the author of The World as
Will and Representation should remember: the Absolute does not
exist in this world of 'appearances and phenomena that is only the
manifestation of ultimate reality, the thing in itself, the substance of
which all First taunting coarse contemporary positivism will fail to
destroy the evidence.
And doctrines that recognize initial and eternal dualism, that of Matter
and Mind, Spirit and Nature in the foundations of the world, as deep
and as defensible theories of absolute monism fashionable doctrines
today Today, the philosophy of dualism to which we draw all our
personal preferences, power read oppose the theory of Schopenhauer
the same objections.
No, really, no Absolute among the vain and fleeting shadows of this
world. This is another evidence first truth, not even the absolute pain,
evil and renunciation. This is not all. For the complete negation of
Happiness, that is to say, radical evil, fundamental, incurable, it is
74
possible (and without these characteristics, sincere point of
pessimism, logical and complete), it is necessary that the property
exists somewhere in the immeasurable regions possible; there must
be a positive principle of Life Affirmation and radiates in the
transcendent world of Nirvana, even assuming it is never absent from
the earthly world and the world of appearances. As an antithesis
purely speculative, such as which is the basis for pessimism, is
intelligible only if the thesis that it opposes as a universal
contradiction, also possesses the privilege of being.
And the omnipotence of the eternal dialectic, we now know, led
Schopenhauer, against his will, without doubt, under the irresistible
impulse of philosophical evidence, this concession to an
immeasurable extent speculative, difficult to reconcile seems he, first
of all, with the preferences of his genius and his doctrine of the
immortal principles and yet complete, complete and sanctify his work.
Aon, some atrocious, despotic and universal that are evil, suffering
and Crime, everything that is the negation of the ideal, these multiple
forms, yet triumphant everywhere, negation can not be the only
elements of the constitution of world. The complete explanation of all
things and accept offers as metaphysical principle, as a final solution,
a radical negation can not satisfy the aspirations and the deepest
tendencies of philosophy and humanity.
According powerful and indestructible word of ancient philosopher,
never, of No Being, you will shoot the prodigy and the reality of being.
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If the primary fact, the actual postulates the existence arose out of
nothing, and a mysterious force that no term borrowed from human
language can not define a present strength in everything that aspires
to live a sufficient reason explains and renders intelligible and
possible, the miracle of life.
This principle is ineffable, indefinable, immanent in the world, maybe
he is the real world there dune transcendent existence as an attribute
of God. In any case an irresistible instinct of our nature compels us to
believe in him. In us and around us, certify its existence and
omnipotence. He is manifested in the Universal Laws of mechanics
and mathematical harmony that govern the material universe, the
heavenly bodies as well as the stone which obeys, falling in what we
call the law of gravity and attraction land. The same beats,
shuddered, suffers and fights in the struggle for existence which Fate
s requires countless species of living beings, each, even at the cost of
the destruction of all the others, saying, with so many frenzy and fury,
persistence of life and his invincible need of welfare and animal joy ...
And it is still this positive principle between all but ennobled,
idealized, reaching gradually the consciousness of his first petrol and
its true mission directs, lights, protects and anime sad and fragile
humanity.
It is his influence that leads among many trials, sorrows, do
cataclysms and infamies, to new and better destiny. Its symbol, for
us, is the indestructible belief in happiness possible, the
predominance of beneficent forces on the powers of evil in the final
76
victory of the Ideal and the Spirit, that is to say, in short the sacred
belief in the ultimate goodness of life, despite all the denials of the
present. But note well, the solution that we inspire our consciousness
when we ask anxiously for the dilemma depends supreme verdict,
one whose metaphysical terms necessarily oscillate between
optimism and absolute pessimism. If life is not immediately and
radically bad, despite all its flaws and all its terrors, it is worth living
and uncompromising pessimism appears impossible. Moreover, the
coexistence of the principle of bliss, well-being, fulfillment and
happiness with all grounds of suffering, destruction and evil, this
coexistence is already enough, some small, isolated and shy she still
appears to absolve life.
And faith in this principle, his immediate presence, his intuitive
perception are so innate and invincible, that the great German
pessimist, after initially denying any haughty denial, Schopenhauer
also ends the search and discover in all spheres of mental activity in
the exercise of all our faculties react with the universe in our power to
understand, feel or want to Have. This positive principle that the
vulgar always called simply and naively wisely his name, old as the
world, the happiness that radiates in principle already momentary
forgetfulness of our miseries and sorrows that do give the joy of Art
and in the pleasure of sacrifice and punishment well, and finally in the
ineffable bliss of the total annihilation of the will to live which is the
supreme conquest of reason and the end of the pessimistic
philosophy. But we have tried to indicate in this study, specifically the
77
dreaded hour and decisive end to that building this high doctrine,
when Schopenhauer finally expresses his thoughts, by offering
ourselves as a supreme hope the total extinction of the will and the
disappearance of the world, the extraordinary miracle that we want to
point out, once again, the admirers of this great genius, occurs
suddenly.
Pessimism reached its peak in the integral development of its
principles and its forerunners, is obliged to recognize the existence of
this positive principle indefinable happiness, joy and exhilarating
affirmation conducive he denied with such harshness the ontological
possibility and intelligible.
The famous lines which terminate the principal work of
Schopenhauer, lines already mentioned and whose impact was
immense in the philosophical world, attest that it is developing a
vague hypothesis erected by us in arbitrary assertions, but to such an
obvious and irrefutable conclusion that illustrates the metaphysician
will itself there is the Nirvana or final annihilation of the will of the
word bliss, the most zealous philosopher eudemonistic probably be
satisfied.
And, again, no surprise, nothing illogical in the evolution of a great
philosophy and meditation sincere and deep major problems ...
If life, as we suffer in this world of misery and exile, is the worst
events, if we really exhausts the infinite resources of the pain - and
we believe with Schopenhauer that the answer to the riddle, indeed,
78
is summed up in this beautiful metaphor of a noble French poet truth
sui-life is despair - even ignoring purely ontological reasons that make
us believe in the existence of necessary a positive principle, the
principle of renewal, light and reconciliation, the kid is to have shown
that the existence to which we are condemned is the most terrible of
all possible existences and the living image of absolute evil, fact alone
implies another statement.
The complete annihilation of the state of unspeakable suffering
offered to show the thinker and the hectic world, this ideal Nirvana
can only be a supportive and enabling change, mysterious dawn of a
new day of a mode of Being-which approximates what the human
language calls: joy, happiness, bliss ...
But a universal synthesis which eventually recognize the end of its
evolution, veiled by the mists of mystics regions, happiness, symbol
of the absolute, sacred and elusive object will, a philosophy which
ends with a demonstration also larger positive earthly hopes she can
be described as absolute pessimism? Certainly not ...
And how not to recognize that if a philosophical genius of this
magnitude could not resist the call of this invincible distant voice from
both the other shore and depths of our being, who commands us to
love , to hope and to live anyway, if a pessimist as Schopenhauer,
proclaims the existence of an immanent principle of producer welfare,
destructive pain, which is realized by denying the present life and
nature Perversely, it is true (but the mode of its realization is
79
negligible), is that really the instinct of Happiness is part of the
essence of the soul and nature.
Far from being a vain invention of traditional optimism, it is the most
certain and most beneficent of Realities. Even teaching us
renunciation, you will hear and obey you by promising to souls
burdened distress, weariness, sorrow and doubt, a better life and
happiness, different perhaps chimerical happiness that we continue
here, but still deserve his earthly name. Car Being exists only if it is
better than No Being, because you never create anything with a
negation, because no land or mystic flower flourishes the abyss of
absolute nothingness. Flowering requires a suitable ground should be
a principle, a purpose and a root cause of everything that aspires to
become the phases and the phantasmagoria of Being. For living
creatures of this primordial existence condition is the possibility of
Happiness.
In granting us after the Supreme postage, Schopenhauer has given us
the right to speak on behalf of optimism that contains his work and
that we need to find, since it is the work of a man and a man of
genius.
CHAPTER VII
TEST OF PHILOSOPHY eudemonistic
It may be appropriate to complete without issue no foolish pretension
to compete with such philosophical geniuses, the great work outlined
by Kant and Schopenhauer. It 'might be urgent to develop this work
80
taking into account the direction of the two Masters of German
metaphysics have impregnated high speculation, and never losing
sight of the philosophy of time to come can not develop in the way
they have designated us and whose first principles are known to all:
supremacy of the laws of mind, categories of thought conditioning the
world of appearances, suction unit and method with the work
necessary but part back positive sciences, last but research
increasingly discerning a definition the essence of the World, the
ineffable power, but not inaccessible, since it throbs in ourselves, the
mirage of the universe is only a pale ray and all religions, as well as
all philosophies want to reach and understand.
This primal force, the first principle of being that Kant identified with
the Noumenon, while clearly stating that the thing in itself necessarily
prove the existence of God, creator of the world of substances as well
as appearances, and the law unique, as well as the fabric of
innumerable causes (for the soul, unsatisfied even reached that
degree of wisdom which lies in the material world dissipates, requires
more and wings, to regions higher initiation Mystic) - this essence of
the world, the noumenal truth whose conquest merges with the same
goal of metaphysics, modern science, from the immortal works of
Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, identifies with what we call
will.
The greatest philosophical minds of the present admit this great
discovery, we find the formal admission among thinkers who lead and
dominate if speculative movement of the time:
81
Alfred Fouillée in France, the most brilliant metaphysicians binds Latin
race, in his admirable system of ideas forces in Wundt, Paulsen and
Lange, Germany, in Herbert Spencer, the undisputed master of
philosophy in the most rebellious country to appeal of metaphysics in
Spencer whose notion of force, despite all the baffles raised by careful
review, offers so much analogy with the overriding principle of the
doctrine of Schopenhauer, among other eminent philosophers again.
Metaphysical tendencies, opposing, yet persist in modern thought and
monism is far from having triumphed over his opponents. The author
of these lines is also in favor of metaphysical dualism. But most
contemporary philosophers, worthy of the name, adhere, more or less
sincere to the psychological and cosmological theory of the will. It
finds its place and purpose in the doctrines of pluralism as well as in
ontological monism.
The impulse is given to the spirits, the most extraordinary of all
discoveries of human genius is a fait accompli and the conquests of
Galileo, Copernicus and Newton fade from one that has changed the
method of knowledge and the appearance of universe: the subject
from Kant regarded as correlative to the object, the material world,
the living subject, with the storms of passion, pain and trembling
reality that agitate, became the center and essence of the world.
But this will is it really as homogeneous as simple as little complex
than say dogmatic doctrines? Various elements may conflict can not
they coexist even in the absolute, whose will is only the first symbol
and objectification? Assumption that Schopenhauer would not have
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admitted, yes, but that applies to our personal beliefs. Because for us,
and while sharing fully the horror, terror and rebellion inspired the
noblest and most eloquent of pessimists show the existence, we
refuse to see it as only the manifestation of a blind force, purely
negative and harmful.
Without reproducing any unacceptable arguments today there
doctrine of final causes, we believe we can discern in the universal
and irresistible momentum Want Living. a positive principle, the living
antithesis of pain and evil, antithesis is also by this dualism whose life
furnishes us many examples, the pathetic and tragic dilemma of
Destinies. Yes, yes, everything is Will, but the Will itself, unaware of
its nature and mission, eternally restless, aspires to an end, some
creatures elite among the human race, are only reached to sense the
splendor.
To this end, it is happiness or rather it is Joy, similar to happiness
concept, but stands apart, as does not claim an impossible
sustainability. For Joy, the joy to joy, struggle, and still evolving,
through the infinite spaces of eternity, the world of the living. Yes,
everything that exists, even insensitive stone, everything is alive,
everything tends to the issue, the release of its true nature, that is to
say to Joy. But the very fact of this vital trend that has created or
maintains the eternal wonder of the world, this world that nothing
fatal and destroys all that resists the forces of evil, this fact finds
justification in the Idea Although the Platonic, of Bliss and the final
triumph of instinct which preserves and falls on the strength that
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destroys and despair. Realize this idea in the sanctuary of wisdom,
instead it is due, do not fight with an invincible instinct.
No more than skepticism that frightened the Honourable Mr. Royer-
Collard, who was also neither a fool nor a pedant whose distorted
quite pleasant joke, no more skepticism that we can not do its share
eudaemonism.
The instinct of Joy, belief and trust in the principle of life, beneficent
inner emotions, fulfillment and immediate happiness, happiness is the
need of the immanent forces of human nature. The fiercest critics of
existence, the most inspired prophets of despair, Schopenhauer
begins we chose to living example of a thesis that is dear to us, the
most irreconcilable opponents Sort enemy, but which nothing escapes
, yielded to the irresistible attraction of the Chimera that will
withstand all attacks and all negations. But if Kant had done, building
moral doctrine, the more austere and more rigid, a place
eudaemonism in the notion of the sovereign good, if Schopenhauer,
after hearing the mystical appeal in the voice of Art and Pity,
recognizes its symbolic sovereignty Banned bliss that follows and
announces Nirvana regions, it is permissible to see in this noble
chimera, not just a disappointing illusion, but a higher reality, our only
good, our inalienable heritage, our only support in this world of
misery.
Perhaps, in a job where we hope, God allows expose our design
philosophy, universal life and human destiny, perhaps we have the
audacity, after so many illustrious thinkers eudemonists to seek, in
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turn, the secret of the world, by finding all the presence and not
current or next, but can this supreme reality which constitutes the
essence of the will last some victory, seeking itself and whose vulgar
appellation incomplete but accurate, pathetic word that sums up
everything: Joy seems the clearest and most eloquent symbol.
Even today, in all regions of being, in all our ways of feeling,
understanding and wanting life, and also in all the kingdoms of
nature, we discern the partial triumph of this great principle, which
Schopenhauer's genius could make us doubt despite many similarities
and affinities between its sublime thought and ours very humble.
Because we intend to assign to this principle omnipotence, efficiency
and progressive victory, not only in the dark beyond where the
transcendental world, but become immanent in the present world.
Sublime strength, intuition and beneficent sacred whose pale light
whitens only the horizon of our dark night!
It is still for the great German metaphysician a limiting principle, a
concession that gives us almost reluctantly, an assumption in
apparent disagreement with the whole of his doctrine and his
uncompromising disciples.
Edward Hartmann Mailänder or reject as a temporary lapse of thought
of the Master. We see, on the contrary, completion, his crowning work
of genius and germ developments it contains. For us, these
optimistic elements found in the most tragic of the doctrines of
negations have the inestimable value of irrefutable evidence and a
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decisive argument. For it is in vain that the most prominent
Schopenhauer successors, it is in vain that Hartmann's Philosophy of
the Unconscious, or Mailänder in Philosophie der Erlösung, should all
living beings complete annihilation, c 'In vain do they hope to
continue this way the unfinished work of misanthropic Frankfurt. It
remained in agreement with himself, when suddenly pet wing genius,
when he was lost forever in the abyss of nothingness, he finds the
right path and the true path, when he proclaimed the immortal hope
and bliss attained by the soul issued after the test of time and pain in
the depths of Nirvana. But Nirvana is still one area of Being, it is a
neo-Kantian philosopher for the Universe, the world is a transcendent
domain inaccessible ù human weakness, but also part of real milk .
The world as representation, which is the material universe, the
transcendental world is that of Noumenon and will finally
transcendent world, the mystical abyss where the primary cause
rayon, God consciousness and attested that love suffering, author of
the World and the Ideal Principle, these three régnions these three
symbolic realms, out of which there is nothing conceivable or
possible, involving all three of the mystery of existence.
Schopenhauer did not understand, we believe that admitting the
reality of a positive principle, the advent of bliss, the possibility of joy
in the transcendent world, it also laid the foundations, certainly less
stable but indestructible in the transitory world where we experience
our exile.
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The future task of philosophy will be, we believe, to find this principle
of hope, to indicate future developments, not only away from this life,
but in this life itself, and in our world of 'appearances, oppressed by
causality, determinism and relativity, patterns of slavery and pain
where already the faint glow of a star pulsates yet conducive, that the
ideal that modifies and improves life, that of happiness United know
each issued immediately, out of the earthly existence, but an
imperfect, yet more precise, will happen, even here, the time for
humanity to come.
All calls to the complete annihilation, hatred of life, will be in vain and
sterile. You will not stop the stars from the sky to look for wraps
infinity, in the harmony of the spheres and the learned rhythm
constellations. You will not prevent the miserable creatures who
agonize under a terrible burden suffering, you do not defend them to
love, to hope, to believe and worship the idol and the chimera of Joy.
If this chimera, however, by the admission of Schopenhauer, exists in
the world of unearthly Nirvana, if it takes place in the ecstasy of bliss,
we strive to make already triumphed among the deep darkness of the
phenomenal world the exile country where we vegetate, awaiting the
hour of the decisive liberation. Is it really impossible? Time to come
will know the answer to the riddle, the solution of this great open
debate for centuries.
The idealism of Schopenhauer (and despite his transcendental claims,
the philosophy of the will results in any case, as we have seen, the
absolute mysticism), the transcendental idealism that is the logical
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conclusion, but abuse of the Kantian philosophy must be reduced to
an immanent idealism.
And it can not be rational, comprehensive and can withstand the
attacks of positivism, agnosticism that if we have the loyalty and
wisdom to recognize, even among the horror of our condition and the
anguish of living a reason to accept the test of fate and a reason for
hope.
We discovered this metaphysical principle in the trend of joy, without
which our notion of the will remains insufficient. This dualism inspires
us no fear, on the contrary, it is with infinite gratitude that we discern
the traces even in the most uncompromising of deductions that the
history of philosophy has produced monism. And this is one point of
view that we adopt, speaking of Schopenhauer's optimism,
optimism denies any atrocities in the world, but has not, either, the
sad courage to utter excruciating word of absolute despair. For let us
not forget, the trend that we have tried to highlight has nothing in
common with the infamous optimism, outrage and challenge thrown
to the universal suffering, which is that everything is for the best in
the best worlds.
This universe can become excruciating, though doomed to a fatal
flaw, more space and better. We do not ask, we do hope nothing
more than Celtic certainty. It is enough to absolve the Destin and we
do accept life. The darkness of the past and still continues to reign
over the world, but the dawn of a new day appears on the horizon, its
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first rays enough to soothe the soul most rebellious, most oppressed,
the most proven by lot relentless.
CHAPTER VIII.
PHILOSOPHY AND DRAMA
The about this study, though mostly claiming the title, glorious among
all, philosopher, has always deeply loved the theater, and its activity
as a playwright has so far prevented complete many metaphysical
work , of paramount importance in his eyes, because he wants to
study in the most humble measure his strength for the same
conundrum - fix disappointing and grandiose image of the world, the
elusive secret of universal life .
However, continuing my work as a playwright to which I lend itself
also greater importance in my work as a philosopher (but more
modest worker must also beware of false modesty), perhaps I been
unfaithful least we think this supreme knowledge that will always be
the goal, the ideal and the solace of my life, my only reason for being
in this world to me very obscure, and the famous masters eternal
Thought to all those who have tasted and experienced the sweetness
invaluable intellectual Joys which offers its faithful.
Is that there is a unique spiritual identity, a striking similarity between
these two forms of human activity so different, so different in
appearance: drama, frivolous, voluptuous, fully dedicated, it seems,
to worship fun and spirit of the age, and philosophy, austere and
melancholy, immersed in meditation major problems, disdainful
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ambitions ephemeral and perishable goods of this world of illusion,
the theater presents in turn a new image more artificial, more childish
...
In fact, of all the arts, none more than the essentially philosophical
sublime and charming Art Theatre. All playwright, worthy of the
name, is a metaphysician who often ignores its mission and ideals
which sucks his genius.
We have seen, by analyzing the aesthetics of Schopenhauer, the
German philosopher illustrates assigns purpose to art, whatever its
form of expression, the reproduction of initial trends, major
characters, the imperishable substance of beings and things, that is
to say, in short, the essence of the World, in the Platonic sense.
This definition is similar to the formulas of the most prominent
theorists, predecessors or followers of Schopenhauer. But the big
assumption is the basis for the system of the world, that which
Schopenhauer was the inventor and promoter, gives some of his
investigations in the field of aesthetic scope, depth, very special,
unprecedented in the intellectual history of the world and have
completely revamped some of our conceptions of beauty, the ideal
and the Mission of the Artist. Among these aesthetic discoveries, truly
admirable and lasting, must be mentioned at the forefront of the new
definitions of Music and Drama bequeathed to us by the Master which
each playwright and every musician should know by heart the
sublime theories, and almost all of Moreover completely unaware.
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If the music directly expresses the essence of the world, Will live
Noumenal the background of Being, poetry expresses the most
immediate and most important objectification, which shines in a
human eye, soon faded and off forever, but absolute or throbbing in
the flash of a lifetime ...
It is, indeed, in the struggles, aspirations and stormy existence of
humanity captive the eternal will to live asserts itself in all its fullness.
But poetry in the true sense of the word, concerns the representation
of human life and dramatic poetry captures and reflects it in its most
painful intensity, at the height of its destructive fury within hours of
crises tragic destiny decides where and breaks where the bottom of a
soul unfolds before our eyes. It has long been said, and this is a
simple statement of fact: Dramatic poetry, theater studies and
represents first and foremost, conflicts, struggles and knocks the
enemy wishes, disasters and fighting social and individual, when
these great events, of equal importance to the soul that experiences
it, whether it be for an empire or the fragile happiness of a humble
existence, reach their most binding degree of intensity, at the solemn
moment when the flame of the passions, which can dazzle, charm,
intimidate and overwhelm our poor souls, devours and burns with the
most implacable ardor.
This initial definition of art has taught us that it aims to express a
character, a master faculty, an ultimate reality, a deep trend or an
essential feature (regardless of the various forms of aesthetic), with
more depth and clarity that nature itself can do. Material, the fabric,
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the metaphysical and human capital of the work, have it by even a
direct influence on the impression that the genius of the artist can
produce. The intensity of aesthetic pleasure, the abandonment of
selfishness that oppresses us forget our misery, our weakness, our
deepest sorrows, our immense pain, our childish sorrows, increase in
intensity and influence beneficial as the more or less importance and
significance of the object represented by the work of Art. And it is
hardly necessary to add that the genius, talent and mastery of
execution of the artist also play an important role in the phenomenon
of aesthetic pleasure. But this is still a release, postage, a partial
rescue of the Soul. The intellect, becoming the representative pure
mirror of the world, by an inexplicable prodigy which also lies the
secret of artistic emotion, thwarts the pitfalls of the Will, revealing its
essence.
The contemplation of the omnipotence of uniformity, the fateful
sustainability of suffering abolished for a few moments of truce
abominable yoke. But, again, the picture that reflects the will of the
world through the prism of Art will feature and significantly more
efficient and the spell of art will practice liberating us with a full and a
force conducive.
This is why the drama, theater, art and strange admirable Aeschylus
and Shakespeare, manifestation of the eternal Will at its fullest
development is the supreme art, superior to all other and whose
action on the Ames can not be exceeded and reached. This is also
why all kinds of dramatic poetry, the fools mock heavily, saying it is
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the sublime, the Shakespearean drama, tragedy or melodrama,
pathos Theatre, in a word, is the most noble, the most worthy of
admiration, for it is he who gives us a glimpse in lightening fast and
fateful disaster situations, the depths of destiny and pain.
For it is he who requires the most creative playwright, strength and
depth of engineering it is he who finally makes us accept with
resignation over the event live and the heavy burden of our sorrows,
we encourages renunciation with the most persuasive and eloquent.
It brings out the most infallibly, mysterious depths of our soul a
moment stamped and reconciled, the flame of compassion,
meditation and the noble melancholy is the dawn of a new life, one
where accepting and including fate, we abdicate the revolt with
sterile hope ...
With unrivaled events, lapses effroyables.des punishment which
destroy a people, an entire race, with disasters that break the
happiness and pride, wealth or omnipotence happy in this world,
before the great show terrifying and whose masterpieces tragic place
in our eyes the tumultuous adventures, the bitterness of our sorrows,
our sharp remorse, the importance of our pain subside and disappear.
A great education is given to us by any great misfortune, a spark of
eternal life springs from the dust of all the martyrs. On the graves of
heroes and saints, generous and touching victims, the poet showed
us the sad loves, broken hopes and miserable end, light radiates light,
a charitable hope restored clarity.
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The notion of equality inevitable in pain and defeat, there is already a
principle of healing and forgiveness.
While our petty, burning and immense personal pain will always have
more reality and deadly force to us that all events of the protagonists
of Sophocles, Aeschylus or Shakespeare, yet most oppressed, the
most rebellious, the most unfortunate men, in spite of himself, and
even if the victim of the most cruel moral suffering, recalling the
profound words and superhuman thoughts of these ideal types of the
universal drama, whose clothes torn by the storm seem to hide in
their ply sordid and disappointing solemn secret of immortality, the
most unfortunate of vanquished said: "I have to suffer and cry in
silence, since Prometheus suffered his undeserved punishment and
the stars shine with the same brightness indifferent, since the vast
soul of Antigone gets death and contempt for his salary dedication
and sacrifice as Lohengrin loses his dream and hope for too loved and
Elsa doubt it, since Berenice is repudiated, as Hamlet The noble
prince, noble dreamer dies desperate murdered Desdemona. Ophelia
abandoned and betrayed, because love only flowers on the tomb of
Juliet, Elizabeth or Dona Sol, since Lear succumbs to the raging
enemy of nature and ingratitude subsidiary forces; since Cordelia
finally dying in her eyes, she, kindness, charity, Divine Mercy and that
attending his lamentable death in the arms of the old man who has
everything taken out, it really hit the depths of despair and
misfortune."
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Our individual pain pale with pathetic for these great ideal figures,
living symbols of suffering and human iniquity, ghosts immortals
whom the genius of playwrights lend the flame and focus of life. Yes,
the protagonists of the eternal drama were better than us, yet they
suffered more. This is not all. In the excess of their distress flourishes
like a mystical flower changing colors, subtle fragrance, the great
council of calm and resignation that the philosophy of Schopenhauer
gives us too. Yes, the intensity of the pain, if it exceeds human
strength, by destroying in us the desire to live, heals and soothes the
tenacious and insatiable desire.
To him who lost everything in this world, until the force of invincible
hope, for those who have nothing to expect of fate, neither grace nor
thank you and renunciation becomes easy and desirable.
The propitious moment the bronze doors of eternity open to the light
breath our last breath, for nothing or for a new life, appears defeated
and hopeless, as a deliverance. When all forsake us, that hope
remains. When all fails us, the certainty remains true. This is even
with a kind of joy that the hero struck by misfortune, struck by fate,
denied, condemned and cursed all proscribed and fatal, finally asleep
Supreme sleep. In the unfathomable abyss where everything falls and
fades, the pain itself disappears. The world vanishes in the final look
of the dying, but the bitter tears of defeat, abandonment and despair
will not burn his eyes have cried too ... And protagonist! 'All
masterpieces tragic victims succumbing woes unheard, inexpiés of
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affronts, seeking revenge for the sins of heaven, bless the dead which
delivers, because it heralds the end of all suffering.
"Sad flame, turn off now," said Ruy Blas. crushed by the most
excruciating pains here - low, contempt of the woman he loves with a
great love, unique and without return, it provides contempt and
fear ... "Sad flame, turn off now."
These few simple words and if melancholy which follow cries of revolt,
regrets wrenching agony and sublime, these few words affect us to
the depths of the soul. We feel that with the last flickering flame torch
will also turn off the life and the pain of one who dared to love her
distant princess, whose beloved all separated here, the hero who dies
the death of his dream, a moment realized. Yes, but already the old
flame burning with a bite less harsh poor broken heart ...
Tannhäuser, condemned and saved by the miracle of true love, ends
with glee at the foot of the coffin where the saint who loved him and
whose prayers were granted him divine forgiveness rests. The last
words of the "Bride of Messina" teach us resignation and renunciation.
Faust, on the threshold of eternity, after experiencing all the joys and
all the drunkenness, cried bitterly: "Why was I born?" And the last
prayer of Hamlet, dying in the arms of the friend who supports and
cries, his last wish, reached us through the centuries, as the sigh of
relief of a soul that will stop throbbing and pain: for the rest, friend,
silent .. . silence! ...
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These great souls, broken, also regenerated by suffering, no hope, no
desire, no longer seek nothing for the ... nothing except dreamless
sleep, which also is a good, since it all calms down and destroyed ...
Goods that make life worth living and they have lost forever,
everything is pride, purpose, and the smile of the earthly pilgrimage:
love, glory, joy and beauty, by renouncing forever in the Nirvana they
finally found. From there, once again, Celtic tranquility, serenity
hovering over the works of the great tragic poets, this infinite
sweetness that exudes poems, though full of tears, blood and torture,
Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Hugo and their beneficial action and their
durability, halo and supremacy ... The highest maxim, the deepest
philosophical wisdom formula y rayon under the symbol images, is
that after the immense fatigue for more stormy, the darker human
day will come the sweet repose ... Among the disasters and the ruins
of the most unfair disqualifications, the most inconsolable despair,
one certainty remains in this world where everything happens: the
feeling that pain must end, too.
Thus, in the worst trials, yet remains a principle of freedom, renewal
and healing. Stop suffering is already a joy unspeakable ecstasy, she
suddenly interrupted the task executioners.
No, pain, error and evil are not absolute rulers of the world, since
their kingdom is destined to end one day, as all eventually prevail. Let
the unfaithful disciples who do not want to understand the guidance
of the master, let them see the thrilling emotion that tragedy, the
ultimate form of art, it provides rare moments of excitement and
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forgetfulness, denial of life, total and voluntary negation. We argue
recognize us in the sublime resignation heroes of noble
Shakespearean race who, having lost everything, not regret anything
and overcome suffering, a principle of life, springing from the tomb,
ruins and defeated death.
Blur not like, do not venerate these benefactors of mankind which we
are indebted for such teaching? Ah! forget, forget! suffer no more! If
happiness has fled, if the dream whose treason equivalent to
bankrupt us in the world, fainted, try to lose at least the concept and
tearing regret. Forget! this is the secret of life is our highest good and
forgetfulness come.
Fate can not deny us his eagerly awaited return, and already we hear
at night its not the approach he brings to the poor of this world
ineffable present his charitable hands, invisible hands, soon break our
chains. ..
The historian of great philosophical doctrines, Fischer is absolutely
right to say, no definition of the essence of art, not worth that of
Schopenhauer: life is only the will and desire is suffering, but the
magic Art gives us oblivion, forgetting for a moment or an hour, but
who cares? this prodigy resident greatness, nobility and durability of
engineering, but also theatrical genius.
A finding of importance, both social as purely aesthetic point of view,
still emerges from this brief overview of the dramaturgy of
Schopenhauer.
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The feverish curiosity that focuses on theatrical matters, instead of
growing the drama, even its most puerile events occupies in public
concerns and worldly life, cause interest actors and actresses, parts
and backstage intrigue, gossip and competitions in the art, this ardent
sympathy, obviously exaggerated modern society feels for the
theater, this craze that has inspired so many stupid ranting and bitter
protests Far from being (read histrionics grotesque, as is claimed,
shape, aggressive among all of the immense human stupidity,
appears, on the contrary, the deeper judgments of the philosopher as
one of the most generous aspirations, a the most rational and the
most beneficial trends in social life.
If the theater claims and obtains a prominent today and unique place
is that the drama is the most perfect and most synthetic of all arts,
the highest expression of human genius in the field of creation and
aesthetic contemplation. All representations of life, which gives us the
drama, is the smoothest and most powerful because it addresses both
the three core functions are talking about old treatises on
metaphysics, our sensibility, our intelligence and our will, the innate
abilities to understand, or want to experience the existence imposed
by the human mind its constitutive laws. This representation, in fact,
should be a synthesis of poetry that speaks to the intelligence, plastic
art that charms the senses and the music that sings in our souls
eternal complaint of the World and harmony become infinite.
Richard Wagner in his prophetic insights into the future for the
theater, however admirable theoretical views that call many
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reservations and need to be reformed and fill in some respects, has
ruled on this issue final words against which no fluctuation mode, no
change in taste can not prevail. But the accession of a famous
philosopher and a creative artist such as Schopenhauer and Wagner,
bring to the development of our thesis unexpected engineering
support. Like us, these two giants of modern thought believe that the
theater, far from being a trivial distraction, a negligible pleasure, a
good hobby for the crowd, on the contrary, the supreme fulfillment of
psychic life, the form the noblest and deepest that can take down
here unattainable ideal, the most fertile and most beneficial Art, who
takes away on the wings of dream, do the fastest most suret
momentum far from our sorrows, our sufferings, our negative
selfishness. We must love, we must worship and serve him must
propagate in classes mercenaries among the slaves who are still
unaware of its pleasure and its ineffable charm, tradition, worship and
observance.
The theater alone among all chimeras and all the illusions of this
world, we grant the priceless joy of peace found there, suffering
abolished, harmony achieved in the contemplation of an ideal for
which are reflected after terrible struggles and tragic conflicts, the
essence of the world, the desire to live finally reconciled, peaceful,
redeemed by the very excess of his suffering. From there, the kind of
spell theater, the irresistible allure to the intensity of feeling that
obtained by means apparently so material and so primitive. Hence
the extraordinary prodigy and occur every night in each theater:
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several hundred human creatures, sad, vulgar, burdened with
worries, sorrows and selfish concerns, sometimes immense personal
pain and, for some hours of oblivion, live a fictional created by the
playwright or the genius of the performers.
Liberating power or spell admirable drama! ... All drama, full of real
beauty, is not it the image and the distant symbol of creation? And
the world itself, with its miseries, sufferings, aspirations and endless
joys, is not it the most extraordinary performances? .. Never forsake
the sublime art of Sophocles and Eurypide, of Shakespeare and
Calderon, of Richard Wagner and Victor Hugo. Alone is alive and
passionate philosophy filing.
Serving its noble cause is that of metaphysical and eternal
speculation that we still serve. For the great and sublime Hegel, the
adversary and the enemy of Schopenhauer, in spite of the common
ideas that would reconcile these two thinkers of genius, Hegel rightly
said: Drama represents Universe.
***
Let the people of the world, people circle, politicians, columnists,
amateur moralists and other profound minds, the privilege of ranting
against the histrionics, childishness, and cumbersome fascinating
theater. The philosopher knows that derogates way, dealing with love
these things so futile, more harmless in any event that vile massacres
of the war or the messy political intrigues there, ambition and lucre.
So far, reports are rare and infrequent between the world of theater,
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comes to petty rivalries and struggles of individual appetites, and the
world of professional philosophers, pursuing their dream of truth, and
their search for the absolute in retirement and seclusion, away from
the tumult of vain supposedly fun places.
However, I am absolutely convinced, the agreement will be
established more intimate and profound, inevitable and some
between Metaphysics and Drama, Philosophy and Theatre, these two
antithetical forms of mysterious aspiration that we hinted absolute
among the transient forms of global change. These megatrends Soul,
philosophy is certainly the most sublime, the most imbued with a
sacred and mystical character. The instinct of Drama remains,
however, undoubtedly the manifestation of human genius that the
closest. And this analogy is easy to understand.
Is that the playwright and philosopher, without doubt, working on a
similar task. One wants to reconstruct the synthetic image of the
World and Eternity, the drama of cosmic origins of universal evolution
and destiny of the human race, the other in the narrow and limited
context of theater in the limits of episodic fiction, evokes the drama
part of an individual destiny. For that very reason, the inspiration of
the metaphysician and the playwright appear similar, fraternal, also
released vain environments. We are deeply convinced of the need
dune alliance or merger more intimate between these two categories
of thinkers and creative intellectuals.
No rude jests not impair or weaken us this invincible hope. The future
of civilization is, as well as the domination of the world belongs to
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men of thought, the apostles of Joy and Truth, philosophers, poets
and playwrights. Some that are dazzling surprises whose normal
achieving progress wrinkled from the Power to the Act, we reserve
glare, to us, or rather to future races, all of the poor people can not be
themselves metaphysicians, playwrights or wise, but all, even the
most humble of our brethren, to participate one day ineffable joys,
noble pleasures as theater and philosophical speculation does not
agree that the intellectual and social elite the present time. It will
have real progress, civilization worthy of the name, in this land of
misery and exile, the day the worker, the worker, the mercenary
himself, for which his work, however, will not be the burden of the
curse now, as we can understand the beauty of a Platonic dialogue, a
drama of Shakespeare or a poem Wagner.
All oasis of joy, beauty and bliss that human genius discovers among
the arid sands of the desert, here is the most dazzling of light and life,
of all shelters, all shelter, all these precarious shelters, his ingenious
industry and edified with his charity invites us to cross the threshold,
this is the safest, most hospitable. We can not repeat too often the art
of theater is the deepest f, the most admirable of all the arts, because
it is the music most directly inspired by instinct and metaphysical
need. In this world where everything is f mirage visions and
disappointing, this area of fiction, precisely because it does not affect
any claim to an illusory reality is that which contains the most true
treasures. In these enchanting and dummy regions in the magical and
naive atmosphere there for the philosopher who has unravel, through
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the art annoying nonsense metaphysical sense of theater, flower
flowers oblivion.
The theater is the supreme art. Richard Wagner is the greatest
musician, William Shakespeare, the greatest artist in the world. And
among the elite who guide humanity of time to come to an ideal, each
more beautiful and purest day to sources ignored joy, renewal and
ecstasy, the pessimistic and desperate doctrine of Schopenhauer
brought forth still under our feet and we want to find in the future
city, the model of the hero, the wise appear to our descendants
happier in the guise of noble and pathetic Friedrich Schiller,
philosopher and playwright, metaphysician and tragic poet.
END
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