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By Root 3288 0

expect Schopenhauer to identify his cosmic will with God, and teach a pantheistic doctrine not unlike Spinoza's, in which virtue would consist in conformity to the divine will. But at this point his pessimism leads to a different development. The cosmic will is wicked; will, altogether, is wicked, or at any rate is the source of all our endless suffering. Suffering is essential to all life, and is increased by every increase of knowledge. Will has no fixed end, which if achieved would bring contentment. Although death must conquer in the end, we pursue our futile purposes, 'as we blow out a soap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although we know perfectly well that it will burst'. There is no such thing as happiness, for an unfulfilled wish causes pain, and attainment brings only satiety. Instinct urges men to procreation, which brings into existence a new occasion for suffering and death; that is why shame is associated with the sexual act. Suicide is useless; the doctrine of transmigration, even if not literally true, conveys truth in the form of a myth.

All this is very sad, but there is a way out, and it was discovered in India.

The best of myths is that of Nirvana (which Schopenhauer interprets as extinction). This, he agrees, is contrary to Christian doctrine, but 'the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be displaced by what happened in Galilee'. The cause of suffering is intensity of will; the less we exercise will, the less we shall suffer. And here knowledge turns out to be useful after all, provided it is knowledge of a certain sort. The distinction between one man and another is part of the phenomenal world, and disappears when the world is seen truly. To the good man, the veil of Maya (illusion) has become transparent; he sees that all things are one, and that the distinction between himself and another is only apparent. He reaches this insight by love, which is always sympathy, and has to do with the pain of others. When the veil of Maya is lifted, a man takes on the suffering of the whole world. In the good man, knowledge of the whole quiets all volition; his will turns away from life and denies his own nature. 'There arises within him a horror of the nature of which his own phenomenal existence is an expression, the kernel and inner nature of that world which is recognized as full of misery.'

Hence Schopenhauer is led to complete agreement, at least as regards practice, with ascetic mysticism. Eckhart and Angelus Silesius are better than the New Testament. There are some good things in orthodox Christianity, notably the doctrine of original sin as preached, against 'the vulgar Pelagianism', by St Augustine and Luther; but the Gospels are sadly deficient in metaphysics. Buddhism, he says, is the highest religion; and his ethical doctrines are orthodox throughout Asia, except where the 'detestable doctrine of Islam' prevails.

The good man will practise complete chastity, voluntary poverty, fasting, and self-torture. In all things he will aim at breaking down his individual will. But he does not do this, as do the Western mystics, to achieve harmony with God; no such positive good is sought. The good that is sought is wholly and entirely negative:

'We must banish the dark impression of that nothingness which we discern behind all virtue and holiness as their final goal, and which we fear as children fear the dark; we must not even evade it like the Indians, through myths and meaningless words, such as reabsorption in Brahma or the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Rather do we freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abolition of will is for all those who are still full of will certainly nothing; but, conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways—is nothing.'

There is a vague suggestion here that the saint sees something positive which other men do not see, but there is nowhere a hint as to what this is, and I think the suggestion is only rhetorical. The world and all its phenomena, Schopenhauer