No More Learning

Many steps in the
enfranchisement of the philosopher are unknown
in Germany; they cannot always remain so. Our
artists live more bravely and honourably than our
philosophers; and Richard Wagner, the best
example of all, shows how genius need not fear a
fight to the death with the established forms and
ordinances, if we wish to bring the higher truth
and order, that lives in him, to the light. The
"truth," however, of which we hear so much from
our professors, seems to be a far more modest
being, and no kind of disturbance is to be feared
from her; she is an easy-going and pleasant
creature, who is continually assuring the powers
that be that no one need fear any trouble from
her quarter: for man is only "pure reason. " And
therefore I will say, that philosophy in Germany
has more and more to learn not to be "pure


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120 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
reason": and it may well take as its model
"Schopenhauer the man. "
It is no less than a marvel that he should have
come to be this human kind of example: for he
was beset, within and without, by the most frightful
dangers, that would have crushed and broken a
weaker nature. I think there was a strong likeli-
hood of Schopenhauer the man going under, and
leaving at best a residue of "pure reason": and
only "at best"—it was more probable that neither
man nor reason would survive.
A modern Englishman sketches the most usual
danger to extraordinary men who live in a society
that worships the ordinary, in this manner:—" Such
uncommon characters are first cowed, then become
sick and melancholy, and then die. A Shelley
could never have lived in England: a race of
Shelleys would have been impossible. " Our
Holderins and Kleists were undone by their un-
conventionality, and were not strong enough for
the climate of the so-called German culture; and
only iron natures like Beethoven, Goethe, Schopen-
hauer and Wagner could hold out against it. Even
in them the effect of this weary toiling and moil-
ing is seen in many lines and wrinkles; their
breathing is harder and their voice is forced. The
old diplomatist who had only just seen and spoken
to Goethe, said to a friend—" Voila un homme qui
a eu de grands chagrins ! " which Goethe translated
to mean "That is a man who has taken great pains
in his life. " And he adds, "If the trace of the
sorrow and activity we have gone through cannot
be wiped from our features, it is no wonder that


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 121
all that survives of us and our struggles should
bear the same impress. " And thie is the Goethe
to whom our cultured Philistines point as the
happiest of Germans, that they may prove their
thesis, that it must be possible to be happy among
them—with the unexpressed corollary that no one
can be pardoned for feeling unhappy and lonely
among them. Hence they push their doctrine, in
practice, to its merciless conclusion, that there is
always a secret guilt in isolation. Poor Schopen-
hauer had this secret guilt too in his heart, the
guilt of cherishing his philosophy more than his
fellow-men; and he was so unhappy as to have
learnt from Goethe that he must defend his philo-
sophy at all costs from the neglect of his contem-
poraries, to save its very existence: for there is a
kind of Grand Inquisitor's Censure in which the
Germans, according to Goethe, are great adepts:
it is called—inviolable silence. This much at least
was accomplished by it;—the greater part of the
first edition of Schopenhauer's masterpiece had to
be turned into waste paper. The imminent risk that
his great work would be undone, merely by neglect,
bred in him a state of unrest—perilous and uncon-
trollable;—for no single adherent of any note
presented himself. It is tragic to watch his search
for any evidence of recognition: and his piercing
cry of triumph at last, that he would now really be
read {legor et legar), touches us with a thrill of
pain. All the traits in which we do not see the
great philosopher show us the suffering man,
anxious for his noblest possessions; he was tortured
by the fear of losing his little property, and perhaps


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122 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
of no longer being able to maintain in its purity
his truly antique attitude towards philosophy. He
often chose falsely in his desire to find real trust
and compassion in men, only to return with a heavy
heart to his faithful dog again. He was absolutely
alone, with no single friend of his own kind to
comfort him; and between one and none there lies
an infinity—as ever between something and noth-
ing. No one who has true friends knows what
real loneliness means, though he may have the
whole world in antagonism round him. Ah, I see
well ye do not know what isolation is! Whenever
there are great societies with governments and
religions and public opinions—where there is a
tyranny, in short, there will the lonely philosopher
be hated: for philosophy offers an asylum to man-
kind where no tyranny can penetrate, the inner
sanctuary, the centre of the heart's labyrinth: and
the tyrants are galled at it. Here do the lonely
men lie hid: but here too lurks their greatest
danger. These men who have saved their inner
freedom, must also live and be seen in the outer
world: they stand in countless human relations by
their birth, position, education and country, their
own circumstances and the importunity of others:
and so they are presumed to hold an immense
number of opinions, simply because these happen
to prevail: every look that is not a denial counts
as an assent, every motion of the hand that does
not destroy is regarded as an aid. These free and
lonely men know that they perpetually seem other
than they are. While they wish for nothing but
>
truth and honesty, they are in a net of misunder-


## p. 123 (#169) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 123
standing; and that ardent desire cannot prevent
a mist of false opinions, of adaptations and wrong
conclusions, of partial misapprehension and in-
tentional reticence, from gathering round their
actions. And there settles a cloud of melancholy
on their brows: for such natures hate the necessity
of pretence worse than death: and the continual
bitterness gives them a threatening and volcanic
character. They take revenge from time to time
for their forced concealment and self-restraint:
they issue from their dens with lowering looks:
their words and deeds are explosive, and may lead
to their own destruction. Schopenhauer lived
amid dangers of this sort. Such lonely men need
love, and friends, to whom they can be as open and
sincere as to themselves, and in whose presence the
deadening silence and hypocrisy may cease. Take
their friends away, and there is left an increasing
peril; Heinrich von Kleist was broken by the lack
of love, and the most terrible weapon against
unusual men is to drive them into themselves;
and then their issuing forth again is a volcanic
eruption. Yet there are always some demi-gods
who can bear life under these fearful conditions
and can be their conquerors: and if you would hear
their lonely chant, listen to the music of Beet-
hoven.
So the first danger in whose shadow Schopen-
hauer lived was—isolation. The second is called
—doubting of the truth. To this every thinker is
liable who sets out from the philosophy of Kant,
provided he be strong and sincere in his sorrows
and his desires, and not a mere tinkling thought-


## p. 123 (#170) ############################################

122 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
of no longer being able to maintain in its purity
his truly antique attitude towards philosophy. He
often chose falsely in his desire to find real trust
and compassion in men, only to return with a heavy
heart to his faithful dog again. He was absolutely
alone, with no single friend of his own kind to
comfort him; and between one and none there lies
an infinity—as ever between something and noth-
ing. No one who has true friends knows what
real loneliness means, though he may have the
whole world in antagonism round him. Ah, I see
well ye do not know what isolation is! Whenever
there are great societies with governments and
religions and public opinions—where there is a
tyranny, in short, there will the lonely philosopher
be hated: for philosophy offers an asylum to man-
kind where no tyranny can penetrate, the inner
sanctuary, the centre of the heart's labyrinth: and
the tyrants are galled at it. Here do the lonely
men lie hid: but here too lurks their greatest
danger. These men who have saved their inner
freedom, must also live and be seen in the outer
world: they stand in countless human relations by
their birth, position, education and country, their
own circumstances and the importunity of others:
and so they are presumed to hold an immense
number of opinions, simply because these happen
to prevail: every look that is not a denial counts
as an assent, every motion of the hand that does
not destroy is regarded as an aid. These free and
lonely men know that they perpetually seem other
than they are. While they wish for nothing but
truth and honesty, they are in a net of misunder-


## p. 123 (#171) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 123
standing; and that ardent desire cannot prevent
a mist of false opinions, of adaptations and wrong
conclusions, of partial misapprehension and in-
tentional reticence, from gathering round their
actions. And there settles a cloud of melancholy
on their brows: for such natures hate the necessity
of pretence worse than death: and the continual
bitterness gives them a threatening and volcanic
character. They take revenge from time to time
for their forced concealment and self-restraint:
they issue from their dens with lowering looks:
their words and deeds are explosive, and may lead
to their own destruction. Schopenhauer lived
amid dangers of this sort. Such lonely men need
love, and friends, to whom they can be as open and
sincere as to themselves, and in whose presence the
deadening silence and hypocrisy may cease. Take
their friends away, and there is left an increasing
peril; Heinrich von Kleist was broken by the lack
of love, and the most terrible weapon against
unusual men is to drive them into themselves;
and then their issuing forth again is a volcanic
eruption. Yet there are always some demi-gods
who can bear life under these fearful conditions
and can be their conquerors: and if you would hear
their lonely chant, listen to the music of Beet-
hoven.
So the first danger in whose shadow Schopen-
hauer lived was—isolation. The second is called
—doubting of the truth. To this every thinker is
liable who sets out from the philosophy of Kant,
provided he be strong and sincere in his sorrows
and his desires, and not a mere tinkling thought-


## p. 124 (#172) ############################################

124 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
box or calculating machine. We all know the
shameful state of things implied by this last
reservation, and I believe it is only a very few men
that Kant has so vitally affected as to change the
current of their blood. To judge from what one
reads, there must have been a revolution in every
domain of thought since the work of this unob-
trusive professor: I cannot believe it myself. For
I see men, though darkly, as themselves needing
to be revolutionised, before any "domains of
thought" can be so. In fact, we find the first
mark of any influence Kant may have had on the
popular mind, in a corrosive scepticism and
relativity. But it is only in noble and active
spirits who could never rest in doubt that the
shattering despair of truth itself could take the
place of doubt. This was, for example, the effect
of the Kantian philosophy on Heinrich von Kleist.
"It was only a short time ago," he writes in his
poignant way, " that I became acquainted with the
Kantian philosophy; and I will tell you my
thought, though I cannot fear that it will rack you
to your inmost soul, as it did me. —We cannot
decide, whether what we call truth is really truth,
or whether it only seems so to us. If the latter,
the truth that we amass here does not exist after
death, and all our struggle to gain a possession
that may follow us even to the grave is in vain.
If the blade of this thought do not cut your heart,
yet laugh not at another who feels himself wounded
by it in his Holy of Holies. My one highest aim
has vanished, and I have no more. " Yes, when
will men feel again deeply as Kleist did, and learn


## p. 125 (#173) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 12$
to measure a philosophy by what it means to the
"Holy of Holies "? And yet we must make this
estimate of what Schopenhauer can mean to us,
after Kant, as the first pioneer to bring us from
the heights of sceptical disillusionment or " critical"
renunciation, to the greater height of tragic con-
templation, the nocturnal heaven with its endless
crown of stars. His greatness is that he can stand
opposite the picture of life, and interpret it to us
as a whole: while all the clever people cannot
escape the error of thinking one comes nearer to
the interpretation by a laborious analysis of the
colours and material of the picture; with the con-
fession, probably, that the texture of the canvas
is very complicated, and the chemical composition
of the colours undiscoverable. Schopenhauer knew
that one must guess the painter in order to under-
stand the picture. But now the whole learned
fraternity is engaged on understanding the colours
and canvas, and not the picture: and only he who
has kept the universal panorama of life and being
firmly before his eyes, will use the individual
sciences without harm to himself; for, without
this general view as a norm, they are threads that
lead nowhere and only confuse still more the maze
of our existence. Here we see, as I said, the
greatness of Schopenhauer, that he follows up
every idea, as Hamlet follows the Ghost, without
allowing himself to turn aside for a learned
digression, or be drawn away by the scholastic
abstractions of a rabid dialectic. The study of
the minute philosophers is only interesting for the
recognition that they have reached those stages


## p. 126 (#174) ############################################

126 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
in the great edifice of philosophy where learned
disquisitions for and against, where hair-splitting
objections and counter-objections are the rule:
and for that reason they evade the demand of
every great philosophy to speak sub specie
ceternitatis—"this is the picture of the whole of
life: learn thence the meaning of thine own life. "
And the converse: "read thine own life, and
understand thence the hieroglyphs of the universal
life. " In this way must Schopenhauer's philosophy
always be interpreted; as an individualist
philosophy, starting from the single man, in his
own nature, to gain an insight into his personal
miseries, and needs, and limitations, and find out
the remedies that will console them: namely, the
sacrifice of the ego, and its submission to the
nobler ends, especially those of justice and mercy.
He teaches us to distinguish between the true and
the apparent furtherance of man's happiness: how
neither the attainment of riches, nor honour, nor
learning, can raise the individual from his deep
despair at his unworthiness; and how the quest
for these good things can only have meaning
through a universal end that transcends and
explains them ;—the gaining of power to aid our
physical nature by them and, as far as may be,
correct its folly and awkwardness. For one's self
only, in the first instance: and finally, through
one's self, for all. It is a task that leads to scepti-
cism: for there is so much to be made better yet,
in one and all!
Applying this to Schopenhauer himself, we
come to the third and most intimate danger in


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 127
which he lived, and which lay deep in the marrow
of his being. Every one is apt to discover a
limitation in himself, in his gifts of intellect as well
as his moral will, that fills him with yearning and
melancholy; and as he strives after holiness
through a consciousness of sin, so, as an intellectual
being, he has a deep longing after the "genius"
in himself. This is the root of all true culture;
and if we say this means the aspiration of man to
be " born again " as saint and genius, I know that
one need not be a Buddhist to understand the
myth. We feel a strong loathing when we find
talent without such aspiration, in the circle of the
learned, or among the so-called educated; for we
see that such men, with all their cleverness, are no
aid but a hindrance to the beginnings of culture,
and the blossoming of genius, the aim of all
culture. There is a rigidity in them, parallel to
the cold arrogance of conventional virtue, which
also remains at the opposite pole to true holiness.
Schopenhauer's nature contained an extraordin-
arily dangerous dualism. Few thinkers have felt
as he did the complete and unmistakable certainty
of genius within them; and his genius made him
the highest of all promises,—that there could be no
deeper furrow than that which he was ploughing
in the ground of the modern world. He knew one
half of his being to be fulfilled according to its
strength, with no other need; and he followed
with greatness and dignity his vocation of con-
solidating his victory. In the other half there was
a gnawing aspiration, which we can understand,
when we hear that he turned away with a sad look


## p. 127 (#176) ############################################

126
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
in the great edifice of philosophy where learned
disquisitions for and against, where hair-splitting
objections and counter-objections are the rule :
and for that reason they evade the demand of
every great philosophy to speak sub specie
æternitatis—"this is the picture of the whole of
life: learn thence the meaning of thine own life. ”
And the converse: "read thine own life, and
understand thence the hieroglyphs of the universal
life. ” In this way must Schopenhauer's philosophy
always be interpreted; as an individualist
philosophy, starting from the single man, in his
own nature, to gain an insight into his personal
miseries, and needs, and limitations, and find out
the remedies that will console them: namely, the
sacrifice of the ego, and its submission to the
nobler ends, especially those of justice and mercy.
He teaches us to distinguish between the true and
the apparent furtherance of man's happiness: how
neither the attainment of riches, nor honour, nor
learning, can raise the individual from his deep
despair at his unworthiness; and how the quest
for these good things can only have meaning
through a universal end that transcends and
explains them ;-the gaining of power to aid our
physical nature by them and, as far as may be,
correct its folly and awkwardness. For one's self
only, in the first instance: and finally, through
one's self, for all. It is a task that leads to scepti-
cism : for there is so much to be made better yet,
in one and all!
Applying this to Schopenhauer himself, we
come to the third and most intimate danger in


## p. 127 (#177) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
127
which he lived, and which lay deep in the marrow
of his being. Every one is apt to discover a
limitation in himself, in his gifts of intellect as well
as his moral will, that fills him with yearning and
melancholy; and as he strives after holiness
through a consciousness of sin, so, as an intellectual
being, he has a deep longing after the “genius”
in himself. This is the root of all true culture;
and if we say this means the aspiration of man to
be “born again "as saint and genius, I know that
one need not be a Buddhist to understand the
myth. We feel a strong loathing when we find
talent without such aspiration, in the circle of the
learned, or among the so-called educated; for we
see that such men, with all their cleverness, are no
aid but a hindrance to the beginnings of culture,
and the blossoming of genius, the aim of all
culture. There is a rigidity in them, parallel to
the cold arrogance of conventional virtue, which
also remains at the opposite pole to true holiness.
Schopenhauer's nature contained an extraordin-
arily dangerous dualism. Few thinkers have felt
as he did the complete and unmistakable certainty
of genius within them; and his genius made him
the highest of all promises,—that there could be no
deeper furrow than that which he was ploughing
in the ground of the modern world. He knew one
half of his being to be fulfilled according to its
strength, with no other need; and he followed
with greatness and dignity his vocation of con-
solidating his victory. In the other half there was
a gnawing aspiration, which we can understand,
when we hear that he turned away with a sad look


## p. 128 (#178) ############################################

128 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
from the picture of Rancd, the founder of the
Trappists, with the words: "That is a matter of
grace. " For genius evermore yearns after holiness
as it sees further and more clearly from its watch-
tower than other men, deep into the reconciliation
of Thought and Being, the kingdom of peace and
the denial of the will, and up to that other shore,
of which the Indians speak. The wonder is, that
Schopenhauer's nature should have been so incon-
ceivably stable and unshakable that it could
neither be destroyed nor petrified by this yearning.
Every one will understand this after the measure
of his own character and greatness: none of us will
understand it in the fulness of its meaning.
The more one considers these three dangers, the
more extraordinary will appear his vigour in
opposing them and his safety after the battle.
True, he gained many scars and open wounds:
and a cast of mind that may seem somewhat too
bitter and pugnacious. But his single ideal tran-
scends the highest humanity in him. Schopenhauer
stands as a pattern to men, in spite of all those
scars and scratches. We may even say, that what
was imperfect and "all too human " in him, brings
us nearer to him as a man, for we see a sufferer
and a kinsman to suffering, not merely a dweller
on the unattainable heights of genius.
These three constitutional dangers that threat-
ened Schopenhauer, threaten us all. Each one
of us bears a creative solitude within himself,
and his consciousness of it forms an exotic aura of
strangeness round him. Most men cannot endure
it, because they are slothful, as I said, and because


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 120
their solitude hangs round them a chain of troubles
and burdens. No doubt, for the man with this
heavy chain, life loses almost everything that one
desires from it in youth—joy, safety, honour: his
fellow-men pay him his due of—isolation! The
wilderness and the cave are about him, wherever
he may live. He must look to it that he be not
enslaved and oppressed, and become melancholy
thereby. And let him surround himself with the
pictures of good and brave fighters such as
Schopenhauer.
The second danger, too, is not rare. Here and
there we find one dowered by nature with a keen
vision; his thoughts dance gladly in the witches'
Sabbath of dialectic; and if he uncautiously give
his talent the rein, it is easy to lose all humanity
and live a ghostly life in the realm of "pure
reason": or through the constant search for the
"pros and cons" of things, he may go astray from
the truth and live without courage or confidence,
in doubt, denial and discontent, and the slender
hope that waits on disillusion: "No dog could live
long thus! "
The third danger is a moral or intellectual
hardening: man breaks the bond that united him
to his ideal: he ceases to be fruitful and reproduce
himself in this or that province, and becomes an
enemy or a parasite of culture. The solitude of
his being has become an indivisible, unrelated
atom, an icy stone. And one can perish of this
solitude as well as of the fear of it, of one's self as
well as one's self-sacrifice, of both aspiration and
petrifaction: and to live is ever to be in danger.
VOL. II. I


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130 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
Beside these dangers to which Schopenhauer
would have been constitutionally liable, in whatever
century he had lived, there were also some produced
by his own time; and it is essential to distinguish
between these two kinds, in order to grasp the
typical and formative elements in his nature. The
philosopher casts his eye over existence, and wishes
to give it a new standard value; for it has been
the peculiar task of all great thinkers to be law-
givers for the weight and stamp in the mint of
reality. And his task will be hindered if the men
he sees near him be a weakly and worm-eaten
growth. To be correct in his calculation of
existence, the unworthiness of the present time
must be a very small item in the addition. The
study of ancient or foreign history is valuable, if
at all, for a correct judgment on the whole destiny
of man; which must be drawn not only from an
average estimate but from a comparison of the
highest destinies that can befall individuals or
nations. The present is too much with us; it
directs the vision even against the philosopher's
will: and it will inevitably be reckoned too high
in the final sum. And so he must put a low figure
on his own time as against others, and suppress
the present in his picture of life, as well as in
himself; must put it into the background or paint
it over; a difficult, and almost impossible task.
The judgment of the ancient Greek philosophers
on the value of existence means so much more
than our own, because they had the full bloom of
life itself before them, and their vision was un-
troubled by any felt dualism between their wish


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 131
for freedom and beauty on the grand scale, and
their search after truth, with its single question
"What is the real worth of life? " Empedocles lived
when Greek culture was full to overflowing with
the joy of life, and all ages may take profit from
his words; especially as no other great philosopher
of that great time ventured to contradict them.
Empedocles is only the clearest voice among them
—they all say the same thing, if a man will but
open his ears. A modern thinker is always in the
throes of an unfulfilled desire; he is looking for
life,—warm, red life,—that he may pass judgment
on it: at any rate he will think it necessary to be
a living man himself, before he can believe in his
power of judging. And this is the title of the
modern philosophers to sit among the great aiders
of Life (or rather of the will to live), and the reason
why they can look from their own out-wearied
time and aspire to a truer culture, and a clearer
explanation. Their yearning is, however, their
danger; the reformer in them struggles with the
critical philosopher. And whichever way the
victory incline, it also implies a defeat. How was
Schopenhauer to escape this danger?
We like to consider the great man as the noble
child of his age, who feels its defects more strongly
and intimately than the smaller men: and therefore
the struggle of the great man against his age is
apparently nothing but a mad fight to the death
with himself. Only apparently, however: he only
fights the elements in his time that hinder his own
greatness, in other words his own freedom and
sincerity. And so, at bottom, he is only an enemy


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132 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
to that element which is not truly himself, the
irreconcilable antagonism of the temporal and
eternal in him. The supposed " child of his age"
proves to be but a step-child. From boyhood
Schopenhauer strove with his time, a false and
unworthy mother to him, and as soon as he had
banished her, he could bring back his being to its
native health and purity. For this very reason we
can use his writings as mirrors of his time; it is no
fault of the mirror if everything contemporary
appear in it stricken by a ravaging disease, pale
and thin, with tired looks and hollow eyes,—the
step-child's sorrow made visible. The yearning
for natural strength, for a healthy and simple
humanity, was a yearning for himself: and as soon
as he had conquered his time within him, he was
face to face with his own genius. The secret of
nature's being and his own lay open, the step-
mother's plot to conceal his genius from him was
foiled. And now he could turn a fearless eye
towards the question, "What is the real worth of
life? " without having any more to weigh a blood-
less and chaotic age of doubt and hypocrisy. He
knew that there was something higher and purer
to be won on this earth than the life of his time,
and a man does bitter wrong to existence who
only knows it and criticises it in this hateful form.
Genius, itself the highest product of life, is now
summoned to justify life, if it can: the noble
creative soul must answer the question :—" Dost
thou in thy heart say ' Yea! ' unto this existence?
Is it enough for thee? Wilt thou be its advocate
and its redeemer? One true 'Yea' from thy lips,


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 133
and the sorely accused life shall go free. " How
shall he answer? In the words of Empedocles.
IV.
The last hint may well remain obscure for a
time: I have something more easy to explain,
namely how Schopenhauer can help us to educate
ourselves in opposition to our age, since we have
the advantage of really knowing our age, through
him ;—if it be an advantage! It may be no longer
possible in a couple of hundred years. I some-
times amuse myself with the idea that men may
soon grow tired of books and their authors, and
the savant of to-morrow come to leave directions
in his will that his body be burned in the midst of
his books, including of course his own writings.
And in the gradual clearing of the forests, might
not our libraries be very reasonably used for straw
and brushwood? Most books are born from the
smoke and vapour of the brain: and to vapour and
smoke may they well return. For having no fire
within themselves, they shall be visited with fire.
And possibly to a later century our own may count
as the " Dark age," because our productions heated
the furnace hotter and more continuously than
ever before. We are anyhow happy that we can
learn to know our time; and if there be any sense
in busying ourselves with our time at all, we may
as well do it as thoroughly as we can, so that no
one may have any doubt about it. The possibility
of this we owe to Schopenhauer.


## p. 134 (#184) ############################################

134 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
Our happiness would of course be infinitely
greater, if our inquiry showed that nothing so
hopeful and splendid as our present epoch had
ever existed. There are simple people in some
corner of the earth to-day—perhaps in Germany—
who are disposed to believe in all seriousness that
the world was put right two years ago * and that
all stern and gloomy views of life are now con-
tradicted by "facts. " The foundation of the New
German Empire is, to them, the decisive blow that
annihilates all the "pessimistic" philosophisers,—
no doubt of it. To judge the philosopher's signifi-
cance in our time, as an educator, we must oppose
a widespread view like this, especially common in
our universities. We must say, it is a shameful
thing that such abominable flattery of the Time-
Fetish should be uttered by a herd of so-called
reflective and honourable men; it is a proof that
we no longer see how far the seriousness of
philosophy is removed from that of a newspaper.
Such men have lost the last remnant of feeling, not
only for philosophy, but also for religion, and have
put in its place a spirit not so much of optimism as
of journalism, the evil spirit that broods over the
day—and the daily paper. Every philosophy that
believes the problem of existence to be shelved,
or even solved, by a political event, is a sham
philosophy. There have been innumerable states
founded since the beginning of the world; that is
an old story. How should a political innovation
manage once and for all to make a contented race
* This was written in 1873. —Tr.


## p. 135 (#185) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 135
of the dwellers on this earth? If any one believe
in his heart that this is possible, he should report
himself to our authorities: he really deserves to be
Professor of Philosophy in a German university,
like Harms in Berlin, Jiirgen Meyer in Bonn, and
Carriere in Munich.
We are feeling the consequences of the doctrine,
preached lately from all the housetops, that the
state is the highest end of man and there is no
higher duty than to serve it: I regard this not a
relapse into paganism, but into stupidity. A man
who thinks state-service to be his highest duty,
very possibly knows no higher one; yet there are
both men and duties in a region beyond,—and one
of these duties, that seems to me at least of higher
value than state-service, is to destroy stupidity in
all its forms—and this particular stupidity among
them. And I have to do with a class of men
whose teleological conceptions extend further than
the well-being of a state, I mean with philosophers
—and only with them in their relation to the world
of culture, which is again almost independent of the
"good of the state. " Of the many links that make
up the twisted chain of humanity, some are of gold
and others of pewter.
How does the philosopher of our time regard
culture? Quite differently, I assure you, from the
professors who are so content with their new state.
He seems to see the symptoms of an absolute
uprooting of culture in the increasing rush and
hurry of life, and the decay of all reflection and
simplicity. The waters of religion are ebbing, and
leaving swamps or stagnant pools: the nations are


## p. 136 (#186) ############################################

136 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
drawing away in enmity again, and long to tear
each other in pieces. The sciences, blindly driv-
ing along, on a laisser faire system, without a
common standard, are splitting up, and losing hold
of every firm principle. The educated classes are
being swept along in the contemptible struggle for
wealth. Never was the world more worldly, never
poorer in goodness and love. Men of learning are
no longer beacons or sanctuaries in the midst of
this turmoil of worldliness; they themselves are
daily becoming more restless, thoughtless, loveless.
Everything bows before the coming barbarism, art
and science included. The educated men have
degenerated into the greatest foes of education, for
they will deny the universal sickness and hinder
the physician. They become peevish, these poor
nerveless creatures, if one speak of their weakness
and combat the shameful spirit of lies in them.
They would gladly make one believe that they
have outstripped all the centuries, and they walk
with a pretence of happiness which has something
pathetic about it, because their happiness is so
inconceivable. One would not even ask them, as
Tannhauser did Biterolf, "What hast thou, poor
wretch, enjoyed! " For, alas! we know far better
ourselves, in another way. There is a wintry sky
over us, and we dwell on a high mountain, in
danger and in need. Short-lived is all our joy,
and the sun's rays strike palely on our white
mountains. Music is heard; an old man grinds
an organ, and the dancers whirl round, and the
heart of the wanderer is shaken within him to see
it: everything is so disordered, so drab, so hope-



## p. 137 (#187) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 137
less. Even now there is a sound of joy, of clear
thoughtless joy! but soon the mist of evening
closes round, the note dies away, and the wanderer's
footsteps are heard on the gravel; as far as his
eye can reach there is nothing but the grim and
desolate face of nature.
It may be one-sided, to insist only on the blurred
lines and the dull colours in the picture of modern
life: yet the other side is no more encouraging,
it is only more disturbing. There is certainly
strength there, enormous strength; but it is wild,
primitive and merciless. One looks on with a
chill expectancy, as though into the caldron of a
witch's kitchen; every moment there may arise
sparks and vapour, to herald some fearful appari-
tion. For a century we have been ready for a
world-shaking convulsion; and though we have
lately been trying to set the conservative strength
of the so-called national state against the great
modern tendency to volcanic destructiveness, it
will only be, for a long time yet, an aggravation
of the universal unrest that hangs over us. We
need not be deceived by individuals behaving as if
they knew nothing of all this anxiety: their own
restlessness shows how well they know it. They
think more exclusively of themselves than men
ever thought before; they plant and build for their
little day, and the chase for happiness is never
greater than when the quarry must be caught to-
day or to-morrow: the next day perhaps there is
no more hunting. We live in the Atomic Age, or
rather in the Atomic Chaos. The opposing forces
were practically held together in mediaeval times


## p. 137 (#188) ############################################

136
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
drawing away in enmity again, and long to tear
each other in pieces. The sciences, blindly driv-
ing along, on a laisser faire system, without a
common standard, are splitting up, and losing hold
of every firm principle. The educated classes are
being swept along in the contemptible struggle for
wealth. Never was the world more worldly, never
poorer in goodness and love. Men of learning are
no longer beacons or sanctuaries in the midst of
this turmoil of worldliness; they themselves are
daily becoming more restless, thoughtless, loveless.
Everything bows before the coming barbarism, art
and science included. The educated men have
degenerated into the greatest foes of education, for
they will deny the universal sickness and hinder
the physician. They become peevish, these poor
nerveless creatures, if one speak of their weakness
and combat the shameful spirit of lies in them.
They would gladly make one believe that they
have outstripped all the centuries, and they walk
with a pretence of happiness which has something
pathetic about it, because their happiness is so .
inconceivable. One would not even ask them, as
Tannhäuser did Biterolf, "What hast thou, poor
wretch, enjoyed ! ” For, alas! we know far better
ourselves, in another way. There is a wintry sky
over us, and we dwell on a high mountain, in
danger and in need. Short-lived is all our joy,
and the sun's rays strike palely on our white
mountains. Music is heard; an old man grinds
an organ, and the dancers whirl round, and the
heart of the wanderer is shaken within him to see
it: everything is so disordered, so drab, so hope-


## p. 137 (#189) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
137
less. Even now there is a sound of joy, of clear
thoughtless joy! but soon the mist of evening
closes round, the note dies away, and the wanderer's
footsteps are heard on the gravel; as far as his
eye can reach there is nothing but the grim and
desolate face of nature.
It may be one-sided, to insist only on the blurred
lines and the dull colours in the picture of modern
life: yet the other side is no more encouraging,
it is only more disturbing. There is certainly
strength there, enormous strength; but it is wild,
primitive and merciless. One looks on with a
chill expectancy, as though into the caldron of a
witch's kitchen; every moment there may arise
sparks and vapour, to herald some fearful appari-
tion. For a century we have been ready for a
world-shaking convulsion; and though we have
lately been trying to set the conservative strength
of the so-called national state against the great
modern tendency to volcanic destructiveness, it
will only be, for a long time yet, an aggravation
of the universal unrest that hangs over us. We
need not be deceived by individuals behaving as if
they knew nothing of all this anxiety: their own
restlessness shows how well they know it. They
think more exclusively of themselves than men
ever thought before; they plant and build for their
little day, and the chase for happiness is never
greater than when the quarry must be caught to-
day or to-morrow: the next day perhaps there is
no more hunting. We live in the Atomic Age, or
rather in the Atomic Chaos. The opposing forces
were practically held together in mediæval times


## p. 137 (#190) ############################################

136
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
drawing away in enmity again, and long to tear
each other in pieces. The sciences, blindly driv-
ing along, on a laisser faire system, without a
common standard, are splitting up, and losing hold
of every firm principle. The educated classes are
being swept along in the contemptible struggle for
wealth. Never was the world more worldly, never
poorer in goodness and love. Men of learning are
no longer beacons or sanctuaries in the midst of
this turmoil of worldliness; they themselves are
daily becoming more restless, thoughtless, loveless.
Everything bows before the coming barbarism, art
and science included. The educated men have
degenerated into the greatest foes of education, for
they will deny the universal sickness and hinder
the physician. They become peevish, these poor
nerveless creatures, if one speak of their weakness
and combat the shameful spirit of lies in them.
They would gladly make one believe that they
have outstripped all the centuries, and they walk
with a pretence of happiness which has something
pathetic about it, because their happiness is so
inconceivable. One would not even ask them, as
Tannhäuser did Biterolf, "What hast thou, poor
wretch, enjoyed ! ” For, alas! we know far better
ourselves, in another way. There is a wintry sky
over us, and we dwell on a high mountain, in
danger and in need. Short-lived is all our joy,
and the sun's rays strike palely on our white
mountains. Music is heard; an old man grinds
an organ, and the dancers whirl round, and the
heart of the wanderer is shaken within him to see
it: everything is so disordered, so drab, so hope-


## p. 137 (#191) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
137
less. Even now there is a sound of joy, of clear
thoughtless joy! but soon the mist of evening
closes round, the note dies away, and the wanderer's
footsteps are heard on the gravel; as far as his
eye can reach there is nothing but the grim and
desolate face of nature.
It may be one-sided, to insist only on the blurred
lines and the dull colours in the picture of modern
life: yet the other side is no more encouraging,
it is only more disturbing. There is certainly
strength there, enormous strength; but it is wild,
primitive and merciless. One looks on with a
chill expectancy, as though into the caldron of a
witch's kitchen; every moment there may arise
sparks and vapour, to herald some fearful appari-
tion. For a century we have been ready for a
world-shaking convulsion; and though we have
lately been trying to set the conservative strength
of the so-called national state against the great
modern tendency to volcanic destructiveness, it
will only be, for a long time yet, an aggravation
of the universal unrest that hangs over us. We
need not be deceived by individuals behaving as if
they knew nothing of all this anxiety: their own
restlessness shows how well they know it. They
think more exclusively of themselves than men
ever thought before; they plant and build for their
little day, and the chase for happiness is never
greater than when the quarry must be caught to-
day or to-morrow: the next day perhaps there is
no more hunting. We live in the Atomic Age, or
rather in the Atomic Chaos. The opposing forces
were practically held together in mediæval times


## p. 137 (#192) ############################################

136
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
drawing away in enmity again, and long to tear
each other in pieces. The sciences, blindly driv-
ing along, on a laisser faire system, without a
common standard, are splitting up, and losing hold
of every firm principle. The educated classes are
being swept along in the contemptible struggle for
wealth. Never was the world more worldly, never
poorer in goodness and love. Men of learning are
no longer beacons or sanctuaries in the midst of
this turmoil of worldliness; they themselves are
daily becoming more restless, thoughtless, loveless.
Everything bows before the coming barbarism, art
and science included. The educated men have
degenerated into the greatest foes of education, for
they will deny the universal sickness and hinder
the physician. They become peevish, these poor
nerveless creatures, if one speak of their weakness
and combat the shameful spirit of lies in them.
They would gladly make one believe that they
have outstripped all the centuries, and they walk
with a pretence of happiness which has something
pathetic about it, because their happiness is so
inconceivable. One would not even ask them, as
Tannhäuser did Biterolf, “What hast thou, poor
wretch, enjoyed ! ” For, alas! we know far better
ourselves, in another way. There is a wintry sky
over us, and we dwell on a high mountain, in
danger and in need. Short-lived is all our joy,
and the sun's rays strike palely on our white
mountains. Music is heard; an old man grinds
an organ, and the dancers whirl round, and the
heart of the wanderer is shaken within him to see
it: everything is so disordered, so drab, so hope-


## p. 137 (#193) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
137
less. Even now there is a sound of joy, of clear
thoughtless joy! but soon the mist of evening
closes round, the note dies away, and the wanderer's
footsteps are heard on the gravel; as far as his
eye can reach there is nothing but the grim and
desolate face of nature.
It may be one-sided, to insist only on the blurred
lines and the dull colours in the picture of modern
life: yet the other side is no more encouraging,
it is only more disturbing. There is certainly
strength there, enormous strength; but it is wild,
primitive and merciless. One looks on with a
chill expectancy, as though into the caldron of a
witch's kitchen; every moment there may arise
sparks and vapour, to herald some fearful appari-
tion. For a century we have been ready for a
world-shaking convulsion; and though we have
lately been trying to set the conservative strength
of the so-called national state against the great
modern tendency to volcanic destructiveness, it
will only be, for a long time yet, an aggravation
of the universal unrest that hangs over us. We
need not be deceived by individuals behaving as if
they knew nothing of all this anxiety: their own
restlessness shows how well they know it. They
think more exclusively of themselves than men
ever thought before; they plant and build for their
little day, and the chase for happiness is never
greater than when the quarry must be caught to-
day or to-morrow: the next day perhaps there is
no more hunting. We live in the Atomic Age, or
rather in the Atomic Chaos. The opposing forces
were practically held together in mediæval times


## p. 138 (#194) ############################################

138 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
by the Church, and in some measure assimilated
by the strong pressure which she exerted. When
the common tie broke and the pressure relaxed,
they rose once more against each other. The
Reformation taught that many things were
"adiaphora"—departments that needed no guid-
ance from religion: this was the price paid for its
own existence. Christianity paid a similar one to
guard itself against the far more religious antiquity:
and laid the seeds of discord at once. Everything
nowadays is directed by the fools and the knaves,
the selfishness of the money-makers and the brute
forces of militarism. The state in their hands
makes a good show of reorganising everything,
and of becoming the bond that unites the warring
elements; in other words, it wishes for the same
idolatry from mankind as they showed to the
Church.
And we shall yet feel the consequences. We
are even now on the ice-floes in the stream of the
Middle Ages: they are thawing fast, and their
movement is ominous: the banks are flooded, and
giving way. The revolution, the atomistic revolu-
tion, is inevitable: but what are those smallest
indivisible elements of human society?
There is surely far more danger to mankind in
transitional periods like these than in the actual
time of revolution and chaos; they are tortured
by waiting, and snatch greedily at every moment;
and this breeds all kinds of cowardice and selfish-
ness in them: whereas the true feeling of a great
and universal need ever inspires men, and makes
them better. In the midst of such dangers, who
y,


## p. 139 (#195) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 139
will provide the guardians and champions for
Humanity, for the holy and inviolate treasure that
has been laid up in the temples, little by little, by
countless generations? Who will set up again
the Image of Man, when men in their selfishness
and terror see nothing but the trail of the serpent
or the cur in them, and have fallen from their high
estate to that of the brute or the automaton?
There are three Images of Man fashioned by our
modern time, which for a long while yet will urge
mortal men to transfigure their own lives; they
are the men of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schopen-
hauer. The first has the greatest fire, and is most
calculated to impress the people: the second is
only for the few, for those contemplative natures
"in the grand style" who are misunderstood by
the crowd. The third demands the highest activity
in those who will follow it: only such men will
look on that image without harm, for it breaks
the spirit of that merely contemplative man, and
the rabble shudder at it. From the first has come
forth a strength that led and still leads to fearful
revolution: for in all socialistic upheavals it is ever
Rousseau's man who is the Typhoeus under the
Etna. Oppressed and half crushed to death by
the pride of caste and the pitilessness of wealth,
spoilt by priests and bad education, a laughing-
stock even to himself, man cries in his need on
"holy mother Nature," and feels suddenly that she
is as far from him as any god of the Epicureans.
His prayers do not reach her; so deeply sunk is
he in the Chaos of the unnatural. He contemptu-
ously throws aside all the finery that seemed his


## p. 140 (#196) ############################################

140 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
truest humanity a little while ago—all his arts
and sciences, all the refinements of his life,—he
beats with his fists against the walls, in whose
shadow he has degenerated, and goes forth to seek
the light and the sun, the forest and the crag.
And crying out, "Nature alone is good, the natural
man alone is human," he despises himself and
aspires beyond himself: a state wherein the soul
is ready for a fearful resolve, but calls the noble
and the rare as well from their utter depths.
Goethe's man is no such threatening force; in
a certain sense he is a corrective and a sedative to
those dangerous agitations of which Rousseau's
man is a prey. Goethe himself in his youth
followed the "gospel of kindly Nature" with all
the ardour of his soul: his Faust was the highest
and boldest picture of Rousseau's man, so far at
any rate as his hunger for life, his discontent and
yearning, his intercourse with the demons of the
heart could be represented. But what comes from
these congregated storm-clouds? Not a single
lightning flash! And here begins the new Image
of man—the man according to Goethe. One
might have thought that Faust would have lived
a continual life of suffering, as a revolutionary and
a deliverer, as the negative force that proceeds
from goodness, as the genius of ruin, alike religious
and daemonic, in opposition to his utterly un-
daemonic companion; though of course he could
not be free of this companion, and had at once to
use and despise his evil and destructive scepticism
—which is the tragic destiny of all revolutionary
deliverers. One is wrong, however, to expect


## p. 141 (#197) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 141
anything of the sort: Goethe's man here parts
company with Rousseau's; for he hates all violence,
all sudden transition—that is, all action: and the
universal deliverer becomes merely the universal
traveller. All the riches of life and nature, all
antiquity—arts, mythologies and sciences—pass
before his eager eyes, his deepest desires are
aroused and satisfied, Helen herself can hold him
no more—and the moment must come for which
his mocking companion is waiting. At a fair spot
on the earth, his flight comes to an end: his pinions
drop, and Mephistopheles is at his side. When
the German ceases to be Faust, there is no danger
greater than of becoming a Philistine and falling
into the hands of the devil—heavenly powers alone
can save him. Goethe's man is, as I said, the con-
templative man in the grand style, who is only
kept from dying of ennui by feeding on all the
great and memorable things that have ever existed,
and by living from desire to desire. He is not the
active man; and when he does take a place among
active men, as things are, you may be sure that no
good will come of it (think, for example, of the zeal
with which Goethe wrote for the stage! ); and
further, you may be sure that "things as they are"
will suffer no change. Goethe's man is a con-
ciliatory and conservative spirit, though in danger
of degenerating into a Philistine, just as Rousseau's
man may easily become a Catiline. All his virtues
would be the better by the addition of a little brute
force and elemental passion. Goethe appears to
have seen where the weakness and danger of his
creation lay, as is clear from Jarno's word to


## p. 141 (#198) ############################################

140
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
truest humanity a little while ago—all his arts
and sciences, all the refinements of his life,-he
beats with his fists against the walls, in whose
shadow he has degenerated, and goes forth to seek
the light and the sun, the forest and the crag.
And crying out, “Nature alone is good, the natural
man alone is human,” he despises himself and
aspires beyond himself: a state wherein the soul
is ready for a fearful resolve, but calls the noble
and the rare as well from their utter depths.
Goethe's man is no such threatening force; in
a certain sense he is a corrective and a sedative to
those dangerous agitations of which Rousseau's
man is a prey. Goethe himself in his youth
followed the “gospel of kindly Nature” with all
the ardour of his soul: his Faust was the highest
and boldest picture of Rousseau's man, so far at
any rate as his hunger for life, his discontent and
yearning, his intercourse with the demons of the
heart could be represented. But what comes from
these congregated storm-clouds ? Not a single
lightning flash! And here begins the new Image
of man—the man according to Goethe. One
might have thought that Faust would have lived
a continual life of suffering, as a revolutionary and
a deliverer, as the negative force that proceeds
from goodness, as the genius of ruin, alike religious
and dæmonic, in opposition to his utterly un-
dæmonic companion; though of course he could
not be free of this companion, and had at once to
use and despise his evil and destructive scepticism
—which is the tragic destiny of all revolutionary
deliverers. One is wrong, however, to expect



## p. 141 (#199) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
141
anything of the sort: Goethe's man here parts
company with Rousseau's; for he hates all violence,
all sudden transition—that is, all action : and the
universal deliverer becomes merely the universal
traveller. All the riches of life and nature, all
antiquity—arts, mythologies and sciences—pass
before his eager eyes, his deepest desires are
aroused and satisfied, Helen herself can hold him
no more—and the moment must come for which
his mocking companion is waiting. At a fair spot
on the earth, his flight comes to an end: his pinions
drop, and Mephistopheles is at his side. When
the German ceases to be Faust, there is no danger
greater than of becoming a Philistine and falling
into the hands of the devil-heavenly powers alone
can save him. Goethe's man is, as I said, the con-
templative man in the grand style, who is only
kept from dying of ennui by feeding on all the
great and memorable things that have ever existed,
and by living from desire to desire. He is not the
active man; and when he does take a place among
active men, as things are, you may be sure that no
good will come of it (think, for example, of the zeal
with which Goethe wrote for the stage ! ); and
further, you may be sure that "things as they are”
will suffer no change.