A History of Western Philosophy

they trampled their way to splendid downfall. Medieval romances and histories were his etiquette books. He sinned like the Hohen ...

that man may bleed to death through the truth that he recognizes." Byron expresses this in immortal lines: Sorrow is knowledge: ...

Byron, had disappeared almost at the same time." * Carlyle, who, at the time, considered Byron "the noblest spirit in Europe," a ...

the immoralist who had proved once for all that Teutonic virtue can only be preserved by unquenchable hatred of France. Bismarck ...

CHAPTER XXIV Schopenhauer SCHOPENHAUER ( 1788-1860) is in many ways peculiar among philosophers. He is a pessimist, whereas almo ...

boy had nearly forgotten German. In 1803 he was put in a boardingschool in England, where he hated the cant and hypocrisy. Two y ...

His principal work, The World as Will and Idea, was published at the end of 1818. He believed it to be of great importance, and ...

which virtue would consist in conformity to the divine will. But at this point his pessimism leads to a different development. T ...

against "the vulgar Pelagianism," by Saint Augustine and Luther; but the Gospels are sadly deficient in metaphysics. Buddhism, h ...

very sincere. The mystics to whom he appeals believed in contemplation; in the Beatific Vision the most profound kind of knowled ...

pessimism, and his doctrine that will is superior to knowledge. His pessimism made it possible for men to take to philosophy wit ...

with the Orphic component omitted. He admired the pre-Socratics, except Pythagoras. He has a close affinity to Heraclitus. Arist ...

wider field. Both Nietzsche and Machiavelli have an ethic which aims at power and is deliberately anti-Christian, though Nietzsc ...

that there is some sort of equivalence in value between my actions and thine." * True virtue, as opposed to the conventional sor ...

Nietzsche is not a nationalist, and shows no excessive admiration for Germany. He wants an international ruling race, who are to ...

Nietzsche's objection to Christianity is that it caused acceptance of what he calls "slave morality." It is curious to observe t ...

it is tamed. The criminals with whom Dostoevsky associated were better than he was, because they were more self-respecting. Niet ...

have, so far, proved more nearly right than those of liberals or Socialists. If he is a mere symptom of disease, the disease mus ...

real world has become very like his nightmare, but that does not make it any the less horrible. It must be admitted that there i ...

tion. He holds that the happiness of common people is no part of the good per se. All that is good or bad in itself exists only ...