very sincere. The mystics to whom he appeals believed in contemplation; in the Beatific Vision
the most profound kind of knowledge was to be achieved, and this kind of knowledge was the
supreme good. Ever since Parmenides, the delusive knowledge of appearance was contrasted
with another kind of knowledge, not with something of a wholly different kind. Christianity
teaches that in knowledge of God standeth our eternal life. But Schopenhauer will have none of
this. He agrees that what commonly passes for knowledge belongs to the realm of Maya, but
when we pierce the veil, we behold not God, but Satan, the wicked omnipotent will, perpetually
busied in weaving a web of suffering for the torture of its creatures. Terrified by the Diabolic
Vision, the sage cries "Avaunt!" and seeks refuge in non-existence. It is an insult to the mystics
to claim them as believers in this mythology. And the suggestion that, without achieving
complete non-existence, the sage may yet live a life having some value, is not possible to
reconcile with Schopenhauer's pessimism. So long as the sage exists, he exists because he
retains will, which is evil. He may diminish the quantity of evil by weakening his will, but he
can never acquire any positive good.
Nor is the doctrine sincere, if we may judge by Schopenhauer's life. He habitually dined well, at
a good restaurant; he had many trivial love-affairs, which were sensual but not passionate; he
was exceedingly quarrelsome and unusually avaricious. On one occasion he was annoyed by an
elderly seamstress who was talking to a friend outside the door of his apartment. He threw her
downstairs, causing her permanent injury. She obtained a court order compelling him to pay her
a certain sum (15 thalers) every quarter as long as she lived. When at last she died, after twenty
years, he noted in his accountbook: "Obit anus, abit onus."* It is hard to find in his life
evidences of any virtue except kindness to animals, which he carried to the point of objecting to
vivisection in the interests of science. In all other respects he was completely selfish. It is
difficult to believe that a man who was profoundly convinced of the virtue of asceticism and
resignation would never have made any attempt to embody his convictions in his practice.
Historically, two things are important about Schopenhauer: his
* "The old woman dies, the burden departs."