From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



same time unending perils assail man from all sides, 

 perils from which he escapes only by perpetual 

 watchfulness. . . . 



' For the most part, life is but a continuous 

 struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of 

 being defeated in the end. . . . Life is a sea full 

 of reefs and perils ; man, by dint of care and prudence 

 avoids them, but knows all the while that his success 

 in steering between them by skill and energy does 

 but bring him nearer to the great total and final 

 shipwreck, for he cannot escape death.' 



Efforts, sufferings, and death! It is of these only 

 that will acquires knowledge, and it is for these that 

 after having ' affirmed itself,' it comes to negation. 

 This is the fruit of individual existence. 



' What a difference,' exclaims Schopenhauer, 

 ' between our beginning and our end. Its opening 

 scenes are characterised by the illusions of desire and 

 the transports of voluptuousness; its close by the 

 destruction of all our members and the odour of 

 the grave! The road that separates these is a 

 descending slope of lessening happiness and well- 

 being : the happy dreams of childhood, the gaiety of 

 youth, the work of manhood, the decrepitude of 

 age, the tortures of the last illness and the final 

 struggle with death! ' 



The pessimism of Schopenhauer is not only the 

 logical consequence of his philosophic premises; it is 

 founded also on a clear insight into life. This insight 

 fills him with an immense pity: pity for the animals 

 which, when they are not devoured by each other, suffer 

 untold miseries in ' a hell where men are the demons ! ' 

 Pity for men, whom the will to live leads to trouble and 

 sufferings not compensated for by sparse pleasures 

 which are mostly illusory. 



How, too, should man take pleasure in these brief 



195 



