78 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



world in the eternal and lasting content of its ideas. 1 

 . . . According to Schopenhauer, art and philosophy 

 have the same beginning and the same end; their 

 common origin is the intellect of genius, their common 

 end is to exhibit the essence of things : both desire to 

 discover, each in its own way, what the essence of 

 things is. Art also labours at the problem of existence, 

 tries to answer the question : What is life ? Every true 

 and genuine work of art is an answer to this question. 

 But whilst philosophy tries to fix its conception of the 

 essence of things in definite notions, art remains true to 

 its origin, and gives its intuitions of the ideas in the 

 simplest and clearest forms, through which it makes its 

 conception immediately evident and easily grasped. For 

 ordinary intelligence the essence of things is obscured 

 by the mist of objective and subjective accidents ; art 

 removes this mist; every genuine work of art unfolds 

 an idea, emanates from an inspired conception which 

 in the execution . . . frequently loses in force : this 

 explains why the sketches of great masters are fre- 

 quently more interesting and inspiring than their fully 

 elaborated works. Now as the world-ideas are the 

 theme of art, and as they rise from the lowest stage to 

 the highest, from the appearance of material forces up 

 to that of the human will illuminated by the intellect, 

 art equally unfolds itself in different stages which run 

 parallel with the world itself. The will reveals itself in 

 the elemental forms and figures of bodies, in the passions, 

 characters, and actions of men ; the will is the ground 



1 Kuno Fischer's ' Arthur Schop- of Modern Philosophy '), 1st ed., 

 ^nhauer' (vol. viii. of the 'History 1893, p. 315. 



