402 



NA TURE 



[Feb. 28, 1 1 



trine to the case of cholera, but we can congratulate Dr. 

 Koch on the result of his labours so far, and at the same 

 time trust that the example set us in this instance by the 

 German nation may not be thrown away upon the people 

 of this country, who, whilst having a higher interest than 

 any other in ascertaining the real nature of cholera, 

 allowed the opportunity of the Egyptian epidemic to pass 

 by without attempting any scientific investigation as to its 

 causes. 



SCHOPENHA UER 

 The World as Will and Idea. By Arthur Schopenhauer. 

 Translated from the German by R. B. Haldane, M.A., 

 and J. Kemp, M.A. Vol. I. (London : Triibner and 

 Co., 1883.) 

 A S the Kantian leaven works, philosophy shows less 

 "^^ and less of an inclination to quit what Kant de- 

 scribed as the fruitful bathos of experience. No doubt 

 many a structure is still reared around us, " pinnacled 

 dim in the intense inane," but that is simply because 

 philosophy, more than any special department of know- 

 ledge, is exposed to the inroads of the uninstructed. But 

 here, as elsewhere, the honest inquirer will find a con- 

 sensus of competent opinion which estimates these piles 

 at their true value. Serious workers pass by on the other 

 side without controversy, lest perchance they should be 

 as those on whom the tower of Siloam fell On the other 

 hand, only confusion of thought can lead people to 

 identify philosophy with science, and to suppose that, 

 when they have reckoned over the list of the sciences, 

 they may erect a stone to the great god Terminus. For, 

 though the matter of philosophy is the same as that of 

 the sciences (and not, according to the current myth, a 

 spider-like product of intestinal origin), yet the point of 

 view from which the common material is regarded is ab 

 initio different. Science, in its whole extent (including 

 psvchology), deals with the world of objects, whereas the 

 first task of philosophy is to remind scientific men of the 

 abstraction which they have been making-- and for their 

 own purposes rightly making — by showing them that the 

 world of objects is unintelligible without a subject to 

 which it is referred. Having rectified this fundamental 

 abstraction, philosophy proceeds, as theory of know- 

 ledge, to a critical analysis of the conceptions on which, 

 as ultimate presuppositions or working hypotheses, the 

 difterent sciences are based. The notion of the atom 

 and of infinite space may be mentioned as two of the 

 earliest cases where such criticism is required. The re- 

 sult of such a criticism is to show that no science can say 

 of its "facts" that they are absolutely true, because they 

 cannot be stated except in terms of the conceptions or 

 hypotheses which are assumed by the particular science. 

 But conceptions such as those of space or atom are 

 found to dissolve in self-contradiction when taken as a 

 statement of the ultimate nature of the real. It follows, 

 therefore, that they must be regarded as only a provisional 

 or partial account of things. The account they give is 

 one which may require to be superseded by — or rather, 

 which inevitably merges itself in — a less abstract statement 

 of the same facts. In the new statement, the same " facts " 

 appear differently, because no longer separated from other 

 ispccts that belong to the full reality of the known world. 



For the philosopher is essentially what Plato in a happy 

 moment styled him, o-woTrriKot, the man who insists on 

 seeing things together ; and philosophy, in her office as 

 critic of the sciences, aims at harmonising the notions on 

 which they respectively rest, and thereby reaching a 

 statement of the nature of the real which may claim to 

 overcome the abstractness of the several provisional 

 stages represented by the different sciences. 



Judged by this standard, it is to be feared, Schopen- 

 hauer's philosophy will be found wanting. Its interest is 

 undoubtedly, in the main, more literary than scientific ; 

 and in his central dogma of a metempirical or trans- 

 phenomenal Will, Schopenhauer shows himself quite the 

 traditional " metaphysician." Taken as literature, high 

 praise must be awarded to the style of his productions, 

 which is very different from that of his heavy-footed 

 countrymen generally. Pessimism was lately much in 

 fashion, and Buddhism is still highly esteemed. The 

 philosophic father of these things is tolerably sure, there- 

 fore, of an interested audience ; and " the general 

 reader" will find rich pasture in the aphoristic wisdom of 

 the man of the world, his keen and often cynical psycho- 

 logical analysis, and his genuine appreciation of art, 

 especially of music, which was almost the one redeeming 

 feature in an otherwise ignoble character. Mr. Haldane 

 and Mr, Kemp have done their work so well, that those 

 who are drawn to the book by the literary reputation of 

 the original will not have their enjoyment marred by the 

 intrusion of foreign idioms, clumsy constructions, and the 

 general lameness of the translation style. All praise 

 must also be given to the clearness and accuracy with 

 which they have rendered the philosophical terminology 

 of the work. 



But the translators would probably hardly have under- 

 taken the task, had they not believed that there was more 

 of value in Schopenhauer than what has just been allowed 

 him. And, in point of fact, it is perfectly possible to 

 divide Schopenhauer's work into two parts. The world 

 presents itself to him under the twofold aspect of " Will 

 and Idea." "The world as Idea" is the phenomenal 

 world, the world of science, while Will — one mighty un- 

 conscious desire or force — is the inner or noumenal 

 reality of which the phenomenal world is the outward ex- 

 pression. I appear to others, and to myself, as an 

 organised body — that is, as an object or complex of ideas ; 

 but I also know myself, Schopenhauer says, on the inner 

 side as Will. He next denudes this Will of the charac- 

 teristics which belong to it in the conscious life, ignoring 

 at the same time the other features which, equally with 

 Will, go to constitute that life, and then, with a superb 

 sweep of anthropomorphism, declares that Will, as an 

 impersonal force, is the essence of all phenomena — 

 the steam that drives the world. In support of this 

 thesis, he fastens on obscure facts like those of instinct ; 

 and, though he scouts at the " Bridgewater Treatises," he 

 argues from teleology in an exactly similar sense. But as 

 no scientific reader is likely to be led away by Schopen- 

 hauer's reasoning here, it is needless to enter into any _ 

 lormal refutation of his positions. It is more to the pur- 

 pose to draw attention to the side of the book which, 

 though not so distinctly Schopenhauerian, and probably 

 not so attractive reading as the collection of brilliant 

 analogies on which his system is built, contains an acute 



