Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/565

ART AND MORALITY. 543 question of the zuky and wJurefore, the where and whetit in sinking itself completely in the pure what of things. While with the majority of mankind, as with ani- mals, the intellect always remains a prisoner in the service of the will to live, of self-preservation, of personal inter- ests, in gifted men, in artists and thinkers, it strips off all that is individual, and, in disinterested vision of the Ideas, becomes pure, timeless subject, freed from the will. Art removes individuality from the subject as well as from the' object ; its comforting and cheering influence depends on X^& fact that it elevates those enjoying it to the stand- point — raised above all pain of desire — of a fixed, calm, com- pletely objective contemplation of the unchangeable essence, of the eternal types of things. For aesthetic intuition the object is not a thing under relations of space, time, and cause, but only an expression, an exemplification, a representative of the Idea. Poetry, which presents — most perfectly in trag- eHy^the Idea of humanity, stands higher than the plastic artjs. The highest rank, however, belongs to music, since it does not, like the other arts, represent single Ideas, but — as an unconscious metaphysic, nay, a second, ideal world above the material world — the will itself. In view of this high appreciation of their art, it is not surprising that musicians have contributed a considerable contingent to the band of Schopenhauer worshipers. A different source of attraction for the wider circle of readers was supplied by the piquant spice of pessimism. If the purposiveness of the phenomena of nature points to the unity of the primal will, the unspeakable misery of life, which Schopenhauer sets forth with no less of eloquence, proves the blindness and irrationality of the world-ground. To live is to suffer; the world contains incomparably more pain than pleasure ; it is the worst possible world. In the world of sub-animal nature aimless striving; in the ani- mal world an insatiable impulse after enjoyment — while the will, deceiving itself with fancied happiness to come, which always remains denied it, and continually tossed to and fro between necessity and ennui, never attains complete satis- faction. The pleasure which it pursues is nothing but the removal of a dissatisfaction, and vanishes at once when the