Schopenhauer's Attempt to Universalize Subjectivism. Mysticism.

$138. Schopenhauer must be credited vi genuine effort to accept the metaphysical c quences of his epistemology. epistemology, as we have seen, de knowledge as centripetal. The ot of real knowledge is identical with subject of knowledge. If I am to know the versal will, therefore, I must in knowing bec that will. And this Schopenhauer mainta The innermost heart of the individual into whi he may retreat, even from his private will, is-t universal. But there is another way of arrivi. at the same knowledge. In contemplation I m become absorbed in principles and laws, rathe than be diverted by the particular spacial an temporal objects, until (and this is peculiarly tru of the æsthetic experience) my interest no longe distinguishes itself, but coincides with truth. I: other words, abstract thinking and pure willing are not opposite extremes, but adjacent points the deeper or transcendent circle of experience. One may reach this part of the circle by moving in either of two directions that at the start are directly opposite: by turning in upon the subject or by utterly giving one's self up to the object. Reality obtains no definition by this means. Phi

ophy, for Schopenhauer, is rather a programme realizing the state in which I will the universal d know the universal will. The final theory of owledge, then, is mysticism, reality directly apehended in a supreme and incommunicable exerience, direct and vivid, like perception, and at e same time universal, like thought. But the mpiricism with which Schopenhauer began, the ppeal to a familiar experience of self as will, has neanwhile been forgotten. The idea as object of ny perception, and the will as its subject were in he beginning regarded as common and verifiable tems of experience. But who, save the occasional philosopher, knows a universal will? Nor have attempts to avoid mysticism, while retaining Schopenhauer's first principle, been successful. Certain voluntarists and panpsychists have attempted to do without the universal will, and define the world solely in terms of the many individual wills. But, as Schopenhauer himself pointed out, individual wills cannot be distinguished except in terms of something other than will, such as space and time. The same is true if for will there be substituted inner feeling or consciousness. Within this category individuals can be distinguished only as points of view, which to be comparable at all must

contain common objects, or be defined in z of a system of relations like that of the phy world or that of an ethical community. The ception of pure will or pure feeling inevitab taches to itself that of an undivided unity, if: no other reason because there is no ground for tinction. And such a unity, a will or consci ness that is no particular act or idea, can be kno only in the unique experience which mystici provides.

Objective

§ 139. The way of Schopenhauer is the way one who adheres to the belief that what the think knows must always be a part of himse Spiritualism. his state or his activity. From th point of view the important element of being, is very essence or substance, is not any definab nature but an immediate relation to the knowe: The consequence is that the universe in the last analysis can only be defined as a supreme state or activity into which the individual's consciousness may develop. Spiritualism has, however, other interests, interests which may be quite independent of epistemology. It is speculatively interested in a kind of being which it defines as spiritual, and in terms of which it proposes to define the universe. Such procedure is radically different from the

›temological criticism which led Berkeley to ntain that the esse of objects is in their percipi, Schopenhauer to maintain that "the world is idea," or that led both of these philosophers to d a deeper reality in immediately intuited selfivity. For now it is proposed to understand irit, discover its properties, and to acknowledge only where these properties appear. I may now how spirit as an object; which in its properties, be sure, is quite different from matter, but which ke matter is capable of subsisting quite independatly of my knowledge. This is a metaphysical piritualism quite distinct from epistemological piritualism, and by no means easily made conistent therewith. Indeed, it exhibits an almost rrepressible tendency to overstep the bounds both of empiricism and subjectivism, an historical connection with which alone justifies its introduction in the present chapter.

Berkeley's

§ 140. To return again to the instructive example of Bishop Berkeley, we find him God as Cause, proving God from the evidence of him

Conception of

Goodness and

Order. in experience, or the need of him to support the claims of experience.

"But, whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense

When in

have not a like dependence on my will. daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to d whether I shall see or no, or to determine what part objects shall present themselves to my view: likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the i imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. The therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces ther

The ideas of Sense are more strong, lively, and dis than those of the Imagination; they have likewis steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excite random, as those which are the effects of human often are, but in a regular train or series-the admirs connection whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom & benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules, or est lished methods, wherein the Mind we depend on exce in us the ideas of Sense, are called the laws of nature.""

Of the attributes of experience here in question. independence or "steadiness" is not regarded prima facie evidence of spirit, but rather as aspect of experience for which some cause is ne essary. But it is assumed that the power to "pro duce," with which such a cause must be endowed, is the peculiar prerogative of spirit, and that this cause gives further evidence of its spiritual nature, of its eminently spiritual nature, in the orderliness and the goodness of its effects.

"The force that produces, the intellect that orders, the goodness that perfects all things is the Supreme Being.""