Genius and Virtue by Arthur SCHOPENHAUER | Psychology, Self-help | FULL Unabridged AudioBook

section 10 of the arts of controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by carl manchester 2010 the art of controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer section 10 genius and virtue when I think it is the spirit of the world which is striving to express its thought it is nature which is trying to know and fathom itself it is not the thoughts of some other mind which I am endeavoring to trace but it is I who transformed that which exists into something which is known and thought and would otherwise neither come into being nor continue in it in the realm of physics it was held for thousands of years to be a fact beyond question that water was a simple and consequently an original element in the same way in the realm of metaphysics it was held for a still longer period that the ego was a simple and consequently an indestructible entity I have shown however that it is composed of two heterogeneous parts namely the will which is metaphysical in its character a thing in itself and the knowing subject which is physical and a mere phenomenon let me illustrate what I mean take any large massive heavy building this hard ponderous body that fills so much space exists I tell you only in the soft pulp of the brain there alone in the human brain has it any being unless you understand this you can go no further true it is the world itself that is a miracle the world of material bodies I looked at two of them both were heavy symmetrical and beautiful one was a Jasper VARs with golden rim and golden handles the other was an organism an animal a man when I had sufficiently admired their exterior I asked my attendant genius to allow me to examine the inside of them and I did so in the VARs I found nothing but the force of gravity and a certain obscure desire which took the form chemical affinity but when I entered into the other how shall I express my astonishment at what I saw it is more incredible than all the fairy tales and fables that were ever conceived nevertheless I shall try to describe it even at the risk of finding no credence for my tale in this second thing or rather in the upper end of it called the head which on its exterior side looks like anything else a body in space heavy and so on I found no less an object than the whole world itself together with the whole of the space in which all of it exists and the whole of the time in which all of it moves and finally everything that fills both time and space in all its variegated and infinite character nay strangest sight of all I found myself walking about in it it was no picture that I saw it was no Peep Show but reality itself this it is that is really and truly to be found in a thing which is no bigger than a cabbage and which on occasion an executioner might strike offer to blow and suddenly smother that world in darkness and night the world I say would vanish did not heads grow like mushrooms and where they're not always plenty of them ready to snatch it up as it is sinking down into nothing and keep it going like a ball this world is an idea which they all have in common and they expressed the community of their thought by the word objectivity in the face of this vision I felt as if I were urged schooner when Krishna appeared to him in his true majesty with his hundred thousand arms and eyes and mouths when I see a wide landscape and realized that it arises by the operation of the functions of my brain that it is to say of time-space and causality on certain spots which have gathered on my retina I feel that I carry it within me I have an extraordinarily clear consciousness of the identity of my own being with that of the external world nothing provides so vivid an illustration of this identity as a dream for in a dream other people appear to be totally distinct from and to possess the most perfect objectivity and a nature which is quite different from ours and which often puzzles surprises astonishes or terrifies errs and yet it is all our own self it is even so with the will which sustains the whole of the external world and gives it life it is the same well that is in ourselves and it is there alone that we are immediately conscious of it but it is the intellect in ourselves and in others which makes all these miracles possible for it is the intellect which everywhere divides actual being into subject and object it is a Hall of phantasmagorical mystery inexpressibly marvelous incomparably magical the difference in degree of mental power which set so wide a gulf between the genius and the ordinary mortal rests it is true upon nothing else than a more or less perfect development of the cerebral system but it is this very difference which is so important because the whole of the real world in which we live and move possesses in existence only in relation to this cerebral system accordingly the difference between a genius and an ordinary man is a total diversity of world and existence the difference between man and the lower animals may be similarly explained when MoMA's was said to ask for a window in the breasts it was an allegorical joke and we cannot even imagine such a contrivance to be a possibility but it would be quite possible to imagine that the skull and its integuments were transparent and then good heavens what differences should we see in the size the form the quality the movement of the brain what degrees of value a great mind would inspire as much respect at first sight as three stars on a man's breast and what a miserable figure would be cut by many a one who wore them men of genius and intellect and all those whose mental and theoretical qualities are far more developed than their moral and practical qualities men in a word who have more mind than character are often not only awkward and ridiculous in matters of day life as has been observed by Plato in the seventh book of the Republic and portrayed by Goethe in his Tasso but they are often from a moral point of view weak and contemptible creatures as well nay they might almost be called bad men of this Rousseau has given us genuine examples nevertheless that better consciousness which is the source of all virtue is often stronger in them than in many of those whose actions are nobler than their thoughts nay it may be said that those who think nobly have a better acquaintance with virtue while the others make a better practice of it full of zeal for the good and for the beautiful they would fain fly up to heaven in a straight line but the grosser elements of this earth opposed their flight and they sink back again they are like born artists who have no knowledge of technique or find that the marble is too hard for their fingers many a man who has much less enthusiasm for the good and a far shallower acquaintance with its depths makes a better thing of it in practice he looks down upon the noble thinkers with contempt and he has a right to do it nevertheless he does not understand them and they despise him in their turn and not unjustly they utter blame for every living man has by the fact of his living signed the conditions of life but they are still more to be pitied they achieved their Redemption not on the way of virtue but on a path of their own and they are saved not by works but by faith men of no genius whatever cannot bear solitude they take no pleasure in the contemplation of nature in the world this arises from the fact that they never lose sight of their own will and therefore they see nothing of the objects of the world but the bearing of such objects upon their will and person with objects which have no such bearing their sounds within them a constant note it is nothing to me which is the fundamental base in all their music thus all things seem to them to wear a bleak gloomy strange hostile aspect it is only for their will that they seem to have any perceptive at all and it is in fact only a moral and not a theoretical tendency only a moral and not an intellectual value that their life possesses the lower animals bend their heads to the ground because all that they want to see is what touches their welfare and they can never come to contemplate things from a really objective point of view it is very seldom that unintellectual men make a true use of their erect position and then it is only when they are moved by some intellectual influence outside them the man of intellect or genius on the other hand has more of the character of the eternal subject that knows than of the finite subject that wills his knowledge is not quite engrossed and captivated by his will but passes beyond it he is the son not of the bondwoman but of the free it is not only a moral but also a theoretical tendency that is evidenced in his life nay it might perhaps be said that to a certain extent he is beyond morality of great villainy he is totally incapable and his conscience is less oppressed by ordinary sin in the conscience of the ordinary man because life as it were is a game and he sees through it the relation between genius and virtue is determined by the following considerations vice is an impulse of the will so violent in its demands that it affirms its own life by denying the life of others the only kind of knowledge that is useful to the will is the knowledge that a given effect is produced by a certain cause genius itself is a kind of knowledge namely of ideas and it is a knowledge which is unconcerned with any principle of causation the man who is devoted to knowledge of this character is not employed in the business of the will nay every man who is devoted to the purely objective contemplation of the world and it is this that is meant by the knowledge of ideas completely loses sight of his will and its objects and pays no further regard to the interests of his own person but becomes a pure intelligence free of any admixture of will where then devotion to the intellect predominates over concern for the world and its objects it shows that the man's will is not the principal element in his being but that in proportion to his intelligence it is weak violent desire which is the root of all vice never allows a man to arrive at the pure and disinterested contemplation of the world free from any relation to the will such as constitutes the quality of genius but here the intelligence remains the constant slave of the will since genius consists in the perception of ideas and men of genius contemplate they object it may be said that it is only the eye which is any real evidence of genius for the contemplative gaze has something steady and vivid about it and with the eye of genius it is often the case as with Goethe that the white membrane over the pupil is visible with violent passionate men the same thing may also happen but it arises from a different cause and may be easily distinguished by the fact that the eyes roll men of no genius at all have no interest in the idea expressed by an object but only in the relations in which that object stands to others and finally to their own person thus it is that they never indulge in contemplation or assume done with it and rarely fix their eyes long upon an object and so their eyes do not wear the mark of genius which I've described nay the regular Philistine does the direct opposite of contemplating he spies if he looks at anything it is to pry into it as may be specially observed when he screws up his eyes which he frequently does in order to see the clearer certainly no real man of genius ever does this at least habitually even though he is short-sighted what I have said will sufficiently illustrate the conflict between genius and vice it may be however nay it is often the case that genius is attended by a strong will and as little as men of genius where ever consummate Rascals were they ever perhaps perfect Saints either let me explain virtue is not exactly a positive weakness of the will it is rather an intentional restraint imposed upon its violence through a knowledge of it in its inmost being as manifested in the world this knowledge of the world the inmost being of which is communicable only in ideas is common both to the genius and to the saint the distinction between the two is that the genius reveals his knowledge by rendering it in some form of his own choice and the product is art for this the saint as such possesses no direct Faculty he makes an immediate application of his knowledge to his own will which is thus led into a denial of the world with the saint knowledge is only a means to an end whereas the genius remains at the stage of knowledge and has his pleasure in it and reveals it by rendering what he knows in his art in the hierarchy of physical organization strength of will is attended by a corresponding growth in the intelligent faculties a high degree of knowledge such as exists in the genius presupposes a powerful will though at the same time a will that is subordinate to the intellect in other words both the intellect and the will are strong but the intellect is the stronger of the two unless as happens in the case of the saint the intellect is at once applied to the will or as in the case of the artist it finds its pleasure in a reproduction of itself the will remains untamed any strength that it may lose due to the predominance of pure objective intelligence which is concerned with the contemplation of ideas and is not as in the case of the common or the bad man wholly occupied with the objects of the will in the interval when the genius is no longer engaged in the contemplation of ideas and his intelligence is again applied to the will in its objects the will is reawakened in all its strength thus it is that men of genius often have very violent desires and are addicted to sensual pleasure and to anger great crimes however they do not commit because when the opportunity of them offers they recognize their idea and see it very vividly and clearly their intelligence is thus directed to the idea and so gains the predominance over the will and turns its course as with the Saint and a crime is uncommitted the genius then always participates to some degree in the characteristics of the saint as he is a man of the same qualification and contrarily the saint always participates to some degree in the characteristics of the genius the good-natured character which is common is to be distinguished from the saintly by the fact that it consists in a weakness of will with a somewhat less market weakness of intellect a lower degree of the knowledge of the world as revealed in ideas here suffice is to check in control a will that is weak in itself genius and sanctity are far removed from good nature which is essentially weak in all its manifestations apart from all that I have said so much at least is clear what appears under the forms of time space and causality and vanishes again and in reality is nothing and reveals its nothingness by death this vicious and faithful appearance is the will but what does not appear and is no phenomenon but rather the noumenon what makes appearance possible what is not subject to the principle of causation and therefore has no vain or vanishing existence but abides forever unchanged in the midst of a world full of suffering like a ray of light in a storm free therefore from all pain and fatality this I say is the intelligence the man who is more intelligence than will is thereby delivered in respect of the greatest part of him from nothingness and death and such a man is in his nature a genius by the very fact that he lives and works the man who is endowed with genius makes an entire sacrifice of himself in the interests of everyone accordingly he is free from the obligation to make a particular sacrifice for individuals and thus he can refuse many demands which others are rightly required to meet he suffers and achieves more than all the others the spring which moves the genius to elaborate his works is not fame for that is too uncertain equality and when it is seen at close quarters of littleworth no amount of fame will make up for the labor of attaining it Nullah asked farmer to empower the quiver RA labora m-- nor is it the delight that a man has in his work for that too is outweighed by the effort which he has to make it is rather an instinct Sooey generous in virtue of which the genius is driven to express what he sees and feels in some permanent shape without being conscious of any further motive it is manifest that insofar as it leads an individual to sacrifice himself for his species and to live more in the species than in himself this impulse is possessed of a certain resemblance with such modifications of the sexual impulse as a peculiar to man the modifications to which I refer are those that can find this impulse to certain individuals of the other sex whereby the interests of the species are attained the individuals who are actively affected by this impulse may be said to sacrifice themselves for the species by their passion for each other and the disadvantaged conditions thereby imposed upon them in a word by the institution of marriage they may be said to be serving the interests of the species rather than the interests of the individual the instinct of the genius does in a higher fashion for the idea what passionate love does for the will in both cases there are peculiar pleasures and peculiar pains reserved for the individuals who in this way served the interests of their species and they live in a state of enhanced power the genius who decides once and for all to live for the interests of the species in the way which he chooses is neither fitted nor called upon to do it in the other it is a curious fact that the perpetuation of a man's name is affected in both ways in music the finest compositions are the most difficult to understand they are only for the trained intelligence they consist of long movements where it is only after a labyrinthine maze that the fundamental note is recovered it is just so with genius it is only after a course of struggle and doubt and error and much reflection and vacillation that great minds attain their equilibrium it is the longest pendulum that makes the greatest swing little minds soon come to terms with themselves in the world and then fossilize but the others flourish and are always alive and in motion the essence of genius is a measure of intellectual power far beyond that which is required to serve the individuals will but it is a measure of a merely relative character and it may be reached by lowering the degree of the will as well as by raising that of the intellect there a man whose intellect predominates over their will and yet a not possessed of genius in any proper sense their intellectual powers do indeed exceed the ordinary though not to any great extent but their will is weak they have no violent desires and therefore they are more concerned with mere knowledge than with the satisfaction of any aims such men possess talent they are intelligence and at the same time very contented and cheerful a clear cheerful and reasonable mind such as brings a man happiness is dependent on the relation established between his intellect in his will a relation in which the intellect is predominant but genius and a great mind depend on the relation between a man's intellect and that of other people a relation in which his intellect must exceed theirs and at the same time his will may also be proportionately stronger that is the reason why genius and Happiness need not necessarily exist together when the individual is distraught by cares or pleasantry or tortured by the violence of his wishes and desires the genius in him is in chained and cannot move it is only when care and desire are silent that the air is enough for a genius to live in it it is then that the bonds of matter are cast aside and the pure spirit the pure knowing spirit remains hence if a man has any genius let him guard himself from pain keep care at a distance and limit his desires but those of them which he cannot suppress let him satisfy to the full this is the only way in which he will make the best use of his rare existence to his own pleasure and the world's profit to fight with need and care or desires the satisfaction of which is refused and forbidden is good enough work for those who were they free of would have to fight with boredom and so take two bad practices but not for the man whose time if well used will bear fruit for centuries to come as Diderot says he is not merely a moral being mechanical laws do not apply in the sphere of chemistry nor do chemical laws in the sphere in which organic life is kindled in the same way the rules which avail for ordinary man will not do for the exceptions nor will their pleasures either it is a persistence uninterrupted activity that constitutes the superior mind the object to which this activity is directed is a matter of subordinate importance it has no essential bearing on the superiority in question but only on the individual who possesses it all that education can do is to determine the direction which this activity shall take and that is the reason why a man's nature is so much more important than his education for education is too natural faculty what a wax nose is to the real one or what the moon and the planets are to the Sun in virtue of his education a man says not what he thinks himself but what others have thought and he has learned as a matter of training and what he does is not what he wants but what he has been accustomed to the lower animals perform many intelligent functions much better than man for instance the finding of their way back to the place from which they came the recognition of individuals and so on in the same way there are many occasions in real life to which the genius is incomparably less equal and fitted than the ordinary man name or just as animals never commit a folly in the strict sense of the word so the average man is not exposed to folly in the same degree as the genius the average man is wholly relegated to the sphere of being the genius on the other hand lives and moves chiefly in the sphere of knowledge this gives rise to a twofold distinction in the first place a man can be one thing only but he may know countless things and thereby to some extent identify himself with them by participating in what Spinoza calls their se objective on in the second place the world as I have elsewhere observed is fine enough in appearance but in reality dreadful for torment is the condition of all life it follows from the first of these distinctions that the life of the average man is essentially one of the greatest boredom and thus we see the rich warring against boredom with as much effort and as little respite as fall to the poor in their struggle with need and adversity and from the second of them it follows that the life of the average man is overspread with a dull turbid uniform gravity whilst the brow of genius glows with mirth of a unique character which although he has sorrows of his own more poignant than those of the average man nevertheless breaks out afresh like the Sun through clouds it is when the genius is overtaken by an affliction which affects others as well as himself that this quality in him is most in evidence for then he is seen to be like man who alone can laugh in comparison with the beasts of the field which lives out its life grave and dull it is the curse of the genius that in the same measure in which others think him great and worthy of admiration he thinks them small and miserable creatures his whole life he has to suppress this opinion and as a rule they suppress theirs as well meanwhile he is condemned to live in a bleak world where he meets no equal as it were an island where there are no inhabitants but monkeys and parrots moreover he is always troubled by the illusion that from a distance a monkey looks like a man vulgar people take a huge delight in the faults and follies of great men and great men are equally annoyed at being thus reminded of their kinship with them the real dignity of a man of genius or great intellect the trait which raises him over others and makes him worthy of respect is at bottom the fact that the only unsullied and innocent part of human nature namely the intellect has the upper hand in him and prevails whereas in the other there is nothing but sinful will and just as much intellect as is requisite for guiding his steps rarely anymore very often somewhat less and of what uses it it seems to me genius might have its roots in a certain perfection and vividness of the memory as it stretches back over the events of past life for it is only by dint of memory which makes our life in the strict sense a complete whole that we attain a more profound and comprehensive understanding of it end of the art of controversy

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Length: 28min 25sec (1705 seconds)

Published: Sun May 03 2015