THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

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THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
V. THE WORLD AS EVIL
But if the world is will, it must be a world of suffering.
And first, because will itself indicates want, and its grasp is always
greater than its reach. For every wish that is satisfied there remain ten
that are denied. Desire is infinite, fulfilment is limited "it is like the
alms thrown to a that beggar5 keeps him alive today in order that Ms
as our consciousness
misery may be prolonged tomorrow. ... As long
is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires
with their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are subject to willing,
we can never have lasting happiness or peace." 65 And fulfilment never
satisfies; is nothing so fatal to an ideal as its realization. "The satisfied
passion oftener leads to unhappiness than to happiness. For its demands
often conflict so much with the personal welfare of him who is concerned
that they undermine it."' 13 Each individual bears within himself a disruptive
contradiction; the realized desire develops a new desire, and so on
endlessly. "At bottom this results from the fact that the will must live
on itself, for there exists nothing besides it, and it is a hungry will." 70
In every individual the measure of the pain essential to him was deter-
mined cnce for all by his nature; a measure which could neither remain
empty, nor be more than filled ... If a great and pressing care is lifted
from our breast, . , . another immediately replaces it, the whole material
of which was already there before, but could not conie into consciousness
as care because there was no capacity left for it ... But now that there
is room for this it comes forward and occupies the throne. 71
Again, life is evil because pain is its basic stimulus and reality, and
pleasure is merely a negative cessation of pain. Aristotle was right: the
wise man seeks not pleasure, but freedom from care and pain.
All satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is, in reality and
essence, negative only. . * . We are not properly conscious of the blessings
and advantages we actually possess, nor do we prize them, but think of them
merely as a matter of course, for they gratify us only negatively, by restraining
suffering. Only when we have lost them do we become sensible of their
value; for the want, the privation, the sorrow, is the positive thing, com-
municating itself directly to us. ... What was it that led the Cynics to
repudiate pleasure in any form, if it was not the fact that pain is, in a
greater or less degree, always bound up with pleasure? , . . The same truth
is contained in that fine French proverb; le mieux est Fennemi du bien
leave well enough alone. 73
Life is evil because "as soon as want and suffering permit rest to a
5 ennui is at once so near that he necessarily requires diversion/* 78
"1,253- "TO, 368. *I,*oi. "1,409.
*"!, 4 1 1 ; "Counsels and Maxims,** p. 5. "The better is enenrg ol the good.**
^404.