THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

SCHOPENHAUER 249
it for the moment may chance to fall.3390 Misery and strife continue after
the death of the individual, and must continue, so long as will is dominant
in man. There can be no victory over the ills of life until the will
has been utterly subordinated to knowledge and intelligence.
VI. THE WISDOM OF LIFE
i. PHILOSOPHY
Consider, first, the absurdity of the desire for material goods. Fools
believe that if they can only achieve wealth, their wills can be com-
pletely gratified; a man of means is supposed to be a man with means for
the fulfilment of every desire. "People are often reproached for wishing
for money above all things, and for loving it more than anything else;
but it is natural and even inevitable for people to love that which, like
an unwearied Proteus, is always ready to turn itself into whatever object
their wandering wishes or their manifold desires may fix upon. Everything
else can satisfy only one wish; money alone is absolutely good, ... be-
cause it is the abstract satisfaction of every wish." 91 Nevertheless, a life
devoted to the acquisition of wealth is useless unless we know how to
turn it into joy; and this is an art that requires culture and wisdom. A
succession of sensual pursuits never satisfies for long; one must understand
the ends of life as well as the art of acquiring means. "Men are a
thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring cidture >
though it is quite certain that what a man is contributes more to his
happiness than what he has,"*2 "A man who has no mental needs is
called a Philistine"; 93 he does not know what to do with his leisure
difficilis in otio quies; g4t he searches greedily from place to place for new
sensations; and at last he is conquered by that nemesis of the idle rich or
the reckless voluptuary ennui
Not wealth but wisdom is the Way. "Man is at once impetuous
striving of will (whose focus lies in the reproductive system), and eternal,
free, serene subject of pure knowledge (of which the focus is the brain) ." M
Marvelous to say, knowledge, though born of the will, may yet master
the will. The possibility of the independence of knowledge first appears
in the indifferent way in which the intellect occasionally responds to the
dictates of desire. "Sometimes the intellect refuses to obey the -will: e. g.,
when we try in vain to fix our minds upon something, or when we call in
vain upon the memory for something that was entrusted to it. The anger
of the will against the intellect on such occasions makes its relation to it^
1, 515. ^-Essays,