THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

SCHOPENHAUER 253
Tinsociability of the genius; he is thinking of the fundamental, the uni-
versal, the eternal; others are thinking of the temporary, the specific, the
immediate; his mind and theirs have no common ground, and never meet.
"As a rule, a man is sociable just in the degree in which he is intellectually
poor and generally vulgar." 115 The man of genius has his com-
pensations, and does not need company so much as people who live in
perpetual dependence on what is outside them. "The pleasure which he
receives from all beauty, the consolation which art affords, the enthusiasm
of the artist, . . . enable him to forget the cares of life," and "repay
him for the suffering that increases in proportion to the clearness of
consciousness, and for liis desert loneliness among a different race of
men." 116
The result, however, is that the genius is forced into isolation, and
sometimes into madness; the extreme sensitiveness which brings him pain
along with imagination and intuition, combines with solitude and maladaptation
to break the bonds that hold the mind to reality. Aristotle was
right again: "Men distinguished in philosophy, politics, poetry or art
appear to be all of a melancholy temperament." 117 The direct connection
of madness and genius "is established by the biographies of great men,
such as Rousseau, Byron, Alfieri, etc." 118 "By a diligent search in lunatic
asylums, I have found individual cases of patients who were unquestionably
endowed with great talents, and whose genius distinctly appeared
through their 119
madness."
Yet in these semi-madmen, these geniuses, lies the true
aristocracy of
mankind. "With regard to the intellect, nature is highly aristocratic. The
distinctions which it has established are greater than those which are
made in any country by birth, rank, wealth, or caste." 120 Nature gives
genius only to a few because such a temperament would be a hindrance in
the normal pursuits of life, which require concentration on the specific
and immediate. "Nature really intended even learned men to be tillers
of the soil; indeed, professors of philosophy should be estimated according
to this standard; and then their achievements will be found to come
up to all fair expectations." 121
3. ART
This deliverance of knowledge from servitude to the will, this forgetting
of the individual self and its material interest, this elevation of the mind
^"Wisdom of Life," p. 24. An apologia pro vita sua.
n7
*% 345*
In "Wisdom of Life," p. 19.
"^he source of Lombroso who adds Schopenhauer to the list.
"% 247- ^H, 342.
mIII, 20. The professor of philosophy might avenge himself by pointing out that
by nature we seem to he hunters rather than tillers; that agriculture is a human
invention, not a natural instinct.