THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

SCHOPENHAUER
returning to itself to begin its striving anew. "This is why the effect of
music is more powerful and penetrating than the other arts, for they
speak only of shadows, while it speaks of the things itself." 12* It differs
too from the other arts because it affects our feelings directly, 130 and not
through the medium of ideas; it speaks to something subtler than the
intellect. What symmetry is to the plastic arts, rhythm is to music; hence
music and architecture are antipodal; architecture, as Goethe said, is
frozen music; and symmetry is rhythm standing still.
4. RELIGION
It dawned upon Schopenhauer's maturity that his theory of art as the
withdrawal of the will, and the contemplation of the eternal and universal
was also a theory of religion. In youth he had received very little re-
ligious training; and his temper did not incline him to respect the
ecclesiastical organizations of his time. He despised theologians: "As
ultima ratio/ 9
or the final argument, "of theologians we find among many
1S1
nations the stake" ; and he described religion as "the metaphysics of the
masses." 132 But in later years he began to see a profound significance in
certain religious practices and dogmas. "The controversy which is so
perseveringly carried on in our own day between supernaturalists and
rationalists rests on the failure to recognize the allegorical nature of all
religion." 133
Christianity, for example, is a profound philosophy of pessimism;
"the doctrine of original sin (assertion of the will) and of salvation
(denial of the will) is the great truth which constitutes the essence
of Christianity." 134
Fasting is a remarkable expedient for weakening those
desires that lead never to happiness but either to disillusionment or to
further desire. "The power by virtue of which Christianity was able tc
overcome first Judaism, and then the heathenism of Greece and Rome,
lies solely in its pessimism, in the confession that our state is both exceedingly
wretched and sinful, while Judaism and heathenism were both
optimistic" :
185
they thought of religion as a bribe to the heavenly powers
for aid towards earthly success; Christianity thought of religion as a
deterrent from the useless quest of earthly happiness. In the midst of
worldly luxury and power it has held up the ideal of the saint, the Fool
in Christ, who refuses to fight, and absolutely overcomes the individual
will 136
Buddhism is prof ounder than Christianity, because it makes the destruc*
*% 333-
^'Trlanslick (The Beautiful in Music, London, 1891, p. 23) objects to this, and
argues that music affects only the imagination directly. Strictly, of course, it affects
only the senses directly.
m ll 365. **Essays, "Religion," p. 2. ^II, 369.