The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~30,700 words · 146 passages
Cite this work
- APAArthur Schopenhauer. (n.d.). The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-essays-of-arthur-schopenhauer-studies-in-pessimism
- MLAArthur Schopenhauer. The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-essays-of-arthur-schopenhauer-studies-in-pessimism.
- ChicagoArthur Schopenhauer. The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-essays-of-arthur-schopenhauer-studies-in-pessimism.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The pages where Schopenhauer says flatly that life is a business that does not cover its costs.
Context and history
On the Sufferings of the World, On the Vanity of Existence, On Suicide. This is the text that made pessimism a philosophical position with arguments rather than a mood. A note on the edition: Essays of Schopenhauer is not a book Schopenhauer wrote under that name. It is a selection of chapters from Parerga und Paralipomena (1851) made by the English editor, under a title of the editor's own. The text is Schopenhauer's; the book is not. This is an old English translation, in the public domain. The German original is also in the catalogue, and is what should be cited.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and, at the same time, all-powerful Being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be. These things cannot be reconciled with any such belief. On the contrary, they are just the facts which support what I have been saying; they are our authority for viewing the world as the outcome of our own misdeeds, and therefore, as something that had better not have been. Whilst, under the former hypothesis, they amount to a bitter accusation against the Creator, and supply material for sarcasm; under the latter they form an indictment against our own nature, our own will, and teach us a lesson of humility. They lead us to see that, like the children of a libertine, we come into the world with the burden of sin upon us; and that it is only through having continually to atone for this sin that our existence is so miserable, and that its end is death. There is nothing more certain than the general truth that it is the grievous _sin of the world_ which has produced the grievous _suffering of the world_. I am not referring here to the physical connection between these two things lying in the realm of experience; my meaning is metaphysical. Accordingly, the sole thing that reconciles me to the Old Testament is the story of the Fall. In my eyes, it is the only metaphysical truth in that book, even though it appears in the form of an allegory. There seems to me no better explanation of our existence than that it is the result of some false step, some sin of which we are paying the penalty. I cannot refrain from recommending the thoughtful reader a popular, but at the same time, profound treatise on this subject by Claudius[1] which exhibits the essentially pessimistic spirit of Christianity.…