Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  As regards the practical instincts which depend on illusion, like love and honour, there are three cases: either men never lose them at all,—then the pain arising from them always remains; or men entirely lose them,—then along with the pleasure they certainly also lose the pain, and have become relatively much happier, which means, however, nothing more than that life has become so much poorer, and has so much nearer approached the zero-point or level of sensation,—has, however, also become conscious of its poverty and worthlessness. One may somewhat compare both states with a miser who rejoices over the treasures in his chest, until one fine day he opens the chest and finds it empty; only in this image the torment really endured, even in the first state along with the illusion of happiness, is not expressed. The third possible, and at the same time most probable case, is that men only partially lose these instincts, that they indeed quite see through their illusory character, and in consequence somewhat diminish the force of the impulse by reason, but are never able completely to destroy it. This case contains the pains of both the others combined. For the miser who has seen quite well that his chests are empty now falls into the delusion of wishing to regard them, despite his clear and better rational insight, as still full, and is all the time rational enough to understand his aberration without being able to deliver himself from it. He has at the same time the rational consciousness of the poverty of his life, of the illusory nature of his pleasure and pain springing from these impulses, and of the great predominance of pain. He has therefore now also the full consciousness of the torments to which he is condemned, the rational endeavour to suppress these impulses, and the painful feeling of the impotence of his rational will over instinctive impulse. Wherefore Goethe says quite correctly, “Nature, as the sternest of tyrants, punishes that man who destroys illusion in himself and others” (vol. xl. p. 386), and yet can and will this destruction of the illusion not be spared humanity. Pitiless and cruel is this work of the destruction of illusion, like the rough pressure of the hand that wakes one sweetly dreaming to the torment of reality. But the world must onwards; the goal cannot be approached in dreams, it must be wrestled for and conquered, and only through pain lies the path to redemption. The individual rightly sees the reconciliation of this difference as regards himself in the complete surrender of egoism, and the self-renouncing thought that the love and instinct to found a household is yet to the advantage of the future, in that they call into existence the new generation, and thus serve the purpose of progress; but it would be a manifest contradiction if a generation should always only exist for the succeeding one, whilst each by itself is wretched. This pointing ever forward awakes the involuntary thought that progress is not for the sake of progress, but for the sake of a goal beyond the progress. The like answer may be made to the objection that the illusive instincts, as honour, the acquisitive impulse, love, help to further evolution. This is certainly true, but it can lend those instincts no value as regards real happiness so long as we can attribute no endæmonological value to the enhancement of the evolution. It is forgotten in these replies that the process as such is only the sum of its moments.

  Let us now cast a glance at the belauded progress of the world. Wherein does it consist? how are we made happy? Progress in art one would not be warranted in rating highly; although our modern works of art are richer in ideas, yet the artistic form was more perfect in antiquity, and the resuscitated Greeks would with perfect truth declare our works of art in all departments to be thoroughly barbarous. (Think of our romances and stage-plays, of our statues and exhibitions of pictures, of our architecture, and the monotonous temperament in music!) The more the ideal content of our works of art threatens to burst the confining form, the further are these works removed from the pure notion of art, that is rooted in absolute harmony of form and matter. Space unfortunately prevents my working out these suggestions in detail.

  Scientific progress contributes in a purely theoretical reference little or nothing to the happiness of the world, but in practical reference they stand in good stead political; social, moral and technical progress. The influence of science on moral progress I may regard as insignificant, as also in political and social respects it must not be rated too highly, since in these departments theory for the most part hobbles after instinctive practice. On the other hand, it is of incalculable importance in the progress of the practical arts. But what do these achieve for human happiness? Manifestly nothing but afford the possibility of social and political progress and increase the conveniences of life, and perhaps also superfluous luxury! Partly this takes place directly, partly by the facilitation and perfection of commercial communication. Factories, steamships, railways, and telegraphs have done nothing positive for the happiness of mankind; they have only diminished a part of the impediments and inconveniences by which man was previously confined and oppressed. If a more rational cultivation of the soil and a facilitated importation from less populated regions has placed a greater supply of food at the command of the civilised nations, this certainly has had the result that the number of the population of these civilised nations have in part very considerably increased; but is the happiness or the misery of the individual and the community thereby increased? Especially when we remember that with increasing population the number of the millions living on the verge of starvation likewise increases. The augmented food-supply of the earth, the augmented comfort and the augmented luxury taken together represent the augmented national wealth or terrestrial wealth. This latter, likewise, cannot be regarded as a growth of positive happiness. In the first place, it effects nothing but an increase of the population, and therefore of misery; secondly, its high appreciation depends on the illusion created by the instinctive acquisitive impulse; thirdly, its consequence is a diminution of pain, and an approximation to the zero-point of sensation that is never attainable. The only positive utility of the growth of opulence is that it sets free for mental exertion energies that before were absorbed in the struggle with want, and that it thereby accelerates the progress of the world. This result appertains, however, only to the process as such, by no means to the individuals or nations concerned in the process, who yet imagine that they are working for themselves in increasing their national wealth.

  The last great advances of the world which remain to be considered are the political and social. Let us assume the most perfect State to be realised and the peoples of the earth to have solved their political problem in a complete manner. What then does one get by this political framework? A snail-shell without the snail, an empty form that waits its filling up. Mankind does not live in order to be governed, but it is governed in order to be able to live (in the highest sense of the term). All the well-known problems of the State are of a negative nature. They are protection against, security for, defence from, &c. Where the State fulfils positive objects (e.g., instruction) it trespasses on the sphere of Society, which, in the immaturity of the latter, may occasionally become necessity. The most perfect state does, therefore, nothing but place man in a situation where he can begin to live without fear of unwarranted attacks, i.e., to unfold his forces and capabilities in all directions, which do not infringe the rights of others. Thus the ideal of the State also simply places man at the threshold of his felicity.

  With the social ideals it is not different. They show how to lighten to a certain extent the struggle with want for the necessaries of life through the principle of the solidarity of the community and other expedients. They teach how to alleviate as far as possible the torments and cares which one draws upon oneself through the satisfaction of the instincts of founding a household by the best possible arrangement of the family relations; to fulfil the duties of the education of children at the least possible cost, &c.—The question is always only the mitigation of evils, not attainment of positive happiness. The sole apparent exception is the increase of the collective wealth resulting from co-operation, but this has been already dealt with above.

  These, then, would be the main lines
of the world’s progress. So far as they rest on realities, they agree in lifting man more and more from the depths of his misery towards the level of sensation. Were the ideal goals attained, the zero or indifference point of feeling as regards these phases of life would be attained; but as ideals always remain ideals, and the progress of humanity may indeed approach, but never reach them, even in these directions the world will never attain the height of the zero-point, but always remain below it, pain being still in excess.

  One may become clear with regard to the endœmonological value of the world’s progress even without considering it in detail. One has only to reflect on the analogous case of the individual. He who comes into a better position in life will in passing from worse to better certainly feel pleasure. This pleasure, however, disappears with astonishing rapidity; the new and better circumstances are taken as matter of course, and the man does not feel himself a hair’s-breadth the happier than in his former position. (The transition from better to worse worse produces a much more lasting pain.) It is just so with a nation, just so with humanity at large. Who feels himself better off now than thirty years ago because now there are railways and then there were none? And should the difference still be felt by older persons, assuredly not by those who have been born since the existence of railways. With the increased means nothing more has increased than wishes and needs, and in their train discontent And even should mankind ever succeed in getting rid of the infectious diseases by preventive and eradicating measures—the hereditary by more rational sexual unions (contingent on a relaxation of the present unnaturally limited and almost blind struggle for existence) the rest by the progress of hygiene and medicine; should it ever succeed in preparing aliment from inorganic substances in chemical laboratories, and in limiting multiplication without restraining the instinct of propagation in accordance with the available means of subsistence,—yet all this progress would offer nothing positive, but only remove or mitigate the worst, and in part most unnatural, evils of existing physical and social circumstances. But at the same time they would cause the question to become the more burning, What then to do with this life, with what substance of inner worth it is to be filled? what is to compensate for the bearing of the burden of life rendered placid by the simplest elementary considerations?

  Whereas before the discomfort of existence, so far as it was felt, was referred to external evils and defects, and the attainment of a comfortable condition hoped for from the removal of the external evils most sensibly felt at the time, the error that lies in this projection of the cause of discomfort is the more perceived the more the palpable external ills of human life are removed by the world’s progress; and in proportion as this escape from the pessimistic insight into the essential nature of the personal will is cut off, in the same degree grows the perception that pain is immanent to will; that the wretchedness of existence is founded in existence itself, and is dependent on external circumstances more in appearance than in reality. Consequently every approach to the ideal of the best life attainable on earth must make the question as to the absolute value of this life only an ever more burning one, since both the continually increasing perception of the illusory nature of most positive pleasures, as the ever clearer and clearer insight into the inevitableness of the misery lurking in one’s own breast, like a goblin perpetually changing its shape, co-operates to this result. As, according to Paul, the law given to the Jews was precisely the “strength” of sin (i Cor. xv. 56), so is the utmost world-progress the “strength” of the pessimistic consciousness of humanity. And just because it is so, and only because it is, is the utmost possible progress a practical postulate. In the fact that men usually only desire progress because they hope to become happier, we may see the practically wholesome fascination of the third stage of the illusion, through which the Unconscious stimulates men to tasks which for the most part they would be incapable of imposing on themselves if they penetrated the true purposes of the Unconscious. But if it is true, that the enhancement of consciousness to the point of a general pessimistic consciousness of humanity is the purpose of the Unconscious directly preceding the final purpose (as we shall see in the next chapter), then from our standpoint the progress of the world is precisely so urgent a requirement because it leads to this goal.

  In the resumé of the first stage of the illusion we saw that peoples in a state of nature are not more wretched, but more happy, than civilised peoples; that the poor, low, and rude classes are happier than the rich, aristocratic, and cultivated; that the stupid are happier than the clever; in general, that a being is the happier the obtuser is its nervous system, because the excess of pain over pleasure is so much less, and the entanglement in the illusion so much greater. But now with the progressive development of humanity grow not only wealth and wants, but also the sensibility of the nervous system and the capacity and education of the mind, consequently also the excess of felt pain over felt pleasure and the destruction of illusion, i.e., the consciousness of the paltriness of life, of the vanity of most enjoyments and endeavours and the feeling of misery; there grows accordingly both misery and also the consciousness of misery, as experience shows, and the often-asserted enhancement of the happiness of the world by the progress of the world rests on an altogether superficial appearance. (This is especially to be laid to heart by those who perhaps are not quite in accord with me, that at the present time the sum of pain in the world outweighs the sum of pleasure.)

  As the suffering of the world has increased with the development of organisation from the primitive cell to the origin of man, so will it further increase with the progressive development of the human spirit until one day the goal is attained. It was a childish short-sightedness when Rousseau, from the perception of increasing suffering, drew the conclusion: the world must, if possible, turn back—back to the age of childhood. As if the childhood of humanity had not been misery! No; if once backwards, then farther, ever farther, to the creation of the world! But we have no choice. We must forwards, even if we desire it not. It is not, however, the golden age that lies before us, but the iron; and the dreams of the golden age of the future prove still more empty than those of the past. As the burden becomes heavier to the bearer the longer the road on which he carries it, so will also the suffering of mankind and the consciousness of its misery increase and increase until it is insupportable. We may also employ the analogy with the ages of the individual. As the individual at first as child lives for the moment, then as youth revels in transcendent ideals, then as man strives after glory, and subsequently possessions and practical science, until, finally, as old man, perceiving the vanity of all endeavour, he lays to rest his weary head, longing for peace, so, too, Humanity. We see nations arise, mature, and perish; we find also in Humanity the clearest symptoms of growing older. Why should we doubt that, after the energetic activity of manhood, for it, too, one day old age will come, when, consuming the practical and theoretical fruits of the past, it enters upon a period of ripe contemplation, when with melancholy sorrow it overlooks at a single glance all the sufferings so unthinkingly of its past life-career, and comprehends the whole vanity of the previously supposed goals of its endeavour?

  There is only one difference between it and the individual. Hoary humanity will have no heir to whom it may bequeath its heaped-up wealth, no children and grandchildren, the love of whom might disturb the clearness of its thought. Then will it, imbued with that sublime melancholy which one usually finds in men of genius, or even in highly intellectual old men, hover like a glorified spirit over its own body, as it were, and as (Edipus at Colonos, feel in the anticipated peace of non-existence the sorrows of existence as if they were alien to it, no longer passion, but only a self-compassion. That is the heavenly serenity, the divine repose, that breathes in Spinoza’s Ethics, when the passions are swallowed up in the abyss of reason because they are clearly and distinctly grasped as ideas. But even if we assume that pure passionless state attained, if even the sorrow in self-compassion is glorifi
ed, it yet does not cease to be grief, i.e., pain. The illusions are dead, hope is extinct; for what is there still to hope? The dead-tired humanity drags along its frail earthly body wearily from day to day. The highest attainable were indeed painlessness, for where is positive happiness still to be sought? In the vain self-sufficiency of the knowledge that all is vanity, or that in the contest with those vain impulses reason now usually remains victor? Oh, no; such vainest of all vanities, such arrogance of the intellect has long been surmounted! But even painlessness is not attained by hoary humanity, for it is still not pure spirit; it is feeble and frail, and must nevertheless work in order to live, and yet does not know for what it lives; for it has indeed the illusions of life behind it, and hopes and expects nothing more from life. It has, as every very aged and self-knowing man, only one wish more: repose, peace, eternal dreamless sleep that may soothe its weariness. After the three stages of illusion of the hope of a positive happiness it has finally seen the folly of its endeavour: it finally foregoes all positive happiness, and longs only for absolute painlessness, for nothingness, Nirvana. But not, as before, this or that man, but mankind longs for nothingness, for annihilation. This is the only conceivable end of the third and last stage of the illusion.