Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/55

Rh every phase of activity, but also of the very existence, of every object. This ascribing certain faculties, which we know by experience to belong to us, to surrounding inanimate objects, this effort to attribute their material form to the pre-existence of some will-power in them, because it is impossible to separate the actuality of a human being from the necessarily accompanying will, with its arbitrary and constantly exercised power—is certainly a return to the very first stage of the intellectual activity of the human race. Schopenhauer has succeeded in sublimating and super-refining his system and clothing it in technical, scientific terms, which give it a fine and dignified appearance, so that he can present it with a good grace to people of culture, but its kernel is, notwithstanding, the most astonishing case of atavism which is to be found in the whole history of philosophy—a history which is. pre-eminently a record of remarkable returns of the human intellect to ancient follies and dreams long since out-grown and supposed to have been consigned to oblivion. When we find that a profound thinker like Schopenhauer, standing upon the height of modern culture, can attribute to inorganic things a will-power like that of man, in order to comprehend them, although even in man, many things are constantly taking place, beyond the influence of the will, such as change of matter, growth, etc., when we see that this system receives a cordial welcome from large numbers of the most cultured and intelligent members of modern society, we are enabled to comprehend in all their details, the ideas of the mammoth-hunter of the quaternary period, who in generalizing the petty experiences of his own limited personality, could only conceive of nature by imagining behind every phenomenon some compelling power like himself, made after his image, only more powerful and awe-inspiring, with a larger stone hatchet