Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/15

Rh any other than its original (Platonic) sense, he has himself employed it to translate Vorstellung, in a specimen he gives of a rendering of a passage in Kant's "Prolegomena" in a letter addressed to Haywood, published in Gwinner s &quot; Biography of Schopenhauer.&quot; This he probably did because some eminent English and French philosophers had taken the word in this sense, thinking perhaps that Kant s meaning would thus be more readily under stood. As however he uses the word idea everywhere else exclusively in its original (Platonic) sense, I have preferred to avoid needless confusion by adhering to his own declaration and definition. Besides, many English writers of note have protested against any other sense being given to it, and modern German philosophers have more and more returned to the original meaning of the term.

Some readers may take exception at such expressions as à, priority, motivation, aseity; for they are not, strictly speaking, English words. These terms however belong to Schopenhauer s own characteristic terminology, and have a distinct and clearly denned meaning ; therefore they had to be retained in all cases in which they could not be evaded, in order not to interfere with the Author's intention : a necessity which the scholar will not fail to recognise, especially when I plead in my defence that fidelity and accuracy have been my sole aim in this work.

If moreover Carlyle's words, "He who imports into his own country any true delineation, any rationally spoken word on any subject, has done well," are true, I may also be absolved from censure, if I lay before the public this version of some important utterances of a great thinker, in the hope that it may be an assistance in, and an incitement to, a deeper study of all Schopenhauer's works.

May, 1888.