Page:Philosophical Review Volume 19.djvu/534

520 external factors,—fear, religious promises and threats, laws, feelings of self-respect and human dignity, Kingdoms of Ends, and what not,—Schopenhauer thinks, are but empty claptrap, when set over against the egoism that sways man's will; for at bottom they are one and all allies of selfishness, and not enemies. The only real mark of acts truly moral is the absence of all egoistic considerations; such acts are actuated by interest in one's fellow-beings, by pity for the suffering, sympathy with the cast-down, lovingkindness and justice towards all. If others' weal and woe affect my entire being so as to dominate my volition and motivate my deeds, then it is that Compassion (Mitleid) enters, "the direct participation, independent of all ulterior considerations, in the sufferings of another, leading to sympathetic assistance in the effort to prevent or remove them." "There are," Schopenhauer says, "only three fundamental springs of human conduct, and all possible motives arise from one or other of these: They are (1) Egoism, which desires the weal of the self, and is limitless; (2) Malice, which desires the woe of others, and may develop to the utmost cruelty; (3) Compassion, which desires the weal of others, and may rise to nobleness and magnanimity. Every human act is referable to one of these springs, although two of them may work together." Malice is immoral altogether. Egoism is immoral, if it aims at harming others; or else non-moral, if one's action, though actuated by self-regarding considerations, concerns no one else. Sympathy alone is moral, aiming as it does at the cessation of the woe of others and the furtherance of their weal, irrespective of any selfish purposes.

Sympathy may be either negative or positive, thus giving rise to the two cardinal virtues, from which all others may be deduced, namely, Justice and Lovingkindness. The former follows the first part of the leading moral principle: Neminem laede, Do harm to no one. The just "respect the rights of every man, and abstain from all encroachment on them; they keep themselves free from self-reproach, by refusing to be the cause of others' trouble; they do not shift on to shoulders not their own, by