Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 1.djvu/433

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 391 this consolation or anguish of soul will, as we have said, be inquired into farther on; but to this place there belongs the inquiry which follows, and which stands by itself.

Besides the intelligible and the empirical character, we must mention a third which is different from them both, the acquired character, which one only receives in life through contact with the world, and which is referred to when one is praised as a man of character or censured as being without character. Certainly one might suppose that, since the empirical character, as the phenomenon of the intelligible, is unalterable, and, like every natural phenomenon, is consistent with itself, man would always have to appear like himself and consistent, and would therefore have no need to acquire a character artificially by experience and reflection. But the case is otherwise, and although a man is always the same, yet he does not always understand himself, but often mistakes himself, till he has in some degree acquired real self-knowledge. The empirical character, as a mere natural tendency, is in itself irrational; nay, more, its expressions are disturbed by reason, all the more so the more intellect and power of thought the man has; for these always keep before him what becomes man in general as the character of the species, and what is possible for him both in will and in deed. This makes it the more difficult for him to see how much his individuality enables him to will and to accomplish. He finds in himself the germs of all the various human pursuits and powers, but the difference of degree in which they exist in his individuality is not clear to him in the absence of experience; and if he now applies himself to the pursuits which alone correspond to his character, he yet feels, especially at particular moments and in particular moods, the inclination to directly opposite pursuits which cannot be combined with them, but must be entirely suppressed if he desires to follow the former undisturbed. For as our physical path upon earth is always