Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 1.djvu/539

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 497 monastic writings we have the very valuable work of Spence Hardy, "Eastern Monachism; an Account of the Order of Mendicants founded by Gotama Budha" (1850). It shows us the same thing in another dress. We also see what a matter of indifference it is whether it proceeds from a theistical or an atheistical religion. But as a special and exceedingly full example and practical illustration of the conceptions I have established, I can thoroughly recommend the "Autobiography of Madame de Guion." To become acquainted with this great and beautiful soul, the very thought of whom always fills me with reverence, and to do justice to the excellence of her disposition while making allowance for the superstition of her reason, must be just as delightful to every man of the better sort as with vulgar thinkers, i.e., the majority, that book will always stand in bad repute. For it is the case with regard to everything, that each man can only prize that which to a certain extent is analogous to him and for which he has at least a slight inclination. This holds good of ethical concerns as well as of intellectual. We might to a certain extent regard the well-known French biography of Spinoza as a case in point, if we used as a key to it that noble introduction to his very insufficient essay, "De Emendatione Intellectus," a passage which I can also recommend as the most effectual means I know of stilling the storm of the passions. Finally, even the great Goethe, Greek as he is, did not think it below his dignity to show us this most beautiful side of humanity in the magic mirror of poetic art, for lie represented the life of Fräulein Klettenberg in an idealised form in his "Confessions of a Beautiful Soul," and later, in his own biography, gave us also an historical account of it. Besides this, he twice told the story of the life of St. Philippo Neri. The history of the world will, and indeed must, keep silence about the men whose conduct is the best and only adequate illustration of this important point of our investigation