Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 2.djvu/361

Rh ." (Diogenes credere se dixit, videre Fortunam, ipsum intuentem, ac dicentem: aut hunc non potui tetigisse canem rabiosum.) The same spirit of cynicism is also shown in the epitaph on Diogenes, in Suidas, under the word, and in "Diogenes Laertius," vi. 2:

""

(Æra quidem absumit tempus, sed tempore numquam Interitura tua est gloria, Diogenes: Quandoquidem ad vitam miseris mortalibus æquam Monstrata est facilis, te duce, et ampla via.)

Accordingly the fundamental thought of cynicism is that life in its simplest and nakedest form, with the hardships that belong to it by nature, is the most endurable, and is therefore to be chosen; for every assistance, convenience, gratification, and pleasure by means of which men seek to make life more agreeable only brings with it new and greater ills than originally belonged to it. Therefore we may regard the following sentence as the expression of the kernel of the doctrine of cynicism: "" (Diogenes clamabat sæpius, hominum vitam facilem a diis dari, verum occultari illam quærentibus mellita cibaria, unguenta et his similia. (''Diog. Laert.,'' vi. 2.) And further: "" (''Quum igitur, repudiatis inutilibus laboribus, naturales insequi, ac vivere beate debeamus, per summam dementiam infelices sumus. ... eandem vitæ formam, quam Hercules, se vivere affirmans, nihil libertati præferens. Ibid.'') Therefore the old, genuine Cynics, Antisthenes,