Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/394

378 allurements and flattery it makes its way into life. But when once it is there, misery introduces crime, and crime misery; horror and desolation fill the scene. It is the theme of Æschylus.

But now the act through which the will asserts itself and man arises is one of which all are, in their inmost being, ashamed, which they therefore carefully conceal; nay, if they are caught in it, are terrified as if they had been taken in a crime. It is an action of which in cold reflection one generally thinks with dislike, and in a lofty mood with loathing. Reflections which in this regard approach the matter more closely are offered by Montaigne in the fifth chapter of the third book, under the marginal heading: "Ce que c'est que l'amour." A peculiar sadness and repentance follows close upon it, is yet most perceptible after the first performance of the act, and in general is the more distinct the nobler is the character. Hence even Pliny, the pagan, says: "Homini tantum primi coitus pœnitentia, augurium scilicet vitæ, a pœnitenda origine" (Hist. Nat., x. 83). And, on the other hand, in Goethe's "Faust," what do devil and witches practise and sing of on their Sabbath? Lewdness and obscenity. And in the same work (in the admirable Paralipomena to "Faust") what does incarnate Satan preach before the assembled multitude? Lewdness and obscenity. But simply and solely by means of the continual practice of such an act as this does the human race subsist. If now optimism were right, if our existence were to be thankfully recognised as the gift of the highest goodness guided by wisdom, and accordingly in itself praiseworthy, commendable, and agreeable, then certainly the act which perpetuates it would necessarily have borne quite another physiognomy. If, on the other hand, this existence is a kind of false step or error; if it is the work of an originally blind will, whose most fortunate development is that it comes to itself in order to abolish itself; then the act