Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/440

424 the will to live, seeing through the principium individuationis, recognises itself in all its manifestations, are accordingly primarily a sign, a symptom, that the self-manifesting will is no longer firmly held in that illusion, but the disillusion already begins to take place; so that one might metaphorically say it already flaps its wings to fly away from it. Conversely, injustice, wickedness, cruelty are signs of the opposite, thus of the deep entanglement in that illusion. Secondly, however, these virtues are a means of advancing self-renunciation, and accordingly the denial of the will to live. For true integrity, inviolable justice, this first and most important of cardinal virtues, is so hard a task that whoever professes it unconditionally and from the bottom of his heart has to make sacrifices that soon deprive life of the sweetness which is demanded to make it enjoyable, and thereby turn away the will from it, thus lead to resignation. Yet just what makes integrity honourable is the sacrifices which it costs; in trifles it is not admired. Its nature really consists in this, that the just man does not throw upon others, by craft or force, the burdens and sorrows which life brings with it, as the unjust man does, but bears himself what falls to his lot; and thus he has to bear the full burden of the evil imposed upon human life, undiminished. Justice thereby becomes a means of advancing the denial of the will to live, for want and suffering, those true conditions of human life, are its consequence, and these lead to resignation. Still more quickly does the virtue of benevolence, caritas, which goes further, lead to the same result; for on account of it one takes over even the sufferings which originally fell to the lot of others, therefore appropriates to oneself a larger share of these than in the course of things would come to the particular individual. He who is inspired with this virtue has recognised his own being in all others. And thereby he identifies his own lot with that of humanity in general; but this is a hard lot, that of care, suffering, and death. Whoever, then,