the onrushing flux. And that not by suicide; for suicide only does away with the phenomenal element in man's being, it does not touch in the slightest the kernel of reality in him, that tyrant Will which is the source and cause of all his wretchedness. No, by curbing the will-to-live in himself, man ceases playing into the hands of the grasping demon within him, and sinks into the desireless, lustless calm of Nirvana.
But what does all this mean for the fate of morality itself? The morality of sympathy, as has already been repeatedly observed, is but a step on the road to salvation; its real goal is self-effacement. Now, the goal of such an ethics, in plain words, is racial self-annihilation. And if morality has meaning only in terms of human experience, as Schopenhauer himself declares, then his own ethics aims at its own extinction, at a state of Being where no morality would, by the nature of the case, be possible. This is the logical result of Schopenhauer's moral ideal. Should all humanity adopt Kant's theory of morals, the world might become an icy prison of loveless Puritans. But at the altars of Schopenhauer's ethical ideal mankind can continue to worship for just one generation. Such a theory of morals, which would devitalize mankind of its assertive energy and of its normal tendencies and healthy appetites, is diseased in character.[1]
In fact, the twist which Friedrich Nietzsche gave to Schopenhauer's moral theory, only illustrates its vulnerable character. Why, says Nietzsche, if the endless Trieb of the will-to-live has evolved man from the beast, and if egoism be the normal mode of conduct, who dare declare it immoral? Experience shows that the evolution of the race has been characterized by the survival of the fittest, not of the most compassionate. Sympathy is degeneration, hollow sentiment, the sign of a diseased age and civilization. Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva! Indeed, this is sun-heated nonsense, Nietszche says. Do no harm to yourself, rather! Assert your own might, give play to the giant that is within you! Only by the unimpeded upward climb of pitiless aggressiveness can man advance to a higher
- ↑ Cf. Volkelt, op. cit., p. 299: "So fehlt seiner Moralphilosophie der Charakter des Förderns und Bauens; alles Bejahende und Schöpferische liegt ihr fern."
