better explanation of our existence than that it is the result of some false step, some sin of which we are paying the penalty. I cannot refrain from recommending the thoughtful reader a popular, but, at the same time, profound treatise on this subject by Claudius[1] which exhibits the essentially pessimistic spirit of Christianity. It is entitled: Cursed is the ground for thy sake.
Between the ethics of the Greeks and the ethics of the Hindoos, there is a glaring contrast. In the one case (with the exception, it must be confessed, of Plato), the object of ethics is to enable a man to lead a happy life; in the other, it is to free and redeem him from life altogether—as is directly stated in the very first words of the Sankhya Karika.
Allied with this is the contrast between the Greek and the Christian idea of death. It is strikingly presented in a visible form on a fine antique sarcophagus in the gallery of Florence, which exhibits, in relief, the whole series of ceremonies attending a wedding in ancient times, from the formal offer to the evening when Hymen's torch lights the happy couple home. Compare with that the Christian coffin, draped in mournful black and surmounted with a crucifix! How much significance there is in these two ways of finding comfort in death. They
- ↑ Translator's Note.—Matthias Claudius (1740-1815), a popular poet, and friend of Klopstock, Herder and Lessing. He edited the Wandsbecker Bote, in the fourth part of which appeared the treatise mentioned above. He generally wrote under the pseudonym of Asmus, and Schopenhauer often refers to him by this name.
