THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 471
inflicted on the offender. What distinguishes revenge from pure wickedness, and to some extent excuses it, is an appearance of justice. For if the same act, which is now revenge, were to be done legally, that is, according to a previously determined and known rule, and in a society which had sanctioned this rule, it would be punishment, and thus justice.
Besides the suffering which has been described, and which is inseparable from wickedness, because it springs from the same root, excessive vehemence of will, another specific pain quite different from this is connected with wickedness, which is felt in the case of every bad action, whether it be merely injustice proceeding from egoism or pure wickedness, and according to the length of its duration is called the sting of conscience or remorse. Now, whoever remembers and has present in his mind the content of the preceding portion of this Fourth Book, and especially the truth explained at the beginning of it, that life itself is always assured to the will to live, as its mere copy or mirror, and also the exposition of eternal justice, will find that the sting of conscience can have no other meaning than the following, i.e., its content, abstractly expressed, is what follows, in which two parts are distinguished, which again, however, entirely coincide, and must be thought as completely united.
However closely the veil of Mâyâ may envelop the mind of the bad man, i.e., however firmly he may be involved in the principium individuationis, according to which he regards his person as absolutely different and separated by a wide gulf from all others, a knowledge to which he clings with all his might, as it alone suits and supports his egoism, so that knowledge is almost always corrupted by will, yet there arises in the inmost depths of his consciousness the secret presentiment that such an order of things is only phenomenal, and that their real constitution is quite different. He has a dim foreboding that, however much time and space may separate
