494 THE WORLD AS WILL. bk. iv.
which appears as the life of this body; it is most welcome, and is gladly received as a longed-for deliverance. Here it is not, as in the case of others, merely the manifestation which ends with death; but the inner nature itself is abolished, which here existed only in the manifestation, and that in a very weak degree;[1] this last slight bond is now broken. For him who thus ends, the world has ended also.
And what I have here described with feeble tongue and only in general terms, is no philosophical fable, invented by myself, and only of to-day; no, it was the enviable life of so many saints and beautiful souls among Christians, and still more among Hindus and Buddhists, and also among the believers of other religions. However different were the dogmas impressed on their reason, the same inward, direct, intuitive knowledge, from which alone all virtue and holiness proceed, expressed itself in precisely the same way in the conduct of life. For here also the great distinction between intuitive and abstract knowledge shows itself; a distinction which is of such importance and universal application in our whole investigation, and which has hitherto been too little attended to. There is a wide gulf between the two, which can only be crossed by the aid of philosophy, as regards the knowledge of the nature of the world. Intuitively or in concreto, every man is really conscious of all philosophical truths, but to bring them to abstract knowledge, to reflection, is the work of philosophy, which neither ought nor is able to do more than this.
Thus it may be that the inner nature of holiness, self-renunciation, mortification of our own will, asceticism, is
- ↑ This thought is expressed by a beautiful simile in the ancient philosophical Sanscrit writing, "Sankhya Karica: "Yet the soul remains a while invested with body; as the potter's wheel continues whirling after the pot has been fashioned, by force of the impulse previously given to it. When separation of the informed soul from its corporeal frame at length takes place and nature in respect of it ceases, then is absolute and final deliverance accomplished." Colebrooke, "On the Philosophy of the Hindus: Miscellaneous Essays," vol. i. p. 271. Also in the "Sankhya Karica by Horace Wilson," § 67, p. 184.
