The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer | Page 5

of vision embraces the whole of his life, and extends far into the past
and future.
Following upon this, there is one respect in which brutes show real
wisdom when compared with us--I mean, their quiet, placid enjoyment
of the present moment. The tranquillity of mind which this seems to
give them often puts us to shame for the many times we allow our
thoughts and our cares to make us restless and discontented. And, in
fact, those pleasures of hope and anticipation which I have been
mentioning are not to be had for nothing. The delight which a man has
in hoping for and looking forward to some special satisfaction is a part
of the real pleasure attaching to it enjoyed in advance. This is
afterwards deducted; for the more we look forward to anything, the less
satisfaction we find in it when it comes. But the brute's enjoyment is
not anticipated, and therefore, suffers no deduction; so that the actual
pleasure of the moment comes to it whole and unimpaired. In the same
way, too, evil presses upon the brute only with its own intrinsic weight;
whereas with us the fear of its coming often makes its burden ten times
more grievous.
It is just this characteristic way in which the brute gives itself up
entirely to the present moment that contributes so much to the delight
we take in our domestic pets. They are the present moment personified,
and in some respects they make us feel the value of every hour that is
free from trouble and annoyance, which we, with our thoughts and
preoccupations, mostly disregard. But man, that selfish and heartless
creature, misuses this quality of the brute to be more content than we
are with mere existence, and often works it to such an extent that he
allows the brute absolutely nothing more than mere, bare life. The bird
which was made so that it might rove over half of the world, he shuts
up into the space of a cubic foot, there to die a slow death in longing
and crying for freedom; for in a cage it does not sing for the pleasure of

it. And when I see how man misuses the dog, his best friend; how he
ties up this intelligent animal with a chain, I feel the deepest sympathy
with the brute and burning indignation against its master.
We shall see later that by taking a very high standpoint it is possible to
justify the sufferings of mankind. But this justification cannot apply to
animals, whose sufferings, while in a great measure brought about by
men, are often considerable even apart from their agency.[1] And so we
are forced to ask, Why and for what purpose does all this torment and
agony exist? There is nothing here to give the will pause; it is not free
to deny itself and so obtain redemption. There is only one consideration
that may serve to explain the sufferings of animals. It is this: that the
will to live, which underlies the whole world of phenomena, must, in
their case satisfy its cravings by feeding upon itself. This it does by
forming a gradation of phenomena, every one of which exists at the
expense of another. I have shown, however, that the capacity for
suffering is less in animals than in man. Any further explanation that
may be given of their fate will be in the nature of hypothesis, if not
actually mythical in its character; and I may leave the reader to
speculate upon the matter for himself.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. ii. p. 404.]
Brahma is said to have produced the world by a kind of fall or mistake;
and in order to atone for his folly, he is bound to remain in it himself
until he works out his redemption. As an account of the origin of things,
that is admirable! According to the doctrines of Buddhism, the world
came into being as the result of some inexplicable disturbance in the
heavenly calm of Nirvana, that blessed state obtained by expiation,
which had endured so long a time--the change taking place by a kind of
fatality. This explanation must be understood as having at bottom some
moral bearing; although it is illustrated by an exactly parallel theory in
the domain of physical science, which places the origin of the sun in a
primitive streak of mist, formed one knows not how. Subsequently, by
a series of moral errors, the world became gradually worse and
worse--true of the physical orders as well--until it assumed the dismal
aspect it wears to-day. Excellent! The Greeks looked upon the world

and the gods as the work of an inscrutable necessity. A passable
explanation: we may be content with it until we