He was born in Dantzig in 1788; he died in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1860, a philosopher to whom both Germany and England have laid claim, because his father wished him to be born in England, and took his mother there just before the expected birthday, but the good lady suddenly took fright at the English—is it possible that there can have been anybody on earth who has not liked the English?—and insisted on going back to Germany for the confinement. I have actually heard that to this very natural whim of a pregnant woman is to be attributed Arthur’s detestation of women! In that idea perhaps we may see the natural thought of all Englishmen that England is the only fit country for a man to be born in. But his father had his revenge; for he called the little son “Arthur” and the lady, being a dutiful German wife, had to submit, consoling herself by the thought that it was a German as well as an English name. But Arthur’s detestation of women is probably to be attributed to a more physical cause, as we shall see. In 1793 Dantzig was annexed by Prussia, so the Schopenhauers moved to Hamburg. Later on, when the question of Arthur’s education came to be settled, they decided to send him to both France and England; and in London the future pessimist was placed at a boarding-school kept by a clergyman at Wimbledon—poor little boy. For some reason he found the life, and more particularly the religious training of the good schoolmaster, intensely irksome; and long afterwards he referred with disgust to the atmosphere of cant and hypocrisy which permeated England at that time. _Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis._