On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition)
Schopenhauer · en
ponderous tread? Such philosophy as this _must_ therefore be bad and
false and consequently places these gentlemen "of the trade" under the
painful obligation of playing the part of him who, in order to appear
what he is not, cannot allow others to pass for what they really are.
Out of all this however there unrolls itself the amusing spectacle we
enjoy, when these gentlemen, now that ignoring has unfortunately come
to an end, after forty years, at last begin to measure me by their
own puny standard and pass judgment upon me from the heights of their
wisdom, as though they were amply qualified to do so by their office;
but they are most amusing of all when they assume airs of superiority
towards me.
[170] For revelation goes for nothing in philosophy; therefore a
philosopher must before all things be an unbeliever. [Add. to 3rd
ed.].
Their abhorrence of Kant, though less openly expressed, is scarcely
less great than their hatred of me; precisely because all speculative
Theology and all Rational Psychology--the bread-winners of these
gentlemen--have been undermined, not to say irrevocably ruined, by him
in the eyes of all serious thinkers. What! Not hate him? him, who has
made their "trade in philosophy" so difficult to them, that they hardly
see how to pull through honourably! So Kant and I are accordingly both
bad, and these gentlemen quite overlook us. For nearly forty years
they have not deigned to cast a glance upon me, and now they look down
condescendingly upon Kant from the heights of their wisdom, smiling in
pity at his errors. This policy is both very wise and very profitable;
since they are thus able to hold forth at their ease volume after
volume upon God and the soul, as if these were personalities with whom
they were intimately acquainted, and to discourse upon the relation in
which the former stands to the world and the latter to the body, just
as if there had never been such a thing as a Critique of Pure Reason.
When once the Critique of Pure Reason is done away with, all will go
on splendidly! Now it is for this end that they have been endeavouring
for many years quietly and gradually to set Kant aside, to make him
obsolete, nay, to turn up their noses at him, and one being encouraged
by the other in this, they are becoming bolder every day.[171] They
have no opposition to fear from their own colleagues, since they
all have the same aims and the same mission and all together form a
numerous _coterie_, the brilliant members of which, _coram populo_, bow
and scrape to each other on all sides. Thus by degrees things have come
to such a point, that the wretchedest compilers of manuals have the
presumption to treat Kant's grand, immortal discoveries as antiquated
errors, nay, calmly to set them aside with the most ludicrous
arrogance and most impudent dicta of their own, which they nevertheless
lay down under the disguise of argumentation, because they know they