Goethe may be considered one of the greatest symbolists among poets. Every event in life was symbolic for him. It expressed something more universal, more extensive, more profound. The concrete image, the whole full-blooded individual was always clearly before his mind, but beyond that he saw and realised something more universal, from which it necessarily and inevitably springs. He saw that the truth of nature does not lie on the surface, but in a deeper unity, which the penetrative insight of the artist alone can grasp. In the system of Schopenhauer, then, art acquires almost the character of a religion. It becomes the means by which the ultimate essence, the soul of whatever exists, is disengaged from the world of matter. And "in this dutiful waiting upon every symbol, by which the soul of things can be made visible, art at last attains liberty. In speaking to us so intimately, so solemnly, as only religion had hitherto spoken to us, it becomes itself a kind of religion, with all the duties and responsibilities of the sacred ritual." There is a deep significance in the historical fact, that the birth of religion is interwoven invariably with that of the origin of art. Aristotle connects closely the rise of various forms of poetry with religious celebrations. Art and religion were born simultaneously, and have always been closely related in the history of mankind. {76} CHAPTER IV VIRTUE Art, which Schopenhauer calls "the flower of life," enables us to forget the cares and sufferings of life. The consolation which we derive from beauty repays us for the miseries and terrors of existence. The contemplation of beauty brings us deliverance from the deceptions and illusions of life, and gives us a pure, true, and deep knowledge of the inner nature of the world. It acts as a quieter of the will, and such quiet contemplation of beauty is the nearest approach to pure satisfaction that we can achieve. This deliverance, however, is not a path out of life, but only a consolation in life. We must seek the highest solution in proceeding farther in the same direction. In his theories on ethics and religion, Schopenhauer points the way to a permanent escape from life.