There is much significance in Schopenhauer's exaltation of intuition over reason. Philosophy has always tended to make too much of reason. And in spite of many crudities in his psychology, Schopenhauer's treatment of the subject contains much of the greatest value. In emphasising the part played in the mental life by instinct, habit, and impulse, he anticipated much that has since been confirmed in the modern science of psychology. Kant maintained that the only absolutely good thing in the world is the good will, and Schopenhauer practically accepts this dictum. Right action springs from the will, and not from the intellect, for the true nature of man lies in his will. The problem of ethics for Schopenhauer is how the will is to be made good. His treatment of the problem leads him beyond a system of ethics to a philosophy of religion. Virtue to Socrates was a knowledge of the good; but no amount of mere knowledge of the good can make the will good, and therefore Schopenhauer maintained that Socrates had done next to nothing in ethics. The real solution of the problem of moral obligation {82} lies in sympathy. It is through sympathy that man is able to attain virtue. Goodness of disposition shows itself as pure disinterested love towards others. And when such love becomes perfect it places the fate of other individuals on a level with itself and its own fate. The character which has thus attained the highest goodness and nobility will sacrifice its own interests, and even its life, for the well-being of others. Great heroes in all ages have laid down their lives for their country or their friends. Others have submitted voluntarily to death or torture for the sake of truths or principles which they held dear. Socrates and Giordano Bruno, and many another hero, have suffered death rather than deny what they held to be true. Such heights are reached only by rare natures among men. But all the intermediate stages of goodness spring from the same root of sympathy. Pure love is in its nature sympathy. Schopenhauer is here in direct contradiction to Kant, who recognised goodness and virtue only when they spring from abstract reflection, from the conception of duty, and who explained sympathy as weakness. On the contrary, says Schopenhauer, the mere concept is as unfruitful for virtue as it is for art. All true and pure love is sympathy, and all love which is not sympathy is selfishness. Many of our sentiments are a combination of the two. Friendship is always, he says, a mixture of selfishness and sympathy. The selfishness lies in the pleasure which we experience in the presence of a friend, the sympathy in the participation in his joy or grief, and the sacrifices we make for his sake.