The World as Will and Idea — Schopenhauer — John Shaqi
The World as Will and Idea
Schopenhauer · German
quite different from its outward significance, and that these are often
separated from each other. The outward significance is the importance of
an action in relation to its result for and in the actual world; thus
according to the principle of sufficient reason. The inward significance
is the depth of the insight into the Idea of man which it reveals, in that
it brings to light sides of that Idea which rarely appear, by making
individuals who assert themselves distinctly and decidedly, disclose their
peculiar characteristics by means of appropriately arranged circumstances.
Only the inward significance concerns art; the outward belongs to history.
They are both completely independent of each other; they may appear
together, but may each appear alone. An action which is of the highest
significance for history may in inward significance be a very ordinary and
common one; and conversely, a scene of ordinary daily life may be of great
inward significance, if human individuals, and the inmost recesses of
human action and will, appear in it in a clear and distinct light.
Further, the outward and the inward significance of a scene may be equal
and yet very different. Thus, for example, it is all the same, as far as
inward significance is concerned, whether ministers discuss the fate of
countries and nations over a map, or boors wrangle in a beer-house over
cards and dice, just as it is all the same whether we play chess with
golden or wooden pieces. But apart from this, the scenes and events that
make up the life of so many millions of men, their actions, their sorrows,
their joys, are on that account important enough to be the object of art,
and by their rich variety they must afford material enough for unfolding
the many-sided Idea of man. Indeed the very transitoriness of the moment
which art has fixed in such a picture (now called _genre_-painting)
excites a slight and peculiar sensation; for to fix the fleeting,
ever-changing world in the enduring picture of a single event, which yet
represents the whole, is an achievement of the art of painting by which it
seems to bring time itself to a standstill, for it raises the individual
to the Idea of its species. Finally, the historical and outwardly
significant subjects of painting have often the disadvantage that just
what is significant in them cannot be presented to perception, but must be
arrived at by thought. In this respect the nominal significance of the
picture must be distinguished from its real significance. The former is
the outward significance, which, however, can only be reached as a
conception; the latter is that side of the Idea of man which is made
visible to the onlooker in the picture. For example, Moses found by the
Egyptian princess is the nominal significance of a painting; it represents
a moment of the greatest importance in history; the real significance, on
the other hand, that which is really given to the onlooker, is a foundling