Chapter 14
of the second volume of the Parerga should also be compared with it.
45 If, on the contrary, asceticism is admitted, the list of the ultimate motives of human action, given in my prize essay on the foundation of morals, namely: (1) our own good, (2) the ill of others, and (3) the good of others, must be supplemented by a fourth, our own ill; which I merely mention here in passing in the interests of systematic consistency. In the essay referred to this fourth motive had to be passed over in silence, for the question asked was stated in the spirit of the philosophical ethics prevailing in Protestant Europe.
46 _Cf._ F. H. H. Windischmann’s _Sancara, sive de theologumenis Vedanticorum_, pp. 116, 117, 121; and also _Oupnekhat_, vol. i. pp. 340, 356, 360.
47 Cf. _Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik_, p. 274 (second edition, p. 271).
48 If we keep in view the essential immanence of our knowledge and of all knowledge, which arises from the fact that it is a secondary thing which has only appeared for the ends of the will, it then becomes explicable to us that all mystics of all religions ultimately attain to a kind of ecstasy, in which all and every knowledge, with its whole fundamental form, object and subject, entirely ceases, and only in this sphere, which lies beyond all knowledge, do they claim to have reached their highest goal, for they have then attained to the sphere in which there is no longer any subject and object, and consequently no more knowledge, just because there is no more will, the service of which is the sole destiny of knowledge.
Now, whoever has comprehended this will no longer regard it as beyond all measure extravagant that Fakirs should sit down, and, contemplating the tip of their nose, seek to banish all thought and perception, and that in many passages of the Upanischads instructions are given to sink oneself, silently and inwardly pronouncing the mysterious Oum, in the depths of one’s own being, where subject and object and all knowledge disappear.
49 _S. Bonaventuræ vita S. Francisci_, ch. 8. K. Hase, “_Franz von Assisi_,” ch. 10. “_I cantici di S. Francesco,_” _editi da Schlosser e Steinle., Francoforto, s.M._, 1842.
50 _Michælis de Molinos manuductio spiritualis; hispanice 1675, italice 1680, latine 1687, gallice in libro non adeo raro, cui titulus: Recueil de diverses pièces concernant le quiétisme, ou Molinos et ses disciples. Amstd., 1688._
51 Matt. xix. 11 _seq._; Luke xx. (1 Thess. iv. 3; 1 John iii. 3); Rev. 35‐37; 1 Cor. vii. 1‐11 and 25‐40, xiv. 4.
52 Cf. “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” second edition, p. 124; third edition, p. 135.
53 For example, John xii. 25, 31, xiv. 30, xv. 18, 19, xvi. 33; Col. ii. 20; Eph. ii. 1‐3; I John ii. 15‐17, iv. 4, 5. On this opportunity one may see how certain Protestant theologians, in their efforts to misinterpret the text of the New Testament in conformity with their rationalistic, optimistic, and unutterably shallow view of life, go so far that they actually falsify this text in their translations. Thus H. A. Schott, in his new version given with the Griesbach text of 1805, has translated the word κοσμος, John xv. 18, 19, by _Judœi_, 1 John iv. 4, by _profani homines_; and Col. ii. 20, στοιχεια του κοσμον by _elementa Judaica_; while Luther everywhere renders the word honestly and correctly by “_Welt_” (world).
54 _Unusquisque tantum juris habet, quantum potentiâ valet_ (_Tract. pol._, c. 2 § 8). _Fides alicui data tamdiu rata manet, quamdiu ejus, qui fidem dedit, non mutatur voluntas_ (_Ibid._, § 12). _Uniuscujusque jus potentiâ ejus definetur_ (_Eth._ iv., _pr._ 37, _schol._ 1.) Especially chap. 16 of the _Tractatus theologico‐ politicus_ is the true compendium of the immorality of Spinoza’s philosophy.
55 [In preparing this Index Frauenstädt’s _Schopenhauer‐Lexikon_ has been freely used.—_Trs._]