LECTURE VIII
SCHOPENHAUER
I need hardly remark in the presence of this audience that the name of Schopenhauer is better known to most general readers, in our day, than is that of any other modern Continental metaphysician, except Kant. The reputed heretic has in this field the reward of his dangerous reputation, and I scarcely know whether to fear or to rejoice, as I now approach the treatment of so noteworthy and significant a man, at the position in which Schopenhauer’s fame puts his expositor. In one respect, of course, my task is rendered easier by all this popular repute of my hero. Of his doctrine most of us have heard a good deal, and many of us may have followed to a considerable extent his reasoning; at all events we have become acquainted, at least by hearsay, with the fact that his outcome was something called Pessimism. And thus, in dealing with him, I am not voyaging with you in seas unknown to all but the technical students of philosophy, as was last time the case, when I told you of Hegel. On the other hand, the kind of reputation that his writings have very naturally won is decidedly against me when I undertake to treat him with genuinely philosophical fairness. It is so much easier to be edifying than to face with courage certain serious and decidedly tragic realities! Let me be frank with you, then, at the outset about my difficulty. It is, plainly stated, simply this: You have heard that Schopenhauer is a pessimist. You, meanwhile, are surely for the most part no pessimists. Therefore, as we approach Schopenhauer, you want me, in your secret hearts.
