Page:The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892).djvu/267

work on the relations of genius and insanity, makes use of course of Schopenhauer in his catalogue of pathological geniuses. The only value which such observations have, in the present chaotic condition of our knowledge upon the subject, is to remind us that we cannot dispose of a man’s intellectual rank, or of his doctrine, by merely observing that he was weighted with morbid tendencies of mind. Genius has often, although by no means always, a background of a pathological sort; while, on the other hand, the nervously burdened, whether geniuses or not, actually do a great part of the world’s work and of the world's thinking, and may be all the wiser by reason of the depth of their nervous experiences. Specially interesting, however, in Schopenhauer’s case, is the relation of contrast between the peevishness of his private temper and the self-controlled calm and clearness of his literary style. To such a man intellectual work is a blessed relief from the storms of trivial but violent emotion. His reflective thought stands off, as it were, on one side, and surveys with a melancholy freedom his daily life of care and of bondage. His thinking rejoices in the wondrous craft whereby it has outwitted passion. His reflection, therefore, throughout, is a negative self-criticism, a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the tempestuous natural man. It does not embody the peevishness of this natural man, but rather scorns the vanity of his unwisdom. As Schopenhauer himself says: “Since all grief, because it is a mortification, a call to resignation, has in it the possibility of rendering one holy, therefore it is that great sorrow, deep pangs, arouse in us a certain reverence for the sufferer; but the sufferer becomes wholly venerable only when, seeing his whole life as one chain of sorrow, he yet does not dwell on the enchainment of circumstances that brought grief to just his life; . . . for then he would still be longing for life, only under other conditions. But he is truly venerable only when his look is