TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Inconsistencies in hyphenation, punctuation, spelling and abbreviations have not been corrected.A list of other corrections can be found at the endof the document. The Table of Contents starts here.
BOHN'S PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY.
TWO ESSAYS
BY
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
PORTUGAL ST. LINCOLN'S INN, W.C.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER & CO.
ON
THE FOURFOLD ROOT OF THEPRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON
AND
ON THE WILL IN NATURE.
TWO ESSAYS BY
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
Translated by Mme. KARL HILLEBRAND.
REVISED EDITION.
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1907
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.[v]
In venturing to lay the present translation[1] before thepublic, I am aware of the great difficulties of my task,and indeed can hardly hope to do justice to the Author.In fact, had it not been for the considerations I am aboutto state, I might probably never have published what hadoriginally been undertaken in order to acquire a clearercomprehension of these essays, rather than with a view topublicity.
The two treatises which form the contents of the presentvolume have so much importance for a profound and correctknowledge of Schopenhauer's philosophy, that it mayeven be doubted whether the translation of his chief work,"Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," can contribute muchtowards the appreciation of his system without the help atleast of the "Vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichendenGrunde." Schopenhauer himself repeatedly and urgentlyinsists upon a previous thorough knowledge of Kant'sphilosophy, as the basis, and of his own "Fourfold Root,"as the key, to his own system, asserting that knowledge tobe the indispensable condition for a right comprehensionof his meaning. So far as I am aware, neither the "FourfoldRoot" nor the "Will in Nature" have as yet founda translator; therefore, considering the dawning interestwhich has begun to make itself felt for Schopenhauer'sphilosophy in England and in America, and the fact that[vi]no more competent scholar has come forward to do thework, it may not seem presumptuous to suppose that thisversion may be acceptable to those who wish to acquirea more than superficial knowledge of this remarkablethinker, yet whose acquaintance with German does notpermit them to read his works in the original.
Now although some portions of both the Essays publishedin the present volume have of course become antiquated,owing to the subsequent development of theempirical sciences, while others—such as, for instance,Schopenhauer's denunciation of plagiarism in the cases ofBrandis and Rosas in the beginning of Physiology andPathology[2]—can have no interest for the reader of the presentday, I have nevertheless given them just as he leftthem and refrained from all suppre