The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer:
The Wisdom of Life, by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Title: The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life

Author: Arthur Schopenhauer

Release Date: January 18, 2004 [EBook #10741]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE ESSAYS

OF

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

TRANSLATED BY

T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.

THE WISDOM OF LIFE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION
I. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
II. PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS
III. PROPERTY, OR WHAT A MAN HAS
IV. POSITION, OR A MAN'S PLACE IN THE ESTIMATION OF OTHERS--
Sect. 1. Reputation
" 2. Pride
" 3. Rank
" 4. Honor
" 5. Fame

INTRODUCTION.

In these pages I shall speak of _The Wisdom of Life_ in the common
meaning of the term, as the art, namely, of ordering our lives so as
to obtain the greatest possible amount of pleasure and success; an art
the theory of which may be called _Eudaemonology_, for it teaches us
how to lead a happy existence. Such an existence might perhaps be
defined as one which, looked at from a purely objective point of
view, or, rather, after cool and mature reflection--for the question
necessarily involves subjective considerations,--would be decidedly
preferable to non-existence; implying that we should cling to it for
its own sake, and not merely from the fear of death; and further, that
we should never like it to come to an end.

Now whether human life corresponds, or could possibly correspond,
to this conception of existence, is a question to which, as is
well-known, my philosophical system returns a negative answer. On the
eudaemonistic hypothesis, however, the question must be answered in
the affirmative; and I have shown, in the second volume of my chief
work (ch. 49), that this hypothesis is based upon a fundamental
mistake. Accordingly, in elaborating the scheme of a happy existence,
I have had to make a complete surrender of the higher metaphysical and