as the illusion of unconscious impulse persists intact, this illusion has for feeling the same value as truth. (2.) That even after the discovery of the illusion, and before complete resignation to egoism, thus in the state of the strongest most unbroken contradiction between the selfish conscious, and the unselfish, unconscious Will working merely for universal ends, that even in this state, I say, the Unconscious constantly shows itself at the same time as the superior and the master of Consciousness, and accordingly the satisfaction of the conscious at the expense of the nonsatisfaction of the unconscious Will causes more pain than the reverse. (3) Lastly, that this variance of the general unconscious with the egoistic conscious Will finds its positive reconciliation in the truly philosophical point of view (to be demonstrated in Chap. xiv. C.), where self-renunciation, i.e., foregoing individual welfare, and complete devotion to the process and welfare of the universal, is presented as first principle of practical philosophy, and thus also all instincts, absurd to conscious egoism but beneficial for the whole, are fully justified.

We should altogether err, if we thought that the explanation of love by unconscious reference to an end in the child to be begotten materialised the eternal spring of the human heart, or robbed the yet innocent feelings of their fine idealistic lustre. Far from that! What could more certainly raise love above the coarseness of sensuality and for ever protect it from all relapse, than its derivation from an unconscious purpose, which is only concerned with generation, but excludes sensuality and voluptuousness from the causes of individualised love, and only permits them to be an accessory vehicle, which may better protect the infinite longing from entirely missing its unconscious purpose? Philosophic speculation does no more than unveil the illusion in which the natural man is entangled, the illusion that those mystical feelings. in themselves possess a rational foundation or warrant. At the same time, however, it replaces this illusion by the

VOL. I.

Q

scientific insight that these feelings have the greatest possible authorisation, and rest on the deepest and noblest ground of all, and that they are, in fact, infinitely more important for the development of the human race than fancy permits itself to dream (comp., farther on, Chap. x. B.; and also the conclusion of Chap. xi. B.) It thus gives to the everlasting theme of poetry, which hitherto has appeared baseless illusion, by critically annihilating its imaginary value for egoism, and assigning it in compensation a quite unexpected significance in respect of the welfare of mankind, a foundation so philosophical, that the dullest Philistine must cease from mocking and acknowledge the immense practical consequence of the whole affair.

III.

THE UNCONSCIOUS IN FEELING.

IF I have toothache and a pain in my finger, there are apparently two kinds of feeling; for the one is in the tooth, the other in the finger. Did I not possess the ability to project my perceptions into space, I should not feel two separate pains, but a single compound one, just as with two pure tones (without upper tones), at the interval of an octave, only one is absolutely heard-the lower note-but with a different timbre. The local difference of the perception thus confers upon the mind the ability to dissect the pain-harmony into its elements in conformity with the differently localised perceptions-to combine one part with this, another with that space-perception, and thus to establish the duality. But now things may be spatially twofold and yet incapable of discrimination, as, e.g., two congruent triangles. This can certainly not be asserted of toothache and finger-ache. In the first place, they can only be discriminated in degree, i.e., in intensive quantity, and secondly by their quality; for with equal strength pain can be continuous or intermittent, burning, cooling, crushing, beating, stinging, biting, cutting, drawing, palpitating, itching, and exhibit an infinity of variations, baffling all description.

We have hitherto understood by pain the whole phenomenon, but it is a question whether this must not be philosophically prohibited, and whether we should not rather distinguish in this given whole the sensuous perception and the smart or pain in the narrower sense; for we

have often a kind of perception which produces neither pleasure nor pain, e.g., if I gently press my finger or brush my skin. Whilst this perception remains qualitatively unchanged, and only increases or diminishes in degree, pleasure or displeasure may be felt in addition; and is the perception to be all at once included in the pain or the pleasure? We are then compelled to separate them, and soon perceive that the twain are so little one that they rather stand in a causal relation; for the perception (or a part thereof) is the cause of the pain, since the latter comes into existence and disappears with it, and never appears in its absence, although the perception may undoubtedly occur without the pain under particular circumstances.

This separation having been made, the closely allied question arises, whether the distinctions just noticed really exist in the pleasure and pain, or merely in the producing and accompanying circumstances, namely, in the perception? That pain admits of differences in intensive quantity is clear, but does it also admit qualitative differences? Most of the distinctions expressed in words apply to different forms of intermittence, as beating, drawing, palpitating, stinging, cutting, biting, even tickling. Certainly the degree of pain here changes continuously with the degree of perception according to certain more or less regular types, but nothing is to be found of an originally qualitative difference of the pain itself. One would much sooner expect this in the pleasure or displeasure which is called forth by different smells and tastes; but even there one may be convinced by careful introspection that the qualitative difference of pleasure or displeasure is altogether only apparent, and this illusion arises from the circumstance that the separation of pleasure or pain and perception has never hitherto been made, but both are wont to be comprehended with the perception as a single whole, so that now the differences of perception present themselves as differences of this single whole.-That this separa

tion has never been made is due to the fact that, out of the infinitely multifarious composition of psychical states, one always only learns to separate those groups as independent parts, the separation of which has a real utility for practical needs. Thus, e.g., in the accord of a full orchestra, not all tones of a certain pitch are separated out, no matter from what instrument they proceed, including their upper tones, but the upper tones of the most different parts of the scale produced by any instrument are fused with the fundamental tone of the instrument into its timbre, and the groups of tones thus formed, which represent the tones called forth from any single instrument, are alone blended into the accord, simply for the reason that the knowledge of the upper tones possesses no practical interest, but rather the knowledge of the timbres of the instruments. And this practical mode of grasping the groups of tones has become so organised in us, that that, according to mere pitch, although it must manifestly be much easier, has become purely impossible to us-so impossible that only a few years have elapsed since Helmholtz strictly demonstrated the origin of timbres by actually combining the upper tones.

Almost as impossible does it also seem to us now, in self-observation to sharply separate and keep asunder the two elements in the totality of pleasure or pain and the perceptions following and accompanying them; but that such separation must be possible any one can see from this, that both parts are related as cause and effect, and are essentially different. Whoever succeeds in making the trial will find the assertion confirmed, that pleasure and displeasure have only intensively quantitative, but no qualitative differences. Success will be the easier the simpler the examples with which one begins, e.g., whether the pleasure is different in hearing a bell if the note is c, and if it is d. If insight has once been gained in such simple examples, the truth will be no less evident if one passes gradually to examples which contain greater differ