The Value of the World and of Oneself.

Philosophical Optimism and Pessimism

from Aristotle to Modernity Mor Segev
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-value-of-the-world-and-of-oneself-philosophical-o
ptimism-and-pessimism-from-aristotle-to-modernity-mor-segev/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Value of the World and of Oneself : Philosophical

Optimism and Pessimism from Aristotle to Modernity Mor
Segev

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-value-of-the-world-and-of-
oneself-philosophical-optimism-and-pessimism-from-aristotle-to-
modernity-mor-segev-2/

The History of Hylomorphism: From Aristotle to

Descartes 1st Edition David Charles

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-history-of-hylomorphism-from-
aristotle-to-descartes-1st-edition-david-charles/

The Aesthetic Value of the World Tom Cochrane

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-aesthetic-value-of-the-world-
tom-cochrane/

Aristotle and the earlier Peripatetics : being a

translation from Zeller's Philosophy of the Greeks
Zeller

https://ebookmass.com/product/aristotle-and-the-earlier-
peripatetics-being-a-translation-from-zellers-philosophy-of-the-
greeks-zeller/
Baudelaire and the Making of Italian Modernity: From
the Scapigliatura to the Futurist Movement, 1857-1912
1st Edition Alessandro Cabiati

https://ebookmass.com/product/baudelaire-and-the-making-of-
italian-modernity-from-the-scapigliatura-to-the-futurist-
movement-1857-1912-1st-edition-alessandro-cabiati/

Psychology and Value in Plato, Aristotle, and

Hellenistic Philosophy Fiona Leigh (Editor)

https://ebookmass.com/product/psychology-and-value-in-plato-
aristotle-and-hellenistic-philosophy-fiona-leigh-editor/

Islam, State, and Modernity: Mohammed Abed al-Jabri and

the Future of the Arab World 1st Edition Zaid Eyadat

https://ebookmass.com/product/islam-state-and-modernity-mohammed-
abed-al-jabri-and-the-future-of-the-arab-world-1st-edition-zaid-
eyadat/

On The Origin of Evolution : Tracing ‘Darwin’s

Dangerous Idea’ From Aristotle to DNA John Gribbin

https://ebookmass.com/product/on-the-origin-of-evolution-tracing-
darwins-dangerous-idea-from-aristotle-to-dna-john-gribbin/

The Anatomy of Dance Discourse: Literary and

Philosophical Approaches to Dance in the Later Graeco-
Roman World 1st Edition Karin Schlapbach

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-anatomy-of-dance-discourse-
literary-and-philosophical-approaches-to-dance-in-the-later-
graeco-roman-world-1st-edition-karin-schlapbach/
The Value of the World and of Oneself
 The Value of the World and of
Oneself
Philosophical Optimism and Pessimism from Aristotle
to Modernity
MOR SEGEV
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under
terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Segev, Mor, author.
Title: The value of the world and of oneself : philosophical optimism
and pessimism from Aristotle to Modernity/ Mor Segev.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022000740 (print) | LCCN 2022000741 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197634073 (hb) | ISBN 9780197634097 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Optimism. | Pessimism. | Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B829 .S425 2022 (print) | LCC B829 (ebook) |
DDC 149/.5—dc23/eng/20220203
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000740
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000741
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197634073.001.0001
To the memory of Martha Leonhardt, née Löwenberg
(1902–1943).
 Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction
1. Schopenhauer’s Critique of the Optimism of the Hebrew Bible
and Spinoza
2. Self-Abnegation and Its Reversion to Optimism: Schopenhauer
3. Nihilism and Self-Deification: Camus’s Critical Analysis of
Nietzsche in The Rebel
4. Aristotle’s Critique of Ancient Pessimism
5. Optimism and Self-Devaluation #1: Aristotle
6. Optimism and Self-Devaluation #2: Maimonides on Aristotle and
the Hebrew Bible
7. An Aristotelian Response to Schopenhauer’s Challenge to
Optimism

References
Index
 Acknowledgments

This book is a product of years of thinking about and comparing the

philosophical views of Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza, Nietzsche,
Schopenhauer, and Camus. Between 2016 and 2021, parts of this
project were presented in Jerusalem, Oxford, Krakow, Tampa,
Newcastle, Milwaukee, and Budapest, and I am thankful to my
audiences on these occasions for many helpful comments and
suggestions. My ideas took shape over the years with the help of
feedback from and conversations with many individuals, including
Audrey Anton, Hanoch Ben-Yami, Anastasia Berg, István Bodnár,
Robert Bolton, Katarzyna Borkowska, Abraham Bos, Ursula Coope,
John Cooper, John Cottingham, Kati Farkas, Maciej Kałuża, Andrea
Kern, Philipp Koralus, Iddo Landau, Oksana Maksymchuk, Yitzhak
Melamed, Angela Mendelovici, Alexander Nehamas, Sarah Nooter,
Ács Pál, Michael Peramatzis, Max Rosochinsky, Anna Schriefl,
Christiane Tewinkel, Andrea Timár, David Weberman, Robert Wicks,
Jessica Williams, and Eric Winsberg.
I am grateful to the Hardt Foundation for the Study of Classical
Antiquity for granting me the Research Scholarship for Young
Researchers in 2018, to the Institute for Advanced Study at the
Central European University for granting me a fellowship in 2020,
which enabled me to complete most of this book and to present and
discuss it with colleagues from a variety of fields, to St. Catherine’s
College, Oxford, for hosting me as a Visiting Fellow in 2021, and to
the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University for allowing me to
present the project at the Workshop in Ancient Philosophy during my
stay. Thanks are also due to Lucy Randall, Hannah Doyle, Sean
Decker, and Leslie Johnson at Oxford University Press, to my
anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions,
and to Nandhini Thanga Alugu and Dorothy Bauhoff for their
assistance with the production of the book.
Chapter 1 is based on my chapter “Schopenhauer on Spinoza’s
Pantheism, Optimism, and Egoism,” in Y. Y. Melamed (ed.), A
Companion to Spinoza (Hoboken, NJ, 2021), 557–67. Chapter 4 is
based in part on my “Death, Immortality and the Value of Human
Existence in Aristotle’s Eudemus Fr. 6, Ross,” Classical Philology
(forthcoming). Parts of Chapters 5 and 6 are based on my “Aristotle
on the Proper Attitude Toward Divinity,” American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly (2020). I would like to thank the publishers
for allowing me to make use of these materials.
 Abbreviations

The following are the abbreviations used for the titles of the works
by the main authors discussed in this book.

Works by Aristotle:
Cael. De caelo
DA De anima
De phil. De philosophia
Div. De divinatione per somnum
EE Eudemian Ethics
GA Generation of Animals
GC Generation and Corruption
HA History of Animals
IA Progression of Animals
Metaph. Metaphysics
Meteor. Meteorology
MM Magna Moralia
NE Nicomachean Ethics
PA Parts of Animals
Poet. Poetics
Pol. Politics
Protr. Protrepticus
Rh. Rhetoric
Top. Topics

Works by Maimonides:
EC Eight Chapters
GP The Guide of the Perplexed
MT Mishneh Torah
HD Hilchot Deot (in MT )

Works by Spinoza:
E Ethics
TTP Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

Works by Schopenhauer:
MR Manuscript Remains
PP Parerga and Paralipomena
FHP Fragments for the History of Philosophy (in PP)
WWR The World as Will and Representation

Works by Nietzsche:
BGE Beyond Good and Evil
BT The Birth of Tragedy
BVN Briefe von Nietzsche (Nietzsche’s letters)
EH Ecce Homo
GM The Genealogy of Morals
GS The Gay Science
HH Human, all too Human
NCW Nietzsche contra Wagner
NF Nachgelassene Fragmente (Posthumous fragments)
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Works by Camus:
F The Fall
MS The Myth of Sisyphus
R The Rebel
 Introduction

In evaluating the world and one’s life within it, two positions,
diametrically opposed to one another, have often been taken by
prominent figures in the history of philosophy. The view traditionally
referred to as philosophical optimism may be encapsulated by the
two following propositions:

O1: The world is optimally arranged and is accordingly valuable.

O2: As part of the world, human life is valuable enough to make
one’s own existence preferable over one’s nonexistence.

Philosophical pessimists, by contrast, maintain the following:

P1: The world is in a woeful condition and is ultimately

valueless.1
P2: Our nonexistence in the world is, or would have been,
preferable over our existence.

The commitment to either of these two corresponding pairs of

propositions—regarding the value of the world and the value of
human life—appears again and again in traditional formulations and
characterizations of philosophical optimism and pessimism. Arthur
Schopenhauer, reacting to optimism, characterizes it as a view
countenancing that “the world is what is best” (WWR II.L: 644), and
that “our existence [is] to be gratefully acknowledged as the gift of
the highest goodness guided by wisdom” and is thus “in itself
praiseworthy, commendable, and delightful” (WWR II.XLV: 570).2
Implied in this description is the idea that the world is valuable, and
is ordered rationally and optimally (O1), and that it is these features
that ground the preferability of one’s own existence as a part of that
good whole (O2). Schopenhauer goes on to characterize (without,
however, naming) pessimism as the view according to which “this
[human] existence is a kind of false step or wrong path” and “is the
work of an originally blind will, the luckiest development of which is
that it comes to itself in order to abolish itself” (WWR II.XLV: 570).
Disregarding the details of the metaphysical theory underlying this
statement (to which we shall return later), the general point of
contrast between this view and the optimism that Schopenhauer
objects to is that pessimism rejects the existence of an ultimately
valuable, rationally ordered world, and with it the prospects of
viewing human existence as valuable, worthwhile, or otherwise
choice-worthy. Indeed, Schopenhauer claims, approvingly, that in the
Gospels “world and evil are used almost as synonymous
expressions” (WWR I, §59: 326). He also explicitly speaks of the
“wretched condition of the world” (die jammervolle Beschaffenheit
der Welt), associating it with pessimism (WWR II.XLVIII: 621), and
repeatedly attributes “vanity” (Nichtigkeit) and “valuelessness”
(Werthlosigkeit) to all things (P1),3 which he thinks expresses itself
in the suffering of all that lives (I, §68: 397), and which in turn for
him implies that “complete nonexistence would be decidedly
preferable to” human life (I, §59: 324) (P2).
This understanding of philosophical optimism and pessimism is
still quite standard. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, for
example, describes as “the starkest expression of pessimism” the
claim made by the chorus in Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus that it
is best not to be born and second best to die as soon as possible (cf.
OC 1224–7) (P2), and associates optimism with, e.g., Aristotelian
philosophy and its “sense of the harmony of nature and the
attainability of ends,” implying, similarly to optimism as we have just
seen Schopenhauer presents it, that the rational ordering of the
world makes both the world itself and one’s existence within it
valuable and their existence worthwhile (O1–O2).4 However, several
other ideas are often associated, and sometimes conflated, with
these two views. Discussions of optimism and pessimism often refer,
respectively, to the ideas that progress is possible or impossible, that
this world is the best or worst one possible,5 and that there is more
good in the world than evil or vice versa.6 For the sake of
terminological clarity, let us distinguish these different ideas from
optimism and pessimism as we have defined them and as they will
be discussed in the rest of this book.7
It is natural enough to associate a view locating value in the
world with the idea that progress is possible or even forthcoming.
But an optimist may well hold the view that progress is unnecessary,
or even impossible, because the world is already perfectly good in its
current condition. By the same token, a pessimist may concede the
possibility of various kinds of progress—say, in the distribution of
resources and the enactment of human rights—while maintaining
that even at their peak, it would be better if human beings and the
world at large had not existed.8 Similarly, although one would
generally expect an optimist to adhere to the Leibnizian idea that
ours is the best of all possible worlds, committing oneself to that
idea is not enough to count as an optimist. Pessimists may
consistently adhere to that same conception of the world, while
arguing that even the best possible world is not good enough to
justify its existence.9 As James Branch Cabell puts it in The Silver
Stallion: “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”10 Furthermore,
both a consistently optimistic view and a consistently pessimistic one
may hold that this world is both the best and worst one possible, if
they maintain in addition that this world is the only one possible.11
Finally, thinking that the world on balance contains more good than
bad is insufficient for motivating an optimistic position, since the
world in that case may still contain enough evil pertaining to the
human species, e.g., so as to make it preferable for humans not to
exist. Sophocles’s dictum—that it is best not to be born and second
best to die quickly—is clearly not meant to apply to the gods, who
are of course repeatedly appealed to throughout the play, and the
worth of whose life is left unchallenged, and this fact nevertheless
does not detract from the pessimistic tone of that dictum. And,
conversely, one may think that evil predominates in the world and
still reject the pessimistic conclusion that a human life is not worth
having.
 Though the terms “optimism” and “pessimism” are fairly recent,12
their basic tenets date back to the earliest stages of recorded
philosophical discussion, and understandably so, given the basic
questions that they address and their relevance to evaluating one’s
environment and one’s own existence. It is sometimes argued that
tracing optimistic and pessimistic views to pre-modern philosophy is
anachronistic. Joshua Foa Dienstag, for instance, claims that
“pessimism is a modern phenomenon” since, “[l]ike optimism,
pessimism relies on an underlying linear concept of time, a concept
that only became a force in Western thinking in the early modern
period,” with ancient thought being dominated by a “cyclical”
conception of time.13 We need not assess Dienstag’s view of the
gradual change in conceptions of time. It suffices for our purposes to
note that optimism and pessimism, as we have defined them, apply
on either conception. As we have noted, both optimism and
pessimism may be consistently adhered to whether or not one even
takes a stance on the possibility or likelihood of historical progress.
Given the definitions we have offered, we seem warranted to look
for optimistic and pessimistic views in any period and culture in
which one could ask—as one clearly already did ask in, say, ancient
Israel and classical Greece—whether the world is perfectly ordered
and good, and whether human life is worth living.
In this book we shall compare the views of several philosophers
who did ask themselves just these questions and have answered
them by constructing views that can appropriately be described as
either optimistic or pessimistic, in entirely different intellectual
environments and historical periods ranging from classical Greece to
twentieth-century France. It would not be feasible, and there shall
be no attempt, to provide a comprehensive survey of relevant views
during that time frame. Instead, we shall focus on representative
cases—Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
and Camus—which lend themselves particularly well to mutual
comparison, especially since some of them engage with the others’
views explicitly. Maimonides consciously and openly adopts and
develops major parts of Aristotle’s views concerning the value of the
world and of human existence. Schopenhauer engages with Spinoza
and criticizes his view, which he associates with the optimism that he
finds in the Hebrew Bible. Nietzsche criticizes Schopenhauer’s
pessimism, and Camus in turn criticizes Nietzsche and his attempt at
transcending both optimism and pessimism. Of course, by creating a
dialogue between themselves and their predecessors on these
issues, the philosophers in question could have themselves been
guilty of anachronism to some degree. Even if so, it arguably would
still be worthwhile to examine their understanding and use of
previous views, e.g., in order to analyze the chain of influence
leading to modern theories on relevant issues.14 But I hope to show
that, as I have already argued so far, comparing the views of all of
these philosophers on the issues focused on in this book is both
instructive and appropriate.
Even on the assumption that ancient, medieval, and modern
optimistic and pessimistic views may be safely compared, questions
may nevertheless arise concerning the potential import of such a
comparison. To begin with, it is sometimes suggested that optimism
is a puerile position, upheld unrealistically and irrationally by those
who have not been properly exposed to the evils of the world, and
rejected and supplanted by those who have. Discussing ancient
Hebrew optimism, one scholar writes:15

Unclouded skies and perfect happiness are conditions of innocent childhood.

But as the child grows older, clouds appear in the skies and happiness
becomes less and less perfect. Thus while the ancient Hebrews during many
centuries seemed wholly satisfied with the affairs of life, never doubting for
one moment that JHVH had ordered everything for the best, the time came
when they began to ask the why and wherefore of many happenings.

Similarly, as we shall see in Chapter 1, Schopenhauer criticizes

optimism (in its monotheistic and pantheistic varieties), among other
things, for its naïveté, and for failing to account for the suffering and
misfortune prevalent in the world, having instead to blindly assert
that all phenomena are manifestations of the world’s perfection, and
hence that all human and even animal behavior, e.g., is “equally
divine and excellent” (WWR II.XLVII: 590). Perhaps, then, optimistic
views, as such, are too naïve to merit serious consideration?
However, optimism, as we have defined it, need not be naïve in this
way. For one may posit that the world is optimally arranged and is
perfectly valuable without conceding that each and every one of its
parts is equally valuable.
Indeed, as we shall see in Chapters 5 and 6, both Aristotle and
Maimonides offer a complex optimistic theory, on which the world,
though perfectly arranged and valuable (O1), contains an axiological
hierarchy pertaining to its various parts. Since humans are placed
relatively low on that hierarchy, the world’s perfection and absolute
value are not compromised by the imperfections pertaining to and
the pain undergone by them. But, given the world’s perfection, the
existence of such creatures, flawed though they are, is preferable to
their nonexistence (O2). This version of optimism presents a viable
alternative to pessimistic approaches. This is especially true because,
as we shall see in Chapters 2 and 3, both the most influential
modern pessimistic position (by Schopenhauer) and an influential
attempt to do away with both optimism and pessimism (by
Nietzsche) have been criticized for ultimately reverting to optimism,
and hence for being fundamentally inconsistent. This fact raises the
question as to whether “pure” pessimism, or a complete rejection of
optimism, is possible in principle. And, if it is not, then it seems that
conscious and explicit optimism could prove a viable alternative.
As a second consideration, one might argue that the debate
between optimism and pessimism is really a debate over the
existence of a perfect deity. As we shall see in Chapter 3, this is
precisely what Nietzsche does argue (cf. HH I.28). But, if that is the
case, then one might be inclined to bracket the debate between
optimism and pessimism as a theological controversy, and hence as
potentially irrelevant for those who wish to evaluate the world and
human life without recourse to the question of God’s existence.
Indeed, all of the views discussed in this book do engage with the
existence and nature of divinity and with religion, either supportively
or critically. Schopenhauer responds to optimism primarily in its
monotheistic and pantheistic varieties, and he links his own
pessimistic view to Christianity and Buddhism. Nietzsche, while
himself associating both optimism and pessimism with a theological
framework and criticizing both on that account, is himself later
criticized by Camus, ironically, for “deifying” the world and
envisaging a divine human being in the form of an Übermensch. In
turn, Aristotle’s view of the magnanimous person, and Maimonides’s
corresponding notion of the “righteous person” (hassid), are both
informed by the attitude such a person would have toward divinity.
And the world’s perfection, for both thinkers, is a function of its
divinity or its relation to the divine. It is therefore not surprising that
the traditional debate between optimism and pessimism also
reserves a special place (e.g., in Maimonides’s and Schopenhauer’s
works, as we shall see in Chapter 2 and Chapters 6–7) for an
engagement with the classical “problem of evil,” challenging the
existence of a benevolent and omnipotent deity in the light of the
suffering and imperfections contained in the world.
However, though the issues dealt with by philosophical optimism
and pessimism intersect with discussions in theology and the
philosophy of religion, they do not clearly depend on those domains
of inquiry. An optimally ordered world, in principle, may be so
without either having been created by a deity or being identified
with one. And the existence of a given species within such a world
could arguably also be worthwhile regardless of any relation to a
deity. Thus, a pessimistic response to optimism need not attack the
conception of divinity underlying it, and indeed would be potentially
incomplete if it addressed only that conception. Similarly, the
classical problem of evil admits of variations, and ones which need
not appeal to the existence of God. Schopenhauer, as we shall see in
Chapter 1, thinks that this problem confronts Spinozistic pantheism—
which does not countenance the existence of a benevolent and
omnipotent God—because the world as God must on pantheism
make the existence of suffering impossible. By the same token, a
non-theistic and non-pantheistic optimistic view could also be
confronted with a version of the problem of evil, appropriately
modified: How could a perfectly ordered and positively valuable
world include imperfections and untoward agony? In this case, it
seems that neither the question nor the answer needs to appeal to
God or religion.
One may also wonder whether it is neither optimism nor
pessimism, but rather some intermediate position, that is more likely
to ultimately convince. Without committing oneself to the optimal
arrangement of the cosmos, nor to its valuelessness, one may locate
some order and goodness in the world, and may attach such value
specifically to certain human endeavors or experiences, which, if
attained, may make human existence either worth having (O2) or
not (P2), without thereby leading one either to full-fledged optimism
(O1 + O2) or to outright pessimism (P1 + P2).16 We may refer to
views locating enough value to support O2 as quasi-optimistic, and
call those rejecting enough such value to support P2 quasi-
pessimistic. All of these views, as well as an intermediate position
that remains neutral concerning the worth of human life, may be
represented on a spectrum as follows:

One challenge facing positions falling in between optimism and

pessimism is to provide specific criteria for determining just how
much value found in the world justifies supporting either the
optimistic assessment of human existence as worthwhile, or the
pessimistic counterpart of that assessment. Another challenge would
be to show that value of the right kind and amount, once
determined, can be reliably expected to persist so as to support
those assessments consistently. Part of the attraction of a fully
optimistic or pessimistic theory, by contrast, is that it provides an
evaluation of the world that is clear-cut and unfluctuating.
Furthermore, optimism provides a unique reason for maintaining
that human existence is worthwhile, which seems unavailable to
other theories. For, if the world is perfectly ordered and good, then
human life, however individually potentially distressing, may be
worthwhile simply insofar as it contributes to that perfection as one
of its parts (as we shall see in Chapter 4, Aristotle reasons along
these lines in motivating his view of death as an evil). Granted, it
may be the case that both optimism and pessimism can be
conclusively shown to be false, with some intermediate theory being
shown to be more plausible. Even in such a case, however,
examining optimism and pessimism exhaustively would still prove
beneficial. These theories could function as limiting cases, and their
shortcomings may point out which type of intermediate theory is
more likely to be true—one falling in the “optimistic camp” (i.e.,
upholding that there is enough value in the world to make human
life preferable over nonexistence) or in the “pessimistic camp.”
In Chapter 1, I examine Arthur Schopenhauer’s critique of the
optimism he reads in the Hebrew Bible and in Spinoza’s philosophy.
According to Schopenhauer, the Hebrew Bible presents a consistently
optimistic worldview. Already in Genesis, Schopenhauer points out,
the acts of creation are followed by the locution: “And God saw that
[it was] good” (‫)וירא אלהים כי טוב‬. In fact, Schopenhauer
continues, so good is this creation, according to the biblical view,
that it leaves nothing to look forward to outside of this world, and
the Bible consequently recommends simply rejoicing in the joys of
the present (Ecclesiastes IX. 7–10). On that view, the world in all its
parts is impeccable by hypothesis. Any seeming imperfection within
the world, including those pertaining to human beings and their
lives, must be merely apparent.
Schopenhauer finds an equivalent view in Spinoza’s pantheism.
For Spinoza, God is a being whose “essence excludes all
imperfection and involves absolute perfection” (E1p9s), and it is the
only substance of which we can conceive (E1p14) and in which we
(like everything else) have our being (E1p15). The conclusion to
draw is that we, too, are parts of that perfect entity. And so, as
Schopenhauer sees it, Spinoza’s theory, just like the biblical
worldview, is essentially optimistic. By the basic assumption of these
two systems, there can be no fault in our existence, and hence
nothing to improve. Schopenhauer, however, finds this optimistic
outlook unconvincing, for two main reasons. First, given the
immense suffering one witnesses in the world, optimism generally
generates some version of the classical problem of evil, which it is
unable to solve. One’s individual life cannot plausibly be construed
as “perfect,” as it must be if we consider it a part of a perfectly
created cosmos. Second, optimism itself, once adopted, ironically
makes individuals worse than they otherwise would have been. For,
since optimism encourages one to look favorably upon one’s
individual life, it also promotes egoism, which inevitably leads to
cruelty.
In Chapter 2, we shall turn to Schopenhauer’s own pessimistic
theory and to Nietzsche’s critique of it. Schopenhauer presents an
alternative to Jewish and pantheistic optimism, and the
unreasonable self-commendation that he believes they promote.
Human life, as Schopenhauer thinks it is standardly lived, is
objectively futile and indeed miserable. Life, for him, involves
continuous strife (WWR I, §61: 331), which is inescapable even by
means of suicide (§54: 281). Whenever we find ourselves under the
impression that our human condition is any better than that, we are
simply mistaken. However, Schopenhauer also thinks that there is a
way out of this predicament. The solution is to be found in his notion
of the “denial of the will-to-live” (§68: 397). Knowing and
acknowledging that no form of life can be free from suffering, and
that attempting to alleviate one’s suffering from within the
framework of one’s life is necessarily done in vain, one gradually
grows frustrated with living as such, and ceases to will it. Such a
process, if carried out properly, ultimately yields “[t]rue salvation”
(§68: 397). By dimming (and, ultimately, eliminating) the subjective
investment in one’s own life, with its various aims, goals, choices,
and values, Schopenhauer thinks, one could potentially exist in an
objectively praiseworthy way.
 However, Schopenhauer’s claim that self-abnegation is preferable
over any standard instance of individual life seems to involve him in
a paradox. As Nietzsche (GM III.28) argues directly against
Schopenhauer, and as Thomas Nagel (in Mortal Questions) later
argued against similar positions, the recommendation of eliminating
one’s aims is itself explainable only as the willful pursuit of an aim.
Willing not to will, in other words, is still willing, and a desire not to
desire is still a desire. Indeed, this criticism exposes an even graver
problem for Schopenhauer. Since Schopenhauer promotes self-
abnegation as a desirable goal, his view turns out to share an
important element in common with the Jewish and pantheistic
optimistic views he sets out to reject. The very prospect of solving
totally the misery and misfortune inherent to the human condition
implies that, at least in principle, we need not find ourselves, or at
least remain, in an imperfect world or in a less than fully desirable
state.
The problem intensifies when we attend to the theoretical basis
for Schopenhauer’s recommendation. He believes that the denial of
the will-to-live would bring about the most desirable state one could
aspire to, precisely because in that state one ceases, for all intents
and purposes, to exist as an individual human being or
phenomenon. But that presupposes that there is something beyond
phenomena for humans to exist as. For Schopenhauer, that is the
“will”—the “thing-in-itself”—constituting the true reality underlying
all phenomena. If what we most truly are is a non-phenomenal
metaphysical substratum, however, then whatever phenomenal
attributes we have, including all the imperfections and suffering
Schopenhauer locates in the human condition, do not truly belong to
us. At bottom, we are immutable, eternal, and impeccable, as is the
entire world. As it turns out, the very commendation of world and
self that Schopenhauer abhors in what he calls Jewish and
pantheistic optimism can be attributed to Schopenhauer’s own view
of the world and the self (understood as what they essentially and
truly are).
Nietzsche does not simply reject Schopenhauer’s recommendation
of the denial of the will-to-live, along with the metaphysics
underlying it. He also suggests an alternative. This alternative, which
itself faces a formidable challenge, is the subject of Chapter 3. Based
on his idea of the “death of God” and his rejection of absolute
values, Nietzsche recommends creating novel values through
affirming the world and oneself. Nietzsche envisages his alternative
as overcoming the problems of both pessimism (à la Schopenhauer)
and optimism (of the kind Schopenhauer himself rejects). He
describes his Zarathustra as recognizing that the optimist is just as
bad as, if not worse than, the pessimist (EH IV.4). Nevertheless,
Nietzsche’s view arguably does ultimately revert to the same
evaluation of the world and of oneself that both he and
Schopenhauer find problematic. It has been argued, that is, that
Nietzsche, too, endows the world and its various parts, including
individual human beings, with ultimate value. In The Rebel, Albert
Camus suggests that Nietzsche’s top goal—“creation” (Schaffen) or
“yes-saying” (Ja-sagen), roughly, aligning one’s will with the world—
amounts to thinking of the world as a deity and of oneself as divine,
after and despite the “death of God.” Thus, although Nietzsche
criticizes monotheism for privileging God as singularly valuable and
believers in Him as singularly correct (GS 143), he himself privileges
the world and those individuals who value it in just this way.
Both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, though criticizing optimistic
views for overvaluing human beings, are nevertheless led, in
different ways, to overvalue individual human beings to an arguably
unprecedented degree. There is, however, one readily available view
that seems to deliberately and consistently avoid this consequence.
This view, which dates back to Aristotle and is later developed by
Moses Maimonides, is interestingly one which both Schopenhauer
and Nietzsche would consider optimistic, and rightly so. Aristotelian
optimism will be examined in detail in Chapters 5 and 6. However, in
order to appreciate the relevance of that theory to later views, we
will first, in Chapter 4, compare the ancient pessimistic approaches
that Aristotle engages with to their modern counterparts, and
especially to Schopenhauer’s view (as we have already seen,
pessimistic sentiments and views make an appearance already in
ancient Greek philosophy and literature, and the connections of
those to modern pessimism, as we shall see, do not elude
Schopenhauer himself). In a fragment from a lost dialogue, titled the
Eudemus, Aristotle tells a story about Silenus, who, upon being
captured by King Midas, utters a statement encapsulating a
pessimistic view resembling Schopenhauer’s views on human life and
existence. I shall argue that Aristotle presents Silenus’s words in
order to reject them, along with Plato’s view in the Phaedo of death
as a blessing and a release. This criticism is applicable to
Schopenhauer’s general view, and it sets the ground for establishing
Aristotle’s own alternative to pessimism.
In Chapter 5, I turn to the details of Aristotle’s optimistic theory.
For Aristotle, the person who has reached the highest value humanly
possible, and recognizes her value adequately, qualifies as
“magnanimous” (megalopsuchos). Occupying a middle position
between the “small-souled” and the “vain,” the magnanimous person
is concerned with “honors and dishonors” exactly appropriately,
knowing when to accept and reject them and taking the right
amount of pleasure in them when they are deserved (NE IV.3).
Despite a long controversy surrounding the criteria Aristotle thinks a
magnanimous person must meet, there are good reasons to identify
that person with Aristotle’s philosopher, who is best equipped to
appreciate and assess, not only human honors and dishonors, but
also what in Aristotle’s system are the greatest honors in existence—
those attributed to the unmoved movers of the heavenly bodies and
spheres, i.e., Aristotle’s gods. Being acquainted with these ultimate
causes of reality and their magnificence, the magnanimous person
comes to devalue humanity and devotes her life and efforts to the
divine. This devotion to the divine, which seems to go against the
natural tendency of organisms to further their own lives and species,
is nevertheless quite consistent with Aristotle’s teleological view of
nature, according to which nature exhibits a clear hierarchy of
species, with each species teleologically oriented not only toward its
own interests but also toward the good of superior species.
Importantly, this view of nature is predicated on the assumption that
the world functions optimally and is perfectly good as is. Thus,
Aristotle’s view presents an alternative to pessimism. However, it
also avoids a core feature characteristic of biblical and Spinozist
optimism as characterized by Schopenhauer, of the unintentionally
optimistic features of Schopenhauer’s theory revealed by Nietzsche,
and of Nietzsche’s inadvertent optimism as analyzed by Camus. For
Aristotle’s view devalues humanity by comparison to superior
entities, and hence resists overvaluing humanity or oneself.
Moses Maimonides consciously appropriates much of Aristotelian
theory and integrates it into both his philosophical system and his
biblical interpretation. In Chapter 6, I discuss Maimonides’s
appropriation and development of Aristotle’s optimism, which helps
to put that theory in conversation with post-classical debates on the
value of the world and of human life. In the Guide of the Perplexed
III, Maimonides sets out to solve the classical problem of evil. His
solution rests, not on disregarding or explaining away suffering or
evil in the world, but rather on the devaluation of human beings.
Coming to terms with our own inferiority as humans to higher
entities such as the heavenly bodies and the separate intellects,
Maimonides thinks, allows us to adopt a sober and correct optimistic
worldview. In establishing his devaluation of human beings for this
purpose, Maimonides relies on his interpretation of Jewish sources
and, implicitly, on his understanding of Aristotle’s philosophy. Various
biblical and Talmudic texts venerate viewing oneself, and indeed the
whole of humankind, as lowly. Abraham, Moses, King David, Isaiah,
and Job have all been described as, and commended for, sharing in
this recognition and conducting their lives in accordance with it.
Humans, in general, are likened to a “vanity” in Psalms 144:4, and to
maggots and worms in Job 25:6. Maimonides harmonizes such
statements with his own conception (and ideal) of the righteous
person and prophet—a philosopher who, like Aristotle’s
magnanimous person, devalues humanity and herself and devotes
her life and efforts to the divine. Based on these views, Maimonides
is able to sustain an optimistic worldview which, far from implying
the impeccability of human beings, is in fact grounded in the
devaluation of humanity.
Finally, in Chapter 7, I assess the degree to which Aristotelian
theory is capable of answering the challenge that Schopenhauer
poses to optimism. I conclude that, contra Schopenhauer, Aristotle’s
view, especially as developed by Maimonides, is capable of dealing
with the classical problem of evil without compromising its optimistic
principles and without having to resort to personal immortality. I also
outline an Aristotelian-Maimonidean response to Schopenhauer’s
claim that optimism inevitably leads to moral depravity and cruelty.
Indeed, the Aristotelian-Maimonidean stance on these issues not
only defends optimism against Schopenhauer’s challenge, but also
suggests that it is indeed a view such as Schopenhauer’s that is
essentially self-centered and hence potentially morally hazardous. I
close by considering further objections to optimism (raised both by
Schopenhauer and by others), and the ways in which Aristotelian
optimism might respond to them. One group of such objections
focuses on the irrelevance of Aristotle’s theory to contemporary
discussion, given its teleological principles and commitment to such
things as the eternity of biological species. I argue that a modified
version of Aristotelian optimism can withstand such objections.

1 Throughout, by “x is valueless” I mean, not that x cannot be evaluated, but

rather that, upon evaluation, it turns out that x is not at all valuable (notice that,
in addition, P1’s evaluation of the condition of the world as woeful in fact
attributes disvalue to the world). The view that one might not appropriately form
value judgments concerning the world, or anything in it, will be considered in
Chapter 3.
2
All translations and page numbers of Schopenhauer’s texts are taken from E.
F. J. Payne, unless otherwise noted.
3 WWR II.XXXVII: 434; II.XLVI: 574; Brieftasche 9, pp. 17–18 (Payne, 160–1);

Reisebuch 33, pp. 30–1 (Payne, 13–14). See Chapter 2 for a more detailed
discussion of these texts. Payne translates Werthlosigkeit as “worthlessness”;
reasonably, since Schopenhauer uses the word as an evaluative term (as I use
“valuelessness” throughout). Nichtigkeit, for him, is an evaluative term as well
(making Payne’s translation of it as “vanity” appropriate), as it denotes primarily
the futility of all striving and aiming, which inevitably lead to suffering (WWR I,
§68: 385, 394–7; II.XXXVII: 435; II.XLVI: 634–5).
4
S. Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 2008), ad
“optimism and pessimism.”
 5 N. Bunnin and J. Yu, The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy (Maiden,
2004), ad “optimism” and “pessimism.”
6
L. E. Loemker, “Pessimism and Optimism,” in D. M. Borchert (ed.),
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed., vol. 7 (Detroit, 2006), 244–54, at 244–5.
7 P. Prescott, “What Pessimism Is,” Journal of Philosophical Research 37 (2012),

337–56, helpfully distinguishes pessimism from cynicism, fatalism, the affirmation

of decline, nihilism, and despair. Prescott’s own definition of pessimism is as “the
belief that the bad prevails over the good.” He also claims, contrary to my
understanding of pessimism in this book, that pessimism essentially involves
“personal investment” and hence also “emotional commitment.”
8
On this point see also Prescott (2012, 341–3), discussing J. F. Dienstag,
Pessimism (Princeton, NJ, 2006).
9 L. E. Loemker (2006, 244–5) and F. C. Beiser, Weltschmerz: Pessimism in

German Philosophy 1860–1900 (Oxford, 2016), 153, associate a similar move with
Eduard von Hartmann. See also S. Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative
History of Philosophy (Princeton, NJ, 2015), 22; M. Migotti, “Schopenhauer’s
Pessimism in Context,” in R. Wicks (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer
(Oxford, 2020), 284–98 at 285–6.
10
J. B. Cabell, The Silver Stallion (New York, 1926), 129. Quoted in D. Benatar,
The Human Predicament (Oxford, 2017), 5; Cf. Migotti (2020), 285–6.
11 Cf. Migotti (2020), 286.
12
Loemker (2006, 244) traces the term “optimism” to 1737 and “pessimism” to
1795.
13 Dienstag (2006), 8–9; cf. ibid., 166.
14
On the usefulness of anachronism for such purposes, see D. Graham,
“Anachronism in the History of Philosophy,” in P. H. Hare (ed.), Doing Philosophy
Historically (Buffalo, NY, 1988), 137–48, esp. 142–4.
15 A. Guttmacher, Optimism and Pessimism in the Old and New Testaments

(Baltimore, MD, 1903), 125.

16 I am thankful to Anna Schriefl for a helpful discussion concerning this point.
 1
Schopenhauer’s Critique of the Optimism of
the Hebrew Bible and Spinoza

Schopenhauer frequently assimilates Spinoza’s pantheism with

Jewish monotheism, and contrasts both with his own system. In his
view, both Spinoza and Judaism reject personal immortality and
endorse a belief in a deity with the same “moral character”
(moralischen Charakter) and “value” (Werth) (WWR II.L). This
confluence of Spinozism and Judaism, and Schopenhauer’s
opposition to both, seem surprising at first sight. First,
Schopenhauer, by his own admission (WWR II.L), shares with
Spinoza the basic view that the true nature of the world is single and
unified, and that, contra Abrahamic monotheism, the world is not
created. Second, belief in personal immortality is not standardly
characterized as incompatible with Judaism. Indeed, according to
recent influential accounts, it is precisely for rejecting this belief that
Spinoza was so severely excommunicated from the Jewish
community he had been a part of. Third, Spinoza is standardly taken
to reject the Jewish conception of God, not least for its moral and
practical implications. Hence it may seem, as indeed has been
argued, that Schopenhauer’s assimilation of Spinozism to Judaism is
simply the result of either anti-Semitism or sheer ignorance (or
both).
In fact, however, Schopenhauer’s thesis is the conclusion of a
carefully worked out argument, according to which the basic
premises of both pantheism and theism lead directly to optimism.
This argument, which is undoubtedly mounted in order to reject
both Spinoza’s philosophy and Judaism, is nevertheless a testament
to Schopenhauer’s admiration for the internal consistency of both
systems, a feature he explicitly denies to Christianity. It is specifically
the optimism to which their ground assumptions allegedly inevitably
lead that Schopenhauer rejects in both Judaism and Spinoza’s
pantheism. Schopenhauer views that optimism as doubly
problematic. First, he contends, since the world is evidently full of
suffering, optimists face the problem of evil, and cannot successfully
respond to it (at least without resorting to such ideas as personal
immortality, which are inconsistent with their theoretical
commitments). Second, it is Schopenhauer’s assessment that, by
promoting the adherence to individual life as an ideal, optimism
leads to egoism, which in turn promotes cruelty, both toward one’s
fellow humans and, even more so, toward nonhuman animals.

1.1 Monotheistic and Pantheistic Optimism

Schopenhauer regards Judaism as “the only purely monotheistic
religion” teaching “a God creator as the origin of all things” (FHP
§13: 127). He contrasts this tradition with both Buddhism, which is
entirely atheistic, and Brahmanism, as well as Phoenician, Greek,
Roman, and North American religions, which posit divinities but no
Creator God (FHP §13: 127). For Schopenhauer, the word God
necessarily indicates a “world-cause that is not only different from
the world, but is intelligent, that is to say, knows and wills, and so is
personal and consequently also individual” (FHP §13: 115). The God
of Judaism, Schopenhauer thinks, certainly meets these criteria. Not
only has He intentionally and intelligently created the world, but He
also assesses His own creation as a good one, as is exemplified by
the recurring statement in Genesis 1, following His deeds of
creation: “And God saw that [it was] good” (orig.: ‫וירא אלהים כי‬
‫)טוב‬. This “optimistic history of creation,” as Schopenhauer calls it
(WWR II.XLVIII: 620), sets the tone for the rest of Jewish religion
and culture as he sees them. Interestingly, he finds the most distinct
pronouncement of this approach in Clement of Alexandria—a Church
Father. In Stromata III.3, Schopenhauer notes, Clement opposes the
Marcionites for “having found fault with the creation” (WWR
II.XLVIII: 621). For Clement, he continues, upon accepting the fact
that God created the world “it is a priori certain that it is excellent,
no matter what it looks like” (WWR II.XLVIII: 622). This attitude,
Schopenhauer concludes, makes Clement “more of a Jew than a
Christian” (WWR II.XLVIII: 622). Judaism, for Schopenhauer, is
essentially optimistic. It is founded on the belief in a God responsible
for the creation of an absolutely flawless world.
Schopenhauer’s interpretation of Judaism on this point is
consonant with prominent voices in Jewish theology and philosophy.
In GP III.13, Maimonides comments on Genesis 1:31, where it is
stated that “God saw all that He has created, and behold, [it was]
very good (‫)והנה טוב מאד‬.” The word “very” ‫ ))מאד‬is added at
Genesis 1:31 for the first time, after repeated references earlier in
the chapter to God’s seeing His creation and simply declaring it
“good.” According to Maimonides, this addition means that Creation,
in its entirety, conforms to God’s intention permanently (327:16–
21).1 Later, he assimilates that idea to “the philosophical opinion
(‫ דעת הפילוסופים‬,‫ ”)אלראי אלפלספי‬that “in all natural things there
is nothing that may be described as futile” (III.25, 365:30–366:9),
i.e., to the Aristotelian dictum that “nature does nothing in vain”
(e.g., IA 8, 708a9–11).2 Thus, in GP III.10, Maimonides extends the
statement at Genesis 1:31 to the existence of particular natural
phenomena, including organisms made of inferior, perishable matter,
such as human beings. In the light of Genesis 1:31, Maimonides
thinks, such beings are doomed to undergo evils, including their
eventual death, but “all of that is good as well (‫כל‬, ‫כל זה גם כן טוב‬
‫)ׄד לך איׄצ א טוב‬,” because of the permanence of being through
reproduction and the cycle of life (317:10–16).3 For Maimonides,
then, the account of Creation in Genesis implies that the world as
such is perfectly good, and that the particular ordering of
phenomena as we observe it in the natural world invariably
contributes to that perfection.
One finds endorsement of the optimistic reading of Genesis 1,
very much along Schopenhauerian lines, in twentieth-century biblical
scholarship as well.4 More recently, one scholar describes the
account of Creation in Genesis 1 as revealing a “majestic, rationally
ordered, and morally good universe,” a cosmos in which “nothing . .
. is random or incomplete,” and a structure of reality that is “orderly
and philosophical.”5 It has also been argued, based on a
comprehensive examination of Scripture, that, much like
Schopenhauer concludes, the Hebrew Bible as a whole is
predominantly optimistic, by contrast to the New Testament.6 Broad
generalizations such as this are of course prone to being challenged,
as indeed they have been.7 But, whichever opinion one reaches
about the philosophical position underlying the books comprising the
Hebrew Bible, it is reasonable, assuming that such a unified position
does dominate or at least is present consistently throughout these
texts, to turn to Genesis 1 in order to identify it. For it has been
argued that the Priestly writer (‘P’)—a dominant source throughout
the Pentateuch responsible for the first Creation account in Genesis
1—“exhibited . . . consistent thematic interests,” and in particular
was “far more optimistic and expansive [than ‘J’—the Jahwist
source], embracing a narrative arc that began with God’s
establishment of the ‘very good’ created order and culminating in the
assurance of God’s enduring presence among the people through
the establishment of a legitimate cult at Mount Sinai.”8 At the very
least, then, Schopenhauer seems to be on firm ground in tracking a
consistently (if not solely) optimistic tone throughout the
Pentateuch, beginning with Genesis 1 and its account of Creation.
Let us turn to Schopenhauer’s assessment of Spinoza. In the very
last chapter of The World as Will and Representation (II.L), titled
“Epiphilosophy,” Schopenhauer presents an overview of the
significance of his philosophical project, as well as its limitations. He
states that philosophy, be it his or anyone else’s, cannot achieve “a
perfect understanding of the existence, inner nature, and origin of
the world” (WWR II.L: 642). Instead, philosophy, practiced properly,
“sticks to the actual facts of outward and inward experience as they
are accessible to everyone, and shows their true and deepest
connexion, yet without really going beyond them to any
extramundane things, and the relations of these to the world” (WWR
II.L: 640). Though we may not gain perfect knowledge of the inner
nature of the world, we nevertheless may learn quite a lot, in
Schopenhauer’s view. By analyzing phenomena available for one to
experience, and especially oneself (as the phenomenon most readily
available for one to experience and examine), one may gain a “key
to the inner nature of the world,” and come to understand the way
in which all phenomena relate to this inner nature, namely, as
manifestations or representations of it (WWR II.L: 642).
Schopenhauer takes himself to be the first to have adequately
identified this metaphysical substratum underlying all objects of
experience. He acknowledges, however, that others before him have
already attended to the more basic, and crucial, idea that “the inner
essence in all things is absolutely one and the same” (WWR II.L:
642). Schopenhauer attributes the recognition of this truth to such
thinkers as Parmenides, John Scotus Eriugena, Giordano Bruno, and
Spinoza, who “had taught it in detail” by Schopenhauer’s time, in his
estimation (WWR II.L: 642).
Schopenhauer, then, credits Spinoza with recognizing and
developing a fundamental philosophical truth. Spinoza’s system,
Schopenhauer maintains, elaborately captures the observation, at
the core of both pantheism and Schopenhauer’s own theory, that all
experienced phenomena share a single metaphysical substratum,
and that in this sense everything is one (WWR II.L: 643). Indeed,
the positive influence on Schopenhauer of Spinoza’s philosophy, as
well as of his life, has been the subject of extensive discussion.9
However, Schopenhauer also thinks that Spinoza, like previous
pantheists, makes a crucial error by identifying the true nature of the
world with the Deity, and concluding that everything is God (WWR
II.L: 643). This move, Schopenhauer thinks, leads directly to
“optimism,” i.e., to the view that the world, in all its parts and
details, is perfect (WWR II.L: 644). As we shall see in the next
sections, Schopenhauer believes that systems of thought leading to
this “optimism” are significantly challenged by certain unfavorable
theoretical and ethical consequences that follow from it. It is
important at the outset, though, to see what Schopenhauer thinks
Spinoza’s “optimism” amounts to, and in what way he takes his own
view to deviate from it.
Schopenhauer, both in WWR II.L and consistently throughout his
writings, compares Spinoza’s optimistic worldview to that of Judaism,
and that comparison sheds light on his overall interpretation of
Spinoza. Like Jewish monotheism, Schopenhauer thinks,
“[p]antheism is essentially and necessarily optimism” (FHP §12: 73).
Spinoza’s God is different from that of Judaism, to be sure. In fact,
Schopenhauer notes, it would have been prudent of Spinoza not to
even call his substance God (or, Deus) (FHP §12: 72). As indicated
earlier, Schopenhauer thinks God is by definition a personal being.
He also says expressly that personality is precisely what Spinoza
denies his God (WWR II.L: 644). In fact, Schopenhauer thinks
Spinoza shares his own basic view, in that both maintain that the
world exists, not due to a creator God, but rather “by its own inner
power and through itself” (WWR II.L: 644). Nevertheless,
Schopenhauer deviates from Spinoza on the characterization of the
“inner nature of the world” (Spinoza’s Deus), which he thinks leads
in Spinoza’s case directly to optimism reminiscent of Judaism (WWR
II.L: 644). Spinoza’s God is a being whose “essence excludes all
imperfection and involves absolute perfection” (E1p11s: eius
essentia omnem imperfectionem secludit absolutamque
perfectionem involvit). Thus, Schopenhauer’s association between
Spinoza’s Deus and the monotheistic God (in WWR II.L) is
compatible with his recognition (e.g., in FHP §12) of the substantial
dissimilarities between the two.10 The association seems to work, for
Schopenhauer, as long as both deities are assumed to be perfect by
both systems. And of course, in Spinoza’s system, God is the only
substance conceivable (E1p14), and “Whatever has being, has its
being in God” (E1p15: Quicquid est, in Deo est). The inevitable
consequence of deriving one’s explanations of the natural world from
such a starting point, for Schopenhauer, is the rejection of the
possibility of anything less than a perfect state of the world a priori.
The pantheistic world, as Schopenhauer puts it, exhausts the “entire
possibility of all being,” and it is for this reason that he thinks
pantheism, like Judaism, is “essentially optimism” (WWR II.L: 644).
The optimistic worldview underlying both Judaism and Spinozism
is a crucial common denominator between them, and constitutes a
crucial difference between them and other religions or systems of
thought, in Schopenhauer’s view. As he puts it (WWR II.XVII: 170):

I cannot, as is generally done, put the fundamental difference of all religions

in the question whether they are monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, or
atheistic, but only in the question whether they are optimistic or pessimistic,
in other words, whether they present the existence of this world as justified
by itself, and consequently praise and commend it, or consider it as
something which can be conceived only as the consequence of our guilt, and
thus really ought not to be, in that they recognize that pain and death cannot
lie in the eternal, original, and immutable order of things, that which in every
respect ought to be.

On the most crucial issue, then, Judaism and Spinozism are grouped
together, and are contrasted with both Christianity and
Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Significant though the difference might
be between a personal benevolent Creator God and God understood
as an infinite and eternal substance functioning as the inner nature
of the world, Schopenhauer believes both principles consistently lead
to importantly similar results. In particular, as we shall see, he thinks
that by excluding the possibility of considering the world anything
less than perfect, both systems lead to identical views on the
problem of evil, the possibility of an afterlife, and certain ethical
issues. Indeed, Schopenhauer criticizes both systems, occasionally
simultaneously, specifically for upholding these views.

1.2. The “Problem of Evil”

Any view or system of thought upholding optimism must confront
the challenge of accounting for those features of the world that
appear to be less than optimal. Schopenhauer thus takes Spinoza’s
theory to be faced with that challenge as well. He thinks that it
ultimately fails to meet the challenge. Since here, again, he links the
failure with the connection between Spinoza’s pantheism and Jewish
monotheism, it is helpful to discuss, first, the reasons why Judaism
cannot successfully accomplish that task, in his view.
For Schopenhauer, Judaism is committed to the goodness of the
world given its creation by a personal God. Unlike Christianity, which
introduces an evil force to account for the world’s ills, and even
regards “the devil” as “ruler” over “the world,” Judaism seems to
simply accept this world as entirely good (WWR II.XLVIII: 624). It is
perhaps this feature that leads Schopenhauer to declare Judaism
“the only purely monotheistic religion” (FHP §13: 127), which he
indeed says is a distinction (Ruhm), by contrast to other features for
which it ought to be criticized (more on these later) (FHP §13: 126).
Surely, it is not its “monotheism” per se that Schopenhauer
commends Judaism for, since he thinks (as does Spinoza) that a
personal Creator God cannot exist. Rather, Schopenhauer applauds
the “purity” of Judaism’s monotheism. Judaism begins with
postulating a perfectly good, omnipotent God, and consistently
attributes to Him all of creation, without introducing additional
agents or factors.
But, given such a commitment on the part of Judaism, it must
according to Schopenhauer face up to the following fact (FHP §13:
120–1):

. . . the melancholy constitution of a world whose living beings subsist by

devouring one another, the consequent distress and death of all that lives, the
multitude and colossal magnitude of evils, the variety and inevitability of
sufferings often swelling to the dreadful, the burden of life itself hurrying
forward to the bitterness of death, all this cannot honestly be reconciled with
the idea that the world is supposed to be the work of a united infinite
goodness, wisdom, and power.

Alluding to the classical problem of evil, Schopenhauer says here

that God cannot be perfectly good and omnipotent while still
allowing for the imperfections and evils we know the world to
contain. Theism, Schopenhauer notes, often responds to this
problem by invoking “all kinds of shifts, evasions, and theodicies”
(WWR II.XLVII: 591). Such shifts might include, for instance,
introducing the devil as a counterforce to God’s goodness. Even such
moves, Schopenhauer thinks, “succumbed irretrievably to the
arguments of Hume and Voltaire”—both presenting versions of the
classical problem of evil (WWR II.XLVII: 591). But Judaism does not
even have such means at its disposal. It must content itself with
God’s own assessment concerning His creation—that it is “good”—in
the face of even our most direct experience.
A similar problem arises for pantheism, or so Schopenhauer
charges. In fact, after discussing the problem of evil and its
consequences for theism, he continues: “[b]ut pantheism is wholly
untenable in face of [the] evil side of the world” (WWR II.XLVII:
591). Of course, the problem of evil confronting pantheism results
from the inconsistency between the existence of evil in the world
and the existence of the pantheistic, not the theistic, God. The basic
problem with the pantheistic God, for Schopenhauer, is that it is
supposed to provide an explanation of all of reality, without itself
being known or explained by any means, and a fortiori not by means
of experience (WWR II.L: 643). If everything in existence has its
being in and as a direct consequence of a perfect God, then
anything, regardless of the way we experience it, must itself be
divine and faultless. As Schopenhauer puts it, on the assumptions of
pantheism “the world would be a theophany” (WWR II.XXVIII: 349).
But this optimism is untenable, Schopenhauer suggests, since it goes
against the observable fact that “pain as such is inevitable and
essential to life” (WWR I, §57: 315). We have, as Schopenhauer
often reminds us, direct knowledge and experience of the
“preponderance of want, suffering, and misery, of dissension,
wickedness, infamy, and absurdity” (WWR II.XLVII: 591). Such
“terrible and ghastly phenomena,” as Schopenhauer sarcastically
puts it in response to John Scotus Eriugena’s proto-pantheistic view,
would make “fine theophanies!” (WWR II.L: 643).
Though Schopenhauer does mention “palliatives and quack
remedies” used by pantheists to combat charges such as his (WWR
II.L: 643), it is not clear specifically what these devices are and,
since they are mentioned in the context of discussing pantheism in
general, it is not clear that Schopenhauer thinks they have been
adopted by Spinoza himself. It is possible, however, that one of
those pantheistic “quack remedies” for the problem of evil which
Schopenhauer appeals to is Spinoza’s own oft-discussed doctrine,
stated in the preface to Ethics 4, that “good and bad (bonum et
malum)” are “no positive [property] in things considered by
themselves (nihil etiam positivum in rebus, in se scilicet
consideratis),” but rather merely indicate “modes of thought or
notions (cogitandi modos seu notiones)” resulting from our
comparisons between objects. As it seems, had Spinoza embraced
that doctrine in its entirety, it would have provided him with a
possible solution to the problem of evil as it pertains to his
philosophy, since there would be nothing objectively evil to generate
such a problem to begin with. However, as has been pointed out by
Steven Nadler, Spinoza in fact does not have this solution at his
disposal. For, as it turns out, Spinoza does maintain that some
things, like gaining knowledge of God, are objectively good (E4p28),
implying that good and bad (or evil) are not entirely subjective,
human-made categories.11 Spinoza, then, could not defend his
optimism against Schopenhauer’s charge by appealing to the
subjectivity of good and evil.
It has also been argued, in the context of comparing Spinoza to
Schopenhauer, that (1) for Spinoza, thinking that evil is prevalent in
the world is an error, resulting from failure to recognize the necessity
of all events and the absolute perfection of God,12 and (2) despite
Schopenhauer’s criticisms (cf. WWR II.XLVII; WWR II.XVII), for
Spinoza one’s astonishment at the suffering in the world is resolved
with true knowledge, similarly to the way that for Schopenhauer
himself recognizing the will as the essence of all things explains
suffering.13 However, as far as Schopenhauer is concerned, (1)
explaining away the prevalence of evil in the world is necessarily
one-sided, restricting one to evaluating the world exclusively “from
the outside,” or “from the physical side” (WWR II.XLVII: 591).
Looking at things also “from within,” or from “the subjective and the
moral side,” Schopenhauer argues, one comes to realize that the
prevalence of evil and suffering is ultimately ineliminable and that,
consequently, the characterization of the world as a deity is wholly
inappropriate (WWR II.XLVII: 591). And (2), quite distinctly from the
prevalence of evils, pantheism is incapable of accounting for the fact
that we tend to be astonished by the very existence of the world and
“the evil and wickedness” within it, which would be felt, and would
demand an explanation, even if evils were “far outweighed by the
good” (WWR II.XVII: 170–2). Such astonishment, Schopenhauer
thinks, leads to the true conclusion that the world’s nonexistence “is
preferable to its existence” (WWR II.XVII: 171; cf. WWR II.XLVI:
576)—a conclusion that Spinoza’s optimism cannot accommodate.

1.3. Denial of Personal Immortality

One standard way out of the problem of evil is of course via the idea
of reward in an afterlife. While Schopenhauer criticizes Spinoza for
not supporting either this or an analogous feature, he also thinks
that he would have been inconsistent in doing so. No internally
consistent optimistic theory can allow for the possibility that any
features of either human life or the world at large leave anything to
be desired. And so, it is to Spinoza’s credit that he does not
compromise the consistency of his theory by resorting to an idea
promising improvement in a life to come.
Here, too, Schopenhauer interprets Judaism as closely akin to,
and as substantially informing, Spinoza’s theory. For Schopenhauer,
Judaism “has absolutely no doctrine of immortality” (FHP §13: 125).
He is often accused of being ignorant on the subject,14 and he has
been more generally called a “metaphysical anti-Semite” who
“abhorred Judaism, of which he knew very little.”15 More recently, it
has been shown that at least Schopenhauer’s early comments on
Judaism were either neutral or even positive.16 In any case,
Schopenhauer is aware of discussions of metempsychosis in
testimonies regarding Jews (e.g., in Tertullian and Justin) (WWR
II.XLI: 506). He also reads a part of the Talmud (Sota 12a) as
referring to the transmigration of soul between Abel, Seth, and
Moses (WWR II.XLI: 506),17 though it should be noted that the
Talmudic text only implicitly draws a connection between these three
figures, which is then developed as an account of metempsychosis
(gilgul) in Lurianic Kabbalah.18 But these ideas, in Schopenhauer’s
estimation, deviate from “the real religion of the Jews,” i.e., from the
texts of the Hebrew Bible (FHP §13: 125). These texts, he says,
directly exclude the possibility of an afterlife, in several places (FHP
§13: 125–6; cf. 2 Chronicles 34:28; Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:8;
Tobias 3:6: Deuteronomy 5:16, 33; Ecclesiastes 3:19), and when
such ideas are presented, e.g., in Daniel 12:2, they are due to
external (Babylonian) influences, mentioned explicitly in Daniel 1:4,
6 (FHP §13: 125–6). And here again, Schopenhauer is on firm
ground. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Hebrew Bible as
a whole “is comparatively inexplicit on the fate of the individual after
death,” and, although it seems to emerge from certain passages that
“there existed a belief in an afterlife of one form or another,” “the
first explicit biblical formulation of the doctrine of the resurrection of
the dead occurs in the book of Daniel [sc. 12:2].”19
For Schopenhauer, the absence of personal immortality from
Judaism in its original form should not surprise us. First, since only
eternal, and hence uncreated, things can be imperishable (FHP §13:
124), Judaism, which is committed to the creation of humans “out of
nothing” (WWR II.XLI: 506), cannot consistently promise the
lingering of human souls after death. “[N]o doctrine of immortality is
appropriate to a creation out of nothing” (WWR II.XLI: 488), and
Judaism, unlike Christianity and Islam, thus exhibits “perfect
consistency” on this issue (FHP §13: 125).20 The second reason why
Schopenhauer thinks Judaism should not advocate personal
immortality, if it is to remain consistent, is that its belief in a Creator
God implies optimism, as we have seen. If everything created by
God “turned out excellently,” Schopenhauer says, again echoing the
opening chapter of Genesis, then one should “just enjoy his life as
long as it lasts” (WWR II.L: 644). Indeed, he finds a conclusion to
just this effect in Ecclesiastes 9:7–10, in which Qoheleth
recommends joyfully eating one’s bread and drinking one’s wine,
wearing white clothing, letting one’s head lack no oil, and living
one’s life with a beloved wife throughout one’s “vain days” under the
sun, for “there is no deed, calculation, knowledge or wisdom in the
grave [orig.: ‫ ]שאול‬to which you are headed.” At the same time,
Schopenhauer also recognizes as pessimistic “the Fall” in Genesis,21
as well as Ecclesiastes 7:3, stating that “sorrow is better than
laughter.”22 Indeed, Schopenhauer says of Ecclesiastes 7:3 that it is
a text Spinoza should have attended to (FHP §12: 72–3). And it has
been argued that there is more in the Bible that is congenial to
Schopenhauer’s view, and that Ecclesiastes’s optimism, which is built
“on pessimistic foundations,” is echoed by Schopenhauer’s
philosophy, particularly in the Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life.23
Schopenhauer thinks that the second consideration against
immortality noted previously—that optimism makes the idea of an
afterlife gratuitous—applies to Spinozism as well as to Judaism, and
his discussion of it in WWR II.L in fact occurs within the context of
discussing Spinoza’s optimism. Schopenhauer’s point is precisely that
since Spinoza’s Deus leads to optimism, exactly as the Jewish God
does, his system, just like Judaism, alleviates the need for anything
like judgment in an afterlife. Human beings, on that view, should
seek nothing exceeding the scope of their natural life, a point that,
as Schopenhauer notes, Spinoza himself puts in words clearly
reminiscent of Ecclesiastes (WWR II.L; cf. E4p67d). Indeed, it has
been suggested that Schopenhauer’s own idea of the “pure subject
of knowledge” was originally influenced by Schleiermacher’s
interpretation of Spinoza as denying personal immortality while
affirming the eternity of the soul in God.24 Schopenhauer’s
interpretation of Spinoza as denying personal immortality seems
plausible. Steven Nadler, for example, suggests that Spinoza, while
arguing that the mind “remains” after death inasmuch as it acquires
knowledge of the order of reality (specifically, intuitive knowledge, or
knowledge of the “third kind”) (E5p38), cannot countenance
anything like personal immortality, e.g., because knowledge,
especially when unlinked to continuous memory, is not sufficient to
preserve personal identity.25 Nadler further argues that Spinoza’s
arguments for the eternity of knowledge reveal his attitude toward
organized religions, with their empty promise of personal
immortality, which even such figures as Gersonides felt the need to
support even though the conclusions of their theories are closer to
Spinoza’s own.26 Schopenhauer would agree with Nadler’s
assessment, with one caveat. For him, one organized religion in
particular, namely Judaism, at least in its original form, in fact does
not promise an afterlife, and is for this reason (and others) closely
akin to Spinoza’s worldview. In fact, Nadler himself concurs with
Schopenhauer’s interpretation of the Hebrew Bible as excluding any
reference to the immortality of the soul, as do other prominent
scholars.27
It has been suggested that Schopenhauer ought not to criticize
the rejection of personal immortality, since he himself thinks
individual lives are perishable.28 It is of course true that
Schopenhauer countenances no doctrine of personal immortality.
But, first, his criticism of the denial of immortality by Judaism and
Spinoza’s philosophy is directed at the alleged inability of these
optimistic systems to avoid or dismantle the problem of evil.
Schopenhauer, precisely because he is not an optimist,
acknowledges the existence of an abundance of evils and suffering
in the world and finds no need to explain them away. Second,
Schopenhauer’s philosophy in fact does provide a substitute for
immortality, in the form of the negation of the will-to-live and the
abnegation of one’s phenomenal existence—the subject matter, to a
large extent, of the entire fourth book of WWR I (which we shall
revisit in Chapter 2).

1.4. Ethical Consequences

Apart from the theoretical problems that Schopenhauer locates in
maintaining optimism, he also takes issue with its practical
implications. As he puts it, “optimism is not only a false but also a
pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man’s
happiness as its aim and object” (WWR II.XLVI: 584). Optimism sees
nothing suboptimal about the world as we know and experience it,
and hence offers nothing in terms of an alternative to it. A fortiori,
then, optimism sees no reason to supply an alternative to the life of
individual human beings, with their various goals and aims. It also
provides no motivation to look beyond individual phenomena, toward
the unified essence that they might all share. But viewing the world
exclusively through this individuation between phenomena in
general, and in particular between our own self and all other living
things, is conducive to egoism. In fact, Schopenhauer insists that
“egoism has its continuance and being [ . . . ] in the fact that the
objectification of the will has for its form the principium
individuationis” (WWR I, §61: 332). Schopenhauer’s idea seems to
be the following. Optimism accepts the individuation of phenomena
at face value, as the optimal way in which the world might be
arranged. But such individuation has as its inevitable consequence
the privileging of one’s own being over all phenomena that one sees
as distinct and remote from oneself (WWR I, §61: 332):

[W]hereas each individual is immediately given to himself as the whole will

and the entire representer, all others are given to him in the first instance only
as his representations. Hence for him his own inner being and its preservation
come before all others taken together.

The consistent optimist, Schopenhauer charges, must accept this

egoistic consequence.
Now, it is true that pantheism maintains that all phenomena are
essentially one. As we have seen, Schopenhauer commends Spinoza
for developing that very idea. But merely recognizing that shared
essence is not enough to escape egoism. For Schopenhauer, it is
necessary that one recognize that “the in-itself of [one’s] own
phenomenon is also that of others, namely that will-to-live which
constitutes the inner nature of everything, and lives in all” (WWR I,
§66: 372). This more specific recognition is crucial in developing
empathy for the suffering of other people and creatures, because it
is precisely the fact that the will-to-live constitutes the inner nature
of all living things that guarantees their continuous suffering, as
Schopenhauer painstakingly explains in WWR I, §56–59. Far from
recognizing the shared essence of all things as a source of profound
and inescapable suffering, pantheism detracts from the prospects of
empathy. On the one hand, it offers as the shared essence of all
things something entirely unknowable (in Schopenhauer’s terms, the
pantheistic God “is an x, an unknown quantity”), which therefore is
not conducive to recognizing, let alone understanding, the suffering
in another person or creature as related to one’s own (WWR II.L:
643). And, on the other hand, pantheism explains away suffering,
and assures us that the world, qua God, though unknown, is “what
is best” (WWR II.L: 643–4).
It has been argued that the fact that Schopenhauer’s “will” is
ultimately unknowable compromises his critique of the unknowability
of the pantheistic God.29 Nevertheless, Schopenhauer’s proposed
way out of egoism is rooted precisely in the idea that the inner
nature of all individuated phenomena, unlike the God of pantheism,
not only is one and the same, but is discoverable (if not capable of
being perfectly understood; see section 1.1), and is useful both for
appreciating the source of suffering in oneself and for empathizing
with other beings who suffer similarly as a result of being, along
with oneself and every other phenomenon, manifestations of a
single “will.” Insofar as this applies to nonhuman living things as
well, Schopenhauer thinks a person recognizing this truth would “not
cause suffering even to an animal” (WWR I, §65: 372). By contrast,
“from [the] standpoint of egoism [ . . . ] the sight or description of
another’s sufferings affords us satisfaction and pleasure” (WWR I,
§58: 320). Happiness, in Schopenhauer’s view, is essentially
negative, in the sense that it only amounts to the avoidance of
suffering, which alone is “positive” and “proclaims itself immediately”
(WWR I, §58: 319–20). For this reason, he thinks, we (operating as
individuated phenomena oblivious of our true nature) actually enjoy
remembering sufferings we no longer have to endure, as well as,
similarly and for the same reason, witnessing others’ suffering (WWR
I, §58: 320; cf. Lucretius, De rerum natura II.1). Though the
manifest reason for this latter enjoyment is being reminded that we
ourselves are spared the suffering we witness in others, rather than
the fact that these others are indeed suffering, Schopenhauer notes
that this type of pleasure “lies very near the source of real, positive
wickedness” (WWR I, §58: 320).
For Schopenhauer, as it turns out, maintaining that this world is
impeccable, as both Spinoza and original Judaism do, leads directly
to moral depravity, specifically to taking enjoyment in inflicting pain.
And again, Schopenhauer finds both Spinoza and Judaism consistent
with their ground principles on this point. Thus, he criticizes Spinoza
for his “contempt for animals,” which, apart from being “absurd and
abominable,” Schopenhauer also regards as “thoroughly Jewish”
(WWR II.L: 645). It has been argued that Schopenhauer’s
identification of cruelty toward animals in the Hebrew Bible is
wrongheaded, as the Bible prescribes the proper treatment of and
conditions for working animals (Deut. 5:14; 25:4), and indeed
condones compassion toward beasts instead of cruelty (Proverbs
12:10).30 To these one may add the injunction to let the poor and
the beasts eat from one’s fields during the Sabbatical year (Leviticus
25:6–7), the prohibition on slaughtering an animal and its offspring
on the same day (Leviticus 28:28),31 and the description of God as
merciful “toward all His creations (‫ ”)על כל מעשיו‬and as “fulfilling
the will of every living creature (‫( ”)ומשביע לכל חי רצון‬Psalms
145:9–16; cf. 145:9).32
However, Schopenhauer is not entirely misguided in locating an
unfair treatment of animals in the Hebrew Bible. It has been noted
that “[t]he Bible contains no comprehensive principle regarding the
rights of animals,” and that “in the Biblical account of creation man is
made sole ruler over the lower creatures, with the right to use them
for whatever purpose he desires (Gen. i. 28; Ps. Viii. 6–8).”33 Lynn
White has influentially argued, similarly, that in the Creation account
inherited from Judaism “no item in the physical creation had any
purpose save to serve man’s purposes.”34 As a recent survey of
scholarship on ancient Judaism between 2009 and 2019 shows, the
anthropocentric interpretation of the Bible has had its critics, but has
also consistently enjoyed support,35 with scholars appealing to such
features as the “androcentrism and anthropocentrism in
Deuteronomy’s categories of man, woman, child, and animal,”36 and
the exploitation of animals for meat-eating, sacrifice, and tool-
making.37 This provides at least partial support for Schopenhauer’s
estimation of the attitude toward animals in the Bible. For his part,
Schopenhauer appeals to Genesis, in which the creation of human
beings brings with it their dominion over all living things (1:26–30),
as does God’s pact with Noah (9:2–3). He compares these texts to
Spinoza’s E4app cap. 26 and E4p37s, and he criticizes TTP 16 as
being “the true compendium of the immorality of Spinoza’s
philosophy” (FHP §12: 73; WWR II.L: 645 n. 7). At E4app cap. 26,
Spinoza says that, since we can only take pleasure in and form
friendships with other human beings, the consideration for our
benefit (nostrae utilitatis ratio) dictates making use of other living
things for our sake, rather than preserving them.
Schopenhauer also mentions an anecdote, told by Colerus, about
Spinoza’s practice of torturing spiders and flies, which Schopenhauer
says “corresponds only too closely” to his (Spinoza’s) theory (FHP
§12: 73). It has been argued that Schopenhauer thinks Spinoza, in
theorizing and behaving in this way, failed to draw the correct
conclusions from his pantheistic theory, because “a pantheist should
not make such a rigid distinction between men and animals since,
after all, they, like everything else, are modes of God or Nature.”38
This interpretation rests on Schopenhauer’s comment, referring to
Spinoza’s attitude toward animals, that Spinoza “occasionally loses
sight of the conclusion where it would have led to correct views”
(FHP §12: 73). Schopenhauer does not specify which type of
“conclusion” he has in mind. Berman assumes that the reference is
to the conclusions of pantheism, which Schopenhauer allegedly
thinks should lead away from cruelty to animals, and that
Schopenhauer explains Spinoza’s oversight as being due to his
Jewish background.39 However, since, as we have seen,
Schopenhauer has independent reasons to think that pantheism
does lead to egoism, wickedness, and the infliction of suffering,
particularly on animals, we may do well to consider a different
possibility. In speaking in FHP §12 of the “conclusion” which Spinoza
does not follow, Schopenhauer may well have in mind, not the
conclusions of pantheism in general, but specifically that conclusion
which pantheism shares with Schopenhauer’s own theory, namely
that “the world exists [ . . . ] by its own inner power and through
itself” (WWR II.L: 644). This view, when correctly followed,
Schopenhauer thinks, indeed leads to the renunciation of cruelty
toward animals, as well as to the rest of the features of
Schopenhauer’s philosophical system. But when this basic view is
used to establish pantheism—when it is supposed, as it is with
Spinoza, that the inner nature of the world is God, and hence perfect
—the idealization of individuation, and with it, egoism and
anthropocentrism, follow.40 Though there is room for a comparison
between Spinoza’s resulting view and Judaism, and though
Schopenhauer draws this comparison himself, he also shows how it
is that each system independently yields the conclusions he finds
problematic. His analysis and arguments may of course be criticized,
but they should not, it seems, be reduced to antisemitic rambling.

1.5. Conclusion
Schopenhauer rejects Spinoza’s pantheism for several features which
it shares in common with Judaism, and which follow from the basic
assumptions of both systems. Both systems posit a God whose
nature necessarily entails optimism. Consequently, both systems
must explain away the presence of evil in the world. But doing so,
Schopenhauer contends, flies in the face of our most basic
experience. Again, given their adherence to optimism, neither
system, if it is to be consistent, can resolve the problem of evil by
positing personal immortality. Finally, their optimistic approach forces
both systems into anthropocentrism and egoism, with grave moral
consequences. It is sometimes assumed that Schopenhauer criticizes
Judaism for introducing God as a source of hope or stability amid
vexations and fleeting phenomena.41 Two things may be said in
response to that assessment, based on the analyses presented thus
far. First, Schopenhauer rejects both Judaism and Spinozism first and
foremost for their optimistic outlook, which he takes to be the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Mindenki meg volt elégedve. Újra fölszálltak a kocsiba.
De alig indult meg a bárka, Borigo uram máris rettenetes
kiáltásokat hallatott. Az állat úgy látszik magához tért s dühöngővé
vált. Sőt Borigo gazda állítása szerint ezúttal már egészen biztosan
az agyvelőben kapirgált s abból falatozott. A szegény áldozat oly
rémesen kiabált s arcát oly kínosan fintorította el, hogy Billegor
asszony ördögtől megszálltnak tartván, pityeregve hányta magára a
keresztet.
Mikor fájdalma kissé lecsillapult, Borigo elmesélte, hogy az állat
fülében körsétát rendez. Ujjával mutatta mozdulatait, s szinte látta,
figyelte, ahogyan mászik: »Most gyün lefelé, már egészen lent van…
jujj jujj… most újra kezdi… hű, de fáj, de fáj!«
Pampus gazda türelmetlenkedni kezdett: »Biztosan a víz
dühítette föl a bestiát. Adjék kend bort neki, tán attúl megcsitul.«
Erre mindnyájan nevettek. Pampus gazda tovább folytatta: »Ha a
Burbo kocsmájához érünk, töltsön be neki kend két icce bort.
Tudom, nem moccan az többet.«
Borigo uram azonban már nem bírta ki a fájdalmat. Úgy üvöltött,
mintha a lábát fürészelték volna. A plébános kénytelen volt fejét
támogatni s az utasok megkérték Horlavilt, hogy a legközelebbi
tanyánál álljon meg.
Nemsokára elérkeztek egy kis házhoz, amely az út szélén állott.
Borigót ide szállították. Lefektették a konyhaasztalra és a műtét újra
kezdődött. Pampus kitartott véleménye mellett, hogy legjobb lesz
pálinkával keverni a vizet. Így elszédítik vagy elaltatják, sőt talán
meg is ölhetik az állatot. A plébános azonban az ecet mellett foglalt
állást.
A keveréket most már cseppenként öntötték be, hogy egészen a
mélyre hatoljon s egypár pillanatig benne tartották a fülben.
Újból mosdótálat hoztak s a két atléta, a plébános és Pampus
gazda, Borigo uramat, mint a pácolt húst, egyszeribe a másik
oldalára fordították, míg a tanító ép fülét ütögette, hogy ezáltal a
másik jobban kiürüljön.
Maga Horavil kocsis is leszállt bakjáról s ostorral a kézben a
nézők közé állt.
Egyszerre csak a mosdótál alján feltünt egy apró barna
pontocska, alig nagyobb, mint a hagyma magja. De mozgott! A
csodálkozás hangjai hallatszottak, majd kitörő nevetés csattant föl.
Egy bolha! Ez már igazán nagyszerű! Egy árva kis bolha! Pampus
uram a térdét csapkodta nevettében, Horlavil az ostorát pattogtatta;
a plébános rengő hassal, teli torokból harsogott, mint ahogy a
szamarak ordítanak, a tanító úgy kacagott, mintha trüsszentett volna
és a két asszony aprózott vihogása tyúkok kotyogására
emlékeztetett.
Borigo felülve az asztalon, a lavórt térdére emelte s mély
figyelemmel, szemében kárörvendő elégültséggel nézte a legyőzött
kis bestiát, amely szüntelenül keringett a csepp vízben.
A kielégített bosszú kéjes érzésével morogta: »Fulladj meg,
dög!« És rája köpött.
A kocsis még mindig röhögött s folyton csak ezt ismételte:
»Átkozott kis bolha! Átkozott kis bolha! Na most a vízbe pottyantál!«
Aztán kissé magához térve, felébredt benne hivatalának
öntudata: »De most gyerünk! Elég időt elloptunk!«
Az utasok erre folytonos nevetés közt a kocsi felé indultak.
Borigo, aki utolsónak érkezett, kijelentette: »Én meg visszamék
Kriktóba. A városban már úgy sincs mit keresnem.«
A kocsis fölvonta a vállát: – Csináljon kend, amit akar. A helyét
azonban fizesse meg.
– Nem fizetem, csak felét, mer hisz az útnak felét nem tettem
meg.
– Meg kell fizetni az egészet, mert a helyet lefoglalta kend.
 Vita indult meg, amely nemsokára dühös veszekedéssé fajult:
Borigo esküdözött, hogy ötven krajcárnál nem fizet többet; Horlavil
pedig nem engedett a forintból.
Egymásra meresztett szemmel, arcukat majd összesúrolva állt a
két ember s egyik túlkiabálta a másikat.
Pampus gazda erre leszállt a kocsiról s blúzánál fogta Borigót:
– Elsőben is fizet kend egy forintot a tisztelendő úrnak, azután
nekünk egy pohár pálinkát, ez annyi mint harminc krajcár, összesen
egy forint harminc krajcár s ad még ötvenet a kocsisnak. Jó lesz így,
»vicces spriccer«?
Horlavil, elragadtatva a gondolattól, hogy Borigóból egy forint és
nyolcvan krajcárt húznak ki, beleegyezőleg bólintott: – Rendben van!
– Fizet a hóhér, nem én! A tisztelendő úr nem doktor. Neki nem
jár pénz.
– Ha nem fizet kend, belódítom a kocsiba és elvisszük Havreba!
És a vasgyúró Pampus gazda már a levegőbe is emelte Borigót,
mint gyermeket.
Borigo belátta, hogy fizetni kell. Előhúzta a harisnyaszárt, amibe
pénze volt téve és leszámolt.
A kocsi elindult Havre irányában, míg Borigo gazda visszafordult
Kriktó felé. Az utasok most hallgatagon ültek s a fehér országúton
Borigo uram kék blúzát nézték, amely hosszú lábszárain ide-oda
imbolygott.
 Eladó.

Milyen részegítő mámor gyalog elindulni, mikor a nap fölkel s

bolyongani harmatos mezőkön, amelyek a nyugodt tenger partján
húzódnak végig!
Részegítő mámor, melyet beléd szemeden át a fény, orrodon át
az üde levegő s bőröd pórusain át a simogató szellő lop!
Miért is őrizzük emlékünkben oly élesen és féltve a Földdel való
szerelmeskedésünknek egyes édes pillanatait? Emlékét a gyorsan
múló elragadó érzéseknek, amelyeket egy út kanyarulatán, egy
völgy nyílásán, vagy egy tovacsörgedező patak partján fölbukkanó
bűvölő tájkép, mint futólag látott bájos leányarc, szivünkben
támaszt?
A sok nap közül különösen egyre emlékezem. A breton
tengerparton mentem a finistère-i csúcs irányában. Gyorsan
lépkedtem a halkan csobbanó hullámok mentén és nem gondoltam
semmire sem. Quimperlé környékén volt ez, ahol az egyébként
kopár breton föld zöld lankák s virágos mezők díszét ölti magára.
Tavaszi reggel volt. Napfényes ébredés, amely húsz évvel
megfiatalít és szívedbe ifjúkori álmokat, csalogató ábrándképeket
varázsol vissza.
Végtelen búzamezők s végtelen kék vizek közt mentem alig járt
ösvényen. A kalászok néma mozdulatlanságban szívták a napfényt s
a hullámok csak néha-néha ütődtek a parthoz. A levegőben éredező
búza és partra vetett moszat illata keveredett. Minden gondolat
nélkül mentem az úton előre, tengerparti kószálásaimnak immár
tizenötödik napján. Fiatalnak, erősnek és boldognak éreztem
magamat. Mentem és nem gondoltam semmire.
Minek is gondolkozni a mély, öntudatlan, nagy testi öröm óráiban,
amely a fű közt szaladgáló gyík, vagy a kék eget átszelő madár
öröméhez hasonlatos? Messziről áhitatos egyházi ének kórusa
zengett. Valahol körmeneteztek talán, mert éppen vasárnap volt. De
amint egy kiugró kis hegyfokot megkerültem, csodálkozó
elragadtatással kellett megállnom. Öt nagy halászbárka úszott a
vízen, tömve férfiakkal, asszonyokkal és gyerekekkel, akik a
plouneveni búcsúra igyekeztek.
A fekete hajók közvetlen a part mellett csendesen haladtak előre.
Az enyhe szellő néha megduzzasztotta barna vitorláikat, de
hamarosan belé fáradt s a vitorlák, mint összecsukott szárnyak,
petyhüdten nyúltak el az árbocokon.
A nehéz, zsúfolt bárkák zajtalanul, jelenségszerűen úsztak s az
emberek, akik rajtuk voltak, mind énekeltek. A férfiak magas
kalappal fejükön köröskörül álltak és zengő hangjukat teljesen
kieresztették; a nők erőltetett hangja visítássá élesült s a nagy
kenetes énekharsonában a gyermekek, mint rosszul hangolt sípok,
rikoltoztak.
És az öt fekete hajó utasai mind ugyanazt az éneket fújták,
amelynek egyhangú ritmusa a derült, ragyogó ég felé emelkedett. Az
öt hajó pedig halkan úszott a vízen, egyik a másik után, közvetlen
közelségben…

Jöttek szembe velem, elhaladtak előttem s láttam őket a kék

végtelenségben elveszni, hallottam hangjukat mindinkább elhalkulni
s aztán a napfénycsillogásban teljesen feloldódni.
És álmodoztam édes, elringató dolgokról gyermekes
gondatlansággal, mint az egészen fiatal emberek.
 Mily gyorsan elmult az álmok kora, az életnek ez egyetlen boldog
időszaka! Ha magunkban hordjuk az isteni képességet reményeink
útján szárnyrakelni, messzi kóborolni, soha, de sohasem vagyunk
egyedül, sohasem vagyunk kedvtelenek, szomorúak vagy
kétségbeesettek, ha magunkra maradunk. Mily tündérország ez: a
szállongó gondolat álomvilága, ahol minden tüneményes
gyorsasággal valóra válik! Mily szép az élet, ha álmok aranypora
csillog rajta!
Sajnos, az ábrándvilágnak hamar vége!…
Álmodoztam. Miről? Mindenről, amit csak várhat az ember, amit
csak kívánhat: szerencséről, dicsőségről, asszonyról.
Nagy lépésekkel mentem és simogattam a kalászok szőkülő
fejét, amelyek ujjam alatt meghajoltak s bőrömet csiklandozták,
mintha hajat érintettem volna.
Egy helyen a part megint kanyarult s kiérve a sziklák mögül,
szűk, kerek parti tisztás bukkant elém, amelynek a hátterében
hármas és a vízig lenyuló teraszon kis fehér ház emelkedett.
Miért dobogott föl szívem a házikó láttára? Tudom én? Talál így
néha kóborlás közben az ember tájrészeket, amelyek oly kedvesek,
meghittek, mintha az ember már régesrégen s boldogabb időből
ismerné. És vajjon valóban nem ismerősek-e, nem színhelyei az
ilyenek életünk más korszakának?… Hiszen minden oly jelentősen,
lebilincselőleg hat ránk és ragad el: a látóhatár szelíd vonala, a fák
elrendezése, a homok színe!
Ó, a csodálatos kis fehér házikó, egymás fölé emelt földteraszok
magaslatán! Gyümölcsfák szegélyezik a teraszokat, amelyek a
tengerpartig ereszkednek le, mint óriási lépcsők. Tetejüket virágzó
spanyol rekettyék hosszú sora pompás aranykoronával vonja be!
Vágyakozó izgalommal közeledem a kapuhoz s a rács egyik
oszlopán nagy cédulát találok ezzel a felírással:
ELADÓ!
 Hirtelen öröm és kielégültség tölt el, mintha felajánlták volna,
ajándékba adták volna az elragadó kis fészket! Miért, vajjon miért?…
Igazán nem tudnám megmondani.
Eladó! Tehát már úgyszólván senkié, mert mindenkié lehet, s így
az enyém is, igen, az enyém is lehet!
De miért fog el oly végtelen öröm, oly kimagyarázhatatlan és
mélységes megkönnyebbülés? Hiszen jól tudtam, hogy nem
vásárolom meg! Mivel fizetném ki? Mindegy: a bűvös lak eladó!
Csak a kalickába zárt madár uráé, a szabadon röpülő enyém, mert
senkié.
Beléptem a kertbe. Ó, a kedves kert: az egymásra következő
teraszok, a gyümölcsfák, amelyeknek ágai mint vértanuk
keresztrefeszített karjai nyúlnak szét, a tömött, aranyvirágos
rekettyék és az öreg fügefák, amelyek mindegyik terasz sarkában
mintegy őrt állanak!
Mikor a fehér márványlépcsőkön az utolsó síkra érkeztem,
megtekintettem a kilátást. A kis, kerek homokpart lábaim előtt terült
el. A tenger felé eső részét félkörben hatalmas sziklák zárták el,
amelyek viharok idején a nagy hullámokat megtörik.
A tetőn két óriási kőszál: egy menhir s egy dolomit emelkedett.
Az egyik talpon állt, a másik már ledőlt. Olyan volt ez a két szikla,
mint elvarázsolt, különös házaspár, amelyet feloldhatatlan bűvölet
köt. Mozdulatlanul nézték a házat, amelyet ők, akik már századok
óta ismerik a magányos öblöt, láttak fölépíteni s amelyet bizonyára
majd látnak ledőlni, darabokra hullani és elporladni. Kicsi, hivogató
fehér ház, hát most dobra kerülsz!
Öreg, ősi dolomit és menhir, hogy szeretlek titeket is!
Csöngettem az ajtón, mintha otthon lennék. Öreg, feketébe
öltözött asszonyka nyitott ajtót, aki fehér főkötőjével olyan volt, mint
apáca. Úgy tűnt föl, hogy már régóta ismerem őt is.
Azzal kezdtem:
 – Mondja csak, nem breton maga?
– Nem, uram, Lorraineből való vagyok, – válaszolt az öreg nő. –
A házat akarja megnézni?
– Természetesen.
Beléptem.
Fölismertem mindent, a falakat, bútorokat. Szinte csodálkoztam,
hogy az előszobában nem találom botjaimat.
Benyitottam a derűs, kicsi szalónba, amelynek padlóját
gyékényszőnyeg fedte. Három széles ablaka a tengerre nyílott. A
kandallón kínai porcellánok között egy asszonynak fényképét
pillantottam meg. Tüstént a fényképhez közeledtem s meg voltam
győződve, hogy azt is fölismerem. És fölismertem, noha tudtam,
hogy soha az életben nem találkoztam vele. Ő volt az. Az asszony,
akit hívtam, kívántam és vártam, aki álmaimban gyakran keresett föl.
Ő volt az, akit mindig és mindenütt keresünk; akinek az uccán
elénkbe kell toppannia, aki bizonyára ama piros napernyő alatt van,
amelyet a mezőkön messziről észreveszünk s aki ott ül a vasuti
kocsiban, ahová fölszállunk, a szálloda csarnokában, ahová
megérkezünk s a szalónban, amelynek ajtaját előttünk kinyitják.
Ő volt az egész biztosan, minden kétséget kizáróan! Ráismertem
szeméről, amely rám mosolygott, angolosan fülei elé húzott
hajtincseiről s főleg az ajkáról, amelyen ott játszadozott a mosoly,
amely csak számomra nem volt talány.
Felesleges volt kérdeznem:
– Ki ez a hölgy?
A fehérfőkötős asszony szárazon és ellenségesen válaszolt:
– A nagyságos asszony.
– A maga úrnője?
 Az öregasszony arcán a vakbuzgóság engesztelhetetlen
keménységével válaszolt:
– Ó, dehogy.
Leültem és csak úgy odavetettem:
– Beszéljen nekem róla!
Az asszony csodálkozva, ijedten nézett rám s hallgatott.
De én nem engedtem:
– Akkor hát a ház tulajdonosnője?
– Nem, uram!
– Kié a ház?
– Tournelle úré, a gazdámé.
Rámutatott a fényképre.
– És ez az asszony? Ki ez?
– A nagyságos asszony.
– Gazdája felesége?
– Ó, dehogy!
– A szeretője?
Az apáca nem válaszolt. Tovább kínoztam, mert gazdája iránt
titkos féltékenységet, különös gyűlölséget éreztem, amiért ezt az
asszonyt megtalálta.
– Hol vannak most?
A ház őrzője alig érthetően morogta: – Az úr Párizsban van. Az
asszony, nem tudom, hol van.
Felujjongtam: – Áh, nincsenek már együtt!
 – Nincsenek, uram.
Hirtelen ravasz lettem s komollyá váló hangon szóltam: – Mondja
el őszintén, mi történt. Talán szolgálatot tehetek urának. Ismerem jól
az asszonyt. Gonosz teremtés!
Az öreg szolgáló rám nézett. Nyilt és egyenes tekintetem
lefegyverezte. Most már közlékenyebbé vált:
– Ó, uram, ez az asszony gazdámat nagyon boldogtalanná tette.
Olaszországban ismerte meg s magával hozta, mintha felesége lett
volna. A nagyságos asszony gyönyörűen énekelt. Az uram úgy
bolondult érte, hogy szánalom volt ránézni. A mult nyáron ezen a
vidéken utazgattak s úgy találtak erre a házra, amelyet valami
hóbortos ember ide, a várostól két mérföldnyire épített. A nagyságos
asszony meg akarta tüstént venni, hogy az úrral örökre itt
maradjanak. Az úr megvette, csakhogy kedvében járjon. Aztán itt is
laktak az egész nyáron. Az úr még télen is.
– Egy délben, ebéd idején, egyszer csak hivat az úr: – Mari,
hazajött már a nagyságos asszony? – Nem, nagyságos úr.
– Egész nap vártunk. Az úr dühös volt, mint egy bolond. Kerestük
mindenfelé, de sehol sem találtuk. Elutazott búcsúszó nélkül.
Sohasem tudtuk meg: hová és miként?
Ó, micsoda öröm töltött el! Szerettem volna az apácát
megcsókolni, derékon kapni s végigtáncolni vele a szalónban!
Hát elutazott? Elmenekült? Fáradtan és undorodva hagyta el őt!
Ó, milyen boldog voltam!
Az öregasszony tovább folytatta: – Az úr annyira szívére vette a
dolgot, hogy majd belehalt. Engem itt hagyott a férjemmel, hogy a
villát eladjuk. Ő pedig Párizsba utazott. A villáért húszezer frankot
kér.
Én azonban már nem figyeltem arra, amit mond! Őreá gondoltam
és hirtelen úgy éreztem, hogy csak ki kell mennem innen és
megtalálom. Biztosan visszajött ide, hogy lássa a gyönyörű tavaszt s
a kis fehér házat, amelyet nélküle bizonyára nagyon szeretett volna.
Tíz frankot nyomtam az öregasszony kezébe és magamhoz
ragadva a fényképet, elrohantam. Milyen őrült és feltartóztathatatlan
vággyal csókoltam a kartonkeretbe foglalt képmást, míg a lépcsőkön
lerohantam!
Visszamentem az útra s amíg mentem, mindig csak őt néztem.
Milyen öröm, hogy szabad, hogy megmenekült! Ma, vagy holnap, a
héten vagy a következő héten biztosan találkozom vele, mert hiszen
elhagyta őt! Elhagyta őt, mert az én órám következett el!
Akárhol is van, szabad! Én pedig megtalálom, meg kell hogy
találjam, mert ismerem!
És tovább simogattam a hajladozó kalászokat, ittam a tengeri
levegőt, amely keblemet dagasztotta és éreztem a napfényt, amely
arcomat csókolta. Részegen a reménytől, beleveszve
boldogságomba, mentem és mentem…
Mentem és tudtam biztosan, hogy nemsokára megtalálom s
visszahozom ide az »eladó« házikóba. A tündérlak lakói ezúttal mi
leszünk s ő bizonyára soha, de sohasem fog elkívánkozni innen!
 Az ismeretlen.

Szerelmi kalandjaikról beszéltek. Mindegyikük a legkülönösebbek

közül választott: meglepő, édes kalandok közül vasuti kocsikban,
szállodákban, külföldön, tengerparton. Des Annettes Richárd szerint
a szerelem kikristályosodására a tengerpart a legalkalmasabb.
Egyszerre mindnyájan Gontran véleményére voltak kíváncsiak,
aki idáig hallgatott.
– Ebben is Párizs ér legtöbbet, – mondta ő. – Az asszonyokkal is
úgy vagyunk, mint a régi csecsebecsékkel. Olyan helyeken tartjuk
legtöbbre őket, ahol nem is számítunk arra, hogy találunk belőlük. A
legritkábbakat s a legkülönösebbeket mégis csak Párizsban lehet
találni.
Pár pillanatig hallgatott, majd tovább folytatta:
– Komolyan mondom, nincs elragadóbb valami, mint a párizsi
tavasz. Dugjátok csak ki orrotokat délelőtt az uccára. Olyanok ezek a
kis párizsi nők, ahogy a házak mentén tipegnek, mint a fakadásra
megérett virágbimbók. Pompás, üdítő látvány! A levegőben
ibolyaillat terjeng, amely a virágos kofák szekereiről száll fel.
A város vidám. És az ember nézi a nőket. Világos, könnyű
ruhájukban, amelyen áttetszik a bőr, teremtuccse, roppant elbűvölők.
Az ember levegőbe szegzett orral, éber elmével kóborog. Kóborog,
szaglász és lesbe áll. Hihetetlenül szép tavaszi reggelek!
Azt, aki tetszeni fog, már száz lépésről megismered. Kitalálhatod
kalapjának virágából, fejének mozdulatából, járásából. És mind
közelebb jön. Azt mondod magadban: »Vigyázat! Ez az!« és éhes,
falánk szemekkel mégysz elébe.
 Vajjon bolti lány, aki megbizatásaiban futkos? Fiatal asszony, aki
templomból jön, vagy szeretőjéhez megy? Mindegy! Keble könnyű
blúza alatt kívánatosan domborodik. – Ó, ha kezemmel vagy –
ajkammal megérinthetném! Tekintete merész vagy félénk? Haja
szőke vagy barna? Bánod is azt! Csupán halk megérintésétől is a
melletted eltipegő szépségnek, a gyönyör végigfut hátadon. És hogy
kívánod egész estig őt, akivel így futólag találkoztál! Sőt néha tovább
is! Van legalább is húsz kis teremtés, akit az uccán így egyszer, vagy
talán kétszer, megpillantottam s akiket azóta sem felejtettem el.
Biztos, hogy őrülten szerettem volna őket, ha közelebbi
ismeretségbe kerülök velük.
Dehát hiába! Azt a nőt, akit bolondul imádott volna az ember,
sohasem ismeri meg. Nem figyeltétek ezt meg? Van benne valami
különös! Látunk néha nőket, akiknek a puszta látása gyötrő vágyakat
ébreszt. De csak látjuk, megpillantjuk őket! Megpukkadok a dühtől,
ha mindazokra az imádásraméltó nőkre gondolok, akikkel csak így
pillanatnyilag találkoztam. Hol vannak? Kicsodák? Hol lehetne
megtalálni, viszontlátni őket? A közmondás szerint az ember elmegy
boldogsága mellett. Hát bizony én biztos vagyok benne, hogy nem is
egyszer mentem el így édes teremtmények mellett, akik üde lényük
csalétkével úgy elkaphattak volna, mint horog a buta halat.
Des Annettes Richárd mosolyogva hallgatta barátját. Azután
megszólalt:
– Ismerem ezt az érzést. Sőt van is egy furcsa történetem vele
kapcsolatban. Öt éve talán, hogy a Concorde-hídon először
találkoztam egy fiatal, magas, kissé telt asszonnyal, aki csodálatos
benyomással volt rám. Barna nő volt; kiscsontú és teltidomú. Tömött,
ércesfényű haja homlokát eltakarta és egymásba folyó szemöldökei
egyik halántékától a másikig kígyóztak megszakítás nélkül. Ajkait
lehelletfinomságú pelyhek árnyékolták, amelyek álmodozásra
csábítottak… a képzeletet felingerelték… mint ahogy asztalunkra tett
fenyőgallyak láttára az egész nagy erdőről álmodozunk. Tartása
egyenes volt, keble kötekedőn, csábítón rajzolódott ki a megfeszült
szövet alatt. Szeme fehér zománcra ejtett tintafolt. Nem szem,
hanem fekete, mélységes nyílás a fehér asszonyarcon, amelyen át
látni lehetett, el lehetett merülni lelkében. Különös, át nem látszó,
üres tekintet. Minden gondolat nélkül való s mégis olyan szép.
Az volt a benyomásom, hogy zsidóasszony. Követtem. Sokan
utána fordultak. Magakelletésében nem volt sok kecsesség, de
annál több vágyébresztő érzékiség. A Concorde-téren kocsiba ült.
Én az obeliszk lábánál földbegyökerezetten bámultam utána s oly
erős vágy fogott el, hogy sem gondolkodni, sem cselekedni nem
tudtam.
Legalább három hétig gondoltam rá; azután elfelejtettem. Hat
hónappal később viszontláttam az opera körül. Szívem oly hevesen
dobogott, mintha egykori, bolondul szeretett barátnővel találkoztam
volna. Megálltam, hogy jól megnézzem. Mikor közvetlen közelben
elment mellettem, úgy éreztem, mintha égő kemence ajtaját nyitották
volna rám. Mikor kissé távolabb volt, az volt az érzésem, hogy
arcomon friss tavaszi szellő játszadozik. Nem követtem. Féltem,
hogy valami bolondot követek el. Féltem önmagamtól.
Ettől fogva álmaimban gyakran megjelent. Ismeritek az efajta
kísértéseket.
Egy évig nem láttam viszont. Egyszer aztán májusi alkonyatkor a
Champs-Élysées fái alatt megpillantottam. Előttem ment a bois felé.
Az ég vörös függönyén élesen rajzolódott ki az Étoile diadalíve. A
levegőben rózsaszínű pára rezgett s a fák mozdulatlan lombján
aranypor fátyla lengett. Egyike volt ama csodálatos párizsi estéknek,
amikor a város a természet kegyéből önmaga megdicsőülését éli.
Követtem a nőt azzal az eltökélt szándékkal, hogy megszólítom,
letérdeplek előtte s vallomást teszek az őrült vágyról, amely
fojtogatott.
Kétszer haladtam el mellette és tértem vissza. Kétszer éreztem
ugyanazt a forróságot, amely már az Opera körüli találkozásnál
elöntött, mikor közvetlen közelről ránéztem.
Viszonozta tekintetemet. Azután egy nagyobb ház kapuján át
szemem elől eltűnt. Két óráig vártam a kapu előtt. Nem jött.
Kérdeztem a házmestert. Nem tudott felvilágosítást adni: »Talán
valami látogató«, – mondta.
És megint nyolc hónap telt el anélkül, hogy láttam volna.
Egy téli reggel aztán, amikor a szibériai hidegben szinte futva
mentem a boulevard Malesherbes-en egyik sarkon oly hevesen
ütköztem egy asszonyba, hogy az kezében tartott kis csomagját
leejtette.
Bocsánatkérést mormogva néztem rá. Ő volt!
A boldog meglepetéstől pár pillanatig szótlan ostobasággal
meredtem rá; azután visszaadva csomagját, szinte lázas
gyorsasággal, beszélni kezdtem:
– Kétségbe vagyok esve, asszonyom, de egyben végtelen
boldog is vagyok, hogy önbe ütköztem. Éppen két éve, hogy
ismerem, hogy bámulom s hogy őrült vágy emészt megismerkedni
önnel; de mindmáig nem tudtam kinyomozni, hogy kicsoda s hol
lakik? Bocsássa meg kissé illetlen ömlengésemet, de ne tulajdonítsa
másnak, mint határtalan vágyamnak ismerősei közé számíthatni
magamat. Nemde ebben semmi sértő sem lehet önre nézve?
Engedje meg, hogy bemutatkozzam. Báró Des Annettes Richárd a
nevem. Érdeklődjék utánam, asszonyom. Meglátja majd, hogy
vendégei közé fogadhat. Most pedig egy kérésem volna. Ha
visszautasít, végtelenül szerencsétlenné tesz. Mondja meg, hol és
mikor láthatom?
Különös, halott szemével pillanatig szótlanul rámnézett s aztán
mosolyogva mondta:
– Mondja meg, hol lakik. Elmegyek magához.
Meglepődésem olyan nagy volt s oly hirtelen támadt, hogy
valószínűleg arcom is elárulta. De felocsudásomhoz nem kellett sok
idő. Bizonyos gyakorlatom volt az ilyesmiben. Gyorsan átadtam
névjegyemet, amelyet a nő fürge kézmozdulattal zsebébe
csúsztatott, mintha dugva adott levélkét tett volna el.
 Én már felbátorodva kérdeztem:
– Mikor látom?
Gondolkozott, mintha bonyolultabb számadást kellett volna
tennie, amíg teendőit óráról-órára fölosztotta s aztán halkan
megkérdezte: – Vasárnap délelőtt. Jó lesz?
– De nagyon is!
Ezzel elment. Előbb azonban végignézett tetőtől-talpig, mintegy
megmért s kikémlelt azzal a szinte súlyos, bizonytalan tekintetével,
amely mint valami sűrű folyadék ott maradt az ember arcbőrén.
Tintahalak szoktak ilyen nedvet kibocsátani magukból, hogy a vizet
homályossá tegyék és zsákmányukat elkábítsák.
Vasárnapig végtelen sok agymunkát pazaroltam el arra, hogy
kisüssem, ki lehet e nő s miként lesz legcélszerűbb vele szemben
viselkedni.
Fizessek neki? Mi módon?
Elhatároztam, hogy ékszert veszek, valami csinos és értékes
apróságot s azt tokban a kandallóra helyezem.
Vasárnap reggel fáradtan vártam rá, mert egész éjszaka nem
tudtam a szememet lehúnyni.
Tíz órakor jött. Nyugodt és fölényes volt. Kezét úgy nyujtotta,
mintha már régóta ismert volna. Leültettem s kezdtem leszedni róla:
kalapját, fátylát, a boáját s a muffját. Azután némi zavarral arcomon
lényegesebb ruhadarabok gondos lebontásába fogtam, mert kissé
sietnem kellett. Az asszony nem is fejtett ki nagy ellenállást. Talán
húsz szót sem váltottunk s már oly bizalmassággal vetkőztettem,
mintha komornája lettem volna. Csupán az ügyesség hiányzott
bennem, úgyhogy ujjaimat a tűk fölsértették, a zsinórok kezem alatt
összebogozódtak. Ügyetlenségem és lázas sietségem volt az oka,
hogy a végén mindent összezavartam, fejemet elvesztettem és
kénytelen voltam az asszonyt saját kezeire bízni. Addig én kissé
távolabb álltam, hogy strucc-szemérmét, amely minden asszonyban
kivétel nélkül megvan, meg ne sértsem s lopva pillantottam rá…
Barátaim, van-e az életben gyönyörűségesebb pillanat, mint az
imádott hölgyet vetkőzni látni? Milyen kecses mozdulatokkal bontja
le magáról suhogó ruhadarabjait! Egyik a másik után siklik lábai köré
s puhán, üresen terül el a földön, mint a lelőtt madár… Most
pattogva bomlik ki az ingváll s előfehérlik a karok s a mell meleg
bársonya. Szívet felverő, káprázatos látvány! Még egy-két mozdulat
s az utolsó darabka marad csak rajta, az utolsó, lenge fátyol,
amelyen kívánatosan tetszik által a test vonala…
De egyszerre csak rémülten veszek észre a lapockák között egy
nagy fekete foltot. Háttal áll felém, jól láthatom. Nagy, fekete folt…
Elfordítom a szememet. Nem akarom látni. Mégis mi lehet? Az ajkak
felett árnyékló bajusz, az összefutó szemöldökök s a hatalmas,
tömött hajkorona eléggé elárulják, hogy miről lehet szó. Szinte
számíthattam rá; mégis a dolog roppant kínosan érint s különös
látomások, furcsa gondolatkapcsolatok foglalkoztatják képzeletemet.
Azt hiszem, hogy az Ezeregyéjszaka varázslónői közül jött el egyik
titokzatos, bűvöserejű némber, aki a férfit ismeretlen örvényekbe
szokta rántani. Eszembe jut Salamon, aki Sába királynőjét tükrön
járatta végig, hogy meggyőződjék arról, vajjon nincsenek-e
ördöglábai?
Egyszóval… mikor szerelmi dalomat kellett volna elzengeni,
kiderült, hogy nincs hangom. Nem volt hangom, vagy ha akarjátok,
olyan volt a hangom, mint egy pápai énekesé. Hölgyem ezen
szerfölött csodálkozott, később nagyon megharagudott s öltözködni
kezdvén, élesen jegyezte meg:
– Ezért igazán kár volt idefárasztani.
Legalább a gyűrűt akartam elfogadtatni vele, amelyet számára
vásároltam. Visszautasította büszke gőggel: »Kinek tart engem?«
Ennyi megaláztatástól fülig pirultam. A nő köszönés nélkül távozott.
Ez volt a kalandom. A rettenetes benne az, hogy e pillanattól
fogva szerelmes lettem a nőbe. Nem tudok más asszonyra nézni
anélkül, hogy rá ne gondoljak. Mindenki úntat és közömbösen hagy,
aki nem hasonlít rá. Ha valakit meg akarok csókolni, arca mellett
mindig ott látom az övét és kielégíthetetlen vágy gyötör utána.
Minden találkámon ott van, minden csókomba beleavatkozik,
minden más asszonyt szememben gyűlöletessé tesz. Ott van
mellette, meztelen, vagy felöltözve, ágyban fekve, vagy
karosszékben ülve, ott van láthatóan, csábítón a másik mellett, s
még sem érhetem el soha. Most már igazán kezdem hinni, hogy
varázslóasszony volt, aki lapockái között titokzatos talizmánt hordott.
És a legkülönösebb az, hogy még máig sem tudom, hogy
kicsoda? Láttam azóta kétszer. Üdvözöltem, de nem fogadta
köszöntésemet. Úgy tett, mintha nem ismerne. Ki lehet? A bűvös
Kelet leánya? Biztosan zsidóleány! Ettől a gondolattól nem tudok
megszabadulni. Zsidóleány! De miért? Miből gondolom?… Erre
igazán nem tudnék felelni!
 Vallomás.

A kis Grangerie báróné éppen a kereveten szunyókált, mikor a

kis Rennedon márkiné félreálló kalappal, rendetlen blúzzal berontott
hozzá, székbe vágta magát s fölkiáltott:
– Végre! Megtörtént!
A különben nyugodt és szelíd márkiné izgalma barátnéját nagyon
meglepte. Kíváncsian ült föl a kereveten:
– Mi az? Mit csináltál?
A márkiné nem tudott ülve maradni. Felugrott a székről,
izgatottan járkált fel s alá s végül a kerevet elé vetve magát, amelyen
barátnője feküdt, megfogta kezét:
– Esküdj meg, hogy senkinek sem szólsz arról, amit meggyónok.
– Esküszöm.
– Üdvösségedre?
– Örök üdvösségemre.
– Nos hát! Tudd meg: megbosszultam Viktort!
A másik fölkiáltott:
– Jól tetted!
– Úgyebár? Képzeld, hat hónap óta még kiállhatatlanabb, mint
azelőtt. De minden tekintetben! Mikor férjhez mentem hozzá, tudtam,
hogy csunya, de azt hittem, hogy legalább jó. Istenem, hogy
csalódtam! Ő biztosan azt hitte, hogy a szép szemeiért mentem
hozzá. Azt hitte ez a pirosorrú, nagyhasú Adonisz, hogy szerelmes
vagyok bele s úgy viselkedett velem szemben, mint gerlice a
párjával. Én persze kikacagtam. Olyan nevettető volt, amikor
komolyan turbékolni kezdett. El is kereszteltem: Gerlepapának.
Furcsa fogalmaik vannak a férfiaknak önmagukról! Mikor végre
megértette, hogy nálam csak baráti érzelmekről lehet szó,
rettenetesen gyanakvó lett; elnevezett kiélt teremtésnek, fajtalan
nőszemélynek s tudom is én, még minek? De ez még nem minden.
A helyzet mind nehezebbé vált azáltal… hogy is mondjam?…
Nagyon nehéz ezt elmondani… Szóval, nagyon szerelmes belém…
Nagyon szerelmes… és ennek sokszor, igen sokszor adja
bizonyságát. Mondd, édesem, lehet-e szörnyűbb valami, mintha
ilyen lehetetlen, ilyen kacagtató alak szereti az embert? Nem, igazán
nem bírtam már tovább kiállni… Rosszabb volt, mintha minden este
fogamat húzták volna ki. Igazán mondom, rosszabb! Képzelj el
magadnak ismerőseid közül egy ilyen utálatos, visszataszító,
lehetetlen figurát nagy hassal, szőrös lábszárakkal!… Úgy-e? El
tudod képzelni? És most képzeld el, hogy ez az ember a férjed. A te
férjed, akinek joga van… minden este… Hiszen érted! Irtózatos!
Nem bírtam tovább! A szó szoros értelmében rosszul lettem… De
egész komoly, mosdótálas rosszullét fogott el! Hát ez mégsem járja!
Kellene valami törvénynek lenni, amely az asszonyt védi… Minden
este! Ó, de csunya, utálatos dolog!
Ne gondold, hogy holmi költői szerelemről álmodozom.
Ilyesminek már rég divatja mult. A mi társaságunk férfiai
versenyistállótulajdonosok és bankárok: a lovat vagy a pénzt
szeretik. Ha véletlenül egy asszonyt is megszeretnek, úgy vannak
vele, mint szép lovaikkal: mutogatják. Ennyi az egész. A mi
életünkben az érzelmeknek nincs semmi szerepe. Ezért hát úgy
élünk, mint gyakorlati és közömbös teremtésekhez illik. Még
estélyeink sem egyebek, mint rendszeres összejövetelek, ahol
mindig ugyanazt mondjuk és csináljuk. Kit szeressünk? Kivel
szemben legyünk gyöngédek? Férfiaink általában olyanok, mint a
kifogástalan bábuk, minden szellem és finomság nélkül. Ha egy kis
szellemre van szükségünk, mint pusztában utazónak a vízre:
művészeket hívunk. És a művészek? Kiállhatatlan majmok vagy