Chapter XXIII: Part 23

81 The right of man over the life and powers of the brutes rests on the
fact that, because with the growing clearness of consciousness
suffering increases in like measure; the pain which the brute
suffers through death or work is not so great as man would suffer by
merely denying himself the flesh, or the powers of the brutes.
Therefore man may carry the assertion of his existence to the extent
of denying the existence of the brute, and the will to live as a
whole endures less suffering in this way than if the opposite course
were adopted. This at once determines the extent of the use man may
make of the powers of the brutes without wrong; a limit, however,
which is often transgressed, especially in the case of beasts of
burden and dogs used in the chase; to which the activity of
societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals is principally
devoted. In my opinion, that right does not extend to vivisection,
particularly of the higher animals. On the other hand, the insect
does not suffer so much through its death as a man suffers from its
sting. The Hindus do not understand this.

82 As I wander sunk in thought, so strong a sympathy with myself comes
over me that I must often weep aloud, which otherwise I am not wont
to do.

83 Cf. Ch. xlvii. of Supplement. It is scarcely necessary to remind the
reader that the whole ethical doctrine given in outline in §§ 61-67
has been explained fully and in detail in my prize-essay on the
foundation of morals.

84 This thought is expressed by a beautiful simile in the ancient
philosophical Sanscrit writing, “Sankhya Karica:” “Yet the soul
remains a while invested with body; as the potter’s wheel continues
whirling after the pot has been fashioned, by force of the impulse
previously given to it. When separation of the informed soul from
its corporeal frame at length takes place and nature in respect of
it ceases, then is absolute and final deliverance accomplished.”
Colebrooke, “On the Philosophy of the Hindus: Miscellaneous Essays,”
vol i. p. 271. Also in the “Sankhya Karica by Horace Wilson,” § 67,
p. 184.

85 See, for example, “Oupnek’hat, studio Anquetil du Perron,” vol. ii.,
Nos. 138, 144, 145, 146. “Mythologie des Indous,” par Mad. de
Polier, vol. ii., ch. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. “Asiatisches Magazin,” by
Klaproth: in the first volume, “Ueber die Fo-Religion,” also
“Baghnat Geeta” or “Gespräche zwischen Krishna und Arjoon;” in the
second volume, “Moha-Mudgava.” Also, “Institutes of Hindu Law, or
the Ordinances of Manu,” from the Sanscrit, by Sir William Jones
(German by Hüttner, 1797), especially the sixth and twelfth
chapters. Finally, many passages in the “Asiatic Researches.” (In
the last forty years Indian literature has grown so much in Europe,
that if I were now to complete this note to the first edition, it
would occupy several pages.)

86 At the procession of Jagganath in June 1840, eleven Hindus threw
themselves under the wheels, and were instantly killed. (Letter of
an East Indian proprietor in the _Times_ of 30th December 1840.)

87 On δευτερος πλους cf. Stob. Floril., vol. ii. p. 374.

88 Bruckeri Hist. Philos., tomi iv. pars. i. p. 10.

89 Henry VI., Part ii. act 3, sc. 3.

90 Cf. Ch. xlviii. of the Supplement.

91 How truly this is the case may be seen from the fact that all the
contradictions and inconceivabilities contained in the Christian
dogmatics, consistently systematised by Augustine, which have led to
the Pelagian insipidity which is opposed to them, vanish as soon as
we abstract from the fundamental Jewish dogma, and recognize that
man is not the work of another, but of his own will. Then all is at
once clear and correct: then there is no need of freedom in the
_operari_, for it lies in the _esse_; and there also lies the sin as
original sin. The work of grace is, however, our own. To the
rationalistic point of view of the day, on the contrary, many
doctrines of the Augustinian dogmatics, founded on the New
Testament, appear quite untenable, and indeed revolting; for
example, predestination. Accordingly Christianity proper is
rejected, and a return is made to crude Judaism. But the
miscalculation or the original weakness of Christian dogmatics
lies—where it is never sought—precisely in that which is withdrawn
from all investigation as established and certain. Take this away
and the whole of dogmatics is rational; for this dogma destroys
theology as it does all other sciences. If any one studies the
Augustinian theology in the books “_De Civitate Dei_” (especially in
the Fourteenth Book), he experiences something analogous to the
feeling of one who tries to make a body stand whose centre of
gravity falls outside it; however he may turn it and place it, it
always tumbles over again. So here, in spite of all the efforts and
sophisms of Augustine, the guilt and misery of the world always
falls back on God, who made everything and everything that is in
everything, and also knew how all things would go. That Augustine
himself was conscious of the difficulty, and puzzled by it, I have
already shown in my prize-essay on the Freedom of the Will (ch. iv.
pp. 66-68 of the first and second editions). In the same way, the
contradiction between the goodness of God and the misery of the
world, and also between the freedom of the will and the
foreknowledge of God, is the inexhaustible theme of a controversy
which lasted nearly a hundred years between the Cartesians,
Malebranche, Leibnitz, Bayle, Clarke, Arnauld, and many others. The
only dogma which was regarded as fixed by all parties was the
existence and attributes of God, and they all unceasingly move in a
circle, because they seek to bring these things into harmony,
_i.e._, to solve a sum that will not come right, but always shows a
remainder at some new place whenever we have concealed it elsewhere.
But it does not occur to any one to seek for the source of the
difficulty in the fundamental assumption, although it palpably
obtrudes itself. Bayle alone shows that he saw this.

92 This is also just the Prajna—Paramita of the Buddhists, the “beyond
all knowledge,” _i.e._, the point at which subject and object are no
more. (Cf. J. J. Schmidt, “Ueber das Mahajana und
Pratschna-Paramita.”)