Justice and Rewards

The clinging to life and its pleasures must now soon yield, and give place to a universal renunciation; consequently the denial of the will will take place. Since now, in accordance with this, poverty, privation, and special sufferings of many kinds are introduced simply by the perfect exercise of the moral virtues, asceticism in the narrowest sense, thus the surrender of all possessions, the intentional seeking out of what is disagreeable and repulsive, self-mortification, fasts, the hair shirt, and the scourge—all this is rejected by many, and perhaps rightly, as superfluous.

Justice itself is the hair shirt that constantly harasses its owner and the charity that gives away what is needed, provides constant fasts.45

Just on this account Buddhism is free from all strict and excessive asceticism, which plays a large part in Brahmanism, thus from intentional self-mortification. It rests satisfied with the celibacy, voluntary poverty, humility, and obedience of the monks, with abstention from animal food, as also from all worldliness. Since, further, the goal to which the moral virtues lead is that which is here pointed out, the Vedanta philosophy46 rightly says that after the entrance of true knowledge, with entire resignation in its train, thus the new birth, then the morality or immorality of the past life is a matter of indifference, and uses here also the saying so often quoted by the Brahmans: “Finditur nodus cordis, dissolvuntur omnes dubitationes, ejusque opera evanescunt, viso supremo illo” (Sancara, sloca 32).[426]

This view is objectionable to many who think that a reward in heaven or a punishment in hell is a much more satisfactory explanation of the ethical significance of human action, just as the good Windischmann rejects that doctrine, while he expounds it, yet whoever is able to go to the bottom of the matter will find that in the end it agrees with that Christian doctrine especially urged by Luther, that it is not works but only the faith which enters through the work of grace, that saves us, and that therefore we can never be justified by our deeds, but can only obtain the forgiveness of our sins through the merits of the Mediator. It is indeed easy to see that without such assumptions Christianity would have to teach infinite punishment for all, and If, on the contrary, asceticism is admitted, the list of the ultimate motives of human action, given in my prize essay on the foundation of morals, namely:

1. Our own good
2. The ill of others
3. The good of others, must be supplemented by a fourth, our own ill; which I merely mention here in passing in the interests of systematic consistency.

In the essay referred to this fourth motive had to be passed over in silence, for the question asked was stated in the spirit of the philosophical ethics prevailing in Protestant Europe. 46 Cf. F. H. H. Windischmann’s Sancara, sive de theologumenis Vedanticorum, pp. 116, 117, 121; and also Oupnekhat, vol. i. pp. 340, 356, 360.

Brahmanism endless re-births for all, thus no salvation would be reached by either.

The sinful works and their consequences must be annulled and annihilated, whether by extraneous pardon or by the entrance of a better knowledge; otherwise the world could hope for no salvation; afterwards, however, they become a matter of indifference.

This is also the ºμƒ±Ωøπ± ∫±π ±∆μ√π¬
º±¡ƒπ…Ω, the announcement of which the risen Christ exclusively imposes upon His Apostles as the sum of their mission (Luke xxiv. 47).

The moral virtues are really not the ultimate end, but only a step towards it. This step is signified in the Christian myth by the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with which moral responsibility enters, together with original sin.

The latter itself is in truth the assertion of the will to live: the denial of the will to live, in consequence of the appearance of a better knowledge, is, on the other hand, salvation. Between these two, then, lies the sphere of morality; it accompanies man as a light upon his path from the assertion to the denial of the will, or, mythically, from original sin to salvation through faith in the mediation of the incarnate God (Avatar); or, according to the teaching of the Vedas, through all re-births, which are the consequence of the works in each case, until right knowledge appears, and with it salvation (final emancipation), Mokscha, [427] i.e., reunion with Brahma. The Buddhists, however, with perfect honesty, only indicate the matter negatively, by Nirvana, which is the negation of this world, or of Sansara. If Nirvana is de- fined as nothing, this only means that the Sansara contains no single element which could assist the definition or construction of Nirvana. Just on this account the Jainas, who differ from the Buddhists only in name, call the Brahmans who believe in the Vedas Sabdapramans, a nickname which is meant to signify that they believe upon hearsay what cannot be known or proved

When certain ancient philosophers, such as Orpheus, the Pythagoreans, and Plato (e.g., in the “Phædo,” pp. 151, 183 seq. Bip.; and see Clem. Alex. strom., iii. p. 400 seq.), just like the Apostle Paul, lament the union of soul and body, and desire to be freed from it, we understand the real and true meaning of this complaint, since we have recognised, in the second book, that the body is the will itself, objectively perceived as a phenomenon in space.

In the hour of death it is decided whether the man returns into the womb of nature or belongs no more to nature at all, but —— —— ——: for this opposite we lack image, conception, and word, just because these are all taken from the objectification of the will, therefore belong to this, and consequently can in no way express the absolute opposite of it, which accordingly remains for us a mere negation. However, the death of the individual is in each case the unweariedly repeated question of nature to the will to live, “Hast thou enough? Wilt thou escape from me?” In order that it may occur often enough, the individual life is so short. In this spirit are conceived the ceremonies, prayers, and exhortations of the Brahmans at the time of death, as we find them preserved in the Upanischad in several places; and so also are the Christian provisions for the suitable employment of the hour of death by means of exhortation, confession, communion, and extreme unction: hence also the Christian prayers for deliverance from sudden death. That at the present day it is just this that many desire only proves that they no longer stand at the Christian point of view, which is that of the denial of the will to live, but at that of its assertion, which is the heathen point of view.

But he will fear least to become nothing in death who has recognised that he is already nothing now, and who consequently no longer takes any share in his individual phenomenon, because in him knowledge has, as it were, burnt up and consumed the will, so that no will, thus no desire for individual existence, remains in him any more.

Individuality inheres indeed primarily in the intellect; and the intellect, reflecting the phenomenon, belongs to the phenomenon, which has the principium individuationis as its form. But it inheres also in the will, inasmuch as the character is individual: yet the character itself is abolished in the denial of the will.

Thus individuality inheres in the will only in its assertion, not in its denial. Even the holiness which is connected with every purely moral action depends upon the fact that such an action ultimately springs from the immediate knowledge of the numerical identity of the inner nature of all living things.47 But this identity only really exists in the condition of the denial of the will (Nirvana), for the assertion of the will (Sansara) has for its form the phenom- enal appearance of it in multiplicity. Assertion of the will to live, the phenomenal world, the diversity of all beings, individuality, egoism, hatred, wickedness, all spring from one root; and so also, on the other hand, do the world as thing in itself, the identity of all beings, justice, benevolence, the denial of the will to live. If now, as I have sufficiently proved, even the moral virtues spring from the consciousness of that identity of all beings, but this lies, not in the phenomenon, but only in the thing in itself, in the root [429] of all beings, the moral action is a momentary passing through the point, the permanent return to which is the denial of the will to live.

It follows, as a deduction from what has been said, that we have no ground to assume that there are more perfect intelligences than that of human beings. For we see that even this degree of intelligence is sufficient to impart to the will that knowledge in consequence of which it denies and abolishes itself, upon which the individuality, and consequently the intelligence, which is merely a tool of individual, and therefore animal nature, perish. This will appear to us less open to objection if we consider that we cannot conceive even the most perfect intelligences possible, which for this end we may experimentally assume, existing through an endless time, which would be much too poor to afford them constantly new objects worthy of them. Because the nature of all things is at bottom one, all knowledge of them is necessarily tautological. If now this nature once becomes comprehended, as by those most perfect intelligences it soon would be comprehended, what would then remain but the wearisomeness of mere repetition through an infinite time? Thus from this side also we are pointed to the fact that the end of all intelligence can only be reaction upon the will; since, however, all willing is an error, it remains the last work of intelligence to abolish the willing, whose ends it had hitherto served. Accordingly even the most perfect intelligence possible can only be a transition step to that to which no knowledge can ever extend: indeed such an intelligence can, in the nature of things, only assume the position of the moment of the attainment of perfect insight.