On the contrary, each man imagines that his choice is made in the

interest of his own pleasure (which, in reality, cannot be interested in it at all); his choice, which we must take for granted is in keeping with his own individuality, is made precisely in the interest of the species, to maintain the type of which as pure as possible is the secret task. In this case the individual unconsciously acts in the interest of something higher, that is, the species. This is why he attaches so much importance to things to which he might, nay, would be otherwise indifferent. There is something quite singular in the unconsciously serious and critical way two young people of different sex look at each other on meeting for the first time; in the scrutinising and penetrating glances they exchange, in the careful inspection which their various traits undergo. This scrutiny and analysis represent the _meditation of the genius of the species_ on the individual which may be born and the combination of its qualities; and the greatness of their delight in and longing for each other is determined by this meditation. This longing, although it may have become intense, may possibly disappear again if something previously unobserved comes to light. And so the genius of the species meditates concerning the coming race in all who are yet not too old. It is Cupid's work to fashion this race, and he is always busy, always speculating, always meditating. The affairs of the individual in their whole ephemeral totality are very trivial compared with those of this divinity, which concern the species and the coming race; therefore he is always ready to sacrifice the individual regardlessly. He is related to these ephemeral affairs as an immortal being is to a mortal, and his interests to theirs as infinite to finite. Conscious, therefore, of administering affairs of a higher order than those that concern merely the weal and woe of the individual, he administers them with sublime indifference amid the tumult of war, the bustle of business, or the raging of a plague--indeed, he pursues them into the seclusion of the cloisters. It has been seen that the intensity of love grows with its individuation; we have shown that two individuals may be so physically constituted, that, in order to restore the best possible type of the species, the one is the special and perfect complement of the other, which, in consequence, exclusively desires it. In a case of this kind, passionate love arises, and as it is bestowed on one object, and one only--that is to say, because it appears in the _special_ service of the species--it immediately assumes a nobler and sublimer nature. On the other hand, mere sexual instinct is base, because, without individuation, it is directed to all, and strives to preserve the species merely as regards quantity with little regard for quality. Intense love concentrated on one individual may develop to such a degree, that unless it is gratified all the good things of this world, and even life itself, lose their importance. It then becomes a desire, the intensity of which is like none other; consequently it will make any kind of sacrifice, and should it happen that it cannot be gratified, it may lead to madness or even suicide. Besides these unconscious considerations which are the source of passionate love, there must be still others, which we have not so directly before us. Therefore, we must take it for granted that here there is not only a fitness of constitution but also a special fitness between the man's _will_ and the woman's _intellect_, in consequence of which a perfectly definite individual can be born to them alone, whose existence is contemplated by the genius of the species for reasons to us impenetrable, since they are the very essence of the thing-in-itself. Or more strictly speaking, the will to live desires to objectivise itself in an individual which is precisely determined, and can only be begotten by this particular father and this particular mother. This metaphysical yearning of the will in itself has immediately, as its sphere of action in the circle of human beings, the hearts of the future parents, who accordingly are seized with this desire. They now fancy that it is for their own sakes they are longing for what at present has purely a metaphysical end, that is to say, for what does not come within the range of things that exist in reality. In other words, it is the desire of the future individual to enter existence, which has first become possible here, a longing which proceeds from the primary source of all being and exhibits itself in the phenomenal world as the intense love of the future parents for each other, and has little regard for anything outside itself. In fact, love is an illusion like no other; it will induce a man to sacrifice everything he possesses in the world, in order to obtain this woman, who in reality will satisfy him no more than any other. It also ceases to exist when the end, which was in reality metaphysical, has been frustrated perhaps by the woman's barrenness (which, according to Hufeland, is the result of nineteen accidental defects in the constitution), just as it is frustrated daily in millions of crushed germs in which the same metaphysical life-principle struggles to exist; there is no other consolation in this than that there is an infinity of space, time, and matter, and consequently inexhaustible opportunity, at the service of the will to live. Although this subject has not been treated by Theophrastus Paracelsus, and my entire train of thought is foreign to him, yet it must have presented itself to him, if even in a cursory way, when he gave utterance to the following remarkable words, written in quite a different context and in his usual desultory style: _Hi sunt, quos Deus copulavit, ut eam, quae fuit Uriae et David; quamvis ex diametro (sic enim sibi humana mens persuadebat) cum justo et legitimo matrimonio pugnaret hoc ... sed propter Salomonem, qui aliunde nasci non potuit, nisi ex Bathseba, conjuncto David semine, quamvis meretrice, conjunxit eos Deus._[18] The yearning of love, the ἱμερος, which has been expressed in countless ways and forms by the poets of all ages, without their exhausting the subject or even doing it justice; this longing which makes us imagine that the possession of a certain woman will bring interminable happiness, and the loss of her, unspeakable pain; this longing and this pain do not arise from the needs of an ephemeral individual, but are, on the contrary, the sigh of the spirit of the species, discerning irreparable means of either gaining or losing its ends. It is the species alone that has an interminable existence: hence it is capable of endless desire, endless gratification, and endless pain. These, however, are imprisoned in the heart of a mortal; no wonder, therefore, if it seems like to burst, and can find no expression for the announcements of endless joy or endless pain. This it is that forms the substance of all erotic poetry that is sublime in character, which, consequently, soars into transcendent metaphors, surpassing everything earthly. This is the theme of Petrarch, the material for the St. Preuxs, Werthers, and Jacopo Ortis, who otherwise could be neither understood nor explained. This infinite regard is not based on any kind of intellectual, nor, in general, upon any real merits of the beloved one; because the lover frequently does not know her well enough; as was the case with Petrarch. It is the spirit of the species alone that can see at a glance of what _value_ the beloved one is to _it_ for its purposes. Moreover, great passions, as a rule, originate at first sight: "Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight." --SHAKESPEARE, _As You Like It,_ iii.

5Curiously enough, there is a passage touching upon this in _Guzmann de Alfarache_, a well-known romance written two hundred and fifty years ago by Mateo Aleman: _No es necessario para que uno ame, que pase distancia de tiempo, que siga discurso, in haga eleccion, sino que con aquella primera y sola vista, concurran juntamente cierta correspondencia ó consonancia, ó lo que acá solemos vulgarmente decir, una confrontacion de sangre, à que por particular influxo suelen mover las estrellas_. (For a man to love there is no need for any length of time to pass for him to weigh considerations or make his choice, but only that a certain correspondence and consonance is encountered on both sides at the first and only glance, or that which is ordinarily called _a sympathy of blood_, to which a peculiar influence of the stars generally impels.) Accordingly, the loss of the beloved one through a rival, or through death, is the greatest pain of all to those passionately in love; just because it is of a transcendental nature, since it affects him not merely as an individual, but also assails him in his _essentia aeterna_, in the life of the species, in whose special will and service he was here called. This is why jealousy is so tormenting and bitter, and the giving up of the loved one the greatest of all sacrifices. A hero is ashamed of showing any kind of emotion but that which may be the outcome of love; the reason for this is, that when he is in love it is not he, but the species which is grieving. In Calderon's _Zenobia the Great_ there is a scene in the second act between Zenobia and Decius where the latter says, _Cielos, luego tu me quieres? Perdiera cien mil victorias, Volviérame_, etc. (Heavens! then you love me? For this I would sacrifice a thousand victories, etc.) In this case honour, which has hitherto outweighed every other interest, is driven out of the field directly love--_i.e._, the interest of the species--comes into play and discerns something that will be of decided advantage to itself; for the interest of the species, compared with that of the mere individual, however important this may be, is infinitely more important. Honour, duty, and fidelity succumb to it after they have withstood every other temptation--the menace of death even. We find the same going on in private life; for instance, a man has less conscience when in love than in any other circumstances. Conscience is sometimes put on one side even by people who are otherwise honest and straightforward, and infidelity recklessly committed if they are passionately in love--i.e., when the interest of the species has taken possession of them. It would seem, indeed, as if they believed themselves conscious of a greater authority than the interests of individuals could ever confer; this is simply because they are concerned in the interest of the species. Chamfort's utterance in this respect is remarkable: _Quand un homme et une femme ont l'un pour l'autre une passion violente, il me semble toujours que quelque soient les obstacles qui les séparent, un mari, des parens, etc.; les deux amans sont l'un à l'autre, de par la Nature, qu'ils s'appartiennent de droit devin, malgré les lois et les conventions humaines_.... From this standpoint the greater part of the _Decameron_ seems a mere mocking and jeering on the part of the genius of the species at the rights and interests of the individual which it treads underfoot. Inequality of rank and all similar relations are put on one side with the same indifference and disregarded by the genius of the species, if they thwart the union of two people passionately in love with one another: it pursues its ends pertaining to endless generations, scattering human principles and scruples abroad like chaff. For the same reason, a man will willingly risk every kind of danger, and even become courageous, although he may otherwise be faint-hearted. What a delight we take in watching, either in a play or novel, two young lovers fighting for each other--i.e., for the interest of the species--and their defeat of the old people, who had only in view the welfare of the individual! For the struggling of a pair of lovers seems to us so much more important, delightful, and consequently justifiable than any other, as the species is more important than the individual. Accordingly, we have as the fundamental subject of almost all comedies the genius of the species with its purposes, running counter to the personal interests of the individuals presented, and, in consequence, threatening to undermine their happiness. As a rule it carries out its ends, which, in keeping with true poetic justice, satisfies the spectator, because the latter feels that the purposes of the species widely surpass those of the individual. Hence he is quite consoled when he finally takes leave of the victorious lovers, sharing with them the illusion that they have established their own happiness, while, in truth, they have sacrificed it for the welfare of the species, in opposition to the will of the discreet old people. It has been attempted in a few out-of-the-way comedies to reverse this state of things and to effect the happiness of the individuals at the cost of the ends of the species; but here the spectator is sensible of the pain inflicted on the genius of the species, and does not find consolation in the advantages that are assured to the individuals. Two very well-known little pieces occur to me as examples of this kind: _La reine de 16 ans_, and _Le mariage de raison_. In the love-affairs that are treated in tragedies the lovers, as a rule, perish together: the reason for this is that the purposes of the species, whose tools the lovers were, have been frustrated, as, for instance, in _Romeo and Juliet, Tancred, Don Carlos, Wallenstein, The Bride of Messina_, and so on. A man in love frequently furnishes comic as well as tragic aspects; for being in the possession of the spirit of the species and controlled by it, he no longer belongs to himself, and consequently his line of conduct is not in keeping with that of the individual. It is fundamentally this that in the higher phases of love gives such a poetical and sublime colour, nay, transcendental and hyperphysical turn to a man's thoughts, whereby he appears to lose sight of his essentially material purpose. He is inspired by the spirit of the species, whose affairs are infinitely more important than any which concern mere individuals, in order to establish by special mandate of this spirit the existence of an indefinitely long posterity with _this_ particular and precisely determined nature, which it can receive only from him as father and his loved one as mother, and which, moreover, _as such_ never comes into existence, while the objectivation of the will to live expressly demands this existence. It is the feeling that he is engaged in affairs of such transcendent importance that exalts the lover above everything earthly, nay, indeed, above himself, and gives such a hyperphysical clothing to his physical wishes, that love becomes, even in the life of the most prosaic, a poetical episode; and then the affair often assumes a comical aspect. That mandate of the will which objectifies itself in the species presents itself in the consciousness of the lover under the mask of the anticipation of an infinite happiness, which is to be found in his union with this particular woman. This illusion to a man deeply in love becomes so dazzling that if it cannot be attained, life itself not only loses all charm, but appears to be so joyless, hollow, and uninteresting as to make him too disgusted with it to be afraid of the terrors of death; this is why he sometimes of his own free will cuts his life short. The will of a man of this kind has become engulfed in that of the species, or the will of the species has obtained so great an ascendency over the will of the individual that if such a man cannot be effective in the manifestation of the first, he disdains to be so in the last. The individual in this case is too weak a vessel to bear the infinite longing of the will of the species concentrated upon a definite object. When this is the case suicide is the result, and sometimes suicide of the two lovers; unless nature, to prevent this, causes insanity, which then enshrouds with its veil the consciousness of so hopeless a condition. The truth of this is confirmed yearly by various cases of this description. However, it is not only unrequited love that leads frequently to a tragic end; for requited love more frequently leads to unhappiness than to happiness. This is because its demands often so severely clash with the personal welfare of the lover concerned as to undermine it, since the demands are incompatible with the lover's other circumstances, and in consequence destroy the plans of life built upon them. Further, love frequently runs counter not only to external circumstances but to the individuality itself, for it may fling itself upon a person who, apart from the relation of sex, may become hateful, despicable, nay, even repulsive. As the will of the species, however, is so very much stronger than that of the individual, the lover shuts his eyes to all objectionable qualities, overlooks everything, ignores all, and unites himself for ever to the object of his passion. He is so completely blinded by this illusion that as soon as the will of the species is accomplished the illusion vanishes and leaves in its place a hateful companion for life. From this it is obvious why we often see very intelligent, nay, distinguished men married to dragons and she-devils, and why we cannot understand how it was possible for them to make such a choice. Accordingly, the ancients represented _Amor_ as blind. In fact, it is possible for a lover to clearly recognise and be bitterly conscious of horrid defects in his _fiancée's_ disposition and character--defects which promise him a life of misery--and yet for him not to be filled with fear: "I ask not, I care not, If guilt's in thy heart; I know that I love thee, Whatever thou art." For, in truth, he is not acting in his own interest but in that of a third person, who has yet to come into existence, albeit he is under the impression that he is acting in his own But it is this very _acting in some one else's interest_ which is everywhere the stamp of greatness and gives to passionate love the touch of the sublime, making it a worthy subject for the poet. Finally, a man may both love and hate his beloved at the same time. Accordingly, Plato compares a man's love to the love of a wolf for a sheep. We have an instance of this kind when a passionate lover, in spite of all his exertions and entreaties, cannot obtain a hearing upon any terms. "I love and hate her."--SHAKESPEARE, _Cymb_. iii.

5When hatred is kindled, a man will sometimes go so far as to first kill his beloved and then himself. Examples of this kind are brought before our notice yearly in the newspapers. Therefore Goethe says truly: "Bei aller verschmähten Liebe, beim höllichen Elemente! Ich wollt', ich wüsst' was ärger's, das ich fluchen könnte!" It is in truth no hyperbole on the part of a lover when he calls his beloved's coldness, or the joy of her vanity, which delights in his suffering, _cruelty_. For he has come under the influence of an impulse which, akin to the instinct of animals, compels him in spite of all reason to unconditionally pursue his end and discard every other; he cannot give it up. There has not been one but many a Petrarch, who, failing to have his love requited, has been obliged to drag through life as if his feet were either fettered or carried a leaden weight, and give vent to his sighs in a lonely forest; nevertheless there was only one Petrarch who possessed the true poetic instinct, so that Goethe's beautiful lines are true of him: "Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Quaal verstummt, Gab mir ein Gott, zu sagen, wie ich leide." As a matter of fact, the genius of the species is at continual warfare with the guardian genius of individuals; it is its pursuer and enemy; it is always ready to relentlessly destroy personal happiness in order to carry out its ends; indeed, the welfare of whole nations has sometimes been sacrificed to its caprice. Shakespeare furnishes us with such an example in _Henry VI_ Part III., Act iii., Scenes 2 and

3This is because the species, in which lies the germ of our being, has a nearer and prior claim upon us than the individual, so that the affairs of the species are more important than those of the individual. Sensible of this, the ancients personified the genius of the species in Cupid, notwithstanding his having the form of a child, as a hostile and cruel god, and therefore one to be decried as a capricious and despotic demon, and yet lord of both gods and men. Συ δ' ὠ θεων τυραννε κ' ἀνθρωπων, Ἐρως. (Tu, deorum hominumque tyranne, Amor!) Murderous darts, blindness, and wings are Cupid's attributes. The latter signify inconstancy, which as a rule comes with the disillusion following possession. Because, for instance, love is based on an illusion and represents what is an advantage to the species as an advantage to the individual, the illusion necessarily vanishes directly the end of the species has been attained. The spirit of the species, which for the time being has got the individual into its possession, now frees him again. Deserted by the spirit, he relapses into his original state of narrowness and want; he is surprised to find that after all his lofty, heroic, and endless attempts to further his own pleasure he has obtained but little; and contrary to his expectation, he finds that he is no happier than he was before. He discovers that he has been the dupe of the will of the species. Therefore, as a rule, a Theseus who has been made happy will desert his Ariadne. If Petrarch's passion had been gratified his song would have become silent from that moment, as that of the birds as soon as the eggs are laid. Let it be said in passing that, however much my metaphysics of love may displease those in love, the fundamental truth revealed by me would enable them more effectually than anything else to overcome their passion, if considerations of reason in general could be of any avail. The words of the comic poet of ancient times remain good: _Quae res in se neque consilium, neque modum habet ullum, eam consilio regere non potes_. People who marry for love do so in the interest of the species and not of the individuals. It is true that the persons concerned imagine they are promoting their own happiness; but their real aim, which is one they are unconscious of, is to bring forth an individual which can be begotten by them alone. This purpose having brought them together, they ought henceforth to try and make the best of things. But it very frequently happens that two people who have been brought together by this instinctive illusion, which is the essence of passionate love, are in every other respect temperamentally different. This becomes apparent when the illusion wears off, as it necessarily must. Accordingly, people who marry for love are generally unhappy, for such people look after the welfare of the future generation at the expense of the present. _Quien se casa por amores, ha de vivir con dolores_ (He who marries for love must live in grief), says the Spanish proverb. Marriages _de convenance_, which are generally arranged by the parents, will turn out the reverse. The considerations in this case which control them, whatever their nature may be, are at any rate real and unable to vanish of themselves. A marriage of this kind attends to the welfare of the present generation to the detriment of the future, it is true; and yet this remains problematical. A man who marries for money, and not for love, lives more in the interest of the individual than in that of the species; a condition exactly opposed to truth; therefore it is unnatural and rouses a certain feeling of contempt. A girl who against the wish of her parents refuses to marry a rich man, still young, and ignores all considerations of _convenance_, in order to choose another instinctively to her liking, sacrifices her individual welfare to the species. But it is for this very reason that she meets with a certain approval, for she has given preference to what was more important and acted in the spirit of nature (of the species) more exactly; while the parents advised only in the spirit of individual egoism. As the outcome of all this, it seems that to marry means that either the interest of the individual or the interest of the species must suffer. As a rule one or the other is the case, for it is only by the rarest and luckiest accident that _convenance_ and passionate love go hand in hand. The wretched condition of most persons physically, morally, and intellectually may be partly accounted for by the fact that marriages are not generally the result of pure choice and inclination, but of all kinds of external considerations and accidental circumstances. However, if inclination to a certain degree is taken into consideration, as well as convenience, this is as it were a compromise with the genius of the species. As is well known, happy marriages are few and far between, since marriage is intended to have the welfare of the future generation at heart and not the present. However, let me add for the consolation of the more tender-hearted that passionate love is sometimes associated with a feeling of quite another kind--namely, real friendship founded on harmony of sentiment, but this, however, does not exist until the instinct of sex has been extinguished. This friendship will generally spring from the fact that the physical, moral, and intellectual qualities which correspond to and supplement each other in two individuals in love, in respect of the child to be born, will also supplement each other in respect of the individuals themselves as opposite qualities of temperament and intellectual excellence, and thereby establish a harmony of sentiment. The whole metaphysics of love which has been treated here is closely related to my metaphysics in general, and the light it throws upon this may be said to be as follows. We have seen that a man's careful choice, developing through innumerable degrees to passionate love, for the satisfaction of his instinct of sex, is based upon the fundamental interest he takes in the constitution of the next generation. This overwhelming interest that he takes verifies two truths which have been already demonstrated. First: Man's immortality, which is perpetuated in the future race. For this interest of so active and zealous a nature, which is neither the result of reflection nor intention, springs from the innermost characteristics and tendencies of our being, could not exist so continuously or exercise such great power over man if the latter were really transitory and if a race really and totally different to himself succeeded him merely in point of time. Second: That his real nature is more closely allied to the species than to the individual. For this interest that he takes in the special nature of the species, which is the source of all love, from the most fleeting emotion to the most serious passion, is in reality the most important affair in each man's life, the successful or unsuccessful issue of which touches him more nearly than anything else. This is why it has been pre-eminently called the "affair of the heart." Everything that merely concerns one's own person is set aside and sacrificed, if the case require it, to this interest when it is of a strong and decided nature. Therefore in this way man proves that he is more interested in the species than in the individual, and that he lives more directly in the interest of the species than in that of the individual. Why, then, is a lover so absolutely devoted to every look and turn of his beloved, and ready to make any kind of sacrifice for her? Because the _immortal_ part of him is yearning for her; it is only the _mortal_ part of him that longs for everything else. That keen and even intense longing for a particular woman is accordingly a direct pledge of the immortality of the essence of our being and of its perpetuity in the species. To regard this perpetuity as something unimportant and insufficient is an error, arising from the fact that in thinking of the continuity of the species we only think of the future existence of beings similar to ourselves, but in no respect, however, identical with us; and again, starting from knowledge directed towards without, we only grasp the outer form of the species as it presents itself to us, and do not take into consideration its inner nature. It is precisely this inner nature that lies at the foundation of our own consciousness as its kernel, and therefore is more direct than our consciousness itself, and as thing-in-itself exempt from the _principium individuationis_--is in reality identical and the same in all individuals, whether they exist at the same or at different times. This, then, is the will to live--that is to say, it is exactly _that which_ so intensely desires both life and continuance, and which accordingly remains unharmed and unaffected by death. Further, its present state cannot be improved, and while there is life it is certain of the unceasing sufferings and death of the individual. The _denial_ of the will to live is reserved to free it from this, as the means by which the individual will breaks away from the stem of the species, and surrenders that existence in it. We are wanting both in ideas and all data as to what it is after that. We can only indicate it as something which is free to be will to live or not to live. Buddhism distinguishes the latter case by the word _Nirvana_. It is the point which as such remains for ever impenetrable to all human knowledge. Looking at the turmoil of life from this standpoint we find all occupied with its want and misery, exerting all their strength in order to satisfy its endless needs and avert manifold suffering, without, however, daring to expect anything else in return than merely the preservation of this tormented individual existence for a short span of time. And yet, amid all this turmoil we see a pair of lovers exchanging longing glances--yet why so secretly, timidly, and stealthily? Because these lovers are traitors secretly striving to perpetuate all this misery and turmoil that otherwise would come to a timely end. FOOTNOTES: [17] Ch. xxvi.

23[18] _De vita longa_ i.

5PHYSIOGNOMY. That the outside reflects the inner man, and that the face expresses his whole character, is an obvious supposition and accordingly a safe one, demonstrated as it is in the desire people have _to see_ on all occasions a man who has distinguished himself by something good or evil, or produced some exceptional work; or if this is denied them, at any rate to hear from others _what he looks like_. This is why, on the one hand, they go to places where they conjecture he is to be found; and on the other, why the press, and especially the English press, tries to describe him in a minute and striking way; he is soon brought visibly before us either by a painter or an engraver; and finally, photography,