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Schopenhauer is one of the few philosophers who can be generallyunderstood without a commentary. All his theories claim to be drawndirect from the facts, to be suggested by observation, and tointerpret the world as it is; and whatever view he takes, he isconstant in his appeal to the experience of common life. Thischaracteristic endows his style with a freshness and vigor whichwould be difficult to match in the philosophical writing of anycountry, and impossible in that of Germany. If it were askedwhether there were any circumstances apart from heredity, to whichhe owed his mental habit, the answer might be found in the abnormalcharacter of his early education, his acquaintance with the worldrather than with books, the extensive travels of his boyhood, hisardent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and without regard tothe emoluments and endowments of learning. He was trained inrealities even more than in ideas; and hence he is original,forcible, clear, an enemy of all philosophic indefiniteness andobscurity; so that it may well be said of him, in the words of awriter in the Revue Contemporaine, ce n'est pas un philosophecomme les autres, c'est un philosophe qui a vu le monde.
It is not my purpose, nor would it be possible within the limitsof a prefatory note, to attempt an account of Schopenhauer'sphilosophy, to indicate its sources, or to suggest or rebut theobjections which may be taken to it. M. Ribot, in his excellentlittle book, [Footnote: La Philosophie de Schopenhauer, parTh. Ribot.] has done all that is necessary in this direction. Butthe essays here presented need a word of explanation. It should beobserved, and Schopenhauer himself is at pains to point out, thathis system is like a citadel with a hundred gates: at whateverpoint you take it up, wherever you make your entrance, you are onthe road to the center. In this respect his writings resemble aseries of essays composed in support of a single thesis; acircumstance which led him to insist, more emphatically even thanmost philosophers, that for a proper understanding of his system itwas necessary to read every line he had written. Perhaps it wouldbe more correct to describe Die Welt als Wille undVorstellung as his main thesis, and his other treatises asmerely corollary to it. The essays in this volume form part of thecorollary; they are taken from a collection published towards theclose of Schopenhauer's life, and by him entitled Parerga undParalipomena, as being in the nature of surplusage andillustrative of his main position. They are by far the most popularof his works, and since their first publication in 1851, they havedone much to build up his fame. Written so as to be intelligibleenough in themselves, the tendency of many of them is towards thefundamental idea on which his system is based. It may therefore be