The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 88 pages of information about The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc..

In the ordinary man, injustice rouses a passionate desire for vengeance; and it has often been said that vengeance is sweet.  How many sacrifices have been made just to enjoy the feeling of vengeance, without any intention of causing an amount of injury equivalent to what one has suffered.  The bitter death of the centaur Nessus was sweetened by the certainty that he had used his last moments to work out an extremely clever vengeance.  Walter Scott expresses the same human inclination in language as true as it is strong:  “Vengeance is the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell!” I shall now attempt a psychological explanation of it.

Suffering which falls to our lot in the course of nature, or by chance, or fate, does not, ceteris paribus, seem so painful as suffering which is inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.  This is because we look upon nature and chance as the fundamental masters of the world; we see that the blow we received from them might just as well have fallen on another.  In the case of suffering which springs from this source, we bewail the common lot of humanity rather than our own misfortune.  But that it is the arbitrary will of another which inflicts the suffering, is a peculiarly bitter addition to the pain or injury it causes, viz., the consciousness that some one else is superior to us, whether by force or cunning, while we lie helpless.  If amends are possible, amends heal the injury; but that bitter addition, “and it was you who did that to me,” which is often more painful than the injury itself, is only to be neutralized by vengeance.  By inflicting injury on the one who has injured us, whether we do it by force or cunning, is to show our superiority to him, and to annul the proof of his superiority to us.  That gives our hearts the satisfaction towards which it yearns.  So where there is a great deal of pride and vanity, there also will there be a great desire of vengeance.  But as the fulfillment of every wish brings with it more or less of a sense of disappointment, so it is with vengeance.  The delight we hope to get from it is mostly embittered by compassion.  Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience:  the motive to it is no longer active, and what remains is the evidence of our malice.



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The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
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