The Unity of Will Studies of an Irrationalist

Abstract

EVEN if the thinking of this book were of the best, it would seem a somewhat expensive morsel at half the price; and its thinking is not of the best. It professes to be an exposition of the leading doctrine of Schopenhauer, that in self-consciousness the primacy belongs to will. The author is at the same time careful to explain that he is a Vedântist while Schopenhauer is a Buddhist, but we doubt if the ordinary man will appreciate these fine distinctions. We rather fear that the ordinary man will be repelled by a certain lack of unity, coherence, systematic statement, and logical proof. Thus, for example, we have a chapter full of irrelevancy on “hysteria and sophistry, the deadly evils of civilisation.” Thus, too, we have a small appendix on the notion of life, which explains that everything in the world is in a certain sense alive, and seems to regard it as a valid argument that “the language of the skilled artisan is full of anthropomorphic expressions.” A five-page statement of first principles at the end has certain of the merits that are so conspicuously lacking in the main body of the volume.