the thing-in-itself; and its objectivation is what is presented in
phenomena. The struggle of the will to realize itself evolves the
organism, which in its turn evolves intelligence as the servant of the
will. And in practical life the antagonism between the will and the
intellect arises from the fact that the former is the metaphysical
substance, the latter something accidental and secondary. And further,
will is _desire_, that is to say, need of something; hence need and pain
are what is positive in the world, and the only possible happiness is a
negation, a renunciation of _the will to live_.

It is instructive to note, as M. Ribot points out, that in finding the
origin of all things, not in intelligence, as some of his predecessors
in philosophy had done, but in will, or the force of nature, from which
all phenomena have developed, Schopenhauer was anticipating something of
the scientific spirit of the nineteenth century. To this it may be added
that in combating the method of Fichte and Hegel, who spun a system out
of abstract ideas, and in discarding it for one based on observation and
experience, Schopenhauer can be said to have brought down philosophy
from heaven to earth.

In Schopenhauer's view the various forms of Religion are no less a
product of human ingenuity than Art or Science. He holds, in effect,
that all religions take their rise in the desire to explain the world;
and that, in regard to truth and error, they differ, in the main, not by
preaching monotheism polytheism or pantheism, but in so far as they
recognize pessimism or optimism as the true description of life. Hence
any religion which looked upon the world as being radically evil
appealed to him as containing an indestructible element of truth. I have
endeavored to present his view of two of the great religions of the
world in the extract which concludes this volume, and to which I have