given the title of _The Christian System_. The tenor of it is to show
that, however little he may have been in sympathy with the supernatural
element, he owed much to the moral doctrines of Christianity and of
Buddhism, between which he traced great resemblance. In the following
_Dialogue_ he applies himself to a discussion of the practical efficacy
of religious forms; and though he was an enemy of clericalism, his
choice of a method which allows both the affirmation and the denial of
that efficacy to be presented with equal force may perhaps have been
directed by the consciousness that he could not side with either view to
the exclusion of the other. In any case his practical philosophy was
touched with the spirit of Christianity. It was more than artistic
enthusiasm which led him in profound admiration to the Madonna di San
Sisto:

Sie trägt zur Welt ihn, und er schaut entsetzt
In ihrer Gräu'l chaotische Verwirrung,
In ihres Tobens wilde Raserei,
In ihres Treibens nie geheilte Thorheit,
In ihrer Quaalen nie gestillten Schmerz;
Entsetzt: doch strahlet Rub' and Zuversicht
Und Siegesglanz sein Aug', verkündigend
Schon der Erlösung ewige gewissheit.

Pessimism is commonly and erroneously supposed to be the distinguishing
feature of Schopenhauer's system. It is right to remember that the same
fundamental view of the world is presented by Christianity, to say
nothing of Oriental religions.

That Schopenhauer conceives life as an evil is a deduction, and possibly
a mistaken deduction, from his metaphysical theory. Whether his scheme