Chapter 67 Book IV The World as Will Revisited §67

We have seen how justice is produced in a lower degree through the principle of individuation, and how in a higher degree there is true goodness in mind, and how this goodness appears to others to be pure, i.e. selfless love.When this kind of love is perfected, it completely equates the individuality and destiny of others with one's own.You can never go any further than this, because there is no reason to put someone else's individuality above your own.However, if other individuals are in the majority, if their entire happiness or life is in jeopardy, then the consideration of the individual 482 people for their own happiness is likely to exceed the weight.On such occasions, the person who has attained the highest good and [has] a perfect human frame of mind sacrifices his own happiness and life entirely for the happiness of the majority of others.Chedros, Neonidas, Regulus, and Decius died in this way.Muse, there is Arnold von Winkelried.Anyone who voluntarily and consciously does not avoid death for the sake of his relatives, neighbors, and motherland belongs to this type of person.[There are still many people who stand at the level of [the highest good],] each of them insists on those things that benefit all mankind and should be for all mankind, that is, to [adhere to] universal and important truths, and eliminate important [are] people who are willing to suffer and die for their mistakes.Socrates, Giordano Prino, and some heroes who fought for the truth died in this way at the hands of priests and priests on the pyre.

But now, in view of the paradox [love is sympathy] mentioned above, I have to recall that we have seen that pain is essential to life as a whole and is inseparable [thing] from life; How every wish springs from a need, from a deficiency, so that any satisfaction is nothing but the removal of pain, not the attainment of any active happiness; Positively good, in fact it's only negative in nature, just the end of a bad thing [, etc.].Therefore, what good intentions, benevolence, generosity [etc.] do for others are always just to alleviate the suffering of those people, so it can be seen that it is always only the awareness of the suffering of others that can motivate these good intentions to do good deeds.And this kind of pain is directly experienced from one's own pain, and treated as one's own pain.But from this it follows that pure love ("fraternity" in Greek, "mercy" in Latin) is, by its very nature, sympathy [for fellow-fellows], and that the suffering it relieves can be great. However, any unsatisfied desire is always beyond the pain of great and small. Therefore, we are not polite. And Chide, on the contrary, thinks that only from the abstract anti-being, and from the concepts of duty and categorical imperative Contrary to him, who maintains that sympathy [people] feel is weakness, not virtue, all the good and virtue that springs from it is the real good, the real virtue, we say: the mere concept is to true virtue, and to true virtue Art, too, is not born, and all true love is sympathy; and any love that is not sympathy is selfishness. Selfishness is the Greek for "self-love," and sympathy is the Greek "Fraternal love". A mixture [mood] of the two is also common. Even true friendship is often such a mixture. Selfishness manifested in a willingness to meet friends with like-minded personalities, which is [in the mixture ] Larger part: and sympathy is expressed in a sincere concern for friends' sorrows and joys, and in the selfless sacrifices people make to their friends. Even Spinoza said: "The kindness to others is nothing but derived from sympathy. "(Volume III of Ethics, Precedent 26, Subtheorem III, Argument) As a proof to confirm our seemingly contradictory statement ["Love is sympathy"], one can also pay attention to the words of pure love The tones and words in the caressing action correspond exactly to the tone of sympathy. Incidentally, note that in Italian both sympathy and pure love are expressed by the same word, "love."

Here we have to talk about one of the most remarkable characteristics of human nature, talk about "crying".Crying and laughing are the same expressions of other people.Crying is not exactly the expression of pain, because it is possible to cry even in the slightest pain.It seems to me that people never even cry out of pain directly, but often only in pain that recurs in reflection.That is to say, a person passes from feeling pain, even physical pain, to the mere appearance of pain, and feels that his own case is so sympathetic, that is to say, he sincerely believes that if someone else suffers like this, He will come to his aid with sympathy and love.But here it is the man himself who is the object of his sincere sympathy, who is full of good intentions to help, and who himself is the needy, feeling that he suffers more than he may see another suffer.In this strangely complex mood, pain that is directly felt enters perception first by a two-part detour, first imagining it as another's pain, sympathizing with it as another's pain, and then suddenly Aware that this is directly one's own pain;—[At this time], human nature naturally obtains pain relief by that strange muscle twitch.Crying, then, is pity for oneself or pity thrown back to its point of departure.Crying, therefore, presupposes the faculty of love, of sympathy, and of imagination; and thus a man who cries easily is neither hard-hearted nor unimaginative.Crying is even often regarded as a certain degree of kindness in character, which can relieve anger, because people think that if anyone can cry, he must also be able to love and sympathize with others, because sympathy is the above-mentioned way. Participating in that crying mood. —In full agreement with the explanation here proposed, there is Petrarch's description of the occurrence of his own tears when, frankly and truthfully, he expresses his feelings:

"I am full of thoughts, wandering and wandering, A deep pity for myself struck me. So deep—I have to cry aloud, And usually I'm not used to doing this. " There is another fact that proves what is said here, that is, children who are in pain mostly cry when people caress them. This is not crying for pain, but crying for the appearance of "pain". —If we are moved to cry by the pain of another, not our own, we weep because we put ourselves in the place of the suffering man in our vivid imagination, or because we are in the fate of that man To see the fate of all mankind, and first of all to see our own; so that, through the long detour, we still cry for ourselves, we always feel pity for ourselves.This also seems to be the chief cause of the natural crying which is usually without exception at funerals.It is not his own loss that the mourner weeps.One should be ashamed of such selfish tears, not because he sometimes does not cry.Mourners weep first of all, of course, for what has happened to the dead; but they weep even when the deceased has suffered from a long, severe, incurable disease and is eager to die as a relief.What governs his [feelings] is chiefly sympathy for the suffering of the whole human race, the doomed final end of mankind; any life so progressive, often so fruitful, must die with this end.But in human destiny, [the mourner] sees his own destiny first; and the closer the dead man is to him, the more he sees his own destiny first; It is even more important to see your own destiny first.Even if the father is old and sick, and his life is distressing, and he is a burden to the son because of his need for service, the son still weeps for his father's death for the above reasons.