There seems to me no better explanation of our existence
than that it is the result of some false step, some sin of which
we are paying the penalty. I cannot refrain from recommending the
thoughtful reader a popular, but at the same time, profound treatise
on this subject by Claudius[1] which exhibits the essentially
pessimistic spirit of Christianity. It is entitled: _Cursed is the
ground for thy sake_.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Matthias Claudius (1740-1815), a
popular poet, and friend of Klopstock, Herder and Leasing. He edited
the _Wandsbecker Bote_, in the fourth part of which appeared the
treatise mentioned above. He generally wrote under the pseudonym of
_Asmus_, and Schopenhauer often refers to him by this name.]
Between the ethics of the Greeks and the ethics of the Hindoos, there
is a glaring contrast. In the one case (with the exception, it must be
confessed, of Plato), the object of ethics is to enable a man to lead
a happy life; in the other, it is to free and redeem him from life
altogether--as is directly stated in the very first words of the
_Sankhya Karika_.
Allied with this is the contrast between the Greek and the Christian
idea of death.
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