Their thoughts and desires,
like their faces, are those of the species, or, at any rate, those
of the class to which they belong; and accordingly, they are of a
trivial, every-day, common character, and exist by the thousand. You
can usually tell beforehand what they are likely to do and say. They
have no special stamp or mark to distinguish them; they are like
manufactured goods, all of a piece.
[Footnote 1: _Grundprobleme der Ethik_, p. 48; _Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung_, vol. i. p. 338.]
If, then, their nature is merged in that of the species, how shall
their existence go beyond it? The curse of vulgarity puts men on a par
with the lower animals, by allowing them none but a generic nature, a
generic form of existence. Anything that is high or great or noble,
must then, as a mater of course, and by its very nature, stand alone
in a world where no better expression can be found to denote what is
base and contemptible than that which I have mentioned as in general
use, namely, _common_.
* * * * *
Will, as the _thing-in-itself_, is the foundation of all being; it
is part and parcel of every creature, and the permanent element in
everything.
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