Living out the Consequences
David Power
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Although, as I have said, the notes cover many subjects, what I want to discuss here is the influence on Lindsay's thinking of the philosophies of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer which makes itself felt in a number of the Notes. Nietzsche's is perhaps the lesser influence. He is mentioned by name on three occasions and, amusingly, on each time, Lindsay omits the 's' from his name.
The first mention, in Note 37, says that Nietzsche was by nature a musician and "went mad because in philosophy he found no adequate means of expressing his feelings". In considering this, it is worth remembering that Nietzsche scholars are still arguing as to whether or not Nietzsche's madness was due to syphilis. J. P. Stern says, "a diagnosis of tertiary syphilis cannot now be seriously doubted" (1) while Ronald Hayman finds a number of reasons for doubting it and concludes, "The aetiology of Nietzsche's illness and madness are especially problematic because contemporary diagnoses are unreliable and the surviving evidence is exiguous". (2) Hayman continues that Nietzsche's illness and madness were the result of "living out the consequences of losing faith in a system of value which is now generally discredited." (3). Perhaps Stern feels the weight of this sort of argument for he concedes that an explanation along the lines of that proposed by Lindsay might 'complement' the medical diagnosis which, if a straightforwardly organic explanation of the illness "cannot be seriously doubted", seems a curious concession to make.
Note 96, saying that Nietzsche wished to produce sublime men is straightforward enough but perhaps the most interesting of the Nietzsche Notes is 141 - "The terrible is the native land of the soul. Hence Nietzsche was right in recommending men to live dangerously; though wrong in saying he should be a slave of his passions." The rest of the note is ostensibly about Plato. "Plato...was right in recommending temperance and virtue, but wrong in giving happiness as the reward." Now, to me at least, this immediately brings to mind Nietzsche's first revaluation of all values in which he points out that religions always posit happiness as the reward of virtue. He goes on, "In my mouth this formula is converted into its reverse...a well-constituted human being...must perform certain actions and instinctively shrinks from other actions...his virtue is the consequence of his happiness...[happiness]...is not the reward of virtue." (4) Now Nietzsche's revaluation of all values springs from his recognition that Christian morality's "origin is transcendental" (5) and this has some devasting consequences for, as Nietzsche argues, if one breaks out of it a fundamental idea, the belief in God, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces. (6) In other words, without a God to initiate a morality which is absolute because its origin is transcendental, there can be no human rights, no absolute values of any sort and all values have to be revalued in the light of this.
Now Lindsay does not follow Nietzsche this far although he does take the first step down Nietzshe's path when he says in Note 2 that morality is "purely a worldly quality" which is, of course, the very opposite to the religious view. Moreover several of the other Notes have a distinctly Nietzschean ring to them such as 182 which lists Rome and Sparta as among the most moral nations and those were, of course, high among Nietzsche's examples of noble moralities. Also Lindsay's first novel A Voyage to Arcturus has a morality which, if not Nietzschean, certainly owes more to that thinker than to any traditional set of values.
Lindsay's debt to Schopenhauer is enormous. It was from Schopenhauer that Lindsay took the word "sublime" to denote a more fundamental and meaningful reality than mere beauty - a distinction that is crucial to Lindsay's view of the world.
The Sublime is mentioned many times in the Notes. Note 79 is rather interesting. "Schopenhauer's definition of the Sublime is the contemplation of beauty under threatening circumstances. But one may gaze at a beautiful girl in a thunderstorm, and that would not be the Sublime. The Sublime is not beauty, but something else, which is related to Beauty yet transcends it." Interesting but problematical for I do not think that Schopenhauer saw the distinction the way Lindsay is saying he did. For Schopenhauer some things are simply beautiful. Other things, such as rough seas, thunderstorms, etc, are dangerous to the body and could actually kill us. In order to enjoy the beauty of these things, we have to go beyond our personal will-to-live and make contact with the beauty via a more fundamental part of ourselves. This is the Sublime. It involves seeing beauty in something despite the fact that it itself is potentially dangerous to us. Schopenhauer would argue that Lindsay's example is not the Sublime because all that has happened is that the arousal of the sex-instinct has caused Lindsay to ignore an incidental danger. I think Lindsay would agree. In fact, I think Schopenhauer's position is rather closer to Lindsay's than Lindsay himself sometimes realises. Consider this remark of Schopenhauer's: "The real opposite of the sublime...is the charming or attractive...that which excites the will by directly presenting it to satisfaction." (7) This, with its implication of shallow, trivial pleasure, could easily be a description of Crystalman, the personification of the anti-sublime in A Voyage to Arcturus.
For me the most interesting of the Schopenhauer Notes is the following (No. 545). "Schopenhauer's Nothing, which is the least understood part of his system, is identical with my Muspel; that is the real world." To understand what Schopenhauer means by Nothing we must start with some preliminary observations. Schopenhauer used the word will to denote two distinct things. Firstly he uses it to mean wanting - 'I want a car' and so forth - and he also uses it to denote a kind of underlying essence to all things. We shall call the first will volitions and the second life-force. Both these terms can be argued about but they will suffice for our present purposes.
For Schopenhauer volitions bring only suffering. If we badly want something and can't have it we obviously suffer. If we get what we want we get used to it and start wanting something else - thus initiating the process all over again. Thus, one way or another, volitions bring suffering and Schopenhauer advocates eliminating volitions from our lives altogether. When we have done that, we will reach the state Schopenhauer calls Nothing. Now before we dismiss this as merely shallow pessimism - as, to an extent, it is - let us see what the experience of Nothing is really like: "We see that peace that is higher than all reason, that ocean-like calmness of the spirit, that deep tranquility, that unshakeable confidence and serenity." (8) Thus, like Lindsay, Schopenhauer postulates a world of personal desires that is ultimately unsatisfying but which is underlain by a more meaningful and fundamental reality. Schopenhauer even echoes Lindsay in arguing that suffering has a positive role to play in the achieving of this more fundamental reality: "Knowledge is purified and enhanced by suffering itself. It then reaches the point where the phenomenon...no longer deceives it." (9)
As for Lindsay's assertion that this is the least understood part of Schopenhauer's system, well, here is Bertrand Russell on it: "[Schopenhauer's] cosmic will is wicked; will altogether is wicked, or at any rate the source of all our endless sufferings." (10) On Schopenhauer's 'Nothing', Russell says this: "[The] purpose is to come as near as possible to non-existence which, for some reason never clearly explained, he cannot achieve by suicide." (11) Now from what we said earlier, it will be clear that this is something of a travesty of Schopenhauer's position. Firstly, as we have seen, it is not the cosmic will - what we have called the life-force - that is the source of all our sufferings but our personal volitions. Secondly Schopenhauer's Nothing is not as near to non-existence as we can get but a state of "ocean-like calmness" achieved by transcending personal desires. Insofar as Russell's is the typical view of these aspects of Schopenhauer, it seems to me Lindsay is right in asserting they are widely misunderstood.
There are 545 Notes in this work. Here I have touched upon the implications of only a very few of them. Every single one of them could be discussed in substantially greater length than I have given. In Note 310 Lindsay says: "Taste may suffice for the art-lover; the artist must be a hard thinker as well." In this respect, as I hope I've shown, Lindsay supremely practiced what he preached.
NOTES
1. Stern J.P. A Study of Nietzsche. P.33
2. Hayman, Ronald. Nietzsche - A Critical Study. P.10
3. Ibid. P.11
4. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols &
The Anti-Christ
5. Ibid. P.80
6. Ibid. P.79
7. Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and
Representation. P. 207
8. Ibid. P.411
9. Ibid. P.253
10. Russell, Bertrand. History of Western
Philosophy. P. 724
11.Ibid.P.726