For Schopenhauer, character is
identified with temperament just as will with passion. In short, he
simplifies too much, and looks at man from that more elementary point of
view which is only sufficient in the case of the animal. That
spontaneity which is vital or merely chemical he already calls will.
Analogy is not equation; a comparison is not reason; similes and
parables are not exact language. Many of Schopenhauer's originalities
evaporate when we come to translate them into a more close and precise
terminology.
_Later_.--One has merely to turn over the "Lichtstrahlem" of Herder to
feel the difference between him and Schopenhauer. The latter is full of
marked features and of observations which stand out from the page and
leave a clear and vivid impression. Herder is much less of a writer; his
ideas are entangled in his style, and he has no brilliant condensations,
no jewels, no crystals. While he proceeds by streams and sheets of
thought which have no definite or individual outline, Schopenhauer
breaks the current of his speculation with islands, striking, original,
and picturesque, which engrave themselves in the memory. It is the same
difference as there is between Nicole and Pascal, between Bayle and
Satin-Simon.
What is the faculty which gives relief, brilliancy, and incisiveness to
thought? Imagination.
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