Selections from Parerga and Paralipomena Volume 2

Volume 2 of Parerga and Paralipomena has a very different character from Volume 1.  There are, in total, 31 Essays, 24 of which are presented here. The range of topics is very varied, opening with 'On Philosophy and Its Method' and including 'On Pantheism', 'On Ethics', 'On Jurisprudence', 'On Men of Learning', 'On Thinking for Oneself', 'On Religion' and 'The Vanity of Existence'.  Quite a few open windows on to the personality of Schopenhauer himself - for example, he praises dogs as companions, argues that animals should be chloroformed before slaughter: animal welfare was very much in his sights. He inveighs against useless indulgence in luxury: 'the most effective way of alleviating human misery would be to diminish luxury, or even abolish it altogether.'  A thinker at home with his thoughts, he remarks with a touch of resigned humour: 'The pen is to thought what the stick is to walking, but one walks most easily without a stick, and thinks most perfectly when no pe