Appendices and Omissions

done so. This is exactly how he handled it, as I have convinced myself from his own interleaved copies: books bound with blank pages between the printed ones to allow for extensive handwritten notes. For me, on the other hand, who am not the author but only the publisher and editor of the material he left behind, such a free hand was not appropriate. I could not permit myself either to make changes or to select from the additions that he himself had left unedited. On the other hand, I was also not authorized to incorporate them into the text exactly as I found them without checking whether they fit in terms of both content and form. I therefore had to proceed with them as I did, and I am convinced that any other editor, had they wished to proceed appropriately and according to Schopenhauer’s intention, would have had to proceed exactly as I have.

How numerous the additions made by Schopenhauer for this edition are is evident from the fact that, with the same print and format as the first edition, this one exceeds it by 15 sheets In 19th-century publishing, a "sheet" (Bogen) usually consisted of 16 printed pages; thus, Schopenhauer added approximately 240 pages of new material.. Schopenhauer worked here, as everywhere, with love original Latin: "con amore"; he added everything that could serve to enrich, correct, supplement, and complete his work. He worked on it during the entire period from the appearance of the first edition in 1851 until near his death, as can be seen from the varying color of the ink—sometimes more faded, sometimes fresher—with which he wrote. It is also evident from various allusions to contemporary events in the literary, political, and social spheres that are frequently interwoven. For Schopenhauer loved, whenever the opportunity presented itself, to refer to the characteristic persons and conditions of the present or what he mockingly called the "present-day" original German: "Jetztzeit"; Schopenhauer used this term to sneer at the perceived superficiality of his own era, illuminating them from his standpoint...