Schopenhauer meanwhile was working out his philosophical system, the idea of his principal philosophical work.  “Under my hands,” he wrote in 1813, “and still more in my mind grows a work, a philosophy which will be an ethics and a metaphysics in one:—­two branches which hitherto have been separated as falsely as man has been divided into soul and body.  The work grows, slowly and gradually aggregating its parts like the child in the womb.  I became aware of one member, one vessel, one part after another.  In other words, I set each sentence down without anxiety as to how it will fit into the whole; for I know it has all sprung from a single foundation.  It is thus that an organic whole originates, and that alone will live....  Chance, thou ruler of this sense-world!  Let me live and find peace for yet a few years, for I love my work as the mother her child.  When it is matured and has come to birth, then exact from me thy duties, taking interest for the postponement.  But, if I sink before the time in this iron age, then grant that these miniature beginnings, these studies of mine, be given to the world as they are and for what they are:  some day perchance will arise a kindred spirit, who can frame the members together and ‘restore’ the fragment of antiquity."[1]

By March 1817 he had completed the preparatory work of his system, and began to put the whole thing together; a year later Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung:  vier Buecher, nebst einem Anhange, der die Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie enthaelt ("The World as Will and Idea; four books, with an appendix containing a criticism on the philosophy of Kant").  Some delay occurring in the publication, Schopenhauer wrote one of his characteristically abusive letters to Brockhaus, his publisher, who retorted “that he must decline all further correspondence with one whose letters, in their divine coarseness and rusticity, savoured more of the cabman than of the philosopher,” and concluded with a hope that his fears that the work he was printing would be good for nothing but waste paper, might not be realised.[2] The work appeared about the end of December 1818 with 1819 on the title-page.  Schopenhauer had meanwhile proceeded in September to Italy, where he revised the final proofs.  So far as the reception of the work was concerned there was reason to believe that the fears of Brockhaus would be realised, as, in fact, they came practically to be.  But in the face of this general want of appreciation, Schopenhauer had some crumbs of consolation.  His sister wrote to him in March (he was then staying at Naples) that Goethe “had received it with great joy, immediately cut the thick book, and began instantly to read it.  An hour later he sent me a note to say that he thanked you very much and thought that the whole book was good.  He pointed out the most important passages, read them to us, and was greatly delighted....  You are the only author whom Goethe has ever read seriously,