Four years have elapsed since the appearance of the third volume of this edition,* years of a general spiritual and cultural decline which jeopardized more and more a significant planning and operation. The expected support and assistance from authoritative quarters have failed
to appear, and the means at the disposal of the Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft for preparing and printing the work have long since been insufficient to meet the constant rise in the costs of production. If in these circumstances the edition was not to remain a torso, there was nothing for it but to introduce not only inconvenient delays in the method of publication, but also alterations and restrictions in the
original plan. We had to divide the fourth volume, still outstanding, into two smaller halves and above all to devote our efforts to the preparation of the first half, for which, however, we have found the help of a few private donors to whom we are cordially indebted.
Moreover, we had to accept a limitation as regards contents; thus notes and sketches which were taken up in Schopenhauer's works, word for word or with a few trifling variations, had to be excluded, but above all the frequent quotations and extracts from the works of other authors
accumulating in the years after 1830 could not be made use of.