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PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA: SHORT PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

CHAPTER 5: Counsels and Maxims

My object here is anything but an attempt to be complete; for otherwise I should have to repeat the many maxims, some excellent, which have been laid down by the thinkers of all ages from Theognis and Solomon to La Rochefoucauld; and in so doing it would be impossible to avoid many a well-worn commonplace. Moreover, an attempt at completeness entails for the most part the abandonment of any systematic arrangement. We may console ourselves for the loss of these two with the thought that, in things of this kind, they are almost inevitably attended with tediousness. I have given just what occurred to me, what seemed to be worth communicating, and, as far as I know, what has not yet been said, at any rate not entirely and in just this form. And so I have written only a supplement to what others have achieved in this immense field.

Yet to introduce some order into the great variety of opinions and advice that are relevant here, I intend to divide them into those that are general, those that concern our attitude to ourselves, to others, and finally to fate and the course of the world.

[b]A. General Views[/b]

(1) I regard as the first rule of all wisdom of life a sentence, incidentally expressed by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics (VII. 12): [x] (quod dolore vacat, non quod suave est, persequitur vir prudens. The Latin version is feeble; a better one might be somewhat as follows: •The prudent man aims at painlessness not pleasure.') The truth of this rests on the fact that the nature of all pleasure and happiness is negative, whereas that of pain is positive. A detailed discussion of this will be found in my chief work, vol. i, § 58; however, I will here illustrate it by another fact that can be daily observed. If our whole body is healthy and sound except for some sore or painful spot, we are no longer conscious of the health of the whole, but our attention is constantly directed to the pain of the injured spot and all the comfort and enjoyment of life vanish. In the same way, when all our affairs turn out the way we want them to go with the exception of one that runs counter to our intentions, this one affair constantly recurs even when it is of little importance. We often think about it and pay little attention to all the other more important things that are turning out in accordance with our wishes. Now in both cases, what is injuriously affected is the will, in the one case as it objectifies itself in the organism, in the other, as it is objectified in man's efforts and aspirations. In both we see that the satisfaction of the will always operates only negatively and therefore is not directly felt at all; but at most we become conscious of it when we reflect on the matter. On the other hand, what checks and obstructs the will is something positive which therefore makes its presence known. Every pleasure consists merely in the removal of this hindrance, on our liberation therefrom, and is in consequence of short duration.

This, then, is the basis of the above-mentioned rule of Aristotle which tells us to direct our aim not to what is pleasant and agreeable in life, but to the avoidance, as far as possible, of its numberless evils. If this were not the right way, then Voltaire's remark: Le bonheur n'est qu'un reve, et La douleur est reelle [1] would of necessity be as false as it is in fact true. Accordingly, whoever wants to assess the result of his life in terms of eudemonology, should draw up the account to show Dot the pleasures he has enjoyed, but the evils he has escaped. Indeed, eudemonology must begin by informing us that its very name is a euphemism and that, when we say 'to live happily', we are to understand by this merely 'to live less unhappily' and hence to live a tolerable life. It is quite certain that life is not really given to us to be enjoyed, but to be overcome, to be got over. This is also seen in many expressions, such as degere vitam, vita defungi, [2] the Italian si scampa cosi, [3] the German man muss suchen, durchzukommen, [4] er wird schon durch die Welt kommen, [5] and others. In old age it is indeed a consolation to know that the business of life is behind us. Accordingly, the happiest lot is that of the man who has got through life without any very great pain, bodily or mental, not that of the man who has experienced the keenest delights or greatest pleasures. Whoever tries to measure the happiness of life according to pleasures and delights, has taken a false standard. For pleasures are and remain negative; that they make us happy is an erroneous idea which is cherished by the envious to their own punishment. Pain, on the other hand, is felt positively; and so its absence is the standard of happiness. If in addition to a state of painlessness we have absence of boredom, we have really attained earthly happiness; for all else is a chimera. Now it follows from this that we should never purchase pleasures at the price, or even the risk, of pain, since we then pay what is positive and real for something that is negative and thus illusory. On the other hand, we are left with a gain when we sacrifice pleasures in order to avoid pain. In both cases, it is immaterial whether the pain follows or precedes the pleasure. It is really the greatest absurdity to try to turn this scene of woe and lamentation into a pleasure-resort and to aim at joys and pleasures, as do so many, rather than at the greatest possible freedom from pain. Whoever takes a gloomy view regards this world as a kind of hell and is accordingly concerned only with procuring for himself a small fireproof room; such a man is much less mistaken. The fool runs after the pleasures of life and sees himself cheated; the wise man avoids its evils. Yet even if he should fail to avoid them, this is the fault of fate not of his folly; but in so far as he succeeds, he is not duped, for the evils he avoided are indeed very real. Even if he should have gone too far in avoiding them and have unnecessarily sacrificed pleasures, nothing has really been lost; for all pleasures are illusory, and to grieve about having missed them would be frivolous and even ridiculous.

The failure to recognize this truth-a failure encouraged by optimism-is the source of much unhappiness. Thus while we are free from pain, restless desires show us in bright colours the chimera of a happiness that does not exist at all and we are seduced into pursuing them; but in this way we bring down on ourselves pain that is undeniably real. We then regret the loss of that painless state which, like a paradise thrown away, lies behind us and in vain do we desire to be able to undo what has been done. It seems as if an evil spirit with visions of desires always enticed us away from the painless state, from the greatest genuine happiness. The careless and thoughtless youth imagines that the world exists in order to be enjoyed; that it is the abode of a positive happiness; and that men miss this because they are not clever enough to take possession of it. He is strengthened in this view by novels and poems and also by hypocrisy which the world always and everywhere practises for the sake of appearance and to which I shall later return. Henceforth his life is a more or less deliberate pursuit of positive happiness and this, as such, is said to consist of positive pleasures. The dangers to which he is exposed in his hunt for happiness must be risked. This hunt for game that does not exist at all leads, as a rule, to very real and positive unhappiness that appears as pain, suffering, sickness, loss, care, poverty, disgrace, and a thousand other miseries. The undeceiving comes too late. On the other hand, if, by following the rule we are here considering, the plan oflife is directed to the avoidance of suffering and hence to keeping clear of want, illness, and every kind of distress, the aim is a real one. Something may then be achieved which will be the greater, the less the plan is disturbed by striving after the chimera of positive happiness. This agrees also with the passage of Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften where Mittler, who is always trying to make others happy, is represented as saying: 'Whoever tries to get rid of an evil always knows what he wants; but whoever desires something that is better than what he has, is quite blind.' This also reminds us of the fine French saying: le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. [6] In fact, even the fundamental idea of the Cynics can be deduced from this, as I have shown in my chief work, volume ii, chapter 16. For what was it that induced them to spurn all pleasures if not the thought that pain was more or less bound up with them? To avoid pain seemed to them to be much more important than to obtain pleasure. They were deeply imbued with the knowledge of the negative nature of pleasure and of the positive nature of pain. And so they consistently did everything to avoid evils; but for this purpose they considered it necessary to reject pleasures wholly and deliberately because in them they saw only snares that deliver us over to pain.

Of course, as Schiller says, we are all born in Arcadia; in other words, we come into the world full of claims to happiness and pleasure and cherish the foolish hope of making them good. As a rule, however, fate soon comes along, seizes us harshly and roughly, and teaches us that nothing belongs to us but everything to it, since it has the undisputed right not only to all our possessions and acquisitions, to wife and family, but even to our arms and legs, our eyes and ears, and to the very nose in the middle of our face. In any case, experience after a time teaches us that happiness and pleasure are a fata Morgana which is visible only from a distance and vanishes when we approach it. On the other hand, we are taught that suffering and pain are real which immediately make themselves felt and need no illusion or expectation. Now if this teaching bears fruit, we cease to run after happiness and pleasure, but rather are we more concerned to bar as much as possible the way to pain and suffering. We then recognize that the best the world has to offer is a painless, quiet, and tolerable existence to which we restrict our claims in order to be the more certain of making them good. For the surest way not to become very unhappy is for us not to expect to be very happy. Merck, the friend of Goethe's youth, recognized this truth for he wrote: 'Everything in this world is ruined by the excessive pretension to happiness and indeed in a measure that corresponds to our dreams. Whoever is able to get rid of this and desires nothing but what he has in hand can get along in the world' (Briefe an und von Merck, p. 100). Accordingly, it is advisable to reduce to very moderate proportions our claims to pleasures, possessions, rank, honour, and so on, just because it is this striving and struggling for happiness, brilliance, and pleasure that entail great misfortunes. Therefore reducing our claims is prudent and advisable simply because it is quite easy to be very unhappy, whereas to be very happy is not exactly difficult but absolutely impossible. Therefore the poet of the wisdom of life quite rightly sings:

[quote]Auream quisquis mediocritatem

Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti

Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda

Sobrius aula.  

Saevius ventis agitatur ingens

Pinus: et celsae graviore casu

Decidunt turres: feriuntque summos

Fulgura montes. [7] [/quote]

Whoever has fully accepted the teaching of my philosophy and thus knows that our whole existence is something which had better not have been, and to deny and reject which is the highest wisdom, will not cherish great expectations of anything or any condition; he will not ardently aspire to anything in the world, nor will he complain very much if he fails in any undertaking. On the contrary, he will be imbued with Plato's words: [x] (Republic, x. 604). [8] See the motto to Sadi's Gulistan, translated by Graf:

[quote]If you have lost possession of a world,

Be not distressed, for it is nought;

And have you gained possession of a world,

Be not o'erjoyed, for it is nought.

Our pains, our gains, all pass away;

Get beyond the world, for it is nought.

-- Anwari Soheili.[/quote]

What makes it specially difficult for us to arrive at these wholesome views is the hypocrisy of the world which I have already mentioned and which should be made known to one at an early age. Most of the pomp and splendours are, like theatre decorations, mere show, and the very essence of the thing is missing. Ships festooned and dressed with pennants, salutes with cannon, illuminations, beating of drums and blowing of trumpets, shouting, applauding, and so on, all are the outward sign, the hint, the suggestion, the hieroglyphic of gaiety or joy. But this is just where joy is rarely found; it alone has declined to be present at the festival. Where it actually makes its appearance, it as a rule comes uninvited and unannounced, by itself and sans facon. [9] Indeed, it quietly slips in often on the most unimportant and trivial occasions, in the most ordinary everyday circumstances; in fact, anywhere but where the company is brilliant or distinguished. It is scattered here and there, like the gold in Australia, by the whim of pure chance according to no rule or law, often only in tiny grains, and exceedingly rarely in large quantities. But the object of all the things just mentioned is to make others believe that joy had here put in an appearance; to produce this illusion in the minds of others is the intention. It is the same with mourning as with joy. How sad and melancholy is that long and slowly moving funeral procession! There is no end to the number of carriages. But look inside them; they are all empty and the deceased is escorted to the grave merely by the coachmen of the whole town. An eloquent picture of the friendship and esteem of this world! This, then, is the falsehood, hollowness, and hypocrisy of human affairs. Again, many guests in ceremonial dress and welcomed with much pomp and festivity afford another example; they are the signs of noble and exalted fellowship. But instead, the real guests, as a rule, are only compulsion, pain, and boredom; for where there are so many guests, it is already a rabble, even though they wear on their breasts all the stars. Thus genuinely good society is everywhere of necessity very small. Generally speaking, however, brilliant parties and noisy entertainments at bottom always have emptiness and even a jarring note because they flagrantly contradict the misery and barrenness of our existence and the contrast enhances the truth. Looked at from without, however, all this has its effect and this is precisely its purpose. Therefore Chamfort makes the excellent remark: la societe, les cercles, les salons, ce qu' on appelle le monde, est une piece miserable, un mauvais opera, sans interet, qui se soutient un peu par les machines, les costumes et les decorations. [10] Now it is the same as regards academies and chairs of philosophy; these are the signs, the outward show, of wisdom; but she too has often declined to come and is to be found in quite a different place. The continual ringing of bells, the costumes of priests, pious attitudes, and grotesque antics are the outward sign, the false appearance, of devotional feeling, and so on. Thus almost everything in the world can be called a hollow nut; the kernel is in itself rare and even more rarely is it to be found in the shell. It must be sought in quite a different place; and frequently it is found only by accident.

(2) If we want to appraise a man's state as regards his happiness, we should ask not about the things that please him, but about those that trouble him; for the more trivial these are in themselves, the more fortunate he is. To be sensitive to trifles implies a state of well-being, since in misfortune we never feel them at all.

(3) We should guard against building the happiness of our life on a broad foundation by making many demands. For on such a basis happiness is very easily overthrown, since it offers many more opportunities for accidents, and these are always happening. Therefore, in this respect, the structure of our happiness is the very opposite of all those others that most securely rest on a broad foundation. Accordingly, the surest way to avoid great misfortune is to reduce as much as possible our claims in relation to our means of every kind.

Generally speaking, it is one of the greatest and commonest of follies to make extensive preparations for life, in whatever way this may be done. In the first place, such depend on a complete and full life that is attained by very few indeed. Even when men live long enough, the time proves to be too short for the plans that have been made, since to carry them out always requires very much more time than was at first assumed. Moreover, like all things human, such plans are exposed to so many failures and obstacles that they very rarely reach their goal. Finally, even when everything is ultimately attained, the changes that time produces in ourselves were ignored and left out of account. Thus we forgot that our capacities either to achieve or enjoy do not last a whole lifetime. The result is that we often work at things which, when finally achieved, are no longer suitable; and also that the years we spend on the preparations of a work imperceptibly rob us of the strength to carry it out. Thus it often happens that we are no longer able to enjoy the wealth we have acquired at so much effort and risk, and that we have laboured for others. Or again, we are no longer able to fill a post that has been finally obtained after many years of aspirations and exertions; for us things have come too late. Or, in the opposite case, we come too late with things; thus in the case of achievements or productions, the taste of the times has changed; a new generation has grown up which takes no interest in such things; others have taken short cuts and have got in front of us, and so on. Horace has all this in mind when he says:

[quote]quid aeternis minorem

Consiliis animum fatigas? [11] [/quote]

The cause of this frequent mistake is the inevitable optical illusion of the mind's eye by virtue whereof life, when seen from the beginning, appears to be endless, but when reviewed from the end of the journey, seems to be very short. This illusion, of course, has its good point, for without it hardly anything great would ever be produced.

In life we are generally like the traveller for whom objects assume, as he progresses, forms that are different from those they exhibited at a distance; they are transformed, so to speak, by his approaching them. This is especially the case as regards our desires. We often find something quite different from, and even better than, what we were looking for. Also we often find the thing sought on a path quite different from the one we had first taken in our vain search for it. Moreover, where we were looking for pleasure, happiness, and joy, we often find instead instruction, insight, and knowledge, a lasting and real benefit in place of one that is fleeting and illusory. This is the idea that runs like a bass-note through Goethe's Wilhelm Meister; for this is an intellectual novel and is, therefore, of a higher order than all the rest, even Sir Walter Scott's, which are all ethical, that is to say, treat human nature merely from the side of the will. So too in the Magic Flute, this grotesque but significant and ambiguous hieroglyphic, the same fundamental idea is symbolized in large coarse lines as are those of theatre decorations. It would even be complete if, at the end, Tamino were cured of his desire to possess Tamina [12] and received, instead of her, only initiation into the temple of wisdom. On the other hand, it would be quite right for Papageno, his necessary counterpart, to get his Papagena. Noble and distinguished people soon become aware of that teaching of fate and gratefully submit to be moulded thereby. They see that possibly instruction but not happiness is to be found in the world; and so they become accustomed and content to exchange hope for insight, and in the end say with Petrarch:

[quote]Altro diletto, che 'mparar, non provo. [13]

-- Trionfo d'Amore, 1.21.[/quote]

It may even be that they still follow to a certain extent their desires and aspirations merely as a trifle and for the sake of appearance, but that really, in their heart of hearts, they expect only instruction; an attitude which then gives them a sublime, contemplative touch of genius. In this sense, it can also be said that we are like the alchemists who, while looking only for gold, discovered gunpowder, china, medicines, and even the laws of nature.

[b]B. Our Attitude to Ourselves[/b]

(4) The workman, assisting in the erection of a building, is either unacquainted with the plan of the whole or does not always have it in mind. Similarly, while a man is spinning away the separate days and hours of his life, his attitude to the whole of its course and character is the same. The worthier, more important, systematic, and individual this is, the more necessary and salutary it is for him occasionally to have in mind a reduced sketch thereof, namely the plan. For this purpose, of course, he should have made a start in [x]; [14] he should, therefore, know what he really wants principally and primarily, what is the most essential thing for his happiness, and thereafter what occupies second and third place. He should also know generally what is his vocation, his role, and his relation to the world. Now if this is on important and grandiose lines, a glance at his life's plan on a small scale will, more than anything else, strengthen, uplift, and exalt him; it will encourage him to be active and keep him from going astray.

Just as the traveller gets a connected survey of the road he has taken with all its turns and bends only when he has arrived at the top of the hill, so it is only at the end of a period of our life or even at the very end thereof that we recognize the true connection between our actions, achievements, and works, their precise consistency and sequence, and even their value. For as long as we are preoccupied with all this, we always act only in accordance with the fixed qualities of our character, under the influence of motives, and within the limits of our abilities and hence throughout with necessity, since at any particular moment we do simply what we deem to be right and proper at the time. Only the sequel shows us what has transpired; and only when we look back at the connected course of life do we see the how and why thereof. And so while we are performing the greatest deeds or creating immortal works, we are just not conscious of them as such. On the contrary, we regard them as something appropriate to our present aims, something in keeping with our intentions of the moment, which is, therefore, just the very thing to be done. But only from our life as a connected whole do our character and abilities subsequently emerge in their true light. We then see in the particular case how, guided by our genius, we took, as though by inspiration, the only right path out of a thousand devious tracks. All this applies to the theoretical as well as the practical and in the opposite sense to the worthless and unsuccessful. The importance of the present moment is seldom recognized at the time, but only much later.

(5) An important point in the wisdom of life consists in a correct balance between the attention we give to the present and to the future so that for us the one will not impair the other. Many live too much in the present, namely the frivolous and light-hearted; others live too much in the future, that is to say, the nervous and faint-hearted. Rarely will a man hold the right balance between the two. Those who by aspiring and hoping live only in the future and always look ahead and impatiently anticipate the things to come-things that are first to bring them true happiness-while they let the present slip by unheeded and unenjoyed, are, in spite of their clever airs, comparable to those donkeys in Italy whose pace is quickened by their having a stick with a truss of hay fastened to their heads. They see this just in front of them and hope they will be able to reach it. They defraud themselves of their whole existence since they are always living only ad interim-until they are dead. Therefore instead of being always and exclusively preoccupied with plans and troubles for the future or of indulging in hankering over the past, we should never forget that the present alone is real and certain, that the future, on the other hand, almost invariably turns out differently from what we think and that even the past was also different. In fact, on the whole, both are of less account than they appear to us. For distance that makes objects look small to the eye, causes them to appear large to the mind. The present alone is true and actual; it is the really filled time wherein our existence exclusively lies. And so we should always consider it worthy of a cheerful reception and thus consciously enjoy as such every hour that is bearable and free from immediate annoyance or pain. In other words, we should not cast a gloom over the present by looking peevish over the vain hopes of the past or over our anxiety for the future. For it is extremely foolish to reject the present hour that is good or wantonly to ruin it through annoyance at what is past or anxiety over what is to come. A definite time should, of course, be devoted to solicitude and even to regret; but after this we should think of what has happened:

[quote]] [x]

[x] [15] [/quote]

and of the future:

[quote] [x], [16][/quote]

but of the present: singulos dies singulas vilas pula, [17] and make this as agreeable as possible, for it is the only real time we have.

Only those future evils are entitled to disturb us which are certain to come, the time of their appearance being just as certain. But of these there will be very few; for evils are either merely possible, at all events probable, or they are indeed certain; the time of their occurrence, however, is wholly uncertain. Now if we yield to these two kinds of evil, we shall no longer have a moment's peace. And so if we are not to be deprived of all our peace through uncertain and indefinite evils, we must accustom ourselves to regard the former as never likely to happen and the latter as likely to happen though certainly not very soon.

Now the less our peace is disturbed by fear, the more we are agitated by wishes, desires, and aspirations. Goethe's song that is such a favourite, 'Ich hab' mein' Sach auf nichts gestellt', 18 says in effect that only after a man has shaken off all possible pretensions, and has returned to bare existence, does he obtain that peace of mind which constitutes the basis of human happiness. For such peace is necessary if he is to find bearable the present moment and thus the whole of life. For this purpose, we should always bear in mind that today comes but once and never again. We imagine, however, that it comes again tomorrow; but tomorrow is another day that also comes only once. But we forget that every day is an integral and thus irreplaceable part of life and regard it rather as included under life just as are individual things under a common concept. We should also better appreciate and enjoy the present if in the good days when we are well we were always conscious of how in sickness or depression of spirits, our memory conjures up every hour that was free from pain and privation as something infinitely to be envied, as a lost paradise, as a friend we neglected and undervalued. But we live through the fine days without noticing them; only when we fall on evil ones do we wish to have back the former. With sour faces we let a thousand bright and pleasant hours slip by unenjoyed and afterwards vainly sigh for their return when times are trying and depressing. Instead of this, we should cherish every present moment that is bearable, even the most ordinary, which with such indifference we now let slip by, and even with impatience push on. We should always bear in mind that such moments are just now ebbing into the apotheosis of the past where, irradiated by the light of imperishableness, they are then preserved in the memory so that, when this lifts the curtain especially in bad times, they will present themselves as an object of our deepest longing.

(6) All limitation makes us happy. The narrower our range of vision, our sphere of action, and our points of contact, the happier we are; the wider these are, the more often do we feel anxious and worried. For with them our cares, desires, and terrors are increased and intensified. Therefore even the blind are not so unhappy as they must a priori appear to be; and this is testified by that gentle and almost serene calm on their faces. This is due partly to the rule that the second half of life proves to be more melancholy than the first. For in the course of life, the horizon of our aims and connections becomes ever wider. In childhood it is restricted to the most immediate environment and the narrowest relations; in youth there is already a considerable widening of these; in manhood the horizon embraces the whole course of our lives and often extends to the most distant relations, to states and nations; in old age it embraces posterity. On the other hand, every limitation, even that of the mind, is conducive to our happiness; for the less the will is excited, the less we suffer; and we know that suffering is positive whereas happiness is merely negative. Limitation of the sphere of action removes from the will the external motives for excitation; limitation of the mind takes away the internal. But the latter has the disadvantage of opening the door to boredom that becomes indirectly the source of countless sufferings; for to banish it, men resort to everything, to dissipation, society, luxury, gambling, drinking, and so on which, however, entail all kinds of mischief, ruin, and unhappiness. Difficilis in otio quies. [19] On the other hand, external limitation is conducive, and even necessary, to human happiness in so far as it is possible for us to have this. We see this in the fact that the only kind of poetry, namely the idyll which undertakes to give a description of happy people, presents them invariably and essentially in an extremely restricted position and environment. This feeling in the matter underlies the pleasure we experience when looking at so-called genre-pictures. Accordingly, the greatest possible simplicity in our relations and even monotony in our way of living will make us happy, as long as they do not produce boredom. For they enable us to feel life itself as little as possible and consequently the burden that is essential thereto. It flows by like a stream without waves and whirlpools.

(7) With regard to our weal and woe, the question ultimately turns on what fills and engrosses our consciousness. Now here every purely intellectual occupation for the mind capable thereof will achieve, on the whole, far more than will practical life with its constant alternations of success and failure together with its shocks and vexations. But, of course, for such occupation pre-eminent intellectual abilities are required. Then in this connection it must be noted that, just as an outwardly directed active life distracts and diverts us from study and deprives the mind of the requisite quiet concentration, so, on the other hand, constant mental preoccupation renders us more or less unfit for the noisy pursuits of real life. It is, therefore, advisable to suspend mental work entirely for a while when circumstances arise which in some way demand energetic and practical activity.

(8) To live quite prudently and Judiciously and draw from our own experience all the instruction it contains, it is often necessary to think back and recapitulate what we have done and experienced and what our feelings were, and to compare our former with our present judgement, our plans and aspirations with the success and satisfaction they have produced. This is a repetition of the private tuition that is given to everyone by experience. Our own experience may be regarded as the text, and reflection and knowledge as the commentary thereto. Much reflection and knowledge with little experience resemble those editions whose pages present us with two lines of text and forty lines of commentary. Much experience with little reflection and scanty knowledge is like the editiones Bipontinae which are without notes and contain much that is unintelligible.

The advice here given is also alluded to by the rule of Pythagoras that, every evening before going to sleep, we should review what we have done in the course of the day. The man who in the toil and moil of business or pleasure has no thought for the morrow, never ruminates on the past, but rather reels his life off like cotton, is devoid of prudence and reflectiveness. His feelings become a chaos and a certain confusion comes over his ideas, as is at once testified by the abrupt and fragmentary nature of his conversation that is like mincemeat. This will be all the more the case, the greater the excitement from without, the greater the mass of impressions, and the smaller the inner activity of his own mind.

Here it may be observed that, after the circumstances and environment that influenced us have in the course of some time passed away, we are unable to recall and renew the mood and feeling they stirred in us at the time. However, we are able to call to mind our own observations which they suggested at that time and which are now the result, expression, and measure of those circumstances. We should, therefore, carefully preserve the memory or record of such observations from important moments of our lives. For this purpose diaries are very useful.

(9) To be self-sufficient and all in all to oneself and to be able to say omnia mecum porto mea, [20] is certainly the most useful qualification for our happiness. Hence Aristotle's saying: [x] (felicitas sibi sufficientium est, [21] Eudemian Ethics, VII. 2) cannot be too often repeated. (It is also essentially the same idea that is expressed in that exceedingly well-turned sentence of Chamfort. I have prefixed it as a motto to this essay.) For we cannot with any certainty count on anyone else except ourselves; moreover, the difficulties and disadvantages, the dangers and annoyances, that society entails are countless and inevitable.

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than social life, high life; for its object is to transform our miserable existence into a succession of joys, delights, and pleasures, a process in which disillusionment cannot fail to appear and which is on a par with its obligato accompaniment, the habit people have of lying to one another.*

In the first place, all society necessarily demands mutual accommodation and temperament; and so the greater it is, the more insipid it will be. Everyone can be entirely himself only so long as he is alone; and therefore whoever does not like loneliness, does not like freedom; for only when a man is alone is he free. Restraint and want of freedom are the inseparable companions of all society; and the sacrifices demanded by it will prove to be the heavier, the more eminent the man's own individuality. Accordingly, everyone will shun, endure, or like solitude exactly in proportion to this own worth. For in solitude the wretch feels the whole of his wretchedness, the great mind the full extent of his greatness; in short, everyone feels himself to be what he is. Further, the higher a man stands in nature's order of precedence, the more lonely he is; and this is essential and inevitable. But it is beneficial to him if the physical solitude is in keeping with the mental, otherwise frequent association with others of a different nature has a disturbing and even adverse effect on him, robs him of himself, and, as compensation, has nothing to offer him. Then, whereas nature has established the widest difference, both morally and intellectually, between one man and another, society, regardless of all this, treats them all alike or rather sets up instead artificial differences and degrees of position and rank which are often the very opposite of nature's list of precedence. With this arrangement, those whom nature has placed low are in a very good position, but the few who are rated high by her come off badly. The latter, therefore usually withdraw from society where, as soon as it is numerous, vulgarity prevails. What in society offends great minds is an equality of rights that leads to one of claims and pretensions, in spite of the inequality of abilities, and consequently to an equality of (social) achievements. So-called good society admits merits of all kinds except those of the mind, which are even contraband. It puts us under the obligation of showing boundless patience with every kind off oily, stupidity, perversity, and dullness. Excellent personal qualities, on the other hand, should beg to be excused or conceal themselves; for intellectual superiority offends by its mere existence without any desire so to do. Accordingly, society that is called good not only has the drawback of offering us men whom we cannot praise and like, but also it will not allow us to be ourselves in harmony with our nature. On the contrary, it compels us, for the sake of agreeing with others, to shrivel up and even alter our shape. Intellectual talking and ideas are fit only for intellectual society; in ordinary society they are positively loathed, for here in order to go down well it is absolutely necessary to be dull and narrow-minded. In such society, therefore, we must practise great self-denial and give up three-quarters of our own individuality in order to become like other people. In return, we naturally have the others, but the more merit a man has, the more he will find that here the gain does not cover the loss and the business turns out to his disadvantage. For, as a rule, men are insolvent; in other words, when we associate with them, they have nothing that would compensate us for the boredom, annoyance, and disagreeableness of their company and for the self-denial it imposes on us. Accordingly, most society is so constituted that whoever exchanges it for loneliness makes a good bargain. Moreover, there is the fact that, in order to provide a substitute for genuine, i.e. intellectual, superiority that is intolerable and also hard to find, society has arbitrarily assumed a false conventional superiority. This rests on arbitrary principles, is traditionally handed down to the higher circles, and, like the password, can be altered. It is called bon ton, [22] fashionableness. When, however, it comes into collision with genuine superiority, it shows its weakness. Moreover, quand le bon ton arrive, le bon sens se retire. [23]

Generally speaking, every man can be in the most perfect harmony only with himself, not with his friend or even with his betrothed. For differences of individuality and temperament always produce a discord, although only slight. Therefore genuine tranquillity of the heart and perfect peace of mind, the highest blessings on earth after health, are to be found only in solitude and, as a permanent disposition, only in the deepest seclusion. If, then, a man's own self is great and rich, he enjoys the happiest state that can be found in this miserable world. Indeed, let us be frank; however intimately anyone may be tied by friendship, love, and marriage, in the end he quite honestly looks only to himself and at most to his child. The less a man is compelled, in consequence of objective or subjective conditions, to come in contact with others, the better off he is. Loneliness and solitude enable us, if not to feel all their evils at once, at any rate to survey them. Society, on the other hand, is insidious; it conceals great and often irreparable mischief behind the pretence of pastime, communication, social pleasure, and so on. A principal study for youth should be learning how to put up with loneliness, since it is a source of happiness and peace of mind. Now it follows from all this that he is best off who has depended on himself and can be all in all to himself. Even Cicero says: Nemo potest non beatissimus esse qui est totus aptus ex sese, quique in se uno ponit omnia [24] (Paradoxa, II). Again, the more a man has in himself, the less can others be to him. It is a certain feeling of self-sufficiency which restrains those of intrinsic merit and wealth from making the considerable sacrifices that are demanded by intercourse with others, let alone from seeking such associations by obviously denying themselves. The opposite of this makes ordinary people so sociable and accommodating; since it is easier for them to put up with others than to tolerate themselves. In addition, it should be remembered that in this world what has real value is not esteemed and what is esteemed has no value. The proof and consequence of this is that seclusion of every man of eminence and distinction. In accordance with all this, it will be genuine wisdom of life in the man who in himself is worth anything if, in case of need, he limits his requirements in order to preserve or extend his freedom and, in consequence, he has as few dealings as possible with his fellow-men, for relations with them are unavoidable.

On the other hand, what makes people sociable is their inability to endure loneliness and their own company. It is inner vacuity, weariness, and boredom that drive them into society and into going abroad. Their minds lack resilience for imparting any movement of their own. They try to enhance this through wine and in this way many become drunkards. For this reason, they are always in need of excitement from without and indeed the strongest, i.e. that from creatures like themselves, without which their minds sink under their own weight and lapse into a grievous lethargy.* It might also be said that each of them is only a small fraction of the Idea of humanity and, therefore, needs to be greatly supplemented by others so that, to some extent, a whole human consciousness emerges. On the other hand, whoever is a complete human being, a human being par excellence, represents a whole number, not a fraction, and therefore has enough in himself. In this sense ordinary society can be compared to that Russian horn music wherein each horn has only one note and the music is produced merely by all the horns coming together at the right moment. For the temperament and mentality of most people are as monotonous as is such a horn with its one note. Indeed, many of them look as if they always had only one and the same idea and were incapable of any other. It is easy to see from this not only why they are so bored, but also why they are so sociable and prefer most of all to go about in crowds: the gregariousness of mankind. It is the monotony of his own nature that becomes intolerable to everyone of them: omnis stultitia laborat jastidio sui: [25] only together and united are they anything at all; just like those horn players. The man of intelligence, on the other hand, is comparable to a virtuoso who performs his concert alone; or he is comparable to a piano. Just as such an instrument by itself alone is a small orchestra, so is the man of intelligence a small world; and what all those others are only by co-operation he presents in the unity of a single consciousness. Like the piano, he is no part of the symphony, but is suitable for the solo and for solitude. If he is to co-operate with them, he can do so only as the principal voice with accompaniment, like the piano; or for setting the tone in vocal music, like the piano. However, those who are fond of society may draw from this simile the rule that what their acquaintances lack in quality must to some extent be made up in quantity. One man of intelligence can be company enough; but if there are none to be found except the ordinary sort, it is a good thing to have quite a number of them so that something may result from their variety and co-operation-on the analogy of the aforesaid horn music; and for this may heaven grant you the patience!

But to that inner vacuity and barrenness of men is also attributable the fact that, when men of a better nature form a society for some noble and ideal purpose, the result is almost always that, of the crowds of people who like vermin cover all things and are always ready indiscriminately to seize on everything with the object of defeating their boredom or their defects in other circumstances, there are some who intrude or thrust themselves into that society. In a short time they either ruin the whole business, or so alter it that it becomes practically the opposite of the original intention.

Moreover, gregariousness can also be regarded as a kind of mutual mental warming of men similar to the bodily warmth which they produce by crowding together when it is very cold. But whoever has great mental warmth needs no such crowding. In the last chapter of the second volume of this work, the reader will find a fable devised in this sense by me. The result of all this is that a man's sociability is roughly in inverse ratio to his intellectual worth; and 'he is very unsociable' is tantamount to saying' he is a man of great qualities.'

Solitude confers a twofold advantage on the man of intellectual eminence; first that of being by himself and secondly that of not being with others. The latter will be highly valued if we bear in mind how much want of freedom, annoyance, and even danger are entailed in all social intercourse. La Bruyere says: tout notre mal vient de ne pouvoir etre seuls. [26] Gregariousness or sociability is one of the dangerous and even fatal tendencies, for it brings us into contact with people the great majority of whom are morally bad and intellectually dull or perverse. The unsociable man is one who does not need them; to have enough in oneself so that one does not need society is, therefore, a great piece of good fortune. For almost all our sufferings spring from society, and peace of mind, constituting next to health the most essential element of our happiness, is endangered by all society and therefore cannot really exist without a significant amount of solitude. The Cynics renounced all possessions in order to partake of the bliss of peace of mind; whoever with the same intention renounces society, has chosen the most prudent course. What Bernardin de St. Pierre says is fine and to the point: La diete des alimens nous rend la sante du corps, et celle des hommes la tranquillite de l'ame. [27] Accordingly, whoever at an early age is on friendly or even affectionate terms with solitude, has gained a gold-mine; but certainly not everyone is able to do this. For just as men are driven together originally by need and privation, so too are they by boredom, when these are removed. Without privation and boredom, everyone would probably remain alone if only because in solitude the environment is in keeping with the exclusive importance and even uniqueness which everyone has in his own eyes and which is reduced to nought by the crowded events of the world, where at every step it receives a painful dementi. In this sense, loneliness is even the natural state of everyone; it reinstates him as Adam in the original happiness that is appropriate to his nature.

But, of course, Adam had no father or mother! And so again in a different sense, loneliness is not natural to man, in so far as he did not find himself alone when he came into the world, but had parents, brothers, and sisters, and was, therefore, in a community. Accordingly, love of solitude cannot exist as an original tendency, but arises only in consequence of experience and reflection; and this will occur to the extent that our own mental powers are developed, but at the same time with an increase in our age; and so, generally speaking, a man's urge to be sociable will be inversely proportional to his age. The small child utters a cry of fear and distress as soon as it is left alone for a few moments. For a boy to be alone is a great penitence. Young people readily herd together; only the more noble-minded among them occasionally seek solitude; yet it will still be difficult for them to spend a whole day by themselves. A man, on the other hand, can easily do so; and he is able to be alone for a longer period, the older he becomes. The old man who is the sole survivor of vanished generations and is too old or dead to the pleasures of life, finds his proper element in loneliness. But here in individuals an increase in the tendency to seclusion and solitude will always occur in proportion to their intellectual worth. For, as I have said, this tendency is not a purely natural one directly brought about by needs; it is rather only an effect of the experience we have had and of the reflection thereon, particularly of the insight gained into the miserable nature, morally and intellectually, of the great majority of men. The worst thing here is that in the individual moral and intellectual shortcomings conspire and work hand in hand, the result being extremely disagreeable phenomena of all kinds that make association with most people unpleasant and even intolerable. And so although there is in this world very much that is really bad, the worst thing in it is society, so that even Voltaire, the sociable Frenchman, had to say: La terre est couverte de gens qui ne meritent pas qu'on leur parle. [28] That gentle spirit Petrarch, so strong and constant in his love of solitude, also gives the same reason for this tendency:

[quote] Cercato ho sempre solitaria vita

(Le rive il sanno, e le compagne e i boschi),

Per fuggir quest' ingegni sordi e loschi,

Che la strada del ciel' hanno smarrita. [29] [/quote]

In the same sense, he amplifies the matter in his fine book, De vita solitaria, which seems to have been Zimmermann's model for his noted work on solitude. It is this merely secondary and indirect origin of unsociability that is expressed in his sarcastic vein by Chamfort when he says: On dit quelquefois d'un homme qui vit seul, il n' aime pas la societe. C'est souvent comme si on disait d'un homme qu'il n'aime pas la promenade sous le pretexte qu'il ne se promene pas volontiers le soir dans la foret de Bondy, [30]* But even the gentle Christian Angelus Silesius says in his own mythical language exactly the same thing:

[quote]Herod is a foe; Joseph is the mind

In whose dream God makes known the peril.

Bethlehem's the world, Egypt is solitude.

Flee, my soul! else suffering and death are yours.[/quote]

In the same sense, Giordano Bruno gives his opinion that tanti uomini che in terra hanno voluto gustare vita celeste, dissero con una voce: 'ecee elongavi fugiens et mansi in solitudine.' [31] In this sense, Sadi the Persian says of himself in the Gulistan: 'Disgusted with my friends in Damascus, I withdrew into the desert near Jerusalem to look for the companionship of animals: In short, the same idea has been expressed by all whom Prometheus had formed of better clay. What pleasure can they derive from associating with those to whom they are related only through what is lowest and most ignoble in their own nature and thus what is commonplace, trivial, and vulgar? What can they find in those who form a community and for whom, because they cannot rise to a higher level, there is nothing left but to drag others down to theirs, which then becomes their aspiration? It is therefore, an aristocratic feeling that fosters the inclination to seclusion and solitude. All knaves are sociable; how pitiful. On the other hand, we see that a man is of a nobler nature primarily in his finding no pleasure in others; on the contrary, he ever more prefers solitude to their company. With the passing of the years, he gradually comes to see that, apart from rare exceptions, there is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity. However hard this may sound, even Angelus Silesius, notwithstanding his Christian gentleness and love, could not leave unsaid:

[quote]Solitude is necessary; yet be not vulgar,

For you can everywhere a desert find.[/quote]

Now with regard to great minds, it is quite natural for these real teachers of the entire human race to feel as little inclined to frequent association with others as for schoolmasters to join in the games of the boisterous and noisy crowds of children who surround them. They have come into the world to lead mankind across the sea of error into the haven of truth and to draw it from the dark abyss of its coarseness and vulgarity up into the light of culture and refinement. It is true that they must live among men and women without, however, really belonging to them. From their early years they therefore feel that they are noticeably different from others, but only gradually and with the lapse of time do they come to a clear knowledge of the position. They then take care that their mental isolation from others is reinforced also by one that is physical, and no one is allowed to approach them, unless he himself is more or less exempt from the prevailing vulgarity.

And so from all this it follows that love of solitude does not appear directly and as an original impulse, but develops indirectly, preferably in nobler minds, and only gradually. This development is not achieved without our overcoming the natural social urge and occasionally opposing the whispered suggestion of Mephistopheles:

[quote] This nursing of the pain forgo thee,

That, like a vulture, feeds upon thy breast!

The worst society thou find'st will show thee

Thou art a man among the rest. [32] [/quote]

Solitude is the lot of all pre-eminent minds and this at times they will bemoan; but they always choose it as the lesser of two evils. In this respect, however, sapere aude [33] becomes ever easier and more natural; and when a man is past sixty the urge to be alone has become really natural and even instinctive, for everything now combines to favour it. The strongest inclination to be sociable, namely love of women and the sexual impulse, no longer has any effect; in fact, the sexless condition of old age lays the foundation to a certain self-sufficiency that gradually absorbs the urge to sociability. A thousand illusions and follies have been given up; active life is for the most part over. A man has nothing more to expect, no more plans and designs. The generation to which he really belongs exists no longer; surrounded by a strange new one, he already stands objectively and essentially alone. The flight of time has then become more rapid and he would like to use it intellectually. For if only the mind has retained its strength, the great amount of knowledge and experience we have acquired, the gradually perfected elaboration of all ideas, and the great skill in the use of our powers render study of all kinds more than ever easy and interesting. We clearly see a thousand things that were previously in a cloud of uncertainty; we reach results and feel a sense of complete superiority. From long experience we have ceased to expect much from men; for, on the whole, they do not belong to those who gain on closer acquaintance. On the contrary, we know that, apart from rare and fortunate exceptions, we shall come across nothing but very defective specimens of human nature which it is better to leave alone. We are, therefore, no longer exposed to the ordinary illusions of life, and from a man's appearance we judge what he is; rarely shall we feel any desire to enter into closer relations with him. Finally, the habit of isolation and our own company has supervened and become second nature, especially if solitude has been the friend of our youth. Accordingly, the love of solitude, which formerly had first to be wrested from the social impulse, is now quite natural and simple; in solitude we are like a fish in water. Therefore every individual of eminence who is thus unlike the rest and stands alone feels, through this isolation that is essential to his nature, oppressed when he is young, but relieved when he is old.

Of course, everyone always enjoys this real privilege of old age only to the extent that he has intellectual powers; and so the eminent mind enjoys it most of all, although everyone does so to a lesser extent. Only exceedingly inferior and common natures will still be as sociable in their old age as in their youth. To a society to which they are no longer suited they are tedious and at best succeed in being tolerated, whereas formerly they were in demand.

We can also discover a teleological side to this inverse proportion between our age and the degree of our sociability. The younger a man is, the more in every respect he has to learn. Now nature has relegated him to a system of mutual instruction which he receives when associating with people like himself and in respect of which human society may be called a large Bell- Lancaster educational establishment. For books and schools are artificial institutions because they are remote from nature's plan. It is, therefore, quite proper that he visits nature's educational institution with the greater keenness, the younger he is.

Nihil est ab omni parte beatum, [34] as Horace says; and 'No lotus without a stem' is an Indian proverb. So even solitude with its many advantages has its minor drawbacks and difficulties which are, however, small in comparison with those of society. And so whoever is in himself worth anything, will always find it easier to get on without rather than with people. Yet of those disadvantages, there is one that does not as readily come to our notice as do the others. Thus through our always remaining at home, our body becomes so sensitive to external influences that every little cool breeze morbidly affects it. In the same way, through continual seclusion and solitude our mood becomes so sensitive that we feel disturbed, mortified, or ruffled by the most insignificant events, words, or even mere looks, whereas such things are entirely overlooked by those who remain always in the hurly-burly of life.

Now whenever a well-founded dislike of people has scared a man into solitude, he may not be able to endure for any length of time its bleakness, especially if he is young. I advise him to form the habit of taking into society some of his solitude, and thus learn to be alone to some extent even in company. Accordingly, he should not at once communicate to others what he is thinking; on the other hand, he should not take too literally what they say. On the contrary, he should not expect much from them, either morally or intellectually, and therefore, as regards their opinions, should strengthen in himself that indifference that is the surest way of always practising a praiseworthy tolerance. Although moving among them, he will then not be so entirely in their company, but his relations with them will be of a more purely objective character. This will protect him from too close a contact with society and thus from every contamination or even outrage. We possess even a very readable dramatic description of this restricted or entrenched sociability in the comedy El Cafe o sea la comedia nueva [35] by Moratin, especially in the character of D. Pedro in the second and third scenes of the first act. In this respect, society can also be compared to a fire where a prudent man warms himself at a proper distance, whereas the fool comes too close and then, after scorching himself, rushes out into the cold of solitude, loudly complaining that the fire burns.

(10) Envy is natural to man; yet it is simultaneously a vice and a misfortune.* We should, therefore, regard it as the enemy of our happiness and should try to stifle it as an evil demon. Seneca in fine words directs us to do this: nostra nos sine comparatione delectent; nunquam erit felix quem torquebit felicior (De ira, 1II. 30); and again: quum adspexeris quot te antecedant, cogita quot sequantur [36] (Epistulae, 15). We should, therefore, more often consider those who are worse off than we, for those who are better off only appear to be. Even when actual evils have befallen us, the most effective consolation, although flowing from the same source as envy, is afforded by the thought of greater sufferings than ours and then by association with those who are in the same situation, thus the socii malorum. [37]

So much for the active side of envy. As regards the passive, it should be remembered that no hatred is so implacable as that of envy. We should, therefore, not incessantly and assiduously endeavour to excite it; on the contrary, it would be better for us to renounce this pleasure, like many another, because of its dangerous consequences.

There are three kinds of aristocracy: (1) of birth and rank, (2) of money, and (3) of the mind or intellect. The last is really the most distinguished and is acknowledged as such if only it is given time. Even Frederick the Great said: les ames privitegiees rangent a l'egal des souverains, [38] and this to his chamberlain who took umbrage at the fact that, whereas ministers and generals dined at the chamberlain's table, Voltaire should be given a place at the table where only monarchs and their princes sat. Each of these aristocracies is surrounded by a host of envious people who are secretly embittered towards any member thereof. If they are not under any obligation to fear him, they are at pains to let him know in a variety of ways that he is no better than they. But it is these very efforts on their part that show how convinced they are of the opposite. The method to be adopted by those who are exposed to envy consists in keeping at a distance the whole host of the envious and avoiding as much as possible all contact with them so that they remain separated by a wide gulf. If this is not possible, the best method is to bear their attacks with the greatest composure, for their very source neutralizes them. We see also the general application of this method. On the other hand, the members of one aristocracy will for the most part get on well with those of the other two without being envious, because each will match his advantages and privileges with those of the others.

(11) A plan should be given mature and repeated consideration before it is carried out; and even after everything has been thoroughly thought out, we should still make some concession to the inadequacy of all human knowledge. For there may always be circumstances which we cannot possibly investigate or foresee and which might upset the whole calculation. This reflection will always affect the negative side of the balance and counsel us not to move unnecessarily in important matters: quieta non movere. [39] But when once we have come to a decision and have set to work so that everything has now to take its course and only the result is awaited, we should not worry ourselves by constant reflection on what has already been carried out and by repeated doubts about possible danger. On the contrary, we should now dismiss the matter entirely from our minds and regard as closed all thought of it, confidently convinced that at the proper time we gave everything mature consideration. This advice is also given by the Italian proverb: legala bene, e poi lascia la andare, [40] which Goethe translates: 'Saddle well and confidently ride.' Incidentally, many of his aphorisms that are given under the heading of' proverbial' are proverbs from the Italian. If, however, the result is bad, this is because all human affairs are the sport of chance and error. Socrates, the wisest of mankind, needed a warning genius or [x] to do the right thing in his own personal affairs, or at any rate to avoid false steps; and this proves that no human intellect is adequate for this purpose. Therefore the saying, originating ostensibly from one of the Popes, that we are to blame, at any rate to some extent, for every misfortune that befalls us, is not absolutely true in all cases, although it is so in the great majority. Even a feeling of this truth seems to be largely responsible for the fact that men try to conceal their misfortunes as much as possible and to put on them the best face they can. They are afraid that their guilt may be inferred from their suffering.

(12) In the case of a misfortune that has already occurred and therefore cannot be altered, we should not even permit ourselves to think that it might have been different; still less that it could have been prevented. For this simply intensifies the pain to the point of its becoming intolerable and we thus become [x]. [41] On the contrary, we should follow the example of King David who, so long as his son lay on a bed of sickness, incessantly assailed Jehovah with supplications and entreaties, but who snapped his fingers and thought no more of it after the son had died. But whoever is not light-hearted enough for this should take refuge in fatalism since there is revealed to him the great truth that all that happens occurs necessarily and is therefore inevitable.

In spite of everything, this rule is one-sided. It is, of course, useful in misfortunes for our immediate relief and consolation; but if, as is often the case, our own negligence or rashness is at any rate partially responsible for them, the repeated and painful deliberation on how they could have been prevented is a wholesome and salutary self-discipline for our experience and improvement and so for the future. We should not try, as we usually do, to extenuate, palliate, or lessen faults that are obviously committed by us, but should confess them and bring them in all their enormity clearly before our eyes so that we may firmly make up our minds to avoid them in future. Here, of course, we have to undergo the self-inflicted pain of dissatisfaction with ourselves; but [x]. [42]

(13) In all that concerns our weal and woe, we should keep a tight rein on our imagination. Above all, we should not build castles in the air since they are too expensive; for with a sigh we have to pull them down again immediately afterwards. But we should be still more on our guard against tormenting and distressing ourselves by depicting merely possible misfortunes. Thus if these were purely unfounded or indeed very far-fetched, we should know at once on waking up from such a dream that the whole thing had been only an illusion and should, therefore, be the more pleased with the better reality, and in any case see here a warning against quite remote, though possible, misfortunes. But our imagination does not readily play with such things; at best, it builds bright castles in the air in quite a leisurely fashion. The material for its sombre dreams are misfortunes that to some extent actually threaten us, although remotely. It magnifies them, brings their possibility much nearer than is actually the case, and paints them in the most terrible colours. On waking up, we cannot at once shake off such a dream as we can a pleasant one; for reality instantly refutes and disproves this and at best leaves behind in the lap of possibility a faint hope. But if we have yielded to a fit of the blues,43 images and figures are brought close to us which do not so readily vanish again; for the possibility of the thing generally is unshaken and we are not always able to estimate this. Possibility then easily becomes probability and so we have delivered ourselves into the hands of anguish and uneasiness. Therefore things that affect our weal and woe should be considered by us with reason and judgement and consequently with cool and dispassionate deliberation; thus we should operate with mere concepts in the abstract. Imagination should here be left out of the question, for it is not competent to judge. On the contrary, it conjures up mere images or pictures that agitate our feelings unprofitably and often very painfully. This rule should be most strictly observed in the evening; for just as darkness makes us timid and causes us to see everywhere terrifying shapes, so does obscurity or confusion of ideas have an analogous effect since every uncertainty gives rise to a feeling of insecurity. And so in the evening, when relaxation has enveloped our understanding and power of judgement in a shroud of subjective obscurity, the intellect is tired and [x], [44] and is incapable of going to the root of things. If the objects of our meditation concern our personal affairs, they can then easily assume a dangerous aspect and become terrifying pictures. This is often the case at night when we are in bed; for then the mind is wholly relaxed and therefore the power of judgement is no longer equal to its task, but the imagination is still active. For night imparts to everything its black colour. Therefore when we go to sleep or even wake up in the night, our thoughts are frequently almost as bad distortions and perversions of things as are dreams; moreover, if they concern our personal affairs, they are usually as black as possible and even frightful. In the morning all such terrible apparitions have like dreams vanished, as is expressed by the Spanish proverb: noche tinta, blanco el dia (the night is coloured, the day is white). But also in the evening when the candles are burning, the understanding, like the eye, does not see things so clearly as it does during the day; therefore this time is not suited for meditating on serious and especially unpleasant affairs for which the morning is the right time, as it also is generally without exception for all work, whether mental or physical. For the morning is the youth of the day; everything is bright, fresh, and easy; we feel strong and have at our complete disposal all our faculties. We should not shorten it by getting up late, or even waste it in unworthy occupations or gossip; on the contrary, we should regard it as the quintessence of life and to a certain extent treat it as sacred. Evening, on the other hand, is the day's old age; at such a time we are dull, garrulous, and frivolous. Each day is a little life for which our waking up is the birth and which is brought to an end by sleep as death. Thus going to sleep is a daily death and every waking up a new birth. In fact to complete the simile, we could regard the discomfort and difficulty of getting up as labour pains.

But generally speaking, the state of our health, sleep, nourishment, temperature, weather, environment, and many other external circumstances powerfully influence our mood and hence our thoughts. Thus both our view of an affair and our capacity for any work are subject so much to time and even to place. Hence

[quote] To the serious mood pay heed,

For seldom does it come.

-- Goethe, Generalbeichte.[/quote]

Not only must we await objective conceptions and original ideas as to whether they choose to come and when; but even a thorough deliberation of a personal matter does not always succeed at the time we have fixed for it in advance and when we have prepared ourselves to deal with it. On the contrary, it too chooses its own time and then the train of thought appropriate to it becomes active of its own accord; we then follow it up with all our interest.

The reining in of the imagination, which I have recommended, means also that we do not let it conjure up and depict for us injustices previously suffered, injuries, losses, insults, slights, humiliations, and so on; for in this way we again excite long-slumbering anger and resentment and all the hateful passions whereby our nature is polluted. According to a fine parable by Proclus the Neoplatonist) there dwells in every town the mob ([x]) as well as those who are noble and distinguished; so too in every man) even the noblest and most exalted, there exist, according to his disposition) the meanest and commonest elements of human and even of animal nature. This mob must not be allowed to revolt or peep out of the window, for it has an ugly appearance and its demagogues are the flights of imagination I have described. Here we might also mention that the smallest vexation, whether coming from people or things) can swell up into a hideous monster and put us at our wit's end through our constantly brooding over it ·and painting it in glaring colours on an enlarged scale. We should rather take an extremely prosaic and matter-of-fact view of everything unpleasant, so that we are able to accept it as easily as possible.

Just as small objects held close to the eyes restrict our field of vision and conceal the world) so the people and things of our immediate environment) however insignificant and unimportant) will often engross our attention and thoughts to excess and even unpleasantly) thus leaving no room for thoughts and matters of importance. We should work against such a tendency.

(14) When we look at something we do not possess) the thought readily occurs: 'Ah, if that were mine', and we are made sensible of our privation. Instead of this, we should say more often: 'Ah) if that were not mine'. I mean that we should endeavour sometimes to regard what we possess as it would appear to us after we had lost it. Indeed) we should do this with everything) whatever it may be; property, health, friends) those we love) wife) children) horse) and dog. For in most cases) the loss of things first tells us of their value. On the other hand) if we consider things in the way recommended by me) the result will be first that their possession will at once give us more pleasure than formerly) and secondly that we shall do everything to prevent their loss. Thus we shall not endanger our property) exasperate friends) expose a wife's faithfulness to temptation) fail to look after the health of children) and so on. We often try to brighten the gloom of the present by speculating on favourable possibilities and invent many different kinds of fanciful hopes. Every one of these is pregnant with a disappointment that never fails to appear when it is dashed by the hard facts of life. I t would be better for us to make the many unpleasant possibilities the theme of our speculation. For this would cause us to take steps to prevent their happening and also give us pleasant surprises in the event of their not being realized. Are we not always noticeably more cheerful after we have passed through some anxiety? In fact, it is even a good thing sometimes to picture to ourselves great misfortunes that might possibly befall us so that we can more easily endure the many minor actual ones that subsequently happen to us. For we then console ourselves by looking back at the great misfortunes that did not befall us. When, however, we consider this rule, we must not neglect the one that preceded it.

(15) The affairs and events that concern us turn up quite separately with no order or reference to one another, in the most glaring contrast, and with nothing in common except that they are simply our affairs. Therefore, to be in keeping with them, our thoughts and cares concerning them are bound to be just as abrupt. Accordingly, when we undertake anything, we must leave out of consideration everything else and dismiss the matter from our minds, in order to attend to each thing in its own time, to enjoy or endure it, and be wholly unconcerned about everything else. We must, therefore, have our thoughts in a chest of drawers, so to speak, one of which we open while all the others remain shut. In this way we prevent the heavy burden of an anxiety from spoiling every little pleasure of the present and depriving us of all peace; we see to it that the consideration of one thing will not supplant that of another, that the attention to an important matter will not result in the neglect of many affairs of small importance, and so on. But, in particular, whoever is capable of lofty and noble thoughts should never allow his mind to be so completely filled and engrossed with personal affairs and trivial worries that they bar the way to such thoughts; for this would really be propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. [45] Of course, self-restraint is necessary for this proper management of ourselves, as it is for so many other things. For this, however, we should be strengthened by the thought that everyone has to endure a great deal of severe outside control without which life would be impossible. Nevertheless, a little self-restraint applied at the right place afterwards prevents much restraint from without, just as a small section of a circle close to the centre corresponds to one at the periphery that is often a hundred times greater. By our self-restraint, more than by anything else, we avoid that restraint from without; this is what Seneca says: Si vis tibi omnia subjicere, te subjice rationi [46] (Epistulae, 37). We also have self-restraint always in our power; and if the worst comes to the worst, or where it touches our tenderest spot, we can discontinue it. Restraint from without, on the other hand, is harsh, inconsiderate, unsparing, and merciless. It is, therefore, prudent to anticipate this through self-restraint.

(16) We should set a limit to our wishes, curb our desires, and subdue our anger, always mindful of the fact that the individual can attain only an infinitely small share of the things that are worth having whereas many evils must necessarily befall everyone. In other words, [x], abstinere et sustinere,  [47] is a rule that must be observed, otherwise neither wealth nor power can prevent us from feeling wretched. This is the object of Horace's words:

[quote] Inter cuncta leges, et percontabere doctos

Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum;

Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido,

Ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utilium spes. [48] [/quote]

(I7) '[x] (vita motu constat) [49] says Aristotle, who is obviously right. Accordingly, our physical life consists in ceaseless motion; and also our inner mental life constantly demands occupation, occupation with something through thought or action. A proof of this is given by that tapping with the fingers or with anything that comes to hand, to which those men at once resort who have nothing to do or to think about. In other words, our existence is essentially restless and fidgety; and therefore complete inactivity soon becomes intolerable, since it gives rise to terrible boredom. Now this impulse should be regulated so that it may be methodically and thus better satisfied. Activity to do something, if possible to make something, at any rate to learn something, is therefore absolutely essential to a man's happiness. He longs to make use of his powers and would like somehow to perceive the result thereof. The greatest satisfaction in this respect, however, is given when we make or manufacture something, whether it be a book or a basket; but we are at once pleased when we see a work every day grow in our hands and finally reach completion. This pleasure is afforded by a work of art, a manuscript, or even manual labour; and of course the nobler the work, the greater the pleasure. In this respect, the happiest are those highly gifted men who are aware of their ability to produce great works of significance and coherence. This gives their whole life an interest of a higher order and imparts to it a flavour that is lacking in the lives of others, which by comparison are, therefore, very dull and insipid. For such highly gifted men life and the world, together with everything common and material, have a second and higher interest, a formal interest, since these contain the theme of their works. As soon as the pressure of personal needs allows them time to breathe, they are assiduously engaged throughout their lives in the collection of material. To a certain extent, they have a double intellect; one for ordinary affairs (matters of the will) similar to that of everyone else; and one for the purely objective conception of things. Thus their lives are twofold, for they are simultaneously spectators and actors, whereas all the rest are merely actors. Nevertheless, everyone should do something according to the measure of his abilities. For on long pleasure-trips we see how pernicious is the effect on us of not having any systematic activity or work. On such trips we feel positively unhappy because we are without any proper occupation and are, so to speak, torn from our natural element. Effort, trouble, and struggle with opposition are as necessary to man as grubbing in the ground is to a mole. The stagnation that results from being wholly contented with a lasting pleasure would be for him intolerable. The full pleasure of his existence is in overcoming obstacles which may be of a material nature as in business and the affairs of life, or of an intellectual, as in learning and investigating. The struggle with them and the triumph make him happy. If he lacks the opportunity for this, he creates it as best he can; according to the nature of his individuality, he will hunt or play cup and ball; or, guided by the unconscious urge of his nature, he will pick a quarrel, hatch a plot, or be involved in fraud and all kinds of wickedness, merely in order to put an end to an intolerable state of repose. Difficilis in otio quies. [50]

(18) For the guiding star of our efforts we should take not the pictures of our imagination, but clearly thought-out concepts. But in most cases the opposite happens. Thus on closer examination, we shall find that what ultimately turns the scale in our resolves are often not concepts and judgements, but a picture of the imagination which represents one of the alternatives. In a novel by Voltaire or Diderot, I do not know which, to the hero standing as a young Hercules at the parting of the ways virtue always appeared in the form of his old tutor holding a snuffbox in his left hand and a pinch of snuff in his right and thus moralizing; vice, on the other hand, always appeared in the form of his mother's chambermaid. Especially in youth, the goal of our happiness is fixed in the form of a few pictures that hover before us and often persist for half our lives and sometimes till the very end. They are really taunting ghosts; for when we have acquired them, they fade away into nothing since we learn from experience that they achieve absolutely nothing of what they promised. Of the same nature are the individual scenes of domestic, private, and social life, pictures of our residence, environment, marks of honour, evidence of respect, and so on; chaque fou a sa marotte. [51] The picture of those we love is much the same. It is natural, of course, that for us things should go like this; for being something immediate, the thing intuitively perceived has a more direct effect on our will than has the concept or abstract thought. But this gives us merely the universal without the particular, and yet it isjust the particular that contains reality. Therefore the concept can affect our will only indirectly; and yet it is only the concept that keeps its promise; and so it is education and culture to rely on it alone. Of course, it will sometimes need elucidation and paraphrase through some pictures, yet only cum grano salis. [52]

(19) The foregoing rule may be subsumed under the more universal that we should always be masters of the impression generally of what is present and intuitively perceived by us. Compared with what is merely thought and known, this impression is exceedingly strong by virtue not of its matter and substance which are often very limited, but of its form, perceptibility, and immediacy which forcibly invade the mind, disturb its peace, or shatter its resolutions. For what is present and intuitively perceived can be readily surveyed and always acts at once with all its force. On the other hand, ideas and reasons require time and leisure so that we can think them out one at a time; and so we cannot have them at every moment wholly before us. Consequently, the sight of something pleasant attracts us even though we have given it up as a result of careful thought. In the same way, we are annoyed by an opinion that we know to be wholly incompetent; we are angered by an offence whose contemptible nature is clear; and likewise ten reasons for thinking that there is no danger are outweighed by the false illusion of its actual presence. In all this we clearly see the fundamental and original irrationality of our true nature. Women will often succumb to a similar impression, and few men have such an excess of reasoning faculty that they would not have to suffer from its effects. Now where we are unable entirely to overcome that impression by means of mere ideas, the best thing to do is to neutralize it by the opposite impression; for example, to neutralize the impression of an insult by looking for those who hold us in high esteem and the impression of a threatening danger by considering what counteracts it. In the Nouveaux essais, Livre I, c. 2, § 11, Leibniz mentions an Italian who was able to withstand even the tortures of the rack. This he did by never for one moment allowing the picture of the gallows to vanish from his imagination, for this would have been his fate had he confessed. And so from time to time he called out: io ti vedo,s3 words that he afterwards explained in this sense. For the very same reason we are here considering, it is difficult for us not to be made irresolute when all around us are of a different opinion and behave accordingly, even when we are convinced of their error. For a fugitive king who is being pursued and is travelling strictly incognito, the secretly observed ceremonious and submissive attitude of his trusted attendant must be an almost necessary encouragement lest in the end he should have doubts about himself.

(20) After stressing in the second chapter the great value of health as the first and most important element of our happiness, I will here state one or two quite general instructions for strengthening and maintaining it.

We may harden ourselves by imposing on the body, as a whole as well as on each of its parts, many strains and burdens while we are healthy and by accustoming ourselves to withstand adverse influences of all kinds. On the other hand, as soon as an unhealthy state appears either in the whole body or one of its parts, the opposite course should be taken and the diseased body or part should be spared and nursed in every possible way; for that which is ailing and debilitated is incapable of being hardened.

The muscle is strengthened by vigorous use, whereas the nerves are weakened thereby. Thus we may exercise our muscles by every suitable exertion but should protect our nerves therefrom; and so the eyes should be protected from too bright a light, especially reflected light, from all straining in the dark, and also from the prolonged examination of exceedingly small objects. In the same way, the ears should be protected from too loud a noise. Above all the brain should not be exposed to exertions that are forced, incessant, or ill-timed. Accordingly, we should let it rest during digestion; for the very same vital force that forms ideas in the brain is hard at work in the stomach and intestines for the purpose of preparing chyme and chyle. For similar reasons, the brain should be protected from exertion during, or even after, strenuous muscular exercise. It is much the same with the motor nerves as with the sensory; and just as the pain felt by us in injured limbs has its real seat in the brain, so it is not actually the legs and arms that walk and work, but the brain, namely that part of it which, by means of the oblong cord and the spine, stimulates the nerves of those limbs and thereby sets them in motion. Accordingly, the fatigue felt in our legs or arms has its true seat in the brain; and for this reason only those muscles become fatigued whose movement is arbitrary and voluntary, in other words, comes from the brain, not those that work involuntarily, like the heart. Therefore the brain is obviously impaired if we force on it, simultaneously or even at short intervals, strenuous muscular activity and intellectual exertion. This is not at variance with the fact that, at the beginning of a walk; or generally during short strolls, we often feel enhanced mental activity; for no fatigue of the aforesaid parts of the brain has yet occurred. On the other hand, such light muscular activity and the respiration increased thereby assist the flow to the brain of blood that is arterial and now better oxygenated. But we should especially give the brain the full measure of sleep necessary to restore it; for sleep is to the whole man what winding up is to a clock. (Cf. World as Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 19.) This measure will vary according to the development and activity of the brain; yet to go beyond this would be a mere waste of time, since the sleep then loses in depth what it gains in length. (Cf. World as Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 19 at the end.)* In general, we should clearly understand that our thinking is nothing but the organic function of the brain and is accordingly, as regards exertion and rest, in a position analogous to every other organic activity. Just as excessive strain ruins the eyes, so does it damage the brain. It has been rightly said that just as the stomach digests, so does the brain think. The erroneous notion of a soul which is immaterial, simple, essentially and always thinking, consequently untiring and which is merely lodged in the brain and requires nothing in the world, has certainly misled many into senseless practices and a blunting of their mental powers. For example, Frederick the Great once tried to break himself entirely of the habit of sleeping. The professors of philosophy would do well not to encourage, through their old women's philosophy that tries to be so accommodating to the catechism, such an erroneous notion that is pernicious even from a practical point of view. We should accustom ourselves to regard our mental powers absolutely as physiological functions in order to treat them accordingly, to spare or apply them, and to remember that all physical suffering, malady, or disorder, in whatever part of the body it may be, affects the mind. We are enabled best to do this by Cabanis in his work Des rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme.

Neglect of the advice here given is the reason why many great minds and also great scholars have in their old age become feeble-minded, childish, and even mad. For example, the famous English poets of the nineteenth century, such as Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and others, became in their old age and even in their sixties mentally dull and incapable and lapsed into imbecility. The explanation of this is undoubtedly the fact that all were tempted by high pay to treat literature as a trade and thus to write for money. This seduced them into unnatural exertions; and whoever puts, his Pegasus to the yoke and drives his Muse with a whip will have to pay the penalty in the same way as the man who has abused his sexual powers. I suspect that even Kant overworked in the last years of his life, after he had finally become famous, and thus brought on the second childhood of his last four years. On the other hand, the gentlemen of the Weimar Court, Goethe, Wieland, Knebel, retained their mental powers and activity until they were very old because they were not hack-writers. It was precisely the same with Voltaire.

Every month of the year has a peculiar influence on our health, the state of our body generally, and even of our mind, an influence which is direct, that is to say, independent of the weather.

[b]C. Our Attitude to Others[/b]

(21) To get through life, we shall find it expedient to have a great deal of foresight and forbearance; the former will protect us from injury and loss, and the latter from disputes and quarrels.

Whoever has to live with men and women should not absolutely condemn any individual, not even the worst, the most contemptible, or the most ridiculous, in so far as he is once produced and given by nature. On the contrary, such an individual has to be taken as something unalterable who, in consequence of an eternal and metaphysical principle, is bound to be as he is. In bad cases we should remember Goethe's words: 'there must be such queer birds, however.' [54] If we act otherwise, we commit an injustice and challenge the other man to a contest of life and death. For no one can alter his real individuality, that is, his moral character, intellectual powers, temperament, physiognomy, and so on. If we now condemn him absolutely, there is nothing for him but to treat us as a mortal enemy; for we are willing to grant him the right to exist only on condition that he becomes different from what he invariably is. To be able to live among men and women, we must, therefore, allow everyone to exist with his given individuality, whatever this may prove to be; and our only concern should be to use it in the way permitted by its nature and character. But we should not hope to change it or condemn it out of hand for what it is. This is the true meaning of the maxim 'live and let live'; the task, however, is not so easy as it is reasonable, and fortunate is the man who is able to avoid for good and all very many individuals. To learn to put up with people, we should exercise our patience on inanimate objects that, by virtue of mechanical or other physical necessity, stubbornly resist our actions; every day there is occasion for this. Afterwards we learn to apply to people the patience gained in this way in that we accustom ourselves to think that, whenever they thwart us, they inevitably do so by virtue of a necessity which arises from their nature and is just as strict as is that with which inanimate objects operate. It is, therefore, as foolish to be indignant over their actions as to be angry with a stone that rolls on to our path. With many people our wisest thought is: 'I shall not change them, and so I will make use of them.'

(22) It is astonishing how easily and quickly homogeneity or heterogeneity of mind and disposition between men shows itself in conversation; it is noticeable in every trifle. Even if the conversation is about the strangest and most insignificant things, one of two essentially different natures will be more or less displeased by almost every sentence that is uttered by the other; and in many cases he will be really annoyed. People of similar temperament, on the other hand, at once feel a certain agreement in everything; and in the case of great similarity, such agreement soon flows into perfect harmony and even unison. From this is first explained why quite ordinary people are so sociable and always so readily find really good company-those dear, amiable, honest folk. With unusual people the reverse is the case; and this is the more so, the more outstanding they are; so that in their seclusion they may be at times really delighted at having discovered in someone else a cord, however slender, which is in tune with themselves. For each can be to another only as much as that other is to him. Really great minds, like eagles, build their nests in lofty solitude. In the second place, it is easy to see how men of similar disposition find one another so quickly just as if they were drawn together by magnetic force; kindred souls greet each other from afar. Of course, we shall have occasion to observe this most frequently in those with vulgar natures or inferior gifts, but only because their name is legion; whereas better and more distinguished natures are rare and this is their name. Accordingly, in a large company, for example, devoted to practical purposes, two downright scoundrels will recognize each other as quickly as if they wore a badge and will come together to plot some abuse or treachery. In the same way, per impossibile, [55] if we picture to ourselves a large company of very intelligent and clever men except for two blockheads who happen to be there, these two will feel drawn to each other by sympathy and each will soon be heartily pleased at having come across at least one sensible and rational man. It is really remarkable to witness how two such men, especially if they are morally and intellectually inferior, recognize each other at first sight, how keenly desirous they are of coming near to each other, how affably and gladly they hasten to greet each other, just as if they were old friends. It is so striking that we are tempted to assume, in accordance with the Buddhist doctrine of metempsychosis, that they had been friends in a former life.

Nevertheless, even in the case of great agreement and accord, what keeps people apart and also produces between them a temporary discord, is the diversity of the mood they have at the moment. For everyone this is almost invariably different, according to his present circumstances, occupation, environment, physical state, passing train of thought, and so on. From all this discords occur even between the most harmonious personalities. To be able always to make the necessary correction for the removal of this disturbance and to introduce a uniform temperature, would be an achievement of the highest culture. What uniformity of mood can do for a social gathering may be seen from the fact that even a large company is roused to lively communicativeness and sincere interest with a general feeling of pleasure as soon as something objective influences them all at the same time and in the same way, whether this be a danger, hope, piece of news, a rare spectacle, a play, some music, or anything else. For by overcoming all private interests, such things produce a general unity of mood. In the absence of such an objective influence, a subjective one is as a rule seized; accordingly, bottles of wine are the usual means for introducing into a party a communal spirit. Even tea and coffee serve the same purpose.

But that discord, so readily introduced into all society by the diversity of moods at the moment, also partly explains why everyone is idealized and sometimes appears almost transfigured in the memory that is released from this and all similar disturbing, though fleeting, influences. Memory acts like the convex lens of a camera obscura; it contracts everything and thus produces a much finer picture than the original. Through every absence we secure, to some extent, the advantage of being seen in this way. For although the idealizing memory requires plenty of time for the completion of its work, a beginning of this is at once made. It is, therefore, even prudent for us to see our friends and acquaintances only after considerable intervals of time; for then, on seeing them again, we shall note that memory has already been at work.

(23) No one can see above himself; by this I mean that everyone sees in someone else only as much as he himself is; for he can grasp and understand him only to the extent of his own intelligence. Now if this is of the lowest order, no intellectual gifts, not even the greatest, will have any effect on him; and he will see nothing in their possessor except the lowest elements in his individual nature, and thus only all his weaknesses and defects of temperament and character. That other man will, therefore, be to him of a composite nature; his higher intellectual abilities are just as non-existent as are colours to the blind. For all minds are invisible to him who has none; and any value attaching to a work is a product of the value of the work itself and of the range of knowledge of the man who is giving his opinion. It follows from this that we are reduced to the level of everyone with whom we speak, since all the advantages we may have over him disappear and even the self-denial necessary for this remains wholly unacknowledged. Now when we consider how utterly vulgar and inferior and so how thoroughly common most people are, we shall see that it is not possible to talk to them without ourselves becoming common for the time being (on the analogy of electrical distribution). We shall then thoroughly understand the real meaning and point of the expression 'to demean ourselves'; yet we shall also be glad to avoid the society of all with whom we can communicate only by means of the partie honteuse [56] of our nature. We shall see also that with fools and blockheads there is only one way of showing our intelligence and that is by not talking to them. But then, of course, many in society will sometimes feel like a dancer who went to a ball where he met only lame people; with whom should he dance?

(24) That man gains my respect (and he is one in a hundred) who, when he has to wait for anything and is therefore sitting with nothing to do, does not at once rattle or beat time with the first thing that comes into his hands, whether it be his stick, a knife and fork, or anything else. He is probably thinking of something. On the other hand, it is evident that with many people seeing has completely taken the place of thinking. They try to become aware of their existence by making a noise, that is, when no cigar is handy which serves this very purpose. For the same reason, they are incessantly all eyes and ears for everything that is going on around them.

(25) La Rochefoucauld has made the pertinent remark that it is difficult to feel simultaneously for anyone veneration and great affection, Accordingly, we should have to choose whether we wanted to gain men's affection or their respect. Their affection is always selfish although in very different ways; moreover, the means whereby we earn it are not always calculated to make us feel proud. In the main, a man will be popular to the extent that he moderates his claims on the heads and hearts of others and indeed does so in earnest and without dissimulation not merely out of forbearance for them, which is rooted in contempt. If we recall here the very true saying of Helvetius: le degre d'esprit necessaire pour nous plaire, est une mesure assez exacte du degre d'esprit que nous avons; [57] the conclusion follows from these premisses. With men's veneration, on the other hand, the case is the very opposite; for it is extorted from them only against their will and is for that reason often concealed. Therefore, at heart, it gives us a much greater satisfaction; it is connected with our worth, a fact that is not directly true of men's affection; for this is subjective, whereas veneration is objective. Affection, of course, is more useful to us.

(26) Most men are so subjective that at bottom nothing whatever but they themselves interests them. The result is that, with everything that is said, they at once think of themselves and every chance reference to anything personal, however remote, monopolizes and engrosses their whole attention. Thus they have no power left over for grasping the objective side of a discussion and with them no arguments are of any effect when once these are opposed to their interests or vanity. Thus they are so readily distracted, so easily insulted, offended, or annoyed, that in discussing with them anything objectively, we cannot be too careful to avoid any possible and perhaps derogatory reference of our remarks to the worthy and sensitive souls whom we have before us. This alone, and nothing else, worries them; and whereas they cannot feel or understand what is true and striking, or fine, beautiful, and witty in the words of someone else, they are most sensitive to everything that could hurt, even most remotely and indirectly, their petty vanity, or could in any way reflect prejudicially on their exceedingly precious selves. Thus in their touchiness, they are like the little dog on whose paws we inadvertently tread and whose yapping has then to be endured; or they resemble a patient covered with sores and boils with whom we must very carefully avoid all possible contact. Now with many men matters go so far that if intellect and understanding are brought to light, or in conversation with them are not sufficiently concealed, they feel these to be a positive insult; although for the time being they hide their feelings. But afterwards, the man who lacks experience of life reflects and ruminates in vain on these matters and asks how on earth he could have incurred their rancour and hatred. By virtue of the same subjectivity, they are also just as easily flattered and won. And so their judgement is in most cases corrupt and merely a statement in favour of their party or class, not something objective and impartial. All this is due to the fact that in them the will far outweighs knowledge and their meagre intellect is wholly in the service of the will from which, even for one moment, it cannot free itself.

Astrology furnishes a splendid proof of the contemptible subjectivity of men in consequence whereof they refer everything to themselves and from every idea at once go straight back to themselves. Astrology refers the course of celestial bodies to the miserable ego; it also establishes a connection between the comets in heaven and the squabbles and rascalities on earth. But this has always been done even in the most ancient times. (See, for example, Stobaeus, Eclogae, lib. I, c. 22, § 9, p. 478.)

(27) When any absurdity is uttered in public or company, or is written in literature and well received, or at any rate is not refuted, we should not despair and think that that is the end of the matter. On the contrary, we should know and take comfort in the thought that afterwards the matter will gradually be scrutinized, elucidated, thought over, considered, discussed, and, in most cases, ultimately judged correctly. Thus after a time, the length of which will depend on the difficulty of the subject, almost everyone understands what a clear mind saw at once. Meanwhile, of course, we must be patient. For a man of correct insight among those who are duped and deluded resembles one whose watch is right while all the clocks in the town give the wrong time. He alone knows the correct time, but of what use is this to him? The whole world is guided by the clocks that show the wrong time; even those are so guided who know that his watch alone states the correct time.

(28) People resemble children in that they become naughty if we spoil them; and so we should not be too indulgent and ingratiating to anyone. As a rule, we shall not lose a friend by refusing him a loan, but may very easily do so if we grant him one. In the same way, we shall not readily lose a friend by proud and somewhat careless behaviour, but this is often possible if we show too much friendliness and courtesy, for these make him arrogant and unbearable, and thus a breach ensues. But in particular, the thought that we stand in need of men is positively too much for them; the inevitable consequences of this are arrogance and insolence. With some people rudeness to a certain extent occurs when we deal with them frequently or speak to them confidentially. Soon they will think that we ought to put up with anything from them and they will try to transgress the limits of good manners. This is why so few are fit to become more intimately acquainted with us and why we should specially guard against becoming familiar with vulgar natures. Now if a man gets the idea that he is much more necessary to me than I am to him, he at once feels as if I had stolen something from him; he will try to have his revenge and get it back. Superiority in our dealings with men results solely from our not needing them at all and our letting them see this. For this reason, it is advisable from time to time to let everyone feel, whether man or woman, that we can very well manage without them. This strengthens friendship; in fact with most men it can do no harm if, now and then, in our attitude to them we insert a grain of disdain. They attach all the more value to our friendship: chi non istima vien stimato (who esteems not is esteemed) says a fine Italian proverb. If, however, a man is really of very great value to us, we must conceal this from him as if it were a crime. Yet this is not very gratifying, but for all that it is true. Indeed dogs can hardly stand too much kindness, let alone human beings.

(29) It is often the case that those who are of a nobler nature and more highly gifted betray, especially when they are young, a surprising lack of knowledge of men and of worldly wisdom and are, therefore, easily deceived or otherwise led astray. Vulgar natures, on the other hand, are able to get on in the world much better and more rapidly. The reason for this is that, with lack of experience, we have to judge a priori and that in general no experience comes up to what is a priori. Thus this a priori suggests to common people just their own selfish point of view; but it does not do this to those who are noble and eminent. For precisely as such are they so very different from the rest; and as they appraise the thoughts and actions of others in accordance with their own, their calculation does not prove to be correct.

Now even if such a noble character· has finally learnt a posteriori, namely from the advice of others and from his own experience, what is to be expected generally from men, thus that five-sixths of them are so constituted morally or intellectually that whoever is not through circumstances brought into relation with them, had better avoid them in advance and remain as far as possible from all contact with them-still he will hardly ever obtain an adequate notion of their paltry and contemptible nature. On the contrary, as long as he lives, he will always have to extend and add to his notion of them, but in the meantime he is bound to make many miscalculations to his own detriment. Then again, after he has actually taken to heart the advice he has obtained, it will occasionally happen that, when he is in the company of those still unknown to him, he will be surprised to discover how thoroughly reasonable they all seem to be in their conversation and demeanour, how honest, sincere, virtuous, and trustworthy they are, as well as shrewd and clever. Yet this should not disturb him, for the reason is merely that nature is not like inferior poets who, when they present knaves or fools, go to work so clumsily and deliberately that we see the poet standing, as it were, behind all such characters, continually disavowing their sentiments and their words, and exclaiming in a tone of warning: 'This is a knave; that is a fool; do not attach any value to what he says.' Nature, on the other hand, goes to work as do Shakespeare and Goethe in whose dramas every character, even though he be the devil himself, carries his point while he stands before us and speaks. He is interpreted so objectively that we are drawn towards his interests and are forced to sympathize with him. For such a character, like the works of nature, is developed from an inner principle by virtue whereof what is said and done appears to be natural and thus necessary. Therefore whoever expects to see devils go through the world with horns and fools with jingling bells will always be their prey or plaything. Moreover, there is the fact that in intercourse with others people are like the moon and hunchbacks in that they always show only one side. Indeed everyone has an inborn talent for working his physiognomy up into a mask by way of mimicry. This portrays him exactly as he is really supposed to be, and since it is calculated exclusively for his own individual nature, it fits and suits him to perfection and the effect proves to be extremely deceptive. He puts on the mask whenever it is a case of ingratiating himself. We should attach as much value to it as if it were made of oilcloth, bearing in mind that admirable Italian proverb: non e si tristo cane che non meni la coda (no dog is so bad that he does not wag his tail).

In any case, we should carefully guard against forming a very favourable opinion of anyone with whom we have recently become acquainted, otherwise in the great majority of cases we shall be deceived to our shame or even our cost. Here the words of Seneca are also worth mentioning: argumenta morum ex minimis quoque licet capere [58] (Epistulae, 52). Precisely in trifles, wherein a man is off his guard, does he show his character; and then we are often able at our leisure to observe in small actions or mere mannerisms the boundless egoism which has not the slightest regard for others and in matters of importance does not afterwards deny itself, although it is disguised. We should never miss such an opportunity. If in the petty affairs and circumstances of everyday life, in the things to which the de minimis lex non curat [59]9 applies, a man acts inconsiderately, seeking merely his own advantage or convenience to the disadvantage of others; if he appropriates that which exists for everybody; then we may be sure that there is no justice in his heart, but that he would be a scoundrel even on a large scale if his hands were not tied by law and authority; we should not trust him across our threshold. Indeed, whoever boldly breaks the laws of his own circle will also break those of the State whenever he can do so without risk.*

To forgive and forget is equivalent to throwing away dearly bought experience. Now if anyone with whom we are connected or associated reveals an annoying or unpleasant trait, we have only to ask ourselves whether he is of so much value to us that we are willing to put up with the same thing from him repeatedly and frequently and in an even more aggravated form. If he is of value, there will not be much to say about it because talking is of little use. We must, therefore, let the matter pass with or without a reprimand; yet we should realize that we have in this way laid ourselves open to a repetition of the trouble. If, on the other hand, he is not of value, we have to break at once and for ever with our worthy friend, or if he is a servant, to dismiss him. For when the case occurs again, he will inevitably do exactly the same thing or something wholly analogous, even when he is now deep and sincere in his assurances of the contrary. A man can forget everything, absolutely everything, but not himself, his own true nature. For character is positively incorrigible because all man's actions flow from an inner principle by virtue whereof, under similar circumstances, he must always do the same thing and cannot do otherwise. The reader should peruse my prize-essay on the so-called freedom of the will and free himself from the erroneous idea. Therefore to make our peace with a friend, with whom we had broken, is a weakness for which we shall have to atone when at the first opportunity he again does the very same thing that had brought about the breach; indeed he does it again with more audacity and assurance because he is secretly aware of his being indispensable. The same thing holds good of servants whom we have dismissed and taken back into our service. For the same reason, we ought not to expect a man under altered circumstances to do the same thing as previously. On the contrary, people change their demeanour and sentiments just as rapidly as their interest changes; in fact their premeditated action draws a bill at so short a sight that one must be even more short-sighted not to let it go to protest.

Suppose, therefore, that we want to know how a man will act in a situation into which we are thinking of placing him; we should not build on his promises and assurances. For assuming that he were speaking sincerely, he is talking about a matter whereof he has no knowledge. Therefore we must estimate how he will act solely from a consideration of the circumstances in which he has to appear and of their conflict with his character.

To obtain generally a really necessary, clear, and thorough comprehension of the true and very melancholy nature of most people, it is very instructive to use their conduct and actions in literature as the commentary of their conduct and actions in practical life, and vice versa. This is very useful for avoiding mistaken ideas either about ourselves or about others. But no special trait of meanness or stupidity which we come across in life or literature should ever be the subject of anger and annoyance, but merely of knowledge, in that we see in it a new contribution to the characteristic qualities of the human race and accordingly bear it in mind. We shall then regard it in much the same way as the mineralogist who comes across a very characteristic specimen of a mineral. There are exceptions of course, inconceivably great exceptions, and the differences in individuals are enormous; and generally speaking, the whole world lieth in wickedness, as was said long ago. Savages eat one another and civilized folk deceive one another; and this is what is called the way of the world. What are states with all their elaborate machinery in home and foreign affairs and their measures of force-what are they but precautions for setting up barriers against the boundless iniquity of mankind? Do we not see in the whole of history how every king, as soon as he is firmly established and his country enjoys some degree of prosperity, uses these to lead his army, like a band of robbers, for the purpose of attacking neighbouring states? Are not almost all wars ultimately expeditions of plunder? In ancient times and to some extent in the Middle Ages, the conquered became the slaves of the conquerors, that is, ultimately they had to work for the latter. But the same thing has to be done by those who pay war contributions; they sacrifice the income from previous work. Dans toutes les guerres il ne s'agit que de voler, [60] says Voltaire and the Germans should be reminded of this.

(30) No man has such a character that he should be left to his own devices and be allowed entirely to go his own way; but everyone needs guidance through opinions and maxims. Now if we try to go too far in this direction and take on a character that has not sprung from our own inborn nature but merely from rational deliberation, a character that is really acquired and artificial, we shall very soon find a confirmation of the words of Horace:

[quote] Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. [61][/quote]

Thus we can very easily understand, and even discover and aptly express, a rule for our conduct towards others; and yet in real life we shall shortly afterwards violate it. Nevertheless, we should not be discouraged by this and think that it is impossible to guide our conduct in life in accordance with abstract rules and maxims, and that it is, therefore, best for us to indulge our own inclinations. On the contrary, here it is the same as with all theoretical rules and instructions for something practical; to understand the rule is the first thing, and to learn to practise it is the second. The former is gained at once by our faculty of reason, the latter gradually through practice. The pupil is shown the notes on the instrument or the parades and thrusts with the rapier; yet even with the best intentions, he at once makes a mistake and now imagines that it is absolutely impossible to observe them in the speed of reading the notes or in the heat of the duel. Nevertheless, he gradually learns through practice by stumbling, falling, and getting up again. It is the same with the rules of grammar in writing and speaking Latin. And so in no other way does a lout become a courtier, a hothead a subtle man of the world, a frank person reticent, or a man of noble birth ironical. Such self-training, however, the result of long habit, will operate as a restraint coming from without which nature never entirely ceases to resist and sometimes breaks through unexpectedly. For actions in accordance with abstract maxims are related to those that spring from an original innate tendency as a human work of art, such as a watch where form and movement are forced on to a substance foreign to them, is to a living organism wherein form and substance pervade each other and are one. A statement of the Emperor Napoleon is, therefore, confirmed by this relation between the acquired and inborn characters. He says: tout ce qui n'est pas naturel est imparfait. [62] In general, this is a rule that is applicable to everything whether in the physical or moral sphere; the sole exception that occurs to me is natural aventurine which is known to mineralogists but cannot compare with the artificial product.

Here is the place to utter a warning against any and every form of affectation. It always arouses contempt; firstly as deception which as such is cowardly because it is based on fear; and secondly as self-condemnation that is brought about by ourselves, since we try to appear to be what we are not and thus what we regard as better than what we are. To affect some quality, to plume oneself thereon, is a confession that one does not possess it. Whether it is courage, learning, intellect, wit, success with women, wealth, social position, or anything else of which a man boasts, we can conclude from this that it is precisely in this respect that he is rather weak. For it never occurs to anyone, actually in full possession of an aptitude, to parade and affect it since he is quite content with the thought of having it. This is also the meaning of the Spanish proverb: herradura que chacolotea clavo le falta (the clattering horseshoe lacks a nail). As I said at the beginning, naturally no one should unconditionally have his fling and show himself entirely as he is since the many bad and bestial elements of our nature need to be concealed. But this justifies merely something negative, dissimulation, not something positive or simulation. We should know also that affectation is recognized even before it is clear what a man really affects. Finally, it does not last for any length of time, but one day the mask falls off. Nemo potest personam diu ferre fictam: ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt. [63] (Seneca, De clementia, lib. I, c. I.)

(31) A man bears the weight of his own body without feeling it, yet he feels that of every other which he tries to move. In the same way, he does not notice his own shortcomings and vices, but only those of others. Instead of this, everyone has in others a mirror wherein he clearly sees his own vices, faults, bad manners, and offensive traits of all kinds. But in most cases, he is like the dog who barks at his own image because he does not know that he is looking at himself, but thinks he sees another dog. Whoever finds fault with others is working at his own reformation. And so those who have the inclination and are secretly in the habit of subjecting to a searching and sharp criticism other people's conduct in general, their commissions and omissions, are thus working at their own improvement and perfection. For they will possess enough justice or pride and vanity to avoid doing what they so often severely censure. The opposite holds good of those who are tolerant; thus hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. [64] The Gospel moralizes prettily on the mote in the eye of one's neighbour and on the beam in one's own; but the nature of the eye consists in looking outwards and not at itself. Therefore to note and censure faults in others is a very suitable way of becoming conscious of our own. We need a mirror to improve ourselves.

The same rule also applies as regards style and the way to write. Whoever in these admires a new folly, instead of censuring it, will imitate it. Thus every piece of folly rapidly gains ground in Germany; the Germans are very tolerant; everybody can see this. Their motto is: hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.

(32) In his youth the man of nobler nature thinks that the essential and decisive relations, and the associations arising therefrom, between men are ideal, in other words, are based on similarity of disposition, way of thinking, taste, intellectual powers, and so on. Later on, however, he discovers that they are real, that is to say, are based on some material interest. This is the foundation of almost all associations; indeed most people have no notion of any other relations. Consequently, everyone is considered from the point of view of his office, business, nation, family or generally of the position and role assigned to him by convention. In accordance with this, he is ticketed and treated like a factory article. On the other hand, what he is in and by himself and thus as a human being in virtue of his personal qualities, is mentioned only at random and therefore only by way of exception. It is set aside and ignored by anyone whenever it suits him, and thus in most cases. The more worth a man has in this respect, the less he will be pleased with the arrangements of convention and the more he will try to withdraw from their sphere. Such arrangements, however, are due to the fact that, in this world of want and need, the means for preventing these are everywhere what is essential and therefore paramount.

(33) Just as we have paper money instead of silver, so in the world, instead of true esteem and genuine friendship, there circulate outward demonstrations and mimic gestures thereof which are made to look as natural as possible. On the other hand, it may also be asked whether there are men who really deserve the true coin. In any case, I attach more value to an honest dog wagging his tail than to a hundred such gestures and demonstrations.

True genuine friendship presupposes a strong, purely objective, and wholly disinterested sympathy with another's weal and woe, and this again means our really identifying ourselves with our friend. The egoism of human nature is so much opposed to this that true friendship is one of those things which, like colossal sea-serpents, are either legendary or exist somewhere, we know not which. There are, however, many associations between men which, of course, rest mainly on concealed egoistical motives of different kinds, but nevertheless have a grain of that true and genuine friendship. In this way, they are ennobled to such an extent that, in this world of imperfections, they may with some justification be given the name of friendship. They stand far above the everyday liaisons whose nature is such that, if we heard what most of our good acquaintances said about us in our absence, we would never say another word to them.

Apart from the cases where we need serious assistance and considerable sacrifice, our best opportunity for testing the genuineness of a friend is at the moment when we tell him of a misfortune that has just befallen us. The expression of his features then reflects either true, sincere, and unalloyed grief, or confirms by its absolute composure or some other fleeting feature, the well-known maxim of La Rochefoucauld: Dans l'adversite de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous deplait pas. [65] On such occasions, the ordinary so-called friends are barely able to suppress the trace of a slight smile of satisfaction. There are few things that so certainly put people in a good humour as when we tell them of a serious misfortune that has recently befallen us, or unreservedly reveal to them some personal weakness. How characteristic!

Distance and long absence are detrimental to every friendship, however unwilling we are to admit it. For those whom we do not see, even if they were our dearest friends, gradually in the course of years dry up into abstract notions and in this way our interest in them becomes more and more rational and even traditional. On the other hand, we retain a lively and deep interest in those who are before our eyes, even if they are only pet animals. Thus is human nature tied to the senses; and so Goethe's words here hold good:

[quote] The present moment is a powerful goddess.

-- Tasso, Act IV, Sc. 4.[/quote]

House friends are often rightly so called, since they are more friends of the house than of the master, and so are more like cats than dogs.

Friends say they are sincere; enemies are so. We should, therefore, use their censure as a bitter medicine for getting to know ourselves.

Are friends in need so rare? On the contrary; no sooner have we become friendly with a man than he too is in need and wants us to lend him money.

(34) What a novice indeed is the man who imagines that to show intellect and understanding is a way to make himself popular in society! On the contrary, with the immense majority of men such qualities excite hatred and resentment; and such rancour is the more bitter, as the man who feels it has no right to complain of its cause; in fact he conceals this from himself. What precisely happens is that one man observes and feels great intellectual superiority in another with whom he is speaking and concludes, secretly and without being clearly aware of so doing, that the other man observes and feels to the same extent his inferiority and limitations. This enthymeme excites his bitterest hatred, resentment and wrath. (Cf. World as Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 19, where I quote from Dr. Johnson and from Merck, the friend of Goethe's youth.) Therefore Gracian is quite right when he says: para ser bien quisto, el unico medio vestirse la piel del mas simple de los brutos. [66] (See Oraculo manual, y arte de prudencia, 240. Obras, Amberes, 1702, Pt. II, p. 287) To display intellect and understanding is only an indirect way of reproaching others with their incapacity and stupidity. Moreover, the vulgar man is driven to revolt when he catches sight of his opposite nature, and the secret provoker of such revolt is envy. For, as we can daily see, the satisfaction of their vanity is for men a pleasure that exceeds all others; yet this is possible only by their comparing themselves with others. But there are no qualities whereof a man is so proud as those of the mind; for on these alone rests his superiority over the animals.* To show anyone decided superiority in this respect, and moreover in the presence of witnesses, is therefore exceedingly rash. In this way, he feels provoked to take revenge and will often seek an opportunity for so doing by means of insult, whereby he steps from the sphere of intelligence to that of the will where we are all alike in this respect. Therefore, whereas in society rank and riches may always count on respect and esteem, intellectual ability can never expect such treatment. In the most favourable case such ability is ignored; otherwise it is regarded as a kind of impertinence, or as something which its possessor got illegally and with which he now dares to give himself airs. For this everyone secretly tries to humiliate him in some other way and merely watches for the opportunity so to do. Even the most humble demeanour will barely succeed in obtaining forgiveness for intellectual superiority. Sadi says in the Gulistan (p. 146 of Graf's translation): 'We should realize that with the foolish man a hundred times more aversion to the wise will be found than the dislike the latter feels of the former.' On the other hand, intellectual inferiority proves to be a real recommendation. For just as warmth is beneficial to the body, so is a feeling of superiority to the mind; and thus everyone approaches the object that promises him this feeling as instinctively as he comes near a stove or into the sunshine. Now such an object is only one who is decidedly inferior in intellectual qualities in the case of men, and in beauty in the case of women. Of course, it takes a lot to give proof of real and unfeigned inferiority to many people whom we meet. On the other hand, see with what cordial friendliness a fairly good looking girl will welcome one who is positively ugly! With men physical advantages do not enter into the question very much, although we feel more comfortable next to a shorter man than next to one who is taller. Accordingly among men the stupid and ignorant and among women the ugly are generally popular and in demand. They easily acquire the reputation of an exceedingly good heart because everyone needs an excuse or pretext for his affection in order to blind both himself and others. For this reason, mental superiority of every sort is a quality that isolates men; it is shunned and hated and, as an excuse for this attitude, all kinds of faults and vices are attributed to its possessor.* Beauty among women has precisely the same effect; very pretty girls never find friends or even companions of their own sex. It is better for them never to apply for positions as lady-companions; for when they make their appearance, their prospective mistresses will scowl at them and will certainly not require such a foil either for themselves or their daughters. On the other hand, matters are quite different with the advantages of rank; for these do not, like personal qualities, work through contrast and difference, but through reflection, like the reflected light on our faces from the colours of our environment.

(35) Our trust in others is often very largely made up of laziness, selfishness, and vanity; laziness when we prefer to trust someone else instead of making inquiries ourselves and of being vigilant and active; selfishness when the need to talk about our own affairs leads us to confide a secret to someone; vanity when it is one of those things of which we are rather proud. Nevertheless, we expect our trust to be honoured.

On the other hand, we should not get angry at the distrust and suspicion of others; for here is to be found a compliment for honesty, namely the sincere admission that it is very rare, so rare, in fact, that it is one of those things whose existence is doubted.

(36) Politeness, this cardinal virtue of the Chinese, is based on two considerations, one of which I have stated in my Basis of Ethics, para. 14, and the other is as follows. Politeness is a tacit agreement that we shall mutually ignore and refrain from reproaching one another's miserable defects, both moral and intellectual. In this way, they do not so readily come to light, to the advantage of both sides.

Politeness is prudence and consequently rudeness is folly. To make enemies by being wantonly and unnecessarily rude is as crazy as setting one's house on fire. For politeness is admittedly false coin, like a counter; to be niggardly with it shows a want of intelligence, whereas to be generous with it is prudent. All nations end a letter with votre tres-humble serviteur, your most obedient servant, [67] suo devotissimo servo. Only the Germans refrain from using the word' servant', because, of course, it is not true! On the other hand, to carry politeness to the point of sacrificing one's interests is like giving gold coins instead of counters. Wax, by nature hard and brittle, becomes so pliable with a little warmth that it assumes any desired shape. In the same way, through some politeness and friendliness, even the peevish and malevolent can be made manageable and accommodating. Accordingly, politeness is to man what warmth is to wax.

Of course, politeness is difficult in so far as it requires us to show to everyone the greatest respect, whereas most people merit none. Again, we have to feign the liveliest interest in them, whereas we must be very glad not to have anything to do with them. To combine politeness with pride is a masterpiece.

We should be much less upset over insults, as being really always expressions of disrespect, if, on the one hand, we did not cherish a wholly exaggerated notion of our own value and dignity and thus an excessive haughtiness and, on the other, were quite clear as to what one man in his heart usually thinks of another. What a glaring contrast there is between the sensitiveness of most people over the slightest hint of any blame attaching to them, and what they would hear if the remarks of their friends about them came to their ears! On the contrary, we should bear in mind that ordinary politeness is only a grinning mask; we should then not raise an outcry when it is shifted a little or is removed for a moment. But when a man is positively rude, it is as if he had cast off all his clothes and stood before us in puris naturalibus. [68] Of course, like most people in this condition, he cuts a poor figure.

(37) For what we do or omit to do we should not take someone else as our model because position and circumstances are never the same and difference in character also gives to an action a different touch and tone. Hence duo cum faciunt idem, non est idem. [69] We must act in accordance with our own character after ripe reflection and clear thought. Therefore in practical affairs, originality is indispensable, otherwise what we do is not in keeping with what we are.

(38) We should not join issue with anyone's opinion, but must remember that, if we tried to talk him out of all the absurdities he believes, we might live to be as old as Methuselah without getting the better of him.

In conversation we should also refrain from correcting people, however well meant our remarks may be; for it is easy to offend but difficult, if not impossible, to make amends.

If the absurdities of a conversation we happen to hear begin to annoy us, we must imagine that it is a scene in a comedy between two fools. Probatum est.70 Whoever has come into the world seriously to instruct it in the most important things, can count himself lucky if he escapes with a whole skin.

(39) Whoever wants his judgement to be believed, should express it coolly and dispassionately; for all vehemence springs from the will. And so the judgement might be attributed to the will and not to knowledge, which by its nature is cold. Now since the radical element in man is the will, whereas knowledge is merely secondary and additional, people will sooner believe that the judgement has sprung from the excited will than that the excitation of the will has arisen from the judgement.

(40) Even when we are fully entitled to do so, we should not be tempted to praise ourselves. For vanity is something so ordinary, but merit so unusual that whenever we appear to praise ourselves, although only indirectly, everyone will wager a hundred to one that ours is the language of vanity and that we have not enough sense to see the absurdity of the thing. Yet in spite of everything, Bacon may not be entirely wrong when he says that the semper aliquid haeret applies not only to slander but also to self-praise, and therefore recommends the latter in moderate doses. (Cf. De augmentis scitntiarum, Leiden, 1645, lib. VIII, c. 2, pp. 644 seq.) [71]

(41) If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked. If, on the other hand, we notice that he has let slip part of a truth he would like to conceal, we should look as though we did not believe him. Provoked by the contradiction, he may follow up with the rear-guard of the whole truth.

(42) We have to regard all our personal affairs as secrets and must remain complete strangers, even to our good friends, in respect of everything about us which they cannot see with their own eyes. For in the course of time and with changed circumstances their knowledge of the most harmless things about us may be to our disadvantage. In general, it is more advisable to show our discernment by what we refrain from saying than by what we say. The former is a matter of prudence, the latter of vanity. The opportunities for both occur equally often; but we frequently prefer the fleeting satisfaction afforded by the latter to the permanent advantage secured by the former. Even the feeling of relief which occurs to lively people, when they speak aloud to themselves, should not be indulged lest it become a habit. For in this way, thought establishes such friendly terms with speech that even speaking to others gradually becomes like thinking aloud. Prudence, on the other hand, requires that we maintain a wide gulf between what we think and what we say.

Occasionally we imagine that others cannot possibly believe something concerning us, whereas it does not occur to them at all to doubt it. Yet if, through our action, this does occur to them, they are no longer able to believe it. But we often betray ourselves merely because we think it impossible for people not to notice this; just as we throw ourselves down from a height on account of giddiness, in other words, because we think it is impossible here to stand firm; the agony of standing here is so great that we think it better to cut it short. This vain imagining is called vertigo.

On the other hand, we should realize that even those who do not display any acuteness and acumen in other respects are experts in the algebra of other people's affairs. Here by means of a single given quantity, they solve the most complicated problems. If, for example, we tell them about a former event, without mentioning any names or giving any other descriptions of persons, we should be careful not to introduce any absolutely positive and particular circumstance, however insignificant, such as a place, a point of time, the name of someone of secondary importance, or anything else even only indirectly connected with it. For in this way they at once have a quantity positively given whereby their algebraical acumen discovers all the rest. The enthusiasm of curiosity is here so great that, by virtue thereof, the will spurs on the intellect and thus drives it to the attainment of the remotest results. For however insusceptible and indifferent men are to universal truths, they are keen on those that are individual and particular.

In accordance with all this, all the teachers of wordly wisdom have most urgently and with many different arguments recommended reticence and reserve; and so I can let the matter rest with what has already been said. I will, however, give one or two Arabian maxims that are particularly striking and little known. 'Do not tell your friend what your enemy ought not to know.' 'If I maintain silence about my secret, it is my prisoner; if I let it slip from my tongue, I am its prisoner.' 'On the tree of silence hangs the fruit of peace.'

(43) No money is spent to better advantage than that of which we have allowed ourselves to be defrauded; for with it we have directly purchased prudence.

(44) If possible, we should not feel animosity for anyone; yet we should note and remember everyone's procedes or actions in order to estimate his worth, at any rate in regard to ourselves, and accordingly to regulate our conduct and attitude towards him, always convinced that character is unalterable. To forget at any time the bad traits of a man's character is like throwing away hard-earned money. But in this way, we protect ourselves from foolish familiarity and foolish friendship.

'Neither love nor hate' contains a half of all wordly wisdom; 'say nothing and believe nothing' contains the other half. But, of course, we shall be only too glad to turn our back on a world where such rules and the following are necessary.

(45) Hatred or anger in what we say or in the way we look is futile, dangerous, imprudent, ridiculous, and common. Therefore we must never show anger or hatred except in our actions. We shall be able to do the latter more effectively in so far as we have avoided the former. It is only cold-blooded animals that are poisonous.

(46) Parler sans accent. [72] The object of this old rule of the worldly wise is that we should leave to the intelligence of others to discover what we have said. Their intelligence is slow and before it has arrived at our meaning we are off. On the other hand, parler avec accent is equivalent to addressing their feelings, and everything turns out the very opposite. If we are polite in manner and friendly in tone, we can without immediate risk be really rude to many a man.

[b]D. Our Attitude to the Ways of the World and to Fate[/b]

(47) Whatever form human life assumes, there are always the same elements and therefore it is essentially the same everywhere, whether it is passed in the cottage or at court, in the cloister or the army. Its events, adventures, successes, and misfortunes may be ever so varied, yet it is with life as with confectionery; there is a great variety of things, odd in shape and diverse in colour, but all are made from the same paste; and what has happened to one man resembles much more what has befallen another than we think from hearing the different versions. The events of our life are like the pictures in a kaleidoscope wherein we see something different at every turn; yet in reality we have before us always the same thing.

(48) An ancient writer very pertinently remarks that there are three forces in the world: [x, x, x,] prudence, strength, and luck. I believe the last to be the most powerful; for our life can be compared to the course of a ship. Fate, [x], secunda aut adversa fortuna, [73] plays the part of the wind in that it speeds us on our course or plunges us a long way back; against this our own efforts and exertions are of little avail. These play the part of the oars; if they have carried us forward some distance through long hours of toil, a sudden gust of wind can cast us back just as far. If, on the other hand, the wind is favourable, it can carry us so far forward that we do not need to use the oars. The power of luck is admirably expressed by a Spanish proverb: Da ventura a tu hijo, y echa la en el mar (give your son luck and cast him into the sea).

Chance is indeed a malignant power to which we should leave as little as possible. Yet which of all the givers is the only one who, in giving, at the same time most clearly shows us that we have no claim or title to his gifts; that for them we have certainly not to thank our merits and deserts but simply his goodness and grace; and that these alone permit us to cherish the joyful hope of receiving, in all humility, many another unmerited gift? Such a giver is chance. Chance understands the royal art of making clear to us that all merit is powerless and unavailing against his favour and grace.

When we look back at the course of our life; when we survey our 'labyrinthine way of error', [74] and now must see so many cases in which our luck failed, so many instances of misfortune, we can easily go too far in reproaching ourselves. For the course of our life is certainly not our own work, but the product of two factors, the series of events and that of our resolves, which are always acting on and modifying each other. Moreover, there is the fact that in both of these our horizon is always very limited, since we cannot state our resolves far in advance and still less are we able to foresee future events; but in reality only the resolves and events of the present are actually known to us. Therefore as long as our goal is still very remote, we cannot steer straight towards it, but must direct our course only approximately and by conjecture; and so we must often tack about and alter course. Thus all we can do is to make our decisions always in accordance with our present circumstances, hoping to be able to bring nearer to us the principal goal. Thus events and our chief aims can in most cases be compared to two forces that pull in different directions, their resultant diagonal being the course of our life. Terence has said: In vita est hominum quasi cum ludas tesseris: si illud, quod maxime opus est jactu, non cadit, illud quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas. [75] Here he must have had in mind a kind of backgammon. More briefly we can say that fate shuffles the cards and we play. For the purpose of expressing my present remarks, the following simile would appear to be the most suitable. Life is like a game of chess; we draw up a plan, but this remains conditioned by what in the game the opponent, in life fate, will be inclined to do. The modifications that our plan thereby undergoes are often so great that when it is being carried out several of its fundamental features are scarcely recognizable.

Moreover, there is in the course of our lives something above and beyond all else, namely a trivial truth, only too frequently confirmed, that we are often more foolish than we think. On the other hand, we are often wiser than we ourselves imagine, a discovery made only by those who in the event have been so and even then have taken a long time to make it. There is in us something wiser than our head. Thus in the big moves of our life, in the important steps of its course, we act not so much from a clear knowledge of what is right as from an inner impulse, one might say instinct, that comes from the depths of our very being. If afterwards we criticize our actions in the light of clear conceptions that are inadequate, acquired, or even borrowed, in the light of general rules, of other people's examples, and so on, without sufficiently weighing the maxim 'what suits one need not suit all', then we shall easily do ourselves an injustice. But in the end, it is seen who was right and only the man who has luckily attained old age is capable of judging the matter both subjectively and objectively.

Perhaps that inner impulse is under the unconscious guidance of prophetic dreams that are forgotten when we are awake. In this way they give to our life an evenness of tone and dramatic unity such as could never be given to it by our conscious brain that is so often irresolute, unstable, rambling, and easily altered. In consequence of such dreams, for instance, the man who has a vocation for great achievements of a definite kind inwardly and secretly feels this from his youth up and works in this direction, just as do bees in the building of their hive. But for everyone it is this that Baltasar Gracian calls la gran sinderesis, the great instinctive protection of himself, without which he is lost. To act in accordance with abstract principles is difficult and succeeds only after much practice, and even then not invariably; moreover they are often inadequate. On the other hand, everyone has certain innate concrete principles that are in his very blood and marrow, since they are the result of all his thinking, feeling, and willing. Usually he does not know them in the abstract, but only when he looks back on his life does he become aware that he has always observed them and has been drawn by them as by an invisible thread. According as they are, so will they lead him to his good or adverse fortune.

(49) We should constantly bear in mind the effect of time and the transient nature of things. Therefore in the case of everything now taking place, we should at once vividly picture to ourselves its opposite; thus in prosperity misfortune, in friendship enmity, in fine weather bad weather, in love hatred, in confidence and frankness betrayal and regret, and so also in the reverse case. This would give us a permanent source of true wordly wisdom, since we should always remain thoughtful and not be so easily deceived. In most cases we should thus have anticipated merely the effect of time. But possibly to no form of knowledge is experience so indispensable as to a correct appreciation of the instability and fluctuation of things. Just because every state or condition exists for the time of its duration necessarily and thus with absolute right, every year, every month, or every day looks as if it could now at last retain the right to exist to all eternity. But none retains it and change alone endures. The prudent man is he who is not deceived by the apparent stability of things and in addition sees in advance the direction that the change will first take.* On the other hand, men as a rule regard as permanent the state of things for the time being or the direction of their course. This is because they see the effects, but do not understand the causes; yet it is these that bear the seed of future changes, whereas the effect that exists solely for those men contains no such seed. They stick to the effects and assume that the causes unknown to them which were able to produce such effects will also be in a position to maintain them. Here they have the advantage that, if they err, they always do so in unison; and so the calamity that hits them as the result of their error is universal, whereas when the thinker has made a mistake, he stands alone. Here, incidentally, we have a confirmation of my principle that error is always the result of concluding from the consequent to the reason or ground. See World as Will and Representation, vol. i, § 15.

Nevertheless, we should anticipate time only theoretically and by foreseeing its effect, not practically and thus not so that we forestall it and demand prematurely what only time can bring. For whoever does this will discover that there is no worse and more exacting usurer than time; and if time is forced to make advances, it will demand heavier interest than would any Jew. For example, by means of unslaked lime and heat, we can so force a tree that within a few days it will bear leaves, blossom, and fruit; but it will then wither away and die. If a youth tries now to exercise the procreative power of a man, even if only for a few weeks, and wants to do at nineteen what he could very easily do at thirty, time will at any rate give him the advance, but a portion of the strength of his future years, in fact of his life itself, will be the interest. There are illnesses from which we completely recover only by our letting them run their natural course, after which they automatically disappear without leaving a trace. But if we demand to be well now and at once, so too must time here make an advance; the disease is cured, but the interest will be weakness and chronic complaint for the rest of our lives. When in time of war or civil disturbances we need money here and now, we are obliged to sell landed property or government stock for a third of their value, or even less, which we should have received in full had we given time its due and had, therefore, been willing to wait a few years; but we force time to grant an advance. Or we require a sum of money for a long journey; in a year to two we could have set it aside from our income. But we are unwilling to wait; the sum is, therefore, borrowed or sometimes taken from capital; in other words, time must advance the money. The interest will then be a disordered state of our accounts, a permanent and growing deficit from which we shall never be free. This, then, is time's usury; its victims are all those who cannot wait. To try to force the measured pace of time is a most costly undertaking. We should, therefore, guard against owing any interest to time.

(50) A characteristic difference, frequently appearing in everyday life, between ordinary and prudent men is that, when considering and estimating possible dangers, the former merely ask and take into account what of a similar nature has happened already; whereas the latter reflect on what might possibly happen and thus have in mind the words of a Spanish proverb: lo que no acaece en un ano, acaece en un rato (what does not happen within a year may happen within a few minutes). Of course, the difference in question is natural; for to survey what may happen requires discernment, but to see what has happened needs only our senses.

Our maxim, however, should be: sacrifice to evil spirits! In other words, we should not be afraid to spend time, trouble, and money, to put up with formalities and inconvenience, and to go without things, in order to shut the door on the possibility of misfortune. And the greater this may be, the smaller, more remote, and more improbable may be the possibility. The clearest example of this rule is the insurance premium; it is a sacrifice publicly made by all on the altar of evil spirits.

(51) We should not give way to great rejoicings or great lamentation over any incident partly because all things change and this alters its form; and partly because our judgement concerning what is favourable or unfavourable is deceptive. Consequently, almost everyone has at some time lamented over something that afterwards turned out for the best, or rejoiced over something that became the source of his greatest sufferings. The attitude of mind, here recommended to combat this, has been finely expressed by Shakespeare:

[quote]I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief

That the first face of neither, on the start,

Can woman me unto't.

-- All's Well that Ends Well, Act III, Sc. 2.)[/quote]

But in general, whoever remains calm and unruffled in spite of every misfortune, shows that he knows how colossal and thousandfold are the possible evils of life; and therefore he regards what has now occurred as a very small part of what could happen. This is the temperament of the Stoic, in accordance with which we should never conditionis humanae oblitus, [76] but should always bear in mind what a woeful and wretched fate human existence is in general and how innumerable are the evils to which it is exposed. To be reminded of this insight into things, we need only cast a glance around us; wherever we are, we shall soon have before our eyes that struggling, tormenting, and floundering for a bare miserable existence that yields nothing. Accordingly we shall moderate our claims, learn to submit to the imperfection of circumstances and things, and always look out for misfortunes in order to avoid or endure them. For misfortunes, great and small, are the element of our lives and we should, therefore, always bear this in mind. Nevertheless, we should not, for this reason, lament and like a [x] [77] pull a long face with Beresford [78] over the hourly Miseries of Human Life, still less in pulicis morsu Deum invocare. [79] On the contrary, like a [x], [80] we should practise caution by forestalling and averting misfortunes, whether they come from people or things, and should become so refined in this that, like a clever fox, we neatly slip out of the way of every misfortune, great or small (which is in most cases only an awkwardness in disguise.)

A misfortune is for us less hard to bear if we have previously regarded it as possible and, as the saying is, have prepared ourselves to meet it. The main reason for this may be that, if we calmly think over the case as a mere possibility before it has occurred, we survey the extent of the misfortune clearly and in all directions and thus recognize it, at any rate, as finite and visible at a glance. Consequently, when it actually hits us, it cannot affect us with more than its true weight. On the other hand, if we have not thought over the matter and are caught unawares, our terrified mind is unable in the first instance to make a precise estimate of the magnitude of the misfortune. We cannot survey its extent and it easily appears to be incalculable, or at any rate much greater than it really is In the same way, obscurity and uncertainty make every danger appear to be greater than it is in reality. And, of course, there is also the fact that, while we have anticipated the misfortune as possible, we have at the same time thought of measures for obtaining help and consolation or at any rate have accustomed ourselves to a conception of it.

But nothing will better enable us to bear with composure the misfortunes that befall us than the conviction of the truth I have derived and established from its ultimate grounds in my prize-essay' On the Freedom of the Will'. There it says (Pt. Ill, at the end): 'Everything that happens, from the greatest to the smallest, happens with necessity.' For a man is soon able to reconcile himself to what is inevitably necessary; and that knowledge enables him to regard everything, even that which is brought about by the strangest chances, as just as necessary as that which ensues in accordance with the most familiar rules and in complete anticipation. I refer the reader to what I have said about the soothing effect of the knowledge that everything is inevitable and necessary (World as Will and Representation, vol. i, § 55). Whoever is imbued with this knowledge, will first of all willingly do what he can, but will then readily suffer what he must.

The petty misfortunes that vex us every hour may be regarded as intended to keep us in practice so that the strength to endure great misfortunes may not be wholly dissipated in prosperity. We must be a horny Siegfried [81] against the daily annoyances, the petty frictions and dissensions in human intercourse, trifling offences, the insolence of others, their gossip, scandal, and so on. In other words, we must not feel them at all, much less take them to heart and brood over them. On the contrary, we should not be touched by any of these things and should kick them away like stones that lie in our path. We should certainly not take them up and seriously reflect and ruminate on them.

(52) But what men usually call fate are often only their own stupid actions. Therefore we cannot too often take to heart the fine passage in Homer (Iliad, XXIII. 313ff.) where he recommends [x], i.e. prudent reflection. For if wicked actions are atoned for only in the next world, stupid ones are already atoned for in this, although now and then mercy may be shown.

Not ferocity but cunning has a terrible and dangerous look; so surely is man's brain a more terrible weapon than the lion's claw.

The perfect man of the world would be the one who was never irresolute and never in a hurry.

(53) Next to prudence, however, courage is a quality essential to our happiness. Of course, we cannot give ourselves either the one or the other, but inherit the former from our mother and the latter from our father. Yet whatever exists of these qualities may be helped by resolution and practice. In this world where 'the dice are loaded', we need a temper of iron, armour against fate, and weapons against mankind. For the whole of life is a struggle, every step is contested, and Voltaire rightly says: on ne reussit dans ce monde qu' a la pointe de l'epee, et on meurt les armes a la main. [82] It is, therefore, a cowardly soul who shrinks, laments, and loses heart, when clouds gather or even only appear on the horizon. On the contrary, our motto should be:

[quote] tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. [83][/quote]

So long as the issue of any dangerous affair is still in doubt and there is still a possibility that it may turn out successfully, we should not think of nervousness or hesitation, but only of resistance; just as we should not despair of the weather so long as there is still a blue patch in the sky. In fact we should be induced to say:

[quote] Si fractus illabatur orbis,

Impavidum ferient ruinae. [84] [/quote]

The whole of life itself, not to mention its blessings, is still not worth such a cowardly trembling and shrinking of the heart:

[quote] Quocirca vivite fortes,

Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus. [85][/quote]

And yet even here an excess is possible, for courage can degenerate into recklessness. Even a certain amount of timidity is necessary for our existence in the world and cowardice is merely the transgression of this measure. Bacon has admirably expressed this in his etymological explanation of the Terror panicus which is far superior to the older one that is preserved for us by Plutarch (On Isis and Osiris, c. 14). Thus he derives it from Pan, the personification of nature, and says: Natura enim rerum omnibus viventibus indidit metum, ac formidinem, vitae atque essentiae suae conservatricem, ac mala ingruentia vitantem et depellentem. Verumtamen eadem natura modum tenere nescia est: sed timoribus salutaribus semper vanos et inanes admiscet, adeo ut omnia (si intus conspici darentur) Panicis terroribus plenissima sint, praesertim humana. [86] (De sapientia veterum, lib. VI.) Moreover, the characteristic feature of the Terror panicus is that it is not clearly conscious of its reasons, but presupposes rather than knows them; in fact, if necessary, it urges fear itself as the reason of fear.

_______________

[b]Notes:[/b]

1 ['Happiness is only a dream and pain is real.']

2 ['To get through life, to overcome life'.]

3 [' If only we get over it!']

4 ['We must try to get along as well as we can.']

5 [' He will get through the world.']

6 [' Leave well alone!']

7 ['The chooser of the golden mean is certainly far removed from the squalor of the broken hovel and far enough from the envied splendours of the prince's palace. Caught by the storm, the crown of the mighty pine sways in the wind, the tallest towers crash heavily down, and the mountain tops are struck by thunderbolts.' (Horace, Odes, n. 10. 5-12.)]

8 [' No human affair is worth our troubling ourselves very much about it.']

9 ['Unceremoniously'.]

10 ['Society, circles, salons, what is called high society, is a miserable play, a bad opera, without interest, which is kept going for a while by the stage effects, the costumes, and the decorations.']

11 ['Why do you wear out your soul that is too weak for eternal plans?']

12 [i.e. Pamina.]

13 ['No other happiness than learning do I feel.']

14 ['Know thyself.']

15 ['But however much it mortified us, we will let bygones be bygones; and hard as it may be for us, we will subdue the peevishness in our hearts.' (Homer, Iliad, XVIII. 112f.)]

16 ['This lies in the lap of the gods.' (Homer, Iliad, XVII. 514.)]

17 ['Regard each particular day as a special life.' (Seneca, Epistulae, 101, 10.)]

18 ['On nothing have I set my hopes.']

 19 ['It is difficult to keep quiet when one has nothing to do.']

* Just as our body is covered with clothes, so is our mind with lies. Our words, our actions, our whole nature are deceitful; and only through this veil can our true sentiments sometimes be guessed, just as the shape of the body is guessed through the clothes.

20 ['All my possessions I carry with me.']

21 ['Happiness belongs to those who are easily contented.']

22 ['Good form'.)

23 ['When good form appears, good common sense retires.']

24 ['It is impossible for anyone not to be perfectly happy who depends entirely on himself and possesses in himself alone all that he calls his.']

 * It is well known that evils are alleviated by the fact that we bear them in  common. People seem to regard boredom as one of these and therefore get together  in order to be bored in common. Just as the love of life is at bottom only fear of  death, so too the urge to be sociable is at bottom not direct. Thus it does not depend  on love of society, but on the fear of loneliness, since it is not so much the pleasant  company of others which is sought, as rather the dreariness and oppression of being  alone, together with the monotony of one's own consciousness, that are avoided.  Therefore to escape this, we put up with bad company and tolerate the burden  and feeling of restriction that all society necessarily entails. If, on the other hand,  a dislike of all this has triumphed and consequently a habit of solitude and an  inurement to its immediate impression have arisen so that it no longer produces the  effects previously described, then we can always be alone with the greatest ease and  without hankering after society. For the need of society is not direct and, on the  other hand, we are now accustomed to the wholesome virtues of solitude.

25 ['Stupidity suffers from its own weariness.' (Seneca, Epistulae, 9.)]

26 ['All our trouble comes from our not being able to be alone.']

27 ['Abstemiousness in food guarantees the health of our body, and that in association with men secures the peace of our soul.']

   * In this sense, Sadi says in the Gulistan: 'Since this time, we have taken leave of  society, and have resolved to follow the path of seclusion. For safety resides in solitude.'

28 ["The earth swarms with people who are not worth talking to.']

29 ['A lonely life have I always sought

(Stream, field, and wood can speak of this),

Fleeing from those dull and feeble spirits,

Through whom I cannot choose the path of light.'

-- Sonnet 221.)][/quote]

30 ['It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is often as if one were to say of a man that he does not like going for a walk because he is not fond of walking at night in the forest of Bondy.']

31 ['Many who on earth wished to enjoy a divine life, have said with one voice: "Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness:" (Psalms 55: 7.)]

32 [Goethe's Faust, Bayard Taylor's translation.]

33 ['Bring yourself to be reasonable.']

   34 ['For there is nothing perfect on earth.']

* People's envy shows how unhappy they feel. Their constant attention to the affairs of others shows how heavily time hangs on their hands.

35 ['The Cafe or the New Comedy'.]

36 ['We will find pleasure in what we have got without making comparisons. We shall never be happy if we are worried that someone else is luckier than we.... If you see many who are better off than you, think of how many who are worse off.']

37 ['Companions in misfortune'.]

38 ['Privileged minds have equal rank with sovereigns.']

39 ['Not to set in motion what is at rest.']

40 ['Harness the horse and send him off!']

41 ['Self-tormentor'.]

 42 [' Whoever is not chastised is not properly brought up.' 'Spare the rod, spoil  the child.']

43 [Schopenhauer uses the English expression 'blue devils' alongside the German die schwarzen Phantasien.]

44 ['Agitated', 'confused', 'dazed', 'bewildered'.]

45 ['To ruin the purpose of life in order to live.']

46 ['If you want to subject everything to yourself, then subject yourself to reason.']

47 ['Bear and forbear.']

48 ['Always read between the lines of what you are doing, and ask the wise men how you may pass your life with an easy mind, so that you may not be tormented by desire, fear, or the hope for things that are of little use.' (Epistles, I. 18. 95-9.)]

40 [' Life consists in movement.']

50 [' It is difficult to keep quiet when one has nothing to do.']

51 ['Every fool has his cap and bells.']

52 [' With a grain of salt.']

 53 ['I see thee.']

*  Sleep is a morsel of death which we borrow anticipando and for this we restore and renew the life that is exhausted by a day. Le sommeil est un emprunt fait a la mort. Sleep borrows from death for the maintenance of life; or it is the provisional interest of death, death itself being the paying off of the capital. The higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the later is the paying off demanded.

 54 [From Goethe's Faust, Pt. 1, Bayard Taylor's translation.]

55 ['Indeed this is impossible.']

56 ['Pudendum'.]

57 ['The degree of intellect necessary to please us is a fairly accurate measure of the degree of intellect that we possess.']

* If in men, as they are in most cases, the good outweighed the bad, it would be more advisable to rely on their justice, fairness, gratitude, fidelity, love, or compassion than on their fear. But since the bad outweighs the good, the opposite course is more advisable.

58  ['We can obtain proofs of the nature of a man's character even from trifles.']

59 ['The law is not concerned with trifles.']

60 [' In all wars it is only a question of stealing.']

61 ['Expel nature with a pitchfork, she still comes back.' (Epistles, I. 10. 24.)]

 62 ['Everything that is not natural is imperfect.']

63 ['No one can wear a mask for long; sham and pretence rapidly return to their original nature.']

64 ['We beg this freedom for ourselves and likewise grant it to others.' (Horace, Ars poetiea, II.)]

65 ['In the misfortune of our best friends we always find something that does not displease us.']

* It can be said that man has given himself the will, for this is man himself. The intellect, however, is an endowment that he has obtained from heaven, in other words, from eternal and mysterious fate and its necessity whose mere instrument was his mother.

66 ['The only way to be popular is for us to be clad in the skin of the stupidest of animals.']

 * For getting on in the world, friends and comrades are by far the most important  means. Great abilities, however, make a man proud and thus little inclined to flatter  those who have only limited ability and from whom indeed he should, therefore, conceal and never show his own. The consciousness of only limited ability has the opposite effect. It is admirably compatible with a humble, affable, and kindly nature and with a respectful attitude to what is bad, and therefore produces friends and supporters.

What has been said applies not only to the public service, but also to posts of honour and rank and indeed to fame in the learned world. Thus, for example, in the academies near mediocrity is always at the top, whereas men of merit enter at a late hour or never at all; and so it is with everything.

67 [Schopenhauer's own English.]

68 ['Naked'.]

69 ['When two people do the same thing, it is not the same.']

70 ['It is tested and proved.']

71 (Schopenhauer refers to the passage in Bacon's work where it says: 'Just as it is usually said of slander that something always sticks when people boldly slander, so it might be said of self-praise (if it is not entirely shameful and ridiculous) that if we praise ourselves fearlessly, something will always stick.']

 72 ['To speak without emphasis'.]

 73 ['Favourable or adverse fortune'.]

74 [Goethe's Faust, Pt. I.]

75 ['Human life is like a game of dice. If the dice does not turn up as you want it, then skill must improve what chance has offered.' (Adelphi, IV, 7; II. 739-41.)]

* Chance has so great a scope in all things human that when we try through present sacrifices to prevent a danger that threatens from afar, it often vanishes through an unforeseen state which things assume; and then not only are the sacrifices wasted, but the change brought about by them, with the altered state of things, is now a positive disadvantage. Thus in our precautionary measures, we must not look too far into the future, but must also reckon on chance and boldly face many a danger, hoping that it will pass like many a dark thunder cloud.

76 ['Forget the condition of man.']

77 ['Discontented person'.]

78 [The full title of the work is: 'The Miseries of Human Life; or the last groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive, with a few supplementary sighs from Mrs Testy'.]

79 ['To invoke the Deity for every flea-bite'.]

80 [' Prudent and thoughtful person'.]

81 [A reference to Siegfried, the German mythical hero, who encountered many adventures in his youth. His cloak of invisibility gave him the strength of twelve men.]

82 ['In this world we succeed only at the point of the sword and we die with weapons in hand.']

83 ['Do not give way to the evil, but face it more boldly.' (Virgil, Aeneid, VI. 95.)]

84 ['Even if the world collapses over him, the ruins still leave him undismayed.' (Horace, Odes, III. 3. 7-8.)]

85 ['Therefore he lives bravely and presents a bold front to the blows of fate.' (Horace, Satires, II. 2. 135-6.)]

 86 ['For the nature of things has infused all living beings with fear and terror  as the preserver of their lives and for avoiding and warding off the evils that overtake  them. However, this nature is here unable to exercise moderation, but always  mixes vain and empty misgivings with those that are wholesome so that all beings,  especially human, are full of this panic terror (if we could see into their hearts).']

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