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PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA: SHORT PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS |
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[b]CHAPTER 8: On Ethics[/b]
§ 108
Physical truths can have much external significance, but lack internal. The latter is the prerogative of intellectual and moral truths which have as their theme the highest stages of the objectification of the will, whereas the former have the lowest. If, for example, we reached certainty concerning what is now merely surmise, namely that the sun at the equator gives rise to thermo-electricity, this to the earth's magnetism, and this again to polar light, such truths would be of great external significance, but of little internal. On the other hand, examples of internal significance are afforded not only by all superior and genuinely intellectual philosophemes, but also by the catastrophe of every good tragedy and even by the observation of human conduct in its extreme expressions of morality and immorality and thus of wickedness and goodness. For in all this there stands out the true essence whose phenomenal appearance is the world; and at the highest stage of its objectification it brings to light its inner nature.
§ 109
That the world has only a physical and not a moral significance is a fundamental error, one that is the greatest and most pernicious, the real perversity of the mind. At bottom, it is also that which faith has personified as antichrist. Nevertheless, and in spite of all religions which one and all assert the contrary and try to establish this in their own mythical way, that fundamental error never dies out entirely, but from time to time raises its head afresh until universal indignation forces it once more to conceal itself.
But however certain the feeling is of a moral significance of the world and life, its elucidation and the unravelling of the contradiction between it and the course of the world are so difficult that it was reserved for me to expound the true and only genuine and pure foundation of morality which is, therefore, always and everywhere sound, together with the goal to which it leads. Here I have the reality of moral events too much on my side for me to have to be concerned whether this doctrine could ever again be superseded and displaced by another.
However, so long as my ethics continues to be ignored by the professors, the Kantian moral principle prevails at the universities and of its different forms the most popular is now that of the 'Dignity of Man'. I have already expounded the hollowness of this in my essay On the Basis of Ethics, § 8. And so here we say only this much. Ifit were asked in general on what this so-called dignity of man rested, the answer would soon be that it rested on his morality. Thus the morality rests on the dignity and the dignity on the morality. But even apart from this, it seems to me that the notion of dignity could be applied only ironically to a creature like man who is so sinful in will, so limited in intellect, and so vulnerable and feeble in body:
[quote]Quid superbit homo? cujus conceptio culpa, Nasci poena, labor vita, necesse mori! [1][/quote]
I would, therefore, like to lay down the following rule in contrast to the above-mentioned moral principle of Kant. In the case of every man with whom we come in contact, we should not undertake an objective estimation of his worth and dignity; and so we should not take into consideration the wickedness of his will, the limitation of his intellect, or the perversity of his notions; for the first could easily excite our hatred and the last our contempt. On the contrary, we should bear in mind only his sufferings, his need, anxiety, and pain. We shall then always feel in sympathy with him, akin to him, and, instead of hatred or contempt, we shall experience compassion; for this alone is the [x] [2] to which the Gospel summons us. The standpoint of sympathy or compassion is the only one suitable for curbing hatred or contempt, certainly not that of seeking our pretended 'dignity'.
§ 110
In consequence of their deeper ethical and metaphysical views, the Buddhists start not from the cardinal virtues, but from the cardinal vices, as the opposite or negation of which the cardinal virtues first make their appearance. According to 1. J. Schmidt's Geschichte der Ostmongolen, p. 7, the Buddhist cardinal vices are lust, idleness, anger, and greed. But probably arrogance should take the place of idleness; they are stated thus in the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, 1819 edn., volume vi, p. 372, where, however, envy or hatred is added as a fifth. My correction of the highly eminent I.J. Schmidt's statement is supported by its agreement with the teachings of the Sufis who in any case are under the influence of Brahmanism and Buddhism. These two lay down the same cardinal vices and indeed very effectively in pairs, so that lust is seen associated with greed, and anger with arrogance. (See Tholuck's Bluthensammlung aus der morgenlandischen Mystik, p. 206.) Even in the Bhagavadgita (chap. 16(21) we find lust, anger, and greed laid down as the cardinal vices, a fact that testifies to the great age of the doctrine. Similarly in the Prabodha Chandro Daya, this philosophical allegorical drama that is so important for the Vedanta philosophy, these three cardinal vices appear as the three generals of King Passion in his war against King Reason [Vernunft]. The cardinal virtues opposed to those cardinal vices would prove to be chastity and generosity together with meekness and mildness.
Now if we compare these deeply conceived, oriental basic ideas of ethics with Plato's cardinal virtues that are so famous and are repeated so many thousands of times, namely justice, bravery, moderation, and wisdom, we shall find that these are without a clear guiding fundamental idea and that they are, therefore, superficially chosen and in part even palpably false. Virtues must be qualities of the will; but wisdom is connected primarily with the intellect. The [x] that is translated by Cicero as temperantia, and into German as Massigkeit [moderation, temperance], is a very indefinite and ambiguous expression under which, of course, many different things may be brought, such as circumspection, prudence, coolness, sobriety, or holding up one's head. It comes probably from [x], [3] or as the writer Hierax says according to Stobaeus, Florilegium, c. 5, § 60 (vol. i, p. 134 of the Gaisford edition): [x]. [4] Bravery is no virtue at all, although it is sometimes the servant or instrument thereof; yet it is also just as ready to serve the greatest baseness and infamy; it is, properly speaking, a characteristic of temperament. Geulinx (Ethica, in praefatione) rejected Plato's cardinal virtues and put forward diligentia, obedientia, justitia, and humilitas; [5] obviously a bad selection. The Chinese mention five cardinal virtues, sympathy, justice, politeness, knowledge, and sincerity (Journal asiatique, vol. ix, p. 62). Samuel Kidd, China (London, 1841, p. 197) calls them benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity, and gives a detailed commentary to each. Christianity has no cardinal virtues but theological, namely faith, love, and hope.
The point where man's moral virtues and vices first diverge is that contrast in his fundamental attitude to others which assumes the character either of envy or of sympathy. For every man bears within himself these two diametrically opposite characteristics since they spring from the inevitable comparison of his own state with that of others. Now according as the result of this comparison affects his individual character, one or other quality becomes his fundamental attitude and the source of his conduct. Thus envy more firmly builds up the wall between You and I; for sympathy it becomes thin and transparent; in fact it is sometimes completely demolished by this quality and then the distinction between I and not-I vanishes.
§ 111
Bravery, as previously mentioned, or more precisely the courage underlying it (for bravery is only courage in war), merits an even more detailed examination. The ancients reckoned courage as one of the virtues and cowardice as one of the vices; but this does not accord with the Christian sense which is directed to benevolence, patience, and resignation, and whose teaching forbids all enmity and, properly speaking, even resistance; and so with the moderns it has disappeared. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that cowardice does not seem to be really compatible with a noble character because of the excessive concern for one's own person which is here betrayed. Now courage is reducible to the fact that, at the present moment, we willingly encounter threatening evils in order to guard against greater ones that lie in the future, whereas cowardice does the opposite. Now the former is the character of patience, consisting as it does in our being clearly aware that there are even greater evils than those actually present and that such might be brought on by our rushing away from or warding off those that are present. Accordingly, courage would be a kind of patience; and just because it is this that enables us to put up with privations and self-conquests of every kind, so, by means of it, courage too is at any rate akin to virtue.
Yet it admits possibly of a higher method of consideration. Thus we might reduce all fear of death to a want of that natural metaphysics which is, therefore, merely felt and by virtue whereof man carries within himself the certainty that he exists just as much in everything, yes everything, as he does in his own person whose death can, therefore, do him little harm. Accordingly, from this very certainty there sprang heroic courage and consequently (as the reader will recall from my Ethics) from the same source with the virtues of justice and loving kindness. Now this is, of course, equivalent to our seizing the matter from very high up; yet it is not really possible to explain in any other way why cowardice appears to be contemptible and personal courage, on the other hand, noble and sublime. For from a lower standpoint, it cannot be seen why a finite individual, who himself is everything in fact is himself the fundamental condition for the existence of the rest of the world, should not subordinate everything else to the maintenance of himself. And so a wholly immanent and thus purely empirical explanation will really not suffice, since it could be based only on the usefulness of courage. This may have been the origin of Calderon's once expressing a sceptical but noteworthy view on courage; in fact he actually denied its reality; and this he does from the lips of a wise old minister in the presence of his young king.
[quote]Que aunque el natural temor En todos obra igualmente, No mostrarle es ser valiente,
Y esto es lo que hace el valor.
-- La hija del aire, Pt. II, Jorn. 2.
For although natural fear is active in everyone in the same way, a man is brave by his not letting it be seen, and it is just this that constitutes bravery.
-- Daughter of the Air, Pt. II, A. 2.[/quote]
With regard to the differences, previously touched on, between the value of courage as a virtue among the ancients and the moderns, it must nevertheless be borne in mind that the ancients understood by virtue, virtus, [x], every excellence, every quality praiseworthy in itself, whether moral, intellectual, or perhaps merely physical. But after Christianity had shown that the fundamental tendency of life is moral, only moral excellences were thought of under the concept of virtue. However, we find the earlier usage in the older Latinists and also in Italian, as is testified by the well-known meaning of the word virtuoso. We should draw the express attention of students to this wider sphere of the concept virtue among the ancients, as otherwise it may with them easily give rise to a secret perplexity. For this purpose, I specially recommend two passages that are preserved for us by Stobaeus, the one emanating ostensibly from Metopos, a Pythagorean, in the first chapter of the Florilegium, § 64, (vol. i, p. 22 of Gaisford), where the fitness of every member of our body is declared to be [x]; and the other in his Eclogae ethicae, lib. II, c. 7 (p. 272, ed. Heeren), where it says quite plainly: [x] (sutoris virtus dicitur secundum quam probum calceum novit parare). [6] This is why the ethics of the ancients speaks of vices and virtues that find no place in our own.
§ 112
Just as there is some doubt about the place of bravery among the virtues, so also is there about that of avarice among the vices. However, we must not confuse it with the greed that is expressed primarily by the Latin word avaritia. We will, therefore, allow the pro et contra concerning greed to be brought forward and heard, whereupon the final judgement may be left to the reader.
A: 'Avarice is not a vice, but its opposite, extravagance, is. This springs from an animal limitation to the present moment over which the future, that still exists in mere thought, cannot gain any power, and is due to the illusion of a positive and real value of sensual pleasures. Accordingly, future want and misery are the price the spendthrift pays for these empty, fleeting, and often merely imaginary pleasures, or for feeding his empty brainless arrogance on the posturings of his parasites who secretly laugh at him and on the astonishment of the mob and of those who are envious of his pomp and show. We should, therefore, run away from him as from one who is infectious and should break with him in time after we have discovered his vice so that, when the consequences later appear, we do not have to help to bear them, or to play the role of the friends of Timon of Athens. In the same way, we must not expect that the man who thoughtlessly runs through his own fortune will leave another's untouched if it should come into his hands, but alieni appetens, sui profusus, [7] as Sallust has very rightly put it (Catilina, c. 5). Therefore extravagance leads not merely to impoverishment, but through this to crime; criminals from the well-to-do classes have almost all become so in consequence of extravagance. Accordingly, the Koran rightly says (Sura xvii, 1. 27): "Spendthrifts are brothers of Satan." (See Sadi, translated by Graf, p. 254.) Avarice, on the other hand, is attended with superfluity, and when could that be undesirable? But this must be a good vice which has good consequences. Thus avarice starts from the correct principle that all pleasures have a merely negative effect; that a happiness composed of them is, therefore, a chimera; and that pains, on the other hand, are positive and very real. And so the avaricious man denies himself pleasures in order to be better secured against pains; and accordingly his maxim then becomes sustine et abstine. [8] Further, since he knows how inexhaustible are the possibilities of misfortune and how innumerable the paths of danger, he gathers against these all the means in order, if possible, to surround himself with a threefold rampart. Who can say where the precautions against accidents begin to go too far? Only the man who knew where the perfidy of fate attains its end; and even if these precautions were excessive, this error would at most bring harm to himself and not to others. If he will never need the wealth he has accumulated, it will one day benefit others whom nature has endowed with less foresight. That the money is till then withdrawn from circulation is no disadvantage at all, for it is not an article of consumption; on the contrary, it merely represents actual useful goods; it is not itself these. At bottom, ducats are themselves only counters; they have no value, but only what they represent is of value and this cannot be withdrawn from circulation. Moreover, through his retention of the money, the value of what is left in circulation is raised by just as much. Now although, as is asserted, many a miser ultimately loves money directly and for its own sake, so does many a spendthrift just as surely like the spending and wasting of money purely for its own sake. But friendship, or indeed kinship, with a miser is not only without danger, but is even of advantage since it may bring great benefits. For in any case, those nearest to him will after his death reap the fruits of his self-control. But even while he is alive, we can, in cases of great need, hope for something from him, at any rate always more than from the spendthrift who is penniless, helpless, and loaded with debt. Mas da el duro, que el desnudo (more is given by the hard-hearted than by the naked) says a Spanish proverb. In consequence of all this, avarice is not a vice.'
B: 'It is the quintessence of vices! If physical pleasures seduce man from the right path, then his sensual nature, the animal within him, is to blame. Carried away by the excitement and overcome by the impression of the moment, he acts without reflection. If, on the other hand, through physical weakness or old age he has reached a stage where the vices he could never forsake finally forsake him, in that his capacity for sensual pleasures has become extinct, then, if he turns to avarice, intellectual greed survives the sensual. Money, as that which represents all the good things of this world, and is their abstractum, now becomes the withered stem to which his dull and atrophied appetites cling, as egoism in abstracto. They now regenerate themselves in the love of mammon. From the fleeting sensual appetite there has come a well-considered and calculating greed for money. Like its object, such greed is of a symbolical nature and, also like it, is indestructible. It is the obstinate love of the pleasures of the world, outliving itself so to speak, the consummate inconvertibility, the sublimated and spiritualized lust of the flesh, the abstract focal point wherein all desires and appetites centre. This point is, therefore, related to those appetites as the universal concept to particular things. Accordingly, avarice is the vice of old age as extravagance is that of youth.'
§ 113
The disputatio in utramque partem [9] just given is certainly calculated to force us to the juste milieu [10] morality of Aristotle. The following consideration is also favourable to this.
Every human perfection is akin to a fault into which it threatens to pass; conversely, however, every fault is akin to a perfection. And so the error into which we fall in respect of a man is often due to the fact that, at the beginning of our acquaintance, we confuse his faults with the perfections akin to them, or vice versa. The cautious man then seems to us to be cowardly, the thrifty to be avaricious; or again the spendthrift appears to be liberal, the lout straightforward and sincere, the foolhardy to be endowed with noble self-confidence, and so on.
§ 114
Whoever lives among men and women always feels tempted afresh to assume that moral baseness and intellectual incapacity are closely connected in that they spring directly from one root. This, however, is not so, as I have shown at length in the second volume of my chief work, chapter 19, no. 8. That illusion which springs from the fact that we very often find the two together, can be explained entirely from the very frequent occurrence of both, in consequence of which it may easily happen that the two have to dwell under one roof. But it is here undeniable that they play into each other's hands to their mutual advantage, whereby we then have the very unpleasant spectacle which is presented by only too many people, and the world goes on as it does. In particular, want of intelligence is favourable to the appearance of falseness, meanness, and malice, whereas prudence and cleverness are better able to conceal these. On the other hand, how often a man's perversity of heart prevents him from seeing truths to which his intelligence would indeed be quite equal!
Let no one, however, be unduly proud; for everyone, even the greatest genius, is in some sphere of knowledge decidedly limited, and thereby proclaims his kinship with the human race that is essentially wrong-headed and absurd. In the same way, everyone has within himself something morally bad, and even the best and indeed the noblest character will at times surprise us with individual traits of depravity in order, as it were, to acknowledge his kinship with the human race among whom there occur' all degrees of baseness, infamy, and even cruelty. For precisely on the strength of this bad element in him, of this evil principle, he was bound to become a human being. For the same reason, the world generally is what my true mirror of it has shown it to be.
In spite of all this, however, the difference between men remains immeasurably great, and many a man would be shocked if he were to see another as he himself is. O for an Asmodeus of morality who for his minion rendered transparent not merely roofs and walls, but also the veil of dissimulation, falseness, hypocrisy, grimace, lying, and deception that is spread over everything, and who enabled him to see how little genuine honesty is to be found in the world and how often injustice and dishonesty sit at the helm, secretly and in the innermost recess, behind all the virtuous outworks, even where we least suspect them. Hence we see the four-footed friendships of so many men of a better nature; for how could we recover from the endless dissimulation, duplicity, perfidy, and treachery of men if it were not for the dogs into whose open and honest eyes we can look without distrust? Our civilized world, then, is only a great masquerade; here we meet knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, barristers, priests, philosophers, and the rest. But they are not what they represent themselves to be; they are mere masks beneath which as a rule moneymakers are hidden. One man dons the mask of the law which he has borrowed for the purpose from his barrister, merely in order to be able to come to blows with another. Again, for the same purpose, a second chooses the mask of public welfare and patriotism; a third that of religion or religious reform. Many have already donned for all kinds of purposes the mask of philosophy, philanthropy, and so on. Women have less choice; in most cases, they make use of the mask of maidenly reserve, bashfulness, domesticity, and modesty. Then there are universal masks without any special characteristic, the dominoes, as it were, which are, therefore, met everywhere; we see them in strict integrity, probity, politeness, sincere interest, and grinning friendliness. In most cases, as I have said, manufacturers, tradespeople, and speculators are concealed beneath all these masks. In this respect, merchants constitute the only honest class, for they alone pass themselves off for what they are; and so they go about unmasked and therefore stand low in rank. It is very important for us to learn early in youth that we are living in a masquerade, otherwise we shall be unable to grasp and get at many things but shall stand before them quite puzzled; and indeed those will stand longest who ex meliore tuto finxit praecordia Titan. [11] Such are the favour found by baseness and meanness, the neglect suffered by merit, even by the rarest and greatest, at the hands of the men of its branch, the odium incurred by truth and great abilities, the ignorance of scholars in their own branch. Almost invariably, the genuine article is rejected and the merely spurious sought. And so young men should be taught that in this masquerade the apples are of wax, the flowers of silk, the fish of cardboard, and that everything is a plaything and a jest. They should be told that, of two men who are so seriously discussing something, one is giving nothing but spurious articles, while the other is paying for them in counters.
But more serious considerations are to be made and worse things reported. At bottom, man is a hideous wild beast. We know him only as bridled and tamed, a state that is called civilization; and so we are shocked by the occasional outbursts of his nature. But when and where the padlock and chain of law and order are once removed and anarchy occurs, he then shows himself to be what he is. Meanwhile, whoever would like without such occasions to be enlightened on this point can convince himself from hundreds of ancient and modern accounts that man is inferior to no tiger or hyena in cruelty and pitilessness. An important instance from modern times is furnished by the answer which the British Anti-slavery Society received to their question in 1840 from the North American Anti-slavery Society in respect of the treatment of slaves in the slave-holding states of the North American Union: Slavery and the internal slave-trade in the United States of North America, being replies to questions transmitted by the British Anti-slavery Society to the American Antislavery Society. London, 1841, 280 pp., price 4s. in cloth. This book constitutes one of the gravest indictments against human nature. None will lay it aside without horror and few without tears. For whatever its reader may have heard, imagined, or dreamt about the unhappy state of the slaves or even human harshness and cruelty in general, will seem to him of no account when he reads how those devils in human form, those bigoted, church-going, strict sabbath-observing scoundrels, especially the Anglican parsons among them, treat their innocent black brothers who through violence and injustice have fallen into their devil's claws. This book, which consists of dry but authentic and substantiated accounts, inflames to such a degree all human feeling that, with it in our hands, we could preach a crusade for the subjugation and punishment of the slaveholding states of North America. For they are a disgrace to the whole of humanity. Another example from our own times, for to many the past no longer appears to be of any value, is contained in Tschudi's Reisen in Peru, 1846, in the description of the treatment of the Peruvian soldiers by their officers.* But we need not look for examples in the New World, that reverse side of the planet. It came to light in 1848 that, within a short space of time, there had been in England not one case but a hundred where a husband had poisoned a wife or a wife a husband, or the two their children one after another, or they had slowly tortured them to death through hunger and bad treatment. This they had done merely to receive from the burial clubs the funeral expenses that were guaranteed to them in case of death. For this purpose, they registered a child simultaneously in several clubs, sometimes as many as twenty. The reader should refer to The Times of 20, 22, and 23 September 1848, a paper which, for this reason alone, presses for the abolition of burial clubs. On 12 December 1853 it most emphatically repeats the same denunciation.
Reports of this kind, of course, belong to the blackest pages in the criminal records of the human race; yet the source of this and of everything like it is the inner and innate nature of man, this God [x] [12] of the pantheists. In the first place, there is established in everyone a colossal egoism that leaps with the greatest ease beyond the bounds of justice, as is taught by daily life on a small scale and by every page of history on a large. Is there not in the acknowledged necessity of the European balance of power which is watched with such anxiety a confession that man is a beast of prey who infallibly falls on a weaker neighbour as soon as he has espied him? And do we not obtain daily confirmation of this on a small scale? But allied to the boundless egoism of our nature is also a store, to be found more or less in every human breast, of hatred, anger, envy, rancour, and malice. It is accumulated like the poison in a snake's fang and merely awaits the opportunity to release itself and then to rave and rage like an unleashed demon. If for this no great opportunity presents itself, it will in the end make use of the smallest by magnifying it in the imagination,
[quote]Quantulaeunque adeo est occasio, suificit irae. [13]
-- Juvenal, Satires, XIII. 183.[/quote]
and will then carry things as far as it can and dare. We see this in everyday life where such eruptions are known by the expression 'to give vent to one's spleen over something'. Moreover, it will actually have been observed that the subject feels decidedly better after them if only they have met with no resistance. Even Aristotle says that anger is not without pleasure: [x] (Rhetoric, 1. 11, II. 2), [14] where he adds a passage from Homer who declares anger to be sweeter than honey. But we indulge really con amore not only in anger but also in hatred that is related to it as chronic illness to acute:
[quote]Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure: Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
-- Byron, Don Juan, can. XIII, st. 6.[/quote]
Gobineau (Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines) called man l'animal mechant par excellence [15] and people take this amiss because they feel it is meant for them. But he is right, for man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so. Other animals never do this except to satisfy their hunger or in the heat of conflict. It is said of the tiger that it kills more than it eats, it strangles everything merely with the intention of eating it, and it is simply a case where ses yeux sont plus grands que son estomac, [16] as the French express it. No animal tortures merely for the sake of torturing, but man does and this constitutes the devilish character that is far worse than the merely animal. We have already spoken of the matter on a large scale, but on the small, where everyone daily has an opportunity of observing it, it becomes just as clear. For example, two young dogs are playing with each other, a peaceful and pretty sight; and then a child of three or four appears on the scene. Almost inevitably, it will at once violently beat with its whip or stick, thereby showing that, even at that early age, it is l'animal mechant par excellence. Even teasing and practical joking which are so frequent and purposeless spring from this source. For example, if we have expressed our displeasure at some disturbance or other minor annoyance, there will not be wanting those who for that very reason will bring them about; l'animal mechant par excellence! This is so certain that we should guard against expressing our annoyance at minor inconveniences; on the other hand, we should also beware of expressing our satisfaction over some trifle. For in the latter case, they will do what the gaoler did who, on discovering that his prisoner had performed the difficult trick of taming a spider and found pleasure in it, at once crushed it; l'animal mechant par excellence! Animals, therefore, instinctively fear the sight and even a sign of man, that animal mechant par excellence. Even here instinct does not deceive, for man alone hunts animals that are neither useful nor harmful to him. We have already spoken of human wickedness on a large scale.
And so in the heart of everyone there actually resides a wild beast which merely waits for the opportunity to rage and rave and would like to injure and even destroy others, if they even obstructed its path. It is precisely this that is the source of all love of conflict and war; and it is just this that always gives knowledge, its appointed custodian, so much to do in trying to restrain and keep it somewhat in bounds. In any case, it may be called the radical evil, which will be useful at any rate to those for whom words take the place of an explanation. But I say that it is the will-to-live which, more and more embittered by the constant suffering of existence, seeks to lighten its own pain and distress by inflicting them on others. In this way, however, it gradually develops into real wickedness and cruelty. We may here add the remark that, just as according to Kant matter exists only through the antagonism of the forces of expansion and contraction, so human society exists only through that of hatred or anger and fear. For our spiteful nature would possibly make everyone of us a murderer if it were not mixed with a proper dose off ear in order to keep it within bounds; and again this alone would make him an object of ridicule and the plaything of every boy if anger did not already reside within him and keep watch.
But the worst trait in human nature is always that malicious joy at the misfortune of others, for it is closely akin to cruelty and in fact really differs therefrom only as theory from practice. It appears generally where sympathy should find a place, for this, as its opposite, is the true source of all genuine righteousness and loving kindness. In another sense, envy is opposed to sympathy, in so far as it is called forth by the opposite occasion; and so its opposition to sympathy is due primarily to the occasion and only in consequence thereof does it appear in the feeling itself. Therefore, although reprehensible, envy is nevertheless excusable and generally human, whereas that malicious joy is devilish and its mockery the laughter of hell. It occurs, as I have said, precisely where sympathy should occur; envy, on the other hand, occurs only where there is no occasion for sympathy but rather for the opposite thereof, and arises in the human breast precisely as that opposite and consequently to this extent as a human feeling. Indeed, I am afraid that no one will be found entirely free from it. For it is natural, and in fact inevitable, for a man to feel more bitterly his own lack of pleasures and possessions when he sees those of others; only this should not excite his hatred for those who are more fortunate than he; and yet envy in the real sense consists precisely in this. But it should occur least of all where the gifts of nature are the occasion and not those of fortune, chance, or other people's favours. For everything inborn has a metaphysical basis and thus a justification of a higher order and is, so to speak, by the grace of God. Unfortunately, however, envy works in quite the opposite way and is most implacable in the case of personal merits and advantages.* Therefore intellect and even genius must in the world first beg for forgiveness wherever they are not in a position to venture proudly and boldly to despise the world. Thus if envy has been excited merely through wealth, rank, or power, it is still often appeased by egoism; for the man with feelings of egoism sees that, in certain cases, he can hope for help, pleasure, assistance, protection, advancement, and so on from the one who excites his envy, or that, at any rate by associating with him and basking in the brilliance of his high position, he may even enjoy honour. Moreover, there is still always the hope of one day obtaining for himself all those good things. On the other hand, with natural gifts and personal qualities, such as beauty in women or intellect in men, the envy directed against these derives no consolation of the one kind and no hope of the other, so that there is nothing left for it but to hate bitterly and implacably those who are so favoured and endowed. Therefore its sole desire is to take revenge on its object. Here, however, it now finds itself in the unfortunate position where all its blows prove to be powerless, as soon as one sees that they have resulted from it. It therefore hides itself as carefully as do the secret sins of lust and now becomes an inexhaustible inventor of tricks, dodges, and devices for masking and concealing itself so that unseen it may wound its object. For example, the excellent qualities that eat into its heart, will be ignored by it with the most open and unaffected airs. It will not see or recognize them at all; it will never have noticed or heard of them; and it will thus produce a master of dissimulation. With great subtlety it will completely overlook, as apparently unimportant, the man whose brilliant qualities are gnawing at its heart; it will be quite unaware of him and will occasionally have completely forgotten him. Above all, it will make every attempt by secret machinations carefully to deprive those excellent qualities of every opportunity to appear and make themselves known. From a dark corner it will then dispatch over them censure, ridicule, contempt, and calumny, like the toad which from its hole spits forth venom. To the same extent, it will enthusiastically praise men of no account, or even the mediocre and inferior work in the same class of achievements. In short, it becomes a Proteus of stratagems in order to wound without showing itself. But what good will that do? The practised eye still recognizes it. It is already betrayed by its fear of and flight from its object which, the more brilliant this is, the more it therefore stands alone. For this reason, pretty girls have no friends of their own sex. Envy is betrayed by its groundless hatred which explodes most violently on the slightest, and often only imaginary, occasion. For the rest, however widespread its family, we recognize it in the universal praise of modesty, that cunning virtue which is invented for the benefit of trite vulgarity. Yet through the very necessity it reveals of having to treat inferior qualities with forbearance, such virtue merely brings these to light. Of course for our self-esteem and pride, there can be nothing more flattering than the sight of envy lurking in its hiding-place and carrying on its machinations. However, we should never forget that, where envy exists, it is accompanied by hatred, and we should beware of letting an envious man become a false friend. For this reason, our discovery of such a man is for our safety important. We should, therefore, study him in order to be up to his tricks; for he is to be found everywhere and always goes around incognito or else, like the poisonous toad, lurks in dark holes. On the contrary, he deserves neither consideration nor sympathy, but the rule of conduct should be:
[quote]Envy wilt thou ne'er appease; So mayst thou scorn it at thy ease. Thy fame and fortune are its pain; Thus may its torment be thy gain![/quote]
Now if, as we have done, we have kept in mind human depravity and feel inclined to be horrified thereat, we must at once cast a glance at the misery of human existence, and again at the former when we are shocked at the latter. We shall then find that they balance each other and shall become aware of eternal justice by noticing that the world itself is the tribunal of humanity, and by coming to understand why everything that lives must atone for its existence first in living and then in dying. Thus the malum poenae [17] tallies with the malum culpae, [18] From the same point of view, there also disappears the indignation at the intellectual incapacity of the masses which in life so often disgusts us. Therefore miseria humana, nequitia humana, and stultitia humana [19] are wholly in keeping with one another in this Samsara of the Buddhists and are of equal magnitude. But if, on a particular occasion, we keep one of them in mind and specially examine it, it soon appears to exceed in size the other two; but this is an illusion and is merely the result of their colossal range.
This is Samsara and everything therein denounces it; yet, more than anything else, the human world where morally depravity and baseness, intellectually incapacity and stupidity, prevail to a fearful extent. Nevertheless, there appear in it, although very sporadically yet always astonishing us afresh, phenomena of honesty, kindness, and even nobility, as also of great intellect, the thinking mind, and even genius. These never go out entirely, but glitter at us like isolated points that shine out of the great mass of darkness. We must take them as a pledge that in this Samsara there lies hidden a good and redeeming principle which can break through and inspire and release the whole.
§ 115
The readers of my Ethics know that with me the foundation of morality rests ultimately on the truth that has its expression in the Veda and Vedanta in the established mystical formula tat tvam asi (This art thou) which is stated with reference to every living thing, whether man or animal, and is then called the Mahavakya or Great Word.
In fact, we can regard the actions that occur in accordance with it, for example those of benevolence, as the beginning of mysticism. Every good or kind action that is done with a pure and genuine intention proclaims that, whoever practises it, stands forth in absolute contradiction to the world of phenomena in which other individuals exist entirely separate from himself, and that he recognizes himself as being identical with them. Accordingly, every entirely disinterested benefit is a mysterious action, a mysterium; and so to give an account thereof, men have had to resort to all kinds of fictions. After Kant had removed all other props from theism, he left it only this one, namely that it afforded the best interpretation and explanation of that and all similar mysterious actions. Accordingly, he admitted theism as an assumption which theoretically is incapable of proof, it is true, but for practical purposes is valid. But I am inclined to doubt whether here he was really quite in earnest. For to support morality by means of theism is equivalent to reducing it to egoism, although the English, like the lowest classes of society with us, see absolutely no possibility of any other foundation.
The above-mentioned recognition of one's own true nature in the individuality of another who is objectively manifesting himself, appears with special clearness and beauty in those cases where a man, beyond all recovery and doomed, is still anxiously, actively, and zealously concerned over the welfare and rescue of others. In this connection is the well-known story of a maidservant who one night was bitten in the yard by a mad dog. Giving herself up as past all help, she seized the dog, dragged it into the stable, and locked the door so that no one else would fall a victim. Also that incident in Naples which is immortalized by Tischbein in one of his water-colour drawings. Fleeing before the lava as it rapidly streams towards the sea, the son carries on his back his old father; but as there is only a narrow strip of land separating the two destructive elements, the father requests his son to lay him down and save himself by running, since otherwise both will perish. The son obeys and, as he departs, casts a farewell glance at his father. All this is portrayed in the picture. Then there is the historical fact, described in a masterly way by Sir Walter Scott in his Heart of Midlothian, chapter two. Of two delinquents condemned to death, one who, through his lack of skill had been the cause of the other's capture, successfully liberates him in church after the death-sermon by vigorously overpowering the guard, and this without making any attempt to save himself. Also in this connection may be included a scene often depicted in copper-engravings, although it may give offence to western readers. Here a soldier is already kneeling to be shot and is driving back with a handkerchief his dog who wants to approach him. In all cases of this kind, we see an individual, who is approaching with absolute certainty his immediate personal destruction, think no more of his own survival and direct all his efforts and exertions to the preservation of another. How could there be more clearly expressed the consciousness that this destruction is only that of a phenomenon and so is itself phenomenon, and that, on the other hand, the true essence of the one who is perishing is untouched by it, continues to exist in the other in whom he so clearly recognizes just now that essence, as is revealed by his action? For if this were not so and we had before us one in the throes of actual annihilation, how could such a being, by the supreme exertion of his last strength, show such a deep sympathy and interest in the welfare and continued existence of another?
There are indeed two opposite ways in which we may become conscious of our own existence; first in empirical intuitive perception where it manifests itself from without as an existence that is infinitely small in a world that is boundless as regards space and time; as one among the thousand millions of human beings who run over the globe for a very short time, renewing themselves every thirty years. The second way is absorption in ourselves and becoming conscious of being all in all and really the only actual being, such being in addition once again seeing himself, as in a mirror, in the others who are given to him from without. Now the first method of knowledge embraces merely the phenomenon which is mediated through the principium individuationis; but the second is an immediate awareness of oneself as the thing-in-itself. This is a doctrine wherein I am supported by Kant as regards the first half, but by the Veda as regards both. The simple objection to the second mode of knowledge is certainly its assumption that one and the same being can be in different places at the same time, and yet entirely in each place. Now although from the empirical point of view this is the most palpable impossibility and even an absurdity, it nevertheless remains perfectly true of the thing-in-itself. For that impossibility and absurdity rest merely on the forms of the phenomenon which constitute the principium individuationis. For the thing-in-itself, the will-to-live, exists whole and undivided in every being, even in the tiniest; it is present as completely as in all that ever were, are, and will be, taken together. To this is due the fact that every being, even the most insignificant, says to himself: dum ego salvus sim, pereat mundus. [20] And in fact even if all others perished, the essence-in-itself of the world would still exist unimpaired and undiminished in this one being which remained and would laugh at that destruction as at a sleight of hand. This is, of course, a conclusion per impossibile [21] which can with equal justification be opposed by the one that, if any being even the smallest were completely annihilated, then in it and with it the whole world would have perished. In this sense, the mystic Angelus Silesius says:
[quote]I know that God without me cannot for one moment live; If I to nothing come, he of necessity must his spirit give.[/quote]
But in order that this truth, or at any rate the possibility that our own self can exist in other beings whose consciousness is separate and distinct from ours, may to some extent be seen even from the empirical standpoint, we need only call to mind magnetized somnambulists. After they have woken up, their identical ego knows nothing of all that they themselves have said, done, and undergone the moment before. Thus individual consciousness is so entirely phenomenal a point that even in the same ego two such may arise, one of which knows nothing of the other.
Considerations like the foregoing, however, always retain here in our Judaized ''\Testsomething very strange, but not so in the fatherland of the human race, where quite a different faith prevails. According to this, even today, after a burial for instance, the priests chant before all the people and to the accompaniment of instruments the Vedic hymn that begins: 'The embodied spirit that has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet, is rooted in the human breast and at the same time permeates the whole earth. This being is the world and all that ever was and will be. It is that which grows through nourishment and confers immortality. This is its greatness and therefore it is the most glorious embodied spirit. The elements of this world constitute one part of its being, and three parts are immortality in heaven. These three parts have raised themselves from the world, but one has remained behind and is that which (through transmigration) enjoys and does not enjoy the fruits of good and evil deeds', and so on (see Colebrooke, On the Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus, in the fifth volume of the Asiatic Researches, p. 345 of the Calcutta edition; also his Miscellaneous Essays, vol. i, p. 167).
Now if we compare such hymns with our hymn-books, we shall no longer be surprised that Anglican missionaries on the Ganges meet with such pathetically little success and with their sermons on their 'maker' [22] make no impression on the Brahmans. But whoever wishes to enjoy the pleasure of seeing how an English officer forty-one years ago boldly and emphatically opposed the absurd and shameless pretensions of those gentlemen, should read the Vindication of the Hindoos from the aspersions of the Reverend Claudius Buchanan, with a refutation of his arguments in favour of an ecclesiastical establishment in British India: the whole tending to evince the excellence of the moral system of the Hindoos; by a Bengal officer, London, 1808. With rare frankness and candour the author discusses the advantages of the Indian doctrines over the European. The short work that would run to about eighty pages would be worth translating even now; for it expounds better and more openly than any other work known to me the very beneficial and practical influence of Brahmanism, its effect in life and on the people-a report quite different from those that emanate from clerical pens which, precisely as such, deserve little credit. It agrees with what I had heard from English officers who had spent half their lives in India. For to know how jealous of, and angry with, Brahmanism is the Anglican Church, which is always so nervous on account of its livings and benefices, we ought to be familiar, for example, with the loud yelping that was raised some years ago in Parliament by the bishops, and was carried on for many months. Since the East India authorities, as always on such occasions, showed themselves exceedingly stubborn, the bishops began their barking again and again merely because the English authorities, as was reasonable in India, showed some external marks of respect for the ancient and venerable religion of the country. For example, when the procession with the images of the gods passed by, the guard and its officer turned out and saluted with drums. Then there was the furnishing of a red cloth to cover the Car of Juggernaut, and so on. This was discontinued, as also were the pilgrim-dues raised in this connection; and such steps were really taken to please those gentlemen. Meanwhile, we have the incessant fulminations of those self-styled right-reverend holders of livings and wearers oHull-bottomed wigs at such things; the really medieval way in which they express themselves on the original religion of our race, but which today should be called crude and vulgar; likewise the grave offence given to them, when in 1845 Lord Ellenborough brought back to Bengal in a triumphal procession and handed over to the Brahmans the gate of the pagoda of Sumenaut which had been destroyed in 1022 by that execrable Mahmud of Ghaznavi. I say that all this leads one to surmise that to them it was not unknown how much the majority of Europeans living many years in India were at heart in favour of Brahmanism, and how they simply shrugged their shoulders at both the religious and social prejudices of Europe. 'All this falls off like scales, whenever one has lived only two years in India', such a man once said to me. Even a Frenchman, that very courteous and cultured gentleman, who some ten years ago in Europe accompanied the Devadassi (vulgo Bayaderes), at once exclaimed with fiery enthusiasm, when I came to speak to him about the religion of the country: Monsieur, c'est la vraie religion! [23]
If we go to the root of the matter, even the fantastic and sometimes strange Indian mythology, still constituting today as it did thousands of years ago the religion of the people, is only the teaching of the Upanishads which is symbolized, in other words, clad in images and thus personified and mythicized with due regard to the people's powers of comprehension. According to his powers and education, every Hindu traces, feels, surmises, or clearly sees through it and behind it; whereas in his monomania the crude and narrow-minded English parson ridicules and blasphemes by calling it idolatry, fondly imagining that he alone is on the right side of the fence. The purpose of the Buddha Sakya Muni, on the other hand, was to separate the kernel from the shell, to free the exalted teaching itself from all admixture with images and gods, and to make its pure intrinsic worth accessible and intelligible even to the people. In this he was marvellously successful and his religion is, therefore, the most excellent on earth and is represented by the greatest number of followers. With Sophocles he can say:
[quote]-- [x] [x] [x]. [24]
-- Ajax, 767-9.[/quote]
On the other hand, incidentally it is extremely droll to see the cool smile of self-complacency with which some servile German philosophasters and also many precise and literal orientalists look down on Brahmanism and Buddhism from the heights of their rationalistic Judaism. To such little men I would really like to suggest a contract with the comedy of apes at the Frankfurt Fair, that is, if the descendants of Hanuman would tolerate these amongst them.
I think that if the Emperor of China or the King of Siam and other Asiatic monarchs grant European powers permission to send missionaries to their countries, they would be perfectly entitled to do so only on condition that they were allowed to send just as many Buddhist priests with equal rights to the European country in question. For this purpose they would naturally select those who had previous instruction in the particular European language. We should then have before us an interesting competition and see who would have most success.
Christian fanaticism which tries to convert the whole world to its faith is inexcusable. Sir James Brooke (Rajah of Borneo) who colonized part of Borneo and ruled there for a time, gave an address at Liverpool in September 1858 to a meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and thus to the centre of the missions. In it he said: 'With the Mohammedans you have made no headway and with the Hindus you have made no progress at all, but are still at the very point where you were on the first day when you set foot in India.' (The Times, 29 September 1858.) On the other hand, Christian evangelists have proved to be very useful and praiseworthy in another direction, in that some have furnished us with admirable and complete accounts of Brahmanism and Buddhism and with faithful and accurate translations of sacred books, which could not possibly have been done except con amore. To these distinguished men I dedicate the following rhyme:
[quote]As teachers you went thither; As pupils you came hither, From the meaning veiled, unseen Off fell the secret screen.[/quote]
We may therefore hope that one day even Europe will be purified of all Jewish mythology. Perhaps the century has come in which the peoples of the Japhetic group of languages coming from Asia will again receive the sacred religions of their native country; for they have again become ripe for these after having long gone astray.
§ 116
After reading my prize-essay on moral freedom, no thinking man can be left in any doubt that such freedom is not to be sought anywhere within nature, but only without. It is something metaphysical, but in the physical world something that is impossible. Accordingly, our individual deeds are by no means free; on the other hand, the individual character of each one of us is to be regarded as his free act. He himself is such because he wills once for all to be such. For the will exists in itself, even in so far as it appears in an individual. Thus it constitutes the individual's primary and fundamental willing and is independent of all knowledge because it precedes this. From knowledge it obtains merely the motives wherein it successively develops its true nature and makes itself known or becomes visible. As that which lies outside time, however, it itself is unchangeable so long as it exists at all. Therefore everyone as such who exists now and under the circumstances of the moment, which, however, on their part occur with strict necessity, can never do anything other than what he is actually doing at that very moment. Accordingly, the entire empirical course of a man's life in all its events great and small is as necessarily predetermined as are the movements of a clock. At bottom, this results from the fact that the manner in which the aforesaid metaphysical free act enters the knowing consciousness is an intuitive perception. Such perception has time and space as its form by means whereof the unity and indivisibility of that act now manifest themselves as drawn apart into a series of states and events that occur on the guiding line of the principle of sufficient reason (or ground) in its four aspects; and it is precisely this that is called necessary. But the result is a moral one, in that we know what we are from what we do, just as we know what we deserve from what we suffer.
Moreover, it follows from this that individuality does not rest solely on the principium individuationis and so is not through and through mere phenomenon, but that it is rooted in the thing-in-itself, the will of the individual; for his character itself is individual. But how far down its roots here go, is one of those questions which I do not undertake to answer.
In this connection, it is worth recalling that in his own way even Plato describes the individuality of each man as his free act, since he represents each as being born in consequence of his heart and character, just as he is by means of metempsychosis. (Phaedrus, c. 28. Laws, bk. x, p. 106, ed. Bip.) Even the Brahmans on their part mythically express the unchangeable certainty of the inborn character by saying that, when producing each man, Brahma engraved on his skull his deeds and sufferings in written characters according to which the course of his life was bound to follow. They point to the serrated sutures of the skull-bones as this writing. They say that the meaning and purport of this are a consequence of his previous life and actions. (See Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, 1819 edn., vol. vi, p. 149, et vol. vii, p. 135.) This same insight appears to underlie the Christian (even Pauline) dogma of predestination.
Another consequence of the above, which is generally confirmed empirically, is that all genuine merits, moral as well as intellectual, have not merely a physical or otherwise empirical origin, but also a metaphysical. Accordingly, they are given a priori and not a posteriori; in other words, they are inborn and not acquired and consequently are rooted not in the mere phenomenon, but in the thing-in-itself. Therefore at bottom, everyone does only what is already irrevocably fixed in his nature, that is to say, in his innate disposition. It is true that intellectual abilities require cultivation just as many products of nature need preparation if they are to be enjoyable or otherwise useful. But in the one case as in the other, no preparation or cultivation can replace the original material. For this reason, all qualities which have been merely acquired, learnt, or forced and hence are a posteriori, moral as well as intellectual, are really ungenuine and a vain hollow sham without substance. Just as this follows from correct metaphysics, so too is it taught by a deeper insight into experience. It is even testified by the great weight that all attach to physiognomy, and to the external appearance of everyone who is in any way distinguished and thus to his innate qualities, and therefore by their great desire to see him. Naturally those who are superficial and, for good reasons, vulgar natures will be of the opposite opinion in order to be able, in the case of everything they lack, confidently to hope that it will still come to them. This world, then, is not merely a battle-ground for whose victories and defeats prizes are distributed in the next, but it is itself already the last judgement in that each brings with him reward and ignominy according to his merits; and by teaching metempsychosis, Brahmanism and Buddhism know nothing different from this.
§ 117
The question has been asked what two men would do each of whom had grown up quite alone in the wilderness and who met each other for the first time. Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Rousseau have given opposite answers. Pufendorf believed they would affectionately greet each other; Hobbes, on the other hand, thought they would be hostile, whilst Rousseau considered that they would pass each other by in silence. All three are both right and wrong; for precisely here the immeasurable difference of the inborn moral disposition of individuals would appear in so clear a light that we should have, as it were, its rule and measure. For there are those in whom the sight of a man at once stirs feelings of hostility in that their innermost being exclaims 'not-I'. And there are others in whom that sight at once rouses feelings of friendly interest and sympathy; their true nature exclaims 'I once more!' There are innumerable degrees between the two. That we are so fundamentally different in this main point is, however, a great problem and indeed a mystery. A book, Historische Nachrichten zur Kenntniss des Menschen im rohen Zustande, by a Dane named Bastholm furnishes material for many different observations on this a priori nature of our moral character. He is struck by the fact that the mental culture and moral goodness of nations exhibit themselves as quite independent of each other, in that the one is often to be found without the other. We shall explain this from the fact that moral goodness does not by any means spring from reflection whose development depends on mental culture, but directly from the will itself, whose nature and disposition are inborn and which is in itself incapable of any improvement through culture. Bastholm then describes most nations as very depraved and bad; on the other hand, he has to report the most admirable general characteristics of certain savage tribes, for example the Orotchyses, the inhabitants of the island of Savu, the Tunguses, and the Pelew Islanders. He then attempts to solve the problem why it is that some tribes are exceptionally good, while their neighbours are bad. It seems that it may be explained from the fact that, as the moral qualities are inherited from the father, such an isolated tribe in the above cases came from one family and consequently from the same ancestor who was precisely a good man, and that it kept itself pure. On many embarrassing occasions, such as the repudiation of state debts, raids, predatory incursions, and so on, the English have reminded the North Americans that they are descended from an English criminal colony; although this can be true of only a small number of them.
§ 118
It is wonderful how the individuality of every man (that is, this definite character with this definite intellect) exactly determines, like a penetrating dye, all his actions and thoughts down to the most insignificant, in consequence whereof one man's whole course of life, in other words, his inner and outer record, turns out to be so fundamentally different from that of another's. Just as a botanist recognizes the whole plant from one leaf and Cuvier constructed the entire animal from one bone, so from one characteristic action of a man we can arrive at a correct knowledge of his character. And so to some extent, we can construct him therefrom even when that action concerns a mere trifle, in fact then often best of all; for in more important things men are more careful, whereas with trifles they follow their own nature without much thought. Ifin such things a man shows by his absolutely arbitrary and egoistic conduct that just and righteous feelings are foreign to his heart, we should not entrust a single penny to him without proper security. For who will believe that a man who in all other matters that are not concerned with property daily shows himself to be unjust, and whose boundless egoism everywhere peeps out from the little actions of ordinary life, for which he is not called to account, like a dirty shirt peeping through the holes of a tattered jacket -- who will believe that such a man will be honourable in the affairs of mine and thine without any other impulse than that of justice? Whoever is inconsiderate on a small scale will be iniquitous on a large. Whoever ignores small traits of character has only himself to thank if afterwards, to his own detriment, he gets to know the character in question from its more important traits. On the same principle, we should also break at once with so-called good friends, even over trifles, if they betray a malicious, bad, or mean character; this we should do to guard against their mean tricks on a large scale which merely await the opportunity to make their appearance. The same holds good of servants; we should always bear in mind that it is better to be alone than among traitors.
Actually the foundation and propaedeutic to all knowledge of men is the firm belief that a man's conduct essentially and on the whole is not guided by his reasoning faculty and the resolutions thereof. Thus no one becomes this or that person because he would like to, however keen his desire may be, but his actions proceed from his inborn and unalterable character, are more closely and specially determined by motives, and are consequently the necessary product of these two factors. Accordingly, we may liken a man's conduct to the course of a planet which is the result of the tangential force given to it and of the centripetal force acting from its sun. The former force represents the character, the latter the influence of motives. This is almost more than a mere comparison in so far as the tangential force whence the motion really comes, while limited by gravitation, is, taken metaphysically, the will that manifests itself in such a body.
Now whoever has understood this will see also that we never really have more than a conjecture of what we shall do in any future situation, although we often regard this as a decision. For example, in consequence of a proposal, a man has most sincerely and even very willingly incurred the liability to do something on the occasion of circumstances that still lie in the future. But it is by no means certain that he will fulfil the obligation, unless his nature were such that his given promise, itself and as such, would always and everywhere be for him a sufficient motive, in that, through his regard for his honour, it acted on him like the compulsion of someone else. But apart from this, what he will do on the occurrence of those circumstances may be predetermined simply yet with perfect certainty from a correct and precise knowledge of his character and the external circumstances under whose influence he then comes. This is, of course, very easy if we have already seen him in a similar situation; for he will infallibly do the same thing a second time, naturally always on the assumption that on the first occasion he had already correctly and completely known the circumstances. For, as I have often observed, causa finalis non movet secundum suum esse reale, sed secundum esse cognitum. [25] (Suarez, Disputationes metaphysicae, Disp. xxiii, sect. 7 and 8.) Thus what he had not known or understood the first time could not then affect his will; just as an electrical process stops when some insulating body impedes the action of a conductor. The unchangeable nature of character and the necessity of actions which results therefrom are impressed with unusual clearness on the man who on some occasion did not behave as he should have, in that he lacked decision, firmness, courage, or other qualities that the moment demanded. Afterwards he recognizes and sincerely regrets his wrong course of action and perhaps says to himself: 'Yes, if I were asked to do that again, I would act differently!' He is again asked, and the same thing happens; and again he acts just as he did previously-to his great astonishment.*
Shakespeare's dramas as a rule afford us the best illustration of the truth in question; for he was thoroughly imbued with it and his intuitive wisdom expresses it in concreto on every page. Nevertheless, I will now give an example of this wherein he brings it out with special clearness, yet without intention and affectation, for, as a genuine artist, he never starts from concepts. On the contrary, he obviously does this merely to satisfy psychological truth as he apprehends it immediately and intuitively; for he was unconcerned whether it would be noticed and properly understood by the few, and had no inkling that one day in Germany stupid and shallow fellows would elaborately explain that he had written his plays in order to illustrate moral commonplaces and platitudes. Here I have in mind the character of the Earl of Northumberland, which we see carried through three tragedies without his really appearing in a principal part. On the contrary, he appears in only a few scenes that are distributed over fifteen acts; and so, if we do not read with all our attention, we may easily lose sight of the character that is depicted in such widely separated passages and of its moral identity, however firmly the poet kept these in view. Everywhere he makes this Earl appear with noble knightly dignity and use appropriate language, and on occasions has put into his mouth very fine and even sublime passages. For he is far from doing what Schiller does, who likes to paint the devil black and whose moral approval or disapproval of the characters portrayed sounds through their own words. With Shakespeare and also with Goethe, on the other hand, everyone is, while he is present and speaks, perfectly right even if he were the devil himself. In this respect, let us compare the Duke of Alva in Goethe's work and in Schiller's. And so we already make the acquaintance of the Earl of Northumberland in Richard II where he is the first to hatch a plot against the King in favour of Bolingbroke who is afterwards Henry IV and whom he personally flatters (Act II, Sc. 3). In the following act he is reprimanded for having said plain Richard when speaking of the King, yet he gives the assurance that he did so merely for the sake of brevity. Shortly afterwards, his subtle and insidious speech moves the King to capitulate. In the following act he treats the King during his abdication with such harshness and contempt that the unhappy and broken monarch once more loses his patience and exclaims: 'Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell!' At the conclusion he reports to the new King that he has sent to London the decapitated heads of the adherents of the previous monarch. In the following tragedy, Henry IV, in just the same way he hatches a plot against the new King. In the fourth act, we see these rebels united and preparing for the great battle on the following day and impatiently waiting only for him and his battalions. Finally, a letter comes from him stating that he himself is sick, but that he cannot trust his forces to anyone else; however, they are to continue courageously and advance bravely to the attack. They do so, but are considerably weakened by his failure to appear; they are completely beaten and most of their leaders are captured, his own son, the heroic Hotspur, falling by the hand of the Prince of Wales. Again, in the following play, the second part of Henry IV, we see him furiously angry about the death of his son and wildly breathing revenge. He therefore stirs up the rebellion afresh and its leaders are once more assembled. Now as in the fourth act they have to fight the main battle and merely await his arrival to join them, a letter comes. In it he states that he has been unable to collect adequate forces and that for the present he will seek safety in Scotland; nevertheless he heartily wishes them great success in their heroic venture. Whereupon they surrendered to the King under an agreement that was not kept, and thus they perished.
Therefore far from the character being the work of rational choice and deliberation, the intellect in the case of conduct has nothing to do except to present motives to the will. But then, as a mere spectator and witness, such intellect is bound to see how, from the effect of the motives on the given character, the course of life shapes itself all of whose events, strictly speaking, occur with the same necessity as that with which the movements of a clock take place. On this point I refer to my prize-essay 'On the Freedom of the Will'. The illusion of a complete freedom of the will, which nevertheless occurs here in the case of every single action, has in that essay been reduced by me to its true significance and origin. In this way, I have stated its efficient cause to which I will here add only the final in the following teleological explanation of that natural illusion. Freedom and originality that really belong only to a man's intelligible character (whose mere apprehension by the intellect is his course of life) appear to be inherent in every individual action; and thus for empirical consciousness the original work is apparently carried out afresh in every particular action. In this way, our course of life obtains the greatest possible moral [x], [26] since all the bad sides of our character thus really make themselves felt; and so conscience accompanies every deed with the commentary that 'you could act differently', although its true meaning is: 'You could also be a different person.' Now, on the one hand, through the unalterable nature of character and, on the other, through the strict necessity with which all the circumstances occur in which everyone is successively placed, his course of life is precisely determined from A to Z. And yet the course of one man's life turns out to be incomparably happier, nobler, and worthier than another's in all its modifications both subjective and objective. If, therefore, we are not to eliminate all justice, this leads to the assumption which is firmly established in Brahmanism and Buddhism that the subjective conditions with which everyone is born, as well as the objective conditions under which he is born, are the moral consequence of a previous existence.
Machiavelli, who certainly does not appear to have concerned himself with philosophical speculations, is by virtue of the penetrating keenness of his unique intellect led to the following really profound utterance. It presupposes an intuitive knowledge of the entire necessity with which, in the case of given characters and motives, all actions take place. With it he begins the prologue to his comedy Clitia: Se nel mondo tornassino i medesimi uomini, come tornano i medesimi easi, non passarebbono mai cento anni, che noi non ei trovassimo un altra volta insieme, a fare le medesime cose, che hora. (If in the world the same men returned just as the same cases recur, a hundred years would never pass without our being together once more, doing again exactly the same thing as we are doing now.) However, a reminiscence of what Augustine says, De civitate dei, lib. XII, C. 13, seems to have led him to this.
The fatum, [x], of the ancients is nothing but the certainty which has reached our consciousness that everything that takes place is firmly bound by the causal chain and therefore happens with strict necessity; and accordingly that the future is already perfectly fixed, that it is determined certainly and exactly, and that as little can be changed in it as in the past. Only the foreknowledge of it can be regarded as fabulous in the fatalistic myths of the ancients-if here we eliminate the possibility of magnetic clairvoyance and second sight. Instead of trying to set aside the fundamental truth of fatalism by frivolous talk and silly subterfuges, we should attempt clearly to understand it and recognize it; for it is a demonstrable truth that furnishes us with an important datum for understanding our very mysterious and enigmatical existence.
Predestination and fatalism are different not in substance, but only in the fact that the given character and the determination of human actions which comes from without proceed from a being with knowledge in the case of the former, and from one without knowledge in the case of the latter. In the result they coincide; that happens which must happen. On the other hand, the concept of a moral freedom is inseparable from that of primordial originality. For that a being is the work of another but is nevertheless free as regards his willing and acting, is something that may be said in words but cannot be conceived in thought. Thus whoever called him into existence out of nothing at the same time created and determined his true nature, that is to say, all his attributes and qualities. For no one can ever create without creating something, that is, a being that is precisely determined in every way and in all its attributes. But from those qualities that are thereby determined, all its manifestations and actions subsequently flow with necessity, since these are only the qualities and attributes themselves which are brought into play and merely required the occasion or inducement from without in order to make their appearance. As a man is, so must he act; and hence guilt and merit attach not to his individual acts, but to his true nature and being. And so theism and man's moral responsibility are incompatible because such responsibility always comes home to a man's author and originator who is really the centre of gravity of that responsibility. Vain attempts have been made to bridge those two incompatibilities by means of the concept of man's moral freedom; but the bridge is for ever collapsing. The free being must also be the original. If our will isfree, so too is the primary and fundamental nature; and conversely. The pre-Kantian dogmatism that tried to keep these two predicaments apart was in precisely this way forced to assume two freedoms, that of the first world-cause for cosmology and that of the human will for morality and theology. Accordingly, even with Kant, both the third and fourth antinomies deal with freedom.
In my philosophy, on the other hand, the plain and simple recognition of the strict necessitation of actions is in keeping with the doctrine that the will is that which manifests itself even in beings without knowledge. Otherwise the obvious necessitation with their action would place this in opposition to willing, namely if there really were such a freedom of individual action and this were not rather necessitated just as strictly as is every other action. On the other hand, as I have just shown, the same doctrine of the necessitation of the acts of will renders it necessary for man's existence and essence themselves to be the work of his freedom and consequently of his will and so for this will to have aseity. [27] Thus, as I have shown, on the opposite assumption all responsibility would disappear and the moral world, like the physical, would be a mere machine which its outside constructor set in motion for his own amusement. Thus truths are all connected to one another, need and supplement one another, whereas error stumbles and blunders at every corner.
§ 119
In § 20 of my essay 'On the Basis of Ethics', I have adequately investigated the nature of the influence that moral instruction can have on conduct and what are its limits. Essentially analogous to this, is the influence of example which, however, is more powerful than that of precept and thus merits a brief analysis.
Example acts primarily by preventing or promoting; it has the former effect when it induces a man to leave undone what he would like to do. Thus he sees that others do not do it, from which he infers generally that it is not advisable and hence that it is bound to bring danger to his own person, property, or honour. He sticks to this and gladly sees himself spared the necessity of having to make his own investigations. Or he sees that someone else who has done it suffers from the evil consequences thereof; this is the example acting as a deterrent. On the other hand, example has an encouraging effect in two different ways. Thus its effect may be to induce a man to do what he would like to leave undone and yet to be careful to show him that omission to do it may land him in danger or injure him in the opinion of others. Again, the effect of example may be to encourage him to do what he likes doing, but what he has hitherto omitted to do from fear of danger or disgrace; this is the alluring or tempting example. Finally, example may also bring to a man's notice something that would otherwise not have occurred to him at all. In this case, its effect is obviously in the first instance only on the intellect; here the effect on the will is secondary and, when it occurs, will be brought about by an original act of judgement, or by confidence in the man who sets the example. The entire very powerful effect of example is due to the fact that man, as a rule, has too little power of judgement and often too little knowledge to explore his own way himself; and so he willingly follows in the footsteps of others. Accordingly, everyone will be the more open to the influence of example, the more he lacks those two qualifications; and so the guiding star of the majority is the example of others, and their whole conduct, in great affairs as in small, is reducible to mere imitation; they do not carry out the smallest thing on their own judgement. The cause of this is their dread of any kind of thought or reflection, and their well-grounded want of confidence in their own judgement. At the same time this surprisingly strong imitative tendency in man is also evidence of his kinship with the ape. Imitation and habit are impelling motives of most of the actions of men. The way in which the example acts, however, is determined by the character of each; thus the same example can have a tempting effect on one man and a deterrent effect on another. We are readily afforded an opportunity of observing this by certain social improprieties which have gradually taken root and formerly did not exist. When such a thing is first noticed, one man will think: 'Ah, how can that be allowed? How egoistic, how inconsiderate; I will certainly take care never to do anything like that'; but twenty others will think: 'Ah, he does this, so can I!'
From a moral point of view, example like precept can certainly promote civil or legal improvement, but not an inner change for the better which is the really moral. For it always acts only as a personal motive and consequently on the assumption of susceptibility to motives of this kind. But it is precisely whether a character is predominantly susceptible to this or that kind of motive which decides in favour of its proper, true, and yet always only innate morality. Example generally acts as a means for promoting the appearance of good and bad characteristics; but it does not create them. And so even here Seneca's words hold good: velle non discitur. [28] The doctrine that all genuine moral qualities, good as well as bad, are innate is better suited to the metempsychosis of Brahmanism and Buddhism than to Judaism. According to metempsychosis' man's good and evil deeds follow him, like his shadow, from one existence to another'; whereas Judaism requires that man should come into the world as a moral zero in order to decide now, by virtue of an inconceivable liberum arbitrium indifferentiae [29] and thus in consequence of rational reflection, whether he wants to be an angel or a devil, or anything else that lies between the two. All this I know quite well, but I pay not the least attention to it; for my standard is truth. I am no professor of philosophy and, therefore, do not recognize my vocation to consist in placing on a firm footing, first and foremost, the fundamental ideas of Judaism, even if these should for ever bar the way to all philosophical knowledge. Liberum arbitrium indifferentiae under the name of 'moral freedom' is the most favourite plaything of professors of philosophy which must be left to them-to the clever, the honest, and the sincere.
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[b]Notes:[/b]
1 ['How could man give himself airs? For him conception is already guilt, birth the punishment, life hard labour, and death his doom.' (Schopenhauer's own distich.)]
2 [' Brotherly love'.]
3 ['To retain prudence'.] 4 ['This virtue was called [x], because it was an adherence to prudence and sobriety.']
5 ['Diligence, obedience, justice, humility'.]
6 ['That by virtue whereof a shoemaker knows how to make an excellent shoe, is described as his virtue (skill, ability).']
7 [' Squandering his own, and coveting another's'.]
8 [' Sustain and abstain.']
9 ['The arguments for and against'.]
10 ['The happy mean'.]
11 ['(Whose) heart was fashioned by Titan out of better clay.' (Juvenal, Satires, XIII. 183.)] * A most recent instance is found in Macleod's Travels in Eastern Africa (2 vols., London, 1860), where there is an account of the shocking, coldly calculating, and truly devilish cruelty with which the Portuguese treat their slaves in Mozambique.
12 ['Par excellence'.]
13 ['An opportunity, however small, suffices to make us angry.']
14 ['To be angry is pleasant.']
15 ['A particularly malicious and spiteful animal'.] 16 ['Its eyes are larger than its stomach.']
* A recent article of The Times furnished me with the most candid and vigorous expression of the matter I have ever come across. It is worth preserving here: 'There is no vice of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excites so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbours, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime which reason cannot defend, nor humility mitigate.
[quote]"When heaven with such parts has blest him, Have I not reason to detest him?"[/quote]
is a genuine and natural expression of the vulgar human mind. The man who writes as we cannot write, who speaks as we cannot speak, labours as we cannot labour, thrives as we cannot thrive, has accumulated on his own person all the offences of which man can be guilty. Down with him! Why cumbereth he the ground?' The Times, 9 October 1858.
17 ['The evil of punishment'.]
18 ['The evil of guilt'.]
19 ['Human misery, human depravity, and human stupidity'.]
20 ['May the world perish provided I am safe.']
21 [' Which, it is true, is impossible to carry out'.]
22 'Maker' often appears in compound words, such as 'watchmaker', 'shoemaker', and so on. Now 'our maker' (in French it would be notre faiseur) is in English writings, sermons, and in ordinary life a very common and favourite expression for' God'. I ask the reader to note that this is extremely characteristic of the English conception of religion. But the well-informed will readily imagine what the feelings must be of the Brahman who is trained in the doctrine of the sacred Veda and of the Vaisya emulating him, and indeed of the whole Indian people who are imbued with the belief in metempsychosis and retribution and in every event of their lives are reminded of these, when the attempt is made to force such notions on them. To pass from the eternal Brahm that exists, suffers, lives, and hopes for salvation in each and all, to that' maker' out of nothing is an exacting demand. They will never be persuaded that the world and man have been made out of nothing. Therefore on page 15 of the book to be eulogized in the text, the eminent author rightly says: 'The efforts of the missionaries will remain fruitless; no Hindu worthy of respect will ever pay any attention to their exhortations.' Similarly on page 50, after discussing the fundamental teachings of Brahmanism, he says: 'It is idle to expect that they will ever give up those views with which they are imbued and in which they live, move, and have their being, in order to accept the Christian teaching. Of this I am firmly convinced.' Also on page 68: 'And if for this purpose the whole Synod of the English Church were to apply itself, it would not succeed unless by absolute compulsion in converting more than one in a thousand of the great Indian population.' The accuracy of this prophecy is now testified, forty-one years later, by a long letter in The Times of 6 November 1849 signed Civis, which clearly comes from a man who has for many years lived in India. Among other things it says: 'Not a single instance has ever come to my knowledge where in India a person of whom we might be proud had been converted to Christianity. Not a single case did I know in which there had not been one who proved to be a reproach to the faith he accepted and a warning to the one he renounced. The proselytes who have hitherto been made, few as they are, have, therefore, merely served to deter others from following their example.' After this letter had been contradicted, there appeared in confirmation of it a second, signed Sepahee, in The Times of 20 November, in which it said: 'I have served over twelve years in the Madras Presidency and during that long period I never saw a single individual who had been converted, even only nominally, from Hinduism or Islam to the Protestant religion. Therefore to this extent, I entirely agree with Civis and believe that almost all officers of the army will furnish similar evidence.' This letter was also vigorously contradicted; but I believe that such contradiction, even if it did not come from the missionaries, came at all events from their cousins; at any rate they were very godly opponents. And so even if some things they mention are not without foundation, I still give more credit to the above extracts of unbiased witnesses. For in England I have more faith in the red coat than in the black; and to me everything is eo ipso suspect which is there said in favour of the Church, that wealthy and comfortable institution for the penniless younger sons of the entire aristocracy.
23 ['Sir, this is the true religion.'] 24 ['Even the man who is nothing is capable of gaining strength when in alliance with the gods; but I venture to gain this glory even without them.']
25 'The final cause operates not according to its real being, but only according to its being as that known.']
* Cf. World as Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 19.
26 ['Guidance, warning, advice.']
27 [Being by and of itself. All other beings are ab alio, dependent in their existence on a creator (God).] 28 ['Willing cannot be taught.' (Epistulae, 81. 14.)] 29 [The freedom of indifference; the ability of the will to choose independently of antecedent determination.]
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