Counsels and Maxims - Arthur Schopenhauer
THE ESSAYS
OF
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
TRANSLATED BY
T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.
COUNSELS AND MAXIMS.
_Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisee: il est
tres difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible
de le trouver ailleurs_.
CHAMFORT.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION
I. GENERAL RULES
II. OUR RELATION TO OURSELVES
III. OUR RELATION TO OTHERS
IV. WORLDLY FORTUNE
V. THE AGES OF LIFE
INTRODUCTION.
If my object in these pages were to present a complete scheme of
counsels and maxims for the guidance of life, I should have to repeat
the numerous rules--some of them excellent--which have been drawn
up by thinkers of all ages, from Theognis and Solomon[1] down to La
Rochefoucauld; and, in so doing, I should inevitably entail upon the
reader a vast amount of well-worn commonplace. But the fact is that in
this work I make still less claim to exhaust my subject than in any
other of my writings.
[Footnote 1: I refer to the proverbs and maxims ascribed, in the Old
Testament, to the king of that name.]
An author who makes no claims to completeness must also, in a great
measure, abandon any attempt at systematic arrangement. For his double
loss in this respect, the reader may console himself by reflecting
that a complete and systematic treatment of such a subject as the
guidance of life could hardly fail to be a very wearisome business.
I have simply put down those of my thoughts which appear to be worth
communicating--thoughts which, as far as I know, have not been
uttered, or, at any rate, not just in the same form, by any one else;
so that my remarks may be taken as a supplement to what has been
already achieved in the immense field.
However, by way of introducing some sort of order into the great
variety of matters upon which advice will be given in the following
pages, I shall distribute what I have to say under the following
heads: (1) general rules; (2) our relation to ourselves; (3) our
relation to others; and finally, (4) rules which concern our manner of
life and our worldly circumstances. I shall conclude with some remarks
on the changes which the various periods of life produce in us.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL RULES.--SECTION 1.
The first and foremost rule for the wise conduct of life seems to me
to be contained in a view to which Aristotle parenthetically refers in
the _Nichomachean Ethics_:[1] [Greek: o phronimoz to alupon dioke e ou
to aedu] or, as it may be rendered, _not pleasure, but freedom from
pain, is what the wise man will aim at_.
[Footnote 1: vii. (12) 12.]
The truth of this remark turns upon the negative character of
happiness,--the fact that pleasure is only the negation of pain, and
that pain is the positive element in life. Though I have given a
detailed proof of this proposition in my chief work,[1] I may supply
one more illustration of it here, drawn from a circumstance of daily
occurrence. Suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful
spot, we are physically in a sound and healthy condition: the sore of
this one spot, will completely absorb our attention, causing us to
lose the sense of general well-being, and destroying all our comfort
in life. In the same way, when all our affairs but one turn out as
we wish, the single instance in which our aims are frustrated is a
constant trouble to us, even though it be something quite trivial. We
think a great deal about it, and very little about those other and
more important matters in which we have been successful. In both these
cases what has met with resistance is _the will_; in the one case, as
it is objectified in the organism, in the other, as it presents
itself in the struggle of life; and in both, it is plain that the
satisfaction of the will consists in nothing else than that it meets
with no resistance. It is, therefore, a satisfaction which is not
directly felt; at most, we can become conscious of it only when we
reflect upon our condition. But that which checks or arrests the will
is something positive; it proclaims its own presence. All pleasure
consists in merely removing this check--in other words, in freeing us
from its action; and hence pleasure is a state which can never last
very long.
[Footnote 1: _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_. Vol. I., p. 58.]
This is the true basis of the above excellent rule quoted from
Aristotle, which bids us direct our aim, not toward securing what is
pleasurable and agreeable in life, but toward avoiding, as far as
possible, its innumerable evils. If this were not the right course to
take, that saying of Voltaire's, _Happiness is but a dream and sorrow
is real_, would be as false as it is, in fact, true. A man who desires
to make up the book of his life and determine where the balance of
happiness lies, must put down in his accounts, not the pleasures which
he has enjoyed, but the evils which he has escaped. That is the
true method of eudaemonology; for all eudaemonology must begin by
recognizing that its very name is a euphemism, and that _to live
happily_ only means _to live less unhappily_--to live a tolerable
life. There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed,
but to be overcome--to be got over. There are numerous expressions
illustrating this--such as _degere vitam, vita defungi_; or
in Italian, _si scampa cosi_; or in German, _man muss suchen
durchzukommen; er wird schon durch die Welt kommen_, and so on. In old
age it is indeed a consolation to think that the work of life is over
and done with. The happiest lot is not to have experienced the keenest
delights or the greatest pleasures, but to have brought life to a
close without any very great pain, bodily or mental. To measure the
happiness of a life by its delights or pleasures, is to apply a false
standard. For pleasures are and remain something negative; that
they produce happiness is a delusion, cherished by envy to its own
punishment. Pain is felt to be something positive, and hence its
absence is the true standard of happiness. And if, over and above
freedom from pain, there is also an absence of boredom, the essential
conditions of earthly happiness are attained; for all else is
chimerical.
It follows from this that a man should never try to purchase pleasure
at the cost of pain, or even at the risk of incurring it; to do so is
to pay what is positive and real, for what is negative and illusory;
while there is a net profit in sacrificing pleasure for the sake of
avoiding pain. In either case it is a matter of indifference whether
the pain follows the pleasure or precedes it. While it is a complete
inversion of the natural order to try and turn this scene of misery
into a garden of pleasure, to aim at joy and pleasure rather than
at the greatest possible freedom from pain--and yet how many do
it!--there is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the
world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one's efforts to securing
a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire. The fool rushes
after the pleasures of life and finds himself their dupe; the wise man
avoids its evils; and even if, notwithstanding his precautions, he
falls into misfortunes, that is the fault of fate, not of his own
folly. As far as he is successful in his endeavors, he cannot be said
to have lived a life of illusion; for the evils which he shuns are
very real. Even if he goes too far out of his way to avoid evils, and
makes an unnecessary sacrifice of pleasure, he is, in reality, not the
worse off for that; for all pleasures are chimerical, and to mourn
for having lost any of them is a frivolous, and even ridiculous
proceeding.
The failure to recognize this truth--a failure promoted by optimistic
ideas--is the source of much unhappiness. In moments free from pain,
our restless wishes present, as it were in a mirror, the image of a
happiness that has no counterpart in reality, seducing us to follow
it; in doing so we bring pain upon ourselves, and that is something
undeniably real. Afterwards, we come to look with regret upon that
lost state of painlessness; it is a paradise which we have gambled
away; it is no longer with us, and we long in vain to undo what has
been done.
One might well fancy that these visions of wishes fulfilled were the
work of some evil spirit, conjured up in order to entice us away from
that painless state which forms our highest happiness.
A careless youth may think that the world is meant to be enjoyed, as
though it were the abode of some real or positive happiness, which
only those fail to attain who are not clever enough to overcome the
difficulties that lie in the way. This false notion takes a stronger
hold on him when he comes to read poetry and romance, and to be
deceived by outward show--the hypocrisy that characterizes the
world from beginning to end; on which I shall have something to say
presently. The result is that his life is the more or less deliberate
pursuit of positive happiness; and happiness he takes to be equivalent
to a series of definite pleasures. In seeking for these pleasures he
encounters danger--a fact which should not be forgotten. He hunts for
game that does not exist; and so he ends by suffering some very
real and positive misfortune--pain, distress, sickness, loss, care,
poverty, shame, and all the thousand ills of life. Too late he
discovers the trick that has been played upon him.
But if the rule I have mentioned is observed, and a plan of life is
adopted which proceeds by avoiding pain--in other words, by taking
measures of precaution against want, sickness, and distress in all its
forms, the aim is a real one, and something may be achieved which will
be great in proportion as the plan is not disturbed by striving after
the chimera of positive happiness. This agrees with the opinion
expressed by Goethe in the _Elective Affinities_, and there put into
the mouth of Mittler--the man who is always trying to make other
people happy: _To desire to get rid of an evil is a definite object,
but to desire a better fortune than one has is blind folly_. The same
truth is contained in that fine French proverb: _le mieux est l'ennemi
du bien_--leave well alone. And, as I have remarked in my chief
work,[1] this is the leading thought underlying the philosophical
system of the Cynics. For what was it led the Cynics to repudiate
pleasure in every form, if it was not the fact that pain is, in a
greater or less degree, always bound up with pleasure? To go out of
the way of pain seemed to them so much easier than to secure pleasure.
Deeply impressed as they were by the negative nature of pleasure and
the positive nature of pain, they consistently devoted all their
efforts to the avoidance of pain. The first step to that end was, in
their opinion, a complete and deliberate repudiation of pleasure, as
something which served only to entrap the victim in order that he
might be delivered over to pain.
[Footnote 1: _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, vol. ii., ch. 16.]
We are all born, as Schiller says, in Arcadia. In other words, we
come into the world full of claims to happiness and pleasure, and we
cherish the fond hope of making them good. But, as a rule, Fate soon
teaches us, in a rough and ready way that we really possess nothing at
all, but that everything in the world is at its command, in virtue of
an unassailable right, not only to all we have or acquire, to wife or
child, but even to our very limbs, our arms, legs, _eyes_ and ears,
nay, even to the nose in the middle of our face. And in any case,
after some little time, we learn by experience that happiness and
pleasure are a _fata morgana_, which, visible from afar, vanish as we
approach; that, on the other hand, suffering and pain are a reality,
which makes its presence felt without any intermediary, and for its
effect, stands in no need of illusion or the play of false hope.
If the teaching of experience bears fruit in us, we soon give up the
pursuit of pleasure and happiness, and think much more about making
ourselves secure against the attacks of pain and suffering. We see
that the best the world has to offer is an existence free from pain--a
quiet, tolerable life; and we confine our claims to this, as to
something we can more surely hope to achieve. For the safest way of
not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy. Merck, the
friend of Goethe's youth, was conscious of this truth when he
wrote: _It is the wretched way people have of setting up a claim to
happiness_--_and, that to, in a measure corresponding with their
desires_--_that ruins everything in this world. A man will make
progress if he can get rid of this claim,[1] and desire nothing but
what he sees before him_. Accordingly it is advisable to put very
moderate limits upon our expectations of pleasure, possessions, rank,
honor and so on; because it is just this striving and struggling to
be happy, to dazzle the world, to lead a life full of pleasure, which
entail great misfortune. It is prudent and wise, I say, to reduce
one's claims, if only for the reason that it is extremely easy to be
very unhappy; while to be very happy is not indeed difficult, but
quite impossible. With justice sings the poet of life's wisdom:
_Auream quisquis mediocritatem
Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
Sobrius aula.
Savius ventis agitatur ingens
Pinus: et celsae graviori casu
Decidunt turres; feriuntque summos
Fulgura monies.[2]_
--the golden mean is best--to live free from the squalor of a mean
abode, and yet not be a mark for envy. It is the tall pine which is
cruelly shaken by the wind, the highest summits that are struck in the
storm, and the lofty towers that fall so heavily.
[Footnote 1: Letters to and from Merck.]
[Footnote 2: Horace. Odes II. x.]
He who has taken to heart the teaching of my philosophy--who knows,
therefore, that our whole existence is something which had better
not have been, and that to disown and disclaim it is the highest
wisdom--he will have no great expectations from anything or any
condition in life: he will spend passion upon nothing in the world,
nor lament over-much if he fails in any of his undertakings. He
will feel the deep truth of what Plato[1] says: [Greek: oute ti ton
anthropinon haxion on megalaes spondaes]--nothing in human affairs is
worth any great anxiety; or, as the Persian poet has it,
_Though from thy grasp all worldly things should flee,
Grieve not for them, for they are nothing worth:
And though a world in thy possession be,
Joy not, for worthless are the things of earth.
Since to that better world 'tis given to thee
To pass, speed on, for this is nothing worth._[2]
[Footnote 1: _Republic_, x. 604.]
[Footnote 2: _Translator's Note_. From the Anvar-i Suhaili--_The
Lights of Canopus_--being the Persian version of the _Table of
Bidpai_. Translated by E.B. Eastwick, ch. iii. Story vi., p. 289.]
The chief obstacle to our arriving at these salutary views is that
hypocrisy of the world to which I have already alluded--an hypocrisy
which should be early revealed to the young. Most of the glories of
the world are mere outward show, like the scenes on a stage: there
is nothing real about them. Ships festooned and hung with pennants,
firing of cannon, illuminations, beating of drums and blowing of
trumpets, shouting and applauding--these are all the outward sign, the
pretence and suggestion,--as it were the hieroglyphic,--of _joy_: but
just there, joy is, as a rule, not to be found; it is the only guest
who has declined to be present at the festival. Where this guest may
really be found, he comes generally without invitation; he is not
formerly announced, but slips in quietly by himself _sans facon_;
often making his appearance under the most unimportant and trivial
circumstances, and in the commonest company--anywhere, in short, but
where the society is brilliant and distinguished. Joy is like the gold
in the Australian mines--found only now and then, as it were, by the
caprice of chance, and according to no rule or law; oftenest in very
little grains, and very seldom in heaps. All that outward show which I
have described, is only an attempt to make people believe that it
is really joy which has come to the festival; and to produce this
impression upon the spectators is, in fact, the whole object of it.
With _mourning_ it is just the same. That long funeral procession,
moving up so slowly; how melancholy it looks! what an endless row of
carriages! But look into them--they are all empty; the coachmen of the
whole town are the sole escort the dead man has to his grave. Eloquent
picture of the friendship and esteem of the world! This is the
falsehood, the hollowness, the hypocrisy of human affairs!
Take another example--a roomful of guests in full dress, being
received with great ceremony. You could almost believe that this is
a noble and distinguished company; but, as a matter of fact, it is
compulsion, pain and boredom who are the real guests. For where many
are invited, it is a rabble--even if they all wear stars. Really good
society is everywhere of necessity very small. In brilliant festivals
and noisy entertainments, there is always, at bottom, a sense of
emptiness prevalent. A false tone is there: such gatherings are in
strange contrast with the misery and barrenness of our existence. The
contrast brings the true condition into greater relief. Still, these
gatherings are effective from the outside; and that is just their
purpose. Chamfort[1] makes the excellent remark that _society_--_les
cercles, les salons, ce qu'on appelle le monde_--is like a miserable
play, or a bad opera, without any interest in itself, but supported
for a time by mechanical aid, costumes and scenery.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_. Nicholas "Chamfort" (1741-94), a
French miscellaneous writer, whose brilliant conversation, power of
sarcasm, and epigrammic force, coupled with an extraordinary career,
render him one of the most interesting and remarkable men of his
time. Schopenhauer undoubtedly owed much to this writer, to whom he
constantly refers.]
And so, too, with academies and chairs of philosophy. You have a kind
of sign-board hung out to show the apparent abode of _wisdom_: but
wisdom is another guest who declines the invitation; she is to be
found elsewhere. The chiming of bells, ecclesiastical millinery,
attitudes of devotion, insane antics--these are the pretence, the
false show of _piety_. And so on. Everything in the world is like a
hollow nut; there is little kernel anywhere, and when it does exist,
it is still more rare to find it in the shell. You may look for it
elsewhere, and find it, as a rule, only by chance.
SECTION 2. To estimate a man's condition in regard to happiness, it is
necessary to ask, not what things please him, but what things trouble
him; and the more trivial these things are in themselves, the happier
the man will be. To be irritated by trifles, a man must be well off;
for in misfortunes trifles are unfelt.
SECTION 3. Care should be taken not to build the happiness of life
upon a _broad foundation_--not to require a great many things in order
to be happy. For happiness on such a foundation is the most easily
undermined; it offers many more opportunities for accidents; and
accidents are always happening. The architecture of happiness follows
a plan in this respect just the opposite of that adopted in every
other case, where the broadest foundation offers the greatest
security. Accordingly, to reduce your claims to the lowest possible
degree, in comparison with your means,--of whatever kind these may
be--is the surest way of avoiding extreme misfortune.
To make extensive preparations for life--no matter what form they
may take--is one of the greatest and commonest of follies. Such
preparations presuppose, in the first place, a long life, the full and
complete term of years appointed to man--and how few reach it! and
even if it be reached, it is still too short for all the plans that
have been made; for to carry them out requites more time than was
thought necessary at the beginning. And then how many mischances and
obstacles stand in the way! how seldom the goal is ever reached in
human affairs!
And lastly, even though the goal should be reached, the changes which
Time works in us have been left out of the reckoning: we forget that
the capacity whether for achievement or for enjoyment does not last a
whole lifetime. So we often toil for things which are no longer suited
to us when we attain them; and again, the years we spend in preparing
for some work, unconsciously rob us of the power for carrying it out.
How often it happens that a man is unable to enjoy the wealth which he
acquired at so much trouble and risk, and that the fruits of his
labor are reserved for others; or that he is incapable of filling the
position which he has won after so many years of toil and struggle.
Fortune has come too late for him; or, contrarily, he has come too
late for fortune,--when, for instance, he wants to achieve great
things, say, in art or literature: the popular taste has changed, it
may be; a new generation has grown up, which takes no interest in his
work; others have gone a shorter way and got the start of him. These
are the facts of life which Horace must have had in view, when he
lamented the uselessness of all advice:--
_quid eternis minorem
Consiliis animum fatigas?_[1]
[Footnote 1: Odes II. xi.]
The cause of this commonest of all follies is that optical illusion of
the mind from which everyone suffers, making life, at its beginning,
seem of long duration; and at its end, when one looks back over the
course of it, how short a time it seems! There is some advantage in
the illusion; but for it, no great work would ever be done.
Our life is like a journey on which, as we advance, the landscape
takes a different view from that which it presented at first,
and changes again, as we come nearer. This is just what
happens--especially with our wishes. We often find something else,
nay, something better than what we are looking for; and what we look
for, we often find on a very different path from that on which we
began a vain search. Instead of finding, as we expected, pleasure,
happiness, joy, we get experience, insight, knowledge--a real and
permanent blessing, instead of a fleeting and illusory one.
This is the thought that runs through _Wilkelm Meister_, like the bass
in a piece of music. In this work of Goethe's, we have a novel of the
_intellectual_ kind, and, therefore, superior to all others, even to
Sir Walter Scott's, which are, one and all, _ethical_; in other words,
they treat of human nature only from the side of the will. So, too,
in the _Zauberfloete_--that grotesque, but still significant, and even
hieroglyphic--the same thought is symbolized, but in great, coarse
lines, much in the way in which scenery is painted. Here the symbol
would be complete if Tamino were in the end to be cured of his desire
to possess Tainina, and received, in her stead, initiation into the
mysteries of the Temple of Wisdom. It is quite right for Papageno, his
necessary contrast, to succeed in getting his Papagena.
Men of any worth or value soon come to see that they are in the hands
of Fate, and gratefully submit to be moulded by its teachings. They
recognize that the fruit of life is experience, and not happiness;
they become accustomed and content to exchange hope for insight; and,
in the end, they can say, with Petrarch, that all they care for is to
learn:--
_Altro diletto che 'mparar, non provo_.
It may even be that they to some extent still follow their old wishes
and aims, trifling with them, as it were, for the sake of appearances;
all the while really and seriously looking for nothing but
instruction; a process which lends them an air of genius, a trait of
something contemplative and sublime.
In their search for gold, the alchemists discovered other
things--gunpowder, china, medicines, the laws of nature. There is a
sense in which we are all alchemists.
CHAPTER II.
OUR RELATION TO OURSELVES.--SECTION 4.
The mason employed on the building of a house may be quite ignorant of
its general design; or at any rate, he may not keep it constantly in
mind. So it is with man: in working through the days and hours of his
life, he takes little thought of its character as a whole.
If there is any merit or importance attaching to a man's career, if he
lays himself out carefully for some special work, it is all the more
necessary and advisable for him to turn his attention now and then
to its _plan_, that is to say, the miniature sketch of its general
outlines. Of course, to do that, he must have applied the maxim
[Greek: Gnothi seauton]; he must have made some little progress in the
art of understanding himself. He must know what is his real, chief,
and foremost object in life,--what it is that he most wants in order
to be happy; and then, after that, what occupies the second and third
place in his thoughts; he must find out what, on the whole, his
vocation really is--the part he has to play, his general relation to
the world. If he maps out important work for himself on great lines,
a glance at this miniature plan of his life will, more than anything
else stimulate, rouse and ennoble him, urge him on to action and keep
him from false paths.