Counsels and Maxims - Arthur Schopenhauer
Again, just as the traveler, on reaching a height, gets a connected
view over the road he has taken, with its many turns and windings; so
it is only when we have completed a period in our life, or approach
the end of it altogether, that we recognize the true connection
between all our actions,--what it is we have achieved, what work we
have done. It is only then that we see the precise chain of cause and
effect, and the exact value of all our efforts. For as long as we are
actually engaged in the work of life, we always act in accordance with
the nature of our character, under the influence of motive, and within
the limits of our capacity,--in a word, from beginning to end, under
a law of _necessity_; at every moment we do just what appears to us
right and proper. It is only afterwards, when we come to look back at
the whole course of our life and its general result, that we see the
why and wherefore of it all.
When we are actually doing some great deed, or creating some immortal
work, we are not conscious of it as such; we think only of satisfying
present aims, of fulfilling the intentions we happen to have at the
time, of doing the right thing at the moment. It is only when we
come to view our life as a connected whole that our character and
capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in
particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to
choose the only true path out of a thousand which might have brought
us to ruin. It was our genius that guided us, a force felt in the
affairs of the intellectual as in those of the world; and working by
its defect just in the same way in regard to evil and disaster.
SECTION 5. Another important element in the wise conduct of life is to
preserve a proper proportion between our thought for the present and
our thought for the future; in order not to spoil the one by paying
over-great attention to the other. Many live too long in the
present--frivolous people, I mean; others, too much in the future,
ever anxious and full of care. It is seldom that a man holds the right
balance between the two extremes. Those who strive and hope and live
only in the future, always looking ahead and impatiently anticipating
what is coming, as something which will make them happy when they
get it, are, in spite of their very clever airs, exactly like those
donkeys one sees in Italy, whose pace may be hurried by fixing a stick
on their heads with a wisp of hay at the end of it; this is always
just in front of them, and they keep on trying to get it. Such people
are in a constant state of illusion as to their whole existence; they
go on living _ad interim_, until at last they die.
Instead, therefore, of always thinking about our plans and anxiously
looking to the future, or of giving ourselves up to regret for the
past, we should never forget that the present is the only reality, the
only certainty; that the future almost always turns out contrary to
our expectations; that the past, too, was very different from what
we suppose it to have been. But the past and the future are, on the
whole, of less consequence than we think. Distance, which makes
objects look small to the outward eye, makes them look big to the eye
of thought. The present alone is true and actual; it is the only
time which possesses full reality, and our existence lies in it
exclusively. Therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it
the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour that is bearable by
its freedom from pain and annoyance with a full consciousness of its
value. We shall hardly be able to do this if we make a wry face over
the failure of our hopes in the past or over our anxiety for the
future. It is the height of folly to refuse the present hour of
happiness, or wantonly to spoil it by vexation at by-gones or
uneasiness about what is to come. There is a time, of course, for
forethought, nay, even for repentance; but when it is over let us
think of what is past as of something to which we have said farewell,
of necessity subduing our hearts--
[Greek: alla ta men protuchthai easomen achnumenoi per
tumhon eni staethessi philon damasntes hanankae],[1]
and of the future as of that which lies beyond our power, in the lap
of the gods--
[Greek: all aetoi men tauta theon en gounasi keitai.][2]
[Footnote 1: _Iliad_, xix, 65.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_, xvii, 514]
But in regard to the present let us remember Seneca's advice, and live
each day as if it were our whole life,--_singulas dies singulas vitas
puta_: let us make it as agreeable as possible, it is the only real
time we have.
Only those evils which are sure to come at a definite date have
any right to disturb us; and how few there are which fulfill this
description. For evils are of two kinds; either they are possible
only, at most probable; or they are inevitable. Even in the case of
evils which are sure to happen, the time at which they will happen is
uncertain. A man who is always preparing for either class of evil will
not have a moment of peace left him. So, if we are not to lose all
comfort in life through the fear of evils, some of which are uncertain
in themselves, and others, in the time at which they will occur, we
should look upon the one kind as never likely to happen, and the other
as not likely to happen very soon.
Now, the less our peace of mind is disturbed by fear, the more likely
it is to be agitated by desire and expectation. This is the true
meaning of that song of Goethe's which is such a favorite with
everyone: _Ich hab' mein' Sach' auf nichts gestellt_. It is only
after a man has got rid of all pretension, and taken refuge in mere
unembellished existence, that he is able to attain that peace of mind
which is the foundation of human happiness. Peace of mind! that is
something essential to any enjoyment of the present moment; and unless
its separate moments are enjoyed, there is an end of life's happiness
as a whole. We should always collect that _To-day_ comes only once,
and never returns. We fancy that it will come again to-morrow; but
_To-morrow_ is another day, which, in its turn, comes once only.
We are apt to forget that every day is an integral, and therefore
irreplaceable portion of life, and to look upon life as though it
were a collective idea or name which does not suffer if one of the
individuals it covers is destroyed.
We should be more likely to appreciate and enjoy the present, if,
in those good days when we are well and strong, we did not fail to
reflect how, in sickness and sorrow, every past hour that was free
from pain and privation seemed in our memory so infinitely to be
envied--as it were, a lost paradise, or some one who was only then
seen to have acted as a friend. But we live through our days of
happiness without noticing them; it is only when evil comes upon us
that we wish them back. A thousand gay and pleasant hours are wasted
in ill-humor; we let them slip by unenjoyed, and sigh for them in vain
when the sky is overcast. Those present moments that are bearable, be
they never so trite and common,--passed by in indifference, or, it may
be, impatiently pushed away,--those are the moments we should honor;
never failing to remember that the ebbing tide is even how hurrying
them into the past, where memory will store them transfigured and
shining with an imperishable light,--in some after-time, and above
all, when our days are evil, to raise the veil and present them as the
object of our fondest regret.
SECTION 6. _Limitations always make for happiness_. We are happy in
proportion as our range of vision, our sphere of work, our points of
contact with the world, are restricted and circumscribed. We are more
likely to feel worried and anxious if these limits are wide; for
it means that our cares, desires and terrors are increased and
intensified. That is why the blind are not so unhappy as we might be
inclined to suppose; otherwise there would not be that gentle and
almost serene expression of peace in their faces.
Another reason why limitation makes for happiness is that the second
half of life proves even more dreary that the first. As the years wear
on, the horizon of our aims and our points of contact with the world
become more extended. In childhood our horizon is limited to
the narrowest sphere about us; in youth there is already a very
considerable widening of our view; in manhood it comprises the whole
range of our activity, often stretching out over a very distant
sphere,--the care, for instance, of a State or a nation; in old age it
embraces posterity.
But even in the affairs of the intellect, limitation is necessary if
we are to be happy. For the less the will is excited, the less we
suffer. We have seen that suffering is something positive, and that
happiness is only a negative condition. To limit the sphere of outward
activity is to relieve the will of external stimulus: to limit the
sphere of our intellectual efforts is to relieve the will of internal
sources of excitement. This latter kind of limitation is attended by
the disadvantage that it opens the door to boredom, which is a direct
source of countless sufferings; for to banish boredom, a man will
have recourse to any means that may be handy--dissipation, society,
extravagance, gaming, and drinking, and the like, which in their turn
bring mischief, ruin and misery in their train. _Difficiles in otio
quies_--it is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do. That
limitation in the sphere of outward activity is conducive, nay, even
necessary to human happiness, such as it is, may be seen in the fact
that the only kind of poetry which depicts men in a happy state of
life--Idyllic poetry, I mean,--always aims, as an intrinsic part of
its treatment, at representing them in very simple and restricted
circumstances. It is this feeling, too, which is at the bottom of the
pleasure we take in what are called _genre_ pictures.
_Simplicity_, therefore, as far as it can be attained, and even
_monotony_, in our manner of life, if it does not mean that we
are bored, will contribute to happiness; just because, under such
circumstances, life, and consequently the burden which is the
essential concomitant of life, will be least felt. Our existence
will glide on peacefully like a stream which no waves or whirlpools
disturb.
SECTION 7. Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends,
ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our
consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for
the mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the
way of happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant
alternations of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments
it produces. But it must be confessed that for such occupation a
pre-eminent amount of intellectual capacity is necessary. And in this
connection it may be noted that, just as a life devoted to outward
activity will distract and divert a man from study, and also deprive
him of that quiet concentration of mind which is necessary for such
work; so, on the other hand, a long course of thought will make
him more or less unfit for the noisy pursuits of real life. It
is advisable, therefore, to suspend mental work for a while, if
circumstances happen which demand any degree of energy in affairs of a
practical nature.
SECTION 8. To live a life that shall be entirely prudent and discreet,
and to draw from experience all the instruction it contains, it
is requisite to be constantly thinking back,--to make a kind
of recapitulation of what we have done, of our impressions and
sensations, to compare our former with our present judgments--what
we set before us and struggle to achieve, with the actual result and
satisfaction we have obtained. To do this is to get a repetition of
the private lessons of experience,--lessons which are given to every
one.
Experience of the world may be looked upon as a kind of text, to which
reflection and knowledge form the commentary. Where there is great
deal of reflection and intellectual knowledge, and very little
experience, the result is like those books which have on each page two
lines of text to forty lines of commentary. A great deal of experience
with little reflection and scant knowledge, gives us books like those
of the _editio Bipontina_[1] where there are no notes and much that is
unintelligible.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_. A series of Greek, Latin and French
classics published at Zweibraecken in the Palatinate, from and after
the year 1779. Cf. Butter, _Ueber die Bipontiner und die editiones
Bipontinae_.]
The advice here given is on a par with a rule recommended by
Pythagoras,--to review, every night before going to sleep, what we
have done during the day. To live at random, in the hurly-burly of
business or pleasure, without ever reflecting upon the past,--to go
on, as it were, pulling cotton off the reel of life,--is to have no
clear idea of what we are about; and a man who lives in this state
will have chaos in his emotions and certain confusion in his thoughts;
as is soon manifest by the abrupt and fragmentary character of his
conversation, which becomes a kind of mincemeat. A man will be all the
more exposed to this fate in proportion as he lives a restless life
in the world, amid a crowd of various impressions and with a
correspondingly small amount of activity on the part of his own mind.
And in this connection it will be in place to observe that, when
events and circumstances which have influenced us pass away in the
course of time, we are unable to bring back and renew the particular
mood or state of feeling which they aroused in us: but we can remember
what we were led to say and do in regard to them; and thus form, as it
were, the result, expression and measure of those events. We should,
therefore, be careful to preserve the memory of our thoughts at
important points in our life; and herein lies the great advantage of
keeping a journal.
SECTION 9. To be self-sufficient, to be all in all to oneself, to
want for nothing, to be able to say _omnia mea mecum porto_--that is
assuredly the chief qualification for happiness. Hence Aristotle's
remark, [Greek: hae eudaimonia ton autarchon esti][1]--to be happy
means to be self-sufficient--cannot be too often repeated. It is,
at bottom, the same thought as is present in the very well-turned
sentence from Chamfort:
_Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisee: il est tres difficile de le trouver
en nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs_.
[Footnote 1: _Eudem. Eth_. VII. ii. 37.]
For while a man cannot reckon with certainty upon anyone but himself,
the burdens and disadvantages, the dangers and annoyances, which arise
from having to do with others, are not only countless but unavoidable.
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry,
_high life_: for the whole object of it is to transform our miserable
existence into a succession of joys, delights and pleasures,--a
process which cannot fail to result in disappointment and delusion;
on a par, in this respect, with its _obligato_ accompaniment, the
interchange of lies.[1]
[Footnote 1: As our body is concealed by the clothes we wear, so our
mind is veiled in lies. The veil is always there, and it is only
through it that we can sometimes guess at what a man really thinks;
just as from his clothes we arrive at the general shape of his body.]
All society necessarily involves, as the first condition of its
existence, mutual accommodation and restraint upon the part of its
members. This means that the larger it is, the more insipid will be
its tone. A man can be _himself_ only so long as he is alone; and if
he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only
when he is alone that he is really free. Constraint is always present
in society, like a companion of whom there is no riddance; and in
proportion to the greatness of a man's individuality, it will be hard
for him to bear the sacrifices which all intercourse with others
demands, Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as
a man's personal value is large or small,--the wretch feeling, when
he is alone, the whole burden of his misery; the great intellect
delighting in its greatness; and everyone, in short, being just what
he is.
Further, if a man stands high in Nature's lists, it is natural and
inevitable that he should feel solitary. It will be an advantage to
him if his surroundings do not interfere with this feeling; for if he
has to see a great deal of other people who are not of like character
with himself, they will exercise a disturbing influence upon him,
adverse to his peace of mind; they will rob him, in fact, of himself,
and give him nothing to compensate for the loss.
But while Nature sets very wide differences between man and man in
respect both of morality and of intellect, society disregards and
effaces them; or, rather, it sets up artificial differences in
their stead,--gradations of rank and position, which are very often
diametrically opposed to those which Nature establishes. The result of
this arrangement is to elevate those whom Nature has placed low,
and to depress the few who stand high. These latter, then, usually
withdraw from society, where, as soon as it is at all numerous,
vulgarity reigns supreme.
What offends a great intellect in society is the equality of rights,
leading to equality of pretensions, which everyone enjoys; while at
the same time, inequality of capacity means a corresponding disparity
of social power. So-called _good society_ recognizes every kind of
claim but that of intellect, which is a contraband article; and people
are expected to exhibit an unlimited amount of patience towards every
form of folly and stupidity, perversity and dullness; whilst personal
merit has to beg pardon, as it were, for being present, or else
conceal itself altogether. Intellectual superiority offends by its
very existence, without any desire to do so.
The worst of what is called good society is not only that it offers us
the companionship of people who are unable to win either our praise or
our affection, but that it does not allow of our being that which we
naturally are; it compels us, for the sake of harmony, to shrivel up,
or even alter our shape altogether. Intellectual conversation, whether
grave or humorous, is only fit for intellectual society; it is
downright abhorrent to ordinary people, to please whom it is
absolutely necessary to be commonplace and dull. This demands an act
of severe self-denial; we have to forfeit three-fourths of ourselves
in order to become like other people. No doubt their company may be
set down against our loss in this respect; but the more a man is
worth, the more he will find that what he gains does not cover what he
loses, and that the balance is on the debit side of the account; for
the people with whom he deals are generally bankrupt,--that is to say,
there is nothing to be got from their society which can compensate
either for its boredom, annoyance and disagreeableness, or for the
self-denial which it renders necessary. Accordingly, most society is
so constituted as to offer a good profit to anyone who will exchange
it for solitude.
Nor is this all. By way of providing a substitute for real--I mean
intellectual--superiority, which is seldom to be met with, and
intolerable when it is found, society has capriciously adopted a false
kind of superiority, conventional in its character, and resting upon
arbitrary principles,--a tradition, as it were, handed down in the
higher circles, and, like a password, subject to alteration; I refer
to _bon-ton_ fashion. Whenever this kind of superiority comes into
collision with the real kind, its weakness is manifest. Moreover, the
presence of _good tone_ means the absence of _good sense_.
No man can be in _perfect accord_ with any one but himself--not even
with a friend or the partner of his life; differences of individuality
and temperament are always bringing in some degree of discord, though
it may be a very slight one. That genuine, profound peace of mind,
that perfect tranquillity of soul, which, next to health, is the
highest blessing the earth can give, is to be attained only in
solitude, and, as a permanent mood, only in complete retirement; and
then, if there is anything great and rich in the man's own self, his
way of life is the happiest that may be found in this wretched world.
Let me speak plainly. However close the bond of friendship, love,
marriage--a man, ultimately, looks to himself, to his own welfare
alone; at most, to his child's too. The less necessity there is for
you to come into contact with mankind in general, in the relations
whether of business or of personal intimacy, the better off you are.
Loneliness and solitude have their evils, it is true; but if you
cannot feel them all at once, you can at least see where they lie; on
the other hand, society is _insidious_ in this respect; as in offering
you what appears to be the pastime of pleasing social intercourse, it
works great and often irreparable mischief. The young should early be
trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and
peace of mind.
It follows from this that a man is best off if he be thrown upon his
own resources and can be all in all to himself; and Cicero goes so far
as to say that a man who is in this condition cannot fail to be very
happy--_nemo potest non beatissimus esse qui est totus aptus ex sese,
quique in se uno ponit omnia._[1] The more a man has in himself, the
less others can be to him. The feeling of self-sufficiency! it is that
which restrains those whose personal value is in itself great riches,
from such considerable sacrifices as are demanded by intercourse with
the world, let alone, then, from actually practicing self-denial by
going out of their way to seek it. Ordinary people are sociable and
complaisant just from the very opposite feeling;--to bear others'
company is easier for them than to bear their own. Moreover, respect
is not paid in this world to that which has real merit; it is reserved
for that which has none. So retirement is at once a proof and a result
of being distinguished by the possession of meritorious qualities. It
will therefore show real wisdom on the part of any one who is worth
anything in himself, to limit his requirements as may be necessary, in
order to preserve or extend his freedom, and,--since a man must come
into some relations with his fellow-men--to admit them to his intimacy
as little as possible.
[Footnote 1: _Paradoxa Stoidorum_: II.]
I have said that people are rendered sociable by their ability to
endure solitude, that is to say, their own society. They become
sick of themselves. It is this vacuity of soul which drives them to
intercourse with others,--to travels in foreign countries. Their mind
is wanting in elasticity; it has no movement of its own, and so they
try to give it some,--by drink, for instance. How much drunkenness
is due to this cause alone! They are always looking for some form of
excitement, of the strongest kind they can bear--the excitement of
being with people of like nature with themselves; and if they fail
in this, their mind sinks by its own weight, and they fall into a
grievous lethargy.[1] Such people, it may be said, possess only a
small fraction of humanity in themselves; and it requires a great many
of them put together to make up a fair amount of it,--to attain any
degree of consciousness as men. A man, in the full sense of the
word,--a man _par excellence_--does not represent a fraction, but a
whole number: he is complete in himself.
[Footnote 1: It is a well-known fact, that we can more easily bear up
under evils which fall upon a great many people besides ourselves.
As boredom seems to be an evil of this kind, people band together to
offer it a common resistance. The love of life is at bottom only the
fear of death; and, in the same way, the social impulse does not rest
directly upon the love of society, but upon the fear of solitude; it
is not alone the charm of being in others' company that people seek,
it is the dreary oppression of being alone--the monotony of their own
consciousness--that they would avoid. They will do anything to escape
it,--even tolerate bad companions, and put up with the feeling of
constraint which all society involves, in this case a very burdensome
one. But if aversion to such society conquers the aversion to being
alone, they become accustomed to solitude and hardened to its
immediate effects. They no longer find solitude to be such a very bad
thing, and settle down comfortably to it without any hankering after
society;--and this, partly because it is only indirectly that they
need others' company, and partly because they have become accustomed
to the benefits of being alone.]
Ordinary society is, in this respect, very like the kind of music to
be obtained from an orchestra composed of Russian horns. Each horn has
only one note; and the music is produced by each note coming in just
at the right moment. In the monotonous sound of a single horn, you
have a precise illustration of the effect of most people's minds. How
often there seems to be only one thought there! and no room for any
other. It is easy to see why people are so bored; and also why they
are sociable, why they like to go about in crowds--why mankind is so
_gregarious_. It is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man
find solitude intolerable. _Omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui_:
folly is truly its own burden. Put a great many men together, and you
may get some result--some music from your horns!