Counsels and Maxims - Arthur Schopenhauer
It may be that this impulse or instinct is the unconscious effect of a
kind of prophetic dream which is forgotten when we awake--lending
our life a uniformity of tone, a dramatic unity, such as could never
result from the unstable moments of consciousness, when we are so
easily led into error, so liable to strike a false note. It is in
virtue of some such prophetic dream that a man feels himself called to
great achievements in a special sphere, and works in that direction
from his youth up out of an inner and secret feeling that that is his
true path, just as by a similar instinct the bee is led to build up
its cells in the comb. This is the impulse which Balthazar Gracian
calls _la gran sinderesis_[1]--the great power of moral discernment:
it is something that a man instinctively feels to be his salvation
without which he were lost.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--This obscure word appears to be
derived from the Greek _sugtaereo_ (N.T. and Polyb.) meaning "to
observe strictly." It occurs in _The Doctor and Student_, a series of
dialogues between a doctor of divinity and a student on the laws of
England, first published in 1518; and is there (Dialog. I. ch. 13)
explained as "a natural power of the soule, set in the highest part
thereof, moving and stirring it to good, and abhoring evil." This
passage is copied into Milton's Commonplace Book, edit. _Horwood_, Sec.
79. The word is also found in the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy
(vol. vi. of the year 1739) in the sense of an innate discernment
of moral principles, where a quotation is given from Madre Maria de
Jesus, abbess of the convent of the Conception at Agreda, a mystical
writer of the seventeenth century, frequently consulted by Philip
IV.,--and again in the Bolognese Dictionary of 1824, with a similar
meaning, illustrated from the writings of Salvini (1653-1729). For
these references I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Norman Maccoll.]
To act in accordance with abstract principles is a difficult matter,
and a great deal of practice will be required before you can be even
occasionally successful; it of tens happens that the principles do not
fit in with your particular case. But every man has certain innate
_concrete principles_--a part, as it were, of the very blood that
flows in his veins, the sum or result, in fact, of all his thoughts,
feelings and volitions. Usually he has no knowledge of them in any
abstract form; it is only when he looks back upon the course his life
has taken, that he becomes aware of having been always led on by
them--as though they formed an invisible clue which he had followed
unawares.
SECTION 49. That Time works great changes, and that all things are
in their nature fleeting--these are truths that should never be
forgotten. Hence, in whatever case you may be, it is well to picture
to yourself the opposite: in prosperity, to be mindful of misfortune;
in friendship, of enmity; in good weather, of days when the sky is
overcast; in love, of hatred; in moments of trust, to imagine the
betrayal that will make you regret your confidence; and so, too, when
you are in evil plight, to have a lively sense of happier times--what
a lasting source of true worldly wisdom were there! We should then
always reflect, and not be so very easily deceived; because, in
general, we should anticipate the very changes that the years will
bring.
Perhaps in no form of knowledge is personal experience so
indispensable as in learning to see that all things are unstable and
transitory in this world. There is nothing that, in its own place and
for the time it lasts, is not a product of necessity, and therefore
capable of being fully justified; and it is this fact that makes
circumstances of every year, every month, even of every day, seem as
though they might maintain their right to last to all eternity. But we
know that this can never be the case, and that in a world where all is
fleeting, change alone endures. He is a prudent man who is not only
undeceived by apparent stability, but is able to forecast the lines
upon which movement will take place.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Chance_ plays so great a part in all human affairs that
when a man tries to ward off a remote danger by present sacrifice, the
danger often vanishes under some new and unforeseen development of
events; and then the sacrifice, in addition to being a complete loss,
brings about such an altered state of things as to be in itself a
source of positive danger in the face of this new development. In
taking measures of precaution, then, it is well not to look too far
ahead, but to reckon with chance; and often to oppose a courageous
front to a danger, in the hope that, like many a dark thunder-cloud,
it may pass away without breaking.]
But people generally think that present circumstances will last, and
that matters will go on in the future as they have clone in the past.
Their mistakes arises from the fact that they do not understand the
cause of the things they see--causes which, unlike the effects they
produce, contain in themselves the germ of future change. The
effects are all that people know, and they hold fast to them on the
supposition that those unknown causes, which were sufficient to bring
them about, will also be able to maintain them as they are. This is a
very common error; and the fact that it is common is not without its
advantage, for it means that people always err in unison; and hence
the calamity which results from the error affects all alike, and is
therefore easy to bear; whereas, if a philosopher makes a mistake, he
is alone in his error, and so at a double disadvantage.[1]
[Footnote 1: I may remark, parenthetically, that all this is a
confirmation of the principle laid down in _Die Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung_ (Bk. I. p. 94: 4th edit.), that error always consists in
making _a wrong inference_, that is, in ascribing a given effect to
something that did not cause it.]
But in saying that we should anticipate the effects of time, I mean
that we should mentally forecast what they are likely to be; I do
not mean that we should practically forestall them, by demanding the
immediate performance of promises which time alone can fulfill. The
man who makes his demand will find out that there is no worse or more
exacting usurer than Time; and that, if you compel Time to give money
in advance, you will have to pay a rate of interest more ruinous than
any Jew would require. It is possible, for instance, to make a tree
burst forth into leaf, blossom, or even bear fruit within a few days,
by the application of unslaked lime and artificial heat; but after
that the tree will wither away. So a young man may abuse his
strength--it may be only for a few weeks--by trying to do at nineteen
what he could easily manage at thirty, and Time may give him the loan
for which he asks; but the interest he will have to pay comes out of
the strength of his later years; nay, it is part of his very life
itself.
There are some kinds of illness in which entire restoration to health
is possible only by letting the complaint run its natural course;
after which it disappears without leaving any trace of its existence.
But if the sufferer is very impatient, and, while he is still
affected, insists that he is completely well, in this case, too,
Time will grant the loan, and the complaint may be shaken off; but
life-long weakness and chronic mischief will be the interest paid upon
it.
Again, in time of war or general disturbance, a man may require ready
money at once, and have to sell out his investments in land or consols
for a third or even a still smaller fraction of the sum he would have
received from them, if he could have waited for the market to right
itself, which would have happened in due course; but he compels Time
to grant him a loan, and his loss is the interest he has to pay. Or
perhaps he wants to go on a long journey and requires the money: in
one or two years he could lay by a sufficient sum out of his income,
but he cannot afford to wait; and so he either borrows it or deducts
it from his capital; in other words, he gets Time to lend him the
money in advance. The interest he pays is a disordered state of his
accounts, and permanent and increasing deficits, which he can never
make good.
Such is Time's usury; and all who cannot wait are its victims. There
is no more thriftless proceeding than to try and mend the measured
pace of Time. Be careful, then, not to become its debtor.
SECTION 50. In the daily affairs of life, you will have very many
opportunities of recognizing a characteristic difference between
ordinary people of prudence and discretion. In estimating the
possibility of danger in connection with any undertaking, an ordinary
man will confine his inquiries to the kind of risk that has already
attended such undertakings in the past; whereas a prudent person will
look ahead, and consider everything that might possibly happen in the
future, having regard to a certain Spanish maxim: _lo que no acaece en
un ano, acaece en un rato_--a thing may not happen in a year, and yet
may happen within two minutes.
The difference in question is, of course, quite natural; for it
requires some amount of discernment to calculate possibilities; but
a man need only have his senses about him to see what has already
happened.
Do not omit to sacrifice to evil spirits. What I mean is, that a man
should not hesitate about spending time, trouble, and money, or giving
up his comfort, or restricting his aims and denying himself, if he
can thereby shut the door on the possibility of misfortune. The most
terrible misfortunes are also the most improbable and remote--the
least likely to occur. The rule I am giving is best exemplified in
the practice of insurance,--a public sacrifice made on the altar of
anxiety. Therefore take out your policy of insurance!
SECTION 51. Whatever fate befalls you, do not give way to great
rejoicings or great lamentations; partly because all things are full
of change, and your fortune may turn at any moment; partly because men
are so apt to be deceived in their judgment as to what is good or bad
for them.
Almost every one in his turn has lamented over something which
afterwards turned out to be the very best thing for him that could
have happened--or rejoiced at an event which became the source of his
greatest sufferings. The right state of mind has been finely portrayed
by Shakespeare:
_I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief That the first face of
neither, on the start, Can woman me unto't_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _All's Well that Ends Well, Act. ii. Sc. 2_.]
And, in general, it may be said that, if a man takes misfortunes
quietly, it is because he knows that very many dreadful things may
happen in the course of life; and so he looks upon the trouble of the
moment as only a very small part of that which might come. This is
the Stoic temper--never to be unmindful of the sad fate of
humanity--_condicionis humanoe oblitus_; but always to remember that
our existence is full of woe and misery: and that the ills to which we
are exposed are innumerable. Wherever he be, a man need only cast a
look around, to revive the sense of human misery: there before his
eyes he can see mankind struggling and floundering in torment,--all
for the sake of a wretched existence, barren and unprofitable!
If he remembers this, a man will not expect very much from life, but
learn to accommodate himself to a world where all is relative and no
perfect state exists;--always looking misfortune in the face, and if
he cannot avoid it, meeting it with courage.
It should never be forgotten that misfortune, be it great or small, is
the element in which we live. But that is no reason why a man should
indulge in fretful complaints, and, like Beresford,[1] pull a long
face over the _Miseries of Human Life_,--and not a single hour is free
from them; or still less, call upon the Deity at every flea-bite--_in
pulicis morsu Deum invocare_. Our aim should be to look well about us,
to ward off misfortune by going to meet it, to attain such perfection
and refinement in averting the disagreeable things of life,--whether
they come from our fellow-men or from the physical world,--that, like
a clever fox, we may slip out of the way of every mishap, great or
small; remembering that a mishap is generally only our own awkwardness
in disguise.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Rev. James Beresford (1764-1840),
miscellaneous writer. The full title of this, his chief work, is "The
Miseries of Human Life; or the last groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel
Sensitive, with a few supplementary sighs from Mrs. Testy."]
The main reason why misfortune falls less heavily upon us, if we have
looked upon its occurrence as not impossible, and, as the saying is,
prepared ourselves for it, may be this: if, before this misfortune
comes, we have quietly thought over it as something which may or may
not happen, the whole of its extent and range is known to us, and we
can, at least, determine how far it will affect us; so that, if it
really arrives, it does not depress us unduly--its weight is not felt
to be greater than it actually is. But if no preparation has been
made to meet it, and it comes unexpectedly, the mind is in a state of
terror for the moment and unable to measure the full extent of the
calamity; it seems so far-reaching in its effects that the victim
might well think there was no limit to them; in any case, its range is
exaggerated. In the same way, darkness and uncertainty always increase
the sense of danger. And, of course, if we have thought over the
possibility of misfortune, we have also at the same time considered
the sources to which we shall look for help and consolation; or, at
any rate, we have accustomed ourselves to the idea of it.
There is nothing that better fits us to endure the misfortunes of
life with composure, than to know for certain that _everything
that happens--from the smallest up to the greatest facts of
existence--happens of necessity._[1] A man soon accommodates himself
to the inevitable--to something that must be; and if he knows that
nothing can happen except of necessity, he will see that things cannot
be other that they are, and that even the strangest chances in the
world are just as much a product of necessity as phenomena which obey
well-known rules and turn out exactly in accordance with expectation.
Let me here refer to what I have said elsewhere on the soothing effect
of the knowledge that all things are inevitable and a product of
necessity.[2]
[Footnote 1: This is a truth which I have firmly established in my
prize-essay on the _Freedom of the Will_, where the reader will find a
detailed explanation of the grounds on which it rests. Cf. especially
p. 60. [Schopenhauer's Works, 4th Edit., vol. iv.--_Tr_.]]
[Footnote 2: Cf. _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, Bk. I. p. 361 (4th
edit.).]
If a man is steeped in the knowledge of this truth, he will, first of
all, do what he can, and then readily endure what he must.
We may regard the petty vexations of life that are constantly
happening, as designed to keep us in practice for bearing great
misfortunes, so that we may not become completely enervated by a
career of prosperity. A man should be as Siegfried, armed _cap-a-pie_,
towards the small troubles of every day--those little differences we
have with our fellow-men, insignificant disputes, unbecoming conduct
in other people, petty gossip, and many other similar annoyances of
life; he should not feel them at all, much less take them to heart and
brood over them, but hold them at arm's length and push them out of
his way, like stones that lie in the road, and upon no account think
about them and give them a place in his reflections.
SECTION 52. What people commonly call _Fate_ is, as a general rule,
nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct. There is a fine
passage in Homer,[1] illustrating the truth of this remark, where
the poet praises [GREEK: maetis]--shrewd council; and his advice
is worthy of all attention. For if wickedness is atoned for only in
another world, stupidity gets its reward here--although, now and then,
mercy may be shown to the offender.
[Footnote 1: _Iliad_, xxiii. 313, sqq.]
It is not ferocity but cunning that strikes fear into the heart
and forebodes danger; so true it is that the human brain is a more
terrible weapon than the lion's paw.
The most finished man of the world would be one who was never
irresolute and never in a hurry.
SECTION 53. _Courage_ comes next to prudence as a quality of mind very
essential to happiness. It is quite true that no one can endow himself
with either, since a man inherits prudence from his mother and courage
from his father; still, if he has these qualities, he can do much to
develop them by means of resolute exercise.
In this world, _where the game is played with loaded dice_, a man must
have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and
weapons to make his way against men. Life is one long battle; we have
to fight at every step; and Voltaire very rightly says that if we
succeed, it is at the point of the sword, and that we die with the
weapon in our hand--on _ne reussit dans ce monde qua la pointe de
l'epee, et on meurt les armes a la main_. It is a cowardly soul that
shrinks or grows faint and despondent as soon as the storm begins to
gather, or even when the first cloud appears on the horizon. Our motto
should be _No Surrender_; and far from yielding to the ills of life,
let us take fresh courage from misfortune:--
_Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Virgil, _Aeneid_, vi. 95.]
As long as the issue of any matter fraught with peril is still in
doubt, and there is yet some possibility left that all may come right,
no one should ever tremble or think of anything but resistance,--just
as a man should not despair of the weather if he can see a bit of blue
sky anywhere. Let our attitude be such that we should not quake even
if the world fell in ruins about us:--
_Si fractus illabatur orbis
Impavidum ferient ruinae_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Horace, Odes iii. 3.]
Our whole life itself--let alone its blessings--would not be worth
such a cowardly trembling and shrinking of the heart. Therefore, let
us face life courageously and show a firm front to every ill:--
_Quocirca vivite fortes Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus_.
Still, it is possible for courage to be carried to an excess and to
degenerate into rashness. It may even be said that some amount of fear
is necessary, if we are to exist at all in the world, and cowardice
is only the exaggerated form of it. This truth has been very well
expressed by Bacon, in his account of _Terror Panicus_; and the
etymological account which he gives of its meaning, is very superior
to the ancient explanation preserved for us by Plutarch.[1] He
connects the expression with _Pan_ the personification of Nature;[2]
and observes that fear is innate in every living thing, and, in fact,
tends to its preservation, but that it is apt to come into play
without due cause, and that man is especially exposed to it. The chief
feature of this _Panie Terror_ is that there is no clear notion of any
definite danger bound up with it; that it presumes rather than knows
that danger exists; and that, in case of need, it pleads fright itself
as the reason for being afraid.
[Footnote 1: _De Iside et Osiride_ ch. 14.]
[Footnote 2: _De Sapientia Veterum_, C. 6. _Natura enim rerum omnibus
viventibus indidit mentum ac formidinem, vitae atque essentiae suae
conservatricem, ac mala ingruentia vitantem et depellentem. Verumtamen
eaden natura modum tenere nescia est: sed timoribus salutaribus semper
vanos et innanes admiscet; adeo ut omnia (si intus conspici darentur)
Panicis terroribus plenissima sint praesertim humana_.]
CHAPTER V.
THE AGES OF LIFE.
There is a very fine saying of Voltaire's to the effect that every age
of life has its own peculiar mental character, and that a man will
feel completely unhappy if his mind is not in accordance with his
years:--
_Qui n'a pas l'esprit de son age,
De son age atout le malheur_.
It will, therefore, be a fitting close to our speculations upon the
nature of happiness, if we glance at the chances which the various
periods of life produce in us.
Our whole life long it is _the present_, and the present alone, that
we actually possess: the only difference is that at the beginning of
life we look forward to a long future, and that towards the end we
look back upon a long past; also that our temperament, but not our
character, undergoes certain well-known changes, which make _the
present_ wear a different color at each period of life.
I have elsewhere stated that in childhood we are more given to using
our _intellect_ than our _will_; and I have explained why this is
so.[1] It is just for this reason that the first quarter of life is so
happy: as we look back upon it in after years, it seems a sort of lost
paradise. In childhood our relations with others are limited, our
wants are few,--in a word, there is little stimulus for the will;
and so our chief concern is the extension of our knowledge. The
intellect--like the brain, which attains its full size in the seventh
year,[2] is developed early, though it takes time to mature; and it
explores the whole world of its surroundings in its constant search
for nutriment: it is then that existence is in itself an ever fresh
delight, and all things sparkle with the charm of novelty.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Schopenhauer refers to _Die Welt
als Wille und Vorstellung_, Bk. II. c, 31, p. 451 (4th edit.), where
he explains that this is due to the fact that at that period of life
the brain and nervous system are much more developed than any other
part of the organism.]
[Footnote 2: _Translator's Note_.--This statement is not quite
correct. The weight of the brain increases rapidly up to the seventh
year, more slowly between the sixteenth and the twentieth year, still
more slowly till between thirty and forty years of age, when it
attains its maximum. At each decennial period after this, it is
supposed to decrease in weight on the average, an ounce for every ten
years.]
This is why the years of childhood are like a long poem. For the
function of poetry, as of all art, is to grasp the _Idea_--in the
Platonic sense; in other words, to apprehend a particular object in
such a way as to perceive its essential nature, the characteristics
it has in common with all other objects of the same kind; so that
a single object appears as the representative of a class, and the
results of one experience hold good for a thousand.
It may be thought that my remarks are opposed to fact, and that the
child is never occupied with anything beyond the individual objects or
events which are presented to it from time to time, and then only in
so far as they interest and excite its will for the moment; but this
is not really the case. In those early years, life--in the full
meaning of the word, is something so new and fresh, and its sensations
are so keen and unblunted by repetition, that, in the midst of all its
pursuits and without any clear consciousness of what it is doing,
the child is always silently occupied in grasping the nature of life
itself,--in arriving at its fundamental character and general outline
by means of separate scenes and experiences; or, to use Spinoza's
phraseology, the child is learning to see the things and persons
about it _sub specie aeternitatis_,--as particular manifestations of
universal law.
The younger we are, then, the more does every individual object
represent for us the whole class to which it belongs; but as the years
increase, this becomes less and less the case. That is the reason why
youthful impressions are so different from those of old age. And that
it also why the slight knowledge and experience gained in childhood
and youth afterwards come to stand as the permanent rubric, or
heading, for all the knowledge acquired in later life,--those early
forms of knowledge passing into categories, as it were, under which
the results of subsequent experience are classified; though a clear
consciousness of what is being done, does not always attend upon the
process.
In this way the earliest years of a man's life lay the foundation of
his view of the world, whether it be shallow or deep; and although
this view may be extended and perfected later on, it is not materially
altered. It is an effect of this purely objective and therefore
poetical view of the world,--essential to the period of childhood
and promoted by the as yet undeveloped state of the volitional
energy--that, as children, we are concerned much more with the
acquisition of pure knowledge than with exercising the power of will.
Hence that grave, fixed look observable in so many children, of which
Raphael makes such a happy use in his depiction of cherubs, especially
in the picture of the _Sistine Madonna_. The years of childhood are
thus rendered so full of bliss that the memory of them is always
coupled with longing and regret.