Counsels and Maxims - Arthur Schopenhauer
While we thus eagerly apply ourselves to learning the outward aspect
of things, as the primitive method of understanding the objects about
us, education aims at instilling into us _ideas_. But ideas furnish no
information as to the real and essential nature of objects, which, as
the foundation and true content of all knowledge, can be reached only
by the process called _intuition_. This is a kind of knowledge which
can in no wise be instilled into us from without; we must arrive at it
by and for ourselves.
Hence a man's intellectual as well as his moral qualities proceed
from the depths of his own nature, and are not the result of external
influences; and no educational scheme--of Pestalozzi, or of any one
else--can turn a born simpleton into a man of sense. The thing is
impossible! He was born a simpleton, and a simpleton he will die.
It is the depth and intensity of this early intuitive knowledge of the
external world that explain why the experiences of childhood take such
a firm hold on the memory. When we were young, we were completely
absorbed in our immediate surroundings; there was nothing to distract
our attention from them; we looked upon the objects about us as though
they were the only ones of their kind, as though, indeed, nothing else
existed at all. Later on, when we come to find out how many things
there are in the world, this primitive state of mind vanishes, and
with it our patience.
I have said elsewhere[1] that the world, considered as _object_,--in
other words, as it is _presented_ to us objectively,--wears in
general a pleasing aspect; but that in the world, considered as
_subject_,--that is, in regard to its inner nature, which is
_will_,--pain and trouble predominate. I may be allowed to express the
matter, briefly, thus: _the world is glorious to look at, but dreadful
in reality_.
[Footnote 1: _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, Bk. II. c. 31, p.
426-7 (4th Edit.), to which the reader is referred for a detailed
explanation of my meaning.]
Accordingly, we find that, in the years of childhood, the world is
much better known to us on its outer or objective side, namely, as the
presentation of will, than on the side of its inner nature, namely, as
the will itself. Since the objective side wears a pleasing aspect, and
the inner or subjective side, with its tale of horror, remains as yet
unknown, the youth, as his intelligence develops, takes all the forms
of beauty that he sees, in nature and in art, for so many objects of
blissful existence; they are so beautiful to the outward eye that, on
their inner side, they must, he thinks, be much more beautiful still.
So the world lies before him like another Eden; and this is the
Arcadia in which we are all born.
A little later, this state of mind gives birth to a thirst for real
life--the impulse to do and suffer--which drives a man forth into
the hurly-burly of the world. There he learns the other side of
existence--the inner side, the will, which is thwarted at every step.
Then comes the great period of disillusion, a period of very gradual
growth; but once it has fairly begun, a man will tell you that he has
got over all his false notions--_l'age des illusions est passe_; and
yet the process is only beginning, and it goes on extending its sway
and applying more and more to the whole of life.
So it may be said that in childhood, life looks like the scenery in
a theatre, as you view it from a distance; and that in old age it is
like the same scenery when you come up quite close to it.
And, lastly, there is another circumstance that contributes to the
happiness of childhood. As spring commences, the young leaves on the
trees are similar in color and much the same in shape; and in the
first years of life we all resemble one another and harmonize very
well. But with puberty divergence begins; and, like the radii of a
circle, we go further and further apart.
The period of youth, which forms the remainder of this earlier half of
our existence--and how many advantages it has over the later half!--is
troubled and made miserable by the pursuit of happiness, as though
there were no doubt that it can be met with somewhere in life,--a hope
that always ends in failure and leads to discontent. An illusory
image of some vague future bliss--born of a dream and shaped by
fancy--floats before our eyes; and we search for the reality in
vain. So it is that the young man is generally dissatisfied with the
position in which he finds himself, whatever it may be; he ascribes
his disappointment solely to the state of things that meets him on
his first introduction to life, when he had expected something very
different; whereas it is only the vanity and wretchedness of human
life everywhere that he is now for the first time experiencing.
It would be a great advantage to a young man if his early training
could eradicate the idea that the world has a great deal to offer him.
But the usual result of education is to strengthen this delusion; and
our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than
from fact.
In the bright dawn of our youthful days, the poetry of life spreads
out a gorgeous vision before us, and we torture ourselves by longing
to see it realized. We might as well wish to grasp the rainbow! The
youth expects his career to be like an interesting romance; and there
lies the germ of that disappointment which I have been describing.[1]
What lends a charm to all these visions is just the fact that they are
visionary and not real, and that in contemplating them we are in the
sphere of pure knowledge, which is sufficient in itself and free from
the noise and struggle of life. To try and realize those visions is
to make them an object of _will_--a process which always involves
pain.[2]
[Footnote 1: Cf. loc. cit., p. 428.]
[Footnote 2: Let me refer the reader, if he is interested in the
subject, to the volume already cited, chapter 37.]
If the chief feature of the earlier half of life is a never-satisfied
longing after happiness, the later half is characterized by the dread
of misfortune. For, as we advance in years, it becomes in a greater or
less degree clear that all happiness is chimerical in its nature,
and that pain alone is real. Accordingly, in later years, we, or, at
least, the more prudent amongst us, are more intent upon eliminating
what is painful from our lives and making our position secure, than on
the pursuit of positive pleasure. I may observe, by the way, that in
old age, we are better able to prevent misfortunes from coming, and in
youth better able to bear them when they come.
In my young days, I was always pleased to hear a ring at my door: ah!
thought I, now for something pleasant. But in later life my feelings
on such occasions were rather akin to dismay than to pleasure: heaven
help me! thought I, what am I to do? A similar revulsion of feeling in
regard to the world of men takes place in all persons of any talent
or distinction. For that very reason they cannot be said properly to
belong to the world; in a greater or less degree, according to the
extent of their superiority, they stand alone. In their youth they
have a sense of being abandoned by the world; but later on, they feel
as though they had escaped it. The earlier feeling is an unpleasant
one, and rests upon ignorance; the second is pleasurable--for in the
meantime they have come to know what the world is.
The consequence of this is that, as compared with the earlier, the
later half of life, like the second part of a musical period, has less
of passionate longing and more restfulness about it. And why is this
the case Simply because, in youth, a man fancies that there is a
prodigious amount of happiness and pleasure to be had in the world,
only that it is difficult to come by it; whereas, when he becomes
old, he knows that there is nothing of the kind; he makes his mind
completely at ease on the matter, enjoys the present hour as well as
he can, and even takes a pleasure in trifles.
The chief result gained by experience of life is _clearness of view_.
This is what distinguishes the man of mature age, and makes the world
wear such a different aspect from that which it presented in his youth
or boyhood. It is only then that he sees things quite plain, and takes
them for that which they really are: while in earlier years he saw a
phantom-world, put together out of the whims and crotchets of his own
mind, inherited prejudice and strange delusion: the real world was
hidden from him, or the vision of it distorted. The first thing
that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the
brain--those false notions that have been put into us in youth.
To prevent their entrance at all would, of course, be the best form of
education, even though it were only negative in aim: but it would be a
task full of difficulty. At first the child's horizon would have to be
limited as much as possible, and yet within that limited sphere none
but clear and correct notions would have to be given; only after the
child had properly appreciated everything within it, might the sphere
be gradually enlarged; care being always taken that nothing was left
obscure, or half or wrongly understood. The consequence of this
training would be that the child's notions of men and things would
always be limited and simple in their character; but, on the other
hand, they would be clear and correct, and only need to be extended,
not to be rectified. The same line might be pursued on into the period
of youth. This method of education would lay special stress upon the
prohibition of novel reading; and the place of novels would be taken
by suitable biographical literature--the life of Franklin, for
instance, or Moritz' _Anton Reiser_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Moritz was a miscellaneous writer
of the last century (1757-93). His _Anton Reiser_, composed in the
form of a novel, is practically an autobiography.]
In our early days we fancy that the leading events in our life, and
the persons who are going to play an important part in it, will make
their entrance to the sound of drums and trumpets; but when, in old
age, we look back, we find that they all came in quite quietly,
slipped in, as it were, by the side-door, almost unnoticed.
From the point of view we have been taking up until now, life may be
compared to a piece of embroidery, of which, during the first half of
his time, a man gets a sight of the right side, and during the second
half, of the wrong. The wrong side is not so pretty as the right, but
it is more instructive; it shows the way in which the threads have
been worked together.
Intellectual superiority, even if it is of the highest kind, will not
secure for a man a preponderating place in conversation until after he
is forty years of age. For age and experience, though they can never
be a substitute for intellectual talent, may far outweigh it; and even
in a person of the meanest capacity, they give a certain counterpoise
to the power of an extremely intellectual man, so long as the latter
is young. Of course I allude here to personal superiority, not to the
place a man may gain by his works.
And on passing his fortieth year, any man of the slightest power of
mind--any man, that is, who has more than the sorry share of intellect
with which Nature has endowed five-sixths of mankind--will hardly fail
to show some trace of misanthropy. For, as is natural, he has by that
time inferred other people's character from an examination of his own;
with the result that he has been gradually disappointed to find that
in the qualities of the head or in those of the heart--and usually in
both--he reaches a level to which they do not attain; so he gladly
avoids having anything more to do with them. For it may be said, in
general, that every man will love or hate solitude--in other Words,
his own society--just in proportion as he is worth anything in
himself. Kant has some remarks upon this kind of misanthropy in his
_Critique of the Faculty of Judgment_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Kritik der Urtheilskraft_, Part I, Sec.29, Note ad fin.]
In a young man, it is a bad sign, as well from an intellectual as from
a moral point of view, if he is precocious in understanding the ways
of the world, and in adapting himself to its pursuits; if he at once
knows how to deal with men, and enters upon life, as it were, fully
prepared. It argues a vulgar nature. On the other hand, to be
surprised and astonished at the way people act, and to be clumsy and
cross-grained in having to do with them, indicates a character of the
nobler sort.
The cheerfulness and vivacity of youth are partly due to the fact
that, when we are ascending the hill of life, death is not visible: it
lies down at the bottom of the other side. But once we have crossed
the top of the hill, death comes in view--death--which, until then,
was known to us only by hearsay. This makes our spirits droop, for at
the same time we begin to feel that our vital powers are on the ebb.
A grave seriousness now takes the place of that early extravagance of
spirit; and the change is noticeable even in the expression of a man's
face. As long as we are young, people may tell us what they please! we
look upon life as endless and use our time recklessly; but the older
we become, the more we practice economy. For towards the close of
life, every day we live gives us the same kind of sensation as the
criminal experiences at every step on his way to be tried.
From the standpoint of youth, life seems to stretch away into an
endless future; from the standpoint of old age, to go back but a
little way into the past; so that, at the beginning, life presents us
with a picture in which the objects appear a great way off, as though
we had reversed our telescope; while in the end everything seems so
close. To see how short life is, a man must have grown old, that is to
say, he must have lived long.
On the other hand, as the years increase, things look smaller, one and
all; and Life, which had so firm and stable a base in the days of our
youth, now seems nothing but a rapid flight of moments, every one of
them illusory: we have come to see that the whole world is vanity!
Time itself seems to go at a much slower pace when we are young; so
that not only is the first quarter of life the happiest, it is also
the longest of all; it leaves more memories behind it. If a man were
put to it, he could tell you more out of the first quarter of his life
than out of two of the remaining periods. Nay, in the spring of
life, as in the spring of the year, the days reach a length that is
positively tiresome; but in the autumn, whether of the year or of
life, though they are short, they are more genial and uniform.
But why is it that to an old man his past life appears so short? For
this reason: his memory is short; and so he fancies that his life has
been short too. He no longer remembers the insignificant parts of it,
and much that was unpleasant is now forgotten; how little, then,
there is left! For, in general, a man's memory is as imperfect as his
intellect; and he must make a practice of reflecting upon the lessons
he has learned and the events he has experienced, if he does not want
them both to sink gradually into the gulf of oblivion. Now, we are
unaccustomed to reflect upon matters of no importance, or, as a rule,
upon things that we have found disagreeable, and yet that is necessary
if the memory of them is to be preserved. But the class of things that
may be called insignificant is continually receiving fresh additions:
much that wears an air of importance at first, gradually becomes of no
consequence at all from the fact of its frequent repetition; so that
in the end we actually lose count of the number of times it happens.
Hence we are better able to remember the events of our early than of
our later years. The longer we live, the fewer are the things that
we can call important or significant enough to deserve further
consideration, and by this alone can they be fixed in the memory; in
other words, they are forgotten as soon as they are past. Thus it is
that time runs on, leaving always fewer traces of its passage.
Further, if disagreeable things have happened to us, we do not care
to ruminate upon them, least of all when they touch our vanity, as is
usually the case; for few misfortunes fall upon us for which we can
be held entirely blameless. So people are very ready to forget many
things that are disagreeable, as well as many that are unimportant.
It is from this double cause that our memory is so short; and a man's
recollection of what has happened always becomes proportionately
shorter, the more things that have occupied him in life. The things
we did in years gone by, the events that happened long ago, are like
those objects on the coast which, to the seafarer on his outward
voyage, become smaller every minute, more unrecognizable and harder to
distinguish.
Again, it sometimes happens that memory and imagination will call up
some long past scene as vividly as if it had occurred only yesterday;
so that the event in question seems to stand very near to the present
time. The reason of this is that it is impossible to call up all the
intervening period in the same vivid way, as there is no one figure
pervading it which can be taken in at a glance; and besides, most of
the things that happened in that period are forgotten, and all that
remains of it is the general knowledge that we have lived through
it--a mere notion of abstract existence, not a direct vision of some
particular experience. It is this that causes some single event
of long ago to appear as though it took place but yesterday: the
intervening time vanishes, and the whole of life looks incredibly
short. Nay, there are occasional moments in old age when we can
scarcely believe that we are so advanced in years, or that the long
past lying behind us has had any real existence--a feeling which is
mainly due to the circumstance that the present always seems fixed and
immovable as we look at it. These and similar mental phenomena are
ultimately to be traced to the fact that it is not our nature in
itself, but only the outward presentation of it, that lies in time,
and that the present is the point of contact between the world as
subject and the world as object.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--By this remark Schopenhauer means
that _will_, which, as he argues, forms the inner reality underlying
all the phenomena of life and nature, is not in itself affected
by time; but that, on the other hand, time is necessary for the
objectification of the will, for the will as presented in the passing
phenomena of the world. Time is thus definable as the condition of
change, and the present time as the only point of contact between
reality and appearance.]
Again, why is it that in youth we can see no end to the years that
seem to lie before us? Because we are obliged to find room for all
the things we hope to attain in life. We cram the years so full of
projects that if we were to try and carry them all out, death would
come prematurely though we reached the age of Methuselah.
Another reason why life looks so long when we are young, is that we
are apt to measure its length by the few years we have already
lived. In those early years things are new to us, and so they appear
important; we dwell upon them after they have happened and often call
them to mind; and thus in youth life seems replete with incident, and
therefore of long duration.
Sometimes we credit ourselves with a longing to be in some distant
spot, whereas, in truth, we are only longing to have the time back
again which we spent there--days when we were younger and fresher than
we are now. In those moments Time mocks us by wearing the mask of
space; and if we travel to the spot, we can see how much we have been
deceived.
There are two ways of reaching a great age, both of which presuppose
a sound constitution as a _conditio sine qua non_. They may be
illustrated by two lamps, one of which burns a long time with very
little oil, because it has a very thin wick; and the other just as
long, though it has a very thick one, because there is plenty of oil
to feed it. Here, the oil is the vital energy, and the difference in
the wick is the manifold way in which the vital energy is used.
Up to our thirty-sixth year, we may be compared, in respect of the way
in which we use our vital energy, to people who live on the interest
of their money: what they spend to-day, they have again to-morrow. But
from the age of thirty-six onwards, our position is like that of the
investor who begins to entrench upon his capital. At first he hardly
notices any difference at all, as the greater part of his expenses is
covered by the interest of his securities; and if the deficit is
but slight, he pays no attention to it. But the deficit goes on
increasing, until he awakes to the fact that it is becoming more
serious every day: his position becomes less and less secure, and he
feels himself growing poorer and poorer, while he has no expectation
of this drain upon his resources coming to an end. His fall from
wealth to poverty becomes faster every moment--like the fall of a
solid body in space, until at last he has absolutely nothing left.
A man is truly in a woeful plight if both the terms of this
comparison--his vital energy and his wealth--really begin to melt away
at one and the same time. It is the dread of this calamity that makes
love of possession increase with age.
On the other hand, at the beginning of life, in the years before we
attain majority, and for some little time afterwards--the state of our
vital energy puts us on a level with those who each year lay by a part
of their interest and add it to their capital: in other words, not
only does their interest come in regularly, but the capital is
constantly receiving additions. This happy condition of affairs is
sometimes brought about--with health as with money--under the watchful
care of some honest guardian. O happy youth, and sad old age!
Nevertheless, a man should economize his strength even when he is
young. Aristotle[1] observes that amongst those who were victors at
Olympia only two or three gained a prize at two different periods,
once in boyhood and then again when they came to be men; and the
reason of this was that the premature efforts which the training
involved, so completely exhausted their powers that they failed to
last on into manhood. As this is true of muscular, so it is still more
true of nervous energy, of which all intellectual achievements are the
manifestation. Hence, those infant prodigies--_ingenia praecoda_--the
fruit of a hot-house education, who surprise us by their cleverness as
children, afterwards turn out very ordinary folk. Nay, the manner in
which boys are forced into an early acquaintance with the ancient
tongues may, perhaps, be to blame for the dullness and lack of
judgment which distinguish so many learned persons.
[Footnote 1: _Politics_.]
I have said that almost every man's character seems to be specially
suited to some one period of life, so that on reaching it the man is
at his best. Some people are charming so long as they are young, and
afterwards there is nothing attractive about them; others are vigorous
and active in manhood, and then lose all the value they possess as
they advance in years; many appear to best advantage in old age, when
their character assumes a gentler tone, as becomes men who have seen
the world and take life easily. This is often the case with the
French.
This peculiarity must be due to the fact that the man's character
has something in it akin to the qualities of youth or manhood or old
age--something which accords with one or another of these periods of
life, or perhaps acts as a corrective to its special failings.
The mariner observes the progress he makes only by the way in which
objects on the coast fade away into the distance and apparently
decrease in size. In the same way a man becomes conscious that he is
advancing in years when he finds that people older than himself begin
to seem young to him.
It has already been remarked that the older a man becomes, the
fewer are the traces left in his mind by all that he sees, does or
experiences, and the cause of this has been explained. There is thus
a sense in which it may be said that it is only in youth that a man
lives with a full degree of consciousness, and that he is only half
alive when he is old. As the years advance, his consciousness of what
goes on about him dwindles, and the things of life hurry by without
making any impression upon him, just as none is made by a work of art
seen for the thousandth time. A man does what his hand finds to do,
and afterwards he does not know whether he has done it or not.
As life becomes more and more unconscious, the nearer it approaches
the point at which all consciousness ceases, the course of time
itself seems to increase in rapidity. In childhood all the things and
circumstances of life are novel; and that is sufficient to awake us to
the full consciousness of existence: hence, at that age, the day seems
of such immense length. The same thing happens when we are traveling:
one month seems longer then than four spent at home. Still, though
time seems to last longer when we are young or on a journey, the sense
of novelty does not prevent it from now and then in reality hanging
heavily upon our hands under both these circumstances, at any rate
more than is the case when we are old or staying at home. But the
intellect gradually becomes so rubbed down and blunted by long
habituation to such impressions that things have a constant tendency
to produce less and less impression upon us as they pass by; and this
makes time seem increasingly less important, and therefore shorter in
duration: the hours of the boy are longer than the days of the old
man. Accordingly, time goes faster and faster the longer we live,
like a ball rolling down a hill. Or, to take another example: as in
a revolving disc, the further a point lies from the centre, the more
rapid is its rate of progression, so it is in the wheel of life; the
further you stand from the beginning, the faster time moves for you.
Hence it may be said that as far as concerns the immediate sensation
that time makes upon our minds, the length of any given year is in
direct proportion to the number of times it will divide our whole
life: for instance, at the age of fifty the year appears to us only
one-tenth as long as it did at the age of five.