The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life - Arthur Schopenhauer
Once this _esprit de corps_ is acknowledged to be the foundation
of female honor, and is seen to be a wholesome, nay, a necessary
arrangement, as at bottom a matter of prudence and interest, its
extreme importance for the welfare of women will be recognized. But
it does not possess anything more than a relative value. It is no
absolute end, lying beyond all other aims of existence and valued
above life itself. In this view, there will be nothing to applaud
in the forced and extravagant conduct of a Lucretia or a
Virginius--conduct which can easily degenerate into tragic farce, and
produce a terrible feeling of revulsion. The conclusion of _Emilia
Galotti_, for instance, makes one leave the theatre completely ill at
ease; and, on the other hand, all the rules of female honor cannot
prevent a certain sympathy with Clara in _Egmont_. To carry this
principle of female honor too far is to forget the end in thinking
of the means--and this is just what people often do; for such
exaggeration suggests that the value of sexual honor is absolute;
while the truth is that it is more relative than any other kind. One
might go so far as to say that its value is purely conventional, when
one sees from Thomasius how in all ages and countries, up to the time
of the Reformation, irregularities were permitted and recognized by
law, with no derogation to female honor,--not to speak of the temple
of Mylitta at Babylon.[1]
[Footnote 1: Heroditus, i. 199.]
There are also of course certain circumstances in civil life which
make external forms of marriage impossible, especially in Catholic
countries, where there is no such thing as divorce. Ruling princes
everywhere, would, in my opinion, do much better, from a moral point
of view, to dispense with forms altogether rather than contract a
morganatic marriage, the descendants of which might raise claims to
the throne if the legitimate stock happened to die out; so that there
is a possibility, though, perhaps, a remote one, that a morganatic
marriage might produce a civil war. And, besides, such a marriage,
concluded in defiance of all outward ceremony, is a concession made to
women and priests--two classes of persons to whom one should be most
careful to give as little tether as possible. It is further to be
remarked that every man in a country can marry the woman of his
choice, except one poor individual, namely, the prince. His hand
belongs to his country, and can be given in marriage only for reasons
of State, that is, for the good of the country. Still, for all that,
he is a man; and, as a man, he likes to follow whither his heart
leads. It is an unjust, ungrateful and priggish thing to forbid, or
to desire to forbid, a prince from following his inclinations in this
matter; of course, as long as the lady has no influence upon the
Government of the country. From her point of view she occupies an
exceptional position, and does not come under the ordinary rules of
sexual honor; for she has merely given herself to a man who loves her,
and whom she loves but cannot marry. And in general, the fact that the
principle of female honor has no origin in nature, is shown by the
many bloody sacrifices which have been offered to it,--the murder of
children and the mother's suicide. No doubt a girl who contravenes the
code commits a breach of faith against her whole sex; but this faith
is one which is only secretly taken for granted, and not sworn to. And
since, in most cases, her own prospects suffer most immediately, her
folly is infinitely greater than her crime.
The corresponding virtue in men is a product of the one I have been
discussing. It is their _esprit de corps_, which demands that, once
a man has made that surrender of himself in marriage which is so
advantageous to his conqueror, he shall take care that the terms of
the treaty are maintained; both in order that the agreement itself
may lose none of its force by the permission of any laxity in its
observance, and that men, having given up everything, may, at
least, be assured of their bargain, namely, exclusive possession.
Accordingly, it is part of a man's honor to resent a breach of the
marriage tie on the part of his wife, and to punish it, at the
very least by separating from her. If he condones the offence, his
fellowmen cry shame upon him; but the shame in this case is not nearly
so foul as that of the woman who has lost her honor; the stain is by
no means of so deep a dye--_levioris notae macula_;--because a man's
relation to woman is subordinate to many other and more important
affairs in his life. The two great dramatic poets of modern times
have each taken man's honor as the theme of two plays; Shakespeare in
_Othello_ and _The Winter's Tale_, and Calderon in _El medico de su
honra_, (The Physician of his Honor), and _A secreto agravio secreta
venganza_, (for Secret Insult Secret Vengeance). It should be said,
however, that honor demands the punishment of the wife only; to punish
her paramour too, is a work of supererogation. This confirms the view
I have taken, that a man's honor originates in _esprit de corps_.
The kind of honor which I have been discussing hitherto has always
existed in its various forms and principles amongst all nations and
at all times; although the history of female honor shows that its
principles have undergone certain local modifications at different
periods. But there is another species of honor which differs from this
entirely, a species of honor of which the Greeks and Romans had
no conception, and up to this day it is perfectly unknown amongst
Chinese, Hindoos or Mohammedans. It is a kind of honor which arose
only in the Middle Age, and is indigenous only to Christian Europe,
nay, only to an extremely small portion of the population, that is
to say, the higher classes of society and those who ape them. It is
_knightly honor_, or _point d'honneur_. Its principles are quite
different from those which underlie the kind of honor I have been
treating until now, and in some respects are even opposed to them. The
sort I am referring to produces the _cavalier_; while the other kind
creates the _man of honor_. As this is so, I shall proceed to give an
explanation of its principles, as a kind of code or mirror of knightly
courtesy.
(1.) To begin with, honor of this sort consists, not in other people's
opinion of what we are worth, but wholly and entirely in whether they
express it or not, no matter whether they really have any opinion at
all, let alone whether they know of reasons for having one. Other
people may entertain the worst opinion of us in consequence of what we
do, and may despise us as much as they like; so long as no one dares
to give expression to his opinion, our honor remains untarnished. So
if our actions and qualities compel the highest respect from other
people, and they have no option but to give this respect,--as soon as
anyone, no matter how wicked or foolish he may be, utters something
depreciatory of us, our honor is offended, nay, gone for ever, unless
we can manage to restore it. A superfluous proof of what I say,
namely, that knightly honor depends, not upon what people think, but
upon what they say, is furnished by the fact that insults can be
withdrawn, or, if necessary, form the subject of an apology, which
makes them as though they had never been uttered. Whether the opinion
which underlays the expression has also been rectified, and why
the expression should ever have been used, are questions which are
perfectly unimportant: so long as the statement is withdrawn, all is
well. The truth is that conduct of this kind aims, not at earning
respect, but at extorting it.
(2.) In the second place, this sort of honor rests, not on what a man
does, but on what he suffers, the obstacles he encounters; differing
from the honor which prevails in all else, in consisting, not in what
he says or does himself, but in what another man says or does. His
honor is thus at the mercy of every man who can talk it away on the
tip of his tongue; and if he attacks it, in a moment it is gone for
ever,--unless the man who is attacked manages to wrest it back again
by a process which I shall mention presently, a process which involves
danger to his life, health, freedom, property and peace of mind. A
man's whole conduct may be in accordance with the most righteous and
noble principles, his spirit may be the purest that ever breathed, his
intellect of the very highest order; and yet his honor may disappear
the moment that anyone is pleased to insult him, anyone at all who has
not offended against this code of honor himself, let him be the most
worthless rascal or the most stupid beast, an idler, gambler, debtor,
a man, in short, of no account at all. It is usually this sort of
fellow who likes to insult people; for, as Seneca[1] rightly remarks,
_ut quisque contemtissimus et ludibrio est, ita solutissimae est_, the
more contemptible and ridiculous a man is,--the readier he is with his
tongue. His insults are most likely to be directed against the very
kind of man I have described, because people of different tastes can
never be friends, and the sight of pre-eminent merit is apt to
raise the secret ire of a ne'er-do-well. What Goethe says in the
_Westoestlicher Divan_ is quite true, that it is useless to complain
against your enemies; for they can never become your friends, if your
whole being is a standing reproach to them:--
_Was klagst du ueber Feinde?
Sollten Solche je warden Freunde
Denen das Wesen, wie du bist,
Im stillen ein ewiger Vorwurf ist_?
[Footnote 1: _De Constantia_, 11.]
It is obvious that people of this worthless description have good
cause to be thankful to the principle of honor, because it puts them
on a level with people who in every other respect stand far above
them. If a fellow likes to insult any one, attribute to him,
for example, some bad quality, this is taken _prima facie_ as a
well-founded opinion, true in fact; a decree, as it were, with all the
force of law; nay, if it is not at once wiped out in blood, it is a
judgment which holds good and valid to all time. In other words,
the man who is insulted remains--in the eyes of all _honorable
people_--what the man who uttered the insult--even though he were the
greatest wretch on earth--was pleased to call him; for he has _put
up with_ the insult--the technical term, I believe. Accordingly, all
_honorable people_ will have nothing more to do with him, and treat
him like a leper, and, it may be, refuse to go into any company where
he may be found, and so on.
This wise proceeding may, I think, be traced back to the fact that in
the Middle Age, up to the fifteenth century, it was not the accuser in
any criminal process who had to prove the guilt of the accused, but
the accused who had to prove his innocence.[1] This he could do by
swearing he was not guilty; and his backers--_consacramentales_--had
to come and swear that in their opinion he was incapable of perjury.
If he could find no one to help him in this way, or the accuser took
objection to his backers, recourse was had to trial by _the Judgment
of God_, which generally meant a duel. For the accused was now _in
disgrace_,[2] and had to clear himself. Here, then, is the origin
of the notion of disgrace, and of that whole system which prevails
now-a-days amongst _honorable people_--only that the oath is omitted.
This is also the explanation of that deep feeling of indignation which
_honorable people_ are called upon to show if they are given the lie;
it is a reproach which they say must be wiped out in blood. It seldom
comes to this pass, however, though lies are of common occurrence; but
in England, more than elsewhere, it is a superstition which has taken
very deep root. As a matter of order, a man who threatens to kill
another for telling a lie should never have told one himself. The
fact is, that the criminal trial of the Middle Age also admitted of a
shorter form. In reply to the charge, the accused answered: _That is
a lie_; whereupon it was left to be decided by _the Judgment of God_.
Hence, the code of knightly honor prescribes that, when the lie is
given, an appeal to arms follows as a matter of course. So much, then,
for the theory of insult.
[Footnote 1: See C.G. von Waehter's _Beitraege zur deutschen
Geschichte_, especially the chapter on criminal law.]
[Footnote 2: _Translator's Note_.--It is true that this expression has
another special meaning in the technical terminology of Chivalry,
but it is the nearest English equivalent which I can find for the
German--_ein Bescholtener_]
But there is something even worse than insult, something so dreadful
that I must beg pardon of all _honorable people_ for so much as
mentioning it in this code of knightly honor; for I know they will
shiver, and their hair will stand on end, at the very thought of
it--the _summum malum_, the greatest evil on earth, worse than death
and damnation. A man may give another--_horrible dictu_!--a slap or a
blow. This is such an awful thing, and so utterly fatal to all
honor, that, while any other species of insult may be healed by
blood-letting, this can be cured only by the _coup-de-grace_.
(3.) In the third place, this kind of honor has absolutely nothing
to do with what a man may be in and for himself; or, again, with the
question whether his moral character can ever become better or worse,
and all such pedantic inquiries. If your honor happens to be attacked,
or to all appearances gone, it can very soon be restored in its
entirety if you are only quick enough in having recourse to the one
universal remedy--_a duel_. But if the aggressor does not belong to
the classes which recognize the code of knightly honor, or has himself
once offended against it, there is a safer way of meeting any attack
upon your honor, whether it consists in blows, or merely in words.
If you are armed, you can strike down your opponent on the spot, or
perhaps an hour later. This will restore your honor.
But if you wish to avoid such an extreme step, from fear of any
unpleasant consequences arising therefrom, or from uncertainty as to
whether the aggressor is subject to the laws of knightly honor or
not, there is another means of making your position good, namely, the
_Avantage_. This consists in returning rudeness with still greater
rudeness; and if insults are no use, you can try a blow, which forms a
sort of climax in the redemption of your honor; for instance, a box on
the ear may be cured by a blow with a stick, and a blow with a stick
by a thrashing with a horsewhip; and, as the approved remedy for this
last, some people recommend you to spit at your opponent.[1] If all
these means are of no avail, you must not shrink from drawing blood.
And the reason for these methods of wiping out insult is, in this
code, as follows:
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_. It must be remembered that
Schopenhauer is here describing, or perhaps caricaturing the manners
and customs of the German aristocracy of half a century ago. Now, of
course, _nous avons change tout cela_!]
(4.) To receive an insult is disgraceful; to give one, honorable. Let
me take an example. My opponent has truth, right and reason on his
side. Very well. I insult him. Thereupon right and honor leave him and
come to me, and, for the time being, he has lost them--until he gets
them back, not by the exercise of right or reason, but by shooting and
sticking me. Accordingly, rudeness is a quality which, in point of
honor, is a substitute for any other and outweighs them all. The
rudest is always right. What more do you want? However stupid, bad or
wicked a man may have been, if he is only rude into the bargain, he
condones and legitimizes all his faults. If in any discussion or
conversation, another man shows more knowledge, greater love of
truth, a sounder judgment, better understanding than we, or generally
exhibits intellectual qualities which cast ours into the shade, we can
at once annul his superiority and our own shallowness, and in our turn
be superior to him, by being insulting and offensive. For rudeness
is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect. If our
opponent does not care for our mode of attack, and will not answer
still more rudely, so as to plunge us into the ignoble rivalry of
the _Avantage_, we are the victors and honor is on our side. Truth,
knowledge, understanding, intellect, wit, must beat a retreat and
leave the field to this almighty insolence.
_Honorable people_ immediately make a show of mounting their
war-horse, if anyone utters an opinion adverse to theirs, or shows
more intelligence than they can muster; and if in any controversy
they are at a loss for a reply, they look about for some weapon of
rudeness, which will serve as well and come readier to hand; so they
retire masters of the position. It must now be obvious that people are
quite right in applauding this principle of honor as having ennobled
the tone of society. This principle springs from another, which forms
the heart and soul of the entire code.
(5.) Fifthly, the code implies that the highest court to which a man
can appeal in any differences he may have with another on a point of
honor is the court of physical force, that is, of brutality. Every
piece of rudeness is, strictly speaking, an appeal to brutality; for
it is a declaration that intellectual strength and moral insight are
incompetent to decide, and that the battle must be fought out by
physical force--a struggle which, in the case of man, whom Franklin
defines as _a tool-making animal_, is decided by the weapons peculiar
to the species; and the decision is irrevocable. This is the
well-known principle of _right of might_--irony, of course, like _the
wit of a fool_, a parallel phrase. The honor of a knight may be called
the glory of might.
(6.) Lastly, if, as we saw above, civic honor is very scrupulous in
the matter of _meum_ and _tuum_, paying great respect to obligations
and a promise once made, the code we are here discussing displays, on
the other hand, the noblest liberality. There is only one word which
may not be broken, _the word of honor_--upon my _honor_, as people
say--the presumption being, of course, that every other form of
promise may be broken. Nay, if the worst comes to the worst, it
is easy to break even one's word of honor, and still remain
honorable--again by adopting that universal remedy, the duel, and
fighting with those who maintain that we pledged our word. Further,
there is one debt, and one alone, that under no circumstances must be
left unpaid--a gambling debt, which has accordingly been called _a
debt of honor_. In all other kinds of debt you may cheat Jews and
Christians as much as you like; and your knightly honor remains
without a stain.
The unprejudiced reader will see at once that such a strange, savage
and ridiculous code of honor as this has no foundation in human
nature, nor any warrant in a healthy view of human affairs. The
extremely narrow sphere of its operation serves only to intensify the
feeling, which is exclusively confined to Europe since the Middle Age,
and then only to the upper classes, officers and soldiers, and people
who imitate them. Neither Greeks nor Romans knew anything of this code
of honor or of its principles; nor the highly civilized nations of
Asia, ancient or modern. Amongst them no other kind of honor is
recognized but that which I discussed first, in virtue of which a man
is what he shows himself to be by his actions, not what any wagging
tongue is pleased to say of him. They thought that what a man said or
did might perhaps affect his own honor, but not any other man's. To
them, a blow was but a blow--and any horse or donkey could give a
harder one--a blow which under certain circumstances might make a man
angry and demand immediate vengeance; but it had nothing to do with
honor. No one kept account of blows or insulting words, or of the
_satisfaction_ which was demanded or omitted to be demanded. Yet in
personal bravery and contempt of death, the ancients were certainly
not inferior to the nations of Christian Europe. The Greeks and Romans
were thorough heroes, if you like; but they knew nothing about
_point d'honneur_. If _they_ had any idea of a duel, it was totally
unconnected with the life of the nobles; it was merely the exhibition
of mercenary gladiators, slaves devoted to slaughter, condemned
criminals, who, alternately with wild beasts, were set to butcher one
another to make a Roman holiday. When Christianity was introduced,
gladiatorial shows were done away with, and their place taken, in
Christian times, by the duel, which was a way of settling difficulties
by _the Judgment of God_.
If the gladiatorial fight was a cruel sacrifice to the prevailing
desire for great spectacles, dueling is a cruel sacrifice to existing
prejudices--a sacrifice, not of criminals, slaves and prisoners, but
of the noble and the free.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_. These and other remarks on dueling
will no doubt wear a belated look to English readers; but they are
hardly yet antiquated for most parts of the Continent.]
There are a great many traits in the character of the ancients which
show that they were entirely free from these prejudices. When, for
instance, Marius was summoned to a duel by a Teutonic chief, he
returned answer to the effect that, if the chief were tired of his
life, he might go and hang himself; at the same time he offered him a
veteran gladiator for a round or two. Plutarch relates in his life of
Themistocles that Eurybiades, who was in command of the fleet, once
raised his stick to strike him; whereupon Themistocles, instead of
drawing his sword, simply said: _Strike, but hear me_. How sorry the
reader must be, if he is an _honorable_ man, to find that we have no
information that the Athenian officers refused in a body to serve any
longer under Themistocles, if he acted like that! There is a modern
French writer who declares that if anyone considers Demosthenes a man
of honor, his ignorance will excite a smile of pity; and that Cicero
was not a man of honor either![1] In a certain passage in Plato's
_Laws_[2] the philosopher speaks at length of [Greek: aikia] or
_assault_, showing us clearly enough that the ancients had no notion
of any feeling of honor in connection with such matters. Socrates'
frequent discussions were often followed by his being severely
handled, and he bore it all mildly. Once, for instance, when somebody
kicked him, the patience with which he took the insult surprised
one of his friends. _Do you think_, said Socrates, _that if an ass
happened to kick me, I should resent it_?[3] On another occasion, when
he was asked, _Has not that fellow abused and insulted you? No_, was
his answer, _what he says is not addressed to me_[4] Stobaeus has
preserved a long passage from Musonius, from which we can see how the
ancients treated insults. They knew no other form of satisfaction than
that which the law provided, and wise people despised even this. If a
Greek received a box on the ear, he could get satisfaction by the aid
of the law; as is evident from Plato's _Gorgias_, where Socrates'
opinion may be found. The same thing may be seen in the account given
by Gellius of one Lucius Veratius, who had the audacity to give some
Roman citizens whom he met on the road a box on the ear, without any
provocation whatever; but to avoid any ulterior consequences, he
told a slave to bring a bag of small money, and on the spot paid
the trivial legal penalty to the men whom he had astonished by his
conduct.
[Footnote 1:_litteraires_: par C. Durand. Rouen, 1828.]
[Footnote 2: Bk. IX.].
[Footnote 3: Diogenes Laertius, ii., 21.]
[Footnote 4: _Ibid_ 36.]
Crates, the celebrated Cynic philosopher, got such a box on the ear
from Nicodromus, the musician, that his face swelled up and became
black and blue; whereupon he put a label on his forehead, with the
inscription, _Nicodromus fecit_, which brought much disgrace to the
fluteplayer who had committed such a piece of brutality upon the man
whom all Athens honored as a household god.[1] And in a letter to
Melesippus, Diogenes of Sinope tells us that he got a beating from the
drunken sons of the Athenians; but he adds that it was a matter of no
importance.[2] And Seneca devotes the last few chapters of his _De
Constantia_ to a lengthy discussion on insult--_contumelia_; in order
to show that a wise man will take no notice of it. In Chapter XIV, he
says, _What shall a wise man do, if he is given a blow? What Cato did,
when some one struck him on the mouth;--not fire up or avenge the
insult, or even return the blow, but simply ignore it_.
[Footnote 1: Diogenes Laertius, vi. 87, and Apul: Flor: p. 126.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Casaubon's Note, Diog. Laert., vi. 33.]
_Yes_, you say, _but these men were philosophers_.--And you are fools,
eh? Precisely.
It is clear that the whole code of knightly honor was utterly unknown
to the ancients; for the simple reason that they always took a natural
and unprejudiced view of human affairs, and did not allow themselves
to be influenced by any such vicious and abominable folly. A blow
in the face was to them a blow and nothing more, a trivial physical
injury; whereas the moderns make a catastrophe out of it, a theme for
a tragedy; as, for instance, in the _Cid_ of Corneille, or in a
recent German comedy of middle-class life, called _The Power of
Circumstance_, which should have been entitled _The Power of
Prejudice_. If a member of the National Assembly at Paris got a blow
on the ear, it would resound from one end of Europe to the other. The
examples which I have given of the way in which such an occurrence
would have been treated in classic times may not suit the ideas of
_honorable people_; so let me recommend to their notice, as a kind of
antidote, the story of Monsieur Desglands in Diderot's masterpiece,
_Jacques le fataliste_. It is an excellent specimen of modern knightly
honor, which, no doubt, they will find enjoyable and edifying.[1]