The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy - Arthur Schopenhauer
* * * * *
Our constant discontent is for the most part rooted in the impulse of
self-preservation. This passes into a kind of selfishness, and makes a
duty out of the maxim that we should always fix our minds upon what we
lack, so that we may endeavour to procure it. Thus it is that we are
always intent on finding out what we want, and on thinking of it;
but that maxim allows us to overlook undisturbed the things which we
already possess; and so, as soon as we have obtained anything, we give
it much less attention than before. We seldom think of what we have,
but always of what we lack.
This maxim of egoism, which has, indeed, its advantages in procuring
the means to the end in view, itself concurrently destroys the
ultimate end, namely, contentment; like the bear in the fable that
throws a stone at the hermit to kill the fly on his nose. We ought to
wait until need and privation announce themselves, instead of
looking for them. Minds that are naturally content do this, while
hypochondrists do the reverse.
* * * * *
A man's nature is in harmony with itself when he desires to be nothing
but what he is; that is to say, when he has attained by experience a
knowledge of his strength and of his weakness, and makes use of the
one and conceals the other, instead of playing with false coin, and
trying to show a strength which he does not possess. It is a harmony
which produces an agreeable and rational character; and for the simple
reason that everything which makes the man and gives him his mental
and physical qualities is nothing but the manifestation of his will;
is, in fact, what he _wills_. Therefore it is the greatest of all
inconsistencies to wish to be other than we are.
* * * * *
People of a strange and curious temperament can be happy only under
strange circumstances, such as suit their nature, in the same way as
ordinary circumstances suit the ordinary man; and such circumstances
can arise only if, in some extraordinary way, they happen to meet with
strange people of a character different indeed, but still exactly
suited to their own. That is why men of rare or strange qualities are
seldom happy.
* * * * *
All this pleasure is derived from the use and consciousness of power;
and the greatest of pains that a man can feel is to perceive that
his powers fail just when he wants to use them. Therefore it will be
advantageous for every man to discover what powers he possesses, and
what powers he lacks. Let him, then, develop the powers in which he is
pre-eminent, and make a strong use of them; let him pursue the path
where they will avail him; and even though he has to conquer his
inclinations, let him avoid the path where such powers are requisite
as he possesses only in a low degree. In this way he will often have a
pleasant consciousness of strength, and seldom a painful consciousness
of weakness; and it will go well with him. But if he lets himself be
drawn into efforts demanding a kind of strength quite different from
that in which he is pre-eminent, he will experience humiliation; and
this is perhaps the most painful feeling with which a man can be
afflicted.
Yet there are two sides to everything. The man who has insufficient
self-confidence in a sphere where he has little power, and is never
ready to make a venture, will on the one hand not even learn how to
use the little power that he has; and on the other, in a sphere in
which he would at least be able to achieve something, there will be
a complete absence of effort, and consequently of pleasure. This is
always hard to bear; for a man can never draw a complete blank in any
department of human welfare without feeling some pain.
* * * * *
As a child, one has no conception of the inexorable character of the
laws of nature, and of the stubborn way in which everything persists
in remaining what it is. The child believes that even lifeless things
are disposed to yield to it; perhaps because it feels itself one with
nature, or, from mere unacquaintance with the world, believes that
nature is disposed to be friendly. Thus it was that when I was a
child, and had thrown my shoe into a large vessel full of milk, I was
discovered entreating the shoe to jump out. Nor is a child on its
guard against animals until it learns that they are ill-natured and
spiteful. But not before we have gained mature experience do we
recognise that human character is unalterable; that no entreaty, or
representation, or example, or benefit, will bring a man to give up
his ways; but that, on the contrary, every man is compelled to follow
his own mode of acting and thinking, with the necessity of a law of
nature; and that, however we take him, he always remains the same. It
is only after we have obtained a clear and profound knowledge of this
fact that we give up trying to persuade people, or to alter them
and bring them round to our way of thinking. We try to accommodate
ourselves to theirs instead, so far as they are indispensable to us,
and to keep away from them so far as we cannot possibly agree.
Ultimately we come to perceive that even in matters of mere
intellect--although its laws are the same for all, and the subject
as opposed to the object of thought does not really enter into
individuality--there is, nevertheless, no certainty that the whole
truth of any matter can be communicated to any one, or that any one
can be persuaded or compelled to assent to it; because, as Bacon says,
_intellectus humanus luminis sicci non est_: the light of the human
intellect is coloured by interest and passion.
* * * * *
It is just because _all happiness is of a negative character_ that,
when we succeed in being perfectly at our ease, we are not properly
conscious of it. Everything seems to pass us softly and gently, and
hardly to touch us until the moment is over; and then it is the
positive feeling of something lacking that tells us of the happiness
which has vanished; it is then that we observe that we have failed to
hold it fast, and we suffer the pangs of self-reproach as well as of
privation.
* * * * *
Every happiness that a man enjoys, and almost every friendship that
he cherishes, rest upon illusion; for, as a rule, with increase of
knowledge they are bound to vanish. Nevertheless, here as elsewhere, a
man should courageously pursue truth, and never weary of striving to
settle accounts with himself and the world. No matter what happens to
the right or to the left of him,--be it a chimaera or fancy that makes
him happy, let him take heart and go on, with no fear of the desert
which widens to his view. Of one thing only must he be quite certain:
that under no circumstances will he discover any lack of worth in
himself when the veil is raised; the sight of it would be the Gorgon
that would kill him. Therefore, if he wants to remain undeceived, let
him in his inmost being feel his own worth. For to feel the lack of
it is not merely the greatest, but also the only true affliction;
all other sufferings of the mind may not only be healed, but may be
immediately relieved, by the secure consciousness of worth. The man
who is assured of it can sit down quietly under sufferings that would
otherwise bring him to despair; and though he has no pleasures, no
joys and no friends, he can rest in and on himself; so powerful is the
comfort to be derived from a vivid consciousness of this advantage; a
comfort to be preferred to every other earthly blessing. Contrarily,
nothing in the world can relieve a man who knows his own
worthlessness; all that he can do is to conceal it by deceiving people
or deafening them with his noise; but neither expedient will serve him
very long.
* * * * *
We must always try to preserve large views. If we are arrested by
details we shall get confused, and see things awry. The success or the
failure of the moment, and the impression that they make, should count
for nothing.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Schopenhauer, for some reason that
is not apparent, wrote this remark in French.]
* * * * *
How difficult it is to learn to understand oneself, and clearly to
recognise what it is that one wants before anything else; what it is,
therefore, that is most immediately necessary to our happiness; then
what comes next; and what takes the third and the fourth place, and so
on.
Yet, without this knowledge, our life is planless, like a captain
without a compass.
* * * * *
The sublime melancholy which leads us to cherish a lively conviction
of the worthlessness of everything of all pleasures and of all
mankind, and therefore to long for nothing, but to feel that life is
merely a burden which must be borne to an end that cannot be very
distant, is a much happier state of mind than any condition of desire,
which, be it never so cheerful, would have us place a value on the
illusions of the world, and strive to attain them.
This is a fact which we learn from experience; and it is clear, _a
priori_, that one of these is a condition of illusion, and the other
of knowledge.
Whether it is better to marry or not to marry is a question which in
very many cases amounts to this: Are the cares of love more endurable
than the anxieties of a livelihood?
* * * * *
Marriage is a trap which nature sets for us. [1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Also in French.]
* * * * *
Poets and philosophers who are married men incur by that very fact the
suspicion that they are looking to their own welfare, and not to the
interests of science and art.
* * * * *
Habit is everything. Hence to be calm and unruffled is merely to
anticipate a habit; and it is a great advantage not to need to form
it.
* * * * *
"Personality is the element of the greatest happiness." Since _pain_
and _boredom_ are the two chief enemies of human happiness, nature has
provided our personality with a protection against both. We can
ward off pain, which is more often of the mind than of the body, by
_cheerfulness_; and boredom by _intelligence_. But neither of these
is akin to the other; nay, in any high degree they are perhaps
incompatible. As Aristotle remarks, genius is allied to melancholy;
and people of very cheerful disposition are only intelligent on the
surface. The better, therefore, anyone is by nature armed against one
of these evils, the worse, as a rule, is he armed against the other.
There is no human life that is free from pain and boredom; and it is a
special favour on the part of fate if a man is chiefly exposed to the
evil against which nature has armed him the better; if fate, that is,
sends a great deal of pain where there is a very cheerful temper in
which to bear it, and much leisure where there is much intelligence,
but not _vice versa_. For if a man is intelligent, he feels pain
doubly or trebly; and a cheerful but unintellectual temper finds
solitude and unoccupied leisure altogether unendurable.
* * * * *
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters
of this world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
Nor is it otherwise in art; for there genuine work, seldom found
and still more seldom appreciated, is again and again driven out by
dullness, insipidity, and affectation.
It is just the same in the sphere of action. Most men, says Bias, are
bad. Virtue is a stranger in this world; and boundless egoism, cunning
and malice, are always the order of the day. It is wrong to deceive
the young on this point, for it will only make them feel later on that
their teachers were the first to deceive them. If the object is
to render the pupil a better man by telling him that others are
excellent, it fails; and it would be more to the purpose to say: Most
men are bad, it is for you to be better. In this way he would, at
least, be sent out into the world armed with a shrewd foresight,
instead of having to be convinced by bitter experience that his
teachers were wrong.
All ignorance is dangerous, and most errors must be dearly paid. And
good luck must he have that carries unchastised an error in his head
unto his death.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--This, again, is Schopenhauer's own
English.]
* * * * *
Every piece of success has a doubly beneficial effect upon us when,
apart from the special and material advantage which it brings it is
accompanied by the enlivening assurance that the world, fate, or the
daemon within, does not mean so badly with us, nor is so opposed to
our prosperity as we had fancied; when, in fine, it restores our
courage to live.
Similarly, every misfortune or defeat has, in the contrary sense, an
effect that is doubly depressing.
* * * * *
If we were not all of us exaggeratedly interested in ourselves, life
would be so uninteresting that no one could endure it.
* * * * *
Everywhere in the world, and under all circumstances, it is only by
force that anything can be done; but power is mostly in bad hands,
because baseness is everywhere in a fearful majority.
* * * * *
Why should it be folly to be always intent on getting the greatest
possible enjoyment out of the moment, which is our only sure
possession? Our whole life is no more than a magnified present, and in
itself as fleeting.
* * * * *
As a consequence of his individuality and the position in which he
is placed, everyone without exception lives in a certain state of
limitation, both as regards his ideas and the opinions which he forms.
Another man is also limited, though not in the same way; but should
he succeed in comprehending the other's limitation he can confuse
and abash him, and put him to shame, by making him feel what his
limitation is, even though the other be far and away his superior.
Shrewd people often employ this circumstance to obtain a false and
momentary advantage.
* * * * *
The only genuine superiority is that of the mind and character; all
other kinds are fictitious, affected, false; and it is good to
make them feel that it is so when they try to show off before the
superiority that is true.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--In the original this also is in
French.]
* * * * *
_All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players_.
Exactly! Independently of what a man really is in himself, he has
a part to play, which fate has imposed upon him from without, by
determining his rank, education, and circumstances. The most immediate
application of this truth appears to me to be that in life, as on
the stage, we must distinguish between the actor and his part;
distinguish, that is, the man in himself from his position and
reputation--- from the part which rank and circumstances have imposed
upon him. How often it is that the worst actor plays the king, and the
best the beggar! This may happen in life, too; and a man must be very
_crude_ to confuse the actor with his part.
* * * * *
Our life is so poor that none of the treasures of the world can make
it rich; for the sources of enjoyment are soon found to be all very
scanty, and it is in vain that we look for one that will always flow.
Therefore, as regards our own welfare, there are only two ways in
which we can use wealth. We can either spend it in ostentatious pomp,
and feed on the cheap respect which our imaginary glory will bring us
from the infatuated crowd; or, by avoiding all expenditure that will
do us no good, we can let our wealth grow, so that we may have a
bulwark against misfortune and want that shall be stronger and better
every day; in view of the fact that life, though it has few delights,
is rich in evils.
* * * * *
It is just because our real and inmost being is _will_ that it is only
by its exercise that we can attain a vivid consciousness of existence,
although this is almost always attended by pain. Hence it is that
existence is essentially painful, and that many persons for whose
wants full provision is made arrange their day in accordance with
extremely regular, monotonous, and definite habits. By this means they
avoid all the pain which the movement of the will produces; but, on
the other hand, their whole existence becomes a series of scenes and
pictures that mean nothing. They are hardly aware that they exist.
Nevertheless, it is the best way of settling accounts with life, so
long as there is sufficient change to prevent an excessive feeling of
boredom. It is much better still if the Muses give a man some worthy
occupation, so that the pictures which fill his consciousness have
some meaning, and yet not a meaning that can be brought into any
relation with his will.
* * * * *
A man is _wise_ only on condition of living in a world full of fools.
GENIUS AND VIRTUE.
When I think, it is the spirit of the world which is striving to
express its thought; it is nature which is trying to know and fathom
itself. It is not the thoughts of some other mind, which I am
endeavouring to trace; but it is I who transform that which exists
into something which is known and thought, and would otherwise neither
come into being nor continue in it.
In the realm of physics it was held for thousands of years to be a
fact beyond question that water was a simple and consequently an
original element. In the same way in the realm of metaphysics it
was held for a still longer period that the _ego_ was a simple and
consequently an indestructible entity. I have shown, however, that it
is composed of two heterogeneous parts, namely, the _Will_, which is
metaphysical in its character, a thing in itself, and the _knowing
subject_, which is physical and a mere phenomenon.
Let me illustrate what I mean. Take any large, massive, heavy
building: this hard, ponderous body that fills so much space exists,
I tell you, only in the soft pulp of the brain. There alone, in the
human brain, has it any being. Unless you understand this, you can go
no further.
Truly it is the world itself that is a miracle; the world of material
bodies. I looked at two of them. Both were heavy, symmetrical, and
beautiful. One was a jasper vase with golden rim and golden handles;
the other was an organism, an animal, a man. When I had sufficiently
admired their exterior, I asked my attendant genius to allow me to
examine the inside of them; and I did so. In the vase I found nothing
but the force of gravity and a certain obscure desire, which took the
form of chemical affinity. But when I entered into the other--how
shall I express my astonishment at what I saw? It is more incredible
than all the fairy tales and fables that were ever conceived.
Nevertheless, I shall try to describe it, even at the risk of finding
no credence for my tale.
In this second thing, or rather in the upper end of it, called the
head, which on its exterior side looks like anything else--a body in
space, heavy, and so on--I found no less an object than the whole
world itself, together with the whole of the space in which all of
it exists, and the whole of the time in which all of it moves,
and finally everything that fills both time and space in all its
variegated and infinite character; nay, strangest sight of all, I
found myself walking about in it! It was no picture that I saw; it was
no peep-show, but reality itself. This it is that is really and truly
to be found in a thing which is no bigger than a cabbage, and which,
on occasion, an executioner might strike off at a blow, and suddenly
smother that world in darkness and night. The world, I say, would
vanish, did not heads grow like mushrooms, and were there not always
plenty of them ready to snatch it up as it is sinking down into
nothing, and keep it going like a ball. This world is an idea which
they all have in common, and they express the community of their
thought by the word "objectivity."
In the face of this vision I felt as if I were Ardschuna when Krishna
appeared to him in his true majesty, with his hundred thousand arms
and eyes and mouths.
When I see a wide landscape, and realise that it arises by the
operation of the functions of my brain, that is to say, of time,
space, and casuality, on certain spots which have gathered on my
retina, I feel that I carry it within me. I have an extraordinarily
clear consciousness of the identity of my own being with that of the
external world.
Nothing provides so vivid an illustration of this identity as a
_dream_. For in a dream other people appear to be totally distinct
from us, and to possess the most perfect objectivity, and a nature
which is quite different from ours, and which often puzzles,
surprises, astonishes, or terrifies us; and yet it is all our own
self. It is even so with the will, which sustains the whole of the
external world and gives it life; it is the same will that is in
ourselves, and it is there alone that we are immediately conscious of
it. But it is the intellect, in ourselves and in others, which makes
all these miracles possible; for it is the intellect which everywhere
divides actual being into subject and object; it is a hall of
phantasmagorical mystery, inexpressibly marvellous, incomparably
magical.
The difference in degree of mental power which sets so wide a gulf
between the genius and the ordinary mortal rests, it is true, upon
nothing else than a more or less perfect development of the cerebral
system. But it is this very difference which is so important, because
the whole of the real world in which we live and move possesses an
existence only in relation to this cerebral system. Accordingly, the
difference between a genius and an ordinary man is a total diversity
of world and existence. The difference between man and the lower
animals may be similarly explained.
When Momus was said to ask for a window in the breast, it was an
allegorical joke, and we cannot even imagine such a contrivance to
be a possibility; but it would be quite possible to imagine that the
skull and its integuments were transparent, and then, good heavens!
what differences should we see in the size, the form, the quality,
the movement of the brain! what degrees of value! A great mind would
inspire as much respect at first sight as three stars on a man's
breast, and what a miserable figure would be cut by many a one who
wore them!
Men of genius and intellect, and all those whose mental and
theoretical qualities are far more developed than their moral
and practical qualities--men, in a word, who have more mind than
character--are often not only awkward and ridiculous in matters of
daily life, as has been observed by Plato in the seventh book of the
_Republic_, and portrayed by Goethe in his _Tasso_; but they are
often, from a moral point of view, weak and contemptible creatures as
well; nay, they might almost be called bad men. Of this Rousseau has
given us genuine examples. Nevertheless, that better consciousness
which is the source of all virtue is often stronger in them than in
many of those whose actions are nobler than their thoughts; nay, it
may be said that those who think nobly have a better acquaintance with
virtue, while the others make a better practice of it. Full of zeal
for the good and for the beautiful, they would fain fly up to heaven
in a straight line; but the grosser elements of this earth oppose
their flight, and they sink back again. They are like born artists,
who have no knowledge of technique, or find that the marble is too
hard for their fingers. Many a man who has much less enthusiasm for
the good, and a far shallower acquaintance with its depths, makes a
better thing of it in practice; he looks down upon the noble thinkers
with contempt, and he has a right to do it; nevertheless, he does not
understand them, and they despise him in their turn, and not unjustly.
They are to blame; for every living man has, by the fact of his
living, signed the conditions of life; but they are still more to be
pitied. They achieve their redemption, not on the way of virtue, but
on a path of their own; and they are saved, not by works, but by
faith.
Men of no genius whatever cannot bear solitude: they take no pleasure
in the contemplation of nature and the world. This arises from the
fact that they never lose sight of their own will, and therefore
they see nothing of the objects of the world but the bearing of such
objects upon their will and person. With objects which have no such
bearing there sounds within them a constant note: _It is nothing to
me_, which is the fundamental base in all their music. Thus all things
seem to them to wear a bleak, gloomy, strange, hostile aspect. It is
only for their will that they seem to have any perceptive faculties at
all; and it is, in fact, only a moral and not a theoretical tendency,
only a moral and not an intellectual value, that their life possesses.
The lower animals bend their heads to the ground, because all that
they want to see is what touches their welfare, and they can never
come to contemplate things from a really objective point of view. It
is very seldom that unintellectual men make a true use of their erect
position, and then it is only when they are moved by some intellectual
influence outside them.