< A ^ O x° !> •/> V v V .\:- Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress 'A \\ o N « '©. x\ ^ K v O O ^ -"3 & 1 « * o V ^ ^ 9? "V- ', '111 \V & ^ '%^ ,\~ 1 *p ,0 o ^VV*% rf ,0 o v * , " c «<* * -b N N*V «v * o, 00 .0 «f> > n,0 \ V .s ^>^' ^* V aN - O^ .v-^. ,0 o * . o. * «i°' 1V if-. O" v . . A - \\ •V : "W~ #% \> * ■V- V" * A X ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. •Essays. ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER SELECTED AND TRANSLATED By T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, MA Vitam impendere vero. — Juvenal. A, L. BURT COMPANY, & * J> * j* * * -rf ^ PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK ,"SU8 .E5S48 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Schopenhauer is one of the few philosophers who can be generally understood without a commentary. All his theories claim to be drawn direct from facts, to be suggested by observation, and to interpret the world as it is; and whatever view he takes, he is constant in his appeal to the experience of common life. This character- istic endows his style with a freshness and vigor which would be difficult to match in the philosophical writing of any country, and impossible in that of Germany. If it were asked whether there were a"' T circumstances, apart from heredity, to which he owed his mental habit, the answer might be found in the abnormal character of his early education, his acquaintance with the world rather than with books, the extensive travels of his boy- hood, his ardent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and without regard to the emoluments and endowments of learning. He was trained in realities even more than in ideas; and hence he is original, forcible, clear, an enemy of all philosophic indefiniteness and obscurity; so that it may well be said of him, in the words of a writer in the "Revue Con tern poraine," cen'est pas un philosophe comme Us autres, c'est un philosophe qui a vu le monde, It is not my purpose, nor would it be possible within the limits of a prefatory note, to attempt an account of Schopenhauer's philosophy, to indicate its sources, or to suggest or rebut the objections which may be taken to it. M. Ribot, in his excellent little book,* has done all that * "La Philosophie de Schopenhauer," par Th, Ribot, i v TRANSLA TOR'S PRBFA CE. is necessary in this direction. But the essays here pr» sented need a word of explanation. It should be observed, and Schopenhauer himself is at pains to point out, that his system is like a citadel with a hundred gates: at what- ever point you take it up, wherever you make your entrance, you are on the road to the center. In this respect his writings resemble a series of essays composed in support of a single thesis; a circumstance which led him to insist, more emphatically even than most philoso- phers, that for a proper understanding of his system it was necessary to read every line he had written. Perhaps it would be more correct to describe " Die Welt als Wille und Vorstelluug" as his main thesis, and his other treatises as merely corollary to it. The essays in these volumes form part of the corollary; they are taken from a collection published toward the close of Schopenhauer's life, and by him entitled " Parerga und Paralipomena," as being in the nature of surplusage and illustrative of his main position. They are by far the most popular of his works, and since their first publication in 1851 they have clone much to build up his fame. Written so as to be intelligible enough in themselves, the tendency of many of them is toward the fundamental idea on which his system is based. It may therefore be convenient to summarize that idea in a couple of sentences; more es- pecially as Schopenhauer sometimes writes as if his advice had been followed and his readers were acquainted with the whole of his work. All philosophy is in some sense the endeavor to find a unifying principle, to discover the most general conception underlying the whole field of nature and of knowledge. By one of those bold generalizations which occasionally mark a real advance in science, Schopenhauer conceived this unifying principle, this underlying unity, to consist in something analogous to that will which self-conscious- TRANSLA TO R'S PR EFA CE. V ness reveals to us. Will is, according to him, the fundamental reality of the world, the thing-in-itself; and its objectivation is what is presented in phenomena. The struggle of the will to realize itself evolves the organism, which in its turn evolves intelligence as the servant of the will. And in practical life the antagonism between the will and the intellect arises from the fact that the former is the metaphysical substance, the latter something accidentMl and secondary. And further, will is desire, that is to say, need of something; hence need and pain are what is positive in the world, and the only possible happiness is a negation, a renunciation of the will to live. It is instructive to note, as M. Ribot points out, that in finding the origin of all things, not in intelligence, as some of his predecessors in philosophy had done, but in will, or the force of nature, from which all phenomena have developed, Schopenhauer was anticipating something of the scientific spirit of the nineteenth century. To this it may be added that in combating the method of Fichte and Hegel, who spun a system out of abstract ideas, and in discarding it for one based on observation and experi- ence, Schopenhauer can be said to have brought down philosophy from heaven to earth. In Schopenhauer's view the various forms of religion are no less a product of human ingenuity than Art or Science. He holds, in effect, that all religions take their rise in the desire to explain the world; and that, in regard to truth and error, they differ, in the main, not by preach- ing monotheism, polytheism or pantheism, but in so far as they recognize pessimism or optimism as the true description of life. Hence any religion which looked upon the world as being radically evil appealed to him as containing an indestructible element of truth. I have endeavored to present his view of two of the great reli- Vi TRANSLA TOM'S PREFACE. gions of the world in the extract to whicn I have given the title of "The Christian System." The tenor of it ia to show that, however little he may have been in sympathy with the supernatural element, he owed much to the moral doctrines of Christianity and of Buddhism, between which he traced great resemblance. Of Schopenhauer, as of many another writer, it may be said that he has been misunderstood and depreciated just in the degree in which he is thought to be new; and that, in treating of the conduct of life, he is, in reality, valu- able only in so far as he brings old truths to remembrance. His name used to arouse, and in certain quarters still arouses, a vague sense of alarm; as though he had come to subvert all the rules of right thinking and all the principles of good conduct, rather than to proclaim once again and give a new meaning to truths with which the world has long been familiar. Of his philosophy in its more technical aspects, as matter upon which enough, perhaps, has been written, no account need be taken here, except as it affects the form in which he embodies these truths or supplies the fresh light in which he sees them. For whatever claims to originality his metaphysical theory may possess, the chief interest to be found in his views of life is an affair of form rather than of substance; and he stands in a sphere of his own, not because he sets new problems or opens up undiscovered truths, but in the manner in which he approaches what has been already revealed. He is not on that account less important; for the great mass of men at all times requires to have old truths im- parted as if they were new — formulated, as it were, directly for them as individuals, and of special application to their own circumstances in life. A discussion of human happiness and the way to obtain it is never either un- necessary or uncalled for, if one looks to the extent Ui TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. v ii •which the lives of most men fall short of even a poor ideal, or, again, to the difficulty of reaching any definite and secure conclusion. For to such a momentous inquiry as this, the vast majority of mankind gives nothing more than a nominal consideration, accepting the current belief, whatever it may be, on authority, and taking as little thought of the grounds on which it rests as a man walking takes of the motion of the earth. But for those who are not indifferent — for those whose desire to fathom the mystery of existence gives them the right to be called thinking beings — it is just here, in regard to the conclu- sion to be reached, that a difficulty arises, a difficulty affecting the conduct of life: for while the great facts of existence are alike for all, they are variously appreciated, and conclusions differ, chiefly from innate diversity of temperament in those who draw them. It is innate tem- perament, acting on a view of the facts necessarily in- complete, that has inspired so many different teachers. The tendencies of a man's own mind — the idols of the cave before which he bows — interpret the facts in accord- ance with his own nature: he elaborates a system contain- ing, perhaps, a grain of truth, to which the whole of life is then made to conform; the facts purporting to be the foundation of the theory, and theory in its turn giving its own color to the facts. Nor is this error, the manipulation of facts to suit a theory, avoided in the views of life which are presented by Schopenhauer. It is true that he aimed especially at freeing himself from the trammels of previous systems; but he was caught in those of his own. His natural desire was to resist the common appeal to anything ex- tramundane — anything outside or beyond life — as the basis of either hope or fear. He tried to look at life as it is; but the metaphysical theory on which his whole philosophy rests made it necessary for him, as he thought, to regard riii TRANSLATORS PREFACE. it as an unmixed evil. He calls our present existence an infinitesimal moment between two eternities, the past and the future, a moment — like the life of Plato's "Dwellers in the Cave" — filled with the pursuit of shadows; where everything is relative, phenomenal, illusory, and man is bound in the servitude of ignorance, struggle and need, in the endless round of effort and failure. If you confine yourself, says Schopenhauer, only to some of its small details, life may indeed appear to be a comedy, because of the one or two bright spots of happy circumstance to be fcund in it here and there; but when you reach a higher point of view and a broader outlook, these soon be- come invisible, and life, seen from the distance which brings out the true proportion of all its parts, is revealed as a tragedy — a long record of struggle and pain, with the death of the hero as the final certainty. How then, he asks, can a man make the best of his brief hour under the hard conditions of his destiny? What is the true Wisdom of Life? Schopenhauer has no pre-conceived divine plan to vindicate; no religious or moral enthusiasm to give a roseate hue to some far-off event, obliging us in the end to think that all things work together for good. Let poets and theologians give play to imagination ! he, at any rate, will profess no knowledge of anything beyond our ken. If our existence does not entirely fail of its aim, it must, he says, be suffering; for this is what meets us every- where in the world, and it is absurd to look upon it as the result of chance. Still, in the face of all this suffering, and in spite of the fact that the uncertainty of life destroys its value as an end in itself, every man's natural desire is to preserve his existence; so that life is a blind, unreasoning force, hurrying us we know not whither. From his high metaphysical standpoint, Schopenhauer is ready to admit that there are many things in life which TRANSLATORS PREFACE. ix give a short satisfaction and blind us for the moment to the realities of existence — pleasures as they may be called, in so far as they are a mode of relief; but that pleasure is not positive in its nature nor anything more than the negation of suffering, is proved by the fact that, if pleas- ures come in abundance, pain soon returns in the form of satiety; so that the sense of illusion is all that has been gained. Hence, the most a man can achieve in the way of welfare is a measure of relief from this suffering; and, if people were prudent, it is at this they would aim, in- stead of trying to secure a happiness which always flies from them. It is a trite saying that happiness is a delusion, a chimera, the fata morgana of the heart; but here is a writer who will bring our whole conduct into line with that, as a matter of practice; making pain the positive groundwork of life, and a desire to escape it the spur of all effort. While most of those who treat of the conduct of life come at last to the conclusion, more or less vaguely expressed, that religion and morality form a positive source of true happiness, Schopenhauer does not professedly take this view; though it is quite true that the practical outcome of his remarks tends, as will be seen, in support of it; with this difference, however — he does not direct the imagina- tion to anything outside this present life as making it worth while to live at all; his object is to state the facts of existence as they immediately appear, and to draw conclu- sions as to what a wise man will do in the face of them. In the practical outcome of Schopenhauer's ethics — the end and aim of those maxims of conduct which he recom- mends, there is nothing that is not substantially akin to theories of life which, in different forms, the greater part of mankind is presumed to hold in reverence. It is the premises rather than the conclusion of his argument x TRANSLATOR'S PRUh ACE. which interest us as something new. The whole world, he says, with all its phenomena of change, growth and devel- opment, is ultimately the manifestation of will — Wille unci Vorstellung — a blind force conscious of itself only when it reaches the stage of intellect. And life is a con- stant self-assertion of this will; a long desire which is never fulfilled; disillusion inevitably following upon attain- ment, because the will, the thing-in-itself — in philosoph- ical language, the noumenon — always remains as the perma- nent element; and with this persistent exercise of its claim, it can never be satisfied. So life is essentially suffering; and the only remedy for it is the freedom of the intellect from the servitude imposed by its master, the will. The happiness a man can attain, is thus, in Schopen- hauer's view, negative only; but how is it to be acquired ? Some temporary relief, he says, may be obtained through the medium of Art, for in the apprehension of Art we are raised out of our bondage, contemplating objects of thought as they are in themselves, apart from their relations to oui own ephemeral existence and free from any taint of the will. This contemplation of pure thought is destroyed when Art is degraded from its lofty sphere, and made an instrument in the bondage of the will. How few of those who feel that the pleasure of Art transcends all others could give such a striking explanation of their feeling ! But the highest ethical duty, and consequently the supreme endeavor after happiness, is to withdraw from the struggle of life, and so obtain release from the misery which that struggle imposes upon all, even upon those who are for the moment successful. For as will is the inmost kernel of everything, so it is identical under all its mani- festations; and through the mirror of the world a man may arrive at the knowledge of himself. The recognition of the identity of our own nature with that of others is the beginning and foundation of all true morality. For TRANSLA TOR'S PREFA CE. x \ once a man clearly perceives this solidarity of the will, there is aroused in him a feeling of sympathy which is the main-spring of ethical conduct. This feeling of sympathy must, in any true moral system, prevent our obtaining success at the price of others' loss. Justice, in this theory, comes to be a noble, enlightened self-interest; it will for- bid our doing wrong to our fellow-man, because, in injur- ing him, we are injuring ourselves — our own nature, which is identical with his. On the other hand, the recog- nition of this identity of the will must lead to commisera- tion — a feeling of sympathy with our fellow-sufferers — to acts of kindness and benevolence, to the manifestation of what Kant, in the " Metaphysic of Ethics," calls the only absolute good, the good will. In Schopenhauer's phrase- ology, the human will, in other words, k'paos, the love of life, is in itself the root of all evil, and goodness lies in renouncing it. Theoretically, his ethical doctrine is the extreme of socialism, in a large sense; a recognition of the inner identity and equal claims, of all men with ourselves; a recognition issuing in dyaitrj, universal benevolence, and a stifling of particular desires. It may come as a surprise to those who affect to hold Schopenhauer in abhorrence, without, perhaps, really knowing the nature of his views, that, in this theory of the essential evil of the human will — epaos, the common selfish idea of life — he is reflecting and indeed probably borrowing what he describes as the fundamental tenet of Christian theology, that "the whole creation groaneth and tra- vaileth in pain,* standing in need of redemption. Though Schopenhauer was no friend to Christian theology in its ordinary tendencies, he was very much in sympathy with some of the doctrines which have been connected with it, In his opinion the foremost truth which Christianity pro* * Romans viii. 22. xil TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. claimed to the world lay in its recognition of pessimism, its view that the world was essentially corrupt, and that the devil was its prince or ruler.* It would be out of place here to inquire into the exact meaning of this state* ment, or to determine the precise form of compensation provided for the ills of life under any scheme of doctrine which passes for Christian: and even if it were in place, the task would be an extremely difficult one; for probably no system of belief has ever undergone, at various periods, more radical changes than Christianity. But whatever prospect of happiness it may have held out, at an early date of its history, it soon came to teach that the necessary preparation for happiness, as a positive spiritual state, is renunciation, resignation, a looking away from external life to the inner life of the soul — a kingdom not of this world. So far, at least, as concerns its view of the world itself, and the main lesson and duty which life teaches, there is nothing in the theory of pessimism which does not accord with that religion which is looked up to as the guide of life over a great part of the civilized world. What Schopenhauer does is to attempt a metaphysical ex.* planation of the evil of- life, without any reference to any- thing outside it. Philosophy, he urges, should be cosmol- ogy, not theology; an explanation of the world, not a scheme of divine knowledge: it should leave the gods alone — to use an ancient phrase — and claim to be left alone in return. Schopenhauer was not concerned, as the apostles and fathers of the Church were concerned, to formulate a scheme by which the ills of this life should be remedied in another — an appeal to the poor and oppressed, conveyed often in a material form, as, for instance, in the story of Dives and Lazarus. In his theory of life as the self-assertion of will, he endeavors to account for the sin, * John xii.Sl TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xiii misery and iniquity of the world, and to point to the way of escape — the denial of the will to live. Though Schopenhauer's views of life have this much in common with certain aspects of Christian doctrine, they are in decided antagonism with another theory, which, though, comparatively speaking, the birth of yesterday, has already been dignified by the name of a religion, and has, no doubt, a certain number of followers. It is the theory which looks upon the life of mankind as a continual progress toward a state of perfection, and humanity in its nobler tendencies as itself worthy of worship. To those who embrace this theory, it will seem that because Schopen- hauer does not hesitate to declare the evil in the life of mankind to be far in excess of the good, and that, as long as the human will remains what it is, there can be no radi- cal change for the better, he is therefore outside the pale of civilization, an alien from the commonwealth of ordered knowledge and progress. But it has yet to be seen whether the religion of humanity will fare better, as a theory of conduct or as a guide of life, than either Chris- tianity or Buddhism. If any one doctrine may be named which has distinguished Christianity wherever it has been a living force among its adherents, it is the doctrine of renunciation; the same doctrine which in a different shape and with other surroundings, forms the spirit of Bud- dhism. With those great religions of the world which man- kind has hitherto professed to revere as the most ennobling of all influences, Schopenhauer's theories, not perhaps in their details, but in the principle which informs them, are in close alliance. Renunciation, according to Schopenhauer, is the truest wisdom of life, from the higher ethical standpoint. His heroes are the Christian ascetics of the Middle Age, and the followers of Buddha who turn away from the Sansara to the Nirvana. But our modern habits of thought are ti v TRANSLA TO R'S PREFA CE. different. We look askance at the doctrines, and we have no great enthusiasm for the heroes. The system which is in vogue among us just now objects to the identification of nature with evil, and in fact, abandons ethical dualism altogether. And if nature is not evil, where, it will be asked, is the necessity or the benefit of renunciation — a question which may even come to be generally raised, in a not very distant future, on behalf of some new conception of Christianity. And from another point of view, let it be frankly admitted that renunciation is incompatible with ordinary practice, with the rules of life as we are compelled to formulate them; and that, to the vast majority, the doc- trine seems little but a mockery, a hopelessly unworkable plan, inapplicable to the conditions under which men have to exist. In spite of the fact that he is theoretically in sympathy with truths which lie at the foundation of certain widely revered systems, the world has not yet accepted Schopen- hauer for what he proclaimed himself to be, a great teacher: and probably for the reason that hope is not an element in his wisdom of life, and that he attenuates love into something that is not a real, living force — a shadowy recognition of the identity of the will. For men are disin- clined to welcome a theory which neither flatters their present position nor holds out any prospectof better things to come. Optimism — the belief that in the end everything will be for the best — is the natural creed of mankind; and a writer who of set purpose seeks to undermine it by an appeal to facts is regarded as one who tries to rob human- ity of its rights. How seldom an appeal to the facts within our reach is really made! Whether the evil of life actually out-weighs the good — or, if we should look for better things, what is the possibility or the nature of a future life, either for ourselves as individuals, or as part TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. IV of some great whole, or, again, as contributing to a coming state of perfection? — such inquiries claim an amount of attention which the mass of men everywhere is unwilling to give. But, in any case whether it is a vague assent to current beliefs, or a blind reliance on a baseless certainty, or an impartial attempt to put away what is false — hope remains as the deepest foundation of every faith in a happy future. But it should be observed that this looking to the future as a complement for the present is dictated mainly by the desire to remedy existing ills; and that the great hold which religion has on mankind, as an incentive to present happiness, is the promise it makes of coming per- fection. Hope for the future is a tacit admission of evil in the present; for if a man is completely happy in this life, and looks upon happiness as the prevailing order, he will not think so much of another. So a discussion of the nature of happiness is not thought complete if it takes account only of our present life, and unless it connects what we are now and what we do here with what we may be hereafter. Schopenhauer's theory does not profess to do this; it promises no positive good to the individual; at most, only relief: he breaks the idol of the world, and sets up nothing in its place; and like many another iconoclast, he has long been condemned by those whose temples he has desecrated. If there are optimistic theories of life, it is not life itself, he would argue, which gives color to them; it is rather the reflection of some great final cause which humanity has created as the last hope of its redemption: " Heaven but the vision of fulfilled desire, And hell the shadow from a soul on fire, Cast on the darkness into which ourselves, So late emerged from, shall so soon expire. " * * Omar Khayyam ; translated by E. Fitzgerald. xv i TRANSLA TOR'* PREFA CE. Still, hope, it may be said, is not knowledge, nor a real answer to any question; at most, a makeshift, a moral support for intellectual weakness. The truth is that, as theories, both optimism and pessimism are failures; be- cause they are extreme views where only a very partial judgment is possible. And in view of the great uncer- tainty of all answers, most of those who do not accept a stereotyped system leave the question alone, as being either of little interest, or of no bearing on the welfare of their lives, which are commonly satisfied with low aims; tacitly ridiculing those who demand an answer as the most press- ing affair of existence. But the fact that the final pro- blems of the world are still open, makes in favor of an honest attempt to think them out, in spite of all previous failure or still existing difficulty; and however old these problems may be, the endeavor to solve them is one which it is always worth while to encourage afresh. For the individual advantages which attend an effort to find the true path accrue quite apart from any success in reaching the goal; and even though the height we strive to climb be inaccessible, we can still see and understand more than those who never leave the plain. The sphere, it is true, is enormous — the study of human life and destiny as a whole; and our mental vision is so ill-adapted to a range of this extent that to aim at forming a complete scheme is to attempt the impossible. It must be recognized that the data are insufficient for large views, and that we ought not to go beyond the facts we have, the facts of ordinary life, interpreted by the common experience of every day. These form our only material. The views we take must of necessity be fragmentary — a mere collection of aperQus, rough guesses at the undiscovered; of the same nature, in- deed, as all our possessions in the way of knowledge — little tracts of solid laud reclaimed from the mysterious ocean of the unknown. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xvii But if we do not admit Schopenhauer to be a great teacher — because he is out of sympathy with the highest aspirations of mankind, and too ready to dogmatize from partial views — lie is a very suggestive writer, and emi- nently readable. His style is brilliant, animated, forcible, pungent; although it is also discursive, irresponsible, and with a tendency to superficial generalization. He brings in the most unexpected topics without any very sure sense of their relative place; everything, in fact, seems to be fair game, once he has taken up his pen. His irony is note- worthy; for it extends beyond mere isolated sentences, and sometimes applies to whole passages, which must be read cum grano sails. And if he has grave faults as well as excellences of literary treatment, he is at least always witty and amusing, and that, too, in dealing with subjects — a? iiere, for instance, with the Conduct of Life — on which many others have been at once severe and dull. It is easy to complain that though he is witty and amusing, he is often at the same time bitter and ill-natured. This is in some measure the unpleasant side of his uncompromising devotion to truth, his resolute eagerness to dispel illusion at any cost — those defects of his qualities which were intensified by a solitary and, until his last years, unappre- ciated life. He was naturally more disposed to coerce thau to flatter the world into accepting his views; he was above all things un esprit fort, and at times brutal in the use of his strength. If it should be urged that, however great his literary qualities, he is not worth reading because he takes a narrow view of life and is blind to some of its greatest blessings, it will be well to remember the profound truth of that line which a friend inscribed on his earliest biography: "Si non errasset fecerat Me minus," * a truth which is seldom without application, whatever be the form of human effort. Schopenhauer cannot be neglected because * Slightly altered from Martial. Epigram : I, xxii. I viii TRANSLA TORS PREFA CE. he takes an unpleasant view of existence, for it is a vievf which must present itself, at some time, to every thought- ful person. To be outraged by Schopenhauer means to be ignorant of many of the facts of life. In this one of his smaller works, "Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit," Schopenhauer abandons his high meta- physical standpoint, and discusses, with the same zest and appreciation as in fact marked his enjoyment of 'hem, some of the pleasures which a wise man will seek to oh'Vn — health, moderate possessions, intellectual riches. Anil when, as in this little work, he comes to speak of the wisdom of life as the practical art of living, the pessimist view of human destiny is obtruded as little as possible. His remarks profess to be the result of a compromise — an attempt to treat life from the common standpoint. He is content to call these witty and instructive pages a series of aphorisms; thereby indicating that he makes no claim to expound a complete theory of conduct. It will doubtless occur to any intelligent reader that his observations are but fragmentary thoughts on various phases of life; and, in reality, mere aphorisms — in the old, Greek sense of the word — pithy distinctions, definitions of facts, a marking- off, as it were, of the true from the false in some of our ordinary notions of life and prosperity. Here there is little that is not in complete harmony with precepts to which the world has long been accustomed; and in this respect, also, Schopenhauer offers a suggestive comparison rather than a contrast with most writers on happiness. The philosopher in his study is conscious that the world is never likely to embrace his higher metaphysical or ethical standpoint, and annihilate the will to live; nor did Schopenhauer himself do so except so far as he, in common with most serious students of life, avoided the ordinary aims of mankind. The theory which rec- ommended universal benevolence as the highest ethical IRAN SLA TO R'S PR EFA CE. x\X duty,, came, as a matter of practice, to mean a formal standing-aloof — the ne plus ultra of individualism. The Wisdom of Life, as the practical art of living, is a com- promise. We are here not by any choice of our own; and while we strive to make the best of it, we must not let ourselves be deceived. If you want to be happy, he says, it will not do to cherish illusions. Schopenhauer would have found nothing admirable in the conclusion at which the late M. Edmond Scherer, for instance, arrived. " L'art de vivre," he wrote in his preface to Amiel's "Journal," " c'est de se faire une raison, de souscrtre au compromis, de se prefer aux fictions." Schopenhauer conceives his mission to be, rather, to dispel illusion, to tear the mask from life; a violent operation, not always productive of good. Some illusion, he urges, may profitably be dispelled by recognizing that no amount of external aid will make up for inward deficiency; and that if a man has not got the elements of happiness in himself, all the pride, pleasure, beauty and interest of the world will not give it to him. Success in life, as gauged by the ordinary material standard, means to place faith wholly in externals as the source of happiness; to assert and empha- size the common will to live, in a word to be vulgar. He protests against this search for happiness — something subjective — in the world of our surroundings, or anywhere but in a man's own self; a protest the sincerity of which might well be imitated by some professed advocates of spiritual claims. It would be interesting to place bis utterances on this point side by side with those of a distinguished interpreter of nature in this country, who has recently attracted thousands of readers by describing "The Pleasures of Life;" in other words, the blessings which the world holds out to all who can enjoy them — health, books, friends, travel, education, art. On the common ground of their xx TRA'NSLA TOR'S PREFA CE. regard for these pleasures there is no disagreement between the optimist and the pessimist. But a characteristic dif- ference of view may be found in the application of a rule of life which Schopenhauer seems never to tire of repeating; namely, that happiness consists for the most part in what a man is in himself, and that the pleasure he derives from these blessings will depend entirely upon the extent to which his personality really allows him to appreciate them. This is a rule which runs some risk of being overlooked when a writer tries to dazzle the mind's eye by describing all the possible sources of pleasure in the world of our surroundings; but Sir John Lubbock, in common with every one who attempts a fundamental answer to the question of happiness, cannot afford to overlook it. The truth of the rule is perhaps taken for granted in his account of life's pleasures; but it is significant that it is only when he comes to speak of life's troubles that he freely admits the force of it. " Happiness," he says, in this latter con- nection, " depends much more on what is within than without us." Yet a rigid application of this truth might perhaps discount the effect of those pleasures with which the world is said to abound. That happiness as well as unhappiness depends mainly upon what is within, is more clearly recognized in the case of trouble; for when troubles come upon a man, they influence him, as a rule, much more deeply than pleasures. How few, even among the millions to whom these blessings are open — health, books, travel, art — really find any true or permanent happiness in them ! AVhile Schopenhauer's view of the pleasures of life may be elucidated by comparing it with that of a popular writer like Sir John Lubbock, and by contrasting the appeals they severally make to the outer and the inner world as a source of happiness; Schopenhauer's view of life itself will stand out more clearly if we remember the TRANSLATORS PREFACE. xxi opinion so boldly expressed by the same English writer. "If we resolutely look," observes Sir John Lubbock, "I do not say at the bright side of things, but at things as they really are; if we avail ourselves of the manifold bless- ings which surround us, we cannot but feel that life is indeed a glorious inheritance."* There is a splendid excess of optimism about this statement which well fits it to show up the darker picture drawn by the German philosopher. Finally, it should be remembered that though Schopen- hauer's picture of the world is gloomy and somber, there is nothing weak or unmanly in his attitude. If a happy existence, he says — not merely an existence free from pain — is denied us, we can at least be heroes and face life with courage: das Jidchste was der Mensch erlangen Jcann ist ein heroischer Lebenslauf. A noble character will never complain at misfortune; for if a man looks round him at other manifestations of that which is his own inner nature, the will, he finds sorrows happening to his fellow-men harder to bear than any that have come upon himself. And the ideal of nobility is to deserve the praise which Hamlet — in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Pessimism — gave to his friend: " Thou liast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing." But perhaps Schopenhauer's theory carries with it its own correction. He describes existence as a more or less violent oscillation between pain and boredom. If this were really the sum of life, and we had to reason from such a partial view, it is obvious that happiness would lie in action; and that life would be so constituted as to supply two natural and inevitable incentives to action; and thus to contain in itself the very conditions of happi- ness. Life itself reveals our destiny. It is not the *" The Pleasures of Life. Part I. p. 5." xxi i TRANSLA TOR'S PREFA CE. struggle which produces misery, it is the mistaken aims and the low ideals — was tins alle bandigt, das Gemeine! That Schopenhauer conceives life as an evil is a deduction, and possibly a mistaken deduction, from his metaphysical theory. Whether his scheme of things is correct or not — and it shares the common fate of all metaphysical systems in being unverifiable, and to that extent unprofitable — he will in the last resort have made good his claim to be read by his insight into the varied needs of human life. It may be that a future age will consign his metaphysics to the philosophical lumber-room; but he is a literary artist as well as a philosopher, and he can make a bid for fame in either capacity. T. B. S. CONTENTS. THE WISDOM OF LIFE. FAQS Introduction , , , , 1 I. Division of the Subject 2 II. Personality, or What a Man Is 10 III. Property, or What a Man Has 33 IV. Position, or a Man's Place in the Estimation of Others — Sect. 1. Reputation , 40 '« 2. Pride 46 " 3. Rank 49 " 4. Honor 50 " 5. Fame 78 COUNSELS AND MAXIMS. Introduction 95 I. General Rules 96 U. Our Relation to Ourselves 106 I'll. Our Relation to Others 141 IV. Worldly Fortune 168 V. The Ages of Life ,180 RELIGION AND OTHER ESSAYS. Religion . A Dialogue .,*,,>,>..«.. 20? A Few Words on Pantheism ........ c <« . ............ 240 On Books and Reading . c » . . ... = .,.. ..,.........>.... 243 XXIV CONTENTS. PAGE. On Physiognomy ...» «, 260 Psychological Observation 258 The Christian System 268 The Failure of Philosophy 277 The Metaphysics of Fine Art 279 THE ART OP LITERATURE. On Authorship ... 291 On Style 298 On the Study of Latin 313 On Men of Learning 31 6 On Thinking for One's Self 321 On Some Forms of Literature 330 On Criticism 337 On Reputation 347 On Genius 3(53 STUDIES IN PESSIMISM. On the Sufferings of the World 381 On the Vanity of Existence , 394 On Suicide , 399 Immortality: A Dialogue 404 Further Psychological Observations , 408 On Education 427 On Women 434 On Noise «... 447 A Few Parable ,,..... 452 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. INTRODUCTION. In - these pages I shall speak of "The Wisdom of Life" in the common meaning of the term, as the art, namely, of ordering our lives so as to obtain the greatest possible amofant of pleasure and success ; an art the theory of which may be called Eudcemonology , for it teaches us how to lead a happy existence. Such an existence might per- haps be defined as one which, looked at from a purely objective point of view, or, rather, after cool and mature reflection — for the question necessarily involves subjective considerations — would be decidedly preferable to non- existence ; implying that we should cling to it for its own sake, and not merely from the fear of death ; and further, that we should never like it to come to an end. Now whether human life corresponds, or could possibly correspond, to this conception of existence, is a question to which, as is well-known, my philosophical system returns a negative answer. On the eudaamonistic hypothesis, how- ever, the question must be answered in the affirmative ; and I have shown, in the second volume of my chief work (ch. 49), that this hypothesis is based upon a fundamental mistake. Accordingly, in elaborating the scheme of a happy existence, I have had to make a complete surrender of the higher metaphysical and ethical standpoint to which my own theories lead ; and everything I shall say here will to some extent rest upon a compromise ; in so far, that is, as 1 take the common standpoint of every day, and embrace the error which is at the bottom of it. My remarks, therefore, will possess only a qualified value, foi the very word eudcemonology is a euphemism, Further, I make no claims to completeness ; partly because the sub- ject is inexhaustible., and partly because T should otherwise 2 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. have to say over again what has been already said by others. The only book composed, as far as I remember, with a like purpose to that which animates this collection of aphorisms, is Cardan's De utilitate ex adversis capiendo,, which is well worth reading, aud may be used to supple- ment the present work. Aristotle, it is true, has a few words on eudgemonology in the fifth chapter of the first book of his " Rhetoric '," but what he says does not come to very much. As compilation is not my business, I have made no use of these predecessors ; more especially because in the process of compiling individuality of view is lost, and individuality of view is the kernel of works of this kind. In general, indeed, the wise in all ages have always said the same thing, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done just the opposite ; and so it will continue. For, as Voltaire says, " we shall leave this world as foolish and as wicked as we found it on our arrival. " CHAPTER I. DIVISION" OP THE SUBJECT. Abistotle* divides the blessings of life into three clas- ses — those which come to us from without, those of the soul, and those of the body. Keeping nothing of this division but the number, I observe that the fundamental differ- ences in human lot may be reduced to three distinct classes : (1) What a man is : that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word : under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence and education. (2) What a man has : that is, property and possessions of every kind. (3) How a man stands in the estimation of others : by which is to be understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the eyes of his fellow-men, or, more strictly, the light in which they regard him. This is shown by their opinion * "Eth. Nicbora,,"l. 8. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 3 of him ; and their opinion is in its turn manifested by the honor in which he is held, and by his rank and reputation. The differences which come under the first head are those which Nature herself has set between man and man ; and from this fact alone we may at' once infer that they influence the happiness or imhappiness of mankind in a much more vital and radical way than those contained under the two following heads, which are merely the effect of human arrangements. Compared with genuine per- sonal advantages, such as a great mind or a great heart, all the privileges of rank or birth, even of royal birth, are but as kings on the stage to kings in real life. The same thing was said long ago by Metrodorus, the earliest dis- ciple of Epicurus, who wrote as the title of one of his chapters, " The happiness we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings."* And it is an obvious fact, which cannot be called in question, that the principal element in a man's well-being — indeed, in the whole tenor of his existence — is what he is made of, his inner constitution. For this is the immediate source of that inward satisfaction or dissatisfaction re- sulting from the sum total of his sensations, desires and thoughts ; while his surroundings,on the other hand, exert only a mediate or indirect influence upon him. This is why the same external events or circumstances affect no two people alike ; even with perfectly similar surround- ings every one lives in a world of his own. For a man has immediate apprehension only of his own ideas, feelings and volitions ; the outer world can influence him only in so far as it brings these to life. The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it 3 and so it proves different to different men ; to one it is barren, dull, and superficial ; to another rich, interesting, and full of meaning. On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forget- ting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them ; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures ; but to the dull perceptions * Cf. Clemens Alex. Strom, II., 21. g THE WISDOM OF LIFE. of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences. This is in the highest degree tha case vvitli many of Goethe's and Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts ; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful. In the same way, a person of melancholy temperament will make a scene in a tragedy out of what appears to the sanguine man only in the light of an interesting conflict, and to a phlegmatic soul as something without any mean- ing — all of which rests upon the fact that every event, in order to be realized and appreciated, requires the co-opera- tion of two factors : namely, a subject and an object ; although these are as closely and necessarily connected as oxygen and hydrogen in water. When therefore the objective or external factor in an experience is actually the same, but the subjective or personal appreciation of it varies, the event is just as much a different one in the eyes of different persons as if the objective factors had not been alike ; for to a blunt intelligence the fairest and best object in the world presents only a poor reality, and is therefore only poorly appreciated — like a fine landscape in dull weather, or in the reflection of a bad camera obscura. In plain language, every man is pent up within the limits of his own consciousness, and cannot directly get beyond those limits any more than he can get beyond his own skin ; so external aid is not of much use to him On the stage, one man is a prince, another a minister, a third a servant or a soldier or a general, and so on — mere external differences • the inner reality, the kernel of all these appearances is the same — a poor player, with all the anxieties of his lot. In life it is just the same. Differences of rank and wealth give every man his part to play, but this by no means implies a difference of inward happiness and pleasure ; here, too, there is the same being in all— a poor mortal, with his hard- ships and troubles. Though these may, indeed, in every case proceed from dissimilar causes, they are in their essential nature much the same in all their forms, with degrees of in- tensity which vary, no doubt, but in no wise correspond to the part a man has to play, to the presence or absence of position and wealth. Since everything which exists or happens for DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 5 a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitu- tion of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents. All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, is poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing hip '•Don Quixote" in a miserable prison. The objective half of life and reality is in the hand of fate, and accordingly takes various forms in different cases : the subjective half is ourself, and in essentials it always remains the same. Hence the life of every man is stamped with the same character throughout, however much his external circum- stances may alter ; it is like a series of variations on ? single theme. No one can get beyond his own individual- ity. An animal, under whatever circumstances it is placed, remains within the narrow limits to which nature has irrevocably consigned it ; so that our endeavors to make a pet happy must always keep within the compass of its nature, and be restricted to what it can feel. So it is with man ; the measure of the happiness he can attain is determined beforehand by his individuality. More espe- cially is this the case with the mental powers which fix once for all his capacity for the higher kinds of pleasure. If these powers are small, no efforts from without, nothing that his fellowmen or that fortune can do for him, will suffice to raise him above the ordinary degree of human happiness and pleasure, half animal though it be ; his only resources are his sensual appetite — a cozy and cheerful family life at the most — low company and vuigar pastime ; even education, on the whole, can avail little, if anything, for the enlargement of his horizon. For the highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind, however much our youth may deceive us on this point ; and the pleasures of the mind turned chiefly on the powers of the mind. It is clear, then, that our happiness depends in a great degree upon what we are, upon our individuality, while lot or destiny is generally taken to mean only whai we have, or our reputation. Our lot in this sense, may improve ; but we do not ask much of \t if we are inwardly rich : on the other hand, a fool remains a fool, a dull blockhead, to his last hour, even though he were sur- rounded bv hourisin paradise, This is why Goethe, in the 6 ThXE WISDOM OF LIFE West-bstlicher Divan, says that every man, whether h« occupy a low position in life, or emerges as its victor, testifies to personality as the greatest factor in happiness : " Volk und Kneclit und Ueberwinder Sie gestehen, zu jeder Zeit, Rochstes Gliick der Erdenkinder Sei nur die Personlickkeit." Everything confirms the fact that the subjective element in life is incomparably more important for our happiness and pleasure than the objective, from such sayings as "Hunger is the best sauce," and "Youth and age cannot live together," up to the life of the genius and the saint. Health outweighs all other blessings so much that one may really say that a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing king. A quiet and cheerful temperament, happy in the enjoyment of a perfectly sound physique, an intellect clear, lively, penetrating and seeing things as they are, a moderate and gentle will, and therefore a good conscience ••—these are privileges which no rank or wealth can make up for or replace. For what a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world. An intellectual man in complete solitude has excellent entertainment in his own thoughts aud fancies, while no amount or diversity of social pleasure, theaters, excursions and amusements, can ward off boredom from a dullard. A good, temperate, gentle character can be happy in needy circumstances, while a covetous, envious and malicious man, even if he be the richest in the world, goes miserable. Nay more ; to one who has the constant delight of a special individ- uality, with a high degree of intellect, most of the pleasures which are run after by mankind are perfectly superfluous ; they are even a trouble and a burden. And so Horace says of himself, that, however many are deprived of the fancy goods of life, there is one at least who cau live without them : " Gemmas, marmor, ebur, Tyrrkena sigilla, tabellas, Argentum, vestes Gsetulo inurice tinctas Sunt qui non kabeant, est qui son curat habere;" DIVISION OF TiiS SUBJECT. 7 auu when Socrates saw various articles of luxary spread out for sale, he exclaimed : "How much there is iu the world that I do not want." So the first and most essential element in our life's happiness is what we are, our personality, if for no other reason than that it is a constant factor coming into play under all circumstances ; besides, unlike the blessings which are described under the other two neade, it is not the sport of destiny and cannot be wrested from us , and, so far, it is endowed with an absolute value in contrast to the merely relative worth of the other two. The conse- quence of this is that it is much more difficult than people commonly suppose to get a hold on a man from without. But here the all-powerful agent, Time, comes in and claims its rights, and before its influence physical and mental advantages gradually waste away. Moral character alone remains inaccessible to it. In view of the destructive effect of time, it seems, indeed, as if the blessings named under the other two heads, of which time cannot directly rob us, were superior to those of the first. Another advan- tage might be claimed for them, namely, that being in their very nature objective and external, they are attain- able, and every one is presented with the possibility, at least, of coming into possession of them ; while what is subjective is not open to us to acquire, but making its entry by a kind of divine right,it remains for life, immutable, inalienable, an inexorable doom. Let me quote those lines in which Goethe describes how an unalterable destiny is assigned to every man at the hour of his birth, so that he can develop only in the lines laid down for him, as \t were, by the conjunctions of the stars ; and how the Sibyl and the prophets declare that himself a man can never escape, nor any power of time avail to change the path on which his life is cast : " Wie an dem Tag, der dich der Welt verliehen, Die Sonne stand zum Grusse der Planeten, Bist alsobald und fort und fort gediehen, Nach dem Gesetz, wonach du angetreten. So niusst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen. So sagten schon Sibyllen und Propketen; Und keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstiickelt Gepragte Form, die lebend sick entwickelt.* The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is g TEE WISDOM OF LIFE. to m&ke the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess, and accordingly to follow such pur- suits only as will call them into play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and to avoid every other ; consequently, to choose the position, occupation and manner of life which are most suitable for their development. Imagine a man endowed with Herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupa- tion, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for ex- ample, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not got, compelled, that is, to leave unused the powers in which he is pre-eminently strong ; a man placed like this will never feel happy all his life through. Even more miserable will be the lot of the man with intellectual powers of a very high order, who has to leave them undeveloped and un- employed, in the pursuit of a calling which does not require them, some bodily labor, perhaps, for which his strength is insufficient. Still, in a case of this kind, it should be our care, especially in youth, to avoid the preci- pice of presumption, and not ascribe to ourselves a super- fluity of power which is not there. Since the blessings described under the first head decidedly outweigh those contained under the other two, it is manifestly a wiser course to aim at the maintenance of our health and the cultivation of our faculties, than at the amassing of wealth ; but this must not be mistaken as meaning that we should neglect to acquire an adequate supply of the necessaries of life. Wealth, in the strict sense of the word, that is, great superfluity, can do little for our happiness ; and many rich people feel unhappy just because they are without any true mental culture or knowledge, and consequently have no objective interests which would qualify them for intellectual occupations. For beyond the satisfaction of some real and natural necessities, all that the possession of wealth can achieve has a very small influence upon our happiness, in the proper sense of the word ; indeed, wealth rather disturbs it, because the preser- vation of property entails a great many unavoidable anxieties. And* still men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a » man is contributes much DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT, 9 more to his happiness than what he has. So you may see many a man, as industrious as an ant, ceaselessly occupied from morning to night in the endeavor to increase his heap of gold. Beyond the narrow horizon of means to this end, he knows nothing ; his mind is a blank, and consequently unsusceptible to any other influence. The highest pleas- ures, those of the intellect, are to him inaccessible, and he tries in vain to replace them by the fleeting pleasures of sense in which he indulges, lasting but a brief hour and at tremendous cost. And if he is lucky, his struggles result in his having a really great pile of gold, which he leaves to his heir, either to make it still larger, or to squander it in extravagance. A life like this, though pursued with a sense of earnestness and an air of importance, is just as silly as many another which has a fool's cap for its symbol. What a man has in himself is, then, the chief element in his happiness. Because this is, as a rule, so very little, most of those who are placed beyond the struggle with penury, feel at bottom quite as unhappy as those who are still engaged in it. Their minds are vacant, their imagi- nation dull, their spirits poor, and so they are driven to the company of those like them — for similis simili gaudet — where they make common pursuit of pastime and enter- tainment, consisting for the most part in sensual pleasure, amusement of every kind, and finally, in excess and libertinism. A young man of rich family enters upon life with a large patrimony, and often runs through ib in an incredibly short space of time, in vicious extravagance; and why ? Simply because, here too, the mind is empty and void, and so the man is bored with existence. He was sent forth into the world outwardly rich but inwardly poor, and his vain endeavor was to make his external wealth compensate for his inner poverty, by trying to obtain everything from without, like an old man who seeks to strengthen himself as King David or Marechal de Eetz tried to do. And so in the end one who is inwardly poor comes to be also poor outwardly. I need not insist upon the importance of the other two kinds of blessings which make up the happiness of human life ; nowadays the value of possessing them is too well known to require advertisement. The third class, it is erue, may seem, compared with the second, of a very 10 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. * ethereal character, as it consists only of other people's opinions. Still every one has to strive for reputation, that is to say, a good name. Rank, on the other hand, should be aspired to only by those who serve the state, and fame by very few indeed. In any case, reputation is looked upon as a priceless treasure, and fame as the most precious of all the blessings a man can attain — the Golden Fleece, as it were, of the elect : while only fools will prefer rank to property. The second and third classes, moreover, are reciprocally cause and effect ; so far that is, as Petronius' maxim, hales habeberis, is true ; and conversely, the favor of others, in all its forms, often puts us in the way of get- ting what we want. CHAPTER II. PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN" IS. We have already seen, in general, that what a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others. What a man is, and so what he has in his own person, is always the chief thing to consider; for his individuality accompanies him always and everywhere, and gives its color to all his experiences. In every kind of enjoyment for instance, the pleasure de- pends principally upon the man himself. Every one admits this in regard to physical, and how much truer it is of in- tellectual pleasure. When we use that English expression, " to enjoy one's self," we are employing a very striking and appropriate phrase; for observe — one says, not "' he enjoys Paris," but " he enjoys himself in Paris." To a man possessed of an ill-conditioned individuality, all pleasure is like delicate wine in a mouth made bitter with gall. Therefore, in the blessings as well as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met, that is, upon the kind and degree of our general susceptibility. What a man is and has in himself — in a word, personality, with all it entails, is the only immediate and direct factor in his happiness and welfare. All else is mediate and indirect, and its influence can be neutralized and frustrated ; but the influence of personality never. This is why the envy which personal qualities excite is the PERSONALITY, OR WEAT A MAN IS. H most implacable of all — as it is also the most carefully dissembled. Further, the constitution of our consciousness is the ever present and lasting element in all we do or suffer ; our in- dividuality is persistently at work, more or less, at every moment of our life : all other influences are temporal, incidental, fleeting, and subject to every kind of chance and change. This is why Aristotle says : " It is not wealth but character that lasts."* And just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn upon ourselves ; for fortune may always change, but not charac- ter. Therefore, subjective blessings — a noble nature, a capable head, a joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well- constituted, perfectly sound physique, in a word, mens sana in corpore sano, are the first and most important ele- ments in happiness ; so that we should be more intent en promoting and preserving such qualities than on the pos- session of external wealth and external honor. And of all these, the one which makes us the most directly happy is a genial flow of good spirits ; for this excellent quality is its own immediate reward. The man who is cheerful and merry has always a good reason for being so — the fact, namely, that he is so. There is noth- ing which, like this quality, can so completely replace the loss of every other blessing. If you know any one who is young, handsome, rich and esteemed, and you want to know, further, if he is happy, ask, Is he cheerful and genial ? — and if he is, what does it matter whether he is young or old, straight ©r humpbacked, poor or rich ? — he is happy. In my early days I once opened an old book and found these words : " If you laugh a great deal, you are happy ; if you cry a great deal, you are unhappy " — a very simple remark, no doubt ; but just because it is so simple I have never been able to forget it, even though it is in the last degree a truism. So if cheerfulness knocks at our door, we should throw it wide open, for it never comes in- opportunely ; instead of that, we often make scruples about letting it in. We want to be quite sure that we have every reason to be contented, then we are afraid that cheerful- *Eth. Eud., vii. 2. 37:— ffy&p q>v6H fisftviov, ov rd xPV^ aT(X - 12 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. ness of spirits may interfere with serious reflections or weighty cares. Cheerfulness is a . direct and immediate gain — the very coin, as it were, of happines, and not, like all else, merely a check upon the bank ; for it alone makes ns immediately happy in the present moment, and that is the highest blessing for beings like us, whose existence is but an infinitesimal moment between two eternities. To s cure and promote this feeling of cheerfulness should be the supreme aim of all our endeavors after happiness. Now it is certain that nothing contributes so little to cheerfulness as riches, or so much, as health. Is it not in the lower classes, the so-called working classes, more especially those of them who live in the country, that we see cheerful and contented faces? and is it not among the rich, the upper classes, that we find faces full of ill- humor and vexation ? Consequently we should try as much as possible to maintain a high degree of health ; for cheer- fulness is the very flower of it. I need hardly say what one must do to be healthy — avoid every kind of excess, all violent and unpleasant emotion, all mental overstrain, take daily exercise in the open air, cold baths and such like hygienic measures. For without a proper amount of daily exercise no one can remain healthy ; all the processes of life demand exercise for the due performance of their functions, exercise not only of the parts more immediately concerned, but also of the w'hole body. For, as Aristotle rightly says, "Life is movement;" it is its very essence. Cease- less and rapid motion goes on in every part of the organism. The heart, with its complicated double systole and diastole,, beats strongly and untiringly ; with twenty-eight beats it has to drive the whole of the blood through arteries, veins and capillaries ; the lungs pump like a steam-engine, with- out intermission ; the intestines are always in peristaltic action ; the glands are all constantly absorbing and secret- ing ; even the brain has a double motion of its own, with every beat of the pulse and every breath we draw. When people can get no exercise at all, as is the case with the countless numbers who are condemned to a sedentary life, there is a glaring and fatal disproportion between out- ward inactivity and inner tumult. For this ceaseless in- ternal motion requires some external counterpart, and the want of it produces effects like those of emotion wbieh we are obliged to suppress. Even trees must be shaken by PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. IS the wind, if they are to thrive. The rule which finds its application here may be most briefly expressed in Latin ; otnnis motus, quo celerior, eo magis motus. How much our happiness depends upon our spirits, and these again upon our state of health, may be seen by com- paring the influence which the same external circumstances or events have upon us when we are well and strong with the effect which they have when we are depressed and troubled with ill-health. It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse. As Epictetus says, " Men are not influenced by things but by their thoughts about things." And, in gen- eral, nine-tenths of our happiness depends upon health alone. With health, everything is a source of pleasure ; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable ; even the other personal blessings — a great mind, a happy temperament — are degraded and dwarfed for want of it. So it is really with good reason that, when two people meet, the first thing they do is to inquire after each other's health, and to express the hope that it is good ; for good health is by far the most important element in human happiness. It follows from all this that the greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness, whatever it may be, for gain, advancement, learning or fame, let alone, then, for fleeting sensual pleasures. Everything else should rather be postponed to it. But however much health may contribute to that flow of good spirits which is so essential to our happiness, good spirits do not entirely depend upon health ; for a man may be perfectly sound in his physique and still possess a melancholy temperament and be generally given up to sad thoughts. The ultimate cause of this is undoubtedly to be found in innate, and therefore unalterable, physical con- stitution, especially in the more or less normal relation of a man's sensitiveness to his muscular and vital energy. Abnormal sensitiveness produces inequality of spirits, a predominating melancholy, with periodical fits of unre- strained liveliness. A genius is one whose nervous power or sensitiveness is largely in excess ; as Aristotle* has very correctly observed, "Men distinguished in philosophy, * Probl. xxx. ep. 1 H TBE WISDOM OF LIFE. politics, poetry or art, appear to be all of a melancholy temperament." This is doubtless the passage which Cicero has in his mind when lie says, as he often does, "Aristoteles ait omnes ingeniosos melancholicos esse."* Shakespeare has very neatly expressed this radical and innate diversity ci temperament in those lines in " The Merchant of Venice : " " Nature lias framed strange fellows in her time ; Some that will evermore peep through their eyes And laugh, like parrots at a bag-piper ; And others of such vinegar aspect, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. '\ This is the difference which Plato draws between svxoXo? and dvduoXoi — the man of easy, and the man of difficult disposition — in proof of which he refers to the varying degrees of susceptibility which different people show to pleasurable and painful impressions ; so that one man will laugh at what makes another despair. As a rule, the stronger the susceptibility to unpleasant impressions, the weaker is the susceptibility to pleasant ones, and vice versa. If it is equally possible for an event to turn out well or ill, the Sv6xoAoS will be annoyed or grieved if the issue is unfavorable, and will not rejoice, should it be happy. On the other hand, the evko\o$, will neither worry nor fret over an unfavorable issue, but rejoice if it turns out well. If the one is successful in nine out of ten undertakings, he will not be pleased, but rather annoyed that one has miscarried ; while the other, if only a single one succeeds, will manage to find consolation in the fact and remain cheerful. But here is another instance of the truth, that hardly any evil is entirely without its compen- sation ; for the misfortunes and sufferings which the Sv6koXoi, that is, people of gloomy and anxious character, have to overcome, are, on the whole, more imaginary and therefore less real than those which befall the gay and careless ; for a man who paints everything black, who constantly fears the worst and takes measures accordingly, will not be disappointed so often in this world, as one who always looks upon the bright side of things. And when a morbid affection of the nerves, or a derangement of the * Tusc. i., 32, PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAW IS. 15 digestive organs, plays into the hand of an innate tendency to gloom, this tendency may reach such a height that permanent discomfort produces a weariness of life. So arises an inclination to suicide, which even the most trivial unpleasantness may actually bring about ; nay, when the tendency attains its worst form, it may be occasioned by nothing in particular, but a man may resolve to put an end to his existence, simply because he is per- manently unhappy, and then coolly and firmly carry out his determination ; as may be seen by the way in which the sufferer, when placed under supervision, as he usually is, eagerly waits to seize the first unguarded moment, when, without a shudder, without a struggle or recoil, he may use the now natural and welcome means of effect- ing his release.* Even the healthiest, perhaps even the most cheerful man, may resolve upon death under certain circumstances; when, for instance, his sufferings, or his fears of some inevitable misfortune, reach such a pitch as to outweigh the terrors of death. The only difference lies in the degree of suffering necessary to bring about the fatal act, a degree which will be high in the case of a cheerful, and low in that of a gloomy man. The greater the melancholy, the lower need the degree be : in the end. it may even sink to zero. But if a man is cheerful, and his spirits are supported by good health, it requires a high degree of suffering to make him lay hands upon himself. There are countless steps in the scale between the two extremes of suicide, the suicide which springs merely from a morbid intensification of innate gloom, and the suicide of the healthy and cheerful man, who has entirely objective grounds for putting an end to his existence. Beauty is partly an affair of health. It may be reckoned as a personal advantage ; though it does not, properly speaking, contribute directly to our happiness. It does so indirectly, by impressing other people ; and it is no unimportant advantage, even in man. Beauty is an open letter of recommendation, predisposing the heart to favor the person who presents it. As is well said in those lines of Homer, the gift of beauty is not lightly to be * For a detailed description of this condition of mind cf. Esquirol Pes maladies mentales. 16 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. . thrown away, that glorious gift which none can bestow save the gods alone — ovroi aitof5Xr]T J idtl Begdv epiuvSia dcSpa, 066a xev avroi §(36iv, ekgqv 8 j ovk dv rzS iXoiro.* The most general survey shows us that the two foes oi human happiness are pain and -boredom. We may go further, and say that in the degree in which we are fortu- nate enough to get away from the one, we approach the other. Life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscil- lation between the two. The reason of this is that each of these two poles stands in a double antagonism to the other, external or objective, and inner or subjective. Needy sur- roundings and poverty produce pain ; while, if a man is more than well off, he is bored. Accordingly, while the lower classes are engaged in a ceaseless struggle with need, in other words, with pain, the upper carry on a constant and often desperate battle with boredom, f The inner or subjective antagonism arises from the fact that, in the individual, susceptibility to pain varies inversely with sus- ceptibility to boredom, because susceptibility is directly proportionate to mental power. Let me explain. A dull mind is, as a rule associated with dull sensibilities, nerves Avhich no stimulus can affect, a temperament, in short, which does not feel pain or anxiety very much, however great or terrible it may be. Now, intellectual dullness is at the bottom of that vacuity of soul which is stamped on so many faces, a state of mind which betrays itself by a constant and lively attention to all the trivial circumstances in the external world. This is the true source of boredom — a continual panting after excitement, in order to have a pretext for giving the mind and spirits something to occupy them. The kind of things people choose for this purpose shows that they are not very particular, as witness the miserable pastimes they have recourse to, and their ideas of social pleasure and conversation ; or, again, the number of people who gossip on the doorstep or gape out of the * "Iliad "3, 65. \ And the extremes meet ; for the lowest state of civilization, a nomad or wandering life, finds its counterpart in the highest, where every one is at times a tourist. The eaiiier stage was a case o{ necessity ; the latter is a remedy for boredom. PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 17 window. It is mainly because of this inner vacuity of soul that people go in quest of society, diversion, amuse- ment, luxury of every sort, which lead many to extrava- gance and misery. Nothing is so good a protection against such misery as inward wealth, the wealth of the mind, because the greater it grows, the less room it leave.s for boredom. The inexhaustible activity of thought ! finding ever new material to work upon in the multifarious phenomena of self and nature, and able and ready to form new combinations of them — there you have something that invigorates the mind, and apart from moments of relaxation, sets it far above the reach of boredom. But, on the other hand, this high degree of intelligence is rooted in a high degree of susceptibility, greater strength of will, greater passionateness ; and from the union of these qualities comes an increased capacity for emotion, an enhanced sensibility to all mental and even bodily pain, greater impatience of obstacles, greater resentment of in- terruption — all of which tendencies are augmented by the power of the imagination, the vivid character of the whole range of thought, including what is disagreeable. This applies, in varying degrees, to every step in the long scale of mental power, from the veriest dunce to the greatest genius that ever lived. Therefore the nearer any one is, either from a subjective or from an objective point of view, to one of these sources of suffering in human life, the farther he is from the other. And so a man's natural bent will lead him to make his objective world conform to his subjective as much as possible; that is to say, he will take the greatest measures against that form of suffering to which he is most liable. The wise man will, above all, strive after freedom from pain and annoyance, quiet and leisure, consequently a tranquil, modest life, with as few encounters as may be ; and so, after a little experience of his so-called fellow-men, he will elect to live in retirement, or even, if he is a man of great intellect, in solitude. For the more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people, the less, indeed, other people can be to him. This is why a high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial. True, if quality of intellect could be made up for by quantity, it might be worth while to live even in the great world ; but, unfortunately, a hundred fools together will not make one wise man. 18 TEE WISDOM OF LIFE. But the individual who stands at the other end of the scale is no sooner free from the pangs of need than he en- deavors to get pastime and society at any cost, taking up with the first person he meets, and avoiding nothing so much as himself. For in solitude, where every one is thrown upon his own resources, what a man has in him- self comes to light; the fool in fine raiment groans under the burden of his miserable personality, a burden which he can never throw off, while the man of talent peoples the waste places with his animating thoughts. Seneca de- clares that folly is its own burden — omnis stultitia labor at fastidio sui—a, very true saying, with which may be com- pared the words of Jesus, the son of Sirach, " The life of a fool is worse than death."* And, as a rule, it will be found that a man is sociable just in the degree in which he is in- tellectually poor and generally vulgar. For one's choice in this world does not go much beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the other. It is said that the most sociable of all people are the negroes; and they are at the bottom of the scale in intellect. I remember reading once in a French paperf that the blacks in North America, whether free or unslaved, a^e fond of shutting themselves up in large numbers in the smallest space, because they cannot have too much of one another's snub-nosed company. The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body: and leisure, that is, the time one has for the free enjoyment of one's consciousness or individuality, is the fruit or produce of the rest of existence; which is in general only labor and effort. But what does most people's leisure yield? — boredom and dullness; except of course, when it is occupied with sensual pleasure or folly. How little such leisure is worth may be seen in the way in which it is spent: and, as Ariosto observes, how miserable are the idle hours of ignorant men! — ozio lungo d'uomini ignoranti. Ordinary people think merely how they shall spend their time; a man of any talent tries to use it. The reason why people of limited intellect are apt to be bored is that their intellect is absolutely nothing more than the *Ecclesiasticus, xxii. 11. \Le Commerce, Oct. 19th, J 837- PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN 18. 19 means by which the motive power of the will is put into force: and whenever there is nothing particular to set the will in motion, it rests, and their intellect takes a holiday, because, equally with the will, it requires something ex- ternal to bring it into play. The resulL is an awful stagnation of whatever power a man has — in a word, boredom. To counteract this miserable feeling, men run to trivialities which please for the moment they are taken up, hoping thus to engage the will in order to rouse it to action, and so set the intellect in motion; for it is the latter which has to give effect to these motives of the will. Compared with real and natural motives, these are but as paper money to coin; for their value is only arbitrary — card games and the like, which have been invented for this very purpose. And if there is nothing else to be done, a man will twirl his thumbs or beat the deviFs tattoo; or a cigar may be a welcome substitute for exercising his brains. Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing,* and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they dea* cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots! But I do not wish to be unjust; so let me remark that it maj certainly be said in defense of card-playing that it is a preparation for the world and for business life, because one learns thereby how to make a clever use of fortuitous but unalterable circumstances (cards, in this case), and to get as much out of them as one can: and to do this a man must learn a little dissimulation, and how to put a good face upon a bad business. But, on the other hand, it is exactly for this reason that card-playing is so demoral- izing, since the whole object of it is to employ every kind of trick and machination in order to win what belongs to another. And a habit of this sort, learned at the card-table, strikes root and pushes its way into practical life; and in the affairs of every day a man gradually comes to regard meum and tuum in much the same light as cards, and to consider that he may use to the utmost whatever translator's Note. — Card-playing to this extent is now, no doubt, a thing of the past, at any rate among the nations of northern Europe. The present fashion is rather in favor of a dilettante in- terest in art or literature. 20 TEE WISDOM OF LIFE. advantages he possesses, so long as he does not come with- in the arm of the law. Examples of what I mean are of daily occurrence in mercantile life. Since, then, leisure is the flower, or rather the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into possession of himself, those are happy indeed who possess something real in themselves. But what do you get from most people's leisure? — only a good-for- nothing fellow, who is terribly bored and a burden to him- self. Let us, therefore, rejoice, dear brethren, for " we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free." Further, as no land is so well off as that which requires few imports, or none at all, so the happiest man is one who has enough in his own inner wealth, and requires little or nothing from outside for his maintenance, for imports are expensive things, reveal dependence, entail danger, occa- sion trouble, and, when all is said and done, are a poor sub- stitute for home produce. No man ought to expect much from others, or, in general, from the external world. What one human being can be to another is not a very great deal : in the end every one stands alone, and the important thing is who it is that stands alone. Here, then, is another application of the general truth which Goethe recognizes in " Dichtungund Wahrheit " (Bk. III.), that in everything a man has ultimately to appeal to himself ; or, as Goldsmith puts it in " The Traveller :" " Still to ourselves in every place consign'd Our own felicity we make or find." Himself is the source of the best and most a man can be or achieve. The more this is so — the more a man finds his sources of pleasure in himself — the happier he will be. Therefore, it is with great truth that Aristotle* says, " To be happy means to be self-sufficient." For all other sources of happiness are in their nature most uncertain, precarious, fleeting, the sport of chance ; and so even under the most favorable circumstances they can easily be exhausted ; nay, this is unavoidable, because they are not always within reach. And in old age these sources of happiness must necessarily dry up : love leaves us then, and wit, desire to travel, delight in horses, aptitude for social intercourse ; * Eth. Eud., vii. 3. PERSONALITY, OR WHA T A MAN IS. 21 friends and relations, too, are taken from us by death. Then more than ever, it depends upon what a man has in himself ; for this will stick to him longest and at any period of life it is the only genuine and lasting source of happi- ness. There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain ; and if a man escapes these, boredom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more ; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly makes the most noise. Fate is cruel, and man- kind pitiable. In such a world as this, a man who is rich in himself is like a bright, warm, happy room at Christmas- tide, while without are the frost and snow of a December night. Therefore, without doubt, the happiest destiny on earth is to have the rare gift of a rich individuality, and, more especially, to be possessed of a good endowment of intellect ; this is the happiest destiny, though it may not be, after all, a very brilliant one. There was great wisdom in that remark which Queen Christina of Sweden made, inner nineteenth year, about Descartes, who had then lived for twenty years in the deepest solitude in Holland, and, apart from report, was known to her only by a single essay : " M. Descartes," she said, "is the happiest of men, and his con- dition seems to me much to be envied."* Of course, as was the case with Descartes, external circumstances must be favorable enough to allow a man to be master of his life and happiness ; or, as we read in Ecclesiastesf — " Wisdom is good together with an inheritance, and profitable unto them that see the sun." The man to whom nature and fate have granted the blessing of wisdom, will be most anxious and careful to keep open the fountains of happiness which he has in himself ; and for this, independence and leisure are necessary. To obtain them, he will be willing to moderate his desired and harbor his resources, all the more because he is not, like others, restricted to the external world for his pleasures. So he will not be misled by expec- tations of office, or money, or the favor and applause of his fellow-men, into surrendering himself in order to con- form to low desires and vulgar tastes ; nay, in such a case he will follow the advice that Horace gives in his epistle * "Vie de Descartes/' par Baillet. Liv. vii., ch. 10. + vii. 12. 22 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. to Maecenas.* It is a great piece of folly to sacrifice the inner for the outer man, to give the whole or the greater part of one's quiet leisure and independence for splendor, rank, pomp, titles and honor. This is what Goethe did. My good luck drew me quite in the other direction. The truth which I am insisting upon here, the truth, namely, that the chief source of human happiness is in- ternal, is confirmed by that most accurate observation of Aristotle in the " Nichomchen Ethics,"f that every pleasure presupposes some sort of activity, the application of some sort of power, without which it cannot exist. The doctrine of Aristotle's, that a man's happiness consists in the free exercise of his highest faculties, is also enunciated by Stobaeus in his exposition of the Peripatetic philoso- phy :\ "happiness," he says, ''means vigorous and success- ful activity in all your undertakings ;" and he explains that by vigour (dperr}) he means mastery in any thing, whatever it be. Now, the original purpose of those forces with which nature has endowed man is to enable him to struggle against the difficulties which beset him on all sides. But if this struggle comes to an end, his unemployed forces become a burden to him ; and he has to set to work and play with them — use them, I mean, for no purpose at all, beyond avoiding the other source of human suffering, boredom, to which he is at once exposed. It is the upper classes, people of wealth, who are the greatest victims of boredom. Lucretius long ago described their miserable state, and the truth of his description may be still recognized to-day, in the life of every great capital — wlwe the rich man is seldom in his own halls, because it bores him to be there- and still he returns thither because he is no better off out- side — or else he is away in post-haste to his house in the country, as if it were on fire ; and he is no sooner arrived there, than he is bored again, and seeks to forget every- thing in sleep, or else hurries back to town once more. " Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille, Esse dotni quern pertaesum est, subitoque reventat ; Quippe foris nihilo melius qui sentiat esse. * Lib. 1., ep. 7. Nee somnurn plebis laudo, satur altilium, nee Otia divitiis Arabum liborrinia muto. \ i. 7 and vii. 13. 14. \ Eel. eth, li., ch. 7, PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. Uo Currit, agens mannos, ad villain precipitanter, Auxiliuni tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans : Oscitat extemplo, tetigit quuni limina villae ; Aut abit in somnum gravis, atque oblivia quaerit ; Aut etiarn properans urbem petit atque revisit." * In their youth, such people uiust have had a superfluity of muscular and vital energy — powers which unlike those of the mind, cannot maintain their full degree of vigor very long; and in later years they either have no mental powers at all, or cannot develop any for want of employ- ment which would bring them into play; so that they are in a wretched plight. Will, however, they still possess, for this is the only power that is inexhaustible; and they try to stimulate their will by passionate excitement, such as games of chance for high stakes — undoubtedly a most de- grading form of vice. And one may say generally that if a man finds himself with nothing to do, he is sure to choose some amusement suited to the kind of power in which he excels — bowls, it may be, or chess; hunting or painting; horse-racing or music; cards, or poetry, heraIdry,philosophy, or some other dilettante interest. We might classify these interests methodically, by reducing them to expressions of the three fundamental powers, the factors, that is to say, which go to make up the physiological constitution of man; and further, by considering these powers by themselves, and apart from any of the definite aims which they may sub- serve, and simply as affording three sources of possible pleasure, out of which every man will choose what suits him, according as he excels in one direction or another. First of all come the pleasures of vital energy, of food, drink, digestion, rest and sleep; and there are parts of the world where it can be said that these are characteristic and national pleasures. Secondly, there are the pleasures of muscular energy, such as walking, running, wrestling, dancing, fencing, riding and similar athletic pursuits, which sometimes take the form of sport, and sometimes of a military life, and real warfare. Thirdly, there are the pleasures of sensibility, such as observation, thought, feel- ing, or a taste ror poetry or culture, music, learning, reading, meditation, invention, philosophy and the like. As regards the value, relative worth and duration of each of these kinds of pleasure, a great deal might be said, which, how- * 111. 1073 24 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. ever, I leave the reader to supply. But every one will see that the nobler the power which is brought into play, the greater will be the pleasure which it gives; for pleasure al- ways involves the use of one's own powers, and happiness consists in a frequent repetition of pleasure. No one will deny that in this respect the pleasures of sensibility occupy a higher place than either of the other two fundamental kinds; which exist in an equal, nay, in a greater degree in brutes; it is his preponderating amount of sensibility which distinguishes man from other animals. Now, our mental powers are forms of sensibility, and tnerefore a preponder- ating amount of it makes us capable of that kind of pleasure which has to do with mind, so-called intellectual pleasure; and the more sensibility predominates, the greater the pleasure will be. * *Nature exhibits a continual progress, starting from the mechanical and chemical activity of the inorganic world, proceeding to the vege- table, with its dull enjoyment of self, from that to the animal world, where intelligence and consciousness begin, at first very weak, and only after many intermediate stages attainiug its last great develop- ment in man, whose intellect is Nature's crowning point; the goal of all her efforts, the most perfect and difficult of all her works. And even within the range of the human intellect, there area great many observable differences of degree, and it is very seldom that intellect reaches its highest point, intelligence properly so-called, which in this narrow and strict sense of the word, is nature's most consummate product, and so the rarest and most precious thing of which the world can boast. The highest product of Nature is the clearest degree of consciousness, in which the world mirrors itself more plain- ly and completely than anywhere else. A man endowed with this form of intelligence is in possession of what is noblest and best on earth; and accordingly, he has a source of pleasure in comparison with which all others are small. From his surroundings he asks nothing but leisure for the free enjoyment of what he has got, time, as it were, to polish his diamond. All other pleasures that are not of the intellect are of a lower kind; for they are, one and all, move- ments of will — desires, hopes, fears and ambitions, no matter to what directed: they are always satisfied at the cost of pain, and in the case of ambition, generally with more or lees of illusion. With intel- lectual pleasure, on the other hand, truth becomes clearer and clearer. In the realm of intelligence pain has no power. Knowledge is all in all. Further, intellectual pleasures are accessible entirely and only through the medium of the intelligence and are limited by its capacity. For all the wit there is in the world is useless to him who has none. Still this advantage is accompanied by a substantial disadvantage; for the whole of Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest de- gree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 25 The normal, ordinary man takes a vivid interest in any- thing only in so far as it excites his will, that is to say, is a matter of personal interest to him. But constant excite- ment of the will is never an unmixed good, to say the least; in other words, it involves pain. Card-playing, that uni- versal occupation of ''good society''' everywhere, is a device for providing this kind of excitement, and that, too, by means of interests so small as to produce slight and momen- tary, instead of real and permanent, pain. Card-playing is, in fact, a mere tickling of the will.* On the other hand, a man of powerful intellect is capable of taking a vivid interest in things in the way of mere knowledge, with no admixture of will; nay, such an interest is a necessity to him. It places him in a sphere where pain is an alien, a diviner air where the gods live serene: Beoi ps7a Zgdovte5.\ Look on these two pictures — the life of the masses, one long, dull record of struggle and effort entirely devoted to the petty interests of personal welfare, to misery in all its forms, a life beset by intolerable boredom as soon as ever those aims are satisfied and the man is thrown back upon himself, whence he can be roused again to some sort of move- ment only by the wild fire of passion. On the other side you * Vulgarity is, at bottom, the kind of consciousness in which the will completely predominates over the intellect, where the latter does nothing more than perform the service of its master, the will. There- fore, when the will makes no demands, supplies no motives, strong or weak, the intellect entirely loses its power, and the result is com- plete vacancy of mind. Now will without intellect is the most vul- gar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made. This is the condition of mind called vulgarity, in which the only active elements are the organs of sense, and that small amount of intellect which is necessary for apprehending the data of sense. Accordingly, the vulgar man is constantly open to all sorts of impressions, and immediately perceives all the little trifling things that go on in his environment: the lightest whisper, the most trivial circumstance, is sufficient to rouse his attention; he is just like an animal. Such a man's mental condition reveals itself in his face, in his whole exterior; and hence that vulgar, repulsive appearance, which is all the more offensive, if as is usually the case, his will — . the only factor in his consciousness — is a base, selfish and altogether bad one. f Odyssey IV., 805. 26 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. have a man endowed with a high degree of mental power, leading an existence rich in thought and full of life and meaning, occupied by worthy and interesting objects as soon as ever he is free to give himself to them, bearing in himself a source of the noblest pleasure. What external promptings he wants come from the works of nature, and from the contemplation of human affairs and the achieve- ments of the great of all ages and countries, which are thoroughly appreciated by a man of this type alone, as being the only one who can quite understand and feel with them. And so it is for him alone that those great ones have really lived ; it is to him that they make their appeal ; the rest are but casual hearers who only half understand either them or their followers. Of course, this character- istic of the intellectual man implies that he has one more need than the others, the need of reading, observing, studying, meditating, practicing, the need, in short, of un- disturbed leisure. For, as Voltaire has very rightly said, "there are no real pleasures without real needs ;" and the need of them is why to such a man pleasures are accessible which are denied to others — the varied beauties of nature and art and literature. To heap these round people who do not want them and cannot appreciate them, is like ex- pecting gray hairs to fall in love. A man who is privi- leged in this respect leads two lives, a personal and an intellectual life; and the latter gradually comes to be looked upon as the true one, and the former as merely a means to it. Other people make this shallow, empty and troubled existence an end in itself. To the life of the in- tellect such a man will give the preference over all his other occupations : by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent inten- sity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete ; compared with which a life devoted to the attainment of personal comfort, a life that may broaden indeed, but can never be deepened, makes but a poor show : and yet, as I have said, people make this baser sort of existence an end in itself. The ordinary life of every day, so far as it is not moved by passion, is tedious and insipid ; and if it is so moved, it soon becomes painful. Those alone are happy whom nature has favored with some superfluity of intellect, some- PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS, 27 thing beyond what is just necessary to carry out the be- hests of their will ; for it enables them to lead an intellect- ual life as well, a life unattended by pain and full of vivid interests. Mere leisure, that is to say, intellect unoccu- pied in the service of the will, is not of itself sufficient : there must be a real superfluity of power, set free from the service of the will and devoted to that of the intellect ; for, as Seneca says, otium sine litteris mors est et vivi hominis sepultura — illiterate leisure is a form of death, a living tomb. Varying with the amount of the superfluity, there will be countless developments in this second life, the life of the mind ; it may be the mere collection and labeling of insects, birds, minerals, coins, or the highest achieve- ments of poetry and philosophy. The life of the mind is not only a protection, against boredom, it also wards off the pernicious effects of boredom ; it keeps us from bad com- pany, from the many dangers, misfortunes, losses and extravagances which the man who places his happiness entirely in the objective world is sure to encounter. My philosophy, for instance, has never brought me in a six- pence ; but it has spared me many an expense. The ordinary man places his life's happiness in things external to him, in property, rank, wife and children, friends, society, and the like, so that when he loses them or finds them disappointing, the foundation of his happi- ness is destroyed. In other words, his center of gravity is not in himself ; it is constantly changing its place, with every wish and whim. If he is a man of means, one day it will be his house in the country, another buying horses, or entertaining friends, or traveling — a life, in short, of general luxury, the reason being that he seeks his pleasure in things outside him. Like one whose health and strength are gone, he tries to regain by the use of jellies and drugs, instead of by developing his own vital power, the true' source of what he has lost. Before proceeding to the oppo- site, let us compare with this common type the man who comes midway between the two, endowed, it may be, not exactly with distinguished powers of mind, but with some- what more than the ordinary amount of intellect. He will take a dilettante interest in art, or devote his attention to some branch of science — botany, for example, or physics, astronomy, history, and find a great deal of pleasure in such studies, and amuse himself with them when external 28 TEE WISDOM OF LIFE. sources of happiness are exhausted or fail to satisfy him any more. Of a man like this it may be said that his cen- ter of gravity is partly in himself. But a dilettante inter- est in art is a very different thing from creative activity ; and an amateur pursuit of science is apt to be superficial and not to penetrate to the heart of the matter. A man cannot entirely identify himself with such pursuits, or have his whole existence so completely filled and permeated with them that he loses all interest in everything else. It is only the highest intellectual power, what we call genius, that attains to this degree of intensity, making all time and existence its theme, and striving to express its peculiar conception of the world, whether it contemplates life as the subject of poetry or of philosophy. Hence, undis- turbed occupation with himself, his own thoughts and works, is a matter of urgent necessity to such a man ; soli- tude is welcome, leisure is the highest good, and every- thing else is unnecessary, nay, even burdensome. •This is the only type of man of whom it can be said that his center of gravity is entirely in himself ; which explains why it is that people of this sort — and they are very rare — no matter how excellent their character may be, do not show that warm and unlimited interest in friends, family, and the community in general, of which others are so often capable ; for if they have only themselves they are not in- consolable for the loss of everything else. This gives an isolation to their character, which is all the more effective since other people never really quite satisfy them, as being, on the whole, of a different nature : nay more, since this difference is constantly forcing itself upon their notice, they get accustomed to move about among mankind as alien beings, and in thinking of humanity in general, to say they instead of ive. So the conclusion we come to is that the man whom nature has endowed with intellectual wealth is the hap- piest ; so true it is that the subjective concerns us more than the objective ; for whatever the latter may be, it can work only indirectly, secondarily, and through the medium of the former — a truth finely expressed by Lucian : IlXovvoi 6 Tiji ipvx^i TtXovroS juovoi edrlv