THE ESSAYS
OF
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
TRANSLATED BY
T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.
ON HUMAN NATURE.
CONTENTS.
HUMAN NATURE
GOVERNMENT
FREE-WILL AND FATALISM
CHARACTER
MORAL INSTINCT
ETHICAL REFLECTIONS
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The following essays are drawn from the chapters entitled _Zur Ethik_
and _Zur Rechtslehre und Politik_ which are to be found both in
Schopenhauer's _Parerga_ and in his posthumous writings. As in my
previous volumes, so also in this, I have omitted a few passages which
appeared to me to be either antiquated or no longer of any general
interest. For convenience' sake I have divided the original chapters
into sections, which I have had to name; and I have also had to invent
a title which should express their real scope. The reader will find
that it is not so much _Ethics_ and _Politics_ that are here treated,
as human nature itself in various aspects.
T.B.S.
HUMAN NATURE.
Truths of the physical order may possess much external significance,
but internal significance they have none. The latter is the privilege
of intellectual and moral truths, which are concerned with the
objectivation of the will in its highest stages, whereas physical
truths are concerned with it in its lowest.
For example, if we could establish the truth of what up till now is
only a conjecture, namely, that it is the action of the sun which
produces thermoelectricity at the equator; that this produces
terrestrial magnetism; and that this magnetism, again, is the cause of
the _aurora borealis_, these would be truths externally of great, but
internally of little, significance. On the other hand, examples
of internal significance are furnished by all great and true
philosophical systems; by the catastrophe of every good tragedy; nay,
even by the observation of human conduct in the extreme manifestations
of its morality and immorality, of its good and its evil character.
For all these are expressions of that reality which takes outward
shape as the world, and which, in the highest stages of its
objectivation, proclaims its innermost nature.
To say that the world has only a physical and not a moral significance
is the greatest and most pernicious of all errors, the fundamental
blunder, the real perversity of mind and temper; and, at bottom, it
is doubtless the tendency which faith personifies as Anti-Christ.
Nevertheless, in spite of all religions--and they are systems which
one and all maintain the opposite, and seek to establish it in their
mythical way--this fundamental error never becomes quite extinct, but
raises its head from time to time afresh, until universal indignation
compels it to hide itself once more.
Yet, however certain we may feel of the moral significance of life
and the world, to explain and illustrate it, and to resolve the
contradiction between this significance and the world as it is, form
a task of great difficulty; so great, indeed, as to make it possible
that it has remained for me to exhibit the true and only genuine
and sound basis of morality everywhere and at all times effective,
together with the results to which it leads. The actual facts of
morality are too much on my side for me to fear that my theory can
ever be replaced or upset by any other.
However, so long as even my ethical system continues to be ignored by
the professorial world, it is Kant's moral principle that prevails in
the universities. Among its various forms the one which is most in
favour at present is "the dignity of man." I have already exposed
the absurdity of this doctrine in my treatise on the _Foundation of
Morality_.[1] Therefore I will only say here that if the question were
asked on what the alleged dignity of man rests, it would not be long
before the answer was made that it rests upon his morality. In other
words, his morality rests upon his dignity, and his dignity rests upon
his morality.
[Footnote 1: § 8.]
But apart from this circular argument it seems to me that the idea of
dignity can be applied only in an ironical sense to a being whose will
is so sinful, whose intellect is so limited, whose body is so weak and
perishable as man's. How shall a man be proud, when his conception
is a crime, his birth a penalty, his life a labour, and death a
necessity!--
_Quid superbit homo? cujus conceptio culpa,
Nasci poena, labor vita, necesse mori_!
Therefore, in opposition to the above-mentioned form of the Kantian
principle, I should be inclined to lay down the following rule: When
you come into contact with a man, no matter whom, do not attempt an
objective appreciation of him according to his worth and dignity. Do
not consider his bad will, or his narrow understanding and perverse
ideas; as the former may easily lead you to hate and the latter to
despise him; but fix your attention only upon his sufferings, his
needs, his anxieties, his pains. Then you will always feel your
kinship with him; you will sympathise with him; and instead of hatred
or contempt you will experience the commiseration that alone is the
peace to which the Gospel calls us. The way to keep down hatred and
contempt is certainly not to look for a man's alleged "dignity," but,
on the contrary, to regard him as an object of pity.
The Buddhists, as the result of the more profound views which they
entertain on ethical and metaphysical subjects, start from the
cardinal vices and not the cardinal virtues; since the virtues make
their appearance only as the contraries or negations of the vices.
According to Schmidt's _History of the Eastern Mongolians_ the
cardinal vices in the Buddhist scheme are four: Lust, Indolence,
Anger, and Avarice. But probably instead of Indolence, we should read
Pride; for so it stands in the _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_,[1]
where Envy, or Hatred, is added as a fifth. I am confirmed in
correcting the statement of the excellent Schmidt by the fact that my
rendering agrees with the doctrine of the Sufis, who are certainly
under the influence of the Brahmins and Buddhists. The Sufis also
maintain that there are four cardinal vices, and they arrange them in
very striking pairs, so that Lust appears in connection with Avarice,
and Anger with Pride. The four cardinal virtues opposed to them would
be Chastity and Generosity, together with Gentleness and Humility.
[Footnote 1: Edit, of 1819, vol. vi., p. 372.]
When we compare these profound ideas of morality, as they are
entertained by oriental nations, with the celebrated cardinal virtues
of Plato, which have been recapitulated again and again--Justice,
Valour, Temperance, and Wisdom--it is plain that the latter are not
based on any clear, leading idea, but are chosen on grounds that are
superficial and, in part, obviously false. Virtues must be qualities
of the will, but Wisdom is chiefly an attribute of the Intellect.
[Greek: Sophrosynae], which Cicero translates _Temperantia_, is a very
indefinite and ambiguous word, and it admits, therefore, of a variety
of applications: it may mean discretion, or abstinence, or keeping a
level head. Courage is not a virtue at all; although sometimes it is a
servant or instrument of virtue; but it is just as ready to become
the servant of the greatest villainy. It is really a quality of
temperament. Even Geulinx (in the preface to this _Ethics_) condemned
the Platonic virtues and put the following in their place: Diligence,
Obedience, Justice and Humility; which are obviously bad. The Chinese
distinguish five cardinal virtues: Sympathy, Justice, Propriety,
Wisdom, and Sincerity. The virtues of Christianity are theological,
not cardinal: Faith, Love, and Hope.
Fundamental disposition towards others, assuming the character either
of Envy or of Sympathy, is the point at which the moral virtues and
vices of mankind first diverge. These two diametrically opposite
qualities exist in every man; for they spring from the inevitable
comparison which he draws between his own lot and that of others.
According as the result of this comparison affects his individual
character does the one or the other of these qualities become the
source and principle of all his action. Envy builds the wall between
_Thee_ and _Me_ thicker and stronger; Sympathy makes it slight and
transparent; nay, sometimes it pulls down the wall altogether; and
then the distinction between self and not-self vanishes.
Valour, which has been mentioned as a virtue, or rather the Courage
on which it is based (for valour is only courage in war), deserves a
closer examination. The ancients reckoned Courage among the virtues,
and cowardice among the vices; but there is no corresponding idea in
the Christian scheme, which makes for charity and patience, and in its
teaching forbids all enmity or even resistance. The result is that
with the moderns Courage is no longer a virtue. Nevertheless it must
be admitted that cowardice does not seem to be very compatible with
any nobility of character--if only for the reason that it betrays an
overgreat apprehension about one's own person.
Courage, however, may also be explained as a readiness to meet ills
that threaten at the moment, in order to avoid greater ills that
lie in the future; whereas cowardice does the contrary. But this
readiness is of the same quality as _patience_, for patience consists
in the clear consciousness that greater evils than those which are
present, and that any violent attempt to flee from or guard against
the ills we have may bring the others upon us. Courage, then, would
be a kind of patience; and since it is patience that enables us to
practise forbearance and self control, Courage is, through the medium
of patience, at least akin to virtue.
But perhaps Courage admits of being considered from a higher point of
view. The fear of death may in every case be traced to a deficiency
in that natural philosophy--natural, and therefore resting on mere
feeling--which gives a man the assurance that he exists in everything
outside him just as much as in his own person; so that the death of
his person can do him little harm. But it is just this very assurance
that would give a man heroic Courage; and therefore, as the reader
will recollect from my _Ethics_, Courage comes from the same source as
the virtues of Justice and Humanity. This is, I admit, to take a very
high view of the matter; but apart from it I cannot well explain why
cowardice seems contemptible, and personal courage a noble and sublime
thing; for no lower point of view enables me to see why a finite
individual who is everything to himself--nay, who is himself even
the very fundamental condition of the existence of the rest of the
world--should not put his own preservation above every other aim. It
is, then, an insufficient explanation of Courage to make it rest
only on utility, to give it an empirical and not a transcendental
character. It may have been for some such reason that Calderon once
uttered a sceptical but remarkable opinion in regard to Courage, nay,
actually denied its reality; and put his denial into the mouth of a
wise old minister, addressing his young sovereign. "Although," he
observed, "natural fear is operative in all alike, a man may be brave
in not letting it be seen; and it is this that constitutes Courage":
_Que aunque el natural temor
En todos obra igualmente,
No mostrarle es ser valiente
Y esto es lo que hace el valor_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _La Hija del Aire_, ii., 2.]
In regard to the difference which I have mentioned between the
ancients and the moderns in their estimate of Courage as a virtue,
it must be remembered that by Virtue, _virtus_, [Greek: aretae], the
ancients understood every excellence or quality that was praiseworthy
in itself, it might be moral or intellectual, or possibly only
physical. But when Christianity demonstrated that the fundamental
tendency of life was moral, it was moral superiority alone than
henceforth attached to the notion of Virtue. Meanwhile the earlier
usage still survived in the elder Latinists, and also in Italian
writers, as is proved by the well-known meaning of the word
_virtuoso_. The special attention of students should be drawn to this
wider range of the idea of Virtue amongst the ancients, as otherwise
it might easily be a source of secret perplexity. I may recommend two
passages preserved for us by Stobaeus, which will serve this purpose.
One of them is apparently from the Pythagorean philosopher Metopos, in
which the fitness of every bodily member is declared to be a virtue.
The other pronounces that the virtue of a shoemaker is to make good
shoes. This may also serve to explain why it is that in the ancient
scheme of ethics virtues and vices are mentioned which find no place
in ours.
As the place of Courage amongst the virtues is a matter of doubt,
so is that of Avarice amongst the vices. It must not, however, be
confounded with greed, which is the most immediate meaning of the
Latin word _avaritia_. Let us then draw up and examine the arguments
_pro et contra_ in regard to Avarice, and leave the final judgment to
be formed by every man for himself.
On the one hand it is argued that it is not Avarice which is a vice,
but extravagance, its opposite. Extravagance springs from a brutish
limitation to the present moment, in comparison with which the future,
existing as it does only in thought, is as nothing. It rests upon the
illusion that sensual pleasures possess a positive or real value.
Accordingly, future need and misery is the price at which the
spendthrift purchases pleasures that are empty, fleeting, and often no
more than imaginary; or else feeds his vain, stupid self-conceit on
the bows and scrapes of parasites who laugh at him in secret, or on
the gaze of the mob and those who envy his magnificence. We should,
therefore, shun the spendthrift as though he had the plague, and on
discovering his vice break with him betimes, in order that later on,
when the consequences of his extravagance ensue, we may neither have
to help to bear them, nor, on the other hand, have to play the part of
the friends of Timon of Athens.
At the same time it is not to be expected that he who foolishly
squanders his own fortune will leave another man's intact, if it
should chance to be committed to his keeping; nay, _sui profusus_ and
_alieni appetens_ are by Sallust very rightly conjoined. Hence it is
that extravagance leads not only to impoverishment but also to crime;
and crime amongst the moneyed classes is almost always the result of
extravagance. It is accordingly with justice that the _Koran_ declares
all spendthrifts to be "brothers of Satan."
But it is superfluity that Avarice brings in its train, and when was
superfluity ever unwelcome? That must be a good vice which has good
consequences. Avarice proceeds upon the principle that all pleasure is
only negative in its operation and that the happiness which consists
of a series of pleasures is a chimaera; that, on the contrary, it
is pains which are positive and extremely real. Accordingly, the
avaricious man foregoes the former in order that he may be the
better preserved from the latter, and thus it is that _bear and
forbear_--_sustine et abstine_--is his maxim. And because he knows,
further, how inexhaustible are the possibilities of misfortune,
and how innumerable the paths of danger, he increases the means of
avoiding them, in order, if possible, to surround himself with a
triple wall of protection. Who, then, can say where precaution against
disaster begins to be exaggerated? He alone who knows where the
malignity of fate reaches its limit. And even if precaution were
exaggerated it is an error which at the most would hurt the man who
took it, and not others. If he will never need the treasures which he
lays up for himself, they will one day benefit others whom nature
has made less careful. That until then he withdraws the money
from circulation is no misfortune; for money is not an article of
consumption: it only represents the good things which a man may
actually possess, and is not one itself. Coins are only counters;
their value is what they represent; and what they represent cannot be
withdrawn from circulation. Moreover, by holding back the money,
the value of the remainder which is in circulation is enhanced by
precisely the same amount. Even though it be the case, as is said,
that many a miser comes in the end to love money itself for its own
sake, it is equally certain that many a spendthrift, on the other
hand, loves spending and squandering for no better reason. Friendship
with a miser is not only without danger, but it is profitable, because
of the great advantages it can bring. For it is doubtless those who
are nearest and dearest to the miser who on his death will reap
the fruits of the self-control which he exercised; but even in his
lifetime, too, something may be expected of him in cases of great
need. At any rate one can always hope for more from him than from the
spendthrift, who has lost his all and is himself helpless and in debt.
_Mas da el duro que el desnudo_, says a Spanish proverb; the man who
has a hard heart will give more than the man who has an empty purse.
The upshot of all this is that Avarice is not a vice.
On the other side, it may be said that Avarice is the quintessence of
all vices. When physical pleasures seduce a man from the right path,
it is his sensual nature--the animal part of him--which is at fault.
He is carried away by its attractions, and, overcome by the impression
of the moment, he acts without thinking of the consequences. When,
on the other hand, he is brought by age or bodily weakness to the
condition in which the vices that he could never abandon end by
abandoning him, and his capacity for physical pleasure dies--if he
turns to Avarice, the intellectual desire survives the sensual. Money,
which represents all the good things of this world, and is these good
things in the abstract, now becomes the dry trunk overgrown with all
the dead lusts of the flesh, which are egoism in the abstract. They
come to life again in the love of the Mammon. The transient pleasure
of the senses has become a deliberate and calculated lust of money,
which, like that to which it is directed, is symbolical in its nature,
and, like it, indestructible.
This obstinate love of the pleasures of the world--a love which, as it
were, outlives itself; this utterly incorrigible sin, this refined
and sublimated desire of the flesh, is the abstract form in which all
lusts are concentrated, and to which it stands like a general idea to
individual particulars. Accordingly, Avarice is the vice of age, just
as extravagance is the vice of youth.
This _disputatio in utramque partem_--this debate for and against--is
certainly calculated to drive us into accepting the _juste milieu_
morality of Aristotle; a conclusion that is also supported by the
following consideration.
Every human perfection is allied to a defect into which it threatens
to pass; but it is also true that every defect is allied to a
perfection. Hence it is that if, as often happens, we make a mistake
about a man, it is because at the beginning of our acquaintance with
him we confound his defects with the kinds of perfection to which they
are allied. The cautious man seems to us a coward; the economical man,
a miser; the spendthrift seems liberal; the rude fellow, downright and
sincere; the foolhardy person looks as if he were going to work with a
noble self-confidence; and so on in many other cases.
* * * * *
No one can live among men without feeling drawn again and again to the
tempting supposition that moral baseness and intellectual incapacity
are closely connected, as though they both sprang direct from one
source. That that, however, is not so, I have shown in detail.[1] That
it seems to be so is merely due to the fact that both are so often
found together; and the circumstance is to be explained by the very
frequent occurrence of each of them, so that it may easily happen for
both to be compelled to live under one roof. At the same time it is
not to be denied that they play into each other's hands to their
mutual benefit; and it is this that produces the very unedifying
spectacle which only too many men exhibit, and that makes the world to
go as it goes. A man who is unintelligent is very likely to show his
perfidy, villainy and malice; whereas a clever man understands how
to conceal these qualities. And how often, on the other hand, does
a perversity of heart prevent a man from seeing truths which his
intelligence is quite capable of grasping!
[Footnote 1: In my chief work, vol. ii., ch. xix,]
Nevertheless, let no one boast. Just as every man, though he be the
greatest genius, has very definite limitations in some one sphere of
knowledge, and thus attests his common origin with the essentially
perverse and stupid mass of mankind, so also has every man something
in his nature which is positively evil. Even the best, nay the
noblest, character will sometimes surprise us by isolated traits of
depravity; as though it were to acknowledge his kinship with the human
race, in which villainy--nay, cruelty--is to be found in that degree.
For it was just in virtue of this evil in him, this bad principle,
that of necessity he became a man. And for the same reason the world
in general is what my clear mirror of it has shown it to be.
But in spite of all this the difference even between one man and
another is incalculably great, and many a one would be horrified to
see another as he really is. Oh, for some Asmodeus of morality, to
make not only roofs and walls transparent to his favourites, but
also to lift the veil of dissimulation, fraud, hypocrisy, pretence,
falsehood and deception, which is spread over all things! to show how
little true honesty there is in the world, and how often, even where
it is least to be expected, behind all the exterior outwork of virtue,
secretly and in the innermost recesses, unrighteousness sits at the
helm! It is just on this account that so many men of the better kind
have four-footed friends: for, to be sure, how is a man to get relief
from the endless dissimulation, falsity and malice of mankind, if
there were no dogs into whose honest faces he can look without
distrust?
For what is our civilised world but a big masquerade? where you meet
knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen,
philosophers, and I don't know what all! But they are not what they
pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks
you will find moneymakers. One man, I suppose, puts on the mask of
law, which he has borrowed for the purpose from a barrister, only in
order to be able to give another man a sound drubbing; a second has
chosen the mask of patriotism and the public welfare with a similar
intent; a third takes religion or purity of doctrine. For all sorts
of purposes men have often put on the mask of philosophy, and even
of philanthropy, and I know not what besides. Women have a smaller
choice. As a rule they avail themselves of the mask of morality,
modesty, domesticity, and humility. Then there are general masks,
without any particular character attaching to them like dominoes. They
may be met with everywhere; and of this sort is the strict rectitude,
the courtesy, the sincere sympathy, the smiling friendship, that
people profess. The whole of these masks as a rule are merely, as I
have said, a disguise for some industry, commerce, or speculation. It
is merchants alone who in this respect constitute any honest class.
They are the only people who give themselves out to be what they are;
and therefore they go about without any mask at all, and consequently
take a humble rank.
It is very necessary that a man should be apprised early in life that
it is a masquerade in which he finds himself. For otherwise there are
many things which he will fail to understand and put up with, nay, at
which he will be completely puzzled, and that man longest of all whose
heart is made of better clay--
_Et meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan.[1]_
[Footnote 1: Juvenal, _Sat_. 14, 34]
Such for instance is the favour that villainy finds; the neglect that
merit, even the rarest and the greatest, suffers at the hands of those
of the same profession; the hatred of truth and great capacity; the
ignorance of scholars in their own province; and the fact that true
wares are almost always despised and the merely specious ones in
request. Therefore let even the young be instructed betimes that in
this masquerade the apples are of wax, the flowers of silk, the fish
of pasteboard, and that all things--yes, all things--are toys and
trifles; and that of two men whom he may see earnestly engaged in
business, one is supplying spurious goods and the other paying for
them in false coin.
But there are more serious reflections to be made, and worse things to
be recorded. Man is at bottom a savage, horrible beast. We know it,
if only in the business of taming and restraining him which we call
civilisation. Hence it is that we are terrified if now and then his
nature breaks out. Wherever and whenever the locks and chains of law
and order fall off and give place to anarchy, he shows himself for
what he is. But it is unnecessary to wait for anarchy in order to gain
enlightenment on this subject. A hundred records, old and new, produce
the conviction that in his unrelenting cruelty man is in no way
inferior to the tiger and the hyaena. A forcible example is supplied
by a publication of the year 1841 entitled _Slavery and the Internal
Slave Trade in the United States of North America: being replies to
questions transmitted by the British Anti-slavery Society to the
American Anti-slavery Society_.[1] This book constitutes one of the
heaviest indictments against the human race. No one can put it down
with a feeling of horror, and few without tears. For whatever the
reader may have ever heard, or imagined, or dreamt, of the unhappy
condition of slavery, or indeed of human cruelty in general, it will
seem small to him when he reads of the way in which those devils
in human form, those bigoted, church-going, strictly Sabbatarian
rascals--and in particular the Anglican priests among them--treated
their innocent black brothers, who by wrong and violence had got into
their diabolical clutches.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's 'Note_.--If Schopenhauer were writing
to-day, he would with equal truth point to the miseries of the African
trade. I have slightly abridged this passage, as some of the evils
against which he protested no longer exist.]
Other examples are furnished by Tshudi's _Travels in Peru_, in the
description which he gives of the treatment of the Peruvian soldiers
at the hands of their officers; and by Macleod's _Travels in Eastern
Africa_, where the author tells of the cold-blooded and truly devilish
cruelty with which the Portuguese in Mozambique treat their slaves.
But we need not go for examples to the New World, that obverse side of
our planet. In the year 1848 it was brought to life that in England,
not in one, but apparently in a hundred cases within a brief period, a
husband had poisoned his wife or _vice versâ_, or both had joined in
poisoning their children, or in torturing them slowly to death by
starving and ill-treating them, with no other object than to get the
money for burying them which they had insured in the Burial Clubs
against their death. For this purpose a child was often insured in
several, even in as many as twenty clubs at once.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cf. _The Times_, 20th, 22nd and 23rd Sept., 1848, and
also 12th Dec., 1853.]
Details of this character belong, indeed, to the blackest pages in the
criminal records of humanity. But, when all is said, it is the
inward and innate character of man, this god _par excellence_ of the
Pantheists, from which they and everything like them proceed. In every
man there dwells, first and foremost, a colossal egoism, which breaks
the bounds of right and justice with the greatest freedom, as everyday
life shows on a small scale, and as history on every page of it on a
large. Does not the recognised need of a balance of power in Europe,
with the anxious way in which it is preserved, demonstrate that man
is a beast of prey, who no sooner sees a weaker man near him than he
falls upon him without fail? and does not the same hold good of the
affairs of ordinary life?
But to the boundless egoism of our nature there is joined more or
less in every human breast a fund of hatred, anger, envy, rancour and
malice, accumulated like the venom in a serpent's tooth, and waiting
only for an opportunity of venting itself, and then, like a demon
unchained, of storming and raging. If a man has no great occasion for
breaking out, he will end by taking advantage of the smallest, and by
working it up into something great by the aid of his imagination; for,
however small it may be, it is enough to rouse his anger--
_Quantulacunque adeo est occasio, sufficit irae[1]_--
[Footnote 1: Juvenal, _Sat_. 13, 183.]
and then he will carry it as far as he can and may. We see this in
daily life, where such outbursts are well known under the name of
"venting one's gall on something." It will also have been observed
that if such outbursts meet with no opposition the subject of them
feels decidedly the better for them afterwards. That anger is
not without its pleasure is a truth that was recorded even by
Aristotle;[1] and he quotes a passage from Homer, who declares anger
to be sweeter than honey. But not in anger alone--in hatred too, which
stands to anger like a chronic to an acute disease, a man may indulge
with the greatest delight:
[Footnote 1: _Rhet_., i., 11; ii., 2.]
_Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure,
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure_[1]
[Footnote 1: Byron _Don Juan_, c. xiii, 6.]
Gobineau in his work _Les Races Humaines_ has called man _l'animal
méchant par excellence_. People take this very ill, because they feel
that it hits them; but he is quite right, for man is the only animal
which causes pain to others without any further purpose than just to
cause it. Other animals never do it except to satisfy their hunger, or
in the rage of combat. If it is said against the tiger that he kills
more than eats, he strangles his prey only for the purpose of eating
it; and if he cannot eat it, the only explanation is, as the French
phrase has it, that _ses yeux sont plus grands que son estomac_. No
animal ever torments another for the mere purpose of tormenting, but
man does it, and it is this that constitutes the diabolical feature in
his character which is so much worse than the merely animal. I have
already spoken of the matter in its broad aspect; but it is manifest
even in small things, and every reader has a daily opportunity
of observing it. For instance, if two little dogs are playing
together--and what a genial and charming sight it is--and a child of
three or four years joins them, it is almost inevitable for it to
begin hitting them with a whip or stick, and thereby show itself, even
at that age, _l'animal méchant par excellence_. The love of teasing
and playing tricks, which is common enough, may be traced to the same
source. For instance, if a man has expressed his annoyance at any
interruption or other petty inconvenience, there will be no lack of
people who for that very reason will bring it about: _animal méchant
par excellence_! This is so certain that a man should be careful not
to express any annoyance at small evils. On the other hand he should
also be careful not to express his pleasure at any trifle, for, if
he does so, men will act like the jailer who, when he found that his
prisoner had performed the laborious task of taming a spider, and took
a pleasure in watching it, immediately crushed it under his foot:
_l'animal méchant par excellence_! This is why all animals are
instinctively afraid of the sight, or even of the track of a man, that
_animal méchant par excellence_! nor does their instinct them false;
for it is man alone who hunts game for which he has no use and which
does him no harm.
It is a fact, then, that in the heart of every man there lies a wild
beast which only waits for an opportunity to storm and rage, in its
desire to inflict pain on others, or, if they stand in his way, to
kill them. It is this which is the source of all the lust of war and
battle. In trying to tame and to some extent hold it in check, the
intelligence, its appointed keeper, has always enough to do. People
may, if they please, call it the radical evil of human nature--a
name which will at least serve those with whom a word stands for an
explanation. I say, however, that it is the will to live, which, more
and more embittered by the constant sufferings of existence, seeks to
alleviate its own torment by causing torment in others. But in this
way a man gradually develops in himself real cruelty and malice. The
observation may also be added that as, according to Kant, matter
subsists only through the antagonism of the powers of expansion and
contraction, so human society subsists only by the antagonism of
hatred, or anger, and fear. For there is a moment in the life of
all of us when the malignity of our nature might perhaps make us
murderers, if it were not accompanied by a due admixture of fear to
keep it within bounds; and this fear, again, would make a man the
sport and laughing stock of every boy, if anger were not lying ready
in him, and keeping watch.
But it is _Schadenfreude_, a mischievous delight in the misfortunes of
others, which remains the worst trait in human nature. It is a feeling
which is closely akin to cruelty, and differs from it, to say the
truth, only as theory from practice. In general, it may be said of it
that it takes the place which pity ought to take--pity which is its
opposite, and the true source of all real justice and charity.
_Envy_ is also opposed to pity, but in another sense; envy, that is
to say, is produced by a cause directly antagonistic to that which
produces the delight in mischief. The opposition between pity and envy
on the one hand, and pity and the delight in mischief on the other,
rests, in the main, on the occasions which call them forth. In the
case of envy it is only as a direct effect of the cause which excites
it that we feel it at all. That is just the reason why envy, although
it is a reprehensible feeling, still admits of some excuse, and is,
in general, a very human quality; whereas the delight in mischief is
diabolical, and its taunts are the laughter of hell.
The delight in mischief, as I have said, takes the place which pity
ought to take. Envy, on the contrary, finds a place only where there
is no inducement to pity, or rather an inducement to its opposite; and
it is just as this opposite that envy arises in the human breast; and
so far, therefore, it may still be reckoned a human sentiment. Nay, I
am afraid that no one will be found to be entirely free from it. For
that a man should feel his own lack of things more bitterly at the
sight of another's delight in the enjoyment of them, is natural; nay,
it is inevitable; but this should not rouse his hatred of the man who
is happier than himself. It is just this hatred, however, in which
true envy consists. Least of all should a man be envious, when it is a
question, not of the gifts of fortune, or chance, or another's favour,
but of the gifts of nature; because everything that is innate in a man
rests on a metaphysical basis, and possesses justification of a higher
kind; it is, so to speak, given him by Divine grace. But, unhappily,
it is just in the case of personal advantages that envy is most
irreconcilable. Thus it is that intelligence, or even genius, cannot
get on in the world without begging pardon for its existence, wherever
it is not in a position to be able, proudly and boldly, to despise the
world.
In other words, if envy is aroused only by wealth, rank, or power,
it is often kept down by egoism, which perceives that, on occasion,
assistance, enjoyment, support, protection, advancement, and so
on, may be hoped for from the object of envy or that at least by
intercourse with him a man may himself win honour from the reflected
light of his superiority; and here, too, there is the hope of one day
attaining all those advantages himself. On the other hand, in the envy
that is directed to natural gifts and personal advantages, like beauty
in women, or intelligence in men, there is no consolation or hope of
one kind or the other; so that nothing remains but to indulge a
bitter and irreconcilable hatred of the person who possesses these
privileges; and hence the only remaining desire is to take vengeance
on him.
But here the envious man finds himself in an unfortunate position; for
all his blows fall powerless as soon as it is known that they come
from him. Accordingly he hides his feelings as carefully as if they
were secret sins, and so becomes an inexhaustible inventor of tricks
and artifices and devices for concealing and masking his procedure,
in order that, unperceived, he may wound the object of his envy. For
instance, with an air of the utmost unconcern he will ignore the
advantages which are eating his heart out; he will neither see them,
nor know them, nor have observed or even heard of them, and thus make
himself a master in the art of dissimulation. With great cunning he
will completely overlook the man whose brilliant qualities are gnawing
at his heart, and act as though he were quite an unimportant person;
he will take no notice of him, and, on occasion, will have even quite
forgotten his existence. But at the same time he will before all
things endeavour by secret machination carefully to deprive those
advantages of any opportunity of showing themselves and becoming
known. Then out of his dark corner he will attack these qualities with
censure, mockery, ridicule and calumny, like the toad which spurts
its poison from a hole. No less will he enthusiastically praise
unimportant people, or even indifferent or bad performances in the
same sphere. In short, he will becomes a Proteas in stratagem, in
order to wound others without showing himself. But what is the use
of it? The trained eye recognises him in spite of it all. He betrays
himself, if by nothing else, by the way in which he timidly avoids
and flies from the object of his envy, who stands the more completely
alone, the more brilliant he is; and this is the reason why pretty
girls have no friends of their own sex. He betrays himself, too, by
the causeless hatred which he shows--a hatred which finds vent in a
violent explosion at any circumstance however trivial, though it is
often only the product of his imagination. How many such men there are
in the world may be recognised by the universal praise of modesty,
that is, of a virtue invented on behalf of dull and commonplace
people. Nevertheless, it is a virtue which, by exhibiting the
necessity for dealing considerately with the wretched plight of these
people, is just what calls attention to it.
For our self-consciousness and our pride there can be nothing more
flattering than the sight of envy lurking in its retreat and plotting
its schemes; but never let a man forget that where there is envy there
is hatred, and let him be careful not to make a false friend out of
any envious person. Therefore it is important to our safety to lay
envy bare; and a man should study to discover its tricks, as it is
everywhere to be found and always goes about _incognito_; or as I
have said, like a venomous toad it lurks in dark corners. It deserves
neither quarter nor sympathy; but as we can never reconcile it let our
rule of conduct be to scorn it with a good heart, and as our happiness
and glory is torture to it we may rejoice in its sufferings:
_Den Neid wirst nimmer du versöhnen;
So magst du ihn getrost verhöhnen.
Dein Glück, dein Ruhm ist ihm ein Leiden:
Magst drum an seiner Quaal dich weiden_.
We have been taking a look at the _depravity_ of man, and it is a
sight which may well fill us with horror. But now we must cast our
eyes on the _misery_ of his existence; and when we have done so, and
are horrified by that too, we must look back again at his depravity.
We shall then find that they hold the balance to each other. We shall
perceive the eternal justice of things; for we shall recognise that
the world is itself the Last Judgment on it, and we shall begin to
understand why it is that everything that lives must pay the penalty
of its existence, first in living and then in dying. Thus the evil
of the penalty accords with the evil of the sin--_malum poenae_ with
_malum culpae_. From the same point of view we lose our indignation at
that intellectual incapacity of the great majority of mankind which in
life so often disgusts us. In this _Sansara_, as the Buddhists call
it, human misery, human depravity and human folly correspond with one
another perfectly, and they are of like magnitude. But if, on some
special inducement, we direct our gaze to one of them, and survey it
in particular, it seems to exceed the other two. This, however, is an
illusion, and merely the effect of their colossal range.
All things proclaim this _Sansara_; more than all else, the world of
mankind; in which, from a moral point of view, villainy and baseness,
and from an intellectual point of view, incapacity and stupidity,
prevail to a horrifying extent. Nevertheless, there appear in
it, although very spasmodically, and always as a fresh surprise,
manifestations of honesty, of goodness, nay, even of nobility; and
also of great intelligence, of the thinking mind of genius. They never
quite vanish, but like single points of light gleam upon us out of the
great dark mass. We must accept them as a pledge that this _Sansara_
contains a good and redeeming principle, which is capable of breaking
through and of filling and freeing the whole of it.
* * * * *
The readers of my _Ethics_ know that with me the ultimate foundation
of morality is the truth which in the _Vedas_ and the _Vedanta_
receives its expression in the established, mystical formula, _Tat
twam asi (This is thyself_), which is spoken with reference to every
living thing, be it man or beast, and is called the _Mahavakya_, the
great word.
Actions which proceed in accordance with this principle, such as those
of the philanthropist, may indeed be regarded as the beginning of
mysticism. Every benefit rendered with a pure intention proclaims that
the man who exercises it acts in direct conflict with the world of
appearance; for he recognises himself as identical with another
individual, who exists in complete separation from him. Accordingly,
all disinterested kindness is inexplicable; it is a mystery; and hence
in order to explain it a man has to resort to all sorts of fictions.
When Kant had demolished all other arguments for theism, he admitted
one only, that it gave the best interpretation and solution of such
mysterious actions, and of all others like them. He therefore allowed
it to stand as a presumption unsusceptible indeed of theoretical
proof, but valid from a practical point of view. I may, however,
express my doubts whether he was quite serious about it. For to make
morality rest on theism is really to reduce morality to egoism;
although the English, it is true, as also the lowest classes of
society with us, do not perceive the possibility of any other
foundation for it.
The above-mentioned recognition of a man's own true being in
another individual objectively presented to him, is exhibited in a
particularly beautiful and clear way in the cases in which a man,
already destined to death beyond any hope of rescue, gives himself up
to the welfare of others with great solicitude and zeal, and tries to
save them. Of this kind is the well-known story of a servant who was
bitten in a courtyard at night by a mad dog. In the belief that she
was beyond hope, she seized the dog and dragged it into a stable,
which she then locked, so that no one else might be bitten. Then again
there is the incident in Naples, which Tischbein has immortalised in
one of his _aquarelles_. A son, fleeing from the lava which is rapidly
streaming toward the sea, is carrying his aged father on his back.
When there is only a narrow strip of land left between the devouring
elements, the father bids the son put him down, so that the son may
save himself by flight, as otherwise both will be lost. The son obeys,
and as he goes casts a glance of farewell on his father. This is the
moment depicted. The historical circumstance which Scott represents
in his masterly way in _The Heart of Midlothian_, chap, ii., is of a
precisely similar kind; where, of two delinquents condemned to death,
the one who by his awkwardness caused the capture of the other happily
sets him free in the chapel by overpowering the guard after the
execution-sermon, without at the same time making any attempt on his
own behalf. Nay, in the same category must also be placed the scene
which is represented in a common engraving, which may perhaps be
objectionable to western readers--I mean the one in which a soldier,
kneeling to be shot, is trying by waving a cloth to frighten away his
dog who wants to come to him.
In all these cases we see an individual in the face of his own
immediate and certain destruction no longer thinking of saving
himself, so that he may direct the whole of his efforts to saving some
one else. How could there be a clearer expression of the consciousness
that what is being destroyed is only a phenomenon, and that the
destruction itself is only a phenomenon; that, on the other hand, the
real being of the man who meets his death is untouched by that event,
and lives on in the other man, in whom even now, as his action
betrays, he so clearly perceives it to exist? For if this were not so,
and it was his real being which was about to be annihilated, how could
that being spend its last efforts in showing such an ardent sympathy
in the welfare and continued existence of another?
There are two different ways in which a man may become conscious
of his own existence. On the one hand, he may have an empirical
perception of it, as it manifests itself externally--something so
small that it approaches vanishing point; set in a world which, as
regards time and space, is infinite; one only of the thousand millions
of human creatures who run about on this planet for a very brief
period and are renewed every thirty years. On the other hand, by going
down into the depths of his own nature, a man may become conscious
that he is all in all; that, in fact, he is the only real being; and
that, in addition, this real being perceives itself again in others,
who present themselves from without, as though they formed a mirror of
himself.
Of these two ways in which a man may come to know what he is, the
first grasps the phenomenon alone, the mere product of _the principle
of individuation_; whereas the second makes a man immediately
conscious that he is _the thing-in-itself_. This is a doctrine in
which, as regards the first way, I have Kant, and as regards both, I
have the _Vedas_, to support me.
There is, it is true, a simple objection to the second method. It may
be said to assume that one and the same being can exist in different
places at the same time, and yet be complete in each of them.
Although, from an empirical point of view, this is the most palpable
impossibility--nay, absurdity--it is nevertheless perfectly true
of the thing-in-itself. The impossibility and the absurdity of it,
empirically, are only due to the forms which phenomena assume,
in accordance with the principle of individuation. For the
thing-in-itself, the will to live, exists whole and undivided in every
being, even in the smallest, as completely as in the sum-total of all
things that ever were or are or will be. This is why every being, even
the smallest, says to itself, So long as I am safe, let the world
perish--_dum ego salvus sim, pereat mundus_. And, in truth, even if
only one individual were left in the world, and all the rest were to
perish, the one that remained would still possess the whole self-being
of the world, uninjured and undiminished, and would laugh at the
destruction of the world as an illusion. This conclusion _per
impossible_ may be balanced by the counter-conclusion, which is on all
fours with it, that if that last individual were to be annihilated in
and with him the whole world would be destroyed. It was in this sense
that the mystic Angelas Silesius[1] declared that God could not live
for a moment without him, and that if he were to be annihilated God
must of necessity give up the ghost: