fatal effect on us is due to the fact that our happiness and unhappiness
depend upon the relation of our demands to what we get; accordingly, the
good things we possess, or are quite sure of possessing, are not felt to
be such, because the nature of all enjoyment is really only _negative_,
and has only the effect of annulling pain; whilst, on the other hand,
the nature of pain or evil is really positive and felt immediately. With
the possession, or the certain prospect of it, our demands instantly
rise and increase our desire for further possession and greater
prospects. But if the mind is depressed by continual misfortune, and the
claims reduced to a _minimum_, good fortune that comes suddenly finds no
capacity for its acceptance. Neutralised by no previous claims, it now
has apparently a positive effect, and accordingly its whole power is
exercised; hence it may disorganise the mind--that is to say, be fatal
to it. This is why, as is well known, one is so careful to get a man
first to hope for happiness before announcing it, then to suggest the
prospect of it, then little by little make it known, until gradually all
is known to him; every portion of the revelation loses the strength of
its effect because it is anticipated by a demand, and room is still left
for more. In virtue of all this, it might be said that our stomach for
good fortune is bottomless, but the entrance to it is narrow. What has
been said does not apply to sudden misfortunes in the same way. Since
hope always resists them, they are for this reason rarely fatal. That
fear does not perform an analogous office in cases of good fortune is
due to the fact that we are instinctively more inclined to hope than to
fear; just as our eyes turn of themselves to light in preference to
darkness.
* * * * *
_Hope_ is to confuse the desire that something should occur with the
probability that it will. Perhaps no man is free from this folly of the
heart, which deranges the intellect's correct estimation of probability
to such a degree as to make him think the event quite possible, even if
the chances are only a thousand to one. And still, an unexpected
misfortune is like a speedy death-stroke; while a hope that is always
frustrated, and yet springs into life again, is like death by slow
torture.
He who has given up hope has also given up fear; this is the meaning of
the expression _desperate_. It is natural for a man to have faith in
what he wishes, and to have faith in it because he wishes it. If this
peculiarity of his nature, which is both beneficial and comforting, is
eradicated by repeated hard blows of fate, and he is brought to a
converse condition, when he believes that something must happen because
he does not wish it, and what he wishes can never happen just because he
wishes it; this is, in reality, the state which has been called
_desperation_.
* * * * *
That we are so often mistaken in others is not always precisely due to
our faulty judgment, but springs, as a rule as Bacon says, from
_intellectus luminis sicci non est, sec recipit infusionem a voluntate
et affectibus_: for without knowing it, we are influenced for or against
them by trifles from the very beginning. It also often lies in the fact
that we do not adhere to the qualities which we really discover in them,
but conclude from these that there are others which we consider
inseparable from, or at any rate incompatible with, them. For instance,
when we discern generosity, we conclude there is honesty; from lying we
conclude there is deception; from deception, stealing, and so on; and
this opens the door to many errors, partly because of the peculiarity of
human nature, and partly because of the one-sidedness of our point of
view. It is true that character is always consistent and connected; but
the roots of all its qualities lies too deep to enable one to decide
from special data in a given case which qualities can, and which cannot
exist together.
* * * * *
The use of the word _person_ in every European language to signify a
human individual is unintentionally appropriate; _persona_ really means
a player's mask, and it is quite certain that no one shows himself as he
is, but that each wears a mask and plays a _r�le_. In general, the whole
of social life is a continual comedy, which the worthy find insipid,
whilst the stupid delight in it greatly.
* * * * *
It often happens that we blurt out things that may in some kind of way
be harmful to us, but we are silent about things that may make us look
ridiculous; because in this case effect follows very quickly on cause.
* * * * *
The ordinary man who has suffered injustice burns with a desire for
revenge; and it has often been said that revenge is sweet. This is
confirmed by the many sacrifices made merely for the sake of enjoying
revenge, without any intention of making good the injury that one has
suffered. The centaur Nessus utilised his last moments in devising an
extremely clever revenge, and the fact that it was certain to be
effective sweetened an otherwise bitter death. The same idea, presented
in a more modern and plausible way, occurs in Bertolotti's novel, _Le
due Sorelle_ which has been translated into three languages. Walter
Scott expresses mankind's proneness to revenge in words as powerful as
they are true: "Vengeance is the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever
was cooked in hell!" I shall now attempt a psychological explanation of
revenge. All the suffering that nature, chance, or fate have assigned to
us does not, _ceteris paribus_, pain us so much as suffering which is
brought upon us by the arbitrary will of another. This is due to the
fact that we regard nature and fate as the original rulers of the world;
we look upon what befalls us, through them, as something that might have
befallen every one else. Therefore in a case of suffering which arises
from this source, we bemoan the fate of mankind in general more than we
do our own. On the other hand, suffering inflicted on us through the
arbitrary will of another is a peculiarly bitter addition to the pain or
injury caused, as it involves the consciousness of another's
superiority, whether it be in strength or cunning, as opposed to our own
weakness. If compensation is possible, it wipes out the injury; but that
bitter addition, "I must submit to that from you," which often hurts
more than the injury itself, is only to be neutralised by vengeance. For
by injuring the man who has injured us, whether it be by force or
cunning, we show our superiority, and thereby annul the proof of his.
This gives that satisfaction to the mind for which it has been
thirsting. Accordingly, where there is much pride or vanity there will
be a great desire for revenge. But as the fulfilment of every wish
proves to be more or less a delusion, so is also the wish for revenge.
The expected enjoyment is mostly embittered by pity; nay, gratified
revenge will often lacerate the heart and torment the mind, for the
motive which prompts the feeling of it is no longer active, and what is
left is the testimony of our wickedness.
* * * * *
The pain of an ungratified desire is small compared with that of
repentance; for the former has to face the immeasurable, open future;
the latter the past, which is closed irrevocably.
* * * * *
Money is human happiness _in abstracto_; so that a man who is no longer
capable of enjoying it _in concrete_ gives up his whole heart to it.
* * * * *
Moroseness and melancholy are very opposite in nature; and melancholy is
more nearly related to happiness than to moroseness. Melancholy
attracts; moroseness repels. Hypochondria not only makes us unreasonably
cross and angry over things concerning the present; not only fills us
with groundless fears of imaginative mishaps for the future; but also
causes us to unjustly reproach ourselves concerning our actions in the
past.
Hypochondria causes a man to be always searching for and racking his
brain about things that either irritate or torment him. The cause of it
is an internal morbid depression, combined often with an inward
restlessness which is temperamental; when both are developed to their
utmost, suicide is the result.
* * * * *
What makes a man hard-hearted is this, that each man has, or fancies he
has, sufficient in his own troubles to bear. This is why people placed
in happier circumstances than they have been used to are sympathetic and
charitable. But people who have always been placed in happy
circumstances are often the reverse; they have become so estranged to
suffering that they have no longer any sympathy with it; and hence it
happens that the poor sometimes show themselves more benevolent than the
rich.
On the other hand, what makes a man so very _curious_, as may be seen in
the way he will spy into other people's affairs, is boredom, a condition
which is diametrically opposed to suffering;--though envy also often
helps in creating curiosity.
* * * * *
At times, it seems as though we wish for something, and at the same time
do not wish for it, so that we are at once both pleased and troubled
about it. For instance, if we have to undergo some decisive test in some
affair or other, in which to come off victorious is of great importance
to us; we both wish that the time to be tested were here, and yet dread
the idea of its coming. If it happens that the time, for once in a way,
is postponed, we are both pleased and sorry, for although the
postponement was unexpected, it, however, gives us momentary relief. We
have the same kind of feeling when we expect an important letter
containing some decision of moment, and it fails to come.
In cases like these we are really controlled by two different motives;
the stronger but more remote being the desire to stand the test, and to
have the decision given in our favour; the weaker, which is closer at
hand, the desire to be left in peace and undisturbed for the present,
and consequently in further enjoyment of the advantage that hoping on in
uncertainty has over what might possibly be an unhappy issue.
Consequently, in this case the same happens to our moral vision as to
our physical, when a smaller object near at hand conceals from view a
bigger object some distance away.
* * * * *
The course and affairs of our individual life, in view of their true
meaning and connection, are like a piece of crude work in mosaic. So
long as one stands close in front of it, one cannot correctly see the
objects presented, or perceive their importance and beauty; it is only
by standing some distance away that both come into view. And in the same
way one often understands the true connection of important events in
one's own life, not while they are happening, or even immediately after
they have happened, but only a long time afterwards.
Is this so, because we require the magnifying power of imagination, or
because a general view can only be got by looking from a distance? or
because one's emotions would otherwise carry one away? or because it is
only the school of experience that ripens our judgment? Perhaps all
these combined. But it is certain that it is only after many years that
we see the actions of others, and sometimes even our own, in their true
light. And as it is in one's own life, so it is in history.
* * * * *
Why is it, in spite of all the mirrors in existence, no man really knows
what he looks like, and, therefore, cannot picture in his mind his own
person as he pictures that of an acquaintance? This is a difficulty
which is thwarted at the very outset by _gnothi sauton--know thyself_.
This is undoubtedly partly due to the fact that a man can only see
himself in the glass by looking straight towards it and remaining quite
still; whereby the play of the eye, which is so important, and the real
characteristic of the face is, to a great extent, lost. But co-operating
with this physical impossibility, there appears to be an ethical
impossibility analogous to it. A man cannot regard the reflection of his
own face in the glass as if it were the face of _some one else_--which
is the condition of his seeing himself _objectively_. This objective
view rests with a profound feeling on the egoist's part, as a moral
being, that what he is looking at is _not himself_; which is requisite
for his perceiving all his defects as they really are from a purely
objective point of view; and not until, then can he see his face
reflected as it really and truly is. Instead of that, when a man sees
his own person in the glass the egoistic side of him always whispers,
_It is not somebody else, but I myself_, which has the effect of a _noli
me tangere_, and prevents his taking a purely objective view. Without
the leaven of a grain of malice, it does not seem possible to look at
oneself objectively.
* * * * *
No one knows what capacities he possesses for suffering and doing until
an opportunity occurs to bring them into play; any more than he imagines
when looking into a perfectly smooth pond with a mirror-like surface,
that it can tumble and toss and rush from rock to rock, or leap as high
into the air as a fountain;--any more than in ice-cold water he suspects
latent warmth.
* * * * *
That line of Ovid's,
"_Pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram_,"
is only applicable in its true physical sense to animals; but in a
figurative and spiritual sense, unfortunately, to the great majority of
men too. Their thoughts and aspirations are entirely devoted to physical
enjoyment and physical welfare, or to various personal interests which
receive their importance from their relation to the former; but they
have no interests beyond these. This is not only shown in their way of
living and speaking, but also in their look, the expression of their
physiognomy, their gait and gesticulations; everything about them
proclaims _in terram prona!_ Consequently it is not to them, but only to
those nobler and more highly endowed natures, those men who really think
and observe things round them, and are the exceptions in the human race,
that the following lines are applicable:
"_Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tueri
Jussitt et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus_."
* * * * *
Why is "_common_" an expression of contempt? And why are _"uncommon,"
"extraordinary," "distinguished,"_ expressions of approbation? Why is
everything that is common contemptible?
_Common_, in its original sense, means that which is peculiar and common
to the whole species, that is to say that which is innate in the
species. Accordingly, a man who has no more qualities than those of the
human species in general is a "_common man_" "Ordinary man" is a much
milder expression, and is used more in reference to what is
intellectual, while _common_ is used more in a moral sense.
What value can a being have that is nothing more than like millions of
its kind? Millions? Nay, an infinitude, an endless number of beings,
which Nature in _secula seculorum_ unceasingly sends bubbling forth from
her inexhaustible source; as generous with them as the smith with the
dross that flies round his anvil.
So it is evidently only right that a being which has no other qualities
than those of the species, should make no claim to any other existence
than that confined to and conditioned by the species.
I have already several times explained[14] that whilst animals have only
the generic character, it falls to man's share alone to have an
individual character. Nevertheless, in most men there is in reality very
little individual character; and they may be almost all classified. _Ce
sont des espèces_. Their desires and thoughts, like their faces, are
those of the whole species--at any rate, those of the class of men to
which they belong, and they are therefore of a trivial, common nature,
and exist in thousands. Moreover, as a rule one can tell pretty exactly
beforehand what they will say and do. They have no individual stamp:
they are like manufactured goods. If, then, their nature is absorbed in
that of the species, must not their existence be too? The curse of
vulgarity reduces man to the level of animals, for his nature and
existence are merged in that of the species only. It is taken for
granted that anything that is high, great, or noble by its very nature
stands isolated in a world where no better expression can be found to
signify what is base and paltry than the term which I have mentioned as
being generally used--namely, _common_.
* * * * *
According as our intellectual energy is strained or relaxed will life
appear to us either so short, petty, and fleeting, that nothing can
happen of sufficient importance to affect our feelings; nothing is of
any importance to us--be it pleasure, riches, or even fame, and however
much we may have failed, we cannot have lost much; or _vice versâ,_ life
will appear so long, so important, so all in all, so grave, and so
difficult that we throw ourselves into it with our whole soul, so that
we may get a share of its possessions, make ourselves sure of its
prizes, and carry out our plans. The latter is the immanent view of
life; it is what Gracian means by his expression, _tomar muy de veras el
vivir_ (life is to be taken seriously); while for the former, the
transcendental view, Ovid's _non est tanti_ is a good expression;
Plato's a still better, οὔτε τι των ἀνθρωπινων ἀξιον ἑστι, μεγαλης
σπουδης (_nihil, in rebus humanis, magno studio dignum est_).
The former state of mind is the result of the intellect having gained
ascendency over consciousness, where, freed from the mere service of the
will, it grasps the phenomena of life objectively, and so cannot fail to
see clearly the emptiness and futility of it. On the other hand, it is
the _will_ that rules in the other condition of mind, and it is only
there to lighten the way to the object of its desires. A man is great or
small according to the predominance of one or the other of these views
of life.
* * * * *
It is quite certain that many a man owes his life's happiness solely to
the circumstance that he possesses a pleasant smile, and so wins the
hearts of others. However, these hearts would do better to take care to
remember what Hamlet put down in his tablets--_that one may smile, and
smile, and be a villain_.
* * * * *
People of great and brilliant capacities think little of admitting or
exposing their faults and weaknesses. They regard them as something for
which they have paid, and even are of the opinion that these weaknesses,
instead of being a disgrace to them, do them honour. This is especially
the case when they are errors that are inseparable from their brilliant
capacities--_conditiones sine quibus non_, or, as George Sand expressed
it, _chacun a les défauts de ses vertus_.
On the contrary, there are people of good character and irreproachable
minds, who, rather than admit their few little weaknesses, carefully
conceal them, and are very sensitive if any reference is made to them;
and this just because their whole merit consists in the absence of
errors and defects; and hence when these errors come to light they are
immediately held in less esteem.
* * * * *
Modesty, in people of moderate ability, is merely honesty, but in people
of great talent it is hypocrisy. Hence it is just as becoming in the
latter to openly admit the regard they have for themselves, and not to
conceal the fact that they are conscious of possessing exceptional
capabilities, as it is in the former to be modest. Valerius Maximus
gives some very good examples of this in his chapter _de fiducia sui_.
* * * * *
Man even surpasses all the lower order of animals in his capacity for
being trained. Mohammedans are trained to pray five times a day with
their faces turned towards Mecca; and they do it regularly. Christians
are trained to make the sign of the Cross on certain occasions, and to
bow, and so forth; so that religion on the whole is a real masterpiece
of training--that is to say, it trains people what they are to think;
and the training, as is well known, cannot begin too early. There is no
absurdity, however palpable it may be, which may not be fixed in the
minds of all men, if it is inculcated before they are six years old by
continual and earnest repetition. For it is the same with men as with
animals, to train them with perfect success one must begin when they are
very young.
Noblemen are trained to regard nothing more sacred than their word of
honour, to believe earnestly, rigidly, and firmly in the inane code of
knight-errantry, and if necessary to seal their belief by death, and to
look upon a king as a being of a higher order. Politeness and
compliments, and particularly our courteous attitude towards ladies, are
the result of training; and so is our esteem for birth, position, and
title. And so is our displeasure at certain expressions directed against
us, our displeasure being proportionate to the expression used. The
Englishman has been trained to consider his being called no gentleman a
crime worthy of death--a liar, a still greater crime; and so, the
Frenchman, if he is called a coward; a German, if he is called a stupid.
Many people are trained to be honest in some particular direction,
whilst in everything else they exhibit very little honesty; so that many
a man will not steal money, but he will steal everything that will
afford him enjoyment in an indirect way. Many a shopkeeper will deceive
without scruple, but he will on no condition whatever steal.
* * * * *
The doctor sees mankind in all its weakness; the lawyer in all its
wickedness; the theologian in all its stupidity.
* * * * *
_Opinion_ obeys the same law as the swing of the pendulum: if it goes
beyond the centre of gravity on one side, it must go as far beyond on
the other. It is only after a time that it finds the true point of rest
and remains stationary.
* * * * *
Distance in space decreases the size of things, for it contracts them
and so makes their defects and deficiencies disappear. This is why
everything looks so much finer in a contracting mirror or in a _camera
obscura_ than it is in reality; and the past is affected in the same way
in the course of time. The scenes and events that happened long ago, as
well as the persons who took part in them, become a delight to the
memory, which ignores everything that is immaterial and disagreeable.
The present possesses no such advantage; it always seems to be
defective. And in space, small objects near at hand appear to be big,
and if they are very near, they cover the whole of our field of vision;
but as soon as we stand some little distance away they become minute and
finally invisible. And so it is with time: the little affairs and
misfortunes of everyday life excite in us emotion, anxiety, vexation,
passion, for so long as they are quite near us, they appear big,
important, and considerable; but as soon as the inexhaustible stream of
time has carried them into the distance they become unimportant; they
are not worth remembering and are soon forgotten, because their
importance merely consisted in being near.
* * * * *
It is only now and then that a man learns something; but he forgets the
whole day long.
Our memory is like a sieve, that with time and use holds less and less;
in so far, namely, as the older we get, the quicker anything we have
entrusted to our memory slips through it, while anything that was fixed
firmly in it, when we were young, remains. This is why an old man's
recollections are the clearer the further they go back, and the less
clear the nearer they approach the present; so that his memory, like his
eyes, becomes long-sighted (πρεσβυς).
That sometimes, and apparently without any reason, long-forgotten scenes
suddenly come into the memory, is, in many cases, due to the recurrence
of a scarcely perceptible odour, of which we were conscious when those
scenes actually took place; for it is well known that odours more easily
than anything else awaken memories, and that, in general, something of
an extremely trifling nature is all that is necessary to call up a
_nexus idearum_.
And by the way, I may say that the sense of sight has to do with the
understanding,[15] the sense of hearing with reason,[16] and the sense
of smell with memory, as we see in the present case. Touch and taste are
something real, and dependent on contact; they have no ideal side.
* * * * *