accent_--is an old rule with those who are wise in the world's ways.
It means that you should leave other people to discover what it is
that you have said; and as their minds are slow, you can make your
escape in time. On the other hand, to emphasize your meaning--_parler
avec accent_--is to address their feelings; and the result is always
the opposite of what you expect. If you are polite enough in your
manner and courteous in your tone there are many people whom you may
abuse outright, and yet run no immediate risk of offending them.
CHAPTER IV,
WORLDLY FORTUNE.--SECTION 47.
However varied the forms that human destiny may take, the same
elements are always present; and so life is everywhere much of a
piece, whether it passed in the cottage or in the palace, in the
barrack or in the cloister. Alter the circumstance as much as you
please! point to strange adventures, successes, failures! life is like
a sweet-shop, where there is a great variety of things, odd in shape
and diverse in color--one and all made from the same paste. And when
men speak of some one's success, the lot of the man who has failed is
not so very different as it seems. The inequalities in the world are
like the combinations in a kaleidoscope; at every turn a fresh picture
strikes the eye; and yet, in reality, you see only the same bits of
glass as you saw before.
SECTION 48. An ancient writer says, very truly, that there are three
great powers in the world; _Sagacity, Strength_, and _Luck_,--[Greek:
sunetos, kratos, tuchu.] I think the last is the most efficacious.
A man's life is like the voyage of a ship, where luck--_secunda aut
adversa fortuna_--acts the part of the wind, and speeds the vessel on
its way or drives it far out of its course. All that the man can do
for himself is of little avail; like the rudder, which, if worked hard
and continuously, may help in the navigation of the ship; and yet all
may be lost again by a sudden squall. But if the wind is only in the
right quarter, the ship will sail on so as not to need any steering.
The power of luck is nowhere better expressed than in a certain
Spanish proverb: _Da Ventura a tu hijo, y echa lo en el mar_--give
your son luck and throw him into the sea.
Still, chance, it may be said, is a malignant power, and as little
as possible should be left to its agency. And yet where is there any
giver who, in dispensing gifts, tells us quite clearly that we have no
right to them, and that we owe them not to any merit on our part,
but wholly to the goodness and grace of the giver--at the same time
allowing us to cherish the joyful hope of receiving, in all humility,
further undeserved gifts from the same hands--where is there any giver
like that, unless it be _Chance_? who understands the kingly art of
showing the recipient that all merit is powerless and unavailing
against the royal grace and favor.
On looking back over the course of his life,--that _labyrinthine way
of error_,--a man must see many points where luck failed him and
misfortune came; and then it is easy to carry self-reproach to an
unjust excess. For the course of a man's life is in no wise entirely
of his own making; it is the product of two factors--the series of
things that happened, and his own resolves in regard to them, and
these two are constantly interacting upon and modifying each other.
And besides these, another influence is at work in the very limited
extent of a man's horizon, whether it is that he cannot see very far
ahead in respect of the plans he will adopt, or that he is still less
able to predict the course of future events: his knowledge is strictly
confined to present plans and present events. Hence, as long as a
man's goal is far off, he cannot steer straight for it; he must be
content to make a course that is approximately right; and in following
the direction in which he thinks he ought to go, he will often have
occasion to tack.
All that a man can do is to form such resolves as from time to time
accord with the circumstances in which he is placed, in the hope of
thus managing to advance a step nearer towards the final goal. It is
usually the case that the position in which we stand, and the object
at which we aim, resemble two tendencies working with dissimilar
strength in different directions; and the course of our life is
represented by their diagonal, or resultant force.
Terence makes the remark that life is like a game at dice, where if
the number that turns up is not precisely the one you want, you can
still contrive to use it equally:--_in vita est hominum quasi cum
ludas tesseris; si illud quod maxime opus est jactu non cadit, illud
quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas_.[1] Or, to put the matter
more shortly, life is a game of cards, when the cards are shuffled and
dealt by fate. But for my present purpose, the most suitable simile
would be that of a game of chess, where the plan we determined to
follow is conditioned by the play of our rival,--in life, by the
caprice of fate. We are compelled to modify our tactics, often to such
an extent that, as we carry them out, hardly a single feature of the
original plan can be recognized.
[Footnote 1: He seems to have been referring to a game something like
backgammon.]
But above and beyond all this, there is another influence that makes
itself felt in our lives. It is a trite saying--only too frequently
true--that we are often more foolish than we think. On the other hand,
we are often wiser than we fancy ourselves to be. This, however, is a
discovery which only those can make, of whom it is really true; and it
takes them a long time to make it. Our brains are not the wisest
part of us. In the great moments of life, when a man decides upon
an important step, his action is directed not so much by any clear
knowledge of the right thing to do, as by an inner impulse--you may
almost call it an instinct--proceeding from the deepest foundations of
his being. If, later on, he attempts to criticise his action by the
light of hard and fast ideas of what is right in the abstract--those
unprofitable ideas which are learnt by rote, or, it may be, borrowed
from other people; if he begins to apply general rules, the principles
which have guided others, to his own case, without sufficiently
weighing the maxim that one man's meat is another's poison, then he
will run great risk of doing himself an injustice. The result will
show where the right course lay. It is only when a man has reached
the happy age of wisdom that he is capable of just judgment in regard
either to his own actions or to those of others.
It may be that this impulse or instinct is the unconscious effect of a
kind of prophetic dream which is forgotten when we awake--lending
our life a uniformity of tone, a dramatic unity, such as could never
result from the unstable moments of consciousness, when we are so
easily led into error, so liable to strike a false note. It is in
virtue of some such prophetic dream that a man feels himself called to
great achievements in a special sphere, and works in that direction
from his youth up out of an inner and secret feeling that that is his
true path, just as by a similar instinct the bee is led to build up
its cells in the comb. This is the impulse which Balthazar Gracian
calls _la gran sindéresis_[1]--the great power of moral discernment:
it is something that a man instinctively feels to be his salvation
without which he were lost.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--This obscure word appears to be
derived from the Greek _sugtaereo_ (N.T. and Polyb.) meaning "to
observe strictly." It occurs in _The Doctor and Student_, a series of
dialogues between a doctor of divinity and a student on the laws of
England, first published in 1518; and is there (Dialog. I. ch. 13)
explained as "a natural power of the soule, set in the highest part
thereof, moving and stirring it to good, and abhoring evil." This
passage is copied into Milton's Commonplace Book, edit. _Horwood_, §
79. The word is also found in the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy
(vol. vi. of the year 1739) in the sense of an innate discernment
of moral principles, where a quotation is given from Madre Maria de
Jesus, abbess of the convent of the Conception at Agreda, a mystical
writer of the seventeenth century, frequently consulted by Philip
IV.,--and again in the Bolognese Dictionary of 1824, with a similar
meaning, illustrated from the writings of Salvini (1653-1729). For
these references I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Norman Maccoll.]
To act in accordance with abstract principles is a difficult matter,
and a great deal of practice will be required before you can be even
occasionally successful; it of tens happens that the principles do not
fit in with your particular case. But every man has certain innate
_concrete principles_--a part, as it were, of the very blood that
flows in his veins, the sum or result, in fact, of all his thoughts,
feelings and volitions. Usually he has no knowledge of them in any
abstract form; it is only when he looks back upon the course his life
has taken, that he becomes aware of having been always led on by
them--as though they formed an invisible clue which he had followed
unawares.
SECTION 49. That Time works great changes, and that all things are
in their nature fleeting--these are truths that should never be
forgotten. Hence, in whatever case you may be, it is well to picture
to yourself the opposite: in prosperity, to be mindful of misfortune;
in friendship, of enmity; in good weather, of days when the sky is
overcast; in love, of hatred; in moments of trust, to imagine the
betrayal that will make you regret your confidence; and so, too, when
you are in evil plight, to have a lively sense of happier times--what
a lasting source of true worldly wisdom were there! We should then
always reflect, and not be so very easily deceived; because, in
general, we should anticipate the very changes that the years will
bring.
Perhaps in no form of knowledge is personal experience so
indispensable as in learning to see that all things are unstable and
transitory in this world. There is nothing that, in its own place and
for the time it lasts, is not a product of necessity, and therefore
capable of being fully justified; and it is this fact that makes
circumstances of every year, every month, even of every day, seem as
though they might maintain their right to last to all eternity. But we
know that this can never be the case, and that in a world where all is
fleeting, change alone endures. He is a prudent man who is not only
undeceived by apparent stability, but is able to forecast the lines
upon which movement will take place.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Chance_ plays so great a part in all human affairs that
when a man tries to ward off a remote danger by present sacrifice, the
danger often vanishes under some new and unforeseen development of
events; and then the sacrifice, in addition to being a complete loss,
brings about such an altered state of things as to be in itself a
source of positive danger in the face of this new development. In
taking measures of precaution, then, it is well not to look too far
ahead, but to reckon with chance; and often to oppose a courageous
front to a danger, in the hope that, like many a dark thunder-cloud,
it may pass away without breaking.]
But people generally think that present circumstances will last, and
that matters will go on in the future as they have clone in the past.
Their mistakes arises from the fact that they do not understand the
cause of the things they see--causes which, unlike the effects they
produce, contain in themselves the germ of future change. The
effects are all that people know, and they hold fast to them on the
supposition that those unknown causes, which were sufficient to bring
them about, will also be able to maintain them as they are. This is a
very common error; and the fact that it is common is not without its
advantage, for it means that people always err in unison; and hence
the calamity which results from the error affects all alike, and is
therefore easy to bear; whereas, if a philosopher makes a mistake, he
is alone in his error, and so at a double disadvantage.[1]
[Footnote 1: I may remark, parenthetically, that all this is a
confirmation of the principle laid down in _Die Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung_ (Bk. I. p. 94: 4th edit.), that error always consists in
making _a wrong inference_, that is, in ascribing a given effect to
something that did not cause it.]
But in saying that we should anticipate the effects of time, I mean
that we should mentally forecast what they are likely to be; I do
not mean that we should practically forestall them, by demanding the
immediate performance of promises which time alone can fulfill. The
man who makes his demand will find out that there is no worse or more
exacting usurer than Time; and that, if you compel Time to give money
in advance, you will have to pay a rate of interest more ruinous than
any Jew would require. It is possible, for instance, to make a tree
burst forth into leaf, blossom, or even bear fruit within a few days,
by the application of unslaked lime and artificial heat; but after
that the tree will wither away. So a young man may abuse his
strength--it may be only for a few weeks--by trying to do at nineteen
what he could easily manage at thirty, and Time may give him the loan
for which he asks; but the interest he will have to pay comes out of
the strength of his later years; nay, it is part of his very life
itself.
There are some kinds of illness in which entire restoration to health
is possible only by letting the complaint run its natural course;
after which it disappears without leaving any trace of its existence.
But if the sufferer is very impatient, and, while he is still
affected, insists that he is completely well, in this case, too,
Time will grant the loan, and the complaint may be shaken off; but
life-long weakness and chronic mischief will be the interest paid upon
it.
Again, in time of war or general disturbance, a man may require ready
money at once, and have to sell out his investments in land or consols
for a third or even a still smaller fraction of the sum he would have
received from them, if he could have waited for the market to right
itself, which would have happened in due course; but he compels Time
to grant him a loan, and his loss is the interest he has to pay. Or
perhaps he wants to go on a long journey and requires the money: in
one or two years he could lay by a sufficient sum out of his income,
but he cannot afford to wait; and so he either borrows it or deducts
it from his capital; in other words, he gets Time to lend him the
money in advance. The interest he pays is a disordered state of his
accounts, and permanent and increasing deficits, which he can never
make good.
Such is Time's usury; and all who cannot wait are its victims. There
is no more thriftless proceeding than to try and mend the measured
pace of Time. Be careful, then, not to become its debtor.
SECTION 50. In the daily affairs of life, you will have very many
opportunities of recognizing a characteristic difference between
ordinary people of prudence and discretion. In estimating the
possibility of danger in connection with any undertaking, an ordinary
man will confine his inquiries to the kind of risk that has already
attended such undertakings in the past; whereas a prudent person will
look ahead, and consider everything that might possibly happen in the
future, having regard to a certain Spanish maxim: _lo que no acaece en
un ano, acaece en un rato_--a thing may not happen in a year, and yet
may happen within two minutes.
The difference in question is, of course, quite natural; for it
requires some amount of discernment to calculate possibilities; but
a man need only have his senses about him to see what has already
happened.
Do not omit to sacrifice to evil spirits. What I mean is, that a man
should not hesitate about spending time, trouble, and money, or giving
up his comfort, or restricting his aims and denying himself, if he
can thereby shut the door on the possibility of misfortune. The most
terrible misfortunes are also the most improbable and remote--the
least likely to occur. The rule I am giving is best exemplified in
the practice of insurance,--a public sacrifice made on the altar of
anxiety. Therefore take out your policy of insurance!
SECTION 51. Whatever fate befalls you, do not give way to great
rejoicings or great lamentations; partly because all things are full
of change, and your fortune may turn at any moment; partly because men
are so apt to be deceived in their judgment as to what is good or bad
for them.
Almost every one in his turn has lamented over something which
afterwards turned out to be the very best thing for him that could
have happened--or rejoiced at an event which became the source of his
greatest sufferings. The right state of mind has been finely portrayed
by Shakespeare:
_I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief That the first face of
neither, on the start, Can woman me unto't_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _All's Well that Ends Well, Act. ii. Sc. 2_.]
And, in general, it may be said that, if a man takes misfortunes
quietly, it is because he knows that very many dreadful things may
happen in the course of life; and so he looks upon the trouble of the
moment as only a very small part of that which might come. This is
the Stoic temper--never to be unmindful of the sad fate of
humanity--_condicionis humanoe oblitus_; but always to remember that
our existence is full of woe and misery: and that the ills to which we
are exposed are innumerable. Wherever he be, a man need only cast a
look around, to revive the sense of human misery: there before his
eyes he can see mankind struggling and floundering in torment,--all
for the sake of a wretched existence, barren and unprofitable!
If he remembers this, a man will not expect very much from life, but
learn to accommodate himself to a world where all is relative and no
perfect state exists;--always looking misfortune in the face, and if
he cannot avoid it, meeting it with courage.
It should never be forgotten that misfortune, be it great or small, is
the element in which we live. But that is no reason why a man should
indulge in fretful complaints, and, like Beresford,[1] pull a long
face over the _Miseries of Human Life_,--and not a single hour is free
from them; or still less, call upon the Deity at every flea-bite--_in
pulicis morsu Deum invocare_. Our aim should be to look well about us,
to ward off misfortune by going to meet it, to attain such perfection
and refinement in averting the disagreeable things of life,--whether
they come from our fellow-men or from the physical world,--that, like
a clever fox, we may slip out of the way of every mishap, great or
small; remembering that a mishap is generally only our own awkwardness
in disguise.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Rev. James Beresford (1764-1840),
miscellaneous writer. The full title of this, his chief work, is "The
Miseries of Human Life; or the last groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel
Sensitive, with a few supplementary sighs from Mrs. Testy."]
The main reason why misfortune falls less heavily upon us, if we have
looked upon its occurrence as not impossible, and, as the saying is,
prepared ourselves for it, may be this: if, before this misfortune
comes, we have quietly thought over it as something which may or may
not happen, the whole of its extent and range is known to us, and we
can, at least, determine how far it will affect us; so that, if it
really arrives, it does not depress us unduly--its weight is not felt
to be greater than it actually is. But if no preparation has been
made to meet it, and it comes unexpectedly, the mind is in a state of
terror for the moment and unable to measure the full extent of the
calamity; it seems so far-reaching in its effects that the victim
might well think there was no limit to them; in any case, its range is
exaggerated. In the same way, darkness and uncertainty always increase
the sense of danger. And, of course, if we have thought over the
possibility of misfortune, we have also at the same time considered
the sources to which we shall look for help and consolation; or, at
any rate, we have accustomed ourselves to the idea of it.
There is nothing that better fits us to endure the misfortunes of
life with composure, than to know for certain that _everything
that happens--from the smallest up to the greatest facts of
existence--happens of necessity._[1] A man soon accommodates himself
to the inevitable--to something that must be; and if he knows that
nothing can happen except of necessity, he will see that things cannot
be other that they are, and that even the strangest chances in the
world are just as much a product of necessity as phenomena which obey
well-known rules and turn out exactly in accordance with expectation.
Let me here refer to what I have said elsewhere on the soothing effect
of the knowledge that all things are inevitable and a product of
necessity.[2]
[Footnote 1: This is a truth which I have firmly established in my
prize-essay on the _Freedom of the Will_, where the reader will find a
detailed explanation of the grounds on which it rests. Cf. especially
p. 60. [Schopenhauer's Works, 4th Edit., vol. iv.--_Tr_.]]
[Footnote 2: Cf. _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, Bk. I. p. 361 (4th
edit.).]
If a man is steeped in the knowledge of this truth, he will, first of
all, do what he can, and then readily endure what he must.
We may regard the petty vexations of life that are constantly
happening, as designed to keep us in practice for bearing great
misfortunes, so that we may not become completely enervated by a
career of prosperity. A man should be as Siegfried, armed _cap-à-pie_,
towards the small troubles of every day--those little differences we
have with our fellow-men, insignificant disputes, unbecoming conduct
in other people, petty gossip, and many other similar annoyances of
life; he should not feel them at all, much less take them to heart and
brood over them, but hold them at arm's length and push them out of
his way, like stones that lie in the road, and upon no account think
about them and give them a place in his reflections.
SECTION 52. What people commonly call _Fate_ is, as a general rule,
nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct. There is a fine
passage in Homer,[1] illustrating the truth of this remark, where
the poet praises [GREEK: maetis]--shrewd council; and his advice
is worthy of all attention. For if wickedness is atoned for only in
another world, stupidity gets its reward here--although, now and then,
mercy may be shown to the offender.
[Footnote 1: _Iliad_, xxiii. 313, sqq.]
It is not ferocity but cunning that strikes fear into the heart
and forebodes danger; so true it is that the human brain is a more
terrible weapon than the lion's paw.
The most finished man of the world would be one who was never
irresolute and never in a hurry.
SECTION 53. _Courage_ comes next to prudence as a quality of mind very
essential to happiness. It is quite true that no one can endow himself
with either, since a man inherits prudence from his mother and courage
from his father; still, if he has these qualities, he can do much to
develop them by means of resolute exercise.
In this world, _where the game is played with loaded dice_, a man must
have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and
weapons to make his way against men. Life is one long battle; we have
to fight at every step; and Voltaire very rightly says that if we
succeed, it is at the point of the sword, and that we die with the
weapon in our hand--on _ne réussit dans ce monde qua la pointe de
l'épee, et on meurt les armes à la main_. It is a cowardly soul that
shrinks or grows faint and despondent as soon as the storm begins to
gather, or even when the first cloud appears on the horizon. Our motto
should be _No Surrender_; and far from yielding to the ills of life,
let us take fresh courage from misfortune:--
_Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Virgil, _Aeneid_, vi. 95.]
As long as the issue of any matter fraught with peril is still in
doubt, and there is yet some possibility left that all may come right,
no one should ever tremble or think of anything but resistance,--just
as a man should not despair of the weather if he can see a bit of blue
sky anywhere. Let our attitude be such that we should not quake even
if the world fell in ruins about us:--
_Si fractus illabatur orbis
Impavidum ferient ruinae_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Horace, Odes iii. 3.]
Our whole life itself--let alone its blessings--would not be worth
such a cowardly trembling and shrinking of the heart. Therefore, let
us face life courageously and show a firm front to every ill:--
_Quocirca vivite fortes Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus_.
Still, it is possible for courage to be carried to an excess and to
degenerate into rashness. It may even be said that some amount of fear
is necessary, if we are to exist at all in the world, and cowardice
is only the exaggerated form of it. This truth has been very well
expressed by Bacon, in his account of _Terror Panicus_; and the
etymological account which he gives of its meaning, is very superior
to the ancient explanation preserved for us by Plutarch.[1] He
connects the expression with _Pan_ the personification of Nature;[2]
and observes that fear is innate in every living thing, and, in fact,
tends to its preservation, but that it is apt to come into play
without due cause, and that man is especially exposed to it. The chief
feature of this _Panie Terror_ is that there is no clear notion of any
definite danger bound up with it; that it presumes rather than knows
that danger exists; and that, in case of need, it pleads fright itself
as the reason for being afraid.
[Footnote 1: _De Iside et Osiride_ ch. 14.]
[Footnote 2: _De Sapientia Veterum_, C. 6. _Natura enim rerum omnibus
viventibus indidit mentum ac formidinem, vitae atque essentiae suae
conservatricem, ac mala ingruentia vitantem et depellentem. Verumtamen
eaden natura modum tenere nescia est: sed timoribus salutaribus semper
vanos et innanes admiscet; adeo ut omnia (si intus conspici darentur)
Panicis terroribus plenissima sint praesertim humana_.]
CHAPTER V.
THE AGES OF LIFE.
There is a very fine saying of Voltaire's to the effect that every age
of life has its own peculiar mental character, and that a man will
feel completely unhappy if his mind is not in accordance with his
years:--
_Qui n'a pas l'esprit de son âge,
De son âge atout le malheur_.
It will, therefore, be a fitting close to our speculations upon the
nature of happiness, if we glance at the chances which the various
periods of life produce in us.
Our whole life long it is _the present_, and the present alone, that
we actually possess: the only difference is that at the beginning of
life we look forward to a long future, and that towards the end we
look back upon a long past; also that our temperament, but not our
character, undergoes certain well-known changes, which make _the
present_ wear a different color at each period of life.
I have elsewhere stated that in childhood we are more given to using
our _intellect_ than our _will_; and I have explained why this is
so.[1] It is just for this reason that the first quarter of life is so
happy: as we look back upon it in after years, it seems a sort of lost
paradise. In childhood our relations with others are limited, our
wants are few,--in a word, there is little stimulus for the will;
and so our chief concern is the extension of our knowledge. The
intellect--like the brain, which attains its full size in the seventh
year,[2] is developed early, though it takes time to mature; and it
explores the whole world of its surroundings in its constant search
for nutriment: it is then that existence is in itself an ever fresh
delight, and all things sparkle with the charm of novelty.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Schopenhauer refers to _Die Welt
als Wille und Vorstellung_, Bk. II. c, 31, p. 451 (4th edit.), where
he explains that this is due to the fact that at that period of life
the brain and nervous system are much more developed than any other
part of the organism.]
[Footnote 2: _Translator's Note_.--This statement is not quite
correct. The weight of the brain increases rapidly up to the seventh
year, more slowly between the sixteenth and the twentieth year, still
more slowly till between thirty and forty years of age, when it
attains its maximum. At each decennial period after this, it is
supposed to decrease in weight on the average, an ounce for every ten
years.]
This is why the years of childhood are like a long poem. For the
function of poetry, as of all art, is to grasp the _Idea_--in the
Platonic sense; in other words, to apprehend a particular object in
such a way as to perceive its essential nature, the characteristics
it has in common with all other objects of the same kind; so that
a single object appears as the representative of a class, and the
results of one experience hold good for a thousand.
It may be thought that my remarks are opposed to fact, and that the
child is never occupied with anything beyond the individual objects or
events which are presented to it from time to time, and then only in
so far as they interest and excite its will for the moment; but this
is not really the case. In those early years, life--in the full
meaning of the word, is something so new and fresh, and its sensations
are so keen and unblunted by repetition, that, in the midst of all its
pursuits and without any clear consciousness of what it is doing,
the child is always silently occupied in grasping the nature of life
itself,--in arriving at its fundamental character and general outline
by means of separate scenes and experiences; or, to use Spinoza's
phraseology, the child is learning to see the things and persons
about it _sub specie aeternitatis_,--as particular manifestations of
universal law.
The younger we are, then, the more does every individual object
represent for us the whole class to which it belongs; but as the years
increase, this becomes less and less the case. That is the reason why
youthful impressions are so different from those of old age. And that
it also why the slight knowledge and experience gained in childhood
and youth afterwards come to stand as the permanent rubric, or
heading, for all the knowledge acquired in later life,--those early
forms of knowledge passing into categories, as it were, under which
the results of subsequent experience are classified; though a clear
consciousness of what is being done, does not always attend upon the
process.
In this way the earliest years of a man's life lay the foundation of
his view of the world, whether it be shallow or deep; and although
this view may be extended and perfected later on, it is not materially
altered. It is an effect of this purely objective and therefore
poetical view of the world,--essential to the period of childhood
and promoted by the as yet undeveloped state of the volitional
energy--that, as children, we are concerned much more with the
acquisition of pure knowledge than with exercising the power of will.
Hence that grave, fixed look observable in so many children, of which
Raphael makes such a happy use in his depiction of cherubs, especially
in the picture of the _Sistine Madonna_. The years of childhood are
thus rendered so full of bliss that the memory of them is always
coupled with longing and regret.
While we thus eagerly apply ourselves to learning the outward aspect
of things, as the primitive method of understanding the objects about
us, education aims at instilling into us _ideas_. But ideas furnish no
information as to the real and essential nature of objects, which, as
the foundation and true content of all knowledge, can be reached only
by the process called _intuition_. This is a kind of knowledge which
can in no wise be instilled into us from without; we must arrive at it
by and for ourselves.
Hence a man's intellectual as well as his moral qualities proceed
from the depths of his own nature, and are not the result of external
influences; and no educational scheme--of Pestalozzi, or of any one
else--can turn a born simpleton into a man of sense. The thing is
impossible! He was born a simpleton, and a simpleton he will die.
It is the depth and intensity of this early intuitive knowledge of the
external world that explain why the experiences of childhood take such
a firm hold on the memory. When we were young, we were completely
absorbed in our immediate surroundings; there was nothing to distract
our attention from them; we looked upon the objects about us as though
they were the only ones of their kind, as though, indeed, nothing else
existed at all. Later on, when we come to find out how many things
there are in the world, this primitive state of mind vanishes, and
with it our patience.
I have said elsewhere[1] that the world, considered as _object_,--in
other words, as it is _presented_ to us objectively,--wears in
general a pleasing aspect; but that in the world, considered as
_subject_,--that is, in regard to its inner nature, which is
_will_,--pain and trouble predominate. I may be allowed to express the
matter, briefly, thus: _the world is glorious to look at, but dreadful
in reality_.
[Footnote 1: _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, Bk. II. c. 31, p.
426-7 (4th Edit.), to which the reader is referred for a detailed
explanation of my meaning.]
Accordingly, we find that, in the years of childhood, the world is
much better known to us on its outer or objective side, namely, as the
presentation of will, than on the side of its inner nature, namely, as
the will itself. Since the objective side wears a pleasing aspect, and
the inner or subjective side, with its tale of horror, remains as yet
unknown, the youth, as his intelligence develops, takes all the forms
of beauty that he sees, in nature and in art, for so many objects of
blissful existence; they are so beautiful to the outward eye that, on
their inner side, they must, he thinks, be much more beautiful still.
So the world lies before him like another Eden; and this is the
Arcadia in which we are all born.
A little later, this state of mind gives birth to a thirst for real
life--the impulse to do and suffer--which drives a man forth into
the hurly-burly of the world. There he learns the other side of
existence--the inner side, the will, which is thwarted at every step.
Then comes the great period of disillusion, a period of very gradual
growth; but once it has fairly begun, a man will tell you that he has
got over all his false notions--_l'âge des illusions est passé_; and
yet the process is only beginning, and it goes on extending its sway
and applying more and more to the whole of life.
So it may be said that in childhood, life looks like the scenery in
a theatre, as you view it from a distance; and that in old age it is
like the same scenery when you come up quite close to it.
And, lastly, there is another circumstance that contributes to the
happiness of childhood. As spring commences, the young leaves on the
trees are similar in color and much the same in shape; and in the
first years of life we all resemble one another and harmonize very
well. But with puberty divergence begins; and, like the radii of a
circle, we go further and further apart.
The period of youth, which forms the remainder of this earlier half of
our existence--and how many advantages it has over the later half!--is
troubled and made miserable by the pursuit of happiness, as though
there were no doubt that it can be met with somewhere in life,--a hope
that always ends in failure and leads to discontent. An illusory
image of some vague future bliss--born of a dream and shaped by
fancy--floats before our eyes; and we search for the reality in
vain. So it is that the young man is generally dissatisfied with the
position in which he finds himself, whatever it may be; he ascribes
his disappointment solely to the state of things that meets him on
his first introduction to life, when he had expected something very
different; whereas it is only the vanity and wretchedness of human
life everywhere that he is now for the first time experiencing.
It would be a great advantage to a young man if his early training
could eradicate the idea that the world has a great deal to offer him.
But the usual result of education is to strengthen this delusion; and
our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than
from fact.
In the bright dawn of our youthful days, the poetry of life spreads
out a gorgeous vision before us, and we torture ourselves by longing
to see it realized. We might as well wish to grasp the rainbow! The
youth expects his career to be like an interesting romance; and there
lies the germ of that disappointment which I have been describing.[1]
What lends a charm to all these visions is just the fact that they are
visionary and not real, and that in contemplating them we are in the
sphere of pure knowledge, which is sufficient in itself and free from
the noise and struggle of life. To try and realize those visions is
to make them an object of _will_--a process which always involves
pain.[2]
[Footnote 1: Cf. loc. cit., p. 428.]
[Footnote 2: Let me refer the reader, if he is interested in the
subject, to the volume already cited, chapter 37.]
If the chief feature of the earlier half of life is a never-satisfied
longing after happiness, the later half is characterized by the dread
of misfortune. For, as we advance in years, it becomes in a greater or
less degree clear that all happiness is chimerical in its nature,
and that pain alone is real. Accordingly, in later years, we, or, at
least, the more prudent amongst us, are more intent upon eliminating
what is painful from our lives and making our position secure, than on
the pursuit of positive pleasure. I may observe, by the way, that in
old age, we are better able to prevent misfortunes from coming, and in
youth better able to bear them when they come.
In my young days, I was always pleased to hear a ring at my door: ah!
thought I, now for something pleasant. But in later life my feelings
on such occasions were rather akin to dismay than to pleasure: heaven
help me! thought I, what am I to do? A similar revulsion of feeling in
regard to the world of men takes place in all persons of any talent
or distinction. For that very reason they cannot be said properly to
belong to the world; in a greater or less degree, according to the
extent of their superiority, they stand alone. In their youth they
have a sense of being abandoned by the world; but later on, they feel
as though they had escaped it. The earlier feeling is an unpleasant
one, and rests upon ignorance; the second is pleasurable--for in the
meantime they have come to know what the world is.
The consequence of this is that, as compared with the earlier, the
later half of life, like the second part of a musical period, has less
of passionate longing and more restfulness about it. And why is this
the case Simply because, in youth, a man fancies that there is a
prodigious amount of happiness and pleasure to be had in the world,
only that it is difficult to come by it; whereas, when he becomes
old, he knows that there is nothing of the kind; he makes his mind
completely at ease on the matter, enjoys the present hour as well as
he can, and even takes a pleasure in trifles.
The chief result gained by experience of life is _clearness of view_.
This is what distinguishes the man of mature age, and makes the world
wear such a different aspect from that which it presented in his youth
or boyhood. It is only then that he sees things quite plain, and takes
them for that which they really are: while in earlier years he saw a
phantom-world, put together out of the whims and crotchets of his own
mind, inherited prejudice and strange delusion: the real world was
hidden from him, or the vision of it distorted. The first thing
that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the
brain--those false notions that have been put into us in youth.
To prevent their entrance at all would, of course, be the best form of
education, even though it were only negative in aim: but it would be a
task full of difficulty. At first the child's horizon would have to be
limited as much as possible, and yet within that limited sphere none
but clear and correct notions would have to be given; only after the
child had properly appreciated everything within it, might the sphere
be gradually enlarged; care being always taken that nothing was left
obscure, or half or wrongly understood. The consequence of this
training would be that the child's notions of men and things would
always be limited and simple in their character; but, on the other
hand, they would be clear and correct, and only need to be extended,
not to be rectified. The same line might be pursued on into the period
of youth. This method of education would lay special stress upon the
prohibition of novel reading; and the place of novels would be taken
by suitable biographical literature--the life of Franklin, for
instance, or Moritz' _Anton Reiser_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Moritz was a miscellaneous writer
of the last century (1757-93). His _Anton Reiser_, composed in the
form of a novel, is practically an autobiography.]
In our early days we fancy that the leading events in our life, and
the persons who are going to play an important part in it, will make
their entrance to the sound of drums and trumpets; but when, in old
age, we look back, we find that they all came in quite quietly,
slipped in, as it were, by the side-door, almost unnoticed.
From the point of view we have been taking up until now, life may be
compared to a piece of embroidery, of which, during the first half of
his time, a man gets a sight of the right side, and during the second
half, of the wrong. The wrong side is not so pretty as the right, but
it is more instructive; it shows the way in which the threads have
been worked together.
Intellectual superiority, even if it is of the highest kind, will not
secure for a man a preponderating place in conversation until after he
is forty years of age. For age and experience, though they can never
be a substitute for intellectual talent, may far outweigh it; and even
in a person of the meanest capacity, they give a certain counterpoise
to the power of an extremely intellectual man, so long as the latter
is young. Of course I allude here to personal superiority, not to the
place a man may gain by his works.
And on passing his fortieth year, any man of the slightest power of
mind--any man, that is, who has more than the sorry share of intellect
with which Nature has endowed five-sixths of mankind--will hardly fail
to show some trace of misanthropy. For, as is natural, he has by that
time inferred other people's character from an examination of his own;
with the result that he has been gradually disappointed to find that
in the qualities of the head or in those of the heart--and usually in
both--he reaches a level to which they do not attain; so he gladly
avoids having anything more to do with them. For it may be said, in
general, that every man will love or hate solitude--in other Words,
his own society--just in proportion as he is worth anything in
himself. Kant has some remarks upon this kind of misanthropy in his
_Critique of the Faculty of Judgment_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Kritik der Urtheilskraft_, Part I, §29, Note ad fin.]
In a young man, it is a bad sign, as well from an intellectual as from
a moral point of view, if he is precocious in understanding the ways
of the world, and in adapting himself to its pursuits; if he at once
knows how to deal with men, and enters upon life, as it were, fully
prepared. It argues a vulgar nature. On the other hand, to be
surprised and astonished at the way people act, and to be clumsy and
cross-grained in having to do with them, indicates a character of the
nobler sort.
The cheerfulness and vivacity of youth are partly due to the fact
that, when we are ascending the hill of life, death is not visible: it
lies down at the bottom of the other side. But once we have crossed
the top of the hill, death comes in view--death--which, until then,
was known to us only by hearsay. This makes our spirits droop, for at
the same time we begin to feel that our vital powers are on the ebb.
A grave seriousness now takes the place of that early extravagance of
spirit; and the change is noticeable even in the expression of a man's
face. As long as we are young, people may tell us what they please! we
look upon life as endless and use our time recklessly; but the older
we become, the more we practice economy. For towards the close of
life, every day we live gives us the same kind of sensation as the
criminal experiences at every step on his way to be tried.
From the standpoint of youth, life seems to stretch away into an
endless future; from the standpoint of old age, to go back but a
little way into the past; so that, at the beginning, life presents us
with a picture in which the objects appear a great way off, as though
we had reversed our telescope; while in the end everything seems so
close. To see how short life is, a man must have grown old, that is to
say, he must have lived long.
On the other hand, as the years increase, things look smaller, one and
all; and Life, which had so firm and stable a base in the days of our
youth, now seems nothing but a rapid flight of moments, every one of
them illusory: we have come to see that the whole world is vanity!
Time itself seems to go at a much slower pace when we are young; so
that not only is the first quarter of life the happiest, it is also
the longest of all; it leaves more memories behind it. If a man were
put to it, he could tell you more out of the first quarter of his life
than out of two of the remaining periods. Nay, in the spring of
life, as in the spring of the year, the days reach a length that is
positively tiresome; but in the autumn, whether of the year or of
life, though they are short, they are more genial and uniform.
But why is it that to an old man his past life appears so short? For
this reason: his memory is short; and so he fancies that his life has
been short too. He no longer remembers the insignificant parts of it,
and much that was unpleasant is now forgotten; how little, then,
there is left! For, in general, a man's memory is as imperfect as his
intellect; and he must make a practice of reflecting upon the lessons
he has learned and the events he has experienced, if he does not want
them both to sink gradually into the gulf of oblivion. Now, we are
unaccustomed to reflect upon matters of no importance, or, as a rule,
upon things that we have found disagreeable, and yet that is necessary
if the memory of them is to be preserved. But the class of things that
may be called insignificant is continually receiving fresh additions:
much that wears an air of importance at first, gradually becomes of no
consequence at all from the fact of its frequent repetition; so that
in the end we actually lose count of the number of times it happens.
Hence we are better able to remember the events of our early than of
our later years. The longer we live, the fewer are the things that
we can call important or significant enough to deserve further
consideration, and by this alone can they be fixed in the memory; in
other words, they are forgotten as soon as they are past. Thus it is
that time runs on, leaving always fewer traces of its passage.
Further, if disagreeable things have happened to us, we do not care
to ruminate upon them, least of all when they touch our vanity, as is
usually the case; for few misfortunes fall upon us for which we can
be held entirely blameless. So people are very ready to forget many
things that are disagreeable, as well as many that are unimportant.
It is from this double cause that our memory is so short; and a man's
recollection of what has happened always becomes proportionately
shorter, the more things that have occupied him in life. The things
we did in years gone by, the events that happened long ago, are like
those objects on the coast which, to the seafarer on his outward
voyage, become smaller every minute, more unrecognizable and harder to
distinguish.
Again, it sometimes happens that memory and imagination will call up
some long past scene as vividly as if it had occurred only yesterday;
so that the event in question seems to stand very near to the present
time. The reason of this is that it is impossible to call up all the
intervening period in the same vivid way, as there is no one figure
pervading it which can be taken in at a glance; and besides, most of
the things that happened in that period are forgotten, and all that
remains of it is the general knowledge that we have lived through
it--a mere notion of abstract existence, not a direct vision of some
particular experience. It is this that causes some single event
of long ago to appear as though it took place but yesterday: the
intervening time vanishes, and the whole of life looks incredibly
short. Nay, there are occasional moments in old age when we can
scarcely believe that we are so advanced in years, or that the long
past lying behind us has had any real existence--a feeling which is
mainly due to the circumstance that the present always seems fixed and
immovable as we look at it. These and similar mental phenomena are
ultimately to be traced to the fact that it is not our nature in
itself, but only the outward presentation of it, that lies in time,
and that the present is the point of contact between the world as
subject and the world as object.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--By this remark Schopenhauer means
that _will_, which, as he argues, forms the inner reality underlying
all the phenomena of life and nature, is not in itself affected
by time; but that, on the other hand, time is necessary for the
objectification of the will, for the will as presented in the passing
phenomena of the world. Time is thus definable as the condition of
change, and the present time as the only point of contact between
reality and appearance.]
Again, why is it that in youth we can see no end to the years that
seem to lie before us? Because we are obliged to find room for all
the things we hope to attain in life. We cram the years so full of
projects that if we were to try and carry them all out, death would
come prematurely though we reached the age of Methuselah.
Another reason why life looks so long when we are young, is that we
are apt to measure its length by the few years we have already
lived. In those early years things are new to us, and so they appear
important; we dwell upon them after they have happened and often call
them to mind; and thus in youth life seems replete with incident, and
therefore of long duration.
Sometimes we credit ourselves with a longing to be in some distant
spot, whereas, in truth, we are only longing to have the time back
again which we spent there--days when we were younger and fresher than
we are now. In those moments Time mocks us by wearing the mask of
space; and if we travel to the spot, we can see how much we have been
deceived.
There are two ways of reaching a great age, both of which presuppose
a sound constitution as a _conditio sine quâ non_. They may be
illustrated by two lamps, one of which burns a long time with very
little oil, because it has a very thin wick; and the other just as
long, though it has a very thick one, because there is plenty of oil
to feed it. Here, the oil is the vital energy, and the difference in
the wick is the manifold way in which the vital energy is used.
Up to our thirty-sixth year, we may be compared, in respect of the way
in which we use our vital energy, to people who live on the interest
of their money: what they spend to-day, they have again to-morrow. But
from the age of thirty-six onwards, our position is like that of the
investor who begins to entrench upon his capital. At first he hardly
notices any difference at all, as the greater part of his expenses is
covered by the interest of his securities; and if the deficit is
but slight, he pays no attention to it. But the deficit goes on
increasing, until he awakes to the fact that it is becoming more
serious every day: his position becomes less and less secure, and he
feels himself growing poorer and poorer, while he has no expectation
of this drain upon his resources coming to an end. His fall from
wealth to poverty becomes faster every moment--like the fall of a
solid body in space, until at last he has absolutely nothing left.
A man is truly in a woeful plight if both the terms of this
comparison--his vital energy and his wealth--really begin to melt away
at one and the same time. It is the dread of this calamity that makes
love of possession increase with age.
On the other hand, at the beginning of life, in the years before we
attain majority, and for some little time afterwards--the state of our
vital energy puts us on a level with those who each year lay by a part
of their interest and add it to their capital: in other words, not
only does their interest come in regularly, but the capital is
constantly receiving additions. This happy condition of affairs is
sometimes brought about--with health as with money--under the watchful
care of some honest guardian. O happy youth, and sad old age!
Nevertheless, a man should economize his strength even when he is
young. Aristotle[1] observes that amongst those who were victors at
Olympia only two or three gained a prize at two different periods,
once in boyhood and then again when they came to be men; and the
reason of this was that the premature efforts which the training
involved, so completely exhausted their powers that they failed to
last on into manhood. As this is true of muscular, so it is still more
true of nervous energy, of which all intellectual achievements are the
manifestation. Hence, those infant prodigies--_ingenia praecoda_--the
fruit of a hot-house education, who surprise us by their cleverness as
children, afterwards turn out very ordinary folk. Nay, the manner in
which boys are forced into an early acquaintance with the ancient
tongues may, perhaps, be to blame for the dullness and lack of
judgment which distinguish so many learned persons.
[Footnote 1: _Politics_.]
I have said that almost every man's character seems to be specially
suited to some one period of life, so that on reaching it the man is
at his best. Some people are charming so long as they are young, and
afterwards there is nothing attractive about them; others are vigorous
and active in manhood, and then lose all the value they possess as
they advance in years; many appear to best advantage in old age, when
their character assumes a gentler tone, as becomes men who have seen
the world and take life easily. This is often the case with the
French.
This peculiarity must be due to the fact that the man's character
has something in it akin to the qualities of youth or manhood or old
age--something which accords with one or another of these periods of
life, or perhaps acts as a corrective to its special failings.
The mariner observes the progress he makes only by the way in which
objects on the coast fade away into the distance and apparently
decrease in size. In the same way a man becomes conscious that he is
advancing in years when he finds that people older than himself begin
to seem young to him.
It has already been remarked that the older a man becomes, the
fewer are the traces left in his mind by all that he sees, does or
experiences, and the cause of this has been explained. There is thus
a sense in which it may be said that it is only in youth that a man
lives with a full degree of consciousness, and that he is only half
alive when he is old. As the years advance, his consciousness of what
goes on about him dwindles, and the things of life hurry by without
making any impression upon him, just as none is made by a work of art
seen for the thousandth time. A man does what his hand finds to do,
and afterwards he does not know whether he has done it or not.
As life becomes more and more unconscious, the nearer it approaches
the point at which all consciousness ceases, the course of time
itself seems to increase in rapidity. In childhood all the things and
circumstances of life are novel; and that is sufficient to awake us to
the full consciousness of existence: hence, at that age, the day seems
of such immense length. The same thing happens when we are traveling:
one month seems longer then than four spent at home. Still, though
time seems to last longer when we are young or on a journey, the sense
of novelty does not prevent it from now and then in reality hanging
heavily upon our hands under both these circumstances, at any rate
more than is the case when we are old or staying at home. But the
intellect gradually becomes so rubbed down and blunted by long
habituation to such impressions that things have a constant tendency
to produce less and less impression upon us as they pass by; and this
makes time seem increasingly less important, and therefore shorter in
duration: the hours of the boy are longer than the days of the old
man. Accordingly, time goes faster and faster the longer we live,
like a ball rolling down a hill. Or, to take another example: as in
a revolving disc, the further a point lies from the centre, the more
rapid is its rate of progression, so it is in the wheel of life; the
further you stand from the beginning, the faster time moves for you.
Hence it may be said that as far as concerns the immediate sensation
that time makes upon our minds, the length of any given year is in
direct proportion to the number of times it will divide our whole
life: for instance, at the age of fifty the year appears to us only
one-tenth as long as it did at the age of five.
This variation in the rate at which time appears to move, exercises a
most decided influence upon the whole nature of our existence at
every period of it. First of all, it causes childhood--even though it
embrace only a span of fifteen years--to seem the longest period of
life, and therefore the richest in reminiscences. Next, it brings it
about that a man is apt to be bored just in proportion as he is young.
Consider, for instance, that constant need of occupation--whether it
is work or play--that is shown by children: if they come to an end
of both work and play, a terrible feeling of boredom ensues. Even in
youth people are by no means free from this tendency, and dread the
hours when they have nothing to do. As manhood approaches, boredom
disappears; and old men find the time too short when their days fly
past them like arrows from a bow. Of course, I must be understood to
speak of _men_, not of decrepit _brutes_. With this increased rapidity
of time, boredom mostly passes away as we advance in life; and as
the passions with all their attendant pain are then laid asleep, the
burden of life is, on the whole, appreciably lighter in later years
than in youth, provided, of course, that health remains. So it is that
the period immediately preceding the weakness and troubles of old age,
receives the name of a man's _best years_.
That may be a true appellation, in view of the comfortable feeling
which those years bring; but for all that the years of youth, when our
consciousness is lively and open to every sort of impression, have
this privilege--that then the seeds are sown and the buds come forth;
it is the springtime of the mind. Deep truths may be perceived, but
can never be excogitated--that is to say, the first knowledge of
them is immediate, called forth by some momentary impression. This
knowledge is of such a kind as to be attainable only when the
impressions are strong, lively and deep; and if we are to be
acquainted with deep truths, everything depends upon a proper use of
our early years. In later life, we may be better able to work upon
other people,--upon the world, because our natures are then finished
and rounded off, and no more a prey to fresh views; but then the
world is less able to work upon us. These are the years of action
and achievement; while youth is the time for forming fundamental
conceptions, and laying down the ground-work of thought.
In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us;
while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating quality
of the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more
inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man
shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the
outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought
that determines his actions. This is partly to be explained by the
fact that it is only when a man is old that the results of outward
observation are present in sufficient numbers to allow of their being
classified according to the ideas they represent,--a process which in
its turn causes those ideas to be more fully understood in all their
bearings, and the exact value and amount of trust to be placed in
them, fixed and determined; while at the same time he has grown
accustomed to the impressions produced by the various phenomena
of life, and their effects on him are no longer what they were.
Contrarily, in youth, the impressions that things make, that is to
say, the outward aspects of life, are so overpoweringly strong,
especially in the case of people of lively and imaginative
disposition, that they view the world like a picture; and their chief
concern is the figure they cut in it, the appearance they present;
nay, they are unaware of the extent to which this is the case. It is
a quality of mind that shows itself--if in no other way--in that
personal vanity, and that love of fine clothes, which distinguish
young people.
There can be no doubt that the intellectual powers are most capable
of enduring great and sustained efforts in youth, up to the age of
thirty-five at latest; from which period their strength begins to
decline, though very gradually. Still, the later years of life, and
even old age itself, are not without their intellectual compensation.
It is only then that a man can be said to be really rich in experience
or in learning; he has then had time and opportunity enough to enable
him to see and think over life from all its sides; he has been able to
compare one thing with another, and to discover points of contact and
connecting links, so that only then are the true relations of things
rightly understood. Further, in old age there comes an increased depth
in the knowledge that was acquired in youth; a man has now many more
illustrations of any ideas he may have attained; things which he
thought he knew when he was young, he now knows in reality. And
besides, his range of knowledge is wider; and in whatever direction it
extends, it is thorough, and therefore formed into a consistent and
connected whole; whereas in youth knowledge is always defective and
fragmentary.
A complete and adequate notion of life can never be attained by any
one who does not reach old age; for it is only the old man who
sees life whole and knows its natural course; it is only he who is
acquainted--and this is most important--not only with its entrance,
like the rest of mankind, but with its exit too; so that he alone has
a full sense of its utter vanity; whilst the others never cease to
labor under the false notion that everything will come right in the
end.
On the other hand, there is more conceptive power in youth, and at
that time of life a man can make more out of the little that he knows.
In age, judgment, penetration and thoroughness predominate. Youth is
the time for amassing the material for a knowledge of the world that
shall be distinctive and peculiar,--for an original view of life, in
other words, the legacy that a man of genius leaves to his fellow-men;
it is, however, only in later years that he becomes master of his
material. Accordingly it will be found that, as a rule, a great writer
gives his best work to the world when he is about fifty years of age.
But though the tree of knowledge must reach its full height before it
can bear fruit, the roots of it lie in youth.
Every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself
much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that
are more remote. It is just the same with the different periods in a
man's life; and yet often, in the one case no less than in the other,
it is a mistaken opinion. In the years of physical growth, when
our powers of mind and our stores of knowledge are receiving daily
additions, it becomes a habit for to-day to look down with contempt
upon yesterday. The habit strikes root, and remains even after the
intellectual powers have begun to decline,--when to-day should rather
look up with respect to yesterday. So it is that we often unduly
depreciate the achievements as well as the judgments of our youth.
This seems the place for making the general observation, that,
although in its main qualities a man's _intellect_ or _head_, as well
as his _character_ or _heart_, is innate, yet the former is by no
means so unalterable in its nature as the latter. The fact is that the
intellect is subject to very many transformations, which, as a rule,
do not fail to make their actual appearance; and this is so, partly
because the intellect has a deep foundation in the physique,
and partly because the material with which it deals is given in
experience. And so, from a physical point of view, we find that if a
man has any peculiar power, it first gradually increases in strength
until it reaches its acme, after which it enters upon a path of slow
decadence, until it ends in imbecility. But, on the other hand,
we must not lose sight of the fact that the material which gives
employment to a man's powers and keeps them in activity,--the
subject-matter of thought and knowledge, experience, intellectual
attainments, the practice of seeing to the bottom of things, and so a
perfect mental vision, form in themselves a mass which continues to
increase in size, until the time comes when weakness shows itself,
and the man's powers suddenly fail. The way in which these two
distinguishable elements combine in the same nature,--the one
absolutely unalterable, and the other subject to change in two
directions opposed to each other--explains the variety of mental
attitude and the dissimilarity of value which attach to a man at
different periods of life.
The same truth may be more broadly expressed by saying that the first
forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty
supply the commentary; and that without the commentary we are unable
to understand aright the true sense and coherence of the text,
together with the moral it contains and all the subtle application of
which it admits.
Towards the close of life, much the same thing happens as at the end
of a _bal masqué_--the masks are taken off. Then you can see who
the people really are, with whom you have come into contact in your
passage through the world. For by the end of life characters have come
out in their true light, actions have borne fruit, achievements have
been rightly appreciated, and all shams have fallen to pieces. For
this, Time was in every case requisite.
But the most curious fact is that it is also only towards the close
of life than a man really recognizes and understands his own true
self,--the aims and objects he has followed in life, more especially
the kind of relation in which he has stood to other people and to the
world. It will often happen that as a result of this knowledge, a man
will have to assign himself a lower place than he formerly thought
was his due. But there are exceptions to this rule; and it will
occasionally be the case that he will take a higher position than he
had before. This will be owing to the fact that he had no adequate
notion of the _baseness_ of the world, and that he set up a higher aim
for himself than was followed by the rest of mankind.
The progress of life shows a man the stuff of which he is made.
It is customary to call youth the happy, and age the sad part of life.
This would be true if it were the passions that made a man happy.
Youth is swayed to and fro by them; and they give a great deal of pain
and little pleasure. In age the passions cool and leave a man at rest,
and then forthwith his mind takes a contemplative tone; the intellect
is set free and attains the upper hand. And since, in itself,
intellect is beyond the range of pain, and man feels happy just in so
far as his intellect is the predominating part of him.
It need only be remembered that all pleasure is negative, and that
pain is positive in its nature, in order to see that the passions can
never be a source of happiness, and that age is not the less to be
envied on the ground that many pleasures are denied it. For every sort
of pleasure is never anything more than the quietive of some need or
longing; and that pleasure should come to an end as soon as the need
ceases, is no more a subject of complaint than that a man cannot go on
eating after he has had his dinner, or fall asleep again after a good
night's rest.
So far from youth being the happiest period of life, there is much
more truth in the remark made by Plato, at the beginning of the
_Republic_, that the prize should rather be given to old age, because
then at last a man is freed from the animal passion which has hitherto
never ceased to disquiet him. Nay, it may even be said that the
countless and manifold humors which have their source in this passion,
and the emotions that spring from it, produce a mild state of madness;
and this lasts as long as the man is subject to the spell of
the impulse--this evil spirit, as it were, of which there is no
riddance--so that he never really becomes a reasonable being until the
passion is extinguished.
There is no doubt that, in general, and apart from individual
circumstances and particular dispositions, youth is marked by a
certain melancholy and sadness, while genial sentiments attach to old
age; and the reason for this is nothing but the fact that the young
man is still under the service, nay, the forced labor, imposed by that
evil spirit, which scarcely ever leaves him a moment to himself. To
this source may be traced, directly or indirectly, almost all and
every ill that befalls or menaces mankind. The old man is genial and
cheerful because, after long lying in the bonds of passion, he can now
move about in freedom.
Still, it should not be forgotten that, when this passion is
extinguished, the true kernel of life is gone, and nothing remains but
the hollow shell; or, from another point of view, life then becomes
like a comedy, which, begun by real actors, is continued and brought
to an end by automata dressed in their clothes.
However that may be, youth is the period of unrest, and age of repose;
and from that very circumstance, the relative degree of pleasure
belonging to each may be inferred. The child stretches out its little
hands in the eager desire to seize all the pretty things that meet its
sight, charmed by the world because all its senses are still so young
and fresh. Much the same thing happens with the youth, and he displays
greater energy in his quest. He, too, is charmed by all the pretty
things and the many pleasing shapes that surround him; and forthwith
his imagination conjures up pleasures which the world can never
realize. So he is filled with an ardent desire for he knows not what
delights--robbing him of all rest and making happiness impossible.
But when old age is reached, all this is over and done with, partly
because the blood runs cooler and the senses are no longer so easily
allured; partly because experience has shown the true value of things
and the futility of pleasure, whereby illusion has been gradually
dispelled, and the strange fancies and prejudices which previously
concealed or distorted a free and true view of the world, have been
dissipated and put to flight; with the result that a man can now get
a juster and clearer view, and see things as they are, and also in a
measure attain more or less insight into the nullity of all things on
this earth.
It is this that gives almost every old man, no matter how ordinary his
faculties may be, a certain tincture of wisdom, which distinguishes
him from the young. But the chief result of all this change is the
peace of mind that ensues--a great element in happiness, and, in fact,
the condition and essence of it. While the young man fancies that
there is a vast amount of good things in the world, if he could only
come at them, the old man is steeped in the truth of the Preacher's
words, that _all things are vanity_--knowing that, however gilded the
shell, the nut is hollow.
In these later years, and not before, a man comes to a true
appreciation of Horace's maxim: _Nil admirari._ He is directly and
sincerely convinced of the vanity of everything and that all the
glories of the world are as nothing: his illusions are gone. He is
no more beset with the idea that there is any particular amount of
happiness anywhere, in the palace or in the cottage, any more than he
himself enjoys when he is free from bodily or mental pain. The worldly
distinctions of great and small, high and low, exist for him no
longer; and in this blissful state of mind the old man may look down
with a smile upon all false notions. He is completely undeceived, and
knows that whatever may be done to adorn human life and deck it out in
finery, its paltry character will soon show through the glitter of its
surroundings; and that, paint and be jewel it as one may, it remains
everywhere much the same,--an existence which has no true value except
in freedom from pain, and is never to be estimated by the presence of
pleasure, let alone, then, of display.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cf. Horace, _Epist_. I. 12, I-4.]
Disillusion is the chief characteristic of old age; for by that time
the fictions are gone which gave life its charm and spurred on the
mind to activity; the splendors of the world have been proved null and
vain; its pomp, grandeur and magnificence are faded. A man has then
found out that behind most of the things he wants, and most of the
pleasures he longs for, there is very little after all; and so he
comes by degrees to see that our existence is all empty and void. It
is only when he is seventy years old that he quite understands the
first words of the Preacher; and this again explains why it is that
old men are sometimes fretful and morose.
It is often said that the common lot of old age is disease and
weariness of life. Disease is by no means essential to old age;
especially where a really long span of years is to be attained; for
as life goes on, the conditions of health and disorder tend to
increase--_crescente vita, crescit sanitas et morbus_. And as far as
weariness or boredom is concerned, I have stated above why old age is
even less exposed to that form of evil than youth. Nor is boredom by
any means to be taken as a necessary accompaniment of that solitude,
which, for reasons that do not require to be explained, old age
certainly cannot escape; it is rather the fate that awaits those who
have never known any other pleasures but the gratification of the
senses and the delights of society--who have left their minds
unenlightened and their faculties unused. It is quite true that the
intellectual faculties decline with the approach of old age; but where
they were originally strong, there will always be enough left to
combat the onslaught of boredom. And then again, as I have said,
experience, knowledge, reflection, and skill in dealing with men,
combine to give an old man an increasingly accurate insight into the
ways of the world; his judgment becomes keen and he attains a coherent
view of life: his mental vision embraces a wider range. Constantly
finding new uses for his stores of knowledge and adding to them at
every opportunity, he maintains uninterrupted that inward process of
self-education, which gives employment and satisfaction to the mind,
and thus forms the due reward of all its efforts.
All this serves in some measure as a compensation for decreased
intellectual power. And besides, Time, as I have remarked, seems to go
much more quickly when we are advanced in years; and this is in itself
a preventive of boredom. There is no great harm in the fact that
a man's bodily strength decreases in old age, unless, indeed, he
requires it to make a living. To be poor when one is old, is a great
misfortune. If a man is secure from that, and retains his health, old
age may be a very passable time of life. Its chief necessity is to be
comfortable and well off; and, in consequence, money is then prized
more than ever, because it is a substitute for failing strength.
Deserted by Venus, the old man likes to turn to Bacchus to make him
merry. In the place of wanting to see things, to travel and learn,
comes the desire to speak and teach. It is a piece of good fortune if
the old man retains some of his love of study or of music or of the
theatre,--if, in general, he is still somewhat susceptible to the
things about him; as is, indeed, the case with some people to a very
late age. At that time of life, _what a man has in himself_ is of
greater advantage to him that ever it was before.
There can be no doubt that most people who have never been anything
but dull and stupid, become more and more of automata as they grow
old. They have always thought, said and done the same things as their
neighbors; and nothing that happens now can change their disposition,
or make them act otherwise. To talk to old people of this kind is like
writing on the sand; if you produce any impression at all, it is gone
almost immediately; old age is here nothing but the _caput mortuum_
of life--all that is essential to manhood is gone. There are cases
in which nature supplies a third set of teeth in old age, thereby
apparently demonstrating the fact that that period of life is a second
childhood.
It is certainly a very melancholy thing that all a man's faculties
tend to waste away as he grows old, and at a rate that increases
in rapidity: but still, this is a necessary, nay, a beneficial
arrangement, as otherwise death, for which it is a preparation, would
be too hard to bear. So the greatest boon that follows the attainment
of extreme old age is _euthanasia_,--an easy death, not ushered in by
disease, and free from all pain and struggle.[1] For let a man live as
long as he may, he is never conscious of any moment but the present,
one and indivisible; and in those late years the mind loses more every
day by sheer forgetfulness than ever it gains anew.
[Footnote 1: See _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, Bk. II. ch. 41,
for a further description of this happy end to life.]
The main difference between youth and age will always be that youth
looks forward to life, and old age to death; and that while the one
has a short past and a long future before it, the case is just the
opposite with the other. It is quite true that when a man is old, to
die is the only thing that awaits him; while if he is young, he may
expect to live; and the question arises which of the two fates is the
more hazardous, and if life is not a matter which, on the whole, it is
better to have behind one than before? Does not the Preacher say:
_the day of death [is better] than the day of one's birth_.[1] It is
certainly a rash thing to wish for long life;[2] for as the Spanish
proverb has it, it means to see much evil,--_Quien larga vida vive
mucho mal vide_.
[Footnote 1: Ecclesiastes vii. 1.]
[Footnote 2: The life of man cannot, strictly speaking, be called
either _long_ or _short_, since it is the ultimate standard by which
duration of time in regard to all other things is measured.
In one of the Vedic _Upanishads (Oupnekhat_, II.) _the natural length_
of human life is put down at one hundred years. And I believe this to
be right. I have observed, as a matter of fact, that it is only people
who exceed the age of ninety who attain _euthanasia_,--who die, that
is to say, of no disease, apoplexy or convulsion, and pass away
without agony of any sort; nay, who sometimes even show no pallor, but
expire generally in a sitting attitude, and often after a meal,--or,
I may say, simply cease to live rather than die. To come to one's end
before the age of ninety, means to die of disease, in other words,
prematurely.
Now the Old Testament (Psalms xc. 10) puts the limit of human life at
seventy, and if it is very long, at eighty years; and what is more
noticeable still, Herodotus (i. 32 and iii. 22) says the same thing.
But this is wrong; and the error is due simply to a rough and
superficial estimate of the results of daily experience. For if the
natural length of life were from seventy to eighty years, people would
die, about that time, of mere old age. Now this is certainly not the
case. If they die then, they die, like younger people, _of disease_;
and disease is something abnormal. Therefore it is not natural to die
at that age. It is only when they are between ninety and a hundred
that people die of old age; die, I mean, without suffering from any
disease, or showing any special signs of their condition, such as a
struggle, death-rattle, convulsion, pallor,--the absence of all which
constitutes _euthanasia_. The natural length of human life is a
hundred years; and in assigning that limit the Upanishads are right
once more.]
A man's individual career is not, as Astrology wishes to make out, to
be predicted from observation of the planets; but the course of human
life in general, as far as the various periods of it are concerned,
may be likened to the succession of the planets: so that we may be
said to pass under the influence of each one of them in turn.
At ten, _Mercury_ is in the ascendant; and at that age, a youth, like
this planet, is characterized by extreme mobility within a narrow
sphere, where trifles have a great effect upon him; but under the
guidance of so crafty and eloquent a god, he easily makes great
progress. _Venus_ begins her sway during his twentieth year, and then
a man is wholly given up to the love of women. At thirty, _Mars_
comes to the front, and he is now all energy and strength,--daring,
pugnacious and arrogant.
When a man reaches the age of forty, he is under the rule of the
four _Asteroids_; that is to say, his life has gained something in
extension. He is frugal; in other words, by the help of _Ceres_, he
favors what is useful; he has his own hearth, by the influence of
_Vesta_; _Pallas_ has taught him that which is necessary for him to
know; and his wife--his _Juno_--rules as the mistress of his house.
But at the age of fifty, _Jupiter_ is the dominant influence. At that
period a man has outlived most of his contemporaries, and he can feel
himself superior to the generation about him. He is still in the full
enjoyment of his strength, and rich in experience and knowledge;
and if he has any power and position of his own, he is endowed with
authority over all who stand in his immediate surroundings. He is no
more inclined to receive orders from others; he wants to take command
himself. The work most suitable to him now is to guide and rule within
his own sphere. This is the point where Jupiter culminates, and where
the man of fifty years is at his best.
Then comes _Saturn_, at about the age of sixty, a weight as of _lead_,
dull and slow:--
_But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead_.
Last of all, _Uranus_; or, as the saying is, a man goes to heaven.
I cannot find a place for _Neptune_, as this planet has been very
thoughtlessly named; because I may not call it as it should be
called--_Eros_. Otherwise I should point out how Beginning and End
meet together, and how closely and intimately Eros is connected with
Death: how Orcus, or Amenthes, as the Egyptians called him, is not
only the receiver but the giver of all things--[Greek: lambanon kai
didous]. Death is the great reservoir of Life. Everything comes from
Orcus; everything that is alive now was once there. Could we but
understand the great trick by which that is done, all would be clear!
End of Project Gutenberg's Counsels and Maxims, by Arthur Schopenhauer