PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS.
We have already seen, in general, that what a man _is_ contributes
much more to his happiness than what he _has_, or how he is regarded
by others. What a man is, and so what he has in his own person, is
always the chief thing to consider; for his individuality accompanies
him always and everywhere, and gives its color to all his experiences.
In every kind of enjoyment, for instance, the pleasure depends
principally upon the man himself. Every one admits this in regard to
physical, and how much truer it is of intellectual, pleasure. When we
use that English expression, "to enjoy one's self," we are employing a
very striking and appropriate phrase; for observe--one says, not "he
enjoys Paris," but "he enjoys himself in Paris." To a man possessed of
an ill-conditioned individuality, all pleasure is like delicate wine
in a mouth made bitter with gall. Therefore, in the blessings as well
as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon
the way in which it is met, that is, upon the kind and degree of our
general susceptibility. What a man is and has in himself,--in a word
personality, with all it entails, is the only immediate and direct
factor in his happiness and welfare. All else is mediate and indirect,
and its influence can be neutralized and frustrated; but the influence
of personality never. This is why the envy which personal qualities
excite is the most implacable of all,--as it is also the most
carefully dissembled.
Further, the constitution of our consciousness is the ever present
and lasting element in all we do or suffer; our individuality is
persistently at work, more or less, at every moment of our life: all
other influences are temporal, incidental, fleeting, and subject to
every kind of chance and change. This is why Aristotle says: _It is
not wealth but character that lasts_.[1]
[Greek: --hae gar phusis bebion ou ta chraemata]
[Footnote 1: Eth. Eud., vii. 2. 37:]
And just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune
which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn
upon ourselves; for fortune may always change, but not character.
Therefore, subjective blessings,--a noble nature, a capable head, a
joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well-constituted, perfectly
sound physique, in a word, _mens sana in corpore sano_, are the first
and most important elements in happiness; so that we should be
more intent on promoting and preserving such qualities than on the
possession of external wealth and external honor.
And of all these, the one which makes us the most directly happy is
a genial flow of good spirits; for this excellent quality is its own
immediate reward. The man who is cheerful and merry has always a
good reason for being so,--the fact, namely, that he is so. There is
nothing which, like this quality, can so completely replace the loss
of every other blessing. If you know anyone who is young, handsome,
rich and esteemed, and you want to know, further, if he is happy, ask,
Is he cheerful and genial?--and if he is, what does it matter whether
he is young or old, straight or humpbacked, poor or rich?--he is
happy. In my early days I once opened an old book and found these
words: _If you laugh a great deal, you are happy; if you cry a great
deal, you are unhappy_;--a very simple remark, no doubt; but just
because it is so simple I have never been able to forget it, even
though it is in the last degree a truism. So if cheerfulness knocks
at our door, we should throw it wide open, for it never comes
inopportunely; instead of that, we often make scruples about letting
it in. We want to be quite sure that we have every reason to be
contented; then we are afraid that cheerfulness of spirits may
interfere with serious reflections or weighty cares. Cheerfulness is a
direct and immediate gain,--the very coin, as it were, of happiness,
and not, like all else, merely a cheque upon the bank; for it alone
makes us immediately happy in the present moment, and that is the
highest blessing for beings like us, whose existence is but an
infinitesimal moment between two eternities. To secure and promote
this feeling of cheerfulness should be the supreme aim of all our
endeavors after happiness.
Now it is certain that nothing contributes so little to cheerfulness
as riches, or so much, as health. Is it not in the lower classes, the
so-called working classes, more especially those of them who live in
the country, that we see cheerful and contented faces? and is it
not amongst the rich, the upper classes, that we find faces full of
ill-humor and vexation? Consequently we should try as much as possible
to maintain a high degree of health; for cheerfulness is the very
flower of it. I need hardly say what one must do to be healthy--avoid
every kind of excess, all violent and unpleasant emotion, all mental
overstrain, take daily exercise in the open air, cold baths and such
like hygienic measures. For without a proper amount of daily exercise
no one can remain healthy; all the processes of life demand exercise
for the due performance of their functions, exercise not only of the
parts more immediately concerned, but also of the whole body. For, as
Aristotle rightly says, _Life is movement_; it is its very essence.
Ceaseless and rapid motion goes on in every part of the organism.
The heart, with its complicated double systole and diastole, beats
strongly and untiringly; with twenty-eight beats it has to drive the
whole of the blood through arteries, veins and capillaries; the lungs
pump like a steam-engine, without intermission; the intestines are
always in peristaltic action; the glands are all constantly absorbing
and secreting; even the brain has a double motion of its own, with
every beat of the pulse and every breath we draw. When people can get
no exercise at all, as is the case with the countless numbers who
are condemned to a sedentary life, there is a glaring and fatal
disproportion between outward inactivity and inner tumult. For this
ceaseless internal motion requires some external counterpart, and the
want of it produces effects like those of emotion which we are obliged
to suppress. Even trees must be shaken by the wind, if they are to
thrive. The rule which finds its application here may be most briefly
expressed in Latin: _omnis motus, quo celerior, eo magis motus_.
How much our happiness depends upon our spirits, and these again upon
our state of health, may be seen by comparing the influence which the
same external circumstances or events have upon us when we are well
and strong with the effects which they have when we are depressed and
troubled with ill-health. It is not what things are objectively and in
themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them,
that makes us happy or the reverse. As Epictetus says, _Men are not
influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things_. And, in
general, nine-tenths of our happiness depends upon health alone. With
health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing
else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable; even the other personal
blessings,--a great mind, a happy temperament--are degraded and
dwarfed for want of it. So it is really with good reason that, when
two people meet, the first thing they do is to inquire after each
other's health, and to express the hope that it is good; for good
health is by far the most important element in human happiness. It
follows from all this that the greatest of follies is to sacrifice
health for any other kind of happiness, whatever it may be, for gain,
advancement, learning or fame, let alone, then, for fleeting sensual
pleasures. Everything else should rather be postponed to it.
But however much health may contribute to that flow of good spirits
which is so essential to our happiness, good spirits do not entirely
depend upon health; for a man may be perfectly sound in his physique
and still possess a melancholy temperament and be generally given up
to sad thoughts. The ultimate cause of this is undoubtedly to be
found in innate, and therefore unalterable, physical constitution,
especially in the more or less normal relation of a man's
sensitiveness to his muscular and vital energy. Abnormal sensitiveness
produces inequality of spirits, a predominating melancholy, with
periodical fits of unrestrained liveliness. A genius is one whose
nervous power or sensitiveness is largely in excess; as Aristotle[1]
has very correctly observed, _Men distinguished in philosophy,
politics, poetry or art appear to be all of a melancholy temperament_.
This is doubtless the passage which Cicero has in his mind when
he says, as he often does, _Aristoteles ait omnes ingeniosos
melancholicos esse_.[2] Shakespeare has very neatly expressed this
radical and innate diversity of temperament in those lines in _The
Merchant of Venice_:
[Footnote 1: Probl. xxx., ep. 1]
[Footnote 2: Tusc. i., 33.]
_Nature has framed strange fellows in her time;
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots at a bag-piper;
And others of such vinegar aspect,
That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable_.
This is the difference which Plato draws between [Greek: eukolos]
and [Greek: dyskolos]--the man of _easy_, and the man of _difficult_
disposition--in proof of which he refers to the varying degrees of
susceptibility which different people show to pleasurable and painful
impressions; so that one man will laugh at what makes another despair.
As a rule, the stronger the susceptibility to unpleasant impressions,
the weaker is the susceptibility to pleasant ones, and _vice versa_.
If it is equally possible for an event to turn out well or ill,
the [Greek: dyskolos] will be annoyed or grieved if the issue is
unfavorable, and will not rejoice, should it be happy. On the other
hand, the [Greek: eukolos] will neither worry nor fret over an
unfavorable issue, but rejoice if it turns out well. If the one is
successful in nine out of ten undertakings, he will not be pleased,
but rather annoyed that one has miscarried; whilst the other, if only
a single one succeeds, will manage to find consolation in the fact
and remain cheerful. But here is another instance of the truth,
that hardly any evil is entirely without its compensation; for the
misfortunes and sufferings which the [Greek: auskoloi], that is,
people of gloomy and anxious character, have to overcome, are, on the
whole, more imaginary and therefore less real than those which befall
the gay and careless; for a man who paints everything black, who
constantly fears the worst and takes measures accordingly, will not be
disappointed so often in this world, as one who always looks upon the
bright side of things. And when a morbid affection of the nerves, or a
derangement of the digestive organs, plays into the hands of an
innate tendency to gloom, this tendency may reach such a height that
permanent discomfort produces a weariness of life. So arises an
inclination to suicide, which even the most trivial unpleasantness may
actually bring about; nay, when the tendency attains its worst form,
it may be occasioned by nothing in particular, but a man may resolve
to put an end to his existence, simply because he is permanently
unhappy, and then coolly and firmly carry out his determination;
as may be seen by the way in which the sufferer, when placed under
supervision, as he usually is, eagerly waits to seize the first
unguarded moment, when, without a shudder, without a struggle or
recoil, he may use the now natural and welcome means of effecting his
release.[1] Even the healthiest, perhaps even the most cheerful
man, may resolve upon death under certain circumstances; when, for
instance, his sufferings, or his fears of some inevitable misfortune,
reach such a pitch as to outweigh the terrors of death. The only
difference lies in the degree of suffering necessary to bring about
the fatal act, a degree which will be high in the case of a cheerful,
and low in that of a gloomy man. The greater the melancholy, the lower
need the degree be; in the end, it may even sink to zero. But if a man
is cheerful, and his spirits are supported by good health, it requires
a high degree of suffering to make him lay hands upon himself. There
are countless steps in the scale between the two extremes of suicide,
the suicide which springs merely from a morbid intensification of
innate gloom, and the suicide of the healthy and cheerful man, who has
entirely objective grounds for putting an end to his existence.
[Footnote 1: For a detailed description of this condition of mind _Cf_
Esquirol, _Des maladies mentales_.]
Beauty is partly an affair of health. It may be reckoned as a personal
advantage; though it does not, properly speaking, contribute directly
to our happiness. It does so indirectly, by impressing other people;
and it is no unimportant advantage, even in man. Beauty is an open
letter of recommendation, predisposing the heart to favor the person
who presents it. As is well said in these lines of Homer, the gift of
beauty is not lightly to be thrown away, that glorious gift which none
can bestow save the gods alone--
[Greek: outoi hapoblaet erti theon erikuoea dora,
ossa ken autoi dosin, ekon douk an tis eloito].[1]
[Footnote 1: _Iliad_ 3, 65.]
The most general survey shows us that the two foes of human happiness
are pain and boredom. We may go further, and say that in the degree in
which we are fortunate enough to get away from the one, we approach
the other. Life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscillation
between the two. The reason of this is that each of these two poles
stands in a double antagonism to the other, external or objective,
and inner or subjective. Needy surroundings and poverty produce pain;
while, if a man is more than well off, he is bored. Accordingly, while
the lower classes are engaged in a ceaseless struggle with need,
in other words, with pain, the upper carry on a constant and often
desperate battle with boredom.[1] The inner or subjective antagonism
arises from the fact that, in the individual, susceptibility to
pain varies inversely with susceptibility to boredom, because
susceptibility is directly proportionate to mental power. Let
me explain. A dull mind is, as a rule, associated with dull
sensibilities, nerves which no stimulus can affect, a temperament, in
short, which does not feel pain or anxiety very much, however great
or terrible it may be. Now, intellectual dullness is at the bottom of
that _vacuity of soul_ which is stamped on so many faces, a state of
mind which betrays itself by a constant and lively attention to all
the trivial circumstances in the external world. This is the true
source of boredom--a continual panting after excitement, in order to
have a pretext for giving the mind and spirits something to occupy
them. The kind of things people choose for this purpose shows that
they are not very particular, as witness the miserable pastimes they
have recourse to, and their ideas of social pleasure and conversation:
or again, the number of people who gossip on the doorstep or gape out
of the window. It is mainly because of this inner vacuity of soul that
people go in quest of society, diversion, amusement, luxury of every
sort, which lead many to extravagance and misery. Nothing is so good
a protection against such misery as inward wealth, the wealth of
the mind, because the greater it grows, the less room it leaves for
boredom. The inexhaustible activity of thought! Finding ever new
material to work upon in the multifarious phenomena of self and
nature, and able and ready to form new combinations of them,--there
you have something that invigorates the mind, and apart from moments
of relaxation, sets it far above the reach of boredom.
[Footnote 1: And the extremes meet; for the lowest state of
civilization, a nomad or wandering life, finds its counterpart in the
highest, where everyone is at times a tourist. The earlier stage was a
case of necessity; the latter is a remedy for boredom.]
But, on the other hand, this high degree of intelligence is rooted in
a high degree of susceptibility, greater strength of will, greater
passionateness; and from the union of these qualities comes an
increased capacity for emotion, an enhanced sensibility to all mental
and even bodily pain, greater impatience of obstacles, greater
resentment of interruption;--all of which tendencies are augmented by
the power of the imagination, the vivid character of the whole range
of thought, including what is disagreeable. This applies, in various
degrees, to every step in the long scale of mental power, from the
veriest dunce to the greatest genius that ever lived. Therefore the
nearer anyone is, either from a subjective or from an objective point
of view, to one of those sources of suffering in human life, the
farther he is from the other. And so a man's natural bent will lead
him to make his objective world conform to his subjective as much as
possible; that is to say, he will take the greatest measures against
that form of suffering to which he is most liable. The wise man will,
above all, strive after freedom from pain and annoyance, quiet and
leisure, consequently a tranquil, modest life, with as few encounters
as may be; and so, after a little experience of his so-called
fellowmen, he will elect to live in retirement, or even, if he is
a man of great intellect, in solitude. For the more a man has in
himself, the less he will want from other people,--the less, indeed,
other people can be to him. This is why a high degree of intellect
tends to make a man unsocial. True, if _quality_ of intellect could be
made up for by quantity, it might be worth while to live even in the
great world; but unfortunately, a hundred fools together will not make
one wise man.
But the individual who stands at the other end of the scale is no
sooner free from the pangs of need than he endeavors to get pastime
and society at any cost, taking up with the first person he meets, and
avoiding nothing so much as himself. For in solitude, where every one
is thrown upon his own resources, what a man has in himself comes
to light; the fool in fine raiment groans under the burden of his
miserable personality, a burden which he can never throw off, whilst
the man of talent peoples the waste places with his animating
thoughts. Seneca declares that folly is its own burden,--_omnis
stultitia laborat fastidio sui_,--a very true saying, with which may
be compared the words of Jesus, the son of Sirach, _The life of a fool
is worse than death_[1]. And, as a rule, it will be found that a man
is sociable just in the degree in which he is intellectually poor and
generally vulgar. For one's choice in this world does not go much
beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the other. It is said
that the most sociable of all people are the negroes; and they are at
the bottom of the scale in intellect. I remember reading once in a
French paper[2] that the blacks in North America, whether free or
enslaved, are fond of shutting themselves up in large numbers in the
smallest space, because they cannot have too much of one another's
snub-nosed company.
[Footnote 1: Ecclesiasticus, xxii. 11.]
[Footnote 2: _Le Commerce_, Oct. 19th, 1837.]
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a
pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body: and leisure, that
is, the time one has for the free enjoyment of one's consciousness or
individuality, is the fruit or produce of the rest of existence, which
is in general only labor and effort. But what does most people's
leisure yield?--boredom and dullness; except, of course, when it is
occupied with sensual pleasure or folly. How little such leisure is
worth may be seen in the way in which it is spent: and, as Ariosto
observes, how miserable are the idle hours of ignorant men!--_ozio
lungo d'uomini ignoranti_. Ordinary people think merely how they shall
_spend_ their time; a man of any talent tries to _use_ it. The reason
why people of limited intellect are apt to be bored is that their
intellect is absolutely nothing more than the means by which the
motive power of the will is put into force: and whenever there is
nothing particular to set the will in motion, it rests, and their
intellect takes a holiday, because, equally with the will, it requires
something external to bring it into play. The result is an awful
stagnation of whatever power a man has--in a word, boredom. To
counteract this miserable feeling, men run to trivialities which
please for the moment they are taken up, hoping thus to engage the
will in order to rouse it to action, and so set the intellect in
motion; for it is the latter which has to give effect to these motives
of the will. Compared with real and natural motives, these are but as
paper money to coin; for their value is only arbitrary--card games and
the like, which have been invented for this very purpose. And if there
is nothing else to be done, a man will twirl his thumbs or beat the
devil's tattoo; or a cigar may be a welcome substitute for exercising
his brains. Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is
card-playing,[1] and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign
that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to
deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!
But I do not wish to be unjust; so let me remark that it may certainly
be said in defence of card-playing that it is a preparation for the
world and for business life, because one learns thereby how to make a
clever use of fortuitous but unalterable circumstances (cards, in this
case), and to get as much out of them as one can: and to do this a man
must learn a little dissimulation, and how to put a good face upon a
bad business. But, on the other hand, it is exactly for this reason
that card-playing is so demoralizing, since the whole object of it is
to employ every kind of trick and machination in order to win
what belongs to another. And a habit of this sort, learnt at the
card-table, strikes root and pushes its way into practical life; and
in the affairs of every day a man gradually comes to regard _meum_ and
_tuum_ in much the same light as cards, and to consider that he may
use to the utmost whatever advantages he possesses, so long as he does
not come within the arm of the law. Examples of what I mean are of
daily occurrence in mercantile life. Since, then, leisure is the
flower, or rather the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into
possession of himself, those are happy indeed who possess something
real in themselves. But what do you get from most people's
leisure?--only a good-for-nothing fellow, who is terribly bored and a
burden to himself. Let us, therefore, rejoice, dear brethren, for _we
are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free_.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Card-playing to this extent is now,
no doubt, a thing of the past, at any rate amongst the nations
of northern Europe. The present fashion is rather in favor of a
dilettante interest in art or literature.]
Further, as no land is so well off as that which requires few imports,
or none at all, so the happiest man is one who has enough in his own
inner wealth, and requires little or nothing from outside for his
maintenance, for imports are expensive things, reveal dependence,
entail danger, occasion trouble, and when all is said and done, are
a poor substitute for home produce. No man ought to expect much from
others, or, in general, from the external world. What one human being
can be to another is not a very great deal: in the end every one
stands alone, and the important thing is _who_ it is that stands
alone. Here, then, is another application of the general truth which
Goethe recognizes in _Dichtung und Wahrheit_ (Bk. III.), that in
everything a man has ultimately to appeal to himself; or, as Goldsmith
puts it in _The Traveller_:
_Still to ourselves in every place consign'd
Our own felicity we make or find_.
Himself is the source of the best and most a man can be or achieve.
The more this is so--the more a man finds his sources of pleasure in
himself--the happier he will be. Therefore, it is with great truth
that Aristotle[1] says, _To be happy means to be self-sufficient_. For
all other sources of happiness are in their nature most uncertain,
precarious, fleeting, the sport of chance; and so even under the most
favorable circumstances they can easily be exhausted; nay, this is
unavoidable, because they are not always within reach. And in old age
these sources of happiness must necessarily dry up:--love leaves us
then, and wit, desire to travel, delight in horses, aptitude for
social intercourse; friends and relations, too, are taken from us by
death. Then more than ever, it depends upon what a man has in himself;
for this will stick to him longest; and at any period of life it is
the only genuine and lasting source of happiness. There is not much to
be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; and
if a man escapes these, boredom lies in wait for him at every corner.
Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly
makes the most noise. Fate is cruel, and mankind is pitiable. In such
a world as this, a man who is rich in himself is like a bright, warm,
happy room at Christmastide, while without are the frost and snow of
a December night. Therefore, without doubt, the happiest destiny on
earth is to have the rare gift of a rich individuality, and, more
especially to be possessed of a good endowment of intellect; this
is the happiest destiny, though it may not be, after all, a very
brilliant one.
[Footnote 1: Eth. Eud, vii 2]
There was a great wisdom in that remark which Queen Christina of
Sweden made, in her nineteenth year, about Descartes, who had then
lived for twenty years in the deepest solitude in Holland, and, apart
from report, was known to her only by a single essay: _M. Descartes_,
she said, _is the happiest of men, and his condition seems to me much
to be envied.[1]_ Of course, as was the case with Descartes, external
circumstances must be favorable enough to allow a man to be master of
his life and happiness; or, as we read in _Ecclesiastes_[2]--_Wisdom
is good together with an inheritance, and profitable unto them that
see the sun_. The man to whom nature and fate have granted the
blessing of wisdom, will be most anxious and careful to keep open
the fountains of happiness which he has in himself; and for this,
independence and leisure are necessary. To obtain them, he will be
willing to moderate his desires and harbor his resources, all the more
because he is not, like others, restricted to the external world for
his pleasures. So he will not be misled by expectations of office, or
money, or the favor and applause of his fellowmen, into surrendering
himself in order to conform to low desires and vulgar tastes; nay, in
such a case he will follow the advice that Horace gives in his epistle
to Maecenas.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Vie de Descartes_, par Baillet. Liv. vii., ch. 10.]
[Footnote 2: vii. 12.]
[Footnote 3: Lib. 1., ep. 7.]
_Nec somnum plebis laudo, satur altilium, nec
Otia divitiis Arabum liberrima muto_.
It is a great piece of folly to sacrifice the inner for the outer man,
to give the whole or the greater part of one's quiet, leisure and
independence for splendor, rank, pomp, titles and honor. This is what
Goethe did. My good luck drew me quite in the other direction.
The truth which I am insisting upon here, the truth, namely, that the
chief source of human happiness is internal, is confirmed by that most
accurate observation of Aristotle in the _Nichomachean Ethics_[1] that
every pleasure presupposes some sort of activity, the application of
some sort of power, without which it cannot exist. The doctrine of
Aristotle's, that a man's happiness consists in the free exercise
of his highest faculties, is also enunciated by Stobaeus in his
exposition of the Peripatetic philosophy[2]: _happiness_, he says,
_means vigorous and successful activity in all your undertakings_; and
he explains that by _vigor [Greek: aretae]_ he means _mastery_ in any
thing, whatever it be. Now, the original purpose of those forces with
which nature has endowed man is to enable him to struggle against the
difficulties which beset him on all sides. But if this struggle comes
to an end, his unemployed forces become a burden to him; and he has to
set to work and play with them,--to use them, I mean, for no purpose
at all, beyond avoiding the other source of human suffering, boredom,
to which he is at once exposed. It is the upper classes, people of
wealth, who are the greatest victims of boredom. Lucretius long ago
described their miserable state, and the truth of his description may
be still recognized to-day, in the life of every great capital--where
the rich man is seldom in his own halls, because it bores him to be
there, and still he returns thither, because he is no better off
outside;--or else he is away in post-haste to his house in the
country, as if it were on fire; and he is no sooner arrived there,
than he is bored again, and seeks to forget everything in sleep, or
else hurries back to town once more.
[Footnote 1: i. 7 and vii. 13, 14.]
[Footnote 2: Ecl. eth. ii., ch 7.]
_Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille,
Esse domi quem pertaesum est, subitoque reventat,
Quippe foris nihilo melius qui sentiat esse.
Currit, agens mannos, ad villam precipitanter,
Auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans:
Oscitat extemplo, tetigit quum limina villae;
Aut abit in somnum gravis, atque oblivia quaerit;
Aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit_.[1]
[Footnote 1: III 1073.]
In their youth, such people must have had a superfluity of muscular
and vital energy,--powers which, unlike those of the mind, cannot
maintain their full degree of vigor very long; and in later years they
either have no mental powers at all, or cannot develop any for want
of employment which would bring them into play; so that they are in a
wretched plight. _Will_, however, they still possess, for this is the
only power that is inexhaustible; and they try to stimulate their
will by passionate excitement, such as games of chance for high
stakes--undoubtedly a most degrading form of vice. And one may say
generally that if a man finds himself with nothing to do, he is sure
to choose some amusement suited to the kind of power in which he
excels,--bowls, it may be, or chess; hunting or painting; horse-racing
or music; cards, or poetry, heraldry, philosophy, or some other
dilettante interest. We might classify these interests methodically,
by reducing them to expressions of the three fundamental powers,
the factors, that is to say, which go to make up the physiological
constitution of man; and further, by considering these powers by
themselves, and apart from any of the definite aims which they may
subserve, and simply as affording three sources of possible pleasure,
out of which every man will choose what suits him, according as he
excels in one direction or another.
First of all come the pleasures of _vital energy_, of food, drink,
digestion, rest and sleep; and there are parts of the world where it
can be said that these are characteristic and national pleasures.
Secondly, there are the pleasures of _muscular energy_, such as
walking, running, wrestling, dancing, fencing, riding and similar
athletic pursuits, which sometimes take the form of sport, and
sometimes of a military life and real warfare. Thirdly, there are the
pleasures of sensibility, such as observation, thought, feeling, or
a taste for poetry or culture, music, learning, reading, meditation,
invention, philosophy and the like. As regards the value, relative
worth and duration of each of these kinds of pleasure, a great deal
might be said, which, however, I leave the reader to supply. But every
one will see that the nobler the power which is brought into play,
the greater will be the pleasure which it gives; for pleasure always
involves the use of one's own powers, and happiness consists in a
frequent repetition of pleasure. No one will deny that in this respect
the pleasures of sensibility occupy a higher place than either of
the other two fundamental kinds; which exist in an equal, nay, in
a greater degree in brutes; it is this preponderating amount of
sensibility which distinguishes man from other animals. Now, our
mental powers are forms of sensibility, and therefore a preponderating
amount of it makes us capable of that kind of pleasure which has to do
with mind, so-called intellectual pleasure; and the more sensibility
predominates, the greater the pleasure will be.[1]
[Footnote 1: Nature exhibits a continual progress, starting from the
mechanical and chemical activity of the inorganic world, proceeding
to the vegetable, with its dull enjoyment of self, from that to the
animal world, where intelligence and consciousness begin, at first
very weak, and only after many intermediate stages attaining its last
great development in man, whose intellect is Nature's crowning point,
the goal of all her efforts, the most perfect and difficult of all her
works. And even within the range of the human intellect, there are a
great many observable differences of degree, and it is very seldom
that intellect reaches its highest point, intelligence properly
so-called, which in this narrow and strict sense of the word, is
Nature's most consummate product, and so the rarest and most precious
thing of which the world can boast. The highest product of Nature
is the clearest degree of consciousness, in which the world mirrors
itself more plainly and completely than anywhere else. A man endowed
with this form of intelligence is in possession of what is noblest
and best on earth; and accordingly, he has a source of pleasure in
comparison with which all others are small. From his surroundings he
asks nothing but leisure for the free enjoyment of what he has got,
time, as it were, to polish his diamond. All other pleasures that are
not of the intellect are of a lower kind; for they are, one and all,
movements of will--desires, hopes, fears and ambitions, no matter to
what directed: they are always satisfied at the cost of pain, and in
the case of ambition, generally with more or less of illusion. With
intellectual pleasure, on the other hand, truth becomes clearer and
clearer. In the realm of intelligence pain has no power. Knowledge is
all in all. Further, intellectual pleasures are accessible entirely
and only through the medium of the intelligence, and are limited by
its capacity. _For all the wit there is in the world is useless to him
who has none_. Still this advantage is accompanied by a substantial
disadvantage; for the whole of Nature shows that with the growth of
intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with
the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme
point.]
The normal, ordinary man takes a vivid interest in anything only in so
far as it excites his will, that is to say, is a matter of personal
interest to him. But constant excitement of the will is never an
unmixed good, to say the least; in other words, it involves pain.
Card-playing, that universal occupation of "good society" everywhere,
is a device for providing this kind of excitement, and that, too,
by means of interests so small as to produce slight and momentary,
instead of real and permanent, pain. Card-playing is, in fact, a mere
tickling of the will.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Vulgarity_ is, at bottom, the kind of consciousness in
which the will completely predominates over the intellect, where the
latter does nothing more than perform the service of its master, the
will. Therefore, when the will makes no demands, supplies no motives,
strong or weak, the intellect entirely loses its power, and the result
is complete vacancy of mind. Now _will without intellect_ is the most
vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead,
who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he
is made. This is the condition of mind called _vulgarity_, in which
the only active elements are the organs of sense, and that small
amount of intellect which is necessary for apprehending the data of
sense. Accordingly, the vulgar man is constantly open to all sorts of
impressions, and immediately perceives all the little trifling things
that go on in his environment: the lightest whisper, the most trivial
circumstance, is sufficient to rouse his attention; he is just like an
animal. Such a man's mental condition reveals itself in his face, in
his whole exterior; and hence that vulgar, repulsive appearance, which
is all the more offensive, if, as is usually the case, his will--the
only factor in his consciousness--is a base, selfish and altogether
bad one.]
On the other hand, a man of powerful intellect is capable of taking
a vivid interest in things in the way of mere _knowledge_, with no
admixture of _will_; nay, such an interest is a necessity to him. It
places him in a sphere where pain is an alien,--a diviner air, where
the gods live serene.
_[Greek: phusis bebion ou ta chraematatheoi reia xoontes][1]_
[Footnote 1: Odyssey IV., 805.]
Look on these two pictures--the life of the masses, one long, dull
record of struggle and effort entirely devoted to the petty interests
of personal welfare, to misery in all its forms, a life beset by
intolerable boredom as soon as ever those aims are satisfied and the
man is thrown back upon himself, whence he can be roused again to some
sort of movement only by the wild fire of passion. On the other side
you have a man endowed with a high degree of mental power, leading an
existence rich in thought and full of life and meaning, occupied by
worthy and interesting objects as soon as ever he is free to give
himself to them, bearing in himself a source of the noblest pleasure.
What external promptings he wants come from the works of nature, and
from the contemplation of human affairs and the achievements of the
great of all ages and countries, which are thoroughly appreciated by a
man of this type alone, as being the only one who can quite understand
and feel with them. And so it is for him alone that those great ones
have really lived; it is to him that they make their appeal; the rest
are but casual hearers who only half understand either them or their
followers. Of course, this characteristic of the intellectual man
implies that he has one more need than the others, the need of
reading, observing, studying, meditating, practising, the need, in
short, of undisturbed leisure. For, as Voltaire has very rightly said,
_there are no real pleasures without real needs_; and the need of them
is why to such a man pleasures are accessible which are denied to
others,--the varied beauties of nature and art and literature. To
heap these pleasures round people who do not want them and cannot
appreciate them, is like expecting gray hairs to fall in love. A man
who is privileged in this respect leads two lives, a personal and an
intellectual life; and the latter gradually comes to be looked upon
as the true one, and the former as merely a means to it. Other people
make this shallow, empty and troubled existence an end in itself. To
the life of the intellect such a man will give the preference over
all his other occupations: by the constant growth of insight and
knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art,
will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which
becomes ever more and more complete; compared with which, a life
devoted to the attainment of personal comfort, a life that may broaden
indeed, but can never be deepened, makes but a poor show: and yet,
as I have said, people make this baser sort of existence an end in
itself.
The ordinary life of every day, so far as it is not moved by passion,
is tedious and insipid; and if it is so moved, it soon becomes
painful. Those alone are happy whom nature has favored with some
superfluity of intellect, something beyond what is just necessary to
carry out the behests of their will; for it enables them to lead an
intellectual life as well, a life unattended by pain and full of vivid
interests. Mere leisure, that is to say, intellect unoccupied in the
service of the will, is not of itself sufficient: there must be a
real superfluity of power, set free from the service of the will and
devoted to that of the intellect; for, as Seneca says, _otium sine
litteris mors est et vivi hominis sepultura_--illiterate leisure is
a form of death, a living tomb. Varying with the amount of the
superfluity, there will be countless developments in this second life,
the life of the mind; it may be the mere collection and labelling of
insects, birds, minerals, coins, or the highest achievements of poetry
and philosophy. The life of the mind is not only a protection against
boredom; it also wards off the pernicious effects of boredom; it keeps
us from bad company, from the many dangers, misfortunes, losses and
extravagances which the man who places his happiness entirely in the
objective world is sure to encounter, My philosophy, for instance, has
never brought me in a six-pence; but it has spared me many an expense.
The ordinary man places his life's happiness in things external to
him, in property, rank, wife and children, friends, society, and the
like, so that when he loses them or finds them disappointing, the
foundation of his happiness is destroyed. In other words, his centre
of gravity is not in himself; it is constantly changing its place,
with every wish and whim. If he is a man of means, one day it will
be his house in the country, another buying horses, or entertaining
friends, or traveling,--a life, in short, of general luxury, the
reason being that he seeks his pleasure in things outside him. Like
one whose health and strength are gone, he tries to regain by the use
of jellies and drugs, instead of by developing his own vital power,
the true source of what he has lost. Before proceeding to the
opposite, let us compare with this common type the man who comes
midway between the two, endowed, it may be, not exactly with
distinguished powers of mind, but with somewhat more than the ordinary
amount of intellect. He will take a dilettante interest in art, or
devote his attention to some branch of science--botany, for example,
or physics, astronomy, history, and find a great deal of pleasure in
such studies, and amuse himself with them when external forces of
happiness are exhausted or fail to satisfy him any more. Of a man like
this it may be said that his centre of gravity is partly in himself.
But a dilettante interest in art is a very different thing from
creative activity; and an amateur pursuit of science is apt to be
superficial and not to penetrate to the heart of the matter. A man
cannot entirely identify himself with such pursuits, or have his whole
existence so completely filled and permeated with them that he loses
all interest in everything else. It is only the highest intellectual
power, what we call _genius_, that attains to this degree of
intensity, making all time and existence its theme, and striving to
express its peculiar conception of the world, whether it contemplates
life as the subject of poetry or of philosophy. Hence, undisturbed
occupation with himself, his own thoughts and works, is a matter of
urgent necessity to such a man; solitude is welcome, leisure is
the highest good, and everything else is unnecessary, nay, even
burdensome.
This is the only type of man of whom it can be said that his centre of
gravity is entirely in himself; which explains why it is that people
of this sort--and they are very rare--no matter how excellent their
character may be, do not show that warm and unlimited interest in
friends, family, and the community in general, of which others are
so often capable; for if they have only themselves they are not
inconsolable for the loss of everything else. This gives an isolation
to their character, which is all the more effective since other
people never really quite satisfy them, as being, on the whole, of
a different nature: nay more, since this difference is constantly
forcing itself upon their notice they get accustomed to move about
amongst mankind as alien beings, and in thinking of humanity in
general, to say _they_ instead of _we_.
So the conclusion we come to is that the man whom nature has endowed
with intellectual wealth is the happiest; so true it is that the
subjective concerns us more than the objective; for whatever the
latter may be, it can work only indirectly, secondly, and through the
medium of the former--a truth finely expressed by Lucian:--
[Greek: _Aeloutos ho taes psychaes ploutus monos estin alaethaes
Talla dechei ataen pleiona ton kteanon_--][1]
[Footnote 1: Epigrammata, 12.]
the wealth of the soul is the only true wealth, for with all other
riches comes a bane even greater than they. The man of inner wealth
wants nothing from outside but the negative gift of undisturbed
leisure, to develop and mature his intellectual faculties, that is,
to enjoy his wealth; in short, he wants permission to be himself,
his whole life long, every day and every hour. If he is destined to
impress the character of his mind upon a whole race, he has only one
measure of happiness or unhappiness--to succeed or fail in perfecting
his powers and completing his work. All else is of small consequence.
Accordingly, the greatest minds of all ages have set the highest value
upon undisturbed leisure, as worth exactly as much as the man himself.
_Happiness appears to consist in leisure_, says Aristotle;[1] and
Diogenes Laertius reports that _Socrates praised leisure as the
fairest of all possessions_. So, in the _Nichomachean Ethics_,
Aristotle concludes that a life devoted to philosophy is the happiest;
or, as he says in the _Politics,[2] the free exercise of any power,
whatever it may be, is happiness_. This again, tallies with what
Goethe says in _Wilhelm Meister: The man who is born with a talent
which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it_.
[Footnote 1: Eth. Nichom. x. 7.]
[Footnote 2: iv. 11.]
But to be in possession of undisturbed leisure, is far from being
the common lot; nay, it is something alien to human nature, for the
ordinary man's destiny is to spend life in procuring what is necessary
for the subsistence of himself and his family; he is a son of struggle
and need, not a free intelligence. So people as a rule soon get tired
of undisturbed leisure, and it becomes burdensome if there are no
fictitious and forced aims to occupy it, play, pastime and hobbies of
every kind. For this very reason it is full of possible danger, and
_difficilis in otio quies_ is a true saying,--it is difficult to keep
quiet if you have nothing to do. On the other hand, a measure of
intellect far surpassing the ordinary, is as unnatural as it is
abnormal. But if it exists, and the man endowed with it is to be
happy, he will want precisely that undisturbed leisure which the
others find burdensome or pernicious; for without it he is a Pegasus
in harness, and consequently unhappy. If these two unnatural
circumstances, external, and internal, undisturbed leisure and great
intellect, happen to coincide in the same person, it is a great piece
of fortune; and if the fate is so far favorable, a man can lead the
higher life, the life protected from the two opposite sources of human
suffering, pain and boredom, from the painful struggle for existence,
and the incapacity for enduring leisure (which is free existence
itself)--evils which may be escaped only by being mutually
neutralized.
But there is something to be said in opposition to this view. Great
intellectual gifts mean an activity pre-eminently nervous in its
character, and consequently a very high degree of susceptibility to
pain in every form. Further, such gifts imply an intense temperament,
larger and more vivid ideas, which, as the inseparable accompaniment
of great intellectual power, entail on its possessor a corresponding
intensity of the emotions, making them incomparably more violent than
those to which the ordinary man is a prey. Now, there are more things
in the world productive of pain than of pleasure. Again, a large
endowment of intellect tends to estrange the man who has it from other
people and their doings; for the more a man has in himself, the less
he will be able to find in them; and the hundred things in which they
take delight, he will think shallow and insipid. Here, then, perhaps,
is another instance of that law of compensation which makes itself
felt everywhere. How often one hears it said, and said, too, with some
plausibility, that the narrow-minded man is at bottom the happiest,
even though his fortune is unenviable. I shall make no attempt to
forestall the reader's own judgment on this point; more especially as
Sophocles himself has given utterance to two diametrically opposite
opinions:--
[Greek: Pollo to phronein eudaimonias
proton uparchei.][1]
he says in one place--wisdom is the greatest part of happiness;
and again, in another passage, he declares that the life of the
thoughtless is the most pleasant of all--
[Greek: En ta phronein gar maeden aedistos bios.][2]
The philosophers of the _Old Testament_ find themselves in a like
contradiction.
_The life of a fool is worse than death_[3]
and--
_In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge
increaseth sorrow_.[4]
[Footnote 1: Antigone, 1347-8.]
[Footnote 2: Ajax, 554.]
[Footnote 3: Ecclesiasticus, xxii. 11.]
[Footnote 4: Ecclesiastes, i. 18.]
I may remark, however, that a man who has no mental needs, because his
intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense
of the word, what is called a _philistine_--an expression at first
peculiar to the German language, a kind of slang term at the
Universities, afterwards used, by analogy, in a higher sense, though
still in its original meaning, as denoting one who is not _a Son of
the Muses_. A philistine is and remains [Greek: amousos anaer]. I
should prefer to take a higher point of view, and apply the term
_philistine_ to people who are always seriously occupied with
realities which are no realities; but as such a definition would be a
transcendental one, and therefore not generally intelligible, it
would hardly be in place in the present treatise, which aims at
being popular. The other definition can be more easily elucidated,
indicating, as it does, satisfactorily enough, the essential nature of
all those qualities which distinguish the philistine. He is defined to
be _a man without mental needs_. From this is follows, firstly, _in
relation to himself_, that he has _no intellectual pleasures_; for, as
was remarked before, there are no real pleasures without real needs.
The philistine's life is animated by no desire to gain knowledge and
insight for their own sake, or to experience that true aeesthetic
pleasure which is so nearly akin to them. If pleasures of this kind
are fashionable, and the philistine finds himself compelled to pay
attention to them, he will force himself to do so, but he will take as
little interest in them as possible. His only real pleasures are of a
sensual kind, and he thinks that these indemnify him for the loss of
the others. To him oysters and champagne are the height of existence;
the aim of his life is to procure what will contribute to his bodily
welfare, and he is indeed in a happy way if this causes him some
trouble. If the luxuries of life are heaped upon him, he will
inevitably be bored, and against boredom he has a great many fancied
remedies, balls, theatres, parties, cards, gambling, horses, women,
drinking, traveling and so on; all of which can not protect a man
from being bored, for where there are no intellectual needs, no
intellectual pleasures are possible. The peculiar characteristic
of the philistine is a dull, dry kind of gravity, akin to that of
animals. Nothing really pleases, or excites, or interests him, for
sensual pleasure is quickly exhausted, and the society of philistines
soon becomes burdensome, and one may even get tired of playing cards.
True, the pleasures of vanity are left, pleasures which he enjoys in
his own way, either by feeling himself superior in point of wealth, or
rank, or influence and power to other people, who thereupon pay
him honor; or, at any rate, by going about with those who have a
superfluity of these blessings, sunning himself in the reflection of
their splendor--what the English call a _snob_.
From the essential nature of the philistine it follows, secondly, _in
regard to others_, that, as he possesses no intellectual, but only
physical need, he will seek the society of those who can satisfy the
latter, but not the former. The last thing he will expect from his
friends is the possession of any sort of intellectual capacity; nay,
if he chances to meet with it, it will rouse his antipathy and
even hatred; simply because in addition to an unpleasant sense of
inferiority, he experiences, in his heart, a dull kind of envy, which
has to be carefully concealed even from himself. Nevertheless, it
sometimes grows into a secret feeling of rancor. But for all that,
it will never occur to him to make his own ideas of worth or value
conform to the standard of such qualities; he will continue to give
the preference to rank and riches, power and influence, which in his
eyes seem to be the only genuine advantages in the world; and his wish
will be to excel in them himself. All this is the consequence of his
being a man _without intellectual needs_. The great affliction of all
philistines is that they have no interest in _ideas_, and that, to
escape being bored, they are in constant need of _realities_. But
realities are either unsatisfactory or dangerous; when they lose their
interest, they become fatiguing. But the ideal world is illimitable
and calm,
_something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow_.
NOTE.--In these remarks on the personal qualities which go to make
happiness, I have been mainly concerned with the physical and
intellectual nature of man. For an account of the direct and immediate
influence of _morality_ upon happiness, let me refer to my prize essay
on _The Foundation of Morals_ (Sec. 22.)