surroundings,--the arbour, the church with its graves, the pond and
the wood,--all this we see again with pain. We are seized with pity
for ourselves; for what have we not passed through since then! And
everything here is so silent, so eternal, only we are so changed, so
moved; we even find a few human beings, on whom Time has sharpened his
teeth no more than on an oak tree,--peasants, fishermen, woodmen--they
are unchanged. Emotion and self-pity at the sight of lower culture is
the sign of higher culture; from which the conclusion may be drawn that
happiness has certainly not been increased by it. Whoever wishes to
reap happiness and comfort in life should always avoid higher culture.
278.
THE SIMILE OF THE DANCE.--It must now be regarded as a decisive sign of
great culture if some one possesses sufficient strength and flexibility
to be as pure and strict in discernment as, in other moments, to be
capable of giving poetry, religion, and metaphysics a hundred paces'
start and then feeling their force and beauty. Such a position amid
two such different demands is very difficult, for science urges the
absolute supremacy of its methods, and if this insistence is not
yielded to, there arises the other danger of a weak wavering between
different impulses. Meanwhile, to cast a glance, in simile at least, on
a solution of this difficulty, it may be remembered that _dancing_ is
not the same as a dull reeling to and fro between different impulses.
High culture will resemble a bold dance,--wherefore, as has been said,
there is need of much strength and suppleness.
279.
OF THE RELIEVING OF LIFE.--A primary way of lightening life is the
idealisation of all its occurrences; and with the help of painting we
should make it quite clear to ourselves what idealising means. The
painter requires that the spectator should not observe too closely or
too sharply, he forces him back to a certain distance from whence
to make his observations; he is obliged to take for granted a fixed
distance of the spectator from the picture,--he must even suppose an
equally certain amount of sharpness of eye in his spectator; in such
things he must on no account waver. Every one, therefore, who desires
to idealise his life must not look at it too closely, and must always
keep his gaze at a certain distance. This was a trick that Goethe, for
instance, understood.
280.
AGGRAVATION AS RELIEF, AND _VICE VERSA._--Much that makes life more
difficult in certain grades of mankind serves to lighten it in a
higher grade, because such people have become familiar with greater
aggravations of life. The contrary also happens; for instance, religion
has a double face, according to whether a man looks up to it to relieve
him of his burden and need, or looks down upon it as-upon fetters laid
on him to prevent him from soaring too high into the air.
281.
THE HIGHER CULTURE IS NECESSARILY MISUNDERSTOOD.--He who has strung his
instrument with only two strings, like the scholars who, besides the
_instinct of knowledge_ possess only an acquired _religious_ instinct,
does not understand people who can play upon more strings. It lies
in the nature of the higher, _many-stringed_ culture that it should
always be falsely interpreted by the lower; an example of this is when
art appears as a disguised form of the religious. People who are only
religious understand even science as a searching after the religious
sentiment, just as deaf mutes do not know what music is, unless it be
visible movement.
282.
LAMENTATION.--It is, perhaps, the advantages of our epoch that bring
with them a backward movement and an occasional undervaluing of the
_vita contemplativa._ But it must be acknowledged that our time is
poor in the matter of great moralists, that Pascal, Epictetus, Seneca,
and Plutarch are now but little read, that work and industry--formerly
in the following of the great goddess Health--sometimes appear to
rage like a disease. Because time to think and tranquillity in
thought are lacking, we no longer ponder over different views, but
content ourselves with hating them. With the enormous acceleration of
life, mind and eye grow accustomed to a partial and false sight and
judgment, and all people are like travellers whose only acquaintance
with countries and nations is derived from the railway. An independent
and cautious attitude of knowledge is looked upon almost as a kind of
madness; the free spirit is brought into disrepute, chiefly through
scholars, who miss their thoroughness and ant-like industry in his
art of regarding things and would gladly banish him into one single
corner of science, while it has the different and higher mission of
commanding the battalion rear-guard of scientific and learned men from
an isolated position, and showing them the ways and aims of culture. A
song of lamentation such as that which has just been sung will probably
have its own period, and will cease of its own accord on a forcible
return of the genius of meditation.
283.
THE CHIEF DEFICIENCY OF ACTIVE PEOPLE.--Active people are usually
deficient in the higher activity, I mean individual activity. They are
active as officials, merchants, scholars, that is as a species, but not
as quite distinct separate and _single_ individuals; in this respect
they are idle. It is the misfortune of the active that their activity
is almost always a little senseless. For instance, we must not ask the
money-making banker the reason of his restless activity, it is foolish.
The active roll as the stone rolls, according to the stupidity of
mechanics. All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still,
into slaves and freemen; for whoever has not two-thirds of his day
for himself is a slave, be he otherwise whatever he likes, statesman,
merchant, official, or scholar.
284.
IN FAVOUR OF THE IDLE.--As a sign that the value of a contemplative
life has decreased, scholars now vie with active people in a sort of
hurried enjoyment, so that they appear to value this mode of enjoying
more than that which really pertains to them, and which, as a matter
of fact, is a far greater enjoyment. Scholars are ashamed of _otium._
But there is one noble thing about idleness and idlers. If idleness
is really the _beginning_ of all vice, it finds itself, therefore, at
least in near neighbourhood of all the virtues; the idle man is still
a better man than the active. You do not suppose that in speaking of
idleness and idlers I am alluding to you, you sluggards?
285.
MODERN UNREST.--Modern restlessness increases towards the west, so
that Americans look upon the inhabitants of Europe as altogether
peace-loving and enjoying beings, whilst in reality they swarm about
like wasps and bees. This restlessness is so great that the higher
culture cannot mature its fruits, it is as if the seasons followed each
other too quickly. For lack of rest our civilisation is turning into
a new barbarism. At no period have the active, that is, the restless,
been of _more_ importance. One of the necessary corrections, therefore,
which must be undertaken in the character of humanity is to strengthen
the contemplative element on a large scale. But every individual who
is quiet and steady in heart and head already has the right to believe
that he possesses not only a good temperament, but also a generally
useful virtue, and even fulfils a higher mission by the preservation of
this virtue.
286.
To WHAT EXTENT THE ACTIVE MAN IS LAZY.--I believe that every one must
have his own opinion about everything concerning which opinions are
possible, because he himself is a peculiar, unique thing, which assumes
towards all other things a new and never hitherto existing attitude.
But idleness, which lies at the bottom of the active man's soul,
prevents him from drawing water out of his own well. Freedom of opinion
is like health; both are individual, and no good general conception can
be set up of either of them. That which is necessary for the health of
one individual is the cause of disease in another, and many means and
ways to the freedom of the spirit are for more highly developed natures
the ways and means to confinement.
287.
_CENSOR VITÆ_--Alternations of love and hatred for a long period
distinguish the inward condition of a man who desires to be free in his
judgment of life; he does not forget, and bears everything a grudge,
for good and evil. At last, when the whole tablet of his soul is
written full of experiences, he will not hate and despise existence,
neither will he love it, but will regard it sometimes with a joyful,
sometimes with a sorrowful eye, and, like nature, will be now in a
summer and now in an autumn mood.
288.
THE SECONDARY RESULT.--Whoever earnestly desires to be free will
therewith and without any compulsion lose all inclination for faults
and vices; he will also be more rarely overcome by anger and vexation.
His will desires nothing more urgently than to discern, and the means
to do this,--that is, the permanent condition in which he is best able
to discern.
289.
THE VALUE OF DISEASE.--The man who is bed-ridden often perceives that
he is usually ill of his position, business, or society, and through
them has lost all self-possession. He gains this piece of knowledge
from the idleness to which his illness condemns him.
290.
SENSITIVENESS IN THE COUNTRY.--If there are no firm, quiet lines on
the horizon of his life, a species of mountain and forest line, man's
inmost will itself becomes restless, inattentive, and covetous, as is
the nature of a dweller in towns; he has no happiness and confers no
happiness.
291.
PRUDENCE OF THE FREE SPIRITS.--Free-thinkers, those who live by
knowledge alone, will soon attain the supreme aim of their life and
their ultimate position towards society and State, and will gladly
content themselves, for instance, with a small post or an income that
is just sufficient to enable them to live; for they will arrange to
live in such a manner that a great change of outward prosperity, even
an overthrow of the political order, would not cause an overthrow
of their life. To all these things they devote as little energy as
possible in order that with their whole accumulated strength, and with
a long breath, they may dive into the element of knowledge. Thus they
can hope to dive deep and be able to see the bottom. Such a spirit
seizes only the point of an event, he does not care for things in the
whole breadth and prolixity of their folds, for he does not wish to
entangle himself in them. He, too, knows the weekdays of restraint, of
dependence and servitude. But from time to time there must dawn for
him a Sunday of liberty, otherwise he could not endure life. It is
probable that even his love for humanity will be prudent and somewhat
short-winded, for he desires to meddle with the world of inclinations
and of blindness only as far as is necessary for the purpose of
knowledge. He must trust that the genius of justice will say something
for its disciple and protege if accusing voices were to call him poor
in love. In his mode of life and thought there is a _refined heroism,_
which scorns to offer itself to the great mob-reverence, as its
coarser brother does, and passes quietly through and out of the world.
Whatever labyrinths it traverses, beneath whatever rocks its stream has
occasionally worked its way--when it reaches the light it goes clearly,
easily, and almost noiselessly on its way, and lets the sunshine strike
down to its very bottom.
292.
FORWARD.--And thus forward upon the path of wisdom, with a firm step
and good confidence! However you may be situated, serve yourself as a
source of experience! Throw off the displeasure at your nature, forgive
yourself your own individuality, for in any case you have in yourself
a ladder with a hundred steps upon which you can mount to knowledge.
The age into which with grief you feel yourself thrown thinks you happy
because of this good fortune; it calls out to you that you shall still
have experiences which men of later ages will perhaps be obliged to
forego. Do not despise the fact of having been religious; consider
fully how you have had a genuine access to art. Can you not, with the
help of these experiences, follow immense stretches of former humanity
with a clearer understanding? Is not that ground which sometimes
displeases you so greatly, that ground of clouded thought, precisely
the one upon which have grown many of the most glorious fruits of older
civilisations? You must have loved religion and art as you loved mother
and nurse,--otherwise you cannot be wise. But you must be able to see
beyond them, to outgrow them; if you, remain under their ban you do
not understand them. You must also be familiar with history and that
cautious play with the balances: "On the one hand--on the other hand."
Go back, treading in the footsteps made by mankind in its great and
painful journey through the desert of the past, and you will learn most
surely whither it is that all later humanity never can or may go again.
And inasmuch as you wish with all your strength to see in advance how
the knots of the future are tied, your own life acquires the value of
an instrument and means of knowledge. It is within your power to see
that all you have experienced, trials, errors, faults, deceptions,
passions, your love and your hope, shall be merged wholly in your aim.
This aim is to become a necessary chain of culture-links yourself,
and from this necessity to draw a conclusion as to the necessity in
the progress of general culture. When your sight has become strong
enough to see to the bottom of the dark well of your nature and your
knowledge, it is possible that in its mirror you may also behold the
far-away visions of future civilisations. Do you think that such a life
with such an aim is too wearisome, too empty of all that is agreeable?
Then you have still to learn that no honey is sweeter than that of
knowledge, and that the overhanging clouds of trouble must be to you as
an udder from which you shall draw milk for your refreshment. And only
when old age approaches will you rightly perceive how you listened to
the voice of nature, that nature which rules the whole world through
pleasure; the same life which has its zenith in age has also its zenith
in wisdom, in that mild sunshine of a constant mental joyfulness; you
meet them both, old age and wisdom, upon one ridge of life,--it was
thus intended by Nature. Then it is time, and no cause for anger, that
the mists of death approach. Towards the light is your last movement; a
joyful cry of knowledge is your last sound.
[Footnote 1: This may remind one of Gobineau's more jocular saying:
"_Nous ne descendons pas du singe, mais nous y allons._"--J.M.K.]
[Footnote 2: This refers to his essay, "Schopenhauer as Educator," in
_Thoughts Out of Season,_ vol. ii. of the English edition.--J.M.K.]
[Footnote 3: For it is when loving that mortal man gives of his
best.--J.M.K.]
SIXTH DIVISION.
MAN IN SOCIETY.
293.
WELL-MEANT DISSIMULATION.--In intercourse with men a well-meant
dissimulation is often necessary, as if we did not see through the
motives of their actions.
294.
COPIES.--We not unfrequently meet with copies of prominent persons; and
as in the case of pictures, so also here, the copies please more than
the originals.
295.
THE PUBLIC SPEAKER.--One may speak with the greatest appropriateness,
and yet so that everybody cries out to the contrary,--that is to say,
when one does not speak to everybody.
296.
WANT OF CONFIDENCE.--Want of confidence among friends is a fault that
cannot be censured without becoming incurable.
297.
THE ART OF GIVING.--To have to refuse a gift, merely because it has not
been offered in the right way, provokes animosity against the giver.
298.
THE MOST DANGEROUS PARTISAN.--In every party there is one who, by his
far too dogmatic expression of the party-principles, excites defection
among the others.
299.
ADVISERS OF THE SICK.--Whoever gives advice to a sick person acquires
a feeling of superiority over him, whether the advice be accepted or
rejected. Hence proud and sensitive sick persons hate advisers more
than their sickness.
300.
DOUBLE NATURE OF EQUALITY.--The rage for equality may so manifest
itself that we seek either to draw all others down to ourselves (by
belittling, disregarding, and tripping up), or ourselves and all others
upwards (by recognition, assistance, and congratulation).
301.
AGAINST EMBARRASSMENT.--The best way to relieve and calm very
embarrassed people is to give them decided praise.
302.
PREFERENCE FOR CERTAIN VIRTUES.--We set no special value on the
possession of a virtue until we perceive that it is entirely lacking in
our adversary.
303.
WHY WE CONTRADICT.--We often contradict an opinion when it is really
only the tone in which it is expressed that is unsympathetic to us.
304.
CONFIDENCE AND INTIMACY.--Whoever proposes to command the intimacy of
a person is usually uncertain of possessing his confidence. Whoever is
sure of a person's confidence attaches little value to intimacy with
him.
305.
THE EQUILIBRIUM OF FRIENDSHIP.--The right equilibrium of friendship
in our relation to other men is sometimes restored when we put a few
grains of wrong on our own side of the scales.
306.
THE MOST DANGEROUS PHYSICIANS.--The most dangerous physicians are those
who, like born actors, imitate the born physician with the perfect art
of imposture.
307.
WHEN PARADOXES ARE PERMISSIBLE.--In order to interest clever persons in
a theory, it is sometimes only necessary to put it before them in the
form of a prodigious paradox.
308.
HOW COURAGEOUS PEOPLE ARE WON OVER.--Courageous people are persuaded to
a course of action by representing it as more dangerous than it really
is.
309.
COURTESIES.--We regard the courtesies show us by unpopular persons as
offences.
310.
KEEPING PEOPLE WAITING.--A sure way of exasperating people and of
putting bad thoughts into their heads is to keep them waiting long.
That makes them immoral.
311.
AGAINST THE CONFIDENTIAL.--Persons who give us their full confidence
think they hay thereby a right to ours. That is a mistake people
acquire no rights through gifts.
312.
A MODE OF SETTLEMENT.--It often suffices to give a person whom we have
injured an opportunity to make a joke about us to give him personal
satisfaction, and even to make him favourably disposed to us.
313.
THE VANITY OF THE TONGUE.--Whether man conceals his bad qualities
and vices, or frankly acknowledges them, his vanity in either case
seeks its advantage thereby,--only let it be observed how nicely he
distinguishes those from whom he conceals such qualities from those
with whom he is frank and honest.
314.
CONSIDERATE.--To have no wish to offend or injure any one may as well
be the sign of a just as of a timid nature.
315.
REQUISITE FOR DISPUTATION.--He who cannot put his thoughts on ice
should not enter into the heat of dispute.
316.
INTERCOURSE AND PRETENSION.--We forget our pretensions when we are
always conscious of being amongst meritorious people; being alone
implants presumption in us. The young are pretentious, for they
associate with their equals, who are all ciphers but would fain have a
great significance.
317.
MOTIVES OF AN ATTACK.--One does not attack a person merely to hurt
and conquer him, but perhaps merely to become conscious of one's own
strength.
318.
FLATTERY.--Persons who try by means of flattery to put us off our
guard in intercourse with them, employ a dangerous expedient, like a
sleeping-draught, which, when it does not send the patient to sleep,
keeps him all the wider awake.
319.
A GOOD LETTER-WRITER.--A person who does not write books, thinks much,
and lives in unsatisfying society, will usually be a good letter-writer.
320.
THE UGLIEST OF ALL.--It may be doubted whether a person who has
travelled much has found anywhere in the world uglier places than those
to be met with in the human face.
321.
THE SYMPATHETIC ONES.--Sympathetic natures, ever ready to help in
misfortune, are seldom those that participate in joy; in the happiness
of others they have nothing to occupy them, they are superfluous, they
do not feel themselves in possession of their superiority, and hence
readily show their displeasure.
322.
THE RELATIVES OF A SUICIDE.--The relatives of a suicide take it in
ill part that he did not remain alive out of consideration for their
reputation.
323.
INGRATITUDE FORESEEN.--He who makes a large gift gets no gratitude; for
the recipient is already overburdened by the acceptance of the gift.
324.
IN DULL SOCIETY.--Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts
himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show
one's wit.
325.
THE PRESENCE OF WITNESSES.--We are doubly willing to jump into the
water after some one who has fallen in, if there are people present who
have not the courage to do so.
326.
BEING SILENT.--For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable
way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually
regards the silence as a sign of contempt.
327.
FRIENDS' SECRETS.--Few people will not expose the private affairs of
their friends when at a loss for a subject of conversation.
328.
HUMANITY.--The humanity of intellectual celebrities consists in
courteously submitting to unfairness in intercourse with those who are
I not celebrated.
329.
THE EMBARRASSED.--People who do not feel sure of themselves in society
seize every opportunity of publicly showing their superiority to close
friends, for instance by teasing them.
330.
THANKS.--A refined nature is vexed by knowing that some one owes it
thanks, a coarse nature by knowing that it owes thanks to some one.
331.
A SIGN OF ESTRANGEMENT.--The surest sign of the estrangement of the
opinions of two persons is when they both say something ironical to
each other and neither of them feels the irony.
332.
PRESUMPTION IN CONNECTION WITH MERIT.--Presumption in connection with
merit offends us even more than presumption in persons devoid of merit,
for merit in itself offends us.
333.
DANGER IN THE VOICE.--In conversation we are sometimes confused by the
tone of our own voice, and misled to make assertions that do not at all
correspond to our opinions.
334.
IN CONVERSATION.--Whether in conversation with others we mostly agree
or mostly disagree with them is a matter of habit; there is sense in
both cases.
335.
FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.--We are afraid of the animosity of our
neighbour, because we are apprehensive that he may thereby discover our
secrets.
336.
DISTINGUISHING BY BLAMING.--Highly respected persons distribute even
their blame in such fashion that they try to distinguish us therewith.
It is intended to remind us of their serious interest in us. We
misunderstand them entirely when we take their blame literally and
protest against it; we thereby offend them and estrange ourselves from
them.
337.
INDIGNATION AT THE GOODWILL OF OTHERS.--We are mistaken as to the
extent to which we think we are hated or feared; because,' though we
ourselves know very well the extent of our divergence from a person,
tendency, or party, those others know us only superficially, and can,
therefore, only hate us superficially. We often meet with goodwill
which is inexplicable to us; but when we comprehend it, it shocks us,
because it shows that we are not considered with sufficient Seriousness
or importance.
338.
THWARTING VANITIES.--When two persons meet whose vanity is equally
great, they have afterwards a bad impression of each other because
each has been so occupied with the impression he wished to produce on
the other that the other has made no impression upon him; at last it
becomes clear to them both that their efforts have been in vain, and
each puts the blame on the other.
339.
IMPROPER BEHAVIOUR AS A GOOD SIGN.--A superior mind takes pleasure in
the tactlessness, pretentiousness, and even hostility of ambitious
youths; it is the vicious habit of fiery horses which have not yet
carried a rider, but, in a short time, will be so proud to carry one.
340.