The Wisdom of Life SCHOPENHAUER BAILE^^ S/VUNDHRS B £5-5 (fiorttell UttiveiJjSiitg Jilrai:j /7.S^ 5X1 ^. ///,;T. 1C0RNEL UNlVERSilY; sofa ^ i \ I S KJ'T'* h T''''^? TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Schopenhauer is one of the few philosophers who can be generally understood without a commentary. All his theories claim to be drawn direct from the facts, to be suggested by observation, and to interpret the world as it is ; and whatever view he takes, he is con- stant in his appeal to the experience of common life. This characteristic endows his style with a freshness and vigour which would be difScult to match in the philosophical writing of any country, and impossible in that of Germany. If it were asked whether there were any circumstances, apart from heredity, to which he owed his mental habit, the answer might be found in the abnormal character of his early education, his acquaintance with the world rather than with books, the extensive travels of his boyhood, his ardent pur- suit of knowledge for its own sake and without regard to tlie emoluments and endowments of learning. He was trained in realities even more than in ideas ; and hence he is original, forcible, clear, an enemy of all philosopliic indefiniteness and obscurity ; so that it may well be said of him, in the words of a writer in the " Revue Contemporaine," ce nest pas un 'philosophe ii translator's preface. comme les autres, c'est un philoso'phe qui a vu le monde. It is not my purpose, nor would it be possible with- in the limits of a prefatory note, to attempt an account of Schopenhauer's philosophy, to indicate its sources, or to suggest or rebut the objections which may be taken to it. M. Ribot, in his excellent little book, * has done all that is necessary in this direction. But the essays here presented need a word of explanation. It should be observed, and Schopenhauer himself is at pains to point out, that his system is like a citadel with a hundred gates : at whatever point you take it up, wherever you make jouv entrance, you are on the road to the centre. In this respect his writings resemble a series of essays composed in support of a single thesis ; a circumstance which led him to insist, more emphatically even than most philosophers, that for a proper understanding of his system it was necessary to read every line he had written. Perhaps it would be more correct to describe Die Welt als Wil/e nnd Vorstellung as his main thesis, and his other treatises as merely corollary to it. The essays in these volumes form part of the corollary ; they are taken from a collection published towards the close of Schopenhauer's life, and by him entitled Parerga und Paralipomena, as being in the nature of surplusage and illustrative of his main position. They are b\^ fai * La Philosophie de Schopenhauer, par Th. Ribot. translator's preface. iii the most popular of his works, and since their first publication in 1851 they have done much to build up his fame. Written so as to be intelligible enough in them- selves, the tendency of many of them is towards tlie fundamental idea on which his system is based. It may therefore be convenient to summarise that idea in a couple of sentences ; more especially as Schopenhauer sometimes writes as if his advice had been followed and his readers were acquainted with the whole of his work. All philosophy is in some sense the endeavour to find a unifying principle, to discover the most general conception underlying the whole field of nature and of knowledge. By one of those bold generalisations which occasionally mark a real advance in science, Schopenhauer conceived this unifying principle, this underlying unity, to consist in something analogous to that will which self-consciousness reveals to us. Will is, according to him, the fundamental reality of the world, the thing-in-itself ; and its objectivation is what is presented in phenomena. The struggle of the will to realise itself evolves the organism, which in its turn evolves intelligence as the servant of the will. And in practical life the antagonism between the will and the intellect arises from the fact that the former is the metaphysical substance, the latter something accidental ax.d secondary. And further, will is desire, that is to say, need of something ; hence need and iv TRANSLATOK'S PREFACE. pain are what is positive in the world, and the only possible happiness is a negation, a renunciation of the ruill to live. It is instructive to note, as M. Ribot points out, that in finding the origin of all things, not in intelli- gence, as some of his predecessors in philosophy had done, but in will, or the force of nature, from which all phenomena have developed, Schopenhauer was anticipating something of the scientific spirit of the nineteenth century. To this it may be added that in combating the method of Fichte and Hegel, who spun a system out of abstract ideas, and in discarding it for one based on observation and experience, Schopenhauer can be said to have brought down philosophy from heaven to earth. In Schopenhauer's view the various forms of Religion are no less a product of human ingenuity than Art or Science. He holds, in effect, that all religions take their rise in the desire to explain the world ; and that, in regard to truth and error, they differ, in the main, not by preaching monotheism, polytheism or pantheism, but in so far as they recognise pessimism or optimism as the true descrip- tion of life. Hence any i-eligion which looked upon the world as being radically evil appealed to him as con- taining an indestructible element of truth. I have endeavoured to present his view of two of the gi-eat religions of the woild in the extract which comes translator's preface. V in the third volume, and to which I have given the title of The Christian SysteTn. The tenor of it is to show that, however little he may have been in sympathy with the supernatural element, he owed much to the moral doctrines of Christianity and of Buddhism, between which he traced great resem- blance. 0£ Schopenhauer, as of many another writer, it may be said that he has been misunderstood and depreciated just in the degree in which he is thought to be new ; and that, in treating of the Conduct of Life, he is, in reality, valuable onl}' in so far as he brings old truths to remembrance. His name used to arouse, and in certain quarters still arouses, a vague sense of alarm ; as though he had come to subvert all the rules of right thinking and all the principles of good conduct, rather than to proclaim once again and give a new meaning to truths with which the world has long been familiar. Of his philosophy in its more tech- nical aspects, as matter upon which enough, perhapS; has been written, no account need be taken here, except as it affects the form in which he embodies these truths or supplies the fresh light in which he sees them. For whatever claims to originality his metaphysical theory may possess, the chief interest to be found in his views of life is an affair of form leather than of substance ; and he stands in a spheie of his own, not because he sets new problems or opens vi translator's preface. up undiscovered truths, but in the manner in which be approaches what has been already revealed. He is not on that account less important ; for the great mass of men at all times requires to have old truths imparted as if they were new — formulated, as it were, directly for them as individuals, and of special application to their own circumstances in life A discussion of human happiness and the way to obtain it is never either unnecessary or uncalled for, if one looks to the extent to which the lives of most men fall short of even a poor ideal, or, again, to the difficulty of reaching any definite and secure conclu- sion. For to such a momentous inquiry as this, the vast majority of manliind gives nothing more than a nominal consideration, accepting the current belief, whatever it may be, on authority, and taking as little thought of the grounds on which it rests as a man walking takes of the motion of the earth. But for those who are not indifferent — for those whose desire to fathom the mystery of existence gives them the right to be called thinking beings — it is just here, in regard to the conclusion to be reached, that a diflfi- culty arises, a difficulty affecting the conduct of life : for while the great facts of existence are alike for all they are variously appreciated, and conclusions differ, chiefly from innate diversity of temperament in those who draw them. It is innate temperament, actino- on a view of the facts necessarily incomplete, tliat has translator's preface. vii inspired so many difierent teachers. The tendencies of a man's own mind — the Idols of tlie Cave before which he bows — interpret the facts in accordance with his own nature : he elaborates a s\'stem containing, perhaps, a grain of truth, to which the whole of life is then made to conform ; the facts purporting to be the foundation of the theory, and the theory in its turn giving its own colour to the facts. Nor is this error, the manipulation of facts to suit a theory, avoided in the views of life which are pre- sented by Schopenhauer. It is true that he aimed especially at freeing himself from the trammels of previous systems ; but he was caught in those of his ovra. His natural desire was to resist the common appeal to anything extramundane — anything outside or beyond life — as the basis of either hope or fear. He tried to look at life as it is ; but the metajihysical theory on which his whole philosophy rests made it necessary for him, as he thought, to regard it as an unmixed evil. He calls our present existence an in- finitesimal moment between two eternities, the past and the future, a moment — like the life of Plato's "Dwellers in the Cave," — filled with the pursuit of shadows ; where everything is relative, phenomenal, illusory, and man is bound in the servitude of ignor- ance, struggle and need, in the endless round of effort and failure. Tf you confine yourself, says Schopen- hauer, only to some of its small details, life may Viii TRANSLATORS PREFACE. indeed appear to be a comedy, because of the on3 of two bright spots of happy circumstance to be found in it here and there ; but when you i-each a higher point of view and a broader outlook, these soon become invisible, and Life, seen from the distance which brings out the true proportion of all its parts, is revealed as a tragedy— a long record of struggle and pain, with the death of the hero as the final certainty. How then, he asks, can a man make the best of his brief hour under the hard conditions of his destiny ? What is the true Wisdom of Life ? Schopenhauer has no pre-conceived divine plan to vindicate ; no religious or moral enthusiasm to give a roseate hue to some far-off event, obliging us in the end to think that all things work together for good. Let poets and theologians give play to imagination ! he, at any rate, will profess no knowledge of any- thing beyond our ken. If our existence does not entirely fail of its aim, it must, he says, be suffering ; for this is \vhat meets us everywhere in the world, and it is absurd to look upon it as the result of chance. Still, in the face of all this suffering, and in spite of the fact that the uncertainty of life destroys its value as an end in itself, every man's natural desire is to preserve his existence; so that life is a blind, unreasoning force, hurrying us we know not whither. From his high metaphysical standpoint, Schopenhauer is ready to admit that there are many translator's prkface. ix things in life which give a short satisfaction and blind us for the moment to the realities of existence, — pleasures as they may be called, in so far as they are a mode of relief; but that pleasure is not positive in its nature nor anything more than the negation of suffering, is proved by the fact that, if pleasures come in abundance, pain soon returns in the form of satiety ; so that the sense of illusion is all that has been gained. Hence, the most a man can achieve in the way of welfare is a measure of relief from this suflFering ; and if people were prudent, it is at this they would aim, instead of trying to secure a happi- ness which always flies from them. It is a trite saying that happiness is a delusion, a chimsera, the fata morgana of the heart ; but here is a writer who will bring our whole conduct into line with that, as a matter of practice ; making pain the positive groundwork of life, and a desire to escape it the spur of all effort. While most of those who treat of the conduct of life come at last to the conclusion, more or less vaguely expressed, that religion and morality form a positive source of true happiness, Schopenhauer does not professedly take this view ; though it is quite true that the practical outcome of his remarks tends, as will be seen, in support of it ; with this difference, however — he does not direct the imagination to anything outside this present life as making it worth while to live at all ; his object is to 6 X TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. state the facts of existence as they i in mediately appear, and to draw conclusions as to vvliat a wise man will do in the face of them. In the practical outcome of Schopenhauer's ethics — the end and aim of those maxims of conduct which he recommends, there is nothing that is not sub- stantially akin to theories of life which, in different forms, the greater part of mankind is presumed to hold in reverence. It is the premises rather than the conclusion of his argument which interest us as some- thing new. The whole world, he says, with all its phenomena of change, growth and development, is ultimately the manifestation of Will — Wille und Vorstellung — a blind force conscious of itself only when it reaches the stage of intellect. And life is a iconstant self-assertion of this will ; a long desire which is never fulfilled ; disillusion inevitably follow- ing upon attainment, because the will, the thing-in- itself — in philosophical language, the noumenon — always remains as the permanent element ; and with this persistent exercise of its claim, it can never be satisfied. So life is essentially suffering ; and the only remedy for it is the freedom of the intellect from the servitude imposed by its master, the will. The happiness a man can attain, is thus, in Schopen- hauer's view, negative only ; but how is it to be acquired ? Some temporary relief, he says, may be obtained through the medium of Art; for in the TRANSLATORS PREFACE. xi apprehension of Art we are raised out of our bondage, contemplating objects of thought as they are in them- selves, apart from their relations to our own ephemeral existence, and free from any taint of the will. This contemplation of pure thought is destroyed when Art is degraded from its lofty sphere, and made an instru- ment in the bondage of the will. How few of those who feel that the pleasure of Art transcends all others could give such a striking explanation of their feeling ! But the highest ethical duty, and consequently the supreme endeavour after happiness, is to withdraw from the struggle of life, and so obtain release from the misery which that struggle imposes upon all, even upon those who are for the moment successful. For as will is the inmost kernel of everything, so it is identical under all its manifestations ; and through the mirror of the world a man may arrive at the knowledge of himself. The recognition of the identity of our own nature with that of others is the beginning and foundation of all true morality. For once a man clearly perceives this solidarity of the will, there is aroused in him a feeling of sympathi/ which is the main-spring of etliical conduct. This feeling of sympathy must, in any true moral system, prevent our obtaining success at the price of others' loss. Justice, in this theory, comes to be a noble, enlightened self-interest ; it will forbid our doing wrong to our fellow-man, because, in injuring him, we xii translator's preface. are injuring ourselves— our own nature, which is identical with his. On the other hand, the recogni- tion of this identity of the will must lead to com- miseration — a feeling of sympathy with our fellow- sufferers— to acts of kindness and benevolence, to the manifestation of what Kant, in the Metaphysic of Ethics, calls the only absolute good, the good will. In Schopenhauer's phraseology, the human will, in other words, 'ipias, the love of life, is in itself the root of all evil, and goodness lies in renouncing it. Theoreti- cally, his ethical doctrine is the extreme of socialism, in a large sense ; a recognition of the inner identity and equal claims, of all men with ourselves ; a recoanition issuing in ayd-n-rj, universal benevolence, and a stifling of particular desires. It may come as a surprise to those who affect to hold Schopenhauer in abhorrence, without, perhaps, really knowing the nature of his views, that, in this theory of the essential evil of the human will — epms, the common selfish idea of life — he is reflecting and indeed probably borrowing what he describes as the fundamental tenet of Christian theology, that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain} stand- ing in need of redemption. Though Schopenhauer was no friend to Christian theology in its ordinary tendencies, he was very much in sympathy with some of the doctrines which have been connected with it. ^ Romans viii. , 22. Translator's preface. xiii In his opinion the foremost truth which Christianity proclaimed to the world lay in its recognition of pessimism, its view that the world was essentially corrupt, and that the devil was its prince or ruler.^ It would be out of place here to inquire into the exact meaning of this statement, or to determine the pre- cise form of compensation provided for the ills of life under any scheme of doctrine which passes for Chris- tian : and even if it were in place, the task would be an extremely difficult one ; for probably no system of belief has ever undergone, at various periods, more radical changes than Christianity. But whatever prospect of happiness it may have lield out, at an early date of its history, it soon came to teach that the necessary preparation for happiness, as a positive spiritual state, is renunciation, resignation, a looking^ away from external life to the inner life of the soul — a kingdoTn not of this world. So far, at least, as con- cerns its view of the world itself, and the main lesson and duty which life teaches, there is nothing in the theory of pessimism which does not accord with that religion which is looked up to as the guide of life over a great part of the civilised world. What Schopenhauer does is to attempt a meta- physical explanation of the evil of life, without any reference to anything outside it. Philosophy, he urges, should be cosmology, not theolocjy ; an explana- ' John xii., 31. xiv TRANSLATORS PREFACE. tion of the world, not a scheme of divine knowledge : it should leave the gods alone — to use an ancient phrase — and claim to be left alone in return. Scho- penhauer was not concerned, as the apostles and fathers of the Church were concerned, to formulate a scheme by which the ills of this life should be remedied in another — an appeal to the poor and oppressed, conveyed often in a material form, as, for instance, in the story of Dives and Lazarus. In his theory of life as the self-assertion of will, he endeav- ours to account for the sin, misery and iniquity of the world, and to point to the way of escape — the denial of the will to live. Though Schopenhauer's views of life have this much in common with certain aspects of Christian doctrine, they are in decided antagonism with another theory which, though, comparatively speaking, the birth of yesterday, has already been dignified by the name of a religion, and has, no doubt, a certain number of followers. It is the theory which looks upon the life of mankind as a continual progress towards a state of perfection, and humanity in its nobler tendencies as itself worthy of worship. To those who embrace this theory, it will seem that because Schopenhauer does not hesitate to declare the evil in the life of mankind to be far in excess of the good, and that, as long as the human will remains what it is, there can be no radical change for the TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XV better, he is therefore outside the pale of civilisation, an alien from the commonwealth of ordered know- ledge and progress. But it has yet to be seen whether the religion of humanity will fare bette r, as a theory of conduct or as a guide of life, than either Christi- anity or Buddhism. If any one doctrine may be named which has distinguished Christianity wherever it has been a living force among its adherents, it is the doctrine of renunciation; the same doctrine which in a different shape and with other surroundings, forms the spirit of Buddhism. With those great religions of the world which mankind has hitherto professed to revere as the most ennobling of all in- fluences, Schopenhauer's theories, not perhaps in their details, but in. the principle which informs them, are in close alliance. Renunciation, according to Schopenhauer, is the truest wisdom of life, from the higher ethical stand- point. His heroes are the Christian ascetics of the Middle Age, and the followers of Buddha who turn away from the Sansara to the Nirvana. But our modem habits of thought are different. We look askance at the doctrines, and we have no great enthusiasm for the heroes. The system which is in vogue amongst us just now objects to the identification of nature with evil, and, in fact, abandons ethical dualism alto- gether. And if nature is not evil, where, it will be asked, is the necessity or the benefit of renunciation xvi TRANSLATORS PREFACE. — a question which may even come to bs generally raised, in a not very distant future, on behalf of some new conception of Christianity. '^• And from another point of view, let it be frankly admitted that renunciation is incompatible with ordinary practice, with the rules of life as we are compelled to formulate them ; and that, to the vast majority, the doctrine seems little but a mockery, a hopelessly unworkable plan, inapplicable to the con- ditions under which men have to exist. In spite of the fact that he is theoretically in sympathy with truths which lie at the foundation of certain widely revered systems, the world has not yet accepted Schopenhauer for what he proclaimed him- self to be, a great teacher: and probably for the reason that hope is not an element in his wisdom of l ife, and that he attenuates love into something that, isjiQt_a— roal7~living force — a .^ghadowy recognition of. the identity of the. -wiUf--'For men are disinclined to welcome a theory which neither flatters their present position nor holds out any prospect of better thino-s \ to come. Optimism — the belief that in the end I everything will be for the best — is the natural ci-eed ! of mankind ; and a writer who of set purpose seeks to undermine it by an appeal to facts is regarded as one who tries to rob humanity of its rights. How seldom an appeal to the facts within our reach is really made ! \Vhether the evil of life actually out- TRANSLATORS PREFACE. xvii weighs the good, — or, if we should look for better things, what is the possibility or the nature of a .. uture Life, either for ourselves as individuals, or as part of some great whole, or, again, as contributing to a coming state of perfection? — such inquiries claim an amount of attention which the mass of men every- where is unwilling to give. But, in any case, whether it is a vague assent to current beliefs, or a blind reliance on a baseless certainty, or an impartial attempt to put away what is false, — hope remains as_-tJb.e^e£.peat. foundation of every faith in a happy future. - But it should be observed that this looking to the future as a complement for the present is dictated mainly by the desire to remedy existing ills ; and that the great hold which religion has on mankind, as an incentive to present happiness, is the promise it makes of. coming perfection. Hope for the future is a tacit admission nf evil ip ihe-. present ; for if a man is completely happy in this life, and looks upon happiness as the prevailing order, he will not think so much of another. So a discussion of the nature of happiness is not thought complete if it takes account only of our present life, and unless it connects what we are now and what we do here with what we may be hereafter. Schopenhauer's theory does not profess to do this ; it promises no positive good to the in- dividual ; at most, only relief; he breaks the idol of the world, and sets up nothing in its place ; and like Xvill TRATfSLATOES PREFACE. many another iconoclast, he has long been condemned by those whose temples he has desecrated. If there are optimistic theories of life, it is not life itself, he would argue, which gives colour to them ; it is rather the reflection of some great final cause which humanity has created as the last hope of its redemption : — Heaven hut the vision of fulfilled desire, And hell the shadow from a soul on fire, Cast on the da/rhiess into which ourselves. So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.^ Still, hope, it may be said, is not knowledge, nor a real answer to any question ; at most, a makeshift, a moral support for intellectual weakness. The truth is that, as theories, both optimism and pessimism are failures ; because they are extreme views where only a very partial judgment is possible. And in view of the great uncertainty of all answers, most of those who do not accept a stereotyped system leave the question alone, as being cither of little interest, or of no bearing on the welfare of their lives, which are commonly satisfied with low aims ; tacitly ridiculing those who demand an answer as the most pressing affair of existence. But the fact that the final pro- blems of the world are still open, makes in favour of an honest attempt to think them out, in spite of all previous failure or still existing difficulty ; and how- '^ Omar Khayyam ; transl.ited by E. Fitzgerald. TRAJfSLATORS PREFACE. XIX ever old these problems may be, the endeavour to solve them is one which it is always worth while to encourage afresh. For the individual advantages which attend an effort to find the true path accrue quite apart from any success in reaching the goal; and even though the height we strive to climb be inaccessible, we can still see and understand more than those who never leave the plain. The sphere, it is true, is enormous — the study of human life and destiny as a whole ; and our mental vision is so ill- adapted to a range of this extent that to aim at form- ing a complete scheme is to attempt the impossible. It must be recognised that the data are insufficient for large views, and that we ought not to go beyond the facts we have, the facts of ordinary life, interpreted by the^common experience of every day. These form 0U£_j3nly material. The views we take must of necessity be fragmentary — a mere collection of apergns, rough guesses at the undiscovered ; of the same nature, indeed, as all our possessions in the way of knowledge — little tracts of solid land reclaimed from the mysterious ocean of the unknown. But if we do not admit Schopenhauer to be a great teacher, — because he is out of sympathy with the highest aspirations of mankind, and too ready to dogmatise from partial views, — he is a very suggestive writer, and eminently readable. His style is brilliant, animated, forcible, pungent ; altljough it is also dis- XX translator's preface. cursive, irresponsible, and with a tendency to super- ficial generalisation. He brings in the most unexpected topics without any very sure sense of their relative place ; everything, in fact, seems to be fair game, once he has taken up his pen. His irony is notewortliy ; for it extends beyond mere isolated sentences, and sometimes applies to whole passage.s, which must be read cum grano sails. And if he has grave faults as well as excellences of literary treatment, he is at least always witty and amusing, and that, too, in dealing with subjects — as here, for instance, with the Conduct of Life — on which many others have been at once severe and dull. It is easy to complain that though he is witty and amusing, he is often at the same time bitter and ill-natured. This is in some measure the un- pleasant side of his uncompromising devotion to truth, his resolute eagerness to dispel illusion at any cost — those defects of his qualities which were intensified by a solitary and, until his last years, unappreciated life. He was naturally more disposed to coerce than to flatter the world into accepting his views ; he was above all things un esprit fort, and at times brutal in the use of his strength. If it should be urged that, however great his literary qualities, he is not worth reading because he takes a narrow view of life and is blind to some of its greatest blessings, it will be well to remember the profound truth of that line which a friend inscribed on his earliest biography : Si non TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXi errasset fecerat ille minus,^ a truth which is seldom without application, whatever be the form of human effort. Schopenhauer canuot be neglected because he takes an unpleasant view of existence, for it is a view which must present itself, at some time, to every thoughtful person. To be outraged by Schopenhauer means to be ignorant of many of the facts of life. In this one of his smaller works, Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit, Schopenhauer abandons his high meta- physical standpoint, and discusses, with the same zest and appreciation as in fact marked his enjoyment of them, some of the pleasures which a wise man will seek to obtain, — health, moderate possessions, intel- lectual riches. And when, as in this little work, he comes to speak of the wisdom of life as the practical art of living, the pessimist view of human destiny is obtruded as little as possible. His remarks profess to be the result of a compromise— an attempt to treat life from the common standpoint. He is content to call these witty and instructive pages a series of aphorisms; thereby indicating that he makes no claim to expound a complete theory of conduct. It will doubtless occur to any intelligent reader that his ob- servations are but fragmentary thoughts on various phases of life; and, in reality, mere aphorisms — in the old, Greek sense of the word— pithy distinctions definitions of facts, a marking-off, as it were, of the 1 Slightly altered from Martial. Epigram : I. xxii. XXU TRANSLATORS PREFACE. true from the false in some of our ordinary notions of life and prosperity. Here there is little that is not in complete harmony with precepts to which the world has long been accustomed ; and in this respect, also, Schopenhauer offers a suggestive comparison rather than a contrast with most writers on happiness. The philgsopjier in his study is conscious that the worl(| is never likely to embrace his higher metaphy- sical or ethical standpoint, and annihilate the will to live; nor did Schopenhauer himself do so except so far as ho, in common with most serious students of life, avoided the ordinary aims of mankind. The theory which recommended universal benevolence as the highest ethical duty, came, as a matter of practice, to mean a formal standing-aloof — the ne plus ultra of individualism. The Wisdom of Life, as the practical art of living, is a compromise. We are here not by any choice of our own ; and while we strive to make the best of it, we must not let ourselves be deceived. If you want to be happy, he says, it will not do to cherish illusions. Schopenhauer would have found nothing admirable in the conclusion at which the late M. Edmond Scherer, for instance, arrived. L'art de vivre, he wrote in his preface to Amiel's Journal, c'est de sefaire une raison, de souscrire au cov^prmnis, de se preter aux fictions. Schopenhauer conceives his mis- sion to be, rather, to dispel illusion, to tear the mask from life ; — a violent operation, not always productive translator's preface. xxiii of good. Some illusion, he urges, may profitably be dispelled by recognising that no amount of external aid will make up for inward deficiency ; aud that if a man has not got the elements of happiness in himself, all the pi'ide, pleasure, beauty and interest of the world will not give it to him. Success in life, as ! gauged by the ordinary material standard, means to place faith wholly in externals as the source of happi- ness, to assert and emphasize the common will to live, in a word, to be vulgar. He protests against this search for happiness — something subjective — in the world of our surroundings, or anywhere but in a man's own self; a protest the sincerity of which might well be imitated by some professed advocates of spiritual claims. It would be interesting to place his utterances on this point side by side with those of a distinguished interpreter of nature in this country, who has recently attracted thousands of readers by describing The Pleasures of Life; in other words, the blessings which the world holds out to all who can enjoy them — health, books, friends, travel, education, art. On the common ground of their regard for these pleasures there is no disagreement between the optimist and the pessimist. But a characteristic difference of view may be found in the application of a rule of life which Schopenhauer seems never to tire of repeating ; namely, that happiness consists for the most part in XXIV TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. what a man is in himself, and that the pleasure he derives from these blessings will depend entirely upon the extent to wliich his personality really allows him to appreciate them. This is a rule which runs some risk of being overlooked when a writer tries to dazzle the mind's eye by describing all the possible sources of pleasure in the world of our surroundings ; but Sir John Lubbock, in common with every one who attempts a fundamental answer to the question of happiness, cannot afford to overlook it. The truth of the rule is perhaps taken for granted in his account of life's pleasures ; but it is significant that it is only when he comes to speak of life's troubles that he freely admits the force of it. {^Happiness, he says, in \this latter connection, depends much more on what is within than without us. Yet a rigid application of this truth might perhaps discount the effect of those pleasures with which the world is said to abound.. That happiness as well as unhappiness depends mainly upon what is within, is more clearly i-ecognised in the case of trouble ; for when troubles come upon a man, they influence him, as a rule, much more deeply than pleasures. How few, even amongst the millions to whom these blessings are open — health, books, travel, art — really find any true or permanent happiness in them ! While Schopenhauer's view of the pleasures of life may be elucidated by comparing it with that of a translator's preface. XXV popular writer like Sir John Lubbock, and by con- fcrasting the appeals they severally make to the outer and the inner world as a source of happiness ; Schopenhauer's view of life itself will stand out more clearly if we remember the opinion so boldly ex- pressed by the same English ■wriieAjf we resolutely look, observes Sir John Lubbock, / do not say at the bright side of things, hut at things as they really are ; ■ if we avail ourselves of the manifold blessings which surround us; we cannot hut feel that life is indeed a glorious inheritance} jThere is a splendid excess of optimism about this statement which well fits it to show up the darker picture drawn by the German philosopher. Finally, it should be remembered that though Schopenhauer's picture of the world is gloomy and sombre, there is nothing weak or unmanly in his attitude. If a happy existence, he says, — not merely an existence free from pain — is denied us, we can at least be heroes and face life with courage : das hochste was der Mensch erlangen iann ist ein heroischer Lebensl'iiif. A noble character will never complain at misfortune; for if a man looks round him at other manifestations of that which is his own inner nature, the will, he finds sorrows happening to his fellow-men harder to bear than any that have come upon himself. And the ideal of nobility is to deserve the praise I The Pleasures of Life. Part I., p. 5. B XXVI TRANSLATORS PREFACE. which Hamlet — in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Pessim- ism — gave to his friend : Thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing. But perhaps Schopenhauer's theory carries witli it its own correction. He describes existence as a more or less violent oscillation between pain and boiedom. If this were really the sum of life, and we had to reason from such a partial view, it is obvious that hap]jiness would lie in action ; and that life would be so constituted as to supply two natural and inevitable incentives to action, and thus to contain in itself the very conditions of happiness. Life itself reveals our destiny. It is not the struggle which produces misery, it is the mistaken aims and the low ideals — ivas tins alle bdncUgt, das Gemeine ! That Schopenhauer conceives life as an evil is a deduction, and possibly a mistaken deduction, from his metaphysical theory. Whether his scheme of things is correct or not-^and it shares the common fate of all metaphysical systems in being unverifiable, a,nd to that extent unprofitable^he will in the last resort have made good his claim to be read by his insight into the varied needs of human life. It may be that a future age will consign his metaphysics to the philosophical lumber-room ; but he is a literary artist as well as a philosopher, and he can make a bid for fame in either capacity. T. B. S. CONTENTS. CITAP. Introduction ..... I. Division of the Subject .... II. Personality, or what a Man is . III. Property, or what a Man has . IV. Position, or a Man's Place in the Estimation of Others— Sect. I. Reputation ,, 2. Pride . „ 3. Rank ,, 4. Honour ,, 5. Fame . I 3 15 48 59 68 72 12 116 INTRODUCTION. In these pages I shall sj^cak of The Wisdom of Life in the common meaning of the term, as the art, namely, of ordering our lives so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of pleasure and success ; an art the theory of which may be called Eudcemonology, for it teaches us how to lead a happy existence. Such an existence might perhaps be defined as one which, looked at from a purely objective point of view, or, rather, after cool and mature reflection — for the question necessarily involves subjective considerations, —would be decidedly preferable to non-existence ; implying that we should cling to it for its own sake, and not merely from the fear of death ; and further, that we should never like it to come to an end. Now whether human Kfe corresponds, or could possibly correspond, to this conception of existence, is a question to which, as is well-known, my philoso- phical system returns a negative answer. On the eudsemonistic hypothesis, however, the question must be answered in the affirmative ; and I have shown, in the second volume of my chief work (ch. 49), that this hypothesis is based upon a fundamental mistake. Accordingly, in elaborating the scheme of a happy existence, I have had to make a complete surrender of the higher metaphysical and ethical standpoint to 2 INTRODUCTION. which my own theories lead ; and everything I shall say here will to some extent rest upon a compromise ; in so far, that is, as I take the common standpoint of eveiy day, and embrace the error which is at the bottom of it. My remarks, therefore, will possess only a qualified value, for the very word eudcemono- logy is a euphemism. Further, I make no claims to completeness ; partly because the subject is inex- haustible, and partly because I should otherwise have to say over again what has been already said by others. The only book composed, as far as I remember, with a like purpose to that which animates this collection of aphorisms, is Cardan's Be utilitate ex iidversis capienda, which is well worth reading, and may be used to supplement the present work. Aristotle, it is true, has a few words on eudamono- logy in the fifth chapter of the first book of his Rhetorie; but what he says does not come to very much. As compilation is not my business, I have made no use of these predecessors ; more especially because in the process of compiling individuality of view is lost, and individuality of view is the kernel of works of this kind. In general, indeed, the wise in all ages have always said the same thing, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done j ust the opposite; and so it will continue. For, as Voltaire says, we shall leave this world as foolish and as wicked as tve found it on our arrival. THE WISDOM OF LIFE. CHAPTER I. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. Aristotle ^ divides the blessings of life into three classes — those which come to us from vfithout, those of the soul, and those of the body. Keeping nothing of this division but the number, I observe that the fundamental differences in human lot may be reduced to three distinct classes : (1) What a man is : that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word ; under which are in- cluded health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence and education. (2) What a man has : that is, property and posses- sions of every kind. (3) How a man stands in the estimation of others ; by which is to be understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the eyes of his fellow-men, or, more strictly, the light in which they regard him. This is shown by their opinion of him; and their opinion is in its turn manifested by the honour in which lie is held, and by his rank and reputation. 1 Eth. Nichom.., 1. 8. 4 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. The diffei-ences which come under the first head are those which Nature "herself has set between man and man ; and from this fact alone we may at once infer that they influence the happiness or unhappiness of mankind in a much more vital and radical way than those contained under the two following heads, which are merely the effect of human arrangements. Com- pared with genuine personal advantages, such as a great mind or a great heart, all the privileges of rank or birth, even of royal birth, are but as kings on the stage to kings in real life. The same thing was said long ago by Metrodorus, the earliest disciple of Epicurus, who wrote as the title of one of his chapters. The happiness we receive from oiirselves is greater tlian that ivhich we obtain from our surroundings} And it is an obvious fact, which cannot be called in question, that the principal element in a man's well- being,- — indeed, in the whole tenor of his existence, — is what he is made of, his inner constitution. For this is the immediate source of that inward satisfaction or dissatisfaction resulting from the sum total of his sensations, desires and thoughts ; whilst his surround- ings, on the other hand, exert only a m.ediate or indirect influence upon him. This is why the same external events or circumstances affect no two people alike ; even with perfectly similar surroundings every one lives in a world of his own. For a man has immediate apprehension only of his own ideas, feelings and volitions ; the outer world can influence him only in so far as it brings these to life. The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in ^ Cf. Clemens Alex. Strom. II., 21. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 5 which he looks at it, and so it proves different to" different men ; to one it is barren, dull, and super- ficial ; to another rich, interesting, and full of meaning. On hearing of the interesting events which have hap- pened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them ; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures ; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences. This is in the highest degree the case with many of Goethe's and Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful. In the same way, a person of melancholy tempera- ment will make a scene in a tragedy out of what appears to the sanguine man only in the light of an interesting conflict, and to a phlegmatic soul as some- thing without any meaning; — all of which rests upon the fact that every event, in order to be realised and appreciated, requires the co-operation of two factors, namely, a subject and an object ; although these are as closely and necessarily connected as oxygen and hydrogen in water. When therefore the objective or external factor in an experience is actually the same, but the subjective or personal appreciation of it varies. 6 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. the event is just as much a different one in the eyes of different persons as if the objective factors had not been alike ; for to a blunt intelligence the fairest and best object in the world presents only a poor reality, and is therefore only poorly appreciated, — like a fine landscape in dull weather, or in the reflection of a bad camera ohsctira. In plain language,^ every., mail M pent up within the limits of his own consciousness, and cannot directly get-beyond those limits any more than he can get beyond his own skin ; so external aid" is not of much use to him. On the stage, one man is a prince, another a minister, a third a servant or a soldier or a general, and so on, — mere external differ- ences : the inner reality, the kernel of all these appear- ances is the same — a poor player, with all the anxieties of his lot. In life it is just the same. Differences of rank and wealth give every man his part to play, but this by no means implies a difference of inward happi- ness and pleasure ; here, too, there is the same being in all — a poor mortal, with hi^ hardships and troubles. Though these may, indeed, in every case proceed fr,..m dissimilar causes, they are in their essential nature much the same in all their forms, with degrees of intensity which vary, no doubt, but in no wise corre- spond to the part a man has to play, to the presence or absence of position and wealth. Since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essen- tial thing for a man is the constitution of this con- sciousness, which is in most cises far more important than the circumstances whicli go to form its contents. All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 7 the dull consciousness of a fool, is poor indeed com- pared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Bon Quixote in a miserable prison. The objective half of life and reality is in the hand of fate, and accord- ingly takes various forms in different cases : the subjective half is ourself, and in essentials it always remains the same. Hence the life of every man is stamped with the same character throughout, however much his exter- nal circumstances may alter ; it is like a series of variations on a single theme. No one can get beyond his own individuality. An animal, under whatever circumstances it is placed, remains within the narrow limits to which nature has irrevocably consigned it; so that our endeavours to make a pet happy must always keep within the compass of its nature, and be restricted to what it can feel. So it is with man ; the measure of the happiness he can attain is determined before- hand by his individuality. More especially is this the case with the mental powers, which fix once for all his capacity for the higher kinds of pleasure. If these powers are small, no efforts from without, nothing that his fellow-men or that fortune can do for him, wiU sufSce to raise him above the ordinary degree of human happi- ness and pleasure, half animal though it be ; his only resources are his sensual appetite, — a cosy and cheei ful family life at the most, — low company and vulgar pastime ; even education, on the whole, can avail little, if anything, for the enlargement of his horizon. For the highest, ^^ost varie d and 1':i»--iing-jJaajujj^a. ^y^. those of the mind however much our yo"t,h '"i-iy deceive us on this point ; and the pleasures of the 8 THE WISDOM OB' LIFE. mind turn chiefly on the powers of the mind. It is clear, then, that our happiness depends in a great degree upon what we (we, upon our individuality, whilst lot or destiny is generally taken to mean only what we have, or our reputation. Our lot, in this sense, may improve ; but we do not ask much of it if we are inwardly rich : on the other hand, a fool remains a fool, a dull blockhead, to his last hour, even though he were surrounded by houris in paradise. This is why Goethe, in the West-ostlicher Divan, says that every man, whether he occupy a low position in life, or emerges as its victor, testifies to personality as the greatest factor in hajipiness : — Volh und Knecht und Ueherivinder Sie gestehen, zic jeder Zeit, Hochstes Gliick der Erdznkinder Sei mi/r die Perscinlichkeit. Everything confirms the fact that tlie subjective element in life is incomparably more important for our happiness and pleasure than the objective, from such sayings as Hunger is the best sauce, and Youth and Age cannot live together, up to the life of the Genius and the Saint. Health outweighs all other blessinrrs so much that one may really say that a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing king. A quiet and cheerful temperament, happy in the enjoy- ment of a perfectly sound physique, an intellect clear, lively, penetrating and seeing things as they are, a moderate and gentle will, and therefore a good con- science — these are privileges which no rank or wealth can make up for or rei)lace. For what a man is in DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 9 himself, wliat accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world. An intellectual man in complete solitude has excellent entertainment in liis own thoughts and fancies, whilst no amount or diversity of social pleasure, theatres, excursions and amusements, can ward off boredom from a dullard. A good, temperate, gentle character can be happy in needy circumstances, whilst a covetous, envious and malicious man, even if he be the richest in the world, goes miserable. Nay more ; to one who has the constant delight of a special individuality, with a high degree of intellect, most of the pleasures which are run after by mankind are perfectly supei fluous ; they are even a trouble and a. burden. And so Horace says of himself, that, however many are deprived of the Jancy-goods of life, there is one at least who can live without them : — Gemmas, marmor, cbur, Tyrrhena sigilla, tuhellax, Argentum, testes Gcetulo mui-ice tinctas Sunt qui lion habeant, est qui non curat habere ; and when Socrates saw various articles of luxury spread out for sale, he exclaimed : How much there is in the world that I do not want. So the first and most essential element in our life's happiness is what we are, — our personality, if for no other reason than that it is a constant factor coming into play under all circumstances : besides, unlike the blessings which are debcribcd under the other two 10 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. heads, it is not the sport of destiny and cannot he wrested from us ; — and, so far, it is endowed with a n ahsohite value in contrast to the merely relative worth of the other two. The consequence of this is that it is much more difBcult than people commonly suppose to get a hold on a man from without. But here the all-powerful agent. Time, comes in and claims its rights, and before its influence physical and mental advantages gradually waste away. Moral character alone remains inaccessible to it. In view of the destructive eflect of time, it seems, indeed, as if the blessings named under the other two heads, of which time cannot directly rob us, were superior to those of the first. Another advantage might be claimed for them, namely, that being in their very nature objective and external, they are attainable, and every one is presented with the possibility, at least, of coming into possession of them ; whilst what is subjective is not open to us to acquire, but making its entr-y by a kind of divine right, it remains for life, immutable, inalienable, an inexorable doom. Let me quote those lines in which Goethe describes how an unalterable destiny is assigned to every man at the hour of his bivth, so that he can develope only in the lines laid down for him, as it were, by the conjunctions of the stars ; and how the Sibyl and the prophets declare that Imnself a man can never escape, nor any power of time avail to change the path on which his life is cast : — Wie an dem Tag, der dich der Welt verliehen, Die Sonne stand ztim. Gmsse der Planeten, Bist alsohald undfort und fort gediehen, DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 11 Nach dem Geset~, wonach du aiujetreten. So musst du sein, dir kannst du iiicid cntflichen, So sag ten schon Sibijllen und Propheten ; Und keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstiickelt Gepragte Foi-m, die lebend sich entwickdt. The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities vro possess, and accordingly to follow such pursuits only as will call them into play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and to avoid every other ; consequently, to choose the position, occupation and manner of life which are most suitable for their development. Imagine a man endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a seden- tary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labour demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not got, — compelled, that is, to leave unused the powers in which he is pre-eminently strong ; a man placed like this will never feel happy all his life through. Even more miserable will be the lot of the man with intellectual powers of a very high order, who has to leave them undeveloped and un- employed, in the pursuit of a calling which does not require them, some bodily labour, perhaps, for which his strength is insufficient. Still, in a case of this kind, it should be our care, especially in youth, to avoid the precipice of presumption, and not ascribe to ouiselves a superfluity of power wliich is not there. Since the blessings described under the first head decidedly outweigh those contained under the other 12 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. two, it is manifestly a wiser course to aim at the maintenance of our health and the cultivation of our faculties, than at the amassing of wealth ; but this must not be mistaken as meaning that we should neglect to acquire an adequate supply of the necessai ies of life. Wealth, in the strict sense of the word, that is, great superfluitj^ can do little for our happiness ; and many rich people feel unhappy just because they are without any true mental culture or knowledge, and consequently have no objective interests which would qualify them for intellectual occupations. For beyond the satisfaction of some real and natural necessities, all that the possession of wealth can achieve has a very small influence upon our happiness, in the proper sense of the word ; indeed, wealth rather dis- turbs it, because the preservation of property entails a great many unavoidable anxieties. And still men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has. So you may see many a man, as industrious as an ant, ceaselessly occupied from morning to night in the endeavour to increase his heap of gold. Beyond the narrow horizon of means to this end, he knows nothing ; his mind is a blank, and consequently unsusceptible to any other influence. The highest pleasures, those of the in- tellect, are to him inaccessible, and he tries in vain to replace them by the fleeting pleasures of sense in which he indulges, lasting but a brief hour and at tremendous cost. And if he is lucky, his struggles result in his having a really great pile of gold, which DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 13 he leaves to his heir, either to make it still larger, or to squander it in extravagance. A life like this, though pursued with a sense of earnestness and an air of importance, is just as silly as many another which has a fool's cap for its symbol. What a man has in himself is, then, the chief element in his happiness. Because this is, as a rule, so very little, most of those who are placed beyond the struggle with penury, feel at bottom quite as un- happy as tho.se who are still engaged in it. Their minds are vacant, their imagination dull, their spirits poor, and so they are driven to the company of those like them — for similis simiii gandet — where they make common pursuit of pastime and entertainment, consisting for the most part in sensual pleasure, amusement of every kind, and finally, in excess and libertinism. A J'oung man of rich family enters upon life with a large patrimony, and often runs thi-ough it in an incredibly short space of time, in vicious extravagance ; and why ? Simply because, here too, the mind is empty and void, and so the man is bored with existence. He was sent forth into the world outwardly rich but inwaidly poor, and his vain endeavour was to make bis external wealth compensate for his inner poverty, by trying to obtain every thing /rom without, like an old man who seeks to strengthen himself as King David or Mardchal de Eetz tried to do. And so in the end one who is in- wardly poor comes to be also poor outwardly. I need not insist upon the importance of the other two kinds of blessings which make up the happiness of human life; now-a-days the value of possessing 14 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. them is too well known to require advertisement. The third class, it is true, may seem, compared with the second, of a very ethereal character, as it consists only of other people's opinions. Still everyone has to strive for reputation, that is to say, a good name. Rank, on the other hand, should be aspired to only by those who serve the State, and fame by very few indeed. In any case, reputation is looked upon as a priceless treasure, and fame as the most precious of all the blessings a man can attain, — the Golden Fleece, as it were, of the elect : whilst only fools will prefer rank to property. The second and third classes, moreover, are reciprocally cause and effect ; so far that is, as Petronius' maxim, habes habeberis, is true ; and con- versely, the favour of othei-s, in all its forms, often puts us in the way of getting what we want. CHAPTER II PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. We have ahcady seen, in general, that what a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has, or how he is regarded by ethers. What a man is, and so what he has in his own person, is always the chief thing to consider ; for his individuality accom- panies him always and everywhere, and gives its colour to all his experiences. In every kind of enjoy- ment, 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 intel- lectual, pleasure. When we use that English expres- sion, " to enjoy oneself," 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 bless- ings 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 im- mediate and direct factor in his happiness and welfare. All else is mediate and indirect, and its influence can be neutralised and frustrated ; but the influence of personality never. This is why the envy which per- sonal qualities excite is the most implacable of al'l, — as it is also the most carefully dissembled. 16 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. 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} 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, inens 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 honour. And of all these, the one which makes us the most directly happy is a genial flow of good sjoirits ; for this excellent quality is its own immediate reward. The man who is cheerful and merry has always a good I'eason for being so, — the fact, namely, that he is so. There is nothing which, like this qualitj^, can so com- pletely 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, 1 Eth. EuJ , vii. 2. 37 : — rj yap vtTi,s j3ej3,^i,ov, ov to. \prijxa.ra. PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 17 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 g^-eat 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 reiiections 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 endeavours 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-humour and vexation? Con- sequently we should try as much as possible to main- tain a high degree of health ; for cheerfulness is the 18 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. 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 movevient ; 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 con- stantly 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 in- ternal 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 : oriinis motus, quo celerior, eo macjis motus, PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 19 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 effect 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 plea- sure ; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable ; even the other pei'sonal 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, advance- ment, 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 whicli 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 20 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. 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 moie 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 un- restrained liveliness. A genius is one whose nervous power or sensitiveness is largely in excess ; as Aris- totle ^ has very correctly observed, Men distinguished in pliilosopliy, 2Mlitics, poetry or art, appear to be all of a melancJ I oly temperament. This is doubtless the passage which Cicero has in his mind when he saj^s, as he often does, Aristoteles ait onines ingeniosos melancholicos esse.^ Shakespeare has very neatly expressed this radical and innate diversity of tempera- ment in those lines in The Merchant of Venice : Nature has framed strange fellows in her time ; Some, that will evermore peep throxigh their eijcs, Aibd laugh, like parrots at a hag-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 diaws between eijKoAos and Suo-koAos — the man of easy, and the man of difficult disposition — in proof of which he refers to the varying degrees of susceptibility which differ- ent people show to pleasurable and painful impres- sions; so that one man will laugh at what makes another despair. As a rule, the stronger the susceptibility to un- pleasant impressions, the weaker is the susceptibility to 1 Probl. XXX, ep. 1. 2 Tuso. i., 33, PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 21 pleasant ones, and vice versa. If it is equally possible for an event to turn out well or ill, the SiVkoAos will be annoyed or grieved if the issue is unfavourable, and will not rejoice, should it be happy. On the other hand, the evKoXourpose at all, beyond avoiding the other source ot human suffering, boredom, to which he is at once ex- posed. 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 recognised 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 Imrries back to town once more. Exit sacpe foras magnis ex cedibus ille, Esse, domi quem pertaesum est, stibitoque revoitat ; Qnippe foris nilvilo melius qui sentiat esse. 1 Eol. eth. ii,, ch. 7. t'ERSOl^JALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 3S Currit, agens mannos, ad mllam precipitanter, Auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardcntibus instans : Oscitat extcmplo, tetigit quum liinina viUae ; Aut obit in sommim gravis, atque oblivia qiiaerit ; Aut etiam properaiis urbem peiit atque revisit.^ In their youth, such peojile must have had a super- iluity of muscular and vital energy, — powers which, unlike those of the mind, cannot maintain their full degree of vigour very long ; and in later years they either have no mental powers at all, or cannot develope 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 stimiilate 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 ; hunt- ing or painting ; horse-racing or music ; cards, or poetry, hei-aldry, philosophy, or some other dilettante interest. We might classify these interests methodi- cally, 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 afi'ording three sources of possible pleasure, out of which every man will choose what suits him, according as he excels in one direction or another. 1 HI. 1073. 34 THE WISDOM OF LtFfi. 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 war- fare. Thirdly, there are the pleasures of sensibility, ,sueh 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 suppl3^ 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 his preponderating amount of sensibility which distinguishes man from other animals. Now, our mental powers are forms of sensibility, and there- fore 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 sensi- bility predominates, the greater the pleasure will be.^ ^ Nature exhibits a continual progress, starting from the mechanical and chemical activity of the inora;anio world, pro- PERSONALITY, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 85 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 ceeding 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 inteUigenoe 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, move- ments 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 in- telligence, and are limited by its capacity. For all the vnt than is in the world is useless to him who has none. Still this advan- tage 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 higliest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. to Sfi THE WISDOM OF LIFE. 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 momen- tary, instead of real and permanent, pain. Card-play- ing is, in fact, a mere tickling of the will.^ On the other hand, a man of powerful intellect is capable of taking a vivid interest in things in the way of mere kiioivledge, 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: — 1 Vulgarity is, at bottom, the kind of consciousness in wliicli 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, tlie intellect entirely loses its power, and the result is complete vacancy of mind. Now unll 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 con- dition of mind called vulgarity, in wdiich the only active elements are the organs of sense, and that small amount of intellect which is necessary for apprehending the data of sense. Accord- ingly, the vulgar man is constantly open to all sorts of impres- sions, 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 vulgai', 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. PEUSONAHTy, OR WHAT A MAN IS. 87 6eol peia fwovres. ^ Look on these two pictures — the life of the masses, one long, dull record of straggle 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 be 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 plea- sure. 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 hearei's who only half understand either them or their followers. Of course, this char- acteristic 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 <- 1 Odyssey IV., 805. S8 The Wisdom op life. man pleasures are acceswible which are denied to others, — the varied beauties of nature and art and literature. To heap these round people who do not want them and cannot appreciate them, is like expecting grey 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 in- sight 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 bafor 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. Tiioso alone are happy whom nature has favoured with some super- fluity 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. Mei'e leisure, that is to say, intellect unoccupied in the ser- vice of the will, is not of itself sufficient : there must be a real superfluity of power, set free from the ser- tlERSONALlTY, Oil WHAT A MAN IS. S9 vice of the will and devoted to that of the intellect ; tor, as Seneca says, otiuni 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, biixls, minerals, coins, or the highest achievements of poetry and phil- osophy. 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 phil- osophy, 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 founda- tion 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 travelling, — a life, in short, of general luxury, the reason being that he seeks his pleasure in things out- side 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 40 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. man wlio 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 sucli studies, and amuse himself with them when external sources 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 tbis degree of intensity, making all time and existence its theme, and striving to express its ]ieculiar conception of the world, whether it contem- plates 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 PERSONALITY. OR WHAT A MAN IS. 41 character may be, do not show tliat warm and un- limited interest in friends, familj^, 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 isola- tion to their character, which is all the more effective since other people never really quite satisfy them, as being, on the whole, of a diiferent 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, secondarily, and through the medium of the I'oimer — a truth finely ex- pressed by Lucian : — IIAotJTOs 6 T^s V^X'?' irXovTO's fxovo's etTTtv uAtj^j^s — 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 ^ Epigrammata, 12. 42 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. oi' 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 ;i and Diogenes Laertius reports that Socrates pr^aised leisure as the fairest of all possessions. So, in the Nicho7nachean Ethics, Aristotle concludes that a life devoted to philosophy is the happiest ; or, as he says in the Politics,^ the free exercise of any fower, ivhatcver it may he, is happiness. This, again, tallies with what Goethe says in Wilhelm Meister : The man who is horn with a talent tvhich he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it. 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 diffcilis in otio qides 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 1 Eth. Nichom. x. 7. ^ iv. 11. PERSONALITY, OK WHAT A JIAN IS. 43 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, undis- turbed leisure and great intellect, happen to coincide in the same person, it is a great piece of fortune ; and if fate is so far favourable, a man can lead the higher life, the life protected from the two opposite sources of human suffering, pain and boredom, from the pain- ful struggle for existence, and the incapacity for enduring leisure (which is free existence itself) — evils which may be escaped only by being mutually neutralised. But tliere is something to be said in opposition to this view. Great intellectual gifts mean an activity pre-eminentlynervous in its character, and consequently a very high degree of susceptibility to pain in every form. Further, such gifts imply an intense tempera- ment, 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 arc 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 insi]nd. Here, then, per- haps, is another instance of that law of compensation which makes itself felt everywhere. How often one 44 THE WISDOM OF LIFE. 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 : — • UoAAo) TO