Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer

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studies in pessimism by arthur

schopenhauer

chapter 1 on the sufferings of the world

unless suffering is the direct and

immediate

object of life our existence must

entirely fail of its aim

it is absurd to look upon the enormous

amount of pain that abounds everywhere

in the world

and originates in needs and necessities

inseparable from life itself

as serving no purpose at all and the

result of

mere chance each separate misfortune as

it comes

seems no doubt to be something

exceptional

but misfortune in general is the rule

i know of no greater absurdity than that

propounded by

most systems of philosophy in declaring

evil to be negative

in its character evil is just what is

positive it makes its own existence felt

leibniz is particularly concerned to

defend this absurdity

and he seeks to strengthen his position

by using a palpable

and paltry sophism

translator's note confer theod

section 153 leibniz argued that evil is

a negative quality

i.e the absence of good and that its

active and seemingly positive character

is an incidental and not an essential

part of its nature

cold he said is only the absence of the

power of heat

and the active power of expansion and

freezing water is an incidental and not

an essential part of the nature of cold

the fact is that the power of expansion

and freezing water is really an

increase of repulsion amongst its

molecules

and chopin hour is quite right in

calling the whole argument of sophism

and translators note

it is the good which is negative

in other words happiness and

satisfaction always imply

some desire fulfilled some state of pain

brought to an

end this explains the fact that we

generally find pleasure to be

not nearly so pleasant as we expected

and pain

very much more painful the pleasure in

this world it has been said

outweighs the pain or at any rate there

is an even balance between the two

if the reader wishes to see shortly

whether this statement is true

let him compare the respective feelings

of two animals

one of which is engaged in eating the

other

the best consolation and misfortune or

affliction of any kind

will be the thought of other people who

are in a still worse

plight than yourself and this is a form

of consolation open to everyone

but what an awful fate this means for

mankind as a whole

we are like lambs in a field disporting

themselves under the eye of the butcher

who chooses out first one and then

another for his prey

so it is that in our good days we are

all unconscious of the evil

fate may have presently in store for us

sickness

poverty mutilation loss of sight

or reason no little part of the torment

of existence lies in this

that time is continually pressing upon

us

never letting us take breath but always

coming after us

like a task master with a whip

if at any moment time stays his hand

it is only when we are delivered over to

the misery of boredom

but misfortune has its uses for

as our bodily frame would burst asunder

if the pressure of the atmosphere was

removed

so if the lives of men were relieved of

all need

hardship and adversity if everything

they took in hand were successful

they would be so swollen with arrogance

that though they might not burst

they would present the spectacle of

unbridled folly

nay they would go mad

and i may say further that a certain

amount of care

or pain or trouble is necessary for

every man

at all times a ship without balance is

unstable

and will not go straight

certain it is that work worry

labor and trouble formed the lot of

almost all men their whole

life long but if all wishes were

fulfilled as soon as they arose

how would men occupy their lives what

would they do with their time

if the world were a paradise of luxury

and ease a land flowing with milk and

honey

where every jack obtained his jill at

once and without any difficulty

men would either die of boredom or hang

themselves

or there would be wars massacres and

murders so

that in the end mankind would inflict

more suffering on itself than it has now

to accept at the hands of nature

in early youth as we contemplate our

coming life

we are like children in the theater

before the curtain is raised

sitting there in high spirits and

eagerly waiting for the play to begin

it is a blessing that we do not know

what is really going to happen

could we foresee it there are times when

children might seem like innocent

prisoners condemned

not to death but to life and is yet

all unconscious of what their sentence

means

nevertheless every man desires to reach

old age

in other words a state of life of which

it may be said

it is bad today and it will be worse

tomorrow and so on till the worst of all

if you try to imagine as nearly as you

can what an amount of misery pain and

suffering of every kind the sun

shines upon in its course he will admit

that it would be much better if

on the earth as little as on the moon

the sun were able to call forth the

phenomena of life

and if here is there the surface were

still in a crystalline state

again you may look upon life as an

unprofitable episode disturbing the

blessed calm of non-existence

and in any case even though things have

gone with you

tolerably well the longer you live the

more clearly you will feel that

on the whole life is a disappointment

name a cheat

if two men who were friends in their

youth meet again when they are old

after being separated for a lifetime the

chief feeling they will have at the

sight of each other will be one of

complete

disappointment at life as a whole

because their thoughts will be carried

back to that earlier time when life

seemed

so fair as it lays spread out before

them in the rosy light of dawn

promised so much and then performed so

little

this feeling will so completely

predominate over

every other that they will not even

consider it necessary to give it words

but on either side it will be silently

assumed and form the groundwork of all

they have to talk about

he who lives to see two or three

generations is like a man who sits

sometime

in the conjurer's booth at a fair and

witnesses the performance

twice or thrice in succession

the tricks were meant to be seen only

once and when they are no longer a

novelty and cease to deceive

their effect is gone

while no man is much to be envied for

his lot

there are countless numbers whose fate

is to be deplored

life is a task to be done

it is a fine thing to say de functus est

it means that the man has done his task

if children were brought into the world

by an act of pure reason alone

would the human race continue to exist

would not a man rather have

so much sympathy with the coming

generation as to spare the burden of

existence

or at any rate not take it upon himself

to impose that burden upon it

in cold blood i shall be told i suppose

that my philosophy is comfortless

because i speak the truth and people

prefer to be assured that

everything the lord has made is good go

to the priest then and leave

philosophers in peace

at any rate do not ask us to accommodate

our doctrines to the lessons you have

been taught

that is what those rascals of sham

philosophers will do for you

ask them for any doctrine you please and

you'll get it your university professors

are bound to preach optimism

and it is an easy and agreeable task to

upset their theories

i've reminded the reader that every

state of welfare every feeling of

satisfaction

is negative in its character that is to

say it consists in freedom from pain

which is the positive element of

existence it follows therefore

that the happiness of any given life is

to be measured not by its joys and

pleasures

but by the extent to which it has been

free from suffering from positive evil

if this is the true standpoint the lower

animals appear to enjoy a happier

destiny than man

let us examine the matter a little more

closely

however varied the forms that human

happiness

and misery may take leading a man to

seek the one and shun the other

the material basis of it all is bodily

pleasure or bodily pain

this basis is very restricted it is

simply health

food protection from wet and cold

the satisfaction of the sexual instinct

or else the absence of these things

consequently as far as real physical

pleasure is concerned

the man is not much better off than the

brute except insofar as the higher

possibilities of his nervous system make

him more sensitive to every kind of

pleasure

but also it must be remembered to every

kind of pain

but then compared with the brute how

much stronger are the passions aroused

in him

what an immeasurable difference there is

in the depth and vehemence of his

emotions

and yet in the one case as in the other

all to produce the same result in the

end

namely health food clothing and so on

the chief source of all this passion is

that thought

for what is absent and future which

with man exercises such a powerful

influence upon all he does

it is this that is the real origin of

his cares his hopes his fears

emotions which affect him much more

deeply than could ever be the case with

those present joys and sufferings to

which the brute is confined

in his powers of reflection memory and

foresight

man possesses as it were a machine for

condensing and storing up his pleasures

and his sorrows

but the brute has nothing of the kind

whenever it is in pain

it is as though it were suffering for

the first time

even though the same thing should have

previously happened to it times out of

number

it has no power of summing up its

feelings hence

its careless and placid temper how much

it is to be envied

but in man reflection comes in with all

the emotions to which it gives rise

and taking up the same elements of

pleasure and pain which are common to

him in the brute

it develops his susceptibility to

happiness and misery to such degree that

at one moment the man is brought in an

instant

to a state of delight that may even

prove fatal

add another to the depths of despair and

suicide

if we carry our analysis a step farther

we shall find that

in order to increase his pleasures man

has

intentionally added to the number and

pressure of his needs

which in their original state were not

much more difficult to satisfy than

those of the brute

hence luxury in all its forms delicate

food

the use of tobacco and opium spiritus

liquors

fine clothes and the thousand one things

that he considers necessary to his

existence

and above and beyond all this there is a

separate and peculiar source of pleasure

and consequently of pain

which man has established for himself

also as the result of using his powers

of reflection

and this occupies him out of all

proportion to its value

nay almost more than all his other

interests put together

i mean ambition and the feeling of honor

and shame

in plain words what he thinks about the

opinion other people have of him

taking a thousand forms often very

strange ones this becomes the goal of

almost all the efforts he makes that are

not rooted in physical pleasure or pain

it is true that besides the sources of

pleasure which he has in common with the

brute

man has the pleasures of the mind as

well these admit of many gradations from

the most innocent trifling or the merest

talk up to the highest intellectual

achievements

but there is the accompanying boredom to

be set against them on the side of

suffering

boredom is a form of suffering unknown

to brutes at any rate in their natural

state

it is only the very cleverest of them

who show faint traces of it when they

are domesticated

whereas in the case of man it has become

a downright scourge

the crowd of miserable wretches whose

one aim in life is to fill their purses

but never to put anything into their

heads

offers a singular instance of this

torment of boredom

their wealth becomes a punishment by

delivering them up to misery of having

nothing to do

for to escape it they will rush about in

all directions traveling here there and

everywhere

no sooner do they arrive in a place than

they are anxious to know what amusements

it affords

just as though they were beggars asking

where they could receive a dole

of a truth need and boredom are the two

poles of human life

finally i may mention that as regards

the sexual relation a man is committed

to a peculiar arrangement which drives

him

obstinately to choose one person

this feeling grows now and then into a

more or less passionate love

which is the source of little pleasure

and much suffering

it is however a wonderful thing the mere

addition of

thought should serve to raise such a

vast and lofty structure of human

happiness and misery

resting too on the same narrow basis of

joy and sorrow as man holds in common

with the brute

and exposing him to such violent

emotions to so many storms of passion so

much convulsion of feeling

that what he has suffered stands written

and may be read in the lines on his face

and yet when all is told he has been

struggling ultimately for the same

things as the brute has attained

and with an incomparably smaller

expenditure of passion and pain

but all this contributes to increase the

measures of suffering in human life

out of all proportion to its pleasures

and the pains of life are made much

worse for man by the fact that death is

something very real to him

the brute flies from death instinctively

without really knowing what it is

and therefore without ever contemplating

it in the way natural to a man

who has this prospect always before his

eyes

so that even if only a few brutes die a

natural death

and most of them live only just long

enough to transmit their species

and then if not earlier become the prey

of some other animal

whilst man on the other hand manages to

make so-called natural death the rule

to which however there are good many

exceptions the advantage is on the side

of the brute

for the reasons stated above but the

fact is

that man attains the natural term of

years just as seldom as the brute

because the unnatural way in which he

lives in the strain of work and emotion

lead to a degeneration of the race

and so his goal is not often reached the

brute is much more content with mere

existence than man

the plant is holy so and man finds

satisfaction in it just in proportion as

he is

dull and obtuse accordingly

the life of the brute carries less

sorrow with it but also less of joy when

compared with the life of man

and while this may be traced on the one

side to freedom from the torment of care

and anxiety

it is also due to the fact that hope in

any real sense is unknown to the brute

it is thus deprived from any share and

that which gives us

the most and best of our joys and

pleasures

the mental anticipation of a happy

future

and the inspirating play of fantasy both

of which

we are to our power of imagination

if the brute is free from care it is

also in this sense without hope

in either case because its consciousness

is limited to the present moment

to what i can actually see before it the

brute

is an embodiment of present impulses and

hence what elements of fear and hope

exist in its nature

and they do not go very far arise only

in relation to objects that lie before

it

and within reach of those impulses

whereas a man's range of vision

embraces the whole of his life and

extends far into the past

and future following upon this

there is one respect in which brutes

show real wisdom when compared to us

i mean their quiet placid enjoyment of

the present moment

the tranquility of mind which this seems

to give them

often puts us to shame for the many

times we allow our thoughts and our

cares to make us

restless and discontented and in fact

those pleasures of hope and anticipation

which i have been mentioning

are not to be had for nothing the

delight which a man has in hoping for

and looking forward to some special

satisfaction

is a part of the real pleasure attached

to it enjoyed

in advance this is

afterwards deducted for the more we look

forward to anything

the less satisfaction we find in it when

it comes

but the brute's enjoyment is not

anticipated and therefore suffers no

deduction

so that the actual pleasure of the

moment comes to it whole and unimpaired

in the same way too evil presses upon

the brute only with its own

intrinsic weight whereas with us

the fear of it coming often makes its

burden ten times more grievous

it is just this characteristic way in

which the brute gives itself up entirely

to the present moment

that contributes so much to the delight

that we take in our domestic pets

they are the present moment personified

and in some respects they make us feel

the value of every hour that is free

from trouble and annoyance

which we with our thoughts and

preoccupations mostly disregard

but man that selfish and heartless

creature

misuses this quality of the brute to be

more content than we are with mere

existence

and often works it to such an extent

that he allows the brute

absolutely nothing more than mere bear

life

the bird which was made so that it might

rove over half of the world he shuts up

into the space of a cubic foot there to

die a slow death and

longing and crying for freedom for in a

cage it does not sing for the pleasure

of it

and when i see how man misuses the dog

his best friend

how he ties up this intelligent animal

with a chain

i feel the deepest sympathy with brute

and burning indignation against its

master

we shall see later that by taking a very

high standpoint

it is possible to justify the sufferings

of mankind

but this justification cannot apply to

animals whose sufferings

while in a great measure brought about

by men are often considerable even apart

from their agency

and so we are forced to ask why and for

what

purpose does all this torment and agony

exist

there is nothing here to give the will

pause it is not free to deny itself and

so

obtain redemption there is only one

consideration that may serve to explain

the sufferings of animals

it is this that the will to live which

underlies the whole world of phenomena

must in their case satisfy its cravings

by feeding upon itself

this it does by forming a great dation

of phenomena

every one of which exists at the expense

of another

i have shown however that the capacity

for suffering is less than animals than

a man

any further explanation that may be

given of their fate will be in the

nature of hypothesis

if not actually mythical in character

and i may leave the reader to speculate

upon the matter for himself

brahma is said to have produced the

world by kind of fall or mistake

and in order to atone for his folly he

is bound to remain in it himself until

he works out his redemption

as an account of the origin of things

that is admirable

according to the doctrines of buddhism

the world came into being as the result

of some inexplicable disturbance in the

heavenly calm of nirvana

that blessed state obtained by expiation

which had endured for so long a time the

change taking place

that kind of fatality

this explanation must be understood as

having at bottom

some moral bearing although it is

illustrated by an exactly parallel

theory in the domain of physical science

which places the origin of the sun in a

primitive streak of mist

formed one knows not how subsequently

by a series of moral errors the world

became gradually worse and worse

true of the physical orders as well

until it assumed the dismal aspect it

wears today

excellent the greeks looked upon the

world

and the gods as the work of an

inscrutable necessity

a passable explanation we may be content

with it until we can get it better

again ormus and ariman are

rival powers continually at war

that is not bad but that god like

jehovah should have created this world

of misery and woe out of pure caprice

and because he enjoyed doing it and

should then have clapped his hands in

praise of his own work and declared

everything to be very good that will not

do it all

in its explanation of the origin of the

world judaism is inferior to

any other form of religious doctrine

professed by a civilized nation

and it is quite in keeping with this

that is the only one which presents

no trace whatever of any belief in the

immortality of the soul

even though leibniz's contention that

this is the best of all possible worlds

we're correct that would not justify god

and having created it

for he is the creator not of the world

only but of possibility itself

and therefore he ought to have so

ordered possibility

as that it would admit of something

better there are two things which make

it impossible to believe that this world

is the successful work

of an all-wise all-good and at the same

time

all-powerful being firstly

the misery which abounds in it

everywhere and secondly

the obvious imperfection of its highest

product

man who is a burlesque of what he should

be

these things cannot be reconciled with

any such belief

on the contrary they are just the facts

which support what i've been saying

they are our authority for viewing the

world as the outcome of our own misdeeds

and therefore

as something that had better not have

been

whilst under the former hypothesis they

amount to a bitter accusation against

the creator

and supply material for sarcasm under

the latter

they form an indictment against our own

nature our own will

and teach us a lesson of humility they

teach us to see

that like the children of a libertine we

come to the world

with the burden of sin upon us and that

it is only through having continually to

atone for the sin

that our existence is so miserable and

that its

end is death

there is nothing more certain than the

general truth

that is the grievous sin of the world

which has produced the grievous

suffering of the world

i am not referring here to the physical

connection between these two things

lying in the realm of experience

my meaning is metaphysical accordingly

the sole thing that reconciles me to the

old testament is the story of the fall

in my eyes it is the only metaphysical

truth in that book

even though it appears in the form of an

allegory

there seems to me no better explanation

of our existence

than that it is the result of some false

step

some sin of which we are paying the

penalty

i cannot refrain from recommending the

thoughtful reader are popular

but at the same time profound treatise

on the subject by claudius

which exhibits the essentially

pessimistic spirit of christianity

it is entitled cursed is the ground

for thy sake

between the ethics of the greeks and the

ethics of the hindus

there is a glaring contrast

in the one case with the exception it

must be confessed of plato

the object of ethics is to enable a man

to lead a happy life

in the other it is to free and redeem

him

from life altogether as is directly

stated in the very first words of the

sankhya kerika

allied with this is the contrast between

the greek and the christian idea

of death it is strikingly presented

in a visible form on a fine antique

sarcophagus in the gallery of florence

which exhibits in relief the whole

series of ceremonies attending a wedding

in ancient times

from the formal offer to the evening

when hyman's torch lights the happy

couple's home

compare that with the christian coffin

draped in mournful black and surmounted

with a crucifix

how much significance there is in these

two ways of finding comfort and death

they are opposed to each other but each

is right

the one points the affirmation of the

will to live

which remains sure of life for all time

however rapidly its forms may change

the other in the symbol of suffering and

death points to the denial

of the will to live to redemption from

this world

the domain of death and devil and in the

question between the affirmation

and the denial of the will to live

christianity is in the last resort

right the contrast which the new

testament presents when compared to the

old according to the ecclesiastical view

of the matter

is just that existing between my ethical

system and the moral philosophy of

europe

the old testament represents man is

under the dominion of law in which

however there is no redemption the new

testament declares law to have failed

frees man from its dominion and in

instead preaches the kingdom of grace to

be one by

faith love of neighbor and entire

sacrifice of self

this is the path of redemption from the

evil of the world

the spirit of the new testament is

undoubtedly asceticism

however your protestants and

rationalists might twist it to suit

their purpose

asceticism is the denial of the will to

live and the transition from the old

testament to the new

from the dominion of law to that of

faith from justification by works

to redemption through the mediator for

the domain of sin and death to eternal

life in christ

means when taking its real sense

the transition from the merely moral

virtues to the denial

of the will to live my philosophy

shows the metaphysical foundation of

justice and the love of mankind

and points to the goal to which these

virtues necessarily lead

if they are practiced in perfection

at the same time it is candid in

confessing that a man must turn his back

upon the world

and that the denial of the will to live

is the way of redemption

it is therefore really at one with the

spirit of the new testament

whilst all other systems are couched in

the spirit of the old that is to say

theoretically as well as practically my

result is judaism

mere despotic theism

in this sense then my doctrine might be

called the only true christian

philosophy however paradoxical

statement this may seem to people who

take superficial views instead of

penetrating to the heart of the matter

if you want a safe compass to guide you

through life

and to banish all doubt as to the right

way of looking at it

you cannot do better than accustom

yourself to regard this world as a

penitentiary

a sort of penal colony or ergusterion

as the earliest philosopher called it

amongst the christian fathers origen

with praiseworthy courage

took this view which is further

justified by certain objective theories

of life

i refer not to my own philosophy alone

but to the wisdom of all ages as

expressed in brahmanism and buddhism

and in the sayings of greek philosophers

like empedocles and pythagoras

as also by cicero in his remark that the

wise men of old used to teach that we

come into this world to pay the penalty

of crime committed

in another state of existence a doctrine

which formed part of the initiation into

the mysteries

and fenini whom his contemporaries

burned

finding that an easier task than to

confuse him

puts the same thing in a very forcible

way

man he says is so full of every kind of

misery that we're not repugnant to the

christian religion

i should venture to affirm that if evil

spirits exist at all

they have posed into human form and are

now atoning for their crimes

and true christianity using the word in

its right sense

also regards our existence as the

consequence of sin and error

if you accustom yourself to this view of

life you will regulate your expectations

accordingly

and cease to look upon all its

disagreeable incidents

great and small its sufferings its

worries its misery

as anything unusual or irregular

nay you will find that everything is as

it should be

in a world where each of us pays the

penalty of existence

in his own peculiar way

amongst the evils of a penal colony is

the society of those who form it

and if the reader is worthy of better

company he will need no words for me to

remind him of what he has to put up with

at present

if he has a soul above the common or if

he is a man of genius

he will occasionally feel like some

noble prisoner of state

condemned to work in the galleys with

common criminals and he will follow his

example

and try to isolate himself in general

however

it should be said that this view of life

will enable us to contemplate the

so-called imperfections of the great

majority of men

their moral and intellectual

deficiencies and the resulting base type

of countenance

without any surprise to say nothing of

indignation

for we shall never cease to reflect

where we are

and that the men about us are beings

conceived

and born in sin and living to atone for

it that

is what christianity means in speaking

of the sinful nature of man

pardons the word to all whatever

fally men commit be their shortcomings

or their vices what they may

let us exercise forbearance remembering

that

when these faults appear in others it is

our follies and vices that we behold

they are the shortcomings of humanity to

which we belong

whose faults one and all we share

yes even those very faults at which we

now

wax so indignant merely because they

have not yet appeared in ourselves

there are faults that do not lie on the

surface but they exist

down there in the depths of our nature

and should anything call them forth

they will come and show themselves just

as we now see them in others

one man it is true may have faults that

are absent in his fellow

and it is undeniable that the sum total

of bad qualities is in some cases very

large

for the difference of individuality

between man and man passes all measure

in fact the conviction that the world

and man is something that had better not

have been

is of a kind to fill us with indulgence

towards one another

nay from this point of view

we might well consider the proper form

of address to be not monsieur

sir my hair but my fellow sufferer

sochi malorum company

this may perhaps sound strange but it is

in keeping with the facts

it puts others in a right light and it

reminds us

of that which is after all the most

necessary thing in life

the tolerance patience regard

and love of neighbor of which everyone

stands in need

and which therefore every man owes to

his fellow

and chapter one on the sufferings of the

world

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studies in pessimism by arthur

schopenhauer

chapter 2 on the vanity of existence

this vanity finds expression in the

whole way in which things exist

in the infinite nature of time and space

as opposed to the finite nature of the

individual in both

in the ever passing present moment as

the only mode of actual existence

in the interdependence and relativity of

all things

and continual becoming without our being

in constant wishing and never being

satisfied

in the long battle which forms the

history of life where every effort is

checked by difficulties and stopped

until they are overcome

time is that in which all things pass

away

it is merely the form under which the

will to live the thing in itself and

therefore

imperishable has revealed to it

that its efforts are in vain it is that

agent by which

at every moment all things in our hands

become as nothing

and lose any real value they possess

that which has been exists no more

it exists as little as that which has

never been

but of everything that exists you may

say in the next moment

that it has been hence something of

great importance now past is

inferior to something of little

importance not present

in that the latter is a reality and

related to the former as something to

nothing

a man finds himself to his great

astonishment suddenly existing

after thousands and thousands of years

of non-existence

he lives for a little while and then

again

comes an equally long period when he

must exist

no more the heart rebels against this

and feels that it cannot be true the

crudest intellect

cannot speculate on such a subject

without having a presentment that

time is something ideal in its nature

this ideality of time and space is the

key to every true system of metaphysics

because it provides for quite another

order of things that is to be met with

in the domain of nature

this is why kant is so great

of every event in our life we can say

only for one moment

that it is forever after that it was

every evening we are poorer by day it

might perhaps

make us mad to see how rapidly our short

span of time ebbs away

if it were not that in the further steps

of our being

we are secretly conscious of our share

and the inexhaustible

spring of eternity so that we might

always hope to find life in it again

consideration of the kind touched on

above might indeed

lead us to embrace the belief that the

greatest wisdom

is to make the enjoyment of the present

the supreme object of life

because that is the only reality all

else being merely the play of thought

on the other hand such a course might

just as well be called the greatest

folly

for that which in the next moment exists

no more and vanishes utterly like a

dream

could never be worth a serious effort

the whole foundation on which our

existence rests is the present

the ever fleeting present it lies then

in the very nature of our existence to

take the form of constant motion

and offer no possibility of our ever

attaining the rest for which we are

always striving

we are like a man running downhill who

cannot keep on his legs unless he runs

on and will inevitably fall if he stops

or again like a pole balanced on the tip

of one's fingers

or a planet which would fall into its

sun the moment it ceased

to hurry forward on its way unrest

is the mark of existence in a world

where all is unstable

and not can endure but is swept onward

at once

in the hurrying whirlpool of change

where a man

if he is to keep erect at all must

always be advancing and moving like an

acrobat on a rope

in such a world happiness is

inconceivable

how can it dwell where as plato says

continual becoming and never being is

the sole form of existence

in the first place a man never is happy

but spends his whole life in striving

after something which he thinks will

make him so

he seldom attains his goal and when he

does

it is only to be disappointed he is

mostly shipwrecked in the end

and comes into harbor with masts and

rigging gone

and then it is all one whether he has

been happy or miserable for his life was

never anything more than a present

moment always vanishing

and now it is over

at the same time it is a wonderful thing

that

in the world of human beings as in that

of animals in general

this manifold restless motion is

produced and kept up by the agency of

two simple impulses hunger and the

sexual instinct

aided a little perhaps by the influence

of boredom but by nothing else

and that in the theater of life these

suffice to form the primo mobile

of how complicated a machinery

setting in motion how strange and varied

a scene

on looking a little closer we find that

inorganic matter presents a constant

conflict between chemical forces

which eventually works dissolution and

on the other hand that

organic life is impossible without

constant change of matter

can it exist if it does not receive

perpetual help from without

this is the realm of finality and its

opposite

would be an infinite existence exposed

to no attack from without and needing

nothing to support it

the realm of eternal peace some timeless

changeless state

one and undiversified the negative

knowledge of which forms the dominant

note of the platonic philosophy

it is to some such state as this that

the denial of the will to live

opens up the way

the scenes of our life are like pictures

done in rough mosaic

looked at close they produce no effect

there is nothing beautiful to be found

in them

unless you stand some distance off

so to gain anything we have longed for

is only to discover how vain and empty

it is

and even though we are always living in

expectation of better things

at the same time we often repent and

long to have the past back again

we look upon the present as something to

be put up with while at last and

serving only as the way towards our goal

hence most people if they glance back

when they come to the end of life we'll

find that all along they have been

living at interim

they will be surprised to find that the

very thing they disregarded and let slip

by unenjoyed

was just the life in the expectation of

which they passed

all their time of how many a man may it

not be said that hope made a fool of him

until he danced into the arms of death

then again how insatiable a creature is

man

every satisfaction he attains lays the

seeds of some new desire so that there

is no end to the wishes of each

individual will

and why is this the real reason is

simply that

taken in itself will is the lord of all

worlds

everything belongs to it and therefore

no one single thing can ever give

satisfaction

but only the whole which is endless

for all that it must rouse our sympathy

to think how very little the will

this lord of the world really gets when

it takes the form of an individual

usually only just enough to keep the

body together

this is why man is so very miserable

life presents itself chiefly as a task

the task i mean

of subsisting at all

if this is accomplished life is a burden

and then there comes the second task of

doing something with that which has been

won

of warding off boredom which like a bird

of prey

hovers over us ready to fall whenever it

sees a life secure from need

the first task is to win something the

second

to banish the feeling that it has been

won otherwise

it is a burden human life

must be some kind of mistake the truth

of this

will be sufficiently obvious if we only

remember that man is a compound of needs

and necessities hard to satisfy

and that even when they are satisfied

all he obtains is a state of

painlessness

where nothing remains to him but

abandonment to boredom

this is direct proof that existence has

no real value in itself

for what is boredom but the feeling of

the emptiness of life

if life the craving for which is the

very essence of our being

were possessed of any positive intrinsic

value

there would be no such thing as boredom

at all mere existence would satisfy

us in itself and we should want for

nothing

as it is we take no delight in existence

except when we are struggling for

something

and then distance and difficulties to be

overcome make our goal look

as though it would satisfy us an

illusion which vanishes when we reach it

or else when we are occupied with some

purely intellectual interest

in reality we have stepped forth from

life to look upon it

from the outside much after the manner

of spectators at a play

and even sensual pleasure itself means

nothing but a struggle and aspiration

ceasing the moment its aim is attained

whenever we are not occupied in one of

these ways but cast upon existence

itself

its vain and worthless nature is brought

home to us

and this is what we mean by boredom the

hankering after what is strange and

uncommon

an innate and inerraticable tendency of

human nature

shows how glad we are at any

interruption of that natural course of

affairs which is so very tedious

that this most perfect manifestation of

the will to live the human organism

with the cunning and complex working of

its machinery

must fall to dust and yield up itself

and all its strivings to extinction

this is the naive way in which nature

who is always so true and sincere in

what she says

proclaims the whole struggle of this

will as in its very essence

barren and unprofitable

word of any value in itself anything

unconditioned and absolute

it could not thus end in mere nothing

if we turn from contemplating the world

as a whole and in particular the

generations of men as they live their

little hour of mock existence

and then are swept away in rapid

succession if we turn from this

and look at life in its small details as

presented say in a comedy

how ridiculous it all seems

it is like a drop of water seen through

a microscope a single drop

teeming with infusoria a speck of cheese

full of mites invisible to the naked eye

how we laugh as they bustle about so

eagerly and struggle with one another in

so tiny as space

and whether here or in the little span

of human life

this terrible activity produces a comic

effect

it is only in the microscope that our

life looks so big

it is an indivisible point drawn out

and magnified by the powerful lenses of

time and space

end chapter 2

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studies in pessimism by arthur

schopenhauer

chapter 3 on suicide

as far as i know none but the voters

have monotheistic

that is to say jewish religions look

upon suicide as a crime

this is all the more striking and as

much as neither in the old nor in the

new testament

is there to be found any prohibition or

positive disapproval of it

so that religious teachers are forced to

base their condemnation of suicide on

philosophical grounds of their own

invention

these are so very bad that writers of

this kind endeavor to make up for the

weakness of their arguments by the

strong terms in which they express their

abhorrence of the practice

in other words they declaim against it

they tell us that suicide is the

greatest piece of cowardice that only a

madman could be guilty of it

and other incipidities of the same kind

or else they make the nonsensical remark

that suicide is wrong

when it is quite obvious that there is

nothing in the world to which every man

has a more unassailable title

than to his own life and person

suicide as i've said is actually

accounted a crime

and a crime which especially under the

vulgar bigotry that prevails in england

is followed by an ignominious burial and

the seizure of the man's property

and for that reason in a case of suicide

the jury almost always brings in a

verdict of insanity

now let the reader's own moral feelings

decide

as to whether or not suicide is a

criminal act

think of the impression that would be

made upon you by the news that

someone you know had committed the crime

say of murder or

theft or been guilty of some act of

cruelty or deception

and compare it with your feelings when

you hear that he has met

a voluntary death

while in the one case a lively sense of

indignation and extreme resentment will

be aroused

and he will call loudly for punishment

or revenge

in the other you will be moved to grief

and sympathy

and mingled with your thoughts will be

admiration for his courage

rather than the moral disapproval which

falls upon a wicked action

who has not had acquaintances friends

relations

who have their own will have left this

world

and are these to be thought of with

horror as criminals

must emphatically no

i am rather of opinion that the clergy

should be challenged to explain what

right they have to go into the pulpit or

take up their pens and

stamp as a crime in action which many

men

whom we hold in affection and honor have

committed and to refuse an honorable

burial to those who relinquish this

world voluntarily

they have no biblical authority to boast

of as justifying their condemnation of

suicide

nay not even any philosophical arguments

that will hold water

and it must be understood that it is

arguments we want

and that we will not be put off with

mere phrases or words of abuse

if the criminal law forbids suicide that

is not an argument valid in the church

and besides the prohibition is

ridiculous

for what penalty can frighten a man who

is not afraid of death itself

if the law punishes people for trying to

commit suicide it is punishing the want

of skill that makes the attempt of

failure

the ancients moreover were very far from

regarding the matter in that light

pliny says life is not so desirable a

thing as to be protracted at any cost

whoever you are you are sure to die

even though your life has been full of

abomination and crime

the chief of all remedies for a troubled

mind is the feeling that among the

blessings which nature gives to man

there is none greater than an opportune

death

and the best of it is that everyone can

avail himself of it and elsewhere

the same writer declares not even to god

are all things possible

for he could not compass his own death

if he willed to die

and yet in all the miseries of our

earthly life

this is the best of his gifts to man

nay in masilia and on the island of saos

the man who could give valid reasons for

relinquishing his life was handed the

cup of hemlock by the magistrate

and that too in public

and in ancient times how many heroes and

wise men died of voluntary death

aristotle it is true declared suicide to

be an offense against the state although

not against the person

but in stobbaeus's exposition of the

peripatetic philosophy there is the

following remark

the good man should flee life when his

misfortunes become

too great the bad man

also when he is too prosperous

and similarly so he will marry and beget

children

and take part in the affairs of the

state and generally

practice virtue and continue to live

and then again if need be and at any

time necessity compels him

he will depart to his place of refuge in

the tomb

and we find that the stoics actually

praised suicide as a noble and heroic

action

as hundreds of passages show above all

in the works of seneca who expresses the

strongest approval of it

as is well known the hindus look upon

suicide as a religious act

especially when it takes the form of

self-immolation by widows but also when

it consists in casting oneself under the

wheels of the chariot of the god at

juggernaut

or being eaten by crocodiles in the

ganges or being drowned in the holy

tanks in the temples and so on

the same thing occurs on the stage that

mirror of life

for example in le fellain de la shin

a celebrated chinese play almost all the

noble characters end by suicide

without the slightest hint anywhere or

any impression being produced on the

spectator

that they are committing a crime

and in our own theater is much the same

palmyra for instance

in mahamet or mortimer and maria stewart

othello contest

is hamlet's monologue the meditation of

a criminal

he merely declares that if we had any

certainty of being annihilated by it

death would be infinitely preferable to

the world as it is

but there lies the rub

the reasons advanced against suicide by

the clergy of monotheistic

that is to say jewish religions and by

those philosophers who adapt themselves

thereto

are weak sophisms which can easily be

refuted

the most thoroughgoing refutation of

them is given by hume

in his essay on suicide this did not

appear until after his death

when it was immediately suppressed owing

to the scandalous bigotry and outrageous

ecclesiastical tyranny that prevailed in

england

and hence only a very few copies of it

were sold under cover of secrecy and at

a high price

this and another treatise by that great

man have come to us from basil

and we may be thankful for the reprint

it is a great disgrace

to the english nation that a purely

philosophical treatise

which proceeding from one of the first

thinkers and writers in england

aimed at refuting the current arguments

against suicide by the light of cold

reason

should be forced to sneak about in that

country as though or some rascally

production

until at last it found refuge on the

continent

at the same time it shows what a good

conscience the church has in such

matters

in my chief work i have explained the

only valid reason existing against

suicide and the score of morality

it is this that suicide supports the

attainment

of the highest moral aim by the fact

that for a real release

from this world of misery it substitutes

one that is merely apparent

but from a mistake to a crime is a far

cry

and it is as a crime that the clergy of

christendom

wish us to regard suicide translators

note

schopenhauer refers to de velta's

villain forced along

volume 1 section 69 where the reader may

find the same argument stated at

somewhat greater length

according to schopenhauer moral freedom

the highest

ethical aim is to be obtained only by a

denial of the will to live

far from being a denial suicide is an

emphatic assertion of this will

for it is in fleeing from the pleasures

not the sufferings of life that this

denial consists

when a man destroys his existence as an

individual

he is not by any means destroying his

will to live

on the contrary he would like to live if

he could do so with satisfaction to

himself

if he could assert his will against the

power of circumstance

but circumstance is too strong for him

and footnote

the inmost kernel of christianity is the

truth that suffering

across is the real end and object of

life

hence christianity condemns suicide as

thwarting this end

whilst in the ancient world taking a

lower point of view

held it in approval nay in honor

but if that is to be accounted of valid

reason against suicide

it involves the recognition of

asceticism

that is to say it is valid only from a

much higher ethical standpoint than has

ever been adopted by moral philosophers

in europe

if we abandon that high standpoint there

is no tenable reason left

on the score of morality for condemning

suicide

the extraordinary energy and zeal with

which the clergy of monotheistic

religions attack suicide

is not supported either by any passages

in the bible

or by any considerations of weight so

that it looks as though they must have

some secret reason for their contention

may not be this that the voluntary

surrender of life is a bad compliment

for him who said that

all things were very good if this is so

it offers another instance of the crass

optimism of these religions

denouncing suicide to escape being

denounced by it

it will generally be found that as soon

as the terrors of life reach the point

at which they outweigh the terrors of

death

a man will put an end to his life but

the terrors of death

offer considerable resistance they stand

like a sentinel at the gate leading out

of this world

perhaps there is no man alive who would

not have already put an end to his life

if this end had been of a purely

negative character

sudden stoppage of existence

there is something positive about it it

is the destruction of the body

and a man shrinks from that because his

body is the manifestation of the will to

live

however the struggle with that sentinel

is as a rule not so hard as it may seem

from a long way off

mainly in consequence of the antagonism

between the ills of the body and the

ills of the mind

if we are in great bodily pain or the

pain lasts a long time

we become indifferent to other troubles

all we think about is to get well

in the same way great mental suffering

makes us insensible to bodily pain

we despise it nay if it should outweigh

the other

it distracts our thoughts and we welcome

it

as a pause in mental suffering

it is this feeling that makes suicide

easy for the bodily pain that

accompanies it loses all significance in

the eyes of one who is tortured by an

excess of mental suffering

this is especially evident in the case

of those who are driven to suicide by

some purely morbid

and exaggerated ill humor

no special effort to overcome their

feelings is necessary

order such people required to be worked

up in order to take the step

but as soon as the keeper into whose

charge they are given

leaves them for a couple of minutes they

quickly bring their life to an end

when in some dreadful and ghastly dream

we reach the moment of greatest horror

it awakes us thereby banishing all the

hideous shapes that were born of the

night

and life is a dream when the moment of

greatest horror compels us

to break it off the same thing happens

suicide may also be regarded as an

experiment

a question which man puts to nature

trying to force her to an answer

the question is this what change will

death produce in a man's existence

and in his insight into the nature of

things

it is a clumsy experiment to make for it

involves the destruction of the very

consciousness

which puts the question and awaits the

answer

and chapter three

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studies in pessimism by arthur

schopenhauer

chapter four immortality

a dialogue translator's note

the word immortality when stablish kite

does not occur in the original nor would

it in its usual application

find a place in schopenhauer's

vocabulary the word he uses

is unzersterbachkeit indestructibility

but i have preferred immortality because

that word is commonly associated with

the subject touched upon in this little

debate

if any critic doubts the wisdom of this

preference let me ask him to try

his hand at a short concise and at the

same time

popularly intelligible rendering of the

german original

which runs thus

far my ideologue

footnote dramatus personae

thrasymachus and fila layphase

thracimacus tell me now in one word

what shall i be after my death and mind

you

be clear and precise philalethes

all and nothing thrasymachus i thought

so

i gave you a problem and you solve it by

a contradiction that's a very stale

trick

feel a lay face yes but you raise

transcendental questions

and you expect me to answer them in

language that is only made for imminent

knowledge

it's no wonder that a contradiction

ensues

thrasymachus what do you mean by

transcendental questions in imminent

knowledge

i've heard these expressions before of

course they're not new to me the

professor was fond of using them but

only as predicates of the deity

and he never talked of anything else

which was all quite right and proper

he argued thus if the deity was in the

world itself

he was imminent if he was somewhere

outside it

he was transcendent nothing could be

clearer and more obvious

you knew where you were but this kantian

rigmarole won't do any more

it's antiquated and no longer applicable

to modern ideas

why we've had a whole row of eminent men

in the metropolis of german learning

philolethes german humbug he means

thrasymachus

the mighty schleiermacher for instance

and that gigantic intellect hegel

and at this time of day we've abandoned

that nonsense i should rather say

we're so far beyond it that we can't put

up with it anymore

what's the use of it then what does it

all mean

philalethes transcendental knowledge is

knowledge which passes beyond the bounds

of possible experience

and strives to determine the nature of

things as they are in themselves

imminent knowledge on the other hand is

knowledge which confines itself entirely

with those bounds

so that it cannot apply to anything but

actual phenomena

as far as you are an individual death

will be the end of you

but your individuality is not your true

and inmost being

it is only the outward manifestation of

it it is not the

thing in itself but only the phenomenon

presented in the form of time and

therefore

with a beginning and an end

but your real being knows neither time

nor beginning

nor end nor yet the limits of any given

individual

it is everywhere present in every

individual

and no individual can exist apart from

it so when death comes

on the one hand you are annihilated as

an individual

on the other you are and remain

everything that is what i meant when i

said that after your death

you would be all and nothing

it is difficult to find a more precise

answer to your question

and at the same time be brief the answer

is contradictory i admit

but it is so simply because your life is

in time

and the immortal part of you in eternity

you may put the matter thus your

immortal part

is something that does not last in time

and yet

is indestructible but there you have

another contradiction

you see what happens by trying to bring

the transcendental within the limits of

imminent knowledge

it is in some sort doing violence to the

latter

by misusing it for ends it was never

meant to serve

thrasymachus look here i shall give two

pence for your immortality unless i'm to

remain an individual

philolethes well perhaps i may be able

to satisfy you on this point

suppose i guarantee that after death you

shall remain an individual

but only on condition that you first

spend three months

of complete unconsciousness thrasymachus

i shall have no objection to that feel

ally face

but remember if people are completely

unconscious they take no account of time

so when you are dead it's all the same

to you whether three months pass in the

world of consciousness

or 10 000 years in the one case is in

the other it is simply a matter of

believing what has told you when you

awake

so far then you can afford to be

indifferent whether it is three months

or ten thousand years that pass before

you recover your individuality

yes if it comes to that i suppose you're

right

fellow late face and if by chance

after those 10 000 years have gone by no

one ever thinks of

awakening you i fancy it would be no

great misfortune

you would have become quite accustomed

to non-existence after so long a spell

of it

following upon such a very few years of

life

at any rate you may be sure you would be

perfectly ignorant of the whole thing

further if you knew that the mysterious

power which keeps you in your present

state of life

had never once ceased in those ten

thousand years

to bring forth other phenomena like

yourself

and to endow them with life it would

fully console you

thrasymachus indeed so you think you're

quietly going to do me out of my

individuality

with all this fine talk but i'm up to

your tricks

i tell you i won't exist unless i can

have my individuality

i'm not going to be put off with

mysterious powers and what you call

phenomena

i can't do without my individuality and

i won't give it up

philalethes you mean i suppose that your

individuality is such a delightful thing

so splendid so perfect and beyond

compare

that you can't imagine anything better

aren't you ready to exchange your

present state for one which

if we can judge by what has told us may

possibly be superior

and more endurable thrasymachus

don't you see that my individuality

be it what it may is my very self

to me it is the most important thing in

the world

for god is god and i am i

i want to exist i

that's the main thing i don't care about

an existence which has to be

proved to be mine before i can believe

it

villa lathes think what you're doing

and you say i i i want to exist

it is not you alone that says this

everything

says it absolutely everything that has

the faintest trace

consciousness it follows then

that this desire of yours is just the

part of you that is not

individual the part that is common to

all things without distinction

it is the cry not of the individual but

of existence itself

it is the intrinsic element in

everything that exists nay it is the

cause of

anything existing at all this desire

craves for and so is satisfied with

nothing less

than existence in general not any

definite

individual existence no that is not its

aim

it seems to be so only because this

desire this will

attains consciousness only in the

individual and therefore

looks as though it were concerned with

nothing but the individual

there lies the illusion an illusion it

is true

in which the individual is held fast but

if he reflects

he can break the fetters and set himself

free

it is only indirectly i say that the

individual has this

violent craving for existence it is the

will to live

which is the real and direct aspirant

alike and identical in all things

since then existence is the free

work nay the mere reflection of the will

where existence is there too must be

will

and for the moment the will finds its

satisfaction in existence itself

so far i mean as that which never rests

but presses forward eternally can ever

find

any satisfaction at all the will is

careless of the individual

the individual is not its business

although as i've said this seems to be

the case because the individual has no

direct consciousness at will except him

himself the effect of this

is to make the individual careful to

maintain his own existence

and if this were not so there would be

no surety for the preservation of the

species

from all this it is clear that

individuality is not a form of

perfection but rather of limitation

and so to be freed from it is not loss

but gain

trouble yourself know more about the

matter

once thoroughly recognize what you are

what your existence really is namely the

universal will to live

and the whole question will seem to you

childish and most ridiculous

thrasymachus you're childish yourself

and most ridiculous like all

philosophers

and if a man of my age lets himself in

for a quarter of an hour's talk with

such fools

it is only because it amuses me and

passes the time

i have more important business to tend

to so goodbye

and chapter four

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studies in pessimism by arthur

schopenhauer

chapter 5 psychological observations

there is an unconscious propriety in the

way in which

in all european languages the word

person

is commonly used to denote a human being

the real meaning of persona is a mask

such as actors were accustomed to wear

on the ancient stage

and it is quite true that no one shows

himself as he is

but wears his mask and plays his part

indeed the whole of our social

arrangements may be likened to a

perpetual comedy

and this is why a man who is worth

anything finds society so insipid

while a blockhead is quite at home in it

reason deserves to be called a prophet

for in showing us the consequence

and effect of our actions in the present

does it not tell us what the future will

be

this is precisely why reason is such an

excellent power of restraint

in moments when we are possessed by some

base passion

some fit of anger some covetous desire

that will lead us to do things whereas

we must presently repent

hatred comes from the heart

contempt from the head

and neither feeling is quite within our

control

for we cannot alter our heart its basis

is determined by motives

and our head deals with objective facts

and applies to them rules which are

immutable

any given individual is the union of a

particular heart

with a particular head

hatred and contempt are diametrically

opposed

and mutually exclusive

there are even not a few cases where

hatred of a person is rooted in nothing

but

forced esteem for his qualities

and besides if a man sets out to hate

all the miserable creatures he meets

he will not have much energy left for

anything else

whereas he can despise them one and all

with the greatest ease

true genuine contempt

is just the reverse of true genuine

pride

it keeps quiet and gives no sign of its

existence

for if a man shows that he despises you

he signifies at least this much regard

for you

that he wants to let you know how little

he appreciates you

and his wish is dictated by hatred which

cannot exist with real contempt

on the contrary if it is genuine

it is simply the conviction that the

object of it is a man of no value at all

contempt is not incompatible with

indulgent and kindly treatment

and for the sake of one's own peace and

safety

this should not be admitted it will

prevent irritation

and there is no one who cannot do harm

if he has roused to it

but if this pure cold sincere contempt

ever shows itself

it will be met with the most truculent

hatred for the despised person is not in

a position to fight contempt with its

own weapons

melancholy is a very different thing

from bad humor

and of the two it is not nearly so far

removed from a gay and happy temperament

melancholy attracts while bad humor

repels hypochondria

is a species of torment which not only

makes us unreasonably cross with the

things of the present

not only fills us with groundless

anxiety on the score of

future misfortunes entirely of our own

manufacture

but also leads to unmerited

self-reproach

for what we have done in the past

hypochondria shows itself in a perpetual

hunting after things that

vex and annoy and then brooding over

them

the cause of it is an inward morbid

discontent

often coexisting with a naturally

restless temperament

in their extreme form this discontent

and this unrest

lead to suicide

any incident however trivial that

rouses disagreeable emotion leaves an

after effect in our mind

which for the time it lasts prevents our

taking a clear

objective view of the things about us

and tinges all our thoughts

just as a small object held close to the

eye limits

and distorts our field of vision

what makes people hard-hearted is this

that each man has or fancies he has

as much as he can bear in his own

troubles

hence if a man suddenly finds himself

in an unusually happy position it will

in most cases result in his being

sympathetic and kind

but if he has never been in any other

than a happy position

or this becomes his permanent state the

effect of it

is often just the contrary it so far

removes him from

suffering that he is incapable of

feeling any more sympathy with it

so it is that the poor often show

themselves more ready to help

than the rich

at times it seems as though we both

wanted

and did not want the same thing and felt

at once

glad and sorry about it

for instance if on some fixed date

we are going to be put to a decisive

test about

anything in which it would be a great

advantage to us to come off

victorious we shall be anxious for it to

take place at once

at the same time we shall tremble at the

thought of its approach

and if in the meantime we hear that

for once in a way the date has been

postponed

we shall experience a feeling both of

pleasure and of annoyance

for the news is disappointing that

nevertheless

it affords us a momentary relief

it is just the same thing if we are

expecting some important letter

carrying a definite decision and it

fails to arrive

in such cases there are really two

different motives that work

in us the stronger but more distant of

the two being the desire to stand the

test

and to have the decision given in our

favor

and the weaker which touches us more

nearly

the wish to be left for the present in

peace and quiet

and accordingly in further enjoyment of

the advantage which at any rate

attaches to a state of hopeful

uncertainty

compared with the possibility that the

issue may be unfavorable

in my head there is a permanent

opposition

party and whenever i take any step or

come to a new decision

though i may have given the matter

mature consideration

it afterwards attacks what i've done

without however

being each time necessarily in the right

this is i suppose only a form of

rectification on the part of the spirit

of scrutiny

but it often reproaches me when i do not

deserve it

the same thing no doubt happens to many

others as well

for where's the man who can help

thinking that after all

it were better not to have done

something that he did with great

deliberation

why is it that common is an expression

of contempt

and that uncommon extraordinary

distinguished

denote approbation why is everything

that is common

contemptible common

and its original meaning denotes that

which is peculiar to all men

i.e shared equally by the whole species

and therefore an inherent part of its

nature

accordingly if an individual possesses

no qualities beyond those which attach

to mankind in general he is a

common man ordinary is a much milder

word

and refers rather to intellectual

character

whereas common has more of a moral

application

what value can a creature have that is

not a wit

different from millions of its kind

millions do i say

nay an infiniture of creatures which

century after century in never-ending

flow

nature sends bubbling up from her

inexhaustible springs

as generous with them as the smith with

the useless sparks that fly around his

anvil

it is obviously quite right that a

creature which has no qualities except

those of the species

should have to confine its claim to an

existence entirely within the limits of

the species

and live a life conditioned by those

limits

in various passages of my works i have

argued that

whilst a lower animal possesses nothing

more than the generic

character of its species man is the only

being which can lay claim to possess an

individual character

but in most men this individual

character comes to very little

in reality and they may be almost all

ranged under certain classes

piss their thoughts and desires

like their faces are those of the

species

or at any rate those are the class to

which they belong

and accordingly they are of a trivial

everyday common character and exist by

the thousand

you can usually tell beforehand what

they are likely to do and say

they have no special stamp or mark to

distinguish them

they are like manufactured goods all of

a piece

if then their nature has merged in that

of the species

how shall their existence go beyond it

the curse of vulgarity puts men on a par

with the lower animals by allowing them

none but a generic nature a generic form

of existence

anything that is high or great or noble

must then

as a matter of course and by its very

nature

stand alone in a world where no better

expression can be found to denote what

is base and contemptible

than that which i have mentioned as in

general use

namely common

will as the thing in itself is the

foundation of all being

it is part and parcel of every creature

and the permanent element

in everything will then

is that which we possess in common with

all men

nay with all animals and even with lower

forms of existence

and in so far we are akin to everything

so far that is

as everything is filled to overflowing

with will

on the other hand that which places one

being

over another and sets differences

between man and man

is intellect and knowledge therefore

in every manifestation of self we should

as far as possible

give play to the intellect alone for as

we have seen

the will is the common part of us

every violent exhibition of will is

common and vulgar

in other words it reduces us to the

level of the species

it makes us a mere type and example of

it

in that it is just the character of the

species that we are showing

so every great fit of anger is something

common

every unrestrained display of joy or of

hate or

fear in short

every form of emotion in other words

every movement of the will

if it's so strong is decidedly to

outweigh the intellectual element in

consciousness

and to make the man appear as a being

that wills

rather than nose

in giving way to emotion of this violent

kind

the greatest genius puts himself on a

level with commonest son of earth

contrarily if a man desires to be

absolutely uncommon in other words great

he should never allow his consciousness

to be taken possession of

and dominated by the movement of his

will

however much he may be solicited there

too

for example he must be able to observe

that

other people are badly disposed towards

him

without feeling any hatred towards them

himself

nay there is no sure or sign of a great

mind than that

it refuses to notice annoying and

insulting expressions

that straight away ascribes them as it

describes

countless other mistakes to the

defective knowledge of the speaker

and so merely observes without feeling

them

this is the meaning of that remark of

gration

that nothing is more unworthy of a man

than to let it be seen

that he is one el mayor

and even in the drama which is the

peculiar

province of the passions and emotions

it is easy for them to appear common and

vulgar

and this is especially observable in the

works of the french

tragic writers who set no other aim

before themselves but the

delineation of the passions and by

indulging at one moment

in a vaporous kind of pathos which makes

them ridiculous

and another in epigrammatic witticisms

endeavor to conceal the vulgarity of

their subject

i remember seeing the celebrated

manwazel rachel

as maria stewart and when she burst out

in

fury against elizabeth though she did it

very well

i could not help thinking of a

washerwoman

she played the final parting in such a

way as to deprive it of all

true tragic feeling of which indeed

the french have no notion at all

the same part was incomparably better

played by the italian restorer

and in fact the italian nature though in

many respects very different from the

german

shares its appreciation for what is deep

serious and true

in art here in a pose to the french

which everywhere betrays that it

possesses none of this feeling whatever

the noble in other words the uncommon

element in the drama nay what is sublime

in it

is not reached until the intellect is

set to work

as opposed to the will until it takes a

free flight

over all those passionate movements of

the will and makes them subject of its

contemplation shakespeare in particular

shows that this is his general method

more especially in hamlet

and only when intellect rises to the

point where the

vanity of all effort is manifest and the

will

proceeds to an act of self-annulment is

the drama tragic

in the true sense of the word it is then

that it reaches its highest aim in

becoming really

sublime

every man takes the limits of his own

field of vision

for the limits of the world

this is an error of the intellect as

inevitable as that error of the eye

which lets us fancy that on the horizon

heaven and earth meet

this explains many things and among them

the fact that everyone measures us with

his own standard

generally about as long as a tailor's

tape and we have to put up with it

that's also that no one will allow us to

be taller than himself

a supposition which is once for all

taken for granted

there is no doubt that many a man owes

his good fortune in life

solely to the circumstance that he has a

pleasant way of smiling

and so wins the heart in his favor

however the heart would do better to be

careful

and remember what hamlet put down in his

tablets

that one may smile and smile and be a

villain

everything that is really fundamental in

a man

and therefore genuine works as such

unconsciously in this respect like the

power of nature

that which is passed through the domain

of consciousness is thereby transformed

into an

idea or picture and so

if it comes to be uttered it is only an

idea or picture which passes from one

person to another

accordingly any quality of mind or

character

that is genuine and lasting is

originally unconscious

and it is only one unconsciously brought

into play that it makes a profound

impression if any like quality is

consciously exercised it means

that it has been worked up it becomes

intentional

and therefore matter of affectation in

other words

of deception

if a man does a thing unconsciously it

costs him no trouble

but if he tries to do it by taking

trouble he fails

this applies to the origin of those

fundamental ideas which form the pith

and

marrow of all genuine work

only that which is innate is genuine and

will hold water

and every man who wants to achieve

something whether in practical life

in literature or in art

must follow the rules without knowing

them

men of very great capacity will

as a rule find the company of very

stupid people

preferable to that of the common run

for the same reason that the tyrant and

the mob

the grandfather and the grandchildren

are natural allies

that line of ovids

can be applied in its true physical

sense to the lower animals alone

but in metaphorical and spiritual sense

it is alas

true of nearly all men as well

all their plans and projects are merged

in the desire of physical enjoyment

physical well-being they may indeed have

personal interests

often embracing a very varied sphere but

still

these latter receive their importance

entirely from the relation in which they

stand to the former

this is not only proved by their manner

of life and the things they say

but it even shows itself in the way they

look the expression of their physiognomy

their gait and gesticulations

everything about them cries out in terum

prana

it is not to them it is only to the

nobler and

more highly endowed natures men who

really think and look about them in the

world and form exceptional specimens of

humanity

that the next lines are applicable

sublime

no one knows what capacities for doing

and suffering he has

in himself until something comes to

rouse them to activity

just as in a pond of still water lying

there like a mirror

there is no sign of the roar and thunder

with which it can leap from the

precipice

and yet remain what it is or again

rise high in the air as a fountain

when water is as cold as ice you can

have no idea of the latent warmth

contained in it

why is it that in spite of all the

mirrors in the world

no one really knows what he looks like

a man may call to mind the face of his

friend but not his own

here then is an initial difficulty in

the way of applying the maxim

know thyself this is partly no doubt to

be explained by the fact that it is

physically impossible for a man to see

himself in the glass

except with face turned straight towards

it and perfectly motionless

where the expression of the eye which

cuts for so much

and really gives its whole character to

the face

is to a great extent lost

but coexisting with this physical

impossibility there seems to me to be

an ethical impossibility of an analogous

nature

and producing the same effect a man

cannot look upon his own reflection as

though the person presented there were a

stranger to him

and yet this is necessary if he is to

take

an objective view in the last resort

an objective view means a deep-rooted

feeling on the part of the individual

as a moral being that that which he is

contemplating

is not himself and unless he can take

this point of view

he will not see things in a really true

light

which is possible only if he is alive to

their actual defects

exactly as they are instead of that

when a man sees himself in the glass

something out of his own egotistic

nature

whispers to him to take care to remember

that

it is no stranger but himself that he is

looking at

and this operates as a noli metang ere

and prevents him from taking an

objective view

it seems indeed as if without the leaven

of a grain of malice

such a view were impossible

according as a man's mental energy is

exerted or

relaxed will life appear to him

either so short and petty and fleeting

that nothing can possibly matter over

which it is worth his while to spend

emotion

that nothing really matters whether it

is

pleasure or riches or even fame

and that in whatever way a man may have

failed

he cannot have lost much

or on the other hand life will sing

so long so important so all in all so

momentous

and so full of difficulty that we have

to plunge into it with our

whole soul if we are to obtain a share

of its goods

make sure of its prizes and carry out

our plans

this latter is the imminent and common

view of life

it is what gratian means when he speaks

of the serious way of looking at things

the former is the transcendental view

which is well expressed in ovid's tanti

it is not worth so much trouble still

better however

by plato's remark that nothing in human

affairs is worth any great anxiety

this condition of mind is due to the

intellect having got the upper hand

and the domain of consciousness where

freed from the mere service of the will

it looks upon the phenomena of life

objectively and so

cannot fail to gain a clear insight into

its

vain and futile character but

in the other condition of mind will

predominates

and the intellect exists only to light

it on

its way to the attainment of its desires

a man is great or small according as he

leans to the one

or to the other of these views of life

people of very brilliant ability think

little of admitting their errors and

weaknesses

or of letting others see them

they look upon them as something for

which they have duly paid

and instead of fancying that these

weaknesses are disgraced to them

they consider that they are doing them