Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 39

THE CAPACITY OF BEING SMALL.-We must be as near to flowers, gra.s.ses, and b.u.t.terflies as a child, that is, not much bigger than they. We adults have grown up beyond them and have to stoop to them. I think the gra.s.ses hate us when we confess our love for them.-He who would have a share in all good things must understand at times how to be small.

52.

THE SUM-TOTAL OF CONSCIENCE.-The sum-total of our conscience is all that has regularly been demanded of us, without reason, in the days of our childhood, by people whom we respected or feared. From conscience comes that feeling of obligation ("This I must do, this omit") which does not ask, Why must I?-In all cases where a thing is done with "because" and "why," man acts without conscience, but not necessarily on that account _against_ conscience.-The belief in authority is the source of conscience; which is therefore not the voice of G.o.d in the heart of man, but the voice of some men in man.

53.

CONQUEST OF THE Pa.s.sIONS.-The man who has overcome his pa.s.sions has entered into possession of the most fruitful soil, like the colonist who has become lord over bogs and forests. To sow the seed of spiritual good works on the soil of the vanquished pa.s.sions is the next and most urgent task. The conquest itself is a means, not an end: if it be not so regarded, all kind of weeds and devil's crop quickly spring up upon the fertile soil that has been cleared, and soon the growth is all wilder and more luxuriant than before.

54.

SKILL IN SERVICE.-All so-called practical men have skill in service, whether it be serving others or themselves; this is what makes them practical. Robinson owned a servant even better than Friday-his name was Crusoe.

55.

DANGER IN SPEECH TO INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM.-Every word is a preconceived judgment.

56.

INTELLECT AND BOREDOM.-The proverb, "The Hungarian is far too lazy to feel bored," gives food for thought. Only the highest and most active animals are capable of being bored.-The boredom of G.o.d on the seventh day of Creation would be a subject for a great poet.

57.

INTERCOURSE WITH ANIMALS.-The origin of our morality may still be observed in our relations with animals. Where advantage or the reverse do not come into play, we have a feeling of complete irresponsibility. For example, we kill or wound insects or let them live, and as a rule think no more about it. We are so clumsy that even our gracious acts towards flowers and small animals are almost always murderous: this does not in the least detract from our pleasure in them.-To-day is the festival of the small animals, the most sultry day of the year. There is a swarming and crawling around us, and we, without intention, but also without reflection, crush here and there a little fly or winged beetle.-If animals do us harm, we strive to _annihilate_ them in every possible way. The means are often cruel enough, even without our really intending them to be so-it is the cruelty of thoughtlessness. If they are useful, we turn them to advantage, until a more refined wisdom teaches us that certain animals amply reward a different mode of treatment, that of tending and breeding. Here responsibility first arises. Torturing is avoided in the case of the domestic animal. One man is indignant if another is cruel to his cow, quite in accordance with the primitive communal morality, which sees the commonwealth in danger whenever an individual does wrong. He who perceives any transgression in the community fears indirect harm to himself. Thus we fear in this case for the quality of meat, agriculture, and means of communication if we see the domestic animals ill-treated. Moreover, he who is harsh to animals awakens a suspicion that he is also harsh to men who are weak, inferior, and incapable of revenge. He is held to be ign.o.ble and deficient in the finer form of pride. Thus arises a foundation of moral judgments and sentiments, but the greatest contribution is made by superst.i.tion. Many animals incite men by glances, tones, and gestures to transfer themselves into them in imagination, and some religions teach us, under certain circ.u.mstances, to see in animals the dwelling-place of human and divine souls: whence they recommend a n.o.bler caution or even a reverential awe in intercourse with animals. Even after the disappearance of this superst.i.tion the sentiments awakened by it continue to exercise their influence, to ripen and to blossom.-Christianity, as is well known, has shown itself in this respect a poor and retrograde religion.

58.

NEW ACTORS.-Among human beings there is no greater ba.n.a.lity than death.

Second in order, because it is possible to die without being born, comes birth, and next comes marriage. But these hackneyed little tragi-comedies are always presented, at each of their unnumbered and innumerable performances, by new actors, and accordingly do not cease to find interested spectators: whereas we might well believe that the whole audience of the world-theatre had long since hanged themselves to every tree from sheer boredom at these performances. So much depends on new actors, so little on the piece.

59.

WHAT IS "BEING OBSTINATE"?-The shortest way is not the straightest possible, but that wherein favourable winds swell our sails. So says the wisdom of seamen. Not to follow his course is obstinate, firmness of character being then adulterated by stupidity.

60.

THE WORD "VANITY."-It is annoying that certain words, with which we moralists positively cannot dispense, involve in themselves a kind of censors.h.i.+p of morals, dating from the times when the most ordinary and natural impulses were denounced. Thus that fundamental conviction that on the waves of society we either find navigable waters or suffer s.h.i.+pwreck far more through what we appear than through what we are (a conviction that must act as guiding principle of all action in relation to society) is branded with the general word "vanity." In other words, one of the most weighty and significant of qualities is branded with an expression which denotes it as essentially empty and negative: a great thing is designated by a diminutive, ay, even slandered by the strokes of caricature. There is no help for it; we must use such words, but then we must shut our ears to the insinuations of ancient habits.

61.

THE FATALISM OF THE TURK.-The fatalism of the Turk has this fundamental defect, that it contrasts man and fate as two distinct things. Man, says this doctrine, may struggle against fate and try to baffle it, but in the end fate will always gain the victory. Hence the most rational course is to resign oneself or to live as one pleases. As a matter of fact, every man is himself a piece of fate. When he thinks that he is struggling against fate in this way, fate is accomplis.h.i.+ng its ends even in that struggle. The combat is a fantasy, but so is the resignation in fate-all these fantasies are included in fate.-The fear felt by most people of the doctrine that denies the freedom of the will is a fear of the fatalism of the Turk. They imagine that man will become weakly resigned and will stand before the future with folded hands, because he cannot alter anything of the future. Or that he will give a free rein to his caprices, because the predestined cannot be made worse by that course. The follies of men are as much a piece of fate as are his wise actions, and even that fear of belief in fate is a fatality. You yourself, you poor timid creature, are that indomitable _Moira_, which rules even the G.o.ds; whatever may happen, you are a curse or a blessing, and in any case the fetters wherein the strongest lies bound: in you the whole future of the human world is predestined, and it is no use for you to be frightened of yourself.

62.

THE ADVOCATE OF THE DEVIL.-"Only by our own suffering do we become wise, only by others' suffering do we become good"-so runs that strange philosophy which derives all morality from pity and all intellectuality from the isolation of the individual. Herein this philosophy is the unconscious pleader for all human deterioration. For pity needs suffering, and isolation contempt of others.

63.

THE MORAL CHARACTER-MASKS.-In ages when the character-masks of different cla.s.ses are definitely fixed, like the cla.s.ses themselves, moralists will be seduced into holding the moral character-masks, too, as absolute, and in delineating them accordingly. Thus Moliere is intelligible as the contemporary of the society of Louis XIV.: in our society of transitions and intermediate stages he would seem an inspired pedant.