Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 59

288.

HOW FAR MACHINERY HUMILIATES.-Machinery is impersonal; it robs the piece of work of its pride, of the individual merits and defects that cling to all work that is not machine-made-in other words, of its bit of humanity.

Formerly, all buying from handicraftsmen meant a mark of distinction for their personalities, with whose productions people surrounded themselves.

Furniture and dress accordingly became the symbols of mutual valuation and personal connection. Nowadays, on the other hand, we seem to live in the midst of anonymous and impersonal serfdom.-We must not buy the facilitation of labour too dear.

289.

CENTURY-OLD QUARANTINE.-Democratic inst.i.tutions are centres of quarantine against the old plague of tyrannical desires. As such they are extremely useful and extremely tedious.

290.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PARTISAN.-The most dangerous partisan is he whose defection would involve the ruin of the whole party-in other words, the best partisan.

291.

DESTINY AND THE STOMACH.-A piece more or less of bread and b.u.t.ter in the jockey's body is occasionally the decisive factor in races and bets, and thus in the good and bad luck of thousands.-So long as the destiny of nations depends upon diplomats, the stomachs of diplomats will always be the object of patriotic misgivings. _Quousque tandem_....

292.

THE VICTORY OF DEMOCRACY.-All political powers nowadays attempt to exploit the fear of Socialism for their own strengthening. Yet in the long run democracy alone gains the advantage, for _all_ parties are now compelled to flatter "the ma.s.ses" and grant them facilities and liberties of all kinds, with the result that the ma.s.ses finally become omnipotent. The ma.s.ses are as far as possible removed from Socialism as a doctrine of altering the acquisition of property. If once they get the steering-wheel into their hands, through great majorities in their Parliaments, they will attack with progressive taxation the whole dominant system of capitalists, merchants, and financiers, and will in fact slowly create a middle cla.s.s which may forget Socialism like a disease that has been overcome.-The practical result of this increasing democratisation will next be a European league of nations, in which each individual nation, delimited by the proper geographical frontiers, has the position of a canton with its separate rights. Small account will be taken of the historic memories of previously existing nations, because the pious affection for these memories will be gradually uprooted under the democratic regime, with all its craze for novelty and experiment. The corrections of frontiers that will prove necessary will be so carried out as to serve the interests of the great cantons and at the same time that of the whole federation, but not that of any venerable memories. To find the standpoints for these corrections will be the task of future diplomats, who will have to be at the same time students of civilisation, agriculturists, and commercial experts, with no armies but motives and utilities at their back. Then only will foreign and home politics be inseparably connected, whereas to-day the latter follows its haughty dictator, and gleans in sorry baskets the stubble that is left over from the harvest of the former.

293.

GOAL AND MEANS OF DEMOCRACY.-Democracy tries to create and guarantee independence for as many as possible in their opinions, way of life, and occupation. For this purpose democracy must withhold the political suffrage both from those who have nothing and from those who are really rich, as being the two intolerable cla.s.ses of men. At the removal of these cla.s.ses it must always work, because they are continually calling its task in question. In the same way democracy must prevent all measures that seem to aim at party organisation. For the three great foes of independence, in that threefold sense, are the have-nots, the rich, and the parties.-I speak of democracy as of a thing to come. What at present goes by that name is distinguished from older forms of government only by the fact that it drives with new horses; the roads and the wheels are the same as of yore.-Has the danger really become less with _these_ conveyances of the commonwealth?

294.

DISCRETION AND SUCCESS.-That great quality of discretion, which is fundamentally the virtue of virtues, their ancestress and queen, has in common life by no means always success on its side. The wooer would find himself deceived if he had wooed that virtue only for the sake of success.

For it is rated by practical people as suspicious, and is confused with cunning and hypocrisy: he who obviously lacks discretion, the man who quickly grasps and sometimes misses his grasp, has prejudice on his side-he is an honest, trustworthy fellow. Practical people, accordingly, do not like the prudent man, thinking he is to them a danger. Moreover, we often a.s.sume the prudent man to be anxious, preoccupied, pedantic-unpractical, b.u.t.terfly people find him uncomfortable, because he does not live in their happy-go-lucky way, without thinking of actions and duties; he appears among them as their embodied conscience, and the bright day is dimmed to their eyes before his gaze. Thus when success and popularity fail him, he may often say by way of private consolation, "So high are the taxes you have to pay for the possession of the most precious of human commodities-still it is worth the price!"

295.

_ET IN ARCADIA EGO._-I looked down, over waves of hills, to a milky-green lake, through firs and pines austere with age; rocky crags of all shapes about me, the soil gay with flowers and gra.s.ses. A herd of cattle moved, stretched, and expanded itself before me; single cows and groups in the distance, in the clearest evening light, hard by the forest of pines; others nearer and darker; all in calm and eventide contentment. My watch pointed to half-past six. The bull of the herd had stepped into the white foaming brook, and went forward slowly, now striving against, now giving way to his tempestuous course; thus, no doubt, he took his sort of fierce pleasure. Two dark brown beings, of Bergamasque origin, tended the herd, the girl dressed almost like a boy. On the left, overhanging cliffs and fields of snow above broad belts of woodland; to the right, two enormous ice-covered peaks, high above me, s.h.i.+mmering in the veil of the sunny haze-all large, silent, and bright. The beauty of the whole was awe-inspiring and induced to a mute wors.h.i.+p of the moment and its revelation. Unconsciously, as if nothing could be more natural, you peopled this pure, clear world of light (which had no trace of yearning, of expectancy, of looking forward or backward) with Greek heroes. You felt it all as Poussin and his school felt-at once heroic and idyllic.-So individual men too have lived, constantly feeling themselves in the world and the world in themselves, and among them one of the greatest men, the inventor of a heroico-idyllic form of philosophy-Epicurus.

296.

COUNTING AND MEASURING.-The art of seeing many things, of weighing one with another, of reckoning one thing with another and constructing from them a rapid conclusion, a fairly correct sum-that goes to make a great politician or general or merchant. This quality is, in fact, a power of speedy mental calculation. The art of seeing _one_ thing alone, of finding therein the sole motive for action, the guiding principle of all other action, goes to make the hero and also the fanatic. This quality means a dexterity in measuring with one scale.

297.

NOT TO SEE TOO SOON.-As long as we undergo some experience, we must give ourselves up to the experience and shut our eyes-in other words, not become observers of what we are undergoing. For to observe would disturb good digestion of the experience, and instead of wisdom we should gain nothing but dyspepsia.

298.

FROM THE PRACTICE OF THE WISE.-To become wise we must _will_ to undergo certain experiences, and accordingly leap into their jaws. This, it is true, is very dangerous. Many a "sage" has been eaten up in the process.

299.

EXHAUSTION OF THE INTELLECT.-Our occasional coldness and indifference towards people, which is imputed to us as hardness and defect of character, is often only an exhaustion of the intellect. In this state other men are to us, as we are to ourselves, tedious or immaterial.