Essays of Schopenhauer Part 11

Our memory is like a sieve, that with time and use holds less and less; in so far, namely, as the older we get, the quicker anything we have entrusted to our memory slips through it, while anything that was fixed firmly in it, when we were young, remains. This is why an old man's recollections are the clearer the further they go back, and the less clear the nearer they approach the present; so that his memory, like his eyes, becomes long-sighted (p?es??).

That sometimes, and apparently without any reason, long-forgotten scenes suddenly come into the memory, is, in many cases, due to the recurrence of a scarcely perceptible odour, of which we were conscious when those scenes actually took place; for it is well known that odours more easily than anything else awaken memories, and that, in general, something of an extremely trifling nature is all that is necessary to call up a _nexus idearum_.

And by the way, I may say that the sense of sight has to do with the understanding,[15] the sense of hearing with reason,[16] and the sense of smell with memory, as we see in the present case. Touch and taste are something real, and dependent on contact; they have no ideal side.

Memory has also this peculiarity attached to it, that a slight state of intoxication very often enhances the remembrance of past times and scenes, whereby all the circ.u.mstances connected with them are recalled more distinctly than they could be in a state of sobriety; on the other hand, the recollection of what one said or did while in a state of intoxication is less clear than usual, nay, one does not recollect at all if one has been very drunk. Therefore, intoxication enhances one's recollection of the past, while, on the other hand, one remembers little of the present, while in that state.

That arithmetic is the basest of all mental activities is proved by the fact that it is the only one that can be accomplished by means of a machine. Take, for instance, the reckoning machines that are so commonly used in England at the present time, and solely for the sake of convenience. But all _a.n.a.lysis finitorum et infinitorum_ is fundamentally based on calculation. Therefore we may gauge the "profound sense of the mathematician," of whom Lichtenberg has made fun, in that he says: "These so-called professors of mathematics have taken advantage of the ingenuousness of other people, have attained the credit of possessing profound sense, which strongly resembles the theologians'

profound sense of their own holiness."

As a rule, people of very great capacities will get on better with a man of extremely limited intelligence than with a man of ordinary intelligence; and it is for the same reason that the despot and the plebeians, the grandparents and the grandchildren, are natural allies.

I am not surprised that people are bored when they are alone; they cannot laugh when they are alone, for such a thing seems foolish to them. Is laughter, then, to be regarded as merely a signal for others, a mere sign, like a word? It is a want of imagination and dulness of mind generally (??a?s??s?a ?a? ?ad?t?? ?????), as Theophrastus puts it, that prevents people from laughing when they are alone. The lower animals neither laugh when they are alone nor in company.

Nyson, the misanthropist, was surprised as he was laughing to himself by one of these people, who asked him why he laughed when he was alone.

"That is just why I was laughing," was the answer.

People who do not go to the theatre are like those who make their toilet without a looking-gla.s.s;--but it is still worse to come to a decision without seeking the advice of a friend. For a man may have the most correct and excellent judgment in everything else but in his own affairs; because here the will at once deranges the intellect. Therefore a man should seek counsel. A doctor can cure every one but himself; this is why he calls in a colleague when he is ill.

The natural gesticulation of everyday life, such as accompanies any kind of lively conversation, is a language of its own, and, moreover, is much more universal than the language of words; so far as it is independent of words, and the same in all nations; although each nation makes use of gesticulation in proportion to its vivacity, and in individual nations, the Italian, for instance, it is supplemented by some few gesticulations which are merely conventional, and have therefore only local value.

Its universal use is a.n.a.logous to logic and grammar, since it expresses the form and not the matter of conversation. However, it is to be distinguished from them since it has not only an intellectual relation but also a moral--that is, it defines the movements of the will. And so it accompanies conversation, just as a correctly progressive ba.s.s accompanies a melody, and serves in the same way to enhance the effect.

The most interesting fact about gesticulation is that as soon as conversation a.s.sumes the same _form_ there is a repet.i.tion of the same gesture. This is the case, however varied the _matter_, that is to say, the subject-matter, may be. So that I am able to understand quite well the general nature of a conversation--in other words, the mere form and type of it, while looking out of a window--without hearing a word spoken. It is unmistakably evident that the speaker is arguing, advancing his reasons, then modifying them, then urging them, and drawing his conclusion in triumph; or it may be he is relating some wrong that he has suffered, plainly depicting in strong and condemnatory language the stupidity and stubbornness of his opponents; or he is speaking of the splendid plan he has thought out and put in execution, explaining how it became a success, or perhaps failed because fate was unfavourable; or perhaps he is confessing that he was powerless to act in the matter in question; or recounting that he noticed and saw through, in good time, the evil schemes that had been organised against him, and by a.s.serting his rights or using force frustrated them and punished their author; and a hundred other things of a similar kind. But what gesticulation alone really conveys to me is the essential matter--be it of a moral or intellectual nature--of the whole conversation _in abstracto_. That is to say the quintessence, the true substance of the conversation, remains identical whatever has brought about the conversation, and consequently whatever the subject-matter of it may be.

The most interesting and amusing part of the matter, as has been said, is the complete ident.i.ty of the gestures for denoting the same kind of circ.u.mstances, even if they are used by most diverse people; just as the words of a language are alike for every one and liable to such modifications as are brought about by a slight difference in accent or education. And yet these standing forms of gesticulation which are universally observed are certainly the outcome of no convention; they are natural and original, a true language of nature, which may have been strengthened by imitation and custom. It is inc.u.mbent on an actor, as is well known, and on a public speaker, to a less extent, to make a careful study of gesture--a study which must princ.i.p.ally consist in the observation and imitation of others, for the matter cannot very well be based on abstract rules; with the exception of some quite general leading principles--as, for instance, that the gesture must not follow the word, but rather immediately precede it, in order to announce it and thereby rouse attention.

The English have a peculiar contempt for gesticulation, and regard it as something undignified and common; this seems to me to be only one of those silly prejudices of English fastidiousness. For it is a language which nature has given to every one and which every one understands; therefore to abolish and forbid it for no other reason than to gratify that so much extolled, gentlemanly feeling, is a very dubious thing to do.

The state of human happiness, for the most part, is like certain groups of trees, which seen from a distance look wonderfully fine; but if we go up to them and among them, their beauty disappears; we do not know wherein it lay, for it is only trees that surround us. And so it happens that we often envy the position of others.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] _Grundpr. der Ethik_, p. 48; _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, vol.

i. p. 338.

[15] _Vierfache Wurzel_, -- 21.

[16] _Pererga_, vol. ii. -- 311.

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE.

We are accustomed to see poets princ.i.p.ally occupied with describing the love of the s.e.xes. This, as a rule, is the leading idea of every dramatic work, be it tragic or comic, romantic or cla.s.sic, Indian or European. It in no less degree const.i.tutes the greater part of both lyric and epic poetry, especially if in these we include the host of romances which have been produced every year for centuries in every civilised country in Europe as regularly as the fruits of the earth. All these works are nothing more than many-sided, short, or long descriptions of the pa.s.sion in question. Moreover, the most successful delineations of love, such, for example, as _Romeo and Juliet, La Nouvelle Heloise_, and _Werther_, have attained immortal fame.

Rochefoucauld says that love may be compared to a ghost since it is something we talk about but have never seen, and Lichtenberg, in his essay _Ueber die Macht der Liebe_, disputes and denies its reality and naturalness--but both are in the wrong. For if it were foreign to and contradicted human nature--in other words, if it were merely an imaginary caricature, it would not have been depicted with such zeal by the poets of all ages, or accepted by mankind with an unaltered interest; for anything artistically beautiful cannot exist without truth.

"_Rien n'est beau que le vrai; le vrai seul est aimable_."--BOIL.

Experience, although not that of everyday, verifies that that which as a rule begins only as a strong and yet controllable inclination, may develop, under certain conditions, into a pa.s.sion, the ardour of which surpa.s.ses that of every other. It will ignore all considerations, overcome all kinds of obstacles with incredible strength and persistence. A man, in order to have his love gratified, will unhesitatingly risk his life; in fact, if his love is absolutely rejected, he will sacrifice his life into the bargain. The Werthers and Jacopo Ortis do not only exist in romances; Europe produces every year at least half-a-dozen like them: _sed ignotis perierunt mortibus illi_: for their sufferings are chronicled by the writer of official registers or by the reporters of newspapers. Indeed, readers of the police news in English and French newspapers will confirm what I have said.

Love drives a still greater number of people into the lunatic asylum.

There is a case of some sort every year of two lovers committing suicide together because material circ.u.mstances happen to be unfavourable to their union. By the way, I cannot understand how it is that such people, who are confident of each other's love, and expect to find their greatest happiness in the enjoyment of it, do not avoid taking extreme steps, and prefer suffering every discomfort to sacrificing with their lives a happiness which is greater than any other they can conceive. As far as lesser phases and pa.s.sages of love are concerned, all of us have them daily before our eyes, and, if we are not old, the most of us in our hearts.

After what has been brought to mind, one cannot doubt either the reality or importance of love. Instead, therefore, of wondering why a philosopher for once in a way writes on this subject, which has been constantly the theme of poets, rather should one be surprised that love, which always plays such an important _role_ in a man's life, has scarcely ever been considered at all by philosophers, and that it still stands as material for them to make use of.

Plato has devoted himself more than any one else to the subject of love, especially in the _Symposium_ and the _Phaedrus_; what he has said about it, however, comes within the sphere of myth, fable, and raillery, and only applies for the most part to the love of a Greek youth. The little that Rousseau says in his _Discours sur l'inegalite_ is neither true nor satisfactory. Kant's disquisition on love in the third part of his treatise, _Ueber das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhabenen_, is very superficial; it shows that he has not thoroughly gone into the subject, and therefore it is somewhat untrue. Finally, Platner's treatment of it in his _Anthropology_ will be found by every one to be insipid and shallow.

To amuse the reader, on the other hand, Spinoza's definition deserves to be quoted because of its exuberant navete: _Amor est t.i.tillatio, concomitante idea causae externae_ (_Eth._ iv., prop. 44). It is not my intention to be either influenced or to contradict what has been written by my predecessors; the subject has forced itself upon me objectively, and has of itself become inseparable from my consideration of the world.

Moreover, I shall expect least approval from those people who are for the moment enchained by this pa.s.sion, and in consequence try to express their exuberant feelings in the most sublime and ethereal images. My view will seem to them too physical, too material, however metaphysical, nay, transcendent it is fundamentally.

First of all let them take into consideration that the creature whom they are idealising to-day in madrigals and sonnets would have been ignored almost entirely by them if she had been born eighteen years previously.

Every kind of love, however ethereal it may seem to be, springs entirely from the instinct of s.e.x; indeed, it is absolutely this instinct, only in a more definite, specialised, and perhaps, strictly speaking, more individualised form. If, bearing this in mind, one considers the important _role_ which love plays in all its phases and degrees, not only in dramas and novels, but also in the real world, where next to one's love of life it shows itself as the strongest and most active of all motives; if one considers that it constantly occupies half the capacities and thoughts of the younger part of humanity, and is the final goal of almost every human effort; that it influences adversely the most important affairs; that it hourly disturbs the most earnest occupations; that it sometimes deranges even the greatest intellects for a time; that it is not afraid of interrupting the transactions of statesmen or the investigations of men of learning; that it knows how to leave its love-letters and locks of hair in ministerial portfolios and philosophical ma.n.u.scripts; that it knows equally well how to plan the most complicated and wicked affairs, to dissolve the most important relations, to break the strongest ties; that life, health, riches, rank, and happiness are sometimes sacrificed for its sake; that it makes the otherwise honest, perfidious, and a man who has been hitherto faithful a betrayer, and, altogether, appears as a hostile demon whose object is to overthrow, confuse, and upset everything it comes across: if all this is taken into consideration one will have reason to ask--"Why is there all this noise? Why all this crowding, bl.u.s.tering, anguish, and want? Why should such a trifle play so important a part and create disturbance and confusion in the well-regulated life of mankind?" But to the earnest investigator the spirit of truth gradually unfolds the answer: it is not a trifle one is dealing with; the importance of love is absolutely in keeping with the seriousness and zeal with which it is prosecuted. The ultimate aim of all love-affairs, whether they be of a tragic or comic nature, is really more important than all other aims in human life, and therefore is perfectly deserving of that profound seriousness with which it is pursued.

As a matter of fact, love determines nothing less than the _establishment of the next generation_. The existence and nature of the _dramatis personae_ who come on to the scene when we have made our exit have been determined by some frivolous love-affair. As the being, the _existentia_ of these future people is conditioned by our instinct of s.e.x in general, so is the nature, the _essentia_, of these same people conditioned by the selection that the individual makes for his satisfaction, that is to say, by love, and is thereby in every respect irrevocably established. This is the key of the problem. In applying it, we shall understand it more fully if we a.n.a.lyse the various degrees of love, from the most fleeting sensation to the most ardent pa.s.sion; we shall then see that the difference arises from the degree of individualisation of the choice. All the love-affairs of the present generation taken altogether are accordingly the _meditatio compositionis generationis futurae, e qua iterum pendent innumerae generationes_ of mankind. Love is of such high import, because it has nothing to do with the weal or woe of the present individual, as every other matter has; it has to secure the existence and special nature of the human race in future times; hence the will of the individual appears in a higher aspect as the will of the species; and this it is that gives a pathetic and sublime import to love-affairs, and makes their raptures and troubles transcendent, emotions which poets for centuries have not tired of depicting in a variety of ways. There is no subject that can rouse the same interest as love, since it concerns both the weal and woe of the species, and is related to every other which only concerns the welfare of the individual as body to surface.

This is why it is so difficult to make a drama interesting if it possesses no love motive; on the other hand, the subject is never exhausted, although it is constantly being utilised.

What manifests itself in the individual consciousness as instinct of s.e.x in general, without being concentrated on any particular individual, is very plainly in itself, in its generalised form, the will to live. On the other hand, that which appears as instinct of s.e.x directed to a certain individual, is in itself the will to live as a definitely determined individual. In this case the instinct of s.e.x very cleverly wears the mask of objective admiration, although in itself it is a subjective necessity, and is, thereby, deceptive. Nature needs these stratagems in order to accomplish her ends. The purpose of every man in love, however objective and sublime his admiration may appear to be, is to beget a being of a definite nature, and that this is so, is verified by the fact that it is not mutual love but possession that is the essential. Without possession it is no consolation to a man to know that his love is requited. In fact, many a man has shot himself on finding himself in such a position. On the other hand, take a man who is very much in love; if he cannot have his love returned he is content simply with possession. Compulsory marriages and cases of seduction corroborate this, for a man whose love is not returned frequently finds consolation in giving handsome presents to a woman, in spite of her dislike, or making other sacrifices, so that he may buy her favour.

The real aim of the whole of love's romance, although the persons concerned are unconscious of the fact, is that a particular being may come into the world; and the way and manner in which it is accomplished is a secondary consideration. However much those of lofty sentiments, and especially of those in love, may refute the gross realism of my argument, they are nevertheless in the wrong. For is not the aim of definitely determining the individualities of the next generation a much higher and n.o.bler aim than that other, with its exuberant sensations and transcendental soap-bubbles? Among all earthly aims is there one that is either more important or greater? It alone is in keeping with that deep-rooted feeling inseparable from pa.s.sionate love, with that earnestness with which it appears, and the importance which it attaches to the trifles that come within its sphere. It is only in so far as we regard _this_ end as the real one that the difficulties encountered, the endless troubles and vexations endured, in order to attain the object we love, appear to be in keeping with the matter. For it is the future generation in its entire individual determination which forces itself into existence through the medium of all this strife and trouble.

Indeed, the future generation itself is already stirring in the careful, definite, and apparently capricious selection for the satisfaction of the instinct of s.e.x which we call love. That growing affection of two lovers for each other is in reality the will to live of the new being, of which they shall become the parents; indeed, in the meeting of their yearning glances the life of a new being is kindled, and manifests itself as a well-organised individuality of the future. The lovers have a longing to be really united and made one being, and to live as such for the rest of their lives; and this longing is fulfilled in the children born to them, in whom the qualities inherited from both, but combined and united in one being, are perpetuated. Contrarily, if a man and woman mutually, persistently, and decidedly dislike each other, it indicates that they could only bring into the world a badly organised, discordant, and unhappy being. Therefore much must be attached to Calderon's words, when he calls the horrible Semiramis a daughter of the air, yet introduces her as a daughter of seduction, after which follows the murder of the husband.

Finally, it is the will to live presenting itself in the whole species, which so forcibly and exclusively attracts two individuals of different s.e.x towards each other. This will antic.i.p.ates in the being, of which they shall become the parents, an objectivation of its nature corresponding to its aims. This individual will inherit the father's will and character, the mother's intellect, and the const.i.tution of both. As a rule, however, an individual takes more after the father in shape and the mother in stature, corresponding to the law which applies to the offspring of animals.... It is impossible to explain the individuality of each man, which is quite exceptional and peculiar to him alone; and it is just as impossible to explain the pa.s.sion of two people for each other, for it is equally individual and uncommon in character; indeed, fundamentally both are one and the same. The former is _explicite_ what the latter was _implicite_.

We must consider as the origin of a new individual and true _punctum saliens_ of its life the moment when the parents begin to love each other--_to fancy each other_, as the English appropriately express it.

And, as has been said, in the meeting of their longing glances originates the first germ of a new being, which, indeed, like all germs, is generally crushed out. This new individual is to a certain extent a new (Platonic) Idea; now, as all Ideas strive with the greatest vehemence to enter the phenomenal sphere, and to do this, ardently seize upon the matter which the law of causality distributes among them all, so this particular Idea of a human individuality struggles with the greatest eagerness and vehemence for its realisation in the phenomenal.

It is precisely this vehement desire which is the pa.s.sion of the future parents for one another. Love has countless degrees, and its two extremes may be indicated as ?f??d?t? pa?d??? and ???a??a; nevertheless, in essentials it is the same everywhere.

According to the degree, on the other hand, it will be the more powerful the more _individualised_ it is--that is to say, the more the loved individual, by virtue of all her qualities, is exclusively fit to satisfy the lover's desire and needs determined by her own individuality. If we investigate further we shall understand more clearly what this involves. All amorous feeling immediately and essentially concentrates itself on health, strength, and beauty, and consequently on youth; because the will above all wishes to exhibit the specific character of the human species as the basis of all individuality. The same applies pretty well to everyday courts.h.i.+p (?f??d?t? pa?d???). With this are bound up more special requirements, which we will consider individually later on, and with which, if there is any prospect of gratification, there is an increase of pa.s.sion.

Intense love, however, springs from a fitness of both individualities for each other; so that the will, that is to say the father's character and the mother's intellect combined, exactly complete that individual for which the will to live in general (which exhibits itself in the whole species) has a longing--a longing proportionate to this its greatness, and therefore surpa.s.sing the measure of a mortal heart; its motives being in a like manner beyond the sphere of the individual intellect. This, then, is the soul of a really great pa.s.sion. The more perfectly two individuals are fitted for each other in the various respects which we shall consider further on, the stronger will be their pa.s.sion for each other. As there are not two individuals exactly alike, a particular kind of woman must perfectly correspond with a particular kind of man--always in view of the child that is to be born. Real, pa.s.sionate love is as rare as the meeting of two people exactly fitted for each other. By the way, it is because there is a possibility of real pa.s.sionate love in us all that we understand why poets have depicted it in their works.