Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 4

AGAINST THE "TRIERS OF THE REINS" OF MORALITY.-One must know the best and the worst that a man is capable of in theory and in practice before one can judge how strong his moral nature is and can be. But this is an experiment that one can never carry out.

36.

SERPENT'S TOOTH.-Whether we have a serpent's tooth or not we cannot know before some one has set his heel upon our necks. A wife or a mother could say: until some one has put his heel upon the neck of our darling, our child.-Our character is determined more by the absence of certain experiences than by the experiences we have undergone.

37.

DECEPTION IN LOVE.-We forget and purposely banish from our minds a good deal of our past. In other words, we wish our picture, that beams at us from the past, to belie us, to flatter our vanity-we are constantly engaged in this self-deception. And you who talk and boast so much of "self-oblivion in love," of the "absorption of the ego in the other person"-you hold that this is something different? So you break the mirror, throw yourselves into another personality that you admire, and enjoy the new portrait of your ego, though calling it by the other person's name-and this whole proceeding is not to be thought self-deception, self-seeking, you marvellous beings?-It seems to me that those who hide something of themselves from themselves, or hide their whole selves from themselves, are alike committing a theft from the treasury of knowledge. It is clear, then, against what transgression the maxim "Know thyself" is a warning.

38.

TO THE DENIER OF HIS VANITY.-He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself.

39.

WHY THE STUPID SO OFTEN BECOME MALIGNANT.-To those arguments of our adversary against which our head feels too weak our heart replies by throwing suspicion on the motives of his arguments.

40.

THE ART OF MORAL EXCEPTIONS.-An art that points out and glorifies the exceptional cases of morality-where the good becomes bad and the unjust just-should rarely be given a hearing: just as now and again we buy something from gipsies, with the fear that they are diverting to their own pockets much more than their mere profit from the purchase.

41.

ENJOYMENT AND NON-ENJOYMENT OF POISONS.-The only decisive argument that has always deterred men from drinking a poison is not that it is deadly, but that it has an unpleasant taste.

42.

THE WORLD WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN.-If men only committed such deeds as do not give rise to a bad conscience, the human world would still look bad and rascally enough, but not so sickly and pitiable as at present.-Enough wicked men without conscience have existed at all times, and many good honest folk lack the feeling of pleasure in a good conscience.

43.

THE CONSCIENTIOUS.-It is more convenient to follow one's conscience than one's intelligence, for at every failure conscience finds an excuse and an encouragement in itself. That is why there are so many conscientious and so few intelligent people.

44.

OPPOSITE MEANS OF AVOIDING BITTERNESS.-One temperament finds it useful to be able to give vent to its disgust in words, being made sweeter by speech. Another reaches its full bitterness only by speaking out: it is more advisable for it to have to gulp down something-the restraint that men of this stamp place upon themselves in the presence of enemies and superiors improves their character and prevents it from becoming too acrid and sour.

45.

NOT TO BE TOO DEJECTED.-To get bed-sores is unpleasant, but no proof against the merits of the cure that prescribes that you should take to your bed. Men who have long lived outside themselves, and have at last devoted themselves to the inward philosophic life, know that one can also get sores of character and intellect. This, again, is on the whole no argument against the chosen way of life, but necessitates a few small exceptions and apparent relapses.

46.

THE HUMAN "THING IN ITSELF."-The most vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things is human vanity: nay, through being wounded its strength increases and can grow to giant proportions.

47.

THE FARCE OF MANY INDUSTRIOUS PERSONS.-By an excess of effort they win leisure for themselves, and then they can do nothing with it but count the hours until the tale is ended.