Counsels and Maxims

Counsels and Maxims - From
The Essays Of Arthur
Schopenhauer

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Title: Counsels and Maxims From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer
Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10715]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE ESSAYS
OF
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
TRANSLATED BY

T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.

COUNSELS AND MAXIMS.
_Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisée: il est très difficile de le trouver en
nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs_.
CHAMFORT.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION I. GENERAL RULES II. OUR RELATION TO
OURSELVES III. OUR RELATION TO OTHERS IV. WORLDLY
FORTUNE V. THE AGES OF LIFE

INTRODUCTION.
If my object in these pages were to present a complete scheme of
counsels and maxims for the guidance of life, I should have to repeat
the numerous rules--some of them excellent--which have been drawn
up by thinkers of all ages, from Theognis and Solomon[1] down to La
Rochefoucauld; and, in so doing, I should inevitably entail upon the
reader a vast amount of well-worn commonplace. But the fact is that in
this work I make still less claim to exhaust my subject than in any other
of my writings.
[Footnote 1: I refer to the proverbs and maxims ascribed, in the Old
Testament, to the king of that name.]
An author who makes no claims to completeness must also, in a great
measure, abandon any attempt at systematic arrangement. For his
double loss in this respect, the reader may console himself by reflecting
that a complete and systematic treatment of such a subject as the
guidance of life could hardly fail to be a very wearisome business. I
have simply put down those of my thoughts which appear to be worth
communicating--thoughts which, as far as I know, have not been
uttered, or, at any rate, not just in the same form, by any one else; so
that my remarks may be taken as a supplement to what has been

already achieved in the immense field.
However, by way of introducing some sort of order into the great
variety of matters upon which advice will be given in the following
pages, I shall distribute what I have to say under the following heads:
(1) general rules; (2) our relation to ourselves; (3) our relation to others;
and finally, (4) rules which concern our manner of life and our worldly
circumstances. I shall conclude with some remarks on the changes
which the various periods of life produce in us.


CHAPTER I
.
GENERAL RULES.--SECTION 1.
The first and foremost rule for the wise conduct of life seems to me to
be contained in a view to which Aristotle parenthetically refers in the
_Nichomachean Ethics_:[1] [Greek: o phronimoz to alupon dioke e ou
to aedu] or, as it may be rendered, _not pleasure, but freedom from pain,
is what the wise man will aim at_.
[Footnote 1: vii. (12) 12.]
The truth of this remark turns upon the negative character of
happiness,--the fact that pleasure is only the negation of pain, and that
pain is the positive element in life. Though I have given a detailed
proof of this proposition in my chief work,[1] I may supply one more
illustration of it here, drawn from a circumstance of daily occurrence.
Suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful spot, we are
physically in a sound and healthy condition: the sore of this one spot,
will completely absorb our attention, causing us to lose the sense of
general well-being, and destroying all our comfort in life. In the same
way, when all our affairs but one turn out as we wish, the single
instance in which our aims are frustrated is a constant trouble to us,
even though it be something quite trivial. We think a great deal about it,
and very little about those other and more important matters in which
we have been successful. In both these cases what has met with
resistance is _the will_; in the one case, as it is objectified in the
organism, in the other, as it presents itself in the struggle of life; and in

both, it is plain that the satisfaction of the will consists in nothing else
than that it meets with no resistance. It is, therefore, a satisfaction
which is not directly felt; at most, we can become