Counsels and Maxims | Page 9

it can be attained, and even
_monotony_, in our manner of life, if it does not mean that we are
bored, will contribute to happiness; just because, under such
circumstances, life, and consequently the burden which is the essential
concomitant of life, will be least felt. Our existence will glide on

peacefully like a stream which no waves or whirlpools disturb.
SECTION 7. Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends,
ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our
consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for the
mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the way of
happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant alternations
of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments it produces. But
it must be confessed that for such occupation a pre-eminent amount of
intellectual capacity is necessary. And in this connection it may be
noted that, just as a life devoted to outward activity will distract and
divert a man from study, and also deprive him of that quiet
concentration of mind which is necessary for such work; so, on the
other hand, a long course of thought will make him more or less unfit
for the noisy pursuits of real life. It is advisable, therefore, to suspend
mental work for a while, if circumstances happen which demand any
degree of energy in affairs of a practical nature.
SECTION 8. To live a life that shall be entirely prudent and discreet,
and to draw from experience all the instruction it contains, it is
requisite to be constantly thinking back,--to make a kind of
recapitulation of what we have done, of our impressions and sensations,
to compare our former with our present judgments--what we set before
us and struggle to achieve, with the actual result and satisfaction we
have obtained. To do this is to get a repetition of the private lessons of
experience,--lessons which are given to every one.
Experience of the world may be looked upon as a kind of text, to which
reflection and knowledge form the commentary. Where there is great
deal of reflection and intellectual knowledge, and very little experience,
the result is like those books which have on each page two lines of text
to forty lines of commentary. A great deal of experience with little
reflection and scant knowledge, gives us books like those of the _editio
Bipontina_[1] where there are no notes and much that is unintelligible.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_. A series of Greek, Latin and French
classics published at Zweibräcken in the Palatinate, from and after the
year 1779. Cf. Butter, Ueber die Bipontiner und die editiones
Bipontinae.]
The advice here given is on a par with a rule recommended by
Pythagoras,--to review, every night before going to sleep, what we have

done during the day. To live at random, in the hurly-burly of business
or pleasure, without ever reflecting upon the past,--to go on, as it were,
pulling cotton off the reel of life,--is to have no clear idea of what we
are about; and a man who lives in this state will have chaos in his
emotions and certain confusion in his thoughts; as is soon manifest by
the abrupt and fragmentary character of his conversation, which
becomes a kind of mincemeat. A man will be all the more exposed to
this fate in proportion as he lives a restless life in the world, amid a
crowd of various impressions and with a correspondingly small amount
of activity on the part of his own mind.
And in this connection it will be in place to observe that, when events
and circumstances which have influenced us pass away in the course of
time, we are unable to bring back and renew the particular mood or
state of feeling which they aroused in us: but we can remember what
we were led to say and do in regard to them; and thus form, as it were,
the result, expression and measure of those events. We should,
therefore, be careful to preserve the memory of our thoughts at
important points in our life; and herein lies the great advantage of
keeping a journal.
SECTION 9. To be self-sufficient, to be all in all to oneself, to want for
nothing, to be able to say _omnia mea mecum porto_--that is assuredly
the chief qualification for happiness. Hence Aristotle's remark, [Greek:
hae eudaimonia ton autarchon esti][1]--to be happy means to be
self-sufficient--cannot be too often repeated. It is, at bottom, the same
thought as is present in the very well-turned sentence from Chamfort:
_Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisée: il est très difficile de le trouver en
nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs_.
[Footnote 1: _Eudem. Eth_. VII. ii. 37.]
For