The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer | Page 4

vain, stupid self-conceit on the
bows and scrapes of parasites who laugh at him in secret, or on the gaze
of the mob and those who envy his magnificence. We should, therefore,
shun the spendthrift as though he had the plague, and on discovering
his vice break with him betimes, in order that later on, when the
consequences of his extravagance ensue, we may neither have to help
to bear them, nor, on the other hand, have to play the part of the friends
of Timon of Athens.
At the same time it is not to be expected that he who foolishly
squanders his own fortune will leave another man's intact, if it should
chance to be committed to his keeping; nay, sui profusus and alieni
appetens are by Sallust very rightly conjoined. Hence it is that
extravagance leads not only to impoverishment but also to crime; and
crime amongst the moneyed classes is almost always the result of

extravagance. It is accordingly with justice that the Koran declares all
spendthrifts to be "brothers of Satan."
But it is superfluity that Avarice brings in its train, and when was
superfluity ever unwelcome? That must be a good vice which has good
consequences. Avarice proceeds upon the principle that all pleasure is
only negative in its operation and that the happiness which consists of a
series of pleasures is a chimaera; that, on the contrary, it is pains which
are positive and extremely real. Accordingly, the avaricious man
foregoes the former in order that he may be the better preserved from
the latter, and thus it is that _bear and forbear_--_sustine et abstine_--is
his maxim. And because he knows, further, how inexhaustible are the
possibilities of misfortune, and how innumerable the paths of danger,
he increases the means of avoiding them, in order, if possible, to
surround himself with a triple wall of protection. Who, then, can say
where precaution against disaster begins to be exaggerated? He alone
who knows where the malignity of fate reaches its limit. And even if
precaution were exaggerated it is an error which at the most would hurt
the man who took it, and not others. If he will never need the treasures
which he lays up for himself, they will one day benefit others whom
nature has made less careful. That until then he withdraws the money
from circulation is no misfortune; for money is not an article of
consumption: it only represents the good things which a man may
actually possess, and is not one itself. Coins are only counters; their
value is what they represent; and what they represent cannot be
withdrawn from circulation. Moreover, by holding back the money, the
value of the remainder which is in circulation is enhanced by precisely
the same amount. Even though it be the case, as is said, that many a
miser comes in the end to love money itself for its own sake, it is
equally certain that many a spendthrift, on the other hand, loves
spending and squandering for no better reason. Friendship with a miser
is not only without danger, but it is profitable, because of the great
advantages it can bring. For it is doubtless those who are nearest and
dearest to the miser who on his death will reap the fruits of the
self-control which he exercised; but even in his lifetime, too, something
may be expected of him in cases of great need. At any rate one can
always hope for more from him than from the spendthrift, who has lost
his all and is himself helpless and in debt. _Mas da el duro que el

desnudo_, says a Spanish proverb; the man who has a hard heart will
give more than the man who has an empty purse. The upshot of all this
is that Avarice is not a vice.
On the other side, it may be said that Avarice is the quintessence of all
vices. When physical pleasures seduce a man from the right path, it is
his sensual nature--the animal part of him--which is at fault. He is
carried away by its attractions, and, overcome by the impression of the
moment, he acts without thinking of the consequences. When, on the
other hand, he is brought by age or bodily weakness to the condition in
which the vices that he could never abandon end by abandoning him,
and his capacity for physical pleasure dies--if he turns to Avarice, the
intellectual desire survives the sensual. Money, which represents all the
good things of this world, and is these good things in the abstract, now
becomes the dry trunk overgrown with all the dead lusts of the flesh,
which are egoism in the abstract. They come to life again in the love of
the Mammon. The transient pleasure of the