The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer | Page 5

senses has become a
deliberate and calculated lust of money, which, like that to which it is
directed, is symbolical in its nature, and, like it, indestructible.
This obstinate love of the pleasures of the world--a love which, as it
were, outlives itself; this utterly incorrigible sin, this refined and
sublimated desire of the flesh, is the abstract form in which all lusts are
concentrated, and to which it stands like a general idea to individual
particulars. Accordingly, Avarice is the vice of age, just as
extravagance is the vice of youth.
This _disputatio in utramque partem_--this debate for and against--is
certainly calculated to drive us into accepting the juste milieu morality
of Aristotle; a conclusion that is also supported by the following
consideration.
Every human perfection is allied to a defect into which it threatens to
pass; but it is also true that every defect is allied to a perfection. Hence
it is that if, as often happens, we make a mistake about a man, it is
because at the beginning of our acquaintance with him we confound his
defects with the kinds of perfection to which they are allied. The
cautious man seems to us a coward; the economical man, a miser; the
spendthrift seems liberal; the rude fellow, downright and sincere; the
foolhardy person looks as if he were going to work with a noble
self-confidence; and so on in many other cases.

* * * * *
No one can live among men without feeling drawn again and again to
the tempting supposition that moral baseness and intellectual incapacity
are closely connected, as though they both sprang direct from one
source. That that, however, is not so, I have shown in detail.[1] That it
seems to be so is merely due to the fact that both are so often found
together; and the circumstance is to be explained by the very frequent
occurrence of each of them, so that it may easily happen for both to be
compelled to live under one roof. At the same time it is not to be denied
that they play into each other's hands to their mutual benefit; and it is
this that produces the very unedifying spectacle which only too many
men exhibit, and that makes the world to go as it goes. A man who is
unintelligent is very likely to show his perfidy, villainy and malice;
whereas a clever man understands how to conceal these qualities. And
how often, on the other hand, does a perversity of heart prevent a man
from seeing truths which his intelligence is quite capable of grasping!
[Footnote 1: In my chief work, vol. ii., ch. xix,]
Nevertheless, let no one boast. Just as every man, though he be the
greatest genius, has very definite limitations in some one sphere of
knowledge, and thus attests his common origin with the essentially
perverse and stupid mass of mankind, so also has every man something
in his nature which is positively evil. Even the best, nay the noblest,
character will sometimes surprise us by isolated traits of depravity; as
though it were to acknowledge his kinship with the human race, in
which villainy--nay, cruelty--is to be found in that degree. For it was
just in virtue of this evil in him, this bad principle, that of necessity he
became a man. And for the same reason the world in general is what
my clear mirror of it has shown it to be.
But in spite of all this the difference even between one man and another
is incalculably great, and many a one would be horrified to see another
as he really is. Oh, for some Asmodeus of morality, to make not only
roofs and walls transparent to his favourites, but also to lift the veil of
dissimulation, fraud, hypocrisy, pretence, falsehood and deception,
which is spread over all things! to show how little true honesty there is
in the world, and how often, even where it is least to be expected,
behind all the exterior outwork of virtue, secretly and in the innermost
recesses, unrighteousness sits at the helm! It is just on this account that

so many men of the better kind have four-footed friends: for, to be sure,
how is a man to get relief from the endless dissimulation, falsity and
malice of mankind, if there were no dogs into whose honest faces he
can look without distrust?
For what is our civilised world but a big masquerade? where you meet
knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen,
philosophers, and I don't know what all! But they are not what they
pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks you
will find moneymakers. One man, I suppose, puts on the mask of law,
which he has