The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer | Page 7

torturing them slowly to death by
starving and ill-treating them, with no other object than to get the
money for burying them which they had insured in the Burial Clubs
against their death. For this purpose a child was often insured in several,
even in as many as twenty clubs at once.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cf. _The Times_, 20th, 22nd and 23rd Sept., 1848, and
also 12th Dec., 1853.]
Details of this character belong, indeed, to the blackest pages in the
criminal records of humanity. But, when all is said, it is the inward and
innate character of man, this god par excellence of the Pantheists, from
which they and everything like them proceed. In every man there
dwells, first and foremost, a colossal egoism, which breaks the bounds
of right and justice with the greatest freedom, as everyday life shows on
a small scale, and as history on every page of it on a large. Does not the
recognised need of a balance of power in Europe, with the anxious way
in which it is preserved, demonstrate that man is a beast of prey, who
no sooner sees a weaker man near him than he falls upon him without
fail? and does not the same hold good of the affairs of ordinary life?
But to the boundless egoism of our nature there is joined more or less
in every human breast a fund of hatred, anger, envy, rancour and malice,
accumulated like the venom in a serpent's tooth, and waiting only for
an opportunity of venting itself, and then, like a demon unchained, of
storming and raging. If a man has no great occasion for breaking out,
he will end by taking advantage of the smallest, and by working it up
into something great by the aid of his imagination; for, however small
it may be, it is enough to rouse his anger--
_Quantulacunque adeo est occasio, sufficit irae[1]_--
[Footnote 1: Juvenal, Sat. 13, 183.]
and then he will carry it as far as he can and may. We see this in daily
life, where such outbursts are well known under the name of "venting
one's gall on something." It will also have been observed that if such
outbursts meet with no opposition the subject of them feels decidedly
the better for them afterwards. That anger is not without its pleasure is
a truth that was recorded even by Aristotle;[1] and he quotes a passage

from Homer, who declares anger to be sweeter than honey. But not in
anger alone--in hatred too, which stands to anger like a chronic to an
acute disease, a man may indulge with the greatest delight:
[Footnote 1: Rhet., i., 11; ii., 2.]
_Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure, Men love in haste, but they
detest at leisure_[1]
[Footnote 1: Byron _Don Juan_, c. xiii, 6.]
Gobineau in his work Les Races Humaines has called man _l'animal
méchant par excellence_. People take this very ill, because they feel
that it hits them; but he is quite right, for man is the only animal which
causes pain to others without any further purpose than just to cause it.
Other animals never do it except to satisfy their hunger, or in the rage
of combat. If it is said against the tiger that he kills more than eats, he
strangles his prey only for the purpose of eating it; and if he cannot eat
it, the only explanation is, as the French phrase has it, that ses yeux sont
plus grands que son estomac. No animal ever torments another for the
mere purpose of tormenting, but man does it, and it is this that
constitutes the diabolical feature in his character which is so much
worse than the merely animal. I have already spoken of the matter in its
broad aspect; but it is manifest even in small things, and every reader
has a daily opportunity of observing it. For instance, if two little dogs
are playing together--and what a genial and charming sight it is--and a
child of three or four years joins them, it is almost inevitable for it to
begin hitting them with a whip or stick, and thereby show itself, even at
that age, _l'animal méchant par excellence_. The love of teasing and
playing tricks, which is common enough, may be traced to the same
source. For instance, if a man has expressed his annoyance at any
interruption or other petty inconvenience, there will be no lack of
people who for that very reason will bring it about: _animal méchant
par excellence_! This is so certain that a man should be careful not to
express any annoyance at small evils. On the other hand he should also
be careful not to express his pleasure at any trifle, for, if he does so,