CHAPTER VI. THE ‘PENSÉES.’

“When passion leads us towards anything, we forget duty; as we like a book we read it, while we ought to be doing something else.  In order to be reminded of our duty, it is necessary to propose to do something that we dislike; then we excuse ourselves on the ground that we have something else to do, and so we recollect our duty by this means. “How wisely are men distinguished by their exterior rather than by their interior qualifications!  Which of us two shall take the lead?  Which shall yield precedence?  The man of less talent?  But I am as clever as he.  Then we must fight it out.  But he has four lackeys and I have only one.  That is a visible difference.  We have only to count the numbers.  It is my place then to give way, and I am a fool to contest the point.  In this way peace is kept, which is the greatest of blessings. “There is a great advantage in rank, which gives to a man of eighteen or twenty a degree of acceptance, publicity, and respect which another can hardly obtain by merit at fifty.  It is a gain of thirty years without any trouble. “Respect for others requires you to inconvenience yourself.  This seems foolish, yet it is very proper.  It seems to say, I would gladly inconvenience myself if you really required me to do so, seeing I am ready to do so without serving you. “‘This is *my* dog,’ say children; ‘that sunny seat is mine.’  There is the beginning and type of the usurpation of the whole earth. “This *I* is hateful.  You, Miton, ⁵ merely cover it, you do not take it away; you are therefore always hateful.  Not at all, you say; for if we act obligingly to all men, they have no reason to hate us.  So far true, if there was nothing hateful in the *I* itself but the displeasure which it gives.  But if I hate it because it is essentially unjust, because it makes itself the centre of everything, I shall hate it always.  page 172In short, this *I* has two qualities: it is unjust in itself, in that it makes itself the centre of everything; it is an annoyance to others, in that it would serve itself by them.  Each *I* is the enemy, and would be the tyrant, of all others. “He who would thoroughly know the vanity of men has only to consider the causes and effects of love.  The cause is a *je ne sais quoi*, an indefinable trifle—the effects are monstrous.  If the nose of Cleopatra had been a little shorter, it would have changed the history of the world. “You have a bad manner—‘excuse me, if you please.’  Without the apology I should not have known that there was any harm done.  Begging your pardon, the ‘excuse me,’ is all the mischief. “Do you wish men to speak well of you?  Then never speak well of yourself. “The more mind we have, the more do we observe men of original mind.  It is your commonplace people that find no difference betwixt one man and another. “It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.  It is the same in play, and the same in search for truth.  We love to watch in argument the conflicts of opinion; but the plain truth we do not care to look at.  To regard it with pleasure, we must see it gradually emerging from the contest of debate.  It is the same with passions: the struggle of two contending passions has great interest, but the dominance of one is mere brutality. “The example of chastity in Alexander has not availed in the same degree to make men chaste, as his drunkenness has to make them intemperate.  Men are not ashamed not to be so virtuous as he; and it seems excusable not to be more vicious.  A man thinks he is not altogether sunk in the mud when he follows the vices of great men. “I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences, but the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such subjects, gave me a distaste for them.  When I began to study man, I saw that these abstract studies are not suited to him, and that in diving into them I wandered farther from my real object than those who were page 173ignorant of them, and I forgave men for not having attended to these things.  But I thought at least I should find many companions in the study of mankind, which is the true and proper study of man.  I was mistaken.  There are yet fewer students of man than of geometry. “People in general are called neither poets nor geometers, although they have all that in them, and are capable of being judges of it.  They are not specifically marked out.  When they enter a room, they speak of the subject on hand.  They do not show a greater aptitude for one subject than another, except as circumstances call out their talents. . . . “It is poor praise when a man is pointed out on entering a room as being a clever poet; a bad mark that he should only be referred to when the question is as to the merit of some verses. . . . “Man is full of wants, and likes those who can satisfy them.  ‘Such a one is a good mathematician,’ it may be said.  But then I must be doing mathematics; he would turn me into a proposition.  Another is a good soldier; he would take me for a besieged place.  Give me your true man of general talents, who can adapt himself to all my needs. “If a man sets himself at a window to see the passers-by, and I happen to pass, can I say that he set himself there to see me?  No; for he does not think of me in particular.  But if a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love *her*?  No; for the smallpox, which will destroy her beauty without killing her, will cause him to love her no more.  And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love *me*?  No; for I may lose those qualities without ceasing to be.  Where, then, is this *me*, if it is neither in soul nor body? “How is it that a lame man does not anger us, but a blundering mind does?  Is it that the cripple admits that we walk straight, but a crippled mind accuses us of limping?  Epictetus asks also, Why are we not annoyed if any one tells us that we are unwell in the head, and yet are angry if they tell us that we reason falsely or choose unwisely?  The reason is, that we know certainly nothing ails our head, or that page 174we are not crippled in body.  But we are not so certain that we have chosen correctly. “All men naturally hate one another. “Desire and force are the source of all our actions—desire of our voluntary, force of our involuntary actions. “Men are necessarily such fools, that it would be folly of another kind not to be a fool. “To make a man a saint, grace is absolutely necessary; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, nor what a man is. “The last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy there may have been in the rest of life—We must all die alone.” “There can only be two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; and sinners, who believe themselves righteous. “Unbelievers are the most credulous; they believe the miracles of Vespasian to escape believing the miracles of Moses. “Atheists should speak only of things perfectly clear, but it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material. “Atheism indicates force of mind, but only up to a certain point.”