A Writer's Notebook (Vintage International) Page 4

  Today reasons are hardly necessary to refute Christianity; there is a feeling in the air against it, and since religion is itself a feeling, feeling is the instrument to cope with it. One man has faith and the other hasn’t; and there perhaps is the end of it: their respective arguments are only rationalisations of their feelings.

  Those who live for the world and work for the world naturally demand the world’s approval. But the man who lives for himself neither expects nor is affected by the world’s approval. If he is indifferent to Tom, Dick and Harry, why should he care what they think of him?

  The power of great joy is balanced by an equal power of great sorrow. Enviable is the man who feels little, so that he is unaffected either by the extremes of bliss or of grief. In the greatest happiness there is still an after-taste of bitterness, while misery is unalloyed.

  No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman.

  The usual result of a man’s cohabitation with a woman, however sanctioned by society, is to make him a little more petty, a little meaner than he would otherwise have been.

  Man’s ideal of a woman is still the princess in the fairytale who could not sleep upon seven mattresses because a dried pea was beneath the undermost. He is always rather frightened of a woman who has no nerves.

  An acquaintance with the rudiments of physiology will teach you more about feminine character than all the philosophy and wise-saws in the world.

  It goes hard with a woman who fails to adapt herself to the prevalent masculine conception of her.

  There is nothing like love to make a man alter his opinions. For new opinions are mostly new emotions. They are the result not of thought, but of passion.

  Half the difficulties of man, half the uncertainties, lie in his desire to answer every question with Yes or No. Yes or No may neither of them be the answer; each side may have in it some Yes and some No.

  I am never so happy as when a new thought occurs to me and a new horizon gradually discovers itself before my eyes. A fresh idea dawns upon me and I feel myself uplifted from the workaday world to the blue empyrean of the spirit. Detached for a moment from all earthly cares I seem to walk on air.

  There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognise that I am made up of several persons and that the person which at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real me? All of them or none?

  Life cannot fail to be amusing to me when there are so many errors and misconceptions in which I’m enmeshed and which I can tear away. To destroy the prejudices which from my youth have been instilled into me is in itself an occupation and an entertainment.

  I wonder when Christianity will have sufficiently decayed for the fact to be driven out of men’s heads that pleasure is not hurtful nor pain beneficial.

  People continually ruin their lives by persisting in actions against which their sensations rebel.

  It occurs to few people that a man who sits out in the rain for a noble object is just as likely to get rheumatism as the drunkard who lies out because he is too drunk to get home—even more so.

  If you don’t deny yourself for others they look upon you as detestably selfish; but they bear with astonishing fortitude the ills you may incur by the sacrifices you have made for their sakes.

  There are no feminine characteristics more marked than a passion for detail and an unerring memory. Women can give you an exact and circumstantial account of some quite insignificant conversation with a friend years before; and what is worse, they do.

  Pain is hurtful and the notion that pain ennobles is absurd. Nietzsche with his glorification of suffering is like the fox in the fable who had lost his tail. His argument that pain strengthens the character resolves itself into the fact that a man who has suffered wants revenge. What he takes for strength is merely the pleasure he finds in inflicting upon others the anguish he has himself endured.

  Our conduct toward our fellow-men is determined by the principle of self-preservation. The individual acts toward his fellows in such and such a manner so as to obtain advantages which otherwise he could not get or to avoid evils which they might inflict upon him. He has no debt toward society; he acts in a certain way to receive benefits, society accepts his useful action and pays for it. Society rewards him for the good he does it and punishes him for the harm.

  It is not in a cathedral, or confronted with any mighty human work, that I feel the insignificance of man; then I am impressed rather with his power; his mind seems capable of every feat, and I forget that he is an insignificant creature crawling on a speck of mud, the planet of a minor sun. Nature and art, even against one’s will, persuade one of the grandeur of man; and it is only science that reveals his utter insignificance.

  Science is the consoler and the healer of troubles, for it teaches how little things matter and how unimportant is life with all its failures.

  To eschew pleasures because they are fleeting or are followed by satiety is as stupid as to refuse to eat because one’s appetite is soon appeased and after one has satisfied it one is not hungry.

  It is quite as difficult to fit one’s practice to one’s precepts as to fit one’s precepts to one’s practice. Most people act in one way and preach in another. When the fact is brought to their notice, they assert that it is their weakness, and that their desire is to act up to their principles. That is pretence. People act according to their inclinations and adopt principles; because these are generally at variance with their inclinations they are ill-at-ease and unstable. But when they force themselves to act up to their principles and suppress their inclinations, there is no hope for them—but in heaven.

  That generosity is almost always praised above justice shows that people assess qualities by their value to themselves. The just man who gives none more than his due is disliked rather than admired.

  One of the most absurd statements imaginable is that because pleasures cannot be expressed in mathematical terms, they must be worthless.

  The position of the individual towards society is the same as that of individual towards individual. When A. helps B. to build a house on the understanding that B. will help A. when occasion arises, B. performs his part of the contract so that he may afterwards get the benefit he requires.

  Because a man does not state in so many words the reason that leads him to some action, it does not follow that he is led by no reason. Because he does not even know the reason, it does not follow that there is none. And giving himself one, he may be again mistaken and give the wrong one.

  One’s relation to society is the same as that of the savage who is restrained from acting to the detriment of his fellows by fear of the vengeance they will take on him.

  If morality has evolved with the evolution of society, as means to social self-preservation, it has not necessarily anything to do with the individual.

  It is odd that in so many cases the individual conscience should judge according to the precepts of society.

  Man’s duty is to exercise all his functions, permitting none to overbear the others. When between man and man there are innumerable differences how can there be a common system of morality?

  The difficulty is to find the common denominator that governs the actions of men.

  Most people pay eighteenpence for every shilling they get. In putting aside an immediate advantage for one more remote, one has to be certain that the more remote is greater. Remoteness in itself is no advantage.

  Altruism without pleasure, immediate or remote, is absurd. When one expects unselfishness from another and does not get it, one can only shrug one’s shoulder and pass on. Certainly one has no right to be angry.

  What if an individual does not care if his race survives? What if he is not prepared for the sacrifice entailed by propagation of his species?

  Unselfish parents have selfish children. It is not the children’s fault. It is natural that they should accept the sacrifices their parents make for them as t
heir right; and how should they know that in this world you get nothing for nothing?

  From the standpoint of pure reason, there are no good grounds to support the claim that one should sacrifice one’s own happiness to that of others.

  Even if it is held that pure unselfishness without afterthought gives most pleasure and brings the greatest rewards, that pleasure and those rewards are still its justification.

  There would be very little altruism in the world if it were not a source of pleasure. In some way or other everyone expects a return for his unselfishness. There is no such thing as absolute altruism. Social altruism means no more than that there is often an advantage to the individual in sacrificing himself for others. The only self-sacrifice which is primordial is that which has to do with the production and rearing of young. But here the strongest of animal instincts is concerned, and extreme discomfort, real pain even, ensues if its exercise is thwarted. Parents are foolish when they accuse their children of ingratitude; they should remember that what they have done for them was for their own pleasure.

  There can be nothing praiseworthy in sacrifice in itself, and before a man does a self-sacrificing thing, he may reasonably ask himself if it is worth while; but it proves how intense a pleasure there is in self-sacrifice that people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the most ignoble objects.

  It is a great pleasure to confer favours upon another; and it is a pleasure which is increased by the praise of the world; but the giver seldom considers whether his favours will be welcome. Nor is he satisfied with the pleasure he has obtained; he demands gratitude into the bargain.

  Pleasures are largely a matter of opinion. They change like women’s fashions, and a pleasure that is fashionable is doubly desirable. Actions which are not in themselves pleasurable can be made by fashion the source of keen delight.

  Today persons pursue no pleasures so avidly as the luxury of pity and goodness. I think it was unjust to accuse the women in the Boer War of going to the Cape merely for a pleasant change and to flirt with soldiers: the pleasures that attracted them were more definite and less hackneyed.

  Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.

  The relations between the individual and society are like a roulette table. Society is the banker. Individuals sometimes win and sometimes lose; but the banker wins always.

  They say that sympathy with pain, long continued, turns into callousness; but does not sympathy with pleasure do the same?

  Ideal pleasure, that is pleasure imagined, cannot be so vivid as pleasure experienced.

  However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it most people will think it wrong.

  We hear much of the nobility of labour; but there is nothing noble in work in itself. Looking at early societies, we see that when warfare was rampant, work was despised and soldiering honoured. Now that the vast majority are workmen work is honoured. The fact is simply that men in their self-conceit look upon their particular activities as the noblest object of man.

  Work is lauded because it takes men out of themselves. Stupid persons are bored when they have nothing to do. Work with the majority is their only refuge from ennui; but it is comic to call it noble for that reason. It requires many talents and much cultivation to be idle, or a peculiarly constituted mind.

  It is notorious that persistence in any course, however immoral to the ordinary mind, robs it of any idea of immorality.

  If you only tell people often enough that they must do such and such a thing, they will end by doing it, and never ask you why. And if you only tell people often enough that such and such a thing is right, they will end by believing you; and possibly they will believe you with greater readiness if you give no reason.

  I would not disapprove the bloody wars of civilised nations against uncivilised; but it is as well to note that the only justification for them is that might is right. It is an unequal encounter, a contest without nobility or chivalry between good weapons and bad. To say that a vanquished barbaric people gain in happiness when the civilisation of their conquerors is forced upon them is hypocrisy. Is there any reason to suppose that they are less happy in their primitive state than when, compelled to accept a culture they do not want and reforms they see no need for, they are ruled by an alien law?

  People starting with the idea that certain things are right and are the law, come to believe that others are right because they are the law.

  The English, after the first defeats of the Boer War, were continually applauding themselves on their superior numbers. The end of war being to win, superior numbers are evidently essential; but to win by means of them appeals neither to chivalry, heroism nor sentiment. It is odd how quickly people who set store on these virtues forgot them when things began to look black. The moral to be drawn is: be as chivalrous as you like so long as you have the best of it; but if you haven’t—well, see that you do and never mind about the chivalry.

  My object is to find a rule of conduct for the average man under the normal conditions of the present day.

  Can the perfect adaptation of man to society ever take place? It may be that the sheer struggle for existence will be put an end to, but will that effect the end desired? There will still be the fact that some are weak and some are strong. The physical needs of one are not the same as those of another. Some will always be more beautiful than others. The greater talents of some will bring them greater rewards. The unsuccessful will continue to envy the successful. Men will always grow old, and not feeling their age, insist on retaining the perquisites of youth till they are violently wrested from them. Even though every other reason for discord were removed, differences will arise in sexual matters. No man will give up the woman he cares for because another man wants her. Wherever there is love, there cannot fail to be hatred, malice, jealousy, rage. However willing people may be to surrender their own gratification to the common good, it is hard to believe that they will ever surrender their children’s. Men do not change: passions are always likely to be awaked and the brutal instincts of the savage to reassert their domination.

  It is seldom realised that youth and age must have their different codes. Laws are made by staid or old men who seek unreasonably to restrain the exuberance of youth. But youth has a right to its fling. The old can talk till they’re blue in the face about the spiritual satisfaction to be found in art and literature, but when you’re young there’s a lot more fun to be got out of having a girl than by listening to a sonata.

  The evils incident on peace might be shown by a study of those peoples whose circumstances have preserved them from war. The wood-veddahs and the Esquimaux are races unacquainted with war, but their immunity does not seem to have brought them to a high state of cultivation.

  The altruistic activities of the individual arise from egoistic motives. A man will not agitate for the removal of an abuse till he himself has felt the harm of it. But he must have the power to make himself heard: the poor must endure in silence,

  The moral ideas of the present day are so ingrained that the philosopher only feels perfectly sure of himself when his conclusions bring him in accordance with current opinion. If opinion were different he would be led to agree with it by arguments as keen and reasons as cogent.

  There are few minds in a century that can look upon a new idea without terror. Fortunately for the rest of us, there are very few new ideas about.

  If one pursuit has come to be considered nobler than another it is either because it was at one time more essential, as for example the pursuit of arms; or because, as in the arts, its practitioners in their vanity have never ceased to glorify it. A marvellous instance of the gullibility of man is that he has been willing to take the artists at their own valuation. It must often surprise the writer to see with what respect his opinions are received by men who in their own field are as competent as himself.

  If the actions and ideas of men had any importance whatever there would certainly be no excuse f
or the human race. Men are mean, petty, muddle-headed, ignoble, bestial from their cradles to their death-beds; ignorant, slaves now of one superstition, now of another, and illiberal; selfish and cruel.

  Tolerance is only another name for indifference.

  Now after nearly two years in which I have occupied myself in looking for some rule, in which I have asked myself what is the reason, the aim, the object of life, I just begin to have a vague notion of what I take to be the truth. Answers to all these questions are slowly forming themselves in my mind; but at present everything is confused. I have collected a mass of facts, ideas, experience, but I cannot yet arrange them into any system or order them in a definite pattern.

  It is the necessities of life which generate ideas of right and wrong.

  The ideals with which youth is brought up, the fairy tales and phantasies upon which his mind is fed, unfit him for life; so that till his illusions are shattered, he is miserably unhappy. And for all this useless misery are responsible the half-educated persons, mother, nurse, masters, who surround him with their loving care.