Memory has also this peculiarity attached to it, that a slight state of intoxication very often enhances the remembrance of past times and scenes, whereby all the circumstances connected with them are recalled more distinctly than they could be in a state of sobriety; on the other hand, the recollection of what one said or did while in a state of intoxication is less clear than usual, nay, one does not recollect at all if one has been very drunk. Therefore, intoxication enhances one's recollection of the past, while, on the other hand, one remembers little of the present, while in that state.
That arithmetic is the basest of all mental activities is proved by the fact that it is the only one that can be accomplished by means of a machine. Take, for instance, the reckoning machines that are so commonly used in England at the present time, and solely for the sake of convenience. But all analysis finitorum et infinitorum is fundamentally based on calculation. Therefore we may gauge the "profound sense of the mathematician," of whom Lichtenberg has made fun, in that he says: "These so-called professors of mathematics have taken advantage of the ingenuousness of other people, have attained the credit of possessing profound sense, which strongly resembles the theologians' profound sense of their own holiness."
As a rule, people of very great capacities will get on better with a man of extremely limited intelligence than with a man of ordinary intelligence; and it is for the same reason that the despot and the plebeians, the grandparents and the grandchildren, are natural allies.
I am not surprised that people are bored when they are alone; they cannot laugh when they are alone, for such a thing seems foolish to them. Is laughter, then, to be regarded as merely a signal for others, a mere sign, like a word? It is a want of imagination and dulness of mind generally (ἀναισθησια και βραδυτης ψυχης), as Theophrastus puts it, that prevents people from laughing when they are alone. The lower animals neither laugh when they are alone nor in company.
Nyson, the misanthropist, was surprised as he was laughing to himself by one of these people, who asked him why he laughed when he was alone. "That is just why I was laughing," was the answer.
People who do not go to the theatre are like those who make their toilet without a looking-glass;—but it is still worse to come to a decision without seeking the advice of a friend. For a man may have the most correct and excellent judgment in everything else but in his own affairs; because here the will at once deranges the intellect. Therefore a man should seek counsel. A doctor can cure every one but himself; this is why he calls in a colleague when he is ill.