The Philosophy of Disenchantment

by Edgar Saltus

In the chapter succeeding the one just considered Schopenhauer added certain reflections on the proper conduct of life which, though loose and unsystematic, are yet peculiarly fertile in suggestion, and entirely free from the more or less accentuated platitudes with which other writers have dulled the subject.

In this essay he holds that the supreme rule of earthly wisdom is contained in Aristotle's dictum that the sage will seek to dwell where pain is not, and not where pleasure is. The truth of this axiom he establishes by a constant reiteration of his favorite theory that pleasure as well as happiness is negative, and only pain is real. Now other writers, particularly Mr. James Sully and Herr von Hartmann, have rebelled against this statement, but the force of their arguments has not been strong enough to confute it. Indeed, mere logic can make no man contented, and in any event, if a philosopher considers pleasure as a negative condition, and the critic prefers to look upon it in a different light, the student is no more bound to agree with the one than with the other; he will, if properly advised, draw his conclusions from his own sensations. In accordance with the best views, however, Schopenhauer is right and his critics wrong. A homely example which he suggests may perhaps serve to set the matter straight: when we are in perfect health, and there is but one little painful spot somewhere—for instance, an aching tooth or a swollen finger—our otherwise perfect health is unnoticed, and our attention is directed entirely to the pain we are experiencing, while pleasure, determined, as always, by the totality of the sensations, is entirely effaced. In the same manner, when everything in which we are interested is going as we wish, save one thing which is going the wrong way, it is this particular thing that is constantly in our mind, and not the other and more important matters, which are giving us no concern.

Schopenhauer's advice, therefore, is that attention should not be directed to the pleasures of life, but to the means by which its innumerable evils may best be escaped. If this recommendation is not sound, then Voltaire's aphorism—happiness is but a dream and only pain is real—is as false in appearance as it is correct in reality. Whoever, then, would draw up a balance sheet of pleasure and pain should not base the sum total on the amount of pleasures which he has enjoyed, but rather in accordance with the pains which he has avoided. For as it has been pointed out, life at best is not given to us to be enjoyed, but to be endured, and the happiest man is, therefore, he who has wandered through life with the smallest burden of physical and mental suffering, and not he to whom the most vivid delights and intensest joys have been accorded.

In any case, the greatest piece of stupidity of which man can be guilty is to wish to transform his theatre of misery into a pleasure-ground, and to attempt to seek happiness therein, instead of trying, as he should, to avert as many pains as possible. There are, of course, many who are foolish enough not to take this view of life; but, according to Schopenhauer, those who do not do so are much more at fault than those who, with excess of precaution, look upon the world as a burning pit, and occupy themselves to the best of their ability in procuring a fire-proof dwelling.

The simpleton will always run after pleasure, and the pessimist will do all he can to give pain a wide berth; if, in spite of his efforts, the success of the latter is small, the fault is not so much his as that of fate; and if, in pursuance of this idea, he has taken a very roundabout way and uselessly sacrificed any amount of possible pleasures without any appreciable benefit, he can at least take heart again in the knowledge that he has in reality lost nothing at all, for the possible pleasures are such pure chimeras that it is simply childish to grieve about them.

It is, Schopenhauer says, because this mistake is so frequently made in favor of optimism that such a number of misfortunes occur, for in those moments that we are free from discomfort "disquieting desires dazzle our eyes with the illusions of an unreal yet seductive happiness, and lure us on to a suffering which is neither the one nor the other; then indeed do we grieve over the lost estate, which was exempt from pain, as over a paradise on which we have wittingly turned the key. In this way it seems as though some evil spirit was constantly working a deceptive mirage to draw us from that freedom from pain, which is the supreme and only real happiness."

Now, the average young man is usually possessed of some vague conviction that the world, stretching out before him to unseen limits, is the seat of a tangible happiness, which only escapes those who are not clever enough to grasp it. This conviction, moreover, is strengthened by romance and verse, and by that hypocrisy which leads the world always by the thread of exterior appearance. Ever after, his life is a more or less prudently conducted hunt, a chase for a fictitious game, until at last with a round turn he is pulled up face to face with disenchantment, and finds that the infinite vistas narrow down to a dark alley, with a dead wall at the end.

On the other hand, the careful observer of men and things will mark a protest on his own existence; he will have no great hopes, and but few regrets; Plato long ago said there is nothing in life worth a struggle, and to this maxim Schopenhauer's ideal reader will attune his days and, in any variations he may attempt, keep always to the minor key.