Chapter 3
Original German
Von dem, was einer hat.
Richtig und schön hat der große Glückseligkeitslehrer Epikuros die menschlichen Bedürfnisse in drei Klassen geteilt. Erstlich die natürlichen und die notwendigen: es sind die, welche, wenn nicht befriedigt, Schmerz verursachen. Folglich gehört hierher nur victus et amictus. Sie sind leicht zu befriedigen. Zweitens, die natürlichen jedoch nicht notwendigen: es ist das Bedürfnis der Geschlechtsbefriedigung; wiewohl Epikur dies im Berichte des Laertius nicht ausspricht; (wie ich denn überhaupt seine Lehre hier etwas zurechtgeschoben und ausgefeilt wiedergebe). Dieses Bedürfnis zu befriedigen hält schon schwerer. Drittens, die weder natürlichen noch notwendigen: es sind die des Luxus, der Üppigkeit, des Prunkes und Glanzes: sie sind endlos und ihre Befriedigung ist sehr schwer. (Siehe Diog. Laert. L. X, c. 27, § 149, auch § 127. – Cic. de fin. I, 13.)
Die Grenze unserer vernünftigen Wünsche hinsichtlich des Besitzes zu bestimmen ist schwierig, wo nicht unmöglich. Denn die Zufriedenheit eines jeden, in dieser Hinsicht, beruht nicht auf einer absoluten sondern auf einer bloß relativen Größe, nämlich auf dem Verhältnis zwischen seinen Ansprüchen und seinem Besitz: daher dieser letztere, für sich allein betrachtet, so bedeutungsleer ist wie der Zähler eines Bruchs ohne den Nenner. Die Güter, auf welche Anspruch zu machen einem Menschen nie in den Sinn gekommen ist, entbehrt er durchaus nicht sondern ist, auch ohne sie, völlig zufrieden; während ein anderer, der hundertmal mehr besitzt als er, sich unglücklich fühlt, weil ihm eins abgeht, darauf er Anspruch macht. Jeder hat, auch in dieser Hinsicht, einen eigenen Horizont des für ihn möglicherweise Erreichbaren: so weit wie dieser gehn seine Ansprüche. Wann irgend ein innerhalb desselben gelegenes Objekt sich ihm so darstellt, daß er auf dessen Erreichung vertrauen kann, fühlt er sich glücklich; hingegen unglücklich, wann eintretende Schwierigkeiten ihm die Aussicht darauf benehmen. Das außerhalb dieses Gesichtskreises Liegende wirkt gar nicht auf ihn. Daher beunruhigen den Armen die großen Besitztümer der Reichen nicht, und tröstet andrerseits den Reichen, bei verfehlten Absichten, das viele nicht, was er schon besitzt. (Der Reichtum gleicht dem Seewasser: je mehr man davon trinkt, desto durstiger wird man. – Dasselbe gilt vom Ruhm.) – Daß nach verlorenem Reichtum oder Wohlstande, sobald der erste Schmerz überstanden ist, unsre habituelle Stimmung nicht sehr verschieden von der früheren ausfällt, kommt daher, daß, nachdem das Schicksal den Faktor unsres Besitzes verkleinert hat, wir selbst nun den Faktor unsrer Ansprüche gleich sehr vermindern. Diese Operation aber ist das eigentlich Schmerzhafte, bei einem Unglücksfall: nachdem sie vollzogen ist, wird der Schmerz immer weniger, zuletzt gar nicht mehr gefühlt: die Wunde vernarbt. Umgekehrt wird, bei einem Glücksfall, der Kompressor unsrer Ansprüche hinaufgeschoben, und sie dehnen sich aus: hierin liegt die Freude. Aber auch sie dauert nicht länger, als bis diese Operation gänzlich vollzogen ist: wir gewöhnen uns an das erweiterte Maß der Ansprüche und werden gegen den demselben entsprechenden Besitz gleichgültig. Dies sagt schon die homerische Stelle, Od. XVIII, 130-137, welche schließt:
Τοιος γαρ νοος εστιν επιχθονιων ανθρωπων,Ὁιον εφ’ ἡμαρ αγει πατηρ ανδρων τε θεων τε.
Die Quelle unserer Unzufriedenheit liegt in unsern stets erneuerten Versuchen, den Faktor der Ansprüche in die Höhe zu schieben, bei der Unbeweglichkeit des andern Faktors, die es verhindert. –
Unter einem so bedürftigen und aus Bedürfnissen bestehendem Geschlecht, wie das menschliche, ist es nicht zu verwundern, daß Reichtum mehr und aufrichtiger als alles andere geachtet, ja verehrt wird, und selbst die Macht nur als Mittel zum Reichtum; wie auch nicht, daß zum Zwecke des Erwerbs alles andere beiseite geschoben oder über den Haufen geworfen wird, z. B. die Philosophie von den Philosophieprofessoren. – Daß die Wünsche der Menschen hauptsächlich auf Geld gerichtet sind und sie dieses über alles lieben, wird ihnen oft zum Vorwurf gemacht. Jedoch ist es natürlich, wohl gar unvermeidlich, das zu lieben, was als ein unermüdlicher Proteus jeden Augenblick bereit ist, sich in den jedesmaligen Gegenstand unsrer so wandelbaren Wünsche und mannigfaltigen Bedürfnisse zu verwandeln. Jedes andere Gut nämlich kann nur einem Wunsch, einem Bedürfnis genügen: Speisen sind bloß gut für den Hungrigen, Wein für den Gesunden, Arznei für den Kranken, ein Pelz für den Winter, Weiber für die Jugend usw. Sie sind folglich alle nur αγαθα προς τι, d. h. nur relativ gut. Geld allein ist das absolut Gute: weil es nicht bloß einem Bedürfnis in concreto begegnet sondern dem Bedürfnis überhaupt, in abstracto. –
Vorhandenes Vermögen soll man betrachten als eine Schutzmauer gegen die vielen möglichen Übel und Unfälle, nicht als eine Erlaubnis oder gar Verpflichtung, die Plaisirs der Welt heranzuschaffen. – Leute, die von Hause aus kein Vermögen haben, aber endlich in die Lage kommen, durch ihre Talente, welcher Art sie auch seien, viel zu verdienen, geraten fast immer in die Einbildung, ihr Talent sei das bleibende Kapital und der Gewinn dadurch die Zinsen. Demgemäß legen sie dann nicht das Erworbene teilweise zurück, um so ein bleibendes Kapital zusammenzubringen, sondern geben aus in dem Maße, wie sie verdienen. Danach aber werden sie meistens in Armut geraten, weil ihr Erwerb stockt oder aufhört, nachdem entweder das Talent selbst erschöpft ist, indem es vergänglicher Art war wie z. B. das zu fast allen schönen Künsten, oder auch, weil es nur unter besonderen Umständen und Konjunkturen geltend zu machen war, welche aufgehört haben. Handwerker mögen immerhin es auf die besagte Weise halten, weil die Fähigkeiten zu ihren Leistungen nicht leicht verloren gehn, auch durch die Kräfte der Gesellen ersetzt werden und weil ihre Fabrikate Gegenstände des Bedürfnisses sind, also alle Zeit Abgang finden, weshalb denn auch das Sprichwort »ein Handwerk hat einen goldenen Boden« richtig ist. Aber nicht so steht es um die Künstler und virtuosi jeder Art. Eben deshalb werden diese teuer bezahlt. Daher aber soll, was sie erwerben, ihr Kapital werden; während sie vermessener Weise es für bloße Zinsen halten und dadurch ihrem Verderben entgegengehn. – Leute hingegen, welche ererbtes Vermögen besitzen, wissen wenigstens sogleich ganz richtig, was das Kapital und was die Zinsen sind. Die meisten werden daher jenes sicher zu stellen suchen, keinesfalls es angreifen, ja womöglich wenigstens ein Achtel der Zinsen zurücklegen, künftigen Stockungen zu begegnen. Sie bleiben daher meistens im Wohlstande. – Auf Kaufleute ist diese ganze Bemerkung nicht anwendbar: denn ihnen ist das Geld selbst Mittel zum ferneren Erwerb, gleichsam Handwerksgerät; daher sie, auch wenn es ganz von ihnen selbst erworben ist, es sich durch Benutzung zu erhalten und zu vermehren suchen. Demgemäß ist in keinem Stande der Reichtum so eigentlich zu Hause wie in diesem.
Überhaupt aber wird man, in der Regel, finden, daß diejenigen, welche schon mit der eigentlichen Not und dem Mangel handgemein gewesen sind, diese ungleich weniger fürchten und daher zur Verschwendung geneigter sind als die, welche solche nur von Hörensagen kennen. Zu den ersteren gehören alle, die durch Glücksfälle irgend einer Art oder durch besondere Talente, gleichviel welcher Gattung, ziemlich schnell aus der Armut in den Wohlstand gelangt sind: die andern hingegen sind die, welche im Wohlstande geboren und geblieben sind. Diese sind durchgängig mehr auf die Zukunft bedacht und daher ökonomischer als jene. Man könnte daraus schließen, daß die Not nicht eine so schlimme Sache wäre, wie sie, von weitem gesehn, scheint. Doch möchte der wahre Grund vielmehr dieser sein, daß dem, der in angestammtem Reichtume geboren ist, dieser als etwas Unentbehrliches erscheint, als das Element des einzig möglichen Lebens, so gut wie die Luft; daher er ihn bewacht wie sein Leben, folglich meistens ordnungsliebend, vorsichtig und sparsam ist. Dem in angestammter Armut Geborenen hingegen erscheint diese als der natürliche Zustand; der ihm danach irgendwie zugefallene Reichtum aber als etwas Überflüssiges, bloß tauglich zum Genießen und Verprassen; indem man, wann er wieder fort ist, sich so gut wie vorher ohne ihn behilft und noch eine Sorge los ist. Da geht es denn wie Shakespeare sagt:
The adage must be verified,That beggars mounted run their horse to death.
(Das Sprichwort muß bewährt werden, daß der zu Pferde gesetzte Bettler sein Tier zu Tode jagt.)
Henry VI. P. 3. A. 1.
Dazu kommt denn freilich noch, daß solche Leute ein festes und übergroßes Zutrauen teils zum Schicksal, teils zu den eigenen Mitteln, die ihnen schon aus Not und Armut herausgeholfen haben, nicht sowohl im Kopf als im Herzen tragen und daher die Untiefen derselben nicht, wie es wohl den reich Geborenen begegnet, für bodenlos halten, sondern denken, daß man, auf den Boden stoßend, wieder in die Höhe gehoben wird. – Aus dieser menschlichen Eigentümlichkeit ist es auch zu erklären, daß Frauen, welche arme Mädchen waren, sehr oft anspruchsvoller und verschwenderischer sind als die, welche eine reiche Aussteuer zubrachten, indem meistenteils die reichen Mädchen nicht bloß Vermögen mitbringen, sondern auch mehr Eifer, ja angeerbten Trieb zur Erhaltung desselben, als arme. Wer inzwischen das Gegenteil behaupten will, findet eine Autorität für sich am Ariosto in dessen erster Satire; hingegen stimmt Dr. Johnson meiner Meinung bei: A woman of fortune being used to the handling of money, spends it judiciously: but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion. (S. Boswell, Life of Johnson, ann. 1776, aetat. 67.) Jedenfalls aber möchte ich dem, der ein armes Mädchen heiratet, raten, sie nicht das Kapital sondern eine bloße Rente erben zu lassen, besonders aber dafür zu sorgen, daß das Vermögen der Kinder nicht in ihre Hände gerät.
Ich glaube keineswegs etwas meiner Feder Unwürdiges zu tun, indem ich hier die Sorge für Erhaltung des erworbenen und des ererbten Vermögens anempfehle. Denn von Hause aus so viel zu besitzen, daß man, wäre es auch nur für seine Person und ohne Familie, in wahrer Unabhängigkeit d. h. ohne zu arbeiten, bequem leben kann, ist ein unschätzbarer Vorzug: denn es ist die Exemtion und die Immunität von der dem menschlichen Leben anhängenden Bedürftigkeit und Plage, also die Emanzipation vom allgemeinen Frohndienst, diesem naturgemäßen Lose des Erdensohns. Nur unter dieser Begünstigung des Schicksals ist man als ein wahrer Freier geboren: denn nur so ist man eigentlich sui juris, Herr seiner Zeit und seiner Kräfte, und darf jeden Morgen sagen: »Der Tag ist mein«. Auch ist ebendeshalb zwischen dem, der tausend, und dem, der hunderttausend Taler Renten hat, der Unterschied unendlich kleiner als zwischen ersterem und dem, der nichts hat. Seinen höchsten Wert aber erlangt das angeborene Vermögen, wenn es dem zugefallen ist, der, mit geistigen Kräften höherer Art ausgestattet, Bestrebungen verfolgt, die sich mit dem Erwerbe nicht wohl vertragen: denn alsdann ist er vom Schicksal doppelt dotirt und kann jetzt seinem Genius leben: der Menschheit aber wird er seine Schuld dadurch hundertfach abtragen, daß er leistet was kein anderer konnte und etwas hervorbringt, das ihrer Gesamtheit zugute kommt, wohl auch gar ihr zur Ehre gereicht. Ein anderer nun wieder wird in so bevorzugter Lage sich durch philantropische Bestrebungen um die Menschheit verdient machen. Wer hingegen nichts von dem allen, auch nur einigermaßen, oder versuchsweise, leistet, ja, nicht einmal durch gründliche Erlernung irgendeiner Wissenschaft sich wenigstens die Möglichkeit eröffnet, dieselbe zu fördern, – ein solcher ist, bei angeerbtem Vermögen, ein bloßer Tagedieb und verächtlich. Auch wird er nicht glücklich sein: denn die Exemtion von der Not liefert ihn dem anderen Pol des menschlichen Elends, der Langenweile, in die Hände, die ihn so martert, daß er viel glücklicher wäre, wenn die Not ihm Beschäftigung gegeben hätte. Eben diese Langeweile aber wird ihn leicht zu Extravaganzen verleiten, welche ihn um jenen Vorzug bringen, dessen er nicht würdig war. Wirklich befinden Unzählige sich bloß deshalb in Mangel, weil, als sie Geld hatten, sie es ausgaben, um nur sich augenblickliche Linderung der sie drückenden Langenweile zu verschaffen.
Ganz anders nun aber verhält es sich, wenn der Zweck ist, es im Staatsdienste hoch zu bringen, wo demnach Gunst, Freunde, Verbindungen erworben werden müssen, um durch sie, von Stufe zu Stufe, Beförderung, vielleicht gar bis zu den höchsten Posten, zu erlangen: hier nämlich ist es im Grunde wohl besser, ohne alles Vermögen in die Welt gestoßen zu sein. Besonders wird es dem, welcher nicht adelig, hingegen mit einigem Talent ausgestattet ist, zum wahren Vorteil und zur Empfehlung gereichen, wenn er ein ganz armer Teufel ist. Denn was jeder, schon in der bloßen Unterhaltung, wie viel mehr im Dienste, am meisten sucht und liebt, ist die Inferiorität des anderen. Nun aber ist allein ein armer Teufel von seiner gänzlichen, tiefen, entschiedenen und allseitigen Inferiorität und seiner völligen Unbedeutsamkeit und Wertlosigkeit in dem Grade überzeugt und durchdrungen, wie es hier erfordert wird. Nur er demnach verbeugt sich oft und anhaltend genug, und nur seine Bücklinge erreichen volle 90°: nur er läßt alles über sich ergehn und lächelt dazu; nur er erkennt die gänzliche Wertlosigkeit der Verdienste; nur er preist öffentlich, mit lauter Stimme, oder auch in großem Druck, die literarischen Stümpereien der über ihn Gestellten, oder sonst Einflußreichen, als Meisterwerke; nur er versteht zu betteln: folglich kann nur er, bei Zeiten, also in der Jugend, sogar ein Epopte jener verborgenen Wahrheit werden, die Goethe uns enthüllt hat in den Worten:
»Über's NiederträchtigeNiemand sich beklage:Denn es ist das Mächtige,Was man dir auch sage.«
W. O. Divan.
Hingegen der, welcher von Hause aus zu leben hat, wird sich meistens ungebärdig stellen: er ist gewohnt tête levée zu gehn, hat alle jene Künste nicht gelernt, trotzt dazu vielleicht noch auf etwanige Talente, deren Unzulänglichkeit vielmehr, dem médiocre et rampant gegenüber, er begreifen sollte; er ist am Ende wohl gar imstande, die Inferiorität der über ihn Gestellten zu merken; und wenn es nun vollends zu den Indignitäten kommt, da wird er stätisch oder kopfscheu. Damit poussirt man sich nicht in der Welt: vielmehr kann es mit ihm zuletzt dahin kommen, daß er mit dem frechen Voltaire sagt: nous n'avons que deux jours à vivre: ce n'est pas la peine de les passer à ramper sous des coquins méprisables: – leider ist, beiläufig gesagt, dieses coquin méprisable ein Prädikat, zu dem es in der Welt verteufelt viele Subjekte gibt. Man sieht also, daß das Juvenalische
Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstatRes angusta domi,
mehr von der Laufbahn der Virtuositäten als von der der Weltleute gültig ist.
Zu dem, was einer hat, habe ich Frau und Kinder nicht gerechnet; da er von diesen vielmehr gehabt wird. Eher ließen sich Freunde dazu zählen: doch muß auch hier der Besitzende im gleichen Maße der Besitz des andern sein.
Musean translation
Machine-assisted translation from the German, following the 1913 Ernst Ohle edition.
What a Person Has.
The great teacher of happiness, Epicurus, rightly and beautifully divided human needs into three classes. First, those that are natural and necessary: those which cause pain if unsatisfied. Consequently only food and clothing belong here. They are easy to satisfy. Second, those that are natural but not necessary: the need for sexual satisfaction, although Epicurus does not say this in Laertius's account (indeed, I am presenting his teaching here with some adjustment and refinement in general). This need is already harder to satisfy. Third, those that are neither natural nor necessary: the needs for luxury, extravagance, pomp, and splendor. They are endless and very difficult to satisfy. (See Diog. Laert. L. X, c. 27, § 149, also § 127.—Cic. de fin. I, 13.)
It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the limit of our reasonable wishes concerning possessions. For everyone's contentment in this respect rests not on an absolute but merely on a relative quantity: the relation between demands and possessions. Thus possessions considered alone are as meaningless as the numerator of a fraction without its denominator. A person does not miss goods it has never occurred to him to claim, but is perfectly content without them; while someone else who possesses a hundred times more feels unhappy because he lacks one thing to which he lays claim. In this respect too, everyone has a horizon of what may possibly be attainable for him, and his demands extend as far as this horizon. Whenever an object within it presents itself in a way that allows him to trust he will attain it, he feels happy; unhappy, by contrast, when difficulties arise that rob him of the prospect. What lies beyond this horizon does not affect him at all. Hence the great possessions of the rich do not disturb the poor, and conversely the rich person, when his plans fail, is not consoled by the much he already possesses. (Wealth resembles seawater: the more one drinks, the thirstier one becomes.—The same applies to fame.)—That after losing wealth or prosperity our habitual mood, once the first pain is overcome, differs little from its former state arises because, after fate has reduced the factor of our possessions, we ourselves reduce the factor of our demands by an equal amount. This operation, however, is the truly painful part of a misfortune. Once it is completed, the pain is felt less and less, and finally not at all: the wound heals. Conversely, with a stroke of good fortune the restraint on our demands is raised and they expand: in this lies the joy. But this too lasts only until the operation is fully completed: we grow accustomed to the enlarged measure of our demands and indifferent to the possessions corresponding to it. This is already expressed by the Homeric passage, Od. XVIII, 130-137, which ends:
For such is the mind of mortals upon the earthAs the father of men and gods brings on with each day.
The source of our discontent lies in our continually renewed attempts to raise the factor of our demands while the immobility of the other factor prevents it.—
Among a race so needy and so made up of needs as the human race, it is no wonder that wealth is esteemed, indeed revered, more sincerely than anything else, and power itself only as a means to wealth; nor that everything else is pushed aside or overthrown for the sake of acquisition—philosophy, for example, by professors of philosophy.—People are often reproached for directing their wishes chiefly toward money and loving it above everything. Yet it is natural, perhaps even inevitable, to love what, like an untiring Proteus, stands ready at every moment to transform itself into the current object of our ever-changing wishes and manifold needs. Every other good can satisfy only one wish, one need: food is good only for the hungry, wine for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. They are therefore all goods in relation to something—that is, only relatively good. Money alone is the absolute good, because it meets not merely one need concretely but need itself in general, in the abstract.—
The property one possesses should be regarded as a protective wall against the many possible evils and accidents, not as permission, still less an obligation, to procure the world's pleasures.—People who have no property to begin with but eventually find themselves able to earn a great deal through their talents, of whatever kind, almost always imagine that their talent is enduring capital and its earnings the interest. Accordingly they do not save part of what they earn to accumulate lasting capital but spend as much as they make. Later they generally fall into poverty, because their earnings falter or cease: either the talent itself is exhausted, being of a transitory kind, like talent for almost all the fine arts, or it could be put to use only under particular circumstances and conditions that have now ceased. Craftsmen may indeed follow the course described, since the abilities needed for their work are not easily lost, can also be supplied by journeymen's labor, and their products are necessities that therefore always find buyers. Hence the proverb, "A trade has a golden foundation," is true. But artists and virtuosos of every kind stand differently; precisely for this reason they are paid dearly. Their earnings should therefore become their capital; instead they presumptuously regard them as mere interest and thus move toward their ruin.—People who possess inherited wealth, on the other hand, at least know correctly from the outset what is capital and what is interest. Most will therefore try to secure the former, never touch it, and if possible save at least an eighth of the interest to meet future interruptions. They therefore generally remain prosperous.—This whole observation does not apply to merchants, since money itself is their means of further acquisition, their tool of trade, so to speak. Even when they have earned it entirely themselves, they therefore seek to preserve and increase it through use. Accordingly wealth is more truly at home in this class than in any other.
In general, however, one will find that those who have actually grappled with want and privation fear them incomparably less, and are consequently more inclined to extravagance, than those who know them only by hearsay. The former include all who have risen fairly quickly from poverty to prosperity through strokes of luck of any kind or through special talents of whatever sort; the latter are those born into prosperity who have remained there. These are generally more mindful of the future, and therefore thriftier, than the former. One might conclude that want is not so bad as it appears from a distance. Yet the true reason is probably rather this: to someone born into hereditary wealth, it appears indispensable, the element of the only possible life, like air itself. He therefore guards it like his life, and is consequently usually orderly, prudent, and thrifty. To someone born into hereditary poverty, by contrast, poverty appears the natural condition, and wealth that somehow falls to him later something superfluous, fit only for enjoyment and dissipation. When it is gone again, he gets along without it as well as before and has one care fewer. Then it happens as Shakespeare says:
The adage must be verified,That beggars mounted run their horse to death.
(The proverb must be proved true: a beggar put on horseback rides his animal to death.)
Henry VI. P. 3. A. 1.
To this, admittedly, is added that such people carry, less in their heads than in their hearts, a firm and excessive confidence partly in fate and partly in their own resources, which have already helped them out of want and poverty. They therefore do not consider its depths bottomless, as those born rich may do, but think that on touching bottom one is lifted up again.—This human peculiarity also explains why women who were poor girls are very often more demanding and extravagant than those who brought a rich dowry: wealthy girls generally bring not only property but also more zeal, indeed an inherited impulse, to preserve it than poor girls do. Anyone wishing to maintain the contrary, however, finds an authority in Ariosto's first Satire; Dr. Johnson, on the other hand, agrees with my opinion: A woman of fortune being used to the handling of money, spends it judiciously: but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion. (S. Boswell, Life of Johnson, ann. 1776, aetat. 67.) In any case, I would advise someone marrying a poor girl to leave her not the capital but merely an annuity, and especially to ensure that the children's property does not fall into her hands.
I do not believe I am doing anything unworthy of my pen in recommending care here for the preservation of acquired and inherited property. To possess from the outset enough to live comfortably in true independence—that is, without working—even if only for oneself and without a family, is a priceless advantage. It is exemption and immunity from the neediness and toil attached to human life, emancipation from universal forced labor, the natural lot of earth's child. Only with this favor of fate is one born truly free: only so is one properly one's own master, lord of one's time and powers, able to say every morning: "The day is mine." For this very reason, the difference between someone with an income of a thousand thalers and someone with an income of a hundred thousand is infinitely smaller than the difference between the first and someone who has nothing. Inherited property, however, attains its highest value when it falls to someone endowed with intellectual powers of a higher kind and pursuing endeavors incompatible with earning a living. Fate has then endowed him twice over, and he can now live for his genius; he will repay his debt to humanity a hundredfold by achieving what no other could and producing something that benefits humanity as a whole, perhaps even brings it honor. Another, in such a favored position, will earn humanity's gratitude through philanthropic endeavors. But anyone who does none of these things, even to some extent or experimentally, and does not even open up the possibility of advancing a field of knowledge by thoroughly learning it, is, with inherited property, a mere idler and contemptible. Nor will he be happy: exemption from want delivers him into the hands of the other pole of human misery, boredom, which torments him so much that he would be far happier if want had given him occupation. This very boredom will readily tempt him into extravagances that deprive him of an advantage he did not deserve. Countless people are indeed in need only because, when they had money, they spent it merely to procure momentary relief from the boredom weighing upon them.
It is quite otherwise, however, when the aim is to rise high in state service, where favor, friends, and connections must be acquired to obtain advancement through them, step by step, perhaps even to the highest positions. Here it is probably better, at bottom, to have been thrust into the world without any property at all. Especially for someone who is not noble but has some talent, being a thoroughly poor devil will be a real advantage and recommendation. For what everyone seeks and loves most, even in mere conversation and all the more in service, is another's inferiority. Only a poor devil is convinced and permeated, to the degree required here, by his complete, profound, decided inferiority in every respect and his utter insignificance and worthlessness. Only he therefore bows often and persistently enough, and only his bows reach a full 90°; only he lets everything be done to him and smiles at it; only he recognizes the utter worthlessness of merit; only he publicly proclaims, at the top of his voice or in large print, the literary bunglings of those above him or otherwise influential to be masterpieces; only he knows how to beg. Consequently he alone can, in good time—that is, in youth—become an initiate into the hidden truth Goethe revealed to us in these words:
"Let no one complainOf what is base:For it is what holds power,Whatever they may tell you."
W. O. Divan.
Someone who has the means to live from the outset, by contrast, will generally prove unruly: he is accustomed to going with his head held high, has not learned all those arts, and perhaps even relies defiantly on some talents whose inadequacy beside mediocrity and crawling servility he ought rather to understand. He may finally even notice the inferiority of those set above him; and when actual indignities come, he balks or shies. That is no way to make one's way in the world. Instead he may at last come to say with the audacious Voltaire: We have only two days to live: it is not worth spending them crawling before contemptible scoundrels.—Unfortunately, to remark in passing, contemptible scoundrel is a predicate for which this world supplies devilishly many subjects. Thus one sees that Juvenal's
Those whose abilities are blocked byStraitened means at home do not easily rise,
applies more to the careers of virtuosos than to those of worldly people.
I have not included wife and children among what a person has, since it is rather they who have him. Friends might more readily be counted here; but even here the possessor must be, in equal measure, the other's possession.
Plain English translation
Independent machine-assisted translation from the German, following the 1913 Ernst Ohle edition.
What a person has.
Epicurus, the great teacher of happiness, rightly and elegantly divided human needs into three classes. First, those that are natural and necessary: the ones that cause pain if not satisfied. So only food and clothing belong here. They are easy to satisfy. Second, those that are natural but not necessary: the need for sexual satisfaction. Epicurus does not state this in Laertius's account; indeed, I am presenting his teaching here in a somewhat adjusted and polished form. This need is harder to satisfy. Third, those that are neither natural nor necessary: the needs for luxury, indulgence, display, and splendor. They are endless and very hard to satisfy. (See Diog. Laert. L. X, c. 27, § 149, also § 127.—Cic. de fin. I, 13.)
It is difficult, if not impossible, to set a limit to our reasonable wishes about possessions. Each person's satisfaction in this respect rests not on an absolute amount but on a merely relative one: the relation between their demands and their possessions. Possessions considered alone are therefore as meaningless as the numerator of a fraction without its denominator. A person does not miss goods they have never thought of laying claim to, but is perfectly content without them. Another person who owns a hundred times more feels unhappy because they lack one thing they lay claim to. Here too, everyone has their own horizon of what they might possibly attain. Their demands extend as far as that horizon. When something within it presents itself in a way that lets them confidently expect to attain it, they feel happy. When difficulties arise and take away the prospect, they feel unhappy. What lies outside that horizon has no effect on them. So the great possessions of the rich do not disturb the poor. Conversely, the many things a rich person already owns do not comfort them when their plans fail. (Wealth is like seawater: the more you drink, the thirstier you become.—The same applies to fame.)—After the loss of wealth or prosperity, once the first pain is over, our habitual mood is not very different from what it was before. The reason is that, after fate has reduced the factor of our possessions, we ourselves reduce the factor of our demands by just as much. This operation is what really hurts in a misfortune. Once it is complete, the pain is felt less and less, and finally not at all: the wound heals over. Conversely, a stroke of luck raises the limit that holds down our demands, and they expand. This is where the joy lies. But it too lasts only until this operation is entirely complete. We get used to the expanded measure of our demands and become indifferent to the possessions that match it. The passage in Homer, Od. XVIII, 130-137, already says this, ending:
For the mind of people living on earth is suchAs the day the father of gods and men brings upon them.
The source of our dissatisfaction lies in our constantly renewed attempts to push the factor of our demands upward, while the immobility of the other factor prevents it.—
Among a race so needy and so made up of needs as the human race, it is no surprise that wealth is valued more highly and sincerely than anything else, indeed worshiped, while even power is valued only as a means to wealth. Nor is it surprising that everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard to make money—for example, philosophy by philosophy professors.—People are often reproached for directing their wishes chiefly toward money and loving it above all else. Yet it is natural, perhaps even unavoidable, to love something that, like an untiring Proteus, is ready at every moment to turn into the current object of our ever-changing wishes and varied needs. Every other good can satisfy only one wish, one need. Food is good only for the hungry, wine for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. They are therefore all good in relation to something, that is, only relatively good. Money alone is the absolute good, because it meets not merely one need in a particular case, but need in general, in the abstract.—
We should regard the assets we own as a protective wall against the many possible evils and misfortunes, not as permission, still less an obligation, to obtain the world's pleasures.—People who start with no assets but eventually reach a position where their talents, of whatever kind, earn them a great deal almost always imagine that their talent is their permanent capital and its earnings are the interest. Accordingly, they do not put aside part of what they earn to build up permanent capital, but spend as much as they earn. Later, however, they usually fall into poverty because their earnings falter or stop. Either the talent itself has been exhausted because it was temporary in nature, as with the talent for almost all fine arts, or it could be put to use only under particular circumstances and favorable conditions that have ceased. Craftspeople may carry on in this way, since the abilities needed for their work are not easily lost and can also be replaced by the labor of journeymen. Their products are necessities and therefore always find buyers. So the proverb “A trade has a golden foundation” is right. But this is not the case with artists and virtuosos of every kind. That is precisely why they are highly paid. What they earn should therefore become their capital. Instead, they rashly regard it as mere interest and so move toward their ruin.—People with inherited assets, on the other hand, at least know correctly from the start what is capital and what is interest. Most will therefore try to secure the capital and under no circumstances touch it. Indeed, if possible, they will put aside at least an eighth of the interest to meet future interruptions of income. So they generally remain prosperous.—This whole observation does not apply to merchants. For them, money itself is a means of further earning, like a tool of their trade. So even if they earned it all themselves, they try to preserve and increase it by using it. Accordingly, wealth is more truly at home in this class than in any other.
In general, however, we will usually find that those who have already grappled with real need and deprivation fear them incomparably less, and are therefore more inclined to extravagance, than those who know them only by hearsay. The first group includes everyone who has risen fairly quickly from poverty to prosperity through lucky events of any kind or through special talents, whatever their sort. The second group consists of those born into prosperity who have remained there. These consistently think more about the future and are therefore more economical than the first group. We might infer that need is not as bad as it looks from a distance. But the true reason may rather be this: to someone born into inherited wealth, it seems indispensable, the element of the only possible life, as essential as air. So they guard it like their life, and are consequently usually orderly, cautious, and thrifty. To someone born into inherited poverty, by contrast, poverty seems the natural state. Wealth later acquired somehow seems superfluous, fit only to be enjoyed and squandered. When it is gone again, they get along without it just as before and have one less worry. Then things go as Shakespeare says:
The saying must prove true:Beggars put on horseback ride their horse to death.
(The proverb must be proved true: a beggar put on horseback rides his animal to death.)
Henry VI. P. 3. A. 1.
Added to this, of course, is the firm and excessive confidence such people carry, not so much in their heads as in their hearts, partly in fate and partly in their own resources, which have already helped them out of need and poverty. So they do not regard the depths of need and poverty as bottomless, as those born rich may do. Instead, they think that when they hit bottom they will be lifted up again.—This human peculiarity also explains why women who were poor girls are very often more demanding and extravagant than women who brought a rich dowry. Rich girls usually bring not only assets but also more eagerness, indeed an inherited drive, to preserve them than poor girls do. Anyone wishing to claim the opposite, however, will find an authority on their side in Ariosto's first satire. Dr. Johnson, on the other hand, agrees with me: A wealthy woman, being used to handling money, spends it sensibly. But a woman who first gains control of money when she marries takes such delight in spending it that she throws it away extravagantly. (S. Boswell, Life of Johnson, ann. 1776, aetat. 67.) In any case, I would advise anyone marrying a poor girl to leave her only an annuity, not the capital itself, and especially to ensure that the children's assets do not come into her hands.
I do not at all believe I am writing anything unworthy of my pen by recommending care in preserving earned and inherited assets. To possess enough from the outset to live comfortably in true independence—that is, without working—even if only for oneself, without a family, is a priceless advantage. It is exemption and immunity from the need and toil attached to human life, and thus emancipation from universal forced labor, the natural lot of the child of earth. Only with this favor of fate is someone born a truly free person. Only then are they really their own master, in control of their time and powers, able to say every morning, “The day is mine.” For this very reason, the difference between someone with an income of a thousand thalers and someone with an income of a hundred thousand is infinitely smaller than the difference between the first person and someone who has nothing. But inherited wealth reaches its highest value when it falls to someone endowed with mental powers of a higher kind, pursuing aims that do not fit well with earning a living. Then fate has endowed them twice over, and they can now live for their genius. They will repay their debt to humanity a hundredfold by doing what no one else could and producing something that benefits humanity as a whole, perhaps even bringing it honor. Another person in such a favored position will earn humanity's gratitude through philanthropic efforts. But someone who does none of these things, even to some extent or as an attempt, and does not even open up at least the possibility of advancing some science by learning it thoroughly—such a person, with inherited wealth, is a mere idler and contemptible. Nor will they be happy. Exemption from need hands them over to the other pole of human misery, boredom. It torments them so much that they would be much happier if need had given them something to do. This very boredom, however, will easily tempt them into extravagances that cost them the advantage they did not deserve. Countless people are indeed in need only because, when they had money, they spent it merely to get momentary relief from the boredom that oppressed them.
Things are quite different, however, when the aim is to rise high in government service. Here one must acquire favor, friends, and connections in order to gain promotion through them, step by step, perhaps even to the highest posts. In this case it is probably better, fundamentally, to have been thrust into the world without any assets at all. Especially for someone who is not noble but has some talent, being a completely poor devil will be a real advantage and recommendation. For what everyone most seeks and loves, even in mere conversation and still more in service, is the other person's inferiority. Only a poor devil is convinced and thoroughly conscious, to the degree required here, of his complete, deep, decisive, all-around inferiority and his utter insignificance and worthlessness. So only he bows often and long enough, and only his bows reach a full 90°. Only he lets everything be done to him and smiles at it. Only he recognizes the complete worthlessness of merit. Only he publicly praises the literary botchwork of his superiors, or of other influential people, as masterpieces, loudly or in large print. Only he knows how to beg. Consequently, only he can become, in good time—that is, in youth—an initiate into that hidden truth Goethe revealed to us in these words:
“Let no one complainAbout what is base:For that is what holds power,Whatever people tell you.”
W. O. Divan.
Someone who has the means to live from the outset, on the other hand, will usually prove unruly. He is used to walking with his head held high. He has not learned all those arts, and perhaps also relies defiantly on some talents. Instead, he should understand how inadequate these are against mediocrity that crawls. In the end he may even be capable of noticing his superiors' inferiority. And when it comes to indignities, he balks or shies away. That is no way to get ahead in the world. Rather, he may finally come to say with the impudent Voltaire: We have only two days to live; it is not worth spending them crawling beneath contemptible rogues.—Unfortunately, to say it in passing, this description, contemptible rogue, has a devilishly large number of subjects in the world. We see, then, that Juvenal's lines
Those people do not rise easily whose merits are blockedBy poverty at home,
apply more to the career of people with outstanding skills than to that of people making their way in the world.
I have not counted wife and children among what a person has, since they are the ones who have him. Friends could more readily be included, though here too the possessor must equally be the other's possession.
About this section
Chapter 3 is part of Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 4 of 7 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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