The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp
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The translator’s English as printed (R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
8. But now we shall take into consideration the individual qualities, thus excellences and faults of the will and character on the one hand, and of the intellect on the other, in order to make clear, in their relation to each other, and their relative worth, the complete difference of the two fundamental faculties. History and experience teach that the two appear quite independently of each other.
That the greatest excellence of mind will not easily be found combined with equal excellence of charONp. 445 acter is sufficiently explained by the extraordinary rarity of both, while their opposites are everywhere the order of the day ; hence we also daily find the latter in union. However, we never infer a good will from a superior mind, nor the latter from the former, nor the opposite from the opposite, but every unprejudiced person accepts them as perfectly distinct qualities, the presence of which each for itself has to be learned from experience.
Great narrowness of mind may coexist with great goodness of heart, and I do not believe Balthazar Gracian was right in saying (Discrete, p. 406), "Ho ay simple, que no sea malicioso " (" There is no simpleton who would not be malicious "), though he has the Spanish proverb in his favour, " Nunca la necedad anduvo sin malicia " (" Stupidity is never without malice").
Yet it may be that many stupid persons become malicious for the same reason as many hunchbacks, from bitterness on account of the neglect they have suffered from nature, and because they think they can occasionally make up for what they lack in understanding through malicious cunning, seeking in this a brief triumph.
From this, by the way, it is also comprehensible why almost every one easily becomes malicious in the presence of a very superior mind. On the other hand, again, stupid people have very often the reputation of special good-hearted ness, which yet so seldom proves to be the case that I could not help wondering how they had gained it, till I was able to flatter myself that I had found the key to it in what follows.
Moved by a secret inclination, every one likes best to choose for his more intimate intercourse some one to whom he is a little superior in understanding, for only in this case does he find himself at his ease, because, according to Hobbes, " Omnis animi voluptas, omnisque alacritas in eo sita est, quod quis habeat, quibuscum conferens se, possit magnifies sentire de se ipso " (Be Cive, i. 5). Tor the same reason every one avoids him who is superior to himself; wherefore Lichtenberg quite rightly observes: "To certain men a man of mind is a more odious production than the most pronounced rogue. And similarly Helvetius says : " Les gens mAdiocres ont un instinct sur et prompt, pour connditre et fuir les gens d 'esprit! And Dr. Johnson assures us that " there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more than by displaying a superior ability of brilliancy in conversation.
They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse him in their hearts " (Boswell ; aet. anno 74).
In order to bring this truth, so universal and so carefully concealed, more relentlessly to light, I add the expression of it by Merck, the celebrated friend of Goethe's youth, from his story " Lindor : " " He possessed talents which were given him by nature and acquired by himself through learning ; and thus it happened that in most society he left the worthy members of it far behind.
If, in the moment of delight at the sight of an extraordinary man, the public swallows these superiorities also, without actually at once putting a bad construction upon them, yet a certain impression of this phenomenon remains behind, which, if it is often repeated, may on serious occasions have disagreeable future consequences for him who is guilty of it.
Without any one consciously noting that on this occasion he was insulted, no one is sorry to place himself tacitly in the way of the advancement of this man. Thus on this account great mental superiority isolates more than anything else, and makes one, at least silently, hated.
Now it is the opposite of this that makes stupid people so generally liked ; especially since many can only find in them what, according to the law of their nature referred to above, they must seek.
Yet this the true reason of such an inclination no one will confess to himself, still less to others ; and therefore, as a plausible pretext for it, will impute to those he has selected a special goodness of heart, which, as we have said, is in reality only very rarely and accidentally found in combination with mental incapacity. Want of understanding is accordingly by
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