Essays of Schopenhauer
(Ἀφροδιτη πανδημος). With this are bound up more special requirements,
which we will consider individually later on, and with which, if there
is any prospect of gratification, there is an increase of passion.
Intense love, however, springs from a fitness of both individualities
for each other; so that the will, that is to say the father's character
and the mother's intellect combined, exactly complete that individual
for which the will to live in general (which exhibits itself in the
whole species) has a longing--a longing proportionate to this its
greatness, and therefore surpassing the measure of a mortal heart; its
motives being in a like manner beyond the sphere of the individual
intellect. This, then, is the soul of a really great passion. The more
perfectly two individuals are fitted for each other in the various
respects which we shall consider further on, the stronger will be their
passion for each other. As there are not two individuals exactly alike,
a particular kind of woman must perfectly correspond with a particular
kind of man--always in view of the child that is to be born. Real,
passionate love is as rare as the meeting of two people exactly fitted
for each other. By the way, it is because there is a possibility of real
passionate love in us all that we understand why poets have depicted it
in their works.
Because the kernel of passionate love turns on the anticipation of the
child to be born and its nature, it is quite possible for friendship,
without any admixture of sexual love, to exist between two young,
good-looking people of different sex, if there is perfect fitness of
temperament and intellectual capacity. In fact, a certain aversion for
each other may exist also. The reason of this is that a child begotten
by them would physically or mentally have discordant qualities. In
short, the child's existence and nature would not be in harmony with the
purposes of the will to live as it presents itself in the species.
In an opposite case, where there is no fitness of disposition,
character, and mental capacity, whereby aversion, nay, even enmity for
each other exists, it is possible for love to spring up. Love of this
kind makes them blind to everything; and if it leads to marriage it is a
very unhappy one.
And now let us more thoroughly investigate the matter. Egoism is a
quality so deeply rooted in every personality that it is on egotistical
ends only that one may safely rely in order to rouse the individual to
activity.
To be sure, the species has a prior, nearer, and greater claim on the
individual than the transient individuality itself; and yet even when
the individual makes some sort of conscious sacrifice for the
perpetuation and future of the species, the importance of the matter
will not be made sufficiently comprehensible to his intellect, which is
mainly constituted to regard individual ends.
Therefore Nature attains her ends by implanting in the individual a
certain illusion by which something which is in reality advantageous to
the species alone seems to be advantageous to himself; consequently he
serves the latter while he imagines he is serving himself. In this
process he is carried away by a mere chimera, which floats before him
and vanishes again immediately, and as a motive takes the place of
reality. _This illusion is instinct_. In most instances instinct may be
regarded as the sense of the species which presents to the will whatever
is of service to the species. But because the will has here become
individual it must be deceived in such a manner for it to discern by the
sense of the _individual_ what the sense of the species has presented to
it; in other words, imagine it is pursuing ends concerning the
individual, when in reality it is pursuing merely general ends (using
the word general in its strictest sense).
Outward manifestation of instinct can be best observed in animals, where
the part it plays is most significant; but it is in ourselves alone that
we can get to know its internal process, as of everything internal. It
is true, it is thought that man has scarcely any instinct at all, or at
any rate has only sufficient instinct when he is born to seek and take
his mother's breast. But as a matter of fact man has a very decided,
clear, and yet complicated instinct--namely, for the selection, both
earnest and capricious, of another individual, to satisfy his instinct
of sex. The beauty or ugliness of the other individual has nothing
whatever to do with this satisfaction in itself, that is in so far as it
is a matter of pleasure based upon a pressing desire of the individual.
The regard, however, for this satisfaction, which is so zealously
pursued, as well as the careful selection it entails, has obviously
nothing to do with the chooser himself, although he fancies that it has.
Its real aim is the child to be born, in whom the type of the species is
to be preserved in as pure and perfect a form as possible. For instance,
different phases of degeneration of the human form are the consequences
of a thousand physical accidents and moral delinquencies; and yet the
genuine type of the human form is, in all its parts, always restored;
further, this is accomplished under the guidance of the sense of beauty,
which universally directs the instinct of sex, and without which the
satisfaction of the latter would deteriorate to a repulsive necessity.
Accordingly, every one in the first place will infinitely prefer and
ardently desire those who are most beautiful--in other words, those in
whom the character of the species is most purely defined; and in the
second, every one will desire in the other individual those perfections
which he himself lacks, and he will consider imperfections, which are
the reverse of his own, beautiful. This is why little men prefer big
women, and fair people like dark, and so on. The ecstasy with which a
man is filled at the sight of a beautiful woman, making him imagine that
union with her will be the greatest happiness, is simply the _sense of
the species_. The preservation of the type of the species rests on this
distinct preference for beauty, and this is why beauty has such power.
We will later on more fully state the considerations which this
involves. It is really instinct aiming at what is best in the species
which induces a man to choose a beautiful woman, although the man
himself imagines that by so doing he is only seeking to increase his own
pleasure. As a matter of fact, we have here an instructive solution of
the secret nature of all instinct which almost always, as in this case,
prompts the individual to look after the welfare of the species. The
care with which an insect selects a certain flower or fruit, or piece of
flesh, or the way in which the ichneumon seeks the larva of a strange
insect so that it may lay its eggs in _that particular place only_, and
to secure which it fears neither labour nor danger, is obviously very
analogous to the care with which a man chooses a woman of a definite
nature individually suited to him. He strives for her with such ardour
that he frequently, in order to attain his object, will sacrifice his
happiness in life, in spite of all reason, by a foolish marriage, by
some love-affair which costs him his fortune, honour, and life, even by
committing crimes. And all this in accordance with the will of nature
which is everywhere sovereign, so that he may serve the species in the
most efficient manner, although he does so at the expense of the
individual.
Instinct everywhere works as with the conception of an end, and yet it
is entirely without one. Nature implants instinct where the acting
individual is not capable of understanding the end, or would be
unwilling to pursue it. Consequently, as a rule, it is only given
prominently to animals, and in particular to those of the lowest order,
which have the least intelligence. But it is only in such a case as the
one we are at present considering that it is also given to man, who
naturally is capable of understanding the end, but would not pursue it
with the necessary zeal--that is to say, he would not pursue it at the
cost of his individual welfare. So that here, as in all cases of
instinct, truth takes the form of illusion in order to influence the
will....
All this, however, on its part throws light upon the instinct of
animals. They, too, are undoubtedly carried away by a kind of illusion,
which represents that they are working for their own pleasure, while it
is for the species that they are working with such industry and
self-denial. The bird builds its nest; the insect seeks a suitable place
wherein to lay its eggs, or even hunts for prey, which it dislikes
itself, but which must be placed beside the eggs as food for the future
larvae; the bee, the wasp, and the ant apply themselves to their skilful
building and extremely complex economy. All of them are undoubtedly
controlled by an illusion which conceals the service of the species
under the mask of an egotistical purpose.
This is probably the only way in which to make the inner or subjective
process, from which spring all manifestations of instinct, intelligible
to us. The outer or objective process, however, shows in animals
strongly controlled by instinct, as insects for instance, a
preponderance of the ganglion--_i.e., subjective_ nervous system over
the _objective_ or cerebral system. From which it may be concluded that
they are controlled not so much by objective and proper apprehension as
by subjective ideas, which excite desire and arise through the influence
of the ganglionic system upon the brain; accordingly they are moved by a
certain illusion....
The great preponderance of brain in man accounts for his having fewer
instincts than the lower order of animals, and for even these few easily
being led astray. For instance, the sense of beauty which instinctively
guides a man in his selection of a mate is misguided when it degenerates
into the proneness to pederasty. Similarly, the blue-bottle (_Musca
vomitoria_), which instinctively ought to place its eggs in putrified
flesh, lays them in the blossom of the _Arum dracunculus_, because it is
misled by the decaying odour of this plant. That an absolutely generic
instinct is the foundation of all love of sex may be confirmed by a
closer analysis of the subject--an analysis which can hardly be avoided.
In the first place, a man in love is by nature inclined to be
inconstant, while a woman constant. A man's love perceptibly decreases
after a certain period; almost every other woman charms him more than
the one he already possesses; he longs for change: while a woman's love
increases from the very moment it is returned. This is because nature
aims at the preservation of the species, and consequently at as great an
increase in it as possible.... This is why a man is always desiring
other women, while a woman always clings to one man; for nature compels
her intuitively and unconsciously to take care of the supporter and
protector of the future offspring. For this reason conjugal fidelity is
artificial with the man but natural to a woman. Hence a woman's
infidelity, looked at objectively on account of the consequences, and
subjectively on account of its unnaturalness, is much more unpardonable
than a man's.
In order to be quite clear and perfectly convinced that the delight we
take in the other sex, however objective it may seem to be, is
nevertheless merely instinct disguised, in other words, the sense of the
species striving to preserve its type, it will be necessary to
investigate more closely the considerations which influence us in this,
and go into details, strange as it may seem for these details to figure
in a philosophical work. These considerations may be classed in the
following way:--