The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life
black and blue; whereupon he put a label on his forehead, with the
inscription, _Nicodromus fecit_, which brought much disgrace to the
fluteplayer who had committed such a piece of brutality upon the man
whom all Athens honored as a household god.[1] And in a letter to
Melesippus, Diogenes of Sinope tells us that he got a beating from the
drunken sons of the Athenians; but he adds that it was a matter of no
importance.[2] And Seneca devotes the last few chapters of his _De
Constantia_ to a lengthy discussion on insult--_contumelia_; in order
to show that a wise man will take no notice of it. In Chapter XIV, he
says, _What shall a wise man do, if he is given a blow? What Cato did,
when some one struck him on the mouth;--not fire up or avenge the
insult, or even return the blow, but simply ignore it_.
[Footnote 1: Diogenes Laertius, vi. 87, and Apul: Flor: p. 126.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Casaubon's Note, Diog. Laert., vi. 33.]
_Yes_, you say, _but these men were philosophers_.--And you are fools,
eh? Precisely.
It is clear that the whole code of knightly honor was utterly unknown
to the ancients; for the simple reason that they always took a natural
and unprejudiced view of human affairs, and did not allow themselves
to be influenced by any such vicious and abominable folly. A blow
in the face was to them a blow and nothing more, a trivial physical
injury; whereas the moderns make a catastrophe out of it, a theme for
a tragedy; as, for instance, in the _Cid_ of Corneille, or in a
recent German comedy of middle-class life, called _The Power of
Circumstance_, which should have been entitled _The Power of
Prejudice_. If a member of the National Assembly at Paris got a blow
on the ear, it would resound from one end of Europe to the other. The
examples which I have given of the way in which such an occurrence
would have been treated in classic times may not suit the ideas of
_honorable people_; so let me recommend to their notice, as a kind of
antidote, the story of Monsieur Desglands in Diderot's masterpiece,
_Jacques le fataliste_. It is an excellent specimen of modern knightly
honor, which, no doubt, they will find enjoyable and edifying.[1]
[Footnote: 1: _Translator's Note_. The story to which Schopenhauer
here refers is briefly as follows: Two gentlemen, one of whom was
named Desglands, were paying court to the same lady. As they sat at
table side by side, with the lady opposite, Desglands did his best to
charm her with his conversation; but she pretended not to hear him,
and kept looking at his rival. In the agony of jealousy, Desglands, as
he was holding a fresh egg in his hand, involuntarily crushed it; the
shell broke, and its contents bespattered his rival's face. Seeing him
raise his hand, Desglands seized it and whispered: _Sir, I take it as
given_. The next day Desglands appeared with a large piece of black
sticking-plaster upon his right cheek. In the duel which followed,
Desglands severely wounded his rival; upon which he reduced the size
of the plaster. When his rival recovered, they had another duel;
Desglands drew blood again, and again made his plaster a little
smaller; and so on for five or six times. After every duel Desglands'
plaster grew less and less, until at last his rival.]
From what I have said it must be quite evident that the principle
of knightly honor has no essential and spontaneous origin in human
nature. It is an artificial product, and its source is not hard to
find. Its existence obviously dates from the time when people used
their fists more than their heads, when priestcraft had enchained the
human intellect, the much bepraised Middle Age, with its system of
chivalry. That was the time when people let the Almighty not only care
for them but judge for them too; when difficult cases were decided by
an ordeal, a _Judgment of God_; which, with few exceptions, meant
a duel, not only where nobles were concerned, but in the case of
ordinary citizens as well. There is a neat illustration of this in
Shakespeare's Henry VI.[1] Every judicial sentence was subject to an
appeal to arms--a court, as it were, of higher instance, namely, _the
Judgment of God_: and this really meant that physical strength and
activity, that is, our animal nature, usurped the place of reason on
the judgment seat, deciding in matters of right and wrong, not by what
a man had done, but by the force with which he was opposed, the same
system, in fact, as prevails to-day under the principles of knightly
honor. If any one doubts that such is really the origin of our modern
duel, let him read an excellent work by J.B. Millingen, _The History
of Dueling_.[2] Nay, you may still find amongst the supporters of
the system,--who, by the way are not usually the most educated or
thoughtful of men,--some who look upon the result of a duel as really
constituting a divine judgment in the matter in dispute; no doubt in
consequence of the traditional feeling on the subject.
But leaving aside the question of origin, it must now be clear to us
that the main tendency of the principle is to use physical menace for
the purpose of extorting an appearance of respect which is deemed too
difficult or superfluous to acquire in reality; a proceeding which
comes to much the same thing as if you were to prove the warmth of
your room by holding your hand on the thermometer and so make it rise.
In fact, the kernel of the matter is this: whereas civic honor aims
at peaceable intercourse, and consists in the opinion of other people
that _we deserve full confidence_, because we pay unconditional
respect to their rights; knightly honor, on the other hand, lays
down that _we are to be feared_, as being determined at all costs to
maintain our own.
As not much reliance can be placed upon human integrity, the principle
that it is more essential to arouse fear than to invite confidence
would not, perhaps, be a false one, if we were living in a state of
nature, where every man would have to protect himself and directly
maintain his own rights. But in civilized life, where the State
undertakes the protection of our person and property, the principle is
no longer applicable: it stands, like the castles and watch-towers of
the age when might was right, a useless and forlorn object, amidst
well-tilled fields and frequented roads, or even railways.
Accordingly, the application of knightly honor, which still recognizes
this principle, is confined to those small cases of personal assault
which meet with but slight punishment at the hands of the law, or even
none at all, for _de minimis non_,--mere trivial wrongs, committed
sometimes only in jest. The consequence of this limited application of
the principle is that it has forced itself into an exaggerated respect
for the value of the person,--a respect utterly alien to the nature,
constitution or destiny of man--which it has elated into a species
of sanctity: and as it considers that the State has imposed a very
insufficient penalty on the commission of such trivial injuries, it
takes upon itself to punish them by attacking the aggressor in life
or limb. The whole thing manifestly rests upon an excessive degree
of arrogant pride, which, completely forgetting what man really is,
claims that he shall be absolutely free from all attack or even
censure. Those who determine to carry out this principle by main
force, and announce, as their rule of action, _whoever insults or
strikes me shall die_! ought for their pains to be banished the
country.[1]
[Footnote 1: Knightly honor is the child of pride and folly, and it is
_needy_ not pride, which is the heritage of the human race. It is a
very remarkable fact that this extreme form of pride should be found
exclusively amongst the adherents of the religion which teaches the
deepest humility. Still, this pride must not be put down to religion,
but, rather, to the feudal system, which made every nobleman a petty
sovereign who recognized no human judge, and learned to regard his
person as sacred and inviolable, and any attack upon it, or any blow
or insulting word, as an offence punishable with death. The principle
of knightly honor and of the duel were at first confined to the
nobles, and, later on, also to officers in the army, who, enjoying a
kind of off-and-on relationship with the upper classes, though they
were never incorporated with them, were anxious not to be behind them.
It is true that duels were the product of the old ordeals; but
the latter are not the foundation, but rather the consequence and
application of the principle of honor: the man who recognized no human
judge appealed to the divine. Ordeals, however, are not peculiar to
Christendom: they may be found in great force among the Hindoos,
especially of ancient times; and there are traces of them even now.]
As a palliative to this rash arrogance, people are in the habit of
giving way on everything. If two intrepid persons meet, and neither
will give way, the slightest difference may cause a shower of abuse,
then fisticuffs, and, finally, a fatal blow: so that it would really
be a more decorous proceeding to omit the intermediate steps and
appeal to arms at once. An appeal to arms has its own special
formalities; and these have developed into a rigid and precise system
of laws and regulations, together forming the most solemn farce there
is--a regular temple of honor dedicated to folly! For if two intrepid
persons dispute over some trivial matter, (more important affairs are
dealt with by law), one of them, the cleverer of the two, will of
course yield; and they will agree to differ. That this is so is proved
by the fact that common people,--or, rather, the numerous classes of
the community who do not acknowledge the principle of knightly honor,
let any dispute run its natural course. Amongst these classes homicide
is a hundredfold rarer than amongst those--and they amount, perhaps,
in all, to hardly one in a thousand,--who pay homage to the principle:
and even blows are of no very frequent occurrence.
Then it has been said that the manners and tone of good society are
ultimately based upon this principle of honor, which, with its system
of duels, is made out to be a bulwark against the assaults of savagery
and rudeness. But Athens, Corinth and Rome could assuredly boast of
good, nay, excellent society, and manners and tone of a high order,
without any support from the bogey of knightly honor. It is true that
women did not occupy that prominent place in ancient society which
they hold now, when conversation has taken on a frivolous and
trifling character, to the exclusion of that weighty discourse which
distinguished the ancients.
This change has certainly contributed a great deal to bring about the
tendency, which is observable in good society now-a-days, to prefer
personal courage to the possession of any other quality. The fact is
that personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue,--merely the
distinguishing mark of a subaltern,--a virtue, indeed, in which we are
surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say,
_as brave as a lion_. Far from being the pillar of society, knightly
honor affords a sure asylum, in general for dishonesty and wickedness,
and also for small incivilities, want of consideration and
unmannerliness. Rude behavior is often passed over in silence because
no one cares to risk his neck in correcting it.
After what I have said, it will not appear strange that the dueling
system is carried to the highest pitch of sanguinary zeal precisely in
that nation whose political and financial records show that they
are not too honorable. What that nation is like in its private and
domestic life, is a question which may be best put to those who are
experienced in the matter. Their urbanity and social culture have long