The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life
conventionalities and find it utterly empty_!--_not even a trace of
thought there to invite the passer-by_.
The truth is that fame means nothing but what a man is in comparison
with others. It is essentially relative in character, and therefore
only indirectly valuable; for it vanishes the moment other people
become what the famous man is. Absolute value can be predicated only
of what a man possesses under any and all circumstances,--here, what a
man is directly and in himself. It is the possession of a great heart
or a great head, and not the mere fame of it, which is worth having,
and conducive to happiness. Not fame, but that which deserves to be
famous, is what a man should hold in esteem. This is, as it were, the
true underlying substance, and fame is only an accident, affecting its
subject chiefly as a kind of external symptom, which serves to confirm
his own opinion of himself. Light is not visible unless it meets with
something to reflect it; and talent is sure of itself only when its
fame is noised abroad. But fame is not a certain symptom of merit;
because you can have the one without the other; or, as Lessing nicely
puts it, _Some people obtain fame, and others deserve it_.
It would be a miserable existence which should make its value or want
of value depend upon what other people think; but such would be the
life of a hero or a genius if its worth consisted in fame, that is,
in the applause of the world. Every man lives and exists on his own
account, and, therefore, mainly in and for himself; and what he is and
the whole manner of his being concern himself more than anyone else;
so if he is not worth much in this respect, he cannot be worth much
otherwise. The idea which other people form of his existence is
something secondary, derivative, exposed to all the chances of fate,
and in the end affecting him but very indirectly. Besides, other
people's heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man's true
happiness--a fanciful happiness perhaps, but not a real one.
And what a mixed company inhabits the Temple of Universal
Fame!--generals, ministers, charlatans, jugglers, dancers, singers,
millionaires and Jews! It is a temple in which more sincere
recognition, more genuine esteem, is given to the several excellencies
of such folk, than to superiority of mind, even of a high order, which
obtains from the great majority only a verbal acknowledgment.
From the point of view of human happiness, fame is, surely, nothing
but a very rare and delicate morsel for the appetite that feeds on
pride and vanity--an appetite which, however carefully concealed,
exists to an immoderate degree in every man, and is, perhaps strongest
of all in those who set their hearts on becoming famous at any cost.
Such people generally have to wait some time in uncertainty as to
their own value, before the opportunity comes which will put it to the
proof and let other people see what they are made of; but until then,
they feel as if they were suffering secret injustice.[1]
[Footnote 1: Our greatest pleasure consists in being admired; but
those who admire us, even if they have every reason to do so, are slow
to express their sentiments. Hence he is the happiest man who, no
matter how, manages sincerely to admire himself--so long as other
people leave him alone.]
But, as I explained at the beginning of this chapter, an
unreasonable value is set upon other people's opinion, and one quite
disproportionate to its real worth. Hobbes has some strong remarks on
this subject; and no doubt he is quite right. _Mental pleasure_, he
writes, _and ecstacy of any kind, arise when, on comparing ourselves
with others, we come to the conclusion that we may think well of
ourselves_. So we can easily understand the great value which is
always attached to fame, as worth any sacrifices if there is the
slightest hope of attaining it.
_Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise_
_(That hath infirmity of noble mind)_
_To scorn delights and live laborious days_[1]
And again:
_How hard it is to climb
The heights where Fame's proud temple shines afar_!
[Footnote 1: Milton. _Lycidas_.]
We can thus understand how it is that the vainest people in the world
are always talking about _la gloire_, with the most implicit faith in
it as a stimulus to great actions and great works. But there can he no
doubt that fame is something secondary in its character, a mere echo
or reflection--as it were, a shadow or symptom--of merit: and, in
any case, what excites admiration must be of more value than the
admiration itself. The truth is that a man is made happy, not by fame,
but by that which brings him fame, by his merits, or to speak more
correctly, by the disposition and capacity from which his merits
proceed, whether they be moral or intellectual. The best side of a
man's nature must of necessity be more important for him than for
anyone else: the reflection of it, the opinion which exists in the
heads of others, is a matter that can affect him only in a very
subordinate degree. He who deserves fame without getting it possesses
by far the more important element of happiness, which should console
him for the loss of the other. It is not that a man is thought to be
great by masses of incompetent and often infatuated people, but that
he really is great, which should move us to envy his position; and his
happiness lies, not in the fact that posterity will hear of him, but
that he is the creator of thoughts worthy to be treasured up and
studied for hundreds of years.
Besides, if a man has done this, he possesses something which cannot
be wrested from him; and, unlike fame, it is a possession dependent
entirely upon himself. If admiration were his chief aim, there would
be nothing in him to admire. This is just what happens in the case
of false, that is, unmerited, fame; for its recipient lives upon it
without actually possessing the solid substratum of which fame is the
outward and visible sign. False fame must often put its possessor out
of conceit with himself; for the time may come when, in spite of the
illusions borne of self-love, he will feel giddy on the heights which
he was never meant to climb, or look upon himself as spurious
coin; and in the anguish of threatened discovery and well-merited
degradation, he will read the sentence of posterity on the foreheads
of the wise--like a man who owes his property to a forged will.
The truest fame, the fame that comes after death, is never heard of by
its recipient; and yet he is called a happy man.
His happiness lay both in the possession of those great qualities
which won him fame, and in the opportunity that was granted him of
developing them--the leisure he had to act as he pleased, to dedicate
himself to his favorite pursuits. It is only work done from the heart
that ever gains the laurel.
Greatness of soul, or wealth of intellect, is what makes a man
happy--intellect, such as, when stamped on its productions, will
receive the admiration of centuries to come,--thoughts which make him
happy at the time, and will in their turn be a source of study and
delight to the noblest minds of the most remote posterity. The value
of posthumous fame lies in deserving it; and this is its own reward.
Whether works destined to fame attain it in the lifetime of their
author is a chance affair, of no very great importance. For the
average man has no critical power of his own, and is absolutely
incapable of appreciating the difficulty of a great work. People are
always swayed by authority; and where fame is widespread, it means
that ninety-nine out of a hundred take it on faith alone. If a man is
famed far and wide in his own lifetime, he will, if he is wise, not
set too much value upon it, because it is no more than the echo of a
few voices, which the chance of a day has touched in his favor.
Would a musician feel flattered by the loud applause of an audience
if he knew that they were nearly all deaf, and that, to conceal their
infirmity, they set to work to clap vigorously as soon as ever they
saw one or two persons applauding? And what would he say if he got to
know that those one or two persons had often taken bribes to secure
the loudest applause for the poorest player!
It is easy to see why contemporary praise so seldom develops into
posthumous fame. D'Alembert, in an extremely fine description of the
temple of literary fame, remarks that the sanctuary of the temple is
inhabited by the great dead, who during their life had no place there,
and by a very few living persons, who are nearly all ejected on their
death. Let me remark, in passing, that to erect a monument to a man
in his lifetime is as much as declaring that posterity is not to be
trusted in its judgment of him. If a man does happen to see his own
true fame, it can very rarely be before he is old, though there have
been artists and musicians who have been exceptions to this rule, but
very few philosophers. This is confirmed by the portraits of people
celebrated by their works; for most of them are taken only after their
subjects have attained celebrity, generally depicting them as old and
grey; more especially if philosophy has been the work of their lives.
From the eudaemonistic standpoint, this is a very proper arrangement;
as fame and youth are too much for a mortal at one and the same time.
Life is such a poor business that the strictest economy must be
exercised in its good things. Youth has enough and to spare in itself,
and must rest content with what it has. But when the delights and joys
of life fall away in old age, as the leaves from a tree in autumn,
fame buds forth opportunely, like a plant that is green in winter.
Fame is, as it were, the fruit that must grow all the summer before it
can be enjoyed at Yule. There is no greater consolation in age than
the feeling of having put the whole force of one's youth into works
which still remain young.
Finally, let us examine a little more closely the kinds of fame which
attach to various intellectual pursuits; for it is with fame of this
sort that my remarks are more immediately concerned.
I think it may be said broadly that the intellectual superiority it
denotes consists in forming theories, that is, new combinations of
certain facts. These facts may be of very different kinds; but
the better they are known, and the more they come within everyday
experience, the greater and wider will be the fame which is to be won
by theorizing about them.
For instance, if the facts in question are numbers or lines or special
branches of science, such as physics, zoology, botany, anatomy, or
corrupt passages in ancient authors, or undecipherable inscriptions,
written, it may be, in some unknown alphabet, or obscure points
in history; the kind of fame that may be obtained by correctly
manipulating such facts will not extend much beyond those who make a
study of them--a small number of persons, most of whom live retired
lives and are envious of others who become famous in their special
branch of knowledge.
But if the facts be such as are known to everyone, for example, the
fundamental characteristics of the human mind or the human heart,
which are shared by all alike; or the great physical agencies which
are constantly in operation before our eyes, or the general course of
natural laws; the kind of fame which is to be won by spreading the
light of a new and manifestly true theory in regard to them, is such
as in time will extend almost all over the civilized world: for if the
facts be such as everyone can grasp, the theory also will be generally
intelligible. But the extent of the fame will depend upon the
difficulties overcome; and the more generally known the facts are, the
harder it will be to form a theory that shall be both new and true: