Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 1.djvu/438

396 either to affect others or to excite ourselves to unheard-of efforts. But children and grown-up people know very well to yield contentedly as soon as they clearly see that it absolutely cannot be otherwise:—Θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι φίλον δαμάσαντες ἀνάγκη (Animo in pectoribus nostra domito necessitate). We are like the entrapped elephants, that rage and struggle for many days, till they see that it is useless, and then suddenly offer their necks quietly to the yoke, tamed for ever. We are like King David, who, as long as his son still lived, unceasingly importuned Jehovah with prayers, and behaved himself as if in despair; but as soon as his son was dead, thought no longer about it. Hence it arises that innumerable permanent ills, such as lameness, poverty, low estate, ugliness, a disagreeable dwelling-place, are borne with indifference by innumerable persons, and are no longer felt, like healed wounds, just because these persons know that inward or outward necessity renders it impossible that any change can take place in these things; while those who are more fortunate cannot understand how such misfortunes can be borne. Now as with outward necessity, so also with inward; nothing reconciles so thoroughly as a distinct knowledge of it. If we have once for all distinctly recognised not only our good qualities and our strength, but also our defects and weakness, established our aim accordingly, and rest satisfied concerning what cannot be attained, we thus escape in the surest way, as far as our individuality permits, the bitterest of all sorrows, discontentment with ourselves, which is the inevitable result of ignorance of our own individuality, of false conceit and the audacity that proceeds from it. To the bitter chapter of the self-knowledge here recommended the lines of Ovid admit of excellent application —