I should live at ease, I should die with

dignity, why, it is charming, perfectly charming! And what a good round

belly I should have grown, what a treble chin I should have established,

what a ruby nose I should have coloured for myself, so that everyone

would have said, looking at me: "Here is an asset! Here is something real

and solid!" And, say what you like, it is very agreeable to hear such

remarks about oneself in this negative age.

VII

But these are all golden dreams. Oh, tell me, who was it first announced,

who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty things because he

does not know his own interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his

eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to

do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being

enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own

advantage in the good and nothing else, and we all know that not one

man can, consciously, act against his own interests, consequently, so to

say, through necessity, he would begin doing good? Oh, the babe! Oh,

the pure, innocent child! Why, in the first place, when in all these

thousands of years has there been a time when man has acted only from

his own interest? What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear

witness that men, CONSCIOUSLY, that is fully understanding their real

interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on

another path, to meet peril and danger, compelled to this course by

nobody and by nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track,

and have obstinately, wilfully, struck out another difficult, absurd way,

seeking it almost in the darkness. So, I suppose, this obstinacy and

perversity were pleasanter to them than any advantage. ... Advantage!

What is advantage? And will you take it upon yourself to define with

perfect accuracy in what the advantage of man consists? And what if it so

happens that a man's advantage, SOMETIMES, not only may, but even

must, consist in his desiring in certain cases what is harmful to himself

and not advantageous. And if so, if there can be such a case, the whole

principle falls into dust. What do you think--are there such cases? You

laugh; laugh away, gentlemen, but only answer me: have man's advantages

been reckoned up with perfect certainty? Are there not some which not

only have not been included but cannot possibly be included under any

classification? You see, you gentlemen have, to the best of my

knowledge, taken your whole register of human advantages from the

averages of statistical figures and politico-economical formulas. Your

advantages are prosperity, wealth, freedom, peace--and so on, and so

on. So that the man who should, for instance, go openly and knowingly

in opposition to all that list would to your thinking, and indeed mine,

too, of course, be an obscurantist or an absolute madman: would not he?

But, you know, this is what is surprising: why does it so happen that all

these statisticians, sages and lovers of humanity, when they reckon up

human advantages invariably leave out one? They don't even take it into

their reckoning in the form in which it should be taken, and the whole

reckoning depends upon that. It would be no greater matter, they would

simply have to take it, this advantage, and add it to the list. But the

trouble is, that this strange advantage does not fall under any classification

and is not in place in any list. I have a friend for instance ... Ech!

gentlemen, but of course he is your friend, too; and indeed there is no

one, no one to whom he is not a friend! When he prepares for any

undertaking this gentleman immediately explains to you, elegantly and

clearly, exactly how he must act in accordance with the laws of reason and

truth. What is more, he will talk to you with excitement and passion of

the true normal interests of man; with irony he will upbraid the short-

sighted fools who do not understand their own interests, nor the true

significance of virtue; and, within a quarter of an hour, without any

sudden outside provocation, but simply through something inside him

which is stronger than all his interests, he will go off on quite a different

tack--that is, act in direct opposition to what he has just been saying

about himself, in opposition to the laws of reason, in opposition to his

own advantage, in fact in opposition to everything ... I warn you that

my friend is a compound personality and therefore it is difficult to blame

him as an individual. The fact is, gentlemen, it seems there must really

exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest

advantages, or (not to be illogical) there is a most advantageous advantage

(the very one omitted of which we spoke just now) which is more

important and more advantageous than all other advantages, for the sake

of which a man if necessary is ready to act in opposition to all laws; that

is, in opposition to reason, honour, peace, prosperity--in fact, in opposition

to all those excellent and useful things if only he can attain that

fundamental, most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him

than all. "Yes, but it's advantage all the same," you will retort. But excuse me, I'll make the point clear, and it is not a case of playing upon words.

What matters is, that this advantage is remarkable from the very fact that

it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters every

system constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind. In

fact, it upsets everything. But before I mention this advantage to you, I

want to compromise myself personally, and therefore I boldly declare

that all these fine systems, all these theories for explaining to mankind

their real normal interests, in order that inevitably striving to pursue

these interests they may at once become good and noble--are, in my

opinion, so far, mere logical exercises! Yes, logical exercises. Why, to

maintain this theory of the regeneration of mankind by means of the

pursuit of his own advantage is to my mind almost the same thing ...

as to affirm, for instance, following Buckle, that through civilisation

mankind becomes softer, and consequently less bloodthirsty and less

fitted for warfare. Logically it does seem to follow from his arguments.

But man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that

he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the

evidence of his senses only to justify his logic. I take this example

because it is the most glaring instance of it. Only look about you: blood

is being spilt in streams, and in the merriest way, as though it were

champagne. Take the whole of the nineteenth century in which Buckle

lived. Take Napoleon--the Great and also the present one.