very nearly in inverse ratio to his intellectual
value: to say that "so and so" is very unsociable, is almost
tantamount to saying that he is a man of great capacity.

[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_. The passage to which Schopenhauer
refers is _Parerga_: vol. ii. Sec. 413 (4th edition). The fable is of
certain porcupines, who huddled together for warmth on a cold day;
but as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were
obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when
just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling
and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by
remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way,
the need of society drives the human porcupines together--only to be
mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of
their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be
the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness
and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told--in
the English phrase--_to keep their distance_. By this arrangement the
mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied,--but then
people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers
to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get
pricked himself.]

Solitude is doubly advantageous to such a man. Firstly, it allows
him to be with himself, and, secondly, it prevents him being with
others--an advantage of great moment; for how much constraint,
annoyance, and even danger there is in all intercourse with the world.
_Tout notre mal_, says La Bruyere, _vient de ne pouvoir etre seul_. It
is really a very risky, nay, a fatal thing, to be sociable; because
it means contact with natures, the great majority of which are bad
morally, and dull or perverse, intellectually. To be unsociable is not
to care about such people; and to have enough in oneself to dispense
with the necessity of their company is a great piece of good fortune;
because almost all our sufferings spring from having to do with other
people; and that destroys the peace of mind, which, as I have said,
comes next after health in the elements of happiness. Peace of mind
is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude. The Cynics
renounced all private property in order to attain the bliss of having
nothing to trouble them; and to renounce society with the same object
is the wisest thin