exist in thousands. Moreover, as a rule one can tell pretty exactly
beforehand what they will say and do. They have no individual stamp:
they are like manufactured goods. If, then, their nature is absorbed in
that of the species, must not their existence be too? The curse of
vulgarity reduces man to the level of animals, for his nature and
existence are merged in that of the species only. It is taken for
granted that anything that is high, great, or noble by its very nature
stands isolated in a world where no better expression can be found to
signify what is base and paltry than the term which I have mentioned as
being generally used--namely, _common_.

* * * * *

According as our intellectual energy is strained or relaxed will life
appear to us either so short, petty, and fleeting, that nothing can
happen of sufficient importance to affect our feelings; nothing is of
any importance to us--be it pleasure, riches, or even fame, and however
much we may have failed, we cannot have lost much; or _vice versa,_ life
will appear so long, so important, so all in all, so grave, and so
difficult that we throw ourselves into it with our whole soul, so that
we may get a share of its possessions, make ourselves sure of its
prizes, and carry out our plans. The latter is the immanent view of
life; it is what Gracian means by his expression, _tomar muy de veras el
vivir_ (life is to be taken seriously); while for the former, the
transcendental view, Ovid's _non est tanti_ is a good expression;
Plato's a still better, [Greek: oute ti ton anthropinon axion hesti,
megalaes spoudaes] (_nihil, in rebus humanis, magno studio dignum est_).

The former state of mind is the result of the intellect having gained
ascendency over consciousness, where, freed from the mere service of the
will, it grasps the phenomena of life objectively, and so cannot fail to
see clearly the emptiness and futility of it. On the other hand, it is
the _will_ that rules in the other condition of mind, and it is only
there to lighten the way to the object of its desires. A man is great or
small according to the predominance of one or the other of these views
of life.

* * * * *

It is quite certain that many a man owes his life's happiness solely to
the circumstance that he possesses a pleasant smile, and so wins the
hearts of others. However, these hearts would do better to take care to
remember what Ha