Instead of that,
when a man sees himself in the glass, something out of his own
egotistic nature whispers to him to take care to remember that _it is
no stranger, but himself, that he is looking at_; and this operates as
a _noli me tang ere_, and prevents him taking an objective view. It
seems, indeed, as if, without the leaven of a grain of malice, such a
view were impossible.
[Footnote 1: Cf. _Grundprobleme der Ethik_, p. 275.]
* * * * *
According as a man's mental energy is exerted or relaxed, will life
appear to him either so short, and petty, and fleeting, that nothing
can possibly happen over which it is worth his while to spend emotion;
that nothing really matters, whether it is pleasure or riches, or even
fame, and that in whatever way a man may have failed, he cannot
have lost much--or, on the other hand, life will seem so long, so
important, so all in all, so momentous and so full of difficulty that
we have to plunge into it with our whole soul if we are to obtain a
share of its goods, make sure of its prizes, and carry out our plans.
This latter is the immanent and common view of life; it is what
Gracian means when he speaks of the serious way of looking
at things--_tomar muy de veras el vivir_.
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