Philosophy and the Daemon

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 25, 21 February 1920, Page 23

Philosophy and the Daemon

PHILOSOPHY, it has been said, is - 1 - the art of bearing other people's troubles. .' The truest philosopher I ever heard of AA'as a Avoman. She was brought into a London hospital suffering from a poisoned leg. The house surgeon made a hurried examination. He Avas a man of plain speech.

"It will have to come off," he told me. "What, not all of it." "All of it, I am sorry to say," groAvled the surgeon.

"Oh, Avell; thank heaven it was not my head," observed the lady.

Our skins harden to the blows of Fate. I was lunching one day with a friend in the country. His son and heir, aged tAvelve, entered and took his seat at the table.

"Well," said his father, " and how did Aye get on at school today? Nobody caned?" I noticed a sly tAvinkle in his eye.

"No," replied- young hopeful, after reflecting; "no, I don't think so," adding as an afterthought, as he tucked into beef and potatoes, " 'cepting o' course, me."

It is wonderful how the young become philisophical. We remember the story of the boy, who, Avhen his mother had remarked that she Avas about to beat him, replied, ''You can't, ise sittin' on it." and the young ruffian gripped his chair Avith both hands.

It is a simple science, philosophy. The idea is that it never matters what happens to you, provided you don't mind it. The weak point in the argument is that nine times out of ten you can't help minding it.

"No misfortune can harm me, said Marcus Aurelius, "without the consent of the daemon Avithin me.

The trouble is our daemon cannot always be relied upon. So often does he seem not up to his work. The toothache cannot hurt us so long as the daemon within us (that is our Avill poAver) holds on to the chair and says it can't. But sooner or later the daemon lets go, and then Aye howl. One sees the idea; in theory it is excellent. One makes believe. Your bank has suddenly stopped payment. You say to yourself. "This does not really matter.

Your butcher and baker say it does, and insist on making a row in the passage.

You fill yourself up Avith cheap gooseberry Avine. You tell yourself it is seasoned champagne. Your liver next morning says it is not.

The daemon Avithin us means well but forgets it is not the only thing there. Another argument much approved by philosophy is that nothing matters, because a hundred years hence Aye Avill be dead. What Aye really Avant is a philosophy that avill enable us to get along while we are still alive. I am not worrying about my centenary; lam worrying about next quarter day. I feel that if people would go away and leave me—income tax collectors, men Avho come round about the gas, all those sort of people—l could be a philosopher myself. lam willing enough to make believe that nothing matters, but they are not. They say it is going to be cut off and talk about judgment summonses. They won't listen to my daemon. He does not interest them. Nor, to be candid, does he comfort me much, this philosophical reflection that a hundred years hence I'll be sure to be dead—that is, with ordinary luck. What bucks me up much more is the hope that they will be dead.

There is a passage in Marcus Aurelius that used to puzzle me until I hit upon the solution. A foot-note at the bottom says the meaning is obscure. Myself, I gathered this before I read the footnote. What it is all about I defy any human being to explain. It may mean anything; it may mean nothing. The majority of students incline to the latter theory. My own conviction is that once upon a time Marcus

had a real good time. He came home feeling pleased with himself Avithout knowing why. "I will write it down," he said to himself, "noAV while it is fresh in my mind." Maybe he shed a tear or two, thinking of all the good he Avas doing, and later on Avent suddenly to deep. In the morning he had forgotten all about it, and by accident it became mixed up with the rest of the book.

Marcus Aurejius was an Emperor of Rome, and Diogenes was a bachelor living rent free. I want the philosophy of the b an k clerk married on sixty shillings a week; a farm labourer bringing up a family of eight on a prcarious wage of tAvelve shillings a day. The troubles of Marcus Aurelius Avere chiefly those of other people.

"Bother those barbarians," he may have been tempted, in an unphilosiphical moment, to exclaim: "I do Avish they Avoukl not burn these poor people's houses over their heads, toss the babies about on spears, and carry off the older children into slavery. Why don't they behave themselves?"

But philosophy in Marcus would eventually triumph over all passing fretfulness.

The Secretary of the United States' Navy has conic down with an almost appalling naval programme. He wants to build sixteen super-dreadnoughts and ten battle cruisers to add to the navy, and he demands that his country shall possess "incomparably the biggest navy in the Avorld." This is what the'end Avill likely enough be. The influences represented by Mr. Daniels consider it "un-American" to peimit the view that Britain should control the seas, and that such control should pass to the United States. As Britain cannot afford to enter into naval competition with the United States, and as the latter seem-* certainly determined to spoi} the League of Nations ideal, the outcome may compel the Allies to elite- upon Alliance conditions suitable for the preservation of their own interests in vieAV of the doubtful attitude of Washington.—-Napier "Telegraph."