To a great extent fatigue in such cases is due to worry, and worry could be prevented by a better philosophy of life and a little more mental discipline. Most men and women are very deficient in control over their thoughts. I mean by this that they cannot cease to think about worrying topics at times when no action can be taken in regard to them.
There are those who believe that almost any group of men, when once it has seized the machinery of the State, can, by means of propaganda, secure general acquiescence.
All ancient empires suffered from revolts, often led by provincial governors; and even when no overt revolt occurred, local autonomy was almost unavoidable except when conquest was recent, and was apt, in the course of time, to develop into independence. No large State of antiquity was governed from the centre to nearly the same extent as is now customary; and the chief reason for this was lack of rapid mobility.
The empires of Attila and Genghis Khan were transitory; and the nations of Europe lost most of their possessions in the New World. But with modern technique most empires are fairly safe except against external attack, and revolution is only to be expected after defeat in war.
It follows, in the words of Epicurus, that “Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.
Love of independence is, in most cases, not an abstract dislike of external interference, but aversion from some one form of control which the government thinks desirable – prohibition, conscription, religious conformity, or what not. Sometimes such sentiments can be gradually overcome by propaganda and education, which can indefinitely weaken the desire for personal independence.
Many forces conspire to make for uniformity in modern communities – schools, newspapers, cinema, radio, drill, etc. Density of population has the same effect. The position of momentary equilibrium between the sentiment of independence and the love of power tends, therefore, under modern conditions, to shift further and further in the direction of power, thus facilitating the creation and success of totalitarian States.
Any organization, however idealistic its professed aims, may degenerate into a tyranny unless the public firmly retains in its own hands some effective means of controlling leaders. Democracy is the only means so far discovered, but it will not be a completely effective means until it has been broadened and extended to economic regions from which as yet it is excluded. The essential data on this whole subject can only be obtained from a study of history.
As soon as absolute truth is supposed to be contained in the saying of a certain man, there is a body of experts to interpret his sayings, and these experts infallibly acquire power, since they hold the key to truth. like any other privileged caste, they use their power for their own advantage.
No one can understand the Stoics and Epicureans without some knowledge of the Hellenistic age, or the scholastics without a modicum of understanding of the growth of the Church from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries.
The mark of a civilized man is the capacity to read a column of numbers and weep.
Plato’s Socrates had argued that to inflict injustice was a greater evil to the perpetrator than to suffer it.
Metaphysics sink into the background, and ethics, now individual, become of the first importance. Philosophy is no longer the pillar of fire going before a few intrepid seekers after truth: it is rather an ambulance following in the wake of the struggle for existence and picking up the weak and wounded.”XI.
It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.
Zeno believed that there is no such thing as chance, and that the course of nature is rigidly determined by natural laws.
These two sentences suffice to show, as I shall try to prove, that Bergson does not know what number is, and has himself no clear idea of it.
My objections to Marx are of two sorts: one, that he was muddle-headed; and the other, that his thinking was almost entirely inspired by hatred.
The religious element in patriotism is reinforced by education, especially by a knowledge of the history and literature of one’s own country, provided it is not accompanied by much knowledge of the history and literature of other countries.
In a hopeful age, great present evils can be endured, because it is thought that they will pass; but in a tired age even real goods lose their savour. The Stoic ethic suited the times of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, because its gospel was one of endurance rather than hope.
To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers.