工作与游戏

［補二九一則論 Tasso, Aminta, I. ii. Coro: “Ma legge aurea e felice, / Che natura scolpi: s’ei piace, ei lice” (Tasso, Poesie, a cura di F. Flora, p.633)］

Long before Schiller’s Philosophen, Aristotle enjoins in all seriousness: “Now in everything the pleasant or pleasure is most to be guarded against ... We ought, then, to feel towards pleasure as the elders of the people felt towards Helen, & in all circumstances repeat their saying;  for if we dismiss pleasure thus we are less likely to go astray” (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.II, ch.9, The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random House, pp.963-4). In other words, virtue is more likely to be associated with what is unpleasant; cf. Spinoza, Ethics, Pt.IV, Appendix, §31: “Superstition ... seems to affirm that what brings sorrow is good, &, on the contrary, that which brings joy is evil” (Selections, ed. J. Wild, p.362). Conversely, pleasure loses its attraction when imposed as a duty or virtue. Rousseau says: “En toutes choses la gêne et l’assujettissement me sont insupportables, ils me feraient prendre en haine le plaisir même. On dit que chez les mahométans un homme passe au point du jour dans les rues pour ordonner aux maris de rendre le devoir à leurs femmes. Je serais un mauvais Turc à ces heures-là” (Confessions, Liv.V; cf. Les Rêveries du Promeneur solitaire, 6^e Promenade, a propos of “coeur” vs. “obligation” or “devoir”: “les appelle à remplir les devoirs de leur état”¹— Confessions et Rêveries, “Bib. de la Pléiade”, pp.187 & 707).

The story of whitewashing board fence in Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Tom Sawyer (ch.2; “Jacket Library” ed., pp.16 ff.) is also well-known, & the moral that “Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, & Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do” (p.22) succintly sums up what Croce expounds in one of his lay sermons: “Lavorano persino i bambini, i cui giuochi sono per essi, cioè sono in realt à, lavoro ... Il lavoro penoso è quel lavoro che non riusciamo a far nostro, che non si fonde con le nostre disposizioni e tendenze o non diventa nostra disposizione e tendenza, che non impegna tutto noi stessi” ecc.² (Frammenti di Etica, no.XIV, p.63). Phrases like “painful duty” & “free play” are therefore not idle clichés. Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head, p.17: “Its being clandestine is of the essence of our love. Knowledge, other people’s knowledge, does inevitably modify what it touches. Remember the legend of Psyche, whose child, if she told about her pregnancy, would be mortal, whereas if she kept silent it would be a god”【Eros fled when Psyche turned the lamp upon him】; Arthur Schnitzler, Anatol: “Agonia”: Anatol: “Mir ist manchmal, als werde die Sage vom bösen Blick an mir wahr ... Nur ist der meine nach innen gewandt, und meine besten Empfindungen siechen vor ihm hin”³ (J. Schondorff, Österreichisches Theater des XX. Jahrhunderts, S.89); George Sand, Indiana: “Elle n’aima pas son mari，par la seule raison peut-être qu’on lui faisait un devoir de l’aimer, et que résister mentalement à toute espèce de contrainte morale était devenu chez elle une seconde nature, un principe de conduite, une loi de conscience”; Kahlil Gibran: “When you enjoy lovingyour neighbor it ceases to be a virtue” (A. Richmond, Modern Quotations, p.346); “Southey used to say that the moment anything assumed the shape of a duty, Coleridge felt himself incapable of discharging it” (The Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, in James Thornton, ed., Table Talk, “Everyman’s Lib.”, p.133). 

［補七三○則］

Although Goethe holds that “Die Würde der Kunst erscheint bei der Musik vielleicht am eminentesten” (Spruchweisheit in Vers und Prosa, in Sämtl. Werke, “Tempel-Klassiker”, Bd.III, S.368), he shrinks from the romatic confusion of the arts. In a letter to Schiller (Dez. 23, 1797), a propos of H.-H. Meyer’s observation that all the figurative arts strive to be painting & the crop of bad plays resulting from the tendency of presenting the novels on the stage, Goethe firmly lays down the rule: “Diesen eigentlich kindischen, barbarischen, abgeschmackten Tendenzen sollte nun der Künstler aus allen Kräften widerstehen, Kunstwerk von Kunstwerk durch undurchdringliche Zauberkreise sondern, jedes bey seiner Eigenschaft und seinen Eigenheiten erhalten”⁴ (G.F. Senior & C.V. Bock, Goethe the Critic, p.45). I have not seen this passage quoted anywhere in connection with the question of Andersstreben (e.g. in I. Babbitt, The New Laokoon).【cf. Stendhal, Hist. de la Peinture on Corrège: “Son art fut de peindre comme dans le lointain même les figures du premier plan ... C’est de la musique, et ce n’est pas de la sculpture” (quoted H. Delacroix, La Psycologie de Stendhal, p.223).】

［補七○一則］

Hölderlin: “Schicksalslied”: “Es schwinden, es fallen / Die leidenden Menschen / Blindlings von einer / Stunde zur andern, / Wie Wasser von Klippe / Zu Klippe geworfen, / Jahr lang ins Ungewisse hinab” (Oxford Bk. of German Verse, p.215). Very existentialist! Life is a perilous affair & must be “lived forward” (Kierkegaard’s phrase which caught the eyes of Wm James, see Essays in Radical Empiricism, p.238) from moment to moment! The verb “geworfen” forestalls Heidegger’s idea of “Geworfenheit” & sense of dread uncertainty (Ungewisse) is to receive the appellation of Angst. Time which seems broken & jagged if man is considered a mere pawn in the game of chance called Fate, is changed into a ceaselessly & seamlessly flowing stream when man trusts himself to the loving charge of Gods, witness Eichendorff’s “Morgengebet”: “Die Welt mit ihrem Gram und Glücke / Will ich, ein Pilger, frohbereit / Betreten nur wie eine Brücke / Zu dir, Herr, übern Strom der Zeit” (Ib., p.266).