This pre-established harmony between the theory of Schopenhauer and my
own natural man causes me pleasure mingled with terror. I might indulge
myself in the pleasure, but that I fear to delude and stifle conscience.
Besides, I feel that goodness has no tolerance for this contemplative
indifference, and that virtue consists in self-conquest.
August 30, 1869.--Still some chapters of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer
believes in the unchangeableness of innate tendencies in the individual,
and in the invariability of the primitive disposition. He refuses to
believe in the new man, in any real progress toward perfection, or in
any positive improvement in a human being. Only the appearances are
refined; there is no change below the surface. Perhaps he confuses
temperament, character, and individuality? I incline to think that
individuality is fatal and primitive, that temperament reaches far back,
but is alternable, and that character is more recent and susceptible of
voluntary or involuntary modifications. Individuality is a matter of
psychology, temperament, a matter of sensation or aesthetics; character
alone is a matter of morals. Liberty and the use of it count for nothing
in the first two elements of our being; character is a historical fruit,
and the result of a man's biography.
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