SECTION 35.  Our trust in other people often consists in great measure of pure laziness, selfishness and vanity on our own part:  I say laziness, because, instead of making inquiries ourselves, and exercising an active care, we prefer to trust others; selfishness, because we are led to confide in people by the pressure of our own affairs; and vanity, when we ask confidence for a matter on which we rather pride ourselves.  And yet, for all that, we expect people to be true to the trust we repose in them.

But we ought not to become angry if people put no trust in us:  because that really means that they pay honesty the sincere compliment of regarding it as a very rare thing,—­so rare, indeed, as to leave us in doubt whether its existence is not merely fabulous.

SECTION 36. Politeness,—­which the Chinese hold to be a cardinal virtue,—­is based upon two considerations of policy.  I have explained one of these considerations in my Ethics; the other is as follows:—­Politeness is a tacit agreement that people’s miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not made the subject of reproach; and since these defects are thus rendered somewhat less obtrusive, the result is mutually advantageous.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Translator’s Note.—­In the passage referred to (Grundlage der Moral, collected works, Vol.  IV., pp. 187 and 198), Schopenhauer explains politeness as a conventional and systematic attempt to mask the egoism of human nature in the small affairs of life,—­an egoism so repulsive that some such device is necessary for the purpose of concealing its ugliness.  The relation which politeness bears to the true love of one’s neighbor is analogous to that existing between justice as an affair of legality, and justice as the real integrity of the heart.]

It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude.  To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire.  For politeness is like a counter—­an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.  A sensible man will be generous in the use of it.  It is customary in every country to end a letter with the words:—­your most obedient servant—­votre tres-humble serviteur—­suo devotissimo servo. (The Germans are the only people who suppress the word servant—­Diener—­because, of course, it is not true!) However, to carry politeness to such an extent as to damage your prospects, is like giving money where only counters are expected.

Wax, a substance naturally hard and brittle, can be made soft by the application of a little warmth, so that it will take any shape you please.  In the same way, by being polite and friendly, you can make people pliable and obliging, even though they are apt to be crabbed and malevolent.  Hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.