The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 162 pages of information about The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims.

The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 162 pages of information about The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims.

But at the age of fifty, Jupiter is the dominant influence.  At that period a man has outlived most of his contemporaries, and he can feel himself superior to the generation about him.  He is still in the full enjoyment of his strength, and rich in experience and knowledge; and if he has any power and position of his own, he is endowed with authority over all who stand in his immediate surroundings.  He is no more inclined to receive orders from others; he wants to take command himself.  The work most suitable to him now is to guide and rule within his own sphere.  This is the point where Jupiter culminates, and where the man of fifty years is at his best.

Then comes Saturn, at about the age of sixty, a weight as of lead, dull and slow:—­

  But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
  Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead

Last of all, Uranus; or, as the saying is, a man goes to heaven.

I cannot find a place for Neptune, as this planet has been very thoughtlessly named; because I may not call it as it should be called—­Eros.  Otherwise I should point out how Beginning and End meet together, and how closely and intimately Eros is connected with Death:  how Orcus, or Amenthes, as the Egyptians called him, is not only the receiver but the giver of all things—­[Greek:  lambanon kai didous].  Death is the great reservoir of Life.  Everything comes from Orcus; everything that is alive now was once there.  Could we but understand the great trick by which that is done, all would be clear!

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The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.