This is partly, no doubt, to be explained by the fact that it is physically impossible for a man to see himself in the glass except with face turned straight towards it and perfectly motionless; where the expression of the eye, which counts for so much, and really gives its whole character to the face, is to a great extent lost.  But co-existing with this physical impossibility, there seems to me to be an ethical impossibility of an analogous nature, and producing the same effect.  A man cannot look upon his own reflection as though the person presented there were a stranger to him; and yet this is necessary if he is to take an objective view.  In the last resort, an objective view means a deep-rooted feeling on the part of the individual, as a moral being, that that which he is contemplating is not himself[1]; and unless he can take this point of view, he will not see things in a really true light, which is possible only if he is alive to their actual defects, exactly as they are.  Instead of that, when a man sees himself in the glass, something out of his own egotistic nature whispers to him to take care to remember that it is no stranger, but himself, that he is looking at; and this operates as a noli me tang ere, and prevents him taking an objective view.  It seems, indeed, as if, without the leaven of a grain of malice, such a view were impossible.

[Footnote 1:  Cf. Grundprobleme der Ethik, p. 275.]

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According as a man’s mental energy is exerted or relaxed, will life appear to him either so short, and petty, and fleeting, that nothing can possibly happen over which it is worth his while to spend emotion; that nothing really matters, whether it is pleasure or riches, or even fame, and that in whatever way a man may have failed, he cannot have lost much—­or, on the other hand, life will seem so long, so important, so all in all, so momentous and so full of difficulty that we have to plunge into it with our whole soul if we are to obtain a share of its goods, make sure of its prizes, and carry out our plans.  This latter is the immanent and common view of life; it is what Gracian means when he speaks of the serious way of looking at things—­tomar muy de veras el vivir.  The former is the transcendental view, which is well expressed in Ovid’s non est tanti—­it is not worth so much trouble; still better, however, by Plato’s remark that nothing in human affairs is worth any great anxiety—­[Greek:  oute ti ton anthropinon axion esti megalaes spoudaes.] This condition of mind is due to the intellect having got the upper hand in the domain of consciousness, where, freed from the mere service of the will, it looks upon the phenomena of life objectively, and so cannot fail to gain a clear insight into its vain and futile character.  But in the other condition of mind, will predominates; and the intellect exists only to light it on its way to the attainment of its desires.