I have already several times explained[14] that whilst animals have only the generic character, it falls to man's share alone to have an individual character. Nevertheless, in most men there is in reality very little individual character; and they may be almost all classified. _Ce sont des espèces_. Their desires and thoughts, like their faces, are those of the whole species--at any rate, those of the class of men to which they belong, and they are therefore of a trivial, common nature, and exist in thousands. Moreover, as a rule one can tell pretty exactly beforehand what they will say and do. They have no individual stamp: they are like manufactured goods. If, then, their nature is absorbed in that of the species, must not their existence be too? The curse of vulgarity reduces man to the level of animals, for his nature and existence are merged in that of the species only. It is taken for granted that anything that is high, great, or noble by its very nature stands isolated in a world where no better expression can be found to signify what is base and paltry than the term which I have mentioned as being generally used--namely, _common_. * * * * * According as our intellectual energy is strained or relaxed will life appear to us either so short, petty, and fleeting, that nothing can happen of sufficient importance to affect our feelings; nothing is of any importance to us--be it pleasure, riches, or even fame, and however much we may have failed, we cannot have lost much; or _vice versâ,_ life will appear so long, so important, so all in all, so grave, and so difficult that we throw ourselves into it with our whole soul, so that we may get a share of its possessions, make ourselves sure of its prizes, and carry out our plans. The latter is the immanent view of life; it is what Gracian means by his expression, _tomar muy de veras el vivir_ (life is to be taken seriously); while for the former, the transcendental view, Ovid's _non est tanti_ is a good expression; Plato's a still better, οὔτε τι των ἀνθρωπινων ἀξιον ἑστι, μεγαλης σπουδης (_nihil, in rebus humanis, magno studio dignum est_). The former state of mind is the result of the intellect having gained ascendency over consciousness, where, freed from the mere service of the will, it grasps the phenomena of life objectively, and so cannot fail to see clearly the emptiness and futility of it. On the other hand, it is the _will_ that rules in the other condition of mind, and it is only there to lighten the way to the object of its desires. A man is great or small according to the predominance of one or the other of these views of life. * * * * *