CHAPTER XXX

On Din and Noise

378
an essay on the living forces; but I would like to
wnt.e a dIrge. and thereon, for their excessively frequent
use hammermg, and banging has been throughout
my lIfe a torment me. There are certainly those, quite
a number m fact, who smIle at such things because they are not
sensitive to noise. Yet they are the very people who are also not
sensitive argun:ents, ideas, poetry, and works of art, in short,
to mental ImpressIOns of every kind; for this is due to the tough-
ness and solid texture of their brain substance. On the other
hand, in the biographies or other accounts of the personal
of almost all great authors, such as Kant, Goethe,
LIchtenberg, Jean Paul, I find complaints about the torture
which thinkers have. to endure from noise. If such complaints
are not be found m some authors, this is merely because the
context dId not lead up to them. I explain the matter as follows.
A large diamond cut up into pieces is equal in value to just so
many small ones; and an army dispersed and scattered in
other disbanded into small bodies, is no longer
of anythmg .. In the same way a great mind is no more capable
an ordinary .one, the moment it is interrupted, disturbed,
For its superiority is conditioned by
concentratmg all Its powers, as does a concave mirror all
.rays, on to one point and object; and it is precisely here that
It .IS prevented by a noisy interruption. This is why eminent
mmds have always thoroughly disliked every kind of distur-
interruption, and diversion, but above all the violent
dIsturbance. caused by din and noise. Others, on the contrary,
n?t partIcularly upset by such things. The most sensible and
mtellIgent of all European nations has even laid down an
eleventh commandment, the rule 'never interrupt!' I Din is the
J [Schopenhauer's actual words.]
ON DIN AND NOISE
most impertinent of all forms of interruption, for it interrupts,
in fact disrupts, even our own thoughts. However, where there is
nothing to interrupt, din will naturally not be particularly felt.
At times, I am tormented and disturbed for a while by a moder-
ate and constant noise before I am clearly conscious thereof,
since I feel it merely as a constant increase in the difficulty of
thinking, like a weight tied to my foot, until I become aware of
what it is.
Passing now from the genus to the species, I have to denounce
as the most inexcusable and scandalous noise the truly infernal
cracking of whips in the narrow resounding streets of towns;
for it robs life of all peace and pensiveness. Nothing gives me
so clear an idea of the apathy, stupidity, and thoughtlessness of
men as the toleration of this whip-cracking. This sudden sharp
crack which paralyses the brain, tears and rends the thread of
reflection and murders all thoughts, must be painfully felt by
anyone who carries in his head anything resembling an idea.
All such cracks must, therefore, disturb hundreds in their
mental activity, however humble its nature; but they shoot
through a thinker's meditations as painfully and fatally as the
executioner's axe cuts the head from the body. No sound
cuts through the brain so sharply as does this cursed whip-
cracking; one feels in one's brain the very sting of the lash and
it affects the brain as does touch the mimosa pudica, and lasts as
long. With all due respect to the most sacred doctrine of
utility, I really do not see why a fellow, fetching a cart-load of
sand or manure, should thereby acquire the privilege of nipping
in the bud every idea that successively arises in ten thousand
heads (in the course of half an hour's journey through a town).
Hammering, the barking of dogs, and the screaming of children
are terrible, but the real murderer of ideas is only the crack of a
whip. It is meant to crush every good moment for meditation
which anyone may at times have. If to urge on draught animals
there existed no means other than this most abominable
of all noises, there would be some excuse for it, but quite the
contrary is the case. This cursed whip-cracking is not only
unnecessary, but even useless. Thus the intended psychic effect
on the horses is entirely blunted and fails to occur because,
through constant abuse of the whip, they have grown accus-
tomed thereto. The horses, accordingly, do not go any faster;
ON DIN AND NOISE
and this is also seen especially in the case of cabmen who are On
the look-out for a fare and incessantly crack their whips while
driving at the slowest pace. The slightest touch of the whip has
more effect. But assuming that it were absolutely necessary
constantly to remind the horses of the whip's presence by
sounding it, then a sound a hundred times quieter would
suffice for the purpose. For it is well known that animals notice
the slightest scarcely perceptible indications, both audible and
visible, the most surprising examples being furnished by trained
dogs and canaries. Accordingly, the matter proves to be a
piece of pure wantonness and in fact an insolent disregard for
those who work with their heads on the part of those members
of the community who work with their hands. That such an
infamy is tolerated in towns is a crude barbarity and an iniquity,
the more so as it could very easily be stopped by a police order
to the effect that every whip-cord should have a knot at the
end. There can be no harm in drawing the attention of the
proletarians to the mental work of the classes above them, for
they have a mortal dread of all such work. A fellow who rides
through the narrow streets of a populous town with free
post-horses or on a free cart-horse, or even accompanies
animals on foot, and keeps on cracking with all his might a
whip several yards long, deserves to be taken down at once and
given five really good cuts with a stick. All the philanthropists in
the world, and all the legislative assemblies which on good
grounds abolish all corporal punishment, will not persuade me
to the contrary. But something even worse can often enough
be seen, namely a carter who, alone and without horses, walks
through the streets and incessantly cracks his whip. This
fellow has become so accustomed to the crack of a whip, thanks
to inexcusable leniency and toleration. With the universal
tenderness for the body and all its gratifications, is the thinking
mind to be the only thing that never experiences the slightest
consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect? Carters,
porters, messengers, and the like are the beasts of burden of the
human community; they should certainly be treated humanely
with justice, fairness, consideration, and care, but they should
not be allowed to thwart the higher endeavours of the human
race by wantonly making a noise. I would like to know how
many great and fine thoughts have already been cracked out of
ON DIN AND NOISE
the world by these whips. If I had to give an order, there would
soon be established in the heads of carmen an indelible nexus
idearum
2
between cracking a whip and getting a whipping. Let
uS hope that the more intelligent and refined nations will make
a start in this direction and that, by way of example, the
Germans will then be made to follow suit. * Meanwhile, Thomas
Hood (UP the Rhine) says: 'For a musical people, they are the
most noisy I ever met with.' That they are so, however, is not
due to their being more inclined than others to make a noise,
but to the apathy and insensibility (the result of obtuseness)
of those who have to listen to it. They are not thereby disturbed
in their thinking or reading for the very reason that they do not
think, but merely smoke, such being for them a substitute for
thinking. The universal toleration of unnecessary noise, for
example the extremely vulgar and ill-mannered slamming of
doors, is simply a sign of mental bluntness and a general want
of thought. In Germany it seems as though it were positively
the intention that no one should come to his senses on account
of noise; pointless drumming, for example.
Finally, as regards the literature that deals with the subject
of this chapter, I can recommend only one work, but it is a fine
one, namely a poetical epistle in terze rime by the famous
painter Bronzino entitled De' romori, a Messer Luca A1artini.
Here a detailed and amusing description is given in a tragi-
comic style of the torment that one has to endure from the
many different noises of an Italian town. This epistle is found
on page 258 of the second volume of the Opere burlesche del
Berni, Aretina ed altri, apparently published at Utrecht in 1771.
* According to a Bekanntmachung des Miinchener Thierschutzvereins of Dec. 1858,
unnecessary whipping and cracking of whips are most strictly forbidden in
Nuremberg.
2 [' Association of ideas'.]