208.
A Question of Conscience.—“Now, in summa, tell me what this new thing is that you want.”—“We no longer wish causes to be sinners and effects to be executioners.”
209.
The Utility of the strictest Theories.—People are indulgent towards a man's moral weaknesses, and in this connection they use a coarse sieve, provided that he always professes to hold the most strict moral theories. On the other hand, the lives of free-thinking moralists have always been examined closely through a microscope, in the tacit belief that an error in their lives would be the best argument against their disagreeable knowledge.6
210.
The “Thing in Itself.”—We used to ask formerly: What is the ridiculous?—as if there were something above and beyond ourselves that possessed the quality of provoking laughter, and we exhausted ourselves in trying to guess what it was (a theologian even held that it might be “the naïveté of sin”). At the present time we ask: What is laughter? how does it arise? We have considered the point, and finally reached the conclusion that there is nothing which is good, beautiful, sublime, or evil in itself; but rather that there are conditions of soul which lead us to attribute such qualities to things outside ourselves and in us. We have taken back their predicates from things; or we have at all events recollected that we have merely lent the things these predicates. Let us be careful that this insight does not cause us to lose the faculty of lending, and that we do not become at the same time wealthier and more avaricious.
211.
To those who Dream of Immortality.—So you desire the everlasting perpetuity of this beautiful consciousness of yourselves? Is it not shameful? Do you forget all those other things which would in their turn have to support you for all eternity, just as they have borne with you up to the present with more than Christian patience? Or do you think that you can inspire them with an eternally pleasant feeling towards yourself? A single immortal man on earth would imbue everyone around him with such a disgust for him that a general epidemic of murder and suicide would be brought about. And yet, ye petty dwellers on earth, with your narrow conceptions of a few thousand little minutes of time, ye would wish to be an everlasting burden on this everlasting universal existence! Could anything be more impertinent? After all, however, let us be indulgent towards a being of seventy years: he has not been able to exercise his imagination in conceiving his own “eternal tediousness”—he had not time enough for that!
212.
Wherein we know Ourselves.—As soon as one animal sees another it mentally compares itself with it; and men of uncivilised ages did the same. The consequence is that almost all men come to know themselves only as regards their defensive and offensive faculties.
213.
Men whose Lives have been Failures.—Some men are built of such stuff that society is at liberty to do what it likes with them—they will do well in any case, and will not have to complain of having failed in life. Other men are formed of such peculiar material—it need not be a particularly noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to fare ill except in one single instance: when they can live according to their own designs,—in all other cases the injury has to be borne by society. For everything that seems to the individual to be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation, covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually formed round society, or, in the most favourable cases, a thundercloud.
214.
A Question of Conscience.—“Now, in summa, tell me what this new thing is that you want.”—“We no longer wish causes to be sinners and effects to be executioners.”
209.
The Utility of the strictest Theories.—People are indulgent towards a man's moral weaknesses, and in this connection they use a coarse sieve, provided that he always professes to hold the most strict moral theories. On the other hand, the lives of free-thinking moralists have always been examined closely through a microscope, in the tacit belief that an error in their lives would be the best argument against their disagreeable knowledge.6
210.
The “Thing in Itself.”—We used to ask formerly: What is the ridiculous?—as if there were something above and beyond ourselves that possessed the quality of provoking laughter, and we exhausted ourselves in trying to guess what it was (a theologian even held that it might be “the naïveté of sin”). At the present time we ask: What is laughter? how does it arise? We have considered the point, and finally reached the conclusion that there is nothing which is good, beautiful, sublime, or evil in itself; but rather that there are conditions of soul which lead us to attribute such qualities to things outside ourselves and in us. We have taken back their predicates from things; or we have at all events recollected that we have merely lent the things these predicates. Let us be careful that this insight does not cause us to lose the faculty of lending, and that we do not become at the same time wealthier and more avaricious.
211.
To those who Dream of Immortality.—So you desire the everlasting perpetuity of this beautiful consciousness of yourselves? Is it not shameful? Do you forget all those other things which would in their turn have to support you for all eternity, just as they have borne with you up to the present with more than Christian patience? Or do you think that you can inspire them with an eternally pleasant feeling towards yourself? A single immortal man on earth would imbue everyone around him with such a disgust for him that a general epidemic of murder and suicide would be brought about. And yet, ye petty dwellers on earth, with your narrow conceptions of a few thousand little minutes of time, ye would wish to be an everlasting burden on this everlasting universal existence! Could anything be more impertinent? After all, however, let us be indulgent towards a being of seventy years: he has not been able to exercise his imagination in conceiving his own “eternal tediousness”—he had not time enough for that!
212.
Wherein we know Ourselves.—As soon as one animal sees another it mentally compares itself with it; and men of uncivilised ages did the same. The consequence is that almost all men come to know themselves only as regards their defensive and offensive faculties.
213.
Men whose Lives have been Failures.—Some men are built of such stuff that society is at liberty to do what it likes with them—they will do well in any case, and will not have to complain of having failed in life. Other men are formed of such peculiar material—it need not be a particularly noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to fare ill except in one single instance: when they can live according to their own designs,—in all other cases the injury has to be borne by society. For everything that seems to the individual to be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden of discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation, covetousness, is attributed by him to society—and thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is gradually formed round society, or, in the most favourable cases, a thundercloud.
214.
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