Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 6

OPEN CONTRADICTION OFTEN CONCILIATORY.-At the moment when a man openly makes known his difference of opinion from a well-known party leader, the whole world thinks that he must be angry with the latter. Sometimes, however, he is just on the point of ceasing to be angry with him. He ventures to put himself on the same plane as his opponent, and is free from the tortures of suppressed envy.

61.

SEEING OUR LIGHT SHINING.-In the darkest hour of depression, sickness, and guilt, we are still glad to see others taking a light from us and making use of us as of the disk of the moon. By this roundabout route we derive some light from our own illuminating faculty.

62.

FELLOWSHIP IN JOY.(5)-The snake that stings us means to hurt us and rejoices in so doing: the lowest animal can picture to itself the _pain_ of others. But to picture to oneself the _joy_ of others and to rejoice thereat is the highest privilege of the highest animals, and again, amongst them, is the property only of the most select specimens-accordingly a rare "human thing." Hence there have been philosophers who denied fellowship in joy.

63.

_Supplementary Pregnancy._-Those who have arrived at works and deeds are in an obscure way, they know not how, all the more pregnant with them, as if to prove supplementarily that these are their children and not those of chance.

64.

HARD-HEARTED FROM VANITY.-Just as justice is so often a cloak for weakness, so men who are fairly intelligent, but weak, sometimes attempt dissimulation from ambitious motives and purposely show themselves unjust and hard, in order to leave behind them the impression of strength.

65.

HUMILIATION.-If in a large sack of profit we find a single grain of humiliation we still make a wry face even at our good luck.

66.

EXTREME HEROSTRATISM.(6)-There might be Herostratuses who set fire to their own temple, in which their images are honoured.

67.

A WORLD OF DIMINUTIVES.-The fact that all that is weak and in need of help appeals to the heart induces in us the habit of designating by diminutive and softening terms all that appeals to our hearts-and accordingly _making_ such things weak and clinging to our imaginations.

68.

THE BAD CHARACTERISTIC OF SYMPATHY.-Sympathy has a peculiar impudence for its companion. For, wishing to help at all costs, sympathy is in no perplexity either as to the means of a.s.sistance or as to the nature and cause of the disease, and goes on courageously administering all its quack medicines to restore the health and reputation of the patient.

69.

IMPORTUNACY.-There is even an importunacy in relation to works, and the act of a.s.sociating oneself from early youth on an intimate footing with the ill.u.s.trious works of all times evinces an entire absence of shame.-Others are only importunate from ignorance, not knowing with whom they have to do-for instance cla.s.sical scholars young and old in relation to the works of the Greeks.

70.

THE WILL IS ASHAMED OF THE INTELLECT.-In all coolness we make reasonable plans against our pa.s.sions. But we make the most serious mistake in this connection in being often ashamed, when the design has to be carried out, of the coolness and calculation with which we conceived it. So we do just the unreasonable thing, from that sort of defiant magnanimity that every pa.s.sion involves.

71.

WHY THE SCEPTICS OFFEND MORALITY.-He who takes his morality solemnly and seriously is enraged against the sceptics in the domain of morals. For where he lavishes all his force, he wishes others to marvel but not to investigate and doubt. Then there are natures whose last shred of morality is just the belief in morals. They behave in the same way towards sceptics, if possible still more pa.s.sionately.

72.

SHYNESS.-All moralists are shy, because they know they are confounded with spies and traitors, so soon as their penchant is noticed. Besides, they are generally conscious of being impotent in action, for in the midst of work the motives of their activity almost withdraw their attention from the work.