No More Learning

CURIOUS SAINTs. — There are pusillanimous
people who have a bad opinion of everything that
r


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296 THE DAWN OF DAY.
is best in their works, and who at the same time
interpret and comment upon them badly: but also,
by a kind of revenge, they entertain a bad opinion
of the sympathy of others, and do not believe in
sympathy at all; they are ashamed to appear to
be carried away from themselves, and feel a defiant
comfort in appearing or becoming ridiculous. —
States of soul like these are to be found in melan-
choly artists.
385-
Vain People. —We are like shop-windows,
where we ourselves are constantly arranging, con-
cealing, or setting in the foreground those supposed
qualities which others attribute to us—in order to
deceive ourselves.
386.
Pathetic and Naive. —It may be a very
vulgar habit to let no opportunity slip of assuming
a pathetic air for the sake of the enjoyment to be
experienced in imagining the spectator striking his
breast and feeling himself to be small and miser-
able. Consequently it may also be the indication of
a noble mind to make fun of pathetic situations,
and to behave in an undignified manner in them.
The old, warlike nobility of France possessed that
kind of distinction and delicacy.
387-
A Reflection before Marriage. —Suppos-
ing she loved me, what a burden she would be to


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 297
me in the long run! and supposing that she did
not love me, what a much greater burden she would
be to me in the long run! We have to choose
between two different kinds of burdens; therefore
let us marry.
388.
Rascality with a good Conscience. —It is
exceedingly annoying to be cheated in small
bargains in certain countries,—in the Tyrol, for
example,—because, in addition to the bad bargain,
we are compelled to accept the evil countenance
and coarse greediness of the man who has cheated
us, together with his bad conscience and his hostile
feeling against us. At Venice, on the other hand,
the cheater is highly delighted at his successful
fraud, and is not in the least angry with the man
he has cheated—nay, he is even inclined to show
him some kindness, and above all to have a hearty
laugh with him if he likes. —In short, one must
possess wit and a good conscience in order to be
a knave, and this will almost reconcile the cheated
one with the cheat. *
389.
Rather too Awkward. —Good people who
are too awkward to be polite and amiable promptly
endeavour to return an act of politeness by an
important service, or by a contribution beyond their
power. It is touching to see them timidly pro-
* The case of that other witty Venetian, Casanova. —Tr.


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298 THE DAWN OF DAY.
ducing their gold coins when others have offered
them their gilded coppers!
390.
Hiding one's Intelligence. —When we sur-
prise some one in the act of hiding his intelligence
from us we call him evil: the more so if we sus-
pect that it is his civility and benevolence which
have induced him to do so.
391-
The Evil Moment. —Lively dispositions only
lie for a moment: after this they have deceived
themselves, and are convinced and honest.
392.
The Condition of Politeness. —Politeness
is a very good thing, and really one of the four
chief virtues (although the last), but in order that
it may not result in our becoming tiresome to one
another the person with whom I have to deal must
be either one degree more or less polite than I—
otherwise we should never get on, and the ointment
would not only anoint us, but would cement us
together.
393-
Dangerous Virtues. —" He forgets nothing,
but forgives everything"—wherefore he shall be
doubly detested, for he causes us double shame by
his memory and his magnanimity.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 299
394-
Without Vanity. —Passionate people think
little of what others may think; their state of mind
raises them above vanity.
395-
Contemplation. —In some thinkers the con-
templative state peculiar to a thinker is always the
consequence of a state of fear, in others always of
desire. In the former, contemplation thus seems
allied to the feeling of security, in the latter to the
feeling of surfeit—in other words, the former are
spirited in their mood, the latter over-satiated and
neutral.
396.
HUNTING. —The one is hunting for agreeable
truths, the other for disagreeable ones. But even
the former takes greater pleasure in the hunt than
in the booty.
397-
Education. —Education is a continuation of
procreation, and very often a kind of supplementary
varnishing of it.
398.
HOW TO RECOGNISE THE CHOLERIC. —Of two
persons who are struggling together, or who love
and admire one another, the more choleric will
always be at a disadvantage. The same remark
applies to two nations.


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300 THE DAWN OF DAY.
399-
Self-Excuse. — Many men have the best
possible right to act in this or that way; but as
soon as they begin to excuse their actions we no
longer believe that they are right—and we are
mistaken.
400.
Moral Pampering. —There are tender, moral
natures who are ashamed of all their successes and
feel remorse after every failure.
401.
Dangerous Unlearning. —We begin by un-
learning to love others, and end by finding nothing
lovable in ourselves.
402.
Another form of Toleration. —"To remain
a minute too long on red-hot coals and to be burnt
a little does no harm either to men or to chestnuts.
The slight bitterness and hardness makes the kernel
all the sweeter. "—Yes, this is your opinion, you
who enjoy the taste! You sublime cannibals!
403-
Different Pride. —Women turn pale at the
thought that their lover may not be worthy of them;
Men turn pale at the thought that they may not


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 301
be worthy of the women they love. I speak of per-
fect women, perfect men. Such men, who are self-re-
liant and conscious of power at ordinary times, grow
diffident and doubtful of themselves when under
the influence of a strong passion. Such women,
on the other hand, though always looking upon
themselves as the weak and devoted sex, become
proud and conscious of their power in the great
exception of passion,—they ask: "Who then is
worthy of me? "
404.
When we seldom do Justice. —Certain men
are unable to feel enthusiasm for a great and good
cause without committing a great injustice in some
other quarter: this is their kind of morality.
405.
Luxury. —The love of luxury is rooted in the
depths of a man's heart: it shows that the super-
fluous and immoderate is the sea wherein his soul
prefers to float.
406.
To Immortalise. —Let him who wishes to kill
his opponent first consider whether by doing so he
will not immortalise him in himself.
407.
Against our Character. —If the truth which
we have to utter goes against our character—as


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302
THE DAWN OF DAY.
very often happens—we behave as if we had uttered
a clumsy falsehood, and thus rouse suspicion.
408.
WHERE A GREAT DEAL OF GENTLENESS IS
NEEDED. -Many natures have only the choice of
being either public evil-doers or secret sorrow-
bearers.
409.
İLLNESS. —Among illness are to be reckoned the
premature approach of old age, ugliness, and pessi-
mistic opinions—three things that always go to-
gether.
410.
TIMID PEOPLE. —It is the awkward and timid
people who easily become murderers : they do not
understand slight but sufficient means of defence
or revenge, and their hatred, owing to their lack of
intelligence and presence of mind, can conceive of
no other expedient than destruction.
411.
WITHOUT HATRED. —You wish to bid farewell
to your passion ? Very well, but do so without
hatred against it! Otherwise you have a second
passion. —The soul of the Christian who has freed
himself from sin is generally ruined afterwards by
the hatred for sin. Just look at the faces of the
great Christians! they are the faces of great haters.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 303
412.
Ingenious and Narrow-Minded. —He can
appreciate nothing beyond himself, and when he
wishes to appreciate other people he must always
begin by transforming them into himself. In this,
however, he is ingenious.
413-
Private and Public Accusers. — Watch
closely the accuser and inquirer,—for he reveals
his true character; and it is not rare for this to be
a worse character than that of the victim whose
crime he is investigating. The accuser believes in
all innocence that the opponent of a crime and
criminal must be by nature of good character, or
at least must appear as such—and this is why he
lets himself go, that is to say, he drops his mask.
414.
Voluntary Blindness. —There is a kind of
enthusiastic and extreme devotion to a person or a
party which reveals that in our inmost hearts we feel
ourselves superior to this person or party, and for
this reason we feel indignant with ourselves. We
blind ourselves, as it were, of our own free will to
punish our eyes for having seen too much.
415.
Remedium Amoris That old radical remedy
for love is now in most cases as effective as it
always was: love in return.


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304 THE DAWN OF DAY.
416.
Where is our worst Enemy ? —He who can
look after his own affairs well, and knows that he
can do so, is as a rule conciliatory towards his
adversary. But to believe that we have right on
our side, and to know that we are incapable of
defending it—this gives rise to a fierce and im-
placable hatred against the opponent of our cause.
Let every one judge accordingly where his worst
enemies are to be sought.
417.
The Limits of all Humility. —Many men
may certainly have attained that humility which
says credo quia absurdum est, and sacrifices its
reason; but, so far as I know, not one has attained
to that humility which after all is only one step
further, and which says credo quia absurdus sum.
418.
Acting the Truth. —Many a man is truthful,
not because he would be ashamed to exhibit hypo-
critical feelings, but because he would not succeed
very well in inducing others to believe in his
hypocrisy. In a word, he has no confidence in
his talent as an actor, and therefore prefers honestly
to act the truth.
419.
Courage in a Party. —The poor sheep say to
their bell-wether: "Only lead us, and we shall never


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 305
lack courage to follow you. " But the poorbell-wether
thinks in his heart: "Only follow me, and I shall
never lack courage to lead you. "
420.
Cunning of the Victim. —What a sad cun-
ning there is in the wish to deceive ourselves with
respect to the person for whom we have sacrificed
ourselves,when we give him an opportunity in which
he must appear to us as we should wish him to be!
421.
THROUGH OTHERS. —There are men who do
not wish to be seen except through the eyes of
others: a wish which implies a great deal of
wisdom.
422.
Making Others Happy. —Why is the fact of
our making others happy more gratifying to us
than all other pleasures? —Because in so doing
we gratify fifty cravings at one time. Taken
separately they would, perhaps, be very small
pleasures; but when put into one hand, that
hand will be fuller than ever before—and the heart
also.
U


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## p. 307 (#413) ############################################

BOOK V.
423.
In the Great Silence. —Here is the sea, here
may we forget the town. It is true that its bells
are still ringing the Angelus—that solemn and
foolish yet sweet sound at the junction between
day and night,—but one moment more! now all
is silent. Yonder lies the ocean, pale and brilliant;
it cannot speak. The sky is glistening with its
eternal mute evening hues, red, yellow, and green:
it cannot speak. The small cliffs and rocks which
stretch out into the sea as if each one of them were
endeavouring to find the loneliest spot—they too
are dumb. Beautiful and awful indeed is this vast
silence, which so suddenly overcomes us and makes
our heart swell.
Alas! what deceit lies in this dumb beauty!
How well could it speak, and how evilly, too, if it
wished! Its tongue, tied up and fastened, and its
face of suffering happiness—all this is but malice,
mocking at your sympathy: be it so! I do not
feel ashamed to be the plaything of such powers!
but I pity thee, oh nature, because thou must be
silent, even though it be only malice that binds
thy tongue: nay, I pity thee for the sake of thy
malice 1


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308 THE DAWN OF DAY.
Alas! the silence deepens, and once again my
heart swells within me: it is startled by a fresh truth
—it, too,is dumb; it likewise sneers when the mouth
calls out something to this beauty; it also enjoys
the sweet malice of its silence. I come to hate
speaking; yea, even thinking. Behind every word
I utter do I not hear the laughter of error, imagina-
tion, and insanity? Must I not laugh at my pity
and mock my own mockery? Oh sea, oh evening,
ye are bad teachers! Ye teach man how to cease
to be a man. Is he to give himself up to you?
Shall he become asyou now are,pale, brilliant,dumb,
immense, reposing calmly upon himself? —exalted
above himself?
424.
For whom the Truth Exists. —Up to the
present time errors have been the power most fruit-
ful in consolations: we now expect the same effects
from accepted truths, and we have been waiting
rather too long for them. What if these truths could
not give us this consolation we are looking for?
Would that be an argument against them? What
have these truths in common with the sick condition
of suffering and degenerate men that they should be
useful to them? It is, of course, no proof against
the truth of a plant when it is clearly established
that it does not contribute in any way to the re-
covery of sick people. Formerly, however, people
were so convinced that man was the ultimate end
of nature that they believed that knowledge could
reveal nothing that was not beneficial and useful to


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 309
man—nay, there could not, should not be, any other
things in existence.
Perhaps all this leads to the conclusion that truth
as an entity and a coherent whole exists only for
those natures who, like Aristotle, are at once power-
ful and harmless, joyous and peaceful: just as none
but these would be in a position to seek such truths;
for the others seek remedies for themselves—-how-
ever proud they may be of their intellect and its
freedom, they do not seek truth. Hence it comes
about that these others take no real joy in science,
but reproach it for its coldness, dryness, and in-
humanity. This is the judgment of sick people
about the games of the healthy.
—Even the Greek
gods were unable to administer consolation; and
when at length the entire Greek world fell ill, this
was a reason for the destruction of such gods.
425.
We Gods IN Exile. —Owing to errors regard-
ing their descent, their uniqueness, their mission,
and by claims based upon these errors, men have
again and again "surpassed themselves"; but
through these same errors the world has been filled
with unspeakable suffering, mutual persecution,
suspicion, misunderstanding, and an even greater
amount of individual misery. Men have become
suffering creatures in consequence of their morals,
and the sum-total of what they have obtained by
those morals is simply the feeling that they are far
too good and great for this world, and that they are
enjoying merely a transitory existence on it. As


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3IO THE DAWN OF DAY.
yet the "proud sufferer" is the highest type of
mankind.
426.
The Colour-Blindness of Thinkers. —
How differently from us the Greeks must have
viewed nature, since, as we cannot help admitting,
they were quite colour-blind in regard to blue and
green, believing the former to be a deeper brown,and
the latter to be yellow. Thus, for instance, they
used the same word to describe the colour of dark
hair, of the corn-flower, and the southern sea; and
again they employed exactly the same expression
for the colour of the greenest herbs, the human skin,
honey, and yellow raisins: whence it follows that
their greatest painters reproduced the world they
lived in only in black, white, red, and yellow. How
different and how much nearer to mankind, there-
fore, must nature have seemed to them, since in their
eyes the tints of mankind predominated also in
nature, and nature was, as it were, floating in the
coloured ether of humanity! (blue and green more
than anything else dehumanise nature). It is this
defectwhich developed the playful facility that char-
acterised the Greeks of seeing the phenomena of
nature as gods and demi-gods—that is to say, as
human forms.
Let this, however, merely serve as a simile for
another supposition. Every thinker paints his world
and the things that surround him in fewer colours
than really exist, and he is blind to individual
colours. This is something more than a mere
deficiency. Thanks to this nearer approach and


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 311
simplification, he imagines he sees in things those
harmonies of colours which possess a great charm,
and may greatly enrich nature. Perhaps, indeed,
it was in this way that men first learnt to take de-
light in viewing existence, owing to its being first of
all presented to them in one or two shades, and con-
sequently harmonised. They practised these few
shades, so to speak, before they could pass on to
any more. And even now certain individuals en-
deavour to get rid of a partial colour-blindness that
they may obtain a richer faculty of sight and dis-
cernment, in the course of which they find that they
not only discover new pleasures, but are also obliged
to lose and give up some of their former ones.
427.
The Embellishment of Science. —In the
same way that the feeling that " nature is ugly, wild,
tedious—we must embellish it {embellir la nature)"
—brought about rococo horticulture, so does the
view that " science is ugly, difficult, dry, dreary and
weary, we must embellish it," invariably gives rise
to something called philosophy. This philosophy
sets out to do what all art and poetry endeavour
to do, viz. , giving amusement above all else; but it
wishes to do this, in conformity with its hereditary
pride, in a higher and more sublime fashion before
an audience of superior intellects. It is no small
ambition to create for these intellects a kind of
. horticulture, the principal charm of which—like that
of the usual gardening — is to bring about an
optical illusion (by means of temples, perspective,


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312 THE DAWN OF DAY.
grottos, winding walks, and waterfalls, to speak in
similes), exhibiting science in a condensed form and
in all kinds of strange and unexpected illuminations,
infusing into it as much indecision, irrationality,
and dreaminess as will enable us to walk about
in it "as in savage nature," but without trouble
and boredom.
Those who are possessed of this ambition even
dream of making religion superfluous—religion,
which amongmen of former timesserved as the high-
est kind of entertainment. All this is now running
its course, and will one day attain its highest tide.
Even now hostile voices are being raised against
philosophy, exclaiming: "Return to science, to
nature, and the naturalness of science ! " and thus
an age may begin which may discover the most
powerful beauty precisely in the " savage and ugly"
domains of science, just as it is only since the time
of Rousseau that we have discovered the sense for
the beauty of high mountains and deserts.
428.
Two Kinds of Moralists. —To see a law of
nature for the first time, and to see it whole (for
example, the law of gravity or the reflection of light
and sound), and afterwards to explain such a law,
are two different things and concern different classes
of minds. I n the same way, those moralists who ob-
serve and exhibit human laws and habits—moralists
with discriminating ears, noses, and eyes—differ
entirely from those who interpret their observa-
tions. These latter must above all be inventive, and


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 313
must possess an imagination untrammelled by
sagacity and knowledge.
429.
THE NEW PASSION. —Why do we fear and dread
a possible return to barbarism? Is it because it
would make people less happy than they are now?
Certainly not! the barbarians of all ages possessed
more happiness than we do: let us not deceive our-
selves on this point! —but our impulse towards
knowledge is too widely developed to allow us to
value happiness without knowledge, or the happi-
ness of a strong and fixed delusion: it is painful to
us even to imagine such a state of things! Our
restless pursuit of discoveries and divinations has
become for us as attractive and indispensable as
hapless love to the lover, which on no account would
he exchange for indifference,—nay, perhaps we, too,
are hapless lovers! Knowledge within us has de-
veloped into a passion, which does not shrink from
any sacrifice, and at bottom fears nothing but its
own extinction. We sincerely believe that all
humanity, weighed down as it is by the burden of
this passion, are bound to feel more exalted and
comforted than formerly, when they had not yet
overcome the longing for the coarser satisfaction
which accompanies barbarism.
It may be that mankind may perish eventually
from this passion for knowledge! —but even that
does not daunt us. Did Christianity ever shrink
from a similar thought? Are not love and death
brother and sister? Yes, we detest barbarism,—
'


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314 THE DAWN OF DAY.
we all prefer that humanity should perish rather
than that knowledge should enter into a stage of
retrogression. And, finally, if mankind does not
perish through some passion it will perish through
some weakness: which would we prefer? This is
the main question. Do we wish its end to be in
fire and light, or in the sands?
430.
Likewise Heroic. —To do things of the worst
possible odour, things of which we scarcely dare
to speak, but which are nevertheless useful and
necessary, is also heroic. The Greeks were not
ashamed of numbering even the cleansing of a
stable among the great tasks of Hercules.
431-
The Opinions of Opponents. —In order to
measure the natural subtlety or weakness of even
the cleverest heads, we must consider the manner
in which they take up and reproduce the opinions
of their adversaries, for the natural measure of
any intellect is thereby revealed. The perfect sage
involuntarily idealises his opponent and frees his
inconsistencies from all defects and accidentalities:
he only takes up arms against him when he has
thus turned his opponent into a god with shining
weapons.
432.
Investigator and Attempter. —There is no
exclusive method of knowing in science. We must


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 315
deal with things tentatively, treating them by turns
harshly or justly,passionately or coldly. One investi-
gator deals with things like a policeman,another like
a confessor, and yet a third like an inquisitive travel-
ler. We force something from them now by sym-
pathy and now by violence: the one is urged onward
and led to see clearly by the veneration which the
secrets of the things inspire in him, and the other
again by the indiscretion and malice met with in
the explanation of these secrets. We investigators,
like all conquerors, explorers, navigators, and ad-
venturers, are men of a daring morality, and we
must put up with our liability to be in the main
looked upon as evil.
433-
Seeing with new Eyes. —Presuming that by
the term "beauty in art" is always implied the
imitation of something that is happy—and this I
consider to be true—according as an age or a
people or a great autocratic individuality re-
presents happiness: what then is disclosed by the
so-called realism of our modern artists in regard to
the happiness of our epoch? It is undoubtedly its
type of beauty which we now understand most
easily and enjoy best of any. As a consequence,
we are induced to believe that this happiness which
is now peculiar to us is based on realism, on the
sharpest possible senses, and on the true conception
of the actual—that is to say, not upon reality, but
upon what we know of reality. The results of
science have already gained so much in depth and
extent that the artists of our century have involun-
f


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316 THE DAWN OF DAY.
tarily become the glorifiers of scientific "blessings"
per se.
434-
INTERCEssION. —Unpretentious regions are sub-
jects for great landscape painters; remarkable and
rare regions for inferior painters: for the great things
of nature and humanity must intercede in favour of
their little, mediocre, and vain admirers—whereas
the great man intercedes in favour of unassuming
things.
435-
Not to perish unnoticed. —It is not only
once but continuously that our excellence and
greatness are constantly crumbling away; the
weeds that grow among everything and cling to
everything ruin all that is great in us—the wretched-
ness of our surroundings, which we always try to
overlook and which is before our eyes at every hour
of the day, the innumerable little roots of mean and
petty feelings which we allow to grow up all about
us, in our office, among our companions, or our
daily labours. If we permit these small weeds to
escape our notice we shall perish through them un-
noticed ! —And, if you must perish, then do so im-
mediately and suddenly; for in that case you will
perhaps leave proud ruins behind you! and not, as
is now to be feared, merely molehills, covered with
grass and weeds—these petty and miserable con-
querors, as humble as ever, and too wretched even
to triumph.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 317
436.
Casuistic. —We are confronted with a very
bitter and painful dilemma, for the solution of which
not every one's bravery and character are equal:
when, as passengers on board a steamer, we dis-
cover that the captain and the helmsman are making
dangerous mistakes, and that we are their superiors in
nautical science—and then we askourselves: "What
would happen if we organised a mutiny against
them, and made them both prisoners? Is it not
our duty to do so in view of our superiority? and
would not they in their turn be justified in putting
us in irons for encouraging disobedience? "
This is a simile for higher and worse situations;
and the final question to be decided is, What
guarantees our superiority and our faith in ourselves
in such a case? Success? but in order to do that
we must do the very thing in which all the danger
lies—not only dangerous for ourselves, but also for
the ship.
437-
Privileges. —The man who really owns himself,
that is to say, he who has finally conquered him-
self, regards it as his own right to punish, to
pardon, or to pity himself: he need not concede this
privilege to any one, though he may freely bestow
it upon some one else—a friend, for example—but
he knows that in doing this he is conferring a right,
and that rights can only be conferred by one who
is in full possession of power.


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318 THE DAWN OF DAY.
438.
MAN And THINGs. —Why does the man not see
the things? He himself is in the way: he con-
ceals the things.
439-
Characteristics of Happiness. —There are
two things common to all sensations of happiness:
a profusion of feelings, accompanied by animal
spirits, so that, like the fishes, we feel ourselves to
be in our element and play about in it. Good
Christians will understand what Christian exuber-
ance means.
440.
Never Renounce. —Renouncing the world
without knowing it, like a nun, results in a fruitless
and perhaps melancholy solitude. This has nothing
in common with the solitude of the vita contem-
plativa of the thinker: when he chooses this form
of solitude he wishes to renounce nothing; but he
would on the contrary regard it as a renunciation,
a melancholy destruction of his own self, if he were
obliged to continue in the vita practica. He for-
goes this latter because he knows it, because he
knows himself. So he jumps into his water, and
thus gains his cheerfulness.
441.
Why the nearest Things become ever
more distant FOR Us. —The more we give up


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 319
our minds to all that has been and will be, the paler
will become that which actually is. When we live
with the dead and participate in their death, what are
our " neighbours " to us? We grow lonelier simply
because the entire flood of humanity is surging
round about us. The fire that burns within us, and
glows for all that is human, is continually increasing
—and hence we look upon everything that sur-
rounds us as if it had become more indifferent, more
shadowy,—but our cold glance is offensive.
442.
The Rule. —" The rule always appears to me to
be more interesting than the exception "—whoever
thinks thus has made considerable progress in
knowledge, and is one of the initiated.
443-
On Education. —I have gradually come to see
daylight in regard to the most general defect in
our methods of education and training: nobody
learns, nobody teaches, nobody wishes, to endure
solitude.
444.
Surprise at Resistance. —Because we have
reached the point of being able to see through a
thing we believe that henceforth it can offer us no
further resistance—and then we are surprised to
find that we can see through it and yet cannot pene-
■


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320 THE DAWN OF DAY.
trate through it. This is the same kind of foolish-
ness and surprise as that of the fly on a pane of
glass.
445-
Where the Noblest are Mistaken. —We
give some one at length our dearest and most valued
possession, and then love has nothing more to give:
but the recipient of the gift will certainly not con-
sider it as his dearest possession, and will conse-
quently be wanting in that full and complete grati-
tude which we expect from him.
446.
HIERARCHY. —First and foremost, there are the
superficial thinkers, and secondly the profound
thinkers—such as dive into the depths of a thing,—
thirdly,the thorough thinkers, who get to the bottom
of a thing—which is of much greater importance
than merely diving into its depths,—and, finally,
those who leap head foremost into the marsh:
though this must not be looked upon as indicating
either depth or thoroughness! these are the lovers
of obscurity. *
447-
MASTER And PUPIl. —By cautioning his pupils
against himself the teacher shows his humanity.
* The play upon the words griindlich (thorough) thinkers,
and Untergriindlichen (lit. those underground) cannot be
rendered in English. —Tr.


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THE DAWN OF DAY. 321
448.
Honouring Reality. —How can we look at
this exulting multitude without tears and acqui-
escence? at one time we thought little of the object
of their exultation, and we should still think so if
we ourselves had not come through a similar experi-
ence. And what may these experiences lead us to!
what are our opinions! In order that we may not
lose ourselves and our reason we must fly from
experiences. It was thus that Plato fled from actu-
ality, and wished to contemplate things only in their
pale mental concepts: he was full of sensitiveness,
and knew how easily the waves of this sensitiveness
would drown his reason. —Must the sage therefore
say, " I will honour reality, but I will at the same
time turn my back to it because I know and dread
it? " Ought he to behave as certain African tribes
do in the presence of their sovereign, whom they
approach backwards, thus showing their reverence
at the same time as their dread?
449.
Where are the poor in Spirit? —Oh,how
greatly it goes against my grain to impose my
own thoughts upon others! How I rejoice over
every mood and secret change within me as the
result of which the thoughts of others are victorious
over my own! but from time to time I enjoy an
even greater satisfaction, when I am allowed to
give away my intellectual possessions, like the
confessor sitting in his box and anxiously awaiting
X


## p. 322 (#428) ############################################

322 THE DAWN OF DAY.
the arrival of some distressed person who stands
in need of consolation, and will be only too glad to
relate the full misery of his thoughts so that the
listener's hand and heart will once again be filled,
and the troubled soul eased! Not only has the
confessor no desire for renown: he would fain shun
gratitude as well, for it is obtrusive, and does not
stand in awe of solitude or silence.
But to live without a name, and even to be
slightly sneered at; too obscure to arouse envy or
enmity; with a head free from fever, a handful
of knowledge, and a pocketful of experience; a
physician, as it were, of the poor in spirit, help-
ing this one or that one whose head is troubled with
opinions, without the latter perceiving who has
actually helped him! without any desire to appear
to be in the right in the presence of his patient, or
to carry off a victory. To speak to him in such a
way that, after a short and almost imperceptible
hint or objection, the listener may find out for him-
self what is right and proudly walk away! To be
like an obscure and unknown inn which turns no one
away who is in need, but which is afterwards for-
gotten and laughed at! To be without any advan-
tages over others—neither possessing better food
nor purer air, nor a more cheerful mind—but always
to be giving away, returning, communicating, and
becoming poorer! To know how to be humble in
order to be accessible to many people and humili-
ating to none! To take a great deal of injustice
on his shoulders and creep through the cracks and
crannies of all kinds of errors, in order that we may
reach many obscure souls on their secret paths!


## p. 323 (#429) ############################################

THE DAWN OF DAY.
323
star
that
ever in possession of some kind of love, and some
kind of egoism and self-enjoyment! in possession
of power, and yet at the same time hidden and
resigned ! constantly basking in the sunshine and
sweetness of grace, and yet knowing that quite near
to us stands the ladder leading to the sublime ! -
that would be life! that would indeed be a reason
for a long life!
has de
Des me
450.
THE TEMPTATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. — A
glance through the gate of science acts upon
passionate spirits as the charm of charms: they will
probably become dreamers, or in the most favour-
able cases poets, so great is their desire for the
happiness of the man who can discern. Does it not
enter into all your senses, this note of sweet tempta-
tion by which science has announced its joyful
message in a thousand ways, and in the thousand
and first way, the noblest of all, “Begone, illusion !
for then 'Woe is me' also vanished, and with it woe
itself is gone” (Marcus Aurelius).
451.
FOR WHOM A COURT JESTER IS NEEDFUL. -
Those who are very beautiful, very good, and very
powerful scarcely ever learn the full and naked truth
about anything,—for in their presence we involun-
tarily lie a little, because we feel their influence, and
in view of this influence convey a truth in the form
of an adaptation (by falsifying the shades and


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314
THE DAWN OF DAY.
we all prefer that humanity should perish rather
than that knowledge should enter into a stage of
retrogression. And, finally, if mankind does not
perish through some passion it will perish through
some weakness : which would we prefer? This is
the main question. Do we wish its end to be in
fire and light, or in the sands ?
430.
LIKEWISE HEROIC. --To do things of the worst
possible odour, things of which we scarcely dare
to speak, but which are nevertheless useful and
necessary, is also heroic.