No More Learning

242.
The Art of Excusing Oneself. —If some one
excuses himself to us, he has to make out a very


## p. 318 (#366) ############################################

318 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
good case, otherwise we readily come to feel our-
selves the culprits, and experience an unpleasant
emotion.
243-
Impossible Intercourse. —The ship of your
thoughts goes too deep for you to be able to travel
with it in the waters of these friendly, decorous,
obliging people. There are too many shallows and
sandbanks: you would have to tack and turn, and
would find yourself continually at your wits' end,
and they would soon also be in perplexity as to
your perplexity, the reason for which they cannot
divine.
244.
The Fox of Foxes. —A true fox not only calls
sour the grapes he cannot reach, but also those he
has reached and snatched from the grasp of others.
245.
In Intimate Intercourse. —However closely
men are connected, there are still all the four
quarters of the heavens in their common horizon,
and at times they become aware of this fact.
246.
The Silence of Disgust. —Behold! some one
undergoes a thorough and painful transformation
as thinker and human being, and makes a public
avowal of the change. And those who hear him
see nothing, and still believe he is the same as
before! This common experience has already dis-


## p. 319 (#367) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 319
gusted many writers. They had rated the intel-
lectuality of mankind too highly, and made a vow
to be silent as soon as they became aware of their
mistake.
247.
Business Seriousness. —The business of many
rich and eminent men is their form of recreation
from too long periods of habitual leisure. They then
become as serious and impassioned as other people
do in their rare moments of leisure and amusement.
248.
The Eye's Double Sense. —Just as a sudden
scaly ripple runs over the waters at your feet, so
there are similar sudden uncertainties and ambigu-
ities in the human eye. They lead to the question:
is it a shudder, or a smile, or both?
249.
Positive and Negative. —This thinker needs
no one to refute him—he is quite capable of doing
that himself.
250.
The Revenge of the Empty Nets. —Above
all we should beware of those who have the bitter
feeling of the fisherman who after a hard day's work
comes home in the evening with nets empty.
251.
Non-Assertion ofour Rights. —The exertion
of power is laborious and demands courage. That


## p. 320 (#368) ############################################

320 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
«*■
is why so many do not assert their most valid rights,
because their rights are a kind of power, and they
are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise them. In-
dulgence and patience are the names given to the
virtues that cloak these faults.
252.
Bearers OF Light. —In Society there would be
no sunshine if the born flatterers (I mean the so-
called amiable people) did not bring some in with
them.
253-
When most Benevolent. —When a man has
been highly honoured and has eaten a little, he is
most benevolent.
254.
To THE Light. —Men press forward to the light
not in order to see better but to shine better. —The
person before whom we shine we gladly allow to
be called a light.
255.
The Hypochondriac. —The hypochondriac is a
man who has just enough intellect and pleasure in
the intellect to take his sorrows, his losses, and his
mistakes seriously. But the field on which he grazes
is too small: he crops it so close that in the end he
has to look for single stalks. Thus he finally be-
comes envious and avaricious—and only then is he
unbearable.
256.
Giving in Return. —Hesiod advises us to give
the neighbour who has helped us good measure and,


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 321
if possible, fuller measure in return, as soon as we
have the power. For this is where the neighbour's
pleasure comes in, since his former benevolence brings
him interest. Moreover, he who gives in return also
has his pleasure, inasmuch as, by giving a little
more than he got, he redeems the slight humilia-
tion of being compelled to seek aid.
257.
More Subtle than is Necessary. —Our sense
of observation for how far others perceive our weak-
nesses is far more subtle than our sense of obser-
vation for the weaknesses of others. It follows that
the first-named sense is more subtle than is neces-
sary.
258.
A Kind of Bright Shadows. —Close to the
nocturnal type of man we almost regularly find, as
if bound up with him, a bright soul. This is, as it
were, the negative shadow cast by the former.
. 259.
Not to take Revenge. —There are so many
subtle sorts of revenge that one who has occasion
to take revenge can really do or omit to do what he
likes. In any case, the whole world will agree, after
a time, that he has avenged himself. Hence the
avoidance of revenge is hardly within man's power.
He must not even so much as say that he does not
want to do so, since the contempt for revenge is
interpreted and felt as a sublime and exquisite form
of revenge. —It follows that we must do nothing
superfluous.


## p. 322 (#370) ############################################

322 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
260.
The Mistake of Those who Pay Homage. —
Every one thinks he is paying a most agreeable com-
pliment to a thinker when he says that he himself
hit upon exactly the same idea and even upon the
same expression. The thinker, however, is seldom
delighted at hearing such news, nay, rather, he often
becomes distrustful of his own thoughts and ex-
pressions. He silently resolves to revise both some
day. If we wish to pay homage to any one, we
must beware of expressing our agreement, for this
puts us on the same level. —Often it is a matter of
social tact to listen to an opinion as if it were not
ours or even travelled beyond the limits of our own
horizon—as, for example, when an old man once in
a while opens the storehouse of his acquired know-
ledge.
261.
Letters. —A letter is an unannounced visit, and
the postman is the intermediary of impolite surprises.
Every week we ought to have one hour for receiving
letters, and then go and take a bath.
262.
PREJUDICED. —Some one said: I have been pre-
judiced against myself from childhood upwards, and
hence I find some truth in every censure and some
absurdity in every eulogy. Praise I generally value
too low and blame too high.


## p. 323 (#371) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 323
263.
The Path to Equality. — A few hours of
mountain-climbing make a blackguard and a saint
two rather similar creatures. Weariness is the
shortestt"path to equality and fraternity—and finally
liberty is bestowed by sleep.
264.
CALUMNy. —If we begin to trace to its source a
real scandalous misrepresentation, we shall rarely
look for its origin in our honourable and straight-
forward enemies; for if they invented anything of
the sort about us, they, as being our enemies, would
gain no credence. Those, however, to whom for
a time we have been most useful, but who, from
some reason or other, may be secretly sure that they
will obtain no more from us—such persons are in a
position to start the ball of slander rolling. They
gain credence, firstly, because it is assumed that they
would invent nothing likely to do them damage;
secondly, because they have learnt to know us
intimately. —As a consolation, the much-slandered
man may say to himself: Calumnies are diseases of
others that break out in your body. They prove
that Society is a (moral) organism, so that you can
prescribe to yourself \he cure that will in the end be
useful to others.
265.
The Child's Kingdom of Heaven. — The
happiness of a child is as much of a myth as the
happiness of the Hyperboreans of whom the Greeks


## p. 324 (#372) ############################################

324 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
fabled. The Greeks supposed that, if indeed happi-
ness dwells anywhere on our earth, it must certainly
dwell as far as possible from us, perhaps over yonder
at the edge of the world. Old people have the same
thought—if man is at all capable of being happy,
he must be happy as far as possible from our age,
at the frontiers and beginnings of life. For many
a man the sight of children, through the veil of this
myth, is the greatest happiness that he can feel. He
enters himself into the forecourt of heaven when
he says, "Suffer the little children to come unto
me, for of them is the kingdom of heaven. " The
myth of the child's kingdom of heaven holds good,
in some way or other, wherever in the modern
world some sentimentality exists.
266.
The Impatient. —It is just the growing man
who does not want things in the growing stage.
He is too impatient for that. The youth will not
wait until, after long study, suffering, and privation,
his picture of men and things is complete. Ac-
cordingly, he confidently accepts another picture
that lies ready to his hand and is recommended to
him, and pins his faith to that, as if it must give
him at once the lines and colours of his own paint-
ing. He presses a philosopher or a poet to his
bosom, and must from that time forth perform long
stretches of forced labour and renounce his own
self. He learns much in the process, but he often
forgets what is most worth learning and know-
ing—his self. He remains all his life a partisan.


## p. 325 (#373) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 325
Ah, a vast amount of tedious work has to be done
before you find your own colours, your own brush,
your own canvas! —Even then you are very far
from being a master in the art of life, but at least
you are the boss in your own workshop.
267.
There are no Teachers. —As thinkers we
ought only to speak of self-teaching. The instruc-
tion of the young by others is either an experiment
performed upon something as yet unknown and
unknowable, or else a thorough levelling process,
in order to make the new member of society con-
form to the customs and manners that prevail for
the time being. In both cases the result is accord-
ingly unworthy of a thinker—the handiwork of
parents and teachers, whom some valiantly honest
person* has called "nos ennemis naturels. " One
day, when, as the world thinks, we have long since
finished our education, we discover ourselves. Then
begins the task of the thinker, and then is the time
to summon him to our aid—not as a teacher, but
as a self-taught man who has experience.
268.
Sympathy with Youth. —We are sorry when
we hear that some one who is still young is losing
his teeth or growing blind. If we knew all the irre-
vocable and hopeless feelings hidden in his whole
being, how great our sorrow would be! Why do
* Stendhal. —Tr.


## p. 326 (#374) ############################################

326 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
we really suffer on this account? Because youth
has to continue the work we have undertaken, and
every flaw and failing in its strength is likely to
injure our work, that will fall into its hands. It is
the sorrow at the imperfect guarantee of our im-
mortality: or, if we only feel ourselves as executors
of the human mission, it is the sorrow that this
mission must pass to weaker hands than ours.
269.
- The Ages of Life. —The comparison of the
four ages of life with the four seasons of the year
is a venerable piece of folly. Neither the first
twenty nor the last twenty years of a life correspond
to a season of the year, assuming that we are not
satisfied with drawing a parallel between white hair
and snow and similar colour-analogies. The first
twenty years are a preparation for life in general,
for the whole year of life, a sort of long New Year's
Day. The last twenty review, assimilate, bring into
union and harmony all that has been experienced
till then: as, in a small degree, we do on every
New Year's Eve with the whole past year. But in
between there really lies an interval which suggests
a comparison with the seasons—the time from the
twentieth to the fiftieth year (to speak here of de-
cades in the lump, while it is an understood thing
that every one must refine for himself these rough
outlines). Those three decades correspond to three
seasons—summer, spring, and autumn. Winter
human life has none, unless we like to call the (un-
fortunately) often intervening hard, cold, lonely,


## p. 327 (#375) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 327
hopeless, unfruitful periods of disease the winters
of man. The twenties, hot, oppressive, stormy,
impetuous, exhausting years, when we praise the
day in the evening, when it is over, as we wipe the
sweat from our foreheads—years in which work
seems to us cruel but necessary—these twenties are
the summer of life. The thirties, on the other hand,
are its spring-time, with the air now too warm, now
too cold, ever restless and stimulating, bubbling sap,
bloom of leaves, fragrance of buds everywhere, many
delightful mornings and evenings, work to which the
song of birds awakens us, a true work of the heart,
a kind of joy in our own robustness, strengthened
by the savour of hopeful anticipation. Lastly the
forties, mysterious like all that is stationary, like a
high, broad plateau, traversed by a fresh breeze, with
a clear, cloudless sky above it, which always has the
same gentle look all day and half the night—the
time of harvest and cordial gaiety—that is the
autumn of life.
270.
Women's Intellect in Modern Society. —
What women nowadays think of men's intellect
may be divined from the fact that in their art of
adornment they think of anything but of empha-
sising the intellectual side of their faces or their
single intellectual features. On the contrary, they
conceal such traits, and understand, for example
by an arrangement of their hair over their fore-
head, how to give themselves an appearance of vivid,
eager sensuality and materialism, just when they
but slightly possess those qualities. Their convic-


## p. 328 (#376) ############################################

328
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
tion that intellect in women frightens men goes so
far that they even gladly deny the keenness of the
most intellectual sense and purposely invite the
reputation of short-sightedness. They think they
will thereby make men more confiding. It is as if a
soft, attractive twilight were spreading itself around
them.
271.
GREAT AND TRANSITORY. —What moves the ob-
server to tears is the rapturous look of happiness
with which a fair young bride gazes upon her
husband. We feel all the melancholy of autumn
in thinking of the greatness and of the transitori-
ness of human happiness.
272.
SENSE AND SACRIFICE. —Many a woman has the
intelletto del sacrifizio,* and no longer enjoys life
when her husband refuses to sacrifice her. With
all her wit, she then no longer knows—whither?
and without perceiving it, is changed from sacri-
ficial victim to sacrificial priest.
273.
THE UNFEMININE. —“Stupid as a man,” say the
women; “Cowardly as a woman," say the men.
Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine.
274.
MASCULINE AND FEMININE TEMPERAMENT AND
MORTALITY. — That the male sex has a worse
*A transposition of sacrifizio dell intelletto, the Jesuit
maxim. —TR.


## p. 329 (#377) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 329
temperament than the female follows from the fact
that male children have a greater mortality than
female, clearly because they "leap out of their
skins" more easily. Their wildness and unbear-
ableness soon make all the bad stuff in them deadly.
275.
The Age of Cyclopean Building. —The de-
mocratisation of Europe is a resistless force. Even
he who would stem the tide uses those very means
that democratic thought first put into men's hands,
and he makes these means more handy and work-
able.
The most inveterate enemies of democracy
(I mean the spirits of upheaval) seem only to exist
in order, by the fear that they inspire, to drive for-
ward the different parties faster and faster on the
democratic course. Now we may well feel sorry
for those who are working consciously and honour-
ably for this future. There is something dreary and
monotonous in their faces, and the grey dust seems
to have been wafted into their very brains. Never-
theless, posterity may possibly some day laugh at
our anxiety,and seein the democraticwork of several
generations what we see in the building of stone
dams and walls—an activity that necessarily covers
clothes and face with a great deal of dust, and
perhaps unavoidably makes the workmen, too, a
little dull-witted; but who would on that account
desire such work undone? It seems that the de-
mocratisation of Europe is a link in the chain of
those mighty prophylactic principles which are the
thought of the modern era, and whereby we rise up


## p. 330 (#378) ############################################

33° HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
in revolt against the Middle Ages. Now, and now
only, is the age of Cyclopean building! A final
security in the foundations, that the future may
build on them without danger! Henceforth, an
impossibility of the orchards of culture being once
more destroyed overnight by wild, senseless moun-
tain torrents! Dams and walls against barbarians,
against plagues, against physical and spiritual serf-
dom! And all this understood at first roughly and
literally, but gradually in an ever higher and more
spiritual sense, so that all the principles here indi-
cated may appear as the intellectual preparation of
the highest artist in horticulture, who can only apply
himself to his own task when the other is fully ac-
complished! —True, if we consider the long intervals
of time that here lie between means and end, the
great, supreme labour, straining the powers and
brains of centuries, that is necessary in order to
create or to provide each individual means, we must
not bear too hardly upon the workers of the present
when they loudly proclaim that the wall and the
fence are already the end and the final goal. After
all, no one yet sees the gardener and the fruit, for
whose sake the fence exists.
276.
The Right of Universal Suffrage. —The
people has not granted itself universal suffrage but,
wherever this is now in force, it has received and
accepted it as a temporary measure. But in any
case the people has the right to restore the gift, if
it does not satisfy its anticipations. This dissatis-


## p. 331 (#379) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 331
faction seems universal nowadays, for when, at any
occasion where the vote is exercised, scarce two-
thirds, nay perhaps not even the majority of all
voters, go to the polls, that very fact is a vote against
the whole suffrage system. —On this point, in fact,
we must pronounce a much sterner verdict. A law
that enacts that the majority shall decide as to the
welfare of all cannot be built up on the foundation
that it alone has provided, for it is bound to require
a far broader foundation, namely the unanimity of
all. Universal suffrage must not only be the expres-
sion of thewillof a majority, but of the whole country.
Thus the dissent of a very small minority is already
enough to set aside the system as impracticable;
and the abstention from voting is in fact a dissent
of this kind, which ruins the whole institution. The
"absolute veto" of the individual, or—not to be too
minute—the veto of a few thousands, hangs over the
system as the consequence of justice. On every oc-
casion when it is employed, the system must, accord-
ing to the variety of the division, first prove that it
has still a right to exist.
277.
False Conclusions. —What false conclusions
are drawn in spheres where we are not at home,
even by those of us who are accustomed as men of
science to draw right conclusions! It is humiliat-
ing! Now it is clear that in the great turmoil of
worldly doings, in political affairs, in all sudden and
urgent matters such as almost every day brings up,
these false conclusions must decide. For no one


## p. 332 (#380) ############################################

332 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
feels at home with novelties that have sprung up in
the night . All political work, even with great states-
men, is an improvisation that trusts to luck.
278.
Premisses of the Age of Machinery. —The
press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are
premisses of which no one has yet dared to draw
the conclusions that will follow in a thousand years.
279.
A Drag upon Culture. —When we are told that
here men have no time for productive occupations,
because military manoeuvres and processions take
up their days, and the rest of the population must
feed and clothe them, their dress, however, being
striking, often gay and full of absurdities; that there
only a few distinguished qualities are recognised,
individuals resemble each other more than elsewhere,
or at any rate are treated as equals, yet obedience
is exacted and yielded without reasoning, for men
command and make no attempt to convince; that
here punishments are few, but these few cruel and
likely to become the final and most terrible; that
there treason ranks as the capital offence, and even
the criticism of evils is only ventured on by the most
audacious; that there, again, human life is cheap,
and ambition often takes the form of setting life in
danger—when we hear all this, we at once say, "This
is a picture of a barbarous society that rests on a
hazardous footing. " One man perhaps will add, " It
is a portrait of Sparta. " But another will become


## p. 333 (#381) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 333
meditative and declare that this is a description of
our modern military system, as it exists in the midst
of our altogether different culture and society, a
living anachronism, the picture, as above said, of a
community resting on a hazardous footing; a post-
humous work of the past, which can only act as a
drag upon the wheels of the present. —Yet at times
even a drag upon culture is vitally necessary—that
is to say, when culture is advancing too rapidly
downhill or (as perhaps in this case) uphill.
280.
More Reverence for Them that Know. —
In the competition of production and sale the public
is made judge of the product. But the public has
no special knowledge, and judges by the appearance
of the wares. In consequence, the art of appearance
(and perhaps the taste for it) must increase under the
dominance of competition, while on the other hand
the quality of every product must deteriorate. The
result will be—so far as reason does not fall in value
—that one day an end will be put to that competi-
tion, and a new principle will win the day. Only
the master of the craft should pronounce a verdict
on the work, and the public should be dependent on
the belief in the personality of the judge and his
honesty. Accordingly, no anonymous work! At
least an expert should be there as guarantor and
pledge his name if the name of the creator is lack-
ing or is unknown. The cheapness of an article
is for the layman another kind of illusion and de-
ceit, since only durability can decide that a thing


## p. 334 (#382) ############################################

334 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
is cheap and to what an extent. But it is difficult,
and for a layman impossible, to judge of its dura-
bility. —Hence that which produces an effect on the
eye and costs little at present gains the advantage
—this being naturally machine-made work. Again,
machinery—that is to say, the cause of the greatest
rapidity and facility in production—favours the most
saleable kind of article. Otherwise it involves no
tangible profit; it would be too little used and
too often stand idle. But as to what is most sale-
able, the public, as above said, decides: it must be
the most exchangeable—in other words, the thing
that appears good and also appears cheap. Thus
in the domain of labour our motto must also hold
good: "More respect for them that know! "
281.
The Danger of Kings. —Democracy has it in
its power, without any violent means, and only by
a lawful pressure steadily exerted, to make kingship
and emperorship hollow, until only a zero remains,
perhaps with the significance of every zero in that,
while nothing in itself, it multiplies a number ten-
fold if placed on the right side. Kingship and em-
perorship would remain a gorgeous ornament upon
the simple and appropriate dress of democracy, a
beautiful superfluity that democracy allows itself,
a relic of all the historically venerable, primitive or-
naments, nay the symbol of history itself, and in
this unique position a highly effective thing if, as
above said, it does not stand alone, but is put on the
right side. —In order to avoid the danger of this


## p. 335 (#383) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 335
nullification, kings hold by their teeth to their dig-
nity as war-lords. To this end they need wars, or
in other words exceptional circumstances, in which
that slow, lawful pressure of the democratic forces
is relaxed.
282.
The Teacher a Necessary Evil. — Let us
have as few people as possible between the pro-
ductive minds and the hungry and recipient minds!
The middlemen almost unconsciously adulterate the
food which they supply. For their work as middle-
men they want too high a fee for themselves, and
this is drawn from the original, productive spirits
—namely, interest, admiration, leisure, money, and
other advantages. —Accordingly, we should always
look upon the teacher as a necessary evil, just like
the merchant; as an evil that we should make as
small as possible. —Perhaps the prevailing distress
in Germany has its main cause in the fact that too
many wish to live and live well by trade (in other
words, desiring as far as possible to diminish prices
for the producer and raise prices for the consumer,
and thus to profit by the greatest possible loss to
both). In the same way, we may certainly trace a
main cause of the prevailing intellectual poverty in
the superabundance of teachers. It is because of
teachers that so little is learnt, and that so badly.
283.
The Tax of Homage. —Him whom we know
and honour,—be he physician, artist, or artisan,—
who does and produces something for us, we gladly


## p. 336 (#384) ############################################

33<S HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
pay as highly as we can, often a fee beyond oar
means. On the other hand, we pay the unknown
as low a price as possible; here is a contest in which
every one struggles and makes others struggle for a
foot's breadth of land. In the work of the known
there is something that cannot be bought, the senti-
ment and ingenuity put into his work for our own
sake. We think we cannot better express our sense
of obligation than by a sort of sacrifice on our part.
—The heaviest tax is the tax of homage. The more
competition prevails, the more we buy for the un-
known and work for the unknown,the lowerdoes this
tax become, whereas it is really the standard for the
loftiness of man's spiritual intercourse.
284.
The Means towards Genuine Peace. —No
government will nowadays admit that it maintains
an army in order to satisfy occasionally its passion
for conquest. The army is said to serve only
defensive purposes. This morality, which justifies
self-defence, is called in as the government's advo-
cate. This means, however, reserving morality for
ourselves and immorality for our neighbour, because
he must be thought eager for attack and conquest
if our state is forced to consider means of self-
defence. —At the same time, by our explanation of
our need of an army (because he denies the lust of
attack just as our state does, and ostensibly also
maintains his army for defensive reasons), we pro-
claim him a hypocrite and cunning criminal, who
would fain seize by surprise, without any fighting,


## p. 337 (#385) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 337
a harmless and unwary victim. In this attitude all
states face each other to-day. They presuppose
evil intentions on their neighbour's part and good
intentions on their own. This hypothesis, however,
is an inhuman notion, as bad as and worse than
war. Nay, at bottom it is a challenge and motive
to war, foisting as it does upon the neighbouring
state the charge of immorality, and thus provoking
hostile intentions and acts. The doctrine of the
army as a means of self-defence must be abjured
as completely as the lust of conquest. Perhaps a
memorable day will come when a nation renowned
in wars and victories, distinguished by the highest
development of military order and intelligence, and
accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifice to these
objects, will voluntarily exclaim, "We will break
our swords," and will destroy its whole military
system, lock, stock, and barrel. Making ourselves
defenceless (after having been the most strongly
defended) from a loftiness of sentiment—that is the
means towards genuine peace, which must always
rest upon a pacific disposition. The so-called armed
peace that prevails at present in all countries is a
sign of a bellicose disposition, of a disposition that
trusts neither itself nor its neighbour, and, partly
from hate, partly from fear, refuses to lay down its
weapons. Better to perish than to hate and fear,
and twice as far better to perish than to make one-
self hated and feared—this must some day become
the supreme maxim of every political community! —
Our liberal representatives of the people, as is well
known, have not the time for reflection on the nature
of humanity, or else they would know that they are


## p. 338 (#386) ############################################

338 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
working in vain when they work for "a gradual
diminution of the military burdens. " Onthe contrary,
when the distress of these burdens is greatest, the
sort of God who alone can help here will be nearest.
The tree of military glory can only be destroyed at
one swoop, with one stroke of lightning. But, as
you know, lightning comes from the cloud and from
above.
285.
Whether Property can be squared with
J USTICE. —When the injustice of property is strongly
felt (and the hand of the great clock is once more at
this place), we formulate two methods of relieving
this injustice: either an equal distribution, or an
abolition of private possession and a return to State
ownership. The latter method is especially dear to
the hearts of our Socialists, who are angry with that
primitive Jew for saying, "Thou shalt not steal. "
In their view the eighth* commandment should
rather run, "Thou shalt not possess. "—The former
method was frequently tried in antiquity, always
indeed on a small scale, and yet with poor success.
From this failure we too may learn. "Equal plots
of land" is easily enough said, but how much
bitterness is aroused by the necessary division and
separation, by the loss of time-honoured possessions,
how much piety is wounded and sacrificed! We
uproot the foundation of morality when we uproot
boundary-stones. Again, how much fresh bitter-
ness among the new owners, how much envy and
looking askance! For there have never been two
* The original, by a curious slip, has "seventh. "—Tr.


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 339
really equal plots of land, and if there were, man's
envy of his neighbour would prevent him from
believing in their equality. And how long would
this equality, unhealthy and poisoned at the very
roots, endure? In a few generations, by inherit-
ance, here one plot would come to five owners, there
five plots to one. Even supposing that men ac-
quiesced in such abuses through the enactment of
stern laws of inheritance, the same equal plots
would indeed exist, but there would also be needy
malcontents, owning nothing but dislike of their
kinsmen and neighbours, and longing for a general
upheaval. —If, however, by the second method we
try to restore ownership to the community and make
the individual but a temporary tenant, we interfere
with agriculture. For man is opposed to all that is
only a transitory possession, unblessed with his own
care and sacrifice. With such property he behaves
in freebooter fashion, as robber or as worthless
spendthrift. When Plato declares that self-seeking
would be removed with the abolition of property,
we may answer him that, if self-seeking be taken
away, man will no longer possess the four cardinal
virtues either; as we must say that the most deadly
plague could not injure mankind so terribly as if
vanity were one day to disappear. Without vanity
and self-seeking what are human virtues? By this
I am far from meaning that these virtues are but
varied names and masks for these two qualities.
Plato's Utopian refrain, which is still sung by
Socialists, rests upon a deficient knowledge of men.
He lacked the historical science of moral emotions,
the insight into the origin of the good and useful


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34© HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
characteristics of the human soul. He believed, like
all antiquity, in good and evil as in black and white
—that is to say, in a radical difference between good
and bad men and good and bad qualities. —In order
that property may henceforth inspire more con-
fidence and become more moral, we should keep
open all the paths of work for small fortunes, but
should prevent the effortless and sudden acquisition of
wealth. Accordingly,weshould take all thebranches
of transport and trade which favour the accumu-
lation of large fortunes—especially, therefore, the
money market—out of the hands of private persons
or private companies, and look upon those who own
too much, just as upon those who own nothing, as
types fraught with danger to the community.
286.
The Value of Labour. —If we try to determine
the value of labour by the amount of time, industry,
good or bad will, constraint, inventiveness or lazi-
ness, honesty or make-believe bestowed upon it, the
valuation can never be a just one. For the whole
personality would have to be thrown into the scale,
and this is impossible. Here the motto is, "Judge
not! " But after all the cry for justice is the cry we
now hear from those who are dissatisfied with the
present valuation of labour. If we reflect further we
find every person non-responsible for his product, the
labour; hence merit can never be derived therefrom,
and every labour is as good or as bad as it must be
through this or that necessaryconcatenation of forces
and weaknesses, abilities and desires. The worker


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 341
is not at liberty to say whether he shall work or not,
or to decide how he shall work. Only the stand-
points of usefulness, wider and narrower, have created
the valuation of labour. What we at present call
justice does very well in this sphere as a highly
refined utility, which does not only consider the
moment and exploit the immediate opportunity, but
looks to the permanence of all conditions, and thus
also keeps in view the well-being of the worker, his
physical and spiritual contentment: in order that he
and his posterity may work well for our posterity
and become trustworthy for longer periods than the
individual span of human life. The exploitation of
the worker was, as we now understand, a piece of
folly, a robbery at the expense of the future, a jeo-
pardisation of society. We almost have the war now,
and in any case the expense of maintaining peace,
of concluding treaties and winning confidence, will
henceforth be very great, because the folly of the
exploiters was very great and long-lasting.
287.
Of the Study of the Social Body. —The
worst drawback for the modern student of economics
and political science in Europe, and especially in
Germany, is that the actual conditions, instead of
exemplifying rules, illustrate exceptions or stages of
transition and extinction. We must therefore learn
to look beyond actually existing conditions and, for
example, turn our eyes to distant North America,
where we can still contemplate and investigate, if we
will, the initial and normal movement of the social


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342 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
body. In Germany such a study requires arduous
and historical research, or, as I have suggested, a
telescope.
288.
How far Machinery Humiliates. —Machin-
ery is impersonal; it robs the piece of work of its
pride, of the individual merits and defects that cling
to all work that is not machine-made—in other words,
of its bit of humanity. Formerly, all buying from
handicraftsmen meant a mark of distinction for their
personalities, with whose productions people sur-
rounded themselves. Furniture and dress accord-
ingly became the symbols of mutual valuation and
personal connection. Nowadays, on the other hand,
we seem to live in the midst of anonymous and im-
personal serfdom. —We must not buy the facilita-
tion of labour too dear.
289.
Century-old Quarantine. —Democratic in-
stitutions are centres of quarantine against the old
plague of tyrannical desires. As such they are ex-
tremely useful and extremely tedious.
290.
The Most Dangerous Partisan. —The most
dangerous partisan is he whose defection would in-
volve the ruin of the whole party—in other words,
the best partisan.


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THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 343
291.
Destiny and the Stomach. —A piece more or
less of bread and butter in the jockey's body is oc-
casionally the decisive factor in races and bets, and
thus in the good and bad luck of thousands. —So
long as the destiny of nations depends upon diplo-
mats, the stomachs of diplomats will always be the
object of patriotic misgivings. Quousque tandem . .
292.
The Victory of Democracy. —All political
powers nowadays attempt to exploit the fear of
Socialism for their own strengthening. Yet in the
long run democracy alone gains the advantage, for
all parties are now compelled to flatter " the masses"
and grant them facilities and liberties of all kinds,
with the result that the masses finally become omni-
potent. The masses are as far as possible removed
from Socialism as a doctrine of altering the acquisi-
tion of property. I f once they get the steering-wheel
into their hands, through great majorities in their
Parliaments, they will attack with progressive taxa-
tion the whole dominant system of capitalists, mer-
chants, and financiers, and will in fact slowly create
a middle class which may forget Socialism like a
disease that has been overcome. —The practical re-
sult of this increasing democratisation will next be
a European league of nations, in which each indi-
vidual nation, delimited by the proper geographical
frontiers, has the position of a canton with its separ-
ate rights. Small account will be taken of the


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344 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
historic memories of previously existing rduous
because the pious affection for these memcgsted a
be gradually uprooted under the democratic'rL6i . -*.