No More Learning

original and hereditary of her possessions. The first
great men who transfused into their own blood that
French impulse towards greatness and consciousness
of the moral will were more honest, and more grate-
ful. Whence comes the moralism of Kant? He is
continually reminding us: from Rousseau and the
revival of Stoic Rome. The moralism of Schiller
has the same source and the same glorification of
the source. The moralism of Beethoven in notes is
a continual song in praise of Rousseau, the antique
French, and Schiller. "Young Germany" was the
first to forget its gratitude, because in the meantime
people had listened to the preachers of hatred of
the French. The "young German " came to the fore
with more consciousness than is generally allowed
to youths. When he investigated his paternity,
he might well think of the proximity of Schiller,
Schleiermacher, and Fichte. But he should have
looked for his grandfathers in Paris and Geneva,
and it was very short-sighted of him to believe what
he believed: that virtue was not more than thirty
years old. People became used to demanding that
the word "German" should connote "virtue," and
this process has not been wholly forgotten to
this day. —Be it observed further that this moral
awakening, as may almost be guessed, has resulted
only in drawbacks and obstacles to the recognition
of moral phenomena. What is the entire German
philosophy, starting from Kant, with all its French,
English, and Italian offshoots and by-products? A
semi-theological attack upon Helvetius, a rejection
of the slowly and laboriously acquired views and
signposts of the right road, which in the end he


## p. 309 (#357) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 309
collected and expressed so well. To this day Hel-
vetius is the best-abused of all good moralists and
good men in Germany.
217.
Classic and Romantic. —Both classically and
romantically minded spirits—two species that al-
ways exist—cherish a vision of the future; but the
former derive their vision from the strength of their
time, the latter from its weakness.
218.
The Machine as Teacher. —Machinery teaches
in itself the dovetailed working of masses of men,
in activities where each has but one thing to do. It
is the model of party organisations and of warfare.
On the other hand, it does not teach individual self-
glorification, for it makes of the many a machine,
and of each individual a tool for one purpose. Its
most general effect is to teach the advantage of
centralisation.
219.
Unable to Settle. — One likes to live in a
small town. But from time to time just this small
town drives us out into bare and lonely Nature, es-
pecially when we think we know it too well. Finally,
in order to refresh ourselves from Nature, we go to
the big town. A few draughts from this cup and we
see its dregs, and the circle begins afresh, with the
small town as starting-point. —So the moderns live;


## p. 310 (#358) ############################################

3IO HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAX.
/
f
they are in all things rather too thorough to be able
to settle like the men of other days.
220.
Reaction against the Civilisation of
MACHINERY. —The machine, itself a product of the
highest mental powers, sets in motion hardly any
but the lower, unthinking forces of the men who
serve it True, it unfetters a vast quantity of force
which would otherwise lie dormant . But it does not
communicate the impulse to climb higher, to im-
prove, to become artistic. It creates activity and
monotony, but this in the long-run produces a
counter-effect, a despairing ennui of the soul, which
through machinery has learnt to hanker after the
variety of leisure.
221.
The Danger of Enlightenment. —All the
half-insane, theatrical, bestially cruel, licentious, and
especially sentimental and self-intoxicating ele-
ments which go to form the true revolutionary sub-
stance, and became flesh and spirit, before the
revolution, in Rousseau—all this composite being,
with factitious enthusiasm, finally set even "enlighten-
ment" upon its fanatical head, which thereby began
itself to shine as in an illuminating halo. Yet, en-
lightenment is essentially foreign to that phenome-
non, and, if left to itself, would have pierced silently
through the clouds like a shaft of light, long content
to transfigure individuals alone, and thus only slowly
transfiguring national customs and institutions as
well. But now, bound hand and foot to a violent and


## p. 311 (#359) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 311
abrupt monster, enlightenment itself became violent
and abrupt. Its danger has therefore become almost
greater than its useful quality of liberation and il-
lumination, which it introduced into the great re-
volutionary movement. Whoever grasps this will
also know from what confusion it has to be extri-
cated, from what impurities to be cleansed, in order
that it may then by itself continue the work of
enlightenment and also nip the revolution in the bud
and nullify its effects.
222.
Passion in the Middle Ages. —The Middle
Ages are the period of great passions. Neither an-
tiquity nor our period possesses this widening of the
soul. Never was the capacity of the soul greater or
measured by larger standards. The physical, pri-
meval sensuality of the barbarian races and the over-
soulful, over-vigilant, over-brilliant eyes of Christian
mystics, the most childish and youthful and the
most over-ripe and world-weary, the savageness of
the beast of prey and the effeminacy and excessive
refinement of the late antique spirit—all these ele-
ments were then not seldom united in one and the
same person. Thus, if a man was seized by a
passion, the rapidity of the torrent must have been
greater, the whirl more confused, the fall deeper
than ever before. —We modern men may be content
to feel that we have suffered a loss here.
223.
Robbing and Saving. —All intellectual move-
ments whereby the great may hope to rob and the


## p. 312 (#360) ############################################

312 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
small to save are sure to prosper. That is why, for
instance, the German Reformation made progress.
224.
Gladsome Souls. —When even a remote hint
of drink, drunkenness, and an evil-smelling kind of
jocularity was given, the souls of the old Germans
waxed gladsome. Otherwise they were depressed,
but here they found something they really under-
stood.
225.
Debauchery at Athens. —Even when the fish-
market of Athens acquired its thinkers and poets,
Greek debauchery had a more idyllic and refined
appearance than Roman or German debauchery
ever had. The voice of J uvenal would have sounded
there like a hollow trumpet, and would have been
answered by a good-natured and almost childish
outburst of laughter.
226.
Cleverness of the Greek. —As the desire for
victory and pre-eminence is an ineradicable trait of
human nature, older and more primitive than any
respect of or joy in equality, the Greek State sanc-
tioned gymnastic and artistic competitions among
equals. In other words, it marked out an arena
where this impulse to conquer would find a vent
without jeopardising the political order. With the
final decline of gymnastic and artistic contests the
Greek State fell into a condition of profound unrest
and dissolution.


## p. 313 (#361) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 313
227.
The "Eternal Epicurus. " — Epicurus has
lived in all periods, and lives yet, unbeknown to
those who called and still call themselves Epicureans,
and without repute among philosophers. He has
himself even forgotten his own name—that was the
heaviest luggage that he ever cast off.
228.
The Style of Superiority. — "University
slang," the speech of the German students, has its
origin among the students who do not study. The
latter know how to acquire a preponderance over
their more serious fellows by exposing all the farcical
elements of culture, respectability, erudition, order,
and moderation, and by having words taken from
these realms always on their lips, like the better
and more learned students, but with malice in their
glance and an accompanying grimace. This lan-
guage of superiority—the only one that is original
in Germany—is nowadays unconsciously used by
statesmen and newspaper critics as well. It is a
continual process of ironical quotation, a restless,
cantankerous squinting of the eye right and left, a
language of inverted commas and grimaces.
229.
The Recluse. —We retire into seclusion, but not
from personal misgivings, as if the political and
social conditions of the day did not satisfy us;
rather because by our retirement we try to save and


## p. 314 (#362) ############################################

314 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAX.
collect forces which will some day be urgently
needed by culture, the more this present is this
present, and, as such, fulfils its task. We form a
capital and try to make it secure, but, as in times
of real danger, our method is to bury our board.
230.
Tyrants of the Intellect. —In our times,
any one who expressed a single moral trait so
thoroughly as the characters of Theophrastus and
Moliere do, would be considered ill, and be spoken
of as possessing " a fixed idea. " The Athens of the
third century, if we could visit it, would appear
to us populated by fools. Nowadays the democ-
racy of ideas rules in every brain—there the multi-
tude collectively is lord. A single idea that tried
to be lord is now called, as above stated, "a fixed
idea. " This is our method of murdering tyrants—
we hint at the madhouse.
231.
A Most Dangerous Emigration. —In;Russia
there is an emigration of the intelligence. People
cross the frontier in order to read and write good
books. Thus, however, they are working towards
turning their country, abandoned by the intellect,
into a gaping Asiatic maw, which would fain
swallow our little Europe.
232.
Political Fools. —The almost religious love of
the king was transferred by the Greeks, when the


## p. 315 (#363) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 315
monarchy was abolished, to the polls. An idea can
be loved more than a person, and does not thwart
the lover so often as a beloved human being (for
the more men know themselves to be loved, the
less considerate they usually become, until they are
no longer worthy of love, and a rift really arises).
Hence the reverence for State and polls was greater
than the reverence for princes had ever been. The
Greeks are the political fools of ancient history—to-
day other nations boast that distinction.
233-
Against Neglect of the Eyes. —Might one
not find among the cultured classes of England,
who read the Times, a decline in their powers of
sight every ten years?
234.
Great Works and Great Faith. —One man
had great works, but his comrade had great faith
in these works. They were inseparable, but ob-
viously the former was entirely dependent upon the
latter.
235.
The Sociable Man. —" I don't get on well with
myself," said some one in explanation of his fondness
for society. "Society has a stronger digestion than
I have, and can put up with me. "
236.
Shutting the Mind's Eyes. —If we are prac-
tised and accustomed to reflect upon our actions,


## p. 316 (#364) ############################################

316 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
we must nevertheless close the inner eye while per-
forming an action (be this even only writing letters
or eating or drinking). Even in conversation with
average people we must know how to obscure our
own mental vision in order to attain and grasp
average thinking. This shutting of the eyes is a
conscious act and can be achieved by the will.
237-
The Most Terrible Revenge. —If we wish to
take a thorough revenge upon an opponent, we
must wait until we have our hand quite full of truths
and equities,and can calmly use the whole lot against
him. Hence the exercise of revenge may be identi-
fied with the exercise of equity. It is the most
terrible kind of revenge, for there is no higher
court to which an appeal can be made. Thus did
Voltaire revenge himself on Piron, with five lines
that sum up Piron's whole life, work, and character:
every word is a truth. So too he revenged himself
upon Frederick the Great in a letter to him from
Ferney.
238.
Taxes of Luxury. —In shops we buy the most
necessary and urgent things, and have to pay very
dear, because we pay as well for what is also to be
had there cheap, but seldom finds a customer—
articles of luxury that minister to pleasure. Thus
luxury lays a constant tax upon the man of simple
life who does without luxuries.


## p. 317 (#365) ############################################

THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW. 317
239-
Why Beggars still Live. —If all alms were
given only out of compassion, the whole tribe of
beggars would long since have died of starvation.
240.
Why Beggars still Live. —The greatest of
almsgivers is cowardice.
241.
How the Thinker Makes Use of a Conver-
sation. —Without being eavesdroppers, we can hear
a good deal if we are able to see well, and at the
same time to let ourselves occasionally get out of
our own sight. But people do not know how to
make use of a conversation. They pay far too much
attention to what they want to say and reply, where-
as the true listener is often contented to make a
provisional answer and to say something merely as
a payment on account of politeness, but on the other
hand, with his memory lurking in ambush, carries
away with him all that the other said, together with
his tones and gestures in speaking. —In ordinary
conversation every one thinks he is the leader, just
as if two ships, sailing side by side and giving each
other a slight push here and there, were each firmly
convinced that the other ship was following or even
being towed.
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,


## p. 321 (#369) ############################################

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.


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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-


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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


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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


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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.