Human, All Too Human

There is, certainly, also an entirely different species of genius, that of justice; and I cannot make up my mind to estimate it lower than any kind of philosophical, political, or artistic genius. Its peculiarity is to go, with heartfelt aversion, out of the way of everything that blinds and confuses people's judgment of things; it is consequently an adversary of convictions, for it wants to give their own to all, whether they be living or dead, real or imaginary - and for that purpose it must know thoroughly; it therefore places everything in the best light and goes around it with careful eyes. Finally, it will even give to its adversary the blind or short-sighted "conviction" (as men call it, - among women it is called "faith"), what is due to conviction - for the sake of truth.

Opinions evolve out of passions; indolence of intellect allows those to congeal into convictions. He, however, who is conscious of himself as a free, restless, lively spirit can prevent this congelation by constant change; and if he is altogether a thinking snowball, he will not have opinions in his head at all, but only certainties and properly estimated probabilities. But we, who are of a mixed nature, alternately inspired with ardour and chilled through and through by the intellect, want to kneel before justice, as the only goddess we acknowledge. The fire in us generally makes us unjust, and impure in the eyes of our goddess; in this condition we are not permitted to take her hand, and the serious smile of her approval never rests upon us. We reverence her as the veiled Isis of our life; with shame we offer her our pain as penance and sacrifice when the fire threatens to burn and consume us. It is the intellect that saves us from being utterly burnt and reduced to ashes; it occasionally drags us away from the sacrificial altar of justice or enwraps us in a garment of asbestos. Liberated from the fire, and impelled by the intellect, we then pass from opinion to opinion, through the change of parties, as noble betrayers of all things that can in any way be betrayed - and nevertheless without a feeling of guilt.

THE WANDERER. - He who has attained intellectual emancipation to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth - and not even as a traveller towards a final goal, for there is no such thing. But he certainly wants to observe and keep his eyes open to whatever actually happens in the world; therefore he cannot attach his heart too firmly to anything individual; he must have in himself something wandering that takes pleasure in change and transitoriness. To be sure such a man will have bad nights, when he is weary and finds the gates of the town that should offer him rest closed; perhaps he may also find that, as in the East, the desert reaches to the gates, that wild beasts howl far and near, that a strong wind arises, and that robbers take away his beasts of burden. Then the dreadful night closes over him like a second desert upon the desert, and his heart grows weary of wandering. Then when the morning sun rises upon him, glowing like a Deity of anger, when the town is opened, he sees perhaps in the faces of the dwellers therein still more desert, uncleanliness, deceit, and insecurity than outside the gates - and the day is almost worse than the night. Thus it may occasionally happen to the wanderer; but then there come as, compensation the delightful mornings of other lands and days, when already in the grey of the dawn he sees the throng of muses dancing by, close to him, in the mist of the mountain;

when afterwards, in the symmetry of his ante-meridian soul, he strolls silently under the trees, out of whose crests and leafy hiding-places all manner of good and bright things are flung to him, the gifts of all the free spirits who are at home in mountains, forests, and solitudes, and who, like himself, alternately merry and thoughtful, are wanderers and philosophers. Born of the secrets of the early dawn, they ponder the question how the day, between the hours of ten and twelve, can have such a pure, transparent, and gloriously cheerful countenance: they seek the ante-meridian philosophy. AN EPODE. AMONG FRIENDS. (Translated by T. COMMON.) Nice, when mute we lie a-dreaming, Nicer still when we are laughing, 'Neath the sky heaven's chariot speeding, On the moss the book a-reading, Sweetly loud with friends all laughing Joyous, with white teeth a-gleaming. Do I well, we're mute and humble; Do I ill - we'll laugh exceeding; Make it worse and worse, unheeding, Worse proceeding, more laughs needing, Till into the grave we stumble. Friends! Yea! so shall it obtain? Amen! Till we meet again. II. No excuses need be started!

Give, ye glad ones, open hearted, To this foolish book before you Ear and heart and lodging meet; Trust me, 'twas not meant to bore you, Though of folly I may treat! What I find, seek, and am needing, Was it e'er in book for reading? Honour now fools in my name, Learn from out this book by reading How "our sense" from reason came. Thus, my friends, shall it obtain? Amen! Till we meet again.