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 [pg 315] deal with things tentatively, treating them by turns harshly or justly, passionately or coldly. One investigator deals with things like a policeman, another like a confessor, and yet a third like an inquisitive traveller. We force something from them now by sympathy 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 adventurers, 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 represents 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 involuntarily [pg 316] become the glorifiers of scientific “blessings” per se.
434.
Intercession.—Unpretentious regions are subjects 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.