482.
Seeking one's Company.—Are we then looking for too much when we seek the company of men who have grown mild, agreeable to the taste, and nutritive, like chestnuts which have been put into the fire and taken out just at the right moment? Of men who expect little from life, and prefer to accept this little as a present rather than as a merit of their own, as if it were carried to them by birds and bees? Of men who are too proud ever to feel themselves rewarded, and too serious in their passion for knowledge and honesty to have time for or pleasure in fame? Such men we should call philosophers; but they themselves will always find some more modest designation.
483.
Satiated with Mankind.—
A. Seek for knowledge! Yes! but always as a man! What? must I always be a spectator of the same comedy, and always play a part in the same comedy, without ever being able to observe things with other eyes than those? and yet there may be countless types of beings whose organs are better adapted for knowledge than ours! At the end of all their searching for knowledge what will men at length come to know? Their organs! which perhaps is as much as to say: the impossibility of knowledge! misery and disgust!
B. This is a bad attack you have—reason is attacking you! to-morrow, however, you will again [pg 341] be in the midst of knowledge, and hence of irrationality—that is to say, delighted about all that is human. Let us go to the sea!
484.
Going our own Way.—When we take the decisive step, and make up our minds to follow our own path, a secret is suddenly revealed to us: it is clear that all those who had hitherto been friendly to us and on intimate terms with us judged themselves to be superior to us, and are offended now. The best among them are indulgent, and are content to wait patiently until we once more find the “right path”—they know it, apparently. Others make fun of us, and pretend that we have been seized with a temporary attack of mild insanity, or spitefully point out some seducer. The more malicious say we are vain fools, and do their best to blacken our motives; while the worst of all see in us their greatest enemy, some one who is thirsting for revenge after many years of dependence,—and are afraid of us. What, then, are we to do? My own opinion is that we should begin our sovereignty by promising to all our acquaintances in advance a whole year's amnesty for sins of every kind.
485.
Far-off Perspectives.—