But how the body softens under this laisser faire et laisser passer, how it loses its power of resistance, accumulates substances which are superfluous, and therefore harmful! In the same way that part of humanity which follows this device will perish from the philistine disease named “moderation”!
Let mankind get into its Turkish bath—and then get under the cold douche! Thus it will be steeled, rejuvenated, and invigorated! Thus it will be freed from superfluous matters!
“Let things be made continually worse and harder for mankind, then the reaction will step in and drive them forward!”
According to this device I acted henceforward. To increase pain, in order that pleasure might become greater!
An immeasurable love for humanity took possession of me now that I had at length attained the point of view which so perfectly harmonized with my individuality.... I myself became equivalent to humanity; I felt the heart-beat of millions in myself. Their contradictory feelings were united in my own person. I felt equally capitalist and proletarian; equally orthodox Christian and Catholic, Jew and atheist; equally man and woman.
All the sorrows and joys in humanity I felt in myself, and I plunged myself in them to the depths.
I wished to experience them all in my own spirit.... I studied universal history, but with what perception!... I did not confine myself to facts, but I turned to the persons of those who were acting; I represented to myself all the misery of the crowd and the thought of the crowd.
What intolerable pain all these provided for me! How I began to love glorious humanity which suffered all that!
Now the moment had come! Now was the time quickly to plunge into the extreme of life!... To plunge into all the sorrows of the millions, and to increase them tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold! To drink the voluptuous sensation which all experience in the paroxysm of frenzy, and thus to become thoroughly man!!