Noblesse Oblige.—The moment of obligation, compulsion, duty, that moment described by Kant as the essential, almost the only predicate of moral concepts, serves chiefly to indicate that Kant was modest in himself and in his attitude towards all whom he addressed, perceiving in all men beings subject to the ennobling effect of morality. Noblesse oblige is a motto not for the aristocracy, which recognises in its privileges its own instant duties, but for the self-made, wealthy parvenues who pant for an illustrious title. They have been accustomed to telling lies, to playing poltroon, swindling, and meanness, and the necessity for speaking the truth impartially, for bravely facing danger, for freely giving of their fortunes scares them beyond measure. Therefore it is necessary that they should repeat it to themselves and to their children, in whose veins the lying, sneaking blood still runs, hourly, lest they forget: "You must not tell lies, you must be open, magnanimous." It is silly, it is incomprehensible—but "noblesse oblige."
32
Homo homini lupus is one of the most steadfast maxims of eternal morality. In each of our neighbours we fear a wolf. "This fellow is evil-minded, if he is not restrained by law he will ruin us," so we think every time a man gets out of the rut of sanctified tradition.
The fear is just. We are so poor, so weak, so easily ruined and destroyed! How can we help being afraid! And yet, behind danger and menace there is usually hidden something significant, which merits our close and sympathetic attention. But fear's eyes are big. We see danger, danger only, we build up a fabric of morality inside which as in a fortress we sit out of danger all our lives. Only poets have undertaken to praise dangerous people—Don Juans, Fausts, Tannhaüsers. But nobody takes the poets seriously. Common-sense values a commercial-traveller or a don much more highly than a Byron, a Goethe, or a Molière.
33
The possibilities which open out before mankind are sufficiently limited. It is impossible to see everything, impossible to know everything, impossible to rise too high above the earth, impossible to penetrate too deeply down. What has been is hidden away, what will be we cannot anticipate, and we know for certain that we shall never grow wings. Regularity, immutably regular succession of phenomena puts a term to our efforts, drives us into a regular, narrow, hard-beaten road of everyday life. But even on this road we may not wander from side to side. We must watch our feet, consider each step, since the moment we are off our guard disaster is upon us. Another life is conceivable, however: life in which the word disaster does not exist, where responsibility for one's actions, even if it be not completely abolished, at least has not such a deadly and accidental weight, and where, on the other hand, there is no "regularity," but rather an infinite number of possibilities. In such a life the sense of fear—most disgraceful to us—disappears. There the virtues are not the same as ours. Fearlessness in face of danger, liberality, even lavishness are considered virtues with us, but they are respected without any grounds. Socrates was quite right when he argued that not all courage, but only the courage which measures beforehand the risks and the chances of victory, is fully justifiable. To the same extent those economical, careful people who condemn lavishness are in the right. Fearlessness and lavishness do not suit mortal men, rather it becomes them to tremble and to count every penny, seeing what a state of poverty and impotence they exist in. That is why these two virtues are so rarely met with, and when they are met, why they arouse such superstitious reverence in the crowd. "This man fears nothing and spares nothing: he is probably not a man, but a demi-god, perhaps even a god." Socrates did not believe in gods, so he wanted to justify virtue by reason. Kant also did not believe in God, and therefore he derived his morals from "Law." But if there is God, and all men are the children of God, then we should be afraid of nothing and spare nothing. And then the man who madly dissipates his own life and fortunes, and the lives and fortunes of others, is more right than the calculating philosophers who vainly seek to regulate mankind on earth.
34
Moral people are the most revengeful of mankind, they employ their morality as the best and most subtle weapon of vengeance. They are not satisfied with simply despising and condemning their neighbour themselves, they want the condemnation to be universal and supreme: that is, that all men should rise as one against the condemned, and that even the offender's own conscience shall be against him. Then only are they fully satisfied and reassured. Nothing on earth but morality could lead to such wonderful results.
35
Inveterate wickedness.—Heretics were often most bitterly persecuted for their least digression from accepted belief. It was just their obstinacy in trifles that irritated the righteous to madness. "Why can they not yield on so trifling a matter? They cannot possibly have serious cause for opposition. They only want to grieve us, to spite us." So the hatred mounted up, piles of faggots and torture machines appeared against obdurate wickedness.