genius, in spite of vulgar conception, is a condition of chaos and unutterable restlessness. Not for nothing has genius been counted kin to madness. Genius flings itself hither and thither because it has not the _Sitzfleisch_ necessary for industrious success in mediocrity. We may be sure that earth has seen much more genius than history has recorded; since genius is acknowledged only when it has been serviceable. When the tossing-about has led to no useful issue--which is the case in the majority of instances--it arouses only a feeling of disgust and abomination in all witnesses. "He can't rest and he can't let others rest." If Lermontov and Dostoevsky had lived in times when there was no demand for books, nobody would have noticed them. Lermontov's early death would have passed unregretted. Perhaps some settled and virtuous citizen would have remarked, weary of the young man's eternal and dangerous freaks: "For a dog a dog's death." The same of Gogol, Tolstoy, Poushkin. Now they are praised because they left interesting books.... And so we need pay no attention to the cry about the futility and worthlessness of scepticism, even scepticism pure and unadulterated, scepticism which has no ulterior motive of clearing the way for a new creed. To knock one's head against the wall out of hatred for the wall: to beat against established and obstructive ideas, because one detests them: is it not an attractive proposition? And then, to see ahead uncertainly and limitless possibilities, instead of up-to-date "ideals," is not this too fascinating? The highest good is rest! I shall not argue: _de gustibus aut nihil aut bene_.... By the way, isn't it a superb principle? And this superb principle has been arrived at perfectly by chance, unfortunately not by me, but by one of the comical characters in Tchekhov's _Seagull_. He mixed up two Latin proverbs, and the result was a splendid maxim which, in order to become an _a priori_, awaits only universal acceptance. 4