not be mortally injured if they were to learn what their most intimate friends really knew about them? By getting a knowledge of ourselves, and by looking upon our nature as a changing sphere of opinions and moods, and thereby learning to despise ourselves a little, we recover once more our equilibrium with the rest of mankind. It is true that we have good reason to despise each of our acquaintances, even the greatest of them; but just as good reason to turn this feeling against ourselves. And so we will bear with each other, since we bear with ourselves; and perhaps there will come to each a happier hour, when he will exclaim: "Friends, there are really no friends!" thus cried th' expiring old sophist; "Foes, there is really no foe!"--thus shout I, the incarnate fool. SEVENTH DIVISION. WIFE AND CHILD. 377. THE PERFECT WOMAN.--The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man, and also something much rarer. The natural history of animals furnishes grounds in support of this theory. 378. FRIENDSHIP AND MARRIAGE.--The best friend will probably get the best wife, because a good marriage is based on talent for friendship. 379. THE SURVIVAL OF THE PARENTS.--The undissolved dissonances in the relation of the character and sentiments of the parents survive in the nature of the child and make up the history of its inner sufferings. 380. INHERITED FROM THE MOTHER.--Every one bears within him an image of woman, inherited from his mother: it determines his attitude towards women as a whole, whether to honour, despise, or remain generally indifferent to them. 381. CORRECTING NATURE.--Whoever has not got a good father should procure one. 382. FATHERS AND SONS.--Fathers have much to do to make amends for having sons. 383. THE ERROR OF GENTLEWOMEN.--Gentle-women think that a thing does not really exist when it is not possible to talk of it in society. 384. A MALE DISEASE.--The surest remedy for the male disease of self-contempt is to be loved by a sensible woman. 385. A SPECIES OF JEALOUSY.--Mothers are readily jealous of the friends of sons who are particularly successful. As a rule a mother loves _herself_ in her son more than the son. 386. RATIONAL IRRATIONALITY.--In the maturity of life and intelligence the feeling comes over a man that his father did wrong in begetting him. 387. MATERNAL EXCELLENCE.--Some mothers need happy and honoured children, some need unhappy ones,--otherwise they cannot exhibit their maternal excellence. 388. DIFFERENT SIGHS.--Some husbands have sighed over the elopement of their wives, the greater number, however, have sighed because nobody would elope with theirs. 389. LOVE MATCHES.--Marriages which are contracted for love (so-called love-matches) have error for their father and need (necessity) for their mother. 390.