SUBSEQUENT JUDGMENT.—All things that endure for a long time are little by
little so greatly permeated by reason that their origin in unreason
becomes improbable. Does not almost every exact statement of an origin
strike us as paradoxical and sacrilegious? Indeed, does not the true
historian constantly contradict?
2.
PREJUDICE OF THE LEARNED.—Savants are quite correct in maintaining the
proposition that men in all ages believed that they _knew_ what was good
and evil, praiseworthy and blamable. But it is a prejudice of the learned
to say _that we now know it better_ than any other age.
3.
A TIME FOR EVERYTHING.—When man assigned a sex to all things, he did not
believe that he was merely playing; but he thought, on the contrary, that
he had acquired a profound insight:—it was only at a much later period,
and then only partly, that he acknowledged the enormity of his error. In
the same way, man has attributed a moral relationship to everything that
exists, throwing the cloak of _ethical significance_ over the world’s
shoulders. One day all that will be of just as much value, and no more, as
the amount of belief existing to-day in the masculinity or femininity of
the sun.(2)
4.
AGAINST THE FANCIFUL DISHARMONY OF THE SPHERES.—We must once more sweep
out of the world all this _false_ grandeur, for it is contrary to the
justice that all things about us may claim. And for this reason we must
not see or wish the world to be more disharmonic than it is!
5.
BE THANKFUL!—The most important result of the past efforts of humanity is
that we need no longer go about in continual fear of wild beasts,
barbarians, gods, and our own dreams.
6.
THE JUGGLER AND HIS COUNTERPART.—That which is wonderful in science is
contrary to that which is wonderful in the art of the juggler. For the
latter would wish to make us believe that we see a very simple causality,
where, in reality, an exceedingly complex causality is in operation.
Science, on the other hand, forces us to give up our belief in the simple
causality exactly where everything looks so easily comprehensible and we
are merely the victims of appearances. The simplest things are _very
_“complicated”—we can never be sufficiently astonished at them!
7.
RECONCEIVING OUR FEELING OF SPACE.—Is it real or imaginary things which
have built up the greater proportion of man’s happiness? It is certain, at
all events, that the extent of the distance between the highest point of
happiness and the lowest point of unhappiness has been established only
with the help of imaginary things. As a consequence, _this_ kind of a
conception of space is always, under the influence of science, becoming
smaller and smaller: in the same way as science has taught us, and is
still teaching us, to look upon the earth as small—yea, to look upon the
entire solar system as a mere point.
8.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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