It is customary to ridicule the Germans’ passion for forming clubs, and societies of all kinds. But do these founders of fraternal associations seek for anything but an opportunity to fraternise, to have a good talk, something from which they are barred at home? The innumerable speeches that are delivered during the course of a year, and which are being poured out every second in an endless stream in some house at some meeting are apparently being spoken only for the benefit of the auditors. But every speech is a kind of relief to the speaker’s “I,” and people who have the craving to speak before the whole world are very often the keepers of a great secret which they must conceal from the world and which they are imparting in this indirect way in homœopathic doses. Just as a dye that is dissolved in a large quantity of fluid is so completely lost that the naked eye can detect no trace of it, so do occasional particles of the great secret which must forever remain hidden find their way into the elocutionary torrent. LAZINESS There are commonplace maxims which people go on repeating thoughtlessly, and in the light of which they determine their conduct without once stopping to consider whether the assumed truth, looked at in the light of reason, may not turn out to be a lie. We know, of course, that there are many “truths” which may under certain circumstances prove to be falsehoods. Everything is in a state of flux! Truth and falsehood are wave crests and wave troughs, an endless stream driving the mills of humanity. Such notorious maxims as the following are trumpeted into our ears from the days of our youth: “Work makes life sweet”; “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do”; “the life of man is three-score-and-ten, and if it has been a happy one it is due to work and striving.” These truisms are beaten into us, drummed into us, and hammered into us from all sides; we hear them wherever we go, till finally we accept them, completely convinced. And it is well that it is so. What would the world look like if everybody pressed his claim to laziness? Think of the hideous chaos that would ensue if the wheels of industry came to a stop! The admonition to work has its origin in humanity’s instinct of self-preservation. It does not spring from one’s own needs but only from the needs of others. Apparently we all work for ourselves, but in reality we are always working for others. How very small is the number of those who do their work gladly and cheerfully! How very many give vent to their aversion to work by means of apparent dissatisfaction with their calling! And where can we find a man nowadays who is contented with his calling?