In fact, the child who tears it to pieces or plays with it, the Inca Atahualpa who lays his ear to it and throws it away contemptuously when it remains dumb, judges just as correctly about the Bible as the priest who praises in it the "Word of God," or the critic who calls it a job of men's hands. For how we toss things about is the affair of our _option_, our _free will_: we use them according to our _heart's pleasure_, or, more clearly, we use them just as we _can_. Why, what do the parsons scream about when they see how Hegel and the speculative theologians make speculative thoughts out of the contents of the Bible? Precisely this, that they deal with it according to their heart's pleasure, or "proceed arbitrarily with it." But, because we all show ourselves arbitrary in the handling of objects, _i. e._ do with them as we _like_ best, at our _liking_ (the philosopher likes nothing so well as when he can trace out an "idea" in everything, as the God-fearing man likes to make God his friend by everything, and so, _e. g._, by keeping the Bible sacred), therefore we nowhere meet such grievous arbitrariness, such a frightful tendency to violence, such stupid coercion, as in this very domain of our--_own free will_. If _we_ proceed arbitrarily in taking the sacred objects thus or so, how is it then that we want to take it ill of the parson-spirits if they take us just as arbitrarily _in their fashion_, and esteem us worthy of the heretic's fire or of another punishment, perhaps of the--censorship? What a man is, he makes out of things; "as you look at the world, so it looks at you again." Then the wise advice makes itself heard again at once, You must only look at it "rightly, unbiasedly," etc. As if the child did not look at the Bible "rightly and unbiasedly" when it makes it a plaything. That shrewd precept is given us, _e. g._, by Feuerbach. One does look at things rightly when one makes of them what one _will_ (by things objects in general are here understood, such as God, our fellow-men, a sweetheart, a book, a beast, etc.). And therefore the things and the looking at them are not first, but I am, my will is. One _will_ bring thoughts out of the things, _will_ discover reason in the world, _will_ have sacredness in it: therefore one shall find them. "Seek and ye shall find." _What_ I will seek, _I_ determine: I want, _e. g._, to get edification from the Bible; it is to be found; I want to read and test the Bible thoroughly; my outcome will be a thorough instruction and criticism--to the extent of my powers. I elect for myself what I have a fancy for, and in electing I show myself--arbitrary.