On the other hand, one can say thus: Whether you will further occupy yourself with thinking depends on you; only know that, _if_ in your thinking you would like to make out anything worthy of notice, many hard problems are to be solved, without vanquishing which you cannot get far. There exists, therefore, no duty and no calling for you to meddle with thoughts (ideas, truths); but, if you will do so, you will do well to utilize what the forces of others have already achieved toward clearing up these difficult subjects. Thus, therefore, he who will think does assuredly have a task, which _he_ consciously or unconsciously sets for himself in willing that; but no one has the task of thinking or of believing.--In the former case it may be said, You do not go far enough, you have a narrow and biased interest, you do not go to the bottom of the thing; in short, you do not completely subdue it. But, on the other hand, however far you may come at any time, you are still always at the end, you have no call to step farther, and you can have it as you will or as you are able. It stands with this as with any other piece of work, which you can give up when the humor for it wears off. Just so, if you can no longer _believe_ a thing, you do not have to force yourself into faith or to busy yourself lastingly as if with a sacred truth of the faith, as theologians or philosophers do, but you can tranquilly draw back your interest from it and let it run. Priestly spirits will indeed expound this your lack of interest as "laziness, thoughtlessness, obduracy, self-deception," and the like. But do you just let the trumpery lie, notwithstanding. No thing,[234] no so-called "highest interest of mankind," no "sacred cause,"[235] is worth your serving it, and occupying yourself with it for _its sake_; you may seek its worth in this alone, whether it is worth anything to _you_ for your sake. Become like children, the biblical saying admonishes us. But children have no sacred interest and know nothing of a "good cause." They know all the more accurately what they have a fancy for; and they think over, to the best of their powers, how they are to arrive at it. Thinking will as little cease as feeling. But the power of thoughts and ideas, the dominion of theories and principles, the sovereignty of the spirit, in short the--_hierarchy_, lasts as long as the parsons, _i. e._ theologians, philosophers, statesmen, philistines, liberals, schoolmasters, servants, parents, children, married couples, Proudhon, George Sand, Bluntschli, etc., etc., have the floor; the hierarchy will endure as long as people believe in, think of, or even criticise, principles; for even the most inexorable criticism, which undermines all current principles, still does finally _believe_ in _the principle_.