still be just a proof of personal wretchedness or impersonality; your "moral force" might have its source in your obstinacy--or in your incapacity to perceive new ideals! And to be brief: if you had thought more acutely, observed more accurately, and had learned more, you would no longer under all circumstances call this and that your "duty" and your "conscience": the knowledge _how moral judgments have in general always originated_ would make you tired of these pathetic words,--as you have already grown tired of other pathetic words, for instance "sin," "salvation," and "redemption."--And now, my friend, do not talk to me about the categorical imperative! That word tickles my ear, and I must laugh in spite of your presence and your seriousness. In this connection I recollect old Kant, who, as a punishment for having _gained possession surreptitiously_ of the "thing in itself"--also a very ludicrous affair!--was imposed upon by the categorical imperative, and with that in his heart _strayed back again_ to "God," the "soul," "freedom," and "immortality," like a fox which strays back into its cage: and it had been _his_ strength and shrewdness which had _broken open_ this cage!--What? You admire the categorical imperative in you? This "persistency" of your so-called moral judgment? This absoluteness of the feeling that "as I think on this matter, so must everyone think"? Admire rather your _selfishness_ therein! And the blindness, paltriness, and modesty of your selfishness! For it is selfishness in a person to regard _his_ judgment as universal law, and a blind, paltry and modest selfishness besides, because it betrays that you have not yet discovered yourself, that you have not yet created for yourself any personal, quite personal ideal:--for this could never be the ideal of another, to say nothing of all, of every one!--He who still thinks that "each would have to act in this manner in this case," has not yet advanced half a dozen paces in self-knowledge: otherwise he would know that there neither are, nor can be, similar actions,--that every action that has been done, has been done in an entirely unique and inimitable manner, and that it will be the same with regard to all future actions; that all precepts of conduct (and even the most esoteric and subtle precepts of all moralities up to the present), apply only to the coarse exterior,--that by means of them, indeed, a semblance of equality can be attained, _but only a semblance,_--that in outlook and retrospect, _every_ action is, and remains, an impenetrable affair, --that our opinions of the "good," "noble" and "great" can never be proved by our actions, because no action is cognisable,--that our opinions, estimates, and tables of values are certainly among the most powerful levers in the mechanism of our actions, that in every single case, nevertheless, the law of their mechanism is untraceable. Let us _confine_ ourselves, therefore, to the purification of our opinions