last generated an intellectual sensitiveness which is almost equal to genius, and is in any case the mother of all genius. 25. _Not Pre-ordained to Knowledge._--There is a pur-blind humility not at all rare, and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once for all disqualified for being a disciple of knowledge. It is this in fact: the moment a man of this kind perceives anything striking, he turns as it were on his heel and says to himself: "You have deceived yourself! Where have your wits been! This cannot be the truth!"--and then, instead of looking at it and listening to it with more attention, he runs out of the way of the striking object as if intimidated, and seeks to get it out of his head as quickly as possible. For his fundamental rule runs thus: "I want to see nothing that contradicts the usual opinion concerning things! Am _I_ created for the purpose of discovering new truths? There are already too many of the old ones." 26. _What is Living?_--Living--that is to continually eliminate from ourselves what is about to die; Living--that is to be cruel and inexorable towards all that becomes weak and old in ourselves and not only in ourselves. Living--that means, there fore to be without piety toward the dying, the wrenched and the old? To be continually a murderer?--And yet old Moses said: "Thou shalt not kill!" 27. _The Self-Renouncer._--What does the self-renouncer do? He strives after a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher than all men of affirmation--he _throws away many things_ that would impede his flight, and several things among them that are not valueless, that are not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his desire for elevation. Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the very thing which becomes visible in him: on that account one calls him a self-renouncer, and as such he stands before us, enveloped in his cowl, and as the soul of a hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which he makes upon us he is well content: he wants to keep concealed from us his desire, his pride, his intention of flying _above_ us.--Yes! He is wiser than we thought, and so courteous towards us--this affirmer! For that is what he is, like us, even in his self-renunciation. 28.