“The kind of freedom I do _not_ mean....”[6]—In an age like the present, it simply adds to one’s perils to be left to one’s instincts. The instincts contradict, disturb, and destroy each other; I have already defined modernism as physiological self-contradiction. A reasonable system of education would insist upon at least one of these instinct-systems being _paralysed_ beneath an iron pressure, in order to allow others to assert their power, to grow strong, and to dominate. At present, the only conceivable way of making the individual possible would be to _prune_ him:—of making him possible—that is to say, _whole._ The very reverse occurs. Independence, free development, and _laisser aller_ are clamoured for most violently precisely by those for whom no restraint _could be too severe_—this is true _in politics,_ it is true in Art. But this is a symptom of decadence: our modern notion of “freedom” is one proof the more of the degeneration of instinct. 42 _Where faith is necessary._—Nothing is more rare among moralists and saints than uprightness; maybe they say the reverse is true, maybe they even believe it. For, when faith is more useful, more effective, more convincing than _conscious_ hypocrisy, by instinct that hypocrisy forthwith becomes _innocent:_ first principle towards the understanding of great saints. The same holds good of philosophers, that other order of saints; their whole business compels them to concede only certain truths—that is to say, those by means of which their particular trade receives the _public_ sanction,—to speak “Kantingly”: the truths of _practical_ reason. They know what they _must_ prove; in this respect they are practical,—they recognise each other by the fact that they agree upon “certain truths.”—“Thou shalt not lie”—in plain English:—_Beware,_ Mr Philosopher, of speaking the truth.... 43 _A quiet hint to Conservatives._—That which we did not know formerly, and know now, or might know if we chose,—is the fact that a _retrograde formation,_ a reversion in any sense or degree, is absolutely impossible. We physiologists, at least, are aware of this. But all priests and moralists have believed in it,—they wished to drag and screw man back to a former standard of virtue. Morality has always been a Procrustean bed. Even the politicians have imitated the preachers of virtue in this matter. There are parties at the present day whose one aim and dream is to make all things adopt the _crab-march._ But not everyone can be a crab. It cannot be helped: we must go forward,—that is to say step by step further and further into decadence (—this is my definition of modern “progress”). We can hinder this development, and by so doing dam up and accumulate degeneration itself and render it more convulsive, more _volcanic:_ we cannot do more. 44