In the case of such an extreme movement, both in tempo and in means, as characterises our civilisation, man's ballast is shifted. Those men whose worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is to compensate for the very great danger of such a morbid movement,--such men become dawdlers _par excellence_; they are slow to accept anything, and are tenacious; they are creatures that are relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling and changing of elements. In such circumstances power is necessarily relegated to the _mediocre: mediocrity,_ as the trustee and bearer of the future, consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases, united). In this way a new antagonist is evolved for exceptional men--or in certain cases a new temptation. Provided that they do not adapt themselves to the mob, and stand up for what satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will find it necessary to be "mediocre" and sound. They know: _mediocritas_ is also _aurea,_--it alone has command of money and _gold_ (of all that glitters ...).... And, once more, old virtue and the whole superannuated world of ideals in general secures a gifted host of special-pleaders.... Result: mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius, it becomes entertaining, and even seductive. *** _Result._--A high culture can only stand upon a broad basis, upon a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by it, _science_ and even art do their work. Science could not wish for a better state of affairs: in its essence it belongs to a middle-class type of man,--among exceptions it is out of place,--there is not anything aristocratic and still less anything anarchic in its instincts.--The power of the middle classes is then upheld by means of commerce, but, above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct of great financiers is opposed to everything extreme--on this account the Jews are, for the present, the most _conservative_ power in the threatening and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They can have no use either for revolutions, for socialism, or for militarism: if they would have power, and if they should need it, even over the revolutionary party, this is only the result of what I have already said, and it in no way contradicts it. Against other extreme movements they may occasionally require to excite terror by showing how much power is in their hands. But their instinct itself is inveterately conservative and "mediocre, ... Wherever power exists, they know how to become mighty; but the application of their power always takes the same direction. The polite term for _mediocre,_ as is well known, is the word _"Liberal."_