Little by little, this turbulence has calmed down--perhaps it was never very great. Little by little I have come to realize that if following Dionysus induces the will to bound and leap, devotion to Apollo has a tendency to throw the mind back until it rests upon the harmony of eternal form. There is great attraction in both gods. EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUM I am also a swine of the herd of Epicurus; I, too, wax eloquent over this ancient philosopher, who conversed with his pupils in his garden. The very epithet of Horace, upon detaching himself from the Epicureans, "_Epicuri de grege porcum_," is full of charm. All noble minds have hymned Epicurus. "Hail Epicurus, thou honour of Greece!" Lucretius exclaims in the third book of his poem. "I have sought to avenge Epicurus, that truly holy philosopher, that divine genius," Lucian tells us in his _Alexander, or the False Prophet_. Lange, in his _History of Materialism_, sets down Epicurus as a disciple and imitator of Democritus. I am not a man of sufficient classical culture to be able to form an authoritative opinion of the merits of Epicurus as a philosopher. All my knowledge of him, as well as of the other ancient philosophers, is derived from the book of Diogenes Laertius. Concerning Epicurus, I have read Bayle's magnificent article in his _Historical and Critical Dictionary_, and Gassendi's work, _De Vita et Moribus Epicuri_. With this equipment, I have become one of the disciples of the master. Scholars may say that I have no right to enrol myself as one of the disciples of Epicurus, but when I think of myself, spontaneously there comes to my mind the grotesque epithet which Horace applied to the Epicureans in his _Epistles_, a characterization which for my part I accept and regard as an honour: "Swine of the herd of Epicurus, _Epicuri de grege porcum_." EVIL AND ROUSSEAU'S CHINAMAN I do not believe in utter human depravity, nor have I any faith in great virtue, nor in the notion that the affairs of life may be removed beyond good and evil. We shall outgrow, we have already outgrown, the conception of sin, but we shall never pass beyond the idea of good and evil; that would be equivalent to skipping the cardinal points in geography. Nietzsche, an eminent poet and an extraordinary psychologist, convinced himself that we should be able to leap over good and evil with the help of a springboard of his manufacture. Not with this springboard, nor with any other, shall we escape from the polar North and South of the moral life. Nietzsche, a product of the fiercest pessimism, was at heart a good man, being in this respect the direct opposite of Rousseau, who, despite the fact that he is forever talking about virtue, about sensibility, the heart, and the sublimity of the soul, was in reality a low, sordid creature.