LITTLE UNCONVENTIONAL ACTIONS ARE NECESSARY!—To act occasionally in matters of custom against our own better judgments; to yield in practice while reserving our own intellectual liberty; to behave like everybody else and thus to show ourselves amiable and considerate to all, to compensate them, as it were, even if only to some extent, for our unconventional opinions—all this among many tolerably liberal-minded men is looked upon not only as permissible but even as “honourable,” “humane,” “tolerant,” and “unpedantic,” or whatever fine words may be used to lull to sleep the intellectual conscience. So, for example, one man, although he may be an atheist, has his infant baptized in the usual Christian fashion; another goes through his period of military service, though he may severely condemn all hatred between nations; and a third runs into the Church with a girl because she comes from a religious family, and makes his vows to a priest without feeling ashamed of it. “It is of no importance if one of us does what every one else does and has done”—so says ignorant prejudice! What a profound mistake! For nothing is of greater importance than that a powerful, long-established, and irrational custom should be once again confirmed by the act of some one who is recognised as rational. In this way the proceeding is thought to be sanctioned by reason itself! All honour to your opinions! but little unconventional actions are of still greater value. 150. THE HAZARD OF MARRIAGES.—If I were a god, and a benevolent god, the marriages of men would cause me more displeasure than anything else. An individual can make very great progress within the seventy years of his life—yea, even within thirty years: such progress, indeed, as to surprise even the gods! But when we then see him exposing the inheritance and legacy of his struggles and victories, the laurel crown of his humanity, on the first convenient peg where any female may pick it to pieces for him; when we observe how well he can acquire and how little he is capable of preserving his acquisitions, and how he does not even dream that by procreation he might prepare a still more victorious life,—we then, indeed, become impatient and say, “Nothing can in the end result from humanity, individuals are wasted, for all rationality of a great advance of humanity is rendered impossible by the hazard of marriages: let us cease from being the assiduous spectators and fools of this aimless drama!” It was in this mood that the gods of Epicurus withdrew long ago to their divine seclusion and felicity: they were tired of men and their love affairs. 151.