HERE ARE NEW IDEALS TO INVENT.—At a time when a man is in love he should not be allowed to come to a decision about his life and to determine once and for all the character of his society on account of a whim. We ought publicly to declare invalid the vows of lovers, and to refuse them permission to marry: and this because we should treat marriage itself much more seriously, so that in cases where it is now contracted it would not usually be allowed in future! Are not the majority of marriages such that we should not care to have them witnessed by a third party? And yet this third party is scarcely ever lacking—the child—and he is more than a witness; he is the whipping-boy and scapegoat. 152. FORMULA OF OATH.—“If I am now telling a lie I am no longer an honourable man, and every one may say so to my face.” I recommend this formula in place of the present judicial oath and its customary invocation to the Deity: it is stronger. There is no reason why even religious men should oppose it; for as soon as the customary oath no longer serves, all the religious people will have to turn to their catechism, which says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” 153. THE MALCONTENT.—He is one of the brave old warriors: angry with civilisation because he believes that its object is to make all good things—honour, rewards, and fair women—accessible even to cowards. 154. CONSOLATION AMID PERILS.—The Greeks, in the course of a life that was always surrounded by great dangers and cataclysms, endeavoured to find in meditation and knowledge a kind of security of feeling, a last _refugium_. We, who live in a much more secure state, have introduced danger into meditation and knowledge, and it is in life itself that we endeavour to find repose, a refuge from danger. 155. EXTINCT SCEPTICISM.—Hazardous enterprises are rarer in modern times than in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, probably because modern times have no more belief in omens, oracles, stars, and soothsayers. In other words, we have become incapable of believing in a future which is reserved for us, as the ancients did, who—in contradistinction to ourselves—were much less sceptical regarding that which is to be than that which is. 156. EVIL THROUGH EXUBERANCE.—“Oh, that we should not feel too happy!”—such was the secret fear of the Greeks in their best age. _That_ is why they preached moderation to themselves. And we? 157.