_Cheers for Physics!_--How many men are there who know how to observe? And among the few who do know,--how many observe themselves? "Everyone is furthest from himself"--all the "triers of the reins" know that to their discomfort; and the saying, "Know thyself," in the mouth of a God and spoken to man, is almost a mockery. But that the case of self-observation is so desperate, is attested best of all by the manner in which _almost everybody_ talks of the nature of a moral action, that prompt, willing, convinced, loquacious manner, with its look, its smile, and its pleasing eagerness! Everyone seems inclined to say to you: "Why, my dear Sir, that is precisely _my_ affair! You address yourself with your question to him who _is authorised_ to answer, for I happen to be wiser with regard to this matter than in anything else. Therefore, when a man decides that '_this is right_,' when he accordingly concludes that '_it must therefore be done,_ and thereupon _does_ what he has thus recognised as right and designated as necessary--then the nature of his action is _moral!"_ But, my friend, you are talking to me about three actions instead of one: your deciding, for instance, that "this is right," is also an action,--could one not judge either morally or immorally? _Why_ do you regard this, and just this, as right?--"Because my conscience tells me so; conscience never speaks immorally, indeed it determines in the first place what shall be moral!"--But why do you _listen_ to the voice of your conscience? And in how far are you justified in regarding such a judgment as true and infallible? This _belief_--is there no further conscience for it? Do you know nothing of an intellectual conscience? A conscience behind your "conscience"? Your decision, "this is right," has a previous history in your impulses, your likes and dislikes, your experiences and non-experiences; "_how_ has it originated?" you must ask, and afterwards the further question: "_what_ really impels me to give ear to it?" You can listen to its command like a brave soldier who hears the command of his officer. Or like a woman who loves him who commands. Or like a flatterer and coward, afraid of the commander. Or like a blockhead who follows because he has nothing to say to the contrary. In short, you can give ear to your conscience in a hundred different ways. But _that_ you hear this or that judgment as the voice of conscience, consequently, _that_ you feel a thing to be right--may have its cause in the fact that you have never thought about your nature, and have blindly accepted from your childhood what has been designated to you as _right:_ or in the fact that hitherto bread and honours have fallen to your share with that which you call your duty,--it is "right" to you, because it seems to be _your_ "condition of existence" (that you, however, have a _right_ to existence seems to you irrefutable!). The _persistency_ of your moral judgment might