32. _Undesirable Disciples._--What shall I do with these two youths! called out a philosopher dejectedly, who "corrupted" youths, as Socrates had once corrupted them,--they are unwelcome disciples to me. One of them cannot say "Nay," and the other says "Half and half" to everything. Provided they grasped my doctrine, the former would _suffer_ too much, for my mode of thinking requires a martial soul, willingness to cause pain, delight in denying, and a hard skin,--he would succumb by open wounds and internal injuries. And the other will choose the mediocre in everything he represents, and thus make a mediocrity of the whole,--I should like my enemy to have such a disciple. 33. _Outside the Lecture-room._--"In order to prove that man after all belongs to the good-natured animals, I would remind you how credulous he has been for so long a time. It is now only, quite late, and after an immense self-conquest, that he has become a _distrustful_ animal,--yes! man is now more wicked than ever."--I do not understand this; why should man now be more distrustful and more wicked?--"Because now he has science,--because he needs to have it!"-- 34. _Historia abscondita._--Every great man has a power which operates backward; all history is again placed on the scales on his account, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their lurking-places--into _his_ sunlight. There is absolutely no knowing what history may be some day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in its essence! There is yet so much reinterpreting ability needed! 35. _Heresy and Witchcraft._--To think otherwise than is customary--that is by no means so much the activity of a better intellect, as the activity of strong, wicked inclinations,--severing, isolating, refractory, mischief-loving, malicious inclinations. Heresy is the counterpart of witchcraft, and is certainly just as little a merely harmless affair, or a thing worthy of honour in itself. Heretics and sorcerers are two kinds of bad men; they have it in common that they also feel themselves wicked; their unconquerable delight is to attack and injure whatever rules,--whether it be men or opinions. The Reformation, a kind of duplication of the spirit of the Middle Ages at a time when it had no longer a good conscience, produced both of these kinds of people in the greatest profusion. 36.