(_Revue des deux mondes,_ 15th February 1887. Taine concerning Napoleon) "Suddenly the master faculty reveals itself: the _artist,_ which was latent in the politician, comes forth from his scabbard; he creates _dans l'idéal et l'impossible._ He is once more recognised as that which he is: the posthumous brother of Dante and of Michelangelo; and verily, in view of the definite contours of his vision, the intensity, the coherence, and inner consistency of his dream, the depth of his meditations, the superhuman greatness of his conception, he is their equal: _son génie a la même taille et la même structure; il est un des trois esprits souverains de la renaissance italienne._" _Nota bene._ Dante, Michelangelo, Napoleon. 1019. _Concerning the pessimism of strength._ In the internal economy of _the primitive_ man's soul, the _fear_ of evil preponderates. What is _evil!_ Three kinds of things: accident, uncertainty, the unexpected. How does primitive man combat evil?--He conceives it as a thing of reason, of power, even as a person. By this means he is enabled to make treaties with it, and generally to operate upon it in advance--to forestall it. --Another expedient is to declare its evil and harmful character to be but apparent: the consequences of accidental occurrences, and of uncertainty and the unexpected, are interpreted as _well-meant,_ as reasonable. --A third means is to interpret evil, above all, as merited: evil is thus justified as a punishment. --In short, _man submits to in_ all religious and moral interpretations are but forms of submission to evil.--The belief that a good purpose lies behind all evil, implies the renunciation of any desire to combat it. Now, the history of every culture shows a diminution of this _fear of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected._ Culture means precisely, to learn to reckon, to discover causes, to acquire the power of forestalling events, to acquire a belief in necessity. With the growth of culture, man is able to dispense with that primitive form of submission to evil (called religion or morality), and that "justification of evil." Now he wages war against "evil,"--he gets rid of it. Yes, a state of security, of belief in law and the possibility of calculation, is possible, in which consciousness regards these things with tedium,--in which the joy of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected, actually becomes a spur. Let us halt a moment before this symptom of _highest_ culture, I call it the _pessimism of strength._ Man now no longer requires a "justification of evil"; justification is precisely what he abhors: he enjoys evil, _pur, cru_; he regards purposeless evil as the most interesting kind of evil. If he had required a God in the past, he now delights in cosmic disorder without a God, a world of accident, to the essence of which terror, ambiguity, and seductiveness belong.