is something foreign to the nature of man, something unnatural, or really supernatural: yet on account of this alone is the man _great_; and therefore what he achieves is then ascribed to a _genius_ different from himself, which takes possession of him. To such a man his painting, poetry, or thinking is an _end_; to others it is a _means_. The latter thereby seek their own things, and, as a rule, they know how to further them, for they flatter their contemporaries, ready to serve their wants and humours; therefore for the most part they live in happy circumstances; the former often in very miserable circumstances. For he sacrifices his personal welfare to his _objective end_; he cannot indeed do otherwise, because his seriousness lies there. They act conversely; therefore they are _small_, but he is _great_. Accordingly his work is for all time, but the recognition of it generally only begins with posterity: they live and die with their time. In general he only is great who in his work, whether it is practical or theoretical, seeks _not his own concerns_, but pursues an _objective end_ alone; he is so, however, even when in the practical sphere this end is a misunderstood one, and even if in consequence of this it should be a crime. _That he seeks not himself and his own concerns_, this makes him under all circumstances _great_. _Small_, on the other hand, is all action which is directed to personal ends; for whoever is thereby set in activity knows and finds himself only in his own transient and insignificant person. He who is great, again, finds himself in all, and therefore in the whole: he lives not, like others, only in the microcosm, but still more in the macrocosm. Hence the whole interests him, and he seeks to comprehend it in order to represent it, or to explain it, or to act practically upon it. For it is not strange to him; he feels that it concerns him. On account of this extension of his sphere he is called _great_. Therefore that lofty predicate belongs only to the true hero, in some sense, and to genius: it signifies that they, contrary to human nature, have not sought their own things, have not lived for themselves, but for all. As now clearly the great majority must _constantly_ be small, and can _never_ become great, the converse of this, that one should be great throughout, that is, constantly and every moment, is yet not possible— “For man is made of common clay, And custom is his nurse.” Every great man must often be only the individual, have only himself in view, and that means he must be small. Upon this depends the very true remark, that no man is a hero to his valet, and not upon the fact that the valet cannot appreciate the hero; which Goethe, in the “_Wahlverwandhschaften_” (vol. ii. chap. 5), serves up as an idea of Ottilie’s.