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THE EGO AND HIS OWN

the old-time righteousness of works. For in the latter
only the act is needed, but you require the disposition
too; one must carry in himself the law, the statute;
and he who is most legally disposed is the most moral.
Even the last vestige of cheerfulness in Catholic life
must perish in this Protestant legality. Here at last
the domination of the law is for the first time com-
plete. " Not I live, but the law lives in me." Thus
I have really come so far as to be only the " vessel of
its glory." " Every Prussian carries his gendarme in
his breast," says a high Prussian officer.

Why do certain opposition parties fail to flourish ?

Solely for the reason that they refuse to forsake the
path of morality or legality. Hence the measureless
hypocrisy of devotion, love, etc., from whose repulsive-
ness one may daily get the most thorough nausea at
this rotten and hypocritical relation of a " lawful op-
position."--In the moral relation of love and fidelity a
divided or opposed will cannot have place; the beauti-
ful relation is disturbed if the one wills this and the
other the reverse. But now, according to the practice
hitherto and the old prejudice of the opposition, the
moral relation is to be preserved above all. What is
then left to the opposition ? Perhaps the will to have
a liberty, if the beloved one sees fit to deny it ? Not
a bit ! It may not will to have the freedom, it can
only wish for it, " petition " for it, lisp a " Please,
please ! " What would come of it, if the opposition
really willed, willed with the full energy of the will ?
No, it must renounce will in order to live to love, re-
nounce liberty--for love of morality. It may never
" claim as a right " what it is permitted only to " beg

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 67

as a favor." Love, devotion, etc., demand with unde-
viating definiteness that there be only one will to
which the others devote themselves, which they serve,
follow, love. Whether this will is regarded as reason-
able or as unreasonable, in both cases one acts morally
when one follows it, and immorally when one breaks
away from it. The will that commands the censorship
seems to many unreasonable; but he who in a land of
censorship evades the censoring of his book acts im-
morally, and he who submits it to the censorship acts
morally. If some one let his moral judgment go, and
set up e. g. a secret press, one would have to call him
immoral, and imprudent into the bargain if he let
himself be caught; but will such a man lay claim to a
value in the eyes of the " moral " ? Perhaps ! --That
is, if he fancied he was serving a " higher morality."

The web of the hypocrisy of to-day hangs on the

frontiers of two domains, between which our time
swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of
deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous
enough to serve morality without doubt or weakening,
not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it
trembles now toward the one and now toward the
other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by
the curse of halfness, catches only miserable, stupid
flies. If one has once dared to make a " free " mo-
tion, immediately one waters it again with assurances
of love, and--shams resignation ; if, on the other side,
they have had the face to reject the free motion with
moral appeals to confidence, etc., immediately the
moral courage also sinks, and they assure one how
they hear the free words with special pleasure, etc. ;