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THE EGO AND HIS OWN

they--sham approval. In short, people would like to
have the one, but not go without the other; they
would like to have a free will, but not for their lives
lack the moral will. Just come in contact with a ser-
vile loyalist, you Liberals. You will sweeten every
word of freedom with a look of the most loyal confi-
dence, and he will clothe his servilism in the most flat-
tering phrases of freedom. Then you go apart, and
he, like you, thinks " I know you, fox ! " He scents
the devil in you as much as you do the dark old Lord
God in him.

A Nero is a " bad " man only in the eyes of the

"good"; in mine he is nothing but a possessed man,
as are the good too. The good see in him an arch-
villain, and relegate him to hell. Why did nothing
hinder him in his arbitrary course ? Why did people
put up with so much ? Do you suppose the tame
Romans, who let all their will be bound by such a
tyrant, were a hair the better ? In old Rome they
would have put him to death instantly, would never
have been his slaves. But the contemporary " good "
among the Romans opposed to him only moral de-
mands, not their will; they sighed that their emperor
did not do homage to morality, like them ; they them-
selves remained " moral subjects," till at last one
found courage to give up " moral, obedient subjec-
tion." And then the same " good Romans " who, as
" obedient subjects," had borne all the ignominy of
having no will, hurrahed over the nefarious, immoral
act of the rebel. Where then in the " good " was the
courage for the revolution, that courage which they
now praised, after another had mustered it up ? The

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 69

good could not have this courage, for a revolution,
and an insurrection into the bargain, is always some-
thing " immoral," which one can resolve upon only
when one ceases to be " good " and becomes either
" bad " or--neither of the two. Nero was no viler
than his time, in which one could only be one of the
two, good or bad. The judgment of his time on him
had to be that he was bad, and this in the highest
degree: not a milksop, but an arch-scoundrel. All
moral people can pronounce only this judgment on
him. Rascals such as he was are still living here and
there to-day (see e. g. the Memoirs of Ritter von
Lang) in the midst of the moral. It is not convenient
to live among them certainly, as one is not sure of his
life for a moment; but can you say that it is more
convenient to live among the moral ? One is just as
little sure of his life there, only that one is hanged " in
the way of justice," but least of all is one sure of his
honor, and the national cockade is gone before you
can say Jack Robinson. The hard fist of morality
treats the noble nature of egoism altogether without
compassion.

" But surely one cannot put a rascal and an honest

man on the same level ! " Now, no human being does
that oftener than you judges of morals; yes, still more
than that, you imprison as a criminal an honest man
who speaks openly against the existing constitution,
against the hallowed institutions, etc., and you en-
trust portfolios and still more important things to a
crafty rascal. So in praxi you have nothing to re-
proach me with. " But in theory ! " Now there I do
put both on the same level, as two opposite poles,--to