of sin"). Nowadays we ask: What is laughter? How does hunger originate? Having thought it over in our minds, we have come to the conclusion that there is nothing which is good, nothing which is beautiful, nothing which is lofty, nothing which is evil in itself; but that there are indeed conditions of the soul, in which we give such epithets to the things that pass within and without us. We have withdrawn the predicates of the things or, at least, recalled to our minds that we have but lent them. Let us beware how, at this insight, we lose the capacity of lending and increase both in wealth and avarice.
211
To the dreamers of immortality.—So you wish for a perpetuity of this beautiful consciousness of your own selves? Are you then unmindful of all other things which would then have to endure fun for ever and ever, as they have done all these years with it more than Christian patience ? Or do you presume to inspire them with an undying feeling of delight? One single immortal man on earth would indeed suffice to incite everything still in existence to a general mania of killing and hanging in consequence of the disgust of him. And ye dwellers on earth with your petty couceptions of some few thousands of minuter, you wish to be an eternal burden to the everlasting universal existence! Is there anything more obtrusive than this?
