It
is, besides, an illusion to suppose that such a privilege is possible,
when everything proves the solidarity of individuals, and when no one
can think at all except by means of the general store of thought,
accumulated and refined by centuries of cultivation and experience.
Absolute individualism is an absurdity. A man may be isolated in his own
particular and temporary _milieu_, but every one of our thoughts or
feelings finds, has found, and will find, its echo in humanity. Such an
echo is immense and far-resounding in the case of those representative
men who have been adopted by great fractions of humanity as guides,
revealers, and reformers; but it exists for everybody. Every sincere
utterance of the soul, every testimony faithfully borne to a personal
conviction, is of use to some one and some thing, even when you know it
not, and when your mouth is stopped by violence, or the noose tightens
round your neck. A word spoken to some one preserves an indestructible
influence, just as any movement whatever may be metamorphosed, but not
undone. Here, then, is a reason for not mocking, for not being silent,
for affirming, for acting. We must have faith in truth; we must seek the
true and spread it abroad; we must love men and serve them.
April 9, 1868.--I have been spending three hours over Lotze's big volume
("Geschichte der Aesthetikin Deutschland").
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