Though I am less of _a_ man, I am perhaps nearer to _the_ man; perhaps
rather more _man_. There is less of the individual, but more of the
species, in me. My nature, which is absolutely unsuited for practical
life, shows great aptitude for psychological study. It prevents me from
taking sides, but it allows me to understand all sides. It is not only
indolence which prevents me from drawing conclusions; it is a sort of a
secret aversion to all _intellectual proscription_. I have a feeling
that something of everything is wanted to make a world, that all
citizens have a right in the state, and that if every opinion is equally
insignificant in itself, all opinions have some hold upon truth. To live
and let live, think and let think, are maxims which are equally dear to
me. My tendency is always to the whole, to the totality, to the general
balance of things. What is difficult to me is to exclude, to condemn, to
say no; except, indeed, in the presence of the exclusive. I am always
fighting for the absent, for the defeated cause, for that portion of
truth which seems to me neglected; my aim is to complete every thesis,
to see round every problem, to study a thing from all its possible
sides. Is this skepticism? Yes, in its result, but not in its purpose.
It is rather the sense of the absolute and the infinite reducing to
their proper value and relegating to their proper place the finite and
the relative.
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