September 9, 1879.--"Non-being is perfect. Being, imperfect:" this
horrible sophism becomes beautiful only in the Platonic system, because
there Non-being is replaced by the Idea, which is, and which is divine.
The ideal, the chimerical, the vacant, should not be allowed to claim so
great a superiority to the Real, which, on its side, has the
incomparable advantage of existing. The Ideal kills enjoyment and
content by disparaging the present and actual. It is the voice which
says No, like Mephistopheles. No, you have not succeeded; no, your work
is not good; no, you are not happy; no, you shall not find rest--all
that you see and all that you do is insufficient, insignificant,
overdone, badly done, imperfect. The thirst for the ideal is like the
goad of Siva, which only quickens life to hasten death. Incurable
longing that it is, it lies at the root both of individual suffering and
of the progress of the race. It destroys happiness in the name of
dignity.
The only positive good is order, the return therefore to order and to a
state of equilibrium. Thought without action is an evil, and so is
action without thought. The ideal is a poison unless it be fused with
the real, and the real becomes corrupt without the perfume of the ideal.
Nothing is good singly without its complement and its contrary.
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