The individual placing himself before humanity is to accept everything:
this is the disposition recommended to us, in the name of the modern
mind. Good and evil are narrow measures which minds behind the age
persist, ridiculously enough, in wishing to apply to things. "We no
longer transform the world to our image by bringing it to our standard;
_on the contrary, we allow ourselves to be modified and fashioned by
it_."[147] The individual goes therefore to meet humanity without any
inner rule: he gives himself up, he abandons himself to the spectacle of
facts. But the world is large, and history is long. Even those who spend
their whole life in nothing else than in satisfying their curiosity,
cannot see and know everything. To what then shall be directed that
vague look, equally attracted to all points for want of any fixed rule?
At what shall it stop? It will rest on that which shines most
brilliantly, like a moth attracted by light. Now, nothing shines more
brightly than success; nothing more solicits the attention. The
glorification of success is the first and most infallible consequence of
moral indifference. In leaving ourselves to be fashioned by the world
instead of bringing it to our standard, we shall begin by according our
esteem to victory. This philosophy is come to us from Germany. It was
set forth on one occasion, in France, with great _éclat_, by the
brilliant eloquence of a man who has rendered signal services to
philosophy, and whose entire works must not be judged of by the single
particular which I am about to mention. In the year 1829, M. Cousin was
developing at the Sorbonne the meaning of these verses of La Fontaine,
which introduce the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb:


La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure:
Je vais le montrer tout à l'heure.