we must again set about doing everything for ourselves, and only for
ourselves--measuring science by ourselves, for example with the question
· What is science to us? not . what are we to science? People really
make life too easy for themselves when they look upon themselves from
such a simple historical point of view, and make humble servants of
themselves. "Your own salvation above everything"--that is what you
should say; and there are no institutions which you should prize more
highly than your own soul.--Now, however, man learns to know himself: he
finds himself miserable, despises himself, and is pleased to find
something worthy of respect outside himself. Therefore he gets rid of
himself, so to speak, makes himself subservient to a cause, does his
duty strictly, and atones for his existence. He knows that he does not
work for himself alone; he wishes to help those who are daring enough to
exist on account of themselves, like Socrates. The majority of men are
as it were suspended in the air like toy balloons; every breath of wind
moves them.--As a consequence the savant must be such out of
self-knowledge, that is to say, out of contempt for himself--in other
words he must recognise himself to be merely the servant of some higher
being who comes after him. Otherwise he is simply a sheep.


22

It is the duty of the free man to live for his own sake, and not for
others. It was on this account that the Greeks looked upon handicrafts
as unseemly.

As a complete entity Greek antiquity has not yet been fully valued · I
am convinced that if it had not been surrounded by its traditional
glorification, the men of the present day would shrink from it horror