The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
2.
_The Intellectual Conscience._—I have always the same experience over again, and always make a new effort against it; for although it is evident to me I do not want to believe it: _in the greater number of men the intellectual conscience is lacking_; indeed, it would often seem to me that in demanding such a thing, one is as solitary in the largest cities as in the desert. Everyone looks at you with strange eyes, and continues to make use of his scales, calling this good and that bad; and no one blushes for shame when you remark that these weights are not the full amount,—there is also no indignation against you; perhaps they laugh at your doubt. I mean to say that _the greater number of people_ do not find it contemptible to believe this or that, and live according to it, _without_ having been previously aware of the ultimate and surest reasons for and against it, and without even giving themselves any trouble about such reasons afterwards,—the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "greater number." But what is kind-heartedness, refinement and genius to me, if the man with these virtues harbours indolent sentiments in belief and judgment, if _the longing for certainty_ does not rule in him, as his innermost desire and profoundest need—as that which separates higher from lower men! In certain pious people I have found a hatred of reason, and have been favourably disposed to them for it: their bad, intellectual conscience still betrayed itself, at least in this manner! But to stand in the midst of this _rerum concordia discors_ and all the marvellous uncertainty and ambiguity of existence, _and not to question_, not to tremble with desire and delight in questioning, not even to hate the questioner—perhaps even to make merry over him to the extent of weariness—that is what I regard as _contemptible_, and it is this sentiment which I first of all search for in every one:—some folly or other always persuades me anew that every man has this sentiment, as man. This is my special kind of unrighteousness.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.