As regards morality, example, like doctrine, may, it is true, promote civil or legal amelioration, but not that inward amendment which is, strictly speaking, the only kind of moral amelioration.  For example always works as a personal motive alone, and assumes, therefore, that a man is susceptible to this sort of motive.  But it is just the predominating sensitiveness of a character to this or that sort of motive that determines whether its morality is true and real; though, of whatever kind it is, it is always innate.  In general it may be said that example operates as a means of promoting the good and the bad qualities of a character, but it does not create them; and so it is that Seneca’s maxim, velle non discitur—­will cannot be learned—­also holds good here.  But the innateness of all truly moral qualities, of the good as of the bad, is a doctrine that consorts better with the metempsychosis of the Brahmins and Buddhists, according to which a man’s good and bad deeds follow him from one existence to another like his shadow, than with Judaism.  For Judaism requires a man to come into the world as a moral blank, so that, in virtue of an inconceivable free will, directed to objects which are neither to be sought nor avoided—­liberum arbitrium indifferentiae—­and consequently as the result of reasoned consideration, he may choose whether he is to be an angel or a devil, or anything else that may lie between the two.  Though I am well aware what the Jewish scheme is, I pay no attention to it; for my standard is truth.  I am no professor of philosophy, and therefore I do not find my vocation in establishing the fundamental ideas of Judaism at any cost, even though they for ever bar the way to all and every kind of philosophical knowledge. Liberum arbitrium indifferentiae under the name of moral freedom is a charming doll for professors of philosophy to dandle; and we must leave it to those intelligent, honourable and upright gentlemen.

CHARACTER.

Men who aspire to a happy, a brilliant and a long life, instead of to a virtuous one, are like foolish actors who want to be always having the great parts,—­the parts that are marked by splendour and triumph.  They fail to see that the important thing is not what or how much, but how they act.

Since a man does not alter, and his moral character remains absolutely the same all through his life; since he must play out the part which he has received, without the least deviation from the character; since neither experience, nor philosophy, nor religion can effect any improvement in him, the question arises, What is the meaning of life at all?  To what purpose is it played, this farce in which everything that is essential is irrevocably fixed and determined?