Innocence is in its very nature stupid.  It is stupid because the aim of life (I use the expression only figuratively, and I could just as well speak of the essence of life, or of the world) is to gain a knowledge of our own bad will, so that our will may become an object for us, and that we may undergo an inward conversion.  Our body is itself our will objectified; it is one of the first and foremost of objects, and the deeds that we accomplish for the sake of the body show us the evil inherent in our will.  In the state of innocence, where there is no evil because there is no experience, man is, as it were, only an apparatus for living, and the object for which the apparatus exists is not yet disclosed.  An empty form of life like this, a stage untenanted, is in itself, like the so-called real world, null and void; and as it can attain a meaning only by action, by error, by knowledge, by the convulsions of the will, it wears a character of insipid stupidity.  A golden age of innocence, a fools’ paradise, is a notion that is stupid and unmeaning, and for that very reason in no way worthy of any respect.  The first criminal and murderer, Cain, who acquired a knowledge of guilt, and through guilt acquired a knowledge of virtue by repentance, and so came to understand the meaning of life, is a tragical figure more significant, and almost more respectable, than all the innocent fools in the world put together.

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If I had to write about modesty I should say:  I know the esteemed public for which I have the honour to write far too well to dare to give utterance to my opinion about this virtue.  Personally I am quite content to be modest and to apply myself to this virtue with the utmost possible circumspection.  But one thing I shall never admit—­that I have ever required modesty of any man, and any statement to that effect I repel as a slander.

The paltry character of most men compels the few who have any merit or genius to behave as though they did not know their own value, and consequently did not know other people’s want of value; for it is only on this condition that the mob acquiesces in tolerating merit.  A virtue has been made out of this necessity, and it is called modesty.  It is a piece of hypocrisy, to be excused only because other people are so paltry that they must be treated with indulgence.

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Human misery may affect us in two ways, and we may be in one of two opposite moods in regard to it.

In one of them, this misery is immediately present to us.  We feel it in our own person, in our own will which, imbued with violent desires, is everywhere broken, and this is the process which constitutes suffering.  The result is that the will increases in violence, as is shown in all cases of passion and emotion; and this increasing violence comes to a stop only when the will turns and gives way to complete resignation, in other words, is redeemed.  The man who is entirely dominated by this mood will regard any prosperity which he may see in others with envy, and any suffering with no sympathy.