Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 11 from their bad conscience than by playing the role of ex-
ecutors of older and higher orders (of predecessors, of the
constitution, of justice, of the law, or of God himself), or
they even justify themselves by maxims from the current
opinions of the herd, as ‘first servants of their people,’ or
‘instruments of the public weal”. On the other hand, the
gregarious European man nowadays assumes an air as if
he were the only kind of man that is allowable, he glori-
fies his qualities, such as public spirit, kindness, deference,
industry, temperance, modesty, indulgence, sympathy, by
virtue of which he is gentle, endurable, and useful to the
herd, as the peculiarly human virtues. In cases, however,
where it is believed that the leader and bell-wether cannot
be dispensed with, attempt after attempt is made nowadays
to replace commanders by the summing together of clever
gregarious men all representative constitutions, for exam-
ple, are of this origin. In spite of all, what a blessing, what
a deliverance from a weight becoming unendurable, is the
appearance of an absolute ruler for these gregarious Euro-
peans—of this fact the effect of the appearance of Napoleon
was the last great proof the history of the influence of Napo-
leon is almost the history of the higher happiness to which
the entire century has attained in its worthiest individuals
and periods.
- The man of an age of dissolution which mixes the races
with one another, who has the inheritance of a diversified
descent in his body—that is to say, contrary, and often not
only contrary, instincts and standards of value, which strug-