Macmillan

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they
128 BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
Againstthis kind of "good will
"
will to the veritable,
actual life" negationof there is,as isgenerallyacknowledged
nowadays,no better soporific and sedative than scepticism,
the mild,pleasing,lullingpoppy
of scepticism; and
Hamlet
himself is now prescribedby the doctors of the day as an
antidote to the "spirit," and its undergroundnoises. "Are
not our ears alreadyfullof bad sounds?" say the sceptics, as
lovers of repose, and almost as a kind of safetypolice,"this
subterranean Nay isterrible! Be still, ye pessimistic moles! "
The sceptic, in effect, that delicatecreature,is far too easily
frightened; his conscience is schooled so as to start at every
Nay, and even at that sharp,decided Yea, and feels something
like a bite thereby. Yea! and Nay!
"
seem to
him opposedto morality;he loves,on the contrary, to make
a festivalto his virtue by a noble aloofness, while perhaps
he says with Montaigne: "What do I know?" Or with
Socrates: "I know that I know nothing." Or: "Here I do
not trust myself,no door is open to me." Or: "Even if the
door were open, why should I enter immediately?" Or:
"What is the use of any hastyhypotheses? It might quite
well be in good taste to make no hypothesesat all. Are you
absolutelyobligedto straighten at once what is crooked? to
stuff every hole with some kind of oakum? Is there not
time enough for that? Has not the time leisure? Oh, ye
demons, can ye
not at all wait? The uncertain also has
its charms,the Sphinx,too, is a Circe,and Circe,too, was
a
"
philosopher." Thus does a scepticonsole himself;and in
truth he needs some consolation. For scepticism is the most
spiritualexpressionof a certain many-sidedphysiological
temperament, which in ordinarylanguageis called nervous
debilityand sickliness; it arises whenever races or classes
which have been long separated,decisivelyand suddenly
blend with one another. In the new generation, which has