Macmillan

and
subtler
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 143
mime). It is the music in our consciencețhe dance in our
spirit, to which Puritan litanies, moral sermons, and goodygoodnesswon't
chime.
217
Let us be careful in dealingwith those who attach great
importanceto being credited with moral tact and subtlety
in moral discernment! They never forgiveus if they have
once made a mistake beforeus (oreven with regardto us)"
theyinevitably become our instinctive calumniators and detractor
even when they still remain our "friends. "
Blessed are the forgetful:
they"getthe better" even
their blunders.
of
218
The psychologists of France
"
stillpsychologists
^have never nowadays?" yet exhausted
where else are there
their bitter and manifold enjoyment of the betise bourgeoise,justas
though in
... short,theybetraysomething
thereby.Flaubert,for instancețhe honest citizen of Rouen,
neither saw, heard,nor tasted anythingelse in the end; it
was his mode of self-torment and refined cruelty.As this
"
is growingwearisome,I would now recommend for a change
something else for a pleasure namely, the unconscious
astuteness with which good,fat,honest mediocrityalways
behaves towards loftier spiritsand the tasks they have to
perform,the
subtle,barbed,Jesuitical astuteness, which
a thousand times subtler than the taste and understanding
of the middle-class in its best moments
"
is
even than
the understandingof its victims:" a repeatedproof that
"instinct" is the most intelligent of all kinds of intelli-