close at hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary spectators of all Europe have interpreted from a distance their own indignation and enthusiasm so long and passionately, UNTIL THE TEXT HAS DISAPPEARED UNDER THE INTERPRETATION), so a noble posterity might once more misunderstand the whole of the past, and perhaps only thereby make ITS aspect endurable. — Or rather, has not this already happened? Have not we ourselves been — that “noble posterity”? And, in so far as we now comprehend this, is it not — thereby already past?

39.

Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as true merely because it makes people happy or virtuous — excepting, perhaps, the amiable “Idealists,” who are enthusiastic about the good, true, and beautiful,