Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/150

114 moral actions are in reality, something "different," we cannot say more, and all actions are essentially inscrutable. The contrary has been and is the general belief: we have the most ancient realism atrayed against us. Hitherto mankind were wont to think, "An action is such as it appears to us." (In re-reading these words, a very emphatic passage of Schopenhauer occurs to my mind, which I will aduce as a proof that even he, without any scruple whatever, adhered and continued to adhere to this moral realism : Each one of us is really a competent and perfect moral judge, with a thorough knowledge of good and evil, holy in loving the good and despising evil—all this applies to everybody, in as far as not his own actions but those of others have to be examined, and he has only to approve and disapprove, while the burden of the achievement is laid on other shoulders. Hence everybody is perfectly justified, as confessor, to take the place of God.) —My eye, however strong and weak it may be, only encompasses a certain distance, and within this distance I move and live; this horizontal line is my immediate greater and lesser fate, from which I cannot escape. Thus round every being a concentric circle is drawn, which has a centre and which is peculiar to him. In a similar way our car encloses its