Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/253

 —Tell me briefly what really is the new thing that you want? We no longer want to turn causes into sinners and consequences into executioners. —We pardon many moral weaknesses in man, making use of a coarse sieve, provided he be a constant adherer to the strictest theory of morals. The life of free-thinking moralists, on the other hand, has always been placed under the microscope: with the mental reservation that all error in life is the surest argument against an unwelcome conviction —What is the ridiculous ? we used to ask formerly—as though there were beings other than ourselves, to whose qualities the ridiculous was added—and we exhausted ourselves in conjectures (a theologian even remarked that it might be "the