Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/27

Rh subjects of our meditation : it always was too dangerous a thing to do. Conscience, good reputation, hell, occa-sionally even the police, did not and do not permit ofimpartiality ; in presence of morality, as in face of allauthority, we are not allowed to think, much less to speak: we have to obey! Ever since the creation of the world, no authority was willing to be made the object of criticism : nay, to criticise morals, to take morality as a problem, as problematic: well? was that not—is that not—inmoral ? But morals have not only various horrors at their command to ward off critical hands and instruments of torture : their security rests much more in a certain art of fascination whereon they may pride themselves they know how to "inspire." They often succeed in paralysing and misleading the critical will by one sole glance—they occasionally even know how to turn it upon itself: so that, like unto the scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own heart. Morality is, of old, well versed in the diabolical art of persuasion : even in our days there is no orator who would not have recourse to it (listen to our anarchists, for instance: how morally they speak in order to per-suade! In the end they even call themselves the "good and the just"). Ever since the arts of discoursing and persuasion have prevailed on earth, morality has proved the greatest master in the art of misleading, and to us, the philosopliers, the true Circe of the philosophers. What is the cause that from the times of Plato all