Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/282

 250 THE WILL IN NATURE.

plants and the vegetative element in Man. Where we find it predominant to excess in human beings, we assume them to be phlegmatic, dull, indolent, obtuse (Boeotians); though this assumption does not always meet with confirmation. Irritability, objectified in the muscular tissue, constitutes the chief characteristic of Animals and the animal element in Man. Where it predominates to excess, dexterity, strength, bravery, that is, fitness for bodily exertion and for war, is usually to be found (Spartans). Nearly all warm-blooded animals and even insects far surpass Man in irritability. It is by irritability that animals are most vividly conscious of their existence ; wherefore they exult in manifesting it. There is even still a trace of that exultation perceptible in Man, in dancing. Sensibility, objectified in the nerves, is Man's chief characteristic, and constitutes what is properly human in him. In this no animal can in the remotest degree compare with Man. Where it predominates to excess, it produces genius (Athenians). Accordingly a man of genius is in a higher degree a man. This explains why some men of genius have been unwilling to recognise other men, with their monotonous physiognomies and universal stamp of commonplace mediocrity, as human beings: for in them they did not find their equals and naturally came to the erroneous conclusion that their own was the normal standard. Diogenes sought for men with a lantern in this sense; in that work of genius, the Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) it is said: "One man among a thousand have I found, but one woman among all those have I not found;" and Gracián in his Criticon [The Critic], perhaps the grandest and most beautiful allegory ever written, says: "But what was strangest of all, in the whole country, even in the most populous cities, they did not meet with a single man; on the contrary, these cities were inhabited by lions, tigers, leopards, wolves,

1 Ecclesiastes, ch. 7, v. 28.