Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/45

 others as well as themselves. —The question whether women blush in the dark is an extremely difficult one; at least, it is one on which little light can be thrown. I do not believe that so-called truly pious souls are good because they are pious, but pious because they are good. There are certain characters to whom it comes natural to fall in with all domestic and civil arrangements, and to make the best of things which they partly see the use of, and partly recognize the impossibilty of improving. To ascribe all this to religion, then, may well be a fallacia causæ. I have invariably found that, all else failing, a man’s character can be deduced from nothing so surely as from a jest that he takes in bad part. Who is there among us who is not once a year mad, that is, who when he is alone does not imagine to himself another earth, other conditions of happiness than the actual ones? Sanity is nothing more than coming to oneself again as soon as the scene is over, leaving the play and going home. In the Dark Ages very great men often arose. In those times only such could rise to greatness as nature had particularly marked out to attain it. Now, when instruction is so easy, men are trained up to become great, as animals are to become beasts of burden. In consequence of this a new kind of