of an inconceivable free will, directed to objects which
are neither to be sought nor avoided--_liberum arbitrium
indifferentiae_--and consequently as the result of reasoned
consideration, he may choose whether he is to be an angel or a devil,
or anything else that may lie between the two. Though I am well aware
what the Jewish scheme is, I pay no attention to it; for my standard
is truth. I am no professor of philosophy, and therefore I do not find
my vocation in establishing the fundamental ideas of Judaism at any
cost, even though they for ever bar the way to all and every kind of
philosophical knowledge. _Liberum arbitrium indifferentiae_ under
the name of _moral freedom_ is a charming doll for professors of
philosophy to dandle; and we must leave it to those intelligent,
honourable and upright gentlemen.

CHARACTER.

Men who aspire to a happy, a brilliant and a long life, instead of to
a virtuous one, are like foolish actors who want to be always having
the great parts,--the parts that are marked by splendour and triumph.
They fail to see that the important thing is not _what_ or _how much_,
but _how_ they act.

Since _a man does not alter_, and his _moral character_ remains
absolutely the same all through his life; since he must play out the
part which he has received, without the least deviation from the
character; since neither experience, nor philosophy, nor religion
can effect any improvement in him, the question arises, What is the
meaning of life at all? To what purpose is it played, this farce
in which everything that is essential is irrevocably fixed and
determined?

It is played that a man may come to understand himself, that he may
see what it is that he seeks and has sought to be; what he wants, and
what, therefore, he is. _This is a knowledge which must be imparted
to him from without_. Life is to man, in other words, to will, what
chemical re-agents are to the body: it is only by life that a man
reveals what he is, and it is only in so far as he reveals himself
that he exists at all. Life is the manifestation of character, of the
something that we understand by that word; and it is not in life, but
outside of it, and outside time, that character undergoes alteration,
as a result of the self-knowledge which life gives. Life is only
the mirror into which a man gazes not in order that he may get a
reflection of himself, but that he may come to understand himself by
that reflection; that he