_Magnanimity and allied Qualities.--_Those paradoxical phenomena, such as the sudden coldness in the demeanour of good-natured men, the humour of the melancholy, and above all _magnanimity,_ as a sudden renunciation of revenge or of the gratification of envy--appear in men in whom there is a powerful inner impulsiveness, in men of sudden satiety and sudden disgust. Their satisfactions are so rapid and violent that satiety, aversion and flight into the antithetical taste, immediately follow upon them: in this contrast the convulsion of feeling liberates itself, in one person by sudden coldness, in another by laughter, and in a third by tear and self-sacrifice. The magnanimous person appears to me--at least that kind of magnanimous person who has always made most impression--as a man with the strongest thirst for vengeance, to whom a gratification presents itself close at hand, and who _already_ drinks it off _in imagination_ so copiously, thoroughly, and to the last drop, that an excessive, rapid disgust follows this rapid licentiousness;--he now elevates himself "above himself," as one says, and forgives his enemy, yea, blesses and honours him. With this violence done to himself, however, with this mockery of his impulse to revenge, even still so powerful he merely yields to the new impulse, the disgust which has become powerful, and does this just as impatiently and licentiously, as a short time previously he _forestalled,_ and as it were exhausted, the joy of revenge with his fantasy. In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge, but a different quality of egoism.
_The Argument of Isolation._--The reproach of conscience, even in the most conscientious, is weak against the feeling: "This and that are contrary to the good morals of _your_ society." A cold glance or a wry mouth on the part of those among whom and for whom one has been educated, is still _feared_ even by the strongest. What is really feared there? Isolation! as the argument which demolishes even the best arguments for a person or cause!--It is thus that the gregarious instinct speaks in us.
_Sense for Truth.--_Commend me to all scepticism where I am permitted to answer: "Let us put it to the test!" But I don't wish to hear anything more of things and questions which do not admit of being tested. That is the limit of my "sense for truth": for bravery has there lost its right.