_A Species of Atavism._--I like best to think of the rare men of an age as suddenly emerging after-shoots of past cultures, and of their persistent strength: like the atavism of a people and its civilisation --there is thus still something in them to _think of!_ They now seem strange, rare, and extraordinary: and he who feels these forces in himself has to foster them in face of a different, opposing world; he has to defend them, honour them, and rear them to maturity: and he either becomes a great man thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person, if he does not altogether break down betimes. Formerly these rare qualities were usual, and were consequently regarded as common: they did not distinguish people. Perhaps they were demanded and presupposed; it was impossible to become great with them, for indeed there was also no danger of becoming insane and solitary with them.--It is principally in the _old-established_ families and castes of a people that such after-effects of old impulses present themselves, while there is no probability of such atavism where races, habits, and valuations change too rapidly. For the _tempo_ of the evolutional forces in peoples implies just as much as in music; for our case an _andante_ of evolution is absolutely necessary, as the _tempo_ of a passionate and slow spirit:--and the spirit of conserving families is certainly of _that_ sort.
_Consciousness._--Consciousness is the last and latest development of the organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least powerful of these developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out of consciousness, which, "in spite of fate," as Homer says, cause an animal or a man to break down earlier than might be necessary. If the conserving bond of the instincts were not very much more powerful, it would not generally serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and dreaming with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity, in short, just by consciousness, mankind would necessarily have broken down: or rather, without the former there would long ago have been nothing more of the latter! Before a function is fully formed and matured, it is a danger to the organism: all the better if it be then thoroughly tyrannised over! Consciousness is thus thoroughly tyrannised over--and not least by the pride in it! It is thought that here is _the quintessence_ of man; that which is enduring, eternal, ultimate, and most original in him! Consciousness is regarded as a fixed, given magnitude! Its growth and intermittences are denied! It is accepted as the "unity of the organism"!--This ludicrous overvaluation and misconception of consciousness has as its result the great utility that a too rapid maturing of it has thereby been _hindered._ Because men believed that they already possessed consciousness, they gave themselves very little trouble to acquire it--and even now it is not otherwise! It is still an entirely new _problem_ just dawning on the human eye, and hardly yet plainly recognisable: _to embody knowledge in ourselves_ and make it instinctive,--a problem which is only seen by those who have grasped the fact that hitherto our _errors_ alone have been embodied in us, and that all our consciousness is relative to errors!