_Unconscious Virtues.--_All qualities in a man of which he is conscious--and especially when he presumes that they are visible and evident to his environment also--are subject to quite other laws of development than those qualities which are unknown to him, or imperfectly known, which by their subtlety can also conceal themselves from the subtlest observer, and hide as it were behind nothing--as in the case of the delicate sculptures on the scales of reptiles (it would be an error to suppose them an adornment or a defence--for one sees them only with the microscope; consequently, with an eye artificially strengthened to an extent of vision which similar animals, to which they might perhaps have meant adornment or defence, do not possess!). Our visible moral qualities, and especially our moral qualities _believed to be_ visible, follow their own course,--and our invisible qualities of similar name, which in relation to others neither serve for adornment nor defence, _also follow their own course:_ quite a different course probably, and with lines and refinements, and sculptures, which might perhaps give pleasure to a God with a divine microscope. We have, for example, our diligence, our ambition, our acuteness: all the world knows about them,--and besides, we have probably once more _our_ diligence, _our_ ambition, _our_ acuteness; but for these--our reptile scales--the microscope has not yet been invented!--And here the adherents of instinctive morality will say, "Bravo! He at least regards unconscious virtues as possible--that suffices us!"--Oh, ye unexacting creatures!
_Our Eruptions._--Numberless things which humanity acquired in its earlier stages, but so weakly and embryonically that it could not be noticed that they were acquired, are thrust suddenly into light long afterwards, perhaps after the lapse of centuries: they have in the interval become strong and mature. In some ages this or that talent, this or that virtue seems to be entirely lacking, as it--is in some men; but let us wait only for the grandchildren and grandchildren's children, if we have time to wait,--they bring the interior of their grandfathers into the sun, that interior of which the grandfathers themselves were unconscious. The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of his father; the latter understands himself better since he has got his son. We have all hidden gardens and plantations in us; and by another simile, we are all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of eruption:--how near or how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not even the good God.