Our
senses are fairly well-adapted to our needs but our thought is not,
it overflows and maddens us. Very, very few among us men can guide
themselves on this torrent; the far greater number are swept along,
at random, trusting to chance. The tremendous power of thought is not
under man's control; he tries to make it serve him, and his greatest
danger is that he believes that it does so; but he is like a child
handling explosives; there is no proportion between these colossal
engines and the purpose for which his feeble hands employ them.
Sometimes they all blow up together....
How guard against this danger? Shall we stifle thought, uproot living
ideas? That would mean the castration of man's brain, the loss of his
chief stimulus in life; but nevertheless the _eau-de-vie_ of his mind
contains a poison which is the more to be dreaded because it is spread
broadcast among the masses, in the form of adulterated drugs....
Rouse thee, Man, and sober thyself! Look about; shake off ideas. Free
thyself from thine own thoughts and learn to govern thy gigantic
phantoms which devour themselves in their rage.... And begin by
taking the capitals from the names of those great goddesses, Country,
Liberty, Right. Come down from Olympus into the manger, and come
without ornaments, without arms, rich only in your beauty, and our
love.
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