Mankind is shy of self-analysis, and many people tremble slavishly when they can no longer dodge the question of what they have done, what they have become, and who they really are. The thing frightens them; they know not what will come of it. It seems to them easier for a man to judge another person than himself, and after strict self-scrutiny they rather claim the grace of modesty in giving themselves the benefit of the doubt. And yet it is only wilfullness that hides a person from himself; his judgment cannot err provided he really faces himself. But it is just this which people neither can nor want to do. The spell of life and of the world is upon them, and resolved not to turn from that spectacle, all that they discover of themselves is but a vague and delusive reflection.1 To be sure, I can judge another person only by his acts, for I never look upon his inner disposition. I can never know at first hand what his purpose actually was; I simply compare his deeds with one another, and from these I make a precarious inference as to his aims and the spirit which moved him. But oh the shame of it, that anyone should see himself only as one stranger sees another! that anyone should remain ignorant of his inner life and even plume himself on his supposed shrewdness, if he succeeds in grasping the last link of a chain of resolutions that issued in overt action, together with the feeling that attended it and the idea that immediately preceded it! How can such a one ever know either himself or others? What is to guide him in conjecturing inner realities from external facts, if he does not base his judgment on a crucial experience of something immediately certain?¹ The inevitable² presentiment of error makes him afraid, the overshadowing suspicion that he is culpable in his error oppresses his heart, and his thoughts vacillate in terror of that little portion of self-consciousness which men still carry with them, generally degraded to the rôle of a harsh disciplinarian, whose voice they needs must often hear unwillingly.2
In truth, men have good cause for anxiety, lest in honestly probing the inner motives of their lives, they fail to recognize what is truly human³ there, and see the conscience, which is consciousness of true humanity, sadly mutilated. For whoever has not scrutinized his previous conduct can give no security that in the future he will remember that he is a human being, or prove himself worthy of the name. If he has once broken the thread of self-consciousness, if he has but once abandoned himself to those feelings and impressions that he shares with brutes,⁴ how can he know whether he has not fallen into sheer brutality? To behold humanity within oneself, and never to lose sight of the vision when once found, is the only certain means of never straying from its sacred precincts.⁵ This vision is the intimate and necessary tie between conduct and the perception of truth,3 a connection mysterious and unintelligible only to fools and men of dull sensibility.4 A truly human way of acting produces a clear consciousness of what is essentially human, and this in turn permits of no other behavior than such as is worthy of humanity. He who can never lift himself to this clear insight is ever the sport of vague instinctive premonitions; in vain you will undertake to educate and train him. For all his ingenuity and for all his bold resolution to force his way back into the circle of humanity,⁶ the sacred portals will not open. He remains outside on profane ground, and he will not escape the pursuit of the offended god-head, nor the shameful feeling that he is an exile from his true fatherland. It is sheer folly and vain trifling to make experiments or to lay down rules in the realm of freedom. To be a man calls for a single free resolve; he who has taken that resolve will always remain one; he who ceases to be one has never taken it.5
With proud joy I still recall the time, when I discovered humanity⁷ and knew that henceforth I should never lose it. The sublime revelation came from within; it was not produced by any code of ethics or system of philosophy. My long quest which neither this nor that would satisfy was crowned in one moment of insight; freedom dissolved my dark doubts by a single act. I can affirm that since then I have never forsaken my true self. I no longer know the thing that men call conscience; no qualm now reproves me, and I need none to warn me. Neither do I strive since then to acquire this or that particular virtue, nor am I especially elated by some particular act, as are those whose fleeting existence is only now and then visited by a dubious gleam of innate reason. In quiet tranquillity, in utter simplicity I preserve within me an uninterrupted consciousness of humanity’s entire essence.6