451
All men naturally hate one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public weal. But this is only a pretence and a false image of love; for at bottom it is only hate.
452
To pity the unfortunate is not contrary to lust. On the contrary, we can quite well give such evidence of friendship, and acquire the reputation of kindly feeling, without giving anything.
453
From lust men have found and extracted excellent rules of policy, morality, and justice; but in reality this vile root of man, this figmentum malum,[1] is only covered, it is not taken away.
454
Injustice.—They have not found any other means of satisfying lust without doing injury to others.
455
Self is hateful. You, Miton, conceal it; you do not for that reason destroy it; you are, then, always hateful.
—No; for in acting as we do to oblige everybody, we give no more occasion for hatred of us.—That is true, if we only hated in self the vexation which comes to us from it. But if I hate it because it is unjust, and because it makes itself the centre of everything, I shall always hate it.
In a word, the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for each self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy. And thus you remain unjust, and can please only the unjust.
- ↑ "Evil creation."
