Seite 163 von 1391

But without education they may patch and mend as they please;

they will make no progress, any more than a patient who thinks to

cure himself by some favourite remedy and will not give up his

luxurious mode of living. If you tell such persons that they must

first alter their habits, then they grow angry; they are charming

people. 'Charming,-nay, the very reverse.' Evidently these

gentlemen are not in your good graces, nor the state which is

like them. And such states there are which first ordain under

penalty of death that no one shall alter the constitution, and

then suffer themselves to be flattered into and out of anything;

and he who indulges them and fawns upon them, is their leader and

saviour. 'Yes, the men are as bad as the states.' But do you not

admire their cleverness? 'Nay, some of them are stupid enough to

believe what the people tell them.' And when all the world is

telling a man that he is six feet high, and he has no measure,

how can he believe anything else?