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…kings of Pegu<br>placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other<br>magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam<br>unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the<br>Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the<br>great Austrian Empire, Cæsarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the<br>imperial colour the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it<br>applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership<br>over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been<br>even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone<br>marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and<br>symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble<br>things—the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among<br>the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the<br>deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the<br>majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the<br>daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in<br>the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the<br>symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire<br>worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar;<br>and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a<br>snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice<br>of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology,<br>that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could<br>send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity;<br>and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests<br>derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic,<br>worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish<br>faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of<br>our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the<br>redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the<br>great white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool;<br>yet for all…
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…nay, an old man, very old, perhaps, though hale and<br>sinewy. “The Lord help us!” he soliloquised in an undertone of<br>peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my<br>face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to<br>digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected<br>advent.
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1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise,<br>the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken<br>with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us!<br>What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long<br>story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we<br>at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That<br>this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it<br>really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this "Will to Truth"<br>in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of<br>this Will—until at last we came to an absolute standstill before a<br>yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the VALUE of this Will.<br>Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty?<br>Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before<br>us—or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of<br>us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous<br>of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it<br>at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as<br>if we were the first to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING<br>it? For…
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… [“As we were formerly by crimes, so we are now overburdened by<br>laws.”—Tacitus, Annal., iii. 25.]
and yet we have left so much to the opinions and decisions of our judges<br>that there never was so full a liberty or so full a license. What have our<br>legislators gained by culling out a hundred thousand particular cases, and<br>by applying to these a hundred thousand laws? This number holds no manner<br>of proportion with the infinite diversity of human actions; the<br>multiplication of our inventions will never arrive at the variety of<br>examples; add to these a hundred times as many more, it will still not<br>happen that, of events to come, there shall one be found that, in this<br>vast number of millions of events so chosen and...