Our certainty
also misleads us to constrain others to think as we think, and to despise
them and persecute them when they differ from us. The elixir made you
happy, my father, because you are good and pure, and because the
beautiful, to the pursuit of which you have dedicated your life, ennobles
everyone and makes every thing harmonious that comes from you.
"But many generations had to pass before you appeared to do honour to the
powers of the elixir. I myself have been cast in a less heroic mould,
and who can prophesy what my children, if I ever have any, will be like.
In this world where every thing is deceitful, and no one is outspoken,
the man who alone is under the necessity of proclaiming what he considers
the truth, is like a warrior who opposes himself without shield or
harness to a fully armed foe. Therefore, my dear father, I am very
reluctant to make use of the elixir to-morrow."
The old gentleman smiled and replied: "Inhale it in peace, my Ernst, for
I will confide to you that I have poured the elixir into the Tiber, on
whose banks the battle for the Truth has been so often joined, and where
so many factions have imagined that they possessed the elixir of Truth.
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