17/36 His egoism hinders him here: in general, he looks "aloft" unwillingly--he looks either FORWARD, horizontally and deliberately, or downwards--HE KNOWS THAT HE IS ON A HEIGHT. "One can only truly esteem him who does not LOOK OUT FOR himself."-- Goethe to Rath Schlosser. The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their children: "SIAO-SIN" ("MAKE THY HEART SMALL"). This is the essentially fundamental tendency in latter-day civilizations. I have no doubt that an ancient Greek, also, would first of all remark the self-dwarfing in us Europeans of today--in this respect alone we should immediately be "distasteful" to him. |