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His conscience?⁠—One apprehends at once that the idea “conscience,” which is here seen in its supreme manifestation, supreme in fact to almost the point of strangeness, should already have behind it a long history and evolution. The ability to guarantee oneself with all due pride, and also at the same time to say yes to oneself⁠—that is, as has been said, a ripe fruit, but also a late fruit:⁠—How long must needs this fruit hang sour and bitter on the tree! And for an even longer period there was not a glimpse of such a fruit to to be had⁠—no one had taken it on himself to promise it, although everything on the tree was quite ready for it, and everything was maturing for that very consummation. “How is a memory to be made for the man-animal? How is an impression to be so deeply fixed upon this ephemeral understanding, half dense, and half silly, upon this incarnate forgetfulness, that it will be permanently present?” As one may imagine, this primeval problem was not solved by exactly gentle answers and gentle means; perhaps there is nothing more awful and more sinister in the early history of man than his system of mnemonics . “Something is burnt in so as to remain in his memory: only that which never stops hurting remains in his memory.” This is an axiom of the oldest (unfortunately also the longest) psychology in the world. It might even be said that wherever solemnity, seriousness, mystery, and gloomy colours are now found in the life of the men and of nations of the world, there is some survival of that horror which was once the universal concomitant of all promises, pledges, and obligations. The past, the past with all its length, depth, and hardness, wafts to us its breath, and bubbles up in us again, when we become “serious.” When man thinks it necessary to make for himself a memory, he never accomplishes it without blood, tortures, and sacrifice; the most dreadful sacrifices and forfeitures (among them the sacrifice of the firstborn), the most loathsome mutilation (for instance, castration), the most cruel rituals of