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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