In all these things-the choice of food, locality, climate, and recreation-the instinct of self-preservation dominates, expressing itself with least ambiguity in the form of an instinct of self-defense. To limit what one hears and sees, to detach one's self from many things-this is elementary prudence, the first proof that a man is not an accident but a necessity. The customary word for this instinct of self-defense is taste. It is imperative not only to say ig no" where "yes" would indicate "disinterestedness," but even to say "no" as seldom as Possible. One must separate from anything that forces one to repeat "no," again and again. The reason for this is that all expenditures of defensive energy, however slight, involve enormous and absolutely superfluous losses when they become regular and habitual. Our greatest expenditure of energy is comprised of these small frequent discharges of it. To preserve one's self intact, to hold things at a dis. tanc@o not deceive yourselves on this point!-is an expenditure of energy and one directed towards purely negative ends. The mere constant necessity of being on his guard may weaken a man so much that he can no longer defend himself. Suppose I were to step out of my house, and, instead of the quiet and aristocratic city of Turin, I were to find a German provincial town; my instinct would have to pull itself together to repel everything that would invade it from this downtrodden cowardly world. Or suppose I found a German y metropoli@that structure of vice in which nothing grows, but where every single thing, good or bad, is imported. Would I not have to become a hedgehog? ' But to have quills amounts to a squandering of strength; a twofold luxury, for, if we chose, we could dispense with them and open our hands instead. . . . Another form of prudence and self-defense consists in reacting as seldom as possible, and in detaching one's self from those circumstances and conditions which condemn one, as it were, to suspend one's "liberty" and initiative, and become a mere bundle of reactions. A good type of this is furnished by intercourse with books. The scholar who actually does little else than welter in @ sea of books-the average philologist may handle two hundred a da@finally loses completely the ability to think for himself. He cannot think unless he has a book in his hands. When he thinks, he responds to a stimulus (a thought he has read)-and finally all he does is react. The scholar devotes all his energy to affirming or denying or criticizing matter which has already been thought out-he no longer thinks himself. . . . In him the instinct of selfdefense has decayed, otherwise he would defend himself against books. The scholar is a decadent. With my own eyes I have seen gifted, richly-endowed, free-spirited natures already "read to pieces" at thirty-nothing but matches that have to be struck before they can emit any sparks-or "thoughts." To read a book early in the morning, at daybreak, in the vigor and dawn of one's strength -this is sheer viciousness!
