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No one will readily consider a doctrine true simply because it makes us happy or virtuous, except perhaps the gentle "idealists," who go into raptures about the good, the true, and the beautiful and allow all sorts of colourful, clumsy, and good-natured desirable things to swim around in confusion in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no arguments. But people, even prudent people, do like to forget that causing unhappiness and evil are by the same token no counterarguments. Something could well be true, although it is at the same time harmful and dangerous to the highest degree. In fact, it could even be part of the fundamental composition of existence that people are destroyed when they fully recognize this point - so that the strength of a spirit might be measured by how much it could still endure of the "truth," or put more clearly, by the degree it would have to have the truth diluted, sweetened, muffled, or falsified. But there is no doubt about the fact that evil and unhappy people are more favoured and have a greater probability of success in discovering certain parts of the truth, to say nothing of the evil people who are happy - a species which moralists are silent about. Perhaps toughness and cunning provide more favourable conditions for the development of the strong, independent spirit and the philosopher than that gentle, refined, conciliatory good nature and that art of taking things lightly which people value in a scholar, and value rightly. If we assume, first of all, that the notion of a "philosopher" is not restricted to the philosopher who writes books - or even puts his own philosophy into books! - A final characteristic in the picture of the free-spirited philosopher is provided by Stendhal. Because of German taste I don’t wish to overlook emphasizing him: - for he goes against German taste. This last great psychologist states the following: "To be a good philosopher it is necessary to be dry, clear, without illusions. A banker who has made a fortune has one part of the character required to make discoveries in philosophy, that is to say, to see clearly into what is."⁷