his painting, poetry, or thinking is an end; to others it is a means. The latter thereby seek their own things, and, as a rule, they know how to further them, for they flatter their contemporaries, ready to serve their wants and humours; therefore for the most part they live in happy circumstances; the former often in very miserable circumstances. For he sacrifices his personal welfare to his objective end; he cannot indeed do otherwise, because his seriousness lies there. They act conversely; therefore they are small, but he is great. Accordingly his work is for all time, but the recognition of it generally only begins with posterity: they live and die with their time. In general he only is great who in his work, whether it is practical or theoretical, seeks not his own concerns, but pursues an objective end alone; he is so, however, even when in the practical sphere this end is a misunderstood one, and even if in consequence of this it should be a crime. That he seeks not himself and his own concerns, this makes him under all circumstances great. Small, on the other hand, is all action which is directed to personal ends; for whoever is thereby set in activity knows and finds himself only in his own transient and insignificant person. He who is great, again, finds himself in all, and therefore in the whole: he lives not, like others, only in the microcosm, but still more in the macrocosm. Hence the whole interests him, and he seeks to comprehend it in order to represent it, or to explain it, or to act practically upon it. For it is not strange to him; he feels that it concerns him. On account of this extension of his sphere he is called great. Therefore that lofty predicate belongs only to the true hero, in some sense, and to genius: it signifies that they, contrary to human nature, have not sought their own things, have not lived for themselves, but for all. As now clearly the great majority must constantly be small, and can never become great, the converse of this, that one should be great throughout, that is, constantly and every moment, is yet not possible –
