Unconscious virtues. – All qualities of a person of which he is conscious – and especially those he supposes to be visible and plain to others also – are subject to laws of development entirely different from those qualities which are unknown or badly known to him, which conceal themselves by means of their subtlety even from the eye of a rather subtle observer and which know how to hide as if behind nothing at all. This might be compared to the subtle sculptures on the scales of reptiles: it would be a mistake to take them for ornaments or weapons, since one sees them only with a microscope, i.e. with an artificially sharpened eye, which similar animals for whom they might signify something like ornaments or weapons simply lack. Our visible moral qualities, and especially those that we believe to be visible, take their course; and the invisible ones, which have the same names but are neither ornaments nor weapons with regard to others, also take their course: probably a totally different one, with lines and subtleties and sculptures that might amuse a god with a divine microscope. For example, we have our diligence, our ambition, our acuteness – all the world knows about them – and in addition, we probably also have our industry, our ambition, our acuteness; but for these reptile scales, no microscope has yet been invented! At this point the friends of instinctive morality will say: ‘Bravo! At least he considers unconscious virtues to be possible – and that’s enough for us.’ Oh, how little you are satisfied with!