Monday, November 29:
R. has an eye inflammation. But it is slight, and when I exhort him to be patient, the only medicine I know, he goes downstairs, comes up again after a while, and says my advice has been a great success; he has been sleeping and now feels better.
After lunch we drive to the mayor’s, and in the Reichsadler see the preparations for Jouk.’s rooms there. Friend Stein writes to R., telling him of the publication of a book R. had suggested to him, From Naples for Bayreuth, and R., very pleased, replies to him at once.
Fidi starts woodwork again; Voltz & Batz seem to have calmed down. In the evening there are discussions with Wolzogen about the extended Blätter, the basis of which R. wishes to be his own view of the decline of the human race and the need for the establishment of a system of ethics: intellectually, he says, people will always remain unequal, but one could aim for a greater moral equality. We might not achieve anything, but we could prepare the ground.
In the morning he spoke to me of human aberrations and how far they can extend when people cling to basic errors: the gentle Melanchthon approved the burning of Michael Servetus at the stake, and Protestant theologians have supported slavery, because nothing is said against it in the Bible. Wolz. tells us many other things about a man in Vienna who has been completely captivated by Religion und Kunst and wants to devote his life to the spreading of its ideas. Someone in Schweinfurt has written to him, “Fortunate we, to have experienced Religion und Kunst.”