Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling

On one occasion when the price of spices in Holland became somewhat slack, the merchants let a few loads be dumped at sea in order to drive up the price. This was a pardonable, perhaps a necessary stratagem. Do we need something similar in the world of spirit? Are we so sure of having attained the highest that there is nothing left to do except piously to delude ourselves that we have not come so far in order still to have something with which to fill the time? Does the present generation need such a self-deception? Should a virtuosity in this be cultivated in it, or is it not rather sufficiently perfected in the art of self-deception? Or is what it needs not rather an honest earnestness that fearlessly and incorruptibly calls attention to the tasks, an honest earnestness that lovingly preserves the tasks, that does not make people anxiously want to rush precipitously to the highest but keeps the tasks young, beautiful, delightful to look upon, and inviting to all, yet also difficult and inspiring for the noble-minded (for the noble nature is inspired only by the difficult)? Whatever one generation learns from another, no generation learns the genuinely human from a previous one. In this respect, every generation begins primitively, has no other task than each previous generation, and advances no further, provided the previous generation has not betrayed the task and deceived itself.