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1PREFACE
2
3
4SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground
5for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been
6dogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible
7seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid
8their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for
9winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won; and
10at present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien--IF,
11indeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it
12has fallen, that all dogma lies on the ground--nay more, that it is at
13its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping
14that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive
15and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism
16and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it will be once
17and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such
18imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have
19hitherto reared: perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time
20(such as the soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject- and
21ego-superstition, has not yet ceased doing mischief): perhaps some
22play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an
23audacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very
24human--all-too-human facts. The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to
25be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was
26astrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more
27labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any
28actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super-terrestrial"
29pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems
30that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with
31everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the
32earth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmatic philosophy has
33been a caricature of this kind--for instance, the Vedanta doctrine in
34Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although
35it must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome,
36and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist
37error--namely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself.
38But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare,
39can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier--sleep,
40we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength
41which the struggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to
42the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE--the
43fundamental condition--of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato
44spoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: "How did such a
45malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked
46Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of
47youths, and deserved his hemlock?" But the struggle against Plato,
48or--to speak plainer, and for the "people"--the struggle against
49the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR
50CHRISTIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE "PEOPLE"), produced in Europe
51a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anywhere
52previously; with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the
53furthest goals. As a matter of fact, the European feels this tension as
54a state of distress, and twice attempts have been made in grand style to
55unbend the bow: once by means of Jesuitism, and the second time by means
56of democratic enlightenment--which, with the aid of liberty of the press
57and newspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spirit
58would not so easily find itself in "distress"! (The Germans invented
59gunpowder--all credit to them! but they again made things square--they
60invented printing.) But we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats,
61nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free
62spirits--we have it still, all the distress of spirit and all the
63tension of its bow! And perhaps also the arrow, the duty, and, who
64knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT....
65
66Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885.
67
68
69
70
71CHAPTER I. PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS
72
73
741. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous
75enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have
76hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not
77laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is
78already a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is
79it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn
80impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions
81ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really
82is this "Will to Truth" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the
83question as to the origin of this Will--until at last we came to an
84absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired
85about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT
86RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the
87value of truth presented itself before us--or was it we who presented
88ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which
89the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of
90interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as
91if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first
92to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk
93in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk.
94
952. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth
96out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the
97generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the
98wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams
99of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest
100value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own--in this
101transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of
102delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in
103the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the
104'Thing-in-itself--THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"--This
105mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which
106metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation
107is at the back of all their logical procedure; through this "belief" of
108theirs, they exert themselves for their "knowledge," for something that
109is in the end solemnly christened "the Truth." The fundamental belief of
110metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred
111even to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where
112doubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn
113vow, "DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether
114antitheses exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations
115and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their
116seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional
117perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from
118below--"frog perspectives," as it were, to borrow an expression current
119among painters. In spite of all the value which may belong to the true,
120the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher
121and more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to
122pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It
123might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and
124respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously
125related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed
126things--perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps!
127But who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous "Perhapses"!
128For that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of
129philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the
130reverse of those hitherto prevalent--philosophers of the dangerous
131"Perhaps" in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I
132see such new philosophers beginning to appear.
133
1343. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between
135their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of
136conscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and
137it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to
138learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and "innateness." As
139little as the act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process
140and procedure of heredity, just as little is "being-conscious" OPPOSED
141to the instinctive in any decisive sense; the greater part of the
142conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his
143instincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and
144its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak
145more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite
146mode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the
147uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than "truth" such valuations,
148in spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be
149only superficial valuations, special kinds of _niaiserie_, such as may
150be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing,
151in effect, that man is not just the "measure of things."
152
1534. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is
154here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The
155question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving,
156species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally
157inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic
158judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that
159without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of
160reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable,
161without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers,
162man could not live--that the renunciation of false opinions would be
163a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A
164CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of
165value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so,
166has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil.
167
1685. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully
169and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they
170are--how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in
171short, how childish and childlike they are,--but that there is not
172enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and
173virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in
174the remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had
175been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure,
176divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics,
177who, fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a
178prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally
179their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with
180arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not
181wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their
182prejudices, which they dub "truths,"--and VERY far from having the
183conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having
184the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be
185understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence
186and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally
187stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic
188by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical
189imperative"--makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small
190amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical
191preachers. Or, still more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by
192means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and
193mask--in fact, the "love of HIS wisdom," to translate the term fairly
194and squarely--in order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart
195of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible
196maiden, that Pallas Athene:--how much of personal timidity and
197vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!
198
1996. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up
200till now has consisted of--namely, the confession of its originator, and
201a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover
202that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted
203the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown.
204Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a
205philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first
206ask oneself: "What morality do they (or does he) aim at?" Accordingly,
207I do not believe that an "impulse to knowledge" is the father of
208philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made
209use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever
210considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining
211how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and
212cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time
213or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to
214look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate
215LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as
216SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in
217the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise--"better," if
218you will; there there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to
219knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well
220wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of
221the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual
222"interests" of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another
223direction--in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics;
224it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little
225machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a
226good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not
227CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the
228contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all,
229his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE
230IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature
231stand to each other.
232
2337. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging
234than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the
235Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense,
236and on the face of it, the word signifies "Flatterers of
237Dionysius"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles;
238besides this, however, it is as much as to say, "They are all ACTORS,
239there is nothing genuine about them" (for Dionysiokolax was a popular
240name for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that
241Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the
242mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters--of
243which Epicurus was not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos,
244who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three
245hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who
246knows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god
247Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out?
248
2498. There is a point in every philosophy at which the "conviction" of
250the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an
251ancient mystery:
252
253Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus.
254
2559. You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what
256fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly
257extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration,
258without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain:
259imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live
260in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just
261endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing,
262preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different?
263And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means
264actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do
265DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves
266are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you:
267while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature,
268you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players
269and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and
270ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein;
271you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would
272like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal
273glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth,
274you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such
275hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically,
276that you are no longer able to see it otherwise--and to crown all, some
277unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that
278BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is
279self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is
280not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting
281story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today,
282as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always
283creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy
284is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the
285will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.
286
28710. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with
288which the problem of "the real and the apparent world" is dealt with at
289present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention; and
290he who hears only a "Will to Truth" in the background, and nothing else,
291cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolated
292cases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Truth--a certain
293extravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition of the
294forlorn hope--has participated therein: that which in the end always
295prefers a handful of "certainty" to a whole cartload of beautiful
296possibilities; there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience,
297who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an
298uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing,
299mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a
300virtue may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger
301and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side
302AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of "perspective," in
303that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the
304credibility of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and
305thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession
306to escape (for what does one at present believe in more firmly than
307in one's body?),--who knows if they are not really trying to win back
308something which was formerly an even securer possession, something
309of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the "immortal
310soul," perhaps "the old God," in short, ideas by which they could live
311better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by
312"modern ideas"? There is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode
313of looking at things, a disbelief in all that has been constructed
314yesterday and today; there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety
315and scorn, which can no longer endure the BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the
316most varied origin, such as so-called Positivism at present throws on
317the market; a disgust of the more refined taste at the village-fair
318motleyness and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whom
319there is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. Therein it
320seems to me that we should agree with those skeptical anti-realists and
321knowledge-microscopists of the present day; their instinct, which repels
322them from MODERN reality, is unrefuted... what do their retrograde
323by-paths concern us! The main thing about them is NOT that they wish
324to go "back," but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MORE
325strength, swing, courage, and artistic power, and they would be OFF--and
326not back!
327
32811. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to
329divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on
330German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which
331he set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of
332Categories; with it in his hand he said: "This is the most difficult
333thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." Let us
334only understand this "could be"! He was proud of having DISCOVERED a
335new faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting
336that he deceived himself in this matter; the development and rapid
337flourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his pride, and
338on the eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible
339something--at all events "new faculties"--of which to be still
340prouder!--But let us reflect for a moment--it is high time to do so.
341"How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE?" Kant asks himself--and
342what is really his answer? "BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)"--but
343unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly,
344and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that
345one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved
346in such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this
347new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further
348discovered a moral faculty in man--for at that time Germans were still
349moral, not yet dabbling in the "Politics of hard fact." Then came
350the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the
351Tubingen institution went immediately into the groves--all seeking for
352"faculties." And what did they not find--in that innocent, rich, and
353still youthful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the
354malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish
355between "finding" and "inventing"! Above all a faculty for the
356"transcendental"; Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition,
357and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the naturally
358pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of
359this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness,
360notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile
361conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral
362indignation. Enough, however--the world grew older, and the dream
363vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still
364rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old
365Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"--he had said, or at least meant to
366say. But, is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely
367a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? "By means of
368a means (faculty)," namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in
369Moliere,
370
371    Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva,
372    Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.
373
374But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high time
375to replace the Kantian question, "How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI
376possible?" by another question, "Why is belief in such judgments
377necessary?"--in effect, it is high time that we should understand
378that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the
379preservation of creatures like ourselves; though they still might
380naturally be false judgments! Or, more plainly spoken, and roughly and
381readily--synthetic judgments a priori should not "be possible" at all;
382we have no right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false
383judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as
384plausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective view
385of life. And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which
386"German philosophy"--I hope you understand its right to inverted commas
387(goosefeet)?--has exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is
388no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it; thanks to
389German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous,
390the mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the
391political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still
392overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into
393this, in short--"sensus assoupire."...
394
39512. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted
396theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps
397no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious
398signification to it, except for convenient everyday use (as an
399abbreviation of the means of expression)--thanks chiefly to the Pole
400Boscovich: he and the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatest
401and most successful opponents of ocular evidence. For while Copernicus
402has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth
403does NOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the
404last thing that "stood fast" of the earth--the belief in "substance," in
405"matter," in the earth-residuum, and particle-atom: it is the greatest
406triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth. One
407must, however, go still further, and also declare war, relentless war
408to the knife, against the "atomistic requirements" which still lead a
409dangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more
410celebrated "metaphysical requirements": one must also above all give
411the finishing stroke to that other and more portentous atomism which
412Christianity has taught best and longest, the SOUL-ATOMISM. Let it be
413permitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the
414soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad,
415as an atomon: this belief ought to be expelled from science! Between
416ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of "the soul" thereby,
417and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypotheses--as
418happens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly
419touch on the soul without immediately losing it. But the way is open
420for new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis; and such
421conceptions as "mortal soul," and "soul of subjective multiplicity,"
422and "soul as social structure of the instincts and passions," want
423henceforth to have legitimate rights in science. In that the NEW
424psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have
425hitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of
426the soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into a new desert
427and a new distrust--it is possible that the older psychologists had a
428merrier and more comfortable time of it; eventually, however, he finds
429that precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENT--and, who knows?
430perhaps to DISCOVER the new.
431
43213. Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the
433instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic
434being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength--life
435itself is WILL TO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect
436and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else,
437let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles!--one of which
438is the instinct of self-preservation (we owe it to Spinoza's
439inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must
440be essentially economy of principles.
441
44214. It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that natural
443philosophy is only a world-exposition and world-arrangement (according
444to us, if I may say so!) and NOT a world-explanation; but in so far as
445it is based on belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a
446long time to come must be regarded as more--namely, as an explanation.
447It has eyes and fingers of its own, it has ocular evidence and
448palpableness of its own: this operates fascinatingly, persuasively, and
449CONVINCINGLY upon an age with fundamentally plebeian tastes--in fact, it
450follows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism.
451What is clear, what is "explained"? Only that which can be seen and
452felt--one must pursue every problem thus far. Obversely, however, the
453charm of the Platonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode,
454consisted precisely in RESISTANCE to obvious sense-evidence--perhaps
455among men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than our
456contemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher triumph in remaining
457masters of them: and this by means of pale, cold, grey conceptional
458networks which they threw over the motley whirl of the senses--the
459mob of the senses, as Plato said. In this overcoming of the world, and
460interpreting of the world in the manner of Plato, there was an ENJOYMENT
461different from that which the physicists of today offer us--and likewise
462the Darwinists and anti-teleologists among the physiological workers,
463with their principle of the "smallest possible effort," and the greatest
464possible blunder. "Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there
465is also nothing more for men to do"--that is certainly an imperative
466different from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the right
467imperative for a hardy, laborious race of machinists and bridge-builders
468of the future, who have nothing but ROUGH work to perform.
469
47015. To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on
471the fact that the sense-organs are not phenomena in the sense of the
472idealistic philosophy; as such they certainly could not be causes!
473Sensualism, therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not as
474heuristic principle. What? And others say even that the external world
475is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external
476world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves
477would be the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a
478complete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something
479fundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT the work
480of our organs--?
481
48216. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are
483"immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as the superstition
484of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold
485of its object purely and simply as "the thing in itself," without any
486falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the
487object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that "immediate
488certainty," as well as "absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself,"
489involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves
490from the misleading significance of words! The people on their part may
491think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher
492must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that is expressed in
493the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the
494argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible:
495for instance, that it is _I_ who think, that there must necessarily be
496something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the
497part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,'
498and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by
499thinking--that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided
500within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether
501that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In
502short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the
503present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to
504determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with
505further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for
506me."--In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may
507believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of
508metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions
509of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'?
510Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak
511of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego'
512as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical
513questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like
514the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is
515true, actual, and certain"--will encounter a smile and two notes of
516interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher will
517perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not
518mistaken, but why should it be the truth?"
519
52017. With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire
521of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by
522these credulous minds--namely, that a thought comes when "it" wishes,
523and not when "I" wish; so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts of the
524case to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate
525"think." ONE thinks; but that this "one" is precisely the famous old
526"ego," is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and
527assuredly not an "immediate certainty." After all, one has even gone too
528far with this "one thinks"--even the "one" contains an INTERPRETATION of
529the process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here
530according to the usual grammatical formula--"To think is an activity;
531every activity requires an agency that is active; consequently"... It
532was pretty much on the same lines that the older atomism sought, besides
533the operating "power," the material particle wherein it resides and out
534of which it operates--the atom. More rigorous minds, however, learnt at
535last to get along without this "earth-residuum," and perhaps some day we
536shall accustom ourselves, even from the logician's point of view, to
537get along without the little "one" (to which the worthy old "ego" has
538refined itself).
539
54018. It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is
541refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle
542minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will"
543owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing
544who feels himself strong enough to refute it.
545
54619. Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will as though it were
547the best-known thing in the world; indeed, Schopenhauer has given us
548to understand that the will alone is really known to us, absolutely and
549completely known, without deduction or addition. But it again and
550again seems to me that in this case Schopenhauer also only did what
551philosophers are in the habit of doing--he seems to have adopted a
552POPULAR PREJUDICE and exaggerated it. Willing seems to me to be above
553all something COMPLICATED, something that is a unity only in name--and
554it is precisely in a name that popular prejudice lurks, which has got
555the mastery over the inadequate precautions of philosophers in all ages.
556So let us for once be more cautious, let us be "unphilosophical": let
557us say that in all willing there is firstly a plurality of sensations,
558namely, the sensation of the condition "AWAY FROM WHICH we go," the
559sensation of the condition "TOWARDS WHICH we go," the sensation of this
560"FROM" and "TOWARDS" itself, and then besides, an accompanying muscular
561sensation, which, even without our putting in motion "arms and legs,"
562commences its action by force of habit, directly we "will" anything.
563Therefore, just as sensations (and indeed many kinds of sensations) are
564to be recognized as ingredients of the will, so, in the second place,
565thinking is also to be recognized; in every act of the will there is
566a ruling thought;--and let us not imagine it possible to sever this
567thought from the "willing," as if the will would then remain over!
568In the third place, the will is not only a complex of sensation and
569thinking, but it is above all an EMOTION, and in fact the emotion of the
570command. That which is termed "freedom of the will" is essentially the
571emotion of supremacy in respect to him who must obey: "I am free, 'he'
572must obey"--this consciousness is inherent in every will; and equally
573so the straining of the attention, the straight look which fixes itself
574exclusively on one thing, the unconditional judgment that "this and
575nothing else is necessary now," the inward certainty that obedience
576will be rendered--and whatever else pertains to the position of the
577commander. A man who WILLS commands something within himself which
578renders obedience, or which he believes renders obedience. But now let
579us notice what is the strangest thing about the will,--this affair so
580extremely complex, for which the people have only one name. Inasmuch as
581in the given circumstances we are at the same time the commanding AND
582the obeying parties, and as the obeying party we know the sensations of
583constraint, impulsion, pressure, resistance, and motion, which usually
584commence immediately after the act of will; inasmuch as, on the other
585hand, we are accustomed to disregard this duality, and to deceive
586ourselves about it by means of the synthetic term "I": a whole series
587of erroneous conclusions, and consequently of false judgments about the
588will itself, has become attached to the act of willing--to such a degree
589that he who wills believes firmly that willing SUFFICES for action.
590Since in the majority of cases there has only been exercise of will
591when the effect of the command--consequently obedience, and therefore
592action--was to be EXPECTED, the APPEARANCE has translated itself into
593the sentiment, as if there were a NECESSITY OF EFFECT; in a word, he who
594wills believes with a fair amount of certainty that will and action are
595somehow one; he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing,
596to the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation
597of power which accompanies all success. "Freedom of Will"--that is the
598expression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising
599volition, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with
600the executor of the order--who, as such, enjoys also the triumph over
601obstacles, but thinks within himself that it was really his own will
602that overcame them. In this way the person exercising volition adds the
603feelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful
604"underwills" or under-souls--indeed, our body is but a social structure
605composed of many souls--to his feelings of delight as commander. L'EFFET
606C'EST MOI. what happens here is what happens in every well-constructed
607and happy commonwealth, namely, that the governing class identifies
608itself with the successes of the commonwealth. In all willing it is
609absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as
610already said, of a social structure composed of many "souls", on which
611account a philosopher should claim the right to include willing-as-such
612within the sphere of morals--regarded as the doctrine of the relations
613of supremacy under which the phenomenon of "life" manifests itself.
614
61520. That the separate philosophical ideas are not anything optional or
616autonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with
617each other, that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear
618in the history of thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to
619a system as the collective members of the fauna of a Continent--is
620betrayed in the end by the circumstance: how unfailingly the most
621diverse philosophers always fill in again a definite fundamental scheme
622of POSSIBLE philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolve
623once more in the same orbit, however independent of each other they
624may feel themselves with their critical or systematic wills, something
625within them leads them, something impels them in definite order the
626one after the other--to wit, the innate methodology and relationship
627of their ideas. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than a
628re-recognizing, a remembering, a return and a home-coming to a far-off,
629ancient common-household of the soul, out of which those ideas formerly
630grew: philosophizing is so far a kind of atavism of the highest order.
631The wonderful family resemblance of all Indian, Greek, and German
632philosophizing is easily enough explained. In fact, where there is
633affinity of language, owing to the common philosophy of grammar--I mean
634owing to the unconscious domination and guidance of similar grammatical
635functions--it cannot but be that everything is prepared at the outset
636for a similar development and succession of philosophical systems,
637just as the way seems barred against certain other possibilities of
638world-interpretation. It is highly probable that philosophers within the
639domain of the Ural-Altaic languages (where the conception of the subject
640is least developed) look otherwise "into the world," and will be
641found on paths of thought different from those of the Indo-Germans and
642Mussulmans, the spell of certain grammatical functions is ultimately
643also the spell of PHYSIOLOGICAL valuations and racial conditions.--So
644much by way of rejecting Locke's superficiality with regard to the
645origin of ideas.
646
64721. The CAUSA SUI is the best self-contradiction that has yet been
648conceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness; but the
649extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and
650frightfully with this very folly. The desire for "freedom of will"
651in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway,
652unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear
653the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and
654to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom,
655involves nothing less than to be precisely this CAUSA SUI, and, with
656more than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the
657hair, out of the slough of nothingness. If any one should find out in
658this manner the crass stupidity of the celebrated conception of "free
659will" and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry
660his "enlightenment" a step further, and also put out of his head the
661contrary of this monstrous conception of "free will": I mean "non-free
662will," which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One
663should not wrongly MATERIALISE "cause" and "effect," as the natural
664philosophers do (and whoever like them naturalize in thinking at
665present), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes
666the cause press and push until it "effects" its end; one should use
667"cause" and "effect" only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that is to say, as
668conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual
669understanding,--NOT for explanation. In "being-in-itself" there is
670nothing of "casual-connection," of "necessity," or of "psychological
671non-freedom"; there the effect does NOT follow the cause, there "law"
672does not obtain. It is WE alone who have devised cause, sequence,
673reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive,
674and purpose; and when we interpret and intermix this symbol-world,
675as "being-in-itself," with things, we act once more as we have always
676acted--MYTHOLOGICALLY. The "non-free will" is mythology; in real life
677it is only a question of STRONG and WEAK wills.--It is almost always
678a symptom of what is lacking in himself, when a thinker, in every
679"causal-connection" and "psychological necessity," manifests something
680of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness, oppression, and non-freedom;
681it is suspicious to have such feelings--the person betrays himself. And
682in general, if I have observed correctly, the "non-freedom of the will"
683is regarded as a problem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but
684always in a profoundly PERSONAL manner: some will not give up their
685"responsibility," their belief in THEMSELVES, the personal right to
686THEIR merits, at any price (the vain races belong to this class); others
687on the contrary, do not wish to be answerable for anything, or blamed
688for anything, and owing to an inward self-contempt, seek to GET OUT OF
689THE BUSINESS, no matter how. The latter, when they write books, are
690in the habit at present of taking the side of criminals; a sort of
691socialistic sympathy is their favourite disguise. And as a matter of
692fact, the fatalism of the weak-willed embellishes itself surprisingly
693when it can pose as "la religion de la souffrance humaine"; that is ITS
694"good taste."
695
69622. Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist who cannot desist from
697the mischief of putting his finger on bad modes of interpretation, but
698"Nature's conformity to law," of which you physicists talk so proudly,
699as though--why, it exists only owing to your interpretation and bad
700"philology." It is no matter of fact, no "text," but rather just a
701naively humanitarian adjustment and perversion of meaning, with which
702you make abundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the modern
703soul! "Everywhere equality before the law--Nature is not different in
704that respect, nor better than we": a fine instance of secret motive,
705in which the vulgar antagonism to everything privileged and
706autocratic--likewise a second and more refined atheism--is once more
707disguised. "Ni dieu, ni maitre"--that, also, is what you want; and
708therefore "Cheers for natural law!"--is it not so? But, as has been
709said, that is interpretation, not text; and somebody might come along,
710who, with opposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could read
711out of the same "Nature," and with regard to the same phenomena, just
712the tyrannically inconsiderate and relentless enforcement of the claims
713of power--an interpreter who should so place the unexceptionalness and
714unconditionalness of all "Will to Power" before your eyes, that almost
715every word, and the word "tyranny" itself, would eventually seem
716unsuitable, or like a weakening and softening metaphor--as being too
717human; and who should, nevertheless, end by asserting the same about
718this world as you do, namely, that it has a "necessary" and "calculable"
719course, NOT, however, because laws obtain in it, but because they are
720absolutely LACKING, and every power effects its ultimate consequences
721every moment. Granted that this also is only interpretation--and you
722will be eager enough to make this objection?--well, so much the better.
723
72423. All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and
725timidities, it has not dared to launch out into the depths. In so far
726as it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been written,
727evidence of that which has hitherto been kept silent, it seems as if
728nobody had yet harboured the notion of psychology as the Morphology
729and DEVELOPMENT-DOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it.
730The power of moral prejudices has penetrated deeply into the most
731intellectual world, the world apparently most indifferent and
732unprejudiced, and has obviously operated in an injurious, obstructive,
733blinding, and distorting manner. A proper physio-psychology has to
734contend with unconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator,
735it has "the heart" against it even a doctrine of the reciprocal
736conditionalness of the "good" and the "bad" impulses, causes (as
737refined immorality) distress and aversion in a still strong and manly
738conscience--still more so, a doctrine of the derivation of all good
739impulses from bad ones. If, however, a person should regard even
740the emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness
741as life-conditioning emotions, as factors which must be present,
742fundamentally and essentially, in the general economy of life (which
743must, therefore, be further developed if life is to be further
744developed), he will suffer from such a view of things as from
745sea-sickness. And yet this hypothesis is far from being the strangest
746and most painful in this immense and almost new domain of dangerous
747knowledge, and there are in fact a hundred good reasons why every one
748should keep away from it who CAN do so! On the other hand, if one has
749once drifted hither with one's bark, well! very good! now let us set our
750teeth firmly! let us open our eyes and keep our hand fast on the helm!
751We sail away right OVER morality, we crush out, we destroy perhaps the
752remains of our own morality by daring to make our voyage thither--but
753what do WE matter. Never yet did a PROFOUNDER world of insight reveal
754itself to daring travelers and adventurers, and the psychologist who
755thus "makes a sacrifice"--it is not the sacrifizio dell' intelletto,
756on the contrary!--will at least be entitled to demand in return that
757psychology shall once more be recognized as the queen of the sciences,
758for whose service and equipment the other sciences exist. For psychology
759is once more the path to the fundamental problems.
760
761
762
763CHAPTER II. THE FREE SPIRIT
764
765
76624. O sancta simplicitiatas! In what strange simplification and
767falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has
768got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around
769us clear and free and easy and simple! how we have been able to give
770our senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a godlike
771desire for wanton pranks and wrong inferences!--how from the beginning,
772we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost
773inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness,
774and gaiety--in order to enjoy life! And only on this solidified,
775granite-like foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself
776hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful
777will, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as
778its opposite, but--as its refinement! It is to be hoped, indeed, that
779LANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and that
780it will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees
781and many refinements of gradation; it is equally to be hoped that the
782incarnated Tartuffery of morals, which now belongs to our unconquerable
783"flesh and blood," will turn the words round in the mouths of us
784discerning ones. Here and there we understand it, and laugh at the way
785in which precisely the best knowledge seeks most to retain us in this
786SIMPLIFIED, thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, and suitably
787falsified world: at the way in which, whether it will or not, it loves
788error, because, as living itself, it loves life!
789
79025. After such a cheerful commencement, a serious word would fain be
791heard; it appeals to the most serious minds. Take care, ye philosophers
792and friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering "for the
793truth's sake"! even in your own defense! It spoils all the innocence
794and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against
795objections and red rags; it stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes, when
796in the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even
797worse consequences of enmity, ye have at last to play your last card
798as protectors of truth upon earth--as though "the Truth" were such an
799innocent and incompetent creature as to require protectors! and you of
800all people, ye knights of the sorrowful countenance, Messrs Loafers and
801Cobweb-spinners of the spirit! Finally, ye know sufficiently well that
802it cannot be of any consequence if YE just carry your point; ye know
803that hitherto no philosopher has carried his point, and that there might
804be a more laudable truthfulness in every little interrogative mark
805which you place after your special words and favourite doctrines (and
806occasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemn pantomime and
807trumping games before accusers and law-courts! Rather go out of the way!
808Flee into concealment! And have your masks and your ruses, that ye may
809be mistaken for what you are, or somewhat feared! And pray, don't forget
810the garden, the garden with golden trellis-work! And have people around
811you who are as a garden--or as music on the waters at eventide, when
812already the day becomes a memory. Choose the GOOD solitude, the free,
813wanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you the right still to
814remain good in any sense whatsoever! How poisonous, how crafty, how bad,
815does every long war make one, which cannot be waged openly by means
816of force! How PERSONAL does a long fear make one, a long watching
817of enemies, of possible enemies! These pariahs of society, these
818long-pursued, badly-persecuted ones--also the compulsory recluses, the
819Spinozas or Giordano Brunos--always become in the end, even under the
820most intellectual masquerade, and perhaps without being themselves aware
821of it, refined vengeance-seekers and poison-Brewers (just lay bare
822the foundation of Spinoza's ethics and theology!), not to speak of
823the stupidity of moral indignation, which is the unfailing sign in a
824philosopher that the sense of philosophical humour has left him. The
825martyrdom of the philosopher, his "sacrifice for the sake of truth,"
826forces into the light whatever of the agitator and actor lurks in him;
827and if one has hitherto contemplated him only with artistic curiosity,
828with regard to many a philosopher it is easy to understand the dangerous
829desire to see him also in his deterioration (deteriorated into a
830"martyr," into a stage-and-tribune-bawler). Only, that it is necessary
831with such a desire to be clear WHAT spectacle one will see in any
832case--merely a satyric play, merely an epilogue farce, merely the
833continued proof that the long, real tragedy IS AT AN END, supposing that
834every philosophy has been a long tragedy in its origin.
835
83626. Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy,
837where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority--where he may
838forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;--exclusive only of
839the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger
840instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in
841intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green
842and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy,
843gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes;
844supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden
845and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains,
846as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then
847certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as
848such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good
849taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception--than
850myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would
851go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man--and
852consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad
853intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's
854equals):--that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every
855philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing
856part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge
857should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and
858lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize
859the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the
860same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them
861talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES--sometimes they
862wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only
863form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the
864higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and
865congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before
866him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where
867enchantment mixes with the disgust--namely, where by a freak of nature,
868genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the
869case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also
870filthiest man of his century--he was far profounder than Voltaire, and
871consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently,
872as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a
873fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means
874rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever
875anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man
876as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one
877sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity
878as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one
879speaks "badly"--and not even "ill"--of man, then ought the lover of
880knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general,
881to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the
882indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with
883his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society),
884may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and
885self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary,
886more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR
887as the indignant man.
888
88927. It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and
890lives gangasrotogati [Footnote: Like the river Ganges: presto.] among
891those only who think and live otherwise--namely, kurmagati [Footnote:
892Like the tortoise: lento.], or at best "froglike," mandeikagati
893[Footnote: Like the frog: staccato.] (I do everything to be "difficultly
894understood" myself!)--and one should be heartily grateful for the
895good will to some refinement of interpretation. As regards "the good
896friends," however, who are always too easy-going, and think that as
897friends they have a right to ease, one does well at the very first to
898grant them a play-ground and romping-place for misunderstanding--one can
899thus laugh still; or get rid of them altogether, these good friends--and
900laugh then also!
901
90228. What is most difficult to render from one language into another
903is the TEMPO of its style, which has its basis in the character of the
904race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average TEMPO of the
905assimilation of its nutriment. There are honestly meant translations,
906which, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almost falsifications of the
907original, merely because its lively and merry TEMPO (which overleaps and
908obviates all dangers in word and expression) could not also be
909rendered. A German is almost incapacitated for PRESTO in his language;
910consequently also, as may be reasonably inferred, for many of the most
911delightful and daring NUANCES of free, free-spirited thought. And just
912as the buffoon and satyr are foreign to him in body and conscience,
913so Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything
914ponderous, viscous, and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying
915species of style, are developed in profuse variety among Germans--pardon
916me for stating the fact that even Goethe's prose, in its mixture of
917stiffness and elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the "good
918old time" to which it belongs, and as an expression of German taste at a
919time when there was still a "German taste," which was a rococo-taste
920in moribus et artibus. Lessing is an exception, owing to his histrionic
921nature, which understood much, and was versed in many things; he who was
922not the translator of Bayle to no purpose, who took refuge willingly in
923the shadow of Diderot and Voltaire, and still more willingly among the
924Roman comedy-writers--Lessing loved also free-spiritism in the TEMPO,
925and flight out of Germany. But how could the German language, even
926in the prose of Lessing, imitate the TEMPO of Machiavelli, who in his
927"Principe" makes us breathe the dry, fine air of Florence, and cannot
928help presenting the most serious events in a boisterous allegrissimo,
929perhaps not without a malicious artistic sense of the contrast he
930ventures to present--long, heavy, difficult, dangerous thoughts, and
931a TEMPO of the gallop, and of the best, wantonest humour? Finally, who
932would venture on a German translation of Petronius, who, more than any
933great musician hitherto, was a master of PRESTO in invention, ideas, and
934words? What matter in the end about the swamps of the sick, evil world,
935or of the "ancient world," when like him, one has the feet of a wind,
936the rush, the breath, the emancipating scorn of a wind, which makes
937everything healthy, by making everything RUN! And with regard to
938Aristophanes--that transfiguring, complementary genius, for whose
939sake one PARDONS all Hellenism for having existed, provided one has
940understood in its full profundity ALL that there requires pardon and
941transfiguration; there is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on
942PLATO'S secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit
943fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no
944"Bible," nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic--but a book of
945Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life--a Greek life which
946he repudiated--without an Aristophanes!
947
94829. It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a
949privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best
950right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably
951not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a
952labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself
953already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see
954how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal
955by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it
956is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor
957sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go
958back again to the sympathy of men!
959
96030. Our deepest insights must--and should--appear as follies, and under
961certain circumstances as crimes, when they come unauthorizedly to
962the ears of those who are not disposed and predestined for them. The
963exoteric and the esoteric, as they were formerly distinguished by
964philosophers--among the Indians, as among the Greeks, Persians, and
965Mussulmans, in short, wherever people believed in gradations of rank and
966NOT in equality and equal rights--are not so much in contradistinction
967to one another in respect to the exoteric class, standing without, and
968viewing, estimating, measuring, and judging from the outside, and not
969from the inside; the more essential distinction is that the class in
970question views things from below upwards--while the esoteric class views
971things FROM ABOVE DOWNWARDS. There are heights of the soul from which
972tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; and if all the
973woe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether
974the sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and
975thus to a doubling of the woe?... That which serves the higher class of
976men for nourishment or refreshment, must be almost poison to an entirely
977different and lower order of human beings. The virtues of the common
978man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a philosopher; it might be
979possible for a highly developed man, supposing him to degenerate and go
980to ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone, for the sake of which he
981would have to be honoured as a saint in the lower world into which he
982had sunk. There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and
983the health according as the inferior soul and the lower vitality, or the
984higher and more powerful, make use of them. In the former case they are
985dangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter case they are
986herald-calls which summon the bravest to THEIR bravery. Books for the
987general reader are always ill-smelling books, the odour of paltry people
988clings to them. Where the populace eat and drink, and even where they
989reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go into churches if
990one wishes to breathe PURE air.
991
99231. In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art
993of NUANCE, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do
994hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay.
995Everything is so arranged that the worst of all tastes, THE TASTE FOR
996THE UNCONDITIONAL, is cruelly befooled and abused, until a man learns
997to introduce a little art into his sentiments, and prefers to try
998conclusions with the artificial, as do the real artists of life. The
999angry and reverent spirit peculiar to youth appears to allow itself no
1000peace, until it has suitably falsified men and things, to be able
1001to vent its passion upon them: youth in itself even, is something
1002falsifying and deceptive. Later on, when the young soul, tortured by
1003continual disillusions, finally turns suspiciously against itself--still
1004ardent and savage even in its suspicion and remorse of conscience: how
1005it upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how it revenges
1006itself for its long self-blinding, as though it had been a voluntary
1007blindness! In this transition one punishes oneself by distrust of one's
1008sentiments; one tortures one's enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the
1009good conscience to be a danger, as if it were the self-concealment and
1010lassitude of a more refined uprightness; and above all, one espouses
1011upon principle the cause AGAINST "youth."--A decade later, and one
1012comprehends that all this was also still--youth!
1013
101432. Throughout the longest period of human history--one calls it the
1015prehistoric period--the value or non-value of an action was inferred
1016from its CONSEQUENCES; the action in itself was not taken into
1017consideration, any more than its origin; but pretty much as in China at
1018present, where the distinction or disgrace of a child redounds to
1019its parents, the retro-operating power of success or failure was what
1020induced men to think well or ill of an action. Let us call this period
1021the PRE-MORAL period of mankind; the imperative, "Know thyself!" was
1022then still unknown.--In the last ten thousand years, on the other hand,
1023on certain large portions of the earth, one has gradually got so far,
1024that one no longer lets the consequences of an action, but its origin,
1025decide with regard to its worth: a great achievement as a whole, an
1026important refinement of vision and of criterion, the unconscious effect
1027of the supremacy of aristocratic values and of the belief in "origin,"
1028the mark of a period which may be designated in the narrower sense as
1029the MORAL one: the first attempt at self-knowledge is thereby
1030made. Instead of the consequences, the origin--what an inversion
1031of perspective! And assuredly an inversion effected only after long
1032struggle and wavering! To be sure, an ominous new superstition, a
1033peculiar narrowness of interpretation, attained supremacy precisely
1034thereby: the origin of an action was interpreted in the most definite
1035sense possible, as origin out of an INTENTION; people were agreed in the
1036belief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention.
1037The intention as the sole origin and antecedent history of an action:
1038under the influence of this prejudice moral praise and blame have been
1039bestowed, and men have judged and even philosophized almost up to the
1040present day.--Is it not possible, however, that the necessity may now
1041have arisen of again making up our minds with regard to the reversing
1042and fundamental shifting of values, owing to a new self-consciousness
1043and acuteness in man--is it not possible that we may be standing on
1044the threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished
1045negatively as ULTRA-MORAL: nowadays when, at least among us immoralists,
1046the suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely
1047in that which is NOT INTENTIONAL, and that all its intentionalness, all
1048that is seen, sensible, or "sensed" in it, belongs to its surface or
1049skin--which, like every skin, betrays something, but CONCEALS still
1050more? In short, we believe that the intention is only a sign or symptom,
1051which first requires an explanation--a sign, moreover, which has too
1052many interpretations, and consequently hardly any meaning in itself
1053alone: that morality, in the sense in which it has been understood
1054hitherto, as intention-morality, has been a prejudice, perhaps a
1055prematureness or preliminariness, probably something of the same rank
1056as astrology and alchemy, but in any case something which must be
1057surmounted. The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the
1058self-mounting of morality--let that be the name for the long-secret
1059labour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright,
1060and also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones
1061of the soul.
1062
106333. It cannot be helped: the sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for
1064one's neighbour, and all self-renunciation-morality, must be mercilessly
1065called to account, and brought to judgment; just as the aesthetics
1066of "disinterested contemplation," under which the emasculation of art
1067nowadays seeks insidiously enough to create itself a good conscience.
1068There is far too much witchery and sugar in the sentiments "for others"
1069and "NOT for myself," for one not needing to be doubly distrustful here,
1070and for one asking promptly: "Are they not perhaps--DECEPTIONS?"--That
1071they PLEASE--him who has them, and him who enjoys their fruit, and also
1072the mere spectator--that is still no argument in their FAVOUR, but just
1073calls for caution. Let us therefore be cautious!
1074
107534. At whatever standpoint of philosophy one may place oneself nowadays,
1076seen from every position, the ERRONEOUSNESS of the world in which we
1077think we live is the surest and most certain thing our eyes can light
1078upon: we find proof after proof thereof, which would fain allure us into
1079surmises concerning a deceptive principle in the "nature of things."
1080He, however, who makes thinking itself, and consequently "the spirit,"
1081responsible for the falseness of the world--an honourable exit, which
1082every conscious or unconscious advocatus dei avails himself of--he
1083who regards this world, including space, time, form, and movement, as
1084falsely DEDUCED, would have at least good reason in the end to become
1085distrustful also of all thinking; has it not hitherto been playing upon
1086us the worst of scurvy tricks? and what guarantee would it give that
1087it would not continue to do what it has always been doing? In all
1088seriousness, the innocence of thinkers has something touching and
1089respect-inspiring in it, which even nowadays permits them to wait upon
1090consciousness with the request that it will give them HONEST answers:
1091for example, whether it be "real" or not, and why it keeps the outer
1092world so resolutely at a distance, and other questions of the same
1093description. The belief in "immediate certainties" is a MORAL NAIVETE
1094which does honour to us philosophers; but--we have now to cease being
1095"MERELY moral" men! Apart from morality, such belief is a folly which
1096does little honour to us! If in middle-class life an ever-ready distrust
1097is regarded as the sign of a "bad character," and consequently as an
1098imprudence, here among us, beyond the middle-class world and its Yeas
1099and Nays, what should prevent our being imprudent and saying: the
1100philosopher has at length a RIGHT to "bad character," as the being who
1101has hitherto been most befooled on earth--he is now under OBLIGATION
1102to distrustfulness, to the wickedest squinting out of every abyss of
1103suspicion.--Forgive me the joke of this gloomy grimace and turn of
1104expression; for I myself have long ago learned to think and estimate
1105differently with regard to deceiving and being deceived, and I keep at
1106least a couple of pokes in the ribs ready for the blind rage with which
1107philosophers struggle against being deceived. Why NOT? It is nothing
1108more than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than semblance; it
1109is, in fact, the worst proved supposition in the world. So much must be
1110conceded: there could have been no life at all except upon the basis
1111of perspective estimates and semblances; and if, with the virtuous
1112enthusiasm and stupidity of many philosophers, one wished to do away
1113altogether with the "seeming world"--well, granted that YOU could do
1114that,--at least nothing of your "truth" would thereby remain! Indeed,
1115what is it that forces us in general to the supposition that there is an
1116essential opposition of "true" and "false"? Is it not enough to suppose
1117degrees of seemingness, and as it were lighter and darker shades and
1118tones of semblance--different valeurs, as the painters say? Why might
1119not the world WHICH CONCERNS US--be a fiction? And to any one who
1120suggested: "But to a fiction belongs an originator?"--might it not be
1121bluntly replied: WHY? May not this "belong" also belong to the fiction?
1122Is it not at length permitted to be a little ironical towards the
1123subject, just as towards the predicate and object? Might not the
1124philosopher elevate himself above faith in grammar? All respect
1125to governesses, but is it not time that philosophy should renounce
1126governess-faith?
1127
112835. O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in
1129"the truth," and in the SEARCH for the truth; and if man goes about it
1130too humanely--"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien"--I wager he
1131finds nothing!
1132
113336. Supposing that nothing else is "given" as real but our world of
1134desires and passions, that we cannot sink or rise to any other "reality"
1135but just that of our impulses--for thinking is only a relation of these
1136impulses to one another:--are we not permitted to make the attempt and
1137to ask the question whether this which is "given" does not SUFFICE, by
1138means of our counterparts, for the understanding even of the so-called
1139mechanical (or "material") world? I do not mean as an illusion, a
1140"semblance," a "representation" (in the Berkeleyan and Schopenhauerian
1141sense), but as possessing the same degree of reality as our emotions
1142themselves--as a more primitive form of the world of emotions, in
1143which everything still lies locked in a mighty unity, which afterwards
1144branches off and develops itself in organic processes (naturally also,
1145refines and debilitates)--as a kind of instinctive life in which all
1146organic functions, including self-regulation, assimilation, nutrition,
1147secretion, and change of matter, are still synthetically united with
1148one another--as a PRIMARY FORM of life?--In the end, it is not only
1149permitted to make this attempt, it is commanded by the conscience of
1150LOGICAL METHOD. Not to assume several kinds of causality, so long as
1151the attempt to get along with a single one has not been pushed to its
1152furthest extent (to absurdity, if I may be allowed to say so): that is
1153a morality of method which one may not repudiate nowadays--it follows
1154"from its definition," as mathematicians say. The question is ultimately
1155whether we really recognize the will as OPERATING, whether we believe in
1156the causality of the will; if we do so--and fundamentally our belief IN
1157THIS is just our belief in causality itself--we MUST make the attempt
1158to posit hypothetically the causality of the will as the only causality.
1159"Will" can naturally only operate on "will"--and not on "matter" (not
1160on "nerves," for instance): in short, the hypothesis must be
1161hazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever "effects"
1162are recognized--and whether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a power
1163operates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect of will.
1164Granted, finally, that we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive
1165life as the development and ramification of one fundamental form of
1166will--namely, the Will to Power, as my thesis puts it; granted that all
1167organic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power, and that
1168the solution of the problem of generation and nutrition--it is one
1169problem--could also be found therein: one would thus have acquired the
1170right to define ALL active force unequivocally as WILL TO POWER. The
1171world seen from within, the world defined and designated according to
1172its "intelligible character"--it would simply be "Will to Power," and
1173nothing else.
1174
117537. "What? Does not that mean in popular language: God is disproved, but
1176not the devil?"--On the contrary! On the contrary, my friends! And who
1177the devil also compels you to speak popularly!
1178
117938. As happened finally in all the enlightenment of modern times with
1180the French Revolution (that terrible farce, quite superfluous when
1181judged close at hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary
1182spectators of all Europe have interpreted from a distance their own
1183indignation and enthusiasm so long and passionately, UNTIL THE TEXT HAS
1184DISAPPEARED UNDER THE INTERPRETATION), so a noble posterity might once
1185more misunderstand the whole of the past, and perhaps only thereby make
1186ITS aspect endurable.--Or rather, has not this already happened? Have
1187not we ourselves been--that "noble posterity"? And, in so far as we now
1188comprehend this, is it not--thereby already past?
1189
119039. Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as true merely because
1191it makes people happy or virtuous--excepting, perhaps, the amiable
1192"Idealists," who are enthusiastic about the good, true, and beautiful,
1193and let all kinds of motley, coarse, and good-natured desirabilities
1194swim about promiscuously in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no
1195arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of
1196thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as
1197little counter-arguments. A thing could be TRUE, although it were in
1198the highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental
1199constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full
1200knowledge of it--so that the strength of a mind might be measured by
1201the amount of "truth" it could endure--or to speak more plainly, by the
1202extent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped,
1203and falsified. But there is no doubt that for the discovery of certain
1204PORTIONS of truth the wicked and unfortunate are more favourably
1205situated and have a greater likelihood of success; not to speak of the
1206wicked who are happy--a species about whom moralists are silent. Perhaps
1207severity and craft are more favourable conditions for the development of
1208strong, independent spirits and philosophers than the gentle, refined,
1209yielding good-nature, and habit of taking things easily, which are
1210prized, and rightly prized in a learned man. Presupposing always,
1211to begin with, that the term "philosopher" be not confined to the
1212philosopher who writes books, or even introduces HIS philosophy into
1213books!--Stendhal furnishes a last feature of the portrait of the
1214free-spirited philosopher, which for the sake of German taste I will
1215not omit to underline--for it is OPPOSED to German taste. "Pour etre
1216bon philosophe," says this last great psychologist, "il faut etre sec,
1217clair, sans illusion. Un banquier, qui a fait fortune, a une partie du
1218caractere requis pour faire des decouvertes en philosophie, c'est-a-dire
1219pour voir clair dans ce qui est."
1220
122140. Everything that is profound loves the mask: the profoundest things
1222have a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the CONTRARY only
1223be the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? A question
1224worth asking!--it would be strange if some mystic has not already
1225ventured on the same kind of thing. There are proceedings of such a
1226delicate nature that it is well to overwhelm them with coarseness
1227and make them unrecognizable; there are actions of love and of an
1228extravagant magnanimity after which nothing can be wiser than to take
1229a stick and thrash the witness soundly: one thereby obscures his
1230recollection. Many a one is able to obscure and abuse his own memory, in
1231order at least to have vengeance on this sole party in the secret:
1232shame is inventive. They are not the worst things of which one is
1233most ashamed: there is not only deceit behind a mask--there is so much
1234goodness in craft. I could imagine that a man with something costly and
1235fragile to conceal, would roll through life clumsily and rotundly like
1236an old, green, heavily-hooped wine-cask: the refinement of his shame
1237requiring it to be so. A man who has depths in his shame meets his
1238destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach,
1239and with regard to the existence of which his nearest and most intimate
1240friends may be ignorant; his mortal danger conceals itself from their
1241eyes, and equally so his regained security. Such a hidden nature,
1242which instinctively employs speech for silence and concealment, and is
1243inexhaustible in evasion of communication, DESIRES and insists that a
1244mask of himself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of his
1245friends; and supposing he does not desire it, his eyes will some day be
1246opened to the fact that there is nevertheless a mask of him there--and
1247that it is well to be so. Every profound spirit needs a mask; nay, more,
1248around every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to
1249the constantly false, that is to say, SUPERFICIAL interpretation
1250of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he
1251manifests.
1252
125341. One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined
1254for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not
1255avoid one's tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous
1256game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves
1257and before no other judge. Not to cleave to any person, be it even the
1258dearest--every person is a prison and also a recess. Not to cleave to
1259a fatherland, be it even the most suffering and necessitous--it is even
1260less difficult to detach one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not
1261to cleave to a sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiar
1262torture and helplessness chance has given us an insight. Not to cleave
1263to a science, though it tempt one with the most valuable discoveries,
1264apparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own
1265liberation, to the voluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, which
1266always flies further aloft in order always to see more under it--the
1267danger of the flier. Not to cleave to our own virtues, nor become as
1268a whole a victim to any of our specialties, to our "hospitality" for
1269instance, which is the danger of dangers for highly developed
1270and wealthy souls, who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with
1271themselves, and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes
1272a vice. One must know how TO CONSERVE ONESELF--the best test of
1273independence.
1274
127542. A new order of philosophers is appearing; I shall venture to baptize
1276them by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far
1277as they allow themselves to be understood--for it is their nature to
1278WISH to remain something of a puzzle--these philosophers of the
1279future might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as
1280"tempters." This name itself is after all only an attempt, or, if it be
1281preferred, a temptation.
1282
128343. Will they be new friends of "truth," these coming philosophers? Very
1284probably, for all philosophers hitherto have loved their truths. But
1285assuredly they will not be dogmatists. It must be contrary to their
1286pride, and also contrary to their taste, that their truth should still
1287be truth for every one--that which has hitherto been the secret wish
1288and ultimate purpose of all dogmatic efforts. "My opinion is MY opinion:
1289another person has not easily a right to it"--such a philosopher of the
1290future will say, perhaps. One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to
1291agree with many people. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbour
1292takes it into his mouth. And how could there be a "common good"! The
1293expression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of
1294small value. In the end things must be as they are and have always
1295been--the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the
1296profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up
1297shortly, everything rare for the rare.
1298
1299
130044. Need I say expressly after all this that they will be free, VERY
1301free spirits, these philosophers of the future--as certainly also they
1302will not be merely free spirits, but something more, higher, greater,
1303and fundamentally different, which does not wish to be misunderstood and
1304mistaken? But while I say this, I feel under OBLIGATION almost as much
1305to them as to ourselves (we free spirits who are their heralds and
1306forerunners), to sweep away from ourselves altogether a stupid old
1307prejudice and misunderstanding, which, like a fog, has too long made the
1308conception of "free spirit" obscure. In every country of Europe, and the
1309same in America, there is at present something which makes an abuse of
1310this name a very narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits,
1311who desire almost the opposite of what our intentions and instincts
1312prompt--not to mention that in respect to the NEW philosophers who are
1313appearing, they must still more be closed windows and bolted doors.
1314Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the LEVELLERS, these wrongly
1315named "free spirits"--as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of
1316the democratic taste and its "modern ideas" all of them men without
1317solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom
1318neither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied, only, they
1319are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their
1320innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost ALL human misery and
1321failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed--a notion
1322which happily inverts the truth entirely! What they would fain attain
1323with all their strength, is the universal, green-meadow happiness of the
1324herd, together with security, safety, comfort, and alleviation of life
1325for every one, their two most frequently chanted songs and doctrines
1326are called "Equality of Rights" and "Sympathy with All Sufferers"--and
1327suffering itself is looked upon by them as something which must be
1328DONE AWAY WITH. We opposite ones, however, who have opened our eye and
1329conscience to the question how and where the plant "man" has hitherto
1330grown most vigorously, believe that this has always taken place under
1331the opposite conditions, that for this end the dangerousness of his
1332situation had to be increased enormously, his inventive faculty and
1333dissembling power (his "spirit") had to develop into subtlety and daring
1334under long oppression and compulsion, and his Will to Life had to be
1335increased to the unconditioned Will to Power--we believe that severity,
1336violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy,
1337stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind,--that everything
1338wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves
1339as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite--we do
1340not even say enough when we only say THIS MUCH, and in any case we
1341find ourselves here, both with our speech and our silence, at the OTHER
1342extreme of all modern ideology and gregarious desirability, as their
1343antipodes perhaps? What wonder that we "free spirits" are not exactly
1344the most communicative spirits? that we do not wish to betray in every
1345respect WHAT a spirit can free itself from, and WHERE perhaps it will
1346then be driven? And as to the import of the dangerous formula, "Beyond
1347Good and Evil," with which we at least avoid confusion, we ARE something
1348else than "libres-penseurs," "liben pensatori" "free-thinkers,"
1349and whatever these honest advocates of "modern ideas" like to call
1350themselves. Having been at home, or at least guests, in many realms of
1351the spirit, having escaped again and again from the gloomy, agreeable
1352nooks in which preferences and prejudices, youth, origin, the accident
1353of men and books, or even the weariness of travel seemed to confine us,
1354full of malice against the seductions of dependency which he concealed
1355in honours, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses, grateful even
1356for distress and the vicissitudes of illness, because they always free
1357us from some rule, and its "prejudice," grateful to the God, devil,
1358sheep, and worm in us, inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the
1359point of cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with
1360teeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business
1361that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure,
1362owing to an excess of "free will", with anterior and posterior souls,
1363into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with
1364foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden
1365ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble
1366heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till
1367night, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed drawers, economical
1368in learning and forgetting, inventive in scheming, sometimes proud of
1369tables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night-owls of
1370work even in full day, yea, if necessary, even scarecrows--and it is
1371necessary nowadays, that is to say, inasmuch as we are the born, sworn,
1372jealous friends of SOLITUDE, of our own profoundest midnight and midday
1373solitude--such kind of men are we, we free spirits! And perhaps ye are
1374also something of the same kind, ye coming ones? ye NEW philosophers?
1375
1376
1377
1378CHAPTER III. THE RELIGIOUS MOOD
1379
1380
138145. The human soul and its limits, the range of man's inner experiences
1382hitherto attained, the heights, depths, and distances of these
1383experiences, the entire history of the soul UP TO THE PRESENT TIME,
1384and its still unexhausted possibilities: this is the preordained
1385hunting-domain for a born psychologist and lover of a "big hunt". But
1386how often must he say despairingly to himself: "A single individual!
1387alas, only a single individual! and this great forest, this virgin
1388forest!" So he would like to have some hundreds of hunting assistants,
1389and fine trained hounds, that he could send into the history of the
1390human soul, to drive HIS game together. In vain: again and again he
1391experiences, profoundly and bitterly, how difficult it is to find
1392assistants and dogs for all the things that directly excite his
1393curiosity. The evil of sending scholars into new and dangerous
1394hunting-domains, where courage, sagacity, and subtlety in every sense
1395are required, is that they are no longer serviceable just when the "BIG
1396hunt," and also the great danger commences,--it is precisely then that
1397they lose their keen eye and nose. In order, for instance, to divine and
1398determine what sort of history the problem of KNOWLEDGE AND CONSCIENCE
1399has hitherto had in the souls of homines religiosi, a person would
1400perhaps himself have to possess as profound, as bruised, as immense an
1401experience as the intellectual conscience of Pascal; and then he would
1402still require that wide-spread heaven of clear, wicked spirituality,
1403which, from above, would be able to oversee, arrange, and effectively
1404formulize this mass of dangerous and painful experiences.--But who
1405could do me this service! And who would have time to wait for such
1406servants!--they evidently appear too rarely, they are so improbable at
1407all times! Eventually one must do everything ONESELF in order to know
1408something; which means that one has MUCH to do!--But a curiosity like
1409mine is once for all the most agreeable of vices--pardon me! I mean to
1410say that the love of truth has its reward in heaven, and already upon
1411earth.
1412
141346. Faith, such as early Christianity desired, and not infrequently
1414achieved in the midst of a skeptical and southernly free-spirited world,
1415which had centuries of struggle between philosophical schools behind
1416it and in it, counting besides the education in tolerance which
1417the Imperium Romanum gave--this faith is NOT that sincere, austere
1418slave-faith by which perhaps a Luther or a Cromwell, or some other
1419northern barbarian of the spirit remained attached to his God and
1420Christianity, it is much rather the faith of Pascal, which resembles in
1421a terrible manner a continuous suicide of reason--a tough, long-lived,
1422worm-like reason, which is not to be slain at once and with a single
1423blow. The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice
1424of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at
1425the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. There is
1426cruelty and religious Phoenicianism in this faith, which is adapted to a
1427tender, many-sided, and very fastidious conscience, it takes for granted
1428that the subjection of the spirit is indescribably PAINFUL, that all the
1429past and all the habits of such a spirit resist the absurdissimum, in
1430the form of which "faith" comes to it. Modern men, with their obtuseness
1431as regards all Christian nomenclature, have no longer the sense for the
1432terribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by
1433the paradox of the formula, "God on the Cross". Hitherto there had never
1434and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so
1435dreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula: it promised a
1436transvaluation of all ancient values--It was the Orient, the PROFOUND
1437Orient, it was the Oriental slave who thus took revenge on Rome and its
1438noble, light-minded toleration, on the Roman "Catholicism" of non-faith,
1439and it was always not the faith, but the freedom from the faith, the
1440half-stoical and smiling indifference to the seriousness of the faith,
1441which made the slaves indignant at their masters and revolt against
1442them. "Enlightenment" causes revolt, for the slave desires the
1443unconditioned, he understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals,
1444he loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point
1445of pain, to the point of sickness--his many HIDDEN sufferings make
1446him revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The
1447skepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of
1448aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the
1449last great slave-insurrection which began with the French Revolution.
1450
145147. Wherever the religious neurosis has appeared on the earth so far,
1452we find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen:
1453solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence--but without its being possible
1454to determine with certainty which is cause and which is effect, or IF
1455any relation at all of cause and effect exists there. This latter doubt
1456is justified by the fact that one of the most regular symptoms among
1457savage as well as among civilized peoples is the most sudden and
1458excessive sensuality, which then with equal suddenness transforms into
1459penitential paroxysms, world-renunciation, and will-renunciation, both
1460symptoms perhaps explainable as disguised epilepsy? But nowhere is it
1461MORE obligatory to put aside explanations around no other type has there
1462grown such a mass of absurdity and superstition, no other type seems to
1463have been more interesting to men and even to philosophers--perhaps it
1464is time to become just a little indifferent here, to learn caution, or,
1465better still, to look AWAY, TO GO AWAY--Yet in the background of the
1466most recent philosophy, that of Schopenhauer, we find almost as the
1467problem in itself, this terrible note of interrogation of the religious
1468crisis and awakening. How is the negation of will POSSIBLE? how is the
1469saint possible?--that seems to have been the very question with which
1470Schopenhauer made a start and became a philosopher. And thus it was a
1471genuine Schopenhauerian consequence, that his most convinced adherent
1472(perhaps also his last, as far as Germany is concerned), namely, Richard
1473Wagner, should bring his own life-work to an end just here, and should
1474finally put that terrible and eternal type upon the stage as Kundry,
1475type vecu, and as it loved and lived, at the very time that the
1476mad-doctors in almost all European countries had an opportunity to study
1477the type close at hand, wherever the religious neurosis--or as I call
1478it, "the religious mood"--made its latest epidemical outbreak and
1479display as the "Salvation Army"--If it be a question, however, as to
1480what has been so extremely interesting to men of all sorts in all ages,
1481and even to philosophers, in the whole phenomenon of the saint, it
1482is undoubtedly the appearance of the miraculous therein--namely, the
1483immediate SUCCESSION OF OPPOSITES, of states of the soul regarded as
1484morally antithetical: it was believed here to be self-evident that
1485a "bad man" was all at once turned into a "saint," a good man. The
1486hitherto existing psychology was wrecked at this point, is it not
1487possible it may have happened principally because psychology had placed
1488itself under the dominion of morals, because it BELIEVED in oppositions
1489of moral values, and saw, read, and INTERPRETED these oppositions
1490into the text and facts of the case? What? "Miracle" only an error of
1491interpretation? A lack of philology?
1492
149348. It seems that the Latin races are far more deeply attached to their
1494Catholicism than we Northerners are to Christianity generally, and
1495that consequently unbelief in Catholic countries means something quite
1496different from what it does among Protestants--namely, a sort of revolt
1497against the spirit of the race, while with us it is rather a return to
1498the spirit (or non-spirit) of the race.
1499
1500We Northerners undoubtedly derive our origin from barbarous races, even
1501as regards our talents for religion--we have POOR talents for it. One
1502may make an exception in the case of the Celts, who have theretofore
1503furnished also the best soil for Christian infection in the North: the
1504Christian ideal blossomed forth in France as much as ever the pale sun
1505of the north would allow it. How strangely pious for our taste are still
1506these later French skeptics, whenever there is any Celtic blood in their
1507origin! How Catholic, how un-German does Auguste Comte's Sociology
1508seem to us, with the Roman logic of its instincts! How Jesuitical, that
1509amiable and shrewd cicerone of Port Royal, Sainte-Beuve, in spite of all
1510his hostility to Jesuits! And even Ernest Renan: how inaccessible to
1511us Northerners does the language of such a Renan appear, in whom
1512every instant the merest touch of religious thrill throws his refined
1513voluptuous and comfortably couching soul off its balance! Let us repeat
1514after him these fine sentences--and what wickedness and haughtiness is
1515immediately aroused by way of answer in our probably less beautiful but
1516harder souls, that is to say, in our more German souls!--"DISONS DONC
1517HARDIMENT QUE LA RELIGION EST UN PRODUIT DE L'HOMME NORMAL, QUE L'HOMME
1518EST LE PLUS DANS LE VRAI QUANT IL EST LE PLUS RELIGIEUX ET LE PLUS
1519ASSURE D'UNE DESTINEE INFINIE.... C'EST QUAND IL EST BON QU'IL VEUT QUE
1520LA VIRTU CORRESPONDE A UN ORDER ETERNAL, C'EST QUAND IL CONTEMPLE LES
1521CHOSES D'UNE MANIERE DESINTERESSEE QU'IL TROUVE LA MORT REVOLTANTE ET
1522ABSURDE. COMMENT NE PAS SUPPOSER QUE C'EST DANS CES MOMENTS-LA, QUE
1523L'HOMME VOIT LE MIEUX?"... These sentences are so extremely ANTIPODAL
1524to my ears and habits of thought, that in my first impulse of rage
1525on finding them, I wrote on the margin, "LA NIAISERIE RELIGIEUSE PAR
1526EXCELLENCE!"--until in my later rage I even took a fancy to them, these
1527sentences with their truth absolutely inverted! It is so nice and such a
1528distinction to have one's own antipodes!
1529
153049. That which is so astonishing in the religious life of the ancient
1531Greeks is the irrestrainable stream of GRATITUDE which it pours
1532forth--it is a very superior kind of man who takes SUCH an attitude
1533towards nature and life.--Later on, when the populace got the upper hand
1534in Greece, FEAR became rampant also in religion; and Christianity was
1535preparing itself.
1536
153750. The passion for God: there are churlish, honest-hearted, and
1538importunate kinds of it, like that of Luther--the whole of Protestantism
1539lacks the southern DELICATEZZA. There is an Oriental exaltation of the
1540mind in it, like that of an undeservedly favoured or elevated slave, as
1541in the case of St. Augustine, for instance, who lacks in an offensive
1542manner, all nobility in bearing and desires. There is a feminine
1543tenderness and sensuality in it, which modestly and unconsciously longs
1544for a UNIO MYSTICA ET PHYSICA, as in the case of Madame de Guyon. In
1545many cases it appears, curiously enough, as the disguise of a girl's
1546or youth's puberty; here and there even as the hysteria of an old maid,
1547also as her last ambition. The Church has frequently canonized the woman
1548in such a case.
1549
155051. The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before
1551the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation and utter voluntary
1552privation--why did they thus bow? They divined in him--and as it were
1553behind the questionableness of his frail and wretched appearance--the
1554superior force which wished to test itself by such a subjugation; the
1555strength of will, in which they recognized their own strength and
1556love of power, and knew how to honour it: they honoured something
1557in themselves when they honoured the saint. In addition to this, the
1558contemplation of the saint suggested to them a suspicion: such an
1559enormity of self-negation and anti-naturalness will not have been
1560coveted for nothing--they have said, inquiringly. There is perhaps a
1561reason for it, some very great danger, about which the ascetic might
1562wish to be more accurately informed through his secret interlocutors and
1563visitors? In a word, the mighty ones of the world learned to have a new
1564fear before him, they divined a new power, a strange, still unconquered
1565enemy:--it was the "Will to Power" which obliged them to halt before the
1566saint. They had to question him.
1567
156852. In the Jewish "Old Testament," the book of divine justice, there are
1569men, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian
1570literature has nothing to compare with it. One stands with fear and
1571reverence before those stupendous remains of what man was formerly, and
1572one has sad thoughts about old Asia and its little out-pushed peninsula
1573Europe, which would like, by all means, to figure before Asia as the
1574"Progress of Mankind." To be sure, he who is himself only a slender,
1575tame house-animal, and knows only the wants of a house-animal (like
1576our cultured people of today, including the Christians of "cultured"
1577Christianity), need neither be amazed nor even sad amid those ruins--the
1578taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone with respect to "great" and
1579"small": perhaps he will find that the New Testament, the book of grace,
1580still appeals more to his heart (there is much of the odour of the
1581genuine, tender, stupid beadsman and petty soul in it). To have bound
1582up this New Testament (a kind of ROCOCO of taste in every respect) along
1583with the Old Testament into one book, as the "Bible," as "The Book in
1584Itself," is perhaps the greatest audacity and "sin against the Spirit"
1585which literary Europe has upon its conscience.
1586
158753. Why Atheism nowadays? "The father" in God is thoroughly refuted;
1588equally so "the judge," "the rewarder." Also his "free will": he does
1589not hear--and even if he did, he would not know how to help. The worst
1590is that he seems incapable of communicating himself clearly; is he
1591uncertain?--This is what I have made out (by questioning and listening
1592at a variety of conversations) to be the cause of the decline of
1593European theism; it appears to me that though the religious instinct is
1594in vigorous growth,--it rejects the theistic satisfaction with profound
1595distrust.
1596
159754. What does all modern philosophy mainly do? Since Descartes--and
1598indeed more in defiance of him than on the basis of his procedure--an
1599ATTENTAT has been made on the part of all philosophers on the old
1600conception of the soul, under the guise of a criticism of the subject
1601and predicate conception--that is to say, an ATTENTAT on the
1602fundamental presupposition of Christian doctrine. Modern philosophy,
1603as epistemological skepticism, is secretly or openly ANTI-CHRISTIAN,
1604although (for keener ears, be it said) by no means anti-religious.
1605Formerly, in effect, one believed in "the soul" as one believed in
1606grammar and the grammatical subject: one said, "I" is the condition,
1607"think" is the predicate and is conditioned--to think is an activity for
1608which one MUST suppose a subject as cause. The attempt was then made,
1609with marvelous tenacity and subtlety, to see if one could not get out
1610of this net,--to see if the opposite was not perhaps true: "think" the
1611condition, and "I" the conditioned; "I," therefore, only a synthesis
1612which has been MADE by thinking itself. KANT really wished to prove
1613that, starting from the subject, the subject could not be proved--nor
1614the object either: the possibility of an APPARENT EXISTENCE of the
1615subject, and therefore of "the soul," may not always have been strange
1616to him,--the thought which once had an immense power on earth as the
1617Vedanta philosophy.
1618
161955. There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, with many rounds; but
1620three of these are the most important. Once on a time men sacrificed
1621human beings to their God, and perhaps just those they loved the
1622best--to this category belong the firstling sacrifices of all primitive
1623religions, and also the sacrifice of the Emperor Tiberius in the
1624Mithra-Grotto on the Island of Capri, that most terrible of all Roman
1625anachronisms. Then, during the moral epoch of mankind, they sacrificed
1626to their God the strongest instincts they possessed, their "nature";
1627THIS festal joy shines in the cruel glances of ascetics and
1628"anti-natural" fanatics. Finally, what still remained to be sacrificed?
1629Was it not necessary in the end for men to sacrifice everything
1630comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all faith in hidden harmonies, in
1631future blessedness and justice? Was it not necessary to sacrifice God
1632himself, and out of cruelty to themselves to worship stone, stupidity,
1633gravity, fate, nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingness--this
1634paradoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the
1635rising generation; we all know something thereof already.
1636
163756. Whoever, like myself, prompted by some enigmatical desire, has long
1638endeavoured to go to the bottom of the question of pessimism and free it
1639from the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and stupidity in which
1640it has finally presented itself to this century, namely, in the form of
1641Schopenhauer's philosophy; whoever, with an Asiatic and super-Asiatic
1642eye, has actually looked inside, and into the most world-renouncing of
1643all possible modes of thought--beyond good and evil, and no longer
1644like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the dominion and delusion of
1645morality,--whoever has done this, has perhaps just thereby, without
1646really desiring it, opened his eyes to behold the opposite ideal: the
1647ideal of the most world-approving, exuberant, and vivacious man, who has
1648not only learnt to compromise and arrange with that which was and
1649is, but wishes to have it again AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity,
1650insatiably calling out da capo, not only to himself, but to the whole
1651piece and play; and not only the play, but actually to him who requires
1652the play--and makes it necessary; because he always requires
1653himself anew--and makes himself necessary.--What? And this would not
1654be--circulus vitiosus deus?
1655
165657. The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the
1657strength of his intellectual vision and insight: his world becomes
1658profounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into
1659view. Perhaps everything on which the intellectual eye has exercised
1660its acuteness and profundity has just been an occasion for its exercise,
1661something of a game, something for children and childish minds. Perhaps
1662the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and
1663suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us of
1664no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to
1665an old man;--and perhaps another plaything and another pain will then
1666be necessary once more for "the old man"--always childish enough, an
1667eternal child!
1668
166958. Has it been observed to what extent outward idleness, or
1670semi-idleness, is necessary to a real religious life (alike for its
1671favourite microscopic labour of self-examination, and for its soft
1672placidity called "prayer," the state of perpetual readiness for the
1673"coming of God"), I mean the idleness with a good conscience, the
1674idleness of olden times and of blood, to which the aristocratic
1675sentiment that work is DISHONOURING--that it vulgarizes body and
1676soul--is not quite unfamiliar? And that consequently the modern, noisy,
1677time-engrossing, conceited, foolishly proud laboriousness educates
1678and prepares for "unbelief" more than anything else? Among these, for
1679instance, who are at present living apart from religion in Germany, I
1680find "free-thinkers" of diversified species and origin, but above all
1681a majority of those in whom laboriousness from generation to generation
1682has dissolved the religious instincts; so that they no longer know what
1683purpose religions serve, and only note their existence in the world
1684with a kind of dull astonishment. They feel themselves already fully
1685occupied, these good people, be it by their business or by their
1686pleasures, not to mention the "Fatherland," and the newspapers, and
1687their "family duties"; it seems that they have no time whatever left
1688for religion; and above all, it is not obvious to them whether it is a
1689question of a new business or a new pleasure--for it is impossible, they
1690say to themselves, that people should go to church merely to spoil
1691their tempers. They are by no means enemies of religious customs;
1692should certain circumstances, State affairs perhaps, require their
1693participation in such customs, they do what is required, as so many
1694things are done--with a patient and unassuming seriousness, and without
1695much curiosity or discomfort;--they live too much apart and outside
1696to feel even the necessity for a FOR or AGAINST in such matters. Among
1697those indifferent persons may be reckoned nowadays the majority of
1698German Protestants of the middle classes, especially in the great
1699laborious centres of trade and commerce; also the majority of laborious
1700scholars, and the entire University personnel (with the exception of
1701the theologians, whose existence and possibility there always gives
1702psychologists new and more subtle puzzles to solve). On the part of
1703pious, or merely church-going people, there is seldom any idea of HOW
1704MUCH good-will, one might say arbitrary will, is now necessary for a
1705German scholar to take the problem of religion seriously; his whole
1706profession (and as I have said, his whole workmanlike laboriousness, to
1707which he is compelled by his modern conscience) inclines him to a
1708lofty and almost charitable serenity as regards religion, with which is
1709occasionally mingled a slight disdain for the "uncleanliness" of spirit
1710which he takes for granted wherever any one still professes to belong
1711to the Church. It is only with the help of history (NOT through his own
1712personal experience, therefore) that the scholar succeeds in bringing
1713himself to a respectful seriousness, and to a certain timid deference
1714in presence of religions; but even when his sentiments have reached the
1715stage of gratitude towards them, he has not personally advanced one
1716step nearer to that which still maintains itself as Church or as piety;
1717perhaps even the contrary. The practical indifference to religious
1718matters in the midst of which he has been born and brought up, usually
1719sublimates itself in his case into circumspection and cleanliness, which
1720shuns contact with religious men and things; and it may be just the
1721depth of his tolerance and humanity which prompts him to avoid the
1722delicate trouble which tolerance itself brings with it.--Every age has
1723its own divine type of naivete, for the discovery of which other ages
1724may envy it: and how much naivete--adorable, childlike, and boundlessly
1725foolish naivete is involved in this belief of the scholar in
1726his superiority, in the good conscience of his tolerance, in the
1727unsuspecting, simple certainty with which his instinct treats the
1728religious man as a lower and less valuable type, beyond, before, and
1729ABOVE which he himself has developed--he, the little arrogant dwarf
1730and mob-man, the sedulously alert, head-and-hand drudge of "ideas," of
1731"modern ideas"!
1732
173359. Whoever has seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what
1734wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their
1735preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and
1736false. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated adoration
1737of "pure forms" in philosophers as well as in artists: it is not to be
1738doubted that whoever has NEED of the cult of the superficial to that
1739extent, has at one time or another made an unlucky dive BENEATH it.
1740Perhaps there is even an order of rank with respect to those burnt
1741children, the born artists who find the enjoyment of life only in trying
1742to FALSIFY its image (as if taking wearisome revenge on it), one might
1743guess to what degree life has disgusted them, by the extent to which
1744they wish to see its image falsified, attenuated, ultrified, and
1745deified,--one might reckon the homines religiosi among the artists, as
1746their HIGHEST rank. It is the profound, suspicious fear of an incurable
1747pessimism which compels whole centuries to fasten their teeth into a
1748religious interpretation of existence: the fear of the instinct which
1749divines that truth might be attained TOO soon, before man has become
1750strong enough, hard enough, artist enough.... Piety, the "Life in God,"
1751regarded in this light, would appear as the most elaborate and
1752ultimate product of the FEAR of truth, as artist-adoration
1753and artist-intoxication in presence of the most logical of all
1754falsifications, as the will to the inversion of truth, to untruth at
1755any price. Perhaps there has hitherto been no more effective means of
1756beautifying man than piety, by means of it man can become so artful, so
1757superficial, so iridescent, and so good, that his appearance no longer
1758offends.
1759
176060. To love mankind FOR GOD'S SAKE--this has so far been the noblest and
1761remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. That love to mankind,
1762without any redeeming intention in the background, is only an ADDITIONAL
1763folly and brutishness, that the inclination to this love has first to
1764get its proportion, its delicacy, its gram of salt and sprinkling
1765of ambergris from a higher inclination--whoever first perceived
1766and "experienced" this, however his tongue may have stammered as it
1767attempted to express such a delicate matter, let him for all time be
1768holy and respected, as the man who has so far flown highest and gone
1769astray in the finest fashion!
1770
177161. The philosopher, as WE free spirits understand him--as the man of
1772the greatest responsibility, who has the conscience for the general
1773development of mankind,--will use religion for his disciplining and
1774educating work, just as he will use the contemporary political
1775and economic conditions. The selecting and disciplining
1776influence--destructive, as well as creative and fashioning--which can be
1777exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to the
1778sort of people placed under its spell and protection. For those who are
1779strong and independent, destined and trained to command, in whom the
1780judgment and skill of a ruling race is incorporated, religion is
1781an additional means for overcoming resistance in the exercise of
1782authority--as a bond which binds rulers and subjects in common,
1783betraying and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter,
1784their inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. And in the
1785case of the unique natures of noble origin, if by virtue of superior
1786spirituality they should incline to a more retired and contemplative
1787life, reserving to themselves only the more refined forms of government
1788(over chosen disciples or members of an order), religion itself may
1789be used as a means for obtaining peace from the noise and trouble of
1790managing GROSSER affairs, and for securing immunity from the UNAVOIDABLE
1791filth of all political agitation. The Brahmins, for instance, understood
1792this fact. With the help of a religious organization, they secured to
1793themselves the power of nominating kings for the people, while their
1794sentiments prompted them to keep apart and outside, as men with a higher
1795and super-regal mission. At the same time religion gives inducement and
1796opportunity to some of the subjects to qualify themselves for future
1797ruling and commanding the slowly ascending ranks and classes, in which,
1798through fortunate marriage customs, volitional power and delight in
1799self-control are on the increase. To them religion offers sufficient
1800incentives and temptations to aspire to higher intellectuality, and to
1801experience the sentiments of authoritative self-control, of silence, and
1802of solitude. Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of
1803educating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary
1804baseness and work itself upwards to future supremacy. And finally, to
1805ordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and
1806general utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives
1807invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart,
1808ennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy,
1809with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of
1810justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all
1811the semi-animal poverty of their souls. Religion, together with the
1812religious significance of life, sheds sunshine over such perpetually
1813harassed men, and makes even their own aspect endurable to them, it
1814operates upon them as the Epicurean philosophy usually operates upon
1815sufferers of a higher order, in a refreshing and refining manner,
1816almost TURNING suffering TO ACCOUNT, and in the end even hallowing and
1817vindicating it. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity
1818and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate
1819themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby
1820to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it
1821difficult enough to live--this very difficulty being necessary.
1822
182362. To be sure--to make also the bad counter-reckoning against such
1824religions, and to bring to light their secret dangers--the cost is
1825always excessive and terrible when religions do NOT operate as an
1826educational and disciplinary medium in the hands of the philosopher, but
1827rule voluntarily and PARAMOUNTLY, when they wish to be the final end,
1828and not a means along with other means. Among men, as among all other
1829animals, there is a surplus of defective, diseased, degenerating,
1830infirm, and necessarily suffering individuals; the successful cases,
1831among men also, are always the exception; and in view of the fact that
1832man is THE ANIMAL NOT YET PROPERLY ADAPTED TO HIS ENVIRONMENT, the rare
1833exception. But worse still. The higher the type a man represents, the
1834greater is the improbability that he will SUCCEED; the accidental, the
1835law of irrationality in the general constitution of mankind, manifests
1836itself most terribly in its destructive effect on the higher orders of
1837men, the conditions of whose lives are delicate, diverse, and difficult
1838to determine. What, then, is the attitude of the two greatest religions
1839above-mentioned to the SURPLUS of failures in life? They endeavour
1840to preserve and keep alive whatever can be preserved; in fact, as the
1841religions FOR SUFFERERS, they take the part of these upon principle;
1842they are always in favour of those who suffer from life as from a
1843disease, and they would fain treat every other experience of life as
1844false and impossible. However highly we may esteem this indulgent and
1845preservative care (inasmuch as in applying to others, it has applied,
1846and applies also to the highest and usually the most suffering type of
1847man), the hitherto PARAMOUNT religions--to give a general appreciation
1848of them--are among the principal causes which have kept the type of
1849"man" upon a lower level--they have preserved too much THAT WHICH SHOULD
1850HAVE PERISHED. One has to thank them for invaluable services; and who is
1851sufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the contemplation
1852of all that the "spiritual men" of Christianity have done for Europe
1853hitherto! But when they had given comfort to the sufferers, courage to
1854the oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the helpless,
1855and when they had allured from society into convents and spiritual
1856penitentiaries the broken-hearted and distracted: what else had they
1857to do in order to work systematically in that fashion, and with a good
1858conscience, for the preservation of all the sick and suffering, which
1859means, in deed and in truth, to work for the DETERIORATION OF THE
1860EUROPEAN RACE? To REVERSE all estimates of value--THAT is what they
1861had to do! And to shatter the strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast
1862suspicion on the delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous,
1863manly, conquering, and imperious--all instincts which are natural to the
1864highest and most successful type of "man"--into uncertainty, distress
1865of conscience, and self-destruction; forsooth, to invert all love of the
1866earthly and of supremacy over the earth, into hatred of the earth and
1867earthly things--THAT is the task the Church imposed on itself, and
1868was obliged to impose, until, according to its standard of value,
1869"unworldliness," "unsensuousness," and "higher man" fused into one
1870sentiment. If one could observe the strangely painful, equally coarse
1871and refined comedy of European Christianity with the derisive and
1872impartial eye of an Epicurean god, I should think one would never cease
1873marvelling and laughing; does it not actually seem that some single will
1874has ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME
1875ABORTION of man? He, however, who, with opposite requirements (no longer
1876Epicurean) and with some divine hammer in his hand, could approach this
1877almost voluntary degeneration and stunting of mankind, as exemplified in
1878the European Christian (Pascal, for instance), would he not have to
1879cry aloud with rage, pity, and horror: "Oh, you bunglers, presumptuous
1880pitiful bunglers, what have you done! Was that a work for your hands?
1881How you have hacked and botched my finest stone! What have you presumed
1882to do!"--I should say that Christianity has hitherto been the most
1883portentous of presumptions. Men, not great enough, nor hard enough,
1884to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning MAN; men,
1885not sufficiently strong and far-sighted to ALLOW, with sublime
1886self-constraint, the obvious law of the thousandfold failures and
1887perishings to prevail; men, not sufficiently noble to see the radically
1888different grades of rank and intervals of rank that separate man from
1889man:--SUCH men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed
1890the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species
1891has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly,
1892mediocre, the European of the present day.
1893
1894
1895
1896CHAPTER IV. APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES
1897
1898
189963. He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously--and even
1900himself--only in relation to his pupils.
1901
190264. "Knowledge for its own sake"--that is the last snare laid by
1903morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more.
1904
190565. The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has
1906to be overcome on the way to it.
1907
190865A. We are most dishonourable towards our God: he is not PERMITTED to
1909sin.
1910
191166. The tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded, robbed,
1912deceived, and exploited might be the diffidence of a God among men.
1913
191467. Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense
1915of all others. Love to God also!
1916
191768. "I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my
1918pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually--the memory yields.
1919
192069. One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand
1921that--kills with leniency.
1922
192370. If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which
1924always recurs.
1925
192671. THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER.--So long as thou feelest the stars as an
1927"above thee," thou lackest the eye of the discerning one.
1928
192972. It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that
1930makes great men.
1931
193273. He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it.
1933
193473A. Many a peacock hides his tail from every eye--and calls it his
1935pride.
1936
193774. A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things
1938besides: gratitude and purity.
1939
194075. The degree and nature of a man's sensuality extends to the highest
1941altitudes of his spirit.
1942
194376. Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself.
1944
194577. With his principles a man seeks either to dominate, or justify,
1946or honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits: two men with the same
1947principles probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith.
1948
194978. He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself thereby, as a
1950despiser.
1951
195279. A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love,
1953betrays its sediment: its dregs come up.
1954
195580. A thing that is explained ceases to concern us--What did the God
1956mean who gave the advice, "Know thyself!" Did it perhaps imply "Cease to
1957be concerned about thyself! become objective!"--And Socrates?--And the
1958"scientific man"?
1959
196081. It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you
1961should so salt your truth that it will no longer--quench thirst?
1962
196382. "Sympathy for all"--would be harshness and tyranny for THEE, my good
1964neighbour.
1965
196683. INSTINCT--When the house is on fire one forgets even the
1967dinner--Yes, but one recovers it from among the ashes.
1968
196984. Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she--forgets how to charm.
1970
197185. The same emotions are in man and woman, but in different TEMPO, on
1972that account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other.
1973
197486. In the background of all their personal vanity, women themselves
1975have still their impersonal scorn--for "woman".
1976
197787. FETTERED HEART, FREE SPIRIT--When one firmly fetters one's heart
1978and keeps it prisoner, one can allow one's spirit many liberties: I said
1979this once before But people do not believe it when I say so, unless they
1980know it already.
1981
198288. One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become
1983embarrassed.
1984
198589. Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences
1986them is not something dreadful also.
1987
198890. Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their
1989surface, precisely by that which makes others heavy--by hatred and love.
1990
199191. So cold, so icy, that one burns one's finger at the touch of him!
1992Every hand that lays hold of him shrinks back!--And for that very reason
1993many think him red-hot.
1994
199592. Who has not, at one time or another--sacrificed himself for the sake
1996of his good name?
1997
199893. In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely on that
1999account a great deal too much contempt of men.
2000
200194. The maturity of man--that means, to have reacquired the seriousness
2002that one had as a child at play.
2003
200495. To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end
2005of which one is ashamed also of one's morality.
2006
200796. One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa--blessing
2008it rather than in love with it.
2009
201097. What? A great man? I always see merely the play-actor of his own
2011ideal.
2012
201398. When one trains one's conscience, it kisses one while it bites.
2014
201599. THE DISAPPOINTED ONE SPEAKS--"I listened for the echo and I heard
2016only praise."
2017
2018100. We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are, we thus
2019relax ourselves away from our fellows.
2020
2021101. A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the
2022animalization of God.
2023
2024102. Discovering reciprocal love should really disenchant the lover with
2025regard to the beloved. "What! She is modest enough to love even you? Or
2026stupid enough? Or--or---"
2027
2028103. THE DANGER IN HAPPINESS.--"Everything now turns out best for me, I
2029now love every fate:--who would like to be my fate?"
2030
2031104. Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love,
2032prevents the Christians of today--burning us.
2033
2034105. The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the "piety")
2035of the free spirit (the "pious man of knowledge") than the impia fraus.
2036Hence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church,
2037characteristic of the type "free spirit"--as ITS non-freedom.
2038
2039106. By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves.
2040
2041107. A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been
2042taken, to shut the ear even to the best counter-arguments. Occasionally,
2043therefore, a will to stupidity.
2044
2045108. There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral
2046interpretation of phenomena.
2047
2048109. The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates
2049and maligns it.
2050
2051110. The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the
2052beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer.
2053
2054111. Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been
2055wounded.
2056
2057112. To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to
2058belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against
2059them.
2060
2061113. "You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be
2062embarrassed before him."
2063
2064114. The immense expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness
2065in this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset.
2066
2067115. Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman's play is
2068mediocre.
2069
2070116. The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage
2071to rebaptize our badness as the best in us.
2072
2073117. The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of
2074another, or of several other, emotions.
2075
2076118. There is an innocence of admiration: it is possessed by him to whom
2077it has not yet occurred that he himself may be admired some day.
2078
2079119. Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning
2080ourselves--"justifying" ourselves.
2081
2082120. Sensuality often forces the growth of love too much, so that its
2083root remains weak, and is easily torn up.
2084
2085121. It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn
2086author--and that he did not learn it better.
2087
2088122. To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness
2089of heart--and the very opposite of vanity of spirit.
2090
2091123. Even concubinage has been corrupted--by marriage.
2092
2093124. He who exults at the stake, does not triumph over pain, but because
2094of the fact that he does not feel pain where he expected it. A parable.
2095
2096125. When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily
2097to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.
2098
2099126. A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great
2100men.--Yes, and then to get round them.
2101
2102127. In the eyes of all true women science is hostile to the sense of
2103shame. They feel as if one wished to peep under their skin with it--or
2104worse still! under their dress and finery.
2105
2106128. The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you
2107allure the senses to it.
2108
2109129. The devil has the most extensive perspectives for God; on that
2110account he keeps so far away from him:--the devil, in effect, as the
2111oldest friend of knowledge.
2112
2113130. What a person IS begins to betray itself when his talent
2114decreases,--when he ceases to show what he CAN do. Talent is also an
2115adornment; an adornment is also a concealment.
2116
2117131. The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that
2118in reality they honour and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to
2119express it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable: but
2120in fact woman is ESSENTIALLY unpeaceable, like the cat, however well she
2121may have assumed the peaceable demeanour.
2122
2123132. One is punished best for one's virtues.
2124
2125133. He who cannot find the way to HIS ideal, lives more frivolously and
2126shamelessly than the man without an ideal.
2127
2128134. From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience,
2129all evidence of truth.
2130
2131135. Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man; a considerable
2132part of it is rather an essential condition of being good.
2133
2134136. The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the other seeks some
2135one whom he can assist: a good conversation thus originates.
2136
2137137. In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes
2138of opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds
2139a mediocre man; and often, even in a mediocre artist, one finds a very
2140remarkable man.
2141
2142138. We do the same when awake as when dreaming: we only invent and
2143imagine him with whom we have intercourse--and forget it immediately.
2144
2145139. In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man.
2146
2147140. ADVICE AS A RIDDLE.--"If the band is not to break, bite it
2148first--secure to make!"
2149
2150141. The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself
2151for a God.
2152
2153142. The chastest utterance I ever heard: "Dans le veritable amour c'est
2154l'ame qui enveloppe le corps."
2155
2156143. Our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is
2157most difficult to us.--Concerning the origin of many systems of morals.
2158
2159144. When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally
2160something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a
2161certain virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is "the barren
2162animal."
2163
2164145. Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would
2165not have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the
2166SECONDARY role.
2167
2168146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby
2169become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will
2170also gaze into thee.
2171
2172147. From old Florentine novels--moreover, from life: Buona femmina e
2173mala femmina vuol bastone.--Sacchetti, Nov. 86.
2174
2175148. To seduce their neighbour to a favourable opinion, and afterwards
2176to believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbour--who can do
2177this conjuring trick so well as women?
2178
2179149. That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of
2180what was formerly considered good--the atavism of an old ideal.
2181
2182150. Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the
2183demigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything
2184becomes--what? perhaps a "world"?
2185
2186151. It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also have your
2187permission to possess it;--eh, my friends?
2188
2189152. "Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise":
2190so say the most ancient and the most modern serpents.
2191
2192153. What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
2193
2194154. Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of
2195health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.
2196
2197155. The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness.
2198
2199156. Insanity in individuals is something rare--but in groups, parties,
2200nations, and epochs it is the rule.
2201
2202157. The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one
2203gets successfully through many a bad night.
2204
2205158. Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our
2206strongest impulse--the tyrant in us.
2207
2208159. One MUST repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us
2209good or ill?
2210
2211160. One no longer loves one's knowledge sufficiently after one has
2212communicated it.
2213
2214161. Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them.
2215
2216162. "Our fellow-creature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour's
2217neighbour":--so thinks every nation.
2218
2219163. Love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a lover--his
2220rare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his
2221normal character.
2222
2223164. Jesus said to his Jews: "The law was for servants;--love God as I
2224love him, as his Son! What have we Sons of God to do with morals!"
2225
2226165. IN SIGHT OF EVERY PARTY.--A shepherd has always need of a
2227bell-wether--or he has himself to be a wether occasionally.
2228
2229166. One may indeed lie with the mouth; but with the accompanying
2230grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.
2231
2232167. To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame--and something
2233precious.
2234
2235168. Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it,
2236certainly, but degenerated to Vice.
2237
2238169. To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing
2239oneself.
2240
2241170. In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.
2242
2243171. Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like
2244tender hands on a Cyclops.
2245
2246172. One occasionally embraces some one or other, out of love to mankind
2247(because one cannot embrace all); but this is what one must never
2248confess to the individual.
2249
2250173. One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one
2251esteems equal or superior.
2252
2253174. Ye Utilitarians--ye, too, love the UTILE only as a VEHICLE for
2254your inclinations,--ye, too, really find the noise of its wheels
2255insupportable!
2256
2257175. One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.
2258
2259176. The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is
2260counter to our vanity.
2261
2262177. With regard to what "truthfulness" is, perhaps nobody has ever been
2263sufficiently truthful.
2264
2265178. One does not believe in the follies of clever men: what a
2266forfeiture of the rights of man!
2267
2268179. The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very
2269indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile "reformed."
2270
2271180. There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a
2272cause.
2273
2274181. It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed.
2275
2276182. The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be
2277returned.
2278
2279183. "I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can
2280no longer believe in you."
2281
2282184. There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of
2283wickedness.
2284
2285185. "I dislike him."--Why?--"I am not a match for him."--Did any one
2286ever answer so?
2287
2288
2289
2290CHAPTER V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS
2291
2292
2293186. The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as subtle,
2294belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the "Science of Morals"
2295belonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and coarse-fingered:--an
2296interesting contrast, which sometimes becomes incarnate and obvious
2297in the very person of a moralist. Indeed, the expression, "Science
2298of Morals" is, in respect to what is designated thereby, far too
2299presumptuous and counter to GOOD taste,--which is always a foretaste of
2300more modest expressions. One ought to avow with the utmost fairness WHAT
2301is still necessary here for a long time, WHAT is alone proper for the
2302present: namely, the collection of material, the comprehensive survey
2303and classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of worth,
2304and distinctions of worth, which live, grow, propagate, and perish--and
2305perhaps attempts to give a clear idea of the recurring and more common
2306forms of these living crystallizations--as preparation for a THEORY OF
2307TYPES of morality. To be sure, people have not hitherto been so modest.
2308All the philosophers, with a pedantic and ridiculous seriousness,
2309demanded of themselves something very much higher, more pretentious, and
2310ceremonious, when they concerned themselves with morality as a science:
2311they wanted to GIVE A BASIC to morality--and every philosopher hitherto
2312has believed that he has given it a basis; morality itself, however, has
2313been regarded as something "given." How far from their awkward pride
2314was the seemingly insignificant problem--left in dust and decay--of a
2315description of forms of morality, notwithstanding that the finest hands
2316and senses could hardly be fine enough for it! It was precisely owing to
2317moral philosophers' knowing the moral facts imperfectly, in an arbitrary
2318epitome, or an accidental abridgement--perhaps as the morality of
2319their environment, their position, their church, their Zeitgeist, their
2320climate and zone--it was precisely because they were badly instructed
2321with regard to nations, eras, and past ages, and were by no means eager
2322to know about these matters, that they did not even come in sight of the
2323real problems of morals--problems which only disclose themselves by
2324a comparison of MANY kinds of morality. In every "Science of Morals"
2325hitherto, strange as it may sound, the problem of morality itself
2326has been OMITTED: there has been no suspicion that there was anything
2327problematic there! That which philosophers called "giving a basis to
2328morality," and endeavoured to realize, has, when seen in a right light,
2329proved merely a learned form of good FAITH in prevailing morality, a new
2330means of its EXPRESSION, consequently just a matter-of-fact within the
2331sphere of a definite morality, yea, in its ultimate motive, a sort of
2332denial that it is LAWFUL for this morality to be called in question--and
2333in any case the reverse of the testing, analyzing, doubting, and
2334vivisecting of this very faith. Hear, for instance, with what
2335innocence--almost worthy of honour--Schopenhauer represents his own
2336task, and draw your conclusions concerning the scientificness of a
2337"Science" whose latest master still talks in the strain of children and
2338old wives: "The principle," he says (page 136 of the Grundprobleme der
2339Ethik), [Footnote: Pages 54-55 of Schopenhauer's Basis of Morality,
2340translated by Arthur B. Bullock, M.A. (1903).] "the axiom about the
2341purport of which all moralists are PRACTICALLY agreed: neminem laede,
2342immo omnes quantum potes juva--is REALLY the proposition which all moral
2343teachers strive to establish, ... the REAL basis of ethics which
2344has been sought, like the philosopher's stone, for centuries."--The
2345difficulty of establishing the proposition referred to may indeed be
2346great--it is well known that Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his
2347efforts; and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and
2348sentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is Will
2349to Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist,
2350ACTUALLY--played the flute... daily after dinner: one may read about
2351the matter in his biography. A question by the way: a pessimist, a
2352repudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES A HALT at morality--who
2353assents to morality, and plays the flute to laede-neminem morals, what?
2354Is that really--a pessimist?
2355
2356187. Apart from the value of such assertions as "there is a categorical
2357imperative in us," one can always ask: What does such an assertion
2358indicate about him who makes it? There are systems of morals which are
2359meant to justify their author in the eyes of other people; other systems
2360of morals are meant to tranquilize him, and make him self-satisfied;
2361with other systems he wants to crucify and humble himself, with others
2362he wishes to take revenge, with others to conceal himself, with others
2363to glorify himself and gave superiority and distinction,--this system of
2364morals helps its author to forget, that system makes him, or something
2365of him, forgotten, many a moralist would like to exercise power and
2366creative arbitrariness over mankind, many another, perhaps, Kant
2367especially, gives us to understand by his morals that "what is estimable
2368in me, is that I know how to obey--and with you it SHALL not be
2369otherwise than with me!" In short, systems of morals are only a
2370SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS.
2371
2372188. In contrast to laisser-aller, every system of morals is a sort of
2373tyranny against "nature" and also against "reason", that is, however, no
2374objection, unless one should again decree by some system of morals, that
2375all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful What is
2376essential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a
2377long constraint. In order to understand Stoicism, or Port Royal,
2378or Puritanism, one should remember the constraint under which every
2379language has attained to strength and freedom--the metrical constraint,
2380the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. How much trouble have the poets and
2381orators of every nation given themselves!--not excepting some of
2382the prose writers of today, in whose ear dwells an inexorable
2383conscientiousness--"for the sake of a folly," as utilitarian bunglers
2384say, and thereby deem themselves wise--"from submission to arbitrary
2385laws," as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves "free," even
2386free-spirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything
2387of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly
2388certainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself,
2389or in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in
2390conduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary
2391law, and in all seriousness, it is not at all improbable that precisely
2392this is "nature" and "natural"--and not laisser-aller! Every artist
2393knows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his
2394"most natural" condition, the free arranging, locating, disposing,
2395and constructing in the moments of "inspiration"--and how strictly and
2396delicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which, by their very rigidness
2397and precision, defy all formulation by means of ideas (even the most
2398stable idea has, in comparison therewith, something floating, manifold,
2399and ambiguous in it). The essential thing "in heaven and in earth" is,
2400apparently (to repeat it once more), that there should be long OBEDIENCE
2401in the same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in
2402the long run, something which has made life worth living; for instance,
2403virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality--anything whatever
2404that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine. The long bondage of
2405the spirit, the distrustful constraint in the communicability of
2406ideas, the discipline which the thinker imposed on himself to think
2407in accordance with the rules of a church or a court, or conformable
2408to Aristotelian premises, the persistent spiritual will to interpret
2409everything that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every
2410occurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian God:--all this
2411violence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and unreasonableness,
2412has proved itself the disciplinary means whereby the European spirit has
2413attained its strength, its remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility;
2414granted also that much irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be
2415stifled, suffocated, and spoilt in the process (for here, as everywhere,
2416"nature" shows herself as she is, in all her extravagant and INDIFFERENT
2417magnificence, which is shocking, but nevertheless noble). That
2418for centuries European thinkers only thought in order to prove
2419something--nowadays, on the contrary, we are suspicious of every thinker
2420who "wishes to prove something"--that it was always settled beforehand
2421what WAS TO BE the result of their strictest thinking, as it was perhaps
2422in the Asiatic astrology of former times, or as it is still at the
2423present day in the innocent, Christian-moral explanation of immediate
2424personal events "for the glory of God," or "for the good of the
2425soul":--this tyranny, this arbitrariness, this severe and magnificent
2426stupidity, has EDUCATED the spirit; slavery, both in the coarser and
2427the finer sense, is apparently an indispensable means even of spiritual
2428education and discipline. One may look at every system of morals in this
2429light: it is "nature" therein which teaches to hate the laisser-aller,
2430the too great freedom, and implants the need for limited horizons, for
2431immediate duties--it teaches the NARROWING OF PERSPECTIVES, and thus, in
2432a certain sense, that stupidity is a condition of life and development.
2433"Thou must obey some one, and for a long time; OTHERWISE thou wilt come
2434to grief, and lose all respect for thyself"--this seems to me to be the
2435moral imperative of nature, which is certainly neither "categorical,"
2436as old Kant wished (consequently the "otherwise"), nor does it address
2437itself to the individual (what does nature care for the individual!),
2438but to nations, races, ages, and ranks; above all, however, to the
2439animal "man" generally, to MANKIND.
2440
2441189. Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle: it was a
2442master stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and begloom Sunday to such
2443an extent that the Englishman unconsciously hankers for his week--and
2444work-day again:--as a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated
2445FAST, such as is also frequently found in the ancient world (although,
2446as is appropriate in southern nations, not precisely with respect
2447to work). Many kinds of fasts are necessary; and wherever powerful
2448influences and habits prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary
2449days are appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn to
2450hunger anew. Viewed from a higher standpoint, whole generations and
2451epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism,
2452seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during
2453which an impulse learns to humble and submit itself--at the same time
2454also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself; certain philosophical sects likewise
2455admit of a similar interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst
2456of Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with
2457Aphrodisiacal odours).--Here also is a hint for the explanation of the
2458paradox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period of European
2459history, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments,
2460that the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amour-passion).
2461
2462190. There is something in the morality of Plato which does not really
2463belong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy, one might
2464say, in spite of him: namely, Socratism, for which he himself was
2465too noble. "No one desires to injure himself, hence all evil is done
2466unwittingly. The evil man inflicts injury on himself; he would not do
2467so, however, if he knew that evil is evil. The evil man, therefore, is
2468only evil through error; if one free him from error one will necessarily
2469make him--good."--This mode of reasoning savours of the POPULACE, who
2470perceive only the unpleasant consequences of evil-doing, and practically
2471judge that "it is STUPID to do wrong"; while they accept "good" as
2472identical with "useful and pleasant," without further thought. As
2473regards every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it
2474has the same origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err.--Plato
2475did all he could to interpret something refined and noble into the
2476tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret himself into them--he,
2477the most daring of all interpreters, who lifted the entire Socrates out
2478of the street, as a popular theme and song, to exhibit him in endless
2479and impossible modifications--namely, in all his own disguises and
2480multiplicities. In jest, and in Homeric language as well, what is the
2481Platonic Socrates, if not--[Greek words inserted here.]
2482
2483191. The old theological problem of "Faith" and "Knowledge," or more
2484plainly, of instinct and reason--the question whether, in respect to the
2485valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality,
2486which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to
2487a "Why," that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility--it
2488is always the old moral problem that first appeared in the person of
2489Socrates, and had divided men's minds long before Christianity. Socrates
2490himself, following, of course, the taste of his talent--that of a
2491surpassing dialectician--took first the side of reason; and, in fact,
2492what did he do all his life but laugh at the awkward incapacity of the
2493noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could
2494never give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions?
2495In the end, however, though silently and secretly, he laughed also
2496at himself: with his finer conscience and introspection, he found
2497in himself the same difficulty and incapacity. "But why"--he said
2498to himself--"should one on that account separate oneself from the
2499instincts! One must set them right, and the reason ALSO--one must follow
2500the instincts, but at the same time persuade the reason to support them
2501with good arguments." This was the real FALSENESS of that great and
2502mysterious ironist; he brought his conscience up to the point that he
2503was satisfied with a kind of self-outwitting: in fact, he perceived
2504the irrationality in the moral judgment.--Plato, more innocent in such
2505matters, and without the craftiness of the plebeian, wished to prove to
2506himself, at the expenditure of all his strength--the greatest strength
2507a philosopher had ever expended--that reason and instinct lead
2508spontaneously to one goal, to the good, to "God"; and since Plato, all
2509theologians and philosophers have followed the same path--which means
2510that in matters of morality, instinct (or as Christians call it,
2511"Faith," or as I call it, "the herd") has hitherto triumphed. Unless
2512one should make an exception in the case of Descartes, the father of
2513rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who
2514recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a tool, and
2515Descartes was superficial.
2516
2517192. Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in
2518its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest
2519processes of all "knowledge and cognizance": there, as here, the
2520premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to "belief,"
2521and the lack of distrust and patience are first developed--our senses
2522learn late, and never learn completely, to be subtle, reliable, and
2523cautious organs of knowledge. Our eyes find it easier on a given
2524occasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon
2525the divergence and novelty of an impression: the latter requires more
2526force, more "morality." It is difficult and painful for the ear to
2527listen to anything new; we hear strange music badly. When we hear
2528another language spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds
2529into words with which we are more familiar and conversant--it was thus,
2530for example, that the Germans modified the spoken word ARCUBALISTA into
2531ARMBRUST (cross-bow). Our senses are also hostile and averse to the
2532new; and generally, even in the "simplest" processes of sensation, the
2533emotions DOMINATE--such as fear, love, hatred, and the passive emotion
2534of indolence.--As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words
2535(not to speak of syllables) of a page--he rather takes about five out
2536of every twenty words at random, and "guesses" the probably appropriate
2537sense to them--just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely
2538in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so
2539much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the
2540most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we fabricate the
2541greater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate
2542any event, EXCEPT as "inventors" thereof. All this goes to prove
2543that from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have
2544been--ACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it more politely and
2545hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly--one is much more of an artist
2546than one is aware of.--In an animated conversation, I often see the face
2547of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined
2548before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to
2549be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the
2550STRENGTH of my visual faculty--the delicacy of the play of the muscles
2551and of the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me.
2552Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all.
2553
2554193. Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: but also contrariwise. What we
2555experience in dreams, provided we experience it often, pertains at
2556last just as much to the general belongings of our soul as anything
2557"actually" experienced; by virtue thereof we are richer or poorer, we
2558have a requirement more or less, and finally, in broad daylight, and
2559even in the brightest moments of our waking life, we are ruled to some
2560extent by the nature of our dreams. Supposing that someone has often
2561flown in his dreams, and that at last, as soon as he dreams, he is
2562conscious of the power and art of flying as his privilege and his
2563peculiarly enviable happiness; such a person, who believes that on the
2564slightest impulse, he can actualize all sorts of curves and angles, who
2565knows the sensation of a certain divine levity, an "upwards"
2566without effort or constraint, a "downwards" without descending
2567or lowering--without TROUBLE!--how could the man with such
2568dream-experiences and dream-habits fail to find "happiness" differently
2569coloured and defined, even in his waking hours! How could he fail--to
2570long DIFFERENTLY for happiness? "Flight," such as is described by poets,
2571must, when compared with his own "flying," be far too earthly, muscular,
2572violent, far too "troublesome" for him.
2573
2574194. The difference among men does not manifest itself only in the
2575difference of their lists of desirable things--in their regarding
2576different good things as worth striving for, and being disagreed as to
2577the greater or less value, the order of rank, of the commonly recognized
2578desirable things:--it manifests itself much more in what they regard as
2579actually HAVING and POSSESSING a desirable thing. As regards a woman,
2580for instance, the control over her body and her sexual gratification
2581serves as an amply sufficient sign of ownership and possession to the
2582more modest man; another with a more suspicious and ambitious thirst for
2583possession, sees the "questionableness," the mere apparentness of such
2584ownership, and wishes to have finer tests in order to know especially
2585whether the woman not only gives herself to him, but also gives up for
2586his sake what she has or would like to have--only THEN does he look upon
2587her as "possessed." A third, however, has not even here got to the limit
2588of his distrust and his desire for possession: he asks himself whether
2589the woman, when she gives up everything for him, does not perhaps do
2590so for a phantom of him; he wishes first to be thoroughly, indeed,
2591profoundly well known; in order to be loved at all he ventures to let
2592himself be found out. Only then does he feel the beloved one fully in
2593his possession, when she no longer deceives herself about him, when
2594she loves him just as much for the sake of his devilry and concealed
2595insatiability, as for his goodness, patience, and spirituality. One
2596man would like to possess a nation, and he finds all the higher arts of
2597Cagliostro and Catalina suitable for his purpose. Another, with a more
2598refined thirst for possession, says to himself: "One may not deceive
2599where one desires to possess"--he is irritated and impatient at the idea
2600that a mask of him should rule in the hearts of the people: "I must,
2601therefore, MAKE myself known, and first of all learn to know myself!"
2602Among helpful and charitable people, one almost always finds the awkward
2603craftiness which first gets up suitably him who has to be helped, as
2604though, for instance, he should "merit" help, seek just THEIR help, and
2605would show himself deeply grateful, attached, and subservient to them
2606for all help. With these conceits, they take control of the needy as a
2607property, just as in general they are charitable and helpful out of a
2608desire for property. One finds them jealous when they are crossed or
2609forestalled in their charity. Parents involuntarily make something like
2610themselves out of their children--they call that "education"; no mother
2611doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is
2612thereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN
2613ideas and notions of worth. Indeed, in former times fathers deemed it
2614right to use their discretion concerning the life or death of the newly
2615born (as among the ancient Germans). And like the father, so also do the
2616teacher, the class, the priest, and the prince still see in every new
2617individual an unobjectionable opportunity for a new possession. The
2618consequence is...
2619
2620195. The Jews--a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the whole
2621ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the nations," as
2622they themselves say and believe--the Jews performed the miracle of the
2623inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new
2624and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused
2625into one the expressions "rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent,"
2626"sensual," and for the first time coined the word "world" as a term of
2627reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included
2628the use of the word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the
2629significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with THEM that
2630the SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences.
2631
2632196. It is to be INFERRED that there are countless dark bodies near the
2633sun--such as we shall never see. Among ourselves, this is an allegory;
2634and the psychologist of morals reads the whole star-writing merely as an
2635allegorical and symbolic language in which much may be unexpressed.
2636
2637197. The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Caesar Borgia)
2638are fundamentally misunderstood, "nature" is misunderstood, so long as
2639one seeks a "morbidness" in the constitution of these healthiest of
2640all tropical monsters and growths, or even an innate "hell" in them--as
2641almost all moralists have done hitherto. Does it not seem that there is
2642a hatred of the virgin forest and of the tropics among moralists? And
2643that the "tropical man" must be discredited at all costs, whether
2644as disease and deterioration of mankind, or as his own hell and
2645self-torture? And why? In favour of the "temperate zones"? In favour
2646of the temperate men? The "moral"? The mediocre?--This for the chapter:
2647"Morals as Timidity."
2648
2649198. All the systems of morals which address themselves with a view to
2650their "happiness," as it is called--what else are they but suggestions
2651for behaviour adapted to the degree of DANGER from themselves in which
2652the individuals live; recipes for their passions, their good and bad
2653propensities, insofar as such have the Will to Power and would like
2654to play the master; small and great expediencies and elaborations,
2655permeated with the musty odour of old family medicines and old-wife
2656wisdom; all of them grotesque and absurd in their form--because
2657they address themselves to "all," because they generalize where
2658generalization is not authorized; all of them speaking unconditionally,
2659and taking themselves unconditionally; all of them flavoured not merely
2660with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, and sometimes even
2661seductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to smell dangerously,
2662especially of "the other world." That is all of little value when
2663estimated intellectually, and is far from being "science," much less
2664"wisdom"; but, repeated once more, and three times repeated, it is
2665expediency, expediency, expediency, mixed with stupidity, stupidity,
2666stupidity--whether it be the indifference and statuesque coldness
2667towards the heated folly of the emotions, which the Stoics advised and
2668fostered; or the no-more-laughing and no-more-weeping of Spinoza, the
2669destruction of the emotions by their analysis and vivisection, which he
2670recommended so naively; or the lowering of the emotions to an innocent
2671mean at which they may be satisfied, the Aristotelianism of morals;
2672or even morality as the enjoyment of the emotions in a voluntary
2673attenuation and spiritualization by the symbolism of art, perhaps as
2674music, or as love of God, and of mankind for God's sake--for in religion
2675the passions are once more enfranchised, provided that...; or, finally,
2676even the complaisant and wanton surrender to the emotions, as has
2677been taught by Hafis and Goethe, the bold letting-go of the reins, the
2678spiritual and corporeal licentia morum in the exceptional cases of
2679wise old codgers and drunkards, with whom it "no longer has much
2680danger."--This also for the chapter: "Morals as Timidity."
2681
2682199. Inasmuch as in all ages, as long as mankind has existed, there have
2683also been human herds (family alliances, communities, tribes, peoples,
2684states, churches), and always a great number who obey in proportion
2685to the small number who command--in view, therefore, of the fact that
2686obedience has been most practiced and fostered among mankind hitherto,
2687one may reasonably suppose that, generally speaking, the need thereof is
2688now innate in every one, as a kind of FORMAL CONSCIENCE which gives
2689the command "Thou shalt unconditionally do something, unconditionally
2690refrain from something", in short, "Thou shalt". This need tries to
2691satisfy itself and to fill its form with a content, according to its
2692strength, impatience, and eagerness, it at once seizes as an omnivorous
2693appetite with little selection, and accepts whatever is shouted into
2694its ear by all sorts of commanders--parents, teachers, laws, class
2695prejudices, or public opinion. The extraordinary limitation of human
2696development, the hesitation, protractedness, frequent retrogression, and
2697turning thereof, is attributable to the fact that the herd-instinct of
2698obedience is transmitted best, and at the cost of the art of command. If
2699one imagine this instinct increasing to its greatest extent, commanders
2700and independent individuals will finally be lacking altogether, or they
2701will suffer inwardly from a bad conscience, and will have to impose
2702a deception on themselves in the first place in order to be able to
2703command just as if they also were only obeying. This condition of things
2704actually exists in Europe at present--I call it the moral hypocrisy of
2705the commanding class. They know no other way of protecting themselves
2706from their bad conscience than by playing the role of executors of older
2707and higher orders (of predecessors, of the constitution, of justice, of
2708the law, or of God himself), or they even justify themselves by maxims
2709from the current opinions of the herd, as "first servants of their
2710people," or "instruments of the public weal". On the other hand, the
2711gregarious European man nowadays assumes an air as if he were the only
2712kind of man that is allowable, he glorifies his qualities, such as
2713public spirit, kindness, deference, industry, temperance, modesty,
2714indulgence, sympathy, by virtue of which he is gentle, endurable, and
2715useful to the herd, as the peculiarly human virtues. In cases, however,
2716where it is believed that the leader and bell-wether cannot be dispensed
2717with, attempt after attempt is made nowadays to replace commanders
2718by the summing together of clever gregarious men all representative
2719constitutions, for example, are of this origin. In spite of all, what a
2720blessing, what a deliverance from a weight becoming unendurable, is the
2721appearance of an absolute ruler for these gregarious Europeans--of this
2722fact the effect of the appearance of Napoleon was the last great proof
2723the history of the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of
2724the higher happiness to which the entire century has attained in its
2725worthiest individuals and periods.
2726
2727200. The man of an age of dissolution which mixes the races with
2728one another, who has the inheritance of a diversified descent in his
2729body--that is to say, contrary, and often not only contrary, instincts
2730and standards of value, which struggle with one another and are seldom
2731at peace--such a man of late culture and broken lights, will, on an
2732average, be a weak man. His fundamental desire is that the war which is
2733IN HIM should come to an end; happiness appears to him in the character
2734of a soothing medicine and mode of thought (for instance, Epicurean
2735or Christian); it is above all things the happiness of repose, of
2736undisturbedness, of repletion, of final unity--it is the "Sabbath of
2737Sabbaths," to use the expression of the holy rhetorician, St. Augustine,
2738who was himself such a man.--Should, however, the contrariety and
2739conflict in such natures operate as an ADDITIONAL incentive and stimulus
2740to life--and if, on the other hand, in addition to their powerful and
2741irreconcilable instincts, they have also inherited and indoctrinated
2742into them a proper mastery and subtlety for carrying on the conflict
2743with themselves (that is to say, the faculty of self-control and
2744self-deception), there then arise those marvelously incomprehensible and
2745inexplicable beings, those enigmatical men, predestined for conquering
2746and circumventing others, the finest examples of which are Alcibiades
2747and Caesar (with whom I should like to associate the FIRST of Europeans
2748according to my taste, the Hohenstaufen, Frederick the Second), and
2749among artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear precisely in the
2750same periods when that weaker type, with its longing for repose, comes
2751to the front; the two types are complementary to each other, and spring
2752from the same causes.
2753
2754201. As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only
2755gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is only
2756kept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively in
2757what seems dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can be
2758no "morality of love to one's neighbour." Granted even that there is
2759already a little constant exercise of consideration, sympathy, fairness,
2760gentleness, and mutual assistance, granted that even in this condition
2761of society all those instincts are already active which are latterly
2762distinguished by honourable names as "virtues," and eventually almost
2763coincide with the conception "morality": in that period they do not
2764as yet belong to the domain of moral valuations--they are still
2765ULTRA-MORAL. A sympathetic action, for instance, is neither called good
2766nor bad, moral nor immoral, in the best period of the Romans; and should
2767it be praised, a sort of resentful disdain is compatible with this
2768praise, even at the best, directly the sympathetic action is compared
2769with one which contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES
2770PUBLICA. After all, "love to our neighbour" is always a secondary
2771matter, partly conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to
2772our FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR. After the fabric of society seems on the
2773whole established and secured against external dangers, it is this
2774fear of our neighbour which again creates new perspectives of moral
2775valuation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such as the love of
2776enterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness, astuteness, rapacity, and
2777love of power, which up till then had not only to be honoured from the
2778point of view of general utility--under other names, of course, than
2779those here given--but had to be fostered and cultivated (because they
2780were perpetually required in the common danger against the common
2781enemies), are now felt in their dangerousness to be doubly strong--when
2782the outlets for them are lacking--and are gradually branded as immoral
2783and given over to calumny. The contrary instincts and inclinations now
2784attain to moral honour, the gregarious instinct gradually draws its
2785conclusions. How much or how little dangerousness to the community or
2786to equality is contained in an opinion, a condition, an emotion, a
2787disposition, or an endowment--that is now the moral perspective, here
2788again fear is the mother of morals. It is by the loftiest and strongest
2789instincts, when they break out passionately and carry the individual
2790far above and beyond the average, and the low level of the gregarious
2791conscience, that the self-reliance of the community is destroyed, its
2792belief in itself, its backbone, as it were, breaks, consequently these
2793very instincts will be most branded and defamed. The lofty independent
2794spirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent reason, are
2795felt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above the
2796herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called
2797EVIL, the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing
2798disposition, the MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and
2799honour. Finally, under very peaceful circumstances, there is always
2800less opportunity and necessity for training the feelings to severity
2801and rigour, and now every form of severity, even in justice, begins
2802to disturb the conscience, a lofty and rigorous nobleness and
2803self-responsibility almost offends, and awakens distrust, "the lamb,"
2804and still more "the sheep," wins respect. There is a point of diseased
2805mellowness and effeminacy in the history of society, at which society
2806itself takes the part of him who injures it, the part of the CRIMINAL,
2807and does so, in fact, seriously and honestly. To punish, appears to it
2808to be somehow unfair--it is certain that the idea of "punishment" and
2809"the obligation to punish" are then painful and alarming to people. "Is
2810it not sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS? Why should we
2811still punish? Punishment itself is terrible!"--with these questions
2812gregarious morality, the morality of fear, draws its ultimate
2813conclusion. If one could at all do away with danger, the cause of fear,
2814one would have done away with this morality at the same time, it
2815would no longer be necessary, it WOULD NOT CONSIDER ITSELF any longer
2816necessary!--Whoever examines the conscience of the present-day European,
2817will always elicit the same imperative from its thousand moral folds
2818and hidden recesses, the imperative of the timidity of the herd "we wish
2819that some time or other there may be NOTHING MORE TO FEAR!" Some time
2820or other--the will and the way THERETO is nowadays called "progress" all
2821over Europe.
2822
2823202. Let us at once say again what we have already said a hundred
2824times, for people's ears nowadays are unwilling to hear such truths--OUR
2825truths. We know well enough how offensive it sounds when any one
2826plainly, and without metaphor, counts man among the animals, but it will
2827be accounted to us almost a CRIME, that it is precisely in respect to
2828men of "modern ideas" that we have constantly applied the terms "herd,"
2829"herd-instincts," and such like expressions. What avail is it? We cannot
2830do otherwise, for it is precisely here that our new insight is. We
2831have found that in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become
2832unanimous, including likewise the countries where European influence
2833prevails in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates thought he
2834did not know, and what the famous serpent of old once promised to
2835teach--they "know" today what is good and evil. It must then sound hard
2836and be distasteful to the ear, when we always insist that that which
2837here thinks it knows, that which here glorifies itself with praise
2838and blame, and calls itself good, is the instinct of the herding human
2839animal, the instinct which has come and is ever coming more and more
2840to the front, to preponderance and supremacy over other instincts,
2841according to the increasing physiological approximation and resemblance
2842of which it is the symptom. MORALITY IN EUROPE AT PRESENT IS
2843HERDING-ANIMAL MORALITY, and therefore, as we understand the matter,
2844only one kind of human morality, beside which, before which, and after
2845which many other moralities, and above all HIGHER moralities, are or
2846should be possible. Against such a "possibility," against such a "should
2847be," however, this morality defends itself with all its strength, it
2848says obstinately and inexorably "I am morality itself and nothing else
2849is morality!" Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured
2850and flattered the sublimest desires of the herding-animal, things have
2851reached such a point that we always find a more visible expression of
2852this morality even in political and social arrangements: the DEMOCRATIC
2853movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. That its TEMPO,
2854however, is much too slow and sleepy for the more impatient ones, for
2855those who are sick and distracted by the herding-instinct, is indicated
2856by the increasingly furious howling, and always less disguised
2857teeth-gnashing of the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the
2858highways of European culture. Apparently in opposition to the peacefully
2859industrious democrats and Revolution-ideologues, and still more so
2860to the awkward philosophasters and fraternity-visionaries who call
2861themselves Socialists and want a "free society," those are really at one
2862with them all in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every form
2863of society other than that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the extent even of
2864repudiating the notions "master" and "servant"--ni dieu ni maitre, says
2865a socialist formula); at one in their tenacious opposition to every
2866special claim, every special right and privilege (this means ultimately
2867opposition to EVERY right, for when all are equal, no one needs "rights"
2868any longer); at one in their distrust of punitive justice (as though it
2869were a violation of the weak, unfair to the NECESSARY consequences of
2870all former society); but equally at one in their religion of sympathy,
2871in their compassion for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to the
2872very animals, up even to "God"--the extravagance of "sympathy for
2873God" belongs to a democratic age); altogether at one in the cry and
2874impatience of their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering
2875generally, in their almost feminine incapacity for witnessing it or
2876ALLOWING it; at one in their involuntary beglooming and heart-softening,
2877under the spell of which Europe seems to be threatened with a new
2878Buddhism; at one in their belief in the morality of MUTUAL sympathy, as
2879though it were morality in itself, the climax, the ATTAINED climax of
2880mankind, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of the present,
2881the great discharge from all the obligations of the past; altogether at
2882one in their belief in the community as the DELIVERER, in the herd, and
2883therefore in "themselves."
2884
2885203. We, who hold a different belief--we, who regard the democratic
2886movement, not only as a degenerating form of political organization, but
2887as equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type of man, as involving his
2888mediocrising and depreciation: where have WE to fix our hopes? In
2889NEW PHILOSOPHERS--there is no other alternative: in minds strong and
2890original enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue
2891and invert "eternal valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future,
2892who in the present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which
2893will compel millenniums to take NEW paths. To teach man the future
2894of humanity as his WILL, as depending on human will, and to make
2895preparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in
2896rearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful
2897rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of
2898"history" (the folly of the "greatest number" is only its last
2899form)--for that purpose a new type of philosopher and commander will
2900some time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that
2901has existed in the way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might
2902look pale and dwarfed. The image of such leaders hovers before OUR
2903eyes:--is it lawful for me to say it aloud, ye free spirits? The
2904conditions which one would partly have to create and partly utilize for
2905their genesis; the presumptive methods and tests by virtue of which
2906a soul should grow up to such an elevation and power as to feel a
2907CONSTRAINT to these tasks; a transvaluation of values, under the new
2908pressure and hammer of which a conscience should be steeled and a heart
2909transformed into brass, so as to bear the weight of such responsibility;
2910and on the other hand the necessity for such leaders, the dreadful
2911danger that they might be lacking, or miscarry and degenerate:--these
2912are OUR real anxieties and glooms, ye know it well, ye free spirits!
2913these are the heavy distant thoughts and storms which sweep across the
2914heaven of OUR life. There are few pains so grievous as to have seen,
2915divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and
2916deteriorated; but he who has the rare eye for the universal danger
2917of "man" himself DETERIORATING, he who like us has recognized the
2918extraordinary fortuitousness which has hitherto played its game in
2919respect to the future of mankind--a game in which neither the hand, nor
2920even a "finger of God" has participated!--he who divines the fate that
2921is hidden under the idiotic unwariness and blind confidence of
2922"modern ideas," and still more under the whole of Christo-European
2923morality--suffers from an anguish with which no other is to be compared.
2924He sees at a glance all that could still BE MADE OUT OF MAN through
2925a favourable accumulation and augmentation of human powers and
2926arrangements; he knows with all the knowledge of his conviction how
2927unexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities, and how often
2928in the past the type man has stood in presence of mysterious decisions
2929and new paths:--he knows still better from his painfulest recollections
2930on what wretched obstacles promising developments of the highest rank
2931have hitherto usually gone to pieces, broken down, sunk, and become
2932contemptible. The UNIVERSAL DEGENERACY OF MANKIND to the level of
2933the "man of the future"--as idealized by the socialistic fools and
2934shallow-pates--this degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely
2935gregarious animal (or as they call it, to a man of "free society"),
2936this brutalizing of man into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is
2937undoubtedly POSSIBLE! He who has thought out this possibility to its
2938ultimate conclusion knows ANOTHER loathing unknown to the rest of
2939mankind--and perhaps also a new MISSION!
2940
2941
2942
2943CHAPTER VI. WE SCHOLARS
2944
2945
2946204. At the risk that moralizing may also reveal itself here as that
2947which it has always been--namely, resolutely MONTRER SES PLAIES,
2948according to Balzac--I would venture to protest against an improper and
2949injurious alteration of rank, which quite unnoticed, and as if with the
2950best conscience, threatens nowadays to establish itself in the relations
2951of science and philosophy. I mean to say that one must have the right
2952out of one's own EXPERIENCE--experience, as it seems to me, always
2953implies unfortunate experience?--to treat of such an important question
2954of rank, so as not to speak of colour like the blind, or AGAINST science
2955like women and artists ("Ah! this dreadful science!" sigh their instinct
2956and their shame, "it always FINDS THINGS OUT!"). The declaration of
2957independence of the scientific man, his emancipation from philosophy,
2958is one of the subtler after-effects of democratic organization and
2959disorganization: the self-glorification and self-conceitedness of
2960the learned man is now everywhere in full bloom, and in its best
2961springtime--which does not mean to imply that in this case self-praise
2962smells sweet. Here also the instinct of the populace cries, "Freedom
2963from all masters!" and after science has, with the happiest results,
2964resisted theology, whose "hand-maid" it had been too long, it now
2965proposes in its wantonness and indiscretion to lay down laws for
2966philosophy, and in its turn to play the "master"--what am I saying!
2967to play the PHILOSOPHER on its own account. My memory--the memory of
2968a scientific man, if you please!--teems with the naivetes of insolence
2969which I have heard about philosophy and philosophers from young
2970naturalists and old physicians (not to mention the most cultured and
2971most conceited of all learned men, the philologists and schoolmasters,
2972who are both the one and the other by profession). On one occasion it
2973was the specialist and the Jack Horner who instinctively stood on the
2974defensive against all synthetic tasks and capabilities; at another time
2975it was the industrious worker who had got a scent of OTIUM and refined
2976luxuriousness in the internal economy of the philosopher, and felt
2977himself aggrieved and belittled thereby. On another occasion it was the
2978colour-blindness of the utilitarian, who sees nothing in philosophy but
2979a series of REFUTED systems, and an extravagant expenditure which "does
2980nobody any good". At another time the fear of disguised mysticism and of
2981the boundary-adjustment of knowledge became conspicuous, at another
2982time the disregard of individual philosophers, which had involuntarily
2983extended to disregard of philosophy generally. In fine, I found most
2984frequently, behind the proud disdain of philosophy in young scholars,
2985the evil after-effect of some particular philosopher, to whom on the
2986whole obedience had been foresworn, without, however, the spell of his
2987scornful estimates of other philosophers having been got rid of--the
2988result being a general ill-will to all philosophy. (Such seems to
2989me, for instance, the after-effect of Schopenhauer on the most modern
2990Germany: by his unintelligent rage against Hegel, he has succeeded in
2991severing the whole of the last generation of Germans from its connection
2992with German culture, which culture, all things considered, has been
2993an elevation and a divining refinement of the HISTORICAL SENSE, but
2994precisely at this point Schopenhauer himself was poor, irreceptive,
2995and un-German to the extent of ingeniousness.) On the whole, speaking
2996generally, it may just have been the humanness, all-too-humanness of the
2997modern philosophers themselves, in short, their contemptibleness, which
2998has injured most radically the reverence for philosophy and opened the
2999doors to the instinct of the populace. Let it but be acknowledged to
3000what an extent our modern world diverges from the whole style of the
3001world of Heraclitus, Plato, Empedocles, and whatever else all the royal
3002and magnificent anchorites of the spirit were called, and with what
3003justice an honest man of science MAY feel himself of a better family and
3004origin, in view of such representatives of philosophy, who, owing to
3005the fashion of the present day, are just as much aloft as they are down
3006below--in Germany, for instance, the two lions of Berlin, the anarchist
3007Eugen Duhring and the amalgamist Eduard von Hartmann. It is especially
3008the sight of those hotch-potch philosophers, who call themselves
3009"realists," or "positivists," which is calculated to implant a
3010dangerous distrust in the soul of a young and ambitious scholar those
3011philosophers, at the best, are themselves but scholars and specialists,
3012that is very evident! All of them are persons who have been vanquished
3013and BROUGHT BACK AGAIN under the dominion of science, who at one time
3014or another claimed more from themselves, without having a right to the
3015"more" and its responsibility--and who now, creditably, rancorously, and
3016vindictively, represent in word and deed, DISBELIEF in the master-task
3017and supremacy of philosophy After all, how could it be otherwise?
3018Science flourishes nowadays and has the good conscience clearly visible
3019on its countenance, while that to which the entire modern philosophy has
3020gradually sunk, the remnant of philosophy of the present day, excites
3021distrust and displeasure, if not scorn and pity Philosophy reduced to
3022a "theory of knowledge," no more in fact than a diffident science of
3023epochs and doctrine of forbearance a philosophy that never even
3024gets beyond the threshold, and rigorously DENIES itself the right
3025to enter--that is philosophy in its last throes, an end, an agony,
3026something that awakens pity. How could such a philosophy--RULE!
3027
3028205. The dangers that beset the evolution of the philosopher are, in
3029fact, so manifold nowadays, that one might doubt whether this fruit
3030could still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of the
3031sciences have increased enormously, and therewith also the probability
3032that the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner, or will attach
3033himself somewhere and "specialize" so that he will no longer attain to
3034his elevation, that is to say, to his superspection, his circumspection,
3035and his DESPECTION. Or he gets aloft too late, when the best of his
3036maturity and strength is past, or when he is impaired, coarsened, and
3037deteriorated, so that his view, his general estimate of things, is no
3038longer of much importance. It is perhaps just the refinement of his
3039intellectual conscience that makes him hesitate and linger on the
3040way, he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a
3041milleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost
3042his self-respect no longer commands, no longer LEADS, unless he should
3043aspire to become a great play-actor, a philosophical Cagliostro and
3044spiritual rat-catcher--in short, a misleader. This is in the last
3045instance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of
3046conscience. To double once more the philosopher's difficulties, there is
3047also the fact that he demands from himself a verdict, a Yea or Nay, not
3048concerning science, but concerning life and the worth of life--he learns
3049unwillingly to believe that it is his right and even his duty to obtain
3050this verdict, and he has to seek his way to the right and the belief
3051only through the most extensive (perhaps disturbing and destroying)
3052experiences, often hesitating, doubting, and dumbfounded. In fact, the
3053philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either
3054with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously
3055elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated
3056man; and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives
3057"wisely," or "as a philosopher," it hardly means anything more than
3058"prudently and apart." Wisdom: that seems to the populace to be a kind
3059of flight, a means and artifice for withdrawing successfully from a
3060bad game; but the GENUINE philosopher--does it not seem so to US,
3061my friends?--lives "unphilosophically" and "unwisely," above all,
3062IMPRUDENTLY, and feels the obligation and burden of a hundred attempts
3063and temptations of life--he risks HIMSELF constantly, he plays THIS bad
3064game.
3065
3066206. In relation to the genius, that is to say, a being who either
3067ENGENDERS or PRODUCES--both words understood in their fullest sense--the
3068man of learning, the scientific average man, has always something of
3069the old maid about him; for, like her, he is not conversant with the two
3070principal functions of man. To both, of course, to the scholar and
3071to the old maid, one concedes respectability, as if by way of
3072indemnification--in these cases one emphasizes the respectability--and
3073yet, in the compulsion of this concession, one has the same admixture
3074of vexation. Let us examine more closely: what is the scientific man?
3075Firstly, a commonplace type of man, with commonplace virtues: that is
3076to say, a non-ruling, non-authoritative, and non-self-sufficient type
3077of man; he possesses industry, patient adaptableness to rank and file,
3078equability and moderation in capacity and requirement; he has the
3079instinct for people like himself, and for that which they require--for
3080instance: the portion of independence and green meadow without which
3081there is no rest from labour, the claim to honour and consideration
3082(which first and foremost presupposes recognition and recognisability),
3083the sunshine of a good name, the perpetual ratification of his value and
3084usefulness, with which the inward DISTRUST which lies at the bottom of
3085the heart of all dependent men and gregarious animals, has again and
3086again to be overcome. The learned man, as is appropriate, has also
3087maladies and faults of an ignoble kind: he is full of petty envy, and
3088has a lynx-eye for the weak points in those natures to whose elevations
3089he cannot attain. He is confiding, yet only as one who lets himself go,
3090but does not FLOW; and precisely before the man of the great current he
3091stands all the colder and more reserved--his eye is then like a smooth
3092and irresponsive lake, which is no longer moved by rapture or sympathy.
3093The worst and most dangerous thing of which a scholar is capable results
3094from the instinct of mediocrity of his type, from the Jesuitism of
3095mediocrity, which labours instinctively for the destruction of
3096the exceptional man, and endeavours to break--or still better, to
3097relax--every bent bow To relax, of course, with consideration, and
3098naturally with an indulgent hand--to RELAX with confiding sympathy
3099that is the real art of Jesuitism, which has always understood how to
3100introduce itself as the religion of sympathy.
3101
3102207. However gratefully one may welcome the OBJECTIVE spirit--and
3103who has not been sick to death of all subjectivity and its confounded
3104IPSISIMOSITY!--in the end, however, one must learn caution even with
3105regard to one's gratitude, and put a stop to the exaggeration with
3106which the unselfing and depersonalizing of the spirit has recently been
3107celebrated, as if it were the goal in itself, as if it were salvation
3108and glorification--as is especially accustomed to happen in the
3109pessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the
3110highest honours to "disinterested knowledge" The objective man, who no
3111longer curses and scolds like the pessimist, the IDEAL man of learning
3112in whom the scientific instinct blossoms forth fully after a thousand
3113complete and partial failures, is assuredly one of the most costly
3114instruments that exist, but his place is in the hand of one who is more
3115powerful He is only an instrument, we may say, he is a MIRROR--he is no
3116"purpose in himself" The objective man is in truth a mirror accustomed
3117to prostration before everything that wants to be known, with such
3118desires only as knowing or "reflecting" implies--he waits until
3119something comes, and then expands himself sensitively, so that even the
3120light footsteps and gliding-past of spiritual beings may not be lost on
3121his surface and film Whatever "personality" he still possesses seems to
3122him accidental, arbitrary, or still oftener, disturbing, so much has he
3123come to regard himself as the passage and reflection of outside forms
3124and events He calls up the recollection of "himself" with an effort,
3125and not infrequently wrongly, he readily confounds himself with other
3126persons, he makes mistakes with regard to his own needs, and here only
3127is he unrefined and negligent Perhaps he is troubled about the health,
3128or the pettiness and confined atmosphere of wife and friend, or the lack
3129of companions and society--indeed, he sets himself to reflect on his
3130suffering, but in vain! His thoughts already rove away to the MORE
3131GENERAL case, and tomorrow he knows as little as he knew yesterday how
3132to help himself He does not now take himself seriously and devote time
3133to himself he is serene, NOT from lack of trouble, but from lack
3134of capacity for grasping and dealing with HIS trouble The habitual
3135complaisance with respect to all objects and experiences, the radiant
3136and impartial hospitality with which he receives everything that
3137comes his way, his habit of inconsiderate good-nature, of dangerous
3138indifference as to Yea and Nay: alas! there are enough of cases in which
3139he has to atone for these virtues of his!--and as man generally, he
3140becomes far too easily the CAPUT MORTUUM of such virtues. Should one
3141wish love or hatred from him--I mean love and hatred as God, woman, and
3142animal understand them--he will do what he can, and furnish what he can.
3143But one must not be surprised if it should not be much--if he should
3144show himself just at this point to be false, fragile, questionable, and
3145deteriorated. His love is constrained, his hatred is artificial, and
3146rather UN TOUR DE FORCE, a slight ostentation and exaggeration. He is
3147only genuine so far as he can be objective; only in his serene totality
3148is he still "nature" and "natural." His mirroring and eternally
3149self-polishing soul no longer knows how to affirm, no longer how to
3150deny; he does not command; neither does he destroy. "JE NE MEPRISE
3151PRESQUE RIEN"--he says, with Leibniz: let us not overlook nor undervalue
3152the PRESQUE! Neither is he a model man; he does not go in advance of any
3153one, nor after, either; he places himself generally too far off to have
3154any reason for espousing the cause of either good or evil. If he has
3155been so long confounded with the PHILOSOPHER, with the Caesarian trainer
3156and dictator of civilization, he has had far too much honour, and what
3157is more essential in him has been overlooked--he is an instrument,
3158something of a slave, though certainly the sublimest sort of slave, but
3159nothing in himself--PRESQUE RIEN! The objective man is an instrument,
3160a costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and
3161mirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected; but he
3162is no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the
3163REST of existence justifies itself, no termination--and still less a
3164commencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful,
3165self-centred, that wants to be master; but rather only a soft, inflated,
3166delicate, movable potter's-form, that must wait for some kind of content
3167and frame to "shape" itself thereto--for the most part a man without
3168frame and content, a "selfless" man. Consequently, also, nothing for
3169women, IN PARENTHESI.
3170
3171208. When a philosopher nowadays makes known that he is not a skeptic--I
3172hope that has been gathered from the foregoing description of the
3173objective spirit?--people all hear it impatiently; they regard him on
3174that account with some apprehension, they would like to ask so many,
3175many questions... indeed among timid hearers, of whom there are now so
3176many, he is henceforth said to be dangerous. With his repudiation of
3177skepticism, it seems to them as if they heard some evil-threatening
3178sound in the distance, as if a new kind of explosive were being tried
3179somewhere, a dynamite of the spirit, perhaps a newly discovered Russian
3180NIHILINE, a pessimism BONAE VOLUNTATIS, that not only denies, means
3181denial, but--dreadful thought! PRACTISES denial. Against this kind of
3182"good-will"--a will to the veritable, actual negation of life--there is,
3183as is generally acknowledged nowadays, no better soporific and sedative
3184than skepticism, the mild, pleasing, lulling poppy of skepticism;
3185and Hamlet himself is now prescribed by the doctors of the day as an
3186antidote to the "spirit," and its underground noises. "Are not our ears
3187already full of bad sounds?" say the skeptics, as lovers of repose, and
3188almost as a kind of safety police; "this subterranean Nay is terrible!
3189Be still, ye pessimistic moles!" The skeptic, in effect, that delicate
3190creature, is far too easily frightened; his conscience is schooled so
3191as to start at every Nay, and even at that sharp, decided Yea, and feels
3192something like a bite thereby. Yea! and Nay!--they seem to him opposed
3193to morality; he loves, on the contrary, to make a festival to his virtue
3194by a noble aloofness, while perhaps he says with Montaigne: "What do I
3195know?" Or with Socrates: "I know that I know nothing." Or: "Here I do
3196not trust myself, no door is open to me." Or: "Even if the door were
3197open, why should I enter immediately?" Or: "What is the use of any hasty
3198hypotheses? It might quite well be in good taste to make no hypotheses
3199at all. Are you absolutely obliged to straighten at once what is
3200crooked? to stuff every hole with some kind of oakum? Is there not time
3201enough for that? Has not the time leisure? Oh, ye demons, can ye not
3202at all WAIT? The uncertain also has its charms, the Sphinx, too, is a
3203Circe, and Circe, too, was a philosopher."--Thus does a skeptic console
3204himself; and in truth he needs some consolation. For skepticism is
3205the most spiritual expression of a certain many-sided physiological
3206temperament, which in ordinary language is called nervous debility and
3207sickliness; it arises whenever races or classes which have been long
3208separated, decisively and suddenly blend with one another. In the new
3209generation, which has inherited as it were different standards and
3210valuations in its blood, everything is disquiet, derangement, doubt, and
3211tentativeness; the best powers operate restrictively, the very virtues
3212prevent each other growing and becoming strong, equilibrium, ballast,
3213and perpendicular stability are lacking in body and soul. That, however,
3214which is most diseased and degenerated in such nondescripts is the
3215WILL; they are no longer familiar with independence of decision, or
3216the courageous feeling of pleasure in willing--they are doubtful of the
3217"freedom of the will" even in their dreams Our present-day Europe,
3218the scene of a senseless, precipitate attempt at a radical blending of
3219classes, and CONSEQUENTLY of races, is therefore skeptical in all its
3220heights and depths, sometimes exhibiting the mobile skepticism which
3221springs impatiently and wantonly from branch to branch, sometimes with
3222gloomy aspect, like a cloud over-charged with interrogative signs--and
3223often sick unto death of its will! Paralysis of will, where do we not
3224find this cripple sitting nowadays! And yet how bedecked oftentimes' How
3225seductively ornamented! There are the finest gala dresses and disguises
3226for this disease, and that, for instance, most of what places itself
3227nowadays in the show-cases as "objectiveness," "the scientific spirit,"
3228"L'ART POUR L'ART," and "pure voluntary knowledge," is only decked-out
3229skepticism and paralysis of will--I am ready to answer for this
3230diagnosis of the European disease--The disease of the will is diffused
3231unequally over Europe, it is worst and most varied where civilization
3232has longest prevailed, it decreases according as "the barbarian"
3233still--or again--asserts his claims under the loose drapery of Western
3234culture It is therefore in the France of today, as can be readily
3235disclosed and comprehended, that the will is most infirm, and France,
3236which has always had a masterly aptitude for converting even the
3237portentous crises of its spirit into something charming and seductive,
3238now manifests emphatically its intellectual ascendancy over Europe,
3239by being the school and exhibition of all the charms of skepticism The
3240power to will and to persist, moreover, in a resolution, is already
3241somewhat stronger in Germany, and again in the North of Germany it
3242is stronger than in Central Germany, it is considerably stronger in
3243England, Spain, and Corsica, associated with phlegm in the former and
3244with hard skulls in the latter--not to mention Italy, which is too young
3245yet to know what it wants, and must first show whether it can exercise
3246will, but it is strongest and most surprising of all in that immense
3247middle empire where Europe as it were flows back to Asia--namely, in
3248Russia There the power to will has been long stored up and accumulated,
3249there the will--uncertain whether to be negative or affirmative--waits
3250threateningly to be discharged (to borrow their pet phrase from our
3251physicists) Perhaps not only Indian wars and complications in Asia would
3252be necessary to free Europe from its greatest danger, but also internal
3253subversion, the shattering of the empire into small states, and above
3254all the introduction of parliamentary imbecility, together with the
3255obligation of every one to read his newspaper at breakfast I do not
3256say this as one who desires it, in my heart I should rather prefer the
3257contrary--I mean such an increase in the threatening attitude of
3258Russia, that Europe would have to make up its mind to become equally
3259threatening--namely, TO ACQUIRE ONE WILL, by means of a new caste to
3260rule over the Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that
3261can set its aims thousands of years ahead; so that the long spun-out
3262comedy of its petty-statism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic
3263many-willed-ness, might finally be brought to a close. The time for
3264petty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the
3265dominion of the world--the COMPULSION to great politics.
3266
3267209. As to how far the new warlike age on which we Europeans have
3268evidently entered may perhaps favour the growth of another and stronger
3269kind of skepticism, I should like to express myself preliminarily
3270merely by a parable, which the lovers of German history will already
3271understand. That unscrupulous enthusiast for big, handsome grenadiers
3272(who, as King of Prussia, brought into being a military and skeptical
3273genius--and therewith, in reality, the new and now triumphantly emerged
3274type of German), the problematic, crazy father of Frederick the Great,
3275had on one point the very knack and lucky grasp of the genius: he knew
3276what was then lacking in Germany, the want of which was a hundred times
3277more alarming and serious than any lack of culture and social form--his
3278ill-will to the young Frederick resulted from the anxiety of a profound
3279instinct. MEN WERE LACKING; and he suspected, to his bitterest regret,
3280that his own son was not man enough. There, however, he deceived
3281himself; but who would not have deceived himself in his place? He saw
3282his son lapsed to atheism, to the ESPRIT, to the pleasant frivolity of
3283clever Frenchmen--he saw in the background the great bloodsucker, the
3284spider skepticism; he suspected the incurable wretchedness of a heart no
3285longer hard enough either for evil or good, and of a broken will that no
3286longer commands, is no longer ABLE to command. Meanwhile, however,
3287there grew up in his son that new kind of harder and more dangerous
3288skepticism--who knows TO WHAT EXTENT it was encouraged just by
3289his father's hatred and the icy melancholy of a will condemned to
3290solitude?--the skepticism of daring manliness, which is closely related
3291to the genius for war and conquest, and made its first entrance into
3292Germany in the person of the great Frederick. This skepticism despises
3293and nevertheless grasps; it undermines and takes possession; it does
3294not believe, but it does not thereby lose itself; it gives the spirit a
3295dangerous liberty, but it keeps strict guard over the heart. It is the
3296GERMAN form of skepticism, which, as a continued Fredericianism, risen
3297to the highest spirituality, has kept Europe for a considerable time
3298under the dominion of the German spirit and its critical and historical
3299distrust Owing to the insuperably strong and tough masculine character
3300of the great German philologists and historical critics (who,
3301rightly estimated, were also all of them artists of destruction
3302and dissolution), a NEW conception of the German spirit gradually
3303established itself--in spite of all Romanticism in music and
3304philosophy--in which the leaning towards masculine skepticism was
3305decidedly prominent whether, for instance, as fearlessness of gaze, as
3306courage and sternness of the dissecting hand, or as resolute will to
3307dangerous voyages of discovery, to spiritualized North Pole expeditions
3308under barren and dangerous skies. There may be good grounds for it when
3309warm-blooded and superficial humanitarians cross themselves before this
3310spirit, CET ESPRIT FATALISTE, IRONIQUE, MEPHISTOPHELIQUE, as Michelet
3311calls it, not without a shudder. But if one would realize how
3312characteristic is this fear of the "man" in the German spirit which
3313awakened Europe out of its "dogmatic slumber," let us call to mind the
3314former conception which had to be overcome by this new one--and that
3315it is not so very long ago that a masculinized woman could dare, with
3316unbridled presumption, to recommend the Germans to the interest of
3317Europe as gentle, good-hearted, weak-willed, and poetical fools.
3318Finally, let us only understand profoundly enough Napoleon's
3319astonishment when he saw Goethe it reveals what had been regarded for
3320centuries as the "German spirit" "VOILA UN HOMME!"--that was as much as
3321to say "But this is a MAN! And I only expected to see a German!"
3322
3323210. Supposing, then, that in the picture of the philosophers of the
3324future, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps
3325be skeptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only be
3326designated thereby--and not they themselves. With equal right they might
3327call themselves critics, and assuredly they will be men of experiments.
3328By the name with which I ventured to baptize them, I have already
3329expressly emphasized their attempting and their love of attempting is
3330this because, as critics in body and soul, they will love to make use
3331of experiments in a new, and perhaps wider and more dangerous sense? In
3332their passion for knowledge, will they have to go further in daring and
3333painful attempts than the sensitive and pampered taste of a democratic
3334century can approve of?--There is no doubt these coming ones will be
3335least able to dispense with the serious and not unscrupulous qualities
3336which distinguish the critic from the skeptic I mean the certainty as to
3337standards of worth, the conscious employment of a unity of method,
3338the wary courage, the standing-alone, and the capacity for
3339self-responsibility, indeed, they will avow among themselves a DELIGHT
3340in denial and dissection, and a certain considerate cruelty, which knows
3341how to handle the knife surely and deftly, even when the heart bleeds
3342They will be STERNER (and perhaps not always towards themselves only)
3343than humane people may desire, they will not deal with the "truth" in
3344order that it may "please" them, or "elevate" and "inspire" them--they
3345will rather have little faith in "TRUTH" bringing with it such revels
3346for the feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one
3347says in their presence "That thought elevates me, why should it not be
3348true?" or "That work enchants me, why should it not be beautiful?" or
3349"That artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?" Perhaps they
3350will not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus
3351rapturous, idealistic, feminine, and hermaphroditic, and if any one
3352could look into their inmost hearts, he would not easily find therein
3353the intention to reconcile "Christian sentiments" with "antique taste,"
3354or even with "modern parliamentarism" (the kind of reconciliation
3355necessarily found even among philosophers in our very uncertain and
3356consequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every
3357habit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters,
3358will not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of
3359the future, they may even make a display thereof as their special
3360adornment--nevertheless they will not want to be called critics on that
3361account. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to
3362have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that "philosophy itself is
3363criticism and critical science--and nothing else whatever!" Though this
3364estimate of philosophy may enjoy the approval of all the Positivists of
3365France and Germany (and possibly it even flattered the heart and taste
3366of KANT: let us call to mind the titles of his principal works), our new
3367philosophers will say, notwithstanding, that critics are instruments of
3368the philosopher, and just on that account, as instruments, they are
3369far from being philosophers themselves! Even the great Chinaman of
3370Konigsberg was only a great critic.
3371
3372211. I insist upon it that people finally cease confounding
3373philosophical workers, and in general scientific men, with
3374philosophers--that precisely here one should strictly give "each his
3375own," and not give those far too much, these far too little. It may
3376be necessary for the education of the real philosopher that he himself
3377should have once stood upon all those steps upon which his servants,
3378the scientific workers of philosophy, remain standing, and MUST remain
3379standing he himself must perhaps have been critic, and dogmatist,
3380and historian, and besides, poet, and collector, and traveler, and
3381riddle-reader, and moralist, and seer, and "free spirit," and almost
3382everything, in order to traverse the whole range of human values
3383and estimations, and that he may BE ABLE with a variety of eyes and
3384consciences to look from a height to any distance, from a depth up
3385to any height, from a nook into any expanse. But all these are only
3386preliminary conditions for his task; this task itself demands something
3387else--it requires him TO CREATE VALUES. The philosophical workers, after
3388the excellent pattern of Kant and Hegel, have to fix and formalize some
3389great existing body of valuations--that is to say, former DETERMINATIONS
3390OF VALUE, creations of value, which have become prevalent, and are for
3391a time called "truths"--whether in the domain of the LOGICAL, the
3392POLITICAL (moral), or the ARTISTIC. It is for these investigators to
3393make whatever has happened and been esteemed hitherto, conspicuous,
3394conceivable, intelligible, and manageable, to shorten everything long,
3395even "time" itself, and to SUBJUGATE the entire past: an immense and
3396wonderful task, in the carrying out of which all refined pride, all
3397tenacious will, can surely find satisfaction. THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS,
3398HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!"
3399They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby
3400set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all
3401subjugators of the past--they grasp at the future with a creative
3402hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an
3403instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is CREATING, their creating
3404is a law-giving, their will to truth is--WILL TO POWER.--Are there at
3405present such philosophers? Have there ever been such philosophers? MUST
3406there not be such philosophers some day? ...
3407
3408212. It is always more obvious to me that the philosopher, as a man
3409INDISPENSABLE for the morrow and the day after the morrow, has ever
3410found himself, and HAS BEEN OBLIGED to find himself, in contradiction
3411to the day in which he lives; his enemy has always been the ideal of his
3412day. Hitherto all those extraordinary furtherers of humanity whom one
3413calls philosophers--who rarely regarded themselves as lovers of wisdom,
3414but rather as disagreeable fools and dangerous interrogators--have found
3415their mission, their hard, involuntary, imperative mission (in the end,
3416however, the greatness of their mission), in being the bad conscience of
3417their age. In putting the vivisector's knife to the breast of the very
3418VIRTUES OF THEIR AGE, they have betrayed their own secret; it has been
3419for the sake of a NEW greatness of man, a new untrodden path to
3420his aggrandizement. They have always disclosed how much hypocrisy,
3421indolence, self-indulgence, and self-neglect, how much falsehood was
3422concealed under the most venerated types of contemporary morality, how
3423much virtue was OUTLIVED, they have always said "We must remove hence to
3424where YOU are least at home" In the face of a world of "modern ideas,"
3425which would like to confine every one in a corner, in a "specialty," a
3426philosopher, if there could be philosophers nowadays, would be compelled
3427to place the greatness of man, the conception of "greatness," precisely
3428in his comprehensiveness and multifariousness, in his all-roundness, he
3429would even determine worth and rank according to the amount and variety
3430of that which a man could bear and take upon himself, according to the
3431EXTENT to which a man could stretch his responsibility Nowadays the
3432taste and virtue of the age weaken and attenuate the will, nothing is
3433so adapted to the spirit of the age as weakness of will consequently, in
3434the ideal of the philosopher, strength of will, sternness, and capacity
3435for prolonged resolution, must specially be included in the conception
3436of "greatness", with as good a right as the opposite doctrine, with its
3437ideal of a silly, renouncing, humble, selfless humanity, was suited to
3438an opposite age--such as the sixteenth century, which suffered from its
3439accumulated energy of will, and from the wildest torrents and floods
3440of selfishness In the time of Socrates, among men only of worn-out
3441instincts, old conservative Athenians who let themselves go--"for the
3442sake of happiness," as they said, for the sake of pleasure, as their
3443conduct indicated--and who had continually on their lips the old pompous
3444words to which they had long forfeited the right by the life they led,
3445IRONY was perhaps necessary for greatness of soul, the wicked Socratic
3446assurance of the old physician and plebeian, who cut ruthlessly into his
3447own flesh, as into the flesh and heart of the "noble," with a look that
3448said plainly enough "Do not dissemble before me! here--we are equal!"
3449At present, on the contrary, when throughout Europe the herding-animal
3450alone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when "equality of
3451right" can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong--I mean to
3452say into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged,
3453against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher
3454responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness--at present
3455it belongs to the conception of "greatness" to be noble, to wish to be
3456apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to live
3457by personal initiative, and the philosopher will betray something of his
3458own ideal when he asserts "He shall be the greatest who can be the most
3459solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good
3460and evil, the master of his virtues, and of super-abundance of will;
3461precisely this shall be called GREATNESS: as diversified as can be
3462entire, as ample as can be full." And to ask once more the question: Is
3463greatness POSSIBLE--nowadays?
3464
3465213. It is difficult to learn what a philosopher is, because it cannot
3466be taught: one must "know" it by experience--or one should have the
3467pride NOT to know it. The fact that at present people all talk of things
3468of which they CANNOT have any experience, is true more especially
3469and unfortunately as concerns the philosopher and philosophical
3470matters:--the very few know them, are permitted to know them, and
3471all popular ideas about them are false. Thus, for instance, the truly
3472philosophical combination of a bold, exuberant spirituality which runs
3473at presto pace, and a dialectic rigour and necessity which makes no
3474false step, is unknown to most thinkers and scholars from their own
3475experience, and therefore, should any one speak of it in their
3476presence, it is incredible to them. They conceive of every necessity as
3477troublesome, as a painful compulsory obedience and state of constraint;
3478thinking itself is regarded by them as something slow and hesitating,
3479almost as a trouble, and often enough as "worthy of the SWEAT of the
3480noble"--but not at all as something easy and divine, closely related
3481to dancing and exuberance! "To think" and to take a matter "seriously,"
3482"arduously"--that is one and the same thing to them; such only has been
3483their "experience."--Artists have here perhaps a finer intuition; they
3484who know only too well that precisely when they no longer do anything
3485"arbitrarily," and everything of necessity, their feeling of freedom,
3486of subtlety, of power, of creatively fixing, disposing, and shaping,
3487reaches its climax--in short, that necessity and "freedom of will" are
3488then the same thing with them. There is, in fine, a gradation of rank
3489in psychical states, to which the gradation of rank in the problems
3490corresponds; and the highest problems repel ruthlessly every one who
3491ventures too near them, without being predestined for their solution
3492by the loftiness and power of his spirituality. Of what use is it for
3493nimble, everyday intellects, or clumsy, honest mechanics and empiricists
3494to press, in their plebeian ambition, close to such problems, and as
3495it were into this "holy of holies"--as so often happens nowadays! But
3496coarse feet must never tread upon such carpets: this is provided for in
3497the primary law of things; the doors remain closed to those intruders,
3498though they may dash and break their heads thereon. People have always
3499to be born to a high station, or, more definitely, they have to be BRED
3500for it: a person has only a right to philosophy--taking the word in
3501its higher significance--in virtue of his descent; the ancestors, the
3502"blood," decide here also. Many generations must have prepared the way
3503for the coming of the philosopher; each of his virtues must have been
3504separately acquired, nurtured, transmitted, and embodied; not only the
3505bold, easy, delicate course and current of his thoughts, but above all
3506the readiness for great responsibilities, the majesty of ruling glance
3507and contemning look, the feeling of separation from the multitude with
3508their duties and virtues, the kindly patronage and defense of whatever
3509is misunderstood and calumniated, be it God or devil, the delight and
3510practice of supreme justice, the art of commanding, the amplitude of
3511will, the lingering eye which rarely admires, rarely looks up, rarely
3512loves....
3513
3514
3515
3516CHAPTER VII. OUR VIRTUES
3517
3518
3519214. OUR Virtues?--It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues,
3520although naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues on
3521account of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at a little
3522distance from us. We Europeans of the day after tomorrow, we firstlings
3523of the twentieth century--with all our dangerous curiosity, our
3524multifariousness and art of disguising, our mellow and seemingly
3525sweetened cruelty in sense and spirit--we shall presumably, IF we must
3526have virtues, have those only which have come to agreement with our most
3527secret and heartfelt inclinations, with our most ardent requirements:
3528well, then, let us look for them in our labyrinths!--where, as we know,
3529so many things lose themselves, so many things get quite lost! And is
3530there anything finer than to SEARCH for one's own virtues? Is it not
3531almost to BELIEVE in one's own virtues? But this "believing in one's
3532own virtues"--is it not practically the same as what was formerly called
3533one's "good conscience," that long, respectable pigtail of an idea,
3534which our grandfathers used to hang behind their heads, and often enough
3535also behind their understandings? It seems, therefore, that however
3536little we may imagine ourselves to be old-fashioned and grandfatherly
3537respectable in other respects, in one thing we are nevertheless the
3538worthy grandchildren of our grandfathers, we last Europeans with good
3539consciences: we also still wear their pigtail.--Ah! if you only knew how
3540soon, so very soon--it will be different!
3541
3542215. As in the stellar firmament there are sometimes two suns which
3543determine the path of one planet, and in certain cases suns of different
3544colours shine around a single planet, now with red light, now with
3545green, and then simultaneously illumine and flood it with motley
3546colours: so we modern men, owing to the complicated mechanism of our
3547"firmament," are determined by DIFFERENT moralities; our actions shine
3548alternately in different colours, and are seldom unequivocal--and there
3549are often cases, also, in which our actions are MOTLEY-COLOURED.
3550
3551216. To love one's enemies? I think that has been well learnt: it takes
3552place thousands of times at present on a large and small scale; indeed,
3553at times the higher and sublimer thing takes place:--we learn to DESPISE
3554when we love, and precisely when we love best; all of it, however,
3555unconsciously, without noise, without ostentation, with the shame and
3556secrecy of goodness, which forbids the utterance of the pompous word
3557and the formula of virtue. Morality as attitude--is opposed to our taste
3558nowadays. This is ALSO an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers
3559that religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste,
3560including the enmity and Voltairean bitterness against religion (and all
3561that formerly belonged to freethinker-pantomime). It is the music in our
3562conscience, the dance in our spirit, to which Puritan litanies, moral
3563sermons, and goody-goodness won't chime.
3564
3565217. Let us be careful in dealing with those who attach great importance
3566to being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discernment!
3567They never forgive us if they have once made a mistake BEFORE us
3568(or even with REGARD to us)--they inevitably become our instinctive
3569calumniators and detractors, even when they still remain our
3570"friends."--Blessed are the forgetful: for they "get the better" even of
3571their blunders.
3572
3573218. The psychologists of France--and where else are there still
3574psychologists nowadays?--have never yet exhausted their bitter and
3575manifold enjoyment of the betise bourgeoise, just as though... in
3576short, they betray something thereby. Flaubert, for instance, the honest
3577citizen of Rouen, neither saw, heard, nor tasted anything else in the
3578end; it was his mode of self-torment and refined cruelty. As this is
3579growing wearisome, I would now recommend for a change something else
3580for a pleasure--namely, the unconscious astuteness with which good, fat,
3581honest mediocrity always behaves towards loftier spirits and the tasks
3582they have to perform, the subtle, barbed, Jesuitical astuteness, which
3583is a thousand times subtler than the taste and understanding of the
3584middle-class in its best moments--subtler even than the understanding of
3585its victims:--a repeated proof that "instinct" is the most intelligent
3586of all kinds of intelligence which have hitherto been discovered. In
3587short, you psychologists, study the philosophy of the "rule" in its
3588struggle with the "exception": there you have a spectacle fit for Gods
3589and godlike malignity! Or, in plainer words, practise vivisection on
3590"good people," on the "homo bonae voluntatis," ON YOURSELVES!
3591
3592219. The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite
3593revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so, it is
3594also a kind of indemnity for their being badly endowed by nature,
3595and finally, it is an opportunity for acquiring spirit and BECOMING
3596subtle--malice spiritualises. They are glad in their inmost heart that
3597there is a standard according to which those who are over-endowed with
3598intellectual goods and privileges, are equal to them, they contend for
3599the "equality of all before God," and almost NEED the belief in God for
3600this purpose. It is among them that the most powerful antagonists of
3601atheism are found. If any one were to say to them "A lofty spirituality
3602is beyond all comparison with the honesty and respectability of a merely
3603moral man"--it would make them furious, I shall take care not to say
3604so. I would rather flatter them with my theory that lofty spirituality
3605itself exists only as the ultimate product of moral qualities, that it
3606is a synthesis of all qualities attributed to the "merely moral" man,
3607after they have been acquired singly through long training and practice,
3608perhaps during a whole series of generations, that lofty spirituality
3609is precisely the spiritualising of justice, and the beneficent severity
3610which knows that it is authorized to maintain GRADATIONS OF RANK in the
3611world, even among things--and not only among men.
3612
3613220. Now that the praise of the "disinterested person" is so popular
3614one must--probably not without some danger--get an idea of WHAT people
3615actually take an interest in, and what are the things generally which
3616fundamentally and profoundly concern ordinary men--including the
3617cultured, even the learned, and perhaps philosophers also, if
3618appearances do not deceive. The fact thereby becomes obvious that the
3619greater part of what interests and charms higher natures, and more
3620refined and fastidious tastes, seems absolutely "uninteresting" to
3621the average man--if, notwithstanding, he perceive devotion to these
3622interests, he calls it desinteresse, and wonders how it is possible to
3623act "disinterestedly." There have been philosophers who could give this
3624popular astonishment a seductive and mystical, other-worldly expression
3625(perhaps because they did not know the higher nature by experience?),
3626instead of stating the naked and candidly reasonable truth that
3627"disinterested" action is very interesting and "interested" action,
3628provided that... "And love?"--What! Even an action for love's sake
3629shall be "unegoistic"? But you fools--! "And the praise of the
3630self-sacrificer?"--But whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that
3631he wanted and obtained something for it--perhaps something from himself
3632for something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have
3633more there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself "more."
3634But this is a realm of questions and answers in which a more fastidious
3635spirit does not like to stay: for here truth has to stifle her yawns so
3636much when she is obliged to answer. And after all, truth is a woman; one
3637must not use force with her.
3638
3639221. "It sometimes happens," said a moralistic pedant and
3640trifle-retailer, "that I honour and respect an unselfish man: not,
3641however, because he is unselfish, but because I think he has a right to
3642be useful to another man at his own expense. In short, the question
3643is always who HE is, and who THE OTHER is. For instance, in a person
3644created and destined for command, self-denial and modest retirement,
3645instead of being virtues, would be the waste of virtues: so it seems
3646to me. Every system of unegoistic morality which takes itself
3647unconditionally and appeals to every one, not only sins against good
3648taste, but is also an incentive to sins of omission, an ADDITIONAL
3649seduction under the mask of philanthropy--and precisely a seduction and
3650injury to the higher, rarer, and more privileged types of men. Moral
3651systems must be compelled first of all to bow before the GRADATIONS OF
3652RANK; their presumption must be driven home to their conscience--until
3653they thoroughly understand at last that it is IMMORAL to say that 'what
3654is right for one is proper for another.'"--So said my moralistic pedant
3655and bonhomme. Did he perhaps deserve to be laughed at when he thus
3656exhorted systems of morals to practise morality? But one should not be
3657too much in the right if one wishes to have the laughers on ONE'S OWN
3658side; a grain of wrong pertains even to good taste.
3659
3660222. Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays--and,
3661if I gather rightly, no other religion is any longer preached--let the
3662psychologist have his ears open through all the vanity, through all the
3663noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he will
3664hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of SELF-CONTEMPT. It belongs
3665to the overshadowing and uglifying of Europe, which has been on
3666the increase for a century (the first symptoms of which are already
3667specified documentarily in a thoughtful letter of Galiani to Madame
3668d'Epinay)--IF IT IS NOT REALLY THE CAUSE THEREOF! The man of
3669"modern ideas," the conceited ape, is excessively dissatisfied with
3670himself--this is perfectly certain. He suffers, and his vanity wants him
3671only "to suffer with his fellows."
3672
3673223. The hybrid European--a tolerably ugly plebeian, taken all in
3674all--absolutely requires a costume: he needs history as a storeroom
3675of costumes. To be sure, he notices that none of the costumes fit him
3676properly--he changes and changes. Let us look at the nineteenth century
3677with respect to these hasty preferences and changes in its masquerades
3678of style, and also with respect to its moments of desperation on account
3679of "nothing suiting" us. It is in vain to get ourselves up as romantic,
3680or classical, or Christian, or Florentine, or barocco, or "national,"
3681in moribus et artibus: it does not "clothe us"! But the "spirit,"
3682especially the "historical spirit," profits even by this desperation:
3683once and again a new sample of the past or of the foreign is tested,
3684put on, taken off, packed up, and above all studied--we are the first
3685studious age in puncto of "costumes," I mean as concerns morals,
3686articles of belief, artistic tastes, and religions; we are prepared as
3687no other age has ever been for a carnival in the grand style, for the
3688most spiritual festival--laughter and arrogance, for the transcendental
3689height of supreme folly and Aristophanic ridicule of the world. Perhaps
3690we are still discovering the domain of our invention just here, the
3691domain where even we can still be original, probably as parodists of
3692the world's history and as God's Merry-Andrews,--perhaps, though nothing
3693else of the present have a future, our laughter itself may have a
3694future!
3695
3696224. The historical sense (or the capacity for divining quickly
3697the order of rank of the valuations according to which a people, a
3698community, or an individual has lived, the "divining instinct" for the
3699relationships of these valuations, for the relation of the authority
3700of the valuations to the authority of the operating forces),--this
3701historical sense, which we Europeans claim as our specialty, has come
3702to us in the train of the enchanting and mad semi-barbarity into which
3703Europe has been plunged by the democratic mingling of classes and
3704races--it is only the nineteenth century that has recognized this
3705faculty as its sixth sense. Owing to this mingling, the past of every
3706form and mode of life, and of cultures which were formerly closely
3707contiguous and superimposed on one another, flows forth into us "modern
3708souls"; our instincts now run back in all directions, we ourselves are
3709a kind of chaos: in the end, as we have said, the spirit perceives its
3710advantage therein. By means of our semi-barbarity in body and in desire,
3711we have secret access everywhere, such as a noble age never had; we have
3712access above all to the labyrinth of imperfect civilizations, and to
3713every form of semi-barbarity that has at any time existed on earth; and
3714in so far as the most considerable part of human civilization hitherto
3715has just been semi-barbarity, the "historical sense" implies almost the
3716sense and instinct for everything, the taste and tongue for everything:
3717whereby it immediately proves itself to be an IGNOBLE sense. For
3718instance, we enjoy Homer once more: it is perhaps our happiest
3719acquisition that we know how to appreciate Homer, whom men of
3720distinguished culture (as the French of the seventeenth century, like
3721Saint-Evremond, who reproached him for his ESPRIT VASTE, and even
3722Voltaire, the last echo of the century) cannot and could not so easily
3723appropriate--whom they scarcely permitted themselves to enjoy. The very
3724decided Yea and Nay of their palate, their promptly ready disgust, their
3725hesitating reluctance with regard to everything strange, their horror of
3726the bad taste even of lively curiosity, and in general the averseness of
3727every distinguished and self-sufficing culture to avow a new desire,
3728a dissatisfaction with its own condition, or an admiration of what is
3729strange: all this determines and disposes them unfavourably even towards
3730the best things of the world which are not their property or could not
3731become their prey--and no faculty is more unintelligible to such men
3732than just this historical sense, with its truckling, plebeian
3733curiosity. The case is not different with Shakespeare, that marvelous
3734Spanish-Moorish-Saxon synthesis of taste, over whom an ancient Athenian
3735of the circle of AEschylus would have half-killed himself with laughter
3736or irritation: but we--accept precisely this wild motleyness, this
3737medley of the most delicate, the most coarse, and the most artificial,
3738with a secret confidence and cordiality; we enjoy it as a refinement
3739of art reserved expressly for us, and allow ourselves to be as little
3740disturbed by the repulsive fumes and the proximity of the English
3741populace in which Shakespeare's art and taste lives, as perhaps on
3742the Chiaja of Naples, where, with all our senses awake, we go our way,
3743enchanted and voluntarily, in spite of the drain-odour of the lower
3744quarters of the town. That as men of the "historical sense" we have
3745our virtues, is not to be disputed:--we are unpretentious, unselfish,
3746modest, brave, habituated to self-control and self-renunciation, very
3747grateful, very patient, very complaisant--but with all this we are
3748perhaps not very "tasteful." Let us finally confess it, that what is
3749most difficult for us men of the "historical sense" to grasp, feel,
3750taste, and love, what finds us fundamentally prejudiced and almost
3751hostile, is precisely the perfection and ultimate maturity in every
3752culture and art, the essentially noble in works and men, their moment
3753of smooth sea and halcyon self-sufficiency, the goldenness and coldness
3754which all things show that have perfected themselves. Perhaps our great
3755virtue of the historical sense is in necessary contrast to GOOD taste,
3756at least to the very bad taste; and we can only evoke in ourselves
3757imperfectly, hesitatingly, and with compulsion the small, short, and
3758happy godsends and glorifications of human life as they shine here and
3759there: those moments and marvelous experiences when a great power has
3760voluntarily come to a halt before the boundless and infinite,--when a
3761super-abundance of refined delight has been enjoyed by a sudden checking
3762and petrifying, by standing firmly and planting oneself fixedly on still
3763trembling ground. PROPORTIONATENESS is strange to us, let us confess it
3764to ourselves; our itching is really the itching for the infinite, the
3765immeasurable. Like the rider on his forward panting horse, we let the
3766reins fall before the infinite, we modern men, we semi-barbarians--and
3767are only in OUR highest bliss when we--ARE IN MOST DANGER.
3768
3769225. Whether it be hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, or eudaemonism,
3770all those modes of thinking which measure the worth of things according
3771to PLEASURE and PAIN, that is, according to accompanying circumstances
3772and secondary considerations, are plausible modes of thought and
3773naivetes, which every one conscious of CREATIVE powers and an artist's
3774conscience will look down upon with scorn, though not without sympathy.
3775Sympathy for you!--to be sure, that is not sympathy as you understand
3776it: it is not sympathy for social "distress," for "society" with its
3777sick and misfortuned, for the hereditarily vicious and defective who lie
3778on the ground around us; still less is it sympathy for the grumbling,
3779vexed, revolutionary slave-classes who strive after power--they call it
3780"freedom." OUR sympathy is a loftier and further-sighted sympathy:--we
3781see how MAN dwarfs himself, how YOU dwarf him! and there are moments
3782when we view YOUR sympathy with an indescribable anguish, when we resist
3783it,--when we regard your seriousness as more dangerous than any kind
3784of levity. You want, if possible--and there is not a more foolish "if
3785possible"--TO DO AWAY WITH SUFFERING; and we?--it really seems that WE
3786would rather have it increased and made worse than it has ever been!
3787Well-being, as you understand it--is certainly not a goal; it seems
3788to us an END; a condition which at once renders man ludicrous and
3789contemptible--and makes his destruction DESIRABLE! The discipline
3790of suffering, of GREAT suffering--know ye not that it is only THIS
3791discipline that has produced all the elevations of humanity hitherto?
3792The tension of soul in misfortune which communicates to it its energy,
3793its shuddering in view of rack and ruin, its inventiveness and bravery
3794in undergoing, enduring, interpreting, and exploiting misfortune, and
3795whatever depth, mystery, disguise, spirit, artifice, or greatness has
3796been bestowed upon the soul--has it not been bestowed through suffering,
3797through the discipline of great suffering? In man CREATURE and CREATOR
3798are united: in man there is not only matter, shred, excess, clay, mire,
3799folly, chaos; but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness
3800of the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh day--do
3801ye understand this contrast? And that YOUR sympathy for the "creature
3802in man" applies to that which has to be fashioned, bruised, forged,
3803stretched, roasted, annealed, refined--to that which must necessarily
3804SUFFER, and IS MEANT to suffer? And our sympathy--do ye not understand
3805what our REVERSE sympathy applies to, when it resists your sympathy as
3806the worst of all pampering and enervation?--So it is sympathy AGAINST
3807sympathy!--But to repeat it once more, there are higher problems than
3808the problems of pleasure and pain and sympathy; and all systems of
3809philosophy which deal only with these are naivetes.
3810
3811226. WE IMMORALISTS.--This world with which WE are concerned, in which
3812we have to fear and love, this almost invisible, inaudible world of
3813delicate command and delicate obedience, a world of "almost" in every
3814respect, captious, insidious, sharp, and tender--yes, it is well
3815protected from clumsy spectators and familiar curiosity! We are
3816woven into a strong net and garment of duties, and CANNOT disengage
3817ourselves--precisely here, we are "men of duty," even we! Occasionally,
3818it is true, we dance in our "chains" and betwixt our "swords"; it
3819is none the less true that more often we gnash our teeth under the
3820circumstances, and are impatient at the secret hardship of our lot. But
3821do what we will, fools and appearances say of us: "These are men WITHOUT
3822duty,"--we have always fools and appearances against us!
3823
3824227. Honesty, granting that it is the virtue of which we cannot rid
3825ourselves, we free spirits--well, we will labour at it with all our
3826perversity and love, and not tire of "perfecting" ourselves in OUR
3827virtue, which alone remains: may its glance some day overspread like
3828a gilded, blue, mocking twilight this aging civilization with its dull
3829gloomy seriousness! And if, nevertheless, our honesty should one day
3830grow weary, and sigh, and stretch its limbs, and find us too hard, and
3831would fain have it pleasanter, easier, and gentler, like an agreeable
3832vice, let us remain HARD, we latest Stoics, and let us send to its
3833help whatever devilry we have in us:--our disgust at the clumsy
3834and undefined, our "NITIMUR IN VETITUM," our love of adventure,
3835our sharpened and fastidious curiosity, our most subtle, disguised,
3836intellectual Will to Power and universal conquest, which rambles and
3837roves avidiously around all the realms of the future--let us go with all
3838our "devils" to the help of our "God"! It is probable that people will
3839misunderstand and mistake us on that account: what does it matter! They
3840will say: "Their 'honesty'--that is their devilry, and nothing else!"
3841What does it matter! And even if they were right--have not all Gods
3842hitherto been such sanctified, re-baptized devils? And after all, what
3843do we know of ourselves? And what the spirit that leads us wants TO BE
3844CALLED? (It is a question of names.) And how many spirits we harbour?
3845Our honesty, we free spirits--let us be careful lest it become our
3846vanity, our ornament and ostentation, our limitation, our stupidity!
3847Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; "stupid
3848to the point of sanctity," they say in Russia,--let us be careful lest
3849out of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores! Is not life
3850a hundred times too short for us--to bore ourselves? One would have to
3851believe in eternal life in order to...
3852
3853228. I hope to be forgiven for discovering that all moral philosophy
3854hitherto has been tedious and has belonged to the soporific
3855appliances--and that "virtue," in my opinion, has been MORE injured
3856by the TEDIOUSNESS of its advocates than by anything else; at the same
3857time, however, I would not wish to overlook their general usefulness. It
3858is desirable that as few people as possible should reflect upon morals,
3859and consequently it is very desirable that morals should not some day
3860become interesting! But let us not be afraid! Things still remain today
3861as they have always been: I see no one in Europe who has (or DISCLOSES)
3862an idea of the fact that philosophizing concerning morals might be
3863conducted in a dangerous, captious, and ensnaring manner--that CALAMITY
3864might be involved therein. Observe, for example, the indefatigable,
3865inevitable English utilitarians: how ponderously and respectably they
3866stalk on, stalk along (a Homeric metaphor expresses it better) in the
3867footsteps of Bentham, just as he had already stalked in the footsteps of
3868the respectable Helvetius! (no, he was not a dangerous man, Helvetius,
3869CE SENATEUR POCOCURANTE, to use an expression of Galiani). No new
3870thought, nothing of the nature of a finer turning or better expression
3871of an old thought, not even a proper history of what has been previously
3872thought on the subject: an IMPOSSIBLE literature, taking it all in all,
3873unless one knows how to leaven it with some mischief. In effect, the
3874old English vice called CANT, which is MORAL TARTUFFISM, has insinuated
3875itself also into these moralists (whom one must certainly read with an
3876eye to their motives if one MUST read them), concealed this time under
3877the new form of the scientific spirit; moreover, there is not absent
3878from them a secret struggle with the pangs of conscience, from which a
3879race of former Puritans must naturally suffer, in all their scientific
3880tinkering with morals. (Is not a moralist the opposite of a Puritan?
3881That is to say, as a thinker who regards morality as questionable,
3882as worthy of interrogation, in short, as a problem? Is moralizing
3883not-immoral?) In the end, they all want English morality to be
3884recognized as authoritative, inasmuch as mankind, or the "general
3885utility," or "the happiness of the greatest number,"--no! the happiness
3886of ENGLAND, will be best served thereby. They would like, by all means,
3887to convince themselves that the striving after English happiness, I
3888mean after COMFORT and FASHION (and in the highest instance, a seat in
3889Parliament), is at the same time the true path of virtue; in fact, that
3890in so far as there has been virtue in the world hitherto, it has
3891just consisted in such striving. Not one of those ponderous,
3892conscience-stricken herding-animals (who undertake to advocate the
3893cause of egoism as conducive to the general welfare) wants to have
3894any knowledge or inkling of the facts that the "general welfare" is
3895no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all grasped, but is only a
3896nostrum,--that what is fair to one MAY NOT at all be fair to another,
3897that the requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to
3898higher men, in short, that there is a DISTINCTION OF RANK between man
3899and man, and consequently between morality and morality. They are an
3900unassuming and fundamentally mediocre species of men, these utilitarian
3901Englishmen, and, as already remarked, in so far as they are tedious, one
3902cannot think highly enough of their utility. One ought even to ENCOURAGE
3903them, as has been partially attempted in the following rhymes:--
3904
3905    Hail, ye worthies, barrow-wheeling,
3906    "Longer--better," aye revealing,
3907
3908    Stiffer aye in head and knee;
3909    Unenraptured, never jesting,
3910    Mediocre everlasting,
3911
3912    SANS GENIE ET SANS ESPRIT!
3913
3914
3915229. In these later ages, which may be proud of their humanity, there
3916still remains so much fear, so much SUPERSTITION of the fear, of the
3917"cruel wild beast," the mastering of which constitutes the very pride of
3918these humaner ages--that even obvious truths, as if by the agreement
3919of centuries, have long remained unuttered, because they have the
3920appearance of helping the finally slain wild beast back to life again.
3921I perhaps risk something when I allow such a truth to escape; let
3922others capture it again and give it so much "milk of pious sentiment"
3923[FOOTNOTE: An expression from Schiller's William Tell, Act IV, Scene
39243.] to drink, that it will lie down quiet and forgotten, in its old
3925corner.--One ought to learn anew about cruelty, and open one's eyes;
3926one ought at last to learn impatience, in order that such immodest
3927gross errors--as, for instance, have been fostered by ancient and
3928modern philosophers with regard to tragedy--may no longer wander about
3929virtuously and boldly. Almost everything that we call "higher culture"
3930is based upon the spiritualising and intensifying of CRUELTY--this is
3931my thesis; the "wild beast" has not been slain at all, it lives, it
3932flourishes, it has only been--transfigured. That which constitutes the
3933painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that which operates agreeably in
3934so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime,
3935up to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its
3936sweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty. What the
3937Roman enjoys in the arena, the Christian in the ecstasies of the cross,
3938the Spaniard at the sight of the faggot and stake, or of the bull-fight,
3939the present-day Japanese who presses his way to the tragedy, the workman
3940of the Parisian suburbs who has a homesickness for bloody revolutions,
3941the Wagnerienne who, with unhinged will, "undergoes" the performance of
3942"Tristan and Isolde"--what all these enjoy, and strive with mysterious
3943ardour to drink in, is the philtre of the great Circe "cruelty." Here,
3944to be sure, we must put aside entirely the blundering psychology of
3945former times, which could only teach with regard to cruelty that
3946it originated at the sight of the suffering of OTHERS: there is an
3947abundant, super-abundant enjoyment even in one's own suffering, in
3948causing one's own suffering--and wherever man has allowed himself to be
3949persuaded to self-denial in the RELIGIOUS sense, or to self-mutilation,
3950as among the Phoenicians and ascetics, or in general, to
3951desensualisation, decarnalisation, and contrition, to Puritanical
3952repentance-spasms, to vivisection of conscience and to Pascal-like
3953SACRIFIZIA DELL' INTELLETO, he is secretly allured and impelled
3954forwards by his cruelty, by the dangerous thrill of cruelty TOWARDS
3955HIMSELF.--Finally, let us consider that even the seeker of knowledge
3956operates as an artist and glorifier of cruelty, in that he compels his
3957spirit to perceive AGAINST its own inclination, and often enough against
3958the wishes of his heart:--he forces it to say Nay, where he would like
3959to affirm, love, and adore; indeed, every instance of taking a thing
3960profoundly and fundamentally, is a violation, an intentional injuring
3961of the fundamental will of the spirit, which instinctively aims at
3962appearance and superficiality,--even in every desire for knowledge there
3963is a drop of cruelty.
3964
3965230. Perhaps what I have said here about a "fundamental will of the
3966spirit" may not be understood without further details; I may be allowed
3967a word of explanation.--That imperious something which is popularly
3968called "the spirit," wishes to be master internally and externally,
3969and to feel itself master; it has the will of a multiplicity for a
3970simplicity, a binding, taming, imperious, and essentially ruling will.
3971Its requirements and capacities here, are the same as those assigned by
3972physiologists to everything that lives, grows, and multiplies. The power
3973of the spirit to appropriate foreign elements reveals itself in a strong
3974tendency to assimilate the new to the old, to simplify the manifold,
3975to overlook or repudiate the absolutely contradictory; just as it
3976arbitrarily re-underlines, makes prominent, and falsifies for itself
3977certain traits and lines in the foreign elements, in every portion of
3978the "outside world." Its object thereby is the incorporation of new
3979"experiences," the assortment of new things in the old arrangements--in
3980short, growth; or more properly, the FEELING of growth, the feeling of
3981increased power--is its object. This same will has at its service an
3982apparently opposed impulse of the spirit, a suddenly adopted preference
3983of ignorance, of arbitrary shutting out, a closing of windows, an inner
3984denial of this or that, a prohibition to approach, a sort of defensive
3985attitude against much that is knowable, a contentment with obscurity,
3986with the shutting-in horizon, an acceptance and approval of ignorance:
3987as that which is all necessary according to the degree of its
3988appropriating power, its "digestive power," to speak figuratively (and
3989in fact "the spirit" resembles a stomach more than anything else). Here
3990also belong an occasional propensity of the spirit to let itself be
3991deceived (perhaps with a waggish suspicion that it is NOT so and so,
3992but is only allowed to pass as such), a delight in uncertainty and
3993ambiguity, an exulting enjoyment of arbitrary, out-of-the-way narrowness
3994and mystery, of the too-near, of the foreground, of the magnified,
3995the diminished, the misshapen, the beautified--an enjoyment of the
3996arbitrariness of all these manifestations of power. Finally, in this
3997connection, there is the not unscrupulous readiness of the spirit to
3998deceive other spirits and dissemble before them--the constant pressing
3999and straining of a creating, shaping, changeable power: the spirit
4000enjoys therein its craftiness and its variety of disguises, it enjoys
4001also its feeling of security therein--it is precisely by its Protean
4002arts that it is best protected and concealed!--COUNTER TO this
4003propensity for appearance, for simplification, for a disguise, for a
4004cloak, in short, for an outside--for every outside is a cloak--there
4005operates the sublime tendency of the man of knowledge, which takes, and
4006INSISTS on taking things profoundly, variously, and thoroughly; as a
4007kind of cruelty of the intellectual conscience and taste, which every
4008courageous thinker will acknowledge in himself, provided, as it ought
4009to be, that he has sharpened and hardened his eye sufficiently long for
4010introspection, and is accustomed to severe discipline and even severe
4011words. He will say: "There is something cruel in the tendency of my
4012spirit": let the virtuous and amiable try to convince him that it is not
4013so! In fact, it would sound nicer, if, instead of our cruelty, perhaps
4014our "extravagant honesty" were talked about, whispered about, and
4015glorified--we free, VERY free spirits--and some day perhaps SUCH will
4016actually be our--posthumous glory! Meanwhile--for there is plenty of
4017time until then--we should be least inclined to deck ourselves out in
4018such florid and fringed moral verbiage; our whole former work has
4019just made us sick of this taste and its sprightly exuberance. They are
4020beautiful, glistening, jingling, festive words: honesty, love of truth,
4021love of wisdom, sacrifice for knowledge, heroism of the truthful--there
4022is something in them that makes one's heart swell with pride. But we
4023anchorites and marmots have long ago persuaded ourselves in all the
4024secrecy of an anchorite's conscience, that this worthy parade of
4025verbiage also belongs to the old false adornment, frippery, and
4026gold-dust of unconscious human vanity, and that even under such
4027flattering colour and repainting, the terrible original text HOMO NATURA
4028must again be recognized. In effect, to translate man back again into
4029nature; to master the many vain and visionary interpretations and
4030subordinate meanings which have hitherto been scratched and daubed over
4031the eternal original text, HOMO NATURA; to bring it about that man shall
4032henceforth stand before man as he now, hardened by the discipline
4033of science, stands before the OTHER forms of nature, with fearless
4034Oedipus-eyes, and stopped Ulysses-ears, deaf to the enticements of old
4035metaphysical bird-catchers, who have piped to him far too long: "Thou
4036art more! thou art higher! thou hast a different origin!"--this may be
4037a strange and foolish task, but that it is a TASK, who can deny! Why did
4038we choose it, this foolish task? Or, to put the question differently:
4039"Why knowledge at all?" Every one will ask us about this. And thus
4040pressed, we, who have asked ourselves the question a hundred times, have
4041not found and cannot find any better answer....
4042
4043231. Learning alters us, it does what all nourishment does that does not
4044merely "conserve"--as the physiologist knows. But at the bottom of our
4045souls, quite "down below," there is certainly something unteachable,
4046a granite of spiritual fate, of predetermined decision and answer to
4047predetermined, chosen questions. In each cardinal problem there speaks
4048an unchangeable "I am this"; a thinker cannot learn anew about man and
4049woman, for instance, but can only learn fully--he can only follow to the
4050end what is "fixed" about them in himself. Occasionally we find certain
4051solutions of problems which make strong beliefs for us; perhaps they
4052are henceforth called "convictions." Later on--one sees in them only
4053footsteps to self-knowledge, guide-posts to the problem which we
4054ourselves ARE--or more correctly to the great stupidity which we embody,
4055our spiritual fate, the UNTEACHABLE in us, quite "down below."--In view
4056of this liberal compliment which I have just paid myself, permission
4057will perhaps be more readily allowed me to utter some truths about
4058"woman as she is," provided that it is known at the outset how literally
4059they are merely--MY truths.
4060
4061232. Woman wishes to be independent, and therefore she begins to
4062enlighten men about "woman as she is"--THIS is one of the worst
4063developments of the general UGLIFYING of Europe. For what must these
4064clumsy attempts of feminine scientificality and self-exposure bring
4065to light! Woman has so much cause for shame; in woman there is so
4066much pedantry, superficiality, schoolmasterliness, petty presumption,
4067unbridledness, and indiscretion concealed--study only woman's behaviour
4068towards children!--which has really been best restrained and dominated
4069hitherto by the FEAR of man. Alas, if ever the "eternally tedious in
4070woman"--she has plenty of it!--is allowed to venture forth! if she
4071begins radically and on principle to unlearn her wisdom and art-of
4072charming, of playing, of frightening away sorrow, of alleviating and
4073taking easily; if she forgets her delicate aptitude for agreeable
4074desires! Female voices are already raised, which, by Saint Aristophanes!
4075make one afraid:--with medical explicitness it is stated in a
4076threatening manner what woman first and last REQUIRES from man. Is
4077it not in the very worst taste that woman thus sets herself up to be
4078scientific? Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair,
4079men's gift--we remained therewith "among ourselves"; and in the end,
4080in view of all that women write about "woman," we may well have
4081considerable doubt as to whether woman really DESIRES enlightenment
4082about herself--and CAN desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a new
4083ORNAMENT for herself--I believe ornamentation belongs to the eternally
4084feminine?--why, then, she wishes to make herself feared: perhaps she
4085thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not want truth--what
4086does woman care for truth? From the very first, nothing is more foreign,
4087more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth--her great art is
4088falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. Let us confess
4089it, we men: we honour and love this very art and this very instinct in
4090woman: we who have the hard task, and for our recreation gladly seek the
4091company of beings under whose hands, glances, and delicate follies, our
4092seriousness, our gravity, and profundity appear almost like follies to
4093us. Finally, I ask the question: Did a woman herself ever acknowledge
4094profundity in a woman's mind, or justice in a woman's heart? And is it
4095not true that on the whole "woman" has hitherto been most despised by
4096woman herself, and not at all by us?--We men desire that woman should
4097not continue to compromise herself by enlightening us; just as it was
4098man's care and the consideration for woman, when the church decreed:
4099mulier taceat in ecclesia. It was to the benefit of woman when Napoleon
4100gave the too eloquent Madame de Stael to understand: mulier taceat in
4101politicis!--and in my opinion, he is a true friend of woman who calls
4102out to women today: mulier taceat de mulierel.
4103
4104233. It betrays corruption of the instincts--apart from the fact that
4105it betrays bad taste--when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de
4106Stael, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby
4107in favour of "woman as she is." Among men, these are the three comical
4108women as they are--nothing more!--and just the best involuntary
4109counter-arguments against feminine emancipation and autonomy.
4110
4111234. Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible
4112thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of
4113the house is managed! Woman does not understand what food means, and she
4114insists on being cook! If woman had been a thinking creature, she should
4115certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most
4116important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession
4117of the healing art! Through bad female cooks--through the entire lack
4118of reason in the kitchen--the development of mankind has been longest
4119retarded and most interfered with: even today matters are very little
4120better. A word to High School girls.
4121
4122235. There are turns and casts of fancy, there are sentences, little
4123handfuls of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society suddenly
4124crystallises itself. Among these is the incidental remark of Madame de
4125Lambert to her son: "MON AMI, NE VOUS PERMETTEZ JAMAIS QUE DES FOLIES,
4126QUI VOUS FERONT GRAND PLAISIR"--the motherliest and wisest remark, by
4127the way, that was ever addressed to a son.
4128
4129236. I have no doubt that every noble woman will oppose what Dante and
4130Goethe believed about woman--the former when he sang, "ELLA GUARDAVA
4131SUSO, ED IO IN LEI," and the latter when he interpreted it, "the
4132eternally feminine draws us ALOFT"; for THIS is just what she believes
4133of the eternally masculine.
4134
4135237.
4136
4137SEVEN APOPHTHEGMS FOR WOMEN
4138
4139How the longest ennui flees, When a man comes to our knees!
4140
4141Age, alas! and science staid, Furnish even weak virtue aid.
4142
4143Sombre garb and silence meet: Dress for every dame--discreet.
4144
4145Whom I thank when in my bliss? God!--and my good tailoress!
4146
4147Young, a flower-decked cavern home; Old, a dragon thence doth roam.
4148
4149Noble title, leg that's fine, Man as well: Oh, were HE mine!
4150
4151Speech in brief and sense in mass--Slippery for the jenny-ass!
4152
4153237A. Woman has hitherto been treated by men like birds, which, losing
4154their way, have come down among them from an elevation: as something
4155delicate, fragile, wild, strange, sweet, and animating--but as something
4156also which must be cooped up to prevent it flying away.
4157
4158238. To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to
4159deny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally
4160hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal
4161training, equal claims and obligations: that is a TYPICAL sign of
4162shallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at
4163this dangerous spot--shallow in instinct!--may generally be regarded as
4164suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered; he will probably prove
4165too "short" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well as
4166present, and will be unable to descend into ANY of the depths. On the
4167other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and
4168has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and
4169harshness, and easily confounded with them, can only think of woman as
4170ORIENTALS do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable
4171property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her
4172mission therein--he must take his stand in this matter upon the immense
4173rationality of Asia, upon the superiority of the instinct of Asia, as
4174the Greeks did formerly; those best heirs and scholars of Asia--who,
4175as is well known, with their INCREASING culture and amplitude of power,
4176from Homer to the time of Pericles, became gradually STRICTER towards
4177woman, in short, more Oriental. HOW necessary, HOW logical, even HOW
4178humanely desirable this was, let us consider for ourselves!
4179
4180239. The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so
4181much respect by men as at present--this belongs to the tendency and
4182fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to
4183old age--what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of
4184this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute
4185of respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling; rivalry for rights,
4186indeed actual strife itself, would be preferred: in a word, woman is
4187losing modesty. And let us immediately add that she is also losing
4188taste. She is unlearning to FEAR man: but the woman who "unlearns to
4189fear" sacrifices her most womanly instincts. That woman should venture
4190forward when the fear-inspiring quality in man--or more definitely,
4191the MAN in man--is no longer either desired or fully developed, is
4192reasonable enough and also intelligible enough; what is more difficult
4193to understand is that precisely thereby--woman deteriorates. This is
4194what is happening nowadays: let us not deceive ourselves about it!
4195Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military
4196and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal
4197independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal
4198of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she
4199thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be "master," and inscribes
4200"progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realises
4201itself with terrible obviousness: WOMAN RETROGRADES. Since the French
4202Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has DECLINED in proportion
4203as she has increased her rights and claims; and the "emancipation of
4204woman," insofar as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and
4205not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a remarkable
4206symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly
4207instincts. There is STUPIDITY in this movement, an almost masculine
4208stupidity, of which a well-reared woman--who is always a sensible
4209woman--might be heartily ashamed. To lose the intuition as to the ground
4210upon which she can most surely achieve victory; to neglect exercise in
4211the use of her proper weapons; to let-herself-go before man, perhaps
4212even "to the book," where formerly she kept herself in control and in
4213refined, artful humility; to neutralize with her virtuous audacity man's
4214faith in a VEILED, fundamentally different ideal in woman, something
4215eternally, necessarily feminine; to emphatically and loquaciously
4216dissuade man from the idea that woman must be preserved, cared for,
4217protected, and indulged, like some delicate, strangely wild, and
4218often pleasant domestic animal; the clumsy and indignant collection of
4219everything of the nature of servitude and bondage which the position of
4220woman in the hitherto existing order of society has entailed and still
4221entails (as though slavery were a counter-argument, and not rather a
4222condition of every higher culture, of every elevation of culture):--what
4223does all this betoken, if not a disintegration of womanly instincts,
4224a defeminising? Certainly, there are enough of idiotic friends and
4225corrupters of woman among the learned asses of the masculine sex, who
4226advise woman to defeminize herself in this manner, and to imitate
4227all the stupidities from which "man" in Europe, European "manliness,"
4228suffers,--who would like to lower woman to "general culture," indeed
4229even to newspaper reading and meddling with politics. Here and there
4230they wish even to make women into free spirits and literary workers: as
4231though a woman without piety would not be something perfectly obnoxious
4232or ludicrous to a profound and godless man;--almost everywhere her
4233nerves are being ruined by the most morbid and dangerous kind of music
4234(our latest German music), and she is daily being made more hysterical
4235and more incapable of fulfilling her first and last function, that of
4236bearing robust children. They wish to "cultivate" her in general still
4237more, and intend, as they say, to make the "weaker sex" STRONG by
4238culture: as if history did not teach in the most emphatic manner that
4239the "cultivating" of mankind and his weakening--that is to say, the
4240weakening, dissipating, and languishing of his FORCE OF WILL--have
4241always kept pace with one another, and that the most powerful and
4242influential women in the world (and lastly, the mother of Napoleon)
4243had just to thank their force of will--and not their schoolmasters--for
4244their power and ascendancy over men. That which inspires respect
4245in woman, and often enough fear also, is her NATURE, which is more
4246"natural" than that of man, her genuine, carnivora-like, cunning
4247flexibility, her tiger-claws beneath the glove, her NAIVETE in egoism,
4248her untrainableness and innate wildness, the incomprehensibleness,
4249extent, and deviation of her desires and virtues. That which, in spite
4250of fear, excites one's sympathy for the dangerous and beautiful cat,
4251"woman," is that she seems more afflicted, more vulnerable, more
4252necessitous of love, and more condemned to disillusionment than any
4253other creature. Fear and sympathy it is with these feelings that man has
4254hitherto stood in the presence of woman, always with one foot already in
4255tragedy, which rends while it delights--What? And all that is now to
4256be at an end? And the DISENCHANTMENT of woman is in progress? The
4257tediousness of woman is slowly evolving? Oh Europe! Europe! We know
4258the horned animal which was always most attractive to thee, from which
4259danger is ever again threatening thee! Thy old fable might once more
4260become "history"--an immense stupidity might once again overmaster
4261thee and carry thee away! And no God concealed beneath it--no! only an
4262"idea," a "modern idea"!
4263
4264
4265
4266CHAPTER VIII. PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES
4267
4268
4269240. I HEARD, once again for the first time, Richard Wagner's overture
4270to the Mastersinger: it is a piece of magnificent, gorgeous, heavy,
4271latter-day art, which has the pride to presuppose two centuries of music
4272as still living, in order that it may be understood:--it is an honour
4273to Germans that such a pride did not miscalculate! What flavours
4274and forces, what seasons and climes do we not find mingled in it! It
4275impresses us at one time as ancient, at another time as foreign, bitter,
4276and too modern, it is as arbitrary as it is pompously traditional, it
4277is not infrequently roguish, still oftener rough and coarse--it has fire
4278and courage, and at the same time the loose, dun-coloured skin of fruits
4279which ripen too late. It flows broad and full: and suddenly there is a
4280moment of inexplicable hesitation, like a gap that opens between cause
4281and effect, an oppression that makes us dream, almost a nightmare; but
4282already it broadens and widens anew, the old stream of delight--the most
4283manifold delight,--of old and new happiness; including ESPECIALLY
4284the joy of the artist in himself, which he refuses to conceal, his
4285astonished, happy cognizance of his mastery of the expedients here
4286employed, the new, newly acquired, imperfectly tested expedients of art
4287which he apparently betrays to us. All in all, however, no beauty, no
4288South, nothing of the delicate southern clearness of the sky, nothing
4289of grace, no dance, hardly a will to logic; a certain clumsiness even,
4290which is also emphasized, as though the artist wished to say to us: "It
4291is part of my intention"; a cumbersome drapery, something arbitrarily
4292barbaric and ceremonious, a flirring of learned and venerable conceits
4293and witticisms; something German in the best and worst sense of
4294the word, something in the German style, manifold, formless, and
4295inexhaustible; a certain German potency and super-plenitude of
4296soul, which is not afraid to hide itself under the RAFFINEMENTS of
4297decadence--which, perhaps, feels itself most at ease there; a real,
4298genuine token of the German soul, which is at the same time young and
4299aged, too ripe and yet still too rich in futurity. This kind of music
4300expresses best what I think of the Germans: they belong to the day
4301before yesterday and the day after tomorrow--THEY HAVE AS YET NO TODAY.
4302
4303241. We "good Europeans," we also have hours when we allow ourselves a
4304warm-hearted patriotism, a plunge and relapse into old loves and narrow
4305views--I have just given an example of it--hours of national excitement,
4306of patriotic anguish, and all other sorts of old-fashioned floods of
4307sentiment. Duller spirits may perhaps only get done with what confines
4308its operations in us to hours and plays itself out in hours--in a
4309considerable time: some in half a year, others in half a lifetime,
4310according to the speed and strength with which they digest and "change
4311their material." Indeed, I could think of sluggish, hesitating races,
4312which even in our rapidly moving Europe, would require half a century
4313ere they could surmount such atavistic attacks of patriotism and
4314soil-attachment, and return once more to reason, that is to say, to
4315"good Europeanism." And while digressing on this possibility, I
4316happen to become an ear-witness of a conversation between two old
4317patriots--they were evidently both hard of hearing and consequently
4318spoke all the louder. "HE has as much, and knows as much, philosophy as
4319a peasant or a corps-student," said the one--"he is still innocent. But
4320what does that matter nowadays! It is the age of the masses: they lie on
4321their belly before everything that is massive. And so also in politicis.
4322A statesman who rears up for them a new Tower of Babel, some monstrosity
4323of empire and power, they call 'great'--what does it matter that we more
4324prudent and conservative ones do not meanwhile give up the old belief
4325that it is only the great thought that gives greatness to an action or
4326affair. Supposing a statesman were to bring his people into the position
4327of being obliged henceforth to practise 'high politics,' for which they
4328were by nature badly endowed and prepared, so that they would have
4329to sacrifice their old and reliable virtues, out of love to a new and
4330doubtful mediocrity;--supposing a statesman were to condemn his people
4331generally to 'practise politics,' when they have hitherto had something
4332better to do and think about, and when in the depths of their souls
4333they have been unable to free themselves from a prudent loathing of
4334the restlessness, emptiness, and noisy wranglings of the essentially
4335politics-practising nations;--supposing such a statesman were to
4336stimulate the slumbering passions and avidities of his people, were to
4337make a stigma out of their former diffidence and delight in aloofness,
4338an offence out of their exoticism and hidden permanency, were to
4339depreciate their most radical proclivities, subvert their consciences,
4340make their minds narrow, and their tastes 'national'--what! a statesman
4341who should do all this, which his people would have to do penance for
4342throughout their whole future, if they had a future, such a statesman
4343would be GREAT, would he?"--"Undoubtedly!" replied the other old patriot
4344vehemently, "otherwise he COULD NOT have done it! It was mad perhaps to
4345wish such a thing! But perhaps everything great has been just as mad
4346at its commencement!"--"Misuse of words!" cried his interlocutor,
4347contradictorily--"strong! strong! Strong and mad! NOT great!"--The old
4348men had obviously become heated as they thus shouted their "truths" in
4349each other's faces, but I, in my happiness and apartness, considered how
4350soon a stronger one may become master of the strong, and also that
4351there is a compensation for the intellectual superficialising of a
4352nation--namely, in the deepening of another.
4353
4354242. Whether we call it "civilization," or "humanising," or "progress,"
4355which now distinguishes the European, whether we call it simply, without
4356praise or blame, by the political formula the DEMOCRATIC movement in
4357Europe--behind all the moral and political foregrounds pointed to by
4358such formulas, an immense PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESS goes on, which is ever
4359extending the process of the assimilation of Europeans, their
4360increasing detachment from the conditions under which, climatically and
4361hereditarily, united races originate, their increasing independence of
4362every definite milieu, that for centuries would fain inscribe itself
4363with equal demands on soul and body,--that is to say, the slow emergence
4364of an essentially SUPER-NATIONAL and nomadic species of man, who
4365possesses, physiologically speaking, a maximum of the art and power
4366of adaptation as his typical distinction. This process of the EVOLVING
4367EUROPEAN, which can be retarded in its TEMPO by great relapses, but
4368will perhaps just gain and grow thereby in vehemence and depth--the
4369still-raging storm and stress of "national sentiment" pertains to it,
4370and also the anarchism which is appearing at present--this process
4371will probably arrive at results on which its naive propagators and
4372panegyrists, the apostles of "modern ideas," would least care to reckon.
4373The same new conditions under which on an average a levelling and
4374mediocrising of man will take place--a useful, industrious, variously
4375serviceable, and clever gregarious man--are in the highest degree
4376suitable to give rise to exceptional men of the most dangerous and
4377attractive qualities. For, while the capacity for adaptation, which is
4378every day trying changing conditions, and begins a new work with every
4379generation, almost with every decade, makes the POWERFULNESS of the type
4380impossible; while the collective impression of such future Europeans
4381will probably be that of numerous, talkative, weak-willed, and very
4382handy workmen who REQUIRE a master, a commander, as they require their
4383daily bread; while, therefore, the democratising of Europe will tend to
4384the production of a type prepared for SLAVERY in the most subtle
4385sense of the term: the STRONG man will necessarily in individual and
4386exceptional cases, become stronger and richer than he has perhaps ever
4387been before--owing to the unprejudicedness of his schooling, owing to
4388the immense variety of practice, art, and disguise. I meant to say
4389that the democratising of Europe is at the same time an involuntary
4390arrangement for the rearing of TYRANTS--taking the word in all its
4391meanings, even in its most spiritual sense.
4392
4393243. I hear with pleasure that our sun is moving rapidly towards the
4394constellation Hercules: and I hope that the men on this earth will do
4395like the sun. And we foremost, we good Europeans!
4396
4397244. There was a time when it was customary to call Germans "deep"
4398by way of distinction; but now that the most successful type of new
4399Germanism is covetous of quite other honours, and perhaps misses
4400"smartness" in all that has depth, it is almost opportune and patriotic
4401to doubt whether we did not formerly deceive ourselves with that
4402commendation: in short, whether German depth is not at bottom something
4403different and worse--and something from which, thank God, we are on the
4404point of successfully ridding ourselves. Let us try, then, to relearn
4405with regard to German depth; the only thing necessary for the purpose is
4406a little vivisection of the German soul.--The German soul is above all
4407manifold, varied in its source, aggregated and super-imposed, rather
4408than actually built: this is owing to its origin. A German who would
4409embolden himself to assert: "Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast," would
4410make a bad guess at the truth, or, more correctly, he would come far
4411short of the truth about the number of souls. As a people made up of
4412the most extraordinary mixing and mingling of races, perhaps even with a
4413preponderance of the pre-Aryan element as the "people of the centre" in
4414every sense of the term, the Germans are more intangible, more ample,
4415more contradictory, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising,
4416and even more terrifying than other peoples are to themselves:--they
4417escape DEFINITION, and are thereby alone the despair of the French. It
4418IS characteristic of the Germans that the question: "What is German?"
4419never dies out among them. Kotzebue certainly knew his Germans well
4420enough: "We are known," they cried jubilantly to him--but Sand also
4421thought he knew them. Jean Paul knew what he was doing when he declared
4422himself incensed at Fichte's lying but patriotic flatteries and
4423exaggerations,--but it is probable that Goethe thought differently about
4424Germans from Jean Paul, even though he acknowledged him to be right with
4425regard to Fichte. It is a question what Goethe really thought about the
4426Germans?--But about many things around him he never spoke explicitly,
4427and all his life he knew how to keep an astute silence--probably he
4428had good reason for it. It is certain that it was not the "Wars of
4429Independence" that made him look up more joyfully, any more than it was
4430the French Revolution,--the event on account of which he RECONSTRUCTED
4431his "Faust," and indeed the whole problem of "man," was the appearance
4432of Napoleon. There are words of Goethe in which he condemns with
4433impatient severity, as from a foreign land, that which Germans take a
4434pride in, he once defined the famous German turn of mind as "Indulgence
4435towards its own and others' weaknesses." Was he wrong? it is
4436characteristic of Germans that one is seldom entirely wrong about them.
4437The German soul has passages and galleries in it, there are caves,
4438hiding-places, and dungeons therein, its disorder has much of the charm
4439of the mysterious, the German is well acquainted with the bypaths to
4440chaos. And as everything loves its symbol, so the German loves the
4441clouds and all that is obscure, evolving, crepuscular, damp, and
4442shrouded, it seems to him that everything uncertain, undeveloped,
4443self-displacing, and growing is "deep". The German himself does not
4444EXIST, he is BECOMING, he is "developing himself". "Development" is
4445therefore the essentially German discovery and hit in the great domain
4446of philosophical formulas,--a ruling idea, which, together with German
4447beer and German music, is labouring to Germanise all Europe. Foreigners
4448are astonished and attracted by the riddles which the conflicting nature
4449at the basis of the German soul propounds to them (riddles which
4450Hegel systematised and Richard Wagner has in the end set to music).
4451"Good-natured and spiteful"--such a juxtaposition, preposterous in the
4452case of every other people, is unfortunately only too often justified
4453in Germany one has only to live for a while among Swabians to know this!
4454The clumsiness of the German scholar and his social distastefulness
4455agree alarmingly well with his physical rope-dancing and nimble
4456boldness, of which all the Gods have learnt to be afraid. If any one
4457wishes to see the "German soul" demonstrated ad oculos, let him
4458only look at German taste, at German arts and manners what boorish
4459indifference to "taste"! How the noblest and the commonest stand there
4460in juxtaposition! How disorderly and how rich is the whole constitution
4461of this soul! The German DRAGS at his soul, he drags at everything he
4462experiences. He digests his events badly; he never gets "done"
4463with them; and German depth is often only a difficult, hesitating
4464"digestion." And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics like what
4465is convenient, so the German loves "frankness" and "honesty"; it is
4466so CONVENIENT to be frank and honest!--This confidingness, this
4467complaisance, this showing-the-cards of German HONESTY, is probably the
4468most dangerous and most successful disguise which the German is up to
4469nowadays: it is his proper Mephistophelean art; with this he can "still
4470achieve much"! The German lets himself go, and thereby gazes with
4471faithful, blue, empty German eyes--and other countries immediately
4472confound him with his dressing-gown!--I meant to say that, let "German
4473depth" be what it will--among ourselves alone we perhaps take the
4474liberty to laugh at it--we shall do well to continue henceforth to
4475honour its appearance and good name, and not barter away too cheaply our
4476old reputation as a people of depth for Prussian "smartness," and
4477Berlin wit and sand. It is wise for a people to pose, and LET itself
4478be regarded, as profound, clumsy, good-natured, honest, and foolish: it
4479might even be--profound to do so! Finally, we should do honour to
4480our name--we are not called the "TIUSCHE VOLK" (deceptive people) for
4481nothing....
4482
4483245. The "good old" time is past, it sang itself out in Mozart--how
4484happy are WE that his ROCOCO still speaks to us, that his "good
4485company," his tender enthusiasm, his childish delight in the Chinese and
4486its flourishes, his courtesy of heart, his longing for the elegant, the
4487amorous, the tripping, the tearful, and his belief in the South, can
4488still appeal to SOMETHING LEFT in us! Ah, some time or other it will be
4489over with it!--but who can doubt that it will be over still sooner with
4490the intelligence and taste for Beethoven! For he was only the last echo
4491of a break and transition in style, and NOT, like Mozart, the last echo
4492of a great European taste which had existed for centuries. Beethoven
4493is the intermediate event between an old mellow soul that is constantly
4494breaking down, and a future over-young soul that is always COMING;
4495there is spread over his music the twilight of eternal loss and eternal
4496extravagant hope,--the same light in which Europe was bathed when it
4497dreamed with Rousseau, when it danced round the Tree of Liberty of the
4498Revolution, and finally almost fell down in adoration before Napoleon.
4499But how rapidly does THIS very sentiment now pale, how difficult
4500nowadays is even the APPREHENSION of this sentiment, how strangely does
4501the language of Rousseau, Schiller, Shelley, and Byron sound to our ear,
4502in whom COLLECTIVELY the same fate of Europe was able to SPEAK, which
4503knew how to SING in Beethoven!--Whatever German music came afterwards,
4504belongs to Romanticism, that is to say, to a movement which,
4505historically considered, was still shorter, more fleeting, and more
4506superficial than that great interlude, the transition of Europe from
4507Rousseau to Napoleon, and to the rise of democracy. Weber--but what do
4508WE care nowadays for "Freischutz" and "Oberon"! Or Marschner's "Hans
4509Heiling" and "Vampyre"! Or even Wagner's "Tannhauser"! That is extinct,
4510although not yet forgotten music. This whole music of Romanticism,
4511besides, was not noble enough, was not musical enough, to maintain its
4512position anywhere but in the theatre and before the masses; from the
4513beginning it was second-rate music, which was little thought of by
4514genuine musicians. It was different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon
4515master, who, on account of his lighter, purer, happier soul, quickly
4516acquired admiration, and was equally quickly forgotten: as the beautiful
4517EPISODE of German music. But with regard to Robert Schumann, who took
4518things seriously, and has been taken seriously from the first--he
4519was the last that founded a school,--do we not now regard it as a
4520satisfaction, a relief, a deliverance, that this very Romanticism
4521of Schumann's has been surmounted? Schumann, fleeing into the "Saxon
4522Switzerland" of his soul, with a half Werther-like, half Jean-Paul-like
4523nature (assuredly not like Beethoven! assuredly not like Byron!)--his
4524MANFRED music is a mistake and a misunderstanding to the extent of
4525injustice; Schumann, with his taste, which was fundamentally a PETTY
4526taste (that is to say, a dangerous propensity--doubly dangerous among
4527Germans--for quiet lyricism and intoxication of the feelings), going
4528constantly apart, timidly withdrawing and retiring, a noble weakling who
4529revelled in nothing but anonymous joy and sorrow, from the beginning
4530a sort of girl and NOLI ME TANGERE--this Schumann was already merely a
4531GERMAN event in music, and no longer a European event, as Beethoven had
4532been, as in a still greater degree Mozart had been; with Schumann German
4533music was threatened with its greatest danger, that of LOSING THE VOICE
4534FOR THE SOUL OF EUROPE and sinking into a merely national affair.
4535
4536246. What a torture are books written in German to a reader who has a
4537THIRD ear! How indignantly he stands beside the slowly turning swamp
4538of sounds without tune and rhythms without dance, which Germans call
4539a "book"! And even the German who READS books! How lazily, how
4540reluctantly, how badly he reads! How many Germans know, and consider it
4541obligatory to know, that there is ART in every good sentence--art which
4542must be divined, if the sentence is to be understood! If there is a
4543misunderstanding about its TEMPO, for instance, the sentence itself
4544is misunderstood! That one must not be doubtful about the
4545rhythm-determining syllables, that one should feel the breaking of the
4546too-rigid symmetry as intentional and as a charm, that one should lend a
4547fine and patient ear to every STACCATO and every RUBATO, that one should
4548divine the sense in the sequence of the vowels and diphthongs, and how
4549delicately and richly they can be tinted and retinted in the order of
4550their arrangement--who among book-reading Germans is complaisant enough
4551to recognize such duties and requirements, and to listen to so much art
4552and intention in language? After all, one just "has no ear for it";
4553and so the most marked contrasts of style are not heard, and the most
4554delicate artistry is as it were SQUANDERED on the deaf.--These were my
4555thoughts when I noticed how clumsily and unintuitively two masters in
4556the art of prose-writing have been confounded: one, whose words drop
4557down hesitatingly and coldly, as from the roof of a damp cave--he counts
4558on their dull sound and echo; and another who manipulates his language
4559like a flexible sword, and from his arm down into his toes feels the
4560dangerous bliss of the quivering, over-sharp blade, which wishes to
4561bite, hiss, and cut.
4562
4563247. How little the German style has to do with harmony and with the
4564ear, is shown by the fact that precisely our good musicians themselves
4565write badly. The German does not read aloud, he does not read for the
4566ear, but only with his eyes; he has put his ears away in the drawer for
4567the time. In antiquity when a man read--which was seldom enough--he read
4568something to himself, and in a loud voice; they were surprised when
4569any one read silently, and sought secretly the reason of it. In a
4570loud voice: that is to say, with all the swellings, inflections, and
4571variations of key and changes of TEMPO, in which the ancient PUBLIC
4572world took delight. The laws of the written style were then the same
4573as those of the spoken style; and these laws depended partly on the
4574surprising development and refined requirements of the ear and larynx;
4575partly on the strength, endurance, and power of the ancient lungs. In
4576the ancient sense, a period is above all a physiological whole, inasmuch
4577as it is comprised in one breath. Such periods as occur in Demosthenes
4578and Cicero, swelling twice and sinking twice, and all in one breath,
4579were pleasures to the men of ANTIQUITY, who knew by their own schooling
4580how to appreciate the virtue therein, the rareness and the difficulty
4581in the deliverance of such a period;--WE have really no right to the
4582BIG period, we modern men, who are short of breath in every sense! Those
4583ancients, indeed, were all of them dilettanti in speaking, consequently
4584connoisseurs, consequently critics--they thus brought their orators to
4585the highest pitch; in the same manner as in the last century, when all
4586Italian ladies and gentlemen knew how to sing, the virtuosoship of song
4587(and with it also the art of melody) reached its elevation. In Germany,
4588however (until quite recently when a kind of platform eloquence began
4589shyly and awkwardly enough to flutter its young wings), there was
4590properly speaking only one kind of public and APPROXIMATELY artistical
4591discourse--that delivered from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one
4592in Germany who knew the weight of a syllable or a word, in what manner a
4593sentence strikes, springs, rushes, flows, and comes to a close; he alone
4594had a conscience in his ears, often enough a bad conscience: for reasons
4595are not lacking why proficiency in oratory should be especially seldom
4596attained by a German, or almost always too late. The masterpiece of
4597German prose is therefore with good reason the masterpiece of its
4598greatest preacher: the BIBLE has hitherto been the best German
4599book. Compared with Luther's Bible, almost everything else is merely
4600"literature"--something which has not grown in Germany, and therefore
4601has not taken and does not take root in German hearts, as the Bible has
4602done.
4603
4604248. There are two kinds of geniuses: one which above all engenders and
4605seeks to engender, and another which willingly lets itself be fructified
4606and brings forth. And similarly, among the gifted nations, there are
4607those on whom the woman's problem of pregnancy has devolved, and the
4608secret task of forming, maturing, and perfecting--the Greeks, for
4609instance, were a nation of this kind, and so are the French; and others
4610which have to fructify and become the cause of new modes of life--like
4611the Jews, the Romans, and, in all modesty be it asked: like the
4612Germans?--nations tortured and enraptured by unknown fevers and
4613irresistibly forced out of themselves, amorous and longing for
4614foreign races (for such as "let themselves be fructified"), and withal
4615imperious, like everything conscious of being full of generative force,
4616and consequently empowered "by the grace of God." These two kinds of
4617geniuses seek each other like man and woman; but they also misunderstand
4618each other--like man and woman.
4619
4620249. Every nation has its own "Tartuffery," and calls that its
4621virtue.--One does not know--cannot know, the best that is in one.
4622
4623250. What Europe owes to the Jews?--Many things, good and bad, and above
4624all one thing of the nature both of the best and the worst: the grand
4625style in morality, the fearfulness and majesty of infinite demands, of
4626infinite significations, the whole Romanticism and sublimity of moral
4627questionableness--and consequently just the most attractive, ensnaring,
4628and exquisite element in those iridescences and allurements to life,
4629in the aftersheen of which the sky of our European culture, its evening
4630sky, now glows--perhaps glows out. For this, we artists among the
4631spectators and philosophers, are--grateful to the Jews.
4632
4633251. It must be taken into the bargain, if various clouds and
4634disturbances--in short, slight attacks of stupidity--pass over the
4635spirit of a people that suffers and WANTS to suffer from national
4636nervous fever and political ambition: for instance, among present-day
4637Germans there is alternately the anti-French folly, the anti-Semitic
4638folly, the anti-Polish folly, the Christian-romantic folly, the
4639Wagnerian folly, the Teutonic folly, the Prussian folly (just look at
4640those poor historians, the Sybels and Treitschkes, and their closely
4641bandaged heads), and whatever else these little obscurations of the
4642German spirit and conscience may be called. May it be forgiven me that
4643I, too, when on a short daring sojourn on very infected ground, did not
4644remain wholly exempt from the disease, but like every one else, began
4645to entertain thoughts about matters which did not concern me--the first
4646symptom of political infection. About the Jews, for instance, listen
4647to the following:--I have never yet met a German who was favourably
4648inclined to the Jews; and however decided the repudiation of actual
4649anti-Semitism may be on the part of all prudent and political men, this
4650prudence and policy is not perhaps directed against the nature of the
4651sentiment itself, but only against its dangerous excess, and especially
4652against the distasteful and infamous expression of this excess of
4653sentiment;--on this point we must not deceive ourselves. That Germany
4654has amply SUFFICIENT Jews, that the German stomach, the German blood,
4655has difficulty (and will long have difficulty) in disposing only of this
4656quantity of "Jew"--as the Italian, the Frenchman, and the Englishman
4657have done by means of a stronger digestion:--that is the unmistakable
4658declaration and language of a general instinct, to which one must listen
4659and according to which one must act. "Let no more Jews come in! And shut
4660the doors, especially towards the East (also towards Austria)!"--thus
4661commands the instinct of a people whose nature is still feeble and
4662uncertain, so that it could be easily wiped out, easily extinguished, by
4663a stronger race. The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest,
4664toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how
4665to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under
4666favourable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like
4667nowadays to label as vices--owing above all to a resolute faith which
4668does not need to be ashamed before "modern ideas", they alter only,
4669WHEN they do alter, in the same way that the Russian Empire makes
4670its conquest--as an empire that has plenty of time and is not of
4671yesterday--namely, according to the principle, "as slowly as possible"!
4672A thinker who has the future of Europe at heart, will, in all his
4673perspectives concerning the future, calculate upon the Jews, as he
4674will calculate upon the Russians, as above all the surest and likeliest
4675factors in the great play and battle of forces. That which is at present
4676called a "nation" in Europe, and is really rather a RES FACTA than NATA
4677(indeed, sometimes confusingly similar to a RES FICTA ET PICTA), is in
4678every case something evolving, young, easily displaced, and not yet
4679a race, much less such a race AERE PERENNUS, as the Jews are such
4680"nations" should most carefully avoid all hot-headed rivalry and
4681hostility! It is certain that the Jews, if they desired--or if they
4682were driven to it, as the anti-Semites seem to wish--COULD now have the
4683ascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe, that they are NOT
4684working and planning for that end is equally certain. Meanwhile, they
4685rather wish and desire, even somewhat importunely, to be insorbed and
4686absorbed by Europe, they long to be finally settled, authorized, and
4687respected somewhere, and wish to put an end to the nomadic life, to the
4688"wandering Jew",--and one should certainly take account of this impulse
4689and tendency, and MAKE ADVANCES to it (it possibly betokens a mitigation
4690of the Jewish instincts) for which purpose it would perhaps be useful
4691and fair to banish the anti-Semitic bawlers out of the country. One
4692should make advances with all prudence, and with selection, pretty much
4693as the English nobility do It stands to reason that the more powerful
4694and strongly marked types of new Germanism could enter into relation
4695with the Jews with the least hesitation, for instance, the nobleman
4696officer from the Prussian border it would be interesting in many ways
4697to see whether the genius for money and patience (and especially some
4698intellect and intellectuality--sadly lacking in the place referred to)
4699could not in addition be annexed and trained to the hereditary art of
4700commanding and obeying--for both of which the country in question has
4701now a classic reputation But here it is expedient to break off my festal
4702discourse and my sprightly Teutonomania for I have already reached my
4703SERIOUS TOPIC, the "European problem," as I understand it, the rearing
4704of a new ruling caste for Europe.
4705
4706252. They are not a philosophical race--the English: Bacon represents an
4707ATTACK on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke,
4708an abasement, and a depreciation of the idea of a "philosopher" for more
4709than a century. It was AGAINST Hume that Kant uprose and raised himself;
4710it was Locke of whom Schelling RIGHTLY said, "JE MEPRISE LOCKE"; in the
4711struggle against the English mechanical stultification of the world,
4712Hegel and Schopenhauer (along with Goethe) were of one accord; the
4713two hostile brother-geniuses in philosophy, who pushed in different
4714directions towards the opposite poles of German thought, and thereby
4715wronged each other as only brothers will do.--What is lacking in
4716England, and has always been lacking, that half-actor and rhetorician
4717knew well enough, the absurd muddle-head, Carlyle, who sought to conceal
4718under passionate grimaces what he knew about himself: namely, what was
4719LACKING in Carlyle--real POWER of intellect, real DEPTH of intellectual
4720perception, in short, philosophy. It is characteristic of such an
4721unphilosophical race to hold on firmly to Christianity--they NEED its
4722discipline for "moralizing" and humanizing. The Englishman, more gloomy,
4723sensual, headstrong, and brutal than the German--is for that very
4724reason, as the baser of the two, also the most pious: he has all the
4725MORE NEED of Christianity. To finer nostrils, this English Christianity
4726itself has still a characteristic English taint of spleen and alcoholic
4727excess, for which, owing to good reasons, it is used as an antidote--the
4728finer poison to neutralize the coarser: a finer form of poisoning is
4729in fact a step in advance with coarse-mannered people, a step towards
4730spiritualization. The English coarseness and rustic demureness is still
4731most satisfactorily disguised by Christian pantomime, and by praying
4732and psalm-singing (or, more correctly, it is thereby explained and
4733differently expressed); and for the herd of drunkards and rakes who
4734formerly learned moral grunting under the influence of Methodism (and
4735more recently as the "Salvation Army"), a penitential fit may really be
4736the relatively highest manifestation of "humanity" to which they can
4737be elevated: so much may reasonably be admitted. That, however, which
4738offends even in the humanest Englishman is his lack of music, to speak
4739figuratively (and also literally): he has neither rhythm nor dance in
4740the movements of his soul and body; indeed, not even the desire for
4741rhythm and dance, for "music." Listen to him speaking; look at the most
4742beautiful Englishwoman WALKING--in no country on earth are there more
4743beautiful doves and swans; finally, listen to them singing! But I ask
4744too much...
4745
4746253. There are truths which are best recognized by mediocre minds,
4747because they are best adapted for them, there are truths which only
4748possess charms and seductive power for mediocre spirits:--one is pushed
4749to this probably unpleasant conclusion, now that the influence of
4750respectable but mediocre Englishmen--I may mention Darwin, John
4751Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer--begins to gain the ascendancy in the
4752middle-class region of European taste. Indeed, who could doubt that it
4753is a useful thing for SUCH minds to have the ascendancy for a time? It
4754would be an error to consider the highly developed and independently
4755soaring minds as specially qualified for determining and collecting many
4756little common facts, and deducing conclusions from them; as exceptions,
4757they are rather from the first in no very favourable position towards
4758those who are "the rules." After all, they have more to do than merely
4759to perceive:--in effect, they have to BE something new, they have to
4760SIGNIFY something new, they have to REPRESENT new values! The gulf
4761between knowledge and capacity is perhaps greater, and also more
4762mysterious, than one thinks: the capable man in the grand style, the
4763creator, will possibly have to be an ignorant person;--while on the
4764other hand, for scientific discoveries like those of Darwin, a certain
4765narrowness, aridity, and industrious carefulness (in short, something
4766English) may not be unfavourable for arriving at them.--Finally, let
4767it not be forgotten that the English, with their profound mediocrity,
4768brought about once before a general depression of European intelligence.
4769
4770What is called "modern ideas," or "the ideas of the eighteenth century,"
4771or "French ideas"--that, consequently, against which the GERMAN mind
4772rose up with profound disgust--is of English origin, there is no doubt
4773about it. The French were only the apes and actors of these ideas, their
4774best soldiers, and likewise, alas! their first and profoundest VICTIMS;
4775for owing to the diabolical Anglomania of "modern ideas," the AME
4776FRANCAIS has in the end become so thin and emaciated, that at present
4777one recalls its sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its profound,
4778passionate strength, its inventive excellency, almost with disbelief.
4779One must, however, maintain this verdict of historical justice in
4780a determined manner, and defend it against present prejudices and
4781appearances: the European NOBLESSE--of sentiment, taste, and manners,
4782taking the word in every high sense--is the work and invention of
4783FRANCE; the European ignobleness, the plebeianism of modern ideas--is
4784ENGLAND'S work and invention.
4785
4786254. Even at present France is still the seat of the most intellectual
4787and refined culture of Europe, it is still the high school of taste; but
4788one must know how to find this "France of taste." He who belongs to it
4789keeps himself well concealed:--they may be a small number in whom it
4790lives and is embodied, besides perhaps being men who do not stand upon
4791the strongest legs, in part fatalists, hypochondriacs, invalids, in
4792part persons over-indulged, over-refined, such as have the AMBITION to
4793conceal themselves.
4794
4795They have all something in common: they keep their ears closed in
4796presence of the delirious folly and noisy spouting of the democratic
4797BOURGEOIS. In fact, a besotted and brutalized France at present sprawls
4798in the foreground--it recently celebrated a veritable orgy of bad taste,
4799and at the same time of self-admiration, at the funeral of Victor Hugo.
4800There is also something else common to them: a predilection to resist
4801intellectual Germanizing--and a still greater inability to do so!
4802In this France of intellect, which is also a France of pessimism,
4803Schopenhauer has perhaps become more at home, and more indigenous than
4804he has ever been in Germany; not to speak of Heinrich Heine, who has
4805long ago been re-incarnated in the more refined and fastidious lyrists
4806of Paris; or of Hegel, who at present, in the form of Taine--the FIRST
4807of living historians--exercises an almost tyrannical influence. As
4808regards Richard Wagner, however, the more French music learns to
4809adapt itself to the actual needs of the AME MODERNE, the more will it
4810"Wagnerite"; one can safely predict that beforehand,--it is already
4811taking place sufficiently! There are, however, three things which the
4812French can still boast of with pride as their heritage and possession,
4813and as indelible tokens of their ancient intellectual superiority
4814in Europe, in spite of all voluntary or involuntary Germanizing and
4815vulgarizing of taste. FIRSTLY, the capacity for artistic emotion, for
4816devotion to "form," for which the expression, L'ART POUR L'ART, along
4817with numerous others, has been invented:--such capacity has not been
4818lacking in France for three centuries; and owing to its reverence for
4819the "small number," it has again and again made a sort of chamber
4820music of literature possible, which is sought for in vain elsewhere
4821in Europe.--The SECOND thing whereby the French can lay claim to
4822a superiority over Europe is their ancient, many-sided, MORALISTIC
4823culture, owing to which one finds on an average, even in the petty
4824ROMANCIERS of the newspapers and chance BOULEVARDIERS DE PARIS, a
4825psychological sensitiveness and curiosity, of which, for example, one
4826has no conception (to say nothing of the thing itself!) in Germany.
4827The Germans lack a couple of centuries of the moralistic work requisite
4828thereto, which, as we have said, France has not grudged: those who call
4829the Germans "naive" on that account give them commendation for a defect.
4830(As the opposite of the German inexperience and innocence IN VOLUPTATE
4831PSYCHOLOGICA, which is not too remotely associated with the tediousness
4832of German intercourse,--and as the most successful expression of
4833genuine French curiosity and inventive talent in this domain of delicate
4834thrills, Henri Beyle may be noted; that remarkable anticipatory and
4835forerunning man, who, with a Napoleonic TEMPO, traversed HIS Europe,
4836in fact, several centuries of the European soul, as a surveyor and
4837discoverer thereof:--it has required two generations to OVERTAKE him
4838one way or other, to divine long afterwards some of the riddles
4839that perplexed and enraptured him--this strange Epicurean and man of
4840interrogation, the last great psychologist of France).--There is yet
4841a THIRD claim to superiority: in the French character there is a
4842successful half-way synthesis of the North and South, which makes them
4843comprehend many things, and enjoins upon them other things, which an
4844Englishman can never comprehend. Their temperament, turned alternately
4845to and from the South, in which from time to time the Provencal and
4846Ligurian blood froths over, preserves them from the dreadful, northern
4847grey-in-grey, from sunless conceptual-spectrism and from poverty of
4848blood--our GERMAN infirmity of taste, for the excessive prevalence
4849of which at the present moment, blood and iron, that is to say "high
4850politics," has with great resolution been prescribed (according to
4851a dangerous healing art, which bids me wait and wait, but not yet
4852hope).--There is also still in France a pre-understanding and
4853ready welcome for those rarer and rarely gratified men, who are too
4854comprehensive to find satisfaction in any kind of fatherlandism, and
4855know how to love the South when in the North and the North when in the
4856South--the born Midlanders, the "good Europeans." For them BIZET
4857has made music, this latest genius, who has seen a new beauty and
4858seduction,--who has discovered a piece of the SOUTH IN MUSIC.
4859
4860255. I hold that many precautions should be taken against German music.
4861Suppose a person loves the South as I love it--as a great school
4862of recovery for the most spiritual and the most sensuous ills, as a
4863boundless solar profusion and effulgence which o'erspreads a sovereign
4864existence believing in itself--well, such a person will learn to be
4865somewhat on his guard against German music, because, in injuring his
4866taste anew, it will also injure his health anew. Such a Southerner, a
4867Southerner not by origin but by BELIEF, if he should dream of the future
4868of music, must also dream of it being freed from the influence of the
4869North; and must have in his ears the prelude to a deeper, mightier, and
4870perhaps more perverse and mysterious music, a super-German music, which
4871does not fade, pale, and die away, as all German music does, at the
4872sight of the blue, wanton sea and the Mediterranean clearness of sky--a
4873super-European music, which holds its own even in presence of the brown
4874sunsets of the desert, whose soul is akin to the palm-tree, and can be
4875at home and can roam with big, beautiful, lonely beasts of prey... I
4876could imagine a music of which the rarest charm would be that it knew
4877nothing more of good and evil; only that here and there perhaps some
4878sailor's home-sickness, some golden shadows and tender weaknesses might
4879sweep lightly over it; an art which, from the far distance, would see
4880the colours of a sinking and almost incomprehensible MORAL world fleeing
4881towards it, and would be hospitable enough and profound enough to
4882receive such belated fugitives.
4883
4884256. Owing to the morbid estrangement which the nationality-craze has
4885induced and still induces among the nations of Europe, owing also to the
4886short-sighted and hasty-handed politicians, who with the help of this
4887craze, are at present in power, and do not suspect to what extent the
4888disintegrating policy they pursue must necessarily be only an interlude
4889policy--owing to all this and much else that is altogether unmentionable
4890at present, the most unmistakable signs that EUROPE WISHES TO BE ONE,
4891are now overlooked, or arbitrarily and falsely misinterpreted. With all
4892the more profound and large-minded men of this century, the real general
4893tendency of the mysterious labour of their souls was to prepare the way
4894for that new SYNTHESIS, and tentatively to anticipate the European of
4895the future; only in their simulations, or in their weaker moments, in
4896old age perhaps, did they belong to the "fatherlands"--they only rested
4897from themselves when they became "patriots." I think of such men as
4898Napoleon, Goethe, Beethoven, Stendhal, Heinrich Heine, Schopenhauer: it
4899must not be taken amiss if I also count Richard Wagner among them, about
4900whom one must not let oneself be deceived by his own misunderstandings
4901(geniuses like him have seldom the right to understand themselves),
4902still less, of course, by the unseemly noise with which he is now
4903resisted and opposed in France: the fact remains, nevertheless, that
4904Richard Wagner and the LATER FRENCH ROMANTICISM of the forties, are
4905most closely and intimately related to one another. They are akin,
4906fundamentally akin, in all the heights and depths of their requirements;
4907it is Europe, the ONE Europe, whose soul presses urgently and longingly,
4908outwards and upwards, in their multifarious and boisterous art--whither?
4909into a new light? towards a new sun? But who would attempt to express
4910accurately what all these masters of new modes of speech could not
4911express distinctly? It is certain that the same storm and stress
4912tormented them, that they SOUGHT in the same manner, these last great
4913seekers! All of them steeped in literature to their eyes and ears--the
4914first artists of universal literary culture--for the most part even
4915themselves writers, poets, intermediaries and blenders of the arts and
4916the senses (Wagner, as musician is reckoned among painters, as poet
4917among musicians, as artist generally among actors); all of them fanatics
4918for EXPRESSION "at any cost"--I specially mention Delacroix, the nearest
4919related to Wagner; all of them great discoverers in the realm of the
4920sublime, also of the loathsome and dreadful, still greater discoverers
4921in effect, in display, in the art of the show-shop; all of them talented
4922far beyond their genius, out and out VIRTUOSI, with mysterious accesses
4923to all that seduces, allures, constrains, and upsets; born enemies of
4924logic and of the straight line, hankering after the strange, the
4925exotic, the monstrous, the crooked, and the self-contradictory; as men,
4926Tantaluses of the will, plebeian parvenus, who knew themselves to be
4927incapable of a noble TEMPO or of a LENTO in life and action--think
4928of Balzac, for instance,--unrestrained workers, almost destroying
4929themselves by work; antinomians and rebels in manners, ambitious and
4930insatiable, without equilibrium and enjoyment; all of them finally
4931shattering and sinking down at the Christian cross (and with right
4932and reason, for who of them would have been sufficiently profound and
4933sufficiently original for an ANTI-CHRISTIAN philosophy?);--on the
4934whole, a boldly daring, splendidly overbearing, high-flying, and
4935aloft-up-dragging class of higher men, who had first to teach their
4936century--and it is the century of the MASSES--the conception "higher
4937man."... Let the German friends of Richard Wagner advise together as to
4938whether there is anything purely German in the Wagnerian art, or whether
4939its distinction does not consist precisely in coming from SUPER-GERMAN
4940sources and impulses: in which connection it may not be underrated
4941how indispensable Paris was to the development of his type, which the
4942strength of his instincts made him long to visit at the most
4943decisive time--and how the whole style of his proceedings, of his
4944self-apostolate, could only perfect itself in sight of the French
4945socialistic original. On a more subtle comparison it will perhaps be
4946found, to the honour of Richard Wagner's German nature, that he has
4947acted in everything with more strength, daring, severity, and elevation
4948than a nineteenth-century Frenchman could have done--owing to the
4949circumstance that we Germans are as yet nearer to barbarism than the
4950French;--perhaps even the most remarkable creation of Richard Wagner is
4951not only at present, but for ever inaccessible, incomprehensible, and
4952inimitable to the whole latter-day Latin race: the figure of Siegfried,
4953that VERY FREE man, who is probably far too free, too hard, too
4954cheerful, too healthy, too ANTI-CATHOLIC for the taste of old and mellow
4955civilized nations. He may even have been a sin against Romanticism, this
4956anti-Latin Siegfried: well, Wagner atoned amply for this sin in his old
4957sad days, when--anticipating a taste which has meanwhile passed into
4958politics--he began, with the religious vehemence peculiar to him, to
4959preach, at least, THE WAY TO ROME, if not to walk therein.--That
4960these last words may not be misunderstood, I will call to my aid a few
4961powerful rhymes, which will even betray to less delicate ears what I
4962mean--what I mean COUNTER TO the "last Wagner" and his Parsifal music:--
4963
4964--Is this our mode?--From German heart came this vexed ululating? From
4965German body, this self-lacerating? Is ours this priestly hand-dilation,
4966This incense-fuming exaltation? Is ours this faltering, falling,
4967shambling, This quite uncertain ding-dong-dangling? This sly
4968nun-ogling, Ave-hour-bell ringing, This wholly false enraptured
4969heaven-o'erspringing?--Is this our mode?--Think well!--ye still wait for
4970admission--For what ye hear is ROME--ROME'S FAITH BY INTUITION!
4971
4972
4973
4974CHAPTER IX. WHAT IS NOBLE?
4975
4976
4977257. EVERY elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an
4978aristocratic society and so it will always be--a society believing in
4979a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human
4980beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the PATHOS
4981OF DISTANCE, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes,
4982out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on
4983subordinates and instruments, and out of their equally constant
4984practice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a
4985distance--that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the
4986longing for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself,
4987the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more
4988comprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type "man,"
4989the continued "self-surmounting of man," to use a moral formula in
4990a supermoral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to
4991any humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an
4992aristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for
4993the elevation of the type "man"): the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge
4994unprejudicedly how every higher civilization hitherto has ORIGINATED!
4995Men with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of
4996the word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of will
4997and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more
4998peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon
4999old mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickering
5000out in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement,
5001the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their superiority did
5002not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical
5003power--they were more COMPLETE men (which at every point also implies
5004the same as "more complete beasts").
5005
5006258. Corruption--as the indication that anarchy threatens to break out
5007among the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions, called
5008"life," is convulsed--is something radically different according to
5009the organization in which it manifests itself. When, for instance, an
5010aristocracy like that of France at the beginning of the Revolution,
5011flung away its privileges with sublime disgust and sacrificed itself
5012to an excess of its moral sentiments, it was corruption:--it was really
5013only the closing act of the corruption which had existed for centuries,
5014by virtue of which that aristocracy had abdicated step by step its
5015lordly prerogatives and lowered itself to a FUNCTION of royalty (in
5016the end even to its decoration and parade-dress). The essential thing,
5017however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard
5018itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but
5019as the SIGNIFICANCE and highest justification thereof--that it should
5020therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion
5021of individuals, who, FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to
5022imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must
5023be precisely that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but
5024only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class
5025of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and
5026in general to a higher EXISTENCE: like those sun-seeking climbing plants
5027in Java--they are called Sipo Matador,--which encircle an oak so
5028long and so often with their arms, until at last, high above it, but
5029supported by it, they can unfold their tops in the open light, and
5030exhibit their happiness.
5031
5032259. To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation,
5033and put one's will on a par with that of others: this may result in a
5034certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary
5035conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals
5036in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one
5037organization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle
5038more generally, and if possible even as the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF
5039SOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really is--namely, a Will
5040to the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one
5041must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental
5042weakness: life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest
5043of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of
5044peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest,
5045exploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these words
5046on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? Even the
5047organization within which, as was previously supposed, the
5048individuals treat each other as equal--it takes place in every
5049healthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not a dying
5050organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals
5051within it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the
5052incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground,
5053attract to itself and acquire ascendancy--not owing to any morality or
5054immorality, but because it LIVES, and because life IS precisely Will to
5055Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans
5056more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave
5057everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of
5058society in which "the exploiting character" is to be absent--that sounds
5059to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should
5060refrain from all organic functions. "Exploitation" does not belong to a
5061depraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to the nature of
5062the living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence
5063of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to
5064Life--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is
5065the FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history let us be so far honest towards
5066ourselves!
5067
5068260. In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have
5069hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits
5070recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until
5071finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical
5072distinction was brought to light. There is MASTER-MORALITY and
5073SLAVE-MORALITY,--I would at once add, however, that in all higher and
5074mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of
5075the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and
5076mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close
5077juxtaposition--even in the same man, within one soul. The distinctions
5078of moral values have either originated in a ruling caste, pleasantly
5079conscious of being different from the ruled--or among the ruled class,
5080the slaves and dependents of all sorts. In the first case, when it is
5081the rulers who determine the conception "good," it is the exalted, proud
5082disposition which is regarded as the distinguishing feature, and that
5083which determines the order of rank. The noble type of man separates
5084from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud
5085disposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be noted
5086that in this first kind of morality the antithesis "good" and "bad"
5087means practically the same as "noble" and "despicable",--the antithesis
5088"good" and "EVIL" is of a different origin. The cowardly, the timid, the
5089insignificant, and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised;
5090moreover, also, the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the
5091self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused,
5092the mendicant flatterers, and above all the liars:--it is a fundamental
5093belief of all aristocrats that the common people are untruthful. "We
5094truthful ones"--the nobility in ancient Greece called themselves. It is
5095obvious that everywhere the designations of moral value were at first
5096applied to MEN; and were only derivatively and at a later period applied
5097to ACTIONS; it is a gross mistake, therefore, when historians of morals
5098start with questions like, "Why have sympathetic actions been praised?"
5099The noble type of man regards HIMSELF as a determiner of values; he
5100does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: "What is
5101injurious to me is injurious in itself;" he knows that it is he himself
5102only who confers honour on things; he is a CREATOR OF VALUES. He
5103honours whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality equals
5104self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude,
5105of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the
5106consciousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow:--the noble
5107man also helps the unfortunate, but not--or scarcely--out of pity, but
5108rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power. The
5109noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power
5110over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who
5111takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has
5112reverence for all that is severe and hard. "Wotan placed a hard heart in
5113my breast," says an old Scandinavian Saga: it is thus rightly expressed
5114from the soul of a proud Viking. Such a type of man is even proud of not
5115being made for sympathy; the hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly:
5116"He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one." The noble
5117and brave who think thus are the furthest removed from the morality
5118which sees precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others,
5119or in DESINTERESSEMENT, the characteristic of the moral; faith
5120in oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards
5121"selflessness," belong as definitely to noble morality, as do a careless
5122scorn and precaution in presence of sympathy and the "warm heart."--It
5123is the powerful who KNOW how to honour, it is their art, their domain
5124for invention. The profound reverence for age and for tradition--all law
5125rests on this double reverence,--the belief and prejudice in favour of
5126ancestors and unfavourable to newcomers, is typical in the morality of
5127the powerful; and if, reversely, men of "modern ideas" believe almost
5128instinctively in "progress" and the "future," and are more and more
5129lacking in respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these "ideas" has
5130complacently betrayed itself thereby. A morality of the ruling class,
5131however, is more especially foreign and irritating to present-day taste
5132in the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one's
5133equals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all
5134that is foreign, just as seems good to one, or "as the heart desires,"
5135and in any case "beyond good and evil": it is here that sympathy and
5136similar sentiments can have a place. The ability and obligation to
5137exercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge--both only within the
5138circle of equals,--artfulness in retaliation, RAFFINEMENT of the idea
5139in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the
5140emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance--in fact, in order to be
5141a good FRIEND): all these are typical characteristics of the noble
5142morality, which, as has been pointed out, is not the morality of "modern
5143ideas," and is therefore at present difficult to realize, and also to
5144unearth and disclose.--It is otherwise with the second type of morality,
5145SLAVE-MORALITY. Supposing that the abused, the oppressed, the suffering,
5146the unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves should
5147moralize, what will be the common element in their moral estimates?
5148Probably a pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of
5149man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together with
5150his situation. The slave has an unfavourable eye for the virtues of the
5151powerful; he has a skepticism and distrust, a REFINEMENT of distrust of
5152everything "good" that is there honoured--he would fain persuade himself
5153that the very happiness there is not genuine. On the other hand, THOSE
5154qualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are
5155brought into prominence and flooded with light; it is here that
5156sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence,
5157humility, and friendliness attain to honour; for here these are the most
5158useful qualities, and almost the only means of supporting the burden of
5159existence. Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility.
5160Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and
5161"evil":--power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil,
5162a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of
5163being despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the "evil" man
5164arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the "good"
5165man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is
5166regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when,
5167in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade
5168of depreciation--it may be slight and well-intentioned--at last attaches
5169itself to the "good" man of this morality; because, according to the
5170servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the SAFE
5171man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un
5172bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendancy, language
5173shows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words "good"
5174and "stupid."--A last fundamental difference: the desire for FREEDOM,
5175the instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty
5176belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as artifice and
5177enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an
5178aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.--Hence we can understand
5179without further detail why love AS A PASSION--it is our European
5180specialty--must absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its
5181invention is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant,
5182ingenious men of the "gai saber," to whom Europe owes so much, and
5183almost owes itself.
5184
5185261. Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult for
5186a noble man to understand: he will be tempted to deny it, where another
5187kind of man thinks he sees it self-evidently. The problem for him is
5188to represent to his mind beings who seek to arouse a good opinion of
5189themselves which they themselves do not possess--and consequently also
5190do not "deserve,"--and who yet BELIEVE in this good opinion
5191afterwards. This seems to him on the one hand such bad taste and so
5192self-disrespectful, and on the other hand so grotesquely unreasonable,
5193that he would like to consider vanity an exception, and is doubtful
5194about it in most cases when it is spoken of. He will say, for
5195instance: "I may be mistaken about my value, and on the other hand
5196may nevertheless demand that my value should be acknowledged by others
5197precisely as I rate it:--that, however, is not vanity (but self-conceit,
5198or, in most cases, that which is called 'humility,' and also
5199'modesty')." Or he will even say: "For many reasons I can delight in
5200the good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honour them,
5201and rejoice in all their joys, perhaps also because their good opinion
5202endorses and strengthens my belief in my own good opinion, perhaps
5203because the good opinion of others, even in cases where I do not share
5204it, is useful to me, or gives promise of usefulness:--all this, however,
5205is not vanity." The man of noble character must first bring it home
5206forcibly to his mind, especially with the aid of history, that, from
5207time immemorial, in all social strata in any way dependent, the ordinary
5208man WAS only that which he PASSED FOR:--not being at all accustomed to
5209fix values, he did not assign even to himself any other value than that
5210which his master assigned to him (it is the peculiar RIGHT OF MASTERS to
5211create values). It may be looked upon as the result of an extraordinary
5212atavism, that the ordinary man, even at present, is still always WAITING
5213for an opinion about himself, and then instinctively submitting himself
5214to it; yet by no means only to a "good" opinion, but also to a bad
5215and unjust one (think, for instance, of the greater part of the
5216self-appreciations and self-depreciations which believing women learn
5217from their confessors, and which in general the believing Christian
5218learns from his Church). In fact, conformably to the slow rise of the
5219democratic social order (and its cause, the blending of the blood
5220of masters and slaves), the originally noble and rare impulse of
5221the masters to assign a value to themselves and to "think well" of
5222themselves, will now be more and more encouraged and extended; but
5223it has at all times an older, ampler, and more radically ingrained
5224propensity opposed to it--and in the phenomenon of "vanity" this older
5225propensity overmasters the younger. The vain person rejoices over EVERY
5226good opinion which he hears about himself (quite apart from the point
5227of view of its usefulness, and equally regardless of its truth or
5228falsehood), just as he suffers from every bad opinion: for he subjects
5229himself to both, he feels himself subjected to both, by that oldest
5230instinct of subjection which breaks forth in him.--It is "the slave"
5231in the vain man's blood, the remains of the slave's craftiness--and how
5232much of the "slave" is still left in woman, for instance!--which
5233seeks to SEDUCE to good opinions of itself; it is the slave, too, who
5234immediately afterwards falls prostrate himself before these opinions, as
5235though he had not called them forth.--And to repeat it again: vanity is
5236an atavism.
5237
5238262. A SPECIES originates, and a type becomes established and strong in
5239the long struggle with essentially constant UNFAVOURABLE conditions. On
5240the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that species
5241which receive super-abundant nourishment, and in general a surplus of
5242protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way to develop
5243variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in
5244monstrous vices). Now look at an aristocratic commonwealth, say
5245an ancient Greek polis, or Venice, as a voluntary or involuntary
5246contrivance for the purpose of REARING human beings; there are there men
5247beside one another, thrown upon their own resources, who want to make
5248their species prevail, chiefly because they MUST prevail, or else
5249run the terrible danger of being exterminated. The favour, the
5250super-abundance, the protection are there lacking under which variations
5251are fostered; the species needs itself as species, as something which,
5252precisely by virtue of its hardness, its uniformity, and simplicity of
5253structure, can in general prevail and make itself permanent in
5254constant struggle with its neighbours, or with rebellious or
5255rebellion-threatening vassals. The most varied experience teaches it
5256what are the qualities to which it principally owes the fact that
5257it still exists, in spite of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been
5258victorious: these qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone
5259it develops to maturity. It does so with severity, indeed it desires
5260severity; every aristocratic morality is intolerant in the education
5261of youth, in the control of women, in the marriage customs, in the
5262relations of old and young, in the penal laws (which have an eye only
5263for the degenerating): it counts intolerance itself among the virtues,
5264under the name of "justice." A type with few, but very marked features,
5265a species of severe, warlike, wisely silent, reserved, and reticent
5266men (and as such, with the most delicate sensibility for the charm and
5267nuances of society) is thus established, unaffected by the vicissitudes
5268of generations; the constant struggle with uniform UNFAVOURABLE
5269conditions is, as already remarked, the cause of a type becoming
5270stable and hard. Finally, however, a happy state of things results, the
5271enormous tension is relaxed; there are perhaps no more enemies among the
5272neighbouring peoples, and the means of life, even of the enjoyment
5273of life, are present in superabundance. With one stroke the bond and
5274constraint of the old discipline severs: it is no longer regarded as
5275necessary, as a condition of existence--if it would continue, it can
5276only do so as a form of LUXURY, as an archaizing TASTE. Variations,
5277whether they be deviations (into the higher, finer, and rarer), or
5278deteriorations and monstrosities, appear suddenly on the scene in the
5279greatest exuberance and splendour; the individual dares to be individual
5280and detach himself. At this turning-point of history there manifest
5281themselves, side by side, and often mixed and entangled together, a
5282magnificent, manifold, virgin-forest-like up-growth and up-striving, a
5283kind of TROPICAL TEMPO in the rivalry of growth, and an extraordinary
5284decay and self-destruction, owing to the savagely opposing and seemingly
5285exploding egoisms, which strive with one another "for sun and light,"
5286and can no longer assign any limit, restraint, or forbearance for
5287themselves by means of the hitherto existing morality. It was this
5288morality itself which piled up the strength so enormously, which bent
5289the bow in so threatening a manner:--it is now "out of date," it is
5290getting "out of date." The dangerous and disquieting point has been
5291reached when the greater, more manifold, more comprehensive life IS
5292LIVED BEYOND the old morality; the "individual" stands out, and is
5293obliged to have recourse to his own law-giving, his own arts and
5294artifices for self-preservation, self-elevation, and self-deliverance.
5295Nothing but new "Whys," nothing but new "Hows," no common formulas any
5296longer, misunderstanding and disregard in league with each other, decay,
5297deterioration, and the loftiest desires frightfully entangled, the
5298genius of the race overflowing from all the cornucopias of good and bad,
5299a portentous simultaneousness of Spring and Autumn, full of new charms
5300and mysteries peculiar to the fresh, still inexhausted, still unwearied
5301corruption. Danger is again present, the mother of morality, great
5302danger; this time shifted into the individual, into the neighbour and
5303friend, into the street, into their own child, into their own heart,
5304into all the most personal and secret recesses of their desires and
5305volitions. What will the moral philosophers who appear at this time have
5306to preach? They discover, these sharp onlookers and loafers, that the
5307end is quickly approaching, that everything around them decays and
5308produces decay, that nothing will endure until the day after tomorrow,
5309except one species of man, the incurably MEDIOCRE. The mediocre alone
5310have a prospect of continuing and propagating themselves--they will
5311be the men of the future, the sole survivors; "be like them! become
5312mediocre!" is now the only morality which has still a significance,
5313which still obtains a hearing.--But it is difficult to preach this
5314morality of mediocrity! it can never avow what it is and what it
5315desires! it has to talk of moderation and dignity and duty and brotherly
5316love--it will have difficulty IN CONCEALING ITS IRONY!
5317
5318263. There is an INSTINCT FOR RANK, which more than anything else is
5319already the sign of a HIGH rank; there is a DELIGHT in the NUANCES
5320of reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and habits. The
5321refinement, goodness, and loftiness of a soul are put to a perilous test
5322when something passes by that is of the highest rank, but is not
5323yet protected by the awe of authority from obtrusive touches and
5324incivilities: something that goes its way like a living touchstone,
5325undistinguished, undiscovered, and tentative, perhaps voluntarily veiled
5326and disguised. He whose task and practice it is to investigate souls,
5327will avail himself of many varieties of this very art to determine the
5328ultimate value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which
5329it belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE
5330ENGENDRE HAINE: the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like
5331dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed shrines, any
5332book bearing the marks of great destiny, is brought before it; while
5333on the other hand, there is an involuntary silence, a hesitation of the
5334eye, a cessation of all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul
5335FEELS the nearness of what is worthiest of respect. The way in which, on
5336the whole, the reverence for the BIBLE has hitherto been maintained
5337in Europe, is perhaps the best example of discipline and refinement of
5338manners which Europe owes to Christianity: books of such profoundness
5339and supreme significance require for their protection an external
5340tyranny of authority, in order to acquire the PERIOD of thousands of
5341years which is necessary to exhaust and unriddle them. Much has been
5342achieved when the sentiment has been at last instilled into the masses
5343(the shallow-pates and the boobies of every kind) that they are not
5344allowed to touch everything, that there are holy experiences before
5345which they must take off their shoes and keep away the unclean hand--it
5346is almost their highest advance towards humanity. On the contrary, in
5347the so-called cultured classes, the believers in "modern ideas," nothing
5348is perhaps so repulsive as their lack of shame, the easy insolence of
5349eye and hand with which they touch, taste, and finger everything; and it
5350is possible that even yet there is more RELATIVE nobility of taste, and
5351more tact for reverence among the people, among the lower classes of
5352the people, especially among peasants, than among the newspaper-reading
5353DEMIMONDE of intellect, the cultured class.
5354
5355264. It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors have
5356preferably and most constantly done: whether they were perhaps diligent
5357economizers attached to a desk and a cash-box, modest and citizen-like
5358in their desires, modest also in their virtues; or whether they were
5359accustomed to commanding from morning till night, fond of rude pleasures
5360and probably of still ruder duties and responsibilities; or whether,
5361finally, at one time or another, they have sacrificed old privileges of
5362birth and possession, in order to live wholly for their faith--for their
5363"God,"--as men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which blushes
5364at every compromise. It is quite impossible for a man NOT to have
5365the qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his
5366constitution, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary. This is
5367the problem of race. Granted that one knows something of the parents,
5368it is admissible to draw a conclusion about the child: any kind
5369of offensive incontinence, any kind of sordid envy, or of clumsy
5370self-vaunting--the three things which together have constituted the
5371genuine plebeian type in all times--such must pass over to the child, as
5372surely as bad blood; and with the help of the best education and culture
5373one will only succeed in DECEIVING with regard to such heredity.--And
5374what else does education and culture try to do nowadays! In our very
5375democratic, or rather, very plebeian age, "education" and "culture" MUST
5376be essentially the art of deceiving--deceiving with regard to origin,
5377with regard to the inherited plebeianism in body and soul. An educator
5378who nowadays preached truthfulness above everything else, and called out
5379constantly to his pupils: "Be true! Be natural! Show yourselves as you
5380are!"--even such a virtuous and sincere ass would learn in a short time
5381to have recourse to the FURCA of Horace, NATURAM EXPELLERE: with what
5382results? "Plebeianism" USQUE RECURRET. [FOOTNOTE: Horace's "Epistles,"
5383I. x. 24.]
5384
5385265. At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that egoism
5386belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief
5387that to a being such as "we," other beings must naturally be in
5388subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. The noble soul accepts the
5389fact of his egoism without question, and also without consciousness of
5390harshness, constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather as something
5391that may have its basis in the primary law of things:--if he sought a
5392designation for it he would say: "It is justice itself." He acknowledges
5393under certain circumstances, which made him hesitate at first, that
5394there are other equally privileged ones; as soon as he has settled this
5395question of rank, he moves among those equals and equally privileged
5396ones with the same assurance, as regards modesty and delicate respect,
5397which he enjoys in intercourse with himself--in accordance with an
5398innate heavenly mechanism which all the stars understand. It is an
5399ADDITIONAL instance of his egoism, this artfulness and self-limitation
5400in intercourse with his equals--every star is a similar egoist; he
5401honours HIMSELF in them, and in the rights which he concedes to them, he
5402has no doubt that the exchange of honours and rights, as the ESSENCE of
5403all intercourse, belongs also to the natural condition of things. The
5404noble soul gives as he takes, prompted by the passionate and sensitive
5405instinct of requital, which is at the root of his nature. The notion of
5406"favour" has, INTER PARES, neither significance nor good repute; there
5407may be a sublime way of letting gifts as it were light upon one from
5408above, and of drinking them thirstily like dew-drops; but for those
5409arts and displays the noble soul has no aptitude. His egoism hinders him
5410here: in general, he looks "aloft" unwillingly--he looks either FORWARD,
5411horizontally and deliberately, or downwards--HE KNOWS THAT HE IS ON A
5412HEIGHT.
5413
5414266. "One can only truly esteem him who does not LOOK OUT FOR
5415himself."--Goethe to Rath Schlosser.
5416
5417267. The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their children:
5418"SIAO-SIN" ("MAKE THY HEART SMALL"). This is the essentially fundamental
5419tendency in latter-day civilizations. I have no doubt that an ancient
5420Greek, also, would first of all remark the self-dwarfing in us Europeans
5421of today--in this respect alone we should immediately be "distasteful"
5422to him.
5423
5424268. What, after all, is ignobleness?--Words are vocal symbols for
5425ideas; ideas, however, are more or less definite mental symbols
5426for frequently returning and concurring sensations, for groups of
5427sensations. It is not sufficient to use the same words in order to
5428understand one another: we must also employ the same words for the same
5429kind of internal experiences, we must in the end have experiences IN
5430COMMON. On this account the people of one nation understand one another
5431better than those belonging to different nations, even when they use
5432the same language; or rather, when people have lived long together under
5433similar conditions (of climate, soil, danger, requirement, toil) there
5434ORIGINATES therefrom an entity that "understands itself"--namely, a
5435nation. In all souls a like number of frequently recurring experiences
5436have gained the upper hand over those occurring more rarely: about
5437these matters people understand one another rapidly and always more
5438rapidly--the history of language is the history of a process of
5439abbreviation; on the basis of this quick comprehension people always
5440unite closer and closer. The greater the danger, the greater is the
5441need of agreeing quickly and readily about what is necessary; not to
5442misunderstand one another in danger--that is what cannot at all be
5443dispensed with in intercourse. Also in all loves and friendships one has
5444the experience that nothing of the kind continues when the discovery
5445has been made that in using the same words, one of the two parties has
5446feelings, thoughts, intuitions, wishes, or fears different from those of
5447the other. (The fear of the "eternal misunderstanding": that is the good
5448genius which so often keeps persons of different sexes from too
5449hasty attachments, to which sense and heart prompt them--and NOT some
5450Schopenhauerian "genius of the species"!) Whichever groups of sensations
5451within a soul awaken most readily, begin to speak, and give the word of
5452command--these decide as to the general order of rank of its values, and
5453determine ultimately its list of desirable things. A man's estimates of
5454value betray something of the STRUCTURE of his soul, and wherein it
5455sees its conditions of life, its intrinsic needs. Supposing now that
5456necessity has from all time drawn together only such men as could
5457express similar requirements and similar experiences by similar symbols,
5458it results on the whole that the easy COMMUNICABILITY of need,
5459which implies ultimately the undergoing only of average and COMMON
5460experiences, must have been the most potent of all the forces which
5461have hitherto operated upon mankind. The more similar, the more ordinary
5462people, have always had and are still having the advantage; the more
5463select, more refined, more unique, and difficultly comprehensible, are
5464liable to stand alone; they succumb to accidents in their isolation, and
5465seldom propagate themselves. One must appeal to immense opposing forces,
5466in order to thwart this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE,
5467the evolution of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the
5468gregarious--to the IGNOBLE--!
5469
5470269. The more a psychologist--a born, an unavoidable psychologist
5471and soul-diviner--turns his attention to the more select cases and
5472individuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by sympathy:
5473he NEEDS sternness and cheerfulness more than any other man. For
5474the corruption, the ruination of higher men, of the more unusually
5475constituted souls, is in fact, the rule: it is dreadful to have such a
5476rule always before one's eyes. The manifold torment of the psychologist
5477who has discovered this ruination, who discovers once, and then
5478discovers ALMOST repeatedly throughout all history, this universal
5479inner "desperateness" of higher men, this eternal "too late!" in every
5480sense--may perhaps one day be the cause of his turning with
5481bitterness against his own lot, and of his making an attempt at
5482self-destruction--of his "going to ruin" himself. One may perceive
5483in almost every psychologist a tell-tale inclination for delightful
5484intercourse with commonplace and well-ordered men; the fact is thereby
5485disclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort
5486of flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and
5487incisiveness--from what his "business"--has laid upon his conscience.
5488The fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is easily silenced by the
5489judgment of others; he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour,
5490admire, love, and glorify, where he has PERCEIVED--or he even conceals
5491his silence by expressly assenting to some plausible opinion. Perhaps
5492the paradox of his situation becomes so dreadful that, precisely
5493where he has learnt GREAT SYMPATHY, together with great CONTEMPT, the
5494multitude, the educated, and the visionaries, have on their part learnt
5495great reverence--reverence for "great men" and marvelous animals, for
5496the sake of whom one blesses and honours the fatherland, the earth, the
5497dignity of mankind, and one's own self, to whom one points the young,
5498and in view of whom one educates them. And who knows but in all great
5499instances hitherto just the same happened: that the multitude worshipped
5500a God, and that the "God" was only a poor sacrificial animal! SUCCESS
5501has always been the greatest liar--and the "work" itself is a success;
5502the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer, are disguised in
5503their creations until they are unrecognizable; the "work" of the artist,
5504of the philosopher, only invents him who has created it, is REPUTED
5505to have created it; the "great men," as they are reverenced, are poor
5506little fictions composed afterwards; in the world of historical values
5507spurious coinage PREVAILS. Those great poets, for example, such as
5508Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not venture to mention
5509much greater names, but I have them in my mind), as they now appear, and
5510were perhaps obliged to be: men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous,
5511and childish, light-minded and impulsive in their trust and distrust;
5512with souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed; often taking
5513revenge with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking
5514forgetfulness in their soaring from a too true memory, often lost in
5515the mud and almost in love with it, until they become like the
5516Will-o'-the-Wisps around the swamps, and PRETEND TO BE stars--the people
5517then call them idealists,--often struggling with protracted disgust,
5518with an ever-reappearing phantom of disbelief, which makes them cold,
5519and obliges them to languish for GLORIA and devour "faith as it is"
5520out of the hands of intoxicated adulators:--what a TORMENT these great
5521artists are and the so-called higher men in general, to him who has once
5522found them out! It is thus conceivable that it is just from woman--who
5523is clairvoyant in the world of suffering, and also unfortunately eager
5524to help and save to an extent far beyond her powers--that THEY have
5525learnt so readily those outbreaks of boundless devoted SYMPATHY, which
5526the multitude, above all the reverent multitude, do not understand,
5527and overwhelm with prying and self-gratifying interpretations. This
5528sympathizing invariably deceives itself as to its power; woman would
5529like to believe that love can do EVERYTHING--it is the SUPERSTITION
5530peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor,
5531helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love
5532is--he finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!--It is possible that
5533under the holy fable and travesty of the life of Jesus there is hidden
5534one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LOVE:
5535the martyrdom of the most innocent and most craving heart, that
5536never had enough of any human love, that DEMANDED love, that demanded
5537inexorably and frantically to be loved and nothing else, with terrible
5538outbursts against those who refused him their love; the story of a poor
5539soul insatiated and insatiable in love, that had to invent hell to send
5540thither those who WOULD NOT love him--and that at last, enlightened
5541about human love, had to invent a God who is entire love, entire
5542CAPACITY for love--who takes pity on human love, because it is so
5543paltry, so ignorant! He who has such sentiments, he who has such
5544KNOWLEDGE about love--SEEKS for death!--But why should one deal with
5545such painful matters? Provided, of course, that one is not obliged to do
5546so.
5547
5548270. The intellectual haughtiness and loathing of every man who has
5549suffered deeply--it almost determines the order of rank HOW deeply men
5550can suffer--the chilling certainty, with which he is thoroughly imbued
5551and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he KNOWS MORE than the
5552shrewdest and wisest can ever know, that he has been familiar with,
5553and "at home" in, many distant, dreadful worlds of which "YOU know
5554nothing"!--this silent intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this
5555pride of the elect of knowledge, of the "initiated," of the almost
5556sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from
5557contact with officious and sympathizing hands, and in general from all
5558that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble:
5559it separates.--One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism,
5560along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes
5561suffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that
5562is sorrowful and profound. They are "gay men" who make use of gaiety,
5563because they are misunderstood on account of it--they WISH to be
5564misunderstood. There are "scientific minds" who make use of science,
5565because it gives a gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to
5566the conclusion that a person is superficial--they WISH to mislead to a
5567false conclusion. There are free insolent minds which would fain conceal
5568and deny that they are broken, proud, incurable hearts (the cynicism of
5569Hamlet--the case of Galiani); and occasionally folly itself is the mask
5570of an unfortunate OVER-ASSURED knowledge.--From which it follows that it
5571is the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence "for the mask,"
5572and not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place.
5573
5574271. That which separates two men most profoundly is a different sense
5575and grade of purity. What does it matter about all their honesty and
5576reciprocal usefulness, what does it matter about all their mutual
5577good-will: the fact still remains--they "cannot smell each other!" The
5578highest instinct for purity places him who is affected with it in the
5579most extraordinary and dangerous isolation, as a saint: for it is just
5580holiness--the highest spiritualization of the instinct in question. Any
5581kind of cognizance of an indescribable excess in the joy of the bath,
5582any kind of ardour or thirst which perpetually impels the soul out
5583of night into the morning, and out of gloom, out of "affliction" into
5584clearness, brightness, depth, and refinement:--just as much as such a
5585tendency DISTINGUISHES--it is a noble tendency--it also SEPARATES.--The
5586pity of the saint is pity for the FILTH of the human, all-too-human.
5587And there are grades and heights where pity itself is regarded by him as
5588impurity, as filth.
5589
5590272. Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the
5591rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share
5592our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of
5593them, among our DUTIES.
5594
5595273. A man who strives after great things, looks upon every one whom
5596he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and
5597hindrance--or as a temporary resting-place. His peculiar lofty BOUNTY
5598to his fellow-men is only possible when he attains his elevation and
5599dominates. Impatience, and the consciousness of being always condemned
5600to comedy up to that time--for even strife is a comedy, and conceals the
5601end, as every means does--spoil all intercourse for him; this kind of
5602man is acquainted with solitude, and what is most poisonous in it.
5603
5604274. THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.--Happy chances are necessary, and
5605many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the
5606solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or "break forth,"
5607as one might say--at the right moment. On an average it DOES NOT happen;
5608and in all corners of the earth there are waiting ones sitting who
5609hardly know to what extent they are waiting, and still less that they
5610wait in vain. Occasionally, too, the waking call comes too late--the
5611chance which gives "permission" to take action--when their best youth,
5612and strength for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many
5613a one, just as he "sprang up," has found with horror that his limbs are
5614benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! "It is too late," he has
5615said to himself--and has become self-distrustful and henceforth for ever
5616useless.--In the domain of genius, may not the "Raphael without
5617hands" (taking the expression in its widest sense) perhaps not be the
5618exception, but the rule?--Perhaps genius is by no means so rare: but
5619rather the five hundred HANDS which it requires in order to tyrannize
5620over the [GREEK INSERTED HERE], "the right time"--in order to take
5621chance by the forelock!
5622
5623275. He who does not WISH to see the height of a man, looks all the
5624more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground--and thereby
5625betrays himself.
5626
5627276. In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is
5628better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be
5629greater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in
5630fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its
5631existence.--In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost; not so
5632in man.--
5633
5634277. It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished
5635building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something
5636which he OUGHT absolutely to have known before he--began to build. The
5637eternal, fatal "Too late!" The melancholia of everything COMPLETED--!
5638
5639278.--Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without scorn,
5640without love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a plummet which has
5641returned to the light insatiated out of every depth--what did it seek
5642down there?--with a bosom that never sighs, with lips that conceal their
5643loathing, with a hand which only slowly grasps: who art thou? what
5644hast thou done? Rest thee here: this place has hospitality for every
5645one--refresh thyself! And whoever thou art, what is it that now pleases
5646thee? What will serve to refresh thee? Only name it, whatever I have
5647I offer thee! "To refresh me? To refresh me? Oh, thou prying one,
5648what sayest thou! But give me, I pray thee---" What? what? Speak out!
5649"Another mask! A second mask!"
5650
5651279. Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they
5652have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and
5653strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well that it will
5654flee from them!
5655
5656280. "Bad! Bad! What? Does he not--go back?" Yes! But you misunderstand
5657him when you complain about it. He goes back like every one who is about
5658to make a great spring.
5659
5660281.--"Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they believe it
5661of me: I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of myself and about
5662myself, only in very rare cases, only compulsorily, always without
5663delight in 'the subject,' ready to digress from 'myself,' and always
5664without faith in the result, owing to an unconquerable distrust of the
5665POSSIBILITY of self-knowledge, which has led me so far as to feel a
5666CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO even in the idea of 'direct knowledge' which
5667theorists allow themselves:--this matter of fact is almost the most
5668certain thing I know about myself. There must be a sort of repugnance
5669in me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself.--Is there perhaps
5670some enigma therein? Probably; but fortunately nothing for my own
5671teeth.--Perhaps it betrays the species to which I belong?--but not to
5672myself, as is sufficiently agreeable to me."
5673
5674282.--"But what has happened to you?"--"I do not know," he said,
5675hesitatingly; "perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table."--It
5676sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes
5677suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves,
5678and shocks everybody--and finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at
5679himself--whither? for what purpose? To famish apart? To suffocate with
5680his memories?--To him who has the desires of a lofty and dainty soul,
5681and only seldom finds his table laid and his food prepared, the danger
5682will always be great--nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so.
5683Thrown into the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does
5684not like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger
5685and thirst--or, should he nevertheless finally "fall to," of sudden
5686nausea.--We have probably all sat at tables to which we did not belong;
5687and precisely the most spiritual of us, who are most difficult to
5688nourish, know the dangerous DYSPEPSIA which originates from a sudden
5689insight and disillusionment about our food and our messmates--the
5690AFTER-DINNER NAUSEA.
5691
5692283. If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the
5693same time a noble self-control, to praise only where one DOES NOT
5694agree--otherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is contrary
5695to good taste:--a self-control, to be sure, which offers excellent
5696opportunity and provocation to constant MISUNDERSTANDING. To be able to
5697allow oneself this veritable luxury of taste and morality, one must
5698not live among intellectual imbeciles, but rather among men whose
5699misunderstandings and mistakes amuse by their refinement--or one will
5700have to pay dearly for it!--"He praises me, THEREFORE he acknowledges me
5701to be right"--this asinine method of inference spoils half of the life
5702of us recluses, for it brings the asses into our neighbourhood and
5703friendship.
5704
5705284. To live in a vast and proud tranquility; always beyond... To have,
5706or not to have, one's emotions, one's For and Against, according to
5707choice; to lower oneself to them for hours; to SEAT oneself on them as
5708upon horses, and often as upon asses:--for one must know how to make
5709use of their stupidity as well as of their fire. To conserve one's
5710three hundred foregrounds; also one's black spectacles: for there are
5711circumstances when nobody must look into our eyes, still less into our
5712"motives." And to choose for company that roguish and cheerful vice,
5713politeness. And to remain master of one's four virtues, courage,
5714insight, sympathy, and solitude. For solitude is a virtue with us, as
5715a sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of
5716man and man--"in society"--it must be unavoidably impure. All society
5717makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometime--"commonplace."
5718
5719285. The greatest events and thoughts--the greatest thoughts, however,
5720are the greatest events--are longest in being comprehended: the
5721generations which are contemporary with them do not EXPERIENCE such
5722events--they live past them. Something happens there as in the realm of
5723stars. The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man; and
5724before it has arrived man DENIES--that there are stars there. "How
5725many centuries does a mind require to be understood?"--that is also a
5726standard, one also makes a gradation of rank and an etiquette therewith,
5727such as is necessary for mind and for star.
5728
5729286. "Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted." [FOOTNOTE: Goethe's
5730"Faust," Part II, Act V. The words of Dr. Marianus.]--But there is a
5731reverse kind of man, who is also upon a height, and has also a free
5732prospect--but looks DOWNWARDS.
5733
5734287. What is noble? What does the word "noble" still mean for us
5735nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he recognized
5736under this heavy overcast sky of the commencing plebeianism, by which
5737everything is rendered opaque and leaden?--It is not his actions which
5738establish his claim--actions are always ambiguous, always inscrutable;
5739neither is it his "works." One finds nowadays among artists and scholars
5740plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for
5741nobleness impels them; but this very NEED of nobleness is radically
5742different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the
5743eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works,
5744but the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines the order of
5745rank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper
5746meaning--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about
5747itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and
5748perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR
5749ITSELF.--
5750
5751288. There are men who are unavoidably intellectual, let them turn
5752and twist themselves as they will, and hold their hands before their
5753treacherous eyes--as though the hand were not a betrayer; it always
5754comes out at last that they have something which they hide--namely,
5755intellect. One of the subtlest means of deceiving, at least as long as
5756possible, and of successfully representing oneself to be stupider
5757than one really is--which in everyday life is often as desirable as
5758an umbrella,--is called ENTHUSIASM, including what belongs to it, for
5759instance, virtue. For as Galiani said, who was obliged to know it: VERTU
5760EST ENTHOUSIASME.
5761
5762289. In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of the echo
5763of the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and timid vigilance
5764of solitude; in his strongest words, even in his cry itself, there
5765sounds a new and more dangerous kind of silence, of concealment. He who
5766has sat day and night, from year's end to year's end, alone with his
5767soul in familiar discord and discourse, he who has become a cave-bear,
5768or a treasure-seeker, or a treasure-guardian and dragon in his cave--it
5769may be a labyrinth, but can also be a gold-mine--his ideas themselves
5770eventually acquire a twilight-colour of their own, and an odour, as much
5771of the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative and repulsive,
5772which blows chilly upon every passer-by. The recluse does not believe
5773that a philosopher--supposing that a philosopher has always in the first
5774place been a recluse--ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in
5775books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?--indeed,
5776he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual"
5777opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must
5778necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer
5779world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every
5780"foundation." Every philosophy is a foreground philosophy--this is a
5781recluse's verdict: "There is something arbitrary in the fact that the
5782PHILOSOPHER came to a stand here, took a retrospect, and looked around;
5783that he HERE laid his spade aside and did not dig any deeper--there
5784is also something suspicious in it." Every philosophy also CONCEALS a
5785philosophy; every opinion is also a LURKING-PLACE, every word is also a
5786MASK.
5787
5788290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being
5789misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former
5790wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you
5791also have as hard a time of it as I have?"
5792
5793291. Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny
5794to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his
5795strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his
5796soul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of morality is a long, audacious
5797falsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of
5798the soul becomes possible. From this point of view there is perhaps much
5799more in the conception of "art" than is generally believed.
5800
5801292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees,
5802hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck
5803by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and
5804below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who
5805is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous
5806man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and
5807something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often
5808runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity
5809always makes him "come to himself" again.
5810
5811293. A man who says: "I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to
5812guard and protect it from every one"; a man who can conduct a case,
5813carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman,
5814punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his
5815sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the
5816animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a
5817MASTER by nature--when such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has
5818value! But of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of
5819those even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost the
5820whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain,
5821and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing,
5822which, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks
5823to deck itself out as something superior--there is a regular cult of
5824suffering. The UNMANLINESS of that which is called "sympathy" by such
5825groups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that
5826strikes the eye.--One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest
5827form of bad taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet,
5828"GAI SABER" ("gay science," in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as
5829a protection against it.
5830
5831294. THE OLYMPIAN VICE.--Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine
5832Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking
5833minds--"Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every
5834thinking mind will strive to overcome" (Hobbes),--I would even
5835allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their
5836laughing--up to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter. And supposing
5837that Gods also philosophize, which I am strongly inclined to believe,
5838owing to many reasons--I have no doubt that they also know how to laugh
5839thereby in an overman-like and new fashion--and at the expense of all
5840serious things! Gods are fond of ridicule: it seems that they cannot
5841refrain from laughter even in holy matters.
5842
5843295. The genius of the heart, as that great mysterious one possesses
5844it, the tempter-god and born rat-catcher of consciences, whose voice can
5845descend into the nether-world of every soul, who neither speaks a word
5846nor casts a glance in which there may not be some motive or touch
5847of allurement, to whose perfection it pertains that he knows how to
5848appear,--not as he is, but in a guise which acts as an ADDITIONAL
5849constraint on his followers to press ever closer to him, to follow him
5850more cordially and thoroughly;--the genius of the heart, which imposes
5851silence and attention on everything loud and self-conceited, which
5852smoothes rough souls and makes them taste a new longing--to lie placid
5853as a mirror, that the deep heavens may be reflected in them;--the genius
5854of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and too hasty hand to hesitate,
5855and to grasp more delicately; which scents the hidden and forgotten
5856treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under thick dark
5857ice, and is a divining-rod for every grain of gold, long buried and
5858imprisoned in mud and sand; the genius of the heart, from contact with
5859which every one goes away richer; not favoured or surprised, not as
5860though gratified and oppressed by the good things of others; but richer
5861in himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded by a
5862thawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more
5863bruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names, full of a new will
5864and current, full of a new ill-will and counter-current... but what am I
5865doing, my friends? Of whom am I talking to you? Have I forgotten myself
5866so far that I have not even told you his name? Unless it be that you
5867have already divined of your own accord who this questionable God
5868and spirit is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it
5869happens to every one who from childhood onward has always been on his
5870legs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered on my path many
5871strange and dangerous spirits; above all, however, and again and again,
5872the one of whom I have just spoken: in fact, no less a personage than
5873the God DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and tempter, to whom, as you
5874know, I once offered in all secrecy and reverence my first-fruits--the
5875last, as it seems to me, who has offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I
5876have found no one who could understand what I was then doing. In
5877the meantime, however, I have learned much, far too much, about the
5878philosophy of this God, and, as I said, from mouth to mouth--I, the last
5879disciple and initiate of the God Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last
5880begin to give you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little taste of
5881this philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly: for it has to do
5882with much that is secret, new, strange, wonderful, and uncanny. The
5883very fact that Dionysus is a philosopher, and that therefore Gods also
5884philosophize, seems to me a novelty which is not unensnaring, and might
5885perhaps arouse suspicion precisely among philosophers;--among you, my
5886friends, there is less to be said against it, except that it comes too
5887late and not at the right time; for, as it has been disclosed to me, you
5888are loth nowadays to believe in God and gods. It may happen, too, that
5889in the frankness of my story I must go further than is agreeable to the
5890strict usages of your ears? Certainly the God in question went further,
5891very much further, in such dialogues, and was always many paces ahead of
5892me... Indeed, if it were allowed, I should have to give him, according
5893to human usage, fine ceremonious tides of lustre and merit, I should
5894have to extol his courage as investigator and discoverer, his fearless
5895honesty, truthfulness, and love of wisdom. But such a God does not know
5896what to do with all that respectable trumpery and pomp. "Keep that," he
5897would say, "for thyself and those like thee, and whoever else require
5898it! I--have no reason to cover my nakedness!" One suspects that this
5899kind of divinity and philosopher perhaps lacks shame?--He once said:
5900"Under certain circumstances I love mankind"--and referred thereby to
5901Ariadne, who was present; "in my opinion man is an agreeable, brave,
5902inventive animal, that has not his equal upon earth, he makes his way
5903even through all labyrinths. I like man, and often think how I can
5904still further advance him, and make him stronger, more evil, and more
5905profound."--"Stronger, more evil, and more profound?" I asked in horror.
5906"Yes," he said again, "stronger, more evil, and more profound; also more
5907beautiful"--and thereby the tempter-god smiled with his halcyon smile,
5908as though he had just paid some charming compliment. One here sees at
5909once that it is not only shame that this divinity lacks;--and in general
5910there are good grounds for supposing that in some things the Gods could
5911all of them come to us men for instruction. We men are--more human.--
5912
5913296. Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not
5914long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns
5915and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh--and now? You
5916have already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready
5917to become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so
5918tedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint,
5919we mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalisers of things which LEND
5920themselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only
5921that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas,
5922only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas,
5923only birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be
5924captured with the hand--with OUR hand! We immortalize what cannot live
5925and fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it
5926is only for your AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for
5927which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated
5928softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds;--but
5929nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden
5930sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved--EVIL thoughts!
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935FROM THE HEIGHTS
5936
5937By F W Nietzsche
5938
5939Translated by L. A. Magnus
5940
5941
5942                       1.
5943
5944     MIDDAY of Life! Oh, season of delight!
5945                      My summer's park!
5946     Uneaseful joy to look, to lurk, to hark--
5947     I peer for friends, am ready day and night,--
5948     Where linger ye, my friends? The time is right!
5949
5950                       2.
5951
5952     Is not the glacier's grey today for you
5953                         Rose-garlanded?
5954     The brooklet seeks you, wind, cloud, with longing thread
5955     And thrust themselves yet higher to the blue,
5956     To spy for you from farthest eagle's view.
5957
5958                       3.
5959
5960     My table was spread out for you on high--
5961                      Who dwelleth so
5962     Star-near, so near the grisly pit below?--
5963     My realm--what realm hath wider boundary?
5964     My honey--who hath sipped its fragrancy?
5965
5966                       4.
5967
5968     Friends, ye are there! Woe me,--yet I am not
5969                        He whom ye seek?
5970     Ye stare and stop--better your wrath could speak!
5971     I am not I? Hand, gait, face, changed? And what
5972     I am, to you my friends, now am I not?
5973
5974                       5.
5975
5976     Am I an other? Strange am I to Me?
5977                      Yet from Me sprung?
5978     A wrestler, by himself too oft self-wrung?
5979     Hindering too oft my own self's potency,
5980     Wounded and hampered by self-victory?
5981
5982                       6.
5983
5984     I sought where-so the wind blows keenest. There
5985                     I learned to dwell
5986     Where no man dwells, on lonesome ice-lorn fell,
5987     And unlearned Man and God and curse and prayer?
5988     Became a ghost haunting the glaciers bare?
5989
5990                       7.
5991
5992     Ye, my old friends! Look! Ye turn pale, filled o'er
5993                      With love and fear!
5994     Go! Yet not in wrath. Ye could ne'er live here.
5995     Here in the farthest realm of ice and scaur,
5996     A huntsman must one be, like chamois soar.
5997
5998                       8.
5999
6000     An evil huntsman was I? See how taut
6001                    My bow was bent!
6002     Strongest was he by whom such bolt were sent--
6003     Woe now! That arrow is with peril fraught,
6004     Perilous as none.--Have yon safe home ye sought!
6005
6006                       9.
6007
6008     Ye go! Thou didst endure enough, oh, heart;--
6009                     Strong was thy hope;
6010     Unto new friends thy portals widely ope,
6011     Let old ones be. Bid memory depart!
6012     Wast thou young then, now--better young thou art!
6013
6014                       10.
6015
6016     What linked us once together, one hope's tie--
6017                    (Who now doth con
6018     Those lines, now fading, Love once wrote thereon?)--
6019     Is like a parchment, which the hand is shy
6020     To touch--like crackling leaves, all seared, all dry.
6021
6022                       11.
6023
6024     Oh! Friends no more! They are--what name for those?--
6025                           Friends' phantom-flight
6026     Knocking at my heart's window-pane at night,
6027     Gazing on me, that speaks "We were" and goes,--
6028     Oh, withered words, once fragrant as the rose!
6029
6030                       12.
6031
6032     Pinings of youth that might not understand!
6033                       For which I pined,
6034     Which I deemed changed with me, kin of my kind:
6035     But they grew old, and thus were doomed and banned:
6036     None but new kith are native of my land!
6037
6038                       13.
6039
6040     Midday of life! My second youth's delight!
6041                       My summer's park!
6042     Unrestful joy to long, to lurk, to hark!
6043     I peer for friends!--am ready day and night,
6044     For my new friends. Come! Come! The time is right!
6045
6046                       14.
6047
6048     This song is done,--the sweet sad cry of rue
6049                       Sang out its end;
6050     A wizard wrought it, he the timely friend,
6051     The midday-friend,--no, do not ask me who;
6052     At midday 'twas, when one became as two.
6053
6054                       15.
6055
6056     We keep our Feast of Feasts, sure of our bourne,
6057                      Our aims self-same:
6058     The Guest of Guests, friend Zarathustra, came!
6059     The world now laughs, the grisly veil was torn,
6060     And Light and Dark were one that wedding-morn.
6061
6062PREFACE.
6063
6064
60651
6066
6067It is often enough, and always with great surprise, intimated to me that
6068there is something both ordinary and unusual in all my writings, from
6069the "Birth of Tragedy" to the recently published "Prelude to a
6070Philosophy of the Future": they all contain, I have been told, snares
6071and nets for short sighted birds, and something that is almost a
6072constant, subtle, incitement to an overturning of habitual opinions and
6073of approved customs. What!? Everything is merely--human--all too human?
6074With this exclamation my writings are gone through, not without a
6075certain dread and mistrust of ethic itself and not without a disposition
6076to ask the exponent of evil things if those things be not simply
6077misrepresented. My writings have been termed a school of distrust, still
6078more of disdain: also, and more happily, of courage, audacity even. And
6079in fact, I myself do not believe that anybody ever looked into the world
6080with a distrust as deep as mine, seeming, as I do, not simply the timely
6081advocate of the devil, but, to employ theological terms, an enemy and
6082challenger of God; and whosoever has experienced any of the consequences
6083of such deep distrust, anything of the chills and the agonies of
6084isolation to which such an unqualified difference of standpoint condemns
6085him endowed with it, will also understand how often I must have sought
6086relief and self-forgetfulness from any source--through any object of
6087veneration or enmity, of scientific seriousness or wanton lightness;
6088also why I, when I could not find what I was in need of, had to fashion
6089it for myself, counterfeiting it or imagining it (and what poet or
6090writer has ever done anything else, and what other purpose can all the
6091art in the world possibly have?) That which I always stood most in need
6092of in order to effect my cure and self-recovery was faith, faith enough
6093not to be thus isolated, not to look at life from so singular a point of
6094view--a magic apprehension (in eye and mind) of relationship and
6095equality, a calm confidence in friendship, a blindness, free from
6096suspicion and questioning, to two sidedness; a pleasure in externals,
6097superficialities, the near, the accessible, in all things possessed of
6098color, skin and seeming. Perhaps I could be fairly reproached with much
6099"art" in this regard, many fine counterfeitings; for example, that,
6100wisely or wilfully, I had shut my eyes to Schopenhauer's blind will
6101towards ethic, at a time when I was already clear sighted enough on the
6102subject of ethic; likewise that I had deceived myself concerning Richard
6103Wagner's incurable romanticism, as if it were a beginning and not an
6104end; likewise concerning the Greeks, likewise concerning the Germans and
6105their future--and there may be, perhaps, a long list of such likewises.
6106Granted, however, that all this were true, and with justice urged
6107against me, what does it signify, what can it signify in regard to how
6108much of the self-sustaining capacity, how much of reason and higher
6109protection are embraced in such self-deception?--and how much more
6110falsity is still necessary to me that I may therewith always reassure
6111myself regarding the luxury of my truth. Enough, I still live; and life
6112is not considered now apart from ethic; it _will_ [have] deception; it
6113thrives (lebt) on deception ... but am I not beginning to do all over
6114again what I have always done, I, the old immoralist, and bird
6115snarer--talk unmorally, ultramorally, "beyond good and evil"?
6116
6117
61182
6119
6120Thus, then, have I evolved for myself the "free spirits" to whom this
6121discouraging-encouraging work, under the general title "Human, All Too
6122Human," is dedicated. Such "free spirits" do not really exist and never
6123did exist. But I stood in need of them, as I have pointed out, in order
6124that some good might be mixed with my evils (illness, loneliness,
6125strangeness, _acedia_, incapacity): to serve as gay spirits and
6126comrades, with whom one may talk and laugh when one is disposed to talk
6127and laugh, and whom one may send to the devil when they grow wearisome.
6128They are some compensation for the lack of friends. That such free
6129spirits can possibly exist, that our Europe will yet number among her
6130sons of to-morrow or of the day after to-morrow, such a brilliant and
6131enthusiastic company, alive and palpable and not merely, as in my case,
6132fantasms and imaginary shades, I, myself, can by no means doubt. I see
6133them already coming, slowly, slowly. May it not be that I am doing a
6134little something to expedite their coming when I describe in advance the
6135influences under which I see them evolving and the ways along which they
6136travel?
6137
6138
61393
6140
6141It may be conjectured that a soul in which the type of "free spirit" can
6142attain maturity and completeness had its decisive and deciding event in
6143the form of a great emancipation or unbinding, and that prior to that
6144event it seemed only the more firmly and forever chained to its place
6145and pillar. What binds strongest? What cords seem almost unbreakable? In
6146the case of mortals of a choice and lofty nature they will be those of
6147duty: that reverence, which in youth is most typical, that timidity and
6148tenderness in the presence of the traditionally honored and the worthy,
6149that gratitude to the soil from which we sprung, for the hand that
6150guided us, for the relic before which we were taught to pray--their
6151sublimest moments will themselves bind these souls most strongly. The
6152great liberation comes suddenly to such prisoners, like an earthquake:
6153the young soul is all at once shaken, torn apart, cast forth--it
6154comprehends not itself what is taking place. An involuntary onward
6155impulse rules them with the mastery of command; a will, a wish are
6156developed to go forward, anywhere, at any price; a strong, dangerous
6157curiosity regarding an undiscovered world flames and flashes in all
6158their being. "Better to die than live _here_"--so sounds the tempting
6159voice: and this "here," this "at home" constitutes all they have
6160hitherto loved. A sudden dread and distrust of that which they loved, a
6161flash of contempt for that which is called their "duty," a mutinous,
6162wilful, volcanic-like longing for a far away journey, strange scenes and
6163people, annihilation, petrifaction, a hatred surmounting love, perhaps a
6164sacrilegious impulse and look backwards, to where they so long prayed
6165and loved, perhaps a flush of shame for what they did and at the same
6166time an exultation at having done it, an inner, intoxicating,
6167delightful tremor in which is betrayed the sense of victory--a victory?
6168over what? over whom? a riddle-like victory, fruitful in questioning and
6169well worth questioning, but the _first_ victory, for all--such things of
6170pain and ill belong to the history of the great liberation. And it is at
6171the same time a malady that can destroy a man, this first outbreak of
6172strength and will for self-destination, self-valuation, this will for
6173free will: and how much illness is forced to the surface in the frantic
6174strivings and singularities with which the freedman, the liberated seeks
6175henceforth to attest his mastery over things! He roves fiercely around,
6176with an unsatisfied longing and whatever objects he may encounter must
6177suffer from the perilous expectancy of his pride; he tears to pieces
6178whatever attracts him. With a sardonic laugh he overturns whatever he
6179finds veiled or protected by any reverential awe: he would see what
6180these things look like when they are overturned. It is wilfulness and
6181delight in the wilfulness of it, if he now, perhaps, gives his approval
6182to that which has heretofore been in ill repute--if, in curiosity and
6183experiment, he penetrates stealthily to the most forbidden things. In
6184the background during all his plunging and roaming--for he is as
6185restless and aimless in his course as if lost in a wilderness--is the
6186interrogation mark of a curiosity growing ever more dangerous. "Can we
6187not upset every standard? and is good perhaps evil? and God only an
6188invention and a subtlety of the devil? Is everything, in the last
6189resort, false? And if we are dupes are we not on that very account
6190dupers also? _must_ we not be dupers also?" Such reflections lead and
6191mislead him, ever further on, ever further away. Solitude, that dread
6192goddess and mater saeva cupidinum, encircles and besets him, ever more
6193threatening, more violent, more heart breaking--but who to-day knows
6194what solitude is?
6195
6196
61974
6198
6199From this morbid solitude, from the deserts of such trial years, the way
6200is yet far to that great, overflowing certainty and healthiness which
6201cannot dispense even with sickness as a means and a grappling hook of
6202knowledge; to that matured freedom of the spirit which is, in an equal
6203degree, self mastery and discipline of the heart, and gives access to
6204the path of much and various reflection--to that inner comprehensiveness
6205and self satisfaction of over-richness which precludes all danger that
6206the spirit has gone astray even in its own path and is sitting
6207intoxicated in some corner or other; to that overplus of plastic,
6208healing, imitative and restorative power which is the very sign of
6209vigorous health, that overplus which confers upon the free spirit the
6210perilous prerogative of spending a life in experiment and of running
6211adventurous risks: the past-master-privilege of the free spirit. In the
6212interval there may be long years of convalescence, years filled with
6213many hued painfully-bewitching transformations, dominated and led to the
6214goal by a tenacious will for health that is often emboldened to assume
6215the guise and the disguise of health. There is a middle ground to this,
6216which a man of such destiny can not subsequently recall without emotion;
6217he basks in a special fine sun of his own, with a feeling of birdlike
6218freedom, birdlike visual power, birdlike irrepressibleness, a something
6219extraneous (Drittes) in which curiosity and delicate disdain have
6220united. A "free spirit"--this refreshing term is grateful in any mood,
6221it almost sets one aglow. One lives--no longer in the bonds of love and
6222hate, without a yes or no, here or there indifferently, best pleased to
6223evade, to avoid, to beat about, neither advancing nor retreating. One is
6224habituated to the bad, like a person who all at once sees a fearful
6225hurly-burly _beneath_ him--and one was the counterpart of him who
6226bothers himself with things that do not concern him. As a matter of fact
6227the free spirit is bothered with mere things--and how many
6228things--which no longer _concern_ him.
6229
6230
62315
6232
6233A step further in recovery: and the free spirit draws near to life
6234again, slowly indeed, almost refractorily, almost distrustfully. There
6235is again warmth and mellowness: feeling and fellow feeling acquire
6236depth, lambent airs stir all about him. He almost feels: it seems as if
6237now for the first time his eyes are open to things _near_. He is in
6238amaze and sits hushed: for where had he been? These near and immediate
6239things: how changed they seem to him! He looks gratefully back--grateful
6240for his wandering, his self exile and severity, his lookings afar and
6241his bird flights in the cold heights. How fortunate that he has not,
6242like a sensitive, dull home body, remained always "in the house" and "at
6243home!" He had been beside himself, beyond a doubt. Now for the first
6244time he really sees himself--and what surprises in the process. What
6245hitherto unfelt tremors! Yet what joy in the exhaustion, the old
6246sickness, the relapses of the convalescent! How it delights him,
6247suffering, to sit still, to exercise patience, to lie in the sun! Who so
6248well as he appreciates the fact that there comes balmy weather even in
6249winter, who delights more in the sunshine athwart the wall? They are
6250the most appreciative creatures in the world, and also the most humble,
6251these convalescents and lizards, crawling back towards life: there are
6252some among them who can let no day slip past them without addressing
6253some song of praise to its retreating light. And speaking seriously, it
6254is a fundamental cure for all pessimism (the cankerous vice, as is well
6255known, of all idealists and humbugs), to become ill in the manner of
6256these free spirits, to remain ill quite a while and then bit by bit grow
6257healthy--I mean healthier. It is wisdom, worldly wisdom, to administer
6258even health to oneself for a long time in small doses.
6259
6260
62616
6262
6263About this time it becomes at last possible, amid the flash lights of a
6264still unestablished, still precarious health, for the free, the ever
6265freer spirit to begin to read the riddle of that great liberation, a
6266riddle which has hitherto lingered, obscure, well worth questioning,
6267almost impalpable, in his memory. If once he hardly dared to ask "why so
6268apart? so alone? renouncing all I loved? renouncing respect itself? why
6269this coldness, this suspicion, this hate for one's very virtues?"--now
6270he dares, and asks it loudly, already hearing the answer, "you had to
6271become master over yourself, master of your own good qualities. Formerly
6272they were your masters: but they should be merely your tools along with
6273other tools. You had to acquire power over your aye and no and learn to
6274hold and withhold them in accordance with your higher aims. You had to
6275grasp the perspective of every representation (Werthschätzung)--the
6276dislocation, distortion and the apparent end or teleology of the
6277horizon, besides whatever else appertains to the perspective: also the
6278element of demerit in its relation to opposing merit, and the whole
6279intellectual cost of every affirmative, every negative. You had to find
6280out the _inevitable_ error[1] in every Yes and in every No, error as
6281inseparable from life, life itself as conditioned by the perspective and
6282its inaccuracy.[1] Above all, you had to see with your own eyes where
6283the error[1] is always greatest: there, namely, where life is littlest,
6284narrowest, meanest, least developed and yet cannot help looking upon
6285itself as the goal and standard of things, and smugly and ignobly and
6286incessantly tearing to tatters all that is highest and greatest and
6287richest, and putting the shreds into the form of questions from the
6288standpoint of its own well being. You had to see with your own eyes the
6289problem of classification, (Rangordnung, regulation concerning rank and
6290station) and how strength and sweep and reach of perspective wax upward
6291together: You had"--enough, the free spirit knows henceforward which
6292"you had" it has obeyed and also what it now can do and what it now, for
6293the first time, _dare_.
6294
6295[1] Ungerechtigkeit, literally wrongfulness, injustice, unrighteousness.
6296
6297
62987
6299
6300Accordingly, the free spirit works out for itself an answer to that
6301riddle of its liberation and concludes by generalizing upon its
6302experience in the following fashion: "What I went through everyone must
6303go through" in whom any problem is germinated and strives to body itself
6304forth. The inner power and inevitability of this problem will assert
6305themselves in due course, as in the case of any unsuspected
6306pregnancy--long before the spirit has seen this problem in its true
6307aspect and learned to call it by its right name. Our destiny exercises
6308its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature:
6309it is our future that lays down the law to our to-day. Granted, that it
6310is the problem of classification[2] of which we free spirits may say,
6311this is _our_ problem, yet it is only now, in the midday of our life,
6312that we fully appreciate what preparations, shifts, trials, ordeals,
6313stages, were essential to that problem before it could emerge to our
6314view, and why we had to go through the various and contradictory
6315longings and satisfactions of body and soul, as circumnavigators and
6316adventurers of that inner world called "man"; as surveyors of that
6317"higher" and of that "progression"[3] that is also called
6318"man"--crowding in everywhere, almost without fear, disdaining nothing,
6319missing nothing, testing everything, sifting everything and eliminating
6320the chance impurities--until at last we could say, we free spirits:
6321"Here--a _new_ problem! Here, a long ladder on the rungs of which we
6322ourselves have rested and risen, which we have actually been at times.
6323Here is a something higher, a something deeper, a something below us, a
6324vastly extensive order, (Ordnung) a comparative classification
6325(Rangordnung), that we perceive: here--_our_ problem!"
6326
6327[2] Rangordnung: the meaning is "the problem of grasping the relative
6328importance of things."
6329
6330[3] Uebereinander: one over another.
6331
6332
63338
6334
6335To what stage in the development just outlined the present book belongs
6336(or is assigned) is something that will be hidden from no augur or
6337psychologist for an instant. But where are there psychologists to-day?
6338In France, certainly; in Russia, perhaps; certainly not in Germany.
6339Grounds are not wanting, to be sure, upon which the Germans of to-day
6340may adduce this fact to their credit: unhappily for one who in this
6341matter is fashioned and mentored in an un-German school! This _German_
6342book, which has found its readers in a wide circle of lands and
6343peoples--it has been some ten years on its rounds--and which must make
6344its way by means of any musical art and tune that will captivate the
6345foreign ear as well as the native--this book has been read most
6346indifferently in Germany itself and little heeded there: to what is that
6347due? "It requires too much," I have been told, "it addresses itself to
6348men free from the press of petty obligations, it demands fine and
6349trained perceptions, it requires a surplus, a surplus of time, of the
6350lightness of heaven and of the heart, of otium in the most unrestricted
6351sense: mere good things that we Germans of to-day have not got and
6352therefore cannot give." After so graceful a retort, my philosophy bids
6353me be silent and ask no more questions: at times, as the proverb says,
6354one remains a philosopher only because one says--nothing!
6355
6356Nice, Spring, 1886.
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361OF THE FIRST AND LAST THINGS.
6362
6363
63641
6365
6366=Chemistry of the Notions and the Feelings.=--Philosophical problems, in
6367almost all their aspects, present themselves in the same interrogative
6368formula now that they did two thousand years ago: how can a thing
6369develop out of its antithesis? for example, the reasonable from the
6370non-reasonable, the animate from the inanimate, the logical from the
6371illogical, altruism from egoism, disinterestedness from greed, truth
6372from error? The metaphysical philosophy formerly steered itself clear of
6373this difficulty to such extent as to repudiate the evolution of one
6374thing from another and to assign a miraculous origin to what it deemed
6375highest and best, due to the very nature and being of the
6376"thing-in-itself." The historical philosophy, on the other hand, which
6377can no longer be viewed apart from physical science, the youngest of all
6378philosophical methods, discovered experimentally (and its results will
6379probably always be the same) that there is no antithesis whatever,
6380except in the usual exaggerations of popular or metaphysical
6381comprehension, and that an error of the reason is at the bottom of such
6382contradiction. According to its explanation, there is, strictly
6383speaking, neither unselfish conduct, nor a wholly disinterested point of
6384view. Both are simply sublimations in which the basic element seems
6385almost evaporated and betrays its presence only to the keenest
6386observation. All that we need and that could possibly be given us in the
6387present state of development of the sciences, is a chemistry of the
6388moral, religious, aesthetic conceptions and feeling, as well as of those
6389emotions which we experience in the affairs, great and small, of society
6390and civilization, and which we are sensible of even in solitude. But
6391what if this chemistry established the fact that, even in _its_ domain,
6392the most magnificent results were attained with the basest and most
6393despised ingredients? Would many feel disposed to continue such
6394investigations? Mankind loves to put by the questions of its origin and
6395beginning: must one not be almost inhuman in order to follow the
6396opposite course?
6397
6398
63992
6400
6401=The Traditional Error of Philosophers.=--All philosophers make the
6402common mistake of taking contemporary man as their starting point and of
6403trying, through an analysis of him, to reach a conclusion. "Man"
6404involuntarily presents himself to them as an aeterna veritas as a
6405passive element in every hurly-burly, as a fixed standard of things. Yet
6406everything uttered by the philosopher on the subject of man is, in the
6407last resort, nothing more than a piece of testimony concerning man
6408during a very limited period of time. Lack of the historical sense is
6409the traditional defect in all philosophers. Many innocently take man in
6410his most childish state as fashioned through the influence of certain
6411religious and even of certain political developments, as the permanent
6412form under which man must be viewed. They will not learn that man has
6413evolved,[4] that the intellectual faculty itself is an evolution,
6414whereas some philosophers make the whole cosmos out of this intellectual
6415faculty. But everything essential in human evolution took place aeons
6416ago, long before the four thousand years or so of which we know
6417anything: during these man may not have changed very much. However, the
6418philosopher ascribes "instinct" to contemporary man and assumes that
6419this is one of the unalterable facts regarding man himself, and hence
6420affords a clue to the understanding of the universe in general. The
6421whole teleology is so planned that man during the last four thousand
6422years shall be spoken of as a being existing from all eternity, and
6423with reference to whom everything in the cosmos from its very inception
6424is naturally ordered. Yet everything evolved: there are no eternal facts
6425as there are no absolute truths. Accordingly, historical philosophising
6426is henceforth indispensable, and with it honesty of judgment.
6427
6428[4] geworden.
6429
6430
64313
6432
6433=Appreciation of Simple Truths.=--It is the characteristic of an
6434advanced civilization to set a higher value upon little, simple truths,
6435ascertained by scientific method, than upon the pleasing and magnificent
6436errors originating in metaphysical and æsthetical epochs and peoples. To
6437begin with, the former are spoken of with contempt as if there could be
6438no question of comparison respecting them, so rigid, homely, prosaic and
6439even discouraging is the aspect of the first, while so beautiful,
6440decorative, intoxicating and perhaps beatific appear the last named.
6441Nevertheless, the hardwon, the certain, the lasting and, therefore, the
6442fertile in new knowledge, is the higher; to hold fast to it is manly and
6443evinces courage, directness, endurance. And not only individual men but
6444all mankind will by degrees be uplifted to this manliness when they are
6445finally habituated to the proper appreciation of tenable, enduring
6446knowledge and have lost all faith in inspiration and in the miraculous
6447revelation of truth. The reverers of forms, indeed, with their standards
6448of beauty and taste, may have good reason to laugh when the appreciation
6449of little truths and the scientific spirit begin to prevail, but that
6450will be only because their eyes are not yet opened to the charm of the
6451utmost simplicity of form or because men though reared in the rightly
6452appreciative spirit, will still not be fully permeated by it, so that
6453they continue unwittingly imitating ancient forms (and that ill enough,
6454as anybody does who no longer feels any interest in a thing). Formerly
6455the mind was not brought into play through the medium of exact thought.
6456Its serious business lay in the working out of forms and symbols. That
6457has now changed. Any seriousness in symbolism is at present the
6458indication of a deficient education. As our very acts become more
6459intellectual, our tendencies more rational, and our judgment, for
6460example, as to what seems reasonable, is very different from what it was
6461a hundred years ago: so the forms of our lives grow ever more
6462intellectual and, to the old fashioned eye, perhaps, uglier, but only
6463because it cannot see that the richness of inner, rational beauty always
6464spreads and deepens, and that the inner, rational aspect of all things
6465should now be of more consequence to us than the most beautiful
6466externality and the most exquisite limning.
6467
6468
64694
6470
6471=Astrology and the Like.=--It is presumable that the objects of the
6472religious, moral, aesthetic and logical notions pertain simply to the
6473superficialities of things, although man flatters himself with the
6474thought that here at least he is getting to the heart of the cosmos. He
6475deceives himself because these things have power to make him so happy
6476and so wretched, and so he evinces, in this respect, the same conceit
6477that characterises astrology. Astrology presupposes that the heavenly
6478bodies are regulated in their movements in harmony with the destiny of
6479mortals: the moral man presupposes that that which concerns himself most
6480nearly must also be the heart and soul of things.
6481
6482
64835
6484
6485=Misconception of Dreams.=--In the dream, mankind, in epochs of crude
6486primitive civilization, thought they were introduced to a second,
6487substantial world: here we have the source of all metaphysic. Without
6488the dream, men would never have been incited to an analysis of the
6489world. Even the distinction between soul and body is wholly due to the
6490primitive conception of the dream, as also the hypothesis of the
6491embodied soul, whence the development of all superstition, and also,
6492probably, the belief in god. "The dead still live: for they appear to
6493the living in dreams." So reasoned mankind at one time, and through many
6494thousands of years.
6495
6496
64976
6498
6499=The Scientific Spirit Prevails only Partially, not Wholly.=--The
6500specialized, minutest departments of science are dealt with purely
6501objectively. But the general universal sciences, considered as a great,
6502basic unity, posit the question--truly a very living question--: to what
6503purpose? what is the use? Because of this reference to utility they are,
6504as a whole, less impersonal than when looked at in their specialized
6505aspects. Now in the case of philosophy, as forming the apex of the
6506scientific pyramid, this question of the utility of knowledge is
6507necessarily brought very conspicuously forward, so that every philosophy
6508has, unconsciously, the air of ascribing the highest utility to itself.
6509It is for this reason that all philosophies contain such a great amount
6510of high flying metaphysic, and such a shrinking from the seeming
6511insignificance of the deliverances of physical science: for the
6512significance of knowledge in relation to life must be made to appear as
6513great as possible. This constitutes the antagonism between the
6514specialties of science and philosophy. The latter aims, as art aims, at
6515imparting to life and conduct the utmost depth and significance: in the
6516former mere knowledge is sought and nothing else--whatever else be
6517incidentally obtained. Heretofore there has never been a philosophical
6518system in which philosophy itself was not made the apologist of
6519knowledge [in the abstract]. On this point, at least, each is optimistic
6520and insists that to knowledge the highest utility must be ascribed. They
6521are all under the tyranny of logic, which is, from its very nature,
6522optimism.
6523
6524
65257
6526
6527=The Discordant Element in Science.=--Philosophy severed itself from
6528science when it put the question: what is that knowledge of the world
6529and of life through which mankind may be made happiest? This happened
6530when the Socratic school arose: with the standpoint of _happiness_ the
6531arteries of investigating science were compressed too tightly to permit
6532of any circulation of the blood--and are so compressed to-day.
6533
6534
65358
6536
6537=Pneumatic Explanation of Nature.=[5]--Metaphysic reads the message of
6538nature as if it were written purely pneumatically, as the church and its
6539learned ones formerly did where the bible was concerned. It requires a
6540great deal of expertness to apply to nature the same strict science of
6541interpretation that the philologists have devised for all literature,
6542and to apply it for the purpose of a simple, direct interpretation of
6543the message, and at the same time, not bring out a double meaning. But,
6544as in the case of books and literature, errors of exposition are far
6545from being completely eliminated, and vestiges of allegorical and
6546mystical interpretations are still to be met with in the most cultivated
6547circles, so where nature is concerned the case is--actually much worse.
6548
6549[5] Pneumatic is here used in the sense of spiritual. Pneuma being the
6550Greek word in the New Testament for the Holy Spirit.--Ed.
6551
6552
65539
6554
6555=Metaphysical World.=--It is true, there may be a metaphysical world;
6556the absolute possibility of it can scarcely be disputed. We see all
6557things through the medium of the human head and we cannot well cut off
6558this head: although there remains the question what part of the world
6559would be left after it had been cut off. But that is a purely abstract
6560scientific problem and one not much calculated to give men uneasiness:
6561yet everything that has heretofore made metaphysical assumptions
6562valuable, fearful or delightful to men, all that gave rise to them is
6563passion, error and self deception: the worst systems of knowledge, not
6564the best, pin their tenets of belief thereto. When such methods are once
6565brought to view as the basis of all existing religions and metaphysics,
6566they are already discredited. There always remains, however, the
6567possibility already conceded: but nothing at all can be made out of
6568that, to say not a word about letting happiness, salvation and life hang
6569upon the threads spun from such a possibility. Accordingly, nothing
6570could be predicated of the metaphysical world beyond the fact that it is
6571an elsewhere,[6] another sphere, inaccessible and incomprehensible to
6572us: it would become a thing of negative properties. Even were the
6573existence of such a world absolutely established, it would nevertheless
6574remain incontrovertible that of all kinds of knowledge, knowledge of
6575such a world would be of least consequence--of even less consequence
6576than knowledge of the chemical analysis of water would be to a storm
6577tossed mariner.
6578
6579[6] Anderssein.
6580
6581
658210
6583
6584=The Harmlessness of Metaphysic in the Future.=--As soon as religion,
6585art and ethics are so understood that a full comprehension of them can
6586be gained without taking refuge in the postulates of metaphysical
6587claptrap at any point in the line of reasoning, there will be a complete
6588cessation of interest in the purely theoretical problem of the "thing in
6589itself" and the "phenomenon." For here, too, the same truth applies: in
6590religion, art and ethics we are not concerned with the "essence of the
6591cosmos".[7] We are in the sphere of pure conception. No presentiment [or
6592intuition] can carry us any further. With perfect tranquility the
6593question of how our conception of the world could differ so sharply from
6594the actual world as it is manifest to us, will be relegated to the
6595physiological sciences and to the history of the evolution of ideas and
6596organisms.
6597
6598[7] "Wesen der Welt an sich."
6599
6600
660111
6602
6603=Language as a Presumptive Science.=--The importance of language in the
6604development of civilization consists in the fact that by means of it
6605man placed one world, his own, alongside another, a place of leverage
6606that he thought so firm as to admit of his turning the rest of the
6607cosmos on a pivot that he might master it. In so far as man for ages
6608looked upon mere ideas and names of things as upon aeternae veritates,
6609he evinced the very pride with which he raised himself above the brute.
6610He really supposed that in language he possessed a knowledge of the
6611cosmos. The language builder was not so modest as to believe that he was
6612only giving names to things. On the contrary he thought he embodied the
6613highest wisdom concerning things in [mere] words; and, in truth,
6614language is the first movement in all strivings for wisdom. Here, too,
6615it is _faith in ascertained truth_[8] from which the mightiest fountains
6616of strength have flowed. Very tardily--only now--it dawns upon men that
6617they have propagated a monstrous error in their belief in language.
6618Fortunately, it is too late now to arrest and turn back the evolutionary
6619process of the reason, which had its inception in this belief. Logic
6620itself rests upon assumptions to which nothing in the world of reality
6621corresponds. For example, the correspondence of certain things to one
6622another and the identity of those things at different periods of time
6623are assumptions pure and simple, but the science of logic originated in
6624the positive belief that they were not assumptions at all but
6625established facts. It is the same with the science of mathematics which
6626certainly would never have come into existence if mankind had known from
6627the beginning that in all nature there is no perfectly straight line, no
6628true circle, no standard of measurement.
6629
6630[8] Glaube an die gefundene Wahrheit, as distinguished from faith in
6631what is taken on trust as truth.
6632
6633
663412
6635
6636=Dream and Civilization.=--The function of the brain which is most
6637encroached upon in slumber is the memory; not that it is wholly
6638suspended, but it is reduced to a state of imperfection as, in primitive
6639ages of mankind, was probably the case with everyone, whether waking or
6640sleeping. Uncontrolled and entangled as it is, it perpetually confuses
6641things as a result of the most trifling similarities, yet in the same
6642mental confusion and lack of control the nations invented their
6643mythologies, while nowadays travelers habitually observe how prone the
6644savage is to forgetfulness, how his mind, after the least exertion of
6645memory, begins to wander and lose itself until finally he utters
6646falsehood and nonsense from sheer exhaustion. Yet, in dreams, we all
6647resemble this savage. Inadequacy of distinction and error of comparison
6648are the basis of the preposterous things we do and say in dreams, so
6649that when we clearly recall a dream we are startled that so much idiocy
6650lurks within us. The absolute distinctness of all dream-images, due to
6651implicit faith in their substantial reality, recalls the conditions in
6652which earlier mankind were placed, for whom hallucinations had
6653extraordinary vividness, entire communities and even entire nations
6654laboring simultaneously under them. Therefore: in sleep and in dream we
6655make the pilgrimage of early mankind over again.
6656
6657
665813
6659
6660=Logic of the Dream.=--During sleep the nervous system, through various
6661inner provocatives, is in constant agitation. Almost all the organs act
6662independently and vigorously. The blood circulates rapidly. The posture
6663of the sleeper compresses some portions of the body. The coverlets
6664influence the sensations in different ways. The stomach carries on the
6665digestive process and acts upon other organs thereby. The intestines are
6666in motion. The position of the head induces unaccustomed action. The
6667feet, shoeless, no longer pressing the ground, are the occasion of other
6668sensations of novelty, as is, indeed, the changed garb of the entire
6669body. All these things, following the bustle and change of the day,
6670result, through their novelty, in a movement throughout the entire
6671system that extends even to the brain functions. Thus there are a
6672hundred circumstances to induce perplexity in the mind, a questioning as
6673to the cause of this excitation. Now, the dream is a _seeking and
6674presenting of reasons_ for these excitations of feeling, of the supposed
6675reasons, that is to say. Thus, for example, whoever has his feet bound
6676with two threads will probably dream that a pair of serpents are coiled
6677about his feet. This is at first a hypothesis, then a belief with an
6678accompanying imaginative picture and the argument: "these snakes must be
6679the _causa_ of those sensations which I, the sleeper, now have." So
6680reasons the mind of the sleeper. The conditions precedent, as thus
6681conjectured, become, owing to the excitation of the fancy, present
6682realities. Everyone knows from experience how a dreamer will transform
6683one piercing sound, for example, that of a bell, into another of quite a
6684different nature, say, the report of cannon. In his dream he becomes
6685aware first of the effects, which he explains by a subsequent hypothesis
6686and becomes persuaded of the purely conjectural nature of the sound. But
6687how comes it that the mind of the dreamer goes so far astray when the
6688same mind, awake, is habitually cautious, careful, and so conservative
6689in its dealings with hypotheses? why does the first plausible
6690hypothesis of the cause of a sensation gain credit in the dreaming
6691state? (For in a dream we look upon that dream as reality, that is, we
6692accept our hypotheses as fully established). I have no doubt that as men
6693argue in their dreams to-day, mankind argued, even in their waking
6694moments, for thousands of years: the first _causa_, that occurred to the
6695mind with reference to anything that stood in need of explanation, was
6696accepted as the true explanation and served as such. (Savages show the
6697same tendency in operation, as the reports of travelers agree). In the
6698dream this atavistic relic of humanity manifests its existence within
6699us, for it is the foundation upon which the higher rational faculty
6700developed itself and still develops itself in every individual. Dreams
6701carry us back to the earlier stages of human culture and afford us a
6702means of understanding it more clearly. Dream thought comes so easily to
6703us now because we are so thoroughly trained to it through the
6704interminable stages of evolution during which this fanciful and facile
6705form of theorising has prevailed. To a certain extent the dream is a
6706restorative for the brain, which, during the day, is called upon to meet
6707the many demands for trained thought made upon it by the conditions of a
6708higher civilization.--We may, if we please, become sensible, even in our
6709waking moments, of a condition that is as a door and vestibule to
6710dreaming. If we close our eyes the brain immediately conjures up a
6711medley of impressions of light and color, apparently a sort of imitation
6712and echo of the impressions forced in upon the brain during its waking
6713moments. And now the mind, in co-operation with the imagination,
6714transforms this formless play of light and color into definite figures,
6715moving groups, landscapes. What really takes place is a sort of
6716reasoning from effect back to cause. As the brain inquires: whence these
6717impressions of light and color? it posits as the inducing causes of such
6718lights and colors, those shapes and figures. They serve the brain as the
6719occasions of those lights and colors because the brain, when the eyes
6720are open and the senses awake, is accustomed to perceiving the cause of
6721every impression of light and color made upon it. Here again the
6722imagination is continually interposing its images inasmuch as it
6723participates in the production of the impressions made through the
6724senses day by day: and the dream-fancy does exactly the same thing--that
6725is, the presumed cause is determined from the effect and _after_ the
6726effect: all this, too, with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this
6727matter, as in a matter of jugglery or sleight-of-hand, a confusion of
6728the mind is produced and an after effect is made to appear a
6729simultaneous action, an inverted succession of events, even.--From
6730these considerations we can see how _late_ strict, logical thought, the
6731true notion of cause and effect must have been in developing, since our
6732intellectual and rational faculties to this very day revert to these
6733primitive processes of deduction, while practically half our lifetime is
6734spent in the super-inducing conditions.--Even the poet, the artist,
6735ascribes to his sentimental and emotional states causes which are not
6736the true ones. To that extent he is a reminder of early mankind and can
6737aid us in its comprehension.
6738
6739
674014
6741
6742=Association.=[9]--All strong feelings are associated with a variety of
6743allied sentiments and emotions. They stir up the memory at the same
6744time. When we are under their influence we are reminded of similar
6745states and we feel a renewal of them within us. Thus are formed habitual
6746successions of feelings and notions, which, at last, when they follow
6747one another with lightning rapidity are no longer felt as complexities
6748but as unities. In this sense we hear of moral feelings, of religious
6749feelings, as if they were absolute unities. In reality they are streams
6750with a hundred sources and tributaries. Here again, the unity of the
6751word speaks nothing for the unity of the thing.
6752
6753[9] Miterklingen: to sound simultaneously with.
6754
6755
675615
6757
6758=No Within and Without in the World.=[10]--As Democritus transferred the
6759notions above and below to limitless space, where they are destitute of
6760meaning, so the philosophers do generally with the idea "within and
6761without," as regards the form and substance (Wesen und Erscheinung) of
6762the world. What they claim is that through the medium of profound
6763feelings one can penetrate deep into the soul of things (Innre), draw
6764close to the heart of nature. But these feelings are deep only in so far
6765as with them are simultaneously aroused, although almost imperceptibly,
6766certain complicated groups of thoughts (Gedankengruppen) which we call
6767deep: a feeling is deep because we deem the thoughts accompanying it
6768deep. But deep thought can nevertheless be very widely sundered from
6769truth, as for instance every metaphysical thought. Take from deep
6770feeling the element of thought blended with it and all that remains is
6771_strength_ of feeling which is no voucher for the validity of
6772knowledge, as intense faith is evidence only of its own intensity and
6773not of the truth of that in which the faith is felt.
6774
6775[10] Kein Innen und Aussen in der Welt: the above translation may seem
6776too literal but some dispute has arisen concerning the precise idea the
6777author means to convey.
6778
6779
678016
6781
6782=Phenomenon and Thing-in-Itself.=--The philosophers are in the habit of
6783placing themselves in front of life and experience--that which they call
6784the world of phenomena--as if they were standing before a picture that
6785is unrolled before them in its final completeness. This panorama, they
6786think, must be studied in every detail in order to reach some conclusion
6787regarding the object represented by the picture. From effect,
6788accordingly is deduced cause and from cause is deduced the
6789unconditioned. This process is generally looked upon as affording the
6790all sufficient explanation of the world of phenomena. On the other hand
6791one must, (while putting the conception of the metaphysical distinctly
6792forward as that of the unconditioned, and consequently of the
6793unconditioning) absolutely deny any connection between the unconditioned
6794(of the metaphysical world) and the world known to us: so that
6795throughout phenomena there is no manifestation of the thing-in-itself,
6796and getting from one to the other is out of the question. Thus is left
6797quite ignored the circumstance that the picture--that which we now call
6798life and experience--is a gradual evolution, is, indeed, still in
6799process of evolution and for that reason should not be regarded as an
6800enduring whole from which any conclusion as to its author (the
6801all-sufficient reason) could be arrived at, or even pronounced out of
6802the question. It is because we have for thousands of years looked into
6803the world with moral, aesthetic, religious predispositions, with blind
6804prejudice, passion or fear, and surfeited ourselves with indulgence in
6805the follies of illogical thought, that the world has gradually become so
6806wondrously motley, frightful, significant, soulful: it has taken on
6807tints, but we have been the colorists: the human intellect, upon the
6808foundation of human needs, of human passions, has reared all these
6809"phenomena" and injected its own erroneous fundamental conceptions into
6810things. Late, very late, the human intellect checks itself: and now the
6811world of experience and the thing-in-itself seem to it so severed and so
6812antithetical that it denies the possibility of one's hinging upon the
6813other--or else summons us to surrender our intellect, our personal will,
6814to the secret and the awe-inspiring in order that thereby we may attain
6815certainty of certainty hereafter. Again, there are those who have
6816combined all the characteristic features of our world of
6817phenomena--that is, the conception of the world which has been formed
6818and inherited through a series of intellectual vagaries--and instead of
6819holding the intellect responsible for it all, have pronounced the very
6820nature of things accountable for the present very sinister aspect of the
6821world, and preached annihilation of existence. Through all these views
6822and opinions the toilsome, steady process of science (which now for the
6823first time begins to celebrate its greatest triumph in the genesis of
6824thought) will definitely work itself out, the result, being, perhaps, to
6825the following effect: That which we now call the world is the result of
6826a crowd of errors and fancies which gradually developed in the general
6827evolution of organic nature, have grown together and been transmitted to
6828us as the accumulated treasure of all the past--as the _treasure_, for
6829whatever is worth anything in our humanity rests upon it. From this
6830world of conception it is in the power of science to release us only to
6831a slight extent--and this is all that could be wished--inasmuch as it
6832cannot eradicate the influence of hereditary habits of feeling, but it
6833can light up by degrees the stages of the development of that world of
6834conception, and lift us, at least for a time, above the whole spectacle.
6835Perhaps we may then perceive that the thing-in-itself is a meet subject
6836for Homeric laughter: that it seemed so much, everything, indeed, and
6837is really a void--void, that is to say, of meaning.
6838
6839
684017
6841
6842=Metaphysical Explanation.=--Man, when he is young, prizes metaphysical
6843explanations, because they make him see matters of the highest import in
6844things he found disagreeable or contemptible: and if he is not satisfied
6845with himself, this feeling of dissatisfaction is soothed when he sees
6846the most hidden world-problem or world-pain in that which he finds so
6847displeasing in himself. To feel himself more unresponsible and at the
6848same time to find things (Dinge) more interesting--that is to him the
6849double benefit he owes to metaphysics. Later, indeed, he acquires
6850distrust of the whole metaphysical method of explaining things: he then
6851perceives, perhaps, that those effects could have been attained just as
6852well and more scientifically by another method: that physical and
6853historical explanations would, at least, have given that feeling of
6854freedom from personal responsibility just as well, while interest in
6855life and its problems would be stimulated, perhaps, even more.
6856
6857
685818
6859
6860=The Fundamental Problems of Metaphysics.=--If a history of the
6861development of thought is ever written, the following proposition,
6862advanced by a distinguished logician, will be illuminated with a new
6863light: "The universal, primordial law of the apprehending subject
6864consists in the inner necessity of cognizing every object by itself, as
6865in its essence a thing unto itself, therefore as self-existing and
6866unchanging, in short, as a substance." Even this law, which is here
6867called "primordial," is an evolution: it has yet to be shown how
6868gradually this evolution takes place in lower organizations: how the
6869dim, mole eyes of such organizations see, at first, nothing but a blank
6870sameness: how later, when the various excitations of desire and aversion
6871manifest themselves, various substances are gradually distinguished, but
6872each with an attribute, that is, a special relationship to such an
6873organization. The first step towards the logical is judgment, the
6874essence of which, according to the best logicians, is belief. At the
6875foundation of all beliefs lie sensations of pleasure or pain in relation
6876to the apprehending subject. A third feeling, as the result of two
6877prior, single, separate feelings, is judgment in its crudest form. We
6878organic beings are primordially interested by nothing whatever in any
6879thing (Ding) except its relation to ourselves with reference to pleasure
6880and pain. Between the moments in which we are conscious of this
6881relation, (the states of feeling) lie the moments of rest, of
6882not-feeling: then the world and every thing (Ding) have no interest for
6883us: we observe no change in them (as at present a person absorbed in
6884something does not notice anyone passing by). To plants all things are,
6885as a rule, at rest, eternal, every object like itself. From the period
6886of lower organisms has been handed down to man the belief that there are
6887like things (gleiche Dinge): only the trained experience attained
6888through the most advanced science contradicts this postulate. The
6889primordial belief of all organisms is, perhaps, that all the rest of the
6890world is one thing and motionless.--Furthest away from this first step
6891towards the logical is the notion of causation: even to-day we think
6892that all our feelings and doings are, at bottom, acts of the free will;
6893when the sentient individual contemplates himself he deems every
6894feeling, every change, a something isolated, disconnected, that is to
6895say, unqualified by any thing; it comes suddenly to the surface,
6896independent of anything that went before or came after. We are hungry,
6897but originally we do not know that the organism must be nourished: on
6898the contrary that feeling seems to manifest itself without reason or
6899purpose; it stands out by itself and seems quite independent. Therefore:
6900the belief in the freedom of the will is a primordial error of
6901everything organic as old as the very earliest inward prompting of the
6902logical faculty; belief in unconditioned substances and in like things
6903(gleiche Dinge) is also a primordial and equally ancient error of
6904everything organic. Inasmuch as all metaphysic has concerned itself
6905particularly with substance and with freedom of the will, it should be
6906designated as the science that deals with the fundamental errors of
6907mankind as if they were fundamental truths.
6908
6909
691019
6911
6912=Number.=--The invention of the laws of number has as its basis the
6913primordial and prior-prevailing delusion that many like things exist
6914(although in point of fact there is no such thing is a duplicate), or
6915that, at least, there are things (but there is no "thing"). The
6916assumption of plurality always presupposes that _something_ exists which
6917manifests itself repeatedly, but just here is where the delusion
6918prevails; in this very matter we feign realities, unities, that have no
6919existence. Our feelings, notions, of space and time are false for they
6920lead, when duly tested, to logical contradictions. In all scientific
6921demonstrations we always unavoidably base our calculation upon some
6922false standards [of duration or measurement] but as these standards are
6923at least _constant_, as, for example, our notions of time and space, the
6924results arrived at by science possess absolute accuracy and certainty in
6925their relationship to one another: one can keep on building upon
6926them--until is reached that final limit at which the erroneous
6927fundamental conceptions, (the invariable breakdown) come into conflict
6928with the results established--as, for example, in the case of the atomic
6929theory. Here we always find ourselves obliged to give credence to a
6930"thing" or material "substratum" that is set in motion, although, at the
6931same time, the whole scientific programme has had as its aim the
6932resolving of everything material into motions [themselves]: here again
6933we distinguish with our feeling [that which does the] moving and [that
6934which is] moved,[11] and we never get out of this circle, because the
6935belief in things[12] has been from time immemorial rooted in our
6936nature.--When Kant says "the intellect does not derive its laws from
6937nature, but dictates them to her" he states the full truth as regards
6938the _idea of nature_ which we form (nature = world, as notion, that is,
6939as error) but which is merely the synthesis of a host of errors of the
6940intellect. To a world not [the outcome of] our conception, the laws of
6941number are wholly inapplicable: such laws are valid only in the world of
6942mankind.
6943
6944[11] Wir scheiden auch hier noch mit unserer Empfindung Bewegendes und
6945Bewegtes.
6946
6947[12] Glaube an Dinge.
6948
6949
695020
6951
6952=Some Backward Steps.=--One very forward step in education is taken when
6953man emerges from his superstitious and religious ideas and fears and,
6954for instance, no longer believes in the dear little angels or in
6955original sin, and has stopped talking about the salvation of the soul:
6956when he has taken this step to freedom he has, nevertheless, through the
6957utmost exertion of his mental power, to overcome metaphysics. Then a
6958backward movement is necessary: he must appreciate the historical
6959justification, and to an equal extent the psychological considerations,
6960in such a movement. He must understand that the greatest advances made
6961by mankind have resulted from such a course and that without this very
6962backward movement the highest achievements of man hitherto would have
6963been impossible.--With regard to philosophical metaphysics I see ever
6964more and more who have arrived at the negative goal (that all positive
6965metaphysic is a delusion) but as yet very few who go a few steps
6966backward: one should look out over the last rungs of the ladder, but not
6967try to stand on them, that is to say. The most advanced as yet go only
6968far enough to free themselves from metaphysic and look back at it with
6969an air of superiority: whereas here, no less than in the hippodrome, it
6970is necessary to turn around in order to reach the end of the course.
6971
6972
697321
6974
6975=Presumable [Nature of the] Victory of Doubt.=--Let us assume for a
6976moment the validity of the skeptical standpoint: granted that there is
6977no metaphysical world, and that all the metaphysical explanations of the
6978only world we know are useless to us, how would we then contemplate men
6979and things? [Menschen und Dinge]. This can be thought out and it is
6980worth while doing so, even if the question whether anything metaphysical
6981has ever been demonstrated by or through Kant and Schopenhauer, be put
6982altogether aside. For it is, to all appearances, highly probable that
6983men, on this point, will be, in the mass, skeptical. The question thus
6984becomes: what sort of a notion will human society, under the influence
6985of such a state of mind, form of itself? Perhaps the _scientific
6986demonstration_ of any metaphysical world is now so difficult that
6987mankind will never be free from a distrust of it. And when there is
6988formed a feeling of distrust of metaphysics, the results are, in the
6989mass, the same as if metaphysics were refuted altogether and _could_ no
6990longer be believed. In both cases the historical question, with regard
6991to an unmetaphysical disposition in mankind, remains the same.
6992
6993
699422
6995
6996=Disbelief in the "monumentum aere perennius".=[13]--A decided
6997disadvantage, attending the termination of metaphysical modes of
6998thought, is that the individual fixes his mind too attentively upon his
6999own brief lifetime and feels no strong inducement to aid in the
7000foundation of institutions capable of enduring for centuries: he wishes
7001himself to gather the fruit from the tree that he plants and
7002consequently he no longer plants those trees which require centuries of
7003constant cultivation and are destined to afford shade to generation
7004after generation in the future. For metaphysical views inspire the
7005belief that in them is afforded the final sure foundation upon which
7006henceforth the whole future of mankind may rest and be built up: the
7007individual promotes his own salvation; when, for example, he builds a
7008church or a monastery he is of opinion that he is doing something for
7009the salvation of his immortal soul:--Can science, as well, inspire such
7010faith in the efficacy of her results? In actual fact, science requires
7011doubt and distrust as her surest auxiliaries; nevertheless, the sum of
7012the irresistible (that is all the onslaughts of skepticism, all the
7013disintegrating effects of surviving truths) can easily become so great
7014(as, for instance, in the case of hygienic science) as to inspire the
7015determination to build "eternal" works upon it. At present the contrast
7016between our excitated ephemeral existence and the tranquil repose of
7017metaphysical epochs is too great because both are as yet in too close
7018juxtaposition. The individual man himself now goes through too many
7019stages of inner and outer evolution for him to venture to make a plan
7020even for his life time alone. A perfectly modern man, indeed, who wants
7021to build himself a house feels as if he were walling himself up alive in
7022a mausoleum.
7023
7024[13] Monument more enduring than brass: Horace, Odes III:XXX.
7025
7026
702723
7028
7029=Age of Comparison.=--The less men are bound by tradition, the greater
7030is the inner activity of motives, the greater, correspondingly, the
7031outer restlessness, the promiscuous flow of humanity, the polyphony of
7032strivings. Who now feels any great impulse to establish himself and his
7033posterity in a particular place? For whom, moreover, does there exist,
7034at present, any strong tie? As all the methods of the arts were copied
7035from one another, so were all the methods and advancements of moral
7036codes, of manners, of civilizations.--Such an age derives its
7037significance from the fact that in it the various ideas, codes, manners
7038and civilizations can be compared and experienced side by side; which
7039was impossible at an earlier period in view of the localised nature of
7040the rule of every civilization, corresponding to the limitation of all
7041artistic effects by time and place. To-day the growth of the aesthetic
7042feeling is decided, owing to the great number of [artistic] forms which
7043offer themselves for comparison. The majority--those that are condemned
7044by the method of comparison--will be allowed to die out. In the same way
7045there is to-day taking place a selection of the forms and customs of the
7046higher morality which can result only in the extinction of the vulgar
7047moralities. This is the age of comparison! That is its glory--but also
7048its pain. Let us not, however shrink from this pain. Rather would we
7049comprehend the nature of the task imposed upon us by our age as
7050adequately as we can: posterity will bless us for doing so--a posterity
7051that knows itself to be [developed] through and above the narrow, early
7052race-civilizations as well as the culture-civilization of comparison,
7053but yet looks gratefully back upon both as venerable monuments of
7054antiquity.
7055
7056
705724
7058
7059=Possibility of Progress.=--When a master of the old civilization (den
7060alten Cultur) vows to hold no more discussion with men who believe in
7061progress, he is quite right. For the old civilization[14] has its
7062greatness and its advantages behind it, and historic training forces one
7063to acknowledge that it can never again acquire vigor: only intolerable
7064stupidity or equally intolerable fanaticism could fail to perceive this
7065fact. But men may consciously determine to evolve to a new civilization
7066where formerly they evolved unconsciously and accidentally. They can now
7067devise better conditions for the advancement of mankind, for their
7068nourishment, training and education, they can administer the earth as an
7069economic power, and, particularly, compare the capacities of men and
7070select them accordingly. This new, conscious civilization is killing the
7071other which, on the whole, has led but an unreflective animal and plant
7072life: it is also destroying the doubt of progress itself--progress is
7073possible. I mean: it is hasty and almost unreflective to assume that
7074progress must _necessarily_ take place: but how can it be doubted that
7075progress is possible? On the other hand, progress in the sense and along
7076the lines of the old civilization is not even conceivable. If romantic
7077fantasy employs the word progress in connection with certain aims and
7078ends identical with those of the circumscribed primitive national
7079civilizations, the picture presented of progress is always borrowed from
7080the past. The idea and the image of progress thus formed are quite
7081without originality.
7082
7083[14] Cultur, culture, civilisation etc., but there is no exact English
7084equivalent.
7085
7086
708725
7088
7089=Private Ethics and World Ethics.=--Since the extinction of the belief
7090that a god guides the general destiny of the world and, notwithstanding
7091all the contortions and windings of the path of mankind, leads it
7092gloriously forward, men must shape oecumenical, world-embracing ends for
7093themselves. The older ethics, namely Kant's, required of the individual
7094such a course of conduct as he wishes all men to follow. This evinces
7095much simplicity--as if any individual could determine off hand what
7096course of conduct would conduce to the welfare of humanity, and what
7097course of conduct is preëminently desirable! This is a theory like that
7098of freedom of competition, which takes it for granted that the general
7099harmony [of things] _must_ prevail of itself in accordance with some
7100inherent law of betterment or amelioration. It may be that a later
7101contemplation of the needs of mankind will reveal that it is by no means
7102desirable that all men should regulate their conduct according to the
7103same principle; it may be best, from the standpoint of certain ends yet
7104to be attained, that men, during long periods should regulate their
7105conduct with reference to special, and even, in certain circumstances,
7106evil, objects. At any rate, if mankind is not to be led astray by such a
7107universal rule of conduct, it behooves it to attain a _knowledge of the
7108condition of culture_ that will serve as a scientific standard of
7109comparison in connection with cosmical ends. Herein is comprised the
7110tremendous mission of the great spirits of the next century.
7111
7112
711326
7114
7115=Reaction as Progress.=--Occasionally harsh, powerful, impetuous, yet
7116nevertheless backward spirits, appear, who try to conjure back some past
7117era in the history of mankind: they serve as evidence that the new
7118tendencies which they oppose, are not yet potent enough, that there is
7119something lacking in them: otherwise they [the tendencies] would better
7120withstand the effects of this conjuring back process. Thus Luther's
7121reformation shows that in his century all the impulses to freedom of the
7122spirit were still uncertain, lacking in vigor, and immature. Science
7123could not yet rear her head. Indeed the whole Renaissance appears but as
7124an early spring smothered in snow. But even in the present century
7125Schopenhauer's metaphysic shows that the scientific spirit is not yet
7126powerful enough: for the whole mediaeval Christian world-standpoint
7127(Weltbetrachtung) and conception of man (Mensch-Empfindung)[15] once
7128again, notwithstanding the slowly wrought destruction of all Christian
7129dogma, celebrated a resurrection in Schopenhauer's doctrine. There is
7130much science in his teaching although the science does not dominate,
7131but, instead of it, the old, trite "metaphysical necessity." It is one
7132of the greatest and most priceless advantages of Schopenhauer's teaching
7133that by it our feelings are temporarily forced back to those old human
7134and cosmical standpoints to which no other path could conduct us so
7135easily. The gain for history and justice is very great. I believe that
7136without Schopenhauer's aid it would be no easy matter for anyone now to
7137do justice to Christianity and its Asiatic relatives--a thing impossible
7138as regards the christianity that still survives. After according this
7139great triumph to justice, after we have corrected in so essential a
7140respect the historical point of view which the age of learning brought
7141with it, we may begin to bear still farther onward the banner of
7142enlightenment--a banner bearing the three names: Petrarch, Erasmus,
7143Voltaire. We have taken a forward step out of reaction.
7144
7145[15] Literally man-feeling or human outlook.
7146
7147
714827
7149
7150=A Substitute for Religion.=--It is supposed to be a recommendation for
7151philosophy to say of it that it provides the people with a substitute
7152for religion. And in fact, the training of the intellect does
7153necessitate the convenient laying out of the track of thought, since the
7154transition from religion by way of science entails a powerful, perilous
7155leap,--something that should be advised against. With this
7156qualification, the recommendation referred to is a just one. At the same
7157time, it should be further explained that the needs which religion
7158satisfies and which science must now satisfy, are not immutable. Even
7159they can be diminished and uprooted. Think, for instance, of the
7160christian soul-need, the sighs over one's inner corruption, the anxiety
7161regarding salvation--all notions that arise simply out of errors of the
7162reason and require no satisfaction at all, but annihilation. A
7163philosophy can either so affect these needs as to appease them or else
7164put them aside altogether, for they are acquired, circumscribed needs,
7165based upon hypotheses which those of science explode. Here, for the
7166purpose of affording the means of transition, for the sake of lightening
7167the spirit overburdened with feeling, art can be employed to far better
7168purpose, as these hypotheses receive far less support from art than from
7169a metaphysical philosophy. Then from art it is easier to go over to a
7170really emancipating philosophical science.
7171
7172
717328
7174
7175=Discredited Words.=--Away with the disgustingly over-used words
7176optimism and pessimism! For the occasion for using them grows daily
7177less; only drivelers now find them indispensably necessary. What earthly
7178reason could anyone have for being an optimist unless he had a god to
7179defend who _must_ have created the best of all possible worlds, since he
7180is himself all goodness and perfection?--but what thinking man has now
7181any need for the hypothesis that there is a god?--There is also no
7182occasion whatever for a pessimistic confession of faith, unless one has
7183a personal interest in denouncing the advocate of god, the theologian or
7184the theological philosopher, and maintaining the counter proposition
7185that evil reigns, that wretchedness is more potent than joy, that the
7186world is a piece of botch work, that phenomenon (Erscheinung) is but the
7187manifestation of some evil spirit. But who bothers his head about the
7188theologians any more--except the theologians themselves? Apart from all
7189theology and its antagonism, it is manifest that the world is neither
7190good nor bad, (to say nothing about its being the best or the worst) and
7191that these ideas of "good" and "bad" have significance only in relation
7192to men, indeed, are without significance at all, in view of the sense in
7193which they are usually employed. The contemptuous and the eulogistic
7194point of view must, in every case, be repudiated.
7195
7196
719729
7198
7199=Intoxicated by the Perfume of Flowers.=--The ship of humanity, it is
7200thought, acquires an ever deeper draught the more it is laden. It is
7201believed that the more profoundly man thinks, the more exquisitely he
7202feels, the higher the standard he sets for himself, the greater his
7203distance from the other animals--the more he appears as a genius
7204(Genie) among animals--the nearer he gets to the true nature of the
7205world and to comprehension thereof: this, indeed, he really does through
7206science, but he thinks he does it far more adequately through his
7207religions and arts. These are, certainly, a blossoming of the world, but
7208not, therefore, _nearer the roots of the world_ than is the stalk. One
7209cannot learn best from it the nature of the world, although nearly
7210everyone thinks so. _Error_ has made men so deep, sensitive and
7211imaginative in order to bring forth such flowers as religions and arts.
7212Pure apprehension would be unable to do that. Whoever should disclose to
7213us the essence of the world would be undeceiving us most cruelly. Not
7214the world as thing-in-itself but the world as idea[16] (as error) is
7215rich in portent, deep, wonderful, carrying happiness and unhappiness in
7216its womb. This result leads to a philosophy of world negation: which, at
7217any rate, can be as well combined with a practical world affirmation as
7218with its opposite.
7219
7220[16] Vorstellung: this word sometimes corresponds to the English word
7221"idea", at others to "conception" or "notion."
7222
7223
722430
7225
7226=Evil Habits in Reaching Conclusions.=--The most usual erroneous
7227conclusions of men are these: a thing[17] exists, therefore it is right:
7228Here from capacity to live is deduced fitness, from fitness, is deduced
7229justification. So also: an opinion gives happiness, therefore it is the
7230true one, its effect is good, therefore it is itself good and true. Here
7231is predicated of the effect that it gives happiness, that it is good in
7232the sense of utility, and there is likewise predicated of the cause that
7233it is good, but good in the sense of logical validity. Conversely, the
7234proposition would run: a thing[17] cannot attain success, cannot
7235maintain itself, therefore it is evil: a belief troubles [the believer],
7236occasions pain, therefore it is false. The free spirit, who is sensible
7237of the defect in this method of reaching conclusions and has had to
7238suffer its consequences, often succumbs to the temptation to come to the
7239very opposite conclusions (which, in general, are, of course, equally
7240erroneous): a thing cannot maintain itself: therefore it is good; a
7241belief is troublesome, therefore it is true.
7242
7243[17] Sache, thing but not in the sense of Ding. Sache is of very
7244indefinite application (res).
7245
7246
724731
7248
7249=The Illogical is Necessary.=--Among the things which can bring a
7250thinker to distraction is the knowledge that the illogical is necessary
7251to mankind and that from the illogical springs much that is good. The
7252illogical is so imbedded in the passions, in language, in art, in
7253religion and, above all, in everything that imparts value to life that
7254it cannot be taken away without irreparably injuring those beautiful
7255things. Only men of the utmost simplicity can believe that the nature
7256man knows can be changed into a purely logical nature. Yet were there
7257steps affording approach to this goal, how utterly everything would be
7258lost on the way! Even the most rational man needs nature again, from
7259time to time, that is, his illogical fundamental relation
7260(Grundstellung) to all things.
7261
7262
726332
7264
7265=Being Unjust is Essential.=--All judgments of the value of life are
7266illogically developed and therefore unjust. The vice of the judgment
7267consists, first, in the way in which the subject matter comes under
7268observation, that is, very incompletely; secondly in the way in which
7269the total is summed up; and, thirdly, in the fact that each single item
7270in the totality of the subject matter is itself the result of defective
7271perception, and this from absolute necessity. No practical knowledge of
7272a man, for example, stood he never so near to us, can be complete--so
7273that we could have a logical right to form a total estimate of him; all
7274estimates are summary and must be so. Then the standard by which we
7275measure, (our being) is not an immutable quantity; we have moods and
7276variations, and yet we should know ourselves as an invariable standard
7277before we undertake to establish the nature of the relation of any thing
7278(Sache) to ourselves. Perhaps it will follow from all this that one
7279should form no judgments whatever; if one could but merely _live_
7280without having to form estimates, without aversion and without
7281partiality!--for everything most abhorred is closely connected with an
7282estimate, as well as every strongest partiality. An inclination towards
7283a thing, or from a thing, without an accompanying feeling that the
7284beneficial is desired and the pernicious contemned, an inclination
7285without a sort of experiential estimation of the desirability of an end,
7286does not exist in man. We are primordially illogical and hence unjust
7287beings _and can recognise this fact_: this is one of the greatest and
7288most baffling discords of existence.
7289
7290
729133
7292
7293=Error Respecting Living for the Sake of Living Essential.=--Every
7294belief in the value and worthiness of life rests upon defective
7295thinking; it is for this reason alone possible that sympathy with the
7296general life and suffering of mankind is so imperfectly developed in the
7297individual. Even exceptional men, who can think beyond their own
7298personalities, do not have this general life in view, but isolated
7299portions of it. If one is capable of fixing his observation upon
7300exceptional cases, I mean upon highly endowed individuals and pure
7301souled beings, if their development is taken as the true end of
7302world-evolution and if joy be felt in their existence, then it is
7303possible to believe in the value of life, because in that case the rest
7304of humanity is overlooked: hence we have here defective thinking. So,
7305too, it is even if all mankind be taken into consideration, and one
7306species only of impulses (the less egoistic) brought under review and
7307those, in consideration of the other impulses, exalted: then something
7308could still be hoped of mankind in the mass and to that extent there
7309could exist belief in the value of life: here, again, as a result of
7310defective thinking. Whatever attitude, thus, one may assume, one is, as
7311a result of this attitude, an exception among mankind. Now, the great
7312majority of mankind endure life without any great protest, and believe,
7313to this extent, in the value of existence, but that is because each
7314individual decides and determines alone, and never comes out of his own
7315personality like these exceptions: everything outside of the personal
7316has no existence for them or at the utmost is observed as but a faint
7317shadow. Consequently the value of life for the generality of mankind
7318consists simply in the fact that the individual attaches more importance
7319to himself than he does to the world. The great lack of imagination from
7320which he suffers is responsible for his inability to enter into the
7321feelings of beings other than himself, and hence his sympathy with their
7322fate and suffering is of the slightest possible description. On the
7323other hand, whosoever really _could_ sympathise, necessarily doubts the
7324value of life; were it possible for him to sum up and to feel in himself
7325the total consciousness of mankind, he would collapse with a malediction
7326against existence,--for mankind is, in the mass, without a goal, and
7327hence man cannot find, in the contemplation of his whole course,
7328anything to serve him as a mainstay and a comfort, but rather a reason
7329to despair. If he looks beyond the things that immediately engage him to
7330the final aimlessness of humanity, his own conduct assumes in his eyes
7331the character of a frittering away. To feel oneself, however, as
7332humanity (not alone as an individual) frittered away exactly as we see
7333the stray leaves frittered away by nature, is a feeling transcending all
7334feeling. But who is capable of it? Only a poet, certainly: and poets
7335always know how to console themselves.
7336
7337
733834
7339
7340=For Tranquility.=--But will not our philosophy become thus a tragedy?
7341Will not truth prove the enemy of life, of betterment? A question seems
7342to weigh upon our tongue and yet will not put itself into words: whether
7343one _can_ knowingly remain in the domain of the untruthful? or, if one
7344_must_, whether, then, death would not be preferable? For there is no
7345longer any ought (Sollen), morality; so far as it is involved "ought,"
7346is, through our point of view, as utterly annihilated as religion. Our
7347knowledge can permit only pleasure and pain, benefit and injury, to
7348subsist as motives. But how can these motives be distinguished from the
7349desire for truth? Even they rest upon error (in so far, as already
7350stated, partiality and dislike and their very inaccurate estimates
7351palpably modify our pleasure and our pain). The whole of human life is
7352deeply involved in _untruth_. The individual cannot extricate it from
7353this pit without thereby fundamentally clashing with his whole past,
7354without finding his present motives of conduct, (as that of honor)
7355illegitimate, and without opposing scorn and contempt to the ambitions
7356which prompt one to have regard for the future and for one's happiness
7357in the future. Is it true, does there, then, remain but one way of
7358thinking, which, as a personal consequence brings in its train despair,
7359and as a theoretical [consequence brings in its train] a philosophy of
7360decay, disintegration, self annihilation? I believe the deciding
7361influence, as regards the after-effect of knowledge, will be the
7362_temperament_ of a man; I can, in addition to this after-effect just
7363mentioned, suppose another, by means of which a much simpler life, and
7364one freer from disturbances than the present, could be lived; so that at
7365first the old motives of vehement passion might still have strength,
7366owing to hereditary habit, but they would gradually grow weaker under
7367the influence of purifying knowledge. A man would live, at last, both
7368among men and unto himself, as in the natural state, without praise,
7369reproach, competition, feasting one's eyes, as if it were a play, upon
7370much that formerly inspired dread. One would be rid of the strenuous
7371element, and would no longer feel the goad of the reflection that man is
7372not even [as much as] nature, nor more than nature. To be sure, this
7373requires, as already stated, a good temperament, a fortified, gentle and
7374naturally cheerful soul, a disposition that has no need to be on its
7375guard against its own eccentricities and sudden outbreaks and that in
7376its utterances manifests neither sullenness nor a snarling tone--those
7377familiar, disagreeable characteristics of old dogs and old men that have
7378been a long time chained up. Rather must a man, from whom the ordinary
7379bondages of life have fallen away to so great an extent, so do that he
7380only lives on in order to grow continually in knowledge, and to learn to
7381resign, without envy and without disappointment, much, yes nearly
7382everything, that has value in the eyes of men. He must be content with
7383such a free, fearless soaring above men, manners, laws and traditional
7384estimates of things, as the most desirable of all situations. He will
7385freely share the joy of being in such a situation, and he has, perhaps,
7386nothing else to share--in which renunciation and self-denial really most
7387consist. But if more is asked of him, he will, with a benevolent shake
7388of the head, refer to his brother, the free man of fact, and will,
7389perhaps, not dissemble a little contempt: for, as regards his "freedom,"
7390thereby hangs a tale.[18]
7391
7392[18] den mit dessen "Freiheit" hat es eine eigene Bewandtniss.
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397HISTORY OF THE MORAL FEELINGS.
7398
7399
740035
7401
7402=Advantages of Psychological Observation.=--That reflection regarding
7403the human, all-too-human--or as the learned jargon is: psychological
7404observation--is among the means whereby the burden of life can be made
7405lighter, that practice in this art affords presence of mind in difficult
7406situations and entertainment amid a wearisome environment, aye, that
7407maxims may be culled in the thorniest and least pleasing paths of life
7408and invigoration thereby obtained: this much was believed, was known--in
7409former centuries. Why was this forgotten in our own century, during
7410which, at least in Germany, yes in Europe, poverty as regards
7411psychological observation would have been manifest in many ways had
7412there been anyone to whom this poverty could have manifested itself. Not
7413only in the novel, in the romance, in philosophical standpoints--these
7414are the works of exceptional men; still more in the state of opinion
7415regarding public events and personages; above all in general society,
7416which says much about men but nothing whatever about man, there is
7417totally lacking the art of psychological analysis and synthesis. But why
7418is the richest and most harmless source of entertainment thus allowed to
7419run to waste? Why is the greatest master of the psychological maxim no
7420longer read?--for, with no exaggeration whatever be it said: the
7421educated person in Europe who has read La Rochefoucauld and his
7422intellectual and artistic affinities is very hard to find; still harder,
7423the person who knows them and does not disparage them. Apparently, too,
7424this unusual reader takes far less pleasure in them than the form
7425adopted by these artists should afford him: for the subtlest mind cannot
7426adequately appreciate the art of maxim-making unless it has had training
7427in it, unless it has competed in it. Without such practical
7428acquaintance, one is apt to look upon this making and forming as a much
7429easier thing than it really is; one is not keenly enough alive to the
7430felicity and the charm of success. Hence present day readers of maxims
7431have but a moderate, tempered pleasure in them, scarcely, indeed, a true
7432perception of their merit, so that their experiences are about the same
7433as those of the average beholder of cameos: people who praise because
7434they cannot appreciate, and are very ready to admire and still readier
7435to turn away.
7436
7437
743836
7439
7440=Objection.=--Or is there a counter-proposition to the dictum that
7441psychological observation is one of the means of consoling, lightening,
7442charming existence? Have enough of the unpleasant effects of this art
7443been experienced to justify the person striving for culture in turning
7444his regard away from it? In all truth, a certain blind faith in the
7445goodness of human nature, an implanted distaste for any disparagement of
7446human concerns, a sort of shamefacedness at the nakedness of the soul,
7447may be far more desirable things in the general happiness of a man, than
7448this only occasionally advantageous quality of psychological
7449sharpsightedness; and perhaps belief in the good, in virtuous men and
7450actions, in a plenitude of disinterested benevolence has been more
7451productive of good in the world of men in so far as it has made men less
7452distrustful. If Plutarch's heroes are enthusiastically imitated and a
7453reluctance is experienced to looking too critically into the motives of
7454their actions, not the knowledge but the welfare of human society is
7455promoted thereby: psychological error and above all obtuseness in regard
7456to it, help human nature forward, whereas knowledge of the truth is more
7457promoted by means of the stimulating strength of a hypothesis; as La
7458Rochefoucauld in the first edition of his "Sentences and Moral Maxims"
7459has expressed it: "What the world calls virtue is ordinarily but a
7460phantom created by the passions, and to which we give a good name in
7461order to do whatever we please with impunity." La Rochefoucauld and
7462those other French masters of soul-searching (to the number of whom has
7463lately been added a German, the author of "Psychological Observations")
7464are like expert marksmen who again and again hit the black spot--but it
7465is the black spot in human nature. Their art inspires amazement, but
7466finally some spectator, inspired, not by the scientific spirit but by a
7467humanitarian feeling, execrates an art that seems to implant in the soul
7468a taste for belittling and impeaching mankind.
7469
7470
747137
7472
7473=Nevertheless.=--The matter therefore, as regards pro and con, stands
7474thus: in the present state of philosophy an awakening of the moral
7475observation is essential. The repulsive aspect of psychological
7476dissection, with the knife and tweezers entailed by the process, can no
7477longer be spared humanity. Such is the imperative duty of any science
7478that investigates the origin and history of the so-called moral feelings
7479and which, in its progress, is called upon to posit and to solve
7480advanced social problems:--The older philosophy does not recognize the
7481newer at all and, through paltry evasions, has always gone astray in the
7482investigation of the origin and history of human estimates
7483(Werthschätzungen). With what results may now be very clearly perceived,
7484since it has been shown by many examples, how the errors of the greatest
7485philosophers have their origin in a false explanation of certain human
7486actions and feelings; how upon the foundation of an erroneous analysis
7487(for example, of the so called disinterested actions), a false ethic is
7488reared, to support which religion and like mythological monstrosities
7489are called in, until finally the shades of these troubled spirits
7490collapse in physics and in the comprehensive world point of view. But if
7491it be established that superficiality of psychological observation has
7492heretofore set the most dangerous snares for human judgment and
7493deduction, and will continue to do so, all the greater need is there of
7494that steady continuance of labor that never wearies putting stone upon
7495stone, little stone upon little stone; all the greater need is there of
7496a courage that is not ashamed of such humble labor and that will oppose
7497persistence, to all contempt. It is, finally, also true that countless
7498single observations concerning the human, all-too-human, have been
7499first made and uttered in circles accustomed, not to furnish matter for
7500scientific knowledge, but for intellectual pleasure-seeking; and the
7501original home atmosphere--a very seductive atmosphere--of the moral
7502maxim has almost inextricably interpenetrated the entire species, so
7503that the scientific man involuntarily manifests a sort of mistrust of
7504this species and of its seriousness. But it is sufficient to point to
7505the consequences: for already it is becoming evident that events of the
7506most portentous nature are developing in the domain of psychological
7507observation. What is the leading conclusion arrived at by one of the
7508subtlest and calmest of thinkers, the author of the work "Concerning the
7509Origin of the Moral Feelings", as a result of his thorough and incisive
7510analysis of human conduct? "The moral man," he says, "stands no nearer
7511the knowable (metaphysical) world than the physical man."[19] This
7512dictum, grown hard and cutting beneath the hammer-blow of historical
7513knowledge, can some day, perhaps, in some future or other, serve as the
7514axe that will be laid to the root of the "metaphysical necessities" of
7515men--whether more to the blessing than to the banning of universal well
7516being who can say?--but in any event a dictum fraught with the most
7517momentous consequences, fruitful and fearful at once, and confronting
7518the world in the two faced way characteristic of all great facts.
7519
7520[19] "Der moralische Mensch, sagt er, steht der intelligiblen
7521(metaphysischen) Welt nicht näher, als der physische Mensch."
7522
7523
752438
7525
7526=To What Extent Useful.=--Therefore, whether psychological observation
7527is more an advantage than a disadvantage to mankind may always remain
7528undetermined: but there is no doubt that it is necessary, because
7529science can no longer dispense with it. Science, however, recognizes no
7530considerations of ultimate goals or ends any more than nature does; but
7531as the latter duly matures things of the highest fitness for certain
7532ends without any intention of doing it, so will true science, doing with
7533ideas what nature does with matter,[20] promote the purposes and the
7534welfare of humanity, (as occasion may afford, and in many ways) and
7535attain fitness [to ends]--but likewise without having intended it.
7536
7537[20] als die Nachahmung der Natur in Begriffen, literally: "as the
7538counterfeit of nature in (regard to) ideas."
7539
7540He to whom the atmospheric conditions of such a prospect are too wintry,
7541has too little fire in him: let him look about him, and he will become
7542sensible of maladies requiring an icy air, and of people who are so
7543"kneaded together" out of ardor and intellect that they can scarcely
7544find anywhere an atmosphere too cold and cutting for them. Moreover: as
7545too serious individuals and nations stand in need of trivial
7546relaxations; as others, too volatile and excitable require onerous,
7547weighty ordeals to render them entirely healthy: should not we, the more
7548intellectual men of this age, which is swept more and more by
7549conflagrations, catch up every cooling and extinguishing appliance we
7550can find that we may always remain as self contained, steady and calm as
7551we are now, and thereby perhaps serve this age as its mirror and self
7552reflector, when the occasion arises?
7553
7554
755539
7556
7557=The Fable of Discretionary Freedom.=--The history of the feelings, on
7558the basis of which we make everyone responsible, hence, the so-called
7559moral feelings, is traceable in the following leading phases. At first
7560single actions are termed good or bad without any reference to their
7561motive, but solely because of the utilitarian or prejudicial
7562consequences they have for the community. In time, however, the origin
7563of these designations is forgotten [but] it is imagined that action in
7564itself, without reference to its consequences, contains the property
7565"good" or "bad": with the same error according to which language
7566designates the stone itself as hard[ness] the tree itself as
7567green[ness]--for the reason, therefore, that what is a consequence is
7568comprehended as a cause. Accordingly, the good[ness] or bad[ness] is
7569incorporated into the motive and [any] deed by itself is regarded as
7570morally ambiguous. A step further is taken, and the predication good or
7571bad is no longer made of the particular motives but of the entire nature
7572of a man, out of which motive grows as grow the plants out of the soil.
7573Thus man is successively made responsible for his [particular] acts,
7574then for his [course of] conduct, then for his motives and finally for
7575his nature. Now, at last, is it discovered that this nature, even,
7576cannot be responsible, inasmuch as it is only and wholly a necessary
7577consequence and is synthesised out of the elements and influence of past
7578and present things: therefore, that man is to be made responsible for
7579nothing, neither for his nature, nor his motives, nor his [course of]
7580conduct nor his [particular] acts. By this [process] is gained the
7581knowledge that the history of moral estimates is the history of error,
7582of the error of responsibility: as is whatever rests upon the error of
7583the freedom of the will. Schopenhauer concluded just the other way,
7584thus: since certain actions bring depression ("consciousness of guilt")
7585in their train, there must, then, exist responsibility, for there would
7586be no basis for this depression at hand if all man's affairs did not
7587follow their course of necessity--as they do, indeed, according to the
7588opinion of this philosopher, follow their course--but man himself,
7589subject to the same necessity, would be just the man that he is--which
7590Schopenhauer denies. From the fact of such depression Schopenhauer
7591believes himself able to prove a freedom which man in some way must have
7592had, not indeed in regard to his actions but in regard to his nature:
7593freedom, therefore, to be thus and so, not to act thus and so. Out of
7594the _esse_, the sphere of freedom and responsibility, follows, according
7595to his opinion, the _operari_, the spheres of invariable causation,
7596necessity and irresponsibility. This depression, indeed, is due
7597apparently to the _operari_--in so far as it be delusive--but in truth
7598to whatever _esse_ be the deed of a free will, the basic cause of the
7599existence of an individual: [in order to] let man become whatever he
7600wills to become, his [to] will (Wollen) must precede his
7601existence.--Here, apart from the absurdity of the statement just made,
7602there is drawn the wrong inference that the fact of the depression
7603explains its character, the rational admissibility of it: from such a
7604wrong inference does Schopenhauer first come to his fantastic consequent
7605of the so called discretionary freedom (intelligibeln Freiheit). (For
7606the origin of this fabulous entity Plato and Kant are equally
7607responsible). But depression after the act does not need to be rational:
7608indeed, it is certainly not so at all, for it rests upon the erroneous
7609assumption that the act need not necessarily have come to pass.
7610Therefore: only because man deems himself free, but not because
7611he is free, does he experience remorse and the stings of
7612conscience.--Moreover, this depression is something that can be grown
7613out of; in many men it is not present at all as a consequence of acts
7614which inspire it in many other men. It is a very varying thing and one
7615closely connected with the development of custom and civilization, and
7616perhaps manifest only during a relatively brief period of the world's
7617history.--No one is responsible for his acts, no one for his nature; to
7618judge is tantamount to being unjust. This applies as well when the
7619individual judges himself. The proposition is as clear as sunlight, and
7620yet here everyone prefers to go back to darkness and untruth: for fear
7621of the consequences.
7622
7623
762440
7625
7626=Above Animal.=--The beast in us must be wheedled: ethic is necessary,
7627that we may not be torn to pieces. Without the errors involved in the
7628assumptions of ethics, man would have remained an animal. Thus has he
7629taken himself as something higher and imposed rigid laws upon himself.
7630He feels hatred, consequently, for states approximating the animal:
7631whence the former contempt for the slave as a not-yet-man, as a thing,
7632is to be explained.
7633
7634
763541
7636
7637=Unalterable Character.=--That character is unalterable is not, in the
7638strict sense, true; rather is this favorite proposition valid only to
7639the extent that during the brief life period of a man the potent new
7640motives can not, usually, press down hard enough to obliterate the lines
7641imprinted by ages. Could we conceive of a man eighty thousand years old,
7642we should have in him an absolutely alterable character; so that the
7643maturities of successive, varying individuals would develop in him. The
7644shortness of human life leads to many erroneous assertions concerning
7645the qualities of man.
7646
7647
764842
7649
7650=Classification of Enjoyments and Ethic.=--The once accepted comparative
7651classification of enjoyments, according to which an inferior, higher,
7652highest egoism may crave one or another enjoyment, now decides as to
7653ethical status or unethical status. A lower enjoyment (for example,
7654sensual pleasure) preferred to a more highly esteemed one (for example,
7655health) rates as unethical, as does welfare preferred to freedom. The
7656comparative classification of enjoyments is not, however, alike or the
7657same at all periods; when anyone demands satisfaction of the law, he is,
7658from the point of view of an earlier civilization, moral, from that of
7659the present, non-moral. "Unethical" indicates, therefore, that a man is
7660not sufficiently sensible to the higher, finer impulses which the
7661present civilization has brought with it, or is not sensible to them at
7662all; it indicates backwardness, but only from the point of view of the
7663contemporary degree of distinction.--The comparative classification of
7664enjoyments itself is not determined according to absolute ethics; but
7665after each new ethical adjustment, it is then decided whether conduct be
7666ethical or the reverse.
7667
7668
766943
7670
7671=Inhuman Men as Survivals.=--Men who are now inhuman must serve us as
7672surviving specimens of earlier civilizations. The mountain height of
7673humanity here reveals its lower formations, which might otherwise remain
7674hidden from view. There are surviving specimens of humanity whose brains
7675through the vicissitudes of heredity, have escaped proper development.
7676They show us what we all were and thus appal us; but they are as little
7677responsible on this account as is a piece of granite for being granite.
7678In our own brains there must be courses and windings corresponding to
7679such characters, just as in the forms of some human organs there survive
7680traces of fishhood. But these courses and windings are no longer the bed
7681in which flows the stream of our feeling.
7682
7683
768444
7685
7686=Gratitude and Revenge.=--The reason the powerful man is grateful is
7687this. His benefactor has, through his benefaction, invaded the domain of
7688the powerful man and established himself on an equal footing: the
7689powerful man in turn invades the domain of the benefactor and gets
7690satisfaction through the act of gratitude. It is a mild form of revenge.
7691By not obtaining the satisfaction of gratitude the powerful would have
7692shown himself powerless and have ranked as such thenceforward. Hence
7693every society of the good, that is to say, of the powerful originally,
7694places gratitude among the first of duties.--Swift has added the dictum
7695that man is grateful in the same degree that he is revengeful.
7696
7697
769845
7699
7700=Two-fold Historical Origin of Good and Evil.=--The notion of good and
7701bad has a two-fold historical origin: namely, first, in the spirit of
7702ruling races and castes. Whoever has power to requite good with good and
7703evil with evil and actually brings requital, (that is, is grateful and
7704revengeful) acquires the name of being good; whoever is powerless and
7705cannot requite is called bad. A man belongs, as a good individual, to
7706the "good" of a community, who have a feeling in common, because all the
7707individuals are allied with one another through the requiting sentiment.
7708A man belongs, as a bad individual, to the "bad," to a mass of
7709subjugated, powerless men who have no feeling in common. The good are a
7710caste, the bad are a quantity, like dust. Good and bad is, for a
7711considerable period, tantamount to noble and servile, master and slave.
7712On the other hand an enemy is not looked upon as bad: he can requite.
7713The Trojan and the Greek are in Homer both good. Not he, who does no
7714harm, but he who is despised, is deemed bad. In the community of the
7715good individuals [the quality of] good[ness] is inherited; it is
7716impossible for a bad individual to grow from such a rich soil. If,
7717notwithstanding, one of the good individuals does something unworthy of
7718his goodness, recourse is had to exorcism; thus the guilt is ascribed to
7719a deity, the while it is declared that this deity bewitched the good man
7720into madness and blindness.--Second, in the spirit of the subjugated,
7721the powerless. Here every other man is, to the individual, hostile,
7722inconsiderate, greedy, inhuman, avaricious, be he noble or servile; bad
7723is the characteristic term for man, for every living being, indeed, that
7724is recognized at all, even for a god: human, divine, these notions are
7725tantamount to devilish, bad. Manifestations of goodness, sympathy,
7726helpfulness, are regarded with anxiety as trickiness, preludes to an
7727evil end, deception, subtlety, in short, as refined badness. With such a
7728predisposition in individuals, a feeling in common can scarcely arise at
7729all, at most only the rudest form of it: so that everywhere that this
7730conception of good and evil prevails, the destruction of the
7731individuals, their race and nation, is imminent.--Our existing morality
7732has developed upon the foundation laid by ruling races and castes.
7733
7734
773546
7736
7737=Sympathy Greater than Suffering.=--There are circumstances in which
7738sympathy is stronger than the suffering itself. We feel more pain, for
7739instance, when one of our friends becomes guilty of a reprehensible
7740action than if we had done the deed ourselves. We once, that is, had
7741more faith in the purity of his character than he had himself. Hence our
7742love for him, (apparently because of this very faith) is stronger than
7743is his own love for himself. If, indeed, his egoism really suffers more,
7744as a result, than our egoism, inasmuch as he must take the consequences
7745of his fault to a greater extent than ourselves, nevertheless, the
7746unegoistic--this word is not to be taken too strictly, but simply as a
7747modified form of expression--in us is more affected by his guilt than
7748the unegoistic in him.
7749
7750
775147
7752
7753=Hypochondria.=--There are people who, from sympathy and anxiety for
7754others become hypochondriacal. The resulting form of compassion is
7755nothing else than sickness. So, also, is there a Christian hypochondria,
7756from which those singular, religiously agitated people suffer who place
7757always before their eyes the suffering and death of Christ.
7758
7759
776048
7761
7762=Economy of Blessings.=--The advantageous and the pleasing, as the
7763healthiest growths and powers in the intercourse of men, are such
7764precious treasures that it is much to be wished the use made of these
7765balsamic means were as economical as possible: but this is impossible.
7766Economy in the use of blessings is the dream of the craziest of
7767Utopians.
7768
7769
777049
7771
7772=Well-Wishing.=--Among the small, but infinitely plentiful and therefore
7773very potent things to which science must pay more attention than to the
7774great, uncommon things, well-wishing[21] must be reckoned; I mean those
7775manifestations of friendly disposition in intercourse, that laughter of
7776the eye, every hand pressure, every courtesy from which, in general,
7777every human act gets its quality. Every teacher, every functionary adds
7778this element as a gratuity to whatever he does as a duty; it is the
7779perpetual well spring of humanity, like the waves of light in which
7780everything grows; thus, in the narrowest circles, within the family,
7781life blooms and flowers only through this kind feeling. The
7782cheerfulness, friendliness and kindness of a heart are unfailing
7783sources of unegoistic impulse and have made far more for civilization
7784than those other more noised manifestations of it that are styled
7785sympathy, benevolence and sacrifice. But it is customary to depreciate
7786these little tokens of kindly feeling, and, indeed, there is not much of
7787the unegoistic in them. The sum of these little doses is very great,
7788nevertheless; their combined strength is of the greatest of
7789strengths.--Thus, too, much more happiness is to be found in the world
7790than gloomy eyes discover: that is, if the calculation be just, and all
7791these pleasing moments in which every day, even the meanest human life,
7792is rich, be not forgotten.
7793
7794[21] Wohl-wollen, kind feeling. It stands here for benevolence but not
7795benevolence in the restricted sense of the word now prevailing.
7796
7797
779850
7799
7800=The Desire to Inspire Compassion.=--La Rochefoucauld, in the most
7801notable part of his self portraiture (first printed 1658) reaches the
7802vital spot of truth when he warns all those endowed with reason to be on
7803their guard against compassion, when he advises that this sentiment be
7804left to men of the masses who stand in need of the promptings of the
7805emotions (since they are not guided by reason) to induce them to give
7806aid to the suffering and to be of service in misfortune: whereas
7807compassion, in his (and Plato's) view, deprives the heart of strength.
7808To be sure, sympathy should be manifested but men should take care not
7809to feel it; for the unfortunate are rendered so dull that the
7810manifestation of sympathy affords them the greatest happiness in the
7811world.--Perhaps a more effectual warning against this compassion can be
7812given if this need of the unfortunate be considered not simply as
7813stupidity and intellectual weakness, not as a sort of distraction of the
7814spirit entailed by misfortune itself (and thus, indeed, does La
7815Rochefoucauld seem to view it) but as something quite different and more
7816momentous. Let note be taken of children who cry and scream in order to
7817be compassionated and who, therefore, await the moment when their
7818condition will be observed; come into contact with the sick and the
7819oppressed in spirit and try to ascertain if the wailing and sighing, the
7820posturing and posing of misfortune do not have as end and aim the
7821causing of pain to the beholder: the sympathy which each beholder
7822manifests is a consolation to the weak and suffering only in as much as
7823they are made to perceive that at least they have the power,
7824notwithstanding all their weakness, to inflict pain. The unfortunate
7825experiences a species of joy in the sense of superiority which the
7826manifestation of sympathy entails; his imagination is exalted; he is
7827always strong enough, then, to cause the world pain. Thus is the thirst
7828for sympathy a thirst for self enjoyment and at the expense of one's
7829fellow creatures: it shows man in the whole ruthlessness of his own dear
7830self: not in his mere "dullness" as La Rochefoucauld thinks.--In social
7831conversation three fourths of all the questions are asked, and three
7832fourths of all the replies are made in order to inflict some little
7833pain; that is why so many people crave social intercourse: it gives them
7834a sense of their power. In these countless but very small doses in which
7835the quality of badness is administered it proves a potent stimulant of
7836life: to the same extent that well wishing--(Wohl-wollen) distributed
7837through the world in like manner, is one of the ever ready
7838restoratives.--But will many honorable people be found to admit that
7839there is any pleasure in administering pain? that entertainment--and
7840rare entertainment--is not seldom found in causing others, at least in
7841thought, some pain, and in raking them with the small shot of
7842wickedness? The majority are too ignoble and a few are too good to know
7843anything of this pudendum: the latter may, consequently, be prompt to
7844deny that Prosper Mérimée is right when he says: "Know, also, that
7845nothing is more common than to do wrong for the pleasure of doing it."
7846
7847
784851
7849
7850=How Appearance Becomes Reality.=--The actor cannot, at last, refrain,
7851even in moments of the deepest pain, from thinking of the effect
7852produced by his deportment and by his surroundings--for example, even at
7853the funeral of his own child: he will weep at his own sorrow and its
7854manifestations as though he were his own audience. The hypocrite who
7855always plays one and the same part, finally ceases to be a hypocrite; as
7856in the case of priests who, when young men, are always, either
7857consciously or unconsciously, hypocrites, and finally become naturally
7858and then really, without affectation, mere priests: or if the father
7859does not carry it to this extent, the son, who inherits his father's
7860calling and gets the advantage of the paternal progress, does. When
7861anyone, during a long period, and persistently, wishes to appear
7862something, it will at last prove difficult for him to be anything else.
7863The calling of almost every man, even of the artist, begins with
7864hypocrisy, with an imitation of deportment, with a copying of the
7865effective in manner. He who always wears the mask of a friendly man must
7866at last gain a power over friendliness of disposition, without which the
7867expression itself of friendliness is not to be gained--and finally
7868friendliness of disposition gains the ascendancy over him--he _is_
7869benevolent.
7870
7871
787252
7873
7874=The Point of Honor in Deception.=--In all great deceivers one
7875characteristic is prominent, to which they owe their power. In the very
7876act of deception, amid all the accompaniments, the agitation in the
7877voice, the expression, the bearing, in the crisis of the scene, there
7878comes over them a belief in themselves; this it is that acts so
7879effectively and irresistibly upon the beholders. Founders of religions
7880differ from such great deceivers in that they never come out of this
7881state of self deception, or else they have, very rarely, a few moments
7882of enlightenment in which they are overcome by doubt; generally,
7883however, they soothe themselves by ascribing such moments of
7884enlightenment to the evil adversary. Self deception must exist that both
7885classes of deceivers may attain far reaching results. For men believe in
7886the truth of all that is manifestly believed with due implicitness by
7887others.
7888
7889
789053
7891
7892=Presumed Degrees of Truth.=--One of the most usual errors of deduction
7893is: because someone truly and openly is against us, therefore he speaks
7894the truth. Hence the child has faith in the judgments of its elders, the
7895Christian in the assertions of the founder of the church. So, too, it
7896will not be admitted that all for which men sacrificed life and
7897happiness in former centuries was nothing but delusion: perhaps it is
7898alleged these things were degrees of truth. But what is really meant is
7899that, if a person sincerely believes a thing and has fought and died for
7900his faith, it would be too _unjust_ if only delusion had inspired him.
7901Such a state of affairs seems to contradict eternal justice. For that
7902reason the heart of a sensitive man pronounces against his head the
7903judgment: between moral conduct and intellectual insight there must
7904always exist an inherent connection. It is, unfortunately, otherwise:
7905for there is no eternal justice.
7906
7907
790854
7909
7910=Falsehood.=--Why do men, as a rule, speak the truth in the ordinary
7911affairs of life? Certainly not for the reason that a god has forbidden
7912lying. But because first: it is more convenient, as falsehood entails
7913invention, make-believe and recollection (wherefore Swift says that
7914whoever invents a lie seldom realises the heavy burden he takes up: he
7915must, namely, for every lie that he tells, insert twenty more).
7916Therefore, because in plain ordinary relations of life it is expedient
7917to say without circumlocution: I want this, I have done this, and the
7918like; therefore, because the way of freedom and certainty is surer than
7919that of ruse.--But if it happens that a child is brought up in sinister
7920domestic circumstances, it will then indulge in falsehood as matter of
7921course, and involuntarily say anything its own interests may prompt: an
7922inclination for truth, an aversion to falsehood, is quite foreign and
7923uncongenial to it, and hence it lies in all innocence.
7924
7925
792655
7927
7928=Ethic Discredited for Faith's Sake.=--No power can sustain itself when
7929it is represented by mere humbugs: the Catholic Church may possess ever
7930so many "worldly" sources of strength, but its true might is comprised
7931in those still numberless priestly natures who make their lives stern
7932and strenuous and whose looks and emaciated bodies are eloquent of night
7933vigils, fasts, ardent prayer, perhaps even of whip lashes: these things
7934make men tremble and cause them anxiety: what, if it be really
7935imperative to live thus? This is the dreadful question which their
7936aspect occasions. As they spread this doubt, they lay anew the prop of
7937their power: even the free thinkers dare not oppose such
7938disinterestedness with severe truth and cry: "Thou deceived one,
7939deceive not!"--Only the difference of standpoint separates them from
7940him: no difference in goodness or badness. But things we cannot
7941accomplish ourselves, we are apt to criticise unfairly. Thus we are told
7942of the cunning and perverted acts of the Jesuits, but we overlook the
7943self mastery that each Jesuit imposes upon himself and also the fact
7944that the easy life which the Jesuit manuals advocate is for the benefit,
7945not of the Jesuits but the laity. Indeed, it may be questioned whether
7946we enlightened ones would become equally competent workers as the result
7947of similar tactics and organization, and equally worthy of admiration as
7948the result of self mastery, indefatigable industry and devotion.
7949
7950
795156
7952
7953=Victory of Knowledge over Radical Evil.=--It proves a material gain to
7954him who would attain knowledge to have had during a considerable period
7955the idea that mankind is a radically bad and perverted thing: it is a
7956false idea, as is its opposite, but it long held sway and its roots have
7957reached down even to ourselves and our present world. In order to
7958understand _ourselves_ we must understand _it_; but in order to attain a
7959loftier height we must step above it. We then perceive that there is no
7960such thing as sin in the metaphysical sense: but also, in the same
7961sense, no such thing as virtue; that this whole domain of ethical
7962notions is one of constant variation; that there are higher and deeper
7963conceptions of good and evil, moral and immoral. Whoever desires no more
7964of things than knowledge of them attains speedily to peace of mind and
7965will at most err through lack of knowledge, but scarcely through
7966eagerness for knowledge (or through sin, as the world calls it). He will
7967not ask that eagerness for knowledge be interdicted and rooted out; but
7968his single, all powerful ambition to _know_ as thoroughly and as fully
7969as possible, will soothe him and moderate all that is strenuous in his
7970circumstances. Moreover, he is now rid of a number of disturbing
7971notions; he is no longer beguiled by such words as hell-pain,
7972sinfulness, unworthiness: he sees in them merely the flitting shadow
7973pictures of false views of life and of the world.
7974
7975
797657
7977
7978=Ethic as Man's Self-Analysis.=--A good author, whose heart is really in
7979his work, wishes that someone would arise and wholly refute him if only
7980thereby his subject be wholly clarified and made plain. The maid in love
7981wishes that she could attest the fidelity of her own passion through
7982the faithlessness of her beloved. The soldier wishes to sacrifice his
7983life on the field of his fatherland's victory: for in the victory of his
7984fatherland his highest end is attained. The mother gives her child what
7985she deprives herself of--sleep, the best nourishment and, in certain
7986circumstances, her health, her self.--But are all these acts unegoistic?
7987Are these moral deeds miracles because they are, in Schopenhauer's
7988phrase "impossible and yet accomplished"? Is it not evident that in all
7989four cases man loves one part of himself, (a thought, a longing, an
7990experience) more than he loves another part of himself? that he thus
7991analyses his being and sacrifices one part of it to another part? Is
7992this essentially different from the behavior of the obstinate man who
7993says "I would rather be shot than go a step out of my way for this
7994fellow"?--Preference for something (wish, impulse, longing) is present
7995in all four instances: to yield to it, with all its consequences, is not
7996"unegoistic."--In the domain of the ethical man conducts himself not as
7997individuum but as dividuum.
7998
7999
800058
8001
8002=What Can be Promised.=--Actions can be promised, but not feelings, for
8003these are involuntary. Whoever promises somebody to love him always, or
8004to hate him always, or to be ever true to him, promises something that
8005it is out of his power to bestow. But he really can promise such courses
8006of conduct as are the ordinary accompaniments of love, of hate, of
8007fidelity, but which may also have their source in motives quite
8008different: for various ways and motives lead to the same conduct. The
8009promise to love someone always, means, consequently: as long as I love
8010you, I will manifest the deportment of love; but if I cease to love you
8011my deportment, although from some other motive, will be just the same,
8012so that to the people about us it will seem as if my love remained
8013unchanged.--Hence it is the continuance of the deportment of love that
8014is promised in every instance in which eternal love (provided no element
8015of self deception be involved) is sworn.
8016
8017
801859
8019
8020=Intellect and Ethic.=--One must have a good memory to be able to keep
8021the promises one makes. One must have a strong imagination in order to
8022feel sympathy. So closely is ethics connected with intellectual
8023capacity.
8024
8025
802660
8027
8028=Desire for Vengeance and Vengeance Itself.=--To meditate revenge and
8029attain it is tantamount to an attack of fever, that passes away: but to
8030meditate revenge without possessing the strength or courage to attain it
8031is tantamount to suffering from a chronic malady, or poisoning of body
8032and soul. Ethics, which takes only the motive into account, rates both
8033cases alike: people generally estimate the first case as the worst
8034(because of the consequences which the deed of vengeance may entail).
8035Both views are short sighted.
8036
8037
803861
8039
8040=Ability to Wait.=--Ability to wait is so hard to acquire that great
8041poets have not disdained to make inability to wait the central motive of
8042their poems. So Shakespeare in Othello, Sophocles in Ajax, whose suicide
8043would not have seemed to him so imperative had he only been able to cool
8044his ardor for a day, as the oracle foreboded: apparently he would then
8045have repulsed somewhat the fearful whispers of distracted thought and
8046have said to himself: Who has not already, in my situation, mistaken a
8047sheep for a hero? is it so extraordinary a thing? On the contrary it is
8048something universally human: Ajax should thus have soothed himself.
8049Passion will not wait: the tragic element in the lives of great men does
8050not generally consist in their conflict with time and the inferiority
8051of their fellowmen but in their inability to put off their work a year
8052or two: they cannot wait.--In all duels, the friends who advise have but
8053to ascertain if the principals can wait: if this be not possible, a duel
8054is rational inasmuch as each of the combatants may say: "either I
8055continue to live and the other dies instantly, or vice versa." To wait
8056in such circumstances would be equivalent to the frightful martyrdom of
8057enduring dishonor in the presence of him responsible for the dishonor:
8058and this can easily cost more anguish than life is worth.
8059
8060
806162
8062
8063=Glutting Revenge.=--Coarse men, who feel a sense of injury, are in the
8064habit of rating the extent of their injury as high as possible and of
8065stating the occasion of it in greatly exaggerated language, in order to
8066be able to feast themselves on the sentiments of hatred and revenge thus
8067aroused.
8068
8069
807063
8071
8072=Value of Disparagement.=--Not a few, perhaps the majority of men, find
8073it necessary, in order to retain their self esteem and a certain
8074uprightness in conduct, to mentally disparage and belittle all the
8075people they know. But as the inferior natures are in the majority and as
8076a great deal depends upon whether they retain or lose this uprightness,
8077so--
8078
8079
808064
8081
8082=The Man in a Rage.=--We should be on our guard against the man who is
8083enraged against us, as against one who has attempted our life, for the
8084fact that we still live consists solely in the inability to kill: were
8085looks sufficient, it would have been all up with us long since. To
8086reduce anyone to silence by physical manifestations of savagery or by a
8087terrorizing process is a relic of under civilization. So, too, that cold
8088look which great personages cast upon their servitors is a remnant of
8089the caste distinction between man and man; a specimen of rude antiquity:
8090women, the conservers of the old, have maintained this survival, too,
8091more perfectly than men.
8092
8093
809465
8095
8096=Whither Honesty May Lead.=--Someone once had the bad habit of
8097expressing himself upon occasion, and with perfect honesty, on the
8098subject of the motives of his conduct, which were as good or as bad as
8099the motives of all men. He aroused first disfavor, then suspicion,
8100became gradually of ill repute and was pronounced a person of whom
8101society should beware, until at last the law took note of such a
8102perverted being for reasons which usually have no weight with it or to
8103which it closes its eyes. Lack of taciturnity concerning what is
8104universally held secret, and an irresponsible predisposition to see what
8105no one wants to see--oneself--brought him to prison and to early death.
8106
8107
810866
8109
8110=Punishable, not Punished.=--Our crime against criminals consists in the
8111fact that we treat them as rascals.
8112
8113
811467
8115
8116=Sancta simplicitas of Virtue.=--Every virtue has its privilege: for
8117example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the
8118funeral pyre of one condemned.
8119
8120
812168
8122
8123=Morality and Consequence.=--Not alone the beholders of an act generally
8124estimate the ethical or unethical element in it by the result: no, the
8125one who performed the act does the same. For the motives and the
8126intentions are seldom sufficiently apparent, and amid them the memory
8127itself seems to become clouded by the results of the act, so that a man
8128often ascribes the wrong motives to his acts or regards the remote
8129motives as the direct ones. Success often imparts to an action all the
8130brilliance and honor of good intention, while failure throws the shadow
8131of conscience over the most estimable deeds. Hence arises the familiar
8132maxim of the politician: "Give me only success: with it I can win all
8133the noble souls over to my side--and make myself noble even in my own
8134eyes."--In like manner will success prove an excellent substitute for a
8135better argument. To this very day many well educated men think the
8136triumph of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of the superior
8137truth of the former--although in this case it was simply the coarser and
8138more powerful that triumphed over the more delicate and intellectual. As
8139regards superiority of truth, it is evident that because of it the
8140reviving sciences have connected themselves, point for point, with the
8141philosophy of Epicurus, while Christianity has, point for point,
8142recoiled from it.
8143
8144
814569
8146
8147=Love and Justice.=--Why is love so highly prized at the expense of
8148justice and why are such beautiful things spoken of the former as if it
8149were a far higher entity than the latter? Is the former not palpably a
8150far more stupid thing than the latter?--Certainly, and on that very
8151account so much the more agreeable to everybody: it is blind and has a
8152rich horn of plenty out of which it distributes its gifts to everyone,
8153even when they are unmerited, even when no thanks are returned. It is
8154impartial like the rain, which according to the bible and experience,
8155wets not alone the unjust but, in certain circumstances, the just as
8156well, and to their skins at that.
8157
8158
815970
8160
8161=Execution.=--How comes it that every execution causes us more pain than
8162a murder? It is the coolness of the executioner, the painful
8163preparation, the perception that here a man is being used as an
8164instrument for the intimidation of others. For the guilt is not punished
8165even if there be any: this is ascribable to the teachers, the parents,
8166the environment, in ourselves, not in the murderer--I mean the
8167predisposing circumstances.
8168
8169
817071
8171
8172=Hope.=--Pandora brought the box containing evils and opened it. It was
8173the gift of the gods to men, a gift of most enticing appearance
8174externally and called the "box of happiness." Thereupon all the evils,
8175(living, moving things) flew out: from that time to the present they fly
8176about and do ill to men by day and night. One evil only did not fly out
8177of the box: Pandora shut the lid at the behest of Zeus and it remained
8178inside. Now man has this box of happiness perpetually in the house and
8179congratulates himself upon the treasure inside of it; it is at his
8180service: he grasps it whenever he is so disposed, for he knows not that
8181the box which Pandora brought was a box of evils. Hence he looks upon
8182the one evil still remaining as the greatest source of happiness--it is
8183hope.--Zeus intended that man, notwithstanding the evils oppressing him,
8184should continue to live and not rid himself of life, but keep on making
8185himself miserable. For this purpose he bestowed hope upon man: it is, in
8186truth, the greatest of evils for it lengthens the ordeal of man.
8187
8188
818972
8190
8191=Degree of Moral Susceptibility Unknown.=--The fact that one has or has
8192not had certain profoundly moving impressions and insights into
8193things--for example, an unjustly executed, slain or martyred father, a
8194faithless wife, a shattering, serious accident,--is the factor upon
8195which the excitation of our passions to white heat principally depends,
8196as well as the course of our whole lives. No one knows to what lengths
8197circumstances (sympathy, emotion) may lead him. He does not know the
8198full extent of his own susceptibility. Wretched environment makes him
8199wretched. It is as a rule not the quality of our experience but its
8200quantity upon which depends the development of our superiority or
8201inferiority, from the point of view of good and evil.
8202
8203
820473
8205
8206=The Martyr Against His Will.=--In a certain movement there was a man
8207who was too cowardly and vacillating ever to contradict his comrades. He
8208was made use of in each emergency, every sacrifice was demanded of him
8209because he feared the disfavor of his comrades more than he feared
8210death: he was a petty, abject spirit. They perceived this and upon the
8211foundation of the qualities just mentioned they elevated him to the
8212altitude of a hero, and finally even of a martyr. Although the cowardly
8213creature always inwardly said No, he always said Yes with his lips, even
8214upon the scaffold, where he died for the tenets of his party: for beside
8215him stood one of his old associates who so domineered him with look and
8216word that he actually went to his death with the utmost fortitude and
8217has ever since been celebrated as a martyr and exalted character.
8218
8219
822074
8221
8222=General Standard.=--One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed
8223to vanity, ordinary actions to habit and mean actions to fear.
8224
8225
822675
8227
8228=Misunderstanding of Virtue.=--Whoever has obtained his experience of
8229vice in connection with pleasure as in the case of one with a youth of
8230wild oats behind him, comes to the conclusion that virtue must be
8231connected with self denial. Whoever, on the other hand, has been very
8232much plagued by his passions and vices, longs to find in virtue the rest
8233and peace of the soul. That is why it is possible for two virtuous
8234people to misunderstand one another wholly.
8235
8236
823776
8238
8239=The Ascetic.=--The ascetic makes out of virtue a slavery.
8240
8241
824277
8243
8244=Honor Transferred from Persons to Things.=--Actions prompted by love or
8245by the spirit of self sacrifice for others are universally honored
8246wherever they are manifest. Hence is magnified the value set upon
8247whatever things may be loved or whatever things conduce to self
8248sacrifice: although in themselves they may be worth nothing much. A
8249valiant army is evidence of the value of the thing it fights for.
8250
8251
825278
8253
8254=Ambition a Substitute for Moral Feeling.=--Moral feeling should never
8255become extinct in natures that are destitute of ambition. The ambitious
8256can get along without moral feeling just as well as with it.--Hence the
8257sons of retired, ambitionless families, generally become by a series of
8258rapid gradations, when they lose moral feeling, the most absolute
8259lunkheads.
8260
8261
826279
8263
8264=Vanity Enriches.=--How poor the human mind would be without vanity! As
8265it is, it resembles a well stacked and ever renewed ware-emporium that
8266attracts buyers of every class: they can find almost everything, have
8267almost everything, provided they bring with them the right kind of
8268money--admiration.
8269
8270
827180
8272
8273=Senility and Death.=--Apart from the demands made by religion, it may
8274well be asked why it is more honorable in an aged man, who feels the
8275decline of his powers, to await slow extinction than to fix a term to
8276his existence himself? Suicide in such a case is a quite natural and due
8277proceeding that ought to command respect as a triumph of reason: and did
8278in fact command respect during the times of the masters of Greek
8279philosophy and the bravest Roman patriots, who usually died by their own
8280hand. Eagerness, on the other hand, to keep alive from day to day with
8281the anxious counsel of physicians, without capacity to attain any nearer
8282to one's ideal of life, is far less worthy of respect.--Religions are
8283very rich in refuges from the mandate of suicide: hence they ingratiate
8284themselves with those who cling to life.
8285
8286
828781
8288
8289=Delusions Regarding Victim and Regarding Evil Doer.=--When the rich man
8290takes a possession away from the poor man (for example, a prince who
8291deprives a plebeian of his beloved) there arises in the mind of the poor
8292man a delusion: he thinks the rich man must be wholly perverted to take
8293from him the little that he has. But the rich man appreciates the value
8294of a single possession much less because he is accustomed to many
8295possessions, so that he cannot put himself in the place of the poor man
8296and does not act by any means as ill as the latter supposes. Both have a
8297totally false idea of each other. The iniquities of the mighty which
8298bulk most largely in history are not nearly so monstrous as they seem.
8299The hereditary consciousness of being a superior being with superior
8300environment renders one very callous and lulls the conscience to rest.
8301We all feel, when the difference between ourselves and some other being
8302is exceedingly great, that no element of injustice can be involved, and
8303we kill a fly with no qualms of conscience whatever. So, too, it is no
8304indication of wickedness in Xerxes (whom even the Greeks represent as
8305exceptionally noble) that he deprived a father of his son and had him
8306drawn and quartered because the latter had manifested a troublesome,
8307ominous distrust of an entire expedition: the individual was in this
8308case brushed aside as a pestiferous insect. He was too low and mean to
8309justify continued sentiments of compunction in the ruler of the world.
8310Indeed no cruel man is ever as cruel, in the main, as his victim thinks.
8311The idea of pain is never the same as the sensation. The rule is
8312precisely analogous in the case of the unjust judge, and of the
8313journalist who by means of devious rhetorical methods, leads public
8314opinion astray. Cause and effect are in all these instances entwined
8315with totally different series of feeling and thoughts, whereas it is
8316unconsciously assumed that principal and victim feel and think exactly
8317alike, and because of this assumption the guilt of the one is based upon
8318the pain of the other.
8319
8320
832182
8322
8323=The Soul's Skin.=--As the bones, flesh, entrails and blood vessels are
8324enclosed by a skin that renders the aspect of men endurable, so the
8325impulses and passions of the soul are enclosed by vanity: it is the skin
8326of the soul.
8327
8328
832983
8330
8331=Sleep of Virtue.=--If virtue goes to sleep, it will be more vigorous
8332when it awakes.
8333
8334
833584
8336
8337=Subtlety of Shame.=--Men are not ashamed of obscene thoughts, but they
8338are ashamed when they suspect that obscene thoughts are attributed to
8339them.
8340
8341
834285
8343
8344=Naughtiness Is Rare.=--Most people are too much absorbed in themselves
8345to be bad.
8346
8347
834886
8349
8350=The Mite in the Balance.=--We are praised or blamed, as the one or the
8351other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of
8352discernment.
8353
8354
835587
8356
8357=Luke 18:14 Improved.=--He that humbleth himself wisheth to be exalted.
8358
8359
836088
8361
8362=Prevention of Suicide.=--There is a justice according to which we may
8363deprive a man of life, but none that permits us to deprive him of death:
8364this is merely cruelty.
8365
8366
836789
8368
8369=Vanity.=--We set store by the good opinion of men, first because it is
8370of use to us and next because we wish to give them pleasure (children
8371their parents, pupils their teacher, and well disposed persons all
8372others generally). Only when the good opinion of men is important to
8373somebody, apart from personal advantage or the desire to give pleasure,
8374do we speak of vanity. In this last case, a man wants to give himself
8375pleasure, but at the expense of his fellow creatures, inasmuch as he
8376inspires them with a false opinion of himself or else inspires "good
8377opinion" in such a way that it is a source of pain to others (by
8378arousing envy). The individual generally seeks, through the opinion of
8379others, to attest and fortify the opinion he has of himself; but the
8380potent influence of authority--an influence as old as man himself--leads
8381many, also, to strengthen their own opinion of themselves by means of
8382authority, that is, to borrow from others the expedient of relying more
8383upon the judgment of their fellow men than upon their own.--Interest in
8384oneself, the wish to please oneself attains, with the vain man, such
8385proportions that he first misleads others into a false, unduly exalted
8386estimate of himself and then relies upon the authority of others for his
8387self estimate; he thus creates the delusion that he pins his faith
8388to.--It must, however, be admitted that the vain man does not desire to
8389please others so much as himself and he will often go so far, on this
8390account, as to overlook his own interests: for he often inspires his
8391fellow creatures with malicious envy and renders them ill disposed in
8392order that he may thus increase his own delight in himself.
8393
8394
839590
8396
8397=Limits of the Love of Mankind.=--Every man who has declared that some
8398other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man
8399conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous.
8400
8401
840291
8403
8404=Weeping Morality.=--How much delight morality occasions! Think of the
8405ocean of pleasing tears that has flowed from the narration of noble,
8406great-hearted deeds!--This charm of life would disappear if the belief
8407in complete irresponsibility gained the upper hand.
8408
8409
841092
8411
8412=Origin of Justice.=--Justice (reasonableness) has its origin among
8413approximate equals in power, as Thucydides (in the dreadful conferences
8414of the Athenian and Melian envoys) has rightly conceived. Thus, where
8415there exists no demonstrable supremacy and a struggle leads but to
8416mutual, useless damage, the reflection arises that an understanding
8417would best be arrived at and some compromise entered into. The
8418reciprocal nature is hence the first nature of justice. Each party makes
8419the other content inasmuch as each receives what it prizes more highly
8420than the other. Each surrenders to the other what the other wants and
8421receives in return its own desire. Justice is therefore reprisal and
8422exchange upon the basis of an approximate equality of power. Thus
8423revenge pertains originally to the domain of justice as it is a sort of
8424reciprocity. Equally so, gratitude.--Justice reverts naturally to the
8425standpoint of self preservation, therefore to the egoism of this
8426consideration: "why should I injure myself to no purpose and perhaps
8427never attain my end?"--So much for the origin of justice. Only because
8428men, through mental habits, have forgotten the original motive of so
8429called just and rational acts, and also because for thousands of years
8430children have been brought to admire and imitate such acts, have they
8431gradually assumed the appearance of being unegotistical. Upon this
8432appearance is founded the high estimate of them, which, moreover, like
8433all estimates, is continually developing, for whatever is highly
8434esteemed is striven for, imitated, made the object of self sacrifice,
8435while the merit of the pain and emulation thus expended is, by each
8436individual, ascribed to the thing esteemed.--How slightly moral would
8437the world appear without forgetfulness! A poet could say that God had
8438posted forgetfulness as a sentinel at the portal of the temple of human
8439merit!
8440
8441
844293
8443
8444=Concerning the Law of the Weaker.=--Whenever any party, for instance, a
8445besieged city, yields to a stronger party, under stipulated conditions,
8446the counter stipulation is that there be a reduction to insignificance,
8447a burning and destruction of the city and thus a great damage inflicted
8448upon the stronger party. Thus arises a sort of equalization principle
8449upon the basis of which a law can be established. The enemy has an
8450advantage to gain by its maintenance.--To this extent there is also a
8451law between slaves and masters, limited only by the extent to which the
8452slave may be useful to his master. The law goes originally only so far
8453as the one party may appear to the other potent, invincible, stable, and
8454the like. To such an extent, then, the weaker has rights, but very
8455limited ones. Hence the famous dictum that each has as much law on his
8456side as his power extends (or more accurately, as his power is believed
8457to extend).
8458
8459
846094
8461
8462=The Three Phases of Morality Hitherto.=--It is the first evidence that
8463the animal has become human when his conduct ceases to be based upon the
8464immediately expedient, but upon the permanently useful; when he has,
8465therefore, grown utilitarian, capable of purpose. Thus is manifested the
8466first rule of reason. A still higher stage is attained when he regulates
8467his conduct upon the basis of honor, by means of which he gains mastery
8468of himself and surrenders his desires to principles; this lifts him far
8469above the phase in which he was actuated only by considerations of
8470personal advantage as he understood it. He respects and wishes to be
8471respected. This means that he comprehends utility as a thing dependent
8472upon what his opinion of others is and their opinion of him. Finally he
8473regulates his conduct (the highest phase of morality hitherto attained)
8474by his own standard of men and things. He himself decides, for himself
8475and for others, what is honorable and what is useful. He has become a
8476law giver to opinion, upon the basis of his ever higher developing
8477conception of the utilitarian and the honorable. Knowledge makes him
8478capable of placing the highest utility, (that is, the universal,
8479enduring utility) before merely personal utility,--of placing ennobling
8480recognition of the enduring and universal before the merely temporary:
8481he lives and acts as a collective individuality.
8482
8483
848495
8485
8486=Ethic of the Developed Individual.=--Hitherto the altruistic has been
8487looked upon as the distinctive characteristic of moral conduct, and it
8488is manifest that it was the consideration of universal utility that
8489prompted praise and recognition of altruistic conduct. Must not a
8490radical departure from this point of view be imminent, now that it is
8491being ever more clearly perceived that in the most personal
8492considerations the most general welfare is attained: so that conduct
8493inspired by the most personal considerations of advantage is just the
8494sort which has its origin in the present conception of morality (as a
8495universal utilitarianism)? To contemplate oneself as a complete
8496personality and bear the welfare of that personality in mind in all that
8497one does--this is productive of better results than any sympathetic
8498susceptibility and conduct in behalf of others. Indeed we all suffer
8499from such disparagement of our own personalities, which are at present
8500made to deteriorate from neglect. Capacity is, in fact, divorced from
8501our personality in most cases, and sacrificed to the state, to science,
8502to the needy, as if it were the bad which deserved to be made a
8503sacrifice. Now, we are willing to labor for our fellowmen but only to
8504the extent that we find our own highest advantage in so doing, no more,
8505no less. The whole matter depends upon what may be understood as one's
8506advantage: the crude, undeveloped, rough individualities will be the
8507very ones to estimate it most inadequately.
8508
8509
851096
8511
8512=Usage and Ethic.=--To be moral, virtuous, praiseworthy means to yield
8513obedience to ancient law and hereditary usage. Whether this obedience be
8514rendered readily or with difficulty is long immaterial. Enough that it
8515be rendered. "Good" finally comes to mean him who acts in the
8516traditional manner, as a result of heredity or natural disposition, that
8517is to say does what is customary with scarcely an effort, whatever that
8518may be (for example revenges injuries when revenge, as with the ancient
8519Greeks, was part of good morals). He is called good because he is good
8520"to some purpose," and as benevolence, sympathy, considerateness,
8521moderation and the like come, in the general course of conduct, to be
8522finally recognized as "good to some purpose" (as utilitarian) the
8523benevolent man, the helpful man, is duly styled "good". (At first other
8524and more important kinds of utilitarian qualities stand in the
8525foreground.) Bad is "not habitual" (unusual), to do things not in
8526accordance with usage, to oppose the traditional, however rational or
8527the reverse the traditional may be. To do injury to one's social group
8528or community (and to one's neighbor as thus understood) is looked upon,
8529through all the variations of moral laws, in different ages, as the
8530peculiarly "immoral" act, so that to-day we associate the word "bad"
8531with deliberate injury to one's neighbor or community. "Egoistic" and
8532"non-egoistic" do not constitute the fundamental opposites that have
8533brought mankind to make a distinction between moral and immoral, good
8534and bad; but adherence to traditional custom, and emancipation from it.
8535How the traditional had its origin is quite immaterial; in any event it
8536had no reference to good and bad or any categorical imperative but to
8537the all important end of maintaining and sustaining the community, the
8538race, the confederation, the nation. Every superstitious custom that
8539originated in a misinterpreted event or casualty entailed some
8540tradition, to adhere to which is moral. To break loose from it is
8541dangerous, more prejudicial to the community than to the individual
8542(because divinity visits the consequences of impiety and sacrilege upon
8543the community rather than upon the individual). Now every tradition
8544grows ever more venerable--the more remote is its origin, the more
8545confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from
8546generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and
8547inspires awe. Thus it is that the precept of piety is a far loftier
8548morality than that inculcated by altruistic conduct.
8549
8550
855197
8552
8553=Delight in the Moral.=--A potent species of joy (and thereby the source
8554of morality) is custom. The customary is done more easily, better,
8555therefore preferably. A pleasure is felt in it and experience thus shows
8556that since this practice has held its own it must be good. A manner or
8557moral that lives and lets live is thus demonstrated advantageous,
8558necessary, in contradistinction to all new and not yet adopted
8559practices. The custom is therefore the blending of the agreeable and the
8560useful. Moreover it does not require deliberation. As soon as man can
8561exercise compulsion, he exercises it to enforce and establish his
8562customs, for they are to him attested lifewisdom. So, too, a community
8563of individuals constrains each one of their number to adopt the same
8564moral or custom. The error herein is this: Because a certain custom has
8565been agreeable to the feelings or at least because it proves a means of
8566maintenance, this custom must be imperative, for it is regarded as the
8567only thing that can possibly be consistent with well being. The well
8568being of life seems to spring from it alone. This conception of the
8569customary as a condition of existence is carried into the slightest
8570detail of morality. Inasmuch as insight into true causation is quite
8571restricted in all inferior peoples, a superstitious anxiety is felt that
8572everything be done in due routine. Even when a custom is exceedingly
8573burdensome it is preserved because of its supposed vital utility. It is
8574not known that the same degree of satisfaction can be experienced
8575through some other custom and even higher degrees of satisfaction, too.
8576But it is fully appreciated that all customs do become more agreeable
8577with the lapse of time, no matter how difficult they may have been found
8578in the beginning, and that even the severest way of life may be rendered
8579a matter of habit and therefore a pleasure.
8580
8581
858298
8583
8584=Pleasure and Social Instinct.=--Through his relations with other men,
8585man derives a new species of delight in those pleasurable emotions which
8586his own personality affords him; whereby the domain of pleasurable
8587emotions is made infinitely more comprehensive. No doubt he has
8588inherited many of these feelings from the brutes, which palpably feel
8589delight when they sport with one another, as mothers with their young.
8590So, too, the sexual relations must be taken into account: they make
8591every young woman interesting to every young man from the standpoint of
8592pleasure, and conversely. The feeling of pleasure originating in human
8593relationships makes men in general better. The delight in common, the
8594pleasures enjoyed together heighten one another. The individual feels a
8595sense of security. He becomes better natured. Distrust and malice
8596dissolve. For the man feels the sense of benefit and observes the same
8597feeling in others. Mutual manifestations of pleasure inspire mutual
8598sympathy, the sentiment of homogeneity. The same effect is felt also at
8599mutual sufferings, in a common danger, in stormy weather. Upon such a
8600foundation are built the earliest alliances: the object of which is the
8601mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes, and the
8602welfare of each individual. And thus the social instinct develops from
8603pleasure.
8604
8605
860699
8607
8608=The Guiltless Nature of So-Called Bad Acts.=--All "bad" acts are
8609inspired by the impulse to self preservation or, more accurately, by
8610the desire for pleasure and for the avoidance of pain in the individual.
8611Thus are they occasioned, but they are not, therefore, bad. "Pain self
8612prepared" does not exist, except in the brains of the philosophers, any
8613more than "pleasure self prepared" (sympathy in the Schopenhauer sense).
8614In the condition anterior to the state we kill the creature, be it man
8615or ape, that attempts to pluck the fruit of a tree before we pluck it
8616ourselves should we happen to be hungry at the time and making for that
8617tree: as we would do to-day, so far as the brute is concerned, if we
8618were wandering in savage regions.--The bad acts which most disturb us at
8619present do so because of the erroneous supposition that the one who is
8620guilty of them towards us has a free will in the matter and that it was
8621within his discretion not to have done these evil things. This belief in
8622discretionary power inspires hate, thirst for revenge, malice, the
8623entire perversion of the mental processes, whereas we would feel in no
8624way incensed against the brute, as we hold it irresponsible. To inflict
8625pain not from the instinct of self preservation but in requital--this is
8626the consequence of false judgment and is equally a guiltless course of
8627conduct. The individual can, in that condition which is anterior to the
8628state, act with fierceness and violence for the intimidation of another
8629creature, in order to render his own power more secure as a result of
8630such acts of intimidation. Thus acts the powerful, the superior, the
8631original state founder, who subjugates the weaker. He has the right to
8632do so, as the state nowadays assumes the same right, or, to be more
8633accurate, there is no right that can conflict with this. A foundation
8634for all morality can first be laid only when a stronger individuality or
8635a collective individuality, for example society, the state, subjects the
8636single personalities, hence builds upon their unification and
8637establishes a bond of union. Morality results from compulsion, it is
8638indeed itself one long compulsion to which obedience is rendered in
8639order that pain may be avoided. At first it is but custom, later free
8640obedience and finally almost instinct. At last it is (like everything
8641habitual and natural) associated with pleasure--and is then called
8642virtue.
8643
8644
8645100
8646
8647=Shame.=--Shame exists wherever a "mystery" exists: but this is a
8648religious notion which in the earlier period of human civilization had
8649great vogue. Everywhere there were circumscribed spots to which access
8650was denied on account of some divine law, except in special
8651circumstances. At first these spots were quite extensive, inasmuch as
8652stipulated areas could not be trod by the uninitiated, who, when near
8653them, felt tremors and anxieties. This sentiment was frequently
8654transferred to other relationships, for example to sexual relations,
8655which, as the privilege and gateway of mature age, must be withdrawn
8656from the contemplation of youth for its own advantage: relations which
8657many divinities were busy in preserving and sanctifying, images of which
8658divinities were duly placed in marital chambers as guardians. (In
8659Turkish such an apartment is termed a harem or holy thing, the same word
8660also designating the vestibule of a mosque). So, too, Kingship is
8661regarded as a centre from which power and brilliance stream forth, as a
8662mystery to the subjects, impregnated with secrecy and shame, sentiments
8663still quite operative among peoples who in other respects are without
8664any shame at all. So, too, is the whole world of inward states, the
8665so-called "soul," even now, for all non-philosophical persons, a
8666"mystery," and during countless ages it was looked upon as a something
8667of divine origin, in direct communion with deity. It is, therefore, an
8668adytum and occasions shame.
8669
8670
8671101
8672
8673=Judge Not.=--Care must be taken, in the contemplation of earlier ages,
8674that there be no falling into unjust scornfulness. The injustice in
8675slavery, the cruelty in the subjugation of persons and peoples must not
8676be estimated by our standard. For in that period the instinct of justice
8677was not so highly developed. Who dare reproach the Genoese Calvin for
8678burning the physician Servetus at the stake? It was a proceeding growing
8679out of his convictions. And the Inquisition, too, had its justification.
8680The only thing is that the prevailing views were false and led to those
8681proceedings which seem so cruel to us, simply because such views have
8682become foreign to us. Besides, what is the burning alive of one
8683individual compared with eternal hell pains for everybody else? And yet
8684this idea then had hold of all the world without in the least vitiating,
8685with its frightfulness, the other idea of a god. Even we nowadays are
8686hard and merciless to political revolutionists, but that is because we
8687are in the habit of believing the state a necessity, and hence the
8688cruelty of the proceeding is not so much understood as in the other
8689cases where the points of view are repudiated. The cruelty to animals
8690shown by children and Italians is due to the same misunderstanding. The
8691animal, owing to the exigencies of the church catechism, is placed too
8692far below the level of mankind.--Much, too, that is frightful and
8693inhuman in history, and which is almost incredible, is rendered less
8694atrocious by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who
8695executes are different persons. The former does not witness the
8696performance and hence it makes no strong impression on him. The latter
8697obeys a superior and hence feels no responsibility. Most princes and
8698military chieftains appear, through lack of true perception, cruel and
8699hard without really being so.--Egoism is not bad because the idea of the
8700"neighbor"--the word is of Christian origin and does not correspond to
8701truth--is very weak in us, and we feel ourselves, in regard to him, as
8702free from responsibility as if plants and stones were involved. That
8703another is in suffering must be learned and it can never be wholly
8704learned.
8705
8706
8707102
8708
8709"=Man Always Does Right.="--We do not blame nature when she sends a
8710thunder storm and makes us wet: why then do we term the man who inflicts
8711injury immoral? Because in the latter case we assume a voluntary,
8712ruling, free will, and in the former necessity. But this distinction is
8713a delusion. Moreover, even the intentional infliction of injury is not,
8714in all circumstances termed immoral. Thus, we kill a fly intentionally
8715without thinking very much about it, simply because its buzzing about is
8716disagreeable; and we punish a criminal and inflict pain upon him in
8717order to protect ourselves and society. In the first case it is the
8718individual who, for the sake of preserving himself or in order to spare
8719himself pain, does injury with design: in the second case, it is the
8720state. All ethic deems intentional infliction of injury justified by
8721necessity; that is when it is a matter of self preservation. But these
8722two points of view are sufficient to explain all bad acts done by man to
8723men. It is desired to obtain pleasure or avoid pain. In any sense, it is
8724a question, always, of self preservation. Socrates and Plato are right:
8725whatever man does he always does right: that is, does what seems to him
8726good (advantageous) according to the degree of advancement his intellect
8727has attained, which is always the measure of his rational capacity.
8728
8729
8730103
8731
8732=The Inoffensive in Badness.=--Badness has not for its object the
8733infliction of pain upon others but simply our own satisfaction as, for
8734instance, in the case of thirst for vengeance or of nerve excitation.
8735Every act of teasing shows what pleasure is caused by the display of
8736our power over others and what feelings of delight are experienced in
8737the sense of domination. Is there, then, anything immoral in feeling
8738pleasure in the pain of others? Is malicious joy devilish, as
8739Schopenhauer says? In the realm of nature we feel joy in breaking
8740boughs, shattering rocks, fighting with wild beasts, simply to attest
8741our strength thereby. Should not the knowledge that another suffers on
8742our account here, in this case, make the same kind of act, (which, by
8743the way, arouses no qualms of conscience in us) immoral also? But if we
8744had not this knowledge there would be no pleasure in one's own
8745superiority or power, for this pleasure is experienced only in the
8746suffering of another, as in the case of teasing. All pleasure is, in
8747itself, neither good nor bad. Whence comes the conviction that one
8748should not cause pain in others in order to feel pleasure oneself?
8749Simply from the standpoint of utility, that is, in consideration of the
8750consequences, of ultimate pain, since the injured party or state will
8751demand satisfaction and revenge. This consideration alone can have led
8752to the determination to renounce such pleasure.--Sympathy has the
8753satisfaction of others in view no more than, as already stated, badness
8754has the pain of others in view. For there are at least two (perhaps many
8755more) elementary ingredients in personal gratification which enter
8756largely into our self satisfaction: one of them being the pleasure of
8757the emotion, of which species is sympathy with tragedy, and another,
8758when the impulse is to action, being the pleasure of exercising one's
8759power. Should a sufferer be very dear to us, we divest ourselves of pain
8760by the performance of acts of sympathy.--With the exception of some few
8761philosophers, men have placed sympathy very low in the rank of moral
8762feelings: and rightly.
8763
8764
8765104
8766
8767=Self Defence.=--If self defence is in general held a valid
8768justification, then nearly every manifestation of so called immoral
8769egoism must be justified, too. Pain is inflicted, robbery or killing
8770done in order to maintain life or to protect oneself and ward off harm.
8771A man lies when cunning and delusion are valid means of self
8772preservation. To injure intentionally when our safety and our existence
8773are involved, or the continuance of our well being, is conceded to be
8774moral. The state itself injures from this motive when it hangs
8775criminals. In unintentional injury the immoral, of course, can not be
8776present, as accident alone is involved. But is there any sort of
8777intentional injury in which our existence and the maintenance of our
8778well being be not involved? Is there such a thing as injuring from
8779absolute badness, for example, in the case of cruelty? If a man does not
8780know what pain an act occasions, that act is not one of wickedness. Thus
8781the child is not bad to the animal, not evil. It disturbs and rends it
8782as if it were one of its playthings. Does a man ever fully know how much
8783pain an act may cause another? As far as our nervous system extends, we
8784shield ourselves from pain. If it extended further, that is, to our
8785fellow men, we would never cause anyone else any pain (except in such
8786cases as we cause it to ourselves, when we cut ourselves, surgically, to
8787heal our ills, or strive and trouble ourselves to gain health). We
8788conclude from analogy that something pains somebody and can in
8789consequence, through recollection and the power of imagination, feel
8790pain also. But what a difference there always is between the tooth ache
8791and the pain (sympathy) that the spectacle of tooth ache occasions!
8792Therefore when injury is inflicted from so called badness the degree of
8793pain thereby experienced is always unknown to us: in so far, however, as
8794pleasure is felt in the act (a sense of one's own power, of one's own
8795excitation) the act is committed to maintain the well being of the
8796individual and hence comes under the purview of self defence and lying
8797for self preservation. Without pleasure, there is no life; the struggle
8798for pleasure is the struggle for life. Whether the individual shall
8799carry on this struggle in such a way that he be called good or in such a
8800way that he be called bad is something that the standard and the
8801capacity of his own intellect must determine for him.
8802
8803
8804105
8805
8806=Justice that Rewards.=--Whoever has fully understood the doctrine of
8807absolute irresponsibility can no longer include the so called rewarding
8808and punishing justice in the idea of justice, if the latter be taken to
8809mean that to each be given his due. For he who is punished does not
8810deserve the punishment. He is used simply as a means to intimidate
8811others from certain acts. Equally, he who is rewarded does not merit the
8812reward. He could not act any differently than he did act. Hence the
8813reward has only the significance of an encouragement to him and others
8814as a motive for subsequent acts. The praise is called out only to him
8815who is running in the race and not to him who has arrived at the goal.
8816Something that comes to someone as his own is neither a punishment nor a
8817reward. It is given to him from utiliarian considerations, without his
8818having any claim to it in justice. Hence one must say "the wise man
8819praises not because a good act has been done" precisely as was once
8820said: "the wise man punishes not because a bad act has been done but in
8821order that a bad act may not be done." If punishment and reward ceased,
8822there would cease with them the most powerful incentives to certain acts
8823and away from other acts. The purposes of men demand their continuance
8824[of punishment and reward] and inasmuch as punishment and reward, blame
8825and praise operate most potently upon vanity, these same purposes of men
8826imperatively require the continuance of vanity.
8827
8828
8829106
8830
8831=The Water Fall.=--At the sight of a water fall we may opine that in the
8832countless curves, spirations and dashes of the waves we behold freedom
8833of the will and of the impulses. But everything is compulsory,
8834everything can be mathematically calculated. Thus it is, too, with human
8835acts. We would be able to calculate in advance every single action if we
8836were all knowing, as well as every advance in knowledge, every delusion,
8837every bad deed. The acting individual himself is held fast in the
8838illusion of volition. If, on a sudden, the entire movement of the world
8839stopped short, and an all knowing and reasoning intelligence were there
8840to take advantage of this pause, he could foretell the future of every
8841being to the remotest ages and indicate the path that would be taken in
8842the world's further course. The deception of the acting individual as
8843regards himself, the assumption of the freedom of the will, is a part of
8844this computable mechanism.
8845
8846
8847107
8848
8849=Non-Responsibility and Non-Guilt.=--The absolute irresponsibility of
8850man for his acts and his nature is the bitterest drop in the cup of him
8851who has knowledge, if he be accustomed to behold in responsibility and
8852duty the patent of nobility of his human nature. All his estimates,
8853preferences, dislikes are thus made worthless and false. His deepest
8854sentiment, with which he honored the sufferer, the hero, sprang from an
8855error. He may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is irrational to
8856blame and praise nature and necessity. Just as he cherishes the
8857beautiful work of art, but does not praise it (as it is incapable of
8858doing anything for itself), just as he stands in the presence of plants,
8859he must stand in the presence of human conduct, his own included. He may
8860admire strength, beauty, capacity, therein, but he can discern no merit.
8861The chemical process and the conflict of the elements, the ordeal of
8862the invalid who strives for convalescence, are no more merits than the
8863soul-struggles and extremities in which one is torn this way and that by
8864contending motives until one finally decides in favor of the
8865strongest--as the phrase has it, although, in fact, it is the strongest
8866motive that decides for us. All these motives, however, whatever fine
8867names we may give them, have grown from the same roots in which we
8868believe the baneful poisons lurk. Between good and bad actions there is
8869no difference in kind but, at most, in degree. Good acts are sublimated
8870evil. Bad acts are degraded, imbruted good. The very longing of the
8871individual for self gratification (together with the fear of being
8872deprived of it) obtains satisfaction in all circumstances, let the
8873individual act as he may, that is, as he must: be it in deeds of vanity,
8874revenge, pleasure, utility, badness, cunning, be it in deeds of self
8875sacrifice, sympathy or knowledge. The degrees of rational capacity
8876determine the direction in which this longing impels: every society,
8877every individual has constantly present a comparative classification of
8878benefits in accordance with which conduct is determined and others are
8879judged. But this standard perpetually changes. Many acts are called bad
8880that are only stupid, because the degree of intelligence that decided
8881for them was low. Indeed, in a certain sense, all acts now are stupid,
8882for the highest degree of human intelligence that has yet been attained
8883will in time most certainly be surpassed and then, in retrospection, all
8884our present conduct and opinion will appear as narrow and petty as we
8885now deem the conduct and opinion of savage peoples and ages.--To
8886perceive all these things may occasion profound pain but there is,
8887nevertheless, a consolation. Such pains are birth pains. The butterfly
8888insists upon breaking through the cocoon, he presses through it, tears
8889it to pieces, only to be blinded and confused by the strange light, by
8890the realm of liberty. By such men as are capable of this sadness--how
8891few there are!--will the first attempt be made to see if humanity may
8892convert itself from a thing of morality to a thing of wisdom. The sun of
8893a new gospel sheds its first ray upon the loftiest height in the souls
8894of those few: but the clouds are massed there, too, thicker than ever,
8895and not far apart are the brightest sunlight and the deepest gloom.
8896Everything is necessity--so says the new knowledge: and this knowledge
8897is itself necessity. All is guiltlessness, and knowledge is the way to
8898insight into this guiltlessness. If pleasure, egoism, vanity be
8899necessary to attest the moral phenomena and their richest blooms, the
8900instinct for truth and accuracy of knowledge; if delusion and confusion
8901of the imagination were the only means whereby mankind could gradually
8902lift itself up to this degree of self enlightenment and self
8903emancipation--who would venture to disparage the means? Who would have
8904the right to feel sad if made aware of the goal to which those paths
8905lead? Everything in the domain of ethic is evolved, changeable,
8906tottering; all things flow, it is true--but all things are also in the
8907stream: to their goal. Though within us the hereditary habit of
8908erroneous judgment, love, hate, may be ever dominant, yet under the
8909influence of awaking knowledge it will ever become weaker: a new habit,
8910that of understanding, not-loving, not-hating, looking from above, grows
8911up within us gradually and in the same soil, and may, perhaps, in
8912thousands of years be powerful enough to endow mankind with capacity to
8913develop the wise, guiltless man (conscious of guiltlessness) as
8914unfailingly as it now developes the unwise, irrational, guilt-conscious
8915man--that is to say, the necessary higher step, not the opposite of it.
8916
8917
8918
8919
8920THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
8921
8922
8923108
8924
8925=The Double Contest Against Evil.=--If an evil afflicts us we can either
8926so deal with it as to remove its cause or else so deal with it that its
8927effect upon our feeling is changed: hence look upon the evil as a
8928benefit of which the uses will perhaps first become evident in some
8929subsequent period. Religion and art (and also the metaphysical
8930philosophy) strive to effect an alteration of the feeling, partly by an
8931alteration of our judgment respecting the experience (for example, with
8932the aid of the dictum "whom God loves, he chastizes") partly by the
8933awakening of a joy in pain, in emotion especially (whence the art of
8934tragedy had its origin). The more one is disposed to interpret away and
8935justify, the less likely he is to look directly at the causes of evil
8936and eliminate them. An instant alleviation and narcotizing of pain, as
8937is usual in the case of tooth ache, is sufficient for him even in the
8938severest suffering. The more the domination of religions and of all
8939narcotic arts declines, the more searchingly do men look to the
8940elimination of evil itself, which is a rather bad thing for the tragic
8941poets--for there is ever less and less material for tragedy, since the
8942domain of unsparing, immutable destiny grows constantly more
8943circumscribed--and a still worse thing for the priests, for these last
8944have lived heretofore upon the narcoticizing of human ill.
8945
8946
8947109
8948
8949=Sorrow is Knowledge.=--How willingly would not one exchange the false
8950assertions of the homines religiosi that there is a god who commands us
8951to be good, who is the sentinel and witness of every act, every moment,
8952every thought, who loves us, who plans our welfare in every
8953misfortune--how willingly would not one exchange these for truths as
8954healing, beneficial and grateful as those delusions! But there are no
8955such truths. Philosophy can at most set up in opposition to them other
8956metaphysical plausibilities (fundamental untruths as well). The tragedy
8957of it all is that, although one cannot believe these dogmas of religion
8958and metaphysics if one adopts in heart and head the potent methods of
8959truth, one has yet become, through human evolution, so tender,
8960susceptible, sensitive, as to stand in need of the most effective means
8961of rest and consolation. From this state of things arises the danger
8962that, through the perception of truth or, more accurately, seeing
8963through delusion, one may bleed to death. Byron has put this into
8964deathless verse:
8965
8966     "Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
8967     Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
8968     The tree of knowledge is not that of life."
8969
8970Against such cares there is no better protective than the light fancy of
8971Horace, (at any rate during the darkest hours and sun eclipses of the
8972soul) expressed in the words
8973
8974     "quid aeternis minorem
8975     consiliis animum fatigas?
8976     cur non sub alta vel platano vel hac
8977     pinu jacentes."[22]
8978
8979[22] Then wherefore should you, who are mortal, outwear
8980     Your soul with a profitless burden of care
8981     Say, why should we not, flung at ease neath this pine,
8982     Or a plane-tree's broad umbrage, quaff gaily our wine?
8983                      (Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.)
8984
8985At any rate, light fancy or heavy heartedness of any degree must be
8986better than a romantic retrogression and desertion of one's flag, an
8987approach to Christianity in any form: for with it, in the present state
8988of knowledge, one can have nothing to do without hopelessly defiling
8989one's intellectual integrity and surrendering it unconditionally. These
8990woes may be painful enough, but without pain one cannot become a leader
8991and guide of humanity: and woe to him who would be such and lacks this
8992pure integrity of the intellect!
8993
8994
8995110
8996
8997=The Truth in Religion.=--In the ages of enlightenment justice was not
8998done to the importance of religion, of this there can be no doubt. It is
8999also equally certain that in the ensuing reaction of enlightenment, the
9000demands of justice were far exceeded inasmuch as religion was treated
9001with love, even with infatuation and proclaimed as a profound, indeed
9002the most profound knowledge of the world, which science had but to
9003divest of its dogmatic garb in order to possess "truth" in its
9004unmythical form. Religions must therefore--this was the contention of
9005all foes of enlightenment--sensu allegorico, with regard for the
9006comprehension of the masses, give expression to that ancient truth which
9007is wisdom in itself, inasmuch as all science of modern times has led up
9008to it instead of away from it. So that between the most ancient wisdom
9009of man and all later wisdom there prevails harmony, even similarity of
9010viewpoint; and the advancement of knowledge--if one be disposed to
9011concede such a thing--has to do not with its nature but with its
9012propagation. This whole conception of religion and science is through
9013and through erroneous, and none would to-day be hardy enough to
9014countenance it had not Schopenhauer's rhetoric taken it under
9015protection, this high sounding rhetoric which now gains auditors after
9016the lapse of a generation. Much as may be gained from Schopenhauer's
9017religio-ethical human and cosmical oracle as regards the comprehension
9018of Christianity and other religions, it is nevertheless certain that he
9019erred regarding the value of religion to knowledge. He himself was in
9020this but a servile pupil of the scientific teachers of his time who had
9021all taken romanticism under their protection and renounced the spirit of
9022enlightenment. Had he been born in our own time it would have been
9023impossible for him to have spoken of the sensus allegoricus of religion.
9024He would instead have done truth the justice to say: never has a
9025religion, directly or indirectly, either as dogma or as allegory,
9026contained a truth. For all religions grew out of dread or necessity, and
9027came into existence through an error of the reason. They have, perhaps,
9028in times of danger from science, incorporated some philosophical
9029doctrine or other into their systems in order to make it possible to
9030continue one's existence within them. But this is but a theological work
9031of art dating from the time in which a religion began to doubt of
9032itself. These theological feats of art, which are most common in
9033Christianity as the religion of a learned age, impregnated with
9034philosophy, have led to this superstition of the sensus allegoricus, as
9035has, even more, the habit of the philosophers (namely those
9036half-natures, the poetical philosophers and the philosophising artists)
9037of dealing with their own feelings as if they constituted the
9038fundamental nature of humanity and hence of giving their own religious
9039feelings a predominant influence over the structure of their systems. As
9040the philosophers mostly philosophised under the influence of hereditary
9041religious habits, or at least under the traditional influence of this
9042"metaphysical necessity," they naturally arrived at conclusions
9043closely resembling the Judaic or Christian or Indian religious
9044tenets--resembling, in the way that children are apt to look like their
9045mothers: only in this case the fathers were not certain as to the
9046maternity, as easily happens--but in the innocence of their admiration,
9047they fabled regarding the family likeness of all religion and science.
9048In reality, there exists between religion and true science neither
9049relationship nor friendship, not even enmity: they dwell in different
9050spheres. Every philosophy that lets the religious comet gleam through
9051the darkness of its last outposts renders everything within it that
9052purports to be science, suspicious. It is all probably religion,
9053although it may assume the guise of science.--Moreover, though all the
9054peoples agree concerning certain religious things, for example, the
9055existence of a god (which, by the way, as regards this point, is not
9056the case) this fact would constitute an argument against the thing
9057agreed upon, for example the very existence of a god. The consensus
9058gentium and especially hominum can probably amount only to an absurdity.
9059Against it there is no consensus omnium sapientium whatever, on any
9060point, with the exception of which Goethe's verse speaks:
9061
9062     "All greatest sages to all latest ages
9063         Will smile, wink and slily agree
9064     'Tis folly to wait till a fool's empty pate
9065         Has learned to be knowing and free.
9066     So children of wisdom must look upon fools
9067     As creatures who're never the better for schools."
9068
9069Stated without rhyme or metre and adapted to our case: the consensus
9070sapientium is to the effect that the consensus gentium amounts to an
9071absurdity.
9072
9073
9074111
9075
9076=Origin of Religious Worship.=--Let us transport ourselves back to the
9077times in which religious life flourished most vigorously and we will
9078find a fundamental conviction prevalent which we no longer share and
9079which has resulted in the closing of the door to religious life once for
9080all so far as we are concerned: this conviction has to do with nature
9081and intercourse with her. In those times nothing is yet known of
9082nature's laws. Neither for earth nor for heaven is there a must. A
9083season, sunshine, rain can come or stay away as it pleases. There is
9084wanting, in particular, all idea of natural causation. If a man rows, it
9085is not the oar that moves the boat, but rowing is a magical ceremony
9086whereby a demon is constrained to move the boat. All illness, death
9087itself, is a consequence of magical influences. In sickness and death
9088nothing natural is conceived. The whole idea of "natural course" is
9089wanting. The idea dawns first upon the ancient Greeks, that is to say in
9090a very late period of humanity, in the conception of a Moira [fate]
9091ruling over the gods. If any person shoots off a bow, there is always an
9092irrational strength and agency in the act. If the wells suddenly run
9093dry, the first thought is of subterranean demons and their pranks. It
9094must have been the dart of a god beneath whose invisible influence a
9095human being suddenly collapses. In India, the carpenter (according to
9096Lubbock) is in the habit of making devout offerings to his hammer and
9097hatchet. A Brahmin treats the plume with which he writes, a soldier the
9098weapon that he takes into the field, a mason his trowel, a laborer his
9099plow, in the same way. All nature is, in the opinion of religious
9100people, a sum total of the doings of conscious and willing beings, an
9101immense mass of complex volitions. In regard to all that takes place
9102outside of us no conclusion is permissible that anything will result
9103thus and so, must result thus and so, that we are comparatively
9104calculable and certain in our experiences, that man is the rule, nature
9105the ruleless. This view forms the fundamental conviction that dominates
9106crude, religion-producing, early civilizations. We contemporary men feel
9107exactly the opposite: the richer man now feels himself inwardly, the
9108more polyphone the music and the sounding of his soul, the more
9109powerfully does the uniformity of nature impress him. We all, with
9110Goethe, recognize in nature the great means of repose for the soul. We
9111listen to the pendulum stroke of this great clock with longing for rest,
9112for absolute calm and quiescence, as if we could drink in the uniformity
9113of nature and thereby arrive first at an enjoyment of oneself. Formerly
9114it was the reverse: if we carry ourselves back to the periods of crude
9115civilization, or if we contemplate contemporary savages, we will find
9116them most strongly influenced by rule, by tradition. The individual is
9117almost automatically bound to rule and tradition and moves with the
9118uniformity of a pendulum. To him nature--the uncomprehended, fearful,
9119mysterious nature--must seem the domain of freedom, of volition, of
9120higher power, indeed as an ultra-human degree of destiny, as god. Every
9121individual in such periods and circumstances feels that his existence,
9122his happiness, the existence and happiness of the family, the state,
9123the success or failure of every undertaking, must depend upon these
9124dispositions of nature. Certain natural events must occur at the proper
9125time and certain others must not occur. How can influence be exercised
9126over this fearful unknown, how can this domain of freedom be brought
9127under subjection? thus he asks himself, thus he worries: Is there no
9128means to render these powers of nature as subject to rule and tradition
9129as you are yourself?--The cogitation of the superstitious and
9130magic-deluded man is upon the theme of imposing a law upon nature: and
9131to put it briefly, religious worship is the result of such cogitation.
9132The problem which is present to every man is closely connected with this
9133one: how can the weaker party dictate laws to the stronger, control its
9134acts in reference to the weaker? At first the most harmless form of
9135influence is recollected, that influence which is acquired when the
9136partiality of anyone has been won. Through beseeching and prayer,
9137through abject humiliation, through obligations to regular gifts and
9138propitiations, through flattering homages, it is possible, therefore, to
9139impose some guidance upon the forces of nature, to the extent that their
9140partiality be won: love binds and is bound. Then agreements can be
9141entered into by means of which certain courses of conduct are mutually
9142concluded, vows are made and authorities prescribed. But far more potent
9143is that species of power exercised by means of magic and incantation. As
9144a man is able to injure a powerful enemy by means of the magician and
9145render him helpless with fear, as the love potion operates at a
9146distance, so can the mighty forces of nature, in the opinion of weaker
9147mankind, be controlled by similar means. The principal means of
9148effecting incantations is to acquire control of something belonging to
9149the party to be influenced, hair, finger nails, food from his table,
9150even his picture or his name. With such apparatus it is possible to act
9151by means of magic, for the basic principle is that to everything
9152spiritual corresponds something corporeal. With the aid of this
9153corporeal element the spirit may be bound, injured or destroyed. The
9154corporeal affords the handle by which the spiritual can be laid hold of.
9155In the same way that man influences mankind does he influences some
9156spirit of nature, for this latter has also its corporeal element that
9157can be grasped. The tree, and on the same basis, the seed from which it
9158grew: this puzzling sequence seems to demonstrate that in both forms the
9159same spirit is embodied, now large, now small. A stone that suddenly
9160rolls, is the body in which the spirit works. Does a huge boulder lie in
9161a lonely moor? It is impossible to think of mortal power having placed
9162it there. The stone must have moved itself there. That is to say some
9163spirit must dominate it. Everything that has a body is subject to magic,
9164including, therefore, the spirits of nature. If a god is directly
9165connected with his portrait, a direct influence (by refraining from
9166devout offerings, by whippings, chainings and the like) can be brought
9167to bear upon him. The lower classes in China tie cords around the
9168picture of their god in order to defy his departing favor, when he has
9169left them in the lurch, and tear the picture to pieces, drag it through
9170the streets into dung heaps and gutters, crying: "You dog of a spirit,
9171we housed you in a beautiful temple, we gilded you prettily, we fed you
9172well, we brought you offerings, and yet how ungrateful you are!" Similar
9173displays of resentment have been made against pictures of the mother of
9174god and pictures of saints in Catholic countries during the present
9175century when such pictures would not do their duty during times of
9176pestilence and drought.
9177
9178Through all these magical relationships to nature countless ceremonies
9179are occasioned, and finally, when their complexity and confusion grow
9180too great, pains are taken to systematize them, to arrange them so that
9181the favorable course of nature's progress, namely the great yearly
9182circle of the seasons, may be brought about by a corresponding course of
9183the ceremonial progress. The aim of religious worship is to influence
9184nature to human advantage, and hence to instil a subjection to law into
9185her that originally she has not, whereas at present man desires to find
9186out the subjection to law of nature in order to guide himself thereby.
9187In brief, the system of religious worship rests upon the idea of magic
9188between man and man, and the magician is older than the priest. But it
9189rests equally upon other and higher ideas. It brings into prominence the
9190sympathetic relation of man to man, the existence of benevolence,
9191gratitude, prayer, of truces between enemies, of loans upon security, of
9192arrangements for the protection of property. Man, even in very inferior
9193degrees of civilization, does not stand in the presence of nature as a
9194helpless slave, he is not willy-nilly the absolute servant of nature. In
9195the Greek development of religion, especially in the relationship to the
9196Olympian gods, it becomes possible to entertain the idea of an existence
9197side by side of two castes, a higher, more powerful, and a lower, less
9198powerful: but both are bound together in some way, on account of their
9199origin and are one species. They need not be ashamed of one another.
9200This is the element of distinction in Greek religion.
9201
9202
9203112
9204
9205=At the Contemplation of Certain Ancient Sacrificial Proceedings.=--How
9206many sentiments are lost to us is manifest in the union of the farcical,
9207even of the obscene, with the religious feeling. The feeling that this
9208mixture is possible is becoming extinct. We realize the mixture only
9209historically, in the mysteries of Demeter and Dionysos and in the
9210Christian Easter festivals and religious mysteries. But we still
9211perceive the sublime in connection with the ridiculous, and the like,
9212the emotional with the absurd. Perhaps a later age will be unable to
9213understand even these combinations.
9214
9215
9216113
9217
9218=Christianity as Antiquity.=--When on a Sunday morning we hear the old
9219bells ringing, we ask ourselves: Is it possible? All this for a Jew
9220crucified two thousand years ago who said he was God's son? The proof of
9221such an assertion is lacking.--Certainly, the Christian religion
9222constitutes in our time a protruding bit of antiquity from very remote
9223ages and that its assertions are still generally believed--although men
9224have become so keen in the scrutiny of claims--constitutes the oldest
9225relic of this inheritance. A god who begets children by a mortal woman;
9226a sage who demands that no more work be done, that no more justice be
9227administered but that the signs of the approaching end of the world be
9228heeded; a system of justice that accepts an innocent as a vicarious
9229sacrifice in the place of the guilty; a person who bids his disciples
9230drink his blood; prayers for miracles; sins against a god expiated upon
9231a god; fear of a hereafter to which death is the portal; the figure of
9232the cross as a symbol in an age that no longer knows the purpose and the
9233ignominy of the cross--how ghostly all these things flit before us out
9234of the grave of their primitive antiquity! Is one to believe that such
9235things can still be believed?
9236
9237
9238114
9239
9240=The Un-Greek in Christianity.=--The Greeks did not look upon the
9241Homeric gods above them as lords nor upon themselves beneath as
9242servants, after the fashion of the Jews. They saw but the counterpart as
9243in a mirror of the most perfect specimens of their own caste, hence an
9244ideal, but no contradiction of their own nature. There was a feeling of
9245mutual relationship, resulting in a mutual interest, a sort of alliance.
9246Man thinks well of himself when he gives himself such gods and places
9247himself in a relationship akin to that of the lower nobility with the
9248higher; whereas the Italian races have a decidedly vulgar religion,
9249involving perpetual anxiety because of bad and mischievous powers and
9250soul disturbers. Wherever the Olympian gods receded into the background,
9251there even Greek life became gloomier and more perturbed.--Christianity,
9252on the other hand, oppressed and degraded humanity completely and sank
9253it into deepest mire: into the feeling of utter abasement it suddenly
9254flashed the gleam of divine compassion, so that the amazed and
9255grace-dazzled stupefied one gave a cry of delight and for a moment
9256believed that the whole of heaven was within him. Upon this unhealthy
9257excess of feeling, upon the accompanying corruption of heart and head,
9258Christianity attains all its psychological effects. It wants to
9259annihilate, debase, stupefy, amaze, bedazzle. There is but one thing
9260that it does not want: measure, standard (das Maas) and therefore is it
9261in the worst sense barbarous, asiatic, vulgar, un-Greek.
9262
9263
9264115
9265
9266=Being Religious to Some Purpose.=--There are certain insipid,
9267traffic-virtuous people to whom religion is pinned like the hem of some
9268garb of a higher humanity. These people do well to remain religious: it
9269adorns them. All who are not versed in some professional
9270weapon--including tongue and pen as weapons--are servile: to all such
9271the Christian religion is very useful, for then their servility assumes
9272the aspect of Christian virtue and is amazingly adorned.--People whose
9273daily lives are empty and colorless are readily religious. This is
9274comprehensible and pardonable, but they have no right to demand that
9275others, whose daily lives are not empty and colorless, should be
9276religious also.
9277
9278
9279116
9280
9281=The Everyday Christian.=--If Christianity, with its allegations of an
9282avenging God, universal sinfulness, choice of grace, and the danger of
9283eternal damnation, were true, it would be an indication of weakness of
9284mind and character not to be a priest or an apostle or a hermit, and
9285toil for one's own salvation. It would be irrational to lose sight of
9286one's eternal well being in comparison with temporary advantage:
9287Assuming these dogmas to be generally believed, the every day Christian
9288is a pitiable figure, a man who really cannot count as far as three, and
9289who, for the rest, just because of his intellectual incapacity, does not
9290deserve to be as hard punished as Christianity promises he shall be.
9291
9292
9293117
9294
9295=Concerning the Cleverness of Christianity.=--It is a master stroke of
9296Christianity to so emphasize the unworthiness, sinfulness and
9297degradation of men in general that contempt of one's fellow creatures
9298becomes impossible. "He may sin as much as he pleases, he is not by
9299nature different from me. It is I who in every way am unworthy and
9300contemptible." So says the Christian to himself. But even this feeling
9301has lost its keenest sting for the Christian does not believe in his
9302individual degradation. He is bad in his general human capacity and he
9303soothes himself a little with the assertion that we are all alike.
9304
9305
9306118
9307
9308=Personal Change.=--As soon as a religion rules, it has for its
9309opponents those who were its first disciples.
9310
9311
9312119
9313
9314=Fate of Christianity.=--Christianity arose to lighten the heart, but
9315now it must first make the heart heavy in order to be able to lighten it
9316afterwards. Christianity will consequently go down.
9317
9318
9319120
9320
9321=The Testimony of Pleasure.=--The agreeable opinion is accepted as true.
9322This is the testimony of pleasure (or as the church says, the evidence
9323of strength) of which all religions are so proud, although they should
9324all be ashamed of it. If a belief did not make blessed it would not be
9325believed. How little it would be worth, then!
9326
9327
9328121
9329
9330=Dangerous Play.=--Whoever gives religious feeling room, must then also
9331let it grow. He can do nothing else. Then his being gradually changes.
9332The religious element brings with it affinities and kinships. The whole
9333circle of his judgment and feeling is clouded and draped in religious
9334shadows. Feeling cannot stand still. One should be on one's guard.
9335
9336
9337122
9338
9339=The Blind Pupil.=--As long as one knows very well the strength and the
9340weakness of one's dogma, one's art, one's religion, its strength is
9341still low. The pupil and apostle who has no eye for the weaknesses of a
9342dogma, a religion and so on, dazzled by the aspect of the master and by
9343his own reverence for him, has, on that very account, generally more
9344power than the master. Without blind pupils the influence of a man and
9345his work has never become great. To give victory to knowledge, often
9346amounts to no more than so allying it with stupidity that the brute
9347force of the latter forces triumph for the former.
9348
9349
9350123
9351
9352=The Breaking off of Churches.=--There is not sufficient religion in the
9353world merely to put an end to the number of religions.
9354
9355
9356124
9357
9358=Sinlessness of Men.=--If one have understood how "Sin came into the
9359world," namely through errors of the reason, through which men in their
9360intercourse with one another and even individual men looked upon
9361themselves as much blacker and wickeder than was really the case, one's
9362whole feeling is much lightened and man and the world appear together in
9363such a halo of harmlessness that a sentiment of well being is instilled
9364into one's whole nature. Man in the midst of nature is as a child left
9365to its own devices. This child indeed dreams a heavy, anxious dream. But
9366when it opens its eyes it finds itself always in paradise.
9367
9368
9369125
9370
9371=Irreligiousness of Artists.=--Homer is so much at home among his gods
9372and is as a poet so good natured to them that he must have been
9373profoundly irreligious. That which was brought to him by the popular
9374faith--a mean, crude and partially repulsive superstition--he dealt with
9375as freely as the Sculptor with his clay, therefore with the same freedom
9376that Æschylus and Aristophanes evinced and with which in later times the
9377great artists of the renaissance, and also Shakespeare and Goethe, drew
9378their pictures.
9379
9380
9381126
9382
9383=Art and Strength of False Interpretation.=--All the visions, fears,
9384exhaustions and delights of the saint are well known symptoms of
9385sickness, which in him, owing to deep rooted religious and psychological
9386delusions, are explained quite differently, that is not as symptoms of
9387sickness.--So, too, perhaps, the demon of Socrates was nothing but a
9388malady of the ear that he explained, in view of his predominant moral
9389theory, in a manner different from what would be thought rational
9390to-day. Nor is the case different with the frenzy and the frenzied
9391speeches of the prophets and of the priests of the oracles. It is always
9392the degree of wisdom, imagination, capacity and morality in the heart
9393and mind of the interpreters that got so much out of them. It is among
9394the greatest feats of the men who are called geniuses and saints that
9395they made interpreters for themselves who, fortunately for mankind, did
9396not understand them.
9397
9398
9399127
9400
9401=Reverence for Madness.=--Because it was perceived that an excitement of
9402some kind often made the head clearer and occasioned fortunate
9403inspirations, it was concluded that the utmost excitement would occasion
9404the most fortunate inspirations. Hence the frenzied being was revered as
9405a sage and an oracle giver. A false conclusion lies at the bottom of all
9406this.
9407
9408
9409128
9410
9411=Promises of Wisdom.=--Modern science has as its object as little pain
9412as possible, as long a life as possible--hence a sort of eternal
9413blessedness, but of a very limited kind in comparison with the promises
9414of religion.
9415
9416
9417129
9418
9419=Forbidden Generosity.=--There is not enough of love and goodness in the
9420world to throw any of it away on conceited people.
9421
9422
9423130
9424
9425=Survival of Religious Training in the Disposition.=--The Catholic
9426Church, and before it all ancient education, controlled the whole domain
9427of means through which man was put into certain unordinary moods and
9428withdrawn from the cold calculation of personal advantage and from calm,
9429rational reflection. A church vibrating with deep tones; gloomy,
9430regular, restraining exhortations from a priestly band, who
9431involuntarily communicate their own tension to their congregation and
9432lead them to listen almost with anxiety as if some miracle were in
9433course of preparation; the awesome pile of architecture which, as the
9434house of a god, rears itself vastly into the vague and in all its
9435shadowy nooks inspires fear of its nerve-exciting power--who would care
9436to reduce men to the level of these things if the ideas upon which they
9437rest became extinct? But the results of all these things are
9438nevertheless not thrown away: the inner world of exalted, emotional,
9439prophetic, profoundly repentant, hope-blessed moods has become inborn in
9440man largely through cultivation. What still exists in his soul was
9441formerly, as he germinated, grew and bloomed, thoroughly disciplined.
9442
9443
9444131
9445
9446=Religious After-Pains.=--Though one believe oneself absolutely weaned
9447away from religion, the process has yet not been so thorough as to make
9448impossible a feeling of joy at the presence of religious feelings and
9449dispositions without intelligible content, as, for example, in music;
9450and if a philosophy alleges to us the validity of metaphysical hopes,
9451through the peace of soul therein attainable, and also speaks of "the
9452whole true gospel in the look of Raphael's Madonna," we greet such
9453declarations and innuendoes with a welcome smile. The philosopher has
9454here a matter easy of demonstration. He responds with that which he is
9455glad to give, namely a heart that is glad to accept. Hence it is
9456observable how the less reflective free spirits collide only with dogmas
9457but yield readily to the magic of religious feelings; it is a source of
9458pain to them to let the latter go simply on account of the
9459former.--Scientific philosophy must be very much on its guard lest on
9460account of this necessity--an evolved and hence, also, a transitory
9461necessity--delusions are smuggled in. Even logicians speak of
9462"presentiments" of truth in ethics and in art (for example of the
9463presentiment that the essence of things is unity) a thing which,
9464nevertheless, ought to be prohibited. Between carefully deduced truths
9465and such "foreboded" things there lies the abysmal distinction that the
9466former are products of the intellect and the latter of the necessity.
9467Hunger is no evidence that there is food at hand to appease it. Hunger
9468merely craves food. "Presentiment" does not denote that the existence of
9469a thing is known in any way whatever. It denotes merely that it is
9470deemed possible to the extent that it is desired or feared. The
9471"presentiment" is not one step forward in the domain of certainty.--It
9472is involuntarily believed that the religious tinted sections of a
9473philosophy are better attested than the others, but the case is at
9474bottom just the opposite: there is simply the inner wish that it may be
9475so, that the thing which beautifies may also be true. This wish leads us
9476to accept bad grounds as good.
9477
9478
9479132
9480
9481=Of the Christian Need of Salvation.=--Careful consideration must render
9482it possible to propound some explanation of that process in the soul of
9483a Christian which is termed need of salvation, and to propound an
9484explanation, too, free from mythology: hence one purely psychological.
9485Heretofore psychological explanations of religious conditions and
9486processes have really been in disrepute, inasmuch as a theology calling
9487itself free gave vent to its unprofitable nature in this domain; for its
9488principal aim, so far as may be judged from the spirit of its creator,
9489Schleier-macher, was the preservation of the Christian religion and the
9490maintenance of the Christian theology. It appeared that in the
9491psychological analysis of religious "facts" a new anchorage and above
9492all a new calling were to be gained. Undisturbed by such predecessors,
9493we venture the following exposition of the phenomena alluded to. Man is
9494conscious of certain acts which are very firmly implanted in the general
9495course of conduct: indeed he discovers in himself a predisposition to
9496such acts that seems to him to be as unalterable as his very being. How
9497gladly he would essay some other kind of acts which in the general
9498estimate of conduct are rated the best and highest, how gladly he would
9499welcome the consciousness of well doing which ought to follow unselfish
9500motive! Unfortunately, however, it goes no further than this longing:
9501the discontent consequent upon being unable to satisfy it is added to
9502all other kinds of discontent which result from his life destiny in
9503particular or which may be due to so called bad acts; so that a deep
9504depression ensues accompanied by a desire for some physician to remove
9505it and all its causes.--This condition would not be found so bitter if
9506the individual but compared himself freely with other men: for then he
9507would have no reason to be discontented with himself in particular as he
9508is merely bearing his share of the general burden of human discontent
9509and incompleteness. But he compares himself with a being who alone must
9510be capable of the conduct that is called unegoistic and of an enduring
9511consciousness of unselfish motive, with God. It is because he gazes into
9512this clear mirror, that his own self seems so extraordinarily distracted
9513and so troubled. Thereupon the thought of that being, in so far as it
9514flits before his fancy as retributive justice, occasions him anxiety. In
9515every conceivable small and great experience he believes he sees the
9516anger of the being, his threats, the very implements and manacles of his
9517judge and prison. What succors him in this danger, which, in the
9518prospect of an eternal duration of punishment, transcends in hideousness
9519all the horrors that can be presented to the imagination?
9520
9521
9522133
9523
9524Before we consider this condition in its further effects, we would admit
9525to ourselves that man is betrayed into this condition not through his
9526"fault" and "sin" but through a series of delusions of the reason; that
9527it was the fault of the mirror if his own self appeared to him in the
9528highest degree dark and hateful, and that that mirror was his own work,
9529the very imperfect work of human imagination and judgment. In the first
9530place a being capable of absolutely unegoistic conduct is as fabulous as
9531the phoenix. Such a being is not even thinkable for the very reason that
9532the whole notion of "unegoistic conduct," when closely examined,
9533vanishes into air. Never yet has a man done anything solely for others
9534and entirely without reference to a personal motive; indeed how could he
9535possibly do anything that had no reference to himself, that is without
9536inward compulsion (which must always have its basis in a personal need)?
9537How could the ego act without ego?--A god, who, on the other hand, is
9538all love, as he is usually represented, would not be capable of a
9539solitary unegoistic act: whence one is reminded of a reflection of
9540Lichtenberg's which is, in truth, taken from a lower sphere: "We cannot
9541possibly feel for others, as the expression goes; we feel only for
9542ourselves. The assertion sounds hard, but it is not, if rightly
9543understood. A man loves neither his father nor his mother nor his wife
9544nor his child, but simply the feelings which they inspire." Or, as La
9545Rochefoucauld says: "If you think you love your mistress for the mere
9546love of her, you are very much mistaken." Why acts of love are more
9547highly prized than others, namely not on account of their nature, but on
9548account of their utility, has already been explained in the section on
9549the origin of moral feelings. But if a man should wish to be all love
9550like the god aforesaid, and want to do all things for others and nothing
9551for himself, the procedure would be fundamentally impossible because he
9552_must_ do a great deal for himself before there would be any possibility
9553of doing anything for the love of others. It is also essential that
9554others be sufficiently egoistic to accept always and at all times this
9555self sacrifice and living for others, so that the men of love and self
9556sacrifice have an interest in the survival of unloving and selfish
9557egoists, while the highest morality, in order to maintain itself must
9558formally enforce the existence of immorality (wherein it would be really
9559destroying itself.)--Further: the idea of a god perturbs and discourages
9560as long as it is accepted but as to how it originated can no longer, in
9561the present state of comparative ethnological science, be a matter of
9562doubt, and with the insight into the origin of this belief all faith
9563collapses. What happens to the Christian who compares his nature with
9564that of God is exactly what happened to Don Quixote, who depreciated his
9565own prowess because his head was filled with the wondrous deeds of the
9566heroes of chivalrous romance. The standard of measurement which both
9567employ belongs to the domain of fable.--But if the idea of God
9568collapses, so too, does the feeling of "sin" as a violation of divine
9569rescript, as a stain upon a god-like creation. There still apparently
9570remains that discouragement which is closely allied with fear of the
9571punishment of worldly justice or of the contempt of one's fellow men.
9572The keenest thorn in the sentiment of sin is dulled when it is perceived
9573that one's acts have contravened human tradition, human rules and human
9574laws without having thereby endangered the "eternal salvation of the
9575soul" and its relations with deity. If finally men attain to the
9576conviction of the absolute necessity of all acts and of their utter
9577irresponsibility and then absorb it into their flesh and blood, every
9578relic of conscience pangs will disappear.
9579
9580
9581134
9582
9583If now, as stated, the Christian, through certain delusive feelings, is
9584betrayed into self contempt, that is by a false and unscientific view of
9585his acts and feelings, he must, nevertheless, perceive with the utmost
9586amazement that this state of self contempt, of conscience pangs, of
9587despair in particular, does not last, that there are hours during which
9588all these things are wafted away from the soul and he feels himself once
9589more free and courageous. The truth is that joy in his own being, the
9590fulness of his own powers in connection with the inevitable decline of
9591his profound excitation with the lapse of time, bore off the palm of
9592victory. The man loves himself once more, he feels it--but this very new
9593love, this new self esteem seems to him incredible. He can see in it
9594only the wholly unmerited stream of the light of grace shed down upon
9595him. If he formerly saw in every event merely warnings, threats,
9596punishments and every kind of indication of divine anger, he now reads
9597into his experiences the grace of god. The latter circumstance seems to
9598him full of love, the former as a helpful pointing of the way, and his
9599entirely joyful frame of mind now seems to him to be an absolute proof
9600of the goodness of God. As formerly in his states of discouragement he
9601interpreted his conduct falsely so now he does the same with his
9602experiences. His state of consolation is now regarded as the effect
9603produced by some external power. The love with which, at bottom, he
9604loves himself, seems to be the divine love. That which he calls grace
9605and the preliminary of salvation is in reality self-grace,
9606self-salvation.
9607
9608
9609135
9610
9611Therefore a certain false psychology, a certain kind of imaginativeness
9612in the interpretation of motives and experiences is the essential
9613preliminary to being a Christian and to experiencing the need of
9614salvation. Upon gaining an insight into this wandering of the reason and
9615the imagination, one ceases to be a Christian.
9616
9617
9618136
9619
9620=Of Christian Asceticism and Sanctity.=--Much as some thinkers have
9621exerted themselves to impart an air of the miraculous to those singular
9622phenomena known as asceticism and sanctity, to question which or to
9623account for which upon a rational basis would be wickedness and
9624sacrilege, the temptation to this wickedness is none the less great. A
9625powerful impulse of nature has in every age led to protest against such
9626phenomena. At any rate science, inasmuch as it is the imitation of
9627nature, permits the casting of doubts upon the inexplicable character
9628and the supernal degree of such phenomena. It is true that heretofore
9629science has not succeeded in its attempts at explanation. The phenomena
9630remain unexplained still, to the great satisfaction of those who revere
9631moral miracles. For, speaking generally, the unexplained must rank as
9632the inexplicable, the inexplicable as the non-natural, supernatural,
9633miraculous--so runs the demand in the souls of all the religious and all
9634the metaphysicians (even the artists if they happen to be thinkers),
9635whereas the scientific man sees in this demand the "evil
9636principle."--The universal, first, apparent truth that is encountered in
9637the contemplation of sanctity and asceticism is that their nature is
9638complicated; for nearly always, within the physical world as well as in
9639the moral, the apparently miraculous may be traced successfully to the
9640complex, the obscure, the multi-conditioned. Let us venture then to
9641isolate a few impulses in the soul of the saint and the ascetic, to
9642consider them separately and then view them as a synthetic development.
9643
9644
9645137
9646
9647There is an obstinacy against oneself, certain sublimated forms of which
9648are included in asceticism. Certain kinds of men are under such a strong
9649necessity of exercising their power and dominating impulses that, if
9650other objects are lacking or if they have not succeeded with other
9651objects they will actually tyrannize over some portions of their own
9652nature or over sections and stages of their own personality. Thus do
9653many thinkers bring themselves to views which are far from likely to
9654increase or improve their fame. Many deliberately bring down the
9655contempt of others upon themselves although they could easily have
9656retained consideration by silence. Others contradict earlier opinions
9657and do not shrink from the ordeal of being deemed inconsistent. On the
9658contrary they strive for this and act like eager riders who enjoy
9659horseback exercise most when the horse is skittish. Thus will men in
9660dangerous paths ascend to the highest steeps in order to laugh to scorn
9661their own fear and their own trembling limbs. Thus will the philosopher
9662embrace the dogmas of asceticism, humility, sanctity, in the light of
9663which his own image appears in its most hideous aspect. This crushing of
9664self, this mockery of one's own nature, this spernere se sperni out of
9665which religions have made so much is in reality but a very high
9666development of vanity. The whole ethic of the sermon on the mount
9667belongs in this category: man has a true delight in mastering himself
9668through exaggerated pretensions or excessive expedients and later
9669deifying this tyrannically exacting something within him. In every
9670scheme of ascetic ethics, man prays to one part of himself as if it were
9671god and hence it is necessary for him to treat the rest of himself as
9672devil.
9673
9674
9675138
9676
9677=Man is Not at All Hours Equally Moral=; this is established. If one's
9678morality be judged according to one's capacity for great, self
9679sacrificing resolutions and abnegations (which when continual, and made
9680a habit are known as sanctity) one is, in affection, or disposition, the
9681most moral: while higher excitement supplies wholly new impulses which,
9682were one calm and cool as ordinarily, one would not deem oneself even
9683capable of. How comes this? Apparently from the propinquity of all great
9684and lofty emotional states. If a man is brought to an extraordinary
9685pitch of feeling he can resolve upon a fearful revenge or upon a fearful
9686renunciation of his thirst for vengeance indifferently. He craves, under
9687the influences of powerful emotion, the great, the powerful, the
9688immense, and if he chances to perceive that the sacrifice of himself
9689will afford him as much satisfaction as the sacrifice of another, or
9690will afford him more, he will choose self sacrifice. What concerns him
9691particularly is simply the unloading of his emotion. Hence he readily,
9692to relieve his tension, grasps the darts of the enemy and buries them in
9693his own breast. That in self abnegation and not in revenge the element
9694of greatness consisted must have been brought home to mankind only after
9695long habituation. A god who sacrifices himself would be the most
9696powerful and most effective symbol of this sort of greatness. As the
9697conquest of the most hardly conquered enemy, the sudden mastering of a
9698passion--thus does such abnegation _appear_: hence it passes for the
9699summit of morality. In reality all that is involved is the exchange of
9700one idea for another whilst the temperament remained at a like altitude,
9701a like tidal state. Men when coming out of the spell, or resting from
9702such passionate excitation, no longer understand the morality of such
9703instants, but the admiration of all who participated in the occasion
9704sustains them. Pride is their support if the passion and the
9705comprehension of their act weaken. Therefore, at bottom even such acts
9706of self-abnegation are not moral inasmuch as they are not done with a
9707strict regard for others. Rather do others afford the high strung
9708temperament an opportunity to lighten itself through such abnegation.
9709
9710
9711139
9712
9713=Even the Ascetic Seeks to Make Life Easier=, and generally by means of
9714absolute subjection to another will or to an all inclusive rule and
9715ritual, pretty much as the Brahmin leaves absolutely nothing to his own
9716volition but is guided in every moment of his life by some holy
9717injunction or other. This subjection is a potent means of acquiring
9718dominion over oneself. One is occupied, hence time does not bang heavy
9719and there is no incitement of the personal will and of the individual
9720passion. The deed once done there is no feeling of responsibility nor
9721the sting of regret. One has given up one's own will once for all and
9722this is easier than to give it up occasionally, as it is also easier
9723wholly to renounce a desire than to yield to it in measured degree. When
9724we consider the present relation of man to the state we perceive
9725unconditional obedience is easier than conditional. The holy person also
9726makes his lot easier through the complete surrender of his life
9727personality and it is all delusion to admire such a phenomenon as the
9728loftiest heroism of morality. It is always more difficult to assert
9729one's personality without shrinking and without hesitation than to give
9730it up altogether in the manner indicated, and it requires moreover more
9731intellect and thought.
9732
9733
9734140
9735
9736After having discovered in many of the less comprehensible actions mere
9737manifestations of pleasure in emotion for its own sake, I fancy I can
9738detect in the self contempt which characterises holy persons, and also
9739in their acts of self torture (through hunger and scourgings,
9740distortions and chaining of the limbs, acts of madness) simply a means
9741whereby such natures may resist the general exhaustion of their will to
9742live (their nerves). They employ the most painful expedients to escape
9743if only for a time from the heaviness and weariness in which they are
9744steeped by their great mental indolence and their subjection to a will
9745other than their own.
9746
9747
9748141
9749
9750=The Most Usual Means= by which the ascetic and the sanctified
9751individual seeks to make life more endurable comprises certain combats
9752of an inner nature involving alternations of victory and prostration.
9753For this purpose an enemy is necessary and he is found in the so called
9754"inner enemy." That is, the holy individual makes use of his tendency to
9755vanity, domineering and pride, and of his mental longings in order to
9756contemplate his life as a sort of continuous battle and himself as a
9757battlefield, in which good and evil spirits wage war with varying
9758fortune. It is an established fact that the imagination is restrained
9759through the regularity and adequacy of sexual intercourse while on the
9760other hand abstention from or great irregularity in sexual intercourse
9761will cause the imagination to run riot. The imaginations of many of the
9762Christian saints were obscene to a degree; and because of the theory
9763that sexual desires were in reality demons that raged within them, the
9764saints did not feel wholly responsible for them. It is to this
9765conviction that we are indebted for the highly instructive sincerity of
9766their evidence against themselves. It was to their interest that this
9767contest should always be kept up in some fashion because by means of
9768this contest, as already stated, their empty lives gained distraction.
9769In order that the contest might seem sufficiently great to inspire
9770sympathy and admiration in the unsanctified, it was essential that
9771sexual capacity be ever more and more damned and denounced. Indeed the
9772danger of eternal damnation was so closely allied to this capacity that
9773for whole generations Christians showed their children with actual
9774conscience pangs. What evil may not have been done to humanity through
9775this! And yet here the truth is just upside down: an exceedingly
9776unseemly attitude for the truth. Christianity, it is true, had said that
9777every man is conceived and born in sin, and in the intolerable and
9778excessive Christianity of Calderon this thought is again perverted and
9779entangled into the most distorted paradox extant in the well known lines
9780
9781     The greatest sin of man
9782     Is the sin of being born.
9783
9784In all pessimistic religions the act of procreation is looked upon as
9785evil in itself. This is far from being the general human opinion. It is
9786not even the opinion of all pessimists. Empedocles, for example, knows
9787nothing of anything shameful, devilish and sinful in it. He sees rather
9788in the great field of bliss of unholiness simply a healthful and hopeful
9789phenomenon, Aphrodite. She is to him an evidence that strife does not
9790always rage but that some time a gentle demon is to wield the sceptre.
9791The Christian pessimists of practice, had, as stated, a direct interest
9792in the prevalence of an opposite belief. They needed in the loneliness
9793and the spiritual wilderness of their lives an ever living enemy, and a
9794universally known enemy through whose conquest they might appear to the
9795unsanctified as utterly incomprehensible and half unnatural beings. When
9796this enemy at last, as a result of their mode of life and their
9797shattered health, took flight forever, they were able immediately to
9798people their inner selves with new demons. The rise and fall of the
9799balance of cheerfulness and despair maintained their addled brains in a
9800totally new fluctuation of longing and peace of soul. And in that period
9801psychology served not only to cast suspicion on everything human but to
9802wound and scourge it, to crucify it. Man wanted to find himself as base
9803and evil as possible. Man sought to become anxious about the state of
9804his soul, he wished to be doubtful of his own capacity. Everything
9805natural with which man connects the idea of badness and sinfulness (as,
9806for instance, is still customary in regard to the erotic) injures and
9807degrades the imagination, occasions a shamed aspect, leads man to war
9808upon himself and makes him uncertain, distrustful of himself. Even his
9809dreams acquire a tincture of the unclean conscience. And yet this
9810suffering because of the natural element in certain things is wholly
9811superfluous. It is simply the result of opinions regarding the things.
9812It is easy to understand why men become worse than they are if they are
9813brought to look upon the unavoidably natural as bad and later to feel it
9814as of evil origin. It is the master stroke of religions and metaphysics
9815that wish to make man out bad and sinful by nature, to render nature
9816suspicious in his eyes and to so make himself evil, for he learns to
9817feel himself evil when he cannot divest himself of nature. He gradually
9818comes to look upon himself, after a long life lived naturally, so
9819oppressed by a weight of sin that supernatural powers become necessary
9820to relieve him of the burden; and with this notion comes the so called
9821need of salvation, which is the result not of a real but of an imaginary
9822sinfulness. Go through the separate moral expositions in the vouchers of
9823christianity and it will always be found that the demands are excessive
9824in order that it may be impossible for man to satisfy them. The object
9825is not that he may become moral but that he may feel as sinful as
9826possible. If this feeling had not been rendered agreeable to man--why
9827should he have improvised such an ideal and clung to it so long? As in
9828the ancient world an incalculable strength of intellect and capacity for
9829feeling was squandered in order to increase the joy of living through
9830feastful systems of worship, so in the era of christianity an equally
9831incalculable quantity of intellectual capacity has been sacrificed in
9832another endeavor: that man should in every way feel himself sinful and
9833thereby be moved, inspired, inspirited. To move, to inspire, to inspirit
9834at any cost--is not this the freedom cry of an exhausted, over-ripe,
9835over cultivated age? The circle of all the natural sensations had been
9836gone through a hundred times: the soul had grown weary. Then the saints
9837and the ascetics found a new order of ecstacies. They set themselves
9838before the eyes of all not alone as models for imitation to many, but as
9839fearful and yet delightful spectacles on the boundary line between this
9840world and the next world, where in that period everyone thought he saw
9841at one time rays of heavenly light, at another fearful, threatening
9842tongues of flame. The eye of the saint, directed upon the fearful
9843significance of the shortness of earthly life, upon the imminence of the
9844last judgment, upon eternal life hereafter; this glowering eye in an
9845emaciated body caused men, in the old time world, to tremble to the
9846depths of their being. To look, to look away and shudder, to feel anew
9847the fascination of the spectacle, to yield to it, sate oneself upon it
9848until the soul trembled with ardor and fever--that was the last pleasure
9849left to classical antiquity when its sensibilities had been blunted by
9850the arena and the gladiatorial show.
9851
9852
9853142
9854
9855=To Sum Up All That Has Been Said=: that condition of soul at which the
9856saint or expectant saint is rejoiced is a combination of elements which
9857we are all familiar with, except that under other influences than those
9858of mere religious ideation they customarily arouse the censure of men in
9859the same way that when combined with religion itself and regarded as the
9860supreme attainment of sanctity, they are object of admiration and even
9861of prayer--at least in more simple times. Very soon the saint turns upon
9862himself that severity that is so closely allied to the instinct of
9863domination at any price and which inspire even in the most solitary
9864individual the sense of power. Soon his swollen sensitiveness of feeling
9865breaks forth from the longing to restrain his passions within it and is
9866transformed into a longing to master them as if they were wild steeds,
9867the master impulse being ever that of a proud spirit; next he craves a
9868complete cessation of all perturbing, fascinating feelings, a waking
9869sleep, an enduring repose in the lap of a dull, animal, plant-like
9870indolence. Next he seeks the battle and extinguishes it within himself
9871because weariness and boredom confront him. He binds his
9872self-deification with self-contempt. He delights in the wild tumult of
9873his desires and the sharp pain of sin, in the very idea of being lost.
9874He is able to play his very passions, for instance the desire to
9875domineer, a trick so that he goes to the other extreme of abject
9876humiliation and subjection, so that his overwrought soul is without any
9877restraint through this antithesis. And, finally, when indulgence in
9878visions, in talks with the dead or with divine beings overcomes him,
9879this is really but a form of gratification that he craves, perhaps a
9880form of gratification in which all other gratifications are blended.
9881Novalis, one of the authorities in matters of sanctity, because of his
9882experience and instinct, betrays the whole secret with the utmost
9883simplicity when he says: "It is remarkable that the close connection of
9884gratification, religion and cruelty has not long ago made men aware of
9885their inner relationship and common tendency."
9886
9887
9888143
9889
9890=Not What the Saint is but what he was in= the eyes of the
9891non-sanctified gives him his historical importance. Because there
9892existed a delusion respecting the saint, his soul states being falsely
9893viewed and his personality being sundered as much as possible from
9894humanity as a something incomparable and supernatural, because of these
9895things he attained the extraordinary with which he swayed the
9896imaginations of whole nations and whole ages. Even he knew himself not
9897for even he regarded his dispositions, passions and actions in
9898accordance with a system of interpretation as artificial and exaggerated
9899as the pneumatic interpretation of the bible. The distorted and diseased
9900in his own nature with its blending of spiritual poverty, defective
9901knowledge, ruined health, overwrought nerves, remained as hidden from
9902his view as from the view of his beholders. He was neither a
9903particularly good man nor a particularly bad man but he stood for
9904something that was far above the human standard in wisdom and goodness.
9905Faith in him sustained faith in the divine and miraculous, in a
9906religious significance of all existence, in an impending day of
9907judgment. In the last rays of the setting sun of the ancient world,
9908which fell upon the christian peoples, the shadowy form of the saint
9909attained enormous proportions--to such enormous proportions, indeed,
9910that down even to our own age, which no longer believes in god, there
9911are thinkers who believe in the saints.
9912
9913
9914144
9915
9916It stands to reason that this sketch of the saint, made upon the model
9917of the whole species, can be confronted with many opposing sketches that
9918would create a more agreeable impression. There are certain exceptions
9919among the species who distinguish themselves either by especial
9920gentleness or especial humanity, and perhaps by the strength of their
9921own personality. Others are in the highest degree fascinating because
9922certain of their delusions shed a particular glow over their whole
9923being, as is the case with the founder of christianity who took himself
9924for the only begotten son of God and hence felt himself sinless; so that
9925through his imagination--that should not be too harshly judged since the
9926whole of antiquity swarmed with sons of god--he attained the same goal,
9927the sense of complete sinlessness, complete irresponsibility, that can
9928now be attained by every individual through science.--In the same manner
9929I have viewed the saints of India who occupy an intermediate station
9930between the christian saints and the Greek philosophers and hence are
9931not to be regarded as a pure type. Knowledge and science--as far as they
9932existed--and superiority to the rest of mankind by logical discipline
9933and training of the intellectual powers were insisted upon by the
9934Buddhists as essential to sanctity, just as they were denounced by the
9935christian world as the indications of sinfulness.