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PREFACE |
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SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground |
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for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been |
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dogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible |
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seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid |
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their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for |
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winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won; and |
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at present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien--IF, |
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indeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it |
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has fallen, that all dogma lies on the ground--nay more, that it is at |
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its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping |
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that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive |
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and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism |
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and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it will be once |
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and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such |
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imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have |
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hitherto reared: perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time |
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(such as the soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject- and |
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ego-superstition, has not yet ceased doing mischief): perhaps some |
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play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an |
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audacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very |
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human--all-too-human facts. The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to |
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be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was |
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astrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more |
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labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any |
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actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super-terrestrial" |
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pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems |
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that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with |
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everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the |
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earth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmatic philosophy has |
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been a caricature of this kind--for instance, the Vedanta doctrine in |
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Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although |
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it must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome, |
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and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist |
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error--namely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself. |
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But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, |
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can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier--sleep, |
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we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength |
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which the struggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to |
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the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE--the |
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fundamental condition--of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato |
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spoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: "How did such a |
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malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked |
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Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of |
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youths, and deserved his hemlock?" But the struggle against Plato, |
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or--to speak plainer, and for the "people"--the struggle against |
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the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR |
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CHRISTIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE "PEOPLE"), produced in Europe |
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a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anywhere |
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previously; with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the |
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furthest goals. As a matter of fact, the European feels this tension as |
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a state of distress, and twice attempts have been made in grand style to |
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unbend the bow: once by means of Jesuitism, and the second time by means |
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of democratic enlightenment--which, with the aid of liberty of the press |
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and newspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spirit |
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would not so easily find itself in "distress"! (The Germans invented |
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gunpowder--all credit to them! but they again made things square--they |
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invented printing.) But we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, |
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nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free |
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spirits--we have it still, all the distress of spirit and all the |
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tension of its bow! And perhaps also the arrow, the duty, and, who |
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knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT.... |
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Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885. |
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CHAPTER I. PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS |
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1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous |
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enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have |
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hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not |
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laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is |
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already a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is |
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it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn |
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impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions |
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ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really |
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is this "Will to Truth" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the |
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question as to the origin of this Will--until at last we came to an |
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absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired |
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about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT |
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RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the |
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value of truth presented itself before us--or was it we who presented |
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ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which |
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the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of |
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interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as |
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if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first |
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to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk |
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in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk. |
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2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth |
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out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the |
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generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the |
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wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams |
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of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest |
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value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own--in this |
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transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of |
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delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in |
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the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the |
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'Thing-in-itself--THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"--This |
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mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which |
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metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation |
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is at the back of all their logical procedure; through this "belief" of |
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theirs, they exert themselves for their "knowledge," for something that |
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is in the end solemnly christened "the Truth." The fundamental belief of |
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metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred |
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even to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where |
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doubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn |
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vow, "DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether |
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antitheses exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations |
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and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their |
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seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional |
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perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from |
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below--"frog perspectives," as it were, to borrow an expression current |
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among painters. In spite of all the value which may belong to the true, |
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the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher |
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and more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to |
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pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It |
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might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and |
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respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously |
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related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed |
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things--perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps! |
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But who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous "Perhapses"! |
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For that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of |
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philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the |
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reverse of those hitherto prevalent--philosophers of the dangerous |
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"Perhaps" in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I |
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see such new philosophers beginning to appear. |
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3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between |
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their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of |
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conscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and |
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it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to |
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learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and "innateness." As |
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little as the act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process |
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and procedure of heredity, just as little is "being-conscious" OPPOSED |
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to the instinctive in any decisive sense; the greater part of the |
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conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his |
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instincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and |
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its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak |
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more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite |
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mode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the |
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uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than "truth" such valuations, |
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in spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be |
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only superficial valuations, special kinds of _niaiserie_, such as may |
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be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, |
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in effect, that man is not just the "measure of things." |
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4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is |
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here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The |
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question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, |
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species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally |
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inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic |
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judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that |
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without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of |
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reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, |
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without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, |
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man could not live--that the renunciation of false opinions would be |
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a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A |
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CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of |
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value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, |
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has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. |
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5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully |
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and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they |
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are--how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in |
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short, how childish and childlike they are,--but that there is not |
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enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and |
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virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in |
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the remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had |
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been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, |
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divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, |
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who, fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a |
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prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally |
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their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with |
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arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not |
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wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their |
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prejudices, which they dub "truths,"--and VERY far from having the |
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conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having |
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the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be |
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understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence |
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and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally |
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stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic |
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by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical |
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imperative"--makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small |
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amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical |
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preachers. Or, still more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by |
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means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and |
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mask--in fact, the "love of HIS wisdom," to translate the term fairly |
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and squarely--in order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart |
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of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible |
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maiden, that Pallas Athene:--how much of personal timidity and |
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vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray! |
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6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up |
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till now has consisted of--namely, the confession of its originator, and |
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a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover |
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that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted |
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the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown. |
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Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a |
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philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first |
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ask oneself: "What morality do they (or does he) aim at?" Accordingly, |
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I do not believe that an "impulse to knowledge" is the father of |
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philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made |
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use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever |
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considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining |
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how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and |
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cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time |
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or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to |
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look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate |
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LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as |
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SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in |
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the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise--"better," if |
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you will; there there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to |
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knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well |
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wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of |
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the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual |
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"interests" of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another |
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direction--in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; |
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it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little |
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machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a |
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good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not |
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CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the |
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contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, |
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his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE |
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IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature |
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stand to each other. |
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7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging |
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than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the |
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Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, |
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and on the face of it, the word signifies "Flatterers of |
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Dionysius"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles; |
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besides this, however, it is as much as to say, "They are all ACTORS, |
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there is nothing genuine about them" (for Dionysiokolax was a popular |
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name for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that |
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Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the |
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mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters--of |
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which Epicurus was not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos, |
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who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three |
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hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who |
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knows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god |
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Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out? |
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8. There is a point in every philosophy at which the "conviction" of |
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the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an |
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ancient mystery: |
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Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. |
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9. You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what |
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fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly |
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extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, |
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without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: |
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imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live |
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in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just |
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endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, |
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preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? |
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And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means |
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actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do |
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DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves |
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are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: |
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while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, |
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you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players |
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and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and |
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ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; |
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you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would |
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like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal |
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glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, |
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you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such |
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hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, |
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that you are no longer able to see it otherwise--and to crown all, some |
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unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that |
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BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is |
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self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is |
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not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting |
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story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, |
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as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always |
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creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy |
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is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the |
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will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima. |
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10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with |
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which the problem of "the real and the apparent world" is dealt with at |
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present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention; and |
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he who hears only a "Will to Truth" in the background, and nothing else, |
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cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolated |
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cases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Truth--a certain |
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extravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition of the |
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forlorn hope--has participated therein: that which in the end always |
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prefers a handful of "certainty" to a whole cartload of beautiful |
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possibilities; there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience, |
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who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an |
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uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, |
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mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a |
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virtue may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger |
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and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side |
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AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of "perspective," in |
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that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the |
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credibility of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and |
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thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession |
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to escape (for what does one at present believe in more firmly than |
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in one's body?),--who knows if they are not really trying to win back |
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something which was formerly an even securer possession, something |
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of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the "immortal |
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soul," perhaps "the old God," in short, ideas by which they could live |
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better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by |
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"modern ideas"? There is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode |
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of looking at things, a disbelief in all that has been constructed |
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yesterday and today; there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety |
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and scorn, which can no longer endure the BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the |
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most varied origin, such as so-called Positivism at present throws on |
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the market; a disgust of the more refined taste at the village-fair |
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motleyness and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whom |
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there is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. Therein it |
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seems to me that we should agree with those skeptical anti-realists and |
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knowledge-microscopists of the present day; their instinct, which repels |
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them from MODERN reality, is unrefuted... what do their retrograde |
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by-paths concern us! The main thing about them is NOT that they wish |
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to go "back," but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MORE |
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strength, swing, courage, and artistic power, and they would be OFF--and |
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not back! |
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11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to |
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divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on |
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German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which |
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he set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of |
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Categories; with it in his hand he said: "This is the most difficult |
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thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." Let us |
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only understand this "could be"! He was proud of having DISCOVERED a |
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new faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting |
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that he deceived himself in this matter; the development and rapid |
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flourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his pride, and |
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on the eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible |
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something--at all events "new faculties"--of which to be still |
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prouder!--But let us reflect for a moment--it is high time to do so. |
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"How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE?" Kant asks himself--and |
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what is really his answer? "BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)"--but |
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unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, |
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and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that |
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one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved |
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in such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this |
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new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further |
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discovered a moral faculty in man--for at that time Germans were still |
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moral, not yet dabbling in the "Politics of hard fact." Then came |
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the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the |
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Tubingen institution went immediately into the groves--all seeking for |
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"faculties." And what did they not find--in that innocent, rich, and |
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still youthful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the |
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malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish |
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between "finding" and "inventing"! Above all a faculty for the |
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"transcendental"; Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition, |
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and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the naturally |
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pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of |
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this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness, |
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notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile |
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conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral |
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indignation. Enough, however--the world grew older, and the dream |
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vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still |
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rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old |
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Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"--he had said, or at least meant to |
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say. But, is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely |
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a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? "By means of |
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a means (faculty)," namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in |
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Moliere, |
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Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva, |
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Cujus est natura sensus assoupire. |
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But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high time |
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to replace the Kantian question, "How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI |
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possible?" by another question, "Why is belief in such judgments |
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necessary?"--in effect, it is high time that we should understand |
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that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the |
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preservation of creatures like ourselves; though they still might |
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naturally be false judgments! Or, more plainly spoken, and roughly and |
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readily--synthetic judgments a priori should not "be possible" at all; |
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we have no right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false |
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judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as |
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plausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective view |
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of life. And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which |
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"German philosophy"--I hope you understand its right to inverted commas |
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(goosefeet)?--has exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is |
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no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it; thanks to |
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German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, |
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the mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the |
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political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still |
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overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into |
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this, in short--"sensus assoupire."... |
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12. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted |
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theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps |
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no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious |
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signification to it, except for convenient everyday use (as an |
|
abbreviation of the means of expression)--thanks chiefly to the Pole |
|
Boscovich: he and the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatest |
|
and most successful opponents of ocular evidence. For while Copernicus |
|
has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth |
|
does NOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the |
|
last thing that "stood fast" of the earth--the belief in "substance," in |
|
"matter," in the earth-residuum, and particle-atom: it is the greatest |
|
triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth. One |
|
must, however, go still further, and also declare war, relentless war |
|
to the knife, against the "atomistic requirements" which still lead a |
|
dangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more |
|
celebrated "metaphysical requirements": one must also above all give |
|
the finishing stroke to that other and more portentous atomism which |
|
Christianity has taught best and longest, the SOUL-ATOMISM. Let it be |
|
permitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the |
|
soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, |
|
as an atomon: this belief ought to be expelled from science! Between |
|
ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of "the soul" thereby, |
|
and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypotheses--as |
|
happens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly |
|
touch on the soul without immediately losing it. But the way is open |
|
for new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis; and such |
|
conceptions as "mortal soul," and "soul of subjective multiplicity," |
|
and "soul as social structure of the instincts and passions," want |
|
henceforth to have legitimate rights in science. In that the NEW |
|
psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have |
|
hitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of |
|
the soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into a new desert |
|
and a new distrust--it is possible that the older psychologists had a |
|
merrier and more comfortable time of it; eventually, however, he finds |
|
that precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENT--and, who knows? |
|
perhaps to DISCOVER the new. |
|
|
|
13. Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the |
|
instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic |
|
being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength--life |
|
itself is WILL TO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect |
|
and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else, |
|
let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles!--one of which |
|
is the instinct of self-preservation (we owe it to Spinoza's |
|
inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must |
|
be essentially economy of principles. |
|
|
|
14. It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that natural |
|
philosophy is only a world-exposition and world-arrangement (according |
|
to us, if I may say so!) and NOT a world-explanation; but in so far as |
|
it is based on belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a |
|
long time to come must be regarded as more--namely, as an explanation. |
|
It has eyes and fingers of its own, it has ocular evidence and |
|
palpableness of its own: this operates fascinatingly, persuasively, and |
|
CONVINCINGLY upon an age with fundamentally plebeian tastes--in fact, it |
|
follows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism. |
|
What is clear, what is "explained"? Only that which can be seen and |
|
felt--one must pursue every problem thus far. Obversely, however, the |
|
charm of the Platonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode, |
|
consisted precisely in RESISTANCE to obvious sense-evidence--perhaps |
|
among men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than our |
|
contemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher triumph in remaining |
|
masters of them: and this by means of pale, cold, grey conceptional |
|
networks which they threw over the motley whirl of the senses--the |
|
mob of the senses, as Plato said. In this overcoming of the world, and |
|
interpreting of the world in the manner of Plato, there was an ENJOYMENT |
|
different from that which the physicists of today offer us--and likewise |
|
the Darwinists and anti-teleologists among the physiological workers, |
|
with their principle of the "smallest possible effort," and the greatest |
|
possible blunder. "Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there |
|
is also nothing more for men to do"--that is certainly an imperative |
|
different from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the right |
|
imperative for a hardy, laborious race of machinists and bridge-builders |
|
of the future, who have nothing but ROUGH work to perform. |
|
|
|
15. To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on |
|
the fact that the sense-organs are not phenomena in the sense of the |
|
idealistic philosophy; as such they certainly could not be causes! |
|
Sensualism, therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not as |
|
heuristic principle. What? And others say even that the external world |
|
is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external |
|
world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves |
|
would be the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a |
|
complete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something |
|
fundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT the work |
|
of our organs--? |
|
|
|
16. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are |
|
"immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as the superstition |
|
of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold |
|
of its object purely and simply as "the thing in itself," without any |
|
falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the |
|
object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that "immediate |
|
certainty," as well as "absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself," |
|
involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves |
|
from the misleading significance of words! The people on their part may |
|
think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher |
|
must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that is expressed in |
|
the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the |
|
argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: |
|
for instance, that it is _I_ who think, that there must necessarily be |
|
something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the |
|
part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' |
|
and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by |
|
thinking--that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided |
|
within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether |
|
that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In |
|
short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the |
|
present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to |
|
determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with |
|
further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for |
|
me."--In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may |
|
believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of |
|
metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions |
|
of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'? |
|
Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak |
|
of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' |
|
as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical |
|
questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like |
|
the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is |
|
true, actual, and certain"--will encounter a smile and two notes of |
|
interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher will |
|
perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not |
|
mistaken, but why should it be the truth?" |
|
|
|
17. With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire |
|
of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by |
|
these credulous minds--namely, that a thought comes when "it" wishes, |
|
and not when "I" wish; so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts of the |
|
case to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate |
|
"think." ONE thinks; but that this "one" is precisely the famous old |
|
"ego," is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and |
|
assuredly not an "immediate certainty." After all, one has even gone too |
|
far with this "one thinks"--even the "one" contains an INTERPRETATION of |
|
the process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here |
|
according to the usual grammatical formula--"To think is an activity; |
|
every activity requires an agency that is active; consequently"... It |
|
was pretty much on the same lines that the older atomism sought, besides |
|
the operating "power," the material particle wherein it resides and out |
|
of which it operates--the atom. More rigorous minds, however, learnt at |
|
last to get along without this "earth-residuum," and perhaps some day we |
|
shall accustom ourselves, even from the logician's point of view, to |
|
get along without the little "one" (to which the worthy old "ego" has |
|
refined itself). |
|
|
|
18. It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is |
|
refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle |
|
minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" |
|
owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing |
|
who feels himself strong enough to refute it. |
|
|
|
19. Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will as though it were |
|
the best-known thing in the world; indeed, Schopenhauer has given us |
|
to understand that the will alone is really known to us, absolutely and |
|
completely known, without deduction or addition. But it again and |
|
again seems to me that in this case Schopenhauer also only did what |
|
philosophers are in the habit of doing--he seems to have adopted a |
|
POPULAR PREJUDICE and exaggerated it. Willing seems to me to be above |
|
all something COMPLICATED, something that is a unity only in name--and |
|
it is precisely in a name that popular prejudice lurks, which has got |
|
the mastery over the inadequate precautions of philosophers in all ages. |
|
So let us for once be more cautious, let us be "unphilosophical": let |
|
us say that in all willing there is firstly a plurality of sensations, |
|
namely, the sensation of the condition "AWAY FROM WHICH we go," the |
|
sensation of the condition "TOWARDS WHICH we go," the sensation of this |
|
"FROM" and "TOWARDS" itself, and then besides, an accompanying muscular |
|
sensation, which, even without our putting in motion "arms and legs," |
|
commences its action by force of habit, directly we "will" anything. |
|
Therefore, just as sensations (and indeed many kinds of sensations) are |
|
to be recognized as ingredients of the will, so, in the second place, |
|
thinking is also to be recognized; in every act of the will there is |
|
a ruling thought;--and let us not imagine it possible to sever this |
|
thought from the "willing," as if the will would then remain over! |
|
In the third place, the will is not only a complex of sensation and |
|
thinking, but it is above all an EMOTION, and in fact the emotion of the |
|
command. That which is termed "freedom of the will" is essentially the |
|
emotion of supremacy in respect to him who must obey: "I am free, 'he' |
|
must obey"--this consciousness is inherent in every will; and equally |
|
so the straining of the attention, the straight look which fixes itself |
|
exclusively on one thing, the unconditional judgment that "this and |
|
nothing else is necessary now," the inward certainty that obedience |
|
will be rendered--and whatever else pertains to the position of the |
|
commander. A man who WILLS commands something within himself which |
|
renders obedience, or which he believes renders obedience. But now let |
|
us notice what is the strangest thing about the will,--this affair so |
|
extremely complex, for which the people have only one name. Inasmuch as |
|
in the given circumstances we are at the same time the commanding AND |
|
the obeying parties, and as the obeying party we know the sensations of |
|
constraint, impulsion, pressure, resistance, and motion, which usually |
|
commence immediately after the act of will; inasmuch as, on the other |
|
hand, we are accustomed to disregard this duality, and to deceive |
|
ourselves about it by means of the synthetic term "I": a whole series |
|
of erroneous conclusions, and consequently of false judgments about the |
|
will itself, has become attached to the act of willing--to such a degree |
|
that he who wills believes firmly that willing SUFFICES for action. |
|
Since in the majority of cases there has only been exercise of will |
|
when the effect of the command--consequently obedience, and therefore |
|
action--was to be EXPECTED, the APPEARANCE has translated itself into |
|
the sentiment, as if there were a NECESSITY OF EFFECT; in a word, he who |
|
wills believes with a fair amount of certainty that will and action are |
|
somehow one; he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing, |
|
to the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation |
|
of power which accompanies all success. "Freedom of Will"--that is the |
|
expression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising |
|
volition, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with |
|
the executor of the order--who, as such, enjoys also the triumph over |
|
obstacles, but thinks within himself that it was really his own will |
|
that overcame them. In this way the person exercising volition adds the |
|
feelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful |
|
"underwills" or under-souls--indeed, our body is but a social structure |
|
composed of many souls--to his feelings of delight as commander. L'EFFET |
|
C'EST MOI. what happens here is what happens in every well-constructed |
|
and happy commonwealth, namely, that the governing class identifies |
|
itself with the successes of the commonwealth. In all willing it is |
|
absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as |
|
already said, of a social structure composed of many "souls", on which |
|
account a philosopher should claim the right to include willing-as-such |
|
within the sphere of morals--regarded as the doctrine of the relations |
|
of supremacy under which the phenomenon of "life" manifests itself. |
|
|
|
20. That the separate philosophical ideas are not anything optional or |
|
autonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with |
|
each other, that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear |
|
in the history of thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to |
|
a system as the collective members of the fauna of a Continent--is |
|
betrayed in the end by the circumstance: how unfailingly the most |
|
diverse philosophers always fill in again a definite fundamental scheme |
|
of POSSIBLE philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolve |
|
once more in the same orbit, however independent of each other they |
|
may feel themselves with their critical or systematic wills, something |
|
within them leads them, something impels them in definite order the |
|
one after the other--to wit, the innate methodology and relationship |
|
of their ideas. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than a |
|
re-recognizing, a remembering, a return and a home-coming to a far-off, |
|
ancient common-household of the soul, out of which those ideas formerly |
|
grew: philosophizing is so far a kind of atavism of the highest order. |
|
The wonderful family resemblance of all Indian, Greek, and German |
|
philosophizing is easily enough explained. In fact, where there is |
|
affinity of language, owing to the common philosophy of grammar--I mean |
|
owing to the unconscious domination and guidance of similar grammatical |
|
functions--it cannot but be that everything is prepared at the outset |
|
for a similar development and succession of philosophical systems, |
|
just as the way seems barred against certain other possibilities of |
|
world-interpretation. It is highly probable that philosophers within the |
|
domain of the Ural-Altaic languages (where the conception of the subject |
|
is least developed) look otherwise "into the world," and will be |
|
found on paths of thought different from those of the Indo-Germans and |
|
Mussulmans, the spell of certain grammatical functions is ultimately |
|
also the spell of PHYSIOLOGICAL valuations and racial conditions.--So |
|
much by way of rejecting Locke's superficiality with regard to the |
|
origin of ideas. |
|
|
|
21. The CAUSA SUI is the best self-contradiction that has yet been |
|
conceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness; but the |
|
extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and |
|
frightfully with this very folly. The desire for "freedom of will" |
|
in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway, |
|
unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear |
|
the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and |
|
to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, |
|
involves nothing less than to be precisely this CAUSA SUI, and, with |
|
more than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the |
|
hair, out of the slough of nothingness. If any one should find out in |
|
this manner the crass stupidity of the celebrated conception of "free |
|
will" and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry |
|
his "enlightenment" a step further, and also put out of his head the |
|
contrary of this monstrous conception of "free will": I mean "non-free |
|
will," which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One |
|
should not wrongly MATERIALISE "cause" and "effect," as the natural |
|
philosophers do (and whoever like them naturalize in thinking at |
|
present), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes |
|
the cause press and push until it "effects" its end; one should use |
|
"cause" and "effect" only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that is to say, as |
|
conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual |
|
understanding,--NOT for explanation. In "being-in-itself" there is |
|
nothing of "casual-connection," of "necessity," or of "psychological |
|
non-freedom"; there the effect does NOT follow the cause, there "law" |
|
does not obtain. It is WE alone who have devised cause, sequence, |
|
reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, |
|
and purpose; and when we interpret and intermix this symbol-world, |
|
as "being-in-itself," with things, we act once more as we have always |
|
acted--MYTHOLOGICALLY. The "non-free will" is mythology; in real life |
|
it is only a question of STRONG and WEAK wills.--It is almost always |
|
a symptom of what is lacking in himself, when a thinker, in every |
|
"causal-connection" and "psychological necessity," manifests something |
|
of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness, oppression, and non-freedom; |
|
it is suspicious to have such feelings--the person betrays himself. And |
|
in general, if I have observed correctly, the "non-freedom of the will" |
|
is regarded as a problem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but |
|
always in a profoundly PERSONAL manner: some will not give up their |
|
"responsibility," their belief in THEMSELVES, the personal right to |
|
THEIR merits, at any price (the vain races belong to this class); others |
|
on the contrary, do not wish to be answerable for anything, or blamed |
|
for anything, and owing to an inward self-contempt, seek to GET OUT OF |
|
THE BUSINESS, no matter how. The latter, when they write books, are |
|
in the habit at present of taking the side of criminals; a sort of |
|
socialistic sympathy is their favourite disguise. And as a matter of |
|
fact, the fatalism of the weak-willed embellishes itself surprisingly |
|
when it can pose as "la religion de la souffrance humaine"; that is ITS |
|
"good taste." |
|
|
|
22. Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist who cannot desist from |
|
the mischief of putting his finger on bad modes of interpretation, but |
|
"Nature's conformity to law," of which you physicists talk so proudly, |
|
as though--why, it exists only owing to your interpretation and bad |
|
"philology." It is no matter of fact, no "text," but rather just a |
|
naively humanitarian adjustment and perversion of meaning, with which |
|
you make abundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the modern |
|
soul! "Everywhere equality before the law--Nature is not different in |
|
that respect, nor better than we": a fine instance of secret motive, |
|
in which the vulgar antagonism to everything privileged and |
|
autocratic--likewise a second and more refined atheism--is once more |
|
disguised. "Ni dieu, ni maitre"--that, also, is what you want; and |
|
therefore "Cheers for natural law!"--is it not so? But, as has been |
|
said, that is interpretation, not text; and somebody might come along, |
|
who, with opposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could read |
|
out of the same "Nature," and with regard to the same phenomena, just |
|
the tyrannically inconsiderate and relentless enforcement of the claims |
|
of power--an interpreter who should so place the unexceptionalness and |
|
unconditionalness of all "Will to Power" before your eyes, that almost |
|
every word, and the word "tyranny" itself, would eventually seem |
|
unsuitable, or like a weakening and softening metaphor--as being too |
|
human; and who should, nevertheless, end by asserting the same about |
|
this world as you do, namely, that it has a "necessary" and "calculable" |
|
course, NOT, however, because laws obtain in it, but because they are |
|
absolutely LACKING, and every power effects its ultimate consequences |
|
every moment. Granted that this also is only interpretation--and you |
|
will be eager enough to make this objection?--well, so much the better. |
|
|
|
23. All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and |
|
timidities, it has not dared to launch out into the depths. In so far |
|
as it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been written, |
|
evidence of that which has hitherto been kept silent, it seems as if |
|
nobody had yet harboured the notion of psychology as the Morphology |
|
and DEVELOPMENT-DOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it. |
|
The power of moral prejudices has penetrated deeply into the most |
|
intellectual world, the world apparently most indifferent and |
|
unprejudiced, and has obviously operated in an injurious, obstructive, |
|
blinding, and distorting manner. A proper physio-psychology has to |
|
contend with unconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator, |
|
it has "the heart" against it even a doctrine of the reciprocal |
|
conditionalness of the "good" and the "bad" impulses, causes (as |
|
refined immorality) distress and aversion in a still strong and manly |
|
conscience--still more so, a doctrine of the derivation of all good |
|
impulses from bad ones. If, however, a person should regard even |
|
the emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness |
|
as life-conditioning emotions, as factors which must be present, |
|
fundamentally and essentially, in the general economy of life (which |
|
must, therefore, be further developed if life is to be further |
|
developed), he will suffer from such a view of things as from |
|
sea-sickness. And yet this hypothesis is far from being the strangest |
|
and most painful in this immense and almost new domain of dangerous |
|
knowledge, and there are in fact a hundred good reasons why every one |
|
should keep away from it who CAN do so! On the other hand, if one has |
|
once drifted hither with one's bark, well! very good! now let us set our |
|
teeth firmly! let us open our eyes and keep our hand fast on the helm! |
|
We sail away right OVER morality, we crush out, we destroy perhaps the |
|
remains of our own morality by daring to make our voyage thither--but |
|
what do WE matter. Never yet did a PROFOUNDER world of insight reveal |
|
itself to daring travelers and adventurers, and the psychologist who |
|
thus "makes a sacrifice"--it is not the sacrifizio dell' intelletto, |
|
on the contrary!--will at least be entitled to demand in return that |
|
psychology shall once more be recognized as the queen of the sciences, |
|
for whose service and equipment the other sciences exist. For psychology |
|
is once more the path to the fundamental problems. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER II. THE FREE SPIRIT |
|
|
|
|
|
24. O sancta simplicitiatas! In what strange simplification and |
|
falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has |
|
got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around |
|
us clear and free and easy and simple! how we have been able to give |
|
our senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a godlike |
|
desire for wanton pranks and wrong inferences!--how from the beginning, |
|
we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost |
|
inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness, |
|
and gaiety--in order to enjoy life! And only on this solidified, |
|
granite-like foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself |
|
hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful |
|
will, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as |
|
its opposite, but--as its refinement! It is to be hoped, indeed, that |
|
LANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and that |
|
it will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees |
|
and many refinements of gradation; it is equally to be hoped that the |
|
incarnated Tartuffery of morals, which now belongs to our unconquerable |
|
"flesh and blood," will turn the words round in the mouths of us |
|
discerning ones. Here and there we understand it, and laugh at the way |
|
in which precisely the best knowledge seeks most to retain us in this |
|
SIMPLIFIED, thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, and suitably |
|
falsified world: at the way in which, whether it will or not, it loves |
|
error, because, as living itself, it loves life! |
|
|
|
25. After such a cheerful commencement, a serious word would fain be |
|
heard; it appeals to the most serious minds. Take care, ye philosophers |
|
and friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering "for the |
|
truth's sake"! even in your own defense! It spoils all the innocence |
|
and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against |
|
objections and red rags; it stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes, when |
|
in the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even |
|
worse consequences of enmity, ye have at last to play your last card |
|
as protectors of truth upon earth--as though "the Truth" were such an |
|
innocent and incompetent creature as to require protectors! and you of |
|
all people, ye knights of the sorrowful countenance, Messrs Loafers and |
|
Cobweb-spinners of the spirit! Finally, ye know sufficiently well that |
|
it cannot be of any consequence if YE just carry your point; ye know |
|
that hitherto no philosopher has carried his point, and that there might |
|
be a more laudable truthfulness in every little interrogative mark |
|
which you place after your special words and favourite doctrines (and |
|
occasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemn pantomime and |
|
trumping games before accusers and law-courts! Rather go out of the way! |
|
Flee into concealment! And have your masks and your ruses, that ye may |
|
be mistaken for what you are, or somewhat feared! And pray, don't forget |
|
the garden, the garden with golden trellis-work! And have people around |
|
you who are as a garden--or as music on the waters at eventide, when |
|
already the day becomes a memory. Choose the GOOD solitude, the free, |
|
wanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you the right still to |
|
remain good in any sense whatsoever! How poisonous, how crafty, how bad, |
|
does every long war make one, which cannot be waged openly by means |
|
of force! How PERSONAL does a long fear make one, a long watching |
|
of enemies, of possible enemies! These pariahs of society, these |
|
long-pursued, badly-persecuted ones--also the compulsory recluses, the |
|
Spinozas or Giordano Brunos--always become in the end, even under the |
|
most intellectual masquerade, and perhaps without being themselves aware |
|
of it, refined vengeance-seekers and poison-Brewers (just lay bare |
|
the foundation of Spinoza's ethics and theology!), not to speak of |
|
the stupidity of moral indignation, which is the unfailing sign in a |
|
philosopher that the sense of philosophical humour has left him. The |
|
martyrdom of the philosopher, his "sacrifice for the sake of truth," |
|
forces into the light whatever of the agitator and actor lurks in him; |
|
and if one has hitherto contemplated him only with artistic curiosity, |
|
with regard to many a philosopher it is easy to understand the dangerous |
|
desire to see him also in his deterioration (deteriorated into a |
|
"martyr," into a stage-and-tribune-bawler). Only, that it is necessary |
|
with such a desire to be clear WHAT spectacle one will see in any |
|
case--merely a satyric play, merely an epilogue farce, merely the |
|
continued proof that the long, real tragedy IS AT AN END, supposing that |
|
every philosophy has been a long tragedy in its origin. |
|
|
|
26. Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, |
|
where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority--where he may |
|
forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;--exclusive only of |
|
the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger |
|
instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in |
|
intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green |
|
and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, |
|
gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; |
|
supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden |
|
and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, |
|
as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then |
|
certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as |
|
such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good |
|
taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception--than |
|
myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would |
|
go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man--and |
|
consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad |
|
intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's |
|
equals):--that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every |
|
philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing |
|
part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge |
|
should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and |
|
lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize |
|
the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the |
|
same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them |
|
talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES--sometimes they |
|
wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only |
|
form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the |
|
higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and |
|
congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before |
|
him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where |
|
enchantment mixes with the disgust--namely, where by a freak of nature, |
|
genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the |
|
case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also |
|
filthiest man of his century--he was far profounder than Voltaire, and |
|
consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, |
|
as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a |
|
fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means |
|
rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever |
|
anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man |
|
as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one |
|
sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity |
|
as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one |
|
speaks "badly"--and not even "ill"--of man, then ought the lover of |
|
knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, |
|
to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the |
|
indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with |
|
his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), |
|
may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and |
|
self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, |
|
more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR |
|
as the indignant man. |
|
|
|
27. It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and |
|
lives gangasrotogati [Footnote: Like the river Ganges: presto.] among |
|
those only who think and live otherwise--namely, kurmagati [Footnote: |
|
Like the tortoise: lento.], or at best "froglike," mandeikagati |
|
[Footnote: Like the frog: staccato.] (I do everything to be "difficultly |
|
understood" myself!)--and one should be heartily grateful for the |
|
good will to some refinement of interpretation. As regards "the good |
|
friends," however, who are always too easy-going, and think that as |
|
friends they have a right to ease, one does well at the very first to |
|
grant them a play-ground and romping-place for misunderstanding--one can |
|
thus laugh still; or get rid of them altogether, these good friends--and |
|
laugh then also! |
|
|
|
28. What is most difficult to render from one language into another |
|
is the TEMPO of its style, which has its basis in the character of the |
|
race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average TEMPO of the |
|
assimilation of its nutriment. There are honestly meant translations, |
|
which, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almost falsifications of the |
|
original, merely because its lively and merry TEMPO (which overleaps and |
|
obviates all dangers in word and expression) could not also be |
|
rendered. A German is almost incapacitated for PRESTO in his language; |
|
consequently also, as may be reasonably inferred, for many of the most |
|
delightful and daring NUANCES of free, free-spirited thought. And just |
|
as the buffoon and satyr are foreign to him in body and conscience, |
|
so Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything |
|
ponderous, viscous, and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying |
|
species of style, are developed in profuse variety among Germans--pardon |
|
me for stating the fact that even Goethe's prose, in its mixture of |
|
stiffness and elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the "good |
|
old time" to which it belongs, and as an expression of German taste at a |
|
time when there was still a "German taste," which was a rococo-taste |
|
in moribus et artibus. Lessing is an exception, owing to his histrionic |
|
nature, which understood much, and was versed in many things; he who was |
|
not the translator of Bayle to no purpose, who took refuge willingly in |
|
the shadow of Diderot and Voltaire, and still more willingly among the |
|
Roman comedy-writers--Lessing loved also free-spiritism in the TEMPO, |
|
and flight out of Germany. But how could the German language, even |
|
in the prose of Lessing, imitate the TEMPO of Machiavelli, who in his |
|
"Principe" makes us breathe the dry, fine air of Florence, and cannot |
|
help presenting the most serious events in a boisterous allegrissimo, |
|
perhaps not without a malicious artistic sense of the contrast he |
|
ventures to present--long, heavy, difficult, dangerous thoughts, and |
|
a TEMPO of the gallop, and of the best, wantonest humour? Finally, who |
|
would venture on a German translation of Petronius, who, more than any |
|
great musician hitherto, was a master of PRESTO in invention, ideas, and |
|
words? What matter in the end about the swamps of the sick, evil world, |
|
or of the "ancient world," when like him, one has the feet of a wind, |
|
the rush, the breath, the emancipating scorn of a wind, which makes |
|
everything healthy, by making everything RUN! And with regard to |
|
Aristophanes--that transfiguring, complementary genius, for whose |
|
sake one PARDONS all Hellenism for having existed, provided one has |
|
understood in its full profundity ALL that there requires pardon and |
|
transfiguration; there is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on |
|
PLATO'S secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit |
|
fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no |
|
"Bible," nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic--but a book of |
|
Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life--a Greek life which |
|
he repudiated--without an Aristophanes! |
|
|
|
29. It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a |
|
privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best |
|
right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably |
|
not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a |
|
labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself |
|
already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see |
|
how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal |
|
by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it |
|
is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor |
|
sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go |
|
back again to the sympathy of men! |
|
|
|
30. Our deepest insights must--and should--appear as follies, and under |
|
certain circumstances as crimes, when they come unauthorizedly to |
|
the ears of those who are not disposed and predestined for them. The |
|
exoteric and the esoteric, as they were formerly distinguished by |
|
philosophers--among the Indians, as among the Greeks, Persians, and |
|
Mussulmans, in short, wherever people believed in gradations of rank and |
|
NOT in equality and equal rights--are not so much in contradistinction |
|
to one another in respect to the exoteric class, standing without, and |
|
viewing, estimating, measuring, and judging from the outside, and not |
|
from the inside; the more essential distinction is that the class in |
|
question views things from below upwards--while the esoteric class views |
|
things FROM ABOVE DOWNWARDS. There are heights of the soul from which |
|
tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; and if all the |
|
woe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether |
|
the sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and |
|
thus to a doubling of the woe?... That which serves the higher class of |
|
men for nourishment or refreshment, must be almost poison to an entirely |
|
different and lower order of human beings. The virtues of the common |
|
man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a philosopher; it might be |
|
possible for a highly developed man, supposing him to degenerate and go |
|
to ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone, for the sake of which he |
|
would have to be honoured as a saint in the lower world into which he |
|
had sunk. There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and |
|
the health according as the inferior soul and the lower vitality, or the |
|
higher and more powerful, make use of them. In the former case they are |
|
dangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter case they are |
|
herald-calls which summon the bravest to THEIR bravery. Books for the |
|
general reader are always ill-smelling books, the odour of paltry people |
|
clings to them. Where the populace eat and drink, and even where they |
|
reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go into churches if |
|
one wishes to breathe PURE air. |
|
|
|
31. In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art |
|
of NUANCE, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do |
|
hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay. |
|
Everything is so arranged that the worst of all tastes, THE TASTE FOR |
|
THE UNCONDITIONAL, is cruelly befooled and abused, until a man learns |
|
to introduce a little art into his sentiments, and prefers to try |
|
conclusions with the artificial, as do the real artists of life. The |
|
angry and reverent spirit peculiar to youth appears to allow itself no |
|
peace, until it has suitably falsified men and things, to be able |
|
to vent its passion upon them: youth in itself even, is something |
|
falsifying and deceptive. Later on, when the young soul, tortured by |
|
continual disillusions, finally turns suspiciously against itself--still |
|
ardent and savage even in its suspicion and remorse of conscience: how |
|
it upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how it revenges |
|
itself for its long self-blinding, as though it had been a voluntary |
|
blindness! In this transition one punishes oneself by distrust of one's |
|
sentiments; one tortures one's enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the |
|
good conscience to be a danger, as if it were the self-concealment and |
|
lassitude of a more refined uprightness; and above all, one espouses |
|
upon principle the cause AGAINST "youth."--A decade later, and one |
|
comprehends that all this was also still--youth! |
|
|
|
32. Throughout the longest period of human history--one calls it the |
|
prehistoric period--the value or non-value of an action was inferred |
|
from its CONSEQUENCES; the action in itself was not taken into |
|
consideration, any more than its origin; but pretty much as in China at |
|
present, where the distinction or disgrace of a child redounds to |
|
its parents, the retro-operating power of success or failure was what |
|
induced men to think well or ill of an action. Let us call this period |
|
the PRE-MORAL period of mankind; the imperative, "Know thyself!" was |
|
then still unknown.--In the last ten thousand years, on the other hand, |
|
on certain large portions of the earth, one has gradually got so far, |
|
that one no longer lets the consequences of an action, but its origin, |
|
decide with regard to its worth: a great achievement as a whole, an |
|
important refinement of vision and of criterion, the unconscious effect |
|
of the supremacy of aristocratic values and of the belief in "origin," |
|
the mark of a period which may be designated in the narrower sense as |
|
the MORAL one: the first attempt at self-knowledge is thereby |
|
made. Instead of the consequences, the origin--what an inversion |
|
of perspective! And assuredly an inversion effected only after long |
|
struggle and wavering! To be sure, an ominous new superstition, a |
|
peculiar narrowness of interpretation, attained supremacy precisely |
|
thereby: the origin of an action was interpreted in the most definite |
|
sense possible, as origin out of an INTENTION; people were agreed in the |
|
belief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention. |
|
The intention as the sole origin and antecedent history of an action: |
|
under the influence of this prejudice moral praise and blame have been |
|
bestowed, and men have judged and even philosophized almost up to the |
|
present day.--Is it not possible, however, that the necessity may now |
|
have arisen of again making up our minds with regard to the reversing |
|
and fundamental shifting of values, owing to a new self-consciousness |
|
and acuteness in man--is it not possible that we may be standing on |
|
the threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished |
|
negatively as ULTRA-MORAL: nowadays when, at least among us immoralists, |
|
the suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely |
|
in that which is NOT INTENTIONAL, and that all its intentionalness, all |
|
that is seen, sensible, or "sensed" in it, belongs to its surface or |
|
skin--which, like every skin, betrays something, but CONCEALS still |
|
more? In short, we believe that the intention is only a sign or symptom, |
|
which first requires an explanation--a sign, moreover, which has too |
|
many interpretations, and consequently hardly any meaning in itself |
|
alone: that morality, in the sense in which it has been understood |
|
hitherto, as intention-morality, has been a prejudice, perhaps a |
|
prematureness or preliminariness, probably something of the same rank |
|
as astrology and alchemy, but in any case something which must be |
|
surmounted. The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the |
|
self-mounting of morality--let that be the name for the long-secret |
|
labour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright, |
|
and also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones |
|
of the soul. |
|
|
|
33. It cannot be helped: the sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for |
|
one's neighbour, and all self-renunciation-morality, must be mercilessly |
|
called to account, and brought to judgment; just as the aesthetics |
|
of "disinterested contemplation," under which the emasculation of art |
|
nowadays seeks insidiously enough to create itself a good conscience. |
|
There is far too much witchery and sugar in the sentiments "for others" |
|
and "NOT for myself," for one not needing to be doubly distrustful here, |
|
and for one asking promptly: "Are they not perhaps--DECEPTIONS?"--That |
|
they PLEASE--him who has them, and him who enjoys their fruit, and also |
|
the mere spectator--that is still no argument in their FAVOUR, but just |
|
calls for caution. Let us therefore be cautious! |
|
|
|
34. At whatever standpoint of philosophy one may place oneself nowadays, |
|
seen from every position, the ERRONEOUSNESS of the world in which we |
|
think we live is the surest and most certain thing our eyes can light |
|
upon: we find proof after proof thereof, which would fain allure us into |
|
surmises concerning a deceptive principle in the "nature of things." |
|
He, however, who makes thinking itself, and consequently "the spirit," |
|
responsible for the falseness of the world--an honourable exit, which |
|
every conscious or unconscious advocatus dei avails himself of--he |
|
who regards this world, including space, time, form, and movement, as |
|
falsely DEDUCED, would have at least good reason in the end to become |
|
distrustful also of all thinking; has it not hitherto been playing upon |
|
us the worst of scurvy tricks? and what guarantee would it give that |
|
it would not continue to do what it has always been doing? In all |
|
seriousness, the innocence of thinkers has something touching and |
|
respect-inspiring in it, which even nowadays permits them to wait upon |
|
consciousness with the request that it will give them HONEST answers: |
|
for example, whether it be "real" or not, and why it keeps the outer |
|
world so resolutely at a distance, and other questions of the same |
|
description. The belief in "immediate certainties" is a MORAL NAIVETE |
|
which does honour to us philosophers; but--we have now to cease being |
|
"MERELY moral" men! Apart from morality, such belief is a folly which |
|
does little honour to us! If in middle-class life an ever-ready distrust |
|
is regarded as the sign of a "bad character," and consequently as an |
|
imprudence, here among us, beyond the middle-class world and its Yeas |
|
and Nays, what should prevent our being imprudent and saying: the |
|
philosopher has at length a RIGHT to "bad character," as the being who |
|
has hitherto been most befooled on earth--he is now under OBLIGATION |
|
to distrustfulness, to the wickedest squinting out of every abyss of |
|
suspicion.--Forgive me the joke of this gloomy grimace and turn of |
|
expression; for I myself have long ago learned to think and estimate |
|
differently with regard to deceiving and being deceived, and I keep at |
|
least a couple of pokes in the ribs ready for the blind rage with which |
|
philosophers struggle against being deceived. Why NOT? It is nothing |
|
more than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than semblance; it |
|
is, in fact, the worst proved supposition in the world. So much must be |
|
conceded: there could have been no life at all except upon the basis |
|
of perspective estimates and semblances; and if, with the virtuous |
|
enthusiasm and stupidity of many philosophers, one wished to do away |
|
altogether with the "seeming world"--well, granted that YOU could do |
|
that,--at least nothing of your "truth" would thereby remain! Indeed, |
|
what is it that forces us in general to the supposition that there is an |
|
essential opposition of "true" and "false"? Is it not enough to suppose |
|
degrees of seemingness, and as it were lighter and darker shades and |
|
tones of semblance--different valeurs, as the painters say? Why might |
|
not the world WHICH CONCERNS US--be a fiction? And to any one who |
|
suggested: "But to a fiction belongs an originator?"--might it not be |
|
bluntly replied: WHY? May not this "belong" also belong to the fiction? |
|
Is it not at length permitted to be a little ironical towards the |
|
subject, just as towards the predicate and object? Might not the |
|
philosopher elevate himself above faith in grammar? All respect |
|
to governesses, but is it not time that philosophy should renounce |
|
governess-faith? |
|
|
|
35. O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in |
|
"the truth," and in the SEARCH for the truth; and if man goes about it |
|
too humanely--"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien"--I wager he |
|
finds nothing! |
|
|
|
36. Supposing that nothing else is "given" as real but our world of |
|
desires and passions, that we cannot sink or rise to any other "reality" |
|
but just that of our impulses--for thinking is only a relation of these |
|
impulses to one another:--are we not permitted to make the attempt and |
|
to ask the question whether this which is "given" does not SUFFICE, by |
|
means of our counterparts, for the understanding even of the so-called |
|
mechanical (or "material") world? I do not mean as an illusion, a |
|
"semblance," a "representation" (in the Berkeleyan and Schopenhauerian |
|
sense), but as possessing the same degree of reality as our emotions |
|
themselves--as a more primitive form of the world of emotions, in |
|
which everything still lies locked in a mighty unity, which afterwards |
|
branches off and develops itself in organic processes (naturally also, |
|
refines and debilitates)--as a kind of instinctive life in which all |
|
organic functions, including self-regulation, assimilation, nutrition, |
|
secretion, and change of matter, are still synthetically united with |
|
one another--as a PRIMARY FORM of life?--In the end, it is not only |
|
permitted to make this attempt, it is commanded by the conscience of |
|
LOGICAL METHOD. Not to assume several kinds of causality, so long as |
|
the attempt to get along with a single one has not been pushed to its |
|
furthest extent (to absurdity, if I may be allowed to say so): that is |
|
a morality of method which one may not repudiate nowadays--it follows |
|
"from its definition," as mathematicians say. The question is ultimately |
|
whether we really recognize the will as OPERATING, whether we believe in |
|
the causality of the will; if we do so--and fundamentally our belief IN |
|
THIS is just our belief in causality itself--we MUST make the attempt |
|
to posit hypothetically the causality of the will as the only causality. |
|
"Will" can naturally only operate on "will"--and not on "matter" (not |
|
on "nerves," for instance): in short, the hypothesis must be |
|
hazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever "effects" |
|
are recognized--and whether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a power |
|
operates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect of will. |
|
Granted, finally, that we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive |
|
life as the development and ramification of one fundamental form of |
|
will--namely, the Will to Power, as my thesis puts it; granted that all |
|
organic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power, and that |
|
the solution of the problem of generation and nutrition--it is one |
|
problem--could also be found therein: one would thus have acquired the |
|
right to define ALL active force unequivocally as WILL TO POWER. The |
|
world seen from within, the world defined and designated according to |
|
its "intelligible character"--it would simply be "Will to Power," and |
|
nothing else. |
|
|
|
37. "What? Does not that mean in popular language: God is disproved, but |
|
not the devil?"--On the contrary! On the contrary, my friends! And who |
|
the devil also compels you to speak popularly! |
|
|
|
38. As happened finally in all the enlightenment of modern times with |
|
the French Revolution (that terrible farce, quite superfluous when |
|
judged close at hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary |
|
spectators of all Europe have interpreted from a distance their own |
|
indignation and enthusiasm so long and passionately, UNTIL THE TEXT HAS |
|
DISAPPEARED UNDER THE INTERPRETATION), so a noble posterity might once |
|
more misunderstand the whole of the past, and perhaps only thereby make |
|
ITS aspect endurable.--Or rather, has not this already happened? Have |
|
not we ourselves been--that "noble posterity"? And, in so far as we now |
|
comprehend this, is it not--thereby already past? |
|
|
|
39. Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as true merely because |
|
it makes people happy or virtuous--excepting, perhaps, the amiable |
|
"Idealists," who are enthusiastic about the good, true, and beautiful, |
|
and let all kinds of motley, coarse, and good-natured desirabilities |
|
swim about promiscuously in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no |
|
arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of |
|
thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as |
|
little counter-arguments. A thing could be TRUE, although it were in |
|
the highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental |
|
constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full |
|
knowledge of it--so that the strength of a mind might be measured by |
|
the amount of "truth" it could endure--or to speak more plainly, by the |
|
extent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, |
|
and falsified. But there is no doubt that for the discovery of certain |
|
PORTIONS of truth the wicked and unfortunate are more favourably |
|
situated and have a greater likelihood of success; not to speak of the |
|
wicked who are happy--a species about whom moralists are silent. Perhaps |
|
severity and craft are more favourable conditions for the development of |
|
strong, independent spirits and philosophers than the gentle, refined, |
|
yielding good-nature, and habit of taking things easily, which are |
|
prized, and rightly prized in a learned man. Presupposing always, |
|
to begin with, that the term "philosopher" be not confined to the |
|
philosopher who writes books, or even introduces HIS philosophy into |
|
books!--Stendhal furnishes a last feature of the portrait of the |
|
free-spirited philosopher, which for the sake of German taste I will |
|
not omit to underline--for it is OPPOSED to German taste. "Pour etre |
|
bon philosophe," says this last great psychologist, "il faut etre sec, |
|
clair, sans illusion. Un banquier, qui a fait fortune, a une partie du |
|
caractere requis pour faire des decouvertes en philosophie, c'est-a-dire |
|
pour voir clair dans ce qui est." |
|
|
|
40. Everything that is profound loves the mask: the profoundest things |
|
have a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the CONTRARY only |
|
be the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? A question |
|
worth asking!--it would be strange if some mystic has not already |
|
ventured on the same kind of thing. There are proceedings of such a |
|
delicate nature that it is well to overwhelm them with coarseness |
|
and make them unrecognizable; there are actions of love and of an |
|
extravagant magnanimity after which nothing can be wiser than to take |
|
a stick and thrash the witness soundly: one thereby obscures his |
|
recollection. Many a one is able to obscure and abuse his own memory, in |
|
order at least to have vengeance on this sole party in the secret: |
|
shame is inventive. They are not the worst things of which one is |
|
most ashamed: there is not only deceit behind a mask--there is so much |
|
goodness in craft. I could imagine that a man with something costly and |
|
fragile to conceal, would roll through life clumsily and rotundly like |
|
an old, green, heavily-hooped wine-cask: the refinement of his shame |
|
requiring it to be so. A man who has depths in his shame meets his |
|
destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach, |
|
and with regard to the existence of which his nearest and most intimate |
|
friends may be ignorant; his mortal danger conceals itself from their |
|
eyes, and equally so his regained security. Such a hidden nature, |
|
which instinctively employs speech for silence and concealment, and is |
|
inexhaustible in evasion of communication, DESIRES and insists that a |
|
mask of himself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of his |
|
friends; and supposing he does not desire it, his eyes will some day be |
|
opened to the fact that there is nevertheless a mask of him there--and |
|
that it is well to be so. Every profound spirit needs a mask; nay, more, |
|
around every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to |
|
the constantly false, that is to say, SUPERFICIAL interpretation |
|
of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he |
|
manifests. |
|
|
|
41. One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined |
|
for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not |
|
avoid one's tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous |
|
game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves |
|
and before no other judge. Not to cleave to any person, be it even the |
|
dearest--every person is a prison and also a recess. Not to cleave to |
|
a fatherland, be it even the most suffering and necessitous--it is even |
|
less difficult to detach one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not |
|
to cleave to a sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiar |
|
torture and helplessness chance has given us an insight. Not to cleave |
|
to a science, though it tempt one with the most valuable discoveries, |
|
apparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own |
|
liberation, to the voluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, which |
|
always flies further aloft in order always to see more under it--the |
|
danger of the flier. Not to cleave to our own virtues, nor become as |
|
a whole a victim to any of our specialties, to our "hospitality" for |
|
instance, which is the danger of dangers for highly developed |
|
and wealthy souls, who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with |
|
themselves, and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes |
|
a vice. One must know how TO CONSERVE ONESELF--the best test of |
|
independence. |
|
|
|
42. A new order of philosophers is appearing; I shall venture to baptize |
|
them by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far |
|
as they allow themselves to be understood--for it is their nature to |
|
WISH to remain something of a puzzle--these philosophers of the |
|
future might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as |
|
"tempters." This name itself is after all only an attempt, or, if it be |
|
preferred, a temptation. |
|
|
|
43. Will they be new friends of "truth," these coming philosophers? Very |
|
probably, for all philosophers hitherto have loved their truths. But |
|
assuredly they will not be dogmatists. It must be contrary to their |
|
pride, and also contrary to their taste, that their truth should still |
|
be truth for every one--that which has hitherto been the secret wish |
|
and ultimate purpose of all dogmatic efforts. "My opinion is MY opinion: |
|
another person has not easily a right to it"--such a philosopher of the |
|
future will say, perhaps. One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to |
|
agree with many people. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbour |
|
takes it into his mouth. And how could there be a "common good"! The |
|
expression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of |
|
small value. In the end things must be as they are and have always |
|
been--the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the |
|
profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up |
|
shortly, everything rare for the rare. |
|
|
|
|
|
44. Need I say expressly after all this that they will be free, VERY |
|
free spirits, these philosophers of the future--as certainly also they |
|
will not be merely free spirits, but something more, higher, greater, |
|
and fundamentally different, which does not wish to be misunderstood and |
|
mistaken? But while I say this, I feel under OBLIGATION almost as much |
|
to them as to ourselves (we free spirits who are their heralds and |
|
forerunners), to sweep away from ourselves altogether a stupid old |
|
prejudice and misunderstanding, which, like a fog, has too long made the |
|
conception of "free spirit" obscure. In every country of Europe, and the |
|
same in America, there is at present something which makes an abuse of |
|
this name a very narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits, |
|
who desire almost the opposite of what our intentions and instincts |
|
prompt--not to mention that in respect to the NEW philosophers who are |
|
appearing, they must still more be closed windows and bolted doors. |
|
Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the LEVELLERS, these wrongly |
|
named "free spirits"--as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of |
|
the democratic taste and its "modern ideas" all of them men without |
|
solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom |
|
neither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied, only, they |
|
are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their |
|
innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost ALL human misery and |
|
failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed--a notion |
|
which happily inverts the truth entirely! What they would fain attain |
|
with all their strength, is the universal, green-meadow happiness of the |
|
herd, together with security, safety, comfort, and alleviation of life |
|
for every one, their two most frequently chanted songs and doctrines |
|
are called "Equality of Rights" and "Sympathy with All Sufferers"--and |
|
suffering itself is looked upon by them as something which must be |
|
DONE AWAY WITH. We opposite ones, however, who have opened our eye and |
|
conscience to the question how and where the plant "man" has hitherto |
|
grown most vigorously, believe that this has always taken place under |
|
the opposite conditions, that for this end the dangerousness of his |
|
situation had to be increased enormously, his inventive faculty and |
|
dissembling power (his "spirit") had to develop into subtlety and daring |
|
under long oppression and compulsion, and his Will to Life had to be |
|
increased to the unconditioned Will to Power--we believe that severity, |
|
violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy, |
|
stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind,--that everything |
|
wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves |
|
as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite--we do |
|
not even say enough when we only say THIS MUCH, and in any case we |
|
find ourselves here, both with our speech and our silence, at the OTHER |
|
extreme of all modern ideology and gregarious desirability, as their |
|
antipodes perhaps? What wonder that we "free spirits" are not exactly |
|
the most communicative spirits? that we do not wish to betray in every |
|
respect WHAT a spirit can free itself from, and WHERE perhaps it will |
|
then be driven? And as to the import of the dangerous formula, "Beyond |
|
Good and Evil," with which we at least avoid confusion, we ARE something |
|
else than "libres-penseurs," "liben pensatori" "free-thinkers," |
|
and whatever these honest advocates of "modern ideas" like to call |
|
themselves. Having been at home, or at least guests, in many realms of |
|
the spirit, having escaped again and again from the gloomy, agreeable |
|
nooks in which preferences and prejudices, youth, origin, the accident |
|
of men and books, or even the weariness of travel seemed to confine us, |
|
full of malice against the seductions of dependency which he concealed |
|
in honours, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses, grateful even |
|
for distress and the vicissitudes of illness, because they always free |
|
us from some rule, and its "prejudice," grateful to the God, devil, |
|
sheep, and worm in us, inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the |
|
point of cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with |
|
teeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business |
|
that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure, |
|
owing to an excess of "free will", with anterior and posterior souls, |
|
into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with |
|
foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden |
|
ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble |
|
heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till |
|
night, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed drawers, economical |
|
in learning and forgetting, inventive in scheming, sometimes proud of |
|
tables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night-owls of |
|
work even in full day, yea, if necessary, even scarecrows--and it is |
|
necessary nowadays, that is to say, inasmuch as we are the born, sworn, |
|
jealous friends of SOLITUDE, of our own profoundest midnight and midday |
|
solitude--such kind of men are we, we free spirits! And perhaps ye are |
|
also something of the same kind, ye coming ones? ye NEW philosophers? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER III. THE RELIGIOUS MOOD |
|
|
|
|
|
45. The human soul and its limits, the range of man's inner experiences |
|
hitherto attained, the heights, depths, and distances of these |
|
experiences, the entire history of the soul UP TO THE PRESENT TIME, |
|
and its still unexhausted possibilities: this is the preordained |
|
hunting-domain for a born psychologist and lover of a "big hunt". But |
|
how often must he say despairingly to himself: "A single individual! |
|
alas, only a single individual! and this great forest, this virgin |
|
forest!" So he would like to have some hundreds of hunting assistants, |
|
and fine trained hounds, that he could send into the history of the |
|
human soul, to drive HIS game together. In vain: again and again he |
|
experiences, profoundly and bitterly, how difficult it is to find |
|
assistants and dogs for all the things that directly excite his |
|
curiosity. The evil of sending scholars into new and dangerous |
|
hunting-domains, where courage, sagacity, and subtlety in every sense |
|
are required, is that they are no longer serviceable just when the "BIG |
|
hunt," and also the great danger commences,--it is precisely then that |
|
they lose their keen eye and nose. In order, for instance, to divine and |
|
determine what sort of history the problem of KNOWLEDGE AND CONSCIENCE |
|
has hitherto had in the souls of homines religiosi, a person would |
|
perhaps himself have to possess as profound, as bruised, as immense an |
|
experience as the intellectual conscience of Pascal; and then he would |
|
still require that wide-spread heaven of clear, wicked spirituality, |
|
which, from above, would be able to oversee, arrange, and effectively |
|
formulize this mass of dangerous and painful experiences.--But who |
|
could do me this service! And who would have time to wait for such |
|
servants!--they evidently appear too rarely, they are so improbable at |
|
all times! Eventually one must do everything ONESELF in order to know |
|
something; which means that one has MUCH to do!--But a curiosity like |
|
mine is once for all the most agreeable of vices--pardon me! I mean to |
|
say that the love of truth has its reward in heaven, and already upon |
|
earth. |
|
|
|
46. Faith, such as early Christianity desired, and not infrequently |
|
achieved in the midst of a skeptical and southernly free-spirited world, |
|
which had centuries of struggle between philosophical schools behind |
|
it and in it, counting besides the education in tolerance which |
|
the Imperium Romanum gave--this faith is NOT that sincere, austere |
|
slave-faith by which perhaps a Luther or a Cromwell, or some other |
|
northern barbarian of the spirit remained attached to his God and |
|
Christianity, it is much rather the faith of Pascal, which resembles in |
|
a terrible manner a continuous suicide of reason--a tough, long-lived, |
|
worm-like reason, which is not to be slain at once and with a single |
|
blow. The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice |
|
of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at |
|
the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. There is |
|
cruelty and religious Phoenicianism in this faith, which is adapted to a |
|
tender, many-sided, and very fastidious conscience, it takes for granted |
|
that the subjection of the spirit is indescribably PAINFUL, that all the |
|
past and all the habits of such a spirit resist the absurdissimum, in |
|
the form of which "faith" comes to it. Modern men, with their obtuseness |
|
as regards all Christian nomenclature, have no longer the sense for the |
|
terribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by |
|
the paradox of the formula, "God on the Cross". Hitherto there had never |
|
and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so |
|
dreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula: it promised a |
|
transvaluation of all ancient values--It was the Orient, the PROFOUND |
|
Orient, it was the Oriental slave who thus took revenge on Rome and its |
|
noble, light-minded toleration, on the Roman "Catholicism" of non-faith, |
|
and it was always not the faith, but the freedom from the faith, the |
|
half-stoical and smiling indifference to the seriousness of the faith, |
|
which made the slaves indignant at their masters and revolt against |
|
them. "Enlightenment" causes revolt, for the slave desires the |
|
unconditioned, he understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals, |
|
he loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point |
|
of pain, to the point of sickness--his many HIDDEN sufferings make |
|
him revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The |
|
skepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of |
|
aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the |
|
last great slave-insurrection which began with the French Revolution. |
|
|
|
47. Wherever the religious neurosis has appeared on the earth so far, |
|
we find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen: |
|
solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence--but without its being possible |
|
to determine with certainty which is cause and which is effect, or IF |
|
any relation at all of cause and effect exists there. This latter doubt |
|
is justified by the fact that one of the most regular symptoms among |
|
savage as well as among civilized peoples is the most sudden and |
|
excessive sensuality, which then with equal suddenness transforms into |
|
penitential paroxysms, world-renunciation, and will-renunciation, both |
|
symptoms perhaps explainable as disguised epilepsy? But nowhere is it |
|
MORE obligatory to put aside explanations around no other type has there |
|
grown such a mass of absurdity and superstition, no other type seems to |
|
have been more interesting to men and even to philosophers--perhaps it |
|
is time to become just a little indifferent here, to learn caution, or, |
|
better still, to look AWAY, TO GO AWAY--Yet in the background of the |
|
most recent philosophy, that of Schopenhauer, we find almost as the |
|
problem in itself, this terrible note of interrogation of the religious |
|
crisis and awakening. How is the negation of will POSSIBLE? how is the |
|
saint possible?--that seems to have been the very question with which |
|
Schopenhauer made a start and became a philosopher. And thus it was a |
|
genuine Schopenhauerian consequence, that his most convinced adherent |
|
(perhaps also his last, as far as Germany is concerned), namely, Richard |
|
Wagner, should bring his own life-work to an end just here, and should |
|
finally put that terrible and eternal type upon the stage as Kundry, |
|
type vecu, and as it loved and lived, at the very time that the |
|
mad-doctors in almost all European countries had an opportunity to study |
|
the type close at hand, wherever the religious neurosis--or as I call |
|
it, "the religious mood"--made its latest epidemical outbreak and |
|
display as the "Salvation Army"--If it be a question, however, as to |
|
what has been so extremely interesting to men of all sorts in all ages, |
|
and even to philosophers, in the whole phenomenon of the saint, it |
|
is undoubtedly the appearance of the miraculous therein--namely, the |
|
immediate SUCCESSION OF OPPOSITES, of states of the soul regarded as |
|
morally antithetical: it was believed here to be self-evident that |
|
a "bad man" was all at once turned into a "saint," a good man. The |
|
hitherto existing psychology was wrecked at this point, is it not |
|
possible it may have happened principally because psychology had placed |
|
itself under the dominion of morals, because it BELIEVED in oppositions |
|
of moral values, and saw, read, and INTERPRETED these oppositions |
|
into the text and facts of the case? What? "Miracle" only an error of |
|
interpretation? A lack of philology? |
|
|
|
48. It seems that the Latin races are far more deeply attached to their |
|
Catholicism than we Northerners are to Christianity generally, and |
|
that consequently unbelief in Catholic countries means something quite |
|
different from what it does among Protestants--namely, a sort of revolt |
|
against the spirit of the race, while with us it is rather a return to |
|
the spirit (or non-spirit) of the race. |
|
|
|
We Northerners undoubtedly derive our origin from barbarous races, even |
|
as regards our talents for religion--we have POOR talents for it. One |
|
may make an exception in the case of the Celts, who have theretofore |
|
furnished also the best soil for Christian infection in the North: the |
|
Christian ideal blossomed forth in France as much as ever the pale sun |
|
of the north would allow it. How strangely pious for our taste are still |
|
these later French skeptics, whenever there is any Celtic blood in their |
|
origin! How Catholic, how un-German does Auguste Comte's Sociology |
|
seem to us, with the Roman logic of its instincts! How Jesuitical, that |
|
amiable and shrewd cicerone of Port Royal, Sainte-Beuve, in spite of all |
|
his hostility to Jesuits! And even Ernest Renan: how inaccessible to |
|
us Northerners does the language of such a Renan appear, in whom |
|
every instant the merest touch of religious thrill throws his refined |
|
voluptuous and comfortably couching soul off its balance! Let us repeat |
|
after him these fine sentences--and what wickedness and haughtiness is |
|
immediately aroused by way of answer in our probably less beautiful but |
|
harder souls, that is to say, in our more German souls!--"DISONS DONC |
|
HARDIMENT QUE LA RELIGION EST UN PRODUIT DE L'HOMME NORMAL, QUE L'HOMME |
|
EST LE PLUS DANS LE VRAI QUANT IL EST LE PLUS RELIGIEUX ET LE PLUS |
|
ASSURE D'UNE DESTINEE INFINIE.... C'EST QUAND IL EST BON QU'IL VEUT QUE |
|
LA VIRTU CORRESPONDE A UN ORDER ETERNAL, C'EST QUAND IL CONTEMPLE LES |
|
CHOSES D'UNE MANIERE DESINTERESSEE QU'IL TROUVE LA MORT REVOLTANTE ET |
|
ABSURDE. COMMENT NE PAS SUPPOSER QUE C'EST DANS CES MOMENTS-LA, QUE |
|
L'HOMME VOIT LE MIEUX?"... These sentences are so extremely ANTIPODAL |
|
to my ears and habits of thought, that in my first impulse of rage |
|
on finding them, I wrote on the margin, "LA NIAISERIE RELIGIEUSE PAR |
|
EXCELLENCE!"--until in my later rage I even took a fancy to them, these |
|
sentences with their truth absolutely inverted! It is so nice and such a |
|
distinction to have one's own antipodes! |
|
|
|
49. That which is so astonishing in the religious life of the ancient |
|
Greeks is the irrestrainable stream of GRATITUDE which it pours |
|
forth--it is a very superior kind of man who takes SUCH an attitude |
|
towards nature and life.--Later on, when the populace got the upper hand |
|
in Greece, FEAR became rampant also in religion; and Christianity was |
|
preparing itself. |
|
|
|
50. The passion for God: there are churlish, honest-hearted, and |
|
importunate kinds of it, like that of Luther--the whole of Protestantism |
|
lacks the southern DELICATEZZA. There is an Oriental exaltation of the |
|
mind in it, like that of an undeservedly favoured or elevated slave, as |
|
in the case of St. Augustine, for instance, who lacks in an offensive |
|
manner, all nobility in bearing and desires. There is a feminine |
|
tenderness and sensuality in it, which modestly and unconsciously longs |
|
for a UNIO MYSTICA ET PHYSICA, as in the case of Madame de Guyon. In |
|
many cases it appears, curiously enough, as the disguise of a girl's |
|
or youth's puberty; here and there even as the hysteria of an old maid, |
|
also as her last ambition. The Church has frequently canonized the woman |
|
in such a case. |
|
|
|
51. The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before |
|
the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation and utter voluntary |
|
privation--why did they thus bow? They divined in him--and as it were |
|
behind the questionableness of his frail and wretched appearance--the |
|
superior force which wished to test itself by such a subjugation; the |
|
strength of will, in which they recognized their own strength and |
|
love of power, and knew how to honour it: they honoured something |
|
in themselves when they honoured the saint. In addition to this, the |
|
contemplation of the saint suggested to them a suspicion: such an |
|
enormity of self-negation and anti-naturalness will not have been |
|
coveted for nothing--they have said, inquiringly. There is perhaps a |
|
reason for it, some very great danger, about which the ascetic might |
|
wish to be more accurately informed through his secret interlocutors and |
|
visitors? In a word, the mighty ones of the world learned to have a new |
|
fear before him, they divined a new power, a strange, still unconquered |
|
enemy:--it was the "Will to Power" which obliged them to halt before the |
|
saint. They had to question him. |
|
|
|
52. In the Jewish "Old Testament," the book of divine justice, there are |
|
men, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian |
|
literature has nothing to compare with it. One stands with fear and |
|
reverence before those stupendous remains of what man was formerly, and |
|
one has sad thoughts about old Asia and its little out-pushed peninsula |
|
Europe, which would like, by all means, to figure before Asia as the |
|
"Progress of Mankind." To be sure, he who is himself only a slender, |
|
tame house-animal, and knows only the wants of a house-animal (like |
|
our cultured people of today, including the Christians of "cultured" |
|
Christianity), need neither be amazed nor even sad amid those ruins--the |
|
taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone with respect to "great" and |
|
"small": perhaps he will find that the New Testament, the book of grace, |
|
still appeals more to his heart (there is much of the odour of the |
|
genuine, tender, stupid beadsman and petty soul in it). To have bound |
|
up this New Testament (a kind of ROCOCO of taste in every respect) along |
|
with the Old Testament into one book, as the "Bible," as "The Book in |
|
Itself," is perhaps the greatest audacity and "sin against the Spirit" |
|
which literary Europe has upon its conscience. |
|
|
|
53. Why Atheism nowadays? "The father" in God is thoroughly refuted; |
|
equally so "the judge," "the rewarder." Also his "free will": he does |
|
not hear--and even if he did, he would not know how to help. The worst |
|
is that he seems incapable of communicating himself clearly; is he |
|
uncertain?--This is what I have made out (by questioning and listening |
|
at a variety of conversations) to be the cause of the decline of |
|
European theism; it appears to me that though the religious instinct is |
|
in vigorous growth,--it rejects the theistic satisfaction with profound |
|
distrust. |
|
|
|
54. What does all modern philosophy mainly do? Since Descartes--and |
|
indeed more in defiance of him than on the basis of his procedure--an |
|
ATTENTAT has been made on the part of all philosophers on the old |
|
conception of the soul, under the guise of a criticism of the subject |
|
and predicate conception--that is to say, an ATTENTAT on the |
|
fundamental presupposition of Christian doctrine. Modern philosophy, |
|
as epistemological skepticism, is secretly or openly ANTI-CHRISTIAN, |
|
although (for keener ears, be it said) by no means anti-religious. |
|
Formerly, in effect, one believed in "the soul" as one believed in |
|
grammar and the grammatical subject: one said, "I" is the condition, |
|
"think" is the predicate and is conditioned--to think is an activity for |
|
which one MUST suppose a subject as cause. The attempt was then made, |
|
with marvelous tenacity and subtlety, to see if one could not get out |
|
of this net,--to see if the opposite was not perhaps true: "think" the |
|
condition, and "I" the conditioned; "I," therefore, only a synthesis |
|
which has been MADE by thinking itself. KANT really wished to prove |
|
that, starting from the subject, the subject could not be proved--nor |
|
the object either: the possibility of an APPARENT EXISTENCE of the |
|
subject, and therefore of "the soul," may not always have been strange |
|
to him,--the thought which once had an immense power on earth as the |
|
Vedanta philosophy. |
|
|
|
55. There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, with many rounds; but |
|
three of these are the most important. Once on a time men sacrificed |
|
human beings to their God, and perhaps just those they loved the |
|
best--to this category belong the firstling sacrifices of all primitive |
|
religions, and also the sacrifice of the Emperor Tiberius in the |
|
Mithra-Grotto on the Island of Capri, that most terrible of all Roman |
|
anachronisms. Then, during the moral epoch of mankind, they sacrificed |
|
to their God the strongest instincts they possessed, their "nature"; |
|
THIS festal joy shines in the cruel glances of ascetics and |
|
"anti-natural" fanatics. Finally, what still remained to be sacrificed? |
|
Was it not necessary in the end for men to sacrifice everything |
|
comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all faith in hidden harmonies, in |
|
future blessedness and justice? Was it not necessary to sacrifice God |
|
himself, and out of cruelty to themselves to worship stone, stupidity, |
|
gravity, fate, nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingness--this |
|
paradoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the |
|
rising generation; we all know something thereof already. |
|
|
|
56. Whoever, like myself, prompted by some enigmatical desire, has long |
|
endeavoured to go to the bottom of the question of pessimism and free it |
|
from the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and stupidity in which |
|
it has finally presented itself to this century, namely, in the form of |
|
Schopenhauer's philosophy; whoever, with an Asiatic and super-Asiatic |
|
eye, has actually looked inside, and into the most world-renouncing of |
|
all possible modes of thought--beyond good and evil, and no longer |
|
like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the dominion and delusion of |
|
morality,--whoever has done this, has perhaps just thereby, without |
|
really desiring it, opened his eyes to behold the opposite ideal: the |
|
ideal of the most world-approving, exuberant, and vivacious man, who has |
|
not only learnt to compromise and arrange with that which was and |
|
is, but wishes to have it again AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity, |
|
insatiably calling out da capo, not only to himself, but to the whole |
|
piece and play; and not only the play, but actually to him who requires |
|
the play--and makes it necessary; because he always requires |
|
himself anew--and makes himself necessary.--What? And this would not |
|
be--circulus vitiosus deus? |
|
|
|
57. The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the |
|
strength of his intellectual vision and insight: his world becomes |
|
profounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into |
|
view. Perhaps everything on which the intellectual eye has exercised |
|
its acuteness and profundity has just been an occasion for its exercise, |
|
something of a game, something for children and childish minds. Perhaps |
|
the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and |
|
suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us of |
|
no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to |
|
an old man;--and perhaps another plaything and another pain will then |
|
be necessary once more for "the old man"--always childish enough, an |
|
eternal child! |
|
|
|
58. Has it been observed to what extent outward idleness, or |
|
semi-idleness, is necessary to a real religious life (alike for its |
|
favourite microscopic labour of self-examination, and for its soft |
|
placidity called "prayer," the state of perpetual readiness for the |
|
"coming of God"), I mean the idleness with a good conscience, the |
|
idleness of olden times and of blood, to which the aristocratic |
|
sentiment that work is DISHONOURING--that it vulgarizes body and |
|
soul--is not quite unfamiliar? And that consequently the modern, noisy, |
|
time-engrossing, conceited, foolishly proud laboriousness educates |
|
and prepares for "unbelief" more than anything else? Among these, for |
|
instance, who are at present living apart from religion in Germany, I |
|
find "free-thinkers" of diversified species and origin, but above all |
|
a majority of those in whom laboriousness from generation to generation |
|
has dissolved the religious instincts; so that they no longer know what |
|
purpose religions serve, and only note their existence in the world |
|
with a kind of dull astonishment. They feel themselves already fully |
|
occupied, these good people, be it by their business or by their |
|
pleasures, not to mention the "Fatherland," and the newspapers, and |
|
their "family duties"; it seems that they have no time whatever left |
|
for religion; and above all, it is not obvious to them whether it is a |
|
question of a new business or a new pleasure--for it is impossible, they |
|
say to themselves, that people should go to church merely to spoil |
|
their tempers. They are by no means enemies of religious customs; |
|
should certain circumstances, State affairs perhaps, require their |
|
participation in such customs, they do what is required, as so many |
|
things are done--with a patient and unassuming seriousness, and without |
|
much curiosity or discomfort;--they live too much apart and outside |
|
to feel even the necessity for a FOR or AGAINST in such matters. Among |
|
those indifferent persons may be reckoned nowadays the majority of |
|
German Protestants of the middle classes, especially in the great |
|
laborious centres of trade and commerce; also the majority of laborious |
|
scholars, and the entire University personnel (with the exception of |
|
the theologians, whose existence and possibility there always gives |
|
psychologists new and more subtle puzzles to solve). On the part of |
|
pious, or merely church-going people, there is seldom any idea of HOW |
|
MUCH good-will, one might say arbitrary will, is now necessary for a |
|
German scholar to take the problem of religion seriously; his whole |
|
profession (and as I have said, his whole workmanlike laboriousness, to |
|
which he is compelled by his modern conscience) inclines him to a |
|
lofty and almost charitable serenity as regards religion, with which is |
|
occasionally mingled a slight disdain for the "uncleanliness" of spirit |
|
which he takes for granted wherever any one still professes to belong |
|
to the Church. It is only with the help of history (NOT through his own |
|
personal experience, therefore) that the scholar succeeds in bringing |
|
himself to a respectful seriousness, and to a certain timid deference |
|
in presence of religions; but even when his sentiments have reached the |
|
stage of gratitude towards them, he has not personally advanced one |
|
step nearer to that which still maintains itself as Church or as piety; |
|
perhaps even the contrary. The practical indifference to religious |
|
matters in the midst of which he has been born and brought up, usually |
|
sublimates itself in his case into circumspection and cleanliness, which |
|
shuns contact with religious men and things; and it may be just the |
|
depth of his tolerance and humanity which prompts him to avoid the |
|
delicate trouble which tolerance itself brings with it.--Every age has |
|
its own divine type of naivete, for the discovery of which other ages |
|
may envy it: and how much naivete--adorable, childlike, and boundlessly |
|
foolish naivete is involved in this belief of the scholar in |
|
his superiority, in the good conscience of his tolerance, in the |
|
unsuspecting, simple certainty with which his instinct treats the |
|
religious man as a lower and less valuable type, beyond, before, and |
|
ABOVE which he himself has developed--he, the little arrogant dwarf |
|
and mob-man, the sedulously alert, head-and-hand drudge of "ideas," of |
|
"modern ideas"! |
|
|
|
59. Whoever has seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what |
|
wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their |
|
preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and |
|
false. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated adoration |
|
of "pure forms" in philosophers as well as in artists: it is not to be |
|
doubted that whoever has NEED of the cult of the superficial to that |
|
extent, has at one time or another made an unlucky dive BENEATH it. |
|
Perhaps there is even an order of rank with respect to those burnt |
|
children, the born artists who find the enjoyment of life only in trying |
|
to FALSIFY its image (as if taking wearisome revenge on it), one might |
|
guess to what degree life has disgusted them, by the extent to which |
|
they wish to see its image falsified, attenuated, ultrified, and |
|
deified,--one might reckon the homines religiosi among the artists, as |
|
their HIGHEST rank. It is the profound, suspicious fear of an incurable |
|
pessimism which compels whole centuries to fasten their teeth into a |
|
religious interpretation of existence: the fear of the instinct which |
|
divines that truth might be attained TOO soon, before man has become |
|
strong enough, hard enough, artist enough.... Piety, the "Life in God," |
|
regarded in this light, would appear as the most elaborate and |
|
ultimate product of the FEAR of truth, as artist-adoration |
|
and artist-intoxication in presence of the most logical of all |
|
falsifications, as the will to the inversion of truth, to untruth at |
|
any price. Perhaps there has hitherto been no more effective means of |
|
beautifying man than piety, by means of it man can become so artful, so |
|
superficial, so iridescent, and so good, that his appearance no longer |
|
offends. |
|
|
|
60. To love mankind FOR GOD'S SAKE--this has so far been the noblest and |
|
remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. That love to mankind, |
|
without any redeeming intention in the background, is only an ADDITIONAL |
|
folly and brutishness, that the inclination to this love has first to |
|
get its proportion, its delicacy, its gram of salt and sprinkling |
|
of ambergris from a higher inclination--whoever first perceived |
|
and "experienced" this, however his tongue may have stammered as it |
|
attempted to express such a delicate matter, let him for all time be |
|
holy and respected, as the man who has so far flown highest and gone |
|
astray in the finest fashion! |
|
|
|
61. The philosopher, as WE free spirits understand him--as the man of |
|
the greatest responsibility, who has the conscience for the general |
|
development of mankind,--will use religion for his disciplining and |
|
educating work, just as he will use the contemporary political |
|
and economic conditions. The selecting and disciplining |
|
influence--destructive, as well as creative and fashioning--which can be |
|
exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to the |
|
sort of people placed under its spell and protection. For those who are |
|
strong and independent, destined and trained to command, in whom the |
|
judgment and skill of a ruling race is incorporated, religion is |
|
an additional means for overcoming resistance in the exercise of |
|
authority--as a bond which binds rulers and subjects in common, |
|
betraying and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter, |
|
their inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. And in the |
|
case of the unique natures of noble origin, if by virtue of superior |
|
spirituality they should incline to a more retired and contemplative |
|
life, reserving to themselves only the more refined forms of government |
|
(over chosen disciples or members of an order), religion itself may |
|
be used as a means for obtaining peace from the noise and trouble of |
|
managing GROSSER affairs, and for securing immunity from the UNAVOIDABLE |
|
filth of all political agitation. The Brahmins, for instance, understood |
|
this fact. With the help of a religious organization, they secured to |
|
themselves the power of nominating kings for the people, while their |
|
sentiments prompted them to keep apart and outside, as men with a higher |
|
and super-regal mission. At the same time religion gives inducement and |
|
opportunity to some of the subjects to qualify themselves for future |
|
ruling and commanding the slowly ascending ranks and classes, in which, |
|
through fortunate marriage customs, volitional power and delight in |
|
self-control are on the increase. To them religion offers sufficient |
|
incentives and temptations to aspire to higher intellectuality, and to |
|
experience the sentiments of authoritative self-control, of silence, and |
|
of solitude. Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of |
|
educating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary |
|
baseness and work itself upwards to future supremacy. And finally, to |
|
ordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and |
|
general utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives |
|
invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart, |
|
ennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy, |
|
with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of |
|
justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all |
|
the semi-animal poverty of their souls. Religion, together with the |
|
religious significance of life, sheds sunshine over such perpetually |
|
harassed men, and makes even their own aspect endurable to them, it |
|
operates upon them as the Epicurean philosophy usually operates upon |
|
sufferers of a higher order, in a refreshing and refining manner, |
|
almost TURNING suffering TO ACCOUNT, and in the end even hallowing and |
|
vindicating it. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity |
|
and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate |
|
themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby |
|
to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it |
|
difficult enough to live--this very difficulty being necessary. |
|
|
|
62. To be sure--to make also the bad counter-reckoning against such |
|
religions, and to bring to light their secret dangers--the cost is |
|
always excessive and terrible when religions do NOT operate as an |
|
educational and disciplinary medium in the hands of the philosopher, but |
|
rule voluntarily and PARAMOUNTLY, when they wish to be the final end, |
|
and not a means along with other means. Among men, as among all other |
|
animals, there is a surplus of defective, diseased, degenerating, |
|
infirm, and necessarily suffering individuals; the successful cases, |
|
among men also, are always the exception; and in view of the fact that |
|
man is THE ANIMAL NOT YET PROPERLY ADAPTED TO HIS ENVIRONMENT, the rare |
|
exception. But worse still. The higher the type a man represents, the |
|
greater is the improbability that he will SUCCEED; the accidental, the |
|
law of irrationality in the general constitution of mankind, manifests |
|
itself most terribly in its destructive effect on the higher orders of |
|
men, the conditions of whose lives are delicate, diverse, and difficult |
|
to determine. What, then, is the attitude of the two greatest religions |
|
above-mentioned to the SURPLUS of failures in life? They endeavour |
|
to preserve and keep alive whatever can be preserved; in fact, as the |
|
religions FOR SUFFERERS, they take the part of these upon principle; |
|
they are always in favour of those who suffer from life as from a |
|
disease, and they would fain treat every other experience of life as |
|
false and impossible. However highly we may esteem this indulgent and |
|
preservative care (inasmuch as in applying to others, it has applied, |
|
and applies also to the highest and usually the most suffering type of |
|
man), the hitherto PARAMOUNT religions--to give a general appreciation |
|
of them--are among the principal causes which have kept the type of |
|
"man" upon a lower level--they have preserved too much THAT WHICH SHOULD |
|
HAVE PERISHED. One has to thank them for invaluable services; and who is |
|
sufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the contemplation |
|
of all that the "spiritual men" of Christianity have done for Europe |
|
hitherto! But when they had given comfort to the sufferers, courage to |
|
the oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the helpless, |
|
and when they had allured from society into convents and spiritual |
|
penitentiaries the broken-hearted and distracted: what else had they |
|
to do in order to work systematically in that fashion, and with a good |
|
conscience, for the preservation of all the sick and suffering, which |
|
means, in deed and in truth, to work for the DETERIORATION OF THE |
|
EUROPEAN RACE? To REVERSE all estimates of value--THAT is what they |
|
had to do! And to shatter the strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast |
|
suspicion on the delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous, |
|
manly, conquering, and imperious--all instincts which are natural to the |
|
highest and most successful type of "man"--into uncertainty, distress |
|
of conscience, and self-destruction; forsooth, to invert all love of the |
|
earthly and of supremacy over the earth, into hatred of the earth and |
|
earthly things--THAT is the task the Church imposed on itself, and |
|
was obliged to impose, until, according to its standard of value, |
|
"unworldliness," "unsensuousness," and "higher man" fused into one |
|
sentiment. If one could observe the strangely painful, equally coarse |
|
and refined comedy of European Christianity with the derisive and |
|
impartial eye of an Epicurean god, I should think one would never cease |
|
marvelling and laughing; does it not actually seem that some single will |
|
has ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME |
|
ABORTION of man? He, however, who, with opposite requirements (no longer |
|
Epicurean) and with some divine hammer in his hand, could approach this |
|
almost voluntary degeneration and stunting of mankind, as exemplified in |
|
the European Christian (Pascal, for instance), would he not have to |
|
cry aloud with rage, pity, and horror: "Oh, you bunglers, presumptuous |
|
pitiful bunglers, what have you done! Was that a work for your hands? |
|
How you have hacked and botched my finest stone! What have you presumed |
|
to do!"--I should say that Christianity has hitherto been the most |
|
portentous of presumptions. Men, not great enough, nor hard enough, |
|
to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning MAN; men, |
|
not sufficiently strong and far-sighted to ALLOW, with sublime |
|
self-constraint, the obvious law of the thousandfold failures and |
|
perishings to prevail; men, not sufficiently noble to see the radically |
|
different grades of rank and intervals of rank that separate man from |
|
man:--SUCH men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed |
|
the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species |
|
has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, |
|
mediocre, the European of the present day. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER IV. APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES |
|
|
|
|
|
63. He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously--and even |
|
himself--only in relation to his pupils. |
|
|
|
64. "Knowledge for its own sake"--that is the last snare laid by |
|
morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more. |
|
|
|
65. The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has |
|
to be overcome on the way to it. |
|
|
|
65A. We are most dishonourable towards our God: he is not PERMITTED to |
|
sin. |
|
|
|
66. The tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded, robbed, |
|
deceived, and exploited might be the diffidence of a God among men. |
|
|
|
67. Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense |
|
of all others. Love to God also! |
|
|
|
68. "I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my |
|
pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually--the memory yields. |
|
|
|
69. One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand |
|
that--kills with leniency. |
|
|
|
70. If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which |
|
always recurs. |
|
|
|
71. THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER.--So long as thou feelest the stars as an |
|
"above thee," thou lackest the eye of the discerning one. |
|
|
|
72. It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that |
|
makes great men. |
|
|
|
73. He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. |
|
|
|
73A. Many a peacock hides his tail from every eye--and calls it his |
|
pride. |
|
|
|
74. A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things |
|
besides: gratitude and purity. |
|
|
|
75. The degree and nature of a man's sensuality extends to the highest |
|
altitudes of his spirit. |
|
|
|
76. Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself. |
|
|
|
77. With his principles a man seeks either to dominate, or justify, |
|
or honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits: two men with the same |
|
principles probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith. |
|
|
|
78. He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself thereby, as a |
|
despiser. |
|
|
|
79. A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love, |
|
betrays its sediment: its dregs come up. |
|
|
|
80. A thing that is explained ceases to concern us--What did the God |
|
mean who gave the advice, "Know thyself!" Did it perhaps imply "Cease to |
|
be concerned about thyself! become objective!"--And Socrates?--And the |
|
"scientific man"? |
|
|
|
81. It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you |
|
should so salt your truth that it will no longer--quench thirst? |
|
|
|
82. "Sympathy for all"--would be harshness and tyranny for THEE, my good |
|
neighbour. |
|
|
|
83. INSTINCT--When the house is on fire one forgets even the |
|
dinner--Yes, but one recovers it from among the ashes. |
|
|
|
84. Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she--forgets how to charm. |
|
|
|
85. The same emotions are in man and woman, but in different TEMPO, on |
|
that account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other. |
|
|
|
86. In the background of all their personal vanity, women themselves |
|
have still their impersonal scorn--for "woman". |
|
|
|
87. FETTERED HEART, FREE SPIRIT--When one firmly fetters one's heart |
|
and keeps it prisoner, one can allow one's spirit many liberties: I said |
|
this once before But people do not believe it when I say so, unless they |
|
know it already. |
|
|
|
88. One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become |
|
embarrassed. |
|
|
|
89. Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences |
|
them is not something dreadful also. |
|
|
|
90. Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their |
|
surface, precisely by that which makes others heavy--by hatred and love. |
|
|
|
91. So cold, so icy, that one burns one's finger at the touch of him! |
|
Every hand that lays hold of him shrinks back!--And for that very reason |
|
many think him red-hot. |
|
|
|
92. Who has not, at one time or another--sacrificed himself for the sake |
|
of his good name? |
|
|
|
93. In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely on that |
|
account a great deal too much contempt of men. |
|
|
|
94. The maturity of man--that means, to have reacquired the seriousness |
|
that one had as a child at play. |
|
|
|
95. To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end |
|
of which one is ashamed also of one's morality. |
|
|
|
96. One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa--blessing |
|
it rather than in love with it. |
|
|
|
97. What? A great man? I always see merely the play-actor of his own |
|
ideal. |
|
|
|
98. When one trains one's conscience, it kisses one while it bites. |
|
|
|
99. THE DISAPPOINTED ONE SPEAKS--"I listened for the echo and I heard |
|
only praise." |
|
|
|
100. We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are, we thus |
|
relax ourselves away from our fellows. |
|
|
|
101. A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the |
|
animalization of God. |
|
|
|
102. Discovering reciprocal love should really disenchant the lover with |
|
regard to the beloved. "What! She is modest enough to love even you? Or |
|
stupid enough? Or--or---" |
|
|
|
103. THE DANGER IN HAPPINESS.--"Everything now turns out best for me, I |
|
now love every fate:--who would like to be my fate?" |
|
|
|
104. Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, |
|
prevents the Christians of today--burning us. |
|
|
|
105. The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the "piety") |
|
of the free spirit (the "pious man of knowledge") than the impia fraus. |
|
Hence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church, |
|
characteristic of the type "free spirit"--as ITS non-freedom. |
|
|
|
106. By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves. |
|
|
|
107. A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been |
|
taken, to shut the ear even to the best counter-arguments. Occasionally, |
|
therefore, a will to stupidity. |
|
|
|
108. There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral |
|
interpretation of phenomena. |
|
|
|
109. The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates |
|
and maligns it. |
|
|
|
110. The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the |
|
beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer. |
|
|
|
111. Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been |
|
wounded. |
|
|
|
112. To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to |
|
belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against |
|
them. |
|
|
|
113. "You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be |
|
embarrassed before him." |
|
|
|
114. The immense expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness |
|
in this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset. |
|
|
|
115. Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman's play is |
|
mediocre. |
|
|
|
116. The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage |
|
to rebaptize our badness as the best in us. |
|
|
|
117. The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of |
|
another, or of several other, emotions. |
|
|
|
118. There is an innocence of admiration: it is possessed by him to whom |
|
it has not yet occurred that he himself may be admired some day. |
|
|
|
119. Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning |
|
ourselves--"justifying" ourselves. |
|
|
|
120. Sensuality often forces the growth of love too much, so that its |
|
root remains weak, and is easily torn up. |
|
|
|
121. It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn |
|
author--and that he did not learn it better. |
|
|
|
122. To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness |
|
of heart--and the very opposite of vanity of spirit. |
|
|
|
123. Even concubinage has been corrupted--by marriage. |
|
|
|
124. He who exults at the stake, does not triumph over pain, but because |
|
of the fact that he does not feel pain where he expected it. A parable. |
|
|
|
125. When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily |
|
to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us. |
|
|
|
126. A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great |
|
men.--Yes, and then to get round them. |
|
|
|
127. In the eyes of all true women science is hostile to the sense of |
|
shame. They feel as if one wished to peep under their skin with it--or |
|
worse still! under their dress and finery. |
|
|
|
128. The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you |
|
allure the senses to it. |
|
|
|
129. The devil has the most extensive perspectives for God; on that |
|
account he keeps so far away from him:--the devil, in effect, as the |
|
oldest friend of knowledge. |
|
|
|
130. What a person IS begins to betray itself when his talent |
|
decreases,--when he ceases to show what he CAN do. Talent is also an |
|
adornment; an adornment is also a concealment. |
|
|
|
131. The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that |
|
in reality they honour and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to |
|
express it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable: but |
|
in fact woman is ESSENTIALLY unpeaceable, like the cat, however well she |
|
may have assumed the peaceable demeanour. |
|
|
|
132. One is punished best for one's virtues. |
|
|
|
133. He who cannot find the way to HIS ideal, lives more frivolously and |
|
shamelessly than the man without an ideal. |
|
|
|
134. From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, |
|
all evidence of truth. |
|
|
|
135. Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man; a considerable |
|
part of it is rather an essential condition of being good. |
|
|
|
136. The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the other seeks some |
|
one whom he can assist: a good conversation thus originates. |
|
|
|
137. In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes |
|
of opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds |
|
a mediocre man; and often, even in a mediocre artist, one finds a very |
|
remarkable man. |
|
|
|
138. We do the same when awake as when dreaming: we only invent and |
|
imagine him with whom we have intercourse--and forget it immediately. |
|
|
|
139. In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man. |
|
|
|
140. ADVICE AS A RIDDLE.--"If the band is not to break, bite it |
|
first--secure to make!" |
|
|
|
141. The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself |
|
for a God. |
|
|
|
142. The chastest utterance I ever heard: "Dans le veritable amour c'est |
|
l'ame qui enveloppe le corps." |
|
|
|
143. Our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is |
|
most difficult to us.--Concerning the origin of many systems of morals. |
|
|
|
144. When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally |
|
something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a |
|
certain virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is "the barren |
|
animal." |
|
|
|
145. Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would |
|
not have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the |
|
SECONDARY role. |
|
|
|
146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby |
|
become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will |
|
also gaze into thee. |
|
|
|
147. From old Florentine novels--moreover, from life: Buona femmina e |
|
mala femmina vuol bastone.--Sacchetti, Nov. 86. |
|
|
|
148. To seduce their neighbour to a favourable opinion, and afterwards |
|
to believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbour--who can do |
|
this conjuring trick so well as women? |
|
|
|
149. That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of |
|
what was formerly considered good--the atavism of an old ideal. |
|
|
|
150. Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the |
|
demigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything |
|
becomes--what? perhaps a "world"? |
|
|
|
151. It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also have your |
|
permission to possess it;--eh, my friends? |
|
|
|
152. "Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise": |
|
so say the most ancient and the most modern serpents. |
|
|
|
153. What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. |
|
|
|
154. Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of |
|
health; everything absolute belongs to pathology. |
|
|
|
155. The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness. |
|
|
|
156. Insanity in individuals is something rare--but in groups, parties, |
|
nations, and epochs it is the rule. |
|
|
|
157. The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one |
|
gets successfully through many a bad night. |
|
|
|
158. Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our |
|
strongest impulse--the tyrant in us. |
|
|
|
159. One MUST repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us |
|
good or ill? |
|
|
|
160. One no longer loves one's knowledge sufficiently after one has |
|
communicated it. |
|
|
|
161. Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them. |
|
|
|
162. "Our fellow-creature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour's |
|
neighbour":--so thinks every nation. |
|
|
|
163. Love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a lover--his |
|
rare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his |
|
normal character. |
|
|
|
164. Jesus said to his Jews: "The law was for servants;--love God as I |
|
love him, as his Son! What have we Sons of God to do with morals!" |
|
|
|
165. IN SIGHT OF EVERY PARTY.--A shepherd has always need of a |
|
bell-wether--or he has himself to be a wether occasionally. |
|
|
|
166. One may indeed lie with the mouth; but with the accompanying |
|
grimace one nevertheless tells the truth. |
|
|
|
167. To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame--and something |
|
precious. |
|
|
|
168. Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, |
|
certainly, but degenerated to Vice. |
|
|
|
169. To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing |
|
oneself. |
|
|
|
170. In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame. |
|
|
|
171. Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like |
|
tender hands on a Cyclops. |
|
|
|
172. One occasionally embraces some one or other, out of love to mankind |
|
(because one cannot embrace all); but this is what one must never |
|
confess to the individual. |
|
|
|
173. One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one |
|
esteems equal or superior. |
|
|
|
174. Ye Utilitarians--ye, too, love the UTILE only as a VEHICLE for |
|
your inclinations,--ye, too, really find the noise of its wheels |
|
insupportable! |
|
|
|
175. One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired. |
|
|
|
176. The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is |
|
counter to our vanity. |
|
|
|
177. With regard to what "truthfulness" is, perhaps nobody has ever been |
|
sufficiently truthful. |
|
|
|
178. One does not believe in the follies of clever men: what a |
|
forfeiture of the rights of man! |
|
|
|
179. The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very |
|
indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile "reformed." |
|
|
|
180. There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a |
|
cause. |
|
|
|
181. It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed. |
|
|
|
182. The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be |
|
returned. |
|
|
|
183. "I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can |
|
no longer believe in you." |
|
|
|
184. There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of |
|
wickedness. |
|
|
|
185. "I dislike him."--Why?--"I am not a match for him."--Did any one |
|
ever answer so? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS |
|
|
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|
|
186. The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as subtle, |
|
belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the "Science of Morals" |
|
belonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and coarse-fingered:--an |
|
interesting contrast, which sometimes becomes incarnate and obvious |
|
in the very person of a moralist. Indeed, the expression, "Science |
|
of Morals" is, in respect to what is designated thereby, far too |
|
presumptuous and counter to GOOD taste,--which is always a foretaste of |
|
more modest expressions. One ought to avow with the utmost fairness WHAT |
|
is still necessary here for a long time, WHAT is alone proper for the |
|
present: namely, the collection of material, the comprehensive survey |
|
and classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of worth, |
|
and distinctions of worth, which live, grow, propagate, and perish--and |
|
perhaps attempts to give a clear idea of the recurring and more common |
|
forms of these living crystallizations--as preparation for a THEORY OF |
|
TYPES of morality. To be sure, people have not hitherto been so modest. |
|
All the philosophers, with a pedantic and ridiculous seriousness, |
|
demanded of themselves something very much higher, more pretentious, and |
|
ceremonious, when they concerned themselves with morality as a science: |
|
they wanted to GIVE A BASIC to morality--and every philosopher hitherto |
|
has believed that he has given it a basis; morality itself, however, has |
|
been regarded as something "given." How far from their awkward pride |
|
was the seemingly insignificant problem--left in dust and decay--of a |
|
description of forms of morality, notwithstanding that the finest hands |
|
and senses could hardly be fine enough for it! It was precisely owing to |
|
moral philosophers' knowing the moral facts imperfectly, in an arbitrary |
|
epitome, or an accidental abridgement--perhaps as the morality of |
|
their environment, their position, their church, their Zeitgeist, their |
|
climate and zone--it was precisely because they were badly instructed |
|
with regard to nations, eras, and past ages, and were by no means eager |
|
to know about these matters, that they did not even come in sight of the |
|
real problems of morals--problems which only disclose themselves by |
|
a comparison of MANY kinds of morality. In every "Science of Morals" |
|
hitherto, strange as it may sound, the problem of morality itself |
|
has been OMITTED: there has been no suspicion that there was anything |
|
problematic there! That which philosophers called "giving a basis to |
|
morality," and endeavoured to realize, has, when seen in a right light, |
|
proved merely a learned form of good FAITH in prevailing morality, a new |
|
means of its EXPRESSION, consequently just a matter-of-fact within the |
|
sphere of a definite morality, yea, in its ultimate motive, a sort of |
|
denial that it is LAWFUL for this morality to be called in question--and |
|
in any case the reverse of the testing, analyzing, doubting, and |
|
vivisecting of this very faith. Hear, for instance, with what |
|
innocence--almost worthy of honour--Schopenhauer represents his own |
|
task, and draw your conclusions concerning the scientificness of a |
|
"Science" whose latest master still talks in the strain of children and |
|
old wives: "The principle," he says (page 136 of the Grundprobleme der |
|
Ethik), [Footnote: Pages 54-55 of Schopenhauer's Basis of Morality, |
|
translated by Arthur B. Bullock, M.A. (1903).] "the axiom about the |
|
purport of which all moralists are PRACTICALLY agreed: neminem laede, |
|
immo omnes quantum potes juva--is REALLY the proposition which all moral |
|
teachers strive to establish, ... the REAL basis of ethics which |
|
has been sought, like the philosopher's stone, for centuries."--The |
|
difficulty of establishing the proposition referred to may indeed be |
|
great--it is well known that Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his |
|
efforts; and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and |
|
sentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is Will |
|
to Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, |
|
ACTUALLY--played the flute... daily after dinner: one may read about |
|
the matter in his biography. A question by the way: a pessimist, a |
|
repudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES A HALT at morality--who |
|
assents to morality, and plays the flute to laede-neminem morals, what? |
|
Is that really--a pessimist? |
|
|
|
187. Apart from the value of such assertions as "there is a categorical |
|
imperative in us," one can always ask: What does such an assertion |
|
indicate about him who makes it? There are systems of morals which are |
|
meant to justify their author in the eyes of other people; other systems |
|
of morals are meant to tranquilize him, and make him self-satisfied; |
|
with other systems he wants to crucify and humble himself, with others |
|
he wishes to take revenge, with others to conceal himself, with others |
|
to glorify himself and gave superiority and distinction,--this system of |
|
morals helps its author to forget, that system makes him, or something |
|
of him, forgotten, many a moralist would like to exercise power and |
|
creative arbitrariness over mankind, many another, perhaps, Kant |
|
especially, gives us to understand by his morals that "what is estimable |
|
in me, is that I know how to obey--and with you it SHALL not be |
|
otherwise than with me!" In short, systems of morals are only a |
|
SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS. |
|
|
|
188. In contrast to laisser-aller, every system of morals is a sort of |
|
tyranny against "nature" and also against "reason", that is, however, no |
|
objection, unless one should again decree by some system of morals, that |
|
all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful What is |
|
essential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a |
|
long constraint. In order to understand Stoicism, or Port Royal, |
|
or Puritanism, one should remember the constraint under which every |
|
language has attained to strength and freedom--the metrical constraint, |
|
the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. How much trouble have the poets and |
|
orators of every nation given themselves!--not excepting some of |
|
the prose writers of today, in whose ear dwells an inexorable |
|
conscientiousness--"for the sake of a folly," as utilitarian bunglers |
|
say, and thereby deem themselves wise--"from submission to arbitrary |
|
laws," as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves "free," even |
|
free-spirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything |
|
of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly |
|
certainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself, |
|
or in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in |
|
conduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary |
|
law, and in all seriousness, it is not at all improbable that precisely |
|
this is "nature" and "natural"--and not laisser-aller! Every artist |
|
knows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his |
|
"most natural" condition, the free arranging, locating, disposing, |
|
and constructing in the moments of "inspiration"--and how strictly and |
|
delicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which, by their very rigidness |
|
and precision, defy all formulation by means of ideas (even the most |
|
stable idea has, in comparison therewith, something floating, manifold, |
|
and ambiguous in it). The essential thing "in heaven and in earth" is, |
|
apparently (to repeat it once more), that there should be long OBEDIENCE |
|
in the same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in |
|
the long run, something which has made life worth living; for instance, |
|
virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality--anything whatever |
|
that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine. The long bondage of |
|
the spirit, the distrustful constraint in the communicability of |
|
ideas, the discipline which the thinker imposed on himself to think |
|
in accordance with the rules of a church or a court, or conformable |
|
to Aristotelian premises, the persistent spiritual will to interpret |
|
everything that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every |
|
occurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian God:--all this |
|
violence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and unreasonableness, |
|
has proved itself the disciplinary means whereby the European spirit has |
|
attained its strength, its remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility; |
|
granted also that much irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be |
|
stifled, suffocated, and spoilt in the process (for here, as everywhere, |
|
"nature" shows herself as she is, in all her extravagant and INDIFFERENT |
|
magnificence, which is shocking, but nevertheless noble). That |
|
for centuries European thinkers only thought in order to prove |
|
something--nowadays, on the contrary, we are suspicious of every thinker |
|
who "wishes to prove something"--that it was always settled beforehand |
|
what WAS TO BE the result of their strictest thinking, as it was perhaps |
|
in the Asiatic astrology of former times, or as it is still at the |
|
present day in the innocent, Christian-moral explanation of immediate |
|
personal events "for the glory of God," or "for the good of the |
|
soul":--this tyranny, this arbitrariness, this severe and magnificent |
|
stupidity, has EDUCATED the spirit; slavery, both in the coarser and |
|
the finer sense, is apparently an indispensable means even of spiritual |
|
education and discipline. One may look at every system of morals in this |
|
light: it is "nature" therein which teaches to hate the laisser-aller, |
|
the too great freedom, and implants the need for limited horizons, for |
|
immediate duties--it teaches the NARROWING OF PERSPECTIVES, and thus, in |
|
a certain sense, that stupidity is a condition of life and development. |
|
"Thou must obey some one, and for a long time; OTHERWISE thou wilt come |
|
to grief, and lose all respect for thyself"--this seems to me to be the |
|
moral imperative of nature, which is certainly neither "categorical," |
|
as old Kant wished (consequently the "otherwise"), nor does it address |
|
itself to the individual (what does nature care for the individual!), |
|
but to nations, races, ages, and ranks; above all, however, to the |
|
animal "man" generally, to MANKIND. |
|
|
|
189. Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle: it was a |
|
master stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and begloom Sunday to such |
|
an extent that the Englishman unconsciously hankers for his week--and |
|
work-day again:--as a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated |
|
FAST, such as is also frequently found in the ancient world (although, |
|
as is appropriate in southern nations, not precisely with respect |
|
to work). Many kinds of fasts are necessary; and wherever powerful |
|
influences and habits prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary |
|
days are appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn to |
|
hunger anew. Viewed from a higher standpoint, whole generations and |
|
epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism, |
|
seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during |
|
which an impulse learns to humble and submit itself--at the same time |
|
also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself; certain philosophical sects likewise |
|
admit of a similar interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst |
|
of Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with |
|
Aphrodisiacal odours).--Here also is a hint for the explanation of the |
|
paradox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period of European |
|
history, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments, |
|
that the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amour-passion). |
|
|
|
190. There is something in the morality of Plato which does not really |
|
belong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy, one might |
|
say, in spite of him: namely, Socratism, for which he himself was |
|
too noble. "No one desires to injure himself, hence all evil is done |
|
unwittingly. The evil man inflicts injury on himself; he would not do |
|
so, however, if he knew that evil is evil. The evil man, therefore, is |
|
only evil through error; if one free him from error one will necessarily |
|
make him--good."--This mode of reasoning savours of the POPULACE, who |
|
perceive only the unpleasant consequences of evil-doing, and practically |
|
judge that "it is STUPID to do wrong"; while they accept "good" as |
|
identical with "useful and pleasant," without further thought. As |
|
regards every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it |
|
has the same origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err.--Plato |
|
did all he could to interpret something refined and noble into the |
|
tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret himself into them--he, |
|
the most daring of all interpreters, who lifted the entire Socrates out |
|
of the street, as a popular theme and song, to exhibit him in endless |
|
and impossible modifications--namely, in all his own disguises and |
|
multiplicities. In jest, and in Homeric language as well, what is the |
|
Platonic Socrates, if not--[Greek words inserted here.] |
|
|
|
191. The old theological problem of "Faith" and "Knowledge," or more |
|
plainly, of instinct and reason--the question whether, in respect to the |
|
valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality, |
|
which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to |
|
a "Why," that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility--it |
|
is always the old moral problem that first appeared in the person of |
|
Socrates, and had divided men's minds long before Christianity. Socrates |
|
himself, following, of course, the taste of his talent--that of a |
|
surpassing dialectician--took first the side of reason; and, in fact, |
|
what did he do all his life but laugh at the awkward incapacity of the |
|
noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could |
|
never give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions? |
|
In the end, however, though silently and secretly, he laughed also |
|
at himself: with his finer conscience and introspection, he found |
|
in himself the same difficulty and incapacity. "But why"--he said |
|
to himself--"should one on that account separate oneself from the |
|
instincts! One must set them right, and the reason ALSO--one must follow |
|
the instincts, but at the same time persuade the reason to support them |
|
with good arguments." This was the real FALSENESS of that great and |
|
mysterious ironist; he brought his conscience up to the point that he |
|
was satisfied with a kind of self-outwitting: in fact, he perceived |
|
the irrationality in the moral judgment.--Plato, more innocent in such |
|
matters, and without the craftiness of the plebeian, wished to prove to |
|
himself, at the expenditure of all his strength--the greatest strength |
|
a philosopher had ever expended--that reason and instinct lead |
|
spontaneously to one goal, to the good, to "God"; and since Plato, all |
|
theologians and philosophers have followed the same path--which means |
|
that in matters of morality, instinct (or as Christians call it, |
|
"Faith," or as I call it, "the herd") has hitherto triumphed. Unless |
|
one should make an exception in the case of Descartes, the father of |
|
rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who |
|
recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a tool, and |
|
Descartes was superficial. |
|
|
|
192. Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in |
|
its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest |
|
processes of all "knowledge and cognizance": there, as here, the |
|
premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to "belief," |
|
and the lack of distrust and patience are first developed--our senses |
|
learn late, and never learn completely, to be subtle, reliable, and |
|
cautious organs of knowledge. Our eyes find it easier on a given |
|
occasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon |
|
the divergence and novelty of an impression: the latter requires more |
|
force, more "morality." It is difficult and painful for the ear to |
|
listen to anything new; we hear strange music badly. When we hear |
|
another language spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds |
|
into words with which we are more familiar and conversant--it was thus, |
|
for example, that the Germans modified the spoken word ARCUBALISTA into |
|
ARMBRUST (cross-bow). Our senses are also hostile and averse to the |
|
new; and generally, even in the "simplest" processes of sensation, the |
|
emotions DOMINATE--such as fear, love, hatred, and the passive emotion |
|
of indolence.--As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words |
|
(not to speak of syllables) of a page--he rather takes about five out |
|
of every twenty words at random, and "guesses" the probably appropriate |
|
sense to them--just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely |
|
in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so |
|
much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the |
|
most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we fabricate the |
|
greater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate |
|
any event, EXCEPT as "inventors" thereof. All this goes to prove |
|
that from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have |
|
been--ACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it more politely and |
|
hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly--one is much more of an artist |
|
than one is aware of.--In an animated conversation, I often see the face |
|
of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined |
|
before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to |
|
be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the |
|
STRENGTH of my visual faculty--the delicacy of the play of the muscles |
|
and of the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me. |
|
Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all. |
|
|
|
193. Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: but also contrariwise. What we |
|
experience in dreams, provided we experience it often, pertains at |
|
last just as much to the general belongings of our soul as anything |
|
"actually" experienced; by virtue thereof we are richer or poorer, we |
|
have a requirement more or less, and finally, in broad daylight, and |
|
even in the brightest moments of our waking life, we are ruled to some |
|
extent by the nature of our dreams. Supposing that someone has often |
|
flown in his dreams, and that at last, as soon as he dreams, he is |
|
conscious of the power and art of flying as his privilege and his |
|
peculiarly enviable happiness; such a person, who believes that on the |
|
slightest impulse, he can actualize all sorts of curves and angles, who |
|
knows the sensation of a certain divine levity, an "upwards" |
|
without effort or constraint, a "downwards" without descending |
|
or lowering--without TROUBLE!--how could the man with such |
|
dream-experiences and dream-habits fail to find "happiness" differently |
|
coloured and defined, even in his waking hours! How could he fail--to |
|
long DIFFERENTLY for happiness? "Flight," such as is described by poets, |
|
must, when compared with his own "flying," be far too earthly, muscular, |
|
violent, far too "troublesome" for him. |
|
|
|
194. The difference among men does not manifest itself only in the |
|
difference of their lists of desirable things--in their regarding |
|
different good things as worth striving for, and being disagreed as to |
|
the greater or less value, the order of rank, of the commonly recognized |
|
desirable things:--it manifests itself much more in what they regard as |
|
actually HAVING and POSSESSING a desirable thing. As regards a woman, |
|
for instance, the control over her body and her sexual gratification |
|
serves as an amply sufficient sign of ownership and possession to the |
|
more modest man; another with a more suspicious and ambitious thirst for |
|
possession, sees the "questionableness," the mere apparentness of such |
|
ownership, and wishes to have finer tests in order to know especially |
|
whether the woman not only gives herself to him, but also gives up for |
|
his sake what she has or would like to have--only THEN does he look upon |
|
her as "possessed." A third, however, has not even here got to the limit |
|
of his distrust and his desire for possession: he asks himself whether |
|
the woman, when she gives up everything for him, does not perhaps do |
|
so for a phantom of him; he wishes first to be thoroughly, indeed, |
|
profoundly well known; in order to be loved at all he ventures to let |
|
himself be found out. Only then does he feel the beloved one fully in |
|
his possession, when she no longer deceives herself about him, when |
|
she loves him just as much for the sake of his devilry and concealed |
|
insatiability, as for his goodness, patience, and spirituality. One |
|
man would like to possess a nation, and he finds all the higher arts of |
|
Cagliostro and Catalina suitable for his purpose. Another, with a more |
|
refined thirst for possession, says to himself: "One may not deceive |
|
where one desires to possess"--he is irritated and impatient at the idea |
|
that a mask of him should rule in the hearts of the people: "I must, |
|
therefore, MAKE myself known, and first of all learn to know myself!" |
|
Among helpful and charitable people, one almost always finds the awkward |
|
craftiness which first gets up suitably him who has to be helped, as |
|
though, for instance, he should "merit" help, seek just THEIR help, and |
|
would show himself deeply grateful, attached, and subservient to them |
|
for all help. With these conceits, they take control of the needy as a |
|
property, just as in general they are charitable and helpful out of a |
|
desire for property. One finds them jealous when they are crossed or |
|
forestalled in their charity. Parents involuntarily make something like |
|
themselves out of their children--they call that "education"; no mother |
|
doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is |
|
thereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN |
|
ideas and notions of worth. Indeed, in former times fathers deemed it |
|
right to use their discretion concerning the life or death of the newly |
|
born (as among the ancient Germans). And like the father, so also do the |
|
teacher, the class, the priest, and the prince still see in every new |
|
individual an unobjectionable opportunity for a new possession. The |
|
consequence is... |
|
|
|
195. The Jews--a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the whole |
|
ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the nations," as |
|
they themselves say and believe--the Jews performed the miracle of the |
|
inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new |
|
and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused |
|
into one the expressions "rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent," |
|
"sensual," and for the first time coined the word "world" as a term of |
|
reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included |
|
the use of the word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the |
|
significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with THEM that |
|
the SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences. |
|
|
|
196. It is to be INFERRED that there are countless dark bodies near the |
|
sun--such as we shall never see. Among ourselves, this is an allegory; |
|
and the psychologist of morals reads the whole star-writing merely as an |
|
allegorical and symbolic language in which much may be unexpressed. |
|
|
|
197. The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Caesar Borgia) |
|
are fundamentally misunderstood, "nature" is misunderstood, so long as |
|
one seeks a "morbidness" in the constitution of these healthiest of |
|
all tropical monsters and growths, or even an innate "hell" in them--as |
|
almost all moralists have done hitherto. Does it not seem that there is |
|
a hatred of the virgin forest and of the tropics among moralists? And |
|
that the "tropical man" must be discredited at all costs, whether |
|
as disease and deterioration of mankind, or as his own hell and |
|
self-torture? And why? In favour of the "temperate zones"? In favour |
|
of the temperate men? The "moral"? The mediocre?--This for the chapter: |
|
"Morals as Timidity." |
|
|
|
198. All the systems of morals which address themselves with a view to |
|
their "happiness," as it is called--what else are they but suggestions |
|
for behaviour adapted to the degree of DANGER from themselves in which |
|
the individuals live; recipes for their passions, their good and bad |
|
propensities, insofar as such have the Will to Power and would like |
|
to play the master; small and great expediencies and elaborations, |
|
permeated with the musty odour of old family medicines and old-wife |
|
wisdom; all of them grotesque and absurd in their form--because |
|
they address themselves to "all," because they generalize where |
|
generalization is not authorized; all of them speaking unconditionally, |
|
and taking themselves unconditionally; all of them flavoured not merely |
|
with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, and sometimes even |
|
seductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to smell dangerously, |
|
especially of "the other world." That is all of little value when |
|
estimated intellectually, and is far from being "science," much less |
|
"wisdom"; but, repeated once more, and three times repeated, it is |
|
expediency, expediency, expediency, mixed with stupidity, stupidity, |
|
stupidity--whether it be the indifference and statuesque coldness |
|
towards the heated folly of the emotions, which the Stoics advised and |
|
fostered; or the no-more-laughing and no-more-weeping of Spinoza, the |
|
destruction of the emotions by their analysis and vivisection, which he |
|
recommended so naively; or the lowering of the emotions to an innocent |
|
mean at which they may be satisfied, the Aristotelianism of morals; |
|
or even morality as the enjoyment of the emotions in a voluntary |
|
attenuation and spiritualization by the symbolism of art, perhaps as |
|
music, or as love of God, and of mankind for God's sake--for in religion |
|
the passions are once more enfranchised, provided that...; or, finally, |
|
even the complaisant and wanton surrender to the emotions, as has |
|
been taught by Hafis and Goethe, the bold letting-go of the reins, the |
|
spiritual and corporeal licentia morum in the exceptional cases of |
|
wise old codgers and drunkards, with whom it "no longer has much |
|
danger."--This also for the chapter: "Morals as Timidity." |
|
|
|
199. Inasmuch as in all ages, as long as mankind has existed, there have |
|
also been human herds (family alliances, communities, tribes, peoples, |
|
states, churches), and always a great number who obey in proportion |
|
to the small number who command--in view, therefore, of the fact that |
|
obedience has been most practiced and fostered among mankind hitherto, |
|
one may reasonably suppose that, generally speaking, the need thereof is |
|
now innate in every one, as a kind of FORMAL CONSCIENCE which gives |
|
the command "Thou shalt unconditionally do something, unconditionally |
|
refrain from something", in short, "Thou shalt". This need tries to |
|
satisfy itself and to fill its form with a content, according to its |
|
strength, impatience, and eagerness, it at once seizes as an omnivorous |
|
appetite with little selection, and accepts whatever is shouted into |
|
its ear by all sorts of commanders--parents, teachers, laws, class |
|
prejudices, or public opinion. The extraordinary limitation of human |
|
development, the hesitation, protractedness, frequent retrogression, and |
|
turning thereof, is attributable to the fact that the herd-instinct of |
|
obedience is transmitted best, and at the cost of the art of command. If |
|
one imagine this instinct increasing to its greatest extent, commanders |
|
and independent individuals will finally be lacking altogether, or they |
|
will suffer inwardly from a bad conscience, and will have to impose |
|
a deception on themselves in the first place in order to be able to |
|
command just as if they also were only obeying. This condition of things |
|
actually exists in Europe at present--I call it the moral hypocrisy of |
|
the commanding class. They know no other way of protecting themselves |
|
from their bad conscience than by playing the role of executors of older |
|
and higher orders (of predecessors, of the constitution, of justice, of |
|
the law, or of God himself), or they even justify themselves by maxims |
|
from the current opinions of the herd, as "first servants of their |
|
people," or "instruments of the public weal". On the other hand, the |
|
gregarious European man nowadays assumes an air as if he were the only |
|
kind of man that is allowable, he glorifies his qualities, such as |
|
public spirit, kindness, deference, industry, temperance, modesty, |
|
indulgence, sympathy, by virtue of which he is gentle, endurable, and |
|
useful to the herd, as the peculiarly human virtues. In cases, however, |
|
where it is believed that the leader and bell-wether cannot be dispensed |
|
with, attempt after attempt is made nowadays to replace commanders |
|
by the summing together of clever gregarious men all representative |
|
constitutions, for example, are of this origin. In spite of all, what a |
|
blessing, what a deliverance from a weight becoming unendurable, is the |
|
appearance of an absolute ruler for these gregarious Europeans--of this |
|
fact the effect of the appearance of Napoleon was the last great proof |
|
the history of the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of |
|
the higher happiness to which the entire century has attained in its |
|
worthiest individuals and periods. |
|
|
|
200. The man of an age of dissolution which mixes the races with |
|
one another, who has the inheritance of a diversified descent in his |
|
body--that is to say, contrary, and often not only contrary, instincts |
|
and standards of value, which struggle with one another and are seldom |
|
at peace--such a man of late culture and broken lights, will, on an |
|
average, be a weak man. His fundamental desire is that the war which is |
|
IN HIM should come to an end; happiness appears to him in the character |
|
of a soothing medicine and mode of thought (for instance, Epicurean |
|
or Christian); it is above all things the happiness of repose, of |
|
undisturbedness, of repletion, of final unity--it is the "Sabbath of |
|
Sabbaths," to use the expression of the holy rhetorician, St. Augustine, |
|
who was himself such a man.--Should, however, the contrariety and |
|
conflict in such natures operate as an ADDITIONAL incentive and stimulus |
|
to life--and if, on the other hand, in addition to their powerful and |
|
irreconcilable instincts, they have also inherited and indoctrinated |
|
into them a proper mastery and subtlety for carrying on the conflict |
|
with themselves (that is to say, the faculty of self-control and |
|
self-deception), there then arise those marvelously incomprehensible and |
|
inexplicable beings, those enigmatical men, predestined for conquering |
|
and circumventing others, the finest examples of which are Alcibiades |
|
and Caesar (with whom I should like to associate the FIRST of Europeans |
|
according to my taste, the Hohenstaufen, Frederick the Second), and |
|
among artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear precisely in the |
|
same periods when that weaker type, with its longing for repose, comes |
|
to the front; the two types are complementary to each other, and spring |
|
from the same causes. |
|
|
|
201. As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only |
|
gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is only |
|
kept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively in |
|
what seems dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can be |
|
no "morality of love to one's neighbour." Granted even that there is |
|
already a little constant exercise of consideration, sympathy, fairness, |
|
gentleness, and mutual assistance, granted that even in this condition |
|
of society all those instincts are already active which are latterly |
|
distinguished by honourable names as "virtues," and eventually almost |
|
coincide with the conception "morality": in that period they do not |
|
as yet belong to the domain of moral valuations--they are still |
|
ULTRA-MORAL. A sympathetic action, for instance, is neither called good |
|
nor bad, moral nor immoral, in the best period of the Romans; and should |
|
it be praised, a sort of resentful disdain is compatible with this |
|
praise, even at the best, directly the sympathetic action is compared |
|
with one which contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES |
|
PUBLICA. After all, "love to our neighbour" is always a secondary |
|
matter, partly conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to |
|
our FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR. After the fabric of society seems on the |
|
whole established and secured against external dangers, it is this |
|
fear of our neighbour which again creates new perspectives of moral |
|
valuation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such as the love of |
|
enterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness, astuteness, rapacity, and |
|
love of power, which up till then had not only to be honoured from the |
|
point of view of general utility--under other names, of course, than |
|
those here given--but had to be fostered and cultivated (because they |
|
were perpetually required in the common danger against the common |
|
enemies), are now felt in their dangerousness to be doubly strong--when |
|
the outlets for them are lacking--and are gradually branded as immoral |
|
and given over to calumny. The contrary instincts and inclinations now |
|
attain to moral honour, the gregarious instinct gradually draws its |
|
conclusions. How much or how little dangerousness to the community or |
|
to equality is contained in an opinion, a condition, an emotion, a |
|
disposition, or an endowment--that is now the moral perspective, here |
|
again fear is the mother of morals. It is by the loftiest and strongest |
|
instincts, when they break out passionately and carry the individual |
|
far above and beyond the average, and the low level of the gregarious |
|
conscience, that the self-reliance of the community is destroyed, its |
|
belief in itself, its backbone, as it were, breaks, consequently these |
|
very instincts will be most branded and defamed. The lofty independent |
|
spirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent reason, are |
|
felt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above the |
|
herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called |
|
EVIL, the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing |
|
disposition, the MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and |
|
honour. Finally, under very peaceful circumstances, there is always |
|
less opportunity and necessity for training the feelings to severity |
|
and rigour, and now every form of severity, even in justice, begins |
|
to disturb the conscience, a lofty and rigorous nobleness and |
|
self-responsibility almost offends, and awakens distrust, "the lamb," |
|
and still more "the sheep," wins respect. There is a point of diseased |
|
mellowness and effeminacy in the history of society, at which society |
|
itself takes the part of him who injures it, the part of the CRIMINAL, |
|
and does so, in fact, seriously and honestly. To punish, appears to it |
|
to be somehow unfair--it is certain that the idea of "punishment" and |
|
"the obligation to punish" are then painful and alarming to people. "Is |
|
it not sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS? Why should we |
|
still punish? Punishment itself is terrible!"--with these questions |
|
gregarious morality, the morality of fear, draws its ultimate |
|
conclusion. If one could at all do away with danger, the cause of fear, |
|
one would have done away with this morality at the same time, it |
|
would no longer be necessary, it WOULD NOT CONSIDER ITSELF any longer |
|
necessary!--Whoever examines the conscience of the present-day European, |
|
will always elicit the same imperative from its thousand moral folds |
|
and hidden recesses, the imperative of the timidity of the herd "we wish |
|
that some time or other there may be NOTHING MORE TO FEAR!" Some time |
|
or other--the will and the way THERETO is nowadays called "progress" all |
|
over Europe. |
|
|
|
202. Let us at once say again what we have already said a hundred |
|
times, for people's ears nowadays are unwilling to hear such truths--OUR |
|
truths. We know well enough how offensive it sounds when any one |
|
plainly, and without metaphor, counts man among the animals, but it will |
|
be accounted to us almost a CRIME, that it is precisely in respect to |
|
men of "modern ideas" that we have constantly applied the terms "herd," |
|
"herd-instincts," and such like expressions. What avail is it? We cannot |
|
do otherwise, for it is precisely here that our new insight is. We |
|
have found that in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become |
|
unanimous, including likewise the countries where European influence |
|
prevails in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates thought he |
|
did not know, and what the famous serpent of old once promised to |
|
teach--they "know" today what is good and evil. It must then sound hard |
|
and be distasteful to the ear, when we always insist that that which |
|
here thinks it knows, that which here glorifies itself with praise |
|
and blame, and calls itself good, is the instinct of the herding human |
|
animal, the instinct which has come and is ever coming more and more |
|
to the front, to preponderance and supremacy over other instincts, |
|
according to the increasing physiological approximation and resemblance |
|
of which it is the symptom. MORALITY IN EUROPE AT PRESENT IS |
|
HERDING-ANIMAL MORALITY, and therefore, as we understand the matter, |
|
only one kind of human morality, beside which, before which, and after |
|
which many other moralities, and above all HIGHER moralities, are or |
|
should be possible. Against such a "possibility," against such a "should |
|
be," however, this morality defends itself with all its strength, it |
|
says obstinately and inexorably "I am morality itself and nothing else |
|
is morality!" Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured |
|
and flattered the sublimest desires of the herding-animal, things have |
|
reached such a point that we always find a more visible expression of |
|
this morality even in political and social arrangements: the DEMOCRATIC |
|
movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. That its TEMPO, |
|
however, is much too slow and sleepy for the more impatient ones, for |
|
those who are sick and distracted by the herding-instinct, is indicated |
|
by the increasingly furious howling, and always less disguised |
|
teeth-gnashing of the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the |
|
highways of European culture. Apparently in opposition to the peacefully |
|
industrious democrats and Revolution-ideologues, and still more so |
|
to the awkward philosophasters and fraternity-visionaries who call |
|
themselves Socialists and want a "free society," those are really at one |
|
with them all in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every form |
|
of society other than that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the extent even of |
|
repudiating the notions "master" and "servant"--ni dieu ni maitre, says |
|
a socialist formula); at one in their tenacious opposition to every |
|
special claim, every special right and privilege (this means ultimately |
|
opposition to EVERY right, for when all are equal, no one needs "rights" |
|
any longer); at one in their distrust of punitive justice (as though it |
|
were a violation of the weak, unfair to the NECESSARY consequences of |
|
all former society); but equally at one in their religion of sympathy, |
|
in their compassion for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to the |
|
very animals, up even to "God"--the extravagance of "sympathy for |
|
God" belongs to a democratic age); altogether at one in the cry and |
|
impatience of their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering |
|
generally, in their almost feminine incapacity for witnessing it or |
|
ALLOWING it; at one in their involuntary beglooming and heart-softening, |
|
under the spell of which Europe seems to be threatened with a new |
|
Buddhism; at one in their belief in the morality of MUTUAL sympathy, as |
|
though it were morality in itself, the climax, the ATTAINED climax of |
|
mankind, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of the present, |
|
the great discharge from all the obligations of the past; altogether at |
|
one in their belief in the community as the DELIVERER, in the herd, and |
|
therefore in "themselves." |
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|
203. We, who hold a different belief--we, who regard the democratic |
|
movement, not only as a degenerating form of political organization, but |
|
as equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type of man, as involving his |
|
mediocrising and depreciation: where have WE to fix our hopes? In |
|
NEW PHILOSOPHERS--there is no other alternative: in minds strong and |
|
original enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue |
|
and invert "eternal valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future, |
|
who in the present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which |
|
will compel millenniums to take NEW paths. To teach man the future |
|
of humanity as his WILL, as depending on human will, and to make |
|
preparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in |
|
rearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful |
|
rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of |
|
"history" (the folly of the "greatest number" is only its last |
|
form)--for that purpose a new type of philosopher and commander will |
|
some time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that |
|
has existed in the way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might |
|
look pale and dwarfed. The image of such leaders hovers before OUR |
|
eyes:--is it lawful for me to say it aloud, ye free spirits? The |
|
conditions which one would partly have to create and partly utilize for |
|
their genesis; the presumptive methods and tests by virtue of which |
|
a soul should grow up to such an elevation and power as to feel a |
|
CONSTRAINT to these tasks; a transvaluation of values, under the new |
|
pressure and hammer of which a conscience should be steeled and a heart |
|
transformed into brass, so as to bear the weight of such responsibility; |
|
and on the other hand the necessity for such leaders, the dreadful |
|
danger that they might be lacking, or miscarry and degenerate:--these |
|
are OUR real anxieties and glooms, ye know it well, ye free spirits! |
|
these are the heavy distant thoughts and storms which sweep across the |
|
heaven of OUR life. There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, |
|
divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and |
|
deteriorated; but he who has the rare eye for the universal danger |
|
of "man" himself DETERIORATING, he who like us has recognized the |
|
extraordinary fortuitousness which has hitherto played its game in |
|
respect to the future of mankind--a game in which neither the hand, nor |
|
even a "finger of God" has participated!--he who divines the fate that |
|
is hidden under the idiotic unwariness and blind confidence of |
|
"modern ideas," and still more under the whole of Christo-European |
|
morality--suffers from an anguish with which no other is to be compared. |
|
He sees at a glance all that could still BE MADE OUT OF MAN through |
|
a favourable accumulation and augmentation of human powers and |
|
arrangements; he knows with all the knowledge of his conviction how |
|
unexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities, and how often |
|
in the past the type man has stood in presence of mysterious decisions |
|
and new paths:--he knows still better from his painfulest recollections |
|
on what wretched obstacles promising developments of the highest rank |
|
have hitherto usually gone to pieces, broken down, sunk, and become |
|
contemptible. The UNIVERSAL DEGENERACY OF MANKIND to the level of |
|
the "man of the future"--as idealized by the socialistic fools and |
|
shallow-pates--this degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely |
|
gregarious animal (or as they call it, to a man of "free society"), |
|
this brutalizing of man into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is |
|
undoubtedly POSSIBLE! He who has thought out this possibility to its |
|
ultimate conclusion knows ANOTHER loathing unknown to the rest of |
|
mankind--and perhaps also a new MISSION! |
|
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|
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|
|
CHAPTER VI. WE SCHOLARS |
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|
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204. At the risk that moralizing may also reveal itself here as that |
|
which it has always been--namely, resolutely MONTRER SES PLAIES, |
|
according to Balzac--I would venture to protest against an improper and |
|
injurious alteration of rank, which quite unnoticed, and as if with the |
|
best conscience, threatens nowadays to establish itself in the relations |
|
of science and philosophy. I mean to say that one must have the right |
|
out of one's own EXPERIENCE--experience, as it seems to me, always |
|
implies unfortunate experience?--to treat of such an important question |
|
of rank, so as not to speak of colour like the blind, or AGAINST science |
|
like women and artists ("Ah! this dreadful science!" sigh their instinct |
|
and their shame, "it always FINDS THINGS OUT!"). The declaration of |
|
independence of the scientific man, his emancipation from philosophy, |
|
is one of the subtler after-effects of democratic organization and |
|
disorganization: the self-glorification and self-conceitedness of |
|
the learned man is now everywhere in full bloom, and in its best |
|
springtime--which does not mean to imply that in this case self-praise |
|
smells sweet. Here also the instinct of the populace cries, "Freedom |
|
from all masters!" and after science has, with the happiest results, |
|
resisted theology, whose "hand-maid" it had been too long, it now |
|
proposes in its wantonness and indiscretion to lay down laws for |
|
philosophy, and in its turn to play the "master"--what am I saying! |
|
to play the PHILOSOPHER on its own account. My memory--the memory of |
|
a scientific man, if you please!--teems with the naivetes of insolence |
|
which I have heard about philosophy and philosophers from young |
|
naturalists and old physicians (not to mention the most cultured and |
|
most conceited of all learned men, the philologists and schoolmasters, |
|
who are both the one and the other by profession). On one occasion it |
|
was the specialist and the Jack Horner who instinctively stood on the |
|
defensive against all synthetic tasks and capabilities; at another time |
|
it was the industrious worker who had got a scent of OTIUM and refined |
|
luxuriousness in the internal economy of the philosopher, and felt |
|
himself aggrieved and belittled thereby. On another occasion it was the |
|
colour-blindness of the utilitarian, who sees nothing in philosophy but |
|
a series of REFUTED systems, and an extravagant expenditure which "does |
|
nobody any good". At another time the fear of disguised mysticism and of |
|
the boundary-adjustment of knowledge became conspicuous, at another |
|
time the disregard of individual philosophers, which had involuntarily |
|
extended to disregard of philosophy generally. In fine, I found most |
|
frequently, behind the proud disdain of philosophy in young scholars, |
|
the evil after-effect of some particular philosopher, to whom on the |
|
whole obedience had been foresworn, without, however, the spell of his |
|
scornful estimates of other philosophers having been got rid of--the |
|
result being a general ill-will to all philosophy. (Such seems to |
|
me, for instance, the after-effect of Schopenhauer on the most modern |
|
Germany: by his unintelligent rage against Hegel, he has succeeded in |
|
severing the whole of the last generation of Germans from its connection |
|
with German culture, which culture, all things considered, has been |
|
an elevation and a divining refinement of the HISTORICAL SENSE, but |
|
precisely at this point Schopenhauer himself was poor, irreceptive, |
|
and un-German to the extent of ingeniousness.) On the whole, speaking |
|
generally, it may just have been the humanness, all-too-humanness of the |
|
modern philosophers themselves, in short, their contemptibleness, which |
|
has injured most radically the reverence for philosophy and opened the |
|
doors to the instinct of the populace. Let it but be acknowledged to |
|
what an extent our modern world diverges from the whole style of the |
|
world of Heraclitus, Plato, Empedocles, and whatever else all the royal |
|
and magnificent anchorites of the spirit were called, and with what |
|
justice an honest man of science MAY feel himself of a better family and |
|
origin, in view of such representatives of philosophy, who, owing to |
|
the fashion of the present day, are just as much aloft as they are down |
|
below--in Germany, for instance, the two lions of Berlin, the anarchist |
|
Eugen Duhring and the amalgamist Eduard von Hartmann. It is especially |
|
the sight of those hotch-potch philosophers, who call themselves |
|
"realists," or "positivists," which is calculated to implant a |
|
dangerous distrust in the soul of a young and ambitious scholar those |
|
philosophers, at the best, are themselves but scholars and specialists, |
|
that is very evident! All of them are persons who have been vanquished |
|
and BROUGHT BACK AGAIN under the dominion of science, who at one time |
|
or another claimed more from themselves, without having a right to the |
|
"more" and its responsibility--and who now, creditably, rancorously, and |
|
vindictively, represent in word and deed, DISBELIEF in the master-task |
|
and supremacy of philosophy After all, how could it be otherwise? |
|
Science flourishes nowadays and has the good conscience clearly visible |
|
on its countenance, while that to which the entire modern philosophy has |
|
gradually sunk, the remnant of philosophy of the present day, excites |
|
distrust and displeasure, if not scorn and pity Philosophy reduced to |
|
a "theory of knowledge," no more in fact than a diffident science of |
|
epochs and doctrine of forbearance a philosophy that never even |
|
gets beyond the threshold, and rigorously DENIES itself the right |
|
to enter--that is philosophy in its last throes, an end, an agony, |
|
something that awakens pity. How could such a philosophy--RULE! |
|
|
|
205. The dangers that beset the evolution of the philosopher are, in |
|
fact, so manifold nowadays, that one might doubt whether this fruit |
|
could still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of the |
|
sciences have increased enormously, and therewith also the probability |
|
that the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner, or will attach |
|
himself somewhere and "specialize" so that he will no longer attain to |
|
his elevation, that is to say, to his superspection, his circumspection, |
|
and his DESPECTION. Or he gets aloft too late, when the best of his |
|
maturity and strength is past, or when he is impaired, coarsened, and |
|
deteriorated, so that his view, his general estimate of things, is no |
|
longer of much importance. It is perhaps just the refinement of his |
|
intellectual conscience that makes him hesitate and linger on the |
|
way, he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a |
|
milleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost |
|
his self-respect no longer commands, no longer LEADS, unless he should |
|
aspire to become a great play-actor, a philosophical Cagliostro and |
|
spiritual rat-catcher--in short, a misleader. This is in the last |
|
instance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of |
|
conscience. To double once more the philosopher's difficulties, there is |
|
also the fact that he demands from himself a verdict, a Yea or Nay, not |
|
concerning science, but concerning life and the worth of life--he learns |
|
unwillingly to believe that it is his right and even his duty to obtain |
|
this verdict, and he has to seek his way to the right and the belief |
|
only through the most extensive (perhaps disturbing and destroying) |
|
experiences, often hesitating, doubting, and dumbfounded. In fact, the |
|
philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either |
|
with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously |
|
elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated |
|
man; and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives |
|
"wisely," or "as a philosopher," it hardly means anything more than |
|
"prudently and apart." Wisdom: that seems to the populace to be a kind |
|
of flight, a means and artifice for withdrawing successfully from a |
|
bad game; but the GENUINE philosopher--does it not seem so to US, |
|
my friends?--lives "unphilosophically" and "unwisely," above all, |
|
IMPRUDENTLY, and feels the obligation and burden of a hundred attempts |
|
and temptations of life--he risks HIMSELF constantly, he plays THIS bad |
|
game. |
|
|
|
206. In relation to the genius, that is to say, a being who either |
|
ENGENDERS or PRODUCES--both words understood in their fullest sense--the |
|
man of learning, the scientific average man, has always something of |
|
the old maid about him; for, like her, he is not conversant with the two |
|
principal functions of man. To both, of course, to the scholar and |
|
to the old maid, one concedes respectability, as if by way of |
|
indemnification--in these cases one emphasizes the respectability--and |
|
yet, in the compulsion of this concession, one has the same admixture |
|
of vexation. Let us examine more closely: what is the scientific man? |
|
Firstly, a commonplace type of man, with commonplace virtues: that is |
|
to say, a non-ruling, non-authoritative, and non-self-sufficient type |
|
of man; he possesses industry, patient adaptableness to rank and file, |
|
equability and moderation in capacity and requirement; he has the |
|
instinct for people like himself, and for that which they require--for |
|
instance: the portion of independence and green meadow without which |
|
there is no rest from labour, the claim to honour and consideration |
|
(which first and foremost presupposes recognition and recognisability), |
|
the sunshine of a good name, the perpetual ratification of his value and |
|
usefulness, with which the inward DISTRUST which lies at the bottom of |
|
the heart of all dependent men and gregarious animals, has again and |
|
again to be overcome. The learned man, as is appropriate, has also |
|
maladies and faults of an ignoble kind: he is full of petty envy, and |
|
has a lynx-eye for the weak points in those natures to whose elevations |
|
he cannot attain. He is confiding, yet only as one who lets himself go, |
|
but does not FLOW; and precisely before the man of the great current he |
|
stands all the colder and more reserved--his eye is then like a smooth |
|
and irresponsive lake, which is no longer moved by rapture or sympathy. |
|
The worst and most dangerous thing of which a scholar is capable results |
|
from the instinct of mediocrity of his type, from the Jesuitism of |
|
mediocrity, which labours instinctively for the destruction of |
|
the exceptional man, and endeavours to break--or still better, to |
|
relax--every bent bow To relax, of course, with consideration, and |
|
naturally with an indulgent hand--to RELAX with confiding sympathy |
|
that is the real art of Jesuitism, which has always understood how to |
|
introduce itself as the religion of sympathy. |
|
|
|
207. However gratefully one may welcome the OBJECTIVE spirit--and |
|
who has not been sick to death of all subjectivity and its confounded |
|
IPSISIMOSITY!--in the end, however, one must learn caution even with |
|
regard to one's gratitude, and put a stop to the exaggeration with |
|
which the unselfing and depersonalizing of the spirit has recently been |
|
celebrated, as if it were the goal in itself, as if it were salvation |
|
and glorification--as is especially accustomed to happen in the |
|
pessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the |
|
highest honours to "disinterested knowledge" The objective man, who no |
|
longer curses and scolds like the pessimist, the IDEAL man of learning |
|
in whom the scientific instinct blossoms forth fully after a thousand |
|
complete and partial failures, is assuredly one of the most costly |
|
instruments that exist, but his place is in the hand of one who is more |
|
powerful He is only an instrument, we may say, he is a MIRROR--he is no |
|
"purpose in himself" The objective man is in truth a mirror accustomed |
|
to prostration before everything that wants to be known, with such |
|
desires only as knowing or "reflecting" implies--he waits until |
|
something comes, and then expands himself sensitively, so that even the |
|
light footsteps and gliding-past of spiritual beings may not be lost on |
|
his surface and film Whatever "personality" he still possesses seems to |
|
him accidental, arbitrary, or still oftener, disturbing, so much has he |
|
come to regard himself as the passage and reflection of outside forms |
|
and events He calls up the recollection of "himself" with an effort, |
|
and not infrequently wrongly, he readily confounds himself with other |
|
persons, he makes mistakes with regard to his own needs, and here only |
|
is he unrefined and negligent Perhaps he is troubled about the health, |
|
or the pettiness and confined atmosphere of wife and friend, or the lack |
|
of companions and society--indeed, he sets himself to reflect on his |
|
suffering, but in vain! His thoughts already rove away to the MORE |
|
GENERAL case, and tomorrow he knows as little as he knew yesterday how |
|
to help himself He does not now take himself seriously and devote time |
|
to himself he is serene, NOT from lack of trouble, but from lack |
|
of capacity for grasping and dealing with HIS trouble The habitual |
|
complaisance with respect to all objects and experiences, the radiant |
|
and impartial hospitality with which he receives everything that |
|
comes his way, his habit of inconsiderate good-nature, of dangerous |
|
indifference as to Yea and Nay: alas! there are enough of cases in which |
|
he has to atone for these virtues of his!--and as man generally, he |
|
becomes far too easily the CAPUT MORTUUM of such virtues. Should one |
|
wish love or hatred from him--I mean love and hatred as God, woman, and |
|
animal understand them--he will do what he can, and furnish what he can. |
|
But one must not be surprised if it should not be much--if he should |
|
show himself just at this point to be false, fragile, questionable, and |
|
deteriorated. His love is constrained, his hatred is artificial, and |
|
rather UN TOUR DE FORCE, a slight ostentation and exaggeration. He is |
|
only genuine so far as he can be objective; only in his serene totality |
|
is he still "nature" and "natural." His mirroring and eternally |
|
self-polishing soul no longer knows how to affirm, no longer how to |
|
deny; he does not command; neither does he destroy. "JE NE MEPRISE |
|
PRESQUE RIEN"--he says, with Leibniz: let us not overlook nor undervalue |
|
the PRESQUE! Neither is he a model man; he does not go in advance of any |
|
one, nor after, either; he places himself generally too far off to have |
|
any reason for espousing the cause of either good or evil. If he has |
|
been so long confounded with the PHILOSOPHER, with the Caesarian trainer |
|
and dictator of civilization, he has had far too much honour, and what |
|
is more essential in him has been overlooked--he is an instrument, |
|
something of a slave, though certainly the sublimest sort of slave, but |
|
nothing in himself--PRESQUE RIEN! The objective man is an instrument, |
|
a costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and |
|
mirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected; but he |
|
is no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the |
|
REST of existence justifies itself, no termination--and still less a |
|
commencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful, |
|
self-centred, that wants to be master; but rather only a soft, inflated, |
|
delicate, movable potter's-form, that must wait for some kind of content |
|
and frame to "shape" itself thereto--for the most part a man without |
|
frame and content, a "selfless" man. Consequently, also, nothing for |
|
women, IN PARENTHESI. |
|
|
|
208. When a philosopher nowadays makes known that he is not a skeptic--I |
|
hope that has been gathered from the foregoing description of the |
|
objective spirit?--people all hear it impatiently; they regard him on |
|
that account with some apprehension, they would like to ask so many, |
|
many questions... indeed among timid hearers, of whom there are now so |
|
many, he is henceforth said to be dangerous. With his repudiation of |
|
skepticism, it seems to them as if they heard some evil-threatening |
|
sound in the distance, as if a new kind of explosive were being tried |
|
somewhere, a dynamite of the spirit, perhaps a newly discovered Russian |
|
NIHILINE, a pessimism BONAE VOLUNTATIS, that not only denies, means |
|
denial, but--dreadful thought! PRACTISES denial. Against this kind of |
|
"good-will"--a will to the veritable, actual negation of life--there is, |
|
as is generally acknowledged nowadays, no better soporific and sedative |
|
than skepticism, the mild, pleasing, lulling poppy of skepticism; |
|
and Hamlet himself is now prescribed by the doctors of the day as an |
|
antidote to the "spirit," and its underground noises. "Are not our ears |
|
already full of bad sounds?" say the skeptics, as lovers of repose, and |
|
almost as a kind of safety police; "this subterranean Nay is terrible! |
|
Be still, ye pessimistic moles!" The skeptic, in effect, that delicate |
|
creature, is far too easily frightened; his conscience is schooled so |
|
as to start at every Nay, and even at that sharp, decided Yea, and feels |
|
something like a bite thereby. Yea! and Nay!--they seem to him opposed |
|
to morality; he loves, on the contrary, to make a festival to his virtue |
|
by a noble aloofness, while perhaps he says with Montaigne: "What do I |
|
know?" Or with Socrates: "I know that I know nothing." Or: "Here I do |
|
not trust myself, no door is open to me." Or: "Even if the door were |
|
open, why should I enter immediately?" Or: "What is the use of any hasty |
|
hypotheses? It might quite well be in good taste to make no hypotheses |
|
at all. Are you absolutely obliged to straighten at once what is |
|
crooked? to stuff every hole with some kind of oakum? Is there not time |
|
enough for that? Has not the time leisure? Oh, ye demons, can ye not |
|
at all WAIT? The uncertain also has its charms, the Sphinx, too, is a |
|
Circe, and Circe, too, was a philosopher."--Thus does a skeptic console |
|
himself; and in truth he needs some consolation. For skepticism is |
|
the most spiritual expression of a certain many-sided physiological |
|
temperament, which in ordinary language is called nervous debility and |
|
sickliness; it arises whenever races or classes which have been long |
|
separated, decisively and suddenly blend with one another. In the new |
|
generation, which has inherited as it were different standards and |
|
valuations in its blood, everything is disquiet, derangement, doubt, and |
|
tentativeness; the best powers operate restrictively, the very virtues |
|
prevent each other growing and becoming strong, equilibrium, ballast, |
|
and perpendicular stability are lacking in body and soul. That, however, |
|
which is most diseased and degenerated in such nondescripts is the |
|
WILL; they are no longer familiar with independence of decision, or |
|
the courageous feeling of pleasure in willing--they are doubtful of the |
|
"freedom of the will" even in their dreams Our present-day Europe, |
|
the scene of a senseless, precipitate attempt at a radical blending of |
|
classes, and CONSEQUENTLY of races, is therefore skeptical in all its |
|
heights and depths, sometimes exhibiting the mobile skepticism which |
|
springs impatiently and wantonly from branch to branch, sometimes with |
|
gloomy aspect, like a cloud over-charged with interrogative signs--and |
|
often sick unto death of its will! Paralysis of will, where do we not |
|
find this cripple sitting nowadays! And yet how bedecked oftentimes' How |
|
seductively ornamented! There are the finest gala dresses and disguises |
|
for this disease, and that, for instance, most of what places itself |
|
nowadays in the show-cases as "objectiveness," "the scientific spirit," |
|
"L'ART POUR L'ART," and "pure voluntary knowledge," is only decked-out |
|
skepticism and paralysis of will--I am ready to answer for this |
|
diagnosis of the European disease--The disease of the will is diffused |
|
unequally over Europe, it is worst and most varied where civilization |
|
has longest prevailed, it decreases according as "the barbarian" |
|
still--or again--asserts his claims under the loose drapery of Western |
|
culture It is therefore in the France of today, as can be readily |
|
disclosed and comprehended, that the will is most infirm, and France, |
|
which has always had a masterly aptitude for converting even the |
|
portentous crises of its spirit into something charming and seductive, |
|
now manifests emphatically its intellectual ascendancy over Europe, |
|
by being the school and exhibition of all the charms of skepticism The |
|
power to will and to persist, moreover, in a resolution, is already |
|
somewhat stronger in Germany, and again in the North of Germany it |
|
is stronger than in Central Germany, it is considerably stronger in |
|
England, Spain, and Corsica, associated with phlegm in the former and |
|
with hard skulls in the latter--not to mention Italy, which is too young |
|
yet to know what it wants, and must first show whether it can exercise |
|
will, but it is strongest and most surprising of all in that immense |
|
middle empire where Europe as it were flows back to Asia--namely, in |
|
Russia There the power to will has been long stored up and accumulated, |
|
there the will--uncertain whether to be negative or affirmative--waits |
|
threateningly to be discharged (to borrow their pet phrase from our |
|
physicists) Perhaps not only Indian wars and complications in Asia would |
|
be necessary to free Europe from its greatest danger, but also internal |
|
subversion, the shattering of the empire into small states, and above |
|
all the introduction of parliamentary imbecility, together with the |
|
obligation of every one to read his newspaper at breakfast I do not |
|
say this as one who desires it, in my heart I should rather prefer the |
|
contrary--I mean such an increase in the threatening attitude of |
|
Russia, that Europe would have to make up its mind to become equally |
|
threatening--namely, TO ACQUIRE ONE WILL, by means of a new caste to |
|
rule over the Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that |
|
can set its aims thousands of years ahead; so that the long spun-out |
|
comedy of its petty-statism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic |
|
many-willed-ness, might finally be brought to a close. The time for |
|
petty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the |
|
dominion of the world--the COMPULSION to great politics. |
|
|
|
209. As to how far the new warlike age on which we Europeans have |
|
evidently entered may perhaps favour the growth of another and stronger |
|
kind of skepticism, I should like to express myself preliminarily |
|
merely by a parable, which the lovers of German history will already |
|
understand. That unscrupulous enthusiast for big, handsome grenadiers |
|
(who, as King of Prussia, brought into being a military and skeptical |
|
genius--and therewith, in reality, the new and now triumphantly emerged |
|
type of German), the problematic, crazy father of Frederick the Great, |
|
had on one point the very knack and lucky grasp of the genius: he knew |
|
what was then lacking in Germany, the want of which was a hundred times |
|
more alarming and serious than any lack of culture and social form--his |
|
ill-will to the young Frederick resulted from the anxiety of a profound |
|
instinct. MEN WERE LACKING; and he suspected, to his bitterest regret, |
|
that his own son was not man enough. There, however, he deceived |
|
himself; but who would not have deceived himself in his place? He saw |
|
his son lapsed to atheism, to the ESPRIT, to the pleasant frivolity of |
|
clever Frenchmen--he saw in the background the great bloodsucker, the |
|
spider skepticism; he suspected the incurable wretchedness of a heart no |
|
longer hard enough either for evil or good, and of a broken will that no |
|
longer commands, is no longer ABLE to command. Meanwhile, however, |
|
there grew up in his son that new kind of harder and more dangerous |
|
skepticism--who knows TO WHAT EXTENT it was encouraged just by |
|
his father's hatred and the icy melancholy of a will condemned to |
|
solitude?--the skepticism of daring manliness, which is closely related |
|
to the genius for war and conquest, and made its first entrance into |
|
Germany in the person of the great Frederick. This skepticism despises |
|
and nevertheless grasps; it undermines and takes possession; it does |
|
not believe, but it does not thereby lose itself; it gives the spirit a |
|
dangerous liberty, but it keeps strict guard over the heart. It is the |
|
GERMAN form of skepticism, which, as a continued Fredericianism, risen |
|
to the highest spirituality, has kept Europe for a considerable time |
|
under the dominion of the German spirit and its critical and historical |
|
distrust Owing to the insuperably strong and tough masculine character |
|
of the great German philologists and historical critics (who, |
|
rightly estimated, were also all of them artists of destruction |
|
and dissolution), a NEW conception of the German spirit gradually |
|
established itself--in spite of all Romanticism in music and |
|
philosophy--in which the leaning towards masculine skepticism was |
|
decidedly prominent whether, for instance, as fearlessness of gaze, as |
|
courage and sternness of the dissecting hand, or as resolute will to |
|
dangerous voyages of discovery, to spiritualized North Pole expeditions |
|
under barren and dangerous skies. There may be good grounds for it when |
|
warm-blooded and superficial humanitarians cross themselves before this |
|
spirit, CET ESPRIT FATALISTE, IRONIQUE, MEPHISTOPHELIQUE, as Michelet |
|
calls it, not without a shudder. But if one would realize how |
|
characteristic is this fear of the "man" in the German spirit which |
|
awakened Europe out of its "dogmatic slumber," let us call to mind the |
|
former conception which had to be overcome by this new one--and that |
|
it is not so very long ago that a masculinized woman could dare, with |
|
unbridled presumption, to recommend the Germans to the interest of |
|
Europe as gentle, good-hearted, weak-willed, and poetical fools. |
|
Finally, let us only understand profoundly enough Napoleon's |
|
astonishment when he saw Goethe it reveals what had been regarded for |
|
centuries as the "German spirit" "VOILA UN HOMME!"--that was as much as |
|
to say "But this is a MAN! And I only expected to see a German!" |
|
|
|
210. Supposing, then, that in the picture of the philosophers of the |
|
future, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps |
|
be skeptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only be |
|
designated thereby--and not they themselves. With equal right they might |
|
call themselves critics, and assuredly they will be men of experiments. |
|
By the name with which I ventured to baptize them, I have already |
|
expressly emphasized their attempting and their love of attempting is |
|
this because, as critics in body and soul, they will love to make use |
|
of experiments in a new, and perhaps wider and more dangerous sense? In |
|
their passion for knowledge, will they have to go further in daring and |
|
painful attempts than the sensitive and pampered taste of a democratic |
|
century can approve of?--There is no doubt these coming ones will be |
|
least able to dispense with the serious and not unscrupulous qualities |
|
which distinguish the critic from the skeptic I mean the certainty as to |
|
standards of worth, the conscious employment of a unity of method, |
|
the wary courage, the standing-alone, and the capacity for |
|
self-responsibility, indeed, they will avow among themselves a DELIGHT |
|
in denial and dissection, and a certain considerate cruelty, which knows |
|
how to handle the knife surely and deftly, even when the heart bleeds |
|
They will be STERNER (and perhaps not always towards themselves only) |
|
than humane people may desire, they will not deal with the "truth" in |
|
order that it may "please" them, or "elevate" and "inspire" them--they |
|
will rather have little faith in "TRUTH" bringing with it such revels |
|
for the feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one |
|
says in their presence "That thought elevates me, why should it not be |
|
true?" or "That work enchants me, why should it not be beautiful?" or |
|
"That artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?" Perhaps they |
|
will not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus |
|
rapturous, idealistic, feminine, and hermaphroditic, and if any one |
|
could look into their inmost hearts, he would not easily find therein |
|
the intention to reconcile "Christian sentiments" with "antique taste," |
|
or even with "modern parliamentarism" (the kind of reconciliation |
|
necessarily found even among philosophers in our very uncertain and |
|
consequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every |
|
habit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters, |
|
will not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of |
|
the future, they may even make a display thereof as their special |
|
adornment--nevertheless they will not want to be called critics on that |
|
account. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to |
|
have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that "philosophy itself is |
|
criticism and critical science--and nothing else whatever!" Though this |
|
estimate of philosophy may enjoy the approval of all the Positivists of |
|
France and Germany (and possibly it even flattered the heart and taste |
|
of KANT: let us call to mind the titles of his principal works), our new |
|
philosophers will say, notwithstanding, that critics are instruments of |
|
the philosopher, and just on that account, as instruments, they are |
|
far from being philosophers themselves! Even the great Chinaman of |
|
Konigsberg was only a great critic. |
|
|
|
211. I insist upon it that people finally cease confounding |
|
philosophical workers, and in general scientific men, with |
|
philosophers--that precisely here one should strictly give "each his |
|
own," and not give those far too much, these far too little. It may |
|
be necessary for the education of the real philosopher that he himself |
|
should have once stood upon all those steps upon which his servants, |
|
the scientific workers of philosophy, remain standing, and MUST remain |
|
standing he himself must perhaps have been critic, and dogmatist, |
|
and historian, and besides, poet, and collector, and traveler, and |
|
riddle-reader, and moralist, and seer, and "free spirit," and almost |
|
everything, in order to traverse the whole range of human values |
|
and estimations, and that he may BE ABLE with a variety of eyes and |
|
consciences to look from a height to any distance, from a depth up |
|
to any height, from a nook into any expanse. But all these are only |
|
preliminary conditions for his task; this task itself demands something |
|
else--it requires him TO CREATE VALUES. The philosophical workers, after |
|
the excellent pattern of Kant and Hegel, have to fix and formalize some |
|
great existing body of valuations--that is to say, former DETERMINATIONS |
|
OF VALUE, creations of value, which have become prevalent, and are for |
|
a time called "truths"--whether in the domain of the LOGICAL, the |
|
POLITICAL (moral), or the ARTISTIC. It is for these investigators to |
|
make whatever has happened and been esteemed hitherto, conspicuous, |
|
conceivable, intelligible, and manageable, to shorten everything long, |
|
even "time" itself, and to SUBJUGATE the entire past: an immense and |
|
wonderful task, in the carrying out of which all refined pride, all |
|
tenacious will, can surely find satisfaction. THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, |
|
HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!" |
|
They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby |
|
set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all |
|
subjugators of the past--they grasp at the future with a creative |
|
hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an |
|
instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is CREATING, their creating |
|
is a law-giving, their will to truth is--WILL TO POWER.--Are there at |
|
present such philosophers? Have there ever been such philosophers? MUST |
|
there not be such philosophers some day? ... |
|
|
|
212. It is always more obvious to me that the philosopher, as a man |
|
INDISPENSABLE for the morrow and the day after the morrow, has ever |
|
found himself, and HAS BEEN OBLIGED to find himself, in contradiction |
|
to the day in which he lives; his enemy has always been the ideal of his |
|
day. Hitherto all those extraordinary furtherers of humanity whom one |
|
calls philosophers--who rarely regarded themselves as lovers of wisdom, |
|
but rather as disagreeable fools and dangerous interrogators--have found |
|
their mission, their hard, involuntary, imperative mission (in the end, |
|
however, the greatness of their mission), in being the bad conscience of |
|
their age. In putting the vivisector's knife to the breast of the very |
|
VIRTUES OF THEIR AGE, they have betrayed their own secret; it has been |
|
for the sake of a NEW greatness of man, a new untrodden path to |
|
his aggrandizement. They have always disclosed how much hypocrisy, |
|
indolence, self-indulgence, and self-neglect, how much falsehood was |
|
concealed under the most venerated types of contemporary morality, how |
|
much virtue was OUTLIVED, they have always said "We must remove hence to |
|
where YOU are least at home" In the face of a world of "modern ideas," |
|
which would like to confine every one in a corner, in a "specialty," a |
|
philosopher, if there could be philosophers nowadays, would be compelled |
|
to place the greatness of man, the conception of "greatness," precisely |
|
in his comprehensiveness and multifariousness, in his all-roundness, he |
|
would even determine worth and rank according to the amount and variety |
|
of that which a man could bear and take upon himself, according to the |
|
EXTENT to which a man could stretch his responsibility Nowadays the |
|
taste and virtue of the age weaken and attenuate the will, nothing is |
|
so adapted to the spirit of the age as weakness of will consequently, in |
|
the ideal of the philosopher, strength of will, sternness, and capacity |
|
for prolonged resolution, must specially be included in the conception |
|
of "greatness", with as good a right as the opposite doctrine, with its |
|
ideal of a silly, renouncing, humble, selfless humanity, was suited to |
|
an opposite age--such as the sixteenth century, which suffered from its |
|
accumulated energy of will, and from the wildest torrents and floods |
|
of selfishness In the time of Socrates, among men only of worn-out |
|
instincts, old conservative Athenians who let themselves go--"for the |
|
sake of happiness," as they said, for the sake of pleasure, as their |
|
conduct indicated--and who had continually on their lips the old pompous |
|
words to which they had long forfeited the right by the life they led, |
|
IRONY was perhaps necessary for greatness of soul, the wicked Socratic |
|
assurance of the old physician and plebeian, who cut ruthlessly into his |
|
own flesh, as into the flesh and heart of the "noble," with a look that |
|
said plainly enough "Do not dissemble before me! here--we are equal!" |
|
At present, on the contrary, when throughout Europe the herding-animal |
|
alone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when "equality of |
|
right" can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong--I mean to |
|
say into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged, |
|
against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher |
|
responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness--at present |
|
it belongs to the conception of "greatness" to be noble, to wish to be |
|
apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to live |
|
by personal initiative, and the philosopher will betray something of his |
|
own ideal when he asserts "He shall be the greatest who can be the most |
|
solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good |
|
and evil, the master of his virtues, and of super-abundance of will; |
|
precisely this shall be called GREATNESS: as diversified as can be |
|
entire, as ample as can be full." And to ask once more the question: Is |
|
greatness POSSIBLE--nowadays? |
|
|
|
213. It is difficult to learn what a philosopher is, because it cannot |
|
be taught: one must "know" it by experience--or one should have the |
|
pride NOT to know it. The fact that at present people all talk of things |
|
of which they CANNOT have any experience, is true more especially |
|
and unfortunately as concerns the philosopher and philosophical |
|
matters:--the very few know them, are permitted to know them, and |
|
all popular ideas about them are false. Thus, for instance, the truly |
|
philosophical combination of a bold, exuberant spirituality which runs |
|
at presto pace, and a dialectic rigour and necessity which makes no |
|
false step, is unknown to most thinkers and scholars from their own |
|
experience, and therefore, should any one speak of it in their |
|
presence, it is incredible to them. They conceive of every necessity as |
|
troublesome, as a painful compulsory obedience and state of constraint; |
|
thinking itself is regarded by them as something slow and hesitating, |
|
almost as a trouble, and often enough as "worthy of the SWEAT of the |
|
noble"--but not at all as something easy and divine, closely related |
|
to dancing and exuberance! "To think" and to take a matter "seriously," |
|
"arduously"--that is one and the same thing to them; such only has been |
|
their "experience."--Artists have here perhaps a finer intuition; they |
|
who know only too well that precisely when they no longer do anything |
|
"arbitrarily," and everything of necessity, their feeling of freedom, |
|
of subtlety, of power, of creatively fixing, disposing, and shaping, |
|
reaches its climax--in short, that necessity and "freedom of will" are |
|
then the same thing with them. There is, in fine, a gradation of rank |
|
in psychical states, to which the gradation of rank in the problems |
|
corresponds; and the highest problems repel ruthlessly every one who |
|
ventures too near them, without being predestined for their solution |
|
by the loftiness and power of his spirituality. Of what use is it for |
|
nimble, everyday intellects, or clumsy, honest mechanics and empiricists |
|
to press, in their plebeian ambition, close to such problems, and as |
|
it were into this "holy of holies"--as so often happens nowadays! But |
|
coarse feet must never tread upon such carpets: this is provided for in |
|
the primary law of things; the doors remain closed to those intruders, |
|
though they may dash and break their heads thereon. People have always |
|
to be born to a high station, or, more definitely, they have to be BRED |
|
for it: a person has only a right to philosophy--taking the word in |
|
its higher significance--in virtue of his descent; the ancestors, the |
|
"blood," decide here also. Many generations must have prepared the way |
|
for the coming of the philosopher; each of his virtues must have been |
|
separately acquired, nurtured, transmitted, and embodied; not only the |
|
bold, easy, delicate course and current of his thoughts, but above all |
|
the readiness for great responsibilities, the majesty of ruling glance |
|
and contemning look, the feeling of separation from the multitude with |
|
their duties and virtues, the kindly patronage and defense of whatever |
|
is misunderstood and calumniated, be it God or devil, the delight and |
|
practice of supreme justice, the art of commanding, the amplitude of |
|
will, the lingering eye which rarely admires, rarely looks up, rarely |
|
loves.... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER VII. OUR VIRTUES |
|
|
|
|
|
214. OUR Virtues?--It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues, |
|
although naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues on |
|
account of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at a little |
|
distance from us. We Europeans of the day after tomorrow, we firstlings |
|
of the twentieth century--with all our dangerous curiosity, our |
|
multifariousness and art of disguising, our mellow and seemingly |
|
sweetened cruelty in sense and spirit--we shall presumably, IF we must |
|
have virtues, have those only which have come to agreement with our most |
|
secret and heartfelt inclinations, with our most ardent requirements: |
|
well, then, let us look for them in our labyrinths!--where, as we know, |
|
so many things lose themselves, so many things get quite lost! And is |
|
there anything finer than to SEARCH for one's own virtues? Is it not |
|
almost to BELIEVE in one's own virtues? But this "believing in one's |
|
own virtues"--is it not practically the same as what was formerly called |
|
one's "good conscience," that long, respectable pigtail of an idea, |
|
which our grandfathers used to hang behind their heads, and often enough |
|
also behind their understandings? It seems, therefore, that however |
|
little we may imagine ourselves to be old-fashioned and grandfatherly |
|
respectable in other respects, in one thing we are nevertheless the |
|
worthy grandchildren of our grandfathers, we last Europeans with good |
|
consciences: we also still wear their pigtail.--Ah! if you only knew how |
|
soon, so very soon--it will be different! |
|
|
|
215. As in the stellar firmament there are sometimes two suns which |
|
determine the path of one planet, and in certain cases suns of different |
|
colours shine around a single planet, now with red light, now with |
|
green, and then simultaneously illumine and flood it with motley |
|
colours: so we modern men, owing to the complicated mechanism of our |
|
"firmament," are determined by DIFFERENT moralities; our actions shine |
|
alternately in different colours, and are seldom unequivocal--and there |
|
are often cases, also, in which our actions are MOTLEY-COLOURED. |
|
|
|
216. To love one's enemies? I think that has been well learnt: it takes |
|
place thousands of times at present on a large and small scale; indeed, |
|
at times the higher and sublimer thing takes place:--we learn to DESPISE |
|
when we love, and precisely when we love best; all of it, however, |
|
unconsciously, without noise, without ostentation, with the shame and |
|
secrecy of goodness, which forbids the utterance of the pompous word |
|
and the formula of virtue. Morality as attitude--is opposed to our taste |
|
nowadays. This is ALSO an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers |
|
that religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste, |
|
including the enmity and Voltairean bitterness against religion (and all |
|
that formerly belonged to freethinker-pantomime). It is the music in our |
|
conscience, the dance in our spirit, to which Puritan litanies, moral |
|
sermons, and goody-goodness won't chime. |
|
|
|
217. Let us be careful in dealing with those who attach great importance |
|
to being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discernment! |
|
They never forgive us if they have once made a mistake BEFORE us |
|
(or even with REGARD to us)--they inevitably become our instinctive |
|
calumniators and detractors, even when they still remain our |
|
"friends."--Blessed are the forgetful: for they "get the better" even of |
|
their blunders. |
|
|
|
218. The psychologists of France--and where else are there still |
|
psychologists nowadays?--have never yet exhausted their bitter and |
|
manifold enjoyment of the betise bourgeoise, just as though... in |
|
short, they betray something thereby. Flaubert, for instance, the honest |
|
citizen of Rouen, neither saw, heard, nor tasted anything else in the |
|
end; it was his mode of self-torment and refined cruelty. As this is |
|
growing wearisome, I would now recommend for a change something else |
|
for a pleasure--namely, the unconscious astuteness with which good, fat, |
|
honest mediocrity always behaves towards loftier spirits and the tasks |
|
they have to perform, the subtle, barbed, Jesuitical astuteness, which |
|
is a thousand times subtler than the taste and understanding of the |
|
middle-class in its best moments--subtler even than the understanding of |
|
its victims:--a repeated proof that "instinct" is the most intelligent |
|
of all kinds of intelligence which have hitherto been discovered. In |
|
short, you psychologists, study the philosophy of the "rule" in its |
|
struggle with the "exception": there you have a spectacle fit for Gods |
|
and godlike malignity! Or, in plainer words, practise vivisection on |
|
"good people," on the "homo bonae voluntatis," ON YOURSELVES! |
|
|
|
219. The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite |
|
revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so, it is |
|
also a kind of indemnity for their being badly endowed by nature, |
|
and finally, it is an opportunity for acquiring spirit and BECOMING |
|
subtle--malice spiritualises. They are glad in their inmost heart that |
|
there is a standard according to which those who are over-endowed with |
|
intellectual goods and privileges, are equal to them, they contend for |
|
the "equality of all before God," and almost NEED the belief in God for |
|
this purpose. It is among them that the most powerful antagonists of |
|
atheism are found. If any one were to say to them "A lofty spirituality |
|
is beyond all comparison with the honesty and respectability of a merely |
|
moral man"--it would make them furious, I shall take care not to say |
|
so. I would rather flatter them with my theory that lofty spirituality |
|
itself exists only as the ultimate product of moral qualities, that it |
|
is a synthesis of all qualities attributed to the "merely moral" man, |
|
after they have been acquired singly through long training and practice, |
|
perhaps during a whole series of generations, that lofty spirituality |
|
is precisely the spiritualising of justice, and the beneficent severity |
|
which knows that it is authorized to maintain GRADATIONS OF RANK in the |
|
world, even among things--and not only among men. |
|
|
|
220. Now that the praise of the "disinterested person" is so popular |
|
one must--probably not without some danger--get an idea of WHAT people |
|
actually take an interest in, and what are the things generally which |
|
fundamentally and profoundly concern ordinary men--including the |
|
cultured, even the learned, and perhaps philosophers also, if |
|
appearances do not deceive. The fact thereby becomes obvious that the |
|
greater part of what interests and charms higher natures, and more |
|
refined and fastidious tastes, seems absolutely "uninteresting" to |
|
the average man--if, notwithstanding, he perceive devotion to these |
|
interests, he calls it desinteresse, and wonders how it is possible to |
|
act "disinterestedly." There have been philosophers who could give this |
|
popular astonishment a seductive and mystical, other-worldly expression |
|
(perhaps because they did not know the higher nature by experience?), |
|
instead of stating the naked and candidly reasonable truth that |
|
"disinterested" action is very interesting and "interested" action, |
|
provided that... "And love?"--What! Even an action for love's sake |
|
shall be "unegoistic"? But you fools--! "And the praise of the |
|
self-sacrificer?"--But whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that |
|
he wanted and obtained something for it--perhaps something from himself |
|
for something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have |
|
more there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself "more." |
|
But this is a realm of questions and answers in which a more fastidious |
|
spirit does not like to stay: for here truth has to stifle her yawns so |
|
much when she is obliged to answer. And after all, truth is a woman; one |
|
must not use force with her. |
|
|
|
221. "It sometimes happens," said a moralistic pedant and |
|
trifle-retailer, "that I honour and respect an unselfish man: not, |
|
however, because he is unselfish, but because I think he has a right to |
|
be useful to another man at his own expense. In short, the question |
|
is always who HE is, and who THE OTHER is. For instance, in a person |
|
created and destined for command, self-denial and modest retirement, |
|
instead of being virtues, would be the waste of virtues: so it seems |
|
to me. Every system of unegoistic morality which takes itself |
|
unconditionally and appeals to every one, not only sins against good |
|
taste, but is also an incentive to sins of omission, an ADDITIONAL |
|
seduction under the mask of philanthropy--and precisely a seduction and |
|
injury to the higher, rarer, and more privileged types of men. Moral |
|
systems must be compelled first of all to bow before the GRADATIONS OF |
|
RANK; their presumption must be driven home to their conscience--until |
|
they thoroughly understand at last that it is IMMORAL to say that 'what |
|
is right for one is proper for another.'"--So said my moralistic pedant |
|
and bonhomme. Did he perhaps deserve to be laughed at when he thus |
|
exhorted systems of morals to practise morality? But one should not be |
|
too much in the right if one wishes to have the laughers on ONE'S OWN |
|
side; a grain of wrong pertains even to good taste. |
|
|
|
222. Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays--and, |
|
if I gather rightly, no other religion is any longer preached--let the |
|
psychologist have his ears open through all the vanity, through all the |
|
noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he will |
|
hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of SELF-CONTEMPT. It belongs |
|
to the overshadowing and uglifying of Europe, which has been on |
|
the increase for a century (the first symptoms of which are already |
|
specified documentarily in a thoughtful letter of Galiani to Madame |
|
d'Epinay)--IF IT IS NOT REALLY THE CAUSE THEREOF! The man of |
|
"modern ideas," the conceited ape, is excessively dissatisfied with |
|
himself--this is perfectly certain. He suffers, and his vanity wants him |
|
only "to suffer with his fellows." |
|
|
|
223. The hybrid European--a tolerably ugly plebeian, taken all in |
|
all--absolutely requires a costume: he needs history as a storeroom |
|
of costumes. To be sure, he notices that none of the costumes fit him |
|
properly--he changes and changes. Let us look at the nineteenth century |
|
with respect to these hasty preferences and changes in its masquerades |
|
of style, and also with respect to its moments of desperation on account |
|
of "nothing suiting" us. It is in vain to get ourselves up as romantic, |
|
or classical, or Christian, or Florentine, or barocco, or "national," |
|
in moribus et artibus: it does not "clothe us"! But the "spirit," |
|
especially the "historical spirit," profits even by this desperation: |
|
once and again a new sample of the past or of the foreign is tested, |
|
put on, taken off, packed up, and above all studied--we are the first |
|
studious age in puncto of "costumes," I mean as concerns morals, |
|
articles of belief, artistic tastes, and religions; we are prepared as |
|
no other age has ever been for a carnival in the grand style, for the |
|
most spiritual festival--laughter and arrogance, for the transcendental |
|
height of supreme folly and Aristophanic ridicule of the world. Perhaps |
|
we are still discovering the domain of our invention just here, the |
|
domain where even we can still be original, probably as parodists of |
|
the world's history and as God's Merry-Andrews,--perhaps, though nothing |
|
else of the present have a future, our laughter itself may have a |
|
future! |
|
|
|
224. The historical sense (or the capacity for divining quickly |
|
the order of rank of the valuations according to which a people, a |
|
community, or an individual has lived, the "divining instinct" for the |
|
relationships of these valuations, for the relation of the authority |
|
of the valuations to the authority of the operating forces),--this |
|
historical sense, which we Europeans claim as our specialty, has come |
|
to us in the train of the enchanting and mad semi-barbarity into which |
|
Europe has been plunged by the democratic mingling of classes and |
|
races--it is only the nineteenth century that has recognized this |
|
faculty as its sixth sense. Owing to this mingling, the past of every |
|
form and mode of life, and of cultures which were formerly closely |
|
contiguous and superimposed on one another, flows forth into us "modern |
|
souls"; our instincts now run back in all directions, we ourselves are |
|
a kind of chaos: in the end, as we have said, the spirit perceives its |
|
advantage therein. By means of our semi-barbarity in body and in desire, |
|
we have secret access everywhere, such as a noble age never had; we have |
|
access above all to the labyrinth of imperfect civilizations, and to |
|
every form of semi-barbarity that has at any time existed on earth; and |
|
in so far as the most considerable part of human civilization hitherto |
|
has just been semi-barbarity, the "historical sense" implies almost the |
|
sense and instinct for everything, the taste and tongue for everything: |
|
whereby it immediately proves itself to be an IGNOBLE sense. For |
|
instance, we enjoy Homer once more: it is perhaps our happiest |
|
acquisition that we know how to appreciate Homer, whom men of |
|
distinguished culture (as the French of the seventeenth century, like |
|
Saint-Evremond, who reproached him for his ESPRIT VASTE, and even |
|
Voltaire, the last echo of the century) cannot and could not so easily |
|
appropriate--whom they scarcely permitted themselves to enjoy. The very |
|
decided Yea and Nay of their palate, their promptly ready disgust, their |
|
hesitating reluctance with regard to everything strange, their horror of |
|
the bad taste even of lively curiosity, and in general the averseness of |
|
every distinguished and self-sufficing culture to avow a new desire, |
|
a dissatisfaction with its own condition, or an admiration of what is |
|
strange: all this determines and disposes them unfavourably even towards |
|
the best things of the world which are not their property or could not |
|
become their prey--and no faculty is more unintelligible to such men |
|
than just this historical sense, with its truckling, plebeian |
|
curiosity. The case is not different with Shakespeare, that marvelous |
|
Spanish-Moorish-Saxon synthesis of taste, over whom an ancient Athenian |
|
of the circle of AEschylus would have half-killed himself with laughter |
|
or irritation: but we--accept precisely this wild motleyness, this |
|
medley of the most delicate, the most coarse, and the most artificial, |
|
with a secret confidence and cordiality; we enjoy it as a refinement |
|
of art reserved expressly for us, and allow ourselves to be as little |
|
disturbed by the repulsive fumes and the proximity of the English |
|
populace in which Shakespeare's art and taste lives, as perhaps on |
|
the Chiaja of Naples, where, with all our senses awake, we go our way, |
|
enchanted and voluntarily, in spite of the drain-odour of the lower |
|
quarters of the town. That as men of the "historical sense" we have |
|
our virtues, is not to be disputed:--we are unpretentious, unselfish, |
|
modest, brave, habituated to self-control and self-renunciation, very |
|
grateful, very patient, very complaisant--but with all this we are |
|
perhaps not very "tasteful." Let us finally confess it, that what is |
|
most difficult for us men of the "historical sense" to grasp, feel, |
|
taste, and love, what finds us fundamentally prejudiced and almost |
|
hostile, is precisely the perfection and ultimate maturity in every |
|
culture and art, the essentially noble in works and men, their moment |
|
of smooth sea and halcyon self-sufficiency, the goldenness and coldness |
|
which all things show that have perfected themselves. Perhaps our great |
|
virtue of the historical sense is in necessary contrast to GOOD taste, |
|
at least to the very bad taste; and we can only evoke in ourselves |
|
imperfectly, hesitatingly, and with compulsion the small, short, and |
|
happy godsends and glorifications of human life as they shine here and |
|
there: those moments and marvelous experiences when a great power has |
|
voluntarily come to a halt before the boundless and infinite,--when a |
|
super-abundance of refined delight has been enjoyed by a sudden checking |
|
and petrifying, by standing firmly and planting oneself fixedly on still |
|
trembling ground. PROPORTIONATENESS is strange to us, let us confess it |
|
to ourselves; our itching is really the itching for the infinite, the |
|
immeasurable. Like the rider on his forward panting horse, we let the |
|
reins fall before the infinite, we modern men, we semi-barbarians--and |
|
are only in OUR highest bliss when we--ARE IN MOST DANGER. |
|
|
|
225. Whether it be hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, or eudaemonism, |
|
all those modes of thinking which measure the worth of things according |
|
to PLEASURE and PAIN, that is, according to accompanying circumstances |
|
and secondary considerations, are plausible modes of thought and |
|
naivetes, which every one conscious of CREATIVE powers and an artist's |
|
conscience will look down upon with scorn, though not without sympathy. |
|
Sympathy for you!--to be sure, that is not sympathy as you understand |
|
it: it is not sympathy for social "distress," for "society" with its |
|
sick and misfortuned, for the hereditarily vicious and defective who lie |
|
on the ground around us; still less is it sympathy for the grumbling, |
|
vexed, revolutionary slave-classes who strive after power--they call it |
|
"freedom." OUR sympathy is a loftier and further-sighted sympathy:--we |
|
see how MAN dwarfs himself, how YOU dwarf him! and there are moments |
|
when we view YOUR sympathy with an indescribable anguish, when we resist |
|
it,--when we regard your seriousness as more dangerous than any kind |
|
of levity. You want, if possible--and there is not a more foolish "if |
|
possible"--TO DO AWAY WITH SUFFERING; and we?--it really seems that WE |
|
would rather have it increased and made worse than it has ever been! |
|
Well-being, as you understand it--is certainly not a goal; it seems |
|
to us an END; a condition which at once renders man ludicrous and |
|
contemptible--and makes his destruction DESIRABLE! The discipline |
|
of suffering, of GREAT suffering--know ye not that it is only THIS |
|
discipline that has produced all the elevations of humanity hitherto? |
|
The tension of soul in misfortune which communicates to it its energy, |
|
its shuddering in view of rack and ruin, its inventiveness and bravery |
|
in undergoing, enduring, interpreting, and exploiting misfortune, and |
|
whatever depth, mystery, disguise, spirit, artifice, or greatness has |
|
been bestowed upon the soul--has it not been bestowed through suffering, |
|
through the discipline of great suffering? In man CREATURE and CREATOR |
|
are united: in man there is not only matter, shred, excess, clay, mire, |
|
folly, chaos; but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness |
|
of the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh day--do |
|
ye understand this contrast? And that YOUR sympathy for the "creature |
|
in man" applies to that which has to be fashioned, bruised, forged, |
|
stretched, roasted, annealed, refined--to that which must necessarily |
|
SUFFER, and IS MEANT to suffer? And our sympathy--do ye not understand |
|
what our REVERSE sympathy applies to, when it resists your sympathy as |
|
the worst of all pampering and enervation?--So it is sympathy AGAINST |
|
sympathy!--But to repeat it once more, there are higher problems than |
|
the problems of pleasure and pain and sympathy; and all systems of |
|
philosophy which deal only with these are naivetes. |
|
|
|
226. WE IMMORALISTS.--This world with which WE are concerned, in which |
|
we have to fear and love, this almost invisible, inaudible world of |
|
delicate command and delicate obedience, a world of "almost" in every |
|
respect, captious, insidious, sharp, and tender--yes, it is well |
|
protected from clumsy spectators and familiar curiosity! We are |
|
woven into a strong net and garment of duties, and CANNOT disengage |
|
ourselves--precisely here, we are "men of duty," even we! Occasionally, |
|
it is true, we dance in our "chains" and betwixt our "swords"; it |
|
is none the less true that more often we gnash our teeth under the |
|
circumstances, and are impatient at the secret hardship of our lot. But |
|
do what we will, fools and appearances say of us: "These are men WITHOUT |
|
duty,"--we have always fools and appearances against us! |
|
|
|
227. Honesty, granting that it is the virtue of which we cannot rid |
|
ourselves, we free spirits--well, we will labour at it with all our |
|
perversity and love, and not tire of "perfecting" ourselves in OUR |
|
virtue, which alone remains: may its glance some day overspread like |
|
a gilded, blue, mocking twilight this aging civilization with its dull |
|
gloomy seriousness! And if, nevertheless, our honesty should one day |
|
grow weary, and sigh, and stretch its limbs, and find us too hard, and |
|
would fain have it pleasanter, easier, and gentler, like an agreeable |
|
vice, let us remain HARD, we latest Stoics, and let us send to its |
|
help whatever devilry we have in us:--our disgust at the clumsy |
|
and undefined, our "NITIMUR IN VETITUM," our love of adventure, |
|
our sharpened and fastidious curiosity, our most subtle, disguised, |
|
intellectual Will to Power and universal conquest, which rambles and |
|
roves avidiously around all the realms of the future--let us go with all |
|
our "devils" to the help of our "God"! It is probable that people will |
|
misunderstand and mistake us on that account: what does it matter! They |
|
will say: "Their 'honesty'--that is their devilry, and nothing else!" |
|
What does it matter! And even if they were right--have not all Gods |
|
hitherto been such sanctified, re-baptized devils? And after all, what |
|
do we know of ourselves? And what the spirit that leads us wants TO BE |
|
CALLED? (It is a question of names.) And how many spirits we harbour? |
|
Our honesty, we free spirits--let us be careful lest it become our |
|
vanity, our ornament and ostentation, our limitation, our stupidity! |
|
Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; "stupid |
|
to the point of sanctity," they say in Russia,--let us be careful lest |
|
out of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores! Is not life |
|
a hundred times too short for us--to bore ourselves? One would have to |
|
believe in eternal life in order to... |
|
|
|
228. I hope to be forgiven for discovering that all moral philosophy |
|
hitherto has been tedious and has belonged to the soporific |
|
appliances--and that "virtue," in my opinion, has been MORE injured |
|
by the TEDIOUSNESS of its advocates than by anything else; at the same |
|
time, however, I would not wish to overlook their general usefulness. It |
|
is desirable that as few people as possible should reflect upon morals, |
|
and consequently it is very desirable that morals should not some day |
|
become interesting! But let us not be afraid! Things still remain today |
|
as they have always been: I see no one in Europe who has (or DISCLOSES) |
|
an idea of the fact that philosophizing concerning morals might be |
|
conducted in a dangerous, captious, and ensnaring manner--that CALAMITY |
|
might be involved therein. Observe, for example, the indefatigable, |
|
inevitable English utilitarians: how ponderously and respectably they |
|
stalk on, stalk along (a Homeric metaphor expresses it better) in the |
|
footsteps of Bentham, just as he had already stalked in the footsteps of |
|
the respectable Helvetius! (no, he was not a dangerous man, Helvetius, |
|
CE SENATEUR POCOCURANTE, to use an expression of Galiani). No new |
|
thought, nothing of the nature of a finer turning or better expression |
|
of an old thought, not even a proper history of what has been previously |
|
thought on the subject: an IMPOSSIBLE literature, taking it all in all, |
|
unless one knows how to leaven it with some mischief. In effect, the |
|
old English vice called CANT, which is MORAL TARTUFFISM, has insinuated |
|
itself also into these moralists (whom one must certainly read with an |
|
eye to their motives if one MUST read them), concealed this time under |
|
the new form of the scientific spirit; moreover, there is not absent |
|
from them a secret struggle with the pangs of conscience, from which a |
|
race of former Puritans must naturally suffer, in all their scientific |
|
tinkering with morals. (Is not a moralist the opposite of a Puritan? |
|
That is to say, as a thinker who regards morality as questionable, |
|
as worthy of interrogation, in short, as a problem? Is moralizing |
|
not-immoral?) In the end, they all want English morality to be |
|
recognized as authoritative, inasmuch as mankind, or the "general |
|
utility," or "the happiness of the greatest number,"--no! the happiness |
|
of ENGLAND, will be best served thereby. They would like, by all means, |
|
to convince themselves that the striving after English happiness, I |
|
mean after COMFORT and FASHION (and in the highest instance, a seat in |
|
Parliament), is at the same time the true path of virtue; in fact, that |
|
in so far as there has been virtue in the world hitherto, it has |
|
just consisted in such striving. Not one of those ponderous, |
|
conscience-stricken herding-animals (who undertake to advocate the |
|
cause of egoism as conducive to the general welfare) wants to have |
|
any knowledge or inkling of the facts that the "general welfare" is |
|
no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all grasped, but is only a |
|
nostrum,--that what is fair to one MAY NOT at all be fair to another, |
|
that the requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to |
|
higher men, in short, that there is a DISTINCTION OF RANK between man |
|
and man, and consequently between morality and morality. They are an |
|
unassuming and fundamentally mediocre species of men, these utilitarian |
|
Englishmen, and, as already remarked, in so far as they are tedious, one |
|
cannot think highly enough of their utility. One ought even to ENCOURAGE |
|
them, as has been partially attempted in the following rhymes:-- |
|
|
|
Hail, ye worthies, barrow-wheeling, |
|
"Longer--better," aye revealing, |
|
|
|
Stiffer aye in head and knee; |
|
Unenraptured, never jesting, |
|
Mediocre everlasting, |
|
|
|
SANS GENIE ET SANS ESPRIT! |
|
|
|
|
|
229. In these later ages, which may be proud of their humanity, there |
|
still remains so much fear, so much SUPERSTITION of the fear, of the |
|
"cruel wild beast," the mastering of which constitutes the very pride of |
|
these humaner ages--that even obvious truths, as if by the agreement |
|
of centuries, have long remained unuttered, because they have the |
|
appearance of helping the finally slain wild beast back to life again. |
|
I perhaps risk something when I allow such a truth to escape; let |
|
others capture it again and give it so much "milk of pious sentiment" |
|
[FOOTNOTE: An expression from Schiller's William Tell, Act IV, Scene |
|
3.] to drink, that it will lie down quiet and forgotten, in its old |
|
corner.--One ought to learn anew about cruelty, and open one's eyes; |
|
one ought at last to learn impatience, in order that such immodest |
|
gross errors--as, for instance, have been fostered by ancient and |
|
modern philosophers with regard to tragedy--may no longer wander about |
|
virtuously and boldly. Almost everything that we call "higher culture" |
|
is based upon the spiritualising and intensifying of CRUELTY--this is |
|
my thesis; the "wild beast" has not been slain at all, it lives, it |
|
flourishes, it has only been--transfigured. That which constitutes the |
|
painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that which operates agreeably in |
|
so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime, |
|
up to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its |
|
sweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty. What the |
|
Roman enjoys in the arena, the Christian in the ecstasies of the cross, |
|
the Spaniard at the sight of the faggot and stake, or of the bull-fight, |
|
the present-day Japanese who presses his way to the tragedy, the workman |
|
of the Parisian suburbs who has a homesickness for bloody revolutions, |
|
the Wagnerienne who, with unhinged will, "undergoes" the performance of |
|
"Tristan and Isolde"--what all these enjoy, and strive with mysterious |
|
ardour to drink in, is the philtre of the great Circe "cruelty." Here, |
|
to be sure, we must put aside entirely the blundering psychology of |
|
former times, which could only teach with regard to cruelty that |
|
it originated at the sight of the suffering of OTHERS: there is an |
|
abundant, super-abundant enjoyment even in one's own suffering, in |
|
causing one's own suffering--and wherever man has allowed himself to be |
|
persuaded to self-denial in the RELIGIOUS sense, or to self-mutilation, |
|
as among the Phoenicians and ascetics, or in general, to |
|
desensualisation, decarnalisation, and contrition, to Puritanical |
|
repentance-spasms, to vivisection of conscience and to Pascal-like |
|
SACRIFIZIA DELL' INTELLETO, he is secretly allured and impelled |
|
forwards by his cruelty, by the dangerous thrill of cruelty TOWARDS |
|
HIMSELF.--Finally, let us consider that even the seeker of knowledge |
|
operates as an artist and glorifier of cruelty, in that he compels his |
|
spirit to perceive AGAINST its own inclination, and often enough against |
|
the wishes of his heart:--he forces it to say Nay, where he would like |
|
to affirm, love, and adore; indeed, every instance of taking a thing |
|
profoundly and fundamentally, is a violation, an intentional injuring |
|
of the fundamental will of the spirit, which instinctively aims at |
|
appearance and superficiality,--even in every desire for knowledge there |
|
is a drop of cruelty. |
|
|
|
230. Perhaps what I have said here about a "fundamental will of the |
|
spirit" may not be understood without further details; I may be allowed |
|
a word of explanation.--That imperious something which is popularly |
|
called "the spirit," wishes to be master internally and externally, |
|
and to feel itself master; it has the will of a multiplicity for a |
|
simplicity, a binding, taming, imperious, and essentially ruling will. |
|
Its requirements and capacities here, are the same as those assigned by |
|
physiologists to everything that lives, grows, and multiplies. The power |
|
of the spirit to appropriate foreign elements reveals itself in a strong |
|
tendency to assimilate the new to the old, to simplify the manifold, |
|
to overlook or repudiate the absolutely contradictory; just as it |
|
arbitrarily re-underlines, makes prominent, and falsifies for itself |
|
certain traits and lines in the foreign elements, in every portion of |
|
the "outside world." Its object thereby is the incorporation of new |
|
"experiences," the assortment of new things in the old arrangements--in |
|
short, growth; or more properly, the FEELING of growth, the feeling of |
|
increased power--is its object. This same will has at its service an |
|
apparently opposed impulse of the spirit, a suddenly adopted preference |
|
of ignorance, of arbitrary shutting out, a closing of windows, an inner |
|
denial of this or that, a prohibition to approach, a sort of defensive |
|
attitude against much that is knowable, a contentment with obscurity, |
|
with the shutting-in horizon, an acceptance and approval of ignorance: |
|
as that which is all necessary according to the degree of its |
|
appropriating power, its "digestive power," to speak figuratively (and |
|
in fact "the spirit" resembles a stomach more than anything else). Here |
|
also belong an occasional propensity of the spirit to let itself be |
|
deceived (perhaps with a waggish suspicion that it is NOT so and so, |
|
but is only allowed to pass as such), a delight in uncertainty and |
|
ambiguity, an exulting enjoyment of arbitrary, out-of-the-way narrowness |
|
and mystery, of the too-near, of the foreground, of the magnified, |
|
the diminished, the misshapen, the beautified--an enjoyment of the |
|
arbitrariness of all these manifestations of power. Finally, in this |
|
connection, there is the not unscrupulous readiness of the spirit to |
|
deceive other spirits and dissemble before them--the constant pressing |
|
and straining of a creating, shaping, changeable power: the spirit |
|
enjoys therein its craftiness and its variety of disguises, it enjoys |
|
also its feeling of security therein--it is precisely by its Protean |
|
arts that it is best protected and concealed!--COUNTER TO this |
|
propensity for appearance, for simplification, for a disguise, for a |
|
cloak, in short, for an outside--for every outside is a cloak--there |
|
operates the sublime tendency of the man of knowledge, which takes, and |
|
INSISTS on taking things profoundly, variously, and thoroughly; as a |
|
kind of cruelty of the intellectual conscience and taste, which every |
|
courageous thinker will acknowledge in himself, provided, as it ought |
|
to be, that he has sharpened and hardened his eye sufficiently long for |
|
introspection, and is accustomed to severe discipline and even severe |
|
words. He will say: "There is something cruel in the tendency of my |
|
spirit": let the virtuous and amiable try to convince him that it is not |
|
so! In fact, it would sound nicer, if, instead of our cruelty, perhaps |
|
our "extravagant honesty" were talked about, whispered about, and |
|
glorified--we free, VERY free spirits--and some day perhaps SUCH will |
|
actually be our--posthumous glory! Meanwhile--for there is plenty of |
|
time until then--we should be least inclined to deck ourselves out in |
|
such florid and fringed moral verbiage; our whole former work has |
|
just made us sick of this taste and its sprightly exuberance. They are |
|
beautiful, glistening, jingling, festive words: honesty, love of truth, |
|
love of wisdom, sacrifice for knowledge, heroism of the truthful--there |
|
is something in them that makes one's heart swell with pride. But we |
|
anchorites and marmots have long ago persuaded ourselves in all the |
|
secrecy of an anchorite's conscience, that this worthy parade of |
|
verbiage also belongs to the old false adornment, frippery, and |
|
gold-dust of unconscious human vanity, and that even under such |
|
flattering colour and repainting, the terrible original text HOMO NATURA |
|
must again be recognized. In effect, to translate man back again into |
|
nature; to master the many vain and visionary interpretations and |
|
subordinate meanings which have hitherto been scratched and daubed over |
|
the eternal original text, HOMO NATURA; to bring it about that man shall |
|
henceforth stand before man as he now, hardened by the discipline |
|
of science, stands before the OTHER forms of nature, with fearless |
|
Oedipus-eyes, and stopped Ulysses-ears, deaf to the enticements of old |
|
metaphysical bird-catchers, who have piped to him far too long: "Thou |
|
art more! thou art higher! thou hast a different origin!"--this may be |
|
a strange and foolish task, but that it is a TASK, who can deny! Why did |
|
we choose it, this foolish task? Or, to put the question differently: |
|
"Why knowledge at all?" Every one will ask us about this. And thus |
|
pressed, we, who have asked ourselves the question a hundred times, have |
|
not found and cannot find any better answer.... |
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|
|
231. Learning alters us, it does what all nourishment does that does not |
|
merely "conserve"--as the physiologist knows. But at the bottom of our |
|
souls, quite "down below," there is certainly something unteachable, |
|
a granite of spiritual fate, of predetermined decision and answer to |
|
predetermined, chosen questions. In each cardinal problem there speaks |
|
an unchangeable "I am this"; a thinker cannot learn anew about man and |
|
woman, for instance, but can only learn fully--he can only follow to the |
|
end what is "fixed" about them in himself. Occasionally we find certain |
|
solutions of problems which make strong beliefs for us; perhaps they |
|
are henceforth called "convictions." Later on--one sees in them only |
|
footsteps to self-knowledge, guide-posts to the problem which we |
|
ourselves ARE--or more correctly to the great stupidity which we embody, |
|
our spiritual fate, the UNTEACHABLE in us, quite "down below."--In view |
|
of this liberal compliment which I have just paid myself, permission |
|
will perhaps be more readily allowed me to utter some truths about |
|
"woman as she is," provided that it is known at the outset how literally |
|
they are merely--MY truths. |
|
|
|
232. Woman wishes to be independent, and therefore she begins to |
|
enlighten men about "woman as she is"--THIS is one of the worst |
|
developments of the general UGLIFYING of Europe. For what must these |
|
clumsy attempts of feminine scientificality and self-exposure bring |
|
to light! Woman has so much cause for shame; in woman there is so |
|
much pedantry, superficiality, schoolmasterliness, petty presumption, |
|
unbridledness, and indiscretion concealed--study only woman's behaviour |
|
towards children!--which has really been best restrained and dominated |
|
hitherto by the FEAR of man. Alas, if ever the "eternally tedious in |
|
woman"--she has plenty of it!--is allowed to venture forth! if she |
|
begins radically and on principle to unlearn her wisdom and art-of |
|
charming, of playing, of frightening away sorrow, of alleviating and |
|
taking easily; if she forgets her delicate aptitude for agreeable |
|
desires! Female voices are already raised, which, by Saint Aristophanes! |
|
make one afraid:--with medical explicitness it is stated in a |
|
threatening manner what woman first and last REQUIRES from man. Is |
|
it not in the very worst taste that woman thus sets herself up to be |
|
scientific? Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair, |
|
men's gift--we remained therewith "among ourselves"; and in the end, |
|
in view of all that women write about "woman," we may well have |
|
considerable doubt as to whether woman really DESIRES enlightenment |
|
about herself--and CAN desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a new |
|
ORNAMENT for herself--I believe ornamentation belongs to the eternally |
|
feminine?--why, then, she wishes to make herself feared: perhaps she |
|
thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not want truth--what |
|
does woman care for truth? From the very first, nothing is more foreign, |
|
more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth--her great art is |
|
falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. Let us confess |
|
it, we men: we honour and love this very art and this very instinct in |
|
woman: we who have the hard task, and for our recreation gladly seek the |
|
company of beings under whose hands, glances, and delicate follies, our |
|
seriousness, our gravity, and profundity appear almost like follies to |
|
us. Finally, I ask the question: Did a woman herself ever acknowledge |
|
profundity in a woman's mind, or justice in a woman's heart? And is it |
|
not true that on the whole "woman" has hitherto been most despised by |
|
woman herself, and not at all by us?--We men desire that woman should |
|
not continue to compromise herself by enlightening us; just as it was |
|
man's care and the consideration for woman, when the church decreed: |
|
mulier taceat in ecclesia. It was to the benefit of woman when Napoleon |
|
gave the too eloquent Madame de Stael to understand: mulier taceat in |
|
politicis!--and in my opinion, he is a true friend of woman who calls |
|
out to women today: mulier taceat de mulierel. |
|
|
|
233. It betrays corruption of the instincts--apart from the fact that |
|
it betrays bad taste--when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de |
|
Stael, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby |
|
in favour of "woman as she is." Among men, these are the three comical |
|
women as they are--nothing more!--and just the best involuntary |
|
counter-arguments against feminine emancipation and autonomy. |
|
|
|
234. Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible |
|
thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of |
|
the house is managed! Woman does not understand what food means, and she |
|
insists on being cook! If woman had been a thinking creature, she should |
|
certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most |
|
important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession |
|
of the healing art! Through bad female cooks--through the entire lack |
|
of reason in the kitchen--the development of mankind has been longest |
|
retarded and most interfered with: even today matters are very little |
|
better. A word to High School girls. |
|
|
|
235. There are turns and casts of fancy, there are sentences, little |
|
handfuls of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society suddenly |
|
crystallises itself. Among these is the incidental remark of Madame de |
|
Lambert to her son: "MON AMI, NE VOUS PERMETTEZ JAMAIS QUE DES FOLIES, |
|
QUI VOUS FERONT GRAND PLAISIR"--the motherliest and wisest remark, by |
|
the way, that was ever addressed to a son. |
|
|
|
236. I have no doubt that every noble woman will oppose what Dante and |
|
Goethe believed about woman--the former when he sang, "ELLA GUARDAVA |
|
SUSO, ED IO IN LEI," and the latter when he interpreted it, "the |
|
eternally feminine draws us ALOFT"; for THIS is just what she believes |
|
of the eternally masculine. |
|
|
|
237. |
|
|
|
SEVEN APOPHTHEGMS FOR WOMEN |
|
|
|
How the longest ennui flees, When a man comes to our knees! |
|
|
|
Age, alas! and science staid, Furnish even weak virtue aid. |
|
|
|
Sombre garb and silence meet: Dress for every dame--discreet. |
|
|
|
Whom I thank when in my bliss? God!--and my good tailoress! |
|
|
|
Young, a flower-decked cavern home; Old, a dragon thence doth roam. |
|
|
|
Noble title, leg that's fine, Man as well: Oh, were HE mine! |
|
|
|
Speech in brief and sense in mass--Slippery for the jenny-ass! |
|
|
|
237A. Woman has hitherto been treated by men like birds, which, losing |
|
their way, have come down among them from an elevation: as something |
|
delicate, fragile, wild, strange, sweet, and animating--but as something |
|
also which must be cooped up to prevent it flying away. |
|
|
|
238. To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to |
|
deny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally |
|
hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal |
|
training, equal claims and obligations: that is a TYPICAL sign of |
|
shallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at |
|
this dangerous spot--shallow in instinct!--may generally be regarded as |
|
suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered; he will probably prove |
|
too "short" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well as |
|
present, and will be unable to descend into ANY of the depths. On the |
|
other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and |
|
has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and |
|
harshness, and easily confounded with them, can only think of woman as |
|
ORIENTALS do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable |
|
property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her |
|
mission therein--he must take his stand in this matter upon the immense |
|
rationality of Asia, upon the superiority of the instinct of Asia, as |
|
the Greeks did formerly; those best heirs and scholars of Asia--who, |
|
as is well known, with their INCREASING culture and amplitude of power, |
|
from Homer to the time of Pericles, became gradually STRICTER towards |
|
woman, in short, more Oriental. HOW necessary, HOW logical, even HOW |
|
humanely desirable this was, let us consider for ourselves! |
|
|
|
239. The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so |
|
much respect by men as at present--this belongs to the tendency and |
|
fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to |
|
old age--what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of |
|
this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute |
|
of respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling; rivalry for rights, |
|
indeed actual strife itself, would be preferred: in a word, woman is |
|
losing modesty. And let us immediately add that she is also losing |
|
taste. She is unlearning to FEAR man: but the woman who "unlearns to |
|
fear" sacrifices her most womanly instincts. That woman should venture |
|
forward when the fear-inspiring quality in man--or more definitely, |
|
the MAN in man--is no longer either desired or fully developed, is |
|
reasonable enough and also intelligible enough; what is more difficult |
|
to understand is that precisely thereby--woman deteriorates. This is |
|
what is happening nowadays: let us not deceive ourselves about it! |
|
Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military |
|
and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal |
|
independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal |
|
of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she |
|
thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be "master," and inscribes |
|
"progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realises |
|
itself with terrible obviousness: WOMAN RETROGRADES. Since the French |
|
Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has DECLINED in proportion |
|
as she has increased her rights and claims; and the "emancipation of |
|
woman," insofar as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and |
|
not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a remarkable |
|
symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly |
|
instincts. There is STUPIDITY in this movement, an almost masculine |
|
stupidity, of which a well-reared woman--who is always a sensible |
|
woman--might be heartily ashamed. To lose the intuition as to the ground |
|
upon which she can most surely achieve victory; to neglect exercise in |
|
the use of her proper weapons; to let-herself-go before man, perhaps |
|
even "to the book," where formerly she kept herself in control and in |
|
refined, artful humility; to neutralize with her virtuous audacity man's |
|
faith in a VEILED, fundamentally different ideal in woman, something |
|
eternally, necessarily feminine; to emphatically and loquaciously |
|
dissuade man from the idea that woman must be preserved, cared for, |
|
protected, and indulged, like some delicate, strangely wild, and |
|
often pleasant domestic animal; the clumsy and indignant collection of |
|
everything of the nature of servitude and bondage which the position of |
|
woman in the hitherto existing order of society has entailed and still |
|
entails (as though slavery were a counter-argument, and not rather a |
|
condition of every higher culture, of every elevation of culture):--what |
|
does all this betoken, if not a disintegration of womanly instincts, |
|
a defeminising? Certainly, there are enough of idiotic friends and |
|
corrupters of woman among the learned asses of the masculine sex, who |
|
advise woman to defeminize herself in this manner, and to imitate |
|
all the stupidities from which "man" in Europe, European "manliness," |
|
suffers,--who would like to lower woman to "general culture," indeed |
|
even to newspaper reading and meddling with politics. Here and there |
|
they wish even to make women into free spirits and literary workers: as |
|
though a woman without piety would not be something perfectly obnoxious |
|
or ludicrous to a profound and godless man;--almost everywhere her |
|
nerves are being ruined by the most morbid and dangerous kind of music |
|
(our latest German music), and she is daily being made more hysterical |
|
and more incapable of fulfilling her first and last function, that of |
|
bearing robust children. They wish to "cultivate" her in general still |
|
more, and intend, as they say, to make the "weaker sex" STRONG by |
|
culture: as if history did not teach in the most emphatic manner that |
|
the "cultivating" of mankind and his weakening--that is to say, the |
|
weakening, dissipating, and languishing of his FORCE OF WILL--have |
|
always kept pace with one another, and that the most powerful and |
|
influential women in the world (and lastly, the mother of Napoleon) |
|
had just to thank their force of will--and not their schoolmasters--for |
|
their power and ascendancy over men. That which inspires respect |
|
in woman, and often enough fear also, is her NATURE, which is more |
|
"natural" than that of man, her genuine, carnivora-like, cunning |
|
flexibility, her tiger-claws beneath the glove, her NAIVETE in egoism, |
|
her untrainableness and innate wildness, the incomprehensibleness, |
|
extent, and deviation of her desires and virtues. That which, in spite |
|
of fear, excites one's sympathy for the dangerous and beautiful cat, |
|
"woman," is that she seems more afflicted, more vulnerable, more |
|
necessitous of love, and more condemned to disillusionment than any |
|
other creature. Fear and sympathy it is with these feelings that man has |
|
hitherto stood in the presence of woman, always with one foot already in |
|
tragedy, which rends while it delights--What? And all that is now to |
|
be at an end? And the DISENCHANTMENT of woman is in progress? The |
|
tediousness of woman is slowly evolving? Oh Europe! Europe! We know |
|
the horned animal which was always most attractive to thee, from which |
|
danger is ever again threatening thee! Thy old fable might once more |
|
become "history"--an immense stupidity might once again overmaster |
|
thee and carry thee away! And no God concealed beneath it--no! only an |
|
"idea," a "modern idea"! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER VIII. PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES |
|
|
|
|
|
240. I HEARD, once again for the first time, Richard Wagner's overture |
|
to the Mastersinger: it is a piece of magnificent, gorgeous, heavy, |
|
latter-day art, which has the pride to presuppose two centuries of music |
|
as still living, in order that it may be understood:--it is an honour |
|
to Germans that such a pride did not miscalculate! What flavours |
|
and forces, what seasons and climes do we not find mingled in it! It |
|
impresses us at one time as ancient, at another time as foreign, bitter, |
|
and too modern, it is as arbitrary as it is pompously traditional, it |
|
is not infrequently roguish, still oftener rough and coarse--it has fire |
|
and courage, and at the same time the loose, dun-coloured skin of fruits |
|
which ripen too late. It flows broad and full: and suddenly there is a |
|
moment of inexplicable hesitation, like a gap that opens between cause |
|
and effect, an oppression that makes us dream, almost a nightmare; but |
|
already it broadens and widens anew, the old stream of delight--the most |
|
manifold delight,--of old and new happiness; including ESPECIALLY |
|
the joy of the artist in himself, which he refuses to conceal, his |
|
astonished, happy cognizance of his mastery of the expedients here |
|
employed, the new, newly acquired, imperfectly tested expedients of art |
|
which he apparently betrays to us. All in all, however, no beauty, no |
|
South, nothing of the delicate southern clearness of the sky, nothing |
|
of grace, no dance, hardly a will to logic; a certain clumsiness even, |
|
which is also emphasized, as though the artist wished to say to us: "It |
|
is part of my intention"; a cumbersome drapery, something arbitrarily |
|
barbaric and ceremonious, a flirring of learned and venerable conceits |
|
and witticisms; something German in the best and worst sense of |
|
the word, something in the German style, manifold, formless, and |
|
inexhaustible; a certain German potency and super-plenitude of |
|
soul, which is not afraid to hide itself under the RAFFINEMENTS of |
|
decadence--which, perhaps, feels itself most at ease there; a real, |
|
genuine token of the German soul, which is at the same time young and |
|
aged, too ripe and yet still too rich in futurity. This kind of music |
|
expresses best what I think of the Germans: they belong to the day |
|
before yesterday and the day after tomorrow--THEY HAVE AS YET NO TODAY. |
|
|
|
241. We "good Europeans," we also have hours when we allow ourselves a |
|
warm-hearted patriotism, a plunge and relapse into old loves and narrow |
|
views--I have just given an example of it--hours of national excitement, |
|
of patriotic anguish, and all other sorts of old-fashioned floods of |
|
sentiment. Duller spirits may perhaps only get done with what confines |
|
its operations in us to hours and plays itself out in hours--in a |
|
considerable time: some in half a year, others in half a lifetime, |
|
according to the speed and strength with which they digest and "change |
|
their material." Indeed, I could think of sluggish, hesitating races, |
|
which even in our rapidly moving Europe, would require half a century |
|
ere they could surmount such atavistic attacks of patriotism and |
|
soil-attachment, and return once more to reason, that is to say, to |
|
"good Europeanism." And while digressing on this possibility, I |
|
happen to become an ear-witness of a conversation between two old |
|
patriots--they were evidently both hard of hearing and consequently |
|
spoke all the louder. "HE has as much, and knows as much, philosophy as |
|
a peasant or a corps-student," said the one--"he is still innocent. But |
|
what does that matter nowadays! It is the age of the masses: they lie on |
|
their belly before everything that is massive. And so also in politicis. |
|
A statesman who rears up for them a new Tower of Babel, some monstrosity |
|
of empire and power, they call 'great'--what does it matter that we more |
|
prudent and conservative ones do not meanwhile give up the old belief |
|
that it is only the great thought that gives greatness to an action or |
|
affair. Supposing a statesman were to bring his people into the position |
|
of being obliged henceforth to practise 'high politics,' for which they |
|
were by nature badly endowed and prepared, so that they would have |
|
to sacrifice their old and reliable virtues, out of love to a new and |
|
doubtful mediocrity;--supposing a statesman were to condemn his people |
|
generally to 'practise politics,' when they have hitherto had something |
|
better to do and think about, and when in the depths of their souls |
|
they have been unable to free themselves from a prudent loathing of |
|
the restlessness, emptiness, and noisy wranglings of the essentially |
|
politics-practising nations;--supposing such a statesman were to |
|
stimulate the slumbering passions and avidities of his people, were to |
|
make a stigma out of their former diffidence and delight in aloofness, |
|
an offence out of their exoticism and hidden permanency, were to |
|
depreciate their most radical proclivities, subvert their consciences, |
|
make their minds narrow, and their tastes 'national'--what! a statesman |
|
who should do all this, which his people would have to do penance for |
|
throughout their whole future, if they had a future, such a statesman |
|
would be GREAT, would he?"--"Undoubtedly!" replied the other old patriot |
|
vehemently, "otherwise he COULD NOT have done it! It was mad perhaps to |
|
wish such a thing! But perhaps everything great has been just as mad |
|
at its commencement!"--"Misuse of words!" cried his interlocutor, |
|
contradictorily--"strong! strong! Strong and mad! NOT great!"--The old |
|
men had obviously become heated as they thus shouted their "truths" in |
|
each other's faces, but I, in my happiness and apartness, considered how |
|
soon a stronger one may become master of the strong, and also that |
|
there is a compensation for the intellectual superficialising of a |
|
nation--namely, in the deepening of another. |
|
|
|
242. Whether we call it "civilization," or "humanising," or "progress," |
|
which now distinguishes the European, whether we call it simply, without |
|
praise or blame, by the political formula the DEMOCRATIC movement in |
|
Europe--behind all the moral and political foregrounds pointed to by |
|
such formulas, an immense PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESS goes on, which is ever |
|
extending the process of the assimilation of Europeans, their |
|
increasing detachment from the conditions under which, climatically and |
|
hereditarily, united races originate, their increasing independence of |
|
every definite milieu, that for centuries would fain inscribe itself |
|
with equal demands on soul and body,--that is to say, the slow emergence |
|
of an essentially SUPER-NATIONAL and nomadic species of man, who |
|
possesses, physiologically speaking, a maximum of the art and power |
|
of adaptation as his typical distinction. This process of the EVOLVING |
|
EUROPEAN, which can be retarded in its TEMPO by great relapses, but |
|
will perhaps just gain and grow thereby in vehemence and depth--the |
|
still-raging storm and stress of "national sentiment" pertains to it, |
|
and also the anarchism which is appearing at present--this process |
|
will probably arrive at results on which its naive propagators and |
|
panegyrists, the apostles of "modern ideas," would least care to reckon. |
|
The same new conditions under which on an average a levelling and |
|
mediocrising of man will take place--a useful, industrious, variously |
|
serviceable, and clever gregarious man--are in the highest degree |
|
suitable to give rise to exceptional men of the most dangerous and |
|
attractive qualities. For, while the capacity for adaptation, which is |
|
every day trying changing conditions, and begins a new work with every |
|
generation, almost with every decade, makes the POWERFULNESS of the type |
|
impossible; while the collective impression of such future Europeans |
|
will probably be that of numerous, talkative, weak-willed, and very |
|
handy workmen who REQUIRE a master, a commander, as they require their |
|
daily bread; while, therefore, the democratising of Europe will tend to |
|
the production of a type prepared for SLAVERY in the most subtle |
|
sense of the term: the STRONG man will necessarily in individual and |
|
exceptional cases, become stronger and richer than he has perhaps ever |
|
been before--owing to the unprejudicedness of his schooling, owing to |
|
the immense variety of practice, art, and disguise. I meant to say |
|
that the democratising of Europe is at the same time an involuntary |
|
arrangement for the rearing of TYRANTS--taking the word in all its |
|
meanings, even in its most spiritual sense. |
|
|
|
243. I hear with pleasure that our sun is moving rapidly towards the |
|
constellation Hercules: and I hope that the men on this earth will do |
|
like the sun. And we foremost, we good Europeans! |
|
|
|
244. There was a time when it was customary to call Germans "deep" |
|
by way of distinction; but now that the most successful type of new |
|
Germanism is covetous of quite other honours, and perhaps misses |
|
"smartness" in all that has depth, it is almost opportune and patriotic |
|
to doubt whether we did not formerly deceive ourselves with that |
|
commendation: in short, whether German depth is not at bottom something |
|
different and worse--and something from which, thank God, we are on the |
|
point of successfully ridding ourselves. Let us try, then, to relearn |
|
with regard to German depth; the only thing necessary for the purpose is |
|
a little vivisection of the German soul.--The German soul is above all |
|
manifold, varied in its source, aggregated and super-imposed, rather |
|
than actually built: this is owing to its origin. A German who would |
|
embolden himself to assert: "Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast," would |
|
make a bad guess at the truth, or, more correctly, he would come far |
|
short of the truth about the number of souls. As a people made up of |
|
the most extraordinary mixing and mingling of races, perhaps even with a |
|
preponderance of the pre-Aryan element as the "people of the centre" in |
|
every sense of the term, the Germans are more intangible, more ample, |
|
more contradictory, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising, |
|
and even more terrifying than other peoples are to themselves:--they |
|
escape DEFINITION, and are thereby alone the despair of the French. It |
|
IS characteristic of the Germans that the question: "What is German?" |
|
never dies out among them. Kotzebue certainly knew his Germans well |
|
enough: "We are known," they cried jubilantly to him--but Sand also |
|
thought he knew them. Jean Paul knew what he was doing when he declared |
|
himself incensed at Fichte's lying but patriotic flatteries and |
|
exaggerations,--but it is probable that Goethe thought differently about |
|
Germans from Jean Paul, even though he acknowledged him to be right with |
|
regard to Fichte. It is a question what Goethe really thought about the |
|
Germans?--But about many things around him he never spoke explicitly, |
|
and all his life he knew how to keep an astute silence--probably he |
|
had good reason for it. It is certain that it was not the "Wars of |
|
Independence" that made him look up more joyfully, any more than it was |
|
the French Revolution,--the event on account of which he RECONSTRUCTED |
|
his "Faust," and indeed the whole problem of "man," was the appearance |
|
of Napoleon. There are words of Goethe in which he condemns with |
|
impatient severity, as from a foreign land, that which Germans take a |
|
pride in, he once defined the famous German turn of mind as "Indulgence |
|
towards its own and others' weaknesses." Was he wrong? it is |
|
characteristic of Germans that one is seldom entirely wrong about them. |
|
The German soul has passages and galleries in it, there are caves, |
|
hiding-places, and dungeons therein, its disorder has much of the charm |
|
of the mysterious, the German is well acquainted with the bypaths to |
|
chaos. And as everything loves its symbol, so the German loves the |
|
clouds and all that is obscure, evolving, crepuscular, damp, and |
|
shrouded, it seems to him that everything uncertain, undeveloped, |
|
self-displacing, and growing is "deep". The German himself does not |
|
EXIST, he is BECOMING, he is "developing himself". "Development" is |
|
therefore the essentially German discovery and hit in the great domain |
|
of philosophical formulas,--a ruling idea, which, together with German |
|
beer and German music, is labouring to Germanise all Europe. Foreigners |
|
are astonished and attracted by the riddles which the conflicting nature |
|
at the basis of the German soul propounds to them (riddles which |
|
Hegel systematised and Richard Wagner has in the end set to music). |
|
"Good-natured and spiteful"--such a juxtaposition, preposterous in the |
|
case of every other people, is unfortunately only too often justified |
|
in Germany one has only to live for a while among Swabians to know this! |
|
The clumsiness of the German scholar and his social distastefulness |
|
agree alarmingly well with his physical rope-dancing and nimble |
|
boldness, of which all the Gods have learnt to be afraid. If any one |
|
wishes to see the "German soul" demonstrated ad oculos, let him |
|
only look at German taste, at German arts and manners what boorish |
|
indifference to "taste"! How the noblest and the commonest stand there |
|
in juxtaposition! How disorderly and how rich is the whole constitution |
|
of this soul! The German DRAGS at his soul, he drags at everything he |
|
experiences. He digests his events badly; he never gets "done" |
|
with them; and German depth is often only a difficult, hesitating |
|
"digestion." And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics like what |
|
is convenient, so the German loves "frankness" and "honesty"; it is |
|
so CONVENIENT to be frank and honest!--This confidingness, this |
|
complaisance, this showing-the-cards of German HONESTY, is probably the |
|
most dangerous and most successful disguise which the German is up to |
|
nowadays: it is his proper Mephistophelean art; with this he can "still |
|
achieve much"! The German lets himself go, and thereby gazes with |
|
faithful, blue, empty German eyes--and other countries immediately |
|
confound him with his dressing-gown!--I meant to say that, let "German |
|
depth" be what it will--among ourselves alone we perhaps take the |
|
liberty to laugh at it--we shall do well to continue henceforth to |
|
honour its appearance and good name, and not barter away too cheaply our |
|
old reputation as a people of depth for Prussian "smartness," and |
|
Berlin wit and sand. It is wise for a people to pose, and LET itself |
|
be regarded, as profound, clumsy, good-natured, honest, and foolish: it |
|
might even be--profound to do so! Finally, we should do honour to |
|
our name--we are not called the "TIUSCHE VOLK" (deceptive people) for |
|
nothing.... |
|
|
|
245. The "good old" time is past, it sang itself out in Mozart--how |
|
happy are WE that his ROCOCO still speaks to us, that his "good |
|
company," his tender enthusiasm, his childish delight in the Chinese and |
|
its flourishes, his courtesy of heart, his longing for the elegant, the |
|
amorous, the tripping, the tearful, and his belief in the South, can |
|
still appeal to SOMETHING LEFT in us! Ah, some time or other it will be |
|
over with it!--but who can doubt that it will be over still sooner with |
|
the intelligence and taste for Beethoven! For he was only the last echo |
|
of a break and transition in style, and NOT, like Mozart, the last echo |
|
of a great European taste which had existed for centuries. Beethoven |
|
is the intermediate event between an old mellow soul that is constantly |
|
breaking down, and a future over-young soul that is always COMING; |
|
there is spread over his music the twilight of eternal loss and eternal |
|
extravagant hope,--the same light in which Europe was bathed when it |
|
dreamed with Rousseau, when it danced round the Tree of Liberty of the |
|
Revolution, and finally almost fell down in adoration before Napoleon. |
|
But how rapidly does THIS very sentiment now pale, how difficult |
|
nowadays is even the APPREHENSION of this sentiment, how strangely does |
|
the language of Rousseau, Schiller, Shelley, and Byron sound to our ear, |
|
in whom COLLECTIVELY the same fate of Europe was able to SPEAK, which |
|
knew how to SING in Beethoven!--Whatever German music came afterwards, |
|
belongs to Romanticism, that is to say, to a movement which, |
|
historically considered, was still shorter, more fleeting, and more |
|
superficial than that great interlude, the transition of Europe from |
|
Rousseau to Napoleon, and to the rise of democracy. Weber--but what do |
|
WE care nowadays for "Freischutz" and "Oberon"! Or Marschner's "Hans |
|
Heiling" and "Vampyre"! Or even Wagner's "Tannhauser"! That is extinct, |
|
although not yet forgotten music. This whole music of Romanticism, |
|
besides, was not noble enough, was not musical enough, to maintain its |
|
position anywhere but in the theatre and before the masses; from the |
|
beginning it was second-rate music, which was little thought of by |
|
genuine musicians. It was different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon |
|
master, who, on account of his lighter, purer, happier soul, quickly |
|
acquired admiration, and was equally quickly forgotten: as the beautiful |
|
EPISODE of German music. But with regard to Robert Schumann, who took |
|
things seriously, and has been taken seriously from the first--he |
|
was the last that founded a school,--do we not now regard it as a |
|
satisfaction, a relief, a deliverance, that this very Romanticism |
|
of Schumann's has been surmounted? Schumann, fleeing into the "Saxon |
|
Switzerland" of his soul, with a half Werther-like, half Jean-Paul-like |
|
nature (assuredly not like Beethoven! assuredly not like Byron!)--his |
|
MANFRED music is a mistake and a misunderstanding to the extent of |
|
injustice; Schumann, with his taste, which was fundamentally a PETTY |
|
taste (that is to say, a dangerous propensity--doubly dangerous among |
|
Germans--for quiet lyricism and intoxication of the feelings), going |
|
constantly apart, timidly withdrawing and retiring, a noble weakling who |
|
revelled in nothing but anonymous joy and sorrow, from the beginning |
|
a sort of girl and NOLI ME TANGERE--this Schumann was already merely a |
|
GERMAN event in music, and no longer a European event, as Beethoven had |
|
been, as in a still greater degree Mozart had been; with Schumann German |
|
music was threatened with its greatest danger, that of LOSING THE VOICE |
|
FOR THE SOUL OF EUROPE and sinking into a merely national affair. |
|
|
|
246. What a torture are books written in German to a reader who has a |
|
THIRD ear! How indignantly he stands beside the slowly turning swamp |
|
of sounds without tune and rhythms without dance, which Germans call |
|
a "book"! And even the German who READS books! How lazily, how |
|
reluctantly, how badly he reads! How many Germans know, and consider it |
|
obligatory to know, that there is ART in every good sentence--art which |
|
must be divined, if the sentence is to be understood! If there is a |
|
misunderstanding about its TEMPO, for instance, the sentence itself |
|
is misunderstood! That one must not be doubtful about the |
|
rhythm-determining syllables, that one should feel the breaking of the |
|
too-rigid symmetry as intentional and as a charm, that one should lend a |
|
fine and patient ear to every STACCATO and every RUBATO, that one should |
|
divine the sense in the sequence of the vowels and diphthongs, and how |
|
delicately and richly they can be tinted and retinted in the order of |
|
their arrangement--who among book-reading Germans is complaisant enough |
|
to recognize such duties and requirements, and to listen to so much art |
|
and intention in language? After all, one just "has no ear for it"; |
|
and so the most marked contrasts of style are not heard, and the most |
|
delicate artistry is as it were SQUANDERED on the deaf.--These were my |
|
thoughts when I noticed how clumsily and unintuitively two masters in |
|
the art of prose-writing have been confounded: one, whose words drop |
|
down hesitatingly and coldly, as from the roof of a damp cave--he counts |
|
on their dull sound and echo; and another who manipulates his language |
|
like a flexible sword, and from his arm down into his toes feels the |
|
dangerous bliss of the quivering, over-sharp blade, which wishes to |
|
bite, hiss, and cut. |
|
|
|
247. How little the German style has to do with harmony and with the |
|
ear, is shown by the fact that precisely our good musicians themselves |
|
write badly. The German does not read aloud, he does not read for the |
|
ear, but only with his eyes; he has put his ears away in the drawer for |
|
the time. In antiquity when a man read--which was seldom enough--he read |
|
something to himself, and in a loud voice; they were surprised when |
|
any one read silently, and sought secretly the reason of it. In a |
|
loud voice: that is to say, with all the swellings, inflections, and |
|
variations of key and changes of TEMPO, in which the ancient PUBLIC |
|
world took delight. The laws of the written style were then the same |
|
as those of the spoken style; and these laws depended partly on the |
|
surprising development and refined requirements of the ear and larynx; |
|
partly on the strength, endurance, and power of the ancient lungs. In |
|
the ancient sense, a period is above all a physiological whole, inasmuch |
|
as it is comprised in one breath. Such periods as occur in Demosthenes |
|
and Cicero, swelling twice and sinking twice, and all in one breath, |
|
were pleasures to the men of ANTIQUITY, who knew by their own schooling |
|
how to appreciate the virtue therein, the rareness and the difficulty |
|
in the deliverance of such a period;--WE have really no right to the |
|
BIG period, we modern men, who are short of breath in every sense! Those |
|
ancients, indeed, were all of them dilettanti in speaking, consequently |
|
connoisseurs, consequently critics--they thus brought their orators to |
|
the highest pitch; in the same manner as in the last century, when all |
|
Italian ladies and gentlemen knew how to sing, the virtuosoship of song |
|
(and with it also the art of melody) reached its elevation. In Germany, |
|
however (until quite recently when a kind of platform eloquence began |
|
shyly and awkwardly enough to flutter its young wings), there was |
|
properly speaking only one kind of public and APPROXIMATELY artistical |
|
discourse--that delivered from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one |
|
in Germany who knew the weight of a syllable or a word, in what manner a |
|
sentence strikes, springs, rushes, flows, and comes to a close; he alone |
|
had a conscience in his ears, often enough a bad conscience: for reasons |
|
are not lacking why proficiency in oratory should be especially seldom |
|
attained by a German, or almost always too late. The masterpiece of |
|
German prose is therefore with good reason the masterpiece of its |
|
greatest preacher: the BIBLE has hitherto been the best German |
|
book. Compared with Luther's Bible, almost everything else is merely |
|
"literature"--something which has not grown in Germany, and therefore |
|
has not taken and does not take root in German hearts, as the Bible has |
|
done. |
|
|
|
248. There are two kinds of geniuses: one which above all engenders and |
|
seeks to engender, and another which willingly lets itself be fructified |
|
and brings forth. And similarly, among the gifted nations, there are |
|
those on whom the woman's problem of pregnancy has devolved, and the |
|
secret task of forming, maturing, and perfecting--the Greeks, for |
|
instance, were a nation of this kind, and so are the French; and others |
|
which have to fructify and become the cause of new modes of life--like |
|
the Jews, the Romans, and, in all modesty be it asked: like the |
|
Germans?--nations tortured and enraptured by unknown fevers and |
|
irresistibly forced out of themselves, amorous and longing for |
|
foreign races (for such as "let themselves be fructified"), and withal |
|
imperious, like everything conscious of being full of generative force, |
|
and consequently empowered "by the grace of God." These two kinds of |
|
geniuses seek each other like man and woman; but they also misunderstand |
|
each other--like man and woman. |
|
|
|
249. Every nation has its own "Tartuffery," and calls that its |
|
virtue.--One does not know--cannot know, the best that is in one. |
|
|
|
250. What Europe owes to the Jews?--Many things, good and bad, and above |
|
all one thing of the nature both of the best and the worst: the grand |
|
style in morality, the fearfulness and majesty of infinite demands, of |
|
infinite significations, the whole Romanticism and sublimity of moral |
|
questionableness--and consequently just the most attractive, ensnaring, |
|
and exquisite element in those iridescences and allurements to life, |
|
in the aftersheen of which the sky of our European culture, its evening |
|
sky, now glows--perhaps glows out. For this, we artists among the |
|
spectators and philosophers, are--grateful to the Jews. |
|
|
|
251. It must be taken into the bargain, if various clouds and |
|
disturbances--in short, slight attacks of stupidity--pass over the |
|
spirit of a people that suffers and WANTS to suffer from national |
|
nervous fever and political ambition: for instance, among present-day |
|
Germans there is alternately the anti-French folly, the anti-Semitic |
|
folly, the anti-Polish folly, the Christian-romantic folly, the |
|
Wagnerian folly, the Teutonic folly, the Prussian folly (just look at |
|
those poor historians, the Sybels and Treitschkes, and their closely |
|
bandaged heads), and whatever else these little obscurations of the |
|
German spirit and conscience may be called. May it be forgiven me that |
|
I, too, when on a short daring sojourn on very infected ground, did not |
|
remain wholly exempt from the disease, but like every one else, began |
|
to entertain thoughts about matters which did not concern me--the first |
|
symptom of political infection. About the Jews, for instance, listen |
|
to the following:--I have never yet met a German who was favourably |
|
inclined to the Jews; and however decided the repudiation of actual |
|
anti-Semitism may be on the part of all prudent and political men, this |
|
prudence and policy is not perhaps directed against the nature of the |
|
sentiment itself, but only against its dangerous excess, and especially |
|
against the distasteful and infamous expression of this excess of |
|
sentiment;--on this point we must not deceive ourselves. That Germany |
|
has amply SUFFICIENT Jews, that the German stomach, the German blood, |
|
has difficulty (and will long have difficulty) in disposing only of this |
|
quantity of "Jew"--as the Italian, the Frenchman, and the Englishman |
|
have done by means of a stronger digestion:--that is the unmistakable |
|
declaration and language of a general instinct, to which one must listen |
|
and according to which one must act. "Let no more Jews come in! And shut |
|
the doors, especially towards the East (also towards Austria)!"--thus |
|
commands the instinct of a people whose nature is still feeble and |
|
uncertain, so that it could be easily wiped out, easily extinguished, by |
|
a stronger race. The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, |
|
toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how |
|
to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under |
|
favourable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like |
|
nowadays to label as vices--owing above all to a resolute faith which |
|
does not need to be ashamed before "modern ideas", they alter only, |
|
WHEN they do alter, in the same way that the Russian Empire makes |
|
its conquest--as an empire that has plenty of time and is not of |
|
yesterday--namely, according to the principle, "as slowly as possible"! |
|
A thinker who has the future of Europe at heart, will, in all his |
|
perspectives concerning the future, calculate upon the Jews, as he |
|
will calculate upon the Russians, as above all the surest and likeliest |
|
factors in the great play and battle of forces. That which is at present |
|
called a "nation" in Europe, and is really rather a RES FACTA than NATA |
|
(indeed, sometimes confusingly similar to a RES FICTA ET PICTA), is in |
|
every case something evolving, young, easily displaced, and not yet |
|
a race, much less such a race AERE PERENNUS, as the Jews are such |
|
"nations" should most carefully avoid all hot-headed rivalry and |
|
hostility! It is certain that the Jews, if they desired--or if they |
|
were driven to it, as the anti-Semites seem to wish--COULD now have the |
|
ascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe, that they are NOT |
|
working and planning for that end is equally certain. Meanwhile, they |
|
rather wish and desire, even somewhat importunely, to be insorbed and |
|
absorbed by Europe, they long to be finally settled, authorized, and |
|
respected somewhere, and wish to put an end to the nomadic life, to the |
|
"wandering Jew",--and one should certainly take account of this impulse |
|
and tendency, and MAKE ADVANCES to it (it possibly betokens a mitigation |
|
of the Jewish instincts) for which purpose it would perhaps be useful |
|
and fair to banish the anti-Semitic bawlers out of the country. One |
|
should make advances with all prudence, and with selection, pretty much |
|
as the English nobility do It stands to reason that the more powerful |
|
and strongly marked types of new Germanism could enter into relation |
|
with the Jews with the least hesitation, for instance, the nobleman |
|
officer from the Prussian border it would be interesting in many ways |
|
to see whether the genius for money and patience (and especially some |
|
intellect and intellectuality--sadly lacking in the place referred to) |
|
could not in addition be annexed and trained to the hereditary art of |
|
commanding and obeying--for both of which the country in question has |
|
now a classic reputation But here it is expedient to break off my festal |
|
discourse and my sprightly Teutonomania for I have already reached my |
|
SERIOUS TOPIC, the "European problem," as I understand it, the rearing |
|
of a new ruling caste for Europe. |
|
|
|
252. They are not a philosophical race--the English: Bacon represents an |
|
ATTACK on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, |
|
an abasement, and a depreciation of the idea of a "philosopher" for more |
|
than a century. It was AGAINST Hume that Kant uprose and raised himself; |
|
it was Locke of whom Schelling RIGHTLY said, "JE MEPRISE LOCKE"; in the |
|
struggle against the English mechanical stultification of the world, |
|
Hegel and Schopenhauer (along with Goethe) were of one accord; the |
|
two hostile brother-geniuses in philosophy, who pushed in different |
|
directions towards the opposite poles of German thought, and thereby |
|
wronged each other as only brothers will do.--What is lacking in |
|
England, and has always been lacking, that half-actor and rhetorician |
|
knew well enough, the absurd muddle-head, Carlyle, who sought to conceal |
|
under passionate grimaces what he knew about himself: namely, what was |
|
LACKING in Carlyle--real POWER of intellect, real DEPTH of intellectual |
|
perception, in short, philosophy. It is characteristic of such an |
|
unphilosophical race to hold on firmly to Christianity--they NEED its |
|
discipline for "moralizing" and humanizing. The Englishman, more gloomy, |
|
sensual, headstrong, and brutal than the German--is for that very |
|
reason, as the baser of the two, also the most pious: he has all the |
|
MORE NEED of Christianity. To finer nostrils, this English Christianity |
|
itself has still a characteristic English taint of spleen and alcoholic |
|
excess, for which, owing to good reasons, it is used as an antidote--the |
|
finer poison to neutralize the coarser: a finer form of poisoning is |
|
in fact a step in advance with coarse-mannered people, a step towards |
|
spiritualization. The English coarseness and rustic demureness is still |
|
most satisfactorily disguised by Christian pantomime, and by praying |
|
and psalm-singing (or, more correctly, it is thereby explained and |
|
differently expressed); and for the herd of drunkards and rakes who |
|
formerly learned moral grunting under the influence of Methodism (and |
|
more recently as the "Salvation Army"), a penitential fit may really be |
|
the relatively highest manifestation of "humanity" to which they can |
|
be elevated: so much may reasonably be admitted. That, however, which |
|
offends even in the humanest Englishman is his lack of music, to speak |
|
figuratively (and also literally): he has neither rhythm nor dance in |
|
the movements of his soul and body; indeed, not even the desire for |
|
rhythm and dance, for "music." Listen to him speaking; look at the most |
|
beautiful Englishwoman WALKING--in no country on earth are there more |
|
beautiful doves and swans; finally, listen to them singing! But I ask |
|
too much... |
|
|
|
253. There are truths which are best recognized by mediocre minds, |
|
because they are best adapted for them, there are truths which only |
|
possess charms and seductive power for mediocre spirits:--one is pushed |
|
to this probably unpleasant conclusion, now that the influence of |
|
respectable but mediocre Englishmen--I may mention Darwin, John |
|
Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer--begins to gain the ascendancy in the |
|
middle-class region of European taste. Indeed, who could doubt that it |
|
is a useful thing for SUCH minds to have the ascendancy for a time? It |
|
would be an error to consider the highly developed and independently |
|
soaring minds as specially qualified for determining and collecting many |
|
little common facts, and deducing conclusions from them; as exceptions, |
|
they are rather from the first in no very favourable position towards |
|
those who are "the rules." After all, they have more to do than merely |
|
to perceive:--in effect, they have to BE something new, they have to |
|
SIGNIFY something new, they have to REPRESENT new values! The gulf |
|
between knowledge and capacity is perhaps greater, and also more |
|
mysterious, than one thinks: the capable man in the grand style, the |
|
creator, will possibly have to be an ignorant person;--while on the |
|
other hand, for scientific discoveries like those of Darwin, a certain |
|
narrowness, aridity, and industrious carefulness (in short, something |
|
English) may not be unfavourable for arriving at them.--Finally, let |
|
it not be forgotten that the English, with their profound mediocrity, |
|
brought about once before a general depression of European intelligence. |
|
|
|
What is called "modern ideas," or "the ideas of the eighteenth century," |
|
or "French ideas"--that, consequently, against which the GERMAN mind |
|
rose up with profound disgust--is of English origin, there is no doubt |
|
about it. The French were only the apes and actors of these ideas, their |
|
best soldiers, and likewise, alas! their first and profoundest VICTIMS; |
|
for owing to the diabolical Anglomania of "modern ideas," the AME |
|
FRANCAIS has in the end become so thin and emaciated, that at present |
|
one recalls its sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its profound, |
|
passionate strength, its inventive excellency, almost with disbelief. |
|
One must, however, maintain this verdict of historical justice in |
|
a determined manner, and defend it against present prejudices and |
|
appearances: the European NOBLESSE--of sentiment, taste, and manners, |
|
taking the word in every high sense--is the work and invention of |
|
FRANCE; the European ignobleness, the plebeianism of modern ideas--is |
|
ENGLAND'S work and invention. |
|
|
|
254. Even at present France is still the seat of the most intellectual |
|
and refined culture of Europe, it is still the high school of taste; but |
|
one must know how to find this "France of taste." He who belongs to it |
|
keeps himself well concealed:--they may be a small number in whom it |
|
lives and is embodied, besides perhaps being men who do not stand upon |
|
the strongest legs, in part fatalists, hypochondriacs, invalids, in |
|
part persons over-indulged, over-refined, such as have the AMBITION to |
|
conceal themselves. |
|
|
|
They have all something in common: they keep their ears closed in |
|
presence of the delirious folly and noisy spouting of the democratic |
|
BOURGEOIS. In fact, a besotted and brutalized France at present sprawls |
|
in the foreground--it recently celebrated a veritable orgy of bad taste, |
|
and at the same time of self-admiration, at the funeral of Victor Hugo. |
|
There is also something else common to them: a predilection to resist |
|
intellectual Germanizing--and a still greater inability to do so! |
|
In this France of intellect, which is also a France of pessimism, |
|
Schopenhauer has perhaps become more at home, and more indigenous than |
|
he has ever been in Germany; not to speak of Heinrich Heine, who has |
|
long ago been re-incarnated in the more refined and fastidious lyrists |
|
of Paris; or of Hegel, who at present, in the form of Taine--the FIRST |
|
of living historians--exercises an almost tyrannical influence. As |
|
regards Richard Wagner, however, the more French music learns to |
|
adapt itself to the actual needs of the AME MODERNE, the more will it |
|
"Wagnerite"; one can safely predict that beforehand,--it is already |
|
taking place sufficiently! There are, however, three things which the |
|
French can still boast of with pride as their heritage and possession, |
|
and as indelible tokens of their ancient intellectual superiority |
|
in Europe, in spite of all voluntary or involuntary Germanizing and |
|
vulgarizing of taste. FIRSTLY, the capacity for artistic emotion, for |
|
devotion to "form," for which the expression, L'ART POUR L'ART, along |
|
with numerous others, has been invented:--such capacity has not been |
|
lacking in France for three centuries; and owing to its reverence for |
|
the "small number," it has again and again made a sort of chamber |
|
music of literature possible, which is sought for in vain elsewhere |
|
in Europe.--The SECOND thing whereby the French can lay claim to |
|
a superiority over Europe is their ancient, many-sided, MORALISTIC |
|
culture, owing to which one finds on an average, even in the petty |
|
ROMANCIERS of the newspapers and chance BOULEVARDIERS DE PARIS, a |
|
psychological sensitiveness and curiosity, of which, for example, one |
|
has no conception (to say nothing of the thing itself!) in Germany. |
|
The Germans lack a couple of centuries of the moralistic work requisite |
|
thereto, which, as we have said, France has not grudged: those who call |
|
the Germans "naive" on that account give them commendation for a defect. |
|
(As the opposite of the German inexperience and innocence IN VOLUPTATE |
|
PSYCHOLOGICA, which is not too remotely associated with the tediousness |
|
of German intercourse,--and as the most successful expression of |
|
genuine French curiosity and inventive talent in this domain of delicate |
|
thrills, Henri Beyle may be noted; that remarkable anticipatory and |
|
forerunning man, who, with a Napoleonic TEMPO, traversed HIS Europe, |
|
in fact, several centuries of the European soul, as a surveyor and |
|
discoverer thereof:--it has required two generations to OVERTAKE him |
|
one way or other, to divine long afterwards some of the riddles |
|
that perplexed and enraptured him--this strange Epicurean and man of |
|
interrogation, the last great psychologist of France).--There is yet |
|
a THIRD claim to superiority: in the French character there is a |
|
successful half-way synthesis of the North and South, which makes them |
|
comprehend many things, and enjoins upon them other things, which an |
|
Englishman can never comprehend. Their temperament, turned alternately |
|
to and from the South, in which from time to time the Provencal and |
|
Ligurian blood froths over, preserves them from the dreadful, northern |
|
grey-in-grey, from sunless conceptual-spectrism and from poverty of |
|
blood--our GERMAN infirmity of taste, for the excessive prevalence |
|
of which at the present moment, blood and iron, that is to say "high |
|
politics," has with great resolution been prescribed (according to |
|
a dangerous healing art, which bids me wait and wait, but not yet |
|
hope).--There is also still in France a pre-understanding and |
|
ready welcome for those rarer and rarely gratified men, who are too |
|
comprehensive to find satisfaction in any kind of fatherlandism, and |
|
know how to love the South when in the North and the North when in the |
|
South--the born Midlanders, the "good Europeans." For them BIZET |
|
has made music, this latest genius, who has seen a new beauty and |
|
seduction,--who has discovered a piece of the SOUTH IN MUSIC. |
|
|
|
255. I hold that many precautions should be taken against German music. |
|
Suppose a person loves the South as I love it--as a great school |
|
of recovery for the most spiritual and the most sensuous ills, as a |
|
boundless solar profusion and effulgence which o'erspreads a sovereign |
|
existence believing in itself--well, such a person will learn to be |
|
somewhat on his guard against German music, because, in injuring his |
|
taste anew, it will also injure his health anew. Such a Southerner, a |
|
Southerner not by origin but by BELIEF, if he should dream of the future |
|
of music, must also dream of it being freed from the influence of the |
|
North; and must have in his ears the prelude to a deeper, mightier, and |
|
perhaps more perverse and mysterious music, a super-German music, which |
|
does not fade, pale, and die away, as all German music does, at the |
|
sight of the blue, wanton sea and the Mediterranean clearness of sky--a |
|
super-European music, which holds its own even in presence of the brown |
|
sunsets of the desert, whose soul is akin to the palm-tree, and can be |
|
at home and can roam with big, beautiful, lonely beasts of prey... I |
|
could imagine a music of which the rarest charm would be that it knew |
|
nothing more of good and evil; only that here and there perhaps some |
|
sailor's home-sickness, some golden shadows and tender weaknesses might |
|
sweep lightly over it; an art which, from the far distance, would see |
|
the colours of a sinking and almost incomprehensible MORAL world fleeing |
|
towards it, and would be hospitable enough and profound enough to |
|
receive such belated fugitives. |
|
|
|
256. Owing to the morbid estrangement which the nationality-craze has |
|
induced and still induces among the nations of Europe, owing also to the |
|
short-sighted and hasty-handed politicians, who with the help of this |
|
craze, are at present in power, and do not suspect to what extent the |
|
disintegrating policy they pursue must necessarily be only an interlude |
|
policy--owing to all this and much else that is altogether unmentionable |
|
at present, the most unmistakable signs that EUROPE WISHES TO BE ONE, |
|
are now overlooked, or arbitrarily and falsely misinterpreted. With all |
|
the more profound and large-minded men of this century, the real general |
|
tendency of the mysterious labour of their souls was to prepare the way |
|
for that new SYNTHESIS, and tentatively to anticipate the European of |
|
the future; only in their simulations, or in their weaker moments, in |
|
old age perhaps, did they belong to the "fatherlands"--they only rested |
|
from themselves when they became "patriots." I think of such men as |
|
Napoleon, Goethe, Beethoven, Stendhal, Heinrich Heine, Schopenhauer: it |
|
must not be taken amiss if I also count Richard Wagner among them, about |
|
whom one must not let oneself be deceived by his own misunderstandings |
|
(geniuses like him have seldom the right to understand themselves), |
|
still less, of course, by the unseemly noise with which he is now |
|
resisted and opposed in France: the fact remains, nevertheless, that |
|
Richard Wagner and the LATER FRENCH ROMANTICISM of the forties, are |
|
most closely and intimately related to one another. They are akin, |
|
fundamentally akin, in all the heights and depths of their requirements; |
|
it is Europe, the ONE Europe, whose soul presses urgently and longingly, |
|
outwards and upwards, in their multifarious and boisterous art--whither? |
|
into a new light? towards a new sun? But who would attempt to express |
|
accurately what all these masters of new modes of speech could not |
|
express distinctly? It is certain that the same storm and stress |
|
tormented them, that they SOUGHT in the same manner, these last great |
|
seekers! All of them steeped in literature to their eyes and ears--the |
|
first artists of universal literary culture--for the most part even |
|
themselves writers, poets, intermediaries and blenders of the arts and |
|
the senses (Wagner, as musician is reckoned among painters, as poet |
|
among musicians, as artist generally among actors); all of them fanatics |
|
for EXPRESSION "at any cost"--I specially mention Delacroix, the nearest |
|
related to Wagner; all of them great discoverers in the realm of the |
|
sublime, also of the loathsome and dreadful, still greater discoverers |
|
in effect, in display, in the art of the show-shop; all of them talented |
|
far beyond their genius, out and out VIRTUOSI, with mysterious accesses |
|
to all that seduces, allures, constrains, and upsets; born enemies of |
|
logic and of the straight line, hankering after the strange, the |
|
exotic, the monstrous, the crooked, and the self-contradictory; as men, |
|
Tantaluses of the will, plebeian parvenus, who knew themselves to be |
|
incapable of a noble TEMPO or of a LENTO in life and action--think |
|
of Balzac, for instance,--unrestrained workers, almost destroying |
|
themselves by work; antinomians and rebels in manners, ambitious and |
|
insatiable, without equilibrium and enjoyment; all of them finally |
|
shattering and sinking down at the Christian cross (and with right |
|
and reason, for who of them would have been sufficiently profound and |
|
sufficiently original for an ANTI-CHRISTIAN philosophy?);--on the |
|
whole, a boldly daring, splendidly overbearing, high-flying, and |
|
aloft-up-dragging class of higher men, who had first to teach their |
|
century--and it is the century of the MASSES--the conception "higher |
|
man."... Let the German friends of Richard Wagner advise together as to |
|
whether there is anything purely German in the Wagnerian art, or whether |
|
its distinction does not consist precisely in coming from SUPER-GERMAN |
|
sources and impulses: in which connection it may not be underrated |
|
how indispensable Paris was to the development of his type, which the |
|
strength of his instincts made him long to visit at the most |
|
decisive time--and how the whole style of his proceedings, of his |
|
self-apostolate, could only perfect itself in sight of the French |
|
socialistic original. On a more subtle comparison it will perhaps be |
|
found, to the honour of Richard Wagner's German nature, that he has |
|
acted in everything with more strength, daring, severity, and elevation |
|
than a nineteenth-century Frenchman could have done--owing to the |
|
circumstance that we Germans are as yet nearer to barbarism than the |
|
French;--perhaps even the most remarkable creation of Richard Wagner is |
|
not only at present, but for ever inaccessible, incomprehensible, and |
|
inimitable to the whole latter-day Latin race: the figure of Siegfried, |
|
that VERY FREE man, who is probably far too free, too hard, too |
|
cheerful, too healthy, too ANTI-CATHOLIC for the taste of old and mellow |
|
civilized nations. He may even have been a sin against Romanticism, this |
|
anti-Latin Siegfried: well, Wagner atoned amply for this sin in his old |
|
sad days, when--anticipating a taste which has meanwhile passed into |
|
politics--he began, with the religious vehemence peculiar to him, to |
|
preach, at least, THE WAY TO ROME, if not to walk therein.--That |
|
these last words may not be misunderstood, I will call to my aid a few |
|
powerful rhymes, which will even betray to less delicate ears what I |
|
mean--what I mean COUNTER TO the "last Wagner" and his Parsifal music:-- |
|
|
|
--Is this our mode?--From German heart came this vexed ululating? From |
|
German body, this self-lacerating? Is ours this priestly hand-dilation, |
|
This incense-fuming exaltation? Is ours this faltering, falling, |
|
shambling, This quite uncertain ding-dong-dangling? This sly |
|
nun-ogling, Ave-hour-bell ringing, This wholly false enraptured |
|
heaven-o'erspringing?--Is this our mode?--Think well!--ye still wait for |
|
admission--For what ye hear is ROME--ROME'S FAITH BY INTUITION! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER IX. WHAT IS NOBLE? |
|
|
|
|
|
257. EVERY elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an |
|
aristocratic society and so it will always be--a society believing in |
|
a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human |
|
beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the PATHOS |
|
OF DISTANCE, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes, |
|
out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on |
|
subordinates and instruments, and out of their equally constant |
|
practice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a |
|
distance--that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the |
|
longing for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself, |
|
the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more |
|
comprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type "man," |
|
the continued "self-surmounting of man," to use a moral formula in |
|
a supermoral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to |
|
any humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an |
|
aristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for |
|
the elevation of the type "man"): the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge |
|
unprejudicedly how every higher civilization hitherto has ORIGINATED! |
|
Men with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of |
|
the word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of will |
|
and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more |
|
peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon |
|
old mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickering |
|
out in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement, |
|
the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their superiority did |
|
not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical |
|
power--they were more COMPLETE men (which at every point also implies |
|
the same as "more complete beasts"). |
|
|
|
258. Corruption--as the indication that anarchy threatens to break out |
|
among the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions, called |
|
"life," is convulsed--is something radically different according to |
|
the organization in which it manifests itself. When, for instance, an |
|
aristocracy like that of France at the beginning of the Revolution, |
|
flung away its privileges with sublime disgust and sacrificed itself |
|
to an excess of its moral sentiments, it was corruption:--it was really |
|
only the closing act of the corruption which had existed for centuries, |
|
by virtue of which that aristocracy had abdicated step by step its |
|
lordly prerogatives and lowered itself to a FUNCTION of royalty (in |
|
the end even to its decoration and parade-dress). The essential thing, |
|
however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard |
|
itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but |
|
as the SIGNIFICANCE and highest justification thereof--that it should |
|
therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion |
|
of individuals, who, FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to |
|
imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must |
|
be precisely that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but |
|
only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class |
|
of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and |
|
in general to a higher EXISTENCE: like those sun-seeking climbing plants |
|
in Java--they are called Sipo Matador,--which encircle an oak so |
|
long and so often with their arms, until at last, high above it, but |
|
supported by it, they can unfold their tops in the open light, and |
|
exhibit their happiness. |
|
|
|
259. To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, |
|
and put one's will on a par with that of others: this may result in a |
|
certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary |
|
conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals |
|
in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one |
|
organization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle |
|
more generally, and if possible even as the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF |
|
SOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really is--namely, a Will |
|
to the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one |
|
must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental |
|
weakness: life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest |
|
of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of |
|
peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, |
|
exploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these words |
|
on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? Even the |
|
organization within which, as was previously supposed, the |
|
individuals treat each other as equal--it takes place in every |
|
healthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not a dying |
|
organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals |
|
within it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the |
|
incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground, |
|
attract to itself and acquire ascendancy--not owing to any morality or |
|
immorality, but because it LIVES, and because life IS precisely Will to |
|
Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans |
|
more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave |
|
everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of |
|
society in which "the exploiting character" is to be absent--that sounds |
|
to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should |
|
refrain from all organic functions. "Exploitation" does not belong to a |
|
depraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to the nature of |
|
the living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence |
|
of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to |
|
Life--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is |
|
the FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history let us be so far honest towards |
|
ourselves! |
|
|
|
260. In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have |
|
hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits |
|
recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until |
|
finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical |
|
distinction was brought to light. There is MASTER-MORALITY and |
|
SLAVE-MORALITY,--I would at once add, however, that in all higher and |
|
mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of |
|
the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and |
|
mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close |
|
juxtaposition--even in the same man, within one soul. The distinctions |
|
of moral values have either originated in a ruling caste, pleasantly |
|
conscious of being different from the ruled--or among the ruled class, |
|
the slaves and dependents of all sorts. In the first case, when it is |
|
the rulers who determine the conception "good," it is the exalted, proud |
|
disposition which is regarded as the distinguishing feature, and that |
|
which determines the order of rank. The noble type of man separates |
|
from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud |
|
disposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be noted |
|
that in this first kind of morality the antithesis "good" and "bad" |
|
means practically the same as "noble" and "despicable",--the antithesis |
|
"good" and "EVIL" is of a different origin. The cowardly, the timid, the |
|
insignificant, and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised; |
|
moreover, also, the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the |
|
self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, |
|
the mendicant flatterers, and above all the liars:--it is a fundamental |
|
belief of all aristocrats that the common people are untruthful. "We |
|
truthful ones"--the nobility in ancient Greece called themselves. It is |
|
obvious that everywhere the designations of moral value were at first |
|
applied to MEN; and were only derivatively and at a later period applied |
|
to ACTIONS; it is a gross mistake, therefore, when historians of morals |
|
start with questions like, "Why have sympathetic actions been praised?" |
|
The noble type of man regards HIMSELF as a determiner of values; he |
|
does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: "What is |
|
injurious to me is injurious in itself;" he knows that it is he himself |
|
only who confers honour on things; he is a CREATOR OF VALUES. He |
|
honours whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality equals |
|
self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude, |
|
of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the |
|
consciousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow:--the noble |
|
man also helps the unfortunate, but not--or scarcely--out of pity, but |
|
rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power. The |
|
noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power |
|
over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who |
|
takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has |
|
reverence for all that is severe and hard. "Wotan placed a hard heart in |
|
my breast," says an old Scandinavian Saga: it is thus rightly expressed |
|
from the soul of a proud Viking. Such a type of man is even proud of not |
|
being made for sympathy; the hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly: |
|
"He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one." The noble |
|
and brave who think thus are the furthest removed from the morality |
|
which sees precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others, |
|
or in DESINTERESSEMENT, the characteristic of the moral; faith |
|
in oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards |
|
"selflessness," belong as definitely to noble morality, as do a careless |
|
scorn and precaution in presence of sympathy and the "warm heart."--It |
|
is the powerful who KNOW how to honour, it is their art, their domain |
|
for invention. The profound reverence for age and for tradition--all law |
|
rests on this double reverence,--the belief and prejudice in favour of |
|
ancestors and unfavourable to newcomers, is typical in the morality of |
|
the powerful; and if, reversely, men of "modern ideas" believe almost |
|
instinctively in "progress" and the "future," and are more and more |
|
lacking in respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these "ideas" has |
|
complacently betrayed itself thereby. A morality of the ruling class, |
|
however, is more especially foreign and irritating to present-day taste |
|
in the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one's |
|
equals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all |
|
that is foreign, just as seems good to one, or "as the heart desires," |
|
and in any case "beyond good and evil": it is here that sympathy and |
|
similar sentiments can have a place. The ability and obligation to |
|
exercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge--both only within the |
|
circle of equals,--artfulness in retaliation, RAFFINEMENT of the idea |
|
in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the |
|
emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance--in fact, in order to be |
|
a good FRIEND): all these are typical characteristics of the noble |
|
morality, which, as has been pointed out, is not the morality of "modern |
|
ideas," and is therefore at present difficult to realize, and also to |
|
unearth and disclose.--It is otherwise with the second type of morality, |
|
SLAVE-MORALITY. Supposing that the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, |
|
the unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves should |
|
moralize, what will be the common element in their moral estimates? |
|
Probably a pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of |
|
man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together with |
|
his situation. The slave has an unfavourable eye for the virtues of the |
|
powerful; he has a skepticism and distrust, a REFINEMENT of distrust of |
|
everything "good" that is there honoured--he would fain persuade himself |
|
that the very happiness there is not genuine. On the other hand, THOSE |
|
qualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are |
|
brought into prominence and flooded with light; it is here that |
|
sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, |
|
humility, and friendliness attain to honour; for here these are the most |
|
useful qualities, and almost the only means of supporting the burden of |
|
existence. Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility. |
|
Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and |
|
"evil":--power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, |
|
a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of |
|
being despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the "evil" man |
|
arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the "good" |
|
man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is |
|
regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when, |
|
in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade |
|
of depreciation--it may be slight and well-intentioned--at last attaches |
|
itself to the "good" man of this morality; because, according to the |
|
servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the SAFE |
|
man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un |
|
bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendancy, language |
|
shows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words "good" |
|
and "stupid."--A last fundamental difference: the desire for FREEDOM, |
|
the instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty |
|
belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as artifice and |
|
enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an |
|
aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.--Hence we can understand |
|
without further detail why love AS A PASSION--it is our European |
|
specialty--must absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its |
|
invention is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant, |
|
ingenious men of the "gai saber," to whom Europe owes so much, and |
|
almost owes itself. |
|
|
|
261. Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult for |
|
a noble man to understand: he will be tempted to deny it, where another |
|
kind of man thinks he sees it self-evidently. The problem for him is |
|
to represent to his mind beings who seek to arouse a good opinion of |
|
themselves which they themselves do not possess--and consequently also |
|
do not "deserve,"--and who yet BELIEVE in this good opinion |
|
afterwards. This seems to him on the one hand such bad taste and so |
|
self-disrespectful, and on the other hand so grotesquely unreasonable, |
|
that he would like to consider vanity an exception, and is doubtful |
|
about it in most cases when it is spoken of. He will say, for |
|
instance: "I may be mistaken about my value, and on the other hand |
|
may nevertheless demand that my value should be acknowledged by others |
|
precisely as I rate it:--that, however, is not vanity (but self-conceit, |
|
or, in most cases, that which is called 'humility,' and also |
|
'modesty')." Or he will even say: "For many reasons I can delight in |
|
the good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honour them, |
|
and rejoice in all their joys, perhaps also because their good opinion |
|
endorses and strengthens my belief in my own good opinion, perhaps |
|
because the good opinion of others, even in cases where I do not share |
|
it, is useful to me, or gives promise of usefulness:--all this, however, |
|
is not vanity." The man of noble character must first bring it home |
|
forcibly to his mind, especially with the aid of history, that, from |
|
time immemorial, in all social strata in any way dependent, the ordinary |
|
man WAS only that which he PASSED FOR:--not being at all accustomed to |
|
fix values, he did not assign even to himself any other value than that |
|
which his master assigned to him (it is the peculiar RIGHT OF MASTERS to |
|
create values). It may be looked upon as the result of an extraordinary |
|
atavism, that the ordinary man, even at present, is still always WAITING |
|
for an opinion about himself, and then instinctively submitting himself |
|
to it; yet by no means only to a "good" opinion, but also to a bad |
|
and unjust one (think, for instance, of the greater part of the |
|
self-appreciations and self-depreciations which believing women learn |
|
from their confessors, and which in general the believing Christian |
|
learns from his Church). In fact, conformably to the slow rise of the |
|
democratic social order (and its cause, the blending of the blood |
|
of masters and slaves), the originally noble and rare impulse of |
|
the masters to assign a value to themselves and to "think well" of |
|
themselves, will now be more and more encouraged and extended; but |
|
it has at all times an older, ampler, and more radically ingrained |
|
propensity opposed to it--and in the phenomenon of "vanity" this older |
|
propensity overmasters the younger. The vain person rejoices over EVERY |
|
good opinion which he hears about himself (quite apart from the point |
|
of view of its usefulness, and equally regardless of its truth or |
|
falsehood), just as he suffers from every bad opinion: for he subjects |
|
himself to both, he feels himself subjected to both, by that oldest |
|
instinct of subjection which breaks forth in him.--It is "the slave" |
|
in the vain man's blood, the remains of the slave's craftiness--and how |
|
much of the "slave" is still left in woman, for instance!--which |
|
seeks to SEDUCE to good opinions of itself; it is the slave, too, who |
|
immediately afterwards falls prostrate himself before these opinions, as |
|
though he had not called them forth.--And to repeat it again: vanity is |
|
an atavism. |
|
|
|
262. A SPECIES originates, and a type becomes established and strong in |
|
the long struggle with essentially constant UNFAVOURABLE conditions. On |
|
the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that species |
|
which receive super-abundant nourishment, and in general a surplus of |
|
protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way to develop |
|
variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in |
|
monstrous vices). Now look at an aristocratic commonwealth, say |
|
an ancient Greek polis, or Venice, as a voluntary or involuntary |
|
contrivance for the purpose of REARING human beings; there are there men |
|
beside one another, thrown upon their own resources, who want to make |
|
their species prevail, chiefly because they MUST prevail, or else |
|
run the terrible danger of being exterminated. The favour, the |
|
super-abundance, the protection are there lacking under which variations |
|
are fostered; the species needs itself as species, as something which, |
|
precisely by virtue of its hardness, its uniformity, and simplicity of |
|
structure, can in general prevail and make itself permanent in |
|
constant struggle with its neighbours, or with rebellious or |
|
rebellion-threatening vassals. The most varied experience teaches it |
|
what are the qualities to which it principally owes the fact that |
|
it still exists, in spite of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been |
|
victorious: these qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone |
|
it develops to maturity. It does so with severity, indeed it desires |
|
severity; every aristocratic morality is intolerant in the education |
|
of youth, in the control of women, in the marriage customs, in the |
|
relations of old and young, in the penal laws (which have an eye only |
|
for the degenerating): it counts intolerance itself among the virtues, |
|
under the name of "justice." A type with few, but very marked features, |
|
a species of severe, warlike, wisely silent, reserved, and reticent |
|
men (and as such, with the most delicate sensibility for the charm and |
|
nuances of society) is thus established, unaffected by the vicissitudes |
|
of generations; the constant struggle with uniform UNFAVOURABLE |
|
conditions is, as already remarked, the cause of a type becoming |
|
stable and hard. Finally, however, a happy state of things results, the |
|
enormous tension is relaxed; there are perhaps no more enemies among the |
|
neighbouring peoples, and the means of life, even of the enjoyment |
|
of life, are present in superabundance. With one stroke the bond and |
|
constraint of the old discipline severs: it is no longer regarded as |
|
necessary, as a condition of existence--if it would continue, it can |
|
only do so as a form of LUXURY, as an archaizing TASTE. Variations, |
|
whether they be deviations (into the higher, finer, and rarer), or |
|
deteriorations and monstrosities, appear suddenly on the scene in the |
|
greatest exuberance and splendour; the individual dares to be individual |
|
and detach himself. At this turning-point of history there manifest |
|
themselves, side by side, and often mixed and entangled together, a |
|
magnificent, manifold, virgin-forest-like up-growth and up-striving, a |
|
kind of TROPICAL TEMPO in the rivalry of growth, and an extraordinary |
|
decay and self-destruction, owing to the savagely opposing and seemingly |
|
exploding egoisms, which strive with one another "for sun and light," |
|
and can no longer assign any limit, restraint, or forbearance for |
|
themselves by means of the hitherto existing morality. It was this |
|
morality itself which piled up the strength so enormously, which bent |
|
the bow in so threatening a manner:--it is now "out of date," it is |
|
getting "out of date." The dangerous and disquieting point has been |
|
reached when the greater, more manifold, more comprehensive life IS |
|
LIVED BEYOND the old morality; the "individual" stands out, and is |
|
obliged to have recourse to his own law-giving, his own arts and |
|
artifices for self-preservation, self-elevation, and self-deliverance. |
|
Nothing but new "Whys," nothing but new "Hows," no common formulas any |
|
longer, misunderstanding and disregard in league with each other, decay, |
|
deterioration, and the loftiest desires frightfully entangled, the |
|
genius of the race overflowing from all the cornucopias of good and bad, |
|
a portentous simultaneousness of Spring and Autumn, full of new charms |
|
and mysteries peculiar to the fresh, still inexhausted, still unwearied |
|
corruption. Danger is again present, the mother of morality, great |
|
danger; this time shifted into the individual, into the neighbour and |
|
friend, into the street, into their own child, into their own heart, |
|
into all the most personal and secret recesses of their desires and |
|
volitions. What will the moral philosophers who appear at this time have |
|
to preach? They discover, these sharp onlookers and loafers, that the |
|
end is quickly approaching, that everything around them decays and |
|
produces decay, that nothing will endure until the day after tomorrow, |
|
except one species of man, the incurably MEDIOCRE. The mediocre alone |
|
have a prospect of continuing and propagating themselves--they will |
|
be the men of the future, the sole survivors; "be like them! become |
|
mediocre!" is now the only morality which has still a significance, |
|
which still obtains a hearing.--But it is difficult to preach this |
|
morality of mediocrity! it can never avow what it is and what it |
|
desires! it has to talk of moderation and dignity and duty and brotherly |
|
love--it will have difficulty IN CONCEALING ITS IRONY! |
|
|
|
263. There is an INSTINCT FOR RANK, which more than anything else is |
|
already the sign of a HIGH rank; there is a DELIGHT in the NUANCES |
|
of reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and habits. The |
|
refinement, goodness, and loftiness of a soul are put to a perilous test |
|
when something passes by that is of the highest rank, but is not |
|
yet protected by the awe of authority from obtrusive touches and |
|
incivilities: something that goes its way like a living touchstone, |
|
undistinguished, undiscovered, and tentative, perhaps voluntarily veiled |
|
and disguised. He whose task and practice it is to investigate souls, |
|
will avail himself of many varieties of this very art to determine the |
|
ultimate value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which |
|
it belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE |
|
ENGENDRE HAINE: the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like |
|
dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed shrines, any |
|
book bearing the marks of great destiny, is brought before it; while |
|
on the other hand, there is an involuntary silence, a hesitation of the |
|
eye, a cessation of all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul |
|
FEELS the nearness of what is worthiest of respect. The way in which, on |
|
the whole, the reverence for the BIBLE has hitherto been maintained |
|
in Europe, is perhaps the best example of discipline and refinement of |
|
manners which Europe owes to Christianity: books of such profoundness |
|
and supreme significance require for their protection an external |
|
tyranny of authority, in order to acquire the PERIOD of thousands of |
|
years which is necessary to exhaust and unriddle them. Much has been |
|
achieved when the sentiment has been at last instilled into the masses |
|
(the shallow-pates and the boobies of every kind) that they are not |
|
allowed to touch everything, that there are holy experiences before |
|
which they must take off their shoes and keep away the unclean hand--it |
|
is almost their highest advance towards humanity. On the contrary, in |
|
the so-called cultured classes, the believers in "modern ideas," nothing |
|
is perhaps so repulsive as their lack of shame, the easy insolence of |
|
eye and hand with which they touch, taste, and finger everything; and it |
|
is possible that even yet there is more RELATIVE nobility of taste, and |
|
more tact for reverence among the people, among the lower classes of |
|
the people, especially among peasants, than among the newspaper-reading |
|
DEMIMONDE of intellect, the cultured class. |
|
|
|
264. It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors have |
|
preferably and most constantly done: whether they were perhaps diligent |
|
economizers attached to a desk and a cash-box, modest and citizen-like |
|
in their desires, modest also in their virtues; or whether they were |
|
accustomed to commanding from morning till night, fond of rude pleasures |
|
and probably of still ruder duties and responsibilities; or whether, |
|
finally, at one time or another, they have sacrificed old privileges of |
|
birth and possession, in order to live wholly for their faith--for their |
|
"God,"--as men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which blushes |
|
at every compromise. It is quite impossible for a man NOT to have |
|
the qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his |
|
constitution, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary. This is |
|
the problem of race. Granted that one knows something of the parents, |
|
it is admissible to draw a conclusion about the child: any kind |
|
of offensive incontinence, any kind of sordid envy, or of clumsy |
|
self-vaunting--the three things which together have constituted the |
|
genuine plebeian type in all times--such must pass over to the child, as |
|
surely as bad blood; and with the help of the best education and culture |
|
one will only succeed in DECEIVING with regard to such heredity.--And |
|
what else does education and culture try to do nowadays! In our very |
|
democratic, or rather, very plebeian age, "education" and "culture" MUST |
|
be essentially the art of deceiving--deceiving with regard to origin, |
|
with regard to the inherited plebeianism in body and soul. An educator |
|
who nowadays preached truthfulness above everything else, and called out |
|
constantly to his pupils: "Be true! Be natural! Show yourselves as you |
|
are!"--even such a virtuous and sincere ass would learn in a short time |
|
to have recourse to the FURCA of Horace, NATURAM EXPELLERE: with what |
|
results? "Plebeianism" USQUE RECURRET. [FOOTNOTE: Horace's "Epistles," |
|
I. x. 24.] |
|
|
|
265. At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that egoism |
|
belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief |
|
that to a being such as "we," other beings must naturally be in |
|
subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. The noble soul accepts the |
|
fact of his egoism without question, and also without consciousness of |
|
harshness, constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather as something |
|
that may have its basis in the primary law of things:--if he sought a |
|
designation for it he would say: "It is justice itself." He acknowledges |
|
under certain circumstances, which made him hesitate at first, that |
|
there are other equally privileged ones; as soon as he has settled this |
|
question of rank, he moves among those equals and equally privileged |
|
ones with the same assurance, as regards modesty and delicate respect, |
|
which he enjoys in intercourse with himself--in accordance with an |
|
innate heavenly mechanism which all the stars understand. It is an |
|
ADDITIONAL instance of his egoism, this artfulness and self-limitation |
|
in intercourse with his equals--every star is a similar egoist; he |
|
honours HIMSELF in them, and in the rights which he concedes to them, he |
|
has no doubt that the exchange of honours and rights, as the ESSENCE of |
|
all intercourse, belongs also to the natural condition of things. The |
|
noble soul gives as he takes, prompted by the passionate and sensitive |
|
instinct of requital, which is at the root of his nature. The notion of |
|
"favour" has, INTER PARES, neither significance nor good repute; there |
|
may be a sublime way of letting gifts as it were light upon one from |
|
above, and of drinking them thirstily like dew-drops; but for those |
|
arts and displays the noble soul has no aptitude. His egoism hinders him |
|
here: in general, he looks "aloft" unwillingly--he looks either FORWARD, |
|
horizontally and deliberately, or downwards--HE KNOWS THAT HE IS ON A |
|
HEIGHT. |
|
|
|
266. "One can only truly esteem him who does not LOOK OUT FOR |
|
himself."--Goethe to Rath Schlosser. |
|
|
|
267. The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their children: |
|
"SIAO-SIN" ("MAKE THY HEART SMALL"). This is the essentially fundamental |
|
tendency in latter-day civilizations. I have no doubt that an ancient |
|
Greek, also, would first of all remark the self-dwarfing in us Europeans |
|
of today--in this respect alone we should immediately be "distasteful" |
|
to him. |
|
|
|
268. What, after all, is ignobleness?--Words are vocal symbols for |
|
ideas; ideas, however, are more or less definite mental symbols |
|
for frequently returning and concurring sensations, for groups of |
|
sensations. It is not sufficient to use the same words in order to |
|
understand one another: we must also employ the same words for the same |
|
kind of internal experiences, we must in the end have experiences IN |
|
COMMON. On this account the people of one nation understand one another |
|
better than those belonging to different nations, even when they use |
|
the same language; or rather, when people have lived long together under |
|
similar conditions (of climate, soil, danger, requirement, toil) there |
|
ORIGINATES therefrom an entity that "understands itself"--namely, a |
|
nation. In all souls a like number of frequently recurring experiences |
|
have gained the upper hand over those occurring more rarely: about |
|
these matters people understand one another rapidly and always more |
|
rapidly--the history of language is the history of a process of |
|
abbreviation; on the basis of this quick comprehension people always |
|
unite closer and closer. The greater the danger, the greater is the |
|
need of agreeing quickly and readily about what is necessary; not to |
|
misunderstand one another in danger--that is what cannot at all be |
|
dispensed with in intercourse. Also in all loves and friendships one has |
|
the experience that nothing of the kind continues when the discovery |
|
has been made that in using the same words, one of the two parties has |
|
feelings, thoughts, intuitions, wishes, or fears different from those of |
|
the other. (The fear of the "eternal misunderstanding": that is the good |
|
genius which so often keeps persons of different sexes from too |
|
hasty attachments, to which sense and heart prompt them--and NOT some |
|
Schopenhauerian "genius of the species"!) Whichever groups of sensations |
|
within a soul awaken most readily, begin to speak, and give the word of |
|
command--these decide as to the general order of rank of its values, and |
|
determine ultimately its list of desirable things. A man's estimates of |
|
value betray something of the STRUCTURE of his soul, and wherein it |
|
sees its conditions of life, its intrinsic needs. Supposing now that |
|
necessity has from all time drawn together only such men as could |
|
express similar requirements and similar experiences by similar symbols, |
|
it results on the whole that the easy COMMUNICABILITY of need, |
|
which implies ultimately the undergoing only of average and COMMON |
|
experiences, must have been the most potent of all the forces which |
|
have hitherto operated upon mankind. The more similar, the more ordinary |
|
people, have always had and are still having the advantage; the more |
|
select, more refined, more unique, and difficultly comprehensible, are |
|
liable to stand alone; they succumb to accidents in their isolation, and |
|
seldom propagate themselves. One must appeal to immense opposing forces, |
|
in order to thwart this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE, |
|
the evolution of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the |
|
gregarious--to the IGNOBLE--! |
|
|
|
269. The more a psychologist--a born, an unavoidable psychologist |
|
and soul-diviner--turns his attention to the more select cases and |
|
individuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by sympathy: |
|
he NEEDS sternness and cheerfulness more than any other man. For |
|
the corruption, the ruination of higher men, of the more unusually |
|
constituted souls, is in fact, the rule: it is dreadful to have such a |
|
rule always before one's eyes. The manifold torment of the psychologist |
|
who has discovered this ruination, who discovers once, and then |
|
discovers ALMOST repeatedly throughout all history, this universal |
|
inner "desperateness" of higher men, this eternal "too late!" in every |
|
sense--may perhaps one day be the cause of his turning with |
|
bitterness against his own lot, and of his making an attempt at |
|
self-destruction--of his "going to ruin" himself. One may perceive |
|
in almost every psychologist a tell-tale inclination for delightful |
|
intercourse with commonplace and well-ordered men; the fact is thereby |
|
disclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort |
|
of flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and |
|
incisiveness--from what his "business"--has laid upon his conscience. |
|
The fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is easily silenced by the |
|
judgment of others; he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour, |
|
admire, love, and glorify, where he has PERCEIVED--or he even conceals |
|
his silence by expressly assenting to some plausible opinion. Perhaps |
|
the paradox of his situation becomes so dreadful that, precisely |
|
where he has learnt GREAT SYMPATHY, together with great CONTEMPT, the |
|
multitude, the educated, and the visionaries, have on their part learnt |
|
great reverence--reverence for "great men" and marvelous animals, for |
|
the sake of whom one blesses and honours the fatherland, the earth, the |
|
dignity of mankind, and one's own self, to whom one points the young, |
|
and in view of whom one educates them. And who knows but in all great |
|
instances hitherto just the same happened: that the multitude worshipped |
|
a God, and that the "God" was only a poor sacrificial animal! SUCCESS |
|
has always been the greatest liar--and the "work" itself is a success; |
|
the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer, are disguised in |
|
their creations until they are unrecognizable; the "work" of the artist, |
|
of the philosopher, only invents him who has created it, is REPUTED |
|
to have created it; the "great men," as they are reverenced, are poor |
|
little fictions composed afterwards; in the world of historical values |
|
spurious coinage PREVAILS. Those great poets, for example, such as |
|
Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not venture to mention |
|
much greater names, but I have them in my mind), as they now appear, and |
|
were perhaps obliged to be: men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous, |
|
and childish, light-minded and impulsive in their trust and distrust; |
|
with souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed; often taking |
|
revenge with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking |
|
forgetfulness in their soaring from a too true memory, often lost in |
|
the mud and almost in love with it, until they become like the |
|
Will-o'-the-Wisps around the swamps, and PRETEND TO BE stars--the people |
|
then call them idealists,--often struggling with protracted disgust, |
|
with an ever-reappearing phantom of disbelief, which makes them cold, |
|
and obliges them to languish for GLORIA and devour "faith as it is" |
|
out of the hands of intoxicated adulators:--what a TORMENT these great |
|
artists are and the so-called higher men in general, to him who has once |
|
found them out! It is thus conceivable that it is just from woman--who |
|
is clairvoyant in the world of suffering, and also unfortunately eager |
|
to help and save to an extent far beyond her powers--that THEY have |
|
learnt so readily those outbreaks of boundless devoted SYMPATHY, which |
|
the multitude, above all the reverent multitude, do not understand, |
|
and overwhelm with prying and self-gratifying interpretations. This |
|
sympathizing invariably deceives itself as to its power; woman would |
|
like to believe that love can do EVERYTHING--it is the SUPERSTITION |
|
peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor, |
|
helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love |
|
is--he finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!--It is possible that |
|
under the holy fable and travesty of the life of Jesus there is hidden |
|
one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LOVE: |
|
the martyrdom of the most innocent and most craving heart, that |
|
never had enough of any human love, that DEMANDED love, that demanded |
|
inexorably and frantically to be loved and nothing else, with terrible |
|
outbursts against those who refused him their love; the story of a poor |
|
soul insatiated and insatiable in love, that had to invent hell to send |
|
thither those who WOULD NOT love him--and that at last, enlightened |
|
about human love, had to invent a God who is entire love, entire |
|
CAPACITY for love--who takes pity on human love, because it is so |
|
paltry, so ignorant! He who has such sentiments, he who has such |
|
KNOWLEDGE about love--SEEKS for death!--But why should one deal with |
|
such painful matters? Provided, of course, that one is not obliged to do |
|
so. |
|
|
|
270. The intellectual haughtiness and loathing of every man who has |
|
suffered deeply--it almost determines the order of rank HOW deeply men |
|
can suffer--the chilling certainty, with which he is thoroughly imbued |
|
and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he KNOWS MORE than the |
|
shrewdest and wisest can ever know, that he has been familiar with, |
|
and "at home" in, many distant, dreadful worlds of which "YOU know |
|
nothing"!--this silent intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this |
|
pride of the elect of knowledge, of the "initiated," of the almost |
|
sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from |
|
contact with officious and sympathizing hands, and in general from all |
|
that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble: |
|
it separates.--One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism, |
|
along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes |
|
suffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that |
|
is sorrowful and profound. They are "gay men" who make use of gaiety, |
|
because they are misunderstood on account of it--they WISH to be |
|
misunderstood. There are "scientific minds" who make use of science, |
|
because it gives a gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to |
|
the conclusion that a person is superficial--they WISH to mislead to a |
|
false conclusion. There are free insolent minds which would fain conceal |
|
and deny that they are broken, proud, incurable hearts (the cynicism of |
|
Hamlet--the case of Galiani); and occasionally folly itself is the mask |
|
of an unfortunate OVER-ASSURED knowledge.--From which it follows that it |
|
is the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence "for the mask," |
|
and not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place. |
|
|
|
271. That which separates two men most profoundly is a different sense |
|
and grade of purity. What does it matter about all their honesty and |
|
reciprocal usefulness, what does it matter about all their mutual |
|
good-will: the fact still remains--they "cannot smell each other!" The |
|
highest instinct for purity places him who is affected with it in the |
|
most extraordinary and dangerous isolation, as a saint: for it is just |
|
holiness--the highest spiritualization of the instinct in question. Any |
|
kind of cognizance of an indescribable excess in the joy of the bath, |
|
any kind of ardour or thirst which perpetually impels the soul out |
|
of night into the morning, and out of gloom, out of "affliction" into |
|
clearness, brightness, depth, and refinement:--just as much as such a |
|
tendency DISTINGUISHES--it is a noble tendency--it also SEPARATES.--The |
|
pity of the saint is pity for the FILTH of the human, all-too-human. |
|
And there are grades and heights where pity itself is regarded by him as |
|
impurity, as filth. |
|
|
|
272. Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the |
|
rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share |
|
our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of |
|
them, among our DUTIES. |
|
|
|
273. A man who strives after great things, looks upon every one whom |
|
he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and |
|
hindrance--or as a temporary resting-place. His peculiar lofty BOUNTY |
|
to his fellow-men is only possible when he attains his elevation and |
|
dominates. Impatience, and the consciousness of being always condemned |
|
to comedy up to that time--for even strife is a comedy, and conceals the |
|
end, as every means does--spoil all intercourse for him; this kind of |
|
man is acquainted with solitude, and what is most poisonous in it. |
|
|
|
274. THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.--Happy chances are necessary, and |
|
many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the |
|
solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or "break forth," |
|
as one might say--at the right moment. On an average it DOES NOT happen; |
|
and in all corners of the earth there are waiting ones sitting who |
|
hardly know to what extent they are waiting, and still less that they |
|
wait in vain. Occasionally, too, the waking call comes too late--the |
|
chance which gives "permission" to take action--when their best youth, |
|
and strength for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many |
|
a one, just as he "sprang up," has found with horror that his limbs are |
|
benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! "It is too late," he has |
|
said to himself--and has become self-distrustful and henceforth for ever |
|
useless.--In the domain of genius, may not the "Raphael without |
|
hands" (taking the expression in its widest sense) perhaps not be the |
|
exception, but the rule?--Perhaps genius is by no means so rare: but |
|
rather the five hundred HANDS which it requires in order to tyrannize |
|
over the [GREEK INSERTED HERE], "the right time"--in order to take |
|
chance by the forelock! |
|
|
|
275. He who does not WISH to see the height of a man, looks all the |
|
more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground--and thereby |
|
betrays himself. |
|
|
|
276. In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is |
|
better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be |
|
greater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in |
|
fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its |
|
existence.--In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost; not so |
|
in man.-- |
|
|
|
277. It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished |
|
building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something |
|
which he OUGHT absolutely to have known before he--began to build. The |
|
eternal, fatal "Too late!" The melancholia of everything COMPLETED--! |
|
|
|
278.--Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without scorn, |
|
without love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a plummet which has |
|
returned to the light insatiated out of every depth--what did it seek |
|
down there?--with a bosom that never sighs, with lips that conceal their |
|
loathing, with a hand which only slowly grasps: who art thou? what |
|
hast thou done? Rest thee here: this place has hospitality for every |
|
one--refresh thyself! And whoever thou art, what is it that now pleases |
|
thee? What will serve to refresh thee? Only name it, whatever I have |
|
I offer thee! "To refresh me? To refresh me? Oh, thou prying one, |
|
what sayest thou! But give me, I pray thee---" What? what? Speak out! |
|
"Another mask! A second mask!" |
|
|
|
279. Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they |
|
have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and |
|
strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well that it will |
|
flee from them! |
|
|
|
280. "Bad! Bad! What? Does he not--go back?" Yes! But you misunderstand |
|
him when you complain about it. He goes back like every one who is about |
|
to make a great spring. |
|
|
|
281.--"Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they believe it |
|
of me: I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of myself and about |
|
myself, only in very rare cases, only compulsorily, always without |
|
delight in 'the subject,' ready to digress from 'myself,' and always |
|
without faith in the result, owing to an unconquerable distrust of the |
|
POSSIBILITY of self-knowledge, which has led me so far as to feel a |
|
CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO even in the idea of 'direct knowledge' which |
|
theorists allow themselves:--this matter of fact is almost the most |
|
certain thing I know about myself. There must be a sort of repugnance |
|
in me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself.--Is there perhaps |
|
some enigma therein? Probably; but fortunately nothing for my own |
|
teeth.--Perhaps it betrays the species to which I belong?--but not to |
|
myself, as is sufficiently agreeable to me." |
|
|
|
282.--"But what has happened to you?"--"I do not know," he said, |
|
hesitatingly; "perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table."--It |
|
sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes |
|
suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves, |
|
and shocks everybody--and finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at |
|
himself--whither? for what purpose? To famish apart? To suffocate with |
|
his memories?--To him who has the desires of a lofty and dainty soul, |
|
and only seldom finds his table laid and his food prepared, the danger |
|
will always be great--nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so. |
|
Thrown into the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does |
|
not like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger |
|
and thirst--or, should he nevertheless finally "fall to," of sudden |
|
nausea.--We have probably all sat at tables to which we did not belong; |
|
and precisely the most spiritual of us, who are most difficult to |
|
nourish, know the dangerous DYSPEPSIA which originates from a sudden |
|
insight and disillusionment about our food and our messmates--the |
|
AFTER-DINNER NAUSEA. |
|
|
|
283. If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the |
|
same time a noble self-control, to praise only where one DOES NOT |
|
agree--otherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is contrary |
|
to good taste:--a self-control, to be sure, which offers excellent |
|
opportunity and provocation to constant MISUNDERSTANDING. To be able to |
|
allow oneself this veritable luxury of taste and morality, one must |
|
not live among intellectual imbeciles, but rather among men whose |
|
misunderstandings and mistakes amuse by their refinement--or one will |
|
have to pay dearly for it!--"He praises me, THEREFORE he acknowledges me |
|
to be right"--this asinine method of inference spoils half of the life |
|
of us recluses, for it brings the asses into our neighbourhood and |
|
friendship. |
|
|
|
284. To live in a vast and proud tranquility; always beyond... To have, |
|
or not to have, one's emotions, one's For and Against, according to |
|
choice; to lower oneself to them for hours; to SEAT oneself on them as |
|
upon horses, and often as upon asses:--for one must know how to make |
|
use of their stupidity as well as of their fire. To conserve one's |
|
three hundred foregrounds; also one's black spectacles: for there are |
|
circumstances when nobody must look into our eyes, still less into our |
|
"motives." And to choose for company that roguish and cheerful vice, |
|
politeness. And to remain master of one's four virtues, courage, |
|
insight, sympathy, and solitude. For solitude is a virtue with us, as |
|
a sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of |
|
man and man--"in society"--it must be unavoidably impure. All society |
|
makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometime--"commonplace." |
|
|
|
285. The greatest events and thoughts--the greatest thoughts, however, |
|
are the greatest events--are longest in being comprehended: the |
|
generations which are contemporary with them do not EXPERIENCE such |
|
events--they live past them. Something happens there as in the realm of |
|
stars. The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man; and |
|
before it has arrived man DENIES--that there are stars there. "How |
|
many centuries does a mind require to be understood?"--that is also a |
|
standard, one also makes a gradation of rank and an etiquette therewith, |
|
such as is necessary for mind and for star. |
|
|
|
286. "Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted." [FOOTNOTE: Goethe's |
|
"Faust," Part II, Act V. The words of Dr. Marianus.]--But there is a |
|
reverse kind of man, who is also upon a height, and has also a free |
|
prospect--but looks DOWNWARDS. |
|
|
|
287. What is noble? What does the word "noble" still mean for us |
|
nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he recognized |
|
under this heavy overcast sky of the commencing plebeianism, by which |
|
everything is rendered opaque and leaden?--It is not his actions which |
|
establish his claim--actions are always ambiguous, always inscrutable; |
|
neither is it his "works." One finds nowadays among artists and scholars |
|
plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for |
|
nobleness impels them; but this very NEED of nobleness is radically |
|
different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the |
|
eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works, |
|
but the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines the order of |
|
rank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper |
|
meaning--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about |
|
itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and |
|
perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR |
|
ITSELF.-- |
|
|
|
288. There are men who are unavoidably intellectual, let them turn |
|
and twist themselves as they will, and hold their hands before their |
|
treacherous eyes--as though the hand were not a betrayer; it always |
|
comes out at last that they have something which they hide--namely, |
|
intellect. One of the subtlest means of deceiving, at least as long as |
|
possible, and of successfully representing oneself to be stupider |
|
than one really is--which in everyday life is often as desirable as |
|
an umbrella,--is called ENTHUSIASM, including what belongs to it, for |
|
instance, virtue. For as Galiani said, who was obliged to know it: VERTU |
|
EST ENTHOUSIASME. |
|
|
|
289. In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of the echo |
|
of the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and timid vigilance |
|
of solitude; in his strongest words, even in his cry itself, there |
|
sounds a new and more dangerous kind of silence, of concealment. He who |
|
has sat day and night, from year's end to year's end, alone with his |
|
soul in familiar discord and discourse, he who has become a cave-bear, |
|
or a treasure-seeker, or a treasure-guardian and dragon in his cave--it |
|
may be a labyrinth, but can also be a gold-mine--his ideas themselves |
|
eventually acquire a twilight-colour of their own, and an odour, as much |
|
of the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative and repulsive, |
|
which blows chilly upon every passer-by. The recluse does not believe |
|
that a philosopher--supposing that a philosopher has always in the first |
|
place been a recluse--ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in |
|
books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?--indeed, |
|
he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual" |
|
opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must |
|
necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer |
|
world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every |
|
"foundation." Every philosophy is a foreground philosophy--this is a |
|
recluse's verdict: "There is something arbitrary in the fact that the |
|
PHILOSOPHER came to a stand here, took a retrospect, and looked around; |
|
that he HERE laid his spade aside and did not dig any deeper--there |
|
is also something suspicious in it." Every philosophy also CONCEALS a |
|
philosophy; every opinion is also a LURKING-PLACE, every word is also a |
|
MASK. |
|
|
|
290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being |
|
misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former |
|
wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you |
|
also have as hard a time of it as I have?" |
|
|
|
291. Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny |
|
to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his |
|
strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his |
|
soul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of morality is a long, audacious |
|
falsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of |
|
the soul becomes possible. From this point of view there is perhaps much |
|
more in the conception of "art" than is generally believed. |
|
|
|
292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees, |
|
hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck |
|
by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and |
|
below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who |
|
is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous |
|
man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and |
|
something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often |
|
runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity |
|
always makes him "come to himself" again. |
|
|
|
293. A man who says: "I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to |
|
guard and protect it from every one"; a man who can conduct a case, |
|
carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman, |
|
punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his |
|
sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the |
|
animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a |
|
MASTER by nature--when such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has |
|
value! But of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of |
|
those even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost the |
|
whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain, |
|
and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing, |
|
which, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks |
|
to deck itself out as something superior--there is a regular cult of |
|
suffering. The UNMANLINESS of that which is called "sympathy" by such |
|
groups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that |
|
strikes the eye.--One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest |
|
form of bad taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet, |
|
"GAI SABER" ("gay science," in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as |
|
a protection against it. |
|
|
|
294. THE OLYMPIAN VICE.--Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine |
|
Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking |
|
minds--"Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every |
|
thinking mind will strive to overcome" (Hobbes),--I would even |
|
allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their |
|
laughing--up to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter. And supposing |
|
that Gods also philosophize, which I am strongly inclined to believe, |
|
owing to many reasons--I have no doubt that they also know how to laugh |
|
thereby in an overman-like and new fashion--and at the expense of all |
|
serious things! Gods are fond of ridicule: it seems that they cannot |
|
refrain from laughter even in holy matters. |
|
|
|
295. The genius of the heart, as that great mysterious one possesses |
|
it, the tempter-god and born rat-catcher of consciences, whose voice can |
|
descend into the nether-world of every soul, who neither speaks a word |
|
nor casts a glance in which there may not be some motive or touch |
|
of allurement, to whose perfection it pertains that he knows how to |
|
appear,--not as he is, but in a guise which acts as an ADDITIONAL |
|
constraint on his followers to press ever closer to him, to follow him |
|
more cordially and thoroughly;--the genius of the heart, which imposes |
|
silence and attention on everything loud and self-conceited, which |
|
smoothes rough souls and makes them taste a new longing--to lie placid |
|
as a mirror, that the deep heavens may be reflected in them;--the genius |
|
of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and too hasty hand to hesitate, |
|
and to grasp more delicately; which scents the hidden and forgotten |
|
treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under thick dark |
|
ice, and is a divining-rod for every grain of gold, long buried and |
|
imprisoned in mud and sand; the genius of the heart, from contact with |
|
which every one goes away richer; not favoured or surprised, not as |
|
though gratified and oppressed by the good things of others; but richer |
|
in himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded by a |
|
thawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more |
|
bruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names, full of a new will |
|
and current, full of a new ill-will and counter-current... but what am I |
|
doing, my friends? Of whom am I talking to you? Have I forgotten myself |
|
so far that I have not even told you his name? Unless it be that you |
|
have already divined of your own accord who this questionable God |
|
and spirit is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it |
|
happens to every one who from childhood onward has always been on his |
|
legs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered on my path many |
|
strange and dangerous spirits; above all, however, and again and again, |
|
the one of whom I have just spoken: in fact, no less a personage than |
|
the God DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and tempter, to whom, as you |
|
know, I once offered in all secrecy and reverence my first-fruits--the |
|
last, as it seems to me, who has offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I |
|
have found no one who could understand what I was then doing. In |
|
the meantime, however, I have learned much, far too much, about the |
|
philosophy of this God, and, as I said, from mouth to mouth--I, the last |
|
disciple and initiate of the God Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last |
|
begin to give you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little taste of |
|
this philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly: for it has to do |
|
with much that is secret, new, strange, wonderful, and uncanny. The |
|
very fact that Dionysus is a philosopher, and that therefore Gods also |
|
philosophize, seems to me a novelty which is not unensnaring, and might |
|
perhaps arouse suspicion precisely among philosophers;--among you, my |
|
friends, there is less to be said against it, except that it comes too |
|
late and not at the right time; for, as it has been disclosed to me, you |
|
are loth nowadays to believe in God and gods. It may happen, too, that |
|
in the frankness of my story I must go further than is agreeable to the |
|
strict usages of your ears? Certainly the God in question went further, |
|
very much further, in such dialogues, and was always many paces ahead of |
|
me... Indeed, if it were allowed, I should have to give him, according |
|
to human usage, fine ceremonious tides of lustre and merit, I should |
|
have to extol his courage as investigator and discoverer, his fearless |
|
honesty, truthfulness, and love of wisdom. But such a God does not know |
|
what to do with all that respectable trumpery and pomp. "Keep that," he |
|
would say, "for thyself and those like thee, and whoever else require |
|
it! I--have no reason to cover my nakedness!" One suspects that this |
|
kind of divinity and philosopher perhaps lacks shame?--He once said: |
|
"Under certain circumstances I love mankind"--and referred thereby to |
|
Ariadne, who was present; "in my opinion man is an agreeable, brave, |
|
inventive animal, that has not his equal upon earth, he makes his way |
|
even through all labyrinths. I like man, and often think how I can |
|
still further advance him, and make him stronger, more evil, and more |
|
profound."--"Stronger, more evil, and more profound?" I asked in horror. |
|
"Yes," he said again, "stronger, more evil, and more profound; also more |
|
beautiful"--and thereby the tempter-god smiled with his halcyon smile, |
|
as though he had just paid some charming compliment. One here sees at |
|
once that it is not only shame that this divinity lacks;--and in general |
|
there are good grounds for supposing that in some things the Gods could |
|
all of them come to us men for instruction. We men are--more human.-- |
|
|
|
296. Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not |
|
long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns |
|
and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh--and now? You |
|
have already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready |
|
to become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so |
|
tedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint, |
|
we mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalisers of things which LEND |
|
themselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only |
|
that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas, |
|
only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas, |
|
only birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be |
|
captured with the hand--with OUR hand! We immortalize what cannot live |
|
and fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it |
|
is only for your AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for |
|
which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated |
|
softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds;--but |
|
nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden |
|
sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved--EVIL thoughts! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FROM THE HEIGHTS |
|
|
|
By F W Nietzsche |
|
|
|
Translated by L. A. Magnus |
|
|
|
|
|
1. |
|
|
|
MIDDAY of Life! Oh, season of delight! |
|
My summer's park! |
|
Uneaseful joy to look, to lurk, to hark-- |
|
I peer for friends, am ready day and night,-- |
|
Where linger ye, my friends? The time is right! |
|
|
|
2. |
|
|
|
Is not the glacier's grey today for you |
|
Rose-garlanded? |
|
The brooklet seeks you, wind, cloud, with longing thread |
|
And thrust themselves yet higher to the blue, |
|
To spy for you from farthest eagle's view. |
|
|
|
3. |
|
|
|
My table was spread out for you on high-- |
|
Who dwelleth so |
|
Star-near, so near the grisly pit below?-- |
|
My realm--what realm hath wider boundary? |
|
My honey--who hath sipped its fragrancy? |
|
|
|
4. |
|
|
|
Friends, ye are there! Woe me,--yet I am not |
|
He whom ye seek? |
|
Ye stare and stop--better your wrath could speak! |
|
I am not I? Hand, gait, face, changed? And what |
|
I am, to you my friends, now am I not? |
|
|
|
5. |
|
|
|
Am I an other? Strange am I to Me? |
|
Yet from Me sprung? |
|
A wrestler, by himself too oft self-wrung? |
|
Hindering too oft my own self's potency, |
|
Wounded and hampered by self-victory? |
|
|
|
6. |
|
|
|
I sought where-so the wind blows keenest. There |
|
I learned to dwell |
|
Where no man dwells, on lonesome ice-lorn fell, |
|
And unlearned Man and God and curse and prayer? |
|
Became a ghost haunting the glaciers bare? |
|
|
|
7. |
|
|
|
Ye, my old friends! Look! Ye turn pale, filled o'er |
|
With love and fear! |
|
Go! Yet not in wrath. Ye could ne'er live here. |
|
Here in the farthest realm of ice and scaur, |
|
A huntsman must one be, like chamois soar. |
|
|
|
8. |
|
|
|
An evil huntsman was I? See how taut |
|
My bow was bent! |
|
Strongest was he by whom such bolt were sent-- |
|
Woe now! That arrow is with peril fraught, |
|
Perilous as none.--Have yon safe home ye sought! |
|
|
|
9. |
|
|
|
Ye go! Thou didst endure enough, oh, heart;-- |
|
Strong was thy hope; |
|
Unto new friends thy portals widely ope, |
|
Let old ones be. Bid memory depart! |
|
Wast thou young then, now--better young thou art! |
|
|
|
10. |
|
|
|
What linked us once together, one hope's tie-- |
|
(Who now doth con |
|
Those lines, now fading, Love once wrote thereon?)-- |
|
Is like a parchment, which the hand is shy |
|
To touch--like crackling leaves, all seared, all dry. |
|
|
|
11. |
|
|
|
Oh! Friends no more! They are--what name for those?-- |
|
Friends' phantom-flight |
|
Knocking at my heart's window-pane at night, |
|
Gazing on me, that speaks "We were" and goes,-- |
|
Oh, withered words, once fragrant as the rose! |
|
|
|
12. |
|
|
|
Pinings of youth that might not understand! |
|
For which I pined, |
|
Which I deemed changed with me, kin of my kind: |
|
But they grew old, and thus were doomed and banned: |
|
None but new kith are native of my land! |
|
|
|
13. |
|
|
|
Midday of life! My second youth's delight! |
|
My summer's park! |
|
Unrestful joy to long, to lurk, to hark! |
|
I peer for friends!--am ready day and night, |
|
For my new friends. Come! Come! The time is right! |
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14. |
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This song is done,--the sweet sad cry of rue |
|
Sang out its end; |
|
A wizard wrought it, he the timely friend, |
|
The midday-friend,--no, do not ask me who; |
|
At midday 'twas, when one became as two. |
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15. |
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|
We keep our Feast of Feasts, sure of our bourne, |
|
Our aims self-same: |
|
The Guest of Guests, friend Zarathustra, came! |
|
The world now laughs, the grisly veil was torn, |
|
And Light and Dark were one that wedding-morn. |
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|
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PREFACE. |
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1 |
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It is often enough, and always with great surprise, intimated to me that |
|
there is something both ordinary and unusual in all my writings, from |
|
the "Birth of Tragedy" to the recently published "Prelude to a |
|
Philosophy of the Future": they all contain, I have been told, snares |
|
and nets for short sighted birds, and something that is almost a |
|
constant, subtle, incitement to an overturning of habitual opinions and |
|
of approved customs. What!? Everything is merely--human--all too human? |
|
With this exclamation my writings are gone through, not without a |
|
certain dread and mistrust of ethic itself and not without a disposition |
|
to ask the exponent of evil things if those things be not simply |
|
misrepresented. My writings have been termed a school of distrust, still |
|
more of disdain: also, and more happily, of courage, audacity even. And |
|
in fact, I myself do not believe that anybody ever looked into the world |
|
with a distrust as deep as mine, seeming, as I do, not simply the timely |
|
advocate of the devil, but, to employ theological terms, an enemy and |
|
challenger of God; and whosoever has experienced any of the consequences |
|
of such deep distrust, anything of the chills and the agonies of |
|
isolation to which such an unqualified difference of standpoint condemns |
|
him endowed with it, will also understand how often I must have sought |
|
relief and self-forgetfulness from any source--through any object of |
|
veneration or enmity, of scientific seriousness or wanton lightness; |
|
also why I, when I could not find what I was in need of, had to fashion |
|
it for myself, counterfeiting it or imagining it (and what poet or |
|
writer has ever done anything else, and what other purpose can all the |
|
art in the world possibly have?) That which I always stood most in need |
|
of in order to effect my cure and self-recovery was faith, faith enough |
|
not to be thus isolated, not to look at life from so singular a point of |
|
view--a magic apprehension (in eye and mind) of relationship and |
|
equality, a calm confidence in friendship, a blindness, free from |
|
suspicion and questioning, to two sidedness; a pleasure in externals, |
|
superficialities, the near, the accessible, in all things possessed of |
|
color, skin and seeming. Perhaps I could be fairly reproached with much |
|
"art" in this regard, many fine counterfeitings; for example, that, |
|
wisely or wilfully, I had shut my eyes to Schopenhauer's blind will |
|
towards ethic, at a time when I was already clear sighted enough on the |
|
subject of ethic; likewise that I had deceived myself concerning Richard |
|
Wagner's incurable romanticism, as if it were a beginning and not an |
|
end; likewise concerning the Greeks, likewise concerning the Germans and |
|
their future--and there may be, perhaps, a long list of such likewises. |
|
Granted, however, that all this were true, and with justice urged |
|
against me, what does it signify, what can it signify in regard to how |
|
much of the self-sustaining capacity, how much of reason and higher |
|
protection are embraced in such self-deception?--and how much more |
|
falsity is still necessary to me that I may therewith always reassure |
|
myself regarding the luxury of my truth. Enough, I still live; and life |
|
is not considered now apart from ethic; it _will_ [have] deception; it |
|
thrives (lebt) on deception ... but am I not beginning to do all over |
|
again what I have always done, I, the old immoralist, and bird |
|
snarer--talk unmorally, ultramorally, "beyond good and evil"? |
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2 |
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Thus, then, have I evolved for myself the "free spirits" to whom this |
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discouraging-encouraging work, under the general title "Human, All Too |
|
Human," is dedicated. Such "free spirits" do not really exist and never |
|
did exist. But I stood in need of them, as I have pointed out, in order |
|
that some good might be mixed with my evils (illness, loneliness, |
|
strangeness, _acedia_, incapacity): to serve as gay spirits and |
|
comrades, with whom one may talk and laugh when one is disposed to talk |
|
and laugh, and whom one may send to the devil when they grow wearisome. |
|
They are some compensation for the lack of friends. That such free |
|
spirits can possibly exist, that our Europe will yet number among her |
|
sons of to-morrow or of the day after to-morrow, such a brilliant and |
|
enthusiastic company, alive and palpable and not merely, as in my case, |
|
fantasms and imaginary shades, I, myself, can by no means doubt. I see |
|
them already coming, slowly, slowly. May it not be that I am doing a |
|
little something to expedite their coming when I describe in advance the |
|
influences under which I see them evolving and the ways along which they |
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travel? |
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3 |
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It may be conjectured that a soul in which the type of "free spirit" can |
|
attain maturity and completeness had its decisive and deciding event in |
|
the form of a great emancipation or unbinding, and that prior to that |
|
event it seemed only the more firmly and forever chained to its place |
|
and pillar. What binds strongest? What cords seem almost unbreakable? In |
|
the case of mortals of a choice and lofty nature they will be those of |
|
duty: that reverence, which in youth is most typical, that timidity and |
|
tenderness in the presence of the traditionally honored and the worthy, |
|
that gratitude to the soil from which we sprung, for the hand that |
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guided us, for the relic before which we were taught to pray--their |
|
sublimest moments will themselves bind these souls most strongly. The |
|
great liberation comes suddenly to such prisoners, like an earthquake: |
|
the young soul is all at once shaken, torn apart, cast forth--it |
|
comprehends not itself what is taking place. An involuntary onward |
|
impulse rules them with the mastery of command; a will, a wish are |
|
developed to go forward, anywhere, at any price; a strong, dangerous |
|
curiosity regarding an undiscovered world flames and flashes in all |
|
their being. "Better to die than live _here_"--so sounds the tempting |
|
voice: and this "here," this "at home" constitutes all they have |
|
hitherto loved. A sudden dread and distrust of that which they loved, a |
|
flash of contempt for that which is called their "duty," a mutinous, |
|
wilful, volcanic-like longing for a far away journey, strange scenes and |
|
people, annihilation, petrifaction, a hatred surmounting love, perhaps a |
|
sacrilegious impulse and look backwards, to where they so long prayed |
|
and loved, perhaps a flush of shame for what they did and at the same |
|
time an exultation at having done it, an inner, intoxicating, |
|
delightful tremor in which is betrayed the sense of victory--a victory? |
|
over what? over whom? a riddle-like victory, fruitful in questioning and |
|
well worth questioning, but the _first_ victory, for all--such things of |
|
pain and ill belong to the history of the great liberation. And it is at |
|
the same time a malady that can destroy a man, this first outbreak of |
|
strength and will for self-destination, self-valuation, this will for |
|
free will: and how much illness is forced to the surface in the frantic |
|
strivings and singularities with which the freedman, the liberated seeks |
|
henceforth to attest his mastery over things! He roves fiercely around, |
|
with an unsatisfied longing and whatever objects he may encounter must |
|
suffer from the perilous expectancy of his pride; he tears to pieces |
|
whatever attracts him. With a sardonic laugh he overturns whatever he |
|
finds veiled or protected by any reverential awe: he would see what |
|
these things look like when they are overturned. It is wilfulness and |
|
delight in the wilfulness of it, if he now, perhaps, gives his approval |
|
to that which has heretofore been in ill repute--if, in curiosity and |
|
experiment, he penetrates stealthily to the most forbidden things. In |
|
the background during all his plunging and roaming--for he is as |
|
restless and aimless in his course as if lost in a wilderness--is the |
|
interrogation mark of a curiosity growing ever more dangerous. "Can we |
|
not upset every standard? and is good perhaps evil? and God only an |
|
invention and a subtlety of the devil? Is everything, in the last |
|
resort, false? And if we are dupes are we not on that very account |
|
dupers also? _must_ we not be dupers also?" Such reflections lead and |
|
mislead him, ever further on, ever further away. Solitude, that dread |
|
goddess and mater saeva cupidinum, encircles and besets him, ever more |
|
threatening, more violent, more heart breaking--but who to-day knows |
|
what solitude is? |
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4 |
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From this morbid solitude, from the deserts of such trial years, the way |
|
is yet far to that great, overflowing certainty and healthiness which |
|
cannot dispense even with sickness as a means and a grappling hook of |
|
knowledge; to that matured freedom of the spirit which is, in an equal |
|
degree, self mastery and discipline of the heart, and gives access to |
|
the path of much and various reflection--to that inner comprehensiveness |
|
and self satisfaction of over-richness which precludes all danger that |
|
the spirit has gone astray even in its own path and is sitting |
|
intoxicated in some corner or other; to that overplus of plastic, |
|
healing, imitative and restorative power which is the very sign of |
|
vigorous health, that overplus which confers upon the free spirit the |
|
perilous prerogative of spending a life in experiment and of running |
|
adventurous risks: the past-master-privilege of the free spirit. In the |
|
interval there may be long years of convalescence, years filled with |
|
many hued painfully-bewitching transformations, dominated and led to the |
|
goal by a tenacious will for health that is often emboldened to assume |
|
the guise and the disguise of health. There is a middle ground to this, |
|
which a man of such destiny can not subsequently recall without emotion; |
|
he basks in a special fine sun of his own, with a feeling of birdlike |
|
freedom, birdlike visual power, birdlike irrepressibleness, a something |
|
extraneous (Drittes) in which curiosity and delicate disdain have |
|
united. A "free spirit"--this refreshing term is grateful in any mood, |
|
it almost sets one aglow. One lives--no longer in the bonds of love and |
|
hate, without a yes or no, here or there indifferently, best pleased to |
|
evade, to avoid, to beat about, neither advancing nor retreating. One is |
|
habituated to the bad, like a person who all at once sees a fearful |
|
hurly-burly _beneath_ him--and one was the counterpart of him who |
|
bothers himself with things that do not concern him. As a matter of fact |
|
the free spirit is bothered with mere things--and how many |
|
things--which no longer _concern_ him. |
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5 |
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A step further in recovery: and the free spirit draws near to life |
|
again, slowly indeed, almost refractorily, almost distrustfully. There |
|
is again warmth and mellowness: feeling and fellow feeling acquire |
|
depth, lambent airs stir all about him. He almost feels: it seems as if |
|
now for the first time his eyes are open to things _near_. He is in |
|
amaze and sits hushed: for where had he been? These near and immediate |
|
things: how changed they seem to him! He looks gratefully back--grateful |
|
for his wandering, his self exile and severity, his lookings afar and |
|
his bird flights in the cold heights. How fortunate that he has not, |
|
like a sensitive, dull home body, remained always "in the house" and "at |
|
home!" He had been beside himself, beyond a doubt. Now for the first |
|
time he really sees himself--and what surprises in the process. What |
|
hitherto unfelt tremors! Yet what joy in the exhaustion, the old |
|
sickness, the relapses of the convalescent! How it delights him, |
|
suffering, to sit still, to exercise patience, to lie in the sun! Who so |
|
well as he appreciates the fact that there comes balmy weather even in |
|
winter, who delights more in the sunshine athwart the wall? They are |
|
the most appreciative creatures in the world, and also the most humble, |
|
these convalescents and lizards, crawling back towards life: there are |
|
some among them who can let no day slip past them without addressing |
|
some song of praise to its retreating light. And speaking seriously, it |
|
is a fundamental cure for all pessimism (the cankerous vice, as is well |
|
known, of all idealists and humbugs), to become ill in the manner of |
|
these free spirits, to remain ill quite a while and then bit by bit grow |
|
healthy--I mean healthier. It is wisdom, worldly wisdom, to administer |
|
even health to oneself for a long time in small doses. |
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6 |
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|
About this time it becomes at last possible, amid the flash lights of a |
|
still unestablished, still precarious health, for the free, the ever |
|
freer spirit to begin to read the riddle of that great liberation, a |
|
riddle which has hitherto lingered, obscure, well worth questioning, |
|
almost impalpable, in his memory. If once he hardly dared to ask "why so |
|
apart? so alone? renouncing all I loved? renouncing respect itself? why |
|
this coldness, this suspicion, this hate for one's very virtues?"--now |
|
he dares, and asks it loudly, already hearing the answer, "you had to |
|
become master over yourself, master of your own good qualities. Formerly |
|
they were your masters: but they should be merely your tools along with |
|
other tools. You had to acquire power over your aye and no and learn to |
|
hold and withhold them in accordance with your higher aims. You had to |
|
grasp the perspective of every representation (Werthschätzung)--the |
|
dislocation, distortion and the apparent end or teleology of the |
|
horizon, besides whatever else appertains to the perspective: also the |
|
element of demerit in its relation to opposing merit, and the whole |
|
intellectual cost of every affirmative, every negative. You had to find |
|
out the _inevitable_ error[1] in every Yes and in every No, error as |
|
inseparable from life, life itself as conditioned by the perspective and |
|
its inaccuracy.[1] Above all, you had to see with your own eyes where |
|
the error[1] is always greatest: there, namely, where life is littlest, |
|
narrowest, meanest, least developed and yet cannot help looking upon |
|
itself as the goal and standard of things, and smugly and ignobly and |
|
incessantly tearing to tatters all that is highest and greatest and |
|
richest, and putting the shreds into the form of questions from the |
|
standpoint of its own well being. You had to see with your own eyes the |
|
problem of classification, (Rangordnung, regulation concerning rank and |
|
station) and how strength and sweep and reach of perspective wax upward |
|
together: You had"--enough, the free spirit knows henceforward which |
|
"you had" it has obeyed and also what it now can do and what it now, for |
|
the first time, _dare_. |
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[1] Ungerechtigkeit, literally wrongfulness, injustice, unrighteousness. |
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7 |
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Accordingly, the free spirit works out for itself an answer to that |
|
riddle of its liberation and concludes by generalizing upon its |
|
experience in the following fashion: "What I went through everyone must |
|
go through" in whom any problem is germinated and strives to body itself |
|
forth. The inner power and inevitability of this problem will assert |
|
themselves in due course, as in the case of any unsuspected |
|
pregnancy--long before the spirit has seen this problem in its true |
|
aspect and learned to call it by its right name. Our destiny exercises |
|
its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: |
|
it is our future that lays down the law to our to-day. Granted, that it |
|
is the problem of classification[2] of which we free spirits may say, |
|
this is _our_ problem, yet it is only now, in the midday of our life, |
|
that we fully appreciate what preparations, shifts, trials, ordeals, |
|
stages, were essential to that problem before it could emerge to our |
|
view, and why we had to go through the various and contradictory |
|
longings and satisfactions of body and soul, as circumnavigators and |
|
adventurers of that inner world called "man"; as surveyors of that |
|
"higher" and of that "progression"[3] that is also called |
|
"man"--crowding in everywhere, almost without fear, disdaining nothing, |
|
missing nothing, testing everything, sifting everything and eliminating |
|
the chance impurities--until at last we could say, we free spirits: |
|
"Here--a _new_ problem! Here, a long ladder on the rungs of which we |
|
ourselves have rested and risen, which we have actually been at times. |
|
Here is a something higher, a something deeper, a something below us, a |
|
vastly extensive order, (Ordnung) a comparative classification |
|
(Rangordnung), that we perceive: here--_our_ problem!" |
|
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[2] Rangordnung: the meaning is "the problem of grasping the relative |
|
importance of things." |
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[3] Uebereinander: one over another. |
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8 |
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|
|
To what stage in the development just outlined the present book belongs |
|
(or is assigned) is something that will be hidden from no augur or |
|
psychologist for an instant. But where are there psychologists to-day? |
|
In France, certainly; in Russia, perhaps; certainly not in Germany. |
|
Grounds are not wanting, to be sure, upon which the Germans of to-day |
|
may adduce this fact to their credit: unhappily for one who in this |
|
matter is fashioned and mentored in an un-German school! This _German_ |
|
book, which has found its readers in a wide circle of lands and |
|
peoples--it has been some ten years on its rounds--and which must make |
|
its way by means of any musical art and tune that will captivate the |
|
foreign ear as well as the native--this book has been read most |
|
indifferently in Germany itself and little heeded there: to what is that |
|
due? "It requires too much," I have been told, "it addresses itself to |
|
men free from the press of petty obligations, it demands fine and |
|
trained perceptions, it requires a surplus, a surplus of time, of the |
|
lightness of heaven and of the heart, of otium in the most unrestricted |
|
sense: mere good things that we Germans of to-day have not got and |
|
therefore cannot give." After so graceful a retort, my philosophy bids |
|
me be silent and ask no more questions: at times, as the proverb says, |
|
one remains a philosopher only because one says--nothing! |
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|
Nice, Spring, 1886. |
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OF THE FIRST AND LAST THINGS. |
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1 |
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|
|
=Chemistry of the Notions and the Feelings.=--Philosophical problems, in |
|
almost all their aspects, present themselves in the same interrogative |
|
formula now that they did two thousand years ago: how can a thing |
|
develop out of its antithesis? for example, the reasonable from the |
|
non-reasonable, the animate from the inanimate, the logical from the |
|
illogical, altruism from egoism, disinterestedness from greed, truth |
|
from error? The metaphysical philosophy formerly steered itself clear of |
|
this difficulty to such extent as to repudiate the evolution of one |
|
thing from another and to assign a miraculous origin to what it deemed |
|
highest and best, due to the very nature and being of the |
|
"thing-in-itself." The historical philosophy, on the other hand, which |
|
can no longer be viewed apart from physical science, the youngest of all |
|
philosophical methods, discovered experimentally (and its results will |
|
probably always be the same) that there is no antithesis whatever, |
|
except in the usual exaggerations of popular or metaphysical |
|
comprehension, and that an error of the reason is at the bottom of such |
|
contradiction. According to its explanation, there is, strictly |
|
speaking, neither unselfish conduct, nor a wholly disinterested point of |
|
view. Both are simply sublimations in which the basic element seems |
|
almost evaporated and betrays its presence only to the keenest |
|
observation. All that we need and that could possibly be given us in the |
|
present state of development of the sciences, is a chemistry of the |
|
moral, religious, aesthetic conceptions and feeling, as well as of those |
|
emotions which we experience in the affairs, great and small, of society |
|
and civilization, and which we are sensible of even in solitude. But |
|
what if this chemistry established the fact that, even in _its_ domain, |
|
the most magnificent results were attained with the basest and most |
|
despised ingredients? Would many feel disposed to continue such |
|
investigations? Mankind loves to put by the questions of its origin and |
|
beginning: must one not be almost inhuman in order to follow the |
|
opposite course? |
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2 |
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|
|
=The Traditional Error of Philosophers.=--All philosophers make the |
|
common mistake of taking contemporary man as their starting point and of |
|
trying, through an analysis of him, to reach a conclusion. "Man" |
|
involuntarily presents himself to them as an aeterna veritas as a |
|
passive element in every hurly-burly, as a fixed standard of things. Yet |
|
everything uttered by the philosopher on the subject of man is, in the |
|
last resort, nothing more than a piece of testimony concerning man |
|
during a very limited period of time. Lack of the historical sense is |
|
the traditional defect in all philosophers. Many innocently take man in |
|
his most childish state as fashioned through the influence of certain |
|
religious and even of certain political developments, as the permanent |
|
form under which man must be viewed. They will not learn that man has |
|
evolved,[4] that the intellectual faculty itself is an evolution, |
|
whereas some philosophers make the whole cosmos out of this intellectual |
|
faculty. But everything essential in human evolution took place aeons |
|
ago, long before the four thousand years or so of which we know |
|
anything: during these man may not have changed very much. However, the |
|
philosopher ascribes "instinct" to contemporary man and assumes that |
|
this is one of the unalterable facts regarding man himself, and hence |
|
affords a clue to the understanding of the universe in general. The |
|
whole teleology is so planned that man during the last four thousand |
|
years shall be spoken of as a being existing from all eternity, and |
|
with reference to whom everything in the cosmos from its very inception |
|
is naturally ordered. Yet everything evolved: there are no eternal facts |
|
as there are no absolute truths. Accordingly, historical philosophising |
|
is henceforth indispensable, and with it honesty of judgment. |
|
|
|
[4] geworden. |
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3 |
|
|
|
=Appreciation of Simple Truths.=--It is the characteristic of an |
|
advanced civilization to set a higher value upon little, simple truths, |
|
ascertained by scientific method, than upon the pleasing and magnificent |
|
errors originating in metaphysical and æsthetical epochs and peoples. To |
|
begin with, the former are spoken of with contempt as if there could be |
|
no question of comparison respecting them, so rigid, homely, prosaic and |
|
even discouraging is the aspect of the first, while so beautiful, |
|
decorative, intoxicating and perhaps beatific appear the last named. |
|
Nevertheless, the hardwon, the certain, the lasting and, therefore, the |
|
fertile in new knowledge, is the higher; to hold fast to it is manly and |
|
evinces courage, directness, endurance. And not only individual men but |
|
all mankind will by degrees be uplifted to this manliness when they are |
|
finally habituated to the proper appreciation of tenable, enduring |
|
knowledge and have lost all faith in inspiration and in the miraculous |
|
revelation of truth. The reverers of forms, indeed, with their standards |
|
of beauty and taste, may have good reason to laugh when the appreciation |
|
of little truths and the scientific spirit begin to prevail, but that |
|
will be only because their eyes are not yet opened to the charm of the |
|
utmost simplicity of form or because men though reared in the rightly |
|
appreciative spirit, will still not be fully permeated by it, so that |
|
they continue unwittingly imitating ancient forms (and that ill enough, |
|
as anybody does who no longer feels any interest in a thing). Formerly |
|
the mind was not brought into play through the medium of exact thought. |
|
Its serious business lay in the working out of forms and symbols. That |
|
has now changed. Any seriousness in symbolism is at present the |
|
indication of a deficient education. As our very acts become more |
|
intellectual, our tendencies more rational, and our judgment, for |
|
example, as to what seems reasonable, is very different from what it was |
|
a hundred years ago: so the forms of our lives grow ever more |
|
intellectual and, to the old fashioned eye, perhaps, uglier, but only |
|
because it cannot see that the richness of inner, rational beauty always |
|
spreads and deepens, and that the inner, rational aspect of all things |
|
should now be of more consequence to us than the most beautiful |
|
externality and the most exquisite limning. |
|
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|
4 |
|
|
|
=Astrology and the Like.=--It is presumable that the objects of the |
|
religious, moral, aesthetic and logical notions pertain simply to the |
|
superficialities of things, although man flatters himself with the |
|
thought that here at least he is getting to the heart of the cosmos. He |
|
deceives himself because these things have power to make him so happy |
|
and so wretched, and so he evinces, in this respect, the same conceit |
|
that characterises astrology. Astrology presupposes that the heavenly |
|
bodies are regulated in their movements in harmony with the destiny of |
|
mortals: the moral man presupposes that that which concerns himself most |
|
nearly must also be the heart and soul of things. |
|
|
|
|
|
5 |
|
|
|
=Misconception of Dreams.=--In the dream, mankind, in epochs of crude |
|
primitive civilization, thought they were introduced to a second, |
|
substantial world: here we have the source of all metaphysic. Without |
|
the dream, men would never have been incited to an analysis of the |
|
world. Even the distinction between soul and body is wholly due to the |
|
primitive conception of the dream, as also the hypothesis of the |
|
embodied soul, whence the development of all superstition, and also, |
|
probably, the belief in god. "The dead still live: for they appear to |
|
the living in dreams." So reasoned mankind at one time, and through many |
|
thousands of years. |
|
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|
|
|
6 |
|
|
|
=The Scientific Spirit Prevails only Partially, not Wholly.=--The |
|
specialized, minutest departments of science are dealt with purely |
|
objectively. But the general universal sciences, considered as a great, |
|
basic unity, posit the question--truly a very living question--: to what |
|
purpose? what is the use? Because of this reference to utility they are, |
|
as a whole, less impersonal than when looked at in their specialized |
|
aspects. Now in the case of philosophy, as forming the apex of the |
|
scientific pyramid, this question of the utility of knowledge is |
|
necessarily brought very conspicuously forward, so that every philosophy |
|
has, unconsciously, the air of ascribing the highest utility to itself. |
|
It is for this reason that all philosophies contain such a great amount |
|
of high flying metaphysic, and such a shrinking from the seeming |
|
insignificance of the deliverances of physical science: for the |
|
significance of knowledge in relation to life must be made to appear as |
|
great as possible. This constitutes the antagonism between the |
|
specialties of science and philosophy. The latter aims, as art aims, at |
|
imparting to life and conduct the utmost depth and significance: in the |
|
former mere knowledge is sought and nothing else--whatever else be |
|
incidentally obtained. Heretofore there has never been a philosophical |
|
system in which philosophy itself was not made the apologist of |
|
knowledge [in the abstract]. On this point, at least, each is optimistic |
|
and insists that to knowledge the highest utility must be ascribed. They |
|
are all under the tyranny of logic, which is, from its very nature, |
|
optimism. |
|
|
|
|
|
7 |
|
|
|
=The Discordant Element in Science.=--Philosophy severed itself from |
|
science when it put the question: what is that knowledge of the world |
|
and of life through which mankind may be made happiest? This happened |
|
when the Socratic school arose: with the standpoint of _happiness_ the |
|
arteries of investigating science were compressed too tightly to permit |
|
of any circulation of the blood--and are so compressed to-day. |
|
|
|
|
|
8 |
|
|
|
=Pneumatic Explanation of Nature.=[5]--Metaphysic reads the message of |
|
nature as if it were written purely pneumatically, as the church and its |
|
learned ones formerly did where the bible was concerned. It requires a |
|
great deal of expertness to apply to nature the same strict science of |
|
interpretation that the philologists have devised for all literature, |
|
and to apply it for the purpose of a simple, direct interpretation of |
|
the message, and at the same time, not bring out a double meaning. But, |
|
as in the case of books and literature, errors of exposition are far |
|
from being completely eliminated, and vestiges of allegorical and |
|
mystical interpretations are still to be met with in the most cultivated |
|
circles, so where nature is concerned the case is--actually much worse. |
|
|
|
[5] Pneumatic is here used in the sense of spiritual. Pneuma being the |
|
Greek word in the New Testament for the Holy Spirit.--Ed. |
|
|
|
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9 |
|
|
|
=Metaphysical World.=--It is true, there may be a metaphysical world; |
|
the absolute possibility of it can scarcely be disputed. We see all |
|
things through the medium of the human head and we cannot well cut off |
|
this head: although there remains the question what part of the world |
|
would be left after it had been cut off. But that is a purely abstract |
|
scientific problem and one not much calculated to give men uneasiness: |
|
yet everything that has heretofore made metaphysical assumptions |
|
valuable, fearful or delightful to men, all that gave rise to them is |
|
passion, error and self deception: the worst systems of knowledge, not |
|
the best, pin their tenets of belief thereto. When such methods are once |
|
brought to view as the basis of all existing religions and metaphysics, |
|
they are already discredited. There always remains, however, the |
|
possibility already conceded: but nothing at all can be made out of |
|
that, to say not a word about letting happiness, salvation and life hang |
|
upon the threads spun from such a possibility. Accordingly, nothing |
|
could be predicated of the metaphysical world beyond the fact that it is |
|
an elsewhere,[6] another sphere, inaccessible and incomprehensible to |
|
us: it would become a thing of negative properties. Even were the |
|
existence of such a world absolutely established, it would nevertheless |
|
remain incontrovertible that of all kinds of knowledge, knowledge of |
|
such a world would be of least consequence--of even less consequence |
|
than knowledge of the chemical analysis of water would be to a storm |
|
tossed mariner. |
|
|
|
[6] Anderssein. |
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10 |
|
|
|
=The Harmlessness of Metaphysic in the Future.=--As soon as religion, |
|
art and ethics are so understood that a full comprehension of them can |
|
be gained without taking refuge in the postulates of metaphysical |
|
claptrap at any point in the line of reasoning, there will be a complete |
|
cessation of interest in the purely theoretical problem of the "thing in |
|
itself" and the "phenomenon." For here, too, the same truth applies: in |
|
religion, art and ethics we are not concerned with the "essence of the |
|
cosmos".[7] We are in the sphere of pure conception. No presentiment [or |
|
intuition] can carry us any further. With perfect tranquility the |
|
question of how our conception of the world could differ so sharply from |
|
the actual world as it is manifest to us, will be relegated to the |
|
physiological sciences and to the history of the evolution of ideas and |
|
organisms. |
|
|
|
[7] "Wesen der Welt an sich." |
|
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|
11 |
|
|
|
=Language as a Presumptive Science.=--The importance of language in the |
|
development of civilization consists in the fact that by means of it |
|
man placed one world, his own, alongside another, a place of leverage |
|
that he thought so firm as to admit of his turning the rest of the |
|
cosmos on a pivot that he might master it. In so far as man for ages |
|
looked upon mere ideas and names of things as upon aeternae veritates, |
|
he evinced the very pride with which he raised himself above the brute. |
|
He really supposed that in language he possessed a knowledge of the |
|
cosmos. The language builder was not so modest as to believe that he was |
|
only giving names to things. On the contrary he thought he embodied the |
|
highest wisdom concerning things in [mere] words; and, in truth, |
|
language is the first movement in all strivings for wisdom. Here, too, |
|
it is _faith in ascertained truth_[8] from which the mightiest fountains |
|
of strength have flowed. Very tardily--only now--it dawns upon men that |
|
they have propagated a monstrous error in their belief in language. |
|
Fortunately, it is too late now to arrest and turn back the evolutionary |
|
process of the reason, which had its inception in this belief. Logic |
|
itself rests upon assumptions to which nothing in the world of reality |
|
corresponds. For example, the correspondence of certain things to one |
|
another and the identity of those things at different periods of time |
|
are assumptions pure and simple, but the science of logic originated in |
|
the positive belief that they were not assumptions at all but |
|
established facts. It is the same with the science of mathematics which |
|
certainly would never have come into existence if mankind had known from |
|
the beginning that in all nature there is no perfectly straight line, no |
|
true circle, no standard of measurement. |
|
|
|
[8] Glaube an die gefundene Wahrheit, as distinguished from faith in |
|
what is taken on trust as truth. |
|
|
|
|
|
12 |
|
|
|
=Dream and Civilization.=--The function of the brain which is most |
|
encroached upon in slumber is the memory; not that it is wholly |
|
suspended, but it is reduced to a state of imperfection as, in primitive |
|
ages of mankind, was probably the case with everyone, whether waking or |
|
sleeping. Uncontrolled and entangled as it is, it perpetually confuses |
|
things as a result of the most trifling similarities, yet in the same |
|
mental confusion and lack of control the nations invented their |
|
mythologies, while nowadays travelers habitually observe how prone the |
|
savage is to forgetfulness, how his mind, after the least exertion of |
|
memory, begins to wander and lose itself until finally he utters |
|
falsehood and nonsense from sheer exhaustion. Yet, in dreams, we all |
|
resemble this savage. Inadequacy of distinction and error of comparison |
|
are the basis of the preposterous things we do and say in dreams, so |
|
that when we clearly recall a dream we are startled that so much idiocy |
|
lurks within us. The absolute distinctness of all dream-images, due to |
|
implicit faith in their substantial reality, recalls the conditions in |
|
which earlier mankind were placed, for whom hallucinations had |
|
extraordinary vividness, entire communities and even entire nations |
|
laboring simultaneously under them. Therefore: in sleep and in dream we |
|
make the pilgrimage of early mankind over again. |
|
|
|
|
|
13 |
|
|
|
=Logic of the Dream.=--During sleep the nervous system, through various |
|
inner provocatives, is in constant agitation. Almost all the organs act |
|
independently and vigorously. The blood circulates rapidly. The posture |
|
of the sleeper compresses some portions of the body. The coverlets |
|
influence the sensations in different ways. The stomach carries on the |
|
digestive process and acts upon other organs thereby. The intestines are |
|
in motion. The position of the head induces unaccustomed action. The |
|
feet, shoeless, no longer pressing the ground, are the occasion of other |
|
sensations of novelty, as is, indeed, the changed garb of the entire |
|
body. All these things, following the bustle and change of the day, |
|
result, through their novelty, in a movement throughout the entire |
|
system that extends even to the brain functions. Thus there are a |
|
hundred circumstances to induce perplexity in the mind, a questioning as |
|
to the cause of this excitation. Now, the dream is a _seeking and |
|
presenting of reasons_ for these excitations of feeling, of the supposed |
|
reasons, that is to say. Thus, for example, whoever has his feet bound |
|
with two threads will probably dream that a pair of serpents are coiled |
|
about his feet. This is at first a hypothesis, then a belief with an |
|
accompanying imaginative picture and the argument: "these snakes must be |
|
the _causa_ of those sensations which I, the sleeper, now have." So |
|
reasons the mind of the sleeper. The conditions precedent, as thus |
|
conjectured, become, owing to the excitation of the fancy, present |
|
realities. Everyone knows from experience how a dreamer will transform |
|
one piercing sound, for example, that of a bell, into another of quite a |
|
different nature, say, the report of cannon. In his dream he becomes |
|
aware first of the effects, which he explains by a subsequent hypothesis |
|
and becomes persuaded of the purely conjectural nature of the sound. But |
|
how comes it that the mind of the dreamer goes so far astray when the |
|
same mind, awake, is habitually cautious, careful, and so conservative |
|
in its dealings with hypotheses? why does the first plausible |
|
hypothesis of the cause of a sensation gain credit in the dreaming |
|
state? (For in a dream we look upon that dream as reality, that is, we |
|
accept our hypotheses as fully established). I have no doubt that as men |
|
argue in their dreams to-day, mankind argued, even in their waking |
|
moments, for thousands of years: the first _causa_, that occurred to the |
|
mind with reference to anything that stood in need of explanation, was |
|
accepted as the true explanation and served as such. (Savages show the |
|
same tendency in operation, as the reports of travelers agree). In the |
|
dream this atavistic relic of humanity manifests its existence within |
|
us, for it is the foundation upon which the higher rational faculty |
|
developed itself and still develops itself in every individual. Dreams |
|
carry us back to the earlier stages of human culture and afford us a |
|
means of understanding it more clearly. Dream thought comes so easily to |
|
us now because we are so thoroughly trained to it through the |
|
interminable stages of evolution during which this fanciful and facile |
|
form of theorising has prevailed. To a certain extent the dream is a |
|
restorative for the brain, which, during the day, is called upon to meet |
|
the many demands for trained thought made upon it by the conditions of a |
|
higher civilization.--We may, if we please, become sensible, even in our |
|
waking moments, of a condition that is as a door and vestibule to |
|
dreaming. If we close our eyes the brain immediately conjures up a |
|
medley of impressions of light and color, apparently a sort of imitation |
|
and echo of the impressions forced in upon the brain during its waking |
|
moments. And now the mind, in co-operation with the imagination, |
|
transforms this formless play of light and color into definite figures, |
|
moving groups, landscapes. What really takes place is a sort of |
|
reasoning from effect back to cause. As the brain inquires: whence these |
|
impressions of light and color? it posits as the inducing causes of such |
|
lights and colors, those shapes and figures. They serve the brain as the |
|
occasions of those lights and colors because the brain, when the eyes |
|
are open and the senses awake, is accustomed to perceiving the cause of |
|
every impression of light and color made upon it. Here again the |
|
imagination is continually interposing its images inasmuch as it |
|
participates in the production of the impressions made through the |
|
senses day by day: and the dream-fancy does exactly the same thing--that |
|
is, the presumed cause is determined from the effect and _after_ the |
|
effect: all this, too, with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this |
|
matter, as in a matter of jugglery or sleight-of-hand, a confusion of |
|
the mind is produced and an after effect is made to appear a |
|
simultaneous action, an inverted succession of events, even.--From |
|
these considerations we can see how _late_ strict, logical thought, the |
|
true notion of cause and effect must have been in developing, since our |
|
intellectual and rational faculties to this very day revert to these |
|
primitive processes of deduction, while practically half our lifetime is |
|
spent in the super-inducing conditions.--Even the poet, the artist, |
|
ascribes to his sentimental and emotional states causes which are not |
|
the true ones. To that extent he is a reminder of early mankind and can |
|
aid us in its comprehension. |
|
|
|
|
|
14 |
|
|
|
=Association.=[9]--All strong feelings are associated with a variety of |
|
allied sentiments and emotions. They stir up the memory at the same |
|
time. When we are under their influence we are reminded of similar |
|
states and we feel a renewal of them within us. Thus are formed habitual |
|
successions of feelings and notions, which, at last, when they follow |
|
one another with lightning rapidity are no longer felt as complexities |
|
but as unities. In this sense we hear of moral feelings, of religious |
|
feelings, as if they were absolute unities. In reality they are streams |
|
with a hundred sources and tributaries. Here again, the unity of the |
|
word speaks nothing for the unity of the thing. |
|
|
|
[9] Miterklingen: to sound simultaneously with. |
|
|
|
|
|
15 |
|
|
|
=No Within and Without in the World.=[10]--As Democritus transferred the |
|
notions above and below to limitless space, where they are destitute of |
|
meaning, so the philosophers do generally with the idea "within and |
|
without," as regards the form and substance (Wesen und Erscheinung) of |
|
the world. What they claim is that through the medium of profound |
|
feelings one can penetrate deep into the soul of things (Innre), draw |
|
close to the heart of nature. But these feelings are deep only in so far |
|
as with them are simultaneously aroused, although almost imperceptibly, |
|
certain complicated groups of thoughts (Gedankengruppen) which we call |
|
deep: a feeling is deep because we deem the thoughts accompanying it |
|
deep. But deep thought can nevertheless be very widely sundered from |
|
truth, as for instance every metaphysical thought. Take from deep |
|
feeling the element of thought blended with it and all that remains is |
|
_strength_ of feeling which is no voucher for the validity of |
|
knowledge, as intense faith is evidence only of its own intensity and |
|
not of the truth of that in which the faith is felt. |
|
|
|
[10] Kein Innen und Aussen in der Welt: the above translation may seem |
|
too literal but some dispute has arisen concerning the precise idea the |
|
author means to convey. |
|
|
|
|
|
16 |
|
|
|
=Phenomenon and Thing-in-Itself.=--The philosophers are in the habit of |
|
placing themselves in front of life and experience--that which they call |
|
the world of phenomena--as if they were standing before a picture that |
|
is unrolled before them in its final completeness. This panorama, they |
|
think, must be studied in every detail in order to reach some conclusion |
|
regarding the object represented by the picture. From effect, |
|
accordingly is deduced cause and from cause is deduced the |
|
unconditioned. This process is generally looked upon as affording the |
|
all sufficient explanation of the world of phenomena. On the other hand |
|
one must, (while putting the conception of the metaphysical distinctly |
|
forward as that of the unconditioned, and consequently of the |
|
unconditioning) absolutely deny any connection between the unconditioned |
|
(of the metaphysical world) and the world known to us: so that |
|
throughout phenomena there is no manifestation of the thing-in-itself, |
|
and getting from one to the other is out of the question. Thus is left |
|
quite ignored the circumstance that the picture--that which we now call |
|
life and experience--is a gradual evolution, is, indeed, still in |
|
process of evolution and for that reason should not be regarded as an |
|
enduring whole from which any conclusion as to its author (the |
|
all-sufficient reason) could be arrived at, or even pronounced out of |
|
the question. It is because we have for thousands of years looked into |
|
the world with moral, aesthetic, religious predispositions, with blind |
|
prejudice, passion or fear, and surfeited ourselves with indulgence in |
|
the follies of illogical thought, that the world has gradually become so |
|
wondrously motley, frightful, significant, soulful: it has taken on |
|
tints, but we have been the colorists: the human intellect, upon the |
|
foundation of human needs, of human passions, has reared all these |
|
"phenomena" and injected its own erroneous fundamental conceptions into |
|
things. Late, very late, the human intellect checks itself: and now the |
|
world of experience and the thing-in-itself seem to it so severed and so |
|
antithetical that it denies the possibility of one's hinging upon the |
|
other--or else summons us to surrender our intellect, our personal will, |
|
to the secret and the awe-inspiring in order that thereby we may attain |
|
certainty of certainty hereafter. Again, there are those who have |
|
combined all the characteristic features of our world of |
|
phenomena--that is, the conception of the world which has been formed |
|
and inherited through a series of intellectual vagaries--and instead of |
|
holding the intellect responsible for it all, have pronounced the very |
|
nature of things accountable for the present very sinister aspect of the |
|
world, and preached annihilation of existence. Through all these views |
|
and opinions the toilsome, steady process of science (which now for the |
|
first time begins to celebrate its greatest triumph in the genesis of |
|
thought) will definitely work itself out, the result, being, perhaps, to |
|
the following effect: That which we now call the world is the result of |
|
a crowd of errors and fancies which gradually developed in the general |
|
evolution of organic nature, have grown together and been transmitted to |
|
us as the accumulated treasure of all the past--as the _treasure_, for |
|
whatever is worth anything in our humanity rests upon it. From this |
|
world of conception it is in the power of science to release us only to |
|
a slight extent--and this is all that could be wished--inasmuch as it |
|
cannot eradicate the influence of hereditary habits of feeling, but it |
|
can light up by degrees the stages of the development of that world of |
|
conception, and lift us, at least for a time, above the whole spectacle. |
|
Perhaps we may then perceive that the thing-in-itself is a meet subject |
|
for Homeric laughter: that it seemed so much, everything, indeed, and |
|
is really a void--void, that is to say, of meaning. |
|
|
|
|
|
17 |
|
|
|
=Metaphysical Explanation.=--Man, when he is young, prizes metaphysical |
|
explanations, because they make him see matters of the highest import in |
|
things he found disagreeable or contemptible: and if he is not satisfied |
|
with himself, this feeling of dissatisfaction is soothed when he sees |
|
the most hidden world-problem or world-pain in that which he finds so |
|
displeasing in himself. To feel himself more unresponsible and at the |
|
same time to find things (Dinge) more interesting--that is to him the |
|
double benefit he owes to metaphysics. Later, indeed, he acquires |
|
distrust of the whole metaphysical method of explaining things: he then |
|
perceives, perhaps, that those effects could have been attained just as |
|
well and more scientifically by another method: that physical and |
|
historical explanations would, at least, have given that feeling of |
|
freedom from personal responsibility just as well, while interest in |
|
life and its problems would be stimulated, perhaps, even more. |
|
|
|
|
|
18 |
|
|
|
=The Fundamental Problems of Metaphysics.=--If a history of the |
|
development of thought is ever written, the following proposition, |
|
advanced by a distinguished logician, will be illuminated with a new |
|
light: "The universal, primordial law of the apprehending subject |
|
consists in the inner necessity of cognizing every object by itself, as |
|
in its essence a thing unto itself, therefore as self-existing and |
|
unchanging, in short, as a substance." Even this law, which is here |
|
called "primordial," is an evolution: it has yet to be shown how |
|
gradually this evolution takes place in lower organizations: how the |
|
dim, mole eyes of such organizations see, at first, nothing but a blank |
|
sameness: how later, when the various excitations of desire and aversion |
|
manifest themselves, various substances are gradually distinguished, but |
|
each with an attribute, that is, a special relationship to such an |
|
organization. The first step towards the logical is judgment, the |
|
essence of which, according to the best logicians, is belief. At the |
|
foundation of all beliefs lie sensations of pleasure or pain in relation |
|
to the apprehending subject. A third feeling, as the result of two |
|
prior, single, separate feelings, is judgment in its crudest form. We |
|
organic beings are primordially interested by nothing whatever in any |
|
thing (Ding) except its relation to ourselves with reference to pleasure |
|
and pain. Between the moments in which we are conscious of this |
|
relation, (the states of feeling) lie the moments of rest, of |
|
not-feeling: then the world and every thing (Ding) have no interest for |
|
us: we observe no change in them (as at present a person absorbed in |
|
something does not notice anyone passing by). To plants all things are, |
|
as a rule, at rest, eternal, every object like itself. From the period |
|
of lower organisms has been handed down to man the belief that there are |
|
like things (gleiche Dinge): only the trained experience attained |
|
through the most advanced science contradicts this postulate. The |
|
primordial belief of all organisms is, perhaps, that all the rest of the |
|
world is one thing and motionless.--Furthest away from this first step |
|
towards the logical is the notion of causation: even to-day we think |
|
that all our feelings and doings are, at bottom, acts of the free will; |
|
when the sentient individual contemplates himself he deems every |
|
feeling, every change, a something isolated, disconnected, that is to |
|
say, unqualified by any thing; it comes suddenly to the surface, |
|
independent of anything that went before or came after. We are hungry, |
|
but originally we do not know that the organism must be nourished: on |
|
the contrary that feeling seems to manifest itself without reason or |
|
purpose; it stands out by itself and seems quite independent. Therefore: |
|
the belief in the freedom of the will is a primordial error of |
|
everything organic as old as the very earliest inward prompting of the |
|
logical faculty; belief in unconditioned substances and in like things |
|
(gleiche Dinge) is also a primordial and equally ancient error of |
|
everything organic. Inasmuch as all metaphysic has concerned itself |
|
particularly with substance and with freedom of the will, it should be |
|
designated as the science that deals with the fundamental errors of |
|
mankind as if they were fundamental truths. |
|
|
|
|
|
19 |
|
|
|
=Number.=--The invention of the laws of number has as its basis the |
|
primordial and prior-prevailing delusion that many like things exist |
|
(although in point of fact there is no such thing is a duplicate), or |
|
that, at least, there are things (but there is no "thing"). The |
|
assumption of plurality always presupposes that _something_ exists which |
|
manifests itself repeatedly, but just here is where the delusion |
|
prevails; in this very matter we feign realities, unities, that have no |
|
existence. Our feelings, notions, of space and time are false for they |
|
lead, when duly tested, to logical contradictions. In all scientific |
|
demonstrations we always unavoidably base our calculation upon some |
|
false standards [of duration or measurement] but as these standards are |
|
at least _constant_, as, for example, our notions of time and space, the |
|
results arrived at by science possess absolute accuracy and certainty in |
|
their relationship to one another: one can keep on building upon |
|
them--until is reached that final limit at which the erroneous |
|
fundamental conceptions, (the invariable breakdown) come into conflict |
|
with the results established--as, for example, in the case of the atomic |
|
theory. Here we always find ourselves obliged to give credence to a |
|
"thing" or material "substratum" that is set in motion, although, at the |
|
same time, the whole scientific programme has had as its aim the |
|
resolving of everything material into motions [themselves]: here again |
|
we distinguish with our feeling [that which does the] moving and [that |
|
which is] moved,[11] and we never get out of this circle, because the |
|
belief in things[12] has been from time immemorial rooted in our |
|
nature.--When Kant says "the intellect does not derive its laws from |
|
nature, but dictates them to her" he states the full truth as regards |
|
the _idea of nature_ which we form (nature = world, as notion, that is, |
|
as error) but which is merely the synthesis of a host of errors of the |
|
intellect. To a world not [the outcome of] our conception, the laws of |
|
number are wholly inapplicable: such laws are valid only in the world of |
|
mankind. |
|
|
|
[11] Wir scheiden auch hier noch mit unserer Empfindung Bewegendes und |
|
Bewegtes. |
|
|
|
[12] Glaube an Dinge. |
|
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20 |
|
|
|
=Some Backward Steps.=--One very forward step in education is taken when |
|
man emerges from his superstitious and religious ideas and fears and, |
|
for instance, no longer believes in the dear little angels or in |
|
original sin, and has stopped talking about the salvation of the soul: |
|
when he has taken this step to freedom he has, nevertheless, through the |
|
utmost exertion of his mental power, to overcome metaphysics. Then a |
|
backward movement is necessary: he must appreciate the historical |
|
justification, and to an equal extent the psychological considerations, |
|
in such a movement. He must understand that the greatest advances made |
|
by mankind have resulted from such a course and that without this very |
|
backward movement the highest achievements of man hitherto would have |
|
been impossible.--With regard to philosophical metaphysics I see ever |
|
more and more who have arrived at the negative goal (that all positive |
|
metaphysic is a delusion) but as yet very few who go a few steps |
|
backward: one should look out over the last rungs of the ladder, but not |
|
try to stand on them, that is to say. The most advanced as yet go only |
|
far enough to free themselves from metaphysic and look back at it with |
|
an air of superiority: whereas here, no less than in the hippodrome, it |
|
is necessary to turn around in order to reach the end of the course. |
|
|
|
|
|
21 |
|
|
|
=Presumable [Nature of the] Victory of Doubt.=--Let us assume for a |
|
moment the validity of the skeptical standpoint: granted that there is |
|
no metaphysical world, and that all the metaphysical explanations of the |
|
only world we know are useless to us, how would we then contemplate men |
|
and things? [Menschen und Dinge]. This can be thought out and it is |
|
worth while doing so, even if the question whether anything metaphysical |
|
has ever been demonstrated by or through Kant and Schopenhauer, be put |
|
altogether aside. For it is, to all appearances, highly probable that |
|
men, on this point, will be, in the mass, skeptical. The question thus |
|
becomes: what sort of a notion will human society, under the influence |
|
of such a state of mind, form of itself? Perhaps the _scientific |
|
demonstration_ of any metaphysical world is now so difficult that |
|
mankind will never be free from a distrust of it. And when there is |
|
formed a feeling of distrust of metaphysics, the results are, in the |
|
mass, the same as if metaphysics were refuted altogether and _could_ no |
|
longer be believed. In both cases the historical question, with regard |
|
to an unmetaphysical disposition in mankind, remains the same. |
|
|
|
|
|
22 |
|
|
|
=Disbelief in the "monumentum aere perennius".=[13]--A decided |
|
disadvantage, attending the termination of metaphysical modes of |
|
thought, is that the individual fixes his mind too attentively upon his |
|
own brief lifetime and feels no strong inducement to aid in the |
|
foundation of institutions capable of enduring for centuries: he wishes |
|
himself to gather the fruit from the tree that he plants and |
|
consequently he no longer plants those trees which require centuries of |
|
constant cultivation and are destined to afford shade to generation |
|
after generation in the future. For metaphysical views inspire the |
|
belief that in them is afforded the final sure foundation upon which |
|
henceforth the whole future of mankind may rest and be built up: the |
|
individual promotes his own salvation; when, for example, he builds a |
|
church or a monastery he is of opinion that he is doing something for |
|
the salvation of his immortal soul:--Can science, as well, inspire such |
|
faith in the efficacy of her results? In actual fact, science requires |
|
doubt and distrust as her surest auxiliaries; nevertheless, the sum of |
|
the irresistible (that is all the onslaughts of skepticism, all the |
|
disintegrating effects of surviving truths) can easily become so great |
|
(as, for instance, in the case of hygienic science) as to inspire the |
|
determination to build "eternal" works upon it. At present the contrast |
|
between our excitated ephemeral existence and the tranquil repose of |
|
metaphysical epochs is too great because both are as yet in too close |
|
juxtaposition. The individual man himself now goes through too many |
|
stages of inner and outer evolution for him to venture to make a plan |
|
even for his life time alone. A perfectly modern man, indeed, who wants |
|
to build himself a house feels as if he were walling himself up alive in |
|
a mausoleum. |
|
|
|
[13] Monument more enduring than brass: Horace, Odes III:XXX. |
|
|
|
|
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23 |
|
|
|
=Age of Comparison.=--The less men are bound by tradition, the greater |
|
is the inner activity of motives, the greater, correspondingly, the |
|
outer restlessness, the promiscuous flow of humanity, the polyphony of |
|
strivings. Who now feels any great impulse to establish himself and his |
|
posterity in a particular place? For whom, moreover, does there exist, |
|
at present, any strong tie? As all the methods of the arts were copied |
|
from one another, so were all the methods and advancements of moral |
|
codes, of manners, of civilizations.--Such an age derives its |
|
significance from the fact that in it the various ideas, codes, manners |
|
and civilizations can be compared and experienced side by side; which |
|
was impossible at an earlier period in view of the localised nature of |
|
the rule of every civilization, corresponding to the limitation of all |
|
artistic effects by time and place. To-day the growth of the aesthetic |
|
feeling is decided, owing to the great number of [artistic] forms which |
|
offer themselves for comparison. The majority--those that are condemned |
|
by the method of comparison--will be allowed to die out. In the same way |
|
there is to-day taking place a selection of the forms and customs of the |
|
higher morality which can result only in the extinction of the vulgar |
|
moralities. This is the age of comparison! That is its glory--but also |
|
its pain. Let us not, however shrink from this pain. Rather would we |
|
comprehend the nature of the task imposed upon us by our age as |
|
adequately as we can: posterity will bless us for doing so--a posterity |
|
that knows itself to be [developed] through and above the narrow, early |
|
race-civilizations as well as the culture-civilization of comparison, |
|
but yet looks gratefully back upon both as venerable monuments of |
|
antiquity. |
|
|
|
|
|
24 |
|
|
|
=Possibility of Progress.=--When a master of the old civilization (den |
|
alten Cultur) vows to hold no more discussion with men who believe in |
|
progress, he is quite right. For the old civilization[14] has its |
|
greatness and its advantages behind it, and historic training forces one |
|
to acknowledge that it can never again acquire vigor: only intolerable |
|
stupidity or equally intolerable fanaticism could fail to perceive this |
|
fact. But men may consciously determine to evolve to a new civilization |
|
where formerly they evolved unconsciously and accidentally. They can now |
|
devise better conditions for the advancement of mankind, for their |
|
nourishment, training and education, they can administer the earth as an |
|
economic power, and, particularly, compare the capacities of men and |
|
select them accordingly. This new, conscious civilization is killing the |
|
other which, on the whole, has led but an unreflective animal and plant |
|
life: it is also destroying the doubt of progress itself--progress is |
|
possible. I mean: it is hasty and almost unreflective to assume that |
|
progress must _necessarily_ take place: but how can it be doubted that |
|
progress is possible? On the other hand, progress in the sense and along |
|
the lines of the old civilization is not even conceivable. If romantic |
|
fantasy employs the word progress in connection with certain aims and |
|
ends identical with those of the circumscribed primitive national |
|
civilizations, the picture presented of progress is always borrowed from |
|
the past. The idea and the image of progress thus formed are quite |
|
without originality. |
|
|
|
[14] Cultur, culture, civilisation etc., but there is no exact English |
|
equivalent. |
|
|
|
|
|
25 |
|
|
|
=Private Ethics and World Ethics.=--Since the extinction of the belief |
|
that a god guides the general destiny of the world and, notwithstanding |
|
all the contortions and windings of the path of mankind, leads it |
|
gloriously forward, men must shape oecumenical, world-embracing ends for |
|
themselves. The older ethics, namely Kant's, required of the individual |
|
such a course of conduct as he wishes all men to follow. This evinces |
|
much simplicity--as if any individual could determine off hand what |
|
course of conduct would conduce to the welfare of humanity, and what |
|
course of conduct is preëminently desirable! This is a theory like that |
|
of freedom of competition, which takes it for granted that the general |
|
harmony [of things] _must_ prevail of itself in accordance with some |
|
inherent law of betterment or amelioration. It may be that a later |
|
contemplation of the needs of mankind will reveal that it is by no means |
|
desirable that all men should regulate their conduct according to the |
|
same principle; it may be best, from the standpoint of certain ends yet |
|
to be attained, that men, during long periods should regulate their |
|
conduct with reference to special, and even, in certain circumstances, |
|
evil, objects. At any rate, if mankind is not to be led astray by such a |
|
universal rule of conduct, it behooves it to attain a _knowledge of the |
|
condition of culture_ that will serve as a scientific standard of |
|
comparison in connection with cosmical ends. Herein is comprised the |
|
tremendous mission of the great spirits of the next century. |
|
|
|
|
|
26 |
|
|
|
=Reaction as Progress.=--Occasionally harsh, powerful, impetuous, yet |
|
nevertheless backward spirits, appear, who try to conjure back some past |
|
era in the history of mankind: they serve as evidence that the new |
|
tendencies which they oppose, are not yet potent enough, that there is |
|
something lacking in them: otherwise they [the tendencies] would better |
|
withstand the effects of this conjuring back process. Thus Luther's |
|
reformation shows that in his century all the impulses to freedom of the |
|
spirit were still uncertain, lacking in vigor, and immature. Science |
|
could not yet rear her head. Indeed the whole Renaissance appears but as |
|
an early spring smothered in snow. But even in the present century |
|
Schopenhauer's metaphysic shows that the scientific spirit is not yet |
|
powerful enough: for the whole mediaeval Christian world-standpoint |
|
(Weltbetrachtung) and conception of man (Mensch-Empfindung)[15] once |
|
again, notwithstanding the slowly wrought destruction of all Christian |
|
dogma, celebrated a resurrection in Schopenhauer's doctrine. There is |
|
much science in his teaching although the science does not dominate, |
|
but, instead of it, the old, trite "metaphysical necessity." It is one |
|
of the greatest and most priceless advantages of Schopenhauer's teaching |
|
that by it our feelings are temporarily forced back to those old human |
|
and cosmical standpoints to which no other path could conduct us so |
|
easily. The gain for history and justice is very great. I believe that |
|
without Schopenhauer's aid it would be no easy matter for anyone now to |
|
do justice to Christianity and its Asiatic relatives--a thing impossible |
|
as regards the christianity that still survives. After according this |
|
great triumph to justice, after we have corrected in so essential a |
|
respect the historical point of view which the age of learning brought |
|
with it, we may begin to bear still farther onward the banner of |
|
enlightenment--a banner bearing the three names: Petrarch, Erasmus, |
|
Voltaire. We have taken a forward step out of reaction. |
|
|
|
[15] Literally man-feeling or human outlook. |
|
|
|
|
|
27 |
|
|
|
=A Substitute for Religion.=--It is supposed to be a recommendation for |
|
philosophy to say of it that it provides the people with a substitute |
|
for religion. And in fact, the training of the intellect does |
|
necessitate the convenient laying out of the track of thought, since the |
|
transition from religion by way of science entails a powerful, perilous |
|
leap,--something that should be advised against. With this |
|
qualification, the recommendation referred to is a just one. At the same |
|
time, it should be further explained that the needs which religion |
|
satisfies and which science must now satisfy, are not immutable. Even |
|
they can be diminished and uprooted. Think, for instance, of the |
|
christian soul-need, the sighs over one's inner corruption, the anxiety |
|
regarding salvation--all notions that arise simply out of errors of the |
|
reason and require no satisfaction at all, but annihilation. A |
|
philosophy can either so affect these needs as to appease them or else |
|
put them aside altogether, for they are acquired, circumscribed needs, |
|
based upon hypotheses which those of science explode. Here, for the |
|
purpose of affording the means of transition, for the sake of lightening |
|
the spirit overburdened with feeling, art can be employed to far better |
|
purpose, as these hypotheses receive far less support from art than from |
|
a metaphysical philosophy. Then from art it is easier to go over to a |
|
really emancipating philosophical science. |
|
|
|
|
|
28 |
|
|
|
=Discredited Words.=--Away with the disgustingly over-used words |
|
optimism and pessimism! For the occasion for using them grows daily |
|
less; only drivelers now find them indispensably necessary. What earthly |
|
reason could anyone have for being an optimist unless he had a god to |
|
defend who _must_ have created the best of all possible worlds, since he |
|
is himself all goodness and perfection?--but what thinking man has now |
|
any need for the hypothesis that there is a god?--There is also no |
|
occasion whatever for a pessimistic confession of faith, unless one has |
|
a personal interest in denouncing the advocate of god, the theologian or |
|
the theological philosopher, and maintaining the counter proposition |
|
that evil reigns, that wretchedness is more potent than joy, that the |
|
world is a piece of botch work, that phenomenon (Erscheinung) is but the |
|
manifestation of some evil spirit. But who bothers his head about the |
|
theologians any more--except the theologians themselves? Apart from all |
|
theology and its antagonism, it is manifest that the world is neither |
|
good nor bad, (to say nothing about its being the best or the worst) and |
|
that these ideas of "good" and "bad" have significance only in relation |
|
to men, indeed, are without significance at all, in view of the sense in |
|
which they are usually employed. The contemptuous and the eulogistic |
|
point of view must, in every case, be repudiated. |
|
|
|
|
|
29 |
|
|
|
=Intoxicated by the Perfume of Flowers.=--The ship of humanity, it is |
|
thought, acquires an ever deeper draught the more it is laden. It is |
|
believed that the more profoundly man thinks, the more exquisitely he |
|
feels, the higher the standard he sets for himself, the greater his |
|
distance from the other animals--the more he appears as a genius |
|
(Genie) among animals--the nearer he gets to the true nature of the |
|
world and to comprehension thereof: this, indeed, he really does through |
|
science, but he thinks he does it far more adequately through his |
|
religions and arts. These are, certainly, a blossoming of the world, but |
|
not, therefore, _nearer the roots of the world_ than is the stalk. One |
|
cannot learn best from it the nature of the world, although nearly |
|
everyone thinks so. _Error_ has made men so deep, sensitive and |
|
imaginative in order to bring forth such flowers as religions and arts. |
|
Pure apprehension would be unable to do that. Whoever should disclose to |
|
us the essence of the world would be undeceiving us most cruelly. Not |
|
the world as thing-in-itself but the world as idea[16] (as error) is |
|
rich in portent, deep, wonderful, carrying happiness and unhappiness in |
|
its womb. This result leads to a philosophy of world negation: which, at |
|
any rate, can be as well combined with a practical world affirmation as |
|
with its opposite. |
|
|
|
[16] Vorstellung: this word sometimes corresponds to the English word |
|
"idea", at others to "conception" or "notion." |
|
|
|
|
|
30 |
|
|
|
=Evil Habits in Reaching Conclusions.=--The most usual erroneous |
|
conclusions of men are these: a thing[17] exists, therefore it is right: |
|
Here from capacity to live is deduced fitness, from fitness, is deduced |
|
justification. So also: an opinion gives happiness, therefore it is the |
|
true one, its effect is good, therefore it is itself good and true. Here |
|
is predicated of the effect that it gives happiness, that it is good in |
|
the sense of utility, and there is likewise predicated of the cause that |
|
it is good, but good in the sense of logical validity. Conversely, the |
|
proposition would run: a thing[17] cannot attain success, cannot |
|
maintain itself, therefore it is evil: a belief troubles [the believer], |
|
occasions pain, therefore it is false. The free spirit, who is sensible |
|
of the defect in this method of reaching conclusions and has had to |
|
suffer its consequences, often succumbs to the temptation to come to the |
|
very opposite conclusions (which, in general, are, of course, equally |
|
erroneous): a thing cannot maintain itself: therefore it is good; a |
|
belief is troublesome, therefore it is true. |
|
|
|
[17] Sache, thing but not in the sense of Ding. Sache is of very |
|
indefinite application (res). |
|
|
|
|
|
31 |
|
|
|
=The Illogical is Necessary.=--Among the things which can bring a |
|
thinker to distraction is the knowledge that the illogical is necessary |
|
to mankind and that from the illogical springs much that is good. The |
|
illogical is so imbedded in the passions, in language, in art, in |
|
religion and, above all, in everything that imparts value to life that |
|
it cannot be taken away without irreparably injuring those beautiful |
|
things. Only men of the utmost simplicity can believe that the nature |
|
man knows can be changed into a purely logical nature. Yet were there |
|
steps affording approach to this goal, how utterly everything would be |
|
lost on the way! Even the most rational man needs nature again, from |
|
time to time, that is, his illogical fundamental relation |
|
(Grundstellung) to all things. |
|
|
|
|
|
32 |
|
|
|
=Being Unjust is Essential.=--All judgments of the value of life are |
|
illogically developed and therefore unjust. The vice of the judgment |
|
consists, first, in the way in which the subject matter comes under |
|
observation, that is, very incompletely; secondly in the way in which |
|
the total is summed up; and, thirdly, in the fact that each single item |
|
in the totality of the subject matter is itself the result of defective |
|
perception, and this from absolute necessity. No practical knowledge of |
|
a man, for example, stood he never so near to us, can be complete--so |
|
that we could have a logical right to form a total estimate of him; all |
|
estimates are summary and must be so. Then the standard by which we |
|
measure, (our being) is not an immutable quantity; we have moods and |
|
variations, and yet we should know ourselves as an invariable standard |
|
before we undertake to establish the nature of the relation of any thing |
|
(Sache) to ourselves. Perhaps it will follow from all this that one |
|
should form no judgments whatever; if one could but merely _live_ |
|
without having to form estimates, without aversion and without |
|
partiality!--for everything most abhorred is closely connected with an |
|
estimate, as well as every strongest partiality. An inclination towards |
|
a thing, or from a thing, without an accompanying feeling that the |
|
beneficial is desired and the pernicious contemned, an inclination |
|
without a sort of experiential estimation of the desirability of an end, |
|
does not exist in man. We are primordially illogical and hence unjust |
|
beings _and can recognise this fact_: this is one of the greatest and |
|
most baffling discords of existence. |
|
|
|
|
|
33 |
|
|
|
=Error Respecting Living for the Sake of Living Essential.=--Every |
|
belief in the value and worthiness of life rests upon defective |
|
thinking; it is for this reason alone possible that sympathy with the |
|
general life and suffering of mankind is so imperfectly developed in the |
|
individual. Even exceptional men, who can think beyond their own |
|
personalities, do not have this general life in view, but isolated |
|
portions of it. If one is capable of fixing his observation upon |
|
exceptional cases, I mean upon highly endowed individuals and pure |
|
souled beings, if their development is taken as the true end of |
|
world-evolution and if joy be felt in their existence, then it is |
|
possible to believe in the value of life, because in that case the rest |
|
of humanity is overlooked: hence we have here defective thinking. So, |
|
too, it is even if all mankind be taken into consideration, and one |
|
species only of impulses (the less egoistic) brought under review and |
|
those, in consideration of the other impulses, exalted: then something |
|
could still be hoped of mankind in the mass and to that extent there |
|
could exist belief in the value of life: here, again, as a result of |
|
defective thinking. Whatever attitude, thus, one may assume, one is, as |
|
a result of this attitude, an exception among mankind. Now, the great |
|
majority of mankind endure life without any great protest, and believe, |
|
to this extent, in the value of existence, but that is because each |
|
individual decides and determines alone, and never comes out of his own |
|
personality like these exceptions: everything outside of the personal |
|
has no existence for them or at the utmost is observed as but a faint |
|
shadow. Consequently the value of life for the generality of mankind |
|
consists simply in the fact that the individual attaches more importance |
|
to himself than he does to the world. The great lack of imagination from |
|
which he suffers is responsible for his inability to enter into the |
|
feelings of beings other than himself, and hence his sympathy with their |
|
fate and suffering is of the slightest possible description. On the |
|
other hand, whosoever really _could_ sympathise, necessarily doubts the |
|
value of life; were it possible for him to sum up and to feel in himself |
|
the total consciousness of mankind, he would collapse with a malediction |
|
against existence,--for mankind is, in the mass, without a goal, and |
|
hence man cannot find, in the contemplation of his whole course, |
|
anything to serve him as a mainstay and a comfort, but rather a reason |
|
to despair. If he looks beyond the things that immediately engage him to |
|
the final aimlessness of humanity, his own conduct assumes in his eyes |
|
the character of a frittering away. To feel oneself, however, as |
|
humanity (not alone as an individual) frittered away exactly as we see |
|
the stray leaves frittered away by nature, is a feeling transcending all |
|
feeling. But who is capable of it? Only a poet, certainly: and poets |
|
always know how to console themselves. |
|
|
|
|
|
34 |
|
|
|
=For Tranquility.=--But will not our philosophy become thus a tragedy? |
|
Will not truth prove the enemy of life, of betterment? A question seems |
|
to weigh upon our tongue and yet will not put itself into words: whether |
|
one _can_ knowingly remain in the domain of the untruthful? or, if one |
|
_must_, whether, then, death would not be preferable? For there is no |
|
longer any ought (Sollen), morality; so far as it is involved "ought," |
|
is, through our point of view, as utterly annihilated as religion. Our |
|
knowledge can permit only pleasure and pain, benefit and injury, to |
|
subsist as motives. But how can these motives be distinguished from the |
|
desire for truth? Even they rest upon error (in so far, as already |
|
stated, partiality and dislike and their very inaccurate estimates |
|
palpably modify our pleasure and our pain). The whole of human life is |
|
deeply involved in _untruth_. The individual cannot extricate it from |
|
this pit without thereby fundamentally clashing with his whole past, |
|
without finding his present motives of conduct, (as that of honor) |
|
illegitimate, and without opposing scorn and contempt to the ambitions |
|
which prompt one to have regard for the future and for one's happiness |
|
in the future. Is it true, does there, then, remain but one way of |
|
thinking, which, as a personal consequence brings in its train despair, |
|
and as a theoretical [consequence brings in its train] a philosophy of |
|
decay, disintegration, self annihilation? I believe the deciding |
|
influence, as regards the after-effect of knowledge, will be the |
|
_temperament_ of a man; I can, in addition to this after-effect just |
|
mentioned, suppose another, by means of which a much simpler life, and |
|
one freer from disturbances than the present, could be lived; so that at |
|
first the old motives of vehement passion might still have strength, |
|
owing to hereditary habit, but they would gradually grow weaker under |
|
the influence of purifying knowledge. A man would live, at last, both |
|
among men and unto himself, as in the natural state, without praise, |
|
reproach, competition, feasting one's eyes, as if it were a play, upon |
|
much that formerly inspired dread. One would be rid of the strenuous |
|
element, and would no longer feel the goad of the reflection that man is |
|
not even [as much as] nature, nor more than nature. To be sure, this |
|
requires, as already stated, a good temperament, a fortified, gentle and |
|
naturally cheerful soul, a disposition that has no need to be on its |
|
guard against its own eccentricities and sudden outbreaks and that in |
|
its utterances manifests neither sullenness nor a snarling tone--those |
|
familiar, disagreeable characteristics of old dogs and old men that have |
|
been a long time chained up. Rather must a man, from whom the ordinary |
|
bondages of life have fallen away to so great an extent, so do that he |
|
only lives on in order to grow continually in knowledge, and to learn to |
|
resign, without envy and without disappointment, much, yes nearly |
|
everything, that has value in the eyes of men. He must be content with |
|
such a free, fearless soaring above men, manners, laws and traditional |
|
estimates of things, as the most desirable of all situations. He will |
|
freely share the joy of being in such a situation, and he has, perhaps, |
|
nothing else to share--in which renunciation and self-denial really most |
|
consist. But if more is asked of him, he will, with a benevolent shake |
|
of the head, refer to his brother, the free man of fact, and will, |
|
perhaps, not dissemble a little contempt: for, as regards his "freedom," |
|
thereby hangs a tale.[18] |
|
|
|
[18] den mit dessen "Freiheit" hat es eine eigene Bewandtniss. |
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|
HISTORY OF THE MORAL FEELINGS. |
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35 |
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|
|
=Advantages of Psychological Observation.=--That reflection regarding |
|
the human, all-too-human--or as the learned jargon is: psychological |
|
observation--is among the means whereby the burden of life can be made |
|
lighter, that practice in this art affords presence of mind in difficult |
|
situations and entertainment amid a wearisome environment, aye, that |
|
maxims may be culled in the thorniest and least pleasing paths of life |
|
and invigoration thereby obtained: this much was believed, was known--in |
|
former centuries. Why was this forgotten in our own century, during |
|
which, at least in Germany, yes in Europe, poverty as regards |
|
psychological observation would have been manifest in many ways had |
|
there been anyone to whom this poverty could have manifested itself. Not |
|
only in the novel, in the romance, in philosophical standpoints--these |
|
are the works of exceptional men; still more in the state of opinion |
|
regarding public events and personages; above all in general society, |
|
which says much about men but nothing whatever about man, there is |
|
totally lacking the art of psychological analysis and synthesis. But why |
|
is the richest and most harmless source of entertainment thus allowed to |
|
run to waste? Why is the greatest master of the psychological maxim no |
|
longer read?--for, with no exaggeration whatever be it said: the |
|
educated person in Europe who has read La Rochefoucauld and his |
|
intellectual and artistic affinities is very hard to find; still harder, |
|
the person who knows them and does not disparage them. Apparently, too, |
|
this unusual reader takes far less pleasure in them than the form |
|
adopted by these artists should afford him: for the subtlest mind cannot |
|
adequately appreciate the art of maxim-making unless it has had training |
|
in it, unless it has competed in it. Without such practical |
|
acquaintance, one is apt to look upon this making and forming as a much |
|
easier thing than it really is; one is not keenly enough alive to the |
|
felicity and the charm of success. Hence present day readers of maxims |
|
have but a moderate, tempered pleasure in them, scarcely, indeed, a true |
|
perception of their merit, so that their experiences are about the same |
|
as those of the average beholder of cameos: people who praise because |
|
they cannot appreciate, and are very ready to admire and still readier |
|
to turn away. |
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36 |
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|
|
=Objection.=--Or is there a counter-proposition to the dictum that |
|
psychological observation is one of the means of consoling, lightening, |
|
charming existence? Have enough of the unpleasant effects of this art |
|
been experienced to justify the person striving for culture in turning |
|
his regard away from it? In all truth, a certain blind faith in the |
|
goodness of human nature, an implanted distaste for any disparagement of |
|
human concerns, a sort of shamefacedness at the nakedness of the soul, |
|
may be far more desirable things in the general happiness of a man, than |
|
this only occasionally advantageous quality of psychological |
|
sharpsightedness; and perhaps belief in the good, in virtuous men and |
|
actions, in a plenitude of disinterested benevolence has been more |
|
productive of good in the world of men in so far as it has made men less |
|
distrustful. If Plutarch's heroes are enthusiastically imitated and a |
|
reluctance is experienced to looking too critically into the motives of |
|
their actions, not the knowledge but the welfare of human society is |
|
promoted thereby: psychological error and above all obtuseness in regard |
|
to it, help human nature forward, whereas knowledge of the truth is more |
|
promoted by means of the stimulating strength of a hypothesis; as La |
|
Rochefoucauld in the first edition of his "Sentences and Moral Maxims" |
|
has expressed it: "What the world calls virtue is ordinarily but a |
|
phantom created by the passions, and to which we give a good name in |
|
order to do whatever we please with impunity." La Rochefoucauld and |
|
those other French masters of soul-searching (to the number of whom has |
|
lately been added a German, the author of "Psychological Observations") |
|
are like expert marksmen who again and again hit the black spot--but it |
|
is the black spot in human nature. Their art inspires amazement, but |
|
finally some spectator, inspired, not by the scientific spirit but by a |
|
humanitarian feeling, execrates an art that seems to implant in the soul |
|
a taste for belittling and impeaching mankind. |
|
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37 |
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|
|
=Nevertheless.=--The matter therefore, as regards pro and con, stands |
|
thus: in the present state of philosophy an awakening of the moral |
|
observation is essential. The repulsive aspect of psychological |
|
dissection, with the knife and tweezers entailed by the process, can no |
|
longer be spared humanity. Such is the imperative duty of any science |
|
that investigates the origin and history of the so-called moral feelings |
|
and which, in its progress, is called upon to posit and to solve |
|
advanced social problems:--The older philosophy does not recognize the |
|
newer at all and, through paltry evasions, has always gone astray in the |
|
investigation of the origin and history of human estimates |
|
(Werthschätzungen). With what results may now be very clearly perceived, |
|
since it has been shown by many examples, how the errors of the greatest |
|
philosophers have their origin in a false explanation of certain human |
|
actions and feelings; how upon the foundation of an erroneous analysis |
|
(for example, of the so called disinterested actions), a false ethic is |
|
reared, to support which religion and like mythological monstrosities |
|
are called in, until finally the shades of these troubled spirits |
|
collapse in physics and in the comprehensive world point of view. But if |
|
it be established that superficiality of psychological observation has |
|
heretofore set the most dangerous snares for human judgment and |
|
deduction, and will continue to do so, all the greater need is there of |
|
that steady continuance of labor that never wearies putting stone upon |
|
stone, little stone upon little stone; all the greater need is there of |
|
a courage that is not ashamed of such humble labor and that will oppose |
|
persistence, to all contempt. It is, finally, also true that countless |
|
single observations concerning the human, all-too-human, have been |
|
first made and uttered in circles accustomed, not to furnish matter for |
|
scientific knowledge, but for intellectual pleasure-seeking; and the |
|
original home atmosphere--a very seductive atmosphere--of the moral |
|
maxim has almost inextricably interpenetrated the entire species, so |
|
that the scientific man involuntarily manifests a sort of mistrust of |
|
this species and of its seriousness. But it is sufficient to point to |
|
the consequences: for already it is becoming evident that events of the |
|
most portentous nature are developing in the domain of psychological |
|
observation. What is the leading conclusion arrived at by one of the |
|
subtlest and calmest of thinkers, the author of the work "Concerning the |
|
Origin of the Moral Feelings", as a result of his thorough and incisive |
|
analysis of human conduct? "The moral man," he says, "stands no nearer |
|
the knowable (metaphysical) world than the physical man."[19] This |
|
dictum, grown hard and cutting beneath the hammer-blow of historical |
|
knowledge, can some day, perhaps, in some future or other, serve as the |
|
axe that will be laid to the root of the "metaphysical necessities" of |
|
men--whether more to the blessing than to the banning of universal well |
|
being who can say?--but in any event a dictum fraught with the most |
|
momentous consequences, fruitful and fearful at once, and confronting |
|
the world in the two faced way characteristic of all great facts. |
|
|
|
[19] "Der moralische Mensch, sagt er, steht der intelligiblen |
|
(metaphysischen) Welt nicht näher, als der physische Mensch." |
|
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38 |
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|
|
=To What Extent Useful.=--Therefore, whether psychological observation |
|
is more an advantage than a disadvantage to mankind may always remain |
|
undetermined: but there is no doubt that it is necessary, because |
|
science can no longer dispense with it. Science, however, recognizes no |
|
considerations of ultimate goals or ends any more than nature does; but |
|
as the latter duly matures things of the highest fitness for certain |
|
ends without any intention of doing it, so will true science, doing with |
|
ideas what nature does with matter,[20] promote the purposes and the |
|
welfare of humanity, (as occasion may afford, and in many ways) and |
|
attain fitness [to ends]--but likewise without having intended it. |
|
|
|
[20] als die Nachahmung der Natur in Begriffen, literally: "as the |
|
counterfeit of nature in (regard to) ideas." |
|
|
|
He to whom the atmospheric conditions of such a prospect are too wintry, |
|
has too little fire in him: let him look about him, and he will become |
|
sensible of maladies requiring an icy air, and of people who are so |
|
"kneaded together" out of ardor and intellect that they can scarcely |
|
find anywhere an atmosphere too cold and cutting for them. Moreover: as |
|
too serious individuals and nations stand in need of trivial |
|
relaxations; as others, too volatile and excitable require onerous, |
|
weighty ordeals to render them entirely healthy: should not we, the more |
|
intellectual men of this age, which is swept more and more by |
|
conflagrations, catch up every cooling and extinguishing appliance we |
|
can find that we may always remain as self contained, steady and calm as |
|
we are now, and thereby perhaps serve this age as its mirror and self |
|
reflector, when the occasion arises? |
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39 |
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|
|
=The Fable of Discretionary Freedom.=--The history of the feelings, on |
|
the basis of which we make everyone responsible, hence, the so-called |
|
moral feelings, is traceable in the following leading phases. At first |
|
single actions are termed good or bad without any reference to their |
|
motive, but solely because of the utilitarian or prejudicial |
|
consequences they have for the community. In time, however, the origin |
|
of these designations is forgotten [but] it is imagined that action in |
|
itself, without reference to its consequences, contains the property |
|
"good" or "bad": with the same error according to which language |
|
designates the stone itself as hard[ness] the tree itself as |
|
green[ness]--for the reason, therefore, that what is a consequence is |
|
comprehended as a cause. Accordingly, the good[ness] or bad[ness] is |
|
incorporated into the motive and [any] deed by itself is regarded as |
|
morally ambiguous. A step further is taken, and the predication good or |
|
bad is no longer made of the particular motives but of the entire nature |
|
of a man, out of which motive grows as grow the plants out of the soil. |
|
Thus man is successively made responsible for his [particular] acts, |
|
then for his [course of] conduct, then for his motives and finally for |
|
his nature. Now, at last, is it discovered that this nature, even, |
|
cannot be responsible, inasmuch as it is only and wholly a necessary |
|
consequence and is synthesised out of the elements and influence of past |
|
and present things: therefore, that man is to be made responsible for |
|
nothing, neither for his nature, nor his motives, nor his [course of] |
|
conduct nor his [particular] acts. By this [process] is gained the |
|
knowledge that the history of moral estimates is the history of error, |
|
of the error of responsibility: as is whatever rests upon the error of |
|
the freedom of the will. Schopenhauer concluded just the other way, |
|
thus: since certain actions bring depression ("consciousness of guilt") |
|
in their train, there must, then, exist responsibility, for there would |
|
be no basis for this depression at hand if all man's affairs did not |
|
follow their course of necessity--as they do, indeed, according to the |
|
opinion of this philosopher, follow their course--but man himself, |
|
subject to the same necessity, would be just the man that he is--which |
|
Schopenhauer denies. From the fact of such depression Schopenhauer |
|
believes himself able to prove a freedom which man in some way must have |
|
had, not indeed in regard to his actions but in regard to his nature: |
|
freedom, therefore, to be thus and so, not to act thus and so. Out of |
|
the _esse_, the sphere of freedom and responsibility, follows, according |
|
to his opinion, the _operari_, the spheres of invariable causation, |
|
necessity and irresponsibility. This depression, indeed, is due |
|
apparently to the _operari_--in so far as it be delusive--but in truth |
|
to whatever _esse_ be the deed of a free will, the basic cause of the |
|
existence of an individual: [in order to] let man become whatever he |
|
wills to become, his [to] will (Wollen) must precede his |
|
existence.--Here, apart from the absurdity of the statement just made, |
|
there is drawn the wrong inference that the fact of the depression |
|
explains its character, the rational admissibility of it: from such a |
|
wrong inference does Schopenhauer first come to his fantastic consequent |
|
of the so called discretionary freedom (intelligibeln Freiheit). (For |
|
the origin of this fabulous entity Plato and Kant are equally |
|
responsible). But depression after the act does not need to be rational: |
|
indeed, it is certainly not so at all, for it rests upon the erroneous |
|
assumption that the act need not necessarily have come to pass. |
|
Therefore: only because man deems himself free, but not because |
|
he is free, does he experience remorse and the stings of |
|
conscience.--Moreover, this depression is something that can be grown |
|
out of; in many men it is not present at all as a consequence of acts |
|
which inspire it in many other men. It is a very varying thing and one |
|
closely connected with the development of custom and civilization, and |
|
perhaps manifest only during a relatively brief period of the world's |
|
history.--No one is responsible for his acts, no one for his nature; to |
|
judge is tantamount to being unjust. This applies as well when the |
|
individual judges himself. The proposition is as clear as sunlight, and |
|
yet here everyone prefers to go back to darkness and untruth: for fear |
|
of the consequences. |
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40 |
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|
|
=Above Animal.=--The beast in us must be wheedled: ethic is necessary, |
|
that we may not be torn to pieces. Without the errors involved in the |
|
assumptions of ethics, man would have remained an animal. Thus has he |
|
taken himself as something higher and imposed rigid laws upon himself. |
|
He feels hatred, consequently, for states approximating the animal: |
|
whence the former contempt for the slave as a not-yet-man, as a thing, |
|
is to be explained. |
|
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41 |
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|
|
=Unalterable Character.=--That character is unalterable is not, in the |
|
strict sense, true; rather is this favorite proposition valid only to |
|
the extent that during the brief life period of a man the potent new |
|
motives can not, usually, press down hard enough to obliterate the lines |
|
imprinted by ages. Could we conceive of a man eighty thousand years old, |
|
we should have in him an absolutely alterable character; so that the |
|
maturities of successive, varying individuals would develop in him. The |
|
shortness of human life leads to many erroneous assertions concerning |
|
the qualities of man. |
|
|
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|
|
42 |
|
|
|
=Classification of Enjoyments and Ethic.=--The once accepted comparative |
|
classification of enjoyments, according to which an inferior, higher, |
|
highest egoism may crave one or another enjoyment, now decides as to |
|
ethical status or unethical status. A lower enjoyment (for example, |
|
sensual pleasure) preferred to a more highly esteemed one (for example, |
|
health) rates as unethical, as does welfare preferred to freedom. The |
|
comparative classification of enjoyments is not, however, alike or the |
|
same at all periods; when anyone demands satisfaction of the law, he is, |
|
from the point of view of an earlier civilization, moral, from that of |
|
the present, non-moral. "Unethical" indicates, therefore, that a man is |
|
not sufficiently sensible to the higher, finer impulses which the |
|
present civilization has brought with it, or is not sensible to them at |
|
all; it indicates backwardness, but only from the point of view of the |
|
contemporary degree of distinction.--The comparative classification of |
|
enjoyments itself is not determined according to absolute ethics; but |
|
after each new ethical adjustment, it is then decided whether conduct be |
|
ethical or the reverse. |
|
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|
43 |
|
|
|
=Inhuman Men as Survivals.=--Men who are now inhuman must serve us as |
|
surviving specimens of earlier civilizations. The mountain height of |
|
humanity here reveals its lower formations, which might otherwise remain |
|
hidden from view. There are surviving specimens of humanity whose brains |
|
through the vicissitudes of heredity, have escaped proper development. |
|
They show us what we all were and thus appal us; but they are as little |
|
responsible on this account as is a piece of granite for being granite. |
|
In our own brains there must be courses and windings corresponding to |
|
such characters, just as in the forms of some human organs there survive |
|
traces of fishhood. But these courses and windings are no longer the bed |
|
in which flows the stream of our feeling. |
|
|
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|
44 |
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|
|
=Gratitude and Revenge.=--The reason the powerful man is grateful is |
|
this. His benefactor has, through his benefaction, invaded the domain of |
|
the powerful man and established himself on an equal footing: the |
|
powerful man in turn invades the domain of the benefactor and gets |
|
satisfaction through the act of gratitude. It is a mild form of revenge. |
|
By not obtaining the satisfaction of gratitude the powerful would have |
|
shown himself powerless and have ranked as such thenceforward. Hence |
|
every society of the good, that is to say, of the powerful originally, |
|
places gratitude among the first of duties.--Swift has added the dictum |
|
that man is grateful in the same degree that he is revengeful. |
|
|
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|
45 |
|
|
|
=Two-fold Historical Origin of Good and Evil.=--The notion of good and |
|
bad has a two-fold historical origin: namely, first, in the spirit of |
|
ruling races and castes. Whoever has power to requite good with good and |
|
evil with evil and actually brings requital, (that is, is grateful and |
|
revengeful) acquires the name of being good; whoever is powerless and |
|
cannot requite is called bad. A man belongs, as a good individual, to |
|
the "good" of a community, who have a feeling in common, because all the |
|
individuals are allied with one another through the requiting sentiment. |
|
A man belongs, as a bad individual, to the "bad," to a mass of |
|
subjugated, powerless men who have no feeling in common. The good are a |
|
caste, the bad are a quantity, like dust. Good and bad is, for a |
|
considerable period, tantamount to noble and servile, master and slave. |
|
On the other hand an enemy is not looked upon as bad: he can requite. |
|
The Trojan and the Greek are in Homer both good. Not he, who does no |
|
harm, but he who is despised, is deemed bad. In the community of the |
|
good individuals [the quality of] good[ness] is inherited; it is |
|
impossible for a bad individual to grow from such a rich soil. If, |
|
notwithstanding, one of the good individuals does something unworthy of |
|
his goodness, recourse is had to exorcism; thus the guilt is ascribed to |
|
a deity, the while it is declared that this deity bewitched the good man |
|
into madness and blindness.--Second, in the spirit of the subjugated, |
|
the powerless. Here every other man is, to the individual, hostile, |
|
inconsiderate, greedy, inhuman, avaricious, be he noble or servile; bad |
|
is the characteristic term for man, for every living being, indeed, that |
|
is recognized at all, even for a god: human, divine, these notions are |
|
tantamount to devilish, bad. Manifestations of goodness, sympathy, |
|
helpfulness, are regarded with anxiety as trickiness, preludes to an |
|
evil end, deception, subtlety, in short, as refined badness. With such a |
|
predisposition in individuals, a feeling in common can scarcely arise at |
|
all, at most only the rudest form of it: so that everywhere that this |
|
conception of good and evil prevails, the destruction of the |
|
individuals, their race and nation, is imminent.--Our existing morality |
|
has developed upon the foundation laid by ruling races and castes. |
|
|
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|
46 |
|
|
|
=Sympathy Greater than Suffering.=--There are circumstances in which |
|
sympathy is stronger than the suffering itself. We feel more pain, for |
|
instance, when one of our friends becomes guilty of a reprehensible |
|
action than if we had done the deed ourselves. We once, that is, had |
|
more faith in the purity of his character than he had himself. Hence our |
|
love for him, (apparently because of this very faith) is stronger than |
|
is his own love for himself. If, indeed, his egoism really suffers more, |
|
as a result, than our egoism, inasmuch as he must take the consequences |
|
of his fault to a greater extent than ourselves, nevertheless, the |
|
unegoistic--this word is not to be taken too strictly, but simply as a |
|
modified form of expression--in us is more affected by his guilt than |
|
the unegoistic in him. |
|
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|
47 |
|
|
|
=Hypochondria.=--There are people who, from sympathy and anxiety for |
|
others become hypochondriacal. The resulting form of compassion is |
|
nothing else than sickness. So, also, is there a Christian hypochondria, |
|
from which those singular, religiously agitated people suffer who place |
|
always before their eyes the suffering and death of Christ. |
|
|
|
|
|
48 |
|
|
|
=Economy of Blessings.=--The advantageous and the pleasing, as the |
|
healthiest growths and powers in the intercourse of men, are such |
|
precious treasures that it is much to be wished the use made of these |
|
balsamic means were as economical as possible: but this is impossible. |
|
Economy in the use of blessings is the dream of the craziest of |
|
Utopians. |
|
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|
|
49 |
|
|
|
=Well-Wishing.=--Among the small, but infinitely plentiful and therefore |
|
very potent things to which science must pay more attention than to the |
|
great, uncommon things, well-wishing[21] must be reckoned; I mean those |
|
manifestations of friendly disposition in intercourse, that laughter of |
|
the eye, every hand pressure, every courtesy from which, in general, |
|
every human act gets its quality. Every teacher, every functionary adds |
|
this element as a gratuity to whatever he does as a duty; it is the |
|
perpetual well spring of humanity, like the waves of light in which |
|
everything grows; thus, in the narrowest circles, within the family, |
|
life blooms and flowers only through this kind feeling. The |
|
cheerfulness, friendliness and kindness of a heart are unfailing |
|
sources of unegoistic impulse and have made far more for civilization |
|
than those other more noised manifestations of it that are styled |
|
sympathy, benevolence and sacrifice. But it is customary to depreciate |
|
these little tokens of kindly feeling, and, indeed, there is not much of |
|
the unegoistic in them. The sum of these little doses is very great, |
|
nevertheless; their combined strength is of the greatest of |
|
strengths.--Thus, too, much more happiness is to be found in the world |
|
than gloomy eyes discover: that is, if the calculation be just, and all |
|
these pleasing moments in which every day, even the meanest human life, |
|
is rich, be not forgotten. |
|
|
|
[21] Wohl-wollen, kind feeling. It stands here for benevolence but not |
|
benevolence in the restricted sense of the word now prevailing. |
|
|
|
|
|
50 |
|
|
|
=The Desire to Inspire Compassion.=--La Rochefoucauld, in the most |
|
notable part of his self portraiture (first printed 1658) reaches the |
|
vital spot of truth when he warns all those endowed with reason to be on |
|
their guard against compassion, when he advises that this sentiment be |
|
left to men of the masses who stand in need of the promptings of the |
|
emotions (since they are not guided by reason) to induce them to give |
|
aid to the suffering and to be of service in misfortune: whereas |
|
compassion, in his (and Plato's) view, deprives the heart of strength. |
|
To be sure, sympathy should be manifested but men should take care not |
|
to feel it; for the unfortunate are rendered so dull that the |
|
manifestation of sympathy affords them the greatest happiness in the |
|
world.--Perhaps a more effectual warning against this compassion can be |
|
given if this need of the unfortunate be considered not simply as |
|
stupidity and intellectual weakness, not as a sort of distraction of the |
|
spirit entailed by misfortune itself (and thus, indeed, does La |
|
Rochefoucauld seem to view it) but as something quite different and more |
|
momentous. Let note be taken of children who cry and scream in order to |
|
be compassionated and who, therefore, await the moment when their |
|
condition will be observed; come into contact with the sick and the |
|
oppressed in spirit and try to ascertain if the wailing and sighing, the |
|
posturing and posing of misfortune do not have as end and aim the |
|
causing of pain to the beholder: the sympathy which each beholder |
|
manifests is a consolation to the weak and suffering only in as much as |
|
they are made to perceive that at least they have the power, |
|
notwithstanding all their weakness, to inflict pain. The unfortunate |
|
experiences a species of joy in the sense of superiority which the |
|
manifestation of sympathy entails; his imagination is exalted; he is |
|
always strong enough, then, to cause the world pain. Thus is the thirst |
|
for sympathy a thirst for self enjoyment and at the expense of one's |
|
fellow creatures: it shows man in the whole ruthlessness of his own dear |
|
self: not in his mere "dullness" as La Rochefoucauld thinks.--In social |
|
conversation three fourths of all the questions are asked, and three |
|
fourths of all the replies are made in order to inflict some little |
|
pain; that is why so many people crave social intercourse: it gives them |
|
a sense of their power. In these countless but very small doses in which |
|
the quality of badness is administered it proves a potent stimulant of |
|
life: to the same extent that well wishing--(Wohl-wollen) distributed |
|
through the world in like manner, is one of the ever ready |
|
restoratives.--But will many honorable people be found to admit that |
|
there is any pleasure in administering pain? that entertainment--and |
|
rare entertainment--is not seldom found in causing others, at least in |
|
thought, some pain, and in raking them with the small shot of |
|
wickedness? The majority are too ignoble and a few are too good to know |
|
anything of this pudendum: the latter may, consequently, be prompt to |
|
deny that Prosper Mérimée is right when he says: "Know, also, that |
|
nothing is more common than to do wrong for the pleasure of doing it." |
|
|
|
|
|
51 |
|
|
|
=How Appearance Becomes Reality.=--The actor cannot, at last, refrain, |
|
even in moments of the deepest pain, from thinking of the effect |
|
produced by his deportment and by his surroundings--for example, even at |
|
the funeral of his own child: he will weep at his own sorrow and its |
|
manifestations as though he were his own audience. The hypocrite who |
|
always plays one and the same part, finally ceases to be a hypocrite; as |
|
in the case of priests who, when young men, are always, either |
|
consciously or unconsciously, hypocrites, and finally become naturally |
|
and then really, without affectation, mere priests: or if the father |
|
does not carry it to this extent, the son, who inherits his father's |
|
calling and gets the advantage of the paternal progress, does. When |
|
anyone, during a long period, and persistently, wishes to appear |
|
something, it will at last prove difficult for him to be anything else. |
|
The calling of almost every man, even of the artist, begins with |
|
hypocrisy, with an imitation of deportment, with a copying of the |
|
effective in manner. He who always wears the mask of a friendly man must |
|
at last gain a power over friendliness of disposition, without which the |
|
expression itself of friendliness is not to be gained--and finally |
|
friendliness of disposition gains the ascendancy over him--he _is_ |
|
benevolent. |
|
|
|
|
|
52 |
|
|
|
=The Point of Honor in Deception.=--In all great deceivers one |
|
characteristic is prominent, to which they owe their power. In the very |
|
act of deception, amid all the accompaniments, the agitation in the |
|
voice, the expression, the bearing, in the crisis of the scene, there |
|
comes over them a belief in themselves; this it is that acts so |
|
effectively and irresistibly upon the beholders. Founders of religions |
|
differ from such great deceivers in that they never come out of this |
|
state of self deception, or else they have, very rarely, a few moments |
|
of enlightenment in which they are overcome by doubt; generally, |
|
however, they soothe themselves by ascribing such moments of |
|
enlightenment to the evil adversary. Self deception must exist that both |
|
classes of deceivers may attain far reaching results. For men believe in |
|
the truth of all that is manifestly believed with due implicitness by |
|
others. |
|
|
|
|
|
53 |
|
|
|
=Presumed Degrees of Truth.=--One of the most usual errors of deduction |
|
is: because someone truly and openly is against us, therefore he speaks |
|
the truth. Hence the child has faith in the judgments of its elders, the |
|
Christian in the assertions of the founder of the church. So, too, it |
|
will not be admitted that all for which men sacrificed life and |
|
happiness in former centuries was nothing but delusion: perhaps it is |
|
alleged these things were degrees of truth. But what is really meant is |
|
that, if a person sincerely believes a thing and has fought and died for |
|
his faith, it would be too _unjust_ if only delusion had inspired him. |
|
Such a state of affairs seems to contradict eternal justice. For that |
|
reason the heart of a sensitive man pronounces against his head the |
|
judgment: between moral conduct and intellectual insight there must |
|
always exist an inherent connection. It is, unfortunately, otherwise: |
|
for there is no eternal justice. |
|
|
|
|
|
54 |
|
|
|
=Falsehood.=--Why do men, as a rule, speak the truth in the ordinary |
|
affairs of life? Certainly not for the reason that a god has forbidden |
|
lying. But because first: it is more convenient, as falsehood entails |
|
invention, make-believe and recollection (wherefore Swift says that |
|
whoever invents a lie seldom realises the heavy burden he takes up: he |
|
must, namely, for every lie that he tells, insert twenty more). |
|
Therefore, because in plain ordinary relations of life it is expedient |
|
to say without circumlocution: I want this, I have done this, and the |
|
like; therefore, because the way of freedom and certainty is surer than |
|
that of ruse.--But if it happens that a child is brought up in sinister |
|
domestic circumstances, it will then indulge in falsehood as matter of |
|
course, and involuntarily say anything its own interests may prompt: an |
|
inclination for truth, an aversion to falsehood, is quite foreign and |
|
uncongenial to it, and hence it lies in all innocence. |
|
|
|
|
|
55 |
|
|
|
=Ethic Discredited for Faith's Sake.=--No power can sustain itself when |
|
it is represented by mere humbugs: the Catholic Church may possess ever |
|
so many "worldly" sources of strength, but its true might is comprised |
|
in those still numberless priestly natures who make their lives stern |
|
and strenuous and whose looks and emaciated bodies are eloquent of night |
|
vigils, fasts, ardent prayer, perhaps even of whip lashes: these things |
|
make men tremble and cause them anxiety: what, if it be really |
|
imperative to live thus? This is the dreadful question which their |
|
aspect occasions. As they spread this doubt, they lay anew the prop of |
|
their power: even the free thinkers dare not oppose such |
|
disinterestedness with severe truth and cry: "Thou deceived one, |
|
deceive not!"--Only the difference of standpoint separates them from |
|
him: no difference in goodness or badness. But things we cannot |
|
accomplish ourselves, we are apt to criticise unfairly. Thus we are told |
|
of the cunning and perverted acts of the Jesuits, but we overlook the |
|
self mastery that each Jesuit imposes upon himself and also the fact |
|
that the easy life which the Jesuit manuals advocate is for the benefit, |
|
not of the Jesuits but the laity. Indeed, it may be questioned whether |
|
we enlightened ones would become equally competent workers as the result |
|
of similar tactics and organization, and equally worthy of admiration as |
|
the result of self mastery, indefatigable industry and devotion. |
|
|
|
|
|
56 |
|
|
|
=Victory of Knowledge over Radical Evil.=--It proves a material gain to |
|
him who would attain knowledge to have had during a considerable period |
|
the idea that mankind is a radically bad and perverted thing: it is a |
|
false idea, as is its opposite, but it long held sway and its roots have |
|
reached down even to ourselves and our present world. In order to |
|
understand _ourselves_ we must understand _it_; but in order to attain a |
|
loftier height we must step above it. We then perceive that there is no |
|
such thing as sin in the metaphysical sense: but also, in the same |
|
sense, no such thing as virtue; that this whole domain of ethical |
|
notions is one of constant variation; that there are higher and deeper |
|
conceptions of good and evil, moral and immoral. Whoever desires no more |
|
of things than knowledge of them attains speedily to peace of mind and |
|
will at most err through lack of knowledge, but scarcely through |
|
eagerness for knowledge (or through sin, as the world calls it). He will |
|
not ask that eagerness for knowledge be interdicted and rooted out; but |
|
his single, all powerful ambition to _know_ as thoroughly and as fully |
|
as possible, will soothe him and moderate all that is strenuous in his |
|
circumstances. Moreover, he is now rid of a number of disturbing |
|
notions; he is no longer beguiled by such words as hell-pain, |
|
sinfulness, unworthiness: he sees in them merely the flitting shadow |
|
pictures of false views of life and of the world. |
|
|
|
|
|
57 |
|
|
|
=Ethic as Man's Self-Analysis.=--A good author, whose heart is really in |
|
his work, wishes that someone would arise and wholly refute him if only |
|
thereby his subject be wholly clarified and made plain. The maid in love |
|
wishes that she could attest the fidelity of her own passion through |
|
the faithlessness of her beloved. The soldier wishes to sacrifice his |
|
life on the field of his fatherland's victory: for in the victory of his |
|
fatherland his highest end is attained. The mother gives her child what |
|
she deprives herself of--sleep, the best nourishment and, in certain |
|
circumstances, her health, her self.--But are all these acts unegoistic? |
|
Are these moral deeds miracles because they are, in Schopenhauer's |
|
phrase "impossible and yet accomplished"? Is it not evident that in all |
|
four cases man loves one part of himself, (a thought, a longing, an |
|
experience) more than he loves another part of himself? that he thus |
|
analyses his being and sacrifices one part of it to another part? Is |
|
this essentially different from the behavior of the obstinate man who |
|
says "I would rather be shot than go a step out of my way for this |
|
fellow"?--Preference for something (wish, impulse, longing) is present |
|
in all four instances: to yield to it, with all its consequences, is not |
|
"unegoistic."--In the domain of the ethical man conducts himself not as |
|
individuum but as dividuum. |
|
|
|
|
|
58 |
|
|
|
=What Can be Promised.=--Actions can be promised, but not feelings, for |
|
these are involuntary. Whoever promises somebody to love him always, or |
|
to hate him always, or to be ever true to him, promises something that |
|
it is out of his power to bestow. But he really can promise such courses |
|
of conduct as are the ordinary accompaniments of love, of hate, of |
|
fidelity, but which may also have their source in motives quite |
|
different: for various ways and motives lead to the same conduct. The |
|
promise to love someone always, means, consequently: as long as I love |
|
you, I will manifest the deportment of love; but if I cease to love you |
|
my deportment, although from some other motive, will be just the same, |
|
so that to the people about us it will seem as if my love remained |
|
unchanged.--Hence it is the continuance of the deportment of love that |
|
is promised in every instance in which eternal love (provided no element |
|
of self deception be involved) is sworn. |
|
|
|
|
|
59 |
|
|
|
=Intellect and Ethic.=--One must have a good memory to be able to keep |
|
the promises one makes. One must have a strong imagination in order to |
|
feel sympathy. So closely is ethics connected with intellectual |
|
capacity. |
|
|
|
|
|
60 |
|
|
|
=Desire for Vengeance and Vengeance Itself.=--To meditate revenge and |
|
attain it is tantamount to an attack of fever, that passes away: but to |
|
meditate revenge without possessing the strength or courage to attain it |
|
is tantamount to suffering from a chronic malady, or poisoning of body |
|
and soul. Ethics, which takes only the motive into account, rates both |
|
cases alike: people generally estimate the first case as the worst |
|
(because of the consequences which the deed of vengeance may entail). |
|
Both views are short sighted. |
|
|
|
|
|
61 |
|
|
|
=Ability to Wait.=--Ability to wait is so hard to acquire that great |
|
poets have not disdained to make inability to wait the central motive of |
|
their poems. So Shakespeare in Othello, Sophocles in Ajax, whose suicide |
|
would not have seemed to him so imperative had he only been able to cool |
|
his ardor for a day, as the oracle foreboded: apparently he would then |
|
have repulsed somewhat the fearful whispers of distracted thought and |
|
have said to himself: Who has not already, in my situation, mistaken a |
|
sheep for a hero? is it so extraordinary a thing? On the contrary it is |
|
something universally human: Ajax should thus have soothed himself. |
|
Passion will not wait: the tragic element in the lives of great men does |
|
not generally consist in their conflict with time and the inferiority |
|
of their fellowmen but in their inability to put off their work a year |
|
or two: they cannot wait.--In all duels, the friends who advise have but |
|
to ascertain if the principals can wait: if this be not possible, a duel |
|
is rational inasmuch as each of the combatants may say: "either I |
|
continue to live and the other dies instantly, or vice versa." To wait |
|
in such circumstances would be equivalent to the frightful martyrdom of |
|
enduring dishonor in the presence of him responsible for the dishonor: |
|
and this can easily cost more anguish than life is worth. |
|
|
|
|
|
62 |
|
|
|
=Glutting Revenge.=--Coarse men, who feel a sense of injury, are in the |
|
habit of rating the extent of their injury as high as possible and of |
|
stating the occasion of it in greatly exaggerated language, in order to |
|
be able to feast themselves on the sentiments of hatred and revenge thus |
|
aroused. |
|
|
|
|
|
63 |
|
|
|
=Value of Disparagement.=--Not a few, perhaps the majority of men, find |
|
it necessary, in order to retain their self esteem and a certain |
|
uprightness in conduct, to mentally disparage and belittle all the |
|
people they know. But as the inferior natures are in the majority and as |
|
a great deal depends upon whether they retain or lose this uprightness, |
|
so-- |
|
|
|
|
|
64 |
|
|
|
=The Man in a Rage.=--We should be on our guard against the man who is |
|
enraged against us, as against one who has attempted our life, for the |
|
fact that we still live consists solely in the inability to kill: were |
|
looks sufficient, it would have been all up with us long since. To |
|
reduce anyone to silence by physical manifestations of savagery or by a |
|
terrorizing process is a relic of under civilization. So, too, that cold |
|
look which great personages cast upon their servitors is a remnant of |
|
the caste distinction between man and man; a specimen of rude antiquity: |
|
women, the conservers of the old, have maintained this survival, too, |
|
more perfectly than men. |
|
|
|
|
|
65 |
|
|
|
=Whither Honesty May Lead.=--Someone once had the bad habit of |
|
expressing himself upon occasion, and with perfect honesty, on the |
|
subject of the motives of his conduct, which were as good or as bad as |
|
the motives of all men. He aroused first disfavor, then suspicion, |
|
became gradually of ill repute and was pronounced a person of whom |
|
society should beware, until at last the law took note of such a |
|
perverted being for reasons which usually have no weight with it or to |
|
which it closes its eyes. Lack of taciturnity concerning what is |
|
universally held secret, and an irresponsible predisposition to see what |
|
no one wants to see--oneself--brought him to prison and to early death. |
|
|
|
|
|
66 |
|
|
|
=Punishable, not Punished.=--Our crime against criminals consists in the |
|
fact that we treat them as rascals. |
|
|
|
|
|
67 |
|
|
|
=Sancta simplicitas of Virtue.=--Every virtue has its privilege: for |
|
example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the |
|
funeral pyre of one condemned. |
|
|
|
|
|
68 |
|
|
|
=Morality and Consequence.=--Not alone the beholders of an act generally |
|
estimate the ethical or unethical element in it by the result: no, the |
|
one who performed the act does the same. For the motives and the |
|
intentions are seldom sufficiently apparent, and amid them the memory |
|
itself seems to become clouded by the results of the act, so that a man |
|
often ascribes the wrong motives to his acts or regards the remote |
|
motives as the direct ones. Success often imparts to an action all the |
|
brilliance and honor of good intention, while failure throws the shadow |
|
of conscience over the most estimable deeds. Hence arises the familiar |
|
maxim of the politician: "Give me only success: with it I can win all |
|
the noble souls over to my side--and make myself noble even in my own |
|
eyes."--In like manner will success prove an excellent substitute for a |
|
better argument. To this very day many well educated men think the |
|
triumph of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of the superior |
|
truth of the former--although in this case it was simply the coarser and |
|
more powerful that triumphed over the more delicate and intellectual. As |
|
regards superiority of truth, it is evident that because of it the |
|
reviving sciences have connected themselves, point for point, with the |
|
philosophy of Epicurus, while Christianity has, point for point, |
|
recoiled from it. |
|
|
|
|
|
69 |
|
|
|
=Love and Justice.=--Why is love so highly prized at the expense of |
|
justice and why are such beautiful things spoken of the former as if it |
|
were a far higher entity than the latter? Is the former not palpably a |
|
far more stupid thing than the latter?--Certainly, and on that very |
|
account so much the more agreeable to everybody: it is blind and has a |
|
rich horn of plenty out of which it distributes its gifts to everyone, |
|
even when they are unmerited, even when no thanks are returned. It is |
|
impartial like the rain, which according to the bible and experience, |
|
wets not alone the unjust but, in certain circumstances, the just as |
|
well, and to their skins at that. |
|
|
|
|
|
70 |
|
|
|
=Execution.=--How comes it that every execution causes us more pain than |
|
a murder? It is the coolness of the executioner, the painful |
|
preparation, the perception that here a man is being used as an |
|
instrument for the intimidation of others. For the guilt is not punished |
|
even if there be any: this is ascribable to the teachers, the parents, |
|
the environment, in ourselves, not in the murderer--I mean the |
|
predisposing circumstances. |
|
|
|
|
|
71 |
|
|
|
=Hope.=--Pandora brought the box containing evils and opened it. It was |
|
the gift of the gods to men, a gift of most enticing appearance |
|
externally and called the "box of happiness." Thereupon all the evils, |
|
(living, moving things) flew out: from that time to the present they fly |
|
about and do ill to men by day and night. One evil only did not fly out |
|
of the box: Pandora shut the lid at the behest of Zeus and it remained |
|
inside. Now man has this box of happiness perpetually in the house and |
|
congratulates himself upon the treasure inside of it; it is at his |
|
service: he grasps it whenever he is so disposed, for he knows not that |
|
the box which Pandora brought was a box of evils. Hence he looks upon |
|
the one evil still remaining as the greatest source of happiness--it is |
|
hope.--Zeus intended that man, notwithstanding the evils oppressing him, |
|
should continue to live and not rid himself of life, but keep on making |
|
himself miserable. For this purpose he bestowed hope upon man: it is, in |
|
truth, the greatest of evils for it lengthens the ordeal of man. |
|
|
|
|
|
72 |
|
|
|
=Degree of Moral Susceptibility Unknown.=--The fact that one has or has |
|
not had certain profoundly moving impressions and insights into |
|
things--for example, an unjustly executed, slain or martyred father, a |
|
faithless wife, a shattering, serious accident,--is the factor upon |
|
which the excitation of our passions to white heat principally depends, |
|
as well as the course of our whole lives. No one knows to what lengths |
|
circumstances (sympathy, emotion) may lead him. He does not know the |
|
full extent of his own susceptibility. Wretched environment makes him |
|
wretched. It is as a rule not the quality of our experience but its |
|
quantity upon which depends the development of our superiority or |
|
inferiority, from the point of view of good and evil. |
|
|
|
|
|
73 |
|
|
|
=The Martyr Against His Will.=--In a certain movement there was a man |
|
who was too cowardly and vacillating ever to contradict his comrades. He |
|
was made use of in each emergency, every sacrifice was demanded of him |
|
because he feared the disfavor of his comrades more than he feared |
|
death: he was a petty, abject spirit. They perceived this and upon the |
|
foundation of the qualities just mentioned they elevated him to the |
|
altitude of a hero, and finally even of a martyr. Although the cowardly |
|
creature always inwardly said No, he always said Yes with his lips, even |
|
upon the scaffold, where he died for the tenets of his party: for beside |
|
him stood one of his old associates who so domineered him with look and |
|
word that he actually went to his death with the utmost fortitude and |
|
has ever since been celebrated as a martyr and exalted character. |
|
|
|
|
|
74 |
|
|
|
=General Standard.=--One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed |
|
to vanity, ordinary actions to habit and mean actions to fear. |
|
|
|
|
|
75 |
|
|
|
=Misunderstanding of Virtue.=--Whoever has obtained his experience of |
|
vice in connection with pleasure as in the case of one with a youth of |
|
wild oats behind him, comes to the conclusion that virtue must be |
|
connected with self denial. Whoever, on the other hand, has been very |
|
much plagued by his passions and vices, longs to find in virtue the rest |
|
and peace of the soul. That is why it is possible for two virtuous |
|
people to misunderstand one another wholly. |
|
|
|
|
|
76 |
|
|
|
=The Ascetic.=--The ascetic makes out of virtue a slavery. |
|
|
|
|
|
77 |
|
|
|
=Honor Transferred from Persons to Things.=--Actions prompted by love or |
|
by the spirit of self sacrifice for others are universally honored |
|
wherever they are manifest. Hence is magnified the value set upon |
|
whatever things may be loved or whatever things conduce to self |
|
sacrifice: although in themselves they may be worth nothing much. A |
|
valiant army is evidence of the value of the thing it fights for. |
|
|
|
|
|
78 |
|
|
|
=Ambition a Substitute for Moral Feeling.=--Moral feeling should never |
|
become extinct in natures that are destitute of ambition. The ambitious |
|
can get along without moral feeling just as well as with it.--Hence the |
|
sons of retired, ambitionless families, generally become by a series of |
|
rapid gradations, when they lose moral feeling, the most absolute |
|
lunkheads. |
|
|
|
|
|
79 |
|
|
|
=Vanity Enriches.=--How poor the human mind would be without vanity! As |
|
it is, it resembles a well stacked and ever renewed ware-emporium that |
|
attracts buyers of every class: they can find almost everything, have |
|
almost everything, provided they bring with them the right kind of |
|
money--admiration. |
|
|
|
|
|
80 |
|
|
|
=Senility and Death.=--Apart from the demands made by religion, it may |
|
well be asked why it is more honorable in an aged man, who feels the |
|
decline of his powers, to await slow extinction than to fix a term to |
|
his existence himself? Suicide in such a case is a quite natural and due |
|
proceeding that ought to command respect as a triumph of reason: and did |
|
in fact command respect during the times of the masters of Greek |
|
philosophy and the bravest Roman patriots, who usually died by their own |
|
hand. Eagerness, on the other hand, to keep alive from day to day with |
|
the anxious counsel of physicians, without capacity to attain any nearer |
|
to one's ideal of life, is far less worthy of respect.--Religions are |
|
very rich in refuges from the mandate of suicide: hence they ingratiate |
|
themselves with those who cling to life. |
|
|
|
|
|
81 |
|
|
|
=Delusions Regarding Victim and Regarding Evil Doer.=--When the rich man |
|
takes a possession away from the poor man (for example, a prince who |
|
deprives a plebeian of his beloved) there arises in the mind of the poor |
|
man a delusion: he thinks the rich man must be wholly perverted to take |
|
from him the little that he has. But the rich man appreciates the value |
|
of a single possession much less because he is accustomed to many |
|
possessions, so that he cannot put himself in the place of the poor man |
|
and does not act by any means as ill as the latter supposes. Both have a |
|
totally false idea of each other. The iniquities of the mighty which |
|
bulk most largely in history are not nearly so monstrous as they seem. |
|
The hereditary consciousness of being a superior being with superior |
|
environment renders one very callous and lulls the conscience to rest. |
|
We all feel, when the difference between ourselves and some other being |
|
is exceedingly great, that no element of injustice can be involved, and |
|
we kill a fly with no qualms of conscience whatever. So, too, it is no |
|
indication of wickedness in Xerxes (whom even the Greeks represent as |
|
exceptionally noble) that he deprived a father of his son and had him |
|
drawn and quartered because the latter had manifested a troublesome, |
|
ominous distrust of an entire expedition: the individual was in this |
|
case brushed aside as a pestiferous insect. He was too low and mean to |
|
justify continued sentiments of compunction in the ruler of the world. |
|
Indeed no cruel man is ever as cruel, in the main, as his victim thinks. |
|
The idea of pain is never the same as the sensation. The rule is |
|
precisely analogous in the case of the unjust judge, and of the |
|
journalist who by means of devious rhetorical methods, leads public |
|
opinion astray. Cause and effect are in all these instances entwined |
|
with totally different series of feeling and thoughts, whereas it is |
|
unconsciously assumed that principal and victim feel and think exactly |
|
alike, and because of this assumption the guilt of the one is based upon |
|
the pain of the other. |
|
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82 |
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|
|
=The Soul's Skin.=--As the bones, flesh, entrails and blood vessels are |
|
enclosed by a skin that renders the aspect of men endurable, so the |
|
impulses and passions of the soul are enclosed by vanity: it is the skin |
|
of the soul. |
|
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83 |
|
|
|
=Sleep of Virtue.=--If virtue goes to sleep, it will be more vigorous |
|
when it awakes. |
|
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84 |
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|
|
=Subtlety of Shame.=--Men are not ashamed of obscene thoughts, but they |
|
are ashamed when they suspect that obscene thoughts are attributed to |
|
them. |
|
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85 |
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|
|
=Naughtiness Is Rare.=--Most people are too much absorbed in themselves |
|
to be bad. |
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86 |
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|
|
=The Mite in the Balance.=--We are praised or blamed, as the one or the |
|
other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of |
|
discernment. |
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87 |
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|
|
=Luke 18:14 Improved.=--He that humbleth himself wisheth to be exalted. |
|
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88 |
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|
|
=Prevention of Suicide.=--There is a justice according to which we may |
|
deprive a man of life, but none that permits us to deprive him of death: |
|
this is merely cruelty. |
|
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89 |
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|
|
=Vanity.=--We set store by the good opinion of men, first because it is |
|
of use to us and next because we wish to give them pleasure (children |
|
their parents, pupils their teacher, and well disposed persons all |
|
others generally). Only when the good opinion of men is important to |
|
somebody, apart from personal advantage or the desire to give pleasure, |
|
do we speak of vanity. In this last case, a man wants to give himself |
|
pleasure, but at the expense of his fellow creatures, inasmuch as he |
|
inspires them with a false opinion of himself or else inspires "good |
|
opinion" in such a way that it is a source of pain to others (by |
|
arousing envy). The individual generally seeks, through the opinion of |
|
others, to attest and fortify the opinion he has of himself; but the |
|
potent influence of authority--an influence as old as man himself--leads |
|
many, also, to strengthen their own opinion of themselves by means of |
|
authority, that is, to borrow from others the expedient of relying more |
|
upon the judgment of their fellow men than upon their own.--Interest in |
|
oneself, the wish to please oneself attains, with the vain man, such |
|
proportions that he first misleads others into a false, unduly exalted |
|
estimate of himself and then relies upon the authority of others for his |
|
self estimate; he thus creates the delusion that he pins his faith |
|
to.--It must, however, be admitted that the vain man does not desire to |
|
please others so much as himself and he will often go so far, on this |
|
account, as to overlook his own interests: for he often inspires his |
|
fellow creatures with malicious envy and renders them ill disposed in |
|
order that he may thus increase his own delight in himself. |
|
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|
90 |
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|
|
=Limits of the Love of Mankind.=--Every man who has declared that some |
|
other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man |
|
conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous. |
|
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91 |
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|
|
=Weeping Morality.=--How much delight morality occasions! Think of the |
|
ocean of pleasing tears that has flowed from the narration of noble, |
|
great-hearted deeds!--This charm of life would disappear if the belief |
|
in complete irresponsibility gained the upper hand. |
|
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92 |
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|
|
=Origin of Justice.=--Justice (reasonableness) has its origin among |
|
approximate equals in power, as Thucydides (in the dreadful conferences |
|
of the Athenian and Melian envoys) has rightly conceived. Thus, where |
|
there exists no demonstrable supremacy and a struggle leads but to |
|
mutual, useless damage, the reflection arises that an understanding |
|
would best be arrived at and some compromise entered into. The |
|
reciprocal nature is hence the first nature of justice. Each party makes |
|
the other content inasmuch as each receives what it prizes more highly |
|
than the other. Each surrenders to the other what the other wants and |
|
receives in return its own desire. Justice is therefore reprisal and |
|
exchange upon the basis of an approximate equality of power. Thus |
|
revenge pertains originally to the domain of justice as it is a sort of |
|
reciprocity. Equally so, gratitude.--Justice reverts naturally to the |
|
standpoint of self preservation, therefore to the egoism of this |
|
consideration: "why should I injure myself to no purpose and perhaps |
|
never attain my end?"--So much for the origin of justice. Only because |
|
men, through mental habits, have forgotten the original motive of so |
|
called just and rational acts, and also because for thousands of years |
|
children have been brought to admire and imitate such acts, have they |
|
gradually assumed the appearance of being unegotistical. Upon this |
|
appearance is founded the high estimate of them, which, moreover, like |
|
all estimates, is continually developing, for whatever is highly |
|
esteemed is striven for, imitated, made the object of self sacrifice, |
|
while the merit of the pain and emulation thus expended is, by each |
|
individual, ascribed to the thing esteemed.--How slightly moral would |
|
the world appear without forgetfulness! A poet could say that God had |
|
posted forgetfulness as a sentinel at the portal of the temple of human |
|
merit! |
|
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|
|
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93 |
|
|
|
=Concerning the Law of the Weaker.=--Whenever any party, for instance, a |
|
besieged city, yields to a stronger party, under stipulated conditions, |
|
the counter stipulation is that there be a reduction to insignificance, |
|
a burning and destruction of the city and thus a great damage inflicted |
|
upon the stronger party. Thus arises a sort of equalization principle |
|
upon the basis of which a law can be established. The enemy has an |
|
advantage to gain by its maintenance.--To this extent there is also a |
|
law between slaves and masters, limited only by the extent to which the |
|
slave may be useful to his master. The law goes originally only so far |
|
as the one party may appear to the other potent, invincible, stable, and |
|
the like. To such an extent, then, the weaker has rights, but very |
|
limited ones. Hence the famous dictum that each has as much law on his |
|
side as his power extends (or more accurately, as his power is believed |
|
to extend). |
|
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94 |
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|
|
=The Three Phases of Morality Hitherto.=--It is the first evidence that |
|
the animal has become human when his conduct ceases to be based upon the |
|
immediately expedient, but upon the permanently useful; when he has, |
|
therefore, grown utilitarian, capable of purpose. Thus is manifested the |
|
first rule of reason. A still higher stage is attained when he regulates |
|
his conduct upon the basis of honor, by means of which he gains mastery |
|
of himself and surrenders his desires to principles; this lifts him far |
|
above the phase in which he was actuated only by considerations of |
|
personal advantage as he understood it. He respects and wishes to be |
|
respected. This means that he comprehends utility as a thing dependent |
|
upon what his opinion of others is and their opinion of him. Finally he |
|
regulates his conduct (the highest phase of morality hitherto attained) |
|
by his own standard of men and things. He himself decides, for himself |
|
and for others, what is honorable and what is useful. He has become a |
|
law giver to opinion, upon the basis of his ever higher developing |
|
conception of the utilitarian and the honorable. Knowledge makes him |
|
capable of placing the highest utility, (that is, the universal, |
|
enduring utility) before merely personal utility,--of placing ennobling |
|
recognition of the enduring and universal before the merely temporary: |
|
he lives and acts as a collective individuality. |
|
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|
95 |
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|
|
=Ethic of the Developed Individual.=--Hitherto the altruistic has been |
|
looked upon as the distinctive characteristic of moral conduct, and it |
|
is manifest that it was the consideration of universal utility that |
|
prompted praise and recognition of altruistic conduct. Must not a |
|
radical departure from this point of view be imminent, now that it is |
|
being ever more clearly perceived that in the most personal |
|
considerations the most general welfare is attained: so that conduct |
|
inspired by the most personal considerations of advantage is just the |
|
sort which has its origin in the present conception of morality (as a |
|
universal utilitarianism)? To contemplate oneself as a complete |
|
personality and bear the welfare of that personality in mind in all that |
|
one does--this is productive of better results than any sympathetic |
|
susceptibility and conduct in behalf of others. Indeed we all suffer |
|
from such disparagement of our own personalities, which are at present |
|
made to deteriorate from neglect. Capacity is, in fact, divorced from |
|
our personality in most cases, and sacrificed to the state, to science, |
|
to the needy, as if it were the bad which deserved to be made a |
|
sacrifice. Now, we are willing to labor for our fellowmen but only to |
|
the extent that we find our own highest advantage in so doing, no more, |
|
no less. The whole matter depends upon what may be understood as one's |
|
advantage: the crude, undeveloped, rough individualities will be the |
|
very ones to estimate it most inadequately. |
|
|
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96 |
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|
|
=Usage and Ethic.=--To be moral, virtuous, praiseworthy means to yield |
|
obedience to ancient law and hereditary usage. Whether this obedience be |
|
rendered readily or with difficulty is long immaterial. Enough that it |
|
be rendered. "Good" finally comes to mean him who acts in the |
|
traditional manner, as a result of heredity or natural disposition, that |
|
is to say does what is customary with scarcely an effort, whatever that |
|
may be (for example revenges injuries when revenge, as with the ancient |
|
Greeks, was part of good morals). He is called good because he is good |
|
"to some purpose," and as benevolence, sympathy, considerateness, |
|
moderation and the like come, in the general course of conduct, to be |
|
finally recognized as "good to some purpose" (as utilitarian) the |
|
benevolent man, the helpful man, is duly styled "good". (At first other |
|
and more important kinds of utilitarian qualities stand in the |
|
foreground.) Bad is "not habitual" (unusual), to do things not in |
|
accordance with usage, to oppose the traditional, however rational or |
|
the reverse the traditional may be. To do injury to one's social group |
|
or community (and to one's neighbor as thus understood) is looked upon, |
|
through all the variations of moral laws, in different ages, as the |
|
peculiarly "immoral" act, so that to-day we associate the word "bad" |
|
with deliberate injury to one's neighbor or community. "Egoistic" and |
|
"non-egoistic" do not constitute the fundamental opposites that have |
|
brought mankind to make a distinction between moral and immoral, good |
|
and bad; but adherence to traditional custom, and emancipation from it. |
|
How the traditional had its origin is quite immaterial; in any event it |
|
had no reference to good and bad or any categorical imperative but to |
|
the all important end of maintaining and sustaining the community, the |
|
race, the confederation, the nation. Every superstitious custom that |
|
originated in a misinterpreted event or casualty entailed some |
|
tradition, to adhere to which is moral. To break loose from it is |
|
dangerous, more prejudicial to the community than to the individual |
|
(because divinity visits the consequences of impiety and sacrilege upon |
|
the community rather than upon the individual). Now every tradition |
|
grows ever more venerable--the more remote is its origin, the more |
|
confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from |
|
generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and |
|
inspires awe. Thus it is that the precept of piety is a far loftier |
|
morality than that inculcated by altruistic conduct. |
|
|
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|
97 |
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|
|
=Delight in the Moral.=--A potent species of joy (and thereby the source |
|
of morality) is custom. The customary is done more easily, better, |
|
therefore preferably. A pleasure is felt in it and experience thus shows |
|
that since this practice has held its own it must be good. A manner or |
|
moral that lives and lets live is thus demonstrated advantageous, |
|
necessary, in contradistinction to all new and not yet adopted |
|
practices. The custom is therefore the blending of the agreeable and the |
|
useful. Moreover it does not require deliberation. As soon as man can |
|
exercise compulsion, he exercises it to enforce and establish his |
|
customs, for they are to him attested lifewisdom. So, too, a community |
|
of individuals constrains each one of their number to adopt the same |
|
moral or custom. The error herein is this: Because a certain custom has |
|
been agreeable to the feelings or at least because it proves a means of |
|
maintenance, this custom must be imperative, for it is regarded as the |
|
only thing that can possibly be consistent with well being. The well |
|
being of life seems to spring from it alone. This conception of the |
|
customary as a condition of existence is carried into the slightest |
|
detail of morality. Inasmuch as insight into true causation is quite |
|
restricted in all inferior peoples, a superstitious anxiety is felt that |
|
everything be done in due routine. Even when a custom is exceedingly |
|
burdensome it is preserved because of its supposed vital utility. It is |
|
not known that the same degree of satisfaction can be experienced |
|
through some other custom and even higher degrees of satisfaction, too. |
|
But it is fully appreciated that all customs do become more agreeable |
|
with the lapse of time, no matter how difficult they may have been found |
|
in the beginning, and that even the severest way of life may be rendered |
|
a matter of habit and therefore a pleasure. |
|
|
|
|
|
98 |
|
|
|
=Pleasure and Social Instinct.=--Through his relations with other men, |
|
man derives a new species of delight in those pleasurable emotions which |
|
his own personality affords him; whereby the domain of pleasurable |
|
emotions is made infinitely more comprehensive. No doubt he has |
|
inherited many of these feelings from the brutes, which palpably feel |
|
delight when they sport with one another, as mothers with their young. |
|
So, too, the sexual relations must be taken into account: they make |
|
every young woman interesting to every young man from the standpoint of |
|
pleasure, and conversely. The feeling of pleasure originating in human |
|
relationships makes men in general better. The delight in common, the |
|
pleasures enjoyed together heighten one another. The individual feels a |
|
sense of security. He becomes better natured. Distrust and malice |
|
dissolve. For the man feels the sense of benefit and observes the same |
|
feeling in others. Mutual manifestations of pleasure inspire mutual |
|
sympathy, the sentiment of homogeneity. The same effect is felt also at |
|
mutual sufferings, in a common danger, in stormy weather. Upon such a |
|
foundation are built the earliest alliances: the object of which is the |
|
mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes, and the |
|
welfare of each individual. And thus the social instinct develops from |
|
pleasure. |
|
|
|
|
|
99 |
|
|
|
=The Guiltless Nature of So-Called Bad Acts.=--All "bad" acts are |
|
inspired by the impulse to self preservation or, more accurately, by |
|
the desire for pleasure and for the avoidance of pain in the individual. |
|
Thus are they occasioned, but they are not, therefore, bad. "Pain self |
|
prepared" does not exist, except in the brains of the philosophers, any |
|
more than "pleasure self prepared" (sympathy in the Schopenhauer sense). |
|
In the condition anterior to the state we kill the creature, be it man |
|
or ape, that attempts to pluck the fruit of a tree before we pluck it |
|
ourselves should we happen to be hungry at the time and making for that |
|
tree: as we would do to-day, so far as the brute is concerned, if we |
|
were wandering in savage regions.--The bad acts which most disturb us at |
|
present do so because of the erroneous supposition that the one who is |
|
guilty of them towards us has a free will in the matter and that it was |
|
within his discretion not to have done these evil things. This belief in |
|
discretionary power inspires hate, thirst for revenge, malice, the |
|
entire perversion of the mental processes, whereas we would feel in no |
|
way incensed against the brute, as we hold it irresponsible. To inflict |
|
pain not from the instinct of self preservation but in requital--this is |
|
the consequence of false judgment and is equally a guiltless course of |
|
conduct. The individual can, in that condition which is anterior to the |
|
state, act with fierceness and violence for the intimidation of another |
|
creature, in order to render his own power more secure as a result of |
|
such acts of intimidation. Thus acts the powerful, the superior, the |
|
original state founder, who subjugates the weaker. He has the right to |
|
do so, as the state nowadays assumes the same right, or, to be more |
|
accurate, there is no right that can conflict with this. A foundation |
|
for all morality can first be laid only when a stronger individuality or |
|
a collective individuality, for example society, the state, subjects the |
|
single personalities, hence builds upon their unification and |
|
establishes a bond of union. Morality results from compulsion, it is |
|
indeed itself one long compulsion to which obedience is rendered in |
|
order that pain may be avoided. At first it is but custom, later free |
|
obedience and finally almost instinct. At last it is (like everything |
|
habitual and natural) associated with pleasure--and is then called |
|
virtue. |
|
|
|
|
|
100 |
|
|
|
=Shame.=--Shame exists wherever a "mystery" exists: but this is a |
|
religious notion which in the earlier period of human civilization had |
|
great vogue. Everywhere there were circumscribed spots to which access |
|
was denied on account of some divine law, except in special |
|
circumstances. At first these spots were quite extensive, inasmuch as |
|
stipulated areas could not be trod by the uninitiated, who, when near |
|
them, felt tremors and anxieties. This sentiment was frequently |
|
transferred to other relationships, for example to sexual relations, |
|
which, as the privilege and gateway of mature age, must be withdrawn |
|
from the contemplation of youth for its own advantage: relations which |
|
many divinities were busy in preserving and sanctifying, images of which |
|
divinities were duly placed in marital chambers as guardians. (In |
|
Turkish such an apartment is termed a harem or holy thing, the same word |
|
also designating the vestibule of a mosque). So, too, Kingship is |
|
regarded as a centre from which power and brilliance stream forth, as a |
|
mystery to the subjects, impregnated with secrecy and shame, sentiments |
|
still quite operative among peoples who in other respects are without |
|
any shame at all. So, too, is the whole world of inward states, the |
|
so-called "soul," even now, for all non-philosophical persons, a |
|
"mystery," and during countless ages it was looked upon as a something |
|
of divine origin, in direct communion with deity. It is, therefore, an |
|
adytum and occasions shame. |
|
|
|
|
|
101 |
|
|
|
=Judge Not.=--Care must be taken, in the contemplation of earlier ages, |
|
that there be no falling into unjust scornfulness. The injustice in |
|
slavery, the cruelty in the subjugation of persons and peoples must not |
|
be estimated by our standard. For in that period the instinct of justice |
|
was not so highly developed. Who dare reproach the Genoese Calvin for |
|
burning the physician Servetus at the stake? It was a proceeding growing |
|
out of his convictions. And the Inquisition, too, had its justification. |
|
The only thing is that the prevailing views were false and led to those |
|
proceedings which seem so cruel to us, simply because such views have |
|
become foreign to us. Besides, what is the burning alive of one |
|
individual compared with eternal hell pains for everybody else? And yet |
|
this idea then had hold of all the world without in the least vitiating, |
|
with its frightfulness, the other idea of a god. Even we nowadays are |
|
hard and merciless to political revolutionists, but that is because we |
|
are in the habit of believing the state a necessity, and hence the |
|
cruelty of the proceeding is not so much understood as in the other |
|
cases where the points of view are repudiated. The cruelty to animals |
|
shown by children and Italians is due to the same misunderstanding. The |
|
animal, owing to the exigencies of the church catechism, is placed too |
|
far below the level of mankind.--Much, too, that is frightful and |
|
inhuman in history, and which is almost incredible, is rendered less |
|
atrocious by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who |
|
executes are different persons. The former does not witness the |
|
performance and hence it makes no strong impression on him. The latter |
|
obeys a superior and hence feels no responsibility. Most princes and |
|
military chieftains appear, through lack of true perception, cruel and |
|
hard without really being so.--Egoism is not bad because the idea of the |
|
"neighbor"--the word is of Christian origin and does not correspond to |
|
truth--is very weak in us, and we feel ourselves, in regard to him, as |
|
free from responsibility as if plants and stones were involved. That |
|
another is in suffering must be learned and it can never be wholly |
|
learned. |
|
|
|
|
|
102 |
|
|
|
"=Man Always Does Right.="--We do not blame nature when she sends a |
|
thunder storm and makes us wet: why then do we term the man who inflicts |
|
injury immoral? Because in the latter case we assume a voluntary, |
|
ruling, free will, and in the former necessity. But this distinction is |
|
a delusion. Moreover, even the intentional infliction of injury is not, |
|
in all circumstances termed immoral. Thus, we kill a fly intentionally |
|
without thinking very much about it, simply because its buzzing about is |
|
disagreeable; and we punish a criminal and inflict pain upon him in |
|
order to protect ourselves and society. In the first case it is the |
|
individual who, for the sake of preserving himself or in order to spare |
|
himself pain, does injury with design: in the second case, it is the |
|
state. All ethic deems intentional infliction of injury justified by |
|
necessity; that is when it is a matter of self preservation. But these |
|
two points of view are sufficient to explain all bad acts done by man to |
|
men. It is desired to obtain pleasure or avoid pain. In any sense, it is |
|
a question, always, of self preservation. Socrates and Plato are right: |
|
whatever man does he always does right: that is, does what seems to him |
|
good (advantageous) according to the degree of advancement his intellect |
|
has attained, which is always the measure of his rational capacity. |
|
|
|
|
|
103 |
|
|
|
=The Inoffensive in Badness.=--Badness has not for its object the |
|
infliction of pain upon others but simply our own satisfaction as, for |
|
instance, in the case of thirst for vengeance or of nerve excitation. |
|
Every act of teasing shows what pleasure is caused by the display of |
|
our power over others and what feelings of delight are experienced in |
|
the sense of domination. Is there, then, anything immoral in feeling |
|
pleasure in the pain of others? Is malicious joy devilish, as |
|
Schopenhauer says? In the realm of nature we feel joy in breaking |
|
boughs, shattering rocks, fighting with wild beasts, simply to attest |
|
our strength thereby. Should not the knowledge that another suffers on |
|
our account here, in this case, make the same kind of act, (which, by |
|
the way, arouses no qualms of conscience in us) immoral also? But if we |
|
had not this knowledge there would be no pleasure in one's own |
|
superiority or power, for this pleasure is experienced only in the |
|
suffering of another, as in the case of teasing. All pleasure is, in |
|
itself, neither good nor bad. Whence comes the conviction that one |
|
should not cause pain in others in order to feel pleasure oneself? |
|
Simply from the standpoint of utility, that is, in consideration of the |
|
consequences, of ultimate pain, since the injured party or state will |
|
demand satisfaction and revenge. This consideration alone can have led |
|
to the determination to renounce such pleasure.--Sympathy has the |
|
satisfaction of others in view no more than, as already stated, badness |
|
has the pain of others in view. For there are at least two (perhaps many |
|
more) elementary ingredients in personal gratification which enter |
|
largely into our self satisfaction: one of them being the pleasure of |
|
the emotion, of which species is sympathy with tragedy, and another, |
|
when the impulse is to action, being the pleasure of exercising one's |
|
power. Should a sufferer be very dear to us, we divest ourselves of pain |
|
by the performance of acts of sympathy.--With the exception of some few |
|
philosophers, men have placed sympathy very low in the rank of moral |
|
feelings: and rightly. |
|
|
|
|
|
104 |
|
|
|
=Self Defence.=--If self defence is in general held a valid |
|
justification, then nearly every manifestation of so called immoral |
|
egoism must be justified, too. Pain is inflicted, robbery or killing |
|
done in order to maintain life or to protect oneself and ward off harm. |
|
A man lies when cunning and delusion are valid means of self |
|
preservation. To injure intentionally when our safety and our existence |
|
are involved, or the continuance of our well being, is conceded to be |
|
moral. The state itself injures from this motive when it hangs |
|
criminals. In unintentional injury the immoral, of course, can not be |
|
present, as accident alone is involved. But is there any sort of |
|
intentional injury in which our existence and the maintenance of our |
|
well being be not involved? Is there such a thing as injuring from |
|
absolute badness, for example, in the case of cruelty? If a man does not |
|
know what pain an act occasions, that act is not one of wickedness. Thus |
|
the child is not bad to the animal, not evil. It disturbs and rends it |
|
as if it were one of its playthings. Does a man ever fully know how much |
|
pain an act may cause another? As far as our nervous system extends, we |
|
shield ourselves from pain. If it extended further, that is, to our |
|
fellow men, we would never cause anyone else any pain (except in such |
|
cases as we cause it to ourselves, when we cut ourselves, surgically, to |
|
heal our ills, or strive and trouble ourselves to gain health). We |
|
conclude from analogy that something pains somebody and can in |
|
consequence, through recollection and the power of imagination, feel |
|
pain also. But what a difference there always is between the tooth ache |
|
and the pain (sympathy) that the spectacle of tooth ache occasions! |
|
Therefore when injury is inflicted from so called badness the degree of |
|
pain thereby experienced is always unknown to us: in so far, however, as |
|
pleasure is felt in the act (a sense of one's own power, of one's own |
|
excitation) the act is committed to maintain the well being of the |
|
individual and hence comes under the purview of self defence and lying |
|
for self preservation. Without pleasure, there is no life; the struggle |
|
for pleasure is the struggle for life. Whether the individual shall |
|
carry on this struggle in such a way that he be called good or in such a |
|
way that he be called bad is something that the standard and the |
|
capacity of his own intellect must determine for him. |
|
|
|
|
|
105 |
|
|
|
=Justice that Rewards.=--Whoever has fully understood the doctrine of |
|
absolute irresponsibility can no longer include the so called rewarding |
|
and punishing justice in the idea of justice, if the latter be taken to |
|
mean that to each be given his due. For he who is punished does not |
|
deserve the punishment. He is used simply as a means to intimidate |
|
others from certain acts. Equally, he who is rewarded does not merit the |
|
reward. He could not act any differently than he did act. Hence the |
|
reward has only the significance of an encouragement to him and others |
|
as a motive for subsequent acts. The praise is called out only to him |
|
who is running in the race and not to him who has arrived at the goal. |
|
Something that comes to someone as his own is neither a punishment nor a |
|
reward. It is given to him from utiliarian considerations, without his |
|
having any claim to it in justice. Hence one must say "the wise man |
|
praises not because a good act has been done" precisely as was once |
|
said: "the wise man punishes not because a bad act has been done but in |
|
order that a bad act may not be done." If punishment and reward ceased, |
|
there would cease with them the most powerful incentives to certain acts |
|
and away from other acts. The purposes of men demand their continuance |
|
[of punishment and reward] and inasmuch as punishment and reward, blame |
|
and praise operate most potently upon vanity, these same purposes of men |
|
imperatively require the continuance of vanity. |
|
|
|
|
|
106 |
|
|
|
=The Water Fall.=--At the sight of a water fall we may opine that in the |
|
countless curves, spirations and dashes of the waves we behold freedom |
|
of the will and of the impulses. But everything is compulsory, |
|
everything can be mathematically calculated. Thus it is, too, with human |
|
acts. We would be able to calculate in advance every single action if we |
|
were all knowing, as well as every advance in knowledge, every delusion, |
|
every bad deed. The acting individual himself is held fast in the |
|
illusion of volition. If, on a sudden, the entire movement of the world |
|
stopped short, and an all knowing and reasoning intelligence were there |
|
to take advantage of this pause, he could foretell the future of every |
|
being to the remotest ages and indicate the path that would be taken in |
|
the world's further course. The deception of the acting individual as |
|
regards himself, the assumption of the freedom of the will, is a part of |
|
this computable mechanism. |
|
|
|
|
|
107 |
|
|
|
=Non-Responsibility and Non-Guilt.=--The absolute irresponsibility of |
|
man for his acts and his nature is the bitterest drop in the cup of him |
|
who has knowledge, if he be accustomed to behold in responsibility and |
|
duty the patent of nobility of his human nature. All his estimates, |
|
preferences, dislikes are thus made worthless and false. His deepest |
|
sentiment, with which he honored the sufferer, the hero, sprang from an |
|
error. He may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is irrational to |
|
blame and praise nature and necessity. Just as he cherishes the |
|
beautiful work of art, but does not praise it (as it is incapable of |
|
doing anything for itself), just as he stands in the presence of plants, |
|
he must stand in the presence of human conduct, his own included. He may |
|
admire strength, beauty, capacity, therein, but he can discern no merit. |
|
The chemical process and the conflict of the elements, the ordeal of |
|
the invalid who strives for convalescence, are no more merits than the |
|
soul-struggles and extremities in which one is torn this way and that by |
|
contending motives until one finally decides in favor of the |
|
strongest--as the phrase has it, although, in fact, it is the strongest |
|
motive that decides for us. All these motives, however, whatever fine |
|
names we may give them, have grown from the same roots in which we |
|
believe the baneful poisons lurk. Between good and bad actions there is |
|
no difference in kind but, at most, in degree. Good acts are sublimated |
|
evil. Bad acts are degraded, imbruted good. The very longing of the |
|
individual for self gratification (together with the fear of being |
|
deprived of it) obtains satisfaction in all circumstances, let the |
|
individual act as he may, that is, as he must: be it in deeds of vanity, |
|
revenge, pleasure, utility, badness, cunning, be it in deeds of self |
|
sacrifice, sympathy or knowledge. The degrees of rational capacity |
|
determine the direction in which this longing impels: every society, |
|
every individual has constantly present a comparative classification of |
|
benefits in accordance with which conduct is determined and others are |
|
judged. But this standard perpetually changes. Many acts are called bad |
|
that are only stupid, because the degree of intelligence that decided |
|
for them was low. Indeed, in a certain sense, all acts now are stupid, |
|
for the highest degree of human intelligence that has yet been attained |
|
will in time most certainly be surpassed and then, in retrospection, all |
|
our present conduct and opinion will appear as narrow and petty as we |
|
now deem the conduct and opinion of savage peoples and ages.--To |
|
perceive all these things may occasion profound pain but there is, |
|
nevertheless, a consolation. Such pains are birth pains. The butterfly |
|
insists upon breaking through the cocoon, he presses through it, tears |
|
it to pieces, only to be blinded and confused by the strange light, by |
|
the realm of liberty. By such men as are capable of this sadness--how |
|
few there are!--will the first attempt be made to see if humanity may |
|
convert itself from a thing of morality to a thing of wisdom. The sun of |
|
a new gospel sheds its first ray upon the loftiest height in the souls |
|
of those few: but the clouds are massed there, too, thicker than ever, |
|
and not far apart are the brightest sunlight and the deepest gloom. |
|
Everything is necessity--so says the new knowledge: and this knowledge |
|
is itself necessity. All is guiltlessness, and knowledge is the way to |
|
insight into this guiltlessness. If pleasure, egoism, vanity be |
|
necessary to attest the moral phenomena and their richest blooms, the |
|
instinct for truth and accuracy of knowledge; if delusion and confusion |
|
of the imagination were the only means whereby mankind could gradually |
|
lift itself up to this degree of self enlightenment and self |
|
emancipation--who would venture to disparage the means? Who would have |
|
the right to feel sad if made aware of the goal to which those paths |
|
lead? Everything in the domain of ethic is evolved, changeable, |
|
tottering; all things flow, it is true--but all things are also in the |
|
stream: to their goal. Though within us the hereditary habit of |
|
erroneous judgment, love, hate, may be ever dominant, yet under the |
|
influence of awaking knowledge it will ever become weaker: a new habit, |
|
that of understanding, not-loving, not-hating, looking from above, grows |
|
up within us gradually and in the same soil, and may, perhaps, in |
|
thousands of years be powerful enough to endow mankind with capacity to |
|
develop the wise, guiltless man (conscious of guiltlessness) as |
|
unfailingly as it now developes the unwise, irrational, guilt-conscious |
|
man--that is to say, the necessary higher step, not the opposite of it. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. |
|
|
|
|
|
108 |
|
|
|
=The Double Contest Against Evil.=--If an evil afflicts us we can either |
|
so deal with it as to remove its cause or else so deal with it that its |
|
effect upon our feeling is changed: hence look upon the evil as a |
|
benefit of which the uses will perhaps first become evident in some |
|
subsequent period. Religion and art (and also the metaphysical |
|
philosophy) strive to effect an alteration of the feeling, partly by an |
|
alteration of our judgment respecting the experience (for example, with |
|
the aid of the dictum "whom God loves, he chastizes") partly by the |
|
awakening of a joy in pain, in emotion especially (whence the art of |
|
tragedy had its origin). The more one is disposed to interpret away and |
|
justify, the less likely he is to look directly at the causes of evil |
|
and eliminate them. An instant alleviation and narcotizing of pain, as |
|
is usual in the case of tooth ache, is sufficient for him even in the |
|
severest suffering. The more the domination of religions and of all |
|
narcotic arts declines, the more searchingly do men look to the |
|
elimination of evil itself, which is a rather bad thing for the tragic |
|
poets--for there is ever less and less material for tragedy, since the |
|
domain of unsparing, immutable destiny grows constantly more |
|
circumscribed--and a still worse thing for the priests, for these last |
|
have lived heretofore upon the narcoticizing of human ill. |
|
|
|
|
|
109 |
|
|
|
=Sorrow is Knowledge.=--How willingly would not one exchange the false |
|
assertions of the homines religiosi that there is a god who commands us |
|
to be good, who is the sentinel and witness of every act, every moment, |
|
every thought, who loves us, who plans our welfare in every |
|
misfortune--how willingly would not one exchange these for truths as |
|
healing, beneficial and grateful as those delusions! But there are no |
|
such truths. Philosophy can at most set up in opposition to them other |
|
metaphysical plausibilities (fundamental untruths as well). The tragedy |
|
of it all is that, although one cannot believe these dogmas of religion |
|
and metaphysics if one adopts in heart and head the potent methods of |
|
truth, one has yet become, through human evolution, so tender, |
|
susceptible, sensitive, as to stand in need of the most effective means |
|
of rest and consolation. From this state of things arises the danger |
|
that, through the perception of truth or, more accurately, seeing |
|
through delusion, one may bleed to death. Byron has put this into |
|
deathless verse: |
|
|
|
"Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most |
|
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, |
|
The tree of knowledge is not that of life." |
|
|
|
Against such cares there is no better protective than the light fancy of |
|
Horace, (at any rate during the darkest hours and sun eclipses of the |
|
soul) expressed in the words |
|
|
|
"quid aeternis minorem |
|
consiliis animum fatigas? |
|
cur non sub alta vel platano vel hac |
|
pinu jacentes."[22] |
|
|
|
[22] Then wherefore should you, who are mortal, outwear |
|
Your soul with a profitless burden of care |
|
Say, why should we not, flung at ease neath this pine, |
|
Or a plane-tree's broad umbrage, quaff gaily our wine? |
|
(Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.) |
|
|
|
At any rate, light fancy or heavy heartedness of any degree must be |
|
better than a romantic retrogression and desertion of one's flag, an |
|
approach to Christianity in any form: for with it, in the present state |
|
of knowledge, one can have nothing to do without hopelessly defiling |
|
one's intellectual integrity and surrendering it unconditionally. These |
|
woes may be painful enough, but without pain one cannot become a leader |
|
and guide of humanity: and woe to him who would be such and lacks this |
|
pure integrity of the intellect! |
|
|
|
|
|
110 |
|
|
|
=The Truth in Religion.=--In the ages of enlightenment justice was not |
|
done to the importance of religion, of this there can be no doubt. It is |
|
also equally certain that in the ensuing reaction of enlightenment, the |
|
demands of justice were far exceeded inasmuch as religion was treated |
|
with love, even with infatuation and proclaimed as a profound, indeed |
|
the most profound knowledge of the world, which science had but to |
|
divest of its dogmatic garb in order to possess "truth" in its |
|
unmythical form. Religions must therefore--this was the contention of |
|
all foes of enlightenment--sensu allegorico, with regard for the |
|
comprehension of the masses, give expression to that ancient truth which |
|
is wisdom in itself, inasmuch as all science of modern times has led up |
|
to it instead of away from it. So that between the most ancient wisdom |
|
of man and all later wisdom there prevails harmony, even similarity of |
|
viewpoint; and the advancement of knowledge--if one be disposed to |
|
concede such a thing--has to do not with its nature but with its |
|
propagation. This whole conception of religion and science is through |
|
and through erroneous, and none would to-day be hardy enough to |
|
countenance it had not Schopenhauer's rhetoric taken it under |
|
protection, this high sounding rhetoric which now gains auditors after |
|
the lapse of a generation. Much as may be gained from Schopenhauer's |
|
religio-ethical human and cosmical oracle as regards the comprehension |
|
of Christianity and other religions, it is nevertheless certain that he |
|
erred regarding the value of religion to knowledge. He himself was in |
|
this but a servile pupil of the scientific teachers of his time who had |
|
all taken romanticism under their protection and renounced the spirit of |
|
enlightenment. Had he been born in our own time it would have been |
|
impossible for him to have spoken of the sensus allegoricus of religion. |
|
He would instead have done truth the justice to say: never has a |
|
religion, directly or indirectly, either as dogma or as allegory, |
|
contained a truth. For all religions grew out of dread or necessity, and |
|
came into existence through an error of the reason. They have, perhaps, |
|
in times of danger from science, incorporated some philosophical |
|
doctrine or other into their systems in order to make it possible to |
|
continue one's existence within them. But this is but a theological work |
|
of art dating from the time in which a religion began to doubt of |
|
itself. These theological feats of art, which are most common in |
|
Christianity as the religion of a learned age, impregnated with |
|
philosophy, have led to this superstition of the sensus allegoricus, as |
|
has, even more, the habit of the philosophers (namely those |
|
half-natures, the poetical philosophers and the philosophising artists) |
|
of dealing with their own feelings as if they constituted the |
|
fundamental nature of humanity and hence of giving their own religious |
|
feelings a predominant influence over the structure of their systems. As |
|
the philosophers mostly philosophised under the influence of hereditary |
|
religious habits, or at least under the traditional influence of this |
|
"metaphysical necessity," they naturally arrived at conclusions |
|
closely resembling the Judaic or Christian or Indian religious |
|
tenets--resembling, in the way that children are apt to look like their |
|
mothers: only in this case the fathers were not certain as to the |
|
maternity, as easily happens--but in the innocence of their admiration, |
|
they fabled regarding the family likeness of all religion and science. |
|
In reality, there exists between religion and true science neither |
|
relationship nor friendship, not even enmity: they dwell in different |
|
spheres. Every philosophy that lets the religious comet gleam through |
|
the darkness of its last outposts renders everything within it that |
|
purports to be science, suspicious. It is all probably religion, |
|
although it may assume the guise of science.--Moreover, though all the |
|
peoples agree concerning certain religious things, for example, the |
|
existence of a god (which, by the way, as regards this point, is not |
|
the case) this fact would constitute an argument against the thing |
|
agreed upon, for example the very existence of a god. The consensus |
|
gentium and especially hominum can probably amount only to an absurdity. |
|
Against it there is no consensus omnium sapientium whatever, on any |
|
point, with the exception of which Goethe's verse speaks: |
|
|
|
"All greatest sages to all latest ages |
|
Will smile, wink and slily agree |
|
'Tis folly to wait till a fool's empty pate |
|
Has learned to be knowing and free. |
|
So children of wisdom must look upon fools |
|
As creatures who're never the better for schools." |
|
|
|
Stated without rhyme or metre and adapted to our case: the consensus |
|
sapientium is to the effect that the consensus gentium amounts to an |
|
absurdity. |
|
|
|
|
|
111 |
|
|
|
=Origin of Religious Worship.=--Let us transport ourselves back to the |
|
times in which religious life flourished most vigorously and we will |
|
find a fundamental conviction prevalent which we no longer share and |
|
which has resulted in the closing of the door to religious life once for |
|
all so far as we are concerned: this conviction has to do with nature |
|
and intercourse with her. In those times nothing is yet known of |
|
nature's laws. Neither for earth nor for heaven is there a must. A |
|
season, sunshine, rain can come or stay away as it pleases. There is |
|
wanting, in particular, all idea of natural causation. If a man rows, it |
|
is not the oar that moves the boat, but rowing is a magical ceremony |
|
whereby a demon is constrained to move the boat. All illness, death |
|
itself, is a consequence of magical influences. In sickness and death |
|
nothing natural is conceived. The whole idea of "natural course" is |
|
wanting. The idea dawns first upon the ancient Greeks, that is to say in |
|
a very late period of humanity, in the conception of a Moira [fate] |
|
ruling over the gods. If any person shoots off a bow, there is always an |
|
irrational strength and agency in the act. If the wells suddenly run |
|
dry, the first thought is of subterranean demons and their pranks. It |
|
must have been the dart of a god beneath whose invisible influence a |
|
human being suddenly collapses. In India, the carpenter (according to |
|
Lubbock) is in the habit of making devout offerings to his hammer and |
|
hatchet. A Brahmin treats the plume with which he writes, a soldier the |
|
weapon that he takes into the field, a mason his trowel, a laborer his |
|
plow, in the same way. All nature is, in the opinion of religious |
|
people, a sum total of the doings of conscious and willing beings, an |
|
immense mass of complex volitions. In regard to all that takes place |
|
outside of us no conclusion is permissible that anything will result |
|
thus and so, must result thus and so, that we are comparatively |
|
calculable and certain in our experiences, that man is the rule, nature |
|
the ruleless. This view forms the fundamental conviction that dominates |
|
crude, religion-producing, early civilizations. We contemporary men feel |
|
exactly the opposite: the richer man now feels himself inwardly, the |
|
more polyphone the music and the sounding of his soul, the more |
|
powerfully does the uniformity of nature impress him. We all, with |
|
Goethe, recognize in nature the great means of repose for the soul. We |
|
listen to the pendulum stroke of this great clock with longing for rest, |
|
for absolute calm and quiescence, as if we could drink in the uniformity |
|
of nature and thereby arrive first at an enjoyment of oneself. Formerly |
|
it was the reverse: if we carry ourselves back to the periods of crude |
|
civilization, or if we contemplate contemporary savages, we will find |
|
them most strongly influenced by rule, by tradition. The individual is |
|
almost automatically bound to rule and tradition and moves with the |
|
uniformity of a pendulum. To him nature--the uncomprehended, fearful, |
|
mysterious nature--must seem the domain of freedom, of volition, of |
|
higher power, indeed as an ultra-human degree of destiny, as god. Every |
|
individual in such periods and circumstances feels that his existence, |
|
his happiness, the existence and happiness of the family, the state, |
|
the success or failure of every undertaking, must depend upon these |
|
dispositions of nature. Certain natural events must occur at the proper |
|
time and certain others must not occur. How can influence be exercised |
|
over this fearful unknown, how can this domain of freedom be brought |
|
under subjection? thus he asks himself, thus he worries: Is there no |
|
means to render these powers of nature as subject to rule and tradition |
|
as you are yourself?--The cogitation of the superstitious and |
|
magic-deluded man is upon the theme of imposing a law upon nature: and |
|
to put it briefly, religious worship is the result of such cogitation. |
|
The problem which is present to every man is closely connected with this |
|
one: how can the weaker party dictate laws to the stronger, control its |
|
acts in reference to the weaker? At first the most harmless form of |
|
influence is recollected, that influence which is acquired when the |
|
partiality of anyone has been won. Through beseeching and prayer, |
|
through abject humiliation, through obligations to regular gifts and |
|
propitiations, through flattering homages, it is possible, therefore, to |
|
impose some guidance upon the forces of nature, to the extent that their |
|
partiality be won: love binds and is bound. Then agreements can be |
|
entered into by means of which certain courses of conduct are mutually |
|
concluded, vows are made and authorities prescribed. But far more potent |
|
is that species of power exercised by means of magic and incantation. As |
|
a man is able to injure a powerful enemy by means of the magician and |
|
render him helpless with fear, as the love potion operates at a |
|
distance, so can the mighty forces of nature, in the opinion of weaker |
|
mankind, be controlled by similar means. The principal means of |
|
effecting incantations is to acquire control of something belonging to |
|
the party to be influenced, hair, finger nails, food from his table, |
|
even his picture or his name. With such apparatus it is possible to act |
|
by means of magic, for the basic principle is that to everything |
|
spiritual corresponds something corporeal. With the aid of this |
|
corporeal element the spirit may be bound, injured or destroyed. The |
|
corporeal affords the handle by which the spiritual can be laid hold of. |
|
In the same way that man influences mankind does he influences some |
|
spirit of nature, for this latter has also its corporeal element that |
|
can be grasped. The tree, and on the same basis, the seed from which it |
|
grew: this puzzling sequence seems to demonstrate that in both forms the |
|
same spirit is embodied, now large, now small. A stone that suddenly |
|
rolls, is the body in which the spirit works. Does a huge boulder lie in |
|
a lonely moor? It is impossible to think of mortal power having placed |
|
it there. The stone must have moved itself there. That is to say some |
|
spirit must dominate it. Everything that has a body is subject to magic, |
|
including, therefore, the spirits of nature. If a god is directly |
|
connected with his portrait, a direct influence (by refraining from |
|
devout offerings, by whippings, chainings and the like) can be brought |
|
to bear upon him. The lower classes in China tie cords around the |
|
picture of their god in order to defy his departing favor, when he has |
|
left them in the lurch, and tear the picture to pieces, drag it through |
|
the streets into dung heaps and gutters, crying: "You dog of a spirit, |
|
we housed you in a beautiful temple, we gilded you prettily, we fed you |
|
well, we brought you offerings, and yet how ungrateful you are!" Similar |
|
displays of resentment have been made against pictures of the mother of |
|
god and pictures of saints in Catholic countries during the present |
|
century when such pictures would not do their duty during times of |
|
pestilence and drought. |
|
|
|
Through all these magical relationships to nature countless ceremonies |
|
are occasioned, and finally, when their complexity and confusion grow |
|
too great, pains are taken to systematize them, to arrange them so that |
|
the favorable course of nature's progress, namely the great yearly |
|
circle of the seasons, may be brought about by a corresponding course of |
|
the ceremonial progress. The aim of religious worship is to influence |
|
nature to human advantage, and hence to instil a subjection to law into |
|
her that originally she has not, whereas at present man desires to find |
|
out the subjection to law of nature in order to guide himself thereby. |
|
In brief, the system of religious worship rests upon the idea of magic |
|
between man and man, and the magician is older than the priest. But it |
|
rests equally upon other and higher ideas. It brings into prominence the |
|
sympathetic relation of man to man, the existence of benevolence, |
|
gratitude, prayer, of truces between enemies, of loans upon security, of |
|
arrangements for the protection of property. Man, even in very inferior |
|
degrees of civilization, does not stand in the presence of nature as a |
|
helpless slave, he is not willy-nilly the absolute servant of nature. In |
|
the Greek development of religion, especially in the relationship to the |
|
Olympian gods, it becomes possible to entertain the idea of an existence |
|
side by side of two castes, a higher, more powerful, and a lower, less |
|
powerful: but both are bound together in some way, on account of their |
|
origin and are one species. They need not be ashamed of one another. |
|
This is the element of distinction in Greek religion. |
|
|
|
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|
112 |
|
|
|
=At the Contemplation of Certain Ancient Sacrificial Proceedings.=--How |
|
many sentiments are lost to us is manifest in the union of the farcical, |
|
even of the obscene, with the religious feeling. The feeling that this |
|
mixture is possible is becoming extinct. We realize the mixture only |
|
historically, in the mysteries of Demeter and Dionysos and in the |
|
Christian Easter festivals and religious mysteries. But we still |
|
perceive the sublime in connection with the ridiculous, and the like, |
|
the emotional with the absurd. Perhaps a later age will be unable to |
|
understand even these combinations. |
|
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|
113 |
|
|
|
=Christianity as Antiquity.=--When on a Sunday morning we hear the old |
|
bells ringing, we ask ourselves: Is it possible? All this for a Jew |
|
crucified two thousand years ago who said he was God's son? The proof of |
|
such an assertion is lacking.--Certainly, the Christian religion |
|
constitutes in our time a protruding bit of antiquity from very remote |
|
ages and that its assertions are still generally believed--although men |
|
have become so keen in the scrutiny of claims--constitutes the oldest |
|
relic of this inheritance. A god who begets children by a mortal woman; |
|
a sage who demands that no more work be done, that no more justice be |
|
administered but that the signs of the approaching end of the world be |
|
heeded; a system of justice that accepts an innocent as a vicarious |
|
sacrifice in the place of the guilty; a person who bids his disciples |
|
drink his blood; prayers for miracles; sins against a god expiated upon |
|
a god; fear of a hereafter to which death is the portal; the figure of |
|
the cross as a symbol in an age that no longer knows the purpose and the |
|
ignominy of the cross--how ghostly all these things flit before us out |
|
of the grave of their primitive antiquity! Is one to believe that such |
|
things can still be believed? |
|
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|
114 |
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|
|
=The Un-Greek in Christianity.=--The Greeks did not look upon the |
|
Homeric gods above them as lords nor upon themselves beneath as |
|
servants, after the fashion of the Jews. They saw but the counterpart as |
|
in a mirror of the most perfect specimens of their own caste, hence an |
|
ideal, but no contradiction of their own nature. There was a feeling of |
|
mutual relationship, resulting in a mutual interest, a sort of alliance. |
|
Man thinks well of himself when he gives himself such gods and places |
|
himself in a relationship akin to that of the lower nobility with the |
|
higher; whereas the Italian races have a decidedly vulgar religion, |
|
involving perpetual anxiety because of bad and mischievous powers and |
|
soul disturbers. Wherever the Olympian gods receded into the background, |
|
there even Greek life became gloomier and more perturbed.--Christianity, |
|
on the other hand, oppressed and degraded humanity completely and sank |
|
it into deepest mire: into the feeling of utter abasement it suddenly |
|
flashed the gleam of divine compassion, so that the amazed and |
|
grace-dazzled stupefied one gave a cry of delight and for a moment |
|
believed that the whole of heaven was within him. Upon this unhealthy |
|
excess of feeling, upon the accompanying corruption of heart and head, |
|
Christianity attains all its psychological effects. It wants to |
|
annihilate, debase, stupefy, amaze, bedazzle. There is but one thing |
|
that it does not want: measure, standard (das Maas) and therefore is it |
|
in the worst sense barbarous, asiatic, vulgar, un-Greek. |
|
|
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|
115 |
|
|
|
=Being Religious to Some Purpose.=--There are certain insipid, |
|
traffic-virtuous people to whom religion is pinned like the hem of some |
|
garb of a higher humanity. These people do well to remain religious: it |
|
adorns them. All who are not versed in some professional |
|
weapon--including tongue and pen as weapons--are servile: to all such |
|
the Christian religion is very useful, for then their servility assumes |
|
the aspect of Christian virtue and is amazingly adorned.--People whose |
|
daily lives are empty and colorless are readily religious. This is |
|
comprehensible and pardonable, but they have no right to demand that |
|
others, whose daily lives are not empty and colorless, should be |
|
religious also. |
|
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|
116 |
|
|
|
=The Everyday Christian.=--If Christianity, with its allegations of an |
|
avenging God, universal sinfulness, choice of grace, and the danger of |
|
eternal damnation, were true, it would be an indication of weakness of |
|
mind and character not to be a priest or an apostle or a hermit, and |
|
toil for one's own salvation. It would be irrational to lose sight of |
|
one's eternal well being in comparison with temporary advantage: |
|
Assuming these dogmas to be generally believed, the every day Christian |
|
is a pitiable figure, a man who really cannot count as far as three, and |
|
who, for the rest, just because of his intellectual incapacity, does not |
|
deserve to be as hard punished as Christianity promises he shall be. |
|
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117 |
|
|
|
=Concerning the Cleverness of Christianity.=--It is a master stroke of |
|
Christianity to so emphasize the unworthiness, sinfulness and |
|
degradation of men in general that contempt of one's fellow creatures |
|
becomes impossible. "He may sin as much as he pleases, he is not by |
|
nature different from me. It is I who in every way am unworthy and |
|
contemptible." So says the Christian to himself. But even this feeling |
|
has lost its keenest sting for the Christian does not believe in his |
|
individual degradation. He is bad in his general human capacity and he |
|
soothes himself a little with the assertion that we are all alike. |
|
|
|
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|
118 |
|
|
|
=Personal Change.=--As soon as a religion rules, it has for its |
|
opponents those who were its first disciples. |
|
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119 |
|
|
|
=Fate of Christianity.=--Christianity arose to lighten the heart, but |
|
now it must first make the heart heavy in order to be able to lighten it |
|
afterwards. Christianity will consequently go down. |
|
|
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|
120 |
|
|
|
=The Testimony of Pleasure.=--The agreeable opinion is accepted as true. |
|
This is the testimony of pleasure (or as the church says, the evidence |
|
of strength) of which all religions are so proud, although they should |
|
all be ashamed of it. If a belief did not make blessed it would not be |
|
believed. How little it would be worth, then! |
|
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|
121 |
|
|
|
=Dangerous Play.=--Whoever gives religious feeling room, must then also |
|
let it grow. He can do nothing else. Then his being gradually changes. |
|
The religious element brings with it affinities and kinships. The whole |
|
circle of his judgment and feeling is clouded and draped in religious |
|
shadows. Feeling cannot stand still. One should be on one's guard. |
|
|
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|
122 |
|
|
|
=The Blind Pupil.=--As long as one knows very well the strength and the |
|
weakness of one's dogma, one's art, one's religion, its strength is |
|
still low. The pupil and apostle who has no eye for the weaknesses of a |
|
dogma, a religion and so on, dazzled by the aspect of the master and by |
|
his own reverence for him, has, on that very account, generally more |
|
power than the master. Without blind pupils the influence of a man and |
|
his work has never become great. To give victory to knowledge, often |
|
amounts to no more than so allying it with stupidity that the brute |
|
force of the latter forces triumph for the former. |
|
|
|
|
|
123 |
|
|
|
=The Breaking off of Churches.=--There is not sufficient religion in the |
|
world merely to put an end to the number of religions. |
|
|
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|
|
124 |
|
|
|
=Sinlessness of Men.=--If one have understood how "Sin came into the |
|
world," namely through errors of the reason, through which men in their |
|
intercourse with one another and even individual men looked upon |
|
themselves as much blacker and wickeder than was really the case, one's |
|
whole feeling is much lightened and man and the world appear together in |
|
such a halo of harmlessness that a sentiment of well being is instilled |
|
into one's whole nature. Man in the midst of nature is as a child left |
|
to its own devices. This child indeed dreams a heavy, anxious dream. But |
|
when it opens its eyes it finds itself always in paradise. |
|
|
|
|
|
125 |
|
|
|
=Irreligiousness of Artists.=--Homer is so much at home among his gods |
|
and is as a poet so good natured to them that he must have been |
|
profoundly irreligious. That which was brought to him by the popular |
|
faith--a mean, crude and partially repulsive superstition--he dealt with |
|
as freely as the Sculptor with his clay, therefore with the same freedom |
|
that Æschylus and Aristophanes evinced and with which in later times the |
|
great artists of the renaissance, and also Shakespeare and Goethe, drew |
|
their pictures. |
|
|
|
|
|
126 |
|
|
|
=Art and Strength of False Interpretation.=--All the visions, fears, |
|
exhaustions and delights of the saint are well known symptoms of |
|
sickness, which in him, owing to deep rooted religious and psychological |
|
delusions, are explained quite differently, that is not as symptoms of |
|
sickness.--So, too, perhaps, the demon of Socrates was nothing but a |
|
malady of the ear that he explained, in view of his predominant moral |
|
theory, in a manner different from what would be thought rational |
|
to-day. Nor is the case different with the frenzy and the frenzied |
|
speeches of the prophets and of the priests of the oracles. It is always |
|
the degree of wisdom, imagination, capacity and morality in the heart |
|
and mind of the interpreters that got so much out of them. It is among |
|
the greatest feats of the men who are called geniuses and saints that |
|
they made interpreters for themselves who, fortunately for mankind, did |
|
not understand them. |
|
|
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|
|
127 |
|
|
|
=Reverence for Madness.=--Because it was perceived that an excitement of |
|
some kind often made the head clearer and occasioned fortunate |
|
inspirations, it was concluded that the utmost excitement would occasion |
|
the most fortunate inspirations. Hence the frenzied being was revered as |
|
a sage and an oracle giver. A false conclusion lies at the bottom of all |
|
this. |
|
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|
|
|
128 |
|
|
|
=Promises of Wisdom.=--Modern science has as its object as little pain |
|
as possible, as long a life as possible--hence a sort of eternal |
|
blessedness, but of a very limited kind in comparison with the promises |
|
of religion. |
|
|
|
|
|
129 |
|
|
|
=Forbidden Generosity.=--There is not enough of love and goodness in the |
|
world to throw any of it away on conceited people. |
|
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|
|
130 |
|
|
|
=Survival of Religious Training in the Disposition.=--The Catholic |
|
Church, and before it all ancient education, controlled the whole domain |
|
of means through which man was put into certain unordinary moods and |
|
withdrawn from the cold calculation of personal advantage and from calm, |
|
rational reflection. A church vibrating with deep tones; gloomy, |
|
regular, restraining exhortations from a priestly band, who |
|
involuntarily communicate their own tension to their congregation and |
|
lead them to listen almost with anxiety as if some miracle were in |
|
course of preparation; the awesome pile of architecture which, as the |
|
house of a god, rears itself vastly into the vague and in all its |
|
shadowy nooks inspires fear of its nerve-exciting power--who would care |
|
to reduce men to the level of these things if the ideas upon which they |
|
rest became extinct? But the results of all these things are |
|
nevertheless not thrown away: the inner world of exalted, emotional, |
|
prophetic, profoundly repentant, hope-blessed moods has become inborn in |
|
man largely through cultivation. What still exists in his soul was |
|
formerly, as he germinated, grew and bloomed, thoroughly disciplined. |
|
|
|
|
|
131 |
|
|
|
=Religious After-Pains.=--Though one believe oneself absolutely weaned |
|
away from religion, the process has yet not been so thorough as to make |
|
impossible a feeling of joy at the presence of religious feelings and |
|
dispositions without intelligible content, as, for example, in music; |
|
and if a philosophy alleges to us the validity of metaphysical hopes, |
|
through the peace of soul therein attainable, and also speaks of "the |
|
whole true gospel in the look of Raphael's Madonna," we greet such |
|
declarations and innuendoes with a welcome smile. The philosopher has |
|
here a matter easy of demonstration. He responds with that which he is |
|
glad to give, namely a heart that is glad to accept. Hence it is |
|
observable how the less reflective free spirits collide only with dogmas |
|
but yield readily to the magic of religious feelings; it is a source of |
|
pain to them to let the latter go simply on account of the |
|
former.--Scientific philosophy must be very much on its guard lest on |
|
account of this necessity--an evolved and hence, also, a transitory |
|
necessity--delusions are smuggled in. Even logicians speak of |
|
"presentiments" of truth in ethics and in art (for example of the |
|
presentiment that the essence of things is unity) a thing which, |
|
nevertheless, ought to be prohibited. Between carefully deduced truths |
|
and such "foreboded" things there lies the abysmal distinction that the |
|
former are products of the intellect and the latter of the necessity. |
|
Hunger is no evidence that there is food at hand to appease it. Hunger |
|
merely craves food. "Presentiment" does not denote that the existence of |
|
a thing is known in any way whatever. It denotes merely that it is |
|
deemed possible to the extent that it is desired or feared. The |
|
"presentiment" is not one step forward in the domain of certainty.--It |
|
is involuntarily believed that the religious tinted sections of a |
|
philosophy are better attested than the others, but the case is at |
|
bottom just the opposite: there is simply the inner wish that it may be |
|
so, that the thing which beautifies may also be true. This wish leads us |
|
to accept bad grounds as good. |
|
|
|
|
|
132 |
|
|
|
=Of the Christian Need of Salvation.=--Careful consideration must render |
|
it possible to propound some explanation of that process in the soul of |
|
a Christian which is termed need of salvation, and to propound an |
|
explanation, too, free from mythology: hence one purely psychological. |
|
Heretofore psychological explanations of religious conditions and |
|
processes have really been in disrepute, inasmuch as a theology calling |
|
itself free gave vent to its unprofitable nature in this domain; for its |
|
principal aim, so far as may be judged from the spirit of its creator, |
|
Schleier-macher, was the preservation of the Christian religion and the |
|
maintenance of the Christian theology. It appeared that in the |
|
psychological analysis of religious "facts" a new anchorage and above |
|
all a new calling were to be gained. Undisturbed by such predecessors, |
|
we venture the following exposition of the phenomena alluded to. Man is |
|
conscious of certain acts which are very firmly implanted in the general |
|
course of conduct: indeed he discovers in himself a predisposition to |
|
such acts that seems to him to be as unalterable as his very being. How |
|
gladly he would essay some other kind of acts which in the general |
|
estimate of conduct are rated the best and highest, how gladly he would |
|
welcome the consciousness of well doing which ought to follow unselfish |
|
motive! Unfortunately, however, it goes no further than this longing: |
|
the discontent consequent upon being unable to satisfy it is added to |
|
all other kinds of discontent which result from his life destiny in |
|
particular or which may be due to so called bad acts; so that a deep |
|
depression ensues accompanied by a desire for some physician to remove |
|
it and all its causes.--This condition would not be found so bitter if |
|
the individual but compared himself freely with other men: for then he |
|
would have no reason to be discontented with himself in particular as he |
|
is merely bearing his share of the general burden of human discontent |
|
and incompleteness. But he compares himself with a being who alone must |
|
be capable of the conduct that is called unegoistic and of an enduring |
|
consciousness of unselfish motive, with God. It is because he gazes into |
|
this clear mirror, that his own self seems so extraordinarily distracted |
|
and so troubled. Thereupon the thought of that being, in so far as it |
|
flits before his fancy as retributive justice, occasions him anxiety. In |
|
every conceivable small and great experience he believes he sees the |
|
anger of the being, his threats, the very implements and manacles of his |
|
judge and prison. What succors him in this danger, which, in the |
|
prospect of an eternal duration of punishment, transcends in hideousness |
|
all the horrors that can be presented to the imagination? |
|
|
|
|
|
133 |
|
|
|
Before we consider this condition in its further effects, we would admit |
|
to ourselves that man is betrayed into this condition not through his |
|
"fault" and "sin" but through a series of delusions of the reason; that |
|
it was the fault of the mirror if his own self appeared to him in the |
|
highest degree dark and hateful, and that that mirror was his own work, |
|
the very imperfect work of human imagination and judgment. In the first |
|
place a being capable of absolutely unegoistic conduct is as fabulous as |
|
the phoenix. Such a being is not even thinkable for the very reason that |
|
the whole notion of "unegoistic conduct," when closely examined, |
|
vanishes into air. Never yet has a man done anything solely for others |
|
and entirely without reference to a personal motive; indeed how could he |
|
possibly do anything that had no reference to himself, that is without |
|
inward compulsion (which must always have its basis in a personal need)? |
|
How could the ego act without ego?--A god, who, on the other hand, is |
|
all love, as he is usually represented, would not be capable of a |
|
solitary unegoistic act: whence one is reminded of a reflection of |
|
Lichtenberg's which is, in truth, taken from a lower sphere: "We cannot |
|
possibly feel for others, as the expression goes; we feel only for |
|
ourselves. The assertion sounds hard, but it is not, if rightly |
|
understood. A man loves neither his father nor his mother nor his wife |
|
nor his child, but simply the feelings which they inspire." Or, as La |
|
Rochefoucauld says: "If you think you love your mistress for the mere |
|
love of her, you are very much mistaken." Why acts of love are more |
|
highly prized than others, namely not on account of their nature, but on |
|
account of their utility, has already been explained in the section on |
|
the origin of moral feelings. But if a man should wish to be all love |
|
like the god aforesaid, and want to do all things for others and nothing |
|
for himself, the procedure would be fundamentally impossible because he |
|
_must_ do a great deal for himself before there would be any possibility |
|
of doing anything for the love of others. It is also essential that |
|
others be sufficiently egoistic to accept always and at all times this |
|
self sacrifice and living for others, so that the men of love and self |
|
sacrifice have an interest in the survival of unloving and selfish |
|
egoists, while the highest morality, in order to maintain itself must |
|
formally enforce the existence of immorality (wherein it would be really |
|
destroying itself.)--Further: the idea of a god perturbs and discourages |
|
as long as it is accepted but as to how it originated can no longer, in |
|
the present state of comparative ethnological science, be a matter of |
|
doubt, and with the insight into the origin of this belief all faith |
|
collapses. What happens to the Christian who compares his nature with |
|
that of God is exactly what happened to Don Quixote, who depreciated his |
|
own prowess because his head was filled with the wondrous deeds of the |
|
heroes of chivalrous romance. The standard of measurement which both |
|
employ belongs to the domain of fable.--But if the idea of God |
|
collapses, so too, does the feeling of "sin" as a violation of divine |
|
rescript, as a stain upon a god-like creation. There still apparently |
|
remains that discouragement which is closely allied with fear of the |
|
punishment of worldly justice or of the contempt of one's fellow men. |
|
The keenest thorn in the sentiment of sin is dulled when it is perceived |
|
that one's acts have contravened human tradition, human rules and human |
|
laws without having thereby endangered the "eternal salvation of the |
|
soul" and its relations with deity. If finally men attain to the |
|
conviction of the absolute necessity of all acts and of their utter |
|
irresponsibility and then absorb it into their flesh and blood, every |
|
relic of conscience pangs will disappear. |
|
|
|
|
|
134 |
|
|
|
If now, as stated, the Christian, through certain delusive feelings, is |
|
betrayed into self contempt, that is by a false and unscientific view of |
|
his acts and feelings, he must, nevertheless, perceive with the utmost |
|
amazement that this state of self contempt, of conscience pangs, of |
|
despair in particular, does not last, that there are hours during which |
|
all these things are wafted away from the soul and he feels himself once |
|
more free and courageous. The truth is that joy in his own being, the |
|
fulness of his own powers in connection with the inevitable decline of |
|
his profound excitation with the lapse of time, bore off the palm of |
|
victory. The man loves himself once more, he feels it--but this very new |
|
love, this new self esteem seems to him incredible. He can see in it |
|
only the wholly unmerited stream of the light of grace shed down upon |
|
him. If he formerly saw in every event merely warnings, threats, |
|
punishments and every kind of indication of divine anger, he now reads |
|
into his experiences the grace of god. The latter circumstance seems to |
|
him full of love, the former as a helpful pointing of the way, and his |
|
entirely joyful frame of mind now seems to him to be an absolute proof |
|
of the goodness of God. As formerly in his states of discouragement he |
|
interpreted his conduct falsely so now he does the same with his |
|
experiences. His state of consolation is now regarded as the effect |
|
produced by some external power. The love with which, at bottom, he |
|
loves himself, seems to be the divine love. That which he calls grace |
|
and the preliminary of salvation is in reality self-grace, |
|
self-salvation. |
|
|
|
|
|
135 |
|
|
|
Therefore a certain false psychology, a certain kind of imaginativeness |
|
in the interpretation of motives and experiences is the essential |
|
preliminary to being a Christian and to experiencing the need of |
|
salvation. Upon gaining an insight into this wandering of the reason and |
|
the imagination, one ceases to be a Christian. |
|
|
|
|
|
136 |
|
|
|
=Of Christian Asceticism and Sanctity.=--Much as some thinkers have |
|
exerted themselves to impart an air of the miraculous to those singular |
|
phenomena known as asceticism and sanctity, to question which or to |
|
account for which upon a rational basis would be wickedness and |
|
sacrilege, the temptation to this wickedness is none the less great. A |
|
powerful impulse of nature has in every age led to protest against such |
|
phenomena. At any rate science, inasmuch as it is the imitation of |
|
nature, permits the casting of doubts upon the inexplicable character |
|
and the supernal degree of such phenomena. It is true that heretofore |
|
science has not succeeded in its attempts at explanation. The phenomena |
|
remain unexplained still, to the great satisfaction of those who revere |
|
moral miracles. For, speaking generally, the unexplained must rank as |
|
the inexplicable, the inexplicable as the non-natural, supernatural, |
|
miraculous--so runs the demand in the souls of all the religious and all |
|
the metaphysicians (even the artists if they happen to be thinkers), |
|
whereas the scientific man sees in this demand the "evil |
|
principle."--The universal, first, apparent truth that is encountered in |
|
the contemplation of sanctity and asceticism is that their nature is |
|
complicated; for nearly always, within the physical world as well as in |
|
the moral, the apparently miraculous may be traced successfully to the |
|
complex, the obscure, the multi-conditioned. Let us venture then to |
|
isolate a few impulses in the soul of the saint and the ascetic, to |
|
consider them separately and then view them as a synthetic development. |
|
|
|
|
|
137 |
|
|
|
There is an obstinacy against oneself, certain sublimated forms of which |
|
are included in asceticism. Certain kinds of men are under such a strong |
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necessity of exercising their power and dominating impulses that, if |
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other objects are lacking or if they have not succeeded with other |
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objects they will actually tyrannize over some portions of their own |
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nature or over sections and stages of their own personality. Thus do |
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many thinkers bring themselves to views which are far from likely to |
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increase or improve their fame. Many deliberately bring down the |
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contempt of others upon themselves although they could easily have |
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retained consideration by silence. Others contradict earlier opinions |
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and do not shrink from the ordeal of being deemed inconsistent. On the |
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contrary they strive for this and act like eager riders who enjoy |
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horseback exercise most when the horse is skittish. Thus will men in |
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dangerous paths ascend to the highest steeps in order to laugh to scorn |
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their own fear and their own trembling limbs. Thus will the philosopher |
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embrace the dogmas of asceticism, humility, sanctity, in the light of |
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which his own image appears in its most hideous aspect. This crushing of |
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self, this mockery of one's own nature, this spernere se sperni out of |
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which religions have made so much is in reality but a very high |
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development of vanity. The whole ethic of the sermon on the mount |
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belongs in this category: man has a true delight in mastering himself |
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through exaggerated pretensions or excessive expedients and later |
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deifying this tyrannically exacting something within him. In every |
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scheme of ascetic ethics, man prays to one part of himself as if it were |
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god and hence it is necessary for him to treat the rest of himself as |
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devil. |
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138 |
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=Man is Not at All Hours Equally Moral=; this is established. If one's |
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morality be judged according to one's capacity for great, self |
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sacrificing resolutions and abnegations (which when continual, and made |
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a habit are known as sanctity) one is, in affection, or disposition, the |
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most moral: while higher excitement supplies wholly new impulses which, |
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were one calm and cool as ordinarily, one would not deem oneself even |
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capable of. How comes this? Apparently from the propinquity of all great |
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and lofty emotional states. If a man is brought to an extraordinary |
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pitch of feeling he can resolve upon a fearful revenge or upon a fearful |
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renunciation of his thirst for vengeance indifferently. He craves, under |
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the influences of powerful emotion, the great, the powerful, the |
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immense, and if he chances to perceive that the sacrifice of himself |
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will afford him as much satisfaction as the sacrifice of another, or |
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will afford him more, he will choose self sacrifice. What concerns him |
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particularly is simply the unloading of his emotion. Hence he readily, |
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to relieve his tension, grasps the darts of the enemy and buries them in |
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his own breast. That in self abnegation and not in revenge the element |
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of greatness consisted must have been brought home to mankind only after |
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long habituation. A god who sacrifices himself would be the most |
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powerful and most effective symbol of this sort of greatness. As the |
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conquest of the most hardly conquered enemy, the sudden mastering of a |
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passion--thus does such abnegation _appear_: hence it passes for the |
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summit of morality. In reality all that is involved is the exchange of |
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one idea for another whilst the temperament remained at a like altitude, |
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a like tidal state. Men when coming out of the spell, or resting from |
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such passionate excitation, no longer understand the morality of such |
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instants, but the admiration of all who participated in the occasion |
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sustains them. Pride is their support if the passion and the |
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comprehension of their act weaken. Therefore, at bottom even such acts |
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of self-abnegation are not moral inasmuch as they are not done with a |
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strict regard for others. Rather do others afford the high strung |
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temperament an opportunity to lighten itself through such abnegation. |
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139 |
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=Even the Ascetic Seeks to Make Life Easier=, and generally by means of |
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absolute subjection to another will or to an all inclusive rule and |
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ritual, pretty much as the Brahmin leaves absolutely nothing to his own |
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volition but is guided in every moment of his life by some holy |
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injunction or other. This subjection is a potent means of acquiring |
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dominion over oneself. One is occupied, hence time does not bang heavy |
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and there is no incitement of the personal will and of the individual |
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passion. The deed once done there is no feeling of responsibility nor |
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the sting of regret. One has given up one's own will once for all and |
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this is easier than to give it up occasionally, as it is also easier |
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wholly to renounce a desire than to yield to it in measured degree. When |
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we consider the present relation of man to the state we perceive |
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unconditional obedience is easier than conditional. The holy person also |
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makes his lot easier through the complete surrender of his life |
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personality and it is all delusion to admire such a phenomenon as the |
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loftiest heroism of morality. It is always more difficult to assert |
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one's personality without shrinking and without hesitation than to give |
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it up altogether in the manner indicated, and it requires moreover more |
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intellect and thought. |
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140 |
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After having discovered in many of the less comprehensible actions mere |
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manifestations of pleasure in emotion for its own sake, I fancy I can |
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detect in the self contempt which characterises holy persons, and also |
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in their acts of self torture (through hunger and scourgings, |
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distortions and chaining of the limbs, acts of madness) simply a means |
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whereby such natures may resist the general exhaustion of their will to |
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live (their nerves). They employ the most painful expedients to escape |
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if only for a time from the heaviness and weariness in which they are |
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steeped by their great mental indolence and their subjection to a will |
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other than their own. |
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141 |
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=The Most Usual Means= by which the ascetic and the sanctified |
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individual seeks to make life more endurable comprises certain combats |
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of an inner nature involving alternations of victory and prostration. |
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For this purpose an enemy is necessary and he is found in the so called |
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"inner enemy." That is, the holy individual makes use of his tendency to |
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vanity, domineering and pride, and of his mental longings in order to |
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contemplate his life as a sort of continuous battle and himself as a |
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battlefield, in which good and evil spirits wage war with varying |
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fortune. It is an established fact that the imagination is restrained |
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through the regularity and adequacy of sexual intercourse while on the |
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other hand abstention from or great irregularity in sexual intercourse |
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will cause the imagination to run riot. The imaginations of many of the |
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Christian saints were obscene to a degree; and because of the theory |
|
that sexual desires were in reality demons that raged within them, the |
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saints did not feel wholly responsible for them. It is to this |
|
conviction that we are indebted for the highly instructive sincerity of |
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their evidence against themselves. It was to their interest that this |
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contest should always be kept up in some fashion because by means of |
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this contest, as already stated, their empty lives gained distraction. |
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In order that the contest might seem sufficiently great to inspire |
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sympathy and admiration in the unsanctified, it was essential that |
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sexual capacity be ever more and more damned and denounced. Indeed the |
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danger of eternal damnation was so closely allied to this capacity that |
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for whole generations Christians showed their children with actual |
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conscience pangs. What evil may not have been done to humanity through |
|
this! And yet here the truth is just upside down: an exceedingly |
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unseemly attitude for the truth. Christianity, it is true, had said that |
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every man is conceived and born in sin, and in the intolerable and |
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excessive Christianity of Calderon this thought is again perverted and |
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entangled into the most distorted paradox extant in the well known lines |
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The greatest sin of man |
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Is the sin of being born. |
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In all pessimistic religions the act of procreation is looked upon as |
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evil in itself. This is far from being the general human opinion. It is |
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not even the opinion of all pessimists. Empedocles, for example, knows |
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nothing of anything shameful, devilish and sinful in it. He sees rather |
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in the great field of bliss of unholiness simply a healthful and hopeful |
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phenomenon, Aphrodite. She is to him an evidence that strife does not |
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always rage but that some time a gentle demon is to wield the sceptre. |
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The Christian pessimists of practice, had, as stated, a direct interest |
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in the prevalence of an opposite belief. They needed in the loneliness |
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and the spiritual wilderness of their lives an ever living enemy, and a |
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universally known enemy through whose conquest they might appear to the |
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unsanctified as utterly incomprehensible and half unnatural beings. When |
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this enemy at last, as a result of their mode of life and their |
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shattered health, took flight forever, they were able immediately to |
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people their inner selves with new demons. The rise and fall of the |
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balance of cheerfulness and despair maintained their addled brains in a |
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totally new fluctuation of longing and peace of soul. And in that period |
|
psychology served not only to cast suspicion on everything human but to |
|
wound and scourge it, to crucify it. Man wanted to find himself as base |
|
and evil as possible. Man sought to become anxious about the state of |
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his soul, he wished to be doubtful of his own capacity. Everything |
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natural with which man connects the idea of badness and sinfulness (as, |
|
for instance, is still customary in regard to the erotic) injures and |
|
degrades the imagination, occasions a shamed aspect, leads man to war |
|
upon himself and makes him uncertain, distrustful of himself. Even his |
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dreams acquire a tincture of the unclean conscience. And yet this |
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suffering because of the natural element in certain things is wholly |
|
superfluous. It is simply the result of opinions regarding the things. |
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It is easy to understand why men become worse than they are if they are |
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brought to look upon the unavoidably natural as bad and later to feel it |
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as of evil origin. It is the master stroke of religions and metaphysics |
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that wish to make man out bad and sinful by nature, to render nature |
|
suspicious in his eyes and to so make himself evil, for he learns to |
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feel himself evil when he cannot divest himself of nature. He gradually |
|
comes to look upon himself, after a long life lived naturally, so |
|
oppressed by a weight of sin that supernatural powers become necessary |
|
to relieve him of the burden; and with this notion comes the so called |
|
need of salvation, which is the result not of a real but of an imaginary |
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sinfulness. Go through the separate moral expositions in the vouchers of |
|
christianity and it will always be found that the demands are excessive |
|
in order that it may be impossible for man to satisfy them. The object |
|
is not that he may become moral but that he may feel as sinful as |
|
possible. If this feeling had not been rendered agreeable to man--why |
|
should he have improvised such an ideal and clung to it so long? As in |
|
the ancient world an incalculable strength of intellect and capacity for |
|
feeling was squandered in order to increase the joy of living through |
|
feastful systems of worship, so in the era of christianity an equally |
|
incalculable quantity of intellectual capacity has been sacrificed in |
|
another endeavor: that man should in every way feel himself sinful and |
|
thereby be moved, inspired, inspirited. To move, to inspire, to inspirit |
|
at any cost--is not this the freedom cry of an exhausted, over-ripe, |
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over cultivated age? The circle of all the natural sensations had been |
|
gone through a hundred times: the soul had grown weary. Then the saints |
|
and the ascetics found a new order of ecstacies. They set themselves |
|
before the eyes of all not alone as models for imitation to many, but as |
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fearful and yet delightful spectacles on the boundary line between this |
|
world and the next world, where in that period everyone thought he saw |
|
at one time rays of heavenly light, at another fearful, threatening |
|
tongues of flame. The eye of the saint, directed upon the fearful |
|
significance of the shortness of earthly life, upon the imminence of the |
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last judgment, upon eternal life hereafter; this glowering eye in an |
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emaciated body caused men, in the old time world, to tremble to the |
|
depths of their being. To look, to look away and shudder, to feel anew |
|
the fascination of the spectacle, to yield to it, sate oneself upon it |
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until the soul trembled with ardor and fever--that was the last pleasure |
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left to classical antiquity when its sensibilities had been blunted by |
|
the arena and the gladiatorial show. |
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142 |
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=To Sum Up All That Has Been Said=: that condition of soul at which the |
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saint or expectant saint is rejoiced is a combination of elements which |
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we are all familiar with, except that under other influences than those |
|
of mere religious ideation they customarily arouse the censure of men in |
|
the same way that when combined with religion itself and regarded as the |
|
supreme attainment of sanctity, they are object of admiration and even |
|
of prayer--at least in more simple times. Very soon the saint turns upon |
|
himself that severity that is so closely allied to the instinct of |
|
domination at any price and which inspire even in the most solitary |
|
individual the sense of power. Soon his swollen sensitiveness of feeling |
|
breaks forth from the longing to restrain his passions within it and is |
|
transformed into a longing to master them as if they were wild steeds, |
|
the master impulse being ever that of a proud spirit; next he craves a |
|
complete cessation of all perturbing, fascinating feelings, a waking |
|
sleep, an enduring repose in the lap of a dull, animal, plant-like |
|
indolence. Next he seeks the battle and extinguishes it within himself |
|
because weariness and boredom confront him. He binds his |
|
self-deification with self-contempt. He delights in the wild tumult of |
|
his desires and the sharp pain of sin, in the very idea of being lost. |
|
He is able to play his very passions, for instance the desire to |
|
domineer, a trick so that he goes to the other extreme of abject |
|
humiliation and subjection, so that his overwrought soul is without any |
|
restraint through this antithesis. And, finally, when indulgence in |
|
visions, in talks with the dead or with divine beings overcomes him, |
|
this is really but a form of gratification that he craves, perhaps a |
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form of gratification in which all other gratifications are blended. |
|
Novalis, one of the authorities in matters of sanctity, because of his |
|
experience and instinct, betrays the whole secret with the utmost |
|
simplicity when he says: "It is remarkable that the close connection of |
|
gratification, religion and cruelty has not long ago made men aware of |
|
their inner relationship and common tendency." |
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143 |
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=Not What the Saint is but what he was in= the eyes of the |
|
non-sanctified gives him his historical importance. Because there |
|
existed a delusion respecting the saint, his soul states being falsely |
|
viewed and his personality being sundered as much as possible from |
|
humanity as a something incomparable and supernatural, because of these |
|
things he attained the extraordinary with which he swayed the |
|
imaginations of whole nations and whole ages. Even he knew himself not |
|
for even he regarded his dispositions, passions and actions in |
|
accordance with a system of interpretation as artificial and exaggerated |
|
as the pneumatic interpretation of the bible. The distorted and diseased |
|
in his own nature with its blending of spiritual poverty, defective |
|
knowledge, ruined health, overwrought nerves, remained as hidden from |
|
his view as from the view of his beholders. He was neither a |
|
particularly good man nor a particularly bad man but he stood for |
|
something that was far above the human standard in wisdom and goodness. |
|
Faith in him sustained faith in the divine and miraculous, in a |
|
religious significance of all existence, in an impending day of |
|
judgment. In the last rays of the setting sun of the ancient world, |
|
which fell upon the christian peoples, the shadowy form of the saint |
|
attained enormous proportions--to such enormous proportions, indeed, |
|
that down even to our own age, which no longer believes in god, there |
|
are thinkers who believe in the saints. |
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144 |
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It stands to reason that this sketch of the saint, made upon the model |
|
of the whole species, can be confronted with many opposing sketches that |
|
would create a more agreeable impression. There are certain exceptions |
|
among the species who distinguish themselves either by especial |
|
gentleness or especial humanity, and perhaps by the strength of their |
|
own personality. Others are in the highest degree fascinating because |
|
certain of their delusions shed a particular glow over their whole |
|
being, as is the case with the founder of christianity who took himself |
|
for the only begotten son of God and hence felt himself sinless; so that |
|
through his imagination--that should not be too harshly judged since the |
|
whole of antiquity swarmed with sons of god--he attained the same goal, |
|
the sense of complete sinlessness, complete irresponsibility, that can |
|
now be attained by every individual through science.--In the same manner |
|
I have viewed the saints of India who occupy an intermediate station |
|
between the christian saints and the Greek philosophers and hence are |
|
not to be regarded as a pure type. Knowledge and science--as far as they |
|
existed--and superiority to the rest of mankind by logical discipline |
|
and training of the intellectual powers were insisted upon by the |
|
Buddhists as essential to sanctity, just as they were denounced by the |
|
christian world as the indications of sinfulness. |