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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4363-h.zip b/4363-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff51f1e --- /dev/null +++ b/4363-h.zip diff --git a/4363-h/4363-h.htm b/4363-h/4363-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40a7971 --- /dev/null +++ b/4363-h/4363-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6914 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Beyond Good and Evil + +Author: Friedrich Nietzsche + +Translator: Helen Zimmern + +Release Date: December 7, 2009 [EBook #4363] +Last Updated: February 4, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL *** + + + + +Produced by John Mamoun, Charles Franks, David Widger and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Friedrich Nietzsche + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + Translated by Helen Zimmern + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="mynote"> + TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION: + <p> + The following is a reprint of the Helen Zimmern translation from German + into English of "Beyond Good and Evil," as published in The Complete + Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909-1913). Some adaptations from the + original text were made to format it into an e-text. Italics in the + original book are capitalized in this e-text, except for most foreign + language phrases that were italicized. Original footnotes are put in + brackets [ ] at the points where they are cited in the text. Some + spellings were altered. "To-day" and "To-morrow" are spelled "today" and + "tomorrow." Some words containing the letters "ise" in the original + text, such as "idealise," had these letters changed to "ize," such as + "idealize." "Sceptic" was changed to "skeptic." + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a> + </td> + <td> + PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE FREE SPIRIT + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE RELIGIOUS MOOD + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a> + </td> + <td> + APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a> + </td> + <td> + WE SCHOLARS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a> + </td> + <td> + OUR VIRTUES + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a> + </td> + <td> + PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a> + </td> + <td> + WHAT IS NOBLE? + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> FROM THE HEIGHTS </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman—what then? Is there not ground for + suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, + have failed to understand women—that the terrible seriousness and + clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to + Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? + Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won; and at present every + kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien—IF, indeed, it + stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, + that all dogma lies on the ground—nay more, that it is at its last + gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping that all + dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive and + decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism and + tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it will be once and again + understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such imposing and + absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have hitherto reared: + perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time (such as the + soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject- and ego-superstition, + has not yet ceased doing mischief): perhaps some play upon words, a + deception on the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of very + restricted, very personal, very human—all-too-human facts. The + philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise for + thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in still earlier times, in + the service of which probably more labour, gold, acuteness, and patience + have been spent than on any actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to + its "super-terrestrial" pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of + architecture. It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart + of humanity with everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander + about the earth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmatic + philosophy has been a caricature of this kind—for instance, the + Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be + ungrateful to it, although it must certainly be confessed that the worst, + the most tiresome, and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a + dogmatist error—namely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the + Good in Itself. But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of + this nightmare, can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a + healthier—sleep, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs + of all the strength which the struggle against this error has fostered. It + amounted to the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE—the + fundamental condition—of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as + Plato spoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: "How did such a + malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked + Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of + youths, and deserved his hemlock?" But the struggle against Plato, or—to + speak plainer, and for the "people"—the struggle against the + ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR CHRISTIANITY + IS PLATONISM FOR THE "PEOPLE"), produced in Europe a magnificent tension + of soul, such as had not existed anywhere previously; with such a tensely + strained bow one can now aim at the furthest goals. As a matter of fact, + the European feels this tension as a state of distress, and twice attempts + have been made in grand style to unbend the bow: once by means of + Jesuitism, and the second time by means of democratic enlightenment—which, + with the aid of liberty of the press and newspaper-reading, might, in + fact, bring it about that the spirit would not so easily find itself in + "distress"! (The Germans invented gunpowder—all credit to them! but + they again made things square—they invented printing.) But we, who + are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD + EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free spirits—we have it still, all the + distress of spirit and all the tension of its bow! And perhaps also the + arrow, the duty, and, who knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT.... + </p> + <p> + Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS + </h2> + <p> + 1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, + the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken + with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! + What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long + story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we + at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That + this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it + really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this "Will to Truth" + in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of + this Will—until at last we came to an absolute standstill before a + yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the VALUE of this Will. + Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? + Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before + us—or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of + us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous + of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it + at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as + if we were the first to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING + it? For there is risk in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk. + </p> + <p> + 2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth + out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the + generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the + wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams + of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must + have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own—in this transitory, + seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and + cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, + in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself—THERE + must be their source, and nowhere else!"—This mode of reasoning + discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times can + be recognized, this mode of valuation is at the back of all their logical + procedure; through this "belief" of theirs, they exert themselves for + their "knowledge," for something that is in the end solemnly christened + "the Truth." The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN + ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest of them to + doubt here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most + necessary); though they had made a solemn vow, "DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM." + For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses exist at all; and + secondly, whether the popular valuations and antitheses of value upon + which metaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely + superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives, besides being + probably made from some corner, perhaps from below—"frog + perspectives," as it were, to borrow an expression current among painters. + In spite of all the value which may belong to the true, the positive, and + the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher and more fundamental + value for life generally should be assigned to pretence, to the will to + delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It might even be possible that + WHAT constitutes the value of those good and respected things, consists + precisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to + these evil and apparently opposed things—perhaps even in being + essentially identical with them. Perhaps! But who wishes to concern + himself with such dangerous "Perhapses"! For that investigation one must + await the advent of a new order of philosophers, such as will have other + tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalent—philosophers + of the dangerous "Perhaps" in every sense of the term. And to speak in all + seriousness, I see such new philosophers beginning to appear. + </p> + <p> + 3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between their + lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of conscious + thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and it is so + even in the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to learn anew, as + one learned anew about heredity and "innateness." As little as the act of + birth comes into consideration in the whole process and procedure of + heredity, just as little is "being-conscious" OPPOSED to the instinctive + in any decisive sense; the greater part of the conscious thinking of a + philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into + definite channels. And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of + movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological + demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life For example, that + the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that illusion is less + valuable than "truth" such valuations, in spite of their regulative + importance for US, might notwithstanding be only superficial valuations, + special kinds of <i>niaiserie</i>, such as may be necessary for the + maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is + not just the "measure of things." + </p> + <p> + 4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is + here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question + is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, + species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally + inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic + judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without + a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with + the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a + constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not + live—that the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation + of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; + that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous + manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed + itself beyond good and evil. + </p> + <p> + 5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully and + half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they are—how + often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in short, how + childish and childlike they are,—but that there is not enough honest + dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and virtuous outcry when + the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manner. They + all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained + through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic + (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of + "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or + "suggestion," which is generally their heart's desire abstracted and + refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event. + They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally + astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub "truths,"—and + VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself, + very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to + let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful + confidence and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, + equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic + by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical imperative"—makes + us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in spying out the + subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical preachers. Or, still more so, + the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by means of which Spinoza has, as it + were, clad his philosophy in mail and mask—in fact, the "love of HIS + wisdom," to translate the term fairly and squarely—in order thereby + to strike terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should dare + to cast a glance on that invincible maiden, that Pallas Athene:—how + much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a + sickly recluse betray! + </p> + <p> + 6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till + now has consisted of—namely, the confession of its originator, and a + species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover that + the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the + true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown. Indeed, to + understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher + have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself: + "What morality do they (or does he) aim at?" Accordingly, I do not believe + that an "impulse to knowledge" is the father of philosophy; but that + another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and + mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever considers the + fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far they may + have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and cobolds), will find + that they have all practiced philosophy at one time or another, and that + each one of them would have been only too glad to look upon itself as the + ultimate end of existence and the legitimate LORD over all the other + impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to + philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really + scientific men, it may be otherwise—"better," if you will; there + there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to knowledge," some kind + of small, independent clock-work, which, when well wound up, works away + industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses + taking any material part therein. The actual "interests" of the scholar, + therefore, are generally in quite another direction—in the family, + perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact, almost + indifferent at what point of research his little machine is placed, and + whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom + specialist, or a chemist; he is not CHARACTERISED by becoming this or + that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing + impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive + testimony as to WHO HE IS,—that is to say, in what order the deepest + impulses of his nature stand to each other. + </p> + <p> + 7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging than + the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists; + he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on the face of + it, the word signifies "Flatterers of Dionysius"—consequently, + tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles; besides this, however, it is as + much as to say, "They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them" + (for Dionysiokolax was a popular name for an actor). And the latter is + really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was + annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of which Plato + and his scholars were masters—of which Epicurus was not a master! + He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his little + garden at Athens, and wrote three hundred books, perhaps out of rage and + ambitious envy of Plato, who knows! Greece took a hundred years to find + out who the garden-god Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out? + </p> + <p> + 8. There is a point in every philosophy at which the "conviction" of the + philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an ancient + mystery: + </p> + <p> + Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. + </p> + <p> + 9. You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what + fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly + extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, + without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: + imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in + accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just + endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, + preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And + granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually + the same as "living according to life"—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? + Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must + be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend + to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something + quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In + your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature + herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be + Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after + your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of + Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so + long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature + FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it + otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives + you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over + yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow + herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But + this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the + Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe + in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do + otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most + spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to + the causa prima. + </p> + <p> + 10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with which + the problem of "the real and the apparent world" is dealt with at present + throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention; and he who + hears only a "Will to Truth" in the background, and nothing else, cannot + certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolated cases, it may + really have happened that such a Will to Truth—a certain extravagant + and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition of the forlorn hope—has + participated therein: that which in the end always prefers a handful of + "certainty" to a whole cartload of beautiful possibilities; there may even + be puritanical fanatics of conscience, who prefer to put their last trust + in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertain something. But that is + Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, mortally wearied soul, + notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue may display. It + seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who + are still eager for life. In that they side AGAINST appearance, and speak + superciliously of "perspective," in that they rank the credibility of + their own bodies about as low as the credibility of the ocular evidence + that "the earth stands still," and thus, apparently, allowing with + complacency their securest possession to escape (for what does one at + present believe in more firmly than in one's body?),—who knows if + they are not really trying to win back something which was formerly an + even securer possession, something of the old domain of the faith of + former times, perhaps the "immortal soul," perhaps "the old God," in + short, ideas by which they could live better, that is to say, more + vigorously and more joyously, than by "modern ideas"? There is DISTRUST of + these modern ideas in this mode of looking at things, a disbelief in all + that has been constructed yesterday and today; there is perhaps some + slight admixture of satiety and scorn, which can no longer endure the + BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the most varied origin, such as so-called + Positivism at present throws on the market; a disgust of the more refined + taste at the village-fair motleyness and patchiness of all these + reality-philosophasters, in whom there is nothing either new or true, + except this motleyness. Therein it seems to me that we should agree with + those skeptical anti-realists and knowledge-microscopists of the present + day; their instinct, which repels them from MODERN reality, is + unrefuted... what do their retrograde by-paths concern us! The main thing + about them is NOT that they wish to go "back," but that they wish to get + AWAY therefrom. A little MORE strength, swing, courage, and artistic + power, and they would be OFF—and not back! + </p> + <p> + 11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to + divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on German + philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which he set upon + himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of Categories; + with it in his hand he said: "This is the most difficult thing that could + ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." Let us only understand this + "could be"! He was proud of having DISCOVERED a new faculty in man, the + faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting that he deceived himself + in this matter; the development and rapid flourishing of German philosophy + depended nevertheless on his pride, and on the eager rivalry of the + younger generation to discover if possible something—at all events + "new faculties"—of which to be still prouder!—But let us + reflect for a moment—it is high time to do so. "How are synthetic + judgments a priori POSSIBLE?" Kant asks himself—and what is really + his answer? "BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)"—but unfortunately not in + five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of + German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight + of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer. People were + beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation + reached its climax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty in man—for + at that time Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling in the "Politics + of hard fact." Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young + theologians of the Tubingen institution went immediately into the groves—all + seeking for "faculties." And what did they not find—in that + innocent, rich, and still youthful period of the German spirit, to which + Romanticism, the malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet + distinguish between "finding" and "inventing"! Above all a faculty for the + "transcendental"; Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition, and + thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the naturally + pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this + exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness, + notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile + conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral + indignation. Enough, however—the world grew older, and the dream + vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still + rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost—old + Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"—he had said, or at least meant + to say. But, is that—an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather + merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? "By + means of a means (faculty)," namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the + doctor in Moliere, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva, + Cujus est natura sensus assoupire. +</pre> + <p> + But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high time to + replace the Kantian question, "How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI + possible?" by another question, "Why is belief in such judgments + necessary?"—in effect, it is high time that we should understand + that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the + preservation of creatures like ourselves; though they still might + naturally be false judgments! Or, more plainly spoken, and roughly and + readily—synthetic judgments a priori should not "be possible" at + all; we have no right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false + judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as + plausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective view of + life. And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which "German + philosophy"—I hope you understand its right to inverted commas + (goosefeet)?—has exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is + no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it; thanks to + German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, the + mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the political + obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still + overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into this, + in short—"sensus assoupire."... + </p> + <p> + 12. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted + theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps no + one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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—? + </p> + <p> + 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>I</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?" + </p> + <p> + 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). + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. THE FREE SPIRIT + </h2> + <p> + 24. O sancta simplicitas! 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. THE RELIGIOUS MOOD + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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"! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES + </h2> + <p> + 63. He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously—and even + himself—only in relation to his pupils. + </p> + <p> + 64. "Knowledge for its own sake"—that is the last snare laid by + morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more. + </p> + <p> + 65. The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has + to be overcome on the way to it. + </p> + <p> + 65A. We are most dishonourable towards our God: he is not PERMITTED to + sin. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 67. Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense of + all others. Love to God also! + </p> + <p> + 68. "I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my + pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually—the memory yields. + </p> + <p> + 69. One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand + that—kills with leniency. + </p> + <p> + 70. If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which + always recurs. + </p> + <p> + 71. THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER.—So long as thou feelest the stars as an + "above thee," thou lackest the eye of the discerning one. + </p> + <p> + 72. It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that + makes great men. + </p> + <p> + 73. He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. + </p> + <p> + 73A. Many a peacock hides his tail from every eye—and calls it his + pride. + </p> + <p> + 74. A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things + besides: gratitude and purity. + </p> + <p> + 75. The degree and nature of a man's sensuality extends to the highest + altitudes of his spirit. + </p> + <p> + 76. Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 78. He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself thereby, as a + despiser. + </p> + <p> + 79. A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love, betrays + its sediment: its dregs come up. + </p> + <p> + 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"? + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 82. "Sympathy for all"—would be harshness and tyranny for THEE, my + good neighbour. + </p> + <p> + 83. INSTINCT—When the house is on fire one forgets even the dinner—Yes, + but one recovers it from among the ashes. + </p> + <p> + 84. Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she—forgets how to + charm. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 86. In the background of all their personal vanity, women themselves have + still their impersonal scorn—for "woman". + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 88. One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become + embarrassed. + </p> + <p> + 89. Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences + them is not something dreadful also. + </p> + <p> + 90. Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their + surface, precisely by that which makes others heavy—by hatred and + love. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 92. Who has not, at one time or another—sacrificed himself for the + sake of his good name? + </p> + <p> + 93. In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely on that account + a great deal too much contempt of men. + </p> + <p> + 94. The maturity of man—that means, to have reacquired the + seriousness that one had as a child at play. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 96. One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa—blessing + it rather than in love with it. + </p> + <p> + 97. What? A great man? I always see merely the play-actor of his own + ideal. + </p> + <p> + 98. When one trains one's conscience, it kisses one while it bites. + </p> + <p> + 99. THE DISAPPOINTED ONE SPEAKS—"I listened for the echo and I heard + only praise." + </p> + <p> + 100. We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are, we thus + relax ourselves away from our fellows. + </p> + <p> + 101. A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the + animalization of God. + </p> + <p> + 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—-" + </p> + <p> + 103. THE DANGER IN HAPPINESS.—"Everything now turns out best for me, + I now love every fate:—who would like to be my fate?" + </p> + <p> + 104. Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents + the Christians of today—burning us. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 106. By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 108. There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral + interpretation of phenomena. + </p> + <p> + 109. The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates and + maligns it. + </p> + <p> + 110. The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the + beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer. + </p> + <p> + 111. Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been + wounded. + </p> + <p> + 112. To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to + belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them. + </p> + <p> + 113. "You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be + embarrassed before him." + </p> + <p> + 114. The immense expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness + in this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset. + </p> + <p> + 115. Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman's play is + mediocre. + </p> + <p> + 116. The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage + to rebaptize our badness as the best in us. + </p> + <p> + 117. The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of + another, or of several other, emotions. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 119. Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning + ourselves—"justifying" ourselves. + </p> + <p> + 120. Sensuality often forces the growth of love too much, so that its root + remains weak, and is easily torn up. + </p> + <p> + 121. It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn + author—and that he did not learn it better. + </p> + <p> + 122. To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness of + heart—and the very opposite of vanity of spirit. + </p> + <p> + 123. Even concubinage has been corrupted—by marriage. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 125. When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to + his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us. + </p> + <p> + 126. A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great men.—Yes, + and then to get round them. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 128. The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you + allure the senses to it. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 132. One is punished best for one's virtues. + </p> + <p> + 133. He who cannot find the way to HIS ideal, lives more frivolously and + shamelessly than the man without an ideal. + </p> + <p> + 134. From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, + all evidence of truth. + </p> + <p> + 135. Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man; a considerable + part of it is rather an essential condition of being good. + </p> + <p> + 136. The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the other seeks some + one whom he can assist: a good conversation thus originates. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 139. In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man. + </p> + <p> + 140. ADVICE AS A RIDDLE.—"If the band is not to break, bite it first—secure + to make!" + </p> + <p> + 141. The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for + a God. + </p> + <p> + 142. The chastest utterance I ever heard: "Dans le veritable amour c'est + l'ame qui enveloppe le corps." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 147. From old Florentine novels—moreover, from life: Buona femmina e + mala femmina vuol bastone.—Sacchetti, Nov. 86. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 149. That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of + what was formerly considered good—the atavism of an old ideal. + </p> + <p> + 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"? + </p> + <p> + 151. It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also have your + permission to possess it;—eh, my friends? + </p> + <p> + 152. "Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise": so + say the most ancient and the most modern serpents. + </p> + <p> + 153. What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. + </p> + <p> + 154. Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of + health; everything absolute belongs to pathology. + </p> + <p> + 155. The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness. + </p> + <p> + 156. Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, + parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. + </p> + <p> + 157. The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one + gets successfully through many a bad night. + </p> + <p> + 158. Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our + strongest impulse—the tyrant in us. + </p> + <p> + 159. One MUST repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us + good or ill? + </p> + <p> + 160. One no longer loves one's knowledge sufficiently after one has + communicated it. + </p> + <p> + 161. Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them. + </p> + <p> + 162. "Our fellow-creature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour's + neighbour":—so thinks every nation. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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!" + </p> + <p> + 165. IN SIGHT OF EVERY PARTY.—A shepherd has always need of a + bell-wether—or he has himself to be a wether occasionally. + </p> + <p> + 166. One may indeed lie with the mouth; but with the accompanying grimace + one nevertheless tells the truth. + </p> + <p> + 167. To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame—and something + precious. + </p> + <p> + 168. Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, + certainly, but degenerated to Vice. + </p> + <p> + 169. To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing oneself. + </p> + <p> + 170. In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame. + </p> + <p> + 171. Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like + tender hands on a Cyclops. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 173. One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one + esteems equal or superior. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 175. One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired. + </p> + <p> + 176. The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter + to our vanity. + </p> + <p> + 177. With regard to what "truthfulness" is, perhaps nobody has ever been + sufficiently truthful. + </p> + <p> + 178. One does not believe in the follies of clever men: what a forfeiture + of the rights of man! + </p> + <p> + 179. The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very + indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile "reformed." + </p> + <p> + 180. There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a + cause. + </p> + <p> + 181. It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed. + </p> + <p> + 182. The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be + returned. + </p> + <p> + 183. "I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can + no longer believe in you." + </p> + <p> + 184. There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of + wickedness. + </p> + <p> + 185. "I dislike him."—Why?—"I am not a match for him."—Did + any one ever answer so? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS + </h2> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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). + </p> + <p> + 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.] + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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... + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. WE SCHOLARS + </h2> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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!" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? ... + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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.... + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. OUR VIRTUES + </h2> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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... + </p> + <p> + 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:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 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! +</pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.... + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 237. SEVEN APOPHTHEGMS FOR WOMEN + </p> + <p> + How the longest ennui flees, When a man comes to our knees! + </p> + <p> + Age, alas! and science staid, Furnish even weak virtue aid. + </p> + <p> + Sombre garb and silence meet: Dress for every dame—discreet. + </p> + <p> + Whom I thank when in my bliss? God!—and my good tailoress! + </p> + <p> + Young, a flower-decked cavern home; Old, a dragon thence doth roam. + </p> + <p> + Noble title, leg that's fine, Man as well: Oh, were HE mine! + </p> + <p> + Speech in brief and sense in mass—Slippery for the jenny-ass! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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"! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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.... + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 249. Every nation has its own "Tartuffery," and calls that its virtue.—One + does not know—cannot know, the best that is in one. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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... + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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:— + </p> + <p> + —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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. WHAT IS NOBLE? + </h2> + <p> + 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"). + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.] + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 266. "One can only truly esteem him who does not LOOK OUT FOR himself."—Goethe + to Rath Schlosser. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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—! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.— + </p> + <p> + 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—! + </p> + <p> + 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!" + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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." + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.— + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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?" + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.— + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FROM THE HEIGHTS + </h2> + <h3> + By F W Nietzsche + </h3> + <h4> + Translated by L. A. Magnus + </h4> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 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! + + 14. + + 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. + + 15. + + 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. +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL *** + +***** This file should be named 4363-h.htm or 4363-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/4363/ + +Produced by John Mamoun, Charles Franks, David Widger and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Beyond Good and Evil + +Author: Friedrich Nietzsche + +Translator: Helen Zimmern + +Release Date: August, 2003 [Etext #4363] +Posting Date: December 7, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL *** + + + + +Produced by John Mamoun, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL + +By Friedrich Nietzsche + + +Translated by Helen Zimmern + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION: + +The following is a reprint of the Helen Zimmern translation from German +into English of "Beyond Good and Evil," as published in The Complete +Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909-1913). Some adaptations from the +original text were made to format it into an e-text. Italics in the +original book are capitalized in this e-text, except for most foreign +language phrases that were italicized. Original footnotes are put in +brackets "[]" at the points where they are cited in the text. Some +spellings were altered. "To-day" and "To-morrow" are spelled "today" +and "tomorrow." Some words containing the letters "ise" in the original +text, such as "idealise," had these letters changed to "ize," such as +"idealize." "Sceptic" was changed to "skeptic." + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + PREFACE + BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL + + CHAPTER I: PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS + CHAPTER II: THE FREE SPIRIT + CHAPTER III: THE RELIGIOUS MOOD + CHAPTER IV: APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES + CHAPTER V: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS + CHAPTER VI: WE SCHOLARS + CHAPTER VII: OUR VIRTUES + CHAPTER VIII: PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES + CHAPTER IX: WHAT IS NOBLE? + + FROM THE HEIGHTS (POEM TRANSLATED BY L.A. MAGNUS) + + + + +PREFACE + + +SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground +for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been +dogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible +seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid +their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for +winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won; and +at present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien--IF, +indeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it +has fallen, that all dogma lies on the ground--nay more, that it is at +its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping +that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive +and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism +and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it will be once +and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such +imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have +hitherto reared: perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time +(such as the soul-superstition, which, in the form of subject- and +ego-superstition, has not yet ceased doing mischief): perhaps some +play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an +audacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very +human--all-too-human facts. The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to +be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was +astrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more +labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any +actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super-terrestrial" +pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems +that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with +everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the +earth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmatic philosophy has +been a caricature of this kind--for instance, the Vedanta doctrine in +Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although +it must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome, +and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist +error--namely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself. +But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, +can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier--sleep, +we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength +which the struggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to +the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE--the +fundamental condition--of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato +spoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: "How did such a +malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked +Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of +youths, and deserved his hemlock?" But the struggle against Plato, +or--to speak plainer, and for the "people"--the struggle against +the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR +CHRISTIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE "PEOPLE"), produced in Europe +a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anywhere +previously; with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the +furthest goals. As a matter of fact, the European feels this tension as +a state of distress, and twice attempts have been made in grand style to +unbend the bow: once by means of Jesuitism, and the second time by means +of democratic enlightenment--which, with the aid of liberty of the press +and newspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spirit +would not so easily find itself in "distress"! (The Germans invented +gunpowder--all credit to them! but they again made things square--they +invented printing.) But we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, +nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free +spirits--we have it still, all the distress of spirit and all the +tension of its bow! And perhaps also the arrow, the duty, and, who +knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT.... + +Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885. + + + + +CHAPTER I. PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS + + +1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous +enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have +hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not +laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is +already a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is +it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn +impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions +ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really +is this "Will to Truth" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the +question as to the origin of this Will--until at last we came to an +absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired +about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT +RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the +value of truth presented itself before us--or was it we who presented +ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which +the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of +interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as +if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first +to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk +in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk. + +2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth +out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the +generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the +wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams +of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest +value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own--in this +transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of +delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in +the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the +'Thing-in-itself--THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"--This +mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which +metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation +is at the back of all their logical procedure; through this "belief" of +theirs, they exert themselves for their "knowledge," for something that +is in the end solemnly christened "the Truth." The fundamental belief of +metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred +even to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where +doubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn +vow, "DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether +antitheses exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations +and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their +seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional +perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from +below--"frog perspectives," as it were, to borrow an expression current +among painters. In spite of all the value which may belong to the true, +the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher +and more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to +pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It +might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and +respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously +related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed +things--perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps! +But who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous "Perhapses"! +For that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of +philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the +reverse of those hitherto prevalent--philosophers of the dangerous +"Perhaps" in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I +see such new philosophers beginning to appear. + +3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between +their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of +conscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and +it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to +learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and "innateness." As +little as the act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process +and procedure of heredity, just as little is "being-conscious" OPPOSED +to the instinctive in any decisive sense; the greater part of the +conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his +instincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and +its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak +more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite +mode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the +uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than "truth" such valuations, +in spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be +only superficial valuations, special kinds of _niaiserie_, such as may +be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, +in effect, that man is not just the "measure of things." + +4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is +here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The +question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, +species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally +inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic +judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that +without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of +reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, +without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, +man could not live--that the renunciation of false opinions would be +a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A +CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of +value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, +has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. + +5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully +and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they +are--how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in +short, how childish and childlike they are,--but that there is not +enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and +virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in +the remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had +been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, +divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, +who, fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a +prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally +their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with +arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not +wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their +prejudices, which they dub "truths,"--and VERY far from having the +conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having +the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be +understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence +and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally +stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic +by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical +imperative"--makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small +amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical +preachers. Or, still more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by +means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and +mask--in fact, the "love of HIS wisdom," to translate the term fairly +and squarely--in order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart +of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible +maiden, that Pallas Athene:--how much of personal timidity and +vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray! + +6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up +till now has consisted of--namely, the confession of its originator, and +a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover +that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted +the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown. +Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a +philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first +ask oneself: "What morality do they (or does he) aim at?" Accordingly, +I do not believe that an "impulse to knowledge" is the father of +philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made +use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever +considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining +how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and +cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time +or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to +look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate +LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as +SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in +the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise--"better," if +you will; there there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to +knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well +wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of +the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual +"interests" of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another +direction--in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; +it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little +machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a +good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not +CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the +contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, +his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE +IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature +stand to each other. + +7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging +than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the +Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, +and on the face of it, the word signifies "Flatterers of +Dionysius"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles; +besides this, however, it is as much as to say, "They are all ACTORS, +there is nothing genuine about them" (for Dionysiokolax was a popular +name for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that +Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the +mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters--of +which Epicurus was not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos, +who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three +hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who +knows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god +Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out? + +8. There is a point in every philosophy at which the "conviction" of +the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an +ancient mystery: + +Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. + +9. You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what +fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly +extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, +without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: +imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live +in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just +endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, +preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? +And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means +actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do +DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves +are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: +while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, +you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players +and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and +ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; +you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would +like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal +glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, +you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such +hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, +that you are no longer able to see it otherwise--and to crown all, some +unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that +BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is +self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is +not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting +story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, +as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always +creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy +is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the +will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima. + +10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with +which the problem of "the real and the apparent world" is dealt with at +present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention; and +he who hears only a "Will to Truth" in the background, and nothing else, +cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolated +cases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Truth--a certain +extravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition of the +forlorn hope--has participated therein: that which in the end always +prefers a handful of "certainty" to a whole cartload of beautiful +possibilities; there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience, +who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an +uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, +mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a +virtue may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger +and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side +AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of "perspective," in +that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the +credibility of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and +thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession +to escape (for what does one at present believe in more firmly than +in one's body?),--who knows if they are not really trying to win back +something which was formerly an even securer possession, something +of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the "immortal +soul," perhaps "the old God," in short, ideas by which they could live +better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by +"modern ideas"? There is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode +of looking at things, a disbelief in all that has been constructed +yesterday and today; there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety +and scorn, which can no longer endure the BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the +most varied origin, such as so-called Positivism at present throws on +the market; a disgust of the more refined taste at the village-fair +motleyness and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whom +there is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. Therein it +seems to me that we should agree with those skeptical anti-realists and +knowledge-microscopists of the present day; their instinct, which repels +them from MODERN reality, is unrefuted... what do their retrograde +by-paths concern us! The main thing about them is NOT that they wish +to go "back," but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MORE +strength, swing, courage, and artistic power, and they would be OFF--and +not back! + +11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to +divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on +German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which +he set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of +Categories; with it in his hand he said: "This is the most difficult +thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." Let us +only understand this "could be"! He was proud of having DISCOVERED a +new faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting +that he deceived himself in this matter; the development and rapid +flourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his pride, and +on the eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible +something--at all events "new faculties"--of which to be still +prouder!--But let us reflect for a moment--it is high time to do so. +"How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE?" Kant asks himself--and +what is really his answer? "BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)"--but +unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, +and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that +one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved +in such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this +new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further +discovered a moral faculty in man--for at that time Germans were still +moral, not yet dabbling in the "Politics of hard fact." Then came +the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the +Tubingen institution went immediately into the groves--all seeking for +"faculties." And what did they not find--in that innocent, rich, and +still youthful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the +malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish +between "finding" and "inventing"! Above all a faculty for the +"transcendental"; Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition, +and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the naturally +pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of +this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness, +notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile +conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral +indignation. Enough, however--the world grew older, and the dream +vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still +rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old +Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"--he had said, or at least meant to +say. But, is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely +a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? "By means of +a means (faculty)," namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in +Moliere, + + Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva, + Cujus est natura sensus assoupire. + +But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high time +to replace the Kantian question, "How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI +possible?" by another question, "Why is belief in such judgments +necessary?"--in effect, it is high time that we should understand +that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the +preservation of creatures like ourselves; though they still might +naturally be false judgments! Or, more plainly spoken, and roughly and +readily--synthetic judgments a priori should not "be possible" at all; +we have no right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false +judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as +plausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective view +of life. And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which +"German philosophy"--I hope you understand its right to inverted commas +(goosefeet)?--has exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is +no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it; thanks to +German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, +the mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the +political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still +overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into +this, in short--"sensus assoupire."... + +12. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted +theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps +no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious +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 simplicitas! 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 + + +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." + +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! + + + +CHAPTER VI. WE SCHOLARS + + +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.... + +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! + + 14. + + 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. + + 15. + + 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. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL *** + +***** This file should be named 4363.txt or 4363.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/4363/ + +Produced by John Mamoun, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Italics in the original book are capitalized in this +e-text, except for most foreign language phrases that were +italicized. Original footnotes are put in brackets "[]" at the +points where they are cited in the text. Some spellings were +altered. "To-day" and "To-morrow" are spelled "today" and +"tomorrow." Some words containing the letters "ise" in the original +text, such as "idealise," had these letters changed to "ize," such +as "idealize." "Sceptic" was changed to "skeptic." + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + +PREFACE +BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL + + CHAPTER I: PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS + CHAPTER II: THE FREE SPIRIT + CHAPTER III: THE RELIGIOUS MOOD + CHAPTER IV: APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES + CHAPTER V: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS + CHAPTER VI: WE SCHOLARS + CHAPTER VII: OUR VIRTUES + CHAPTER VIII: PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES + CHAPTER IX: WHAT IS NOBLE? + +FROM THE HEIGHTS (POEM TRANSLATED BY L.A. MAGNUS) + + + + + + +PREFACE + + + +SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground +for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been +dogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible +seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually +paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly +methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed +herself to be won; and at present every kind of dogma stands with +sad and discouraged mien--IF, indeed, it stands at all! For there +are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, that all dogma lies +on the ground--nay more, that it is at its last gasp. But to +speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping that all +dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive +and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble +puerilism and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it +will be once and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for +the basis of such imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as +the dogmatists have hitherto reared: perhaps some popular +superstition of immemorial time (such as the soul-superstition, +which, in the form of subject- and ego-superstition, has not yet +ceased doing mischief): perhaps some play upon words, a deception +on the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of very +restricted, very personal, very human--all-too-human facts. The +philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a +promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in +still earlier times, in the service of which probably more +labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any +actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super- +terrestrial" pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of +architecture. It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon +the heart of humanity with everlasting claims, all great things +have first to wander about the earth as enormous and awe- +inspiring caricatures: dogmatic philosophy has been a caricature +of this kind--for instance, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and +Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although it +must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome, +and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist +error--namely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in +Itself. But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of +this nightmare, can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a +healthier--sleep, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the +heirs of all the strength which the struggle against this error +has fostered. It amounted to the very inversion of truth, and the +denial of the PERSPECTIVE--the fundamental condition--of life, to +speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them; indeed one +might ask, as a physician: "How did such a malady attack that +finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked Socrates +really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of +youths, and deserved his hemlock?" But the struggle against +Plato, or--to speak plainer, and for the "people"--the struggle +against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of +Christianity (FOR CHRISTIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE "PEOPLE"), +produced in Europe a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not +existed anywhere previously; with such a tensely strained bow one +can now aim at the furthest goals. As a matter of fact, the +European feels this tension as a state of distress, and twice +attempts have been made in grand style to unbend the bow: once by +means of Jesuitism, and the second time by means of democratic +enlightenment--which, with the aid of liberty of the press and +newspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spirit +would not so easily find itself in "distress"! (The Germans +invented gunpowder--all credit to them! but they again made things +square--they invented printing.) But we, who are neither Jesuits, +nor democrats, nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, +and free, VERY free spirits--we have it still, all the distress +of spirit and all the tension of its bow! And perhaps also the +arrow, the duty, and, who knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT. . . . + +Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885. + + + +CHAPTER I + +PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS + + +1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous +enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers +have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will +to Truth not laid before us! What strange, perplexing, +questionable questions! It is already a long story; yet it seems +as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last +grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That +this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is +it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this +"Will to Truth" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the +question as to the origin of this Will--until at last we came to +an absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We +inquired about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the +truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? +The problem of the value of truth presented itself before us--or +was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us +is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a +rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it +be believed that it at last seems to us as if the problem had +never been propounded before, as if we were the first to discern +it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk in +raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk. + +2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For +example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will +to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the +pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such +genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse +than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different +origin, an origin of THEIR own--in this transitory, seductive, +illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, +they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in +the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself-- +THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"--This mode of +reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians +of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation is at the +back of all their logical procedure; through this "belief" of +theirs, they exert themselves for their "knowledge," for +something that is in the end solemnly christened "the Truth." The +fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES +OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest of them to doubt +here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most +necessary); though they had made a solemn vow, "DE OMNIBUS +DUBITANDUM." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses +exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations and +antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their +seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely +provisional perspectives, besides being probably made from some +corner, perhaps from below--"frog perspectives," as it were, to +borrow an expression current among painters. In spite of all the +value which may belong to the true, the positive, and the +unselfish, it might be possible that a higher and more +fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to +pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. +It might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of +those good and respected things, consists precisely in their +being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil +and apparently opposed things--perhaps even in being essentially +identical with them. Perhaps! But who wishes to concern himself +with such dangerous "Perhapses"! For that investigation one must +await the advent of a new order of philosophers, such as will +have other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto +prevalent--philosophers of the dangerous "Perhaps" in every sense +of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such new +philosophers beginning to appear. + +3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read +between their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the +greater part of conscious thinking must be counted among the +instinctive functions, and it is so even in the case of +philosophical thinking; one has here to learn anew, as one +learned anew about heredity and "innateness." As little as the +act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process and +procedure of heredity, just as little is "being-conscious" +OPPOSED to the instinctive in any decisive sense; the greater +part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly +influenced by his instincts, and forced into definite channels. +And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, +there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological +demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life For +example, that the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that +illusion is less valuable than "truth" such valuations, in spite +of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be +only superficial valuations, special kinds of _niaiserie_, such as +may be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. +Supposing, in effect, that man is not just the "measure of +things." + +4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: +it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. +The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life- +preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we +are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions +(to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most +indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical +fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely +IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant +counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not +live--that the renunciation of false opinions would be a +renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS +A CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional +ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which +ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good +and evil. + +5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half- +distrustfully and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated +discovery how innocent they are--how often and easily they make +mistakes and lose their way, in short, how childish and childlike +they are,--but that there is not enough honest dealing with them, +whereas they all raise a loud and virtuous outcry when the +problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manner. +They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered +and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely +indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, +fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a +prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally +their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them +with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates +who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute +defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub "truths,"-- +and VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this +to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage +which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn +friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule. The +spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and +decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-ways that +lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical imperative"-- +makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in +spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical +preachers. Or, still more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical +form, by means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his +philosophy in mail and mask--in fact, the "love of HIS wisdom," +to translate the term fairly and squarely--in order thereby to +strike terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should +dare to cast a glance on that invincible maiden, that Pallas +Athene:--how much of personal timidity and vulnerability does +this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray! + +6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great +philosophy up till now has consisted of--namely, the confession +of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious +auto-biography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose +in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of +which the entire plant has always grown. Indeed, to understand +how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have +been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask +oneself: "What morality do they (or does he) aim at?" +Accordingly, I do not believe that an "impulse to knowledge" is +the father of philosophy; but that another impulse, here as +elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken +knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever considers the +fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far +they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and +cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at +one time or another, and that each one of them would have been +only too glad to look upon itself as the ultimate end of +existence and the legitimate LORD over all the other impulses. +For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to +philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of +really scientific men, it may be otherwise--"better," if you +will; there there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to +knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, +when well wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT +the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any material part +therein. The actual "interests" of the scholar, therefore, are +generally in quite another direction--in the family, perhaps, or +in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact, almost +indifferent at what point of research his little machine is +placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good +philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not +CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on +the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above +all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as +to WHO HE IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses +of his nature stand to each other. + +7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more +stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on +Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its +original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies +"Flatterers of Dionysius"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and +lick-spittles; besides this, however, it is as much as to say, +"They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them" (for +Dionysiokolax was a popular name for an actor). And the latter is +really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato: he +was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of +which Plato and his scholars were masters--of which Epicurus was +not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat +concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three hundred +books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who +knows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god +Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out? + +8. There is a point in every philosophy at which the "conviction" +of the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the +words of an ancient mystery: + +Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. + +9. You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble +Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like +Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without +purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once +fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves +INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with +such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavouring to be +otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, +being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And +granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means +actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do +DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you +yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite +otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the +canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the +contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In +your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, +to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist +that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like +everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal +glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for +truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and +with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to +say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- +and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you +the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over +yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow +herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of +Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what +happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as +soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always +creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; +philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual +Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to +the causa prima. + +10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, +with which the problem of "the real and the apparent world" is +dealt with at present throughout Europe, furnishes food for +thought and attention; and he who hears only a "Will to Truth" in +the background, and nothing else, cannot certainly boast of the +sharpest ears. In rare and isolated cases, it may really have +happened that such a Will to Truth--a certain extravagant and +adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition of the forlorn +hope--has participated therein: that which in the end always +prefers a handful of "certainty" to a whole cartload of beautiful +possibilities; there may even be puritanical fanatics of +conscience, who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, +rather than in an uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and +the sign of a despairing, mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding +the courageous bearing such a virtue may display. It seems, +however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who +are still eager for life. In that they side AGAINST appearance, +and speak superciliously of "perspective," in that they rank the +credibility of their own bodies about as low as the credibility +of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and thus, +apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession +to escape (for what does one at present believe in more firmly +than in one's body?),--who knows if they are not really trying to +win back something which was formerly an even securer possession, +something of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps +the "immortal soul," perhaps "the old God," in short, ideas by +which they could live better, that is to say, more vigorously and +more joyously, than by "modern ideas"? There is DISTRUST of these +modern ideas in this mode of looking at things, a disbelief in +all that has been constructed yesterday and today; there is +perhaps some slight admixture of satiety and scorn, which can no +longer endure the BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the most varied origin, +such as so-called Positivism at present throws on the market; a +disgust of the more refined taste at the village-fair motleyness +and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whom +there is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. +Therein it seems to me that we should agree with those skeptical +anti-realists and knowledge-microscopists of the present day; +their instinct, which repels them from MODERN reality, is +unrefuted . . . what do their retrograde by-paths concern us! +The main thing about them is NOT that they wish to go "back," +but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MORE strength, +swing, courage, and artistic power, and they would be OFF--and +not back! + +11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present +to divert attention from the actual influence which Kant +exercised on German philosophy, and especially to ignore +prudently the value which he set upon himself. Kant was first and +foremost proud of his Table of Categories; with it in his hand he +said: "This is the most difficult thing that could ever be +undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." Let us only understand this +"could be"! He was proud of having DISCOVERED a new faculty in +man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting that he +deceived himself in this matter; the development and rapid +flourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his +pride, and on the eager rivalry of the younger generation to +discover if possible something--at all events "new faculties"--of +which to be still prouder!--But let us reflect for a moment--it +is high time to do so. "How are synthetic judgments a priori +POSSIBLE?" Kant asks himself--and what is really his answer? "BY +MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)"--but unfortunately not in five words, +but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of +German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether +loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such +an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this +new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant +further discovered a moral faculty in man--for at that time +Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling in the "Politics of +hard fact." Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the +young theologians of the Tubingen institution went immediately +into the groves--all seeking for "faculties." And what did they +not find--in that innocent, rich, and still youthful period of +the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the malicious fairy, +piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish between +"finding" and "inventing"! Above all a faculty for the +"transcendental"; Schelling christened it, intellectual +intuition, and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the +naturally pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to +the whole of this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was +really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so +boldly, in hoary and senile conceptions), than to take it +seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation. Enough, +however--the world grew older, and the dream vanished. A time +came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still rub them +today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old +Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"--he had said, or at least +meant to say. But, is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it +not rather merely a repetition of the question? How does opium +induce sleep? "By means of a means (faculty)," namely the virtus +dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere, + + Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva, + Cujus est natura sensus assoupire. + +But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high +time to replace the Kantian question, "How are synthetic +judgments a PRIORI possible?" by another question, "Why is belief +in such judgments necessary?"--in effect, it is high time that we +should understand that such judgments must be believed to be +true, for the sake of the preservation of creatures like +ourselves; though they still might naturally be false judgments! +Or, more plainly spoken, and roughly and readily--synthetic +judgments a priori should not "be possible" at all; we have no +right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false +judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is +necessary, as plausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to +the perspective view of life. And finally, to call to mind the +enormous influence which "German philosophy"--I hope you +understand its right to inverted commas (goosefeet)?--has +exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is no doubt that +a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it; thanks to German +philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, +the mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the +political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to +the still overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last +century into this, in short--"sensus assoupire." . . . + +12. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best- +refuted theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is +now perhaps no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to +attach serious 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 + + +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." + +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! + + +CHAPTER VI + +WE SCHOLARS + + +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. . . . + +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! + + 14. + +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. + + 15. + +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. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche + diff --git a/old/bygdv10.zip b/old/bygdv10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9605ec4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/bygdv10.zip |