{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38226/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38226","id":"gutenberg_38226","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38226","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","History -- Study and teaching","Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860"],"text":"THOUGHTS\n\nOUT OF SEASON\n\nPART II\n\n\nTHE USE AND ABUSE OF HISTORY_\n\nSCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR_\n\nBy\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\nTRANSLATED BY\n\nADRIAN COLLINS, M.A.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nThe Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche\n\nThe First Complete and Authorised English Translation\n\nEdited by Dr Oscar Levy\n\nVolume Five\n\nT.N. FOULIS\n\n13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET\n\nEDINBURGH: AND LONDON\n\n1910\n\n\n\nTO L. P.\nFROM THE TRANSLATOR.\nEN RECONNAISSANCE.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\nINTRODUCTION\nTHE USE AND ABUSE OF HISTORY\nSCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThe two essays translated in this volume form the second and third\nparts of the _Unzeitgem\u00e4sse Betrachtungen_. The essay on history was\ncompleted in January, that on Schopenhauer in August, 1874. Both were\nwritten in the few months of feverish activity that Nietzsche could\nspare from his duties as Professor of Classical Philology in B\u00e2le.\n\nNietzsche, who served in an ambulance corps in '71, had seen\nsomething of the Franco-German War, and to him it was the \"honest\nGerman bravery\" that had won the day. But to the rest of his\ncountrymen it was a victory for German culture as well; though there\nwere still a few elegancies, a few refinements of manners, that might\nveneer the new culture, and in this regard the conquered might be\nallowed the traditional privilege of conquering the conquerors.\nNietzsche answered roundly, \"the German does not yet know the meaning\nof the word culture,\" and in the essay on history set himself to show\nthat the so-called culture was a morass into which the German had\nbeen led by a sixth sense he had developed during the nineteenth\ncentury--the \"historical sense\": he had been brought by his spiritual\nteachers to believe that he was the \"crown of the world-process\" and\nthat his highest duty lay in surrendering himself to it.\n\nWith Nietzsche, the historical sense became a \"malady from which men\nsuffer,\" the world-process an illusion, evolutionary theories a\nsubtle excuse for inactivity. History is for the few not the many,\nfor the man not the youth, for the great not the small--who are\nbroken and bewildered by it. It is the lesson of remembrance, and few\nare strong enough to bear that lesson. History has no meaning except\nas the servant of life and action: and most of us can only act if we\nforget. This is the burden of the first essay; and turning from\nhistory to the historian he condemns the \"noisy little fellows\" who\nmeasure the motives of the great men of the past by their own, and\nuse the past to justify their present.\n\nBut who are the men that can use history rightly, and for whom it is\na help and not a hindrance to life? They are the great men of action\nand thought, the \"lonely giants amid the pigmies.\" To them alone can\nthe record of their great forebears be a consolation as well as a\nlesson. In the realm of thought, they are of the type of the ideal\nphilosopher sketched in the second essay. To Nietzsche the only hope\nof the race lies in the \"production of the genius,\" of the man who\ncan bear the burden of the future and not be swamped by the past: he\nfound the personal expression of such a man, for the time being, in\nSchopenhauer.\n\nSchopenhauer here stands, as a personality, for all that makes for\nlife in philosophy, against the stagnation of the professional\nphilosopher. The last part of the essay is a fierce polemic against\nstate-aided philosophy and the official position of the professors,\nwho formed, and still form, the intellectual aristocracy of Germany,\nwith a cathedral authority on all their pronouncements.\n\nBut \"there has never been a eulogy on a philosopher,\" says Dr. K\u00f6gel,\n\"that has had so little to say about his philosophy.\" The essay on\nSchopenhauer is of value precisely because it has nothing to do with\nSchopenhauer. We need not be disturbed by the thought that Nietzsche\nafterwards turned from him. He truly recognised that Schopenhauer was\nhere merely a name for himself, that \"not Schopenhauer as educator is\nin question, but his opposite, Nietzsche as educator\" (_Ecce Homo_).\nHe could regard Schopenhauer, later, as a siren that called to death;\nhe put him among the great artists that lead down--who are worse than\nthe bad artists that lead nowhere. \"We must go further in the\npessimistic logic than the denial of the will,\" he says in the\n_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_; \"we must deny Schopenhauer.\" The pessimism and\ndenial of the will, the blank despair before suffering, were the\nshoals on which Nietzsche's reverence finally broke. They could not\nstand before the Dionysian outlook, whose pessimism sprang not from\nweakness but strength, and in which the joy of willing and being can\neven welcome suffering. In this essay we hear little of the\npessimism, save as the imperfect and \"all-too-human\" side of\nSchopenhauer, that actually brings us nearer to him. Later, he could\npart the man and his work, and speak of Schopenhauer's view as the\n\"Evil eye.\" But as yet he is a young man who has kept his illusions,\nand, like Ogniben, he judges men by what they might be.\n\nAfterwards, he judged himself too in these essays by \"what he might\nbe.\" \"To me,\" he said in _Ecce Homo_, \"they are promises: I know not\nwhat they mean to others.\"\n\nIt is also in the belief they are promises that they are here\ntranslated \"for others.\" The _Thoughts out of Season_ are the first\nannouncement of the complex theme of the _Zarathustra_. They form the\nbest possible introduction to Nietzschean thought. Nietzsche is\nalready the knight-errant of philosophy: but his adventure is just\nbeginning.\n\nA. C.\n\n\n\n\nTHE USE AND ABUSE OF HISTORY.\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\n\"I hate everything that merely instructs me without increasing or\ndirectly quickening my activity.\" These words of Goethe, like a\nsincere _ceterum censeo_, may well stand at the head of my thoughts\non the worth and the worthlessness of history. I will show in them\nwhy instruction that does not \"quicken,\" knowledge that slackens the\nrein of activity, why in fact history, in Goethe's phrase, must be\nseriously \"hated,\" as a costly and superfluous luxury of the\nunderstanding: for we are still in want of the necessaries of life,\nand the superfluous is an enemy to the necessary. We do need history,\nbut quite differently from the jaded idlers in the garden of\nknowledge, however grandly they may look down on our rude and\nunpicturesque requirements. In other words, we need it for life and\naction, not as a convenient way to avoid life and action, or to\nexcuse a selfish life and a cowardly or base action. We would serve\nhistory only so far as it serves life; but to value its study beyond\na certain point mutilates and degrades life: and this is a fact that\ncertain marked symptoms of our time make it as necessary as it may be\npainful to bring to the test of experience.\n\nI have tried to describe a feeling that has often troubled me: I\nrevenge myself on it by giving it publicity. This may lead some one\nto explain to me that he has also had the feeling, but that I do not\nfeel it purely and elementally enough, and cannot express it with the\nripe certainty of experience. A few may say so; but most people will\ntell me that it is a perverted, unnatural, horrible, and altogether\nunlawful feeling to have, and that I show myself unworthy of the\ngreat historical movement which is especially strong among the German\npeople for the last two generations.\n\nI am at all costs going to venture on a description of my feelings;\nwhich will be decidedly in the interests of propriety, as I shall\ngive plenty of opportunity for paying compliments to such a\n\"movement.\" And I gain an advantage for myself that is more valuable\nto me than propriety--the attainment of a correct point of view,\nthrough my critics, with regard to our age.\n\nThese thoughts are \"out of season,\" because I am trying to represent\nsomething of which the age is rightly proud--its historical\nculture--as a fault and a defect in our time, believing as I do that\nwe are all suffering from a malignant historical fever and should at\nleast recognise the fact. But even if it be a virtue, Goethe may be\nright in asserting that we cannot help developing our faults at the\nsame time as our virtues; and an excess of virtue can obviously bring\na nation to ruin, as well as an excess of vice. In any case I may be\nallowed my say. But I will first relieve my mind by the confession\nthat the experiences which produced those disturbing feelings were\nmostly drawn from myself,--and from other sources only for the sake\nof comparison; and that I have only reached such \"unseasonable\"\nexperience, so far as I am the nursling of older ages like the Greek,\nand less a child of this age. I must admit so much in virtue of my\nprofession as a classical scholar: for I do not know what meaning\nclassical scholarship may have for our time except in its being\n\"unseasonable,\"--that is, contrary to our time, and yet with an\ninfluence on it for the benefit, it may be hoped, of a future time.\n\n\nI.\n\nConsider the herds that are feeding yonder: they know not the meaning\nof yesterday or to-day, they graze and ruminate, move or rest, from\nmorning to night, from day to day, taken up with their little loves\nand hates, at the mercy of the moment, feeling neither melancholy nor\nsatiety. Man cannot see them without regret, for even in the pride of\nhis humanity he looks enviously on the beast's happiness. He wishes\nsimply to live without satiety or pain, like the beast; yet it is all\nin vain, for he will not change places with it. He may ask the\nbeast--\"Why do you look at me and not speak to me of your happiness?\"\nThe beast wants to answer--\"Because I always forget what I wished to\nsay\": but he forgets this answer too, and is silent; and the man is\nleft to wonder.\n\nHe wonders also about himself, that he cannot learn to forget, but\nhangs on the past: however far or fast he run, that chain runs with\nhim. It is matter for wonder: the moment, that is here and gone, that\nwas nothing before and nothing after, returns like a spectre to\ntrouble the quiet of a later moment. A leaf is continually dropping\nout of the volume of time and fluttering away--and suddenly it\nflutters back into the man's lap. Then he says, \"I remember...,\" and\nenvies the beast, that forgets at once, and sees every moment really\ndie, sink into night and mist, extinguished for ever. The beast lives\n_unhistorically_; for it \"goes into\" the present, like a number,\nwithout leaving any curious remainder. It cannot dissimulate, it\nconceals nothing; at every moment it seems what it actually is, and\nthus can be nothing that is not honest. But man is always resisting\nthe great and continually increasing weight of the past; it presses\nhim down, and bows his shoulders; he travels with a dark invisible\nburden that he can plausibly disown, and is only too glad to disown\nin converse with his fellows--in order to excite their envy. And so\nit hurts him, like the thought of a lost Paradise, to see a herd\ngrazing, or, nearer still, a child, that has nothing yet of the past\nto disown, and plays in a happy blindness between the walls of the\npast and the future. And yet its play must be disturbed, and only too\nsoon will it be summoned from its little kingdom of oblivion. Then it\nlearns to understand the words \"once upon a time,\" the \"open sesame\"\nthat lets in battle, suffering and weariness on mankind, and reminds\nthem what their existence really is, an imperfect tense that never\nbecomes a present. And when death brings at last the desired\nforgetfulness, it abolishes life and being together, and sets the\nseal on the knowledge that \"being\" is merely a continual \"has been,\"\na thing that lives by denying and destroying and contradicting\nitself.\n\nIf happiness and the chase for new happiness keep alive in any sense\nthe will to live, no philosophy has perhaps more truth than the\ncynic's: for the beast's happiness, like that of the perfect cynic,\nis the visible proof of the truth of cynicism. The smallest pleasure,\nif it be only continuous and make one happy, is incomparably a\ngreater happiness than the more intense pleasure that comes as an\nepisode, a wild freak, a mad interval between ennui, desire, and\nprivation. But in the smallest and greatest happiness there is always\none thing that makes it happiness: the power of forgetting, or, in\nmore learned phrase, the capacity of feeling \"unhistorically\"\nthroughout its duration. One who cannot leave himself behind on the\nthreshold of the moment and forget the past, who cannot stand on a\nsingle point, like a goddess of victory, without fear or giddiness,\nwill never know what happiness is; and, worse still, will never do\nanything to make others happy. The extreme case would be the man\nwithout any power to forget, who is condemned to see \"becoming\"\neverywhere. Such a man believes no more in himself or his own\nexistence, he sees everything fly past in an eternal succession, and\nloses himself in the stream of becoming. At last, like the logical\ndisciple of Heraclitus, he will hardly dare to raise his finger.\nForgetfulness is a property of all action; just as not only light but\ndarkness is bound up with the life of every organism. One who wished\nto feel everything historically, would be like a man forcing himself\nto refrain from sleep, or a beast who had to live by chewing a\ncontinual cud. Thus even a happy life is possible without\nremembrance, as the beast shows: but life in any true sense is\nabsolutely impossible without forgetfulness. Or, to put my conclusion\nbetter, there is a degree of sleeplessness, of rumination, of\n\"historical sense,\" that injures and finally destroys the living\nthing, be it a man or a people or a system of culture.\n\nTo fix this degree and the limits to the memory of the past, if it is\nnot to become the gravedigger of the present, we must see clearly how\ngreat is the \"plastic power\" of a man or a community or a culture; I\nmean the power of specifically growing out of one's self, of making\nthe past and the strange one body with the near and the present, of\nhealing wounds, replacing what is lost, repairing broken moulds.\nThere are men who have this power so slightly that a single sharp\nexperience, a single pain, often a little injustice, will lacerate\ntheir souls like the scratch of a poisoned knife. There are others,\nwho are so little injured by the worst misfortunes, and even by their\nown spiteful actions, as to feel tolerably comfortable, with a fairly\nquiet conscience, in the midst of them,--or at any rate shortly\nafterwards. The deeper the roots of a man's inner nature, the better\nwill he take the past into himself; and the greatest and most\npowerful nature would be known by the absence of limits for the\nhistorical sense to overgrow and work harm. It would assimilate and\ndigest the past, however foreign, and turn it to sap. Such a nature\ncan forget what it cannot subdue; there is no break in the horizon,\nand nothing to remind it that there are still men, passions, theories\nand aims on the other side. This is a universal law; a living thing\ncan only be healthy, strong and productive within a certain horizon:\nif it be incapable of drawing one round itself, or too selfish to\nlose its own view in another's, it will come to an untimely end.\nCheerfulness, a good conscience, belief in the future, the joyful\ndeed, all depend, in the individual as well as the nation, on there\nbeing a line that divides the visible and clear from the vague and\nshadowy: we must know the right time to forget as well as the right\ntime to remember; and instinctively see when it is necessary to feel\nhistorically, and when unhistorically. This is the point that the\nreader is asked to consider; that the unhistorical and the historical\nare equally necessary to the health of an individual, a community,\nand a system of culture.\n\nEvery one has noticed that a man's historical knowledge and range of\nfeeling may be very limited, his horizon as narrow as that of an\nAlpine valley, his judgments incorrect and his experience falsely\nsupposed original, and yet in spite of all the incorrectness and\nfalsity he may stand forth in unconquerable health and vigour, to the\njoy of all who see him; whereas another man with far more judgment\nand learning will fail in comparison, because the lines of his\nhorizon are continually changing and shifting, and he cannot shake\nhimself free from the delicate network of his truth and righteousness\nfor a downright act of will or desire. We saw that the beast,\nabsolutely \"unhistorical,\" with the narrowest of horizons, has yet a\ncertain happiness, and lives at least without hypocrisy or ennui; and\nso we may hold the capacity of feeling (to a certain extent)\nunhistorically, to be the more important and elemental, as providing\nthe foundation of every sound and real growth, everything that is\ntruly great and human. The unhistorical is like the surrounding\natmosphere that can alone create life, and in whose annihilation life\nitself disappears. It is true that man can only become man by first\nsuppressing this unhistorical element in his thoughts, comparisons,\ndistinctions, and conclusions, letting a clear sudden light break\nthrough these misty clouds by his power of turning the past to the\nuses of the present. But an excess of history makes him flag again,\nwhile without the veil of the unhistorical he would never have the\ncourage to begin. What deeds could man ever have done if he had not\nbeen enveloped in the dust-cloud of the unhistorical? Or, to leave\nmetaphors and take a concrete example, imagine a man swayed and\ndriven by a strong passion, whether for a woman or a theory. His\nworld is quite altered. He is blind to everything behind him, new\nsounds are muffled and meaningless; though his perceptions were never\nso intimately felt in all their colour, light and music, and he Seems\nto grasp them with his five senses together. All his judgments of\nvalue are changed for the worse; there is much he can no longer\nvalue, as he can scarcely feel it: he wonders that he has so long\nbeen the sport of strange words and opinions, that his recollections\nhave run around in one unwearying circle and are yet too weak and\nweary to make a single step away from it. His whole case is most\nindefensible; it is narrow, ungrateful to the past, blind to danger,\ndeaf to warnings, a small living eddy in a dead sea of night and\nforgetfulness. And yet this condition, unhistorical and\nantihistorical throughout, is the cradle not only of unjust action,\nbut of every just and justifiable action in the world. No artist will\npaint his picture, no general win his victory, no nation gain its\nfreedom, without having striven and yearned for it under those very\n\"unhistorical\" conditions. If the man of action, in Goethe's phrase,\nis without conscience, he is also without knowledge: he forgets most\nthings in order to do one, he is unjust to what is behind him, and\nonly recognises one law, the law of that which is to be. So he loves\nhis work infinitely more than it deserves to be loved; and the best\nworks are produced in such an ecstasy of love that they must always\nbe unworthy of it, however great their worth otherwise.\n\nShould any one be able to dissolve the unhistorical atmosphere in\nwhich every great event happens, and breathe afterwards, he might be\ncapable of rising to the \"super-historical\" standpoint of\nconsciousness, that Niebuhr has described as the possible result of\nhistorical research. \"History,\" he says, \"is useful for one purpose,\nif studied in detail: that men may know, as the greatest and best\nspirits of our generation do not know, the accidental nature of the\nforms in which they see and insist on others seeing,--insist, I say,\nbecause their consciousness of them is exceptionally intense. Any one\nwho has not grasped this idea in its different applications will fall\nunder the spell of a more powerful spirit who reads a deeper emotion\ninto the given form.\" Such a standpoint might be called\n\"super-historical,\" as one who took it could feel no impulse from\nhistory to any further life or work, for he would have recognised the\nblindness and injustice in the soul of the doer as a condition of\nevery deed: he would be cured henceforth of taking history too\nseriously, and have learnt to answer the question how and why life\nshould be lived,--for all men and all circumstances, Greeks or Turks,\nthe first century or the nineteenth. Whoever asks his friends whether\nthey would live the last ten or twenty years over again, will easily\nsee which of them is born for the \"super-historical standpoint\": they\nwill all answer no, but will give different reasons for their answer.\nSome will say they have the consolation that the next twenty will be\nbetter: they are the men referred to satirically by David Hume:--\n\n  \"And from the dregs of life hope to receive,\n  What the first sprightly running could not give.\"\n\nWe will call them the \"historical men.\" Their vision of the past\nturns them towards the future, encourages them to persevere with\nlife, and kindles the hope that justice will yet come and happiness\nis behind the mountain they are climbing. They believe that the\nmeaning of existence will become ever clearer in the course of its\nevolution, they only look backward at the process to understand the\npresent and stimulate their longing for the future. They do not know\nhow unhistorical their thoughts and actions are in spite of all their\nhistory, and how their preoccupation with it is for the sake of life\nrather than mere science.\n\nBut that question to which we have heard the first answer, is capable\nof another; also a \"no,\" but on different grounds. It is the \"no\" of\nthe \"super-historical\" man who sees no salvation in evolution, for\nwhom the world is complete and fulfils its aim in every single\nmoment. How could the next ten years teach what the past ten were not\nable to teach?\n\nWhether the aim of the teaching be happiness or resignation, virtue\nor penance, these super-historical men are not agreed; but as against\nall merely historical ways of viewing the past, they are unanimous in\nthe theory that the past and the present are one and the same,\ntypically alike in all their diversity, and forming together a\npicture of eternally present imperishable types of unchangeable value\nand significance. Just as the hundreds of different languages\ncorrespond to the same constant and elemental needs of mankind, and\none who understood the needs could learn nothing new from the\nlanguages; so the \"super-historical\" philosopher sees all the history\nof nations and individuals from within. He has a divine insight into\nthe original meaning of the hieroglyphs, and comes even to be weary\nof the letters that are continually unrolled before him. How should\nthe endless rush of events not bring satiety, surfeit, loathing? So\nthe boldest of us is ready perhaps at last to say from his heart with\nGiacomo Leopardi: \"Nothing lives that were worth thy pains, and the\nearth deserves not a sigh. Our being is pain and weariness, and the\nworld is mud--nothing else. Be calm.\"\n\nBut we will leave the super-historical men to their loathings and\ntheir wisdom: we wish rather to-day to be joyful in our unwisdom and\nhave a pleasant life as active men who go forward, and respect the\ncourse of the world. The value we put on the historical may be merely\na Western prejudice: let us at least go forward within this prejudice\nand not stand still. If we could only learn better to study history\nas a means to life! We would gladly grant the super-historical people\ntheir superior wisdom, so long as we are sure of having more life\nthan they: for in that case our unwisdom would have a greater future\nbefore it than their wisdom. To make my opposition between life and\nwisdom clear, I will take the usual road of the short summary.\n\nA historical phenomenon, completely understood and reduced to an item\nof knowledge, is, in relation to the man who knows it, dead: for he\nhas found out its madness, its injustice, its blind passion, and\nespecially the earthly and darkened horizon that was the source of\nits power for history. This power has now become, for him who has\nrecognised it, powerless; not yet, perhaps, for him who is alive.\n\nHistory regarded as pure knowledge and allowed to sway the intellect\nwould mean for men the final balancing of the ledger of life.\nHistorical study is only fruitful for the future if it follow a\npowerful life-giving influence, for example, a new system of culture;\nonly, therefore, if it be guided and dominated by a higher force, and\ndo not itself guide and dominate.\n\nHistory, so far as it serves life, serves an unhistorical power, and\nthus will never become a pure science like mathematics. The question\nhow far life needs such a service is one of the most serious\nquestions affecting the well-being of a man, a people and a culture.\nFor by excess of history life becomes maimed and degenerate, and is\nfollowed by the degeneration of history as well.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe fact that life does need the service of history must be as\nclearly grasped as that an excess of history hurts it; this will be\nproved later. History is necessary to the living man in three ways:\nin relation to his action and struggle, his conservatism and\nreverence, his suffering and his desire for deliverance. These three\nrelations answer to the three kinds of history--so far as they can be\ndistinguished--the _monumental_, the _antiquarian_, and the\n_critical_.\n\nHistory is necessary above all to the man of action and power who\nfights a great fight and needs examples, teachers and comforters; he\ncannot find them among his contemporaries. It was necessary in this\nsense to Schiller; for our time is so evil, Goethe says, that the\npoet meets no nature that will profit him, among living men. Polybius\nis thinking of the active man when he calls political history the\ntrue preparation for governing a state; it is the great teacher, that\nshows us how to bear steadfastly the reverses of fortune, by\nreminding us of what others have suffered. Whoever has learned to\nrecognise this meaning in history must hate to see curious tourists\nand laborious beetle-hunters climbing up the great pyramids of\nantiquity. He does not wish to meet the idler who is rushing through\nthe picture-galleries of the past for a new distraction or sensation,\nwhere he himself is looking for example and encouragement. To avoid\nbeing troubled by the weak and hopeless idlers, and those whose\napparent activity is merely neurotic, he looks behind him and stays\nhis course towards the goal in order to breathe. His goal is\nhappiness, not perhaps his own, but often the nation's, or humanity's\nat large: he avoids quietism, and uses history as a weapon against\nit. For the most part he has no hope of reward except fame, which\nmeans the expectation of a niche in the temple of history, where he\nin his turn may be the consoler and counsellor of posterity. For his\norders are that what has once been able to extend the conception\n\"man\" and give it a fairer content, must ever exist for the same\noffice. The great moments in the individual battle form a chain, a\nhigh road for humanity through the ages, and the highest points of\nthose vanished moments are yet great and living for men; and this is\nthe fundamental idea of the belief in humanity, that finds a voice in\nthe demand for a \"monumental\" history.\n\nBut the fiercest battle is fought round the demand for greatness to\nbe eternal. Every other living thing cries no. \"Away with the\nmonuments,\" is the watch-word. Dull custom fills all the chambers of\nthe world with its meanness, and rises in thick vapour round anything\nthat is great, barring its way to immortality, blinding and stifling\nit. And the way passes through mortal brains! Through the brains of\nsick and short-lived beasts that ever rise to the surface to breathe,\nand painfully keep off annihilation for a little space. For they wish\nbut one thing: to live at any cost. Who would ever dream of any\n\"monumental history\" among them, the hard torch-race that alone gives\nlife to greatness? And yet there are always men awakening, who are\nstrengthened and made happy by gazing on past greatness, as though\nman's life were a lordly thing, and the fairest fruit of this bitter\ntree were the knowledge that there was once a man who walked sternly\nand proudly through this world, another who had pity and\nloving-kindness, another who lived in contemplation,--but all leaving\none truth behind them, that his life is the fairest who thinks least\nabout life. The common man snatches greedily at this little span,\nwith tragic earnestness, but they, on their way to monumental history\nand immortality, knew how to greet it with Olympic laughter, or at\nleast with a lofty scorn; and they went down to their graves in\nirony--for what had they to bury? Only what they had always treated\nas dross, refuse, and vanity, and which now falls into its true home\nof oblivion, after being so long the sport of their contempt. One\nthing will live, the sign-manual of their inmost being, the rare\nflash of light, the deed, the creation; because posterity cannot do\nwithout it. In this spiritualised form fame is something more than\nthe sweetest morsel for our egoism, in Schopenhauer's phrase: it is\nthe belief in the oneness and continuity of the great in every age,\nand a protest against the change and decay of generations.\n\nWhat is the use to the modern man of this \"monumental\" contemplation\nof the past, this preoccupation with the rare and classic? It is the\nknowledge that the great thing existed and was therefore possible,\nand so may be possible again. He is heartened on his way; for his\ndoubt in weaker moments, whether his desire be not for the\nimpossible, is struck aside. Suppose one believe that no more than a\nhundred men, brought up in the new spirit, efficient and productive,\nwere needed to give the deathblow to the present fashion of education\nin Germany; he will gather strength from the remembrance that the\nculture of the Renaissance was raised on the shoulders of such\nanother band of a hundred men.\n\nAnd yet if we really wish to learn something from an example, how\nvague and elusive do we find the comparison! If it is to give us\nstrength, many of the differences must be neglected, the\nindividuality of the past forced into a general formula and all the\nsharp angles broken off for the sake of correspondence. Ultimately,\nof course, what was once possible can only become possible a second\ntime on the Pythagorean theory, that when the heavenly bodies are in\nthe same position again, the events on earth are reproduced to the\nsmallest detail; so when the stars have a certain relation, a Stoic\nand an Epicurean will form a conspiracy to murder C\u00e6sar, and a\ndifferent conjunction will show another Columbus discovering America.\nOnly if the earth always began its drama again after the fifth act,\nand it were certain that the same interaction of motives, the same\n_deus ex machina_, the same catastrophe would occur at particular\nintervals, could the man of action venture to look for the whole\narchetypic truth in monumental history, to see each fact fully set\nout in its uniqueness: it would not probably be before the\nastronomers became astrologers again. Till then monumental history\nwill never be able to have complete truth; it will always bring\ntogether things that are incompatible and generalise them into\ncompatibility, will always weaken the differences of motive and\noccasion. Its object is to depict effects at the expense of the\ncauses--\"monumentally,\" that is, as examples for imitation: it turns\naside, as far as it may, from reasons, and might be called with far\nless exaggeration a collection of \"effects in themselves,\" than of\nevents that will have an effect on all ages. The events of war or\nreligion cherished in our popular celebrations are such \"effects in\nthemselves\"; it is these that will not let ambition sleep, and lie\nlike amulets on the bolder hearts--not the real historical nexus of\ncause and effect, which, rightly understood, would only prove that\nnothing quite similar could ever be cast again from the dice-boxes of\nfate and the future.\n\nAs long as the soul of history is found in the great impulse that it\ngives to a powerful spirit, as long as the past is principally used\nas a model for imitation, it is always in danger of being a little\naltered and touched up, and brought nearer to fiction. Sometimes\nthere is no possible distinction between a \"monumental\" past and a\nmythical romance, as the same motives for action can be gathered from\nthe one world as the other. If this monumental method of surveying\nthe past dominate the others,--the antiquarian and the critical,--the\npast itself suffers wrong. Whole tracts of it are forgotten and\ndespised; they flow away like a dark unbroken river, with only a few\ngaily coloured islands of fact rising above it. There is something\nbeyond nature in the rare figures that become visible, like the\ngolden hips that his disciples attributed to Pythagoras. Monumental\nhistory lives by false analogy; it entices the brave to rashness, and\nthe enthusiastic to fanaticism by its tempting comparisons. Imagine\nthis history in the hands--and the head--of a gifted egoist or an\ninspired scoundrel; kingdoms will be overthrown, princes murdered,\nwar and revolution let loose, and the number of \"effects in\nthemselves\"--in other words, effects without sufficient\ncause--increased. So much for the harm done by monumental history to\nthe powerful men of action, be they good or bad; but what if the weak\nand the inactive take it as their servant--or their master!\n\nConsider the simplest and commonest example, the inartistic or half\nartistic natures whom a monumental history provides with sword and\nbuckler. They will use the weapons against their hereditary enemies,\nthe great artistic spirits, who alone can learn from that history the\none real lesson, how to live, and embody what they have learnt in\nnoble action. Their way is obstructed, their free air darkened by the\nidolatrous--and conscientious--dance round the half understood\nmonument of a great past. \"See, that is the true and real art,\" we\nseem to hear: \"of what use are these aspiring little people of\nto-day?\" The dancing crowd has apparently the monopoly of \"good\ntaste\": for the creator is always at a disadvantage compared with the\nmere looker-on, who never put a hand to the work; just as the\narm-chair politician has ever had more wisdom and foresight than the\nactual statesman. But if the custom of democratic suffrage and\nnumerical majorities be transferred to the realm of art, and the\nartist put on his defence before the court of \u00e6sthetic dilettanti,\nyou may take your oath on his condemnation; although, or rather\nbecause, his judges had proclaimed solemnly the canon of \"monumental\nart,\" the art that has \"had an effect on all ages,\" according to the\nofficial definition. In their eyes no need nor inclination nor\nhistorical authority is in favour of the art which is not yet\n\"monumental\" because it is contemporary. Their instinct tells them\nthat art can be slain by art: the monumental will never be\nreproduced, and the weight of its authority is invoked from the past\nto make it sure. They are connoisseurs of art, primarily because they\nwish to kill art; they pretend to be physicians, when their real idea\nis to dabble in poisons. They develop their tastes to a point of\nperversion, that they may be able to show a reason for continually\nrejecting all the nourishing artistic fare that is offered them. For\nthey do not want greatness, to arise: their method is to say, \"See,\nthe great thing is already here!\" In reality they care as little\nabout the great thing that is already here, as that which is about to\narise: their lives are evidence of that. Monumental history is the\ncloak under which their hatred of present power and greatness\nmasquerades as an extreme admiration of the past: the real meaning of\nthis way of viewing history is disguised as its opposite; whether\nthey wish it or no, they are acting as though their motto were, \"let\nthe dead bury the--living.\"\n\nEach of the three kinds of history will only flourish in one ground\nand climate: otherwise it grows to a noxious weed. If the man who\nwill produce something great, have need of the past, he makes himself\nits master by means of monumental history: the man who can rest\ncontent with the traditional and venerable, uses the past as an\n\"antiquarian historian\": and only he whose heart is oppressed by an\ninstant need, and who will cast the burden off at any price, feels\nthe want of \"critical history,\" the history that judges and condemns.\nThere is much harm wrought by wrong and thoughtless planting: the\ncritic without the need, the antiquary without piety, the knower of\nthe great deed who cannot be the doer of it, are plants that have\ngrown to weeds, they are torn from their native soil and therefore\ndegenerate.\n\n\nIII.\n\nSecondly, history is necessary to the man of conservative and\nreverent nature, who looks back to the origins of his existence with\nlove and trust; through it, he gives thanks for life. He is careful\nto preserve what survives from ancient days, and will reproduce the\nconditions of his own upbringing for those who come after him; thus\nhe does life a service. The possession of his ancestors' furniture\nchanges its meaning in his soul: for his soul is rather possessed by\nit. All that is small and limited, mouldy and obsolete, gains a worth\nand inviolability of its own from the conservative and reverent soul\nof the antiquary migrating into it, and building a secret nest there.\nThe history of his town becomes the history of himself; he looks on\nthe walls, the turreted gate, the town council, the fair, as an\nillustrated diary of his youth, and sees himself in it all--his\nstrength, industry, desire, reason, faults and follies. \"Here one\ncould live,\" he says, \"as one can live here now--and will go on\nliving; for we are tough folk, and will not be uprooted in the\nnight.\" And so, with his \"we,\" he surveys the marvellous individual\nlife of the past and identifies himself with the spirit of the house,\nthe family and the city. He greets the soul of his people from afar\nas his own, across the dim and troubled centuries: his gifts and his\nvirtues lie in such power of feeling and divination, his scent of a\nhalf-vanished trail, his instinctive correctness in reading the\nscribbled past, and understanding at once its palimpsests--nay, its\npolypsests. Goethe stood with such thoughts before the monument of\nErwin von Steinbach: the storm of his feeling rent the historical\ncloud-veil that hung between them, and he saw the German work for the\nfirst time \"coming from the stern, rough, German soul.\" This was the\nroad that the Italians of the Renaissance travelled, the spirit that\nreawakened the ancient Italic genius in their poets to \"a wondrous\necho of the immemorial lyre,\" as Jacob Burckhardt says. But the\ngreatest value of this antiquarian spirit of reverence lies in the\nsimple emotions of pleasure and content that it lends to the drab,\nrough, even painful circumstances of a nation's or individual's life:\nNiebuhr confesses that he could live happily on a moor among free\npeasants with a history, and would never feel the want of art. How\ncould history serve life better than by anchoring the less gifted\nraces and peoples to the homes and customs of their ancestors, and\nkeeping them from ranging far afield in search of better, to find\nonly struggle and competition? The influence that ties men down to\nthe same companions and circumstances, to the daily round of toil, to\ntheir bare mountain-side,--seems to be selfish and unreasonable: but\nit is a healthy unreason and of profit to the community; as every one\nknows who has clearly realised the terrible consequences of mere\ndesire for migration and adventure,--perhaps in whole peoples,--or\nwho watches the destiny of a nation that has lost confidence in its\nearlier days, and is given up to a restless cosmopolitanism and an\nunceasing desire for novelty. The feeling of the tree that clings to\nits roots, the happiness of knowing one's growth to be one not merely\narbitrary and fortuitous, but the inheritance, the fruit and blossom\nof a past, that does not merely justify but crown the present--this\nis what we nowadays prefer to call the real historical sense.\n\nThese are not the conditions most favourable to reducing the past to\npure science: and we see here too, as we saw in the case of\nmonumental history, that the past itself suffers when history serves\nlife and is directed by its end. To vary the metaphor, the tree feels\nits roots better than it can see them: the greatness of the feeling\nis measured by the greatness and strength of the visible branches.\nThe tree may be wrong here; how far more wrong will it be in regard\nto the whole forest, which it only knows and feels so far as it is\nhindered or helped by it, and not otherwise! The antiquarian sense of\na man, a city or a nation has always a very limited field. Many\nthings are not noticed at all; the others are seen in isolation, as\nthrough a microscope. There is no measure: equal importance is given\nto everything, and therefore too much to anything. For the things of\nthe past are never viewed in their true perspective or receive their\njust value; but value and perspective change with the individual or\nthe nation that is looking back on its past.\n\nThere is always the danger here, that everything ancient will be\nregarded as equally venerable, and everything without this respect\nfor antiquity, like a new spirit, rejected as an enemy. The Greeks\nthemselves admitted the archaic style of plastic art by the side of\nthe freer and greater style; and later, did not merely tolerate the\npointed nose and the cold mouth, but made them even a canon of taste.\nIf the judgment of a people harden in this way, and history's service\nto the past life be to undermine a further and higher life; if the\nhistorical sense no longer preserve life, but mummify it: then the\ntree dies, unnaturally, from the top downwards, and at last the roots\nthemselves wither. Antiquarian history degenerates from the moment\nthat it no longer gives a soul and inspiration to the fresh life of\nthe present. The spring of piety is dried up, but the learned habit\npersists without it and revolves complaisantly round its own centre.\nThe horrid spectacle is seen of the mad collector raking over all the\ndust-heaps of the past. He breathes a mouldy air; the antiquarian\nhabit may degrade a considerable talent, a real spiritual need in\nhim, to a mere insatiable curiosity for everything old: he often\nsinks so low as to be satisfied with any food, and greedily devour\nall the scraps that fall from the bibliographical table.\n\nEven if this degeneration do not take place, and the foundation be\nnot withered on which antiquarian history can alone take root with\nprofit to life: yet there are dangers enough, if it become too\npowerful and invade the territories of the other methods. It only\nunderstands how to preserve life, not to create it; and thus always\nundervalues the present growth, having, unlike monumental history, no\ncertain instinct for it. Thus it hinders the mighty impulse to a new\ndeed and paralyses the doer, who must always, as doer, be grazing\nsome piety or other. The fact that has grown old carries with it a\ndemand for its own immortality. For when one considers the\nlife-history of such an ancient fact, the amount of reverence paid to\nit for generations--whether it be a custom, a religious creed, or a\npolitical principle,--it seems presumptuous, even impious, to replace\nit by a new fact, and the ancient congregation of pieties by a new\npiety.\n\nHere we see clearly how necessary a third way of looking at the past\nis to man, beside the other two. This is the \"critical\" way; which is\nalso in the service of life. Man must have the strength to break up\nthe past; and apply it too, in order to live. He must bring the past\nto the bar of judgment, interrogate it remorselessly, and finally\ncondemn it. Every past is worth condemning: this is the rule in\nmortal affairs, which always contain a large measure of human power\nand human weakness. It is not justice that sits in judgment here; nor\nmercy that proclaims the verdict; but only life, the dim, driving\nforce that insatiably desires--itself. Its sentence is always\nunmerciful, always unjust, as it never flows from a pure fountain of\nknowledge: though it would generally turn out the same, if Justice\nherself delivered it. \"For everything that is born is _worthy_ of\nbeing destroyed: better were it then that nothing should be born.\" It\nrequires great strength to be able to live and forget how far life\nand injustice are one. Luther himself once said that the world only\narose by an oversight of God; if he had ever dreamed of heavy\nordnance, he would never have created it. The same life that needs\nforgetfulness, needs sometimes its destruction; for should the\ninjustice of something ever become obvious--a monopoly, a caste, a\ndynasty for example--the thing deserves to fall. Its past is\ncritically examined, the knife put to its roots, and all the\n\"pieties\" are grimly trodden under foot. The process is always\ndangerous, even for life; and the men or the times that serve life in\nthis way, by judging and annihilating the past, are always dangerous\nto themselves and others. For as we are merely the resultant of\nprevious generations, we are also the resultant of their errors,\npassions, and crimes: it is impossible to shake off this chain.\nThough we condemn the errors and think we have escaped them, we\ncannot escape the fact that we spring from them. At best, it comes to\na conflict between our innate, inherited nature and our knowledge,\nbetween a stern, new discipline and an ancient tradition; and we\nplant a new way of life, a new instinct, a second nature, that\nwithers the first. It is an attempt to gain a past _a posteriori_\nfrom which we might spring, as against that from which we do spring;\nalways a dangerous attempt, as it is difficult to find a limit to the\ndenial of the past, and the second natures are generally weaker than\nthe first. We stop too often at knowing the good without doing it,\nbecause we also know the better but cannot do it. Here and there the\nvictory is won, which gives a strange consolation to the fighters, to\nthose who use critical history for the sake of life. The consolation\nis the knowledge that this \"first nature\" was once a second, and that\nevery conquering \"second nature\" becomes a first.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThis is how history can serve life. Every man and nation needs a\ncertain knowledge of the past, whether it be through monumental,\nantiquarian, or critical history, according to his objects, powers,\nand necessities. The need is not that of the mere thinkers who only\nlook on at life, or the few who desire knowledge and can only be\nsatisfied with knowledge; but it has always a reference to the end of\nlife, and is under its absolute rule and direction. This is the\nnatural relation of an age, a culture and a people to history; hunger\nis its source, necessity its norm, the inner plastic power assigns\nits limits. The knowledge of the past is only desired for the service\nof the future and the present, not to weaken the present or undermine\na living future. All this is as simple as truth itself, and quite\nconvincing to any one who is not in the toils of \"historical\ndeduction.\"\n\nAnd now to take a quick glance at our time! We fly back in\nastonishment. The clearness, naturalness, and purity of the\nconnection between life and history has vanished; and in what a maze\nof exaggeration and contradiction do we now see the problem! Is the\nguilt ours who see it, or have life and history really altered their\nconjunction and an inauspicious star risen between them? Others may\nprove we have seen falsely; I am merely saying what we believe we\nsee. There is such a star, a bright and lordly star, and the\nconjunction is really altered--by science, and the demand for history\nto be a science. Life is no more dominant, and knowledge of the past\nno longer its thrall: boundary marks are overthrown everything bursts\nits limits. The perspective of events is blurred, and the blur\nextends through their whole immeasurable course. No generation has\nseen such a panoramic comedy as is shown by the \"science of universal\nevolution,\" history; that shows it with the dangerous audacity of its\nmotto--\"Fiat veritas, pereat vita.\"\n\nLet me give a picture of the spiritual events in the soul of the\nmodern man. Historical knowledge streams on him from sources that are\ninexhaustible, strange incoherencies come together, memory opens all\nits gates and yet is never open wide enough, nature busies herself to\nreceive all the foreign guests, to honour them and put them in their\nplaces. But they are at war with each other: violent measures seem\nnecessary, in order to escape destruction one's self. It becomes\nsecond nature to grow gradually accustomed to this irregular and\nstormy home-life, though this second nature is unquestionably weaker,\nmore restless, more radically unsound than the first. The modern man\ncarries inside him an enormous heap of indigestible knowledge-stones\nthat occasionally rattle together in his body, as the fairy-tale has\nit. And the rattle reveals the most striking characteristic of these\nmodern men, the opposition of something inside them to which nothing\nexternal corresponds; and the reverse. The ancient nations knew\nnothing of this. Knowledge, taken in excess without hunger, even\ncontrary to desire, has no more the effect of transforming the\nexternal life; and remains hidden in a chaotic inner world that the\nmodern man has a curious pride in calling his \"real personality.\" He\nhas the substance, he says, and only wants the form; but this is\nquite an unreal opposition in a living thing. Our modern culture is\nfor that reason not a living one, because it cannot be understood\nwithout that opposition. In other words, it is not a real culture but\na kind of knowledge about culture, a complex of various thoughts and\nfeelings about it, from which no decision as to its direction can\ncome. Its real motive force that issues in visible action is often no\nmore than a mere convention, a wretched imitation, or even a\nshameless caricature. The man probably feels like the snake that has\nswallowed a rabbit whole and lies still in the sun, avoiding all\nmovement not absolutely necessary. The \"inner life\" is now the only\nthing that matters to education, and all who see it hope that the\neducation may not fail by being too indigestible. Imagine a Greek\nmeeting it; he would observe that for modern men \"education\" and\n\"historical education\" seem to mean the same thing, with the\ndifference that the one phrase is longer. And if he spoke of his own\ntheory, that a man can be very well educated without any history at\nall, people would shake their heads and think they had not heard\naright. The Greeks, the famous people of a past still near to us, had\nthe \"unhistorical sense\" strongly developed in the period of the\ngreatest power. If a typical child of this age were transported to\nthat world by some enchantment, he would probably find the Greeks\nvery \"uneducated.\" And that discovery would betray the closely\nguarded secret of modern culture to the laughter of the world. For we\nmoderns have nothing of our own. We only become worth notice by\nfilling ourselves to overflowing with foreign customs, arts,\nphilosophies, religions and sciences: we are wandering encyclop\u00e6dias,\nas an ancient Greek who had strayed into our time would probably call\nus. But the only value of an encyclop\u00e6dia lies in the inside, in the\ncontents, not in what is written outside, in the binding or the\nwrapper. And so the whole of modern culture is essentially internal;\nthe bookbinder prints something like this on the cover: \"Manual of\ninternal culture for external barbarians.\" The opposition of inner\nand outer makes the outer side still more barbarous, as it would\nnaturally be, when the outward growth of a rude people merely\ndeveloped its primitive inner needs. For what means has nature of\nrepressing too great a luxuriance from without? Only one,--to be\naffected by it as little as possible, to set it aside and stamp it\nout at the first opportunity. And so we have the custom of no longer\ntaking real things seriously, we get the feeble personality on which\nthe real and the permanent make so little impression. Men become at\nlast more careless and accommodating in external matters, and the\nconsiderable cleft between substance and form is widened; until they\nhave no longer any feeling for barbarism, if only their memories be\nkept continually titillated, and there flow a constant stream of new\nthings to be known, that can be neatly packed up in the cupboards of\ntheir memory. The culture of a people as against this barbarism, can\nbe, I think, described with justice as the \"unity of artistic style\nin every outward expression of the people's life.\" This must not be\nmisunderstood, as though it were merely a question of the opposition\nbetween barbarism and \"fine style.\" The people that can be called\ncultured, must be in a real sense a living unity, and not be\nmiserably cleft asunder into form and substance. If one wish to\npromote a people's culture, let him try to promote this higher unity\nfirst, and work for the destruction of the modern educative system\nfor the sake of a true education. Let him dare to consider how the\nhealth of a people that has been destroyed by history may be\nrestored, and how it may recover its instincts with its honour.\n\nI am only speaking, directly, about the Germans of the present day,\nwho have had to suffer more than other people from the feebleness of\npersonality and the opposition of substance and form. \"Form\"\ngenerally implies for us some convention, disguise or hypocrisy, and\nif not hated, is at any rate not loved. We have an extraordinary fear\nof both the word convention and the thing. This fear drove the German\nfrom the French school; for he wished to become more natural, and\ntherefore more German. But he seems to have come to a false\nconclusion with his \"therefore.\" First he ran away from his school of\nconvention, and went by any road he liked: he has come ultimately to\nimitate voluntarily in a slovenly fashion, what he imitated painfully\nand often successfully before. So now the lazy fellow lives under\nFrench conventions that are actually incorrect: his manner of walking\nshows it, his conversation and dress, his general way of life. In the\nbelief that he was returning to Nature, he merely followed caprice\nand comfort, with the smallest possible amount of self-control. Go\nthrough any German town; you will see conventions that are nothing\nbut the negative aspect of the national characteristics of foreign\nstates. Everything is colourless, worn out, shoddy and ill-copied.\nEvery one acts at his own sweet will--which is not a strong or\nserious will--on laws dictated by the universal rush and the general\ndesire for comfort. A dress that made no head ache in its inventing\nand wasted no time in the making, borrowed from foreign models and\nimperfectly copied, is regarded as an important contribution to\nGerman fashion. The sense of form is ironically disclaimed by the\npeople--for they have the \"sense of substance\": they are famous for\ntheir cult of \"inwardness.\"\n\nBut there is also a famous danger in their \"inwardness\": the internal\nsubstance cannot be seen from the outside, and so may one day take\nthe opportunity of vanishing, and no one notice its absence, any more\nthan its presence before. One may think the German people to be very\nfar from this danger: yet the foreigner will have some warrant for\nhis reproach that our inward life is too weak and ill-organised to\nprovide a form and external expression for itself. It may in rare\ncases show itself finely receptive, earnest and powerful, richer\nperhaps than the inward life of other peoples; but, taken as a whole,\nit remains weak, as all its fine threads are not tied together in one\nstrong knot. The visible action is not the self-manifestation of the\ninward life, but only a weak and crude attempt of a single thread to\nmake a show of representing the whole. And thus the German is not to\nbe judged on any one action, for the individual may be as completely\nobscure after it as before. He must obviously be measured by his\nthoughts and feelings, which are now expressed in his books; if only\nthe books did not, more than ever, raise the doubt whether the famous\ninward life is still really sitting in its inaccessible shrine. It\nmight one day vanish and leave behind it only the external\nlife,--with its vulgar pride and vain servility,--to mark the German.\nFearful thought!--as fearful as if the inward life still sat there,\npainted and rouged and disguised, become a play-actress or something\nworse; as his theatrical experience seems to have taught the quiet\nobserver Grillparzer, standing aside as he did from the main press.\n\"We feel by theory,\" he says. \"We hardly know any more how our\ncontemporaries give expression to their feelings: we make them use\ngestures that are impossible nowadays. Shakespeare has spoilt us\nmoderns.\"\n\nThis is a single example, its general application perhaps too hastily\nassumed. But how terrible it would be were that generalisation\njustified before our eyes! There would be then a note of despair in\nthe phrase, \"We Germans feel by theory, we are all spoilt by\nhistory;\"--a phrase that would cut at the roots of any hope for a\nfuture national culture. For every hope of that kind grows from the\nbelief in the genuineness and immediacy of German feeling, from the\nbelief in an untarnished inward life. Where is our hope or belief,\nwhen its spring is muddied, and the inward quality has learned\ngestures and dances and the use of cosmetics, has learned to express\nitself \"with due reflection in abstract terms,\" and gradually lose\nitself? And how should a great productive spirit exist among a nation\nthat is not sure of its inward unity and is divided into educated men\nwhose inner life has been drawn from the true path of education, and\nuneducated men whose inner life cannot be approached at all? How\nshould it exist, I say, when the people has lost its own unity of\nfeeling, and knows that the feeling of the part calling itself the\neducated part and claiming the right of controlling the artistic\nspirit of the nation, is false and hypocritical? Here and there the\njudgment and taste of individuals may be higher and finer than the\nrest, but that is no compensation: it tortures a man to have to speak\nonly to one section and be no longer in sympathy with his people. He\nwould rather bury his treasure now, in disgust at the vulgar\npatronage of a class, though his heart be filled with tenderness for\nall. The instinct of the people can no longer meet him half-way; it\nis useless for them to stretch their arms out to him in yearning.\nWhat remains but to turn his quickened hatred against the ban, strike\nat the barrier raised by the so-called culture, and condemn as judge\nwhat blasted and degraded him as a living man and a source of life?\nHe takes a profound insight into fate in exchange for the godlike\ndesire of creation and help, and ends his days as a lonely\nphilosopher, with the wisdom of disillusion. It is the painfullest\ncomedy: he who sees it will feel a sacred obligation on him, and say\nto himself,--\"Help must come: the higher unity in the nature and soul\nof a people must be brought back, the cleft between inner and outer\nmust again disappear under the hammer of necessity.\" But to what\nmeans can he look? What remains to him now but his knowledge? He\nhopes to plant the feeling of a need, by speaking from the breadth of\nthat knowledge, giving it freely with both hands. From the strong\nneed the strong action may one day arise. And to leave no doubt of\nthe instance I am taking of the need and the knowledge, my testimony\nshall stand, that it is German unity in its highest sense which is\nthe goal of our endeavour, far more than political union: it is the\nunity of the German spirit and life after the annihilation of the\nantagonism between form and substance, inward life and convention.\n\n\nV.\n\nAn excess of history seems to be an enemy to the life of a time, and\ndangerous in five ways. Firstly, the contrast of inner and outer is\nemphasised and personality weakened. Secondly, the time comes to\nimagine that it possesses the rarest of virtues, justice, to a higher\ndegree than any other time. Thirdly, the instincts of a nation are\nthwarted, the maturity of the individual arrested no less than that\nof the whole. Fourthly, we get the belief in the old age of mankind,\nthe belief, at all times harmful, that we are late survivals, mere\nEpigoni. Lastly, an age reaches a dangerous condition of irony with\nregard to itself, and the still more dangerous state of cynicism,\nwhen a cunning egoistic theory of action is matured that maims and at\nlast destroys the vital strength.\n\nTo return to the first point: the modern man suffers from a weakened\npersonality. The Roman of the Empire ceased to be a Roman through the\ncontemplation of the world that lay at his feet; he lost himself in\nthe crowd of foreigners that streamed into Rome, and degenerated amid\nthe cosmopolitan carnival of arts, worships and moralities. It is the\nsame with the modern man, who is continually having a world-panorama\nunrolled before his eyes by his historical artists. He is turned into\na restless, dilettante spectator, and arrives at a condition when\neven great wars and revolutions cannot affect him beyond the moment.\nThe war is hardly at an end, and it is already converted into\nthousands of copies of printed matter, and will be soon served up as\nthe latest means of tickling the jaded palates of the historical\ngourmets. It seems impossible for a strong full chord to be\nprolonged, however powerfully the strings are swept: it dies away\nagain the next moment in the soft and strengthless echo of history.\nIn ethical language, one never succeeds in staying on a height; your\ndeeds are sudden crashes, and not a long roll of thunder. One may\nbring the greatest and most marvellous thing to perfection; it must\nyet go down to Orcus unhonoured and unsung. For art flies away when\nyou are roofing your deeds with the historical awning. The man who\nwishes to understand everything in a moment, when he ought to grasp\nthe unintelligible as the sublime by a long struggle, can be called\nintelligent only in the sense of Schiller's epigram on the \"reason of\nreasonable men.\" There is something the child sees that he does not\nsee; something the child hears that he does not hear; and this\nsomething is the most important thing of all. Because he does not\nunderstand it, his understanding is more childish than the child's\nand more simple than simplicity itself; in spite of the many clever\nwrinkles on his parchment face, and the masterly play of his fingers\nin unravelling the knots. He has lost or destroyed his instinct; he\ncan no longer trust the \"divine animal\" and let the reins hang loose,\nwhen his understanding fails him and his way lies through the desert.\nHis individuality is shaken, and left without any sure belief in\nitself; it sinks into its own inner being, which only means here the\ndisordered chaos of what it has learned, which will never express\nitself externally, being mere dogma that cannot turn to life. Looking\nfurther, we see how the banishment of instinct by history has turned\nmen to shades and abstractions: no one ventures to show a\npersonality, but masks himself as a man of culture, a savant, poet or\npolitician.\n\nIf one take hold of these masks, believing he has to do with a\nserious thing and not a mere puppet-show--for they all have an\nappearance of seriousness--he will find nothing but rags and coloured\nstreamers in his hands. He must deceive himself no more, but cry\naloud, \"Off with your jackets, or be what you seem!\" A man of the\nroyal stock of seriousness must no longer be Don Quixote, for he has\nbetter things to do than to tilt at such pretended realities. But he\nmust always keep a sharp look about him, call his \"Halt! who goes\nthere?\" to all the shrouded figures, and tear the masks from their\nfaces. And see the result! One might have thought that history\nencouraged men above all to be honest, even if it were only to be\nhonest fools: this used to be its effect, but is so no longer.\nHistorical education and the uniform frock-coat of the citizen are\nboth dominant at the same time. While there has never been such a\nfull-throated chatter about \"free personality,\" personalities can be\nseen no more (to say nothing of free ones); but merely men in\nuniform, with their coats anxiously pulled over their ears.\nIndividuality has withdrawn itself to its recesses; it is seen no\nmore from the outside, which makes one doubt if it be possible to\nhave causes without effects. Or will a race of eunuchs prove to be\nnecessary to guard the historical harem of the world? We can\nunderstand the reason for their aloofness very well. Does it not seem\nas if their task were to watch over history to see that nothing comes\nout except other histories, but no deed that might be historical; to\nprevent personalities becoming \"free,\" that is, sincere towards\nthemselves and others, both in word and deed? Only through this\nsincerity will the inner need and misery of the modern man be brought\nto the light, and art and religion come as true helpers in the place\nof that sad hypocrisy of convention and masquerade, to plant a common\nculture which will answer to real necessities, and not teach, as the\npresent \"liberal education\" teaches, to tell lies about these needs,\nand thus become a walking lie one's self.\n\nIn such an age, that suffers from its \"liberal education,\" how\nunnatural, artificial and unworthy will be the conditions under which\nthe sincerest of all sciences, the holy naked goddess Philosophy,\nmust exist! She remains, in such a world of compulsion and outward\nconformity, the subject of the deep monologue of the lonely wanderer\nor the chance prey of any hunter, the dark secret of the chamber or\nthe daily talk of the old men and children at the university. No one\ndare fulfil the law of philosophy in himself; no one lives\nphilosophically, with that single-hearted virile faith that forced\none of the olden time to bear himself as a Stoic, wherever he was and\nwhatever he did, if he had once sworn allegiance to the Stoa. All\nmodern philosophising is political or official, bound down to be a\nmere phantasmagoria of learning by our modern governments, churches,\nuniversities, moralities and cowardices: it lives by sighing \"if\nonly....\" and by knowing that \"it happened once upon a time....\"\nPhilosophy has no place in historical education, if it will be more\nthan the knowledge that lives indoors, and can have no expression in\naction. Were the modern man once courageous and determined, and not\nmerely such an indoor being even in his hatreds, he would banish\nphilosophy. At present he is satisfied with modestly covering her\nnakedness. Yes, men think, write, print, speak and teach\nphilosophically: so much is permitted them. It is only otherwise in\naction, in \"life.\" Only one thing is permitted there, and everything\nelse quite impossible: such are the orders of historical education.\n\"Are these human beings,\" one might ask, \"or only machines for\nthinking, writing and speaking?\"\n\nGoethe says of Shakespeare: \"No one has more despised correctness of\ncostume than he: he knows too well the inner costume that all men\nwear alike. You hear that he describes Romans wonderfully; I do not\nthink so: they are flesh-and-blood Englishmen; but at any rate they\nare men from top to toe, and the Roman toga sits well on them.\" Would\nit be possible, I wonder, to represent our present literary and\nnational heroes, officials and politicians as Romans? I am sure it\nwould not, as they are no men, but incarnate compendia, abstractions\nmade concrete. If they have a character of their own, it is so deeply\nsunk that it can never rise to the light of day: if they are men,\nthey are only men to a physiologist. To all others they are something\nelse, not men, not \"beasts or gods,\" but historical pictures of the\nmarch of civilisation, and nothing but pictures and civilisation,\nform without any ascertainable substance, bad form unfortunately, and\nuniform at that. And in this way my thesis is to be understood and\nconsidered: \"only strong personalities can endure history, the weak\nare extinguished by it.\" History unsettles the feelings when they are\nnot powerful enough to measure the past by themselves. The man who\ndare no longer trust himself, but asks history against his will for\nadvice \"how he ought to feel now,\" is insensibly turned by his\ntimidity into a play-actor, and plays a part, or generally many\nparts,--very badly therefore and superficially. Gradually all\nconnection ceases between the man and his historical subjects. We see\nnoisy little fellows measuring themselves with the Romans as though\nthey were like them: they burrow in the remains of the Greek poets,\nas if these were _corpora_ for their dissection--and as _vilia_ as\ntheir own well-educated _corpora_ might be. Suppose a man is working\nat Democritus. The question is always on my tongue, why precisely\nDemocritus? Why not Heraclitus, or Philo, or Bacon, or Descartes? And\nthen, why a philosopher? Why not a poet or orator? And why especially\na Greek? Why not an Englishman or a Turk? Is not the past large\nenough to let you find some place where you may disport yourself\nwithout becoming ridiculous? But, as I said, they are a race of\neunuchs: and to the eunuch one woman is the same as another, merely a\nwoman, \"woman in herself,\" the Ever-unapproachable. And it is\nindifferent what they study, if history itself always remain\nbeautifully \"objective\" to them, as men, in fact, who could never\nmake history themselves. And since the Eternal Feminine could never\n\"draw you upward,\" you draw it down to you, and being neuter\nyourselves, regard history as neuter also. But in order that no one\nmay take any comparison of history and the Eternal Feminine too\nseriously, I will say at once that I hold it, on the contrary, to be\nthe Eternal Masculine: I only add that for those who are\n\"historically trained\" throughout, it must be quite indifferent which\nit is; for they are themselves neither man nor woman, nor even\nhermaphrodite, but mere neuters, or, in more philosophic language,\nthe Eternal Objective.\n\nIf the personality be once emptied of its subjectivity, and come to\nwhat men call an \"objective\" condition, nothing can have any more\neffect on it. Something good and true may be done, in action, poetry\nor music: but the hollow culture of the day will look beyond the work\nand ask the history of the author. If the author have already created\nsomething, our historian will set out clearly the past and the\nprobable future course of his development, he will put him with\nothers and compare them, and separate by analysis the choice of his\nmaterial and his treatment; he will wisely sum the author up and give\nhim general advice for his future path. The most astonishing works\nmay be created; the swarm of historical neuters will always be in\ntheir place, ready to consider the authors through their long\ntelescopes. The echo is heard at once: but always in the form of\n\"criticism,\" though the critic never dreamed of the work's\npossibility a moment before. It never comes to have an influence, but\nonly a criticism: and the criticism itself has no influence, but only\nbreeds another criticism. And so we come to consider the fact of many\ncritics as a mark of influence, that of few or none as a mark of\nfailure. Actually everything remains in the old condition, even in\nthe presence of such \"influence\": men talk a little while of a new\nthing, and then of some other new thing, and in the meantime they do\nwhat they have always done. The historical training of our critics\nprevents their having an influence in the true sense, an influence on\nlife and action. They put their blotting paper on the blackest\nwriting, and their thick brushes over the gracefullest designs; these\nthey call \"corrections\";--and that is all. Their critical pens never\ncease to fly, for they have lost power over them; they are driven by\ntheir pens instead of driving them. The weakness of modern\npersonality comes out well in the measureless overflow of criticism,\nin the want of self-mastery, and in what the Romans called\n_impotentia_.\n\n\nVI.\n\nBut leaving these weaklings, let us turn rather to a point of\nstrength for which the modern man is famous. Let us ask the painful\nquestion whether he has the right in virtue of his historical\n\"objectivity\" to call himself strong and just in a higher degree than\nthe man of another age. Is it true that this objectivity has its\nsource in a heightened sense of the need for justice? Or, being\nreally an effect of quite other causes, does it only have the\nappearance of coming from justice, and really lead to an unhealthy\nprejudice in favour of the modern man? Socrates thought it near\nmadness to imagine one possessed a virtue without really possessing\nit. Such imagination has certainly more danger in it than the\ncontrary madness of a positive vice. For of this there is still a\ncure; but the other makes a man or a time daily worse, and therefore\nmore unjust.\n\nNo one has a higher claim to our reverence than the man with the\nfeeling and the strength for justice. For the highest and rarest\nvirtues unite and are lost in it, as an unfathomable sea absorbs the\nstreams that flow from every side. The hand of the just man, who is\ncalled to sit in judgment, trembles no more when it holds the scales:\nhe piles the weights inexorably against his own side, his eyes are\nnot dimmed as the balance rises and falls, and his voice is neither\nhard nor broken when he pronounces the sentence. Were he a cold demon\nof knowledge, he would cast round him the icy atmosphere of an awful,\nsuperhuman majesty, that we should fear, not reverence. But he is a\nman, and has tried to rise from a careless doubt to a strong\ncertainty, from gentle tolerance to the imperative \"thou must\"; from\nthe rare virtue of magnanimity to the rarest, of justice. He has come\nto be like that demon without being more than a poor mortal at the\noutset; above all, he has to atone to himself for his humanity and\ntragically shatter his own nature on the rock of an impossible\nvirtue.--All this places him on a lonely height as the most reverend\nexample of the human race. For truth is his aim, not in the form of\ncold intellectual knowledge, but the truth of the judge who punishes\naccording to law; not as the selfish possession of an individual, but\nthe sacred authority that removes the boundary stones from all\nselfish possessions; truth, in a word, as the tribunal of the world,\nand not as the chance prey of a single hunter. The search for truth\nis often thoughtlessly praised: but it only has anything great in it\nif the seeker have the sincere unconditional will for justice. Its\nroots are in justice alone: but a whole crowd of different motives\nmay combine in the search for it, that have nothing to do with truth\nat all; curiosity, for example, or dread of ennui, envy, vanity, or\namusement. Thus the world seems to be full of men who \"serve truth\":\nand yet the virtue of justice is seldom present, more seldom known,\nand almost always mortally hated. On the other hand a throng of sham\nvirtues has entered in at all times with pomp and honour.\n\nFew in truth serve truth, as only few have the pure will for justice;\nand very few even of these have the strength to be just. The will\nalone is not enough: the impulse to justice without the power of\njudgment has been the cause of the greatest suffering to men. And\nthus the common good could require nothing better than for the seed\nof this power to be strewn as widely as possible, that the fanatic\nmay be distinguished from the true judge, and the blind desire from\nthe conscious power. But there are no means of planting a power of\njudgment: and so when one speaks to men of truth and justice, they\nwill be ever troubled by the doubt whether it be the fanatic or the\njudge who is speaking to them. And they must be pardoned for always\ntreating the \"servants of truth\" with special kindness, who possess\nneither the will nor the power to judge and have set before them the\ntask of finding \"pure knowledge without reference to consequences,\"\nknowledge, in plain terms, that comes to nothing. There are very many\ntruths which are unimportant; problems that require no struggle to\nsolve, to say nothing of sacrifice. And in this safe realm of\nindifference a man may very successfully become a \"cold demon of\nknowledge.\" And yet--if we find whole regiments of learned inquirers\nbeing turned to such demons in some age specially favourable to them,\nit is always unfortunately possible that the age is lacking in a\ngreat and strong sense of justice, the noblest spring of the\nso-called impulse to truth.\n\nConsider the historical virtuoso of the present time: is he the\njustest man of his age? True, he has developed in himself such a\ndelicacy and sensitiveness that \"nothing human is alien to him.\"\nTimes and persons most widely separated come together in the concords\nof his lyre. He has become a passive instrument, whose tones find an\necho in similar instruments: until the whole atmosphere of a time is\nfilled with such echoes, all buzzing in one soft chord. Yet I think\none only hears the overtones of the original historical note: its\nrough powerful quality can be no longer guessed from these thin and\nshrill vibrations. The original note sang of action, need, and\nterror; the overtone lulls us into a soft dilettante sleep. It is as\nthough the heroic symphony had been arranged for two flutes for the\nuse of dreaming opium-smokers. We can now judge how these virtuosi\nstand towards the claim of the modern man to a higher and purer\nconception of justice. This virtue has never a pleasing quality; it\nnever charms; it is harsh and strident. Generosity stands very low on\nthe ladder of the virtues in comparison; and generosity is the mark\nof a few rare historians! Most of them only get as far as tolerance,\nin other words they leave what cannot be explained away, they correct\nit and touch it up condescendingly, on the tacit assumption that the\nnovice will count it as justice if the past be narrated without\nharshness or open expressions of hatred. But only superior strength\ncan really judge; weakness must tolerate, if it do not pretend to be\nstrength and turn justice to a play-actress. There is still a\ndreadful class of historians remaining--clever, stern and honest, but\nnarrow-minded: who have the \"good will\" to be just with a pathetic\nbelief in their actual judgments, which are all false; for the same\nreason, almost, as the verdicts of the usual juries are false. How\ndifficult it is to find a real historical talent, if we exclude all\nthe disguised egoists, and the partisans who pretend to take up an\nimpartial attitude for the sake of their own unholy game! And we also\nexclude the thoughtless folk who write history in the na\u00efve faith\nthat justice resides in the popular view of their time, and that to\nwrite in the spirit of the time is to be just; a faith that is found\nin all religions, and which, in religion, serves very well. The\nmeasurement of the opinions and deeds of the past by the universal\nopinions of the present is called \"objectivity\" by these simple\npeople: they find the canon of all truth here: their work is to adapt\nthe past to the present triviality. And they call all historical\nwriting \"subjective\" that does not regard these popular opinions as\ncanonical.\n\nMight not an illusion lurk in the highest interpretation of the word\nobjectivity? We understand by it a certain standpoint in the\nhistorian, who sees the procession of motive and consequence too\nclearly for it to have an effect on his own personality. We think of\nthe \u00e6sthetic phenomenon of the detachment from all personal concern\nwith which the painter sees the picture and forgets himself, in a\nstormy landscape, amid thunder and lightning, or on a rough sea: and\nwe require the same artistic vision and absorption in his object from\nthe historian. But it is only a superstition to say that the picture\ngiven to such a man by the object really shows the truth of things.\nUnless it be that objects are expected in such moments to paint or\nphotograph themselves by their own activity on a purely passive\nmedium!\n\nBut this would be a myth, and a bad one at that. One forgets that\nthis moment is actually the powerful and spontaneous moment of\ncreation in the artist, of \"composition\" in its highest form, of\nwhich the result will be an artistically, but not an historically,\ntrue picture. To think objectively, in this sense, of history is the\nwork of the dramatist: to think one thing with another, and weave the\nelements into a single whole; with the presumption that the unity of\nplan must be put into the objects if it be not already there. So man\nveils and subdues the past, and expresses his impulse to art--but not\nhis impulse to truth or justice. Objectivity and justice have nothing\nto do with each other. There could be a kind of historical writing\nthat had no drop of common fact in it and yet could claim to be\ncalled in the highest degree objective. Grillparzer goes so far as to\nsay that \"history is nothing but the manner in which the spirit of\nman apprehends facts that are obscure to him, links things together\nwhose connection heaven only knows, replaces the unintelligible by\nsomething intelligible, puts his own ideas of causation into the\nexternal world, which can perhaps be explained only from within: and\nassumes the existence of chance, where thousands of small causes may\nbe really at work. Each man has his own individual needs, and so\nmillions of tendencies are running together, straight or crooked,\nparallel or across, forward or backward, helping or hindering each\nother. They have all the appearance of chance, and make it\nimpossible, quite apart from all natural influences, to establish any\nuniversal lines on which past events must have run.\" But as a result\nof this so-called \"objective\" way of looking at things, such a \"must\"\nought to be made clear. It is a presumption that takes a curious form\nif adopted by the historian as a dogma. Schiller is quite clear about\nits truly subjective nature when he says of the historian, \"one event\nafter the other begins to draw away from blind chance and lawless\nfreedom, and take its place as the member of an harmonious\nwhole--_which is of course only apparent in its presentation_.\" But\nwhat is one to think of the innocent statement, wavering between\ntautology and nonsense, of a famous historical virtuoso? \"It seems\nthat all human actions and impulses are subordinate to the process of\nthe material world, that works unnoticed, powerfully and\nirresistibly.\" In such a sentence one no longer finds obscure wisdom\nin the form of obvious folly; as in the saying of Goethe's gardener,\n\"Nature may be forced but not compelled,\" or in the notice on the\nside-show at a fair, in Swift: \"The largest elephant in the world,\nexcept himself, to be seen here.\" For what opposition is there\nbetween human action and the process of the world? It seems to me\nthat such historians cease to be instructive as soon as they begin to\ngeneralise; their weakness is shown by their obscurity. In other\nsciences the generalisations are the most important things, as they\ncontain the laws. But if such generalisations as these are to stand\nas laws, the historian's labour is lost; for the residue of truth,\nafter the obscure and insoluble part is removed, is nothing but the\ncommonest knowledge. The smallest range of experience will teach it.\nBut to worry whole peoples for the purpose, and spend many hard years\nof work on it, is like crowding one scientific experiment on another\nlong after the law can be deduced from the results already obtained:\nand this absurd excess of experiment has been the bane of all natural\nscience since Zollner. If the value of a drama lay merely in its\nfinal scene, the drama itself would be a very long, crooked and\nlaborious road to the goal: and I hope history will not find its\nwhole significance in general propositions, and regard them as its\nblossom and fruit. On the contrary, its real value lies in inventing\ningenious variations on a probably commonplace theme, in raising the\npopular melody to a universal symbol and showing what a world of\ndepth, power and beauty exists in it.\n\nBut this requires above all a great artistic faculty, a creative\nvision from a height, the loving study of the data of experience, the\nfree elaborating of a given type,--objectivity in fact, though this\ntime as a positive quality. Objectivity is so often merely a phrase.\nInstead of the quiet gaze of the artist that is lit by an inward\nflame, we have an affectation of tranquillity; just as a cold\ndetachment may mask a lack of moral feeling. In some cases a\ntriviality of thought, the everyday wisdom that is too dull not to\nseem calm and disinterested, comes to represent the artistic\ncondition in which the subjective side has quite sunk out of sight.\nEverything is favoured that does not rouse emotion, and the driest\nphrase is the correct one. They go so far as to accept a man who is\n_not affected at all_ by some particular moment in the past as the\nright man to describe it. This is the usual relation of the Greeks\nand the classical scholars. They have nothing to do with each\nother--and this is called \"objectivity\"! The intentional air of\ndetachment that is assumed for effect, the sober art of the\nsuperficial motive-hunter is most exasperating when the highest and\nrarest things are in question; and it is the _vanity_ of the\nhistorian that drives him to this attitude of indifference. He goes\nto justify the axiom that a man's vanity corresponds to his lack of\nwit. No, be honest at any rate! Do not pretend to the artist's\nstrength, that is the real objectivity; do not try to be just, if you\nare not born to that dread vocation. As if it were the task of every\ntime to be just to everything before it! Ages and generations have\nnever the right to be the judges of all previous ages and\ngenerations: only to the rarest men in them can that difficult\nmission fall. Who compels you to judge? If it is your wish--you must\nprove first that you are capable of justice. As judges, you must\nstand higher than that which is to be judged: as it is, you have only\ncome later. The guests that come last to the table should rightly\ntake the last places: and will you take the first? Then do some great\nand mighty deed: the place may be prepared for you then, even though\nyou do come last.\n\n_You can only explain the past by what is highest in the present._\nOnly by straining the noblest qualities you have to their highest\npower will you find out what is greatest in the past, most worth\nknowing and preserving. Like by like! otherwise you will draw the\npast to your own level. Do not believe any history that does not\nspring from the mind of a rare spirit. You will know the quality of\nthe spirit, by its being forced to say something universal, or to\nrepeat something that is known already; the fine historian must have\nthe power of coining the known into a thing never heard before and\nproclaiming the universal so simply and profoundly that the simple is\nlost in the profound, and the profound in the simple. No one can be a\ngreat historian and artist, and a shallowpate at the same time. But\none must not despise the workers who sift and cast together the\nmaterial because they can never become great historians. They must,\nstill less, be confounded with them, for they are the necessary\nbricklayers and apprentices in the service of the master: just as the\nFrench used to speak, more na\u00efvely than a German would, of the\n\"historiens de M. Thiers.\" These workmen should gradually become\nextremely learned, but never, for that reason, turn to be masters.\nGreat learning and great shallowness go together very well under one\nhat.\n\nThus, history is to be written by the man of experience and\ncharacter. He who has not lived through something greater and nobler\nthan others, will not be able to explain anything great and noble in\nthe past. The language of the past is always oracular: you will only\nunderstand it as builders of the future who know the present. We can\nonly explain the extraordinarily wide influence of Delphi by the fact\nthat the Delphic priests had an exact knowledge of the past: and,\nsimilarly, only he who is building up the future has a right to judge\nthe past. If you set a great aim before your eyes, you control at the\nsame time the itch for analysis that makes the present into a desert\nfor you, and all rest, all peaceful growth and ripening, impossible.\nHedge yourselves with a great, all-embracing hope, and strive on.\nMake of yourselves a mirror where the future may see itself, and\nforget the superstition that you are Epigoni. You have enough to\nponder and find out, in pondering the life of the future: but do not\nask history to show you the means and the instrument to it. If you\nlive yourselves back into the history of great men, you will find in\nit the high command to come to maturity and leave that blighting\nsystem of cultivation offered by your time: which sees its own profit\nin not allowing you to become ripe, that it may use and dominate you\nwhile you are yet unripe. And if you want biographies, do not look\nfor those with the legend \"Mr. So-and-so and his times,\" but for one\nwhose title-page might be inscribed \"a fighter against his time.\"\nFeast your souls on Plutarch, and dare to believe in yourselves when\nyou believe in his heroes. A hundred such men--educated against the\nfashion of to-day, made familiar with the heroic, and come to\nmaturity--are enough to give an eternal quietus to the noisy sham\neducation of this time.\n\n\nVII.\n\nThe unrestrained historical sense, pushed to its logical extreme,\nuproots the future, because it destroys illusions and robs existing\nthings of the only atmosphere in which they can live. Historical\njustice, even if practised conscientiously, with a pure heart, is\ntherefore a dreadful virtue, because it always undermines and ruins\nthe living thing: its judgment always means annihilation. If there be\nno constructive impulse behind the historical one, if the clearance\nof rubbish be not merely to leave the ground free for the hopeful\nliving future to build its house, if justice alone be supreme, the\ncreative instinct is sapped and discouraged. A religion, for example,\nthat has to be turned into a matter of historical knowledge by the\npower of pure justice, and to be scientifically studied throughout,\nis destroyed at the end of it all. For the historical audit brings so\nmuch to light which is false and absurd, violent and inhuman, that\nthe condition of pious illusion falls to pieces. And a thing can only\nlive through a pious illusion. For man is creative only through love\nand in the shadow of love's illusions, only through the unconditional\nbelief in perfection and righteousness. Everything that forces a man\nto be no longer unconditioned in his love, cuts at the root of his\nstrength: he must wither, and be dishonoured. Art has the opposite\neffect to history: and only perhaps if history suffer transformation\ninto a pure work of art, can it preserve instincts or arouse them.\nSuch history would be quite against the analytical and inartistic\ntendencies of our time, and even be considered false. But the history\nthat merely destroys without any impulse to construct, will in the\nlong-run make its instruments tired of life; for such men destroy\nillusions, and \"he who destroys illusions in himself and others is\npunished by the ultimate tyrant, Nature.\" For a time a man can take\nup history like any other study, and it will be perfectly harmless.\nRecent theology seems to have entered quite innocently into\npartnership with history, and scarcely sees even now that it has\nunwittingly bound itself to the Voltairean _\u00e9crasez_! No one need\nexpect from that any new and powerful constructive impulse: they\nmight as well have let the so-called Protestant Union serve as the\ncradle of a new religion, and the jurist Holtzendorf, the editor of\nthe far more dubiously named Protestant Bible, be its John the\nBaptist. This state of innocence may be continued for some time by\nthe Hegelian philosophy,--still seething in some of the older\nheads,--by which men can distinguish the \"idea of Christianity\" from\nits various imperfect \"manifestations\"; and persuade themselves that\nit is the \"self-movement of the Idea\" that is ever particularising\nitself in purer and purer forms, and at last becomes the purest, most\ntransparent, in fact scarcely visible form in the brain of the\npresent _theologus liberalis vulgaris_. But to listen to this pure\nChristianity speaking its mind about the earlier impure Christianity,\nthe uninitiated hearer would often get the impression that the talk\nwas not of Christianity at all but of ...--what are we to think? if\nwe find Christianity described by the \"greatest theologians of the\ncentury\" as the religion that claims to \"find itself in all real\nreligions and some other barely possible religions,\" and if the \"true\nchurch\" is to be a thing \"which may become a liquid mass with no\nfixed outline, with no fixed place for its different parts, but\neverything to be peacefully welded together\"--what, I ask again, are\nwe to think?\n\nChristianity has been denaturalised by historical treatment--which in\nits most complete form means \"just\" treatment--until it has been\nresolved into pure knowledge and destroyed in the process. This can\nbe studied in everything that has life. For it ceases to have life if\nit be perfectly dissected, and lives in pain and anguish as soon as\nthe historical dissection begins. There are some who believe in the\nsaving power of German music to revolutionise the German nature. They\nangrily exclaim against the special injustice done to our culture,\nwhen such men as Mozart and Beethoven are beginning to be spattered\nwith the learned mud of the biographers and forced to answer a\nthousand searching questions on the rack of historical criticism. Is\nit not premature death, or at least mutilation, for anything whose\nliving influence is not yet exhausted, when men turn their curious\neyes to the little minuti\u00e6 of life and art, and look for problems of\nknowledge where one ought to learn to live, and forget problems? Set\na couple of these modern biographers to consider the origins of\nChristianity or the Lutheran reformation: their sober, practical\ninvestigations would be quite sufficient to make all spiritual\n\"action at a distance\" impossible: just as the smallest animal can\nprevent the growth of the mightiest oak by simply eating up the\nacorn. All living things need an atmosphere, a mysterious mist,\naround them. If that veil be taken away and a religion, an art, or a\ngenius condemned to revolve like a star without an atmosphere, we\nmust not be surprised if it becomes hard and unfruitful, and soon\nwithers. It is so with all great things \"that never prosper without\nsome illusion,\" as Hans Sachs says in the Meistersinger.\n\nEvery people, every man even, who would become ripe, needs such a\nveil of illusion, such a protecting cloud. But now men hate to become\nripe, for they honour history above life. They cry in triumph that\n\"science is now beginning to rule life.\" Possibly it might; but a\nlife thus ruled is not of much value. It is not such true _life_, and\npromises much less for the future than the life that used to be\nguided not by science, but by instincts and powerful illusions. But\nthis is not to be the age of ripe, alert and harmonious\npersonalities, but of work that may be of most use to the\ncommonwealth. Men are to be fashioned to the needs of the time, that\nthey may soon take their place in the machine. They must work in the\nfactory of the \"common good\" before they are ripe, or rather to\nprevent them becoming ripe; for this would be a luxury that would\ndraw away a deal of power from the \"labour market.\" Some birds are\nblinded that they may sing better; I do not think men sing to-day\nbetter than their grandfathers, though I am sure they are blinded\nearly. But light, too clear, too sudden and dazzling, is the infamous\nmeans used to blind them. The young man is kicked through all the\ncenturies: boys who know nothing of war, diplomacy, or commerce are\nconsidered fit to be introduced to political history. We moderns also\nrun through art galleries and hear concerts in the same way as the\nyoung man runs through history. We can feel that one thing sounds\ndifferently from another, and pronounce on the different \"effects.\"\nAnd the power of gradually losing all feelings of strangeness or\nastonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the\nhistorical sense, or historical culture. The crowd of influences\nstreaming on the young soul is so great, the clods of barbarism and\nviolence flung at him so strange and overwhelming, that an assumed\nstupidity is his only refuge. Where there is a subtler and stronger\nself-consciousness we find another emotion too--disgust. The young\nman has become homeless: he doubts all ideas, all moralities. He\nknows \"it was different in every age, and what you are does not\nmatter.\" In a heavy apathy he lets opinion on opinion pass by him,\nand understands the meaning of H\u00f6lderlin's words when he read the\nwork of Diogenes Laertius on the lives and doctrines of the Greek\nphilosophers: \"I have seen here too what has often occurred to me,\nthat the change and waste in men's thoughts and systems is far more\ntragic than the fates that overtake what men are accustomed to call\nthe only realities.\" No, such study of history bewilders and\noverwhelms. It is not necessary for youth, as the ancients show, but\neven in the highest degree dangerous, as the moderns show. Consider\nthe historical student, the heir of ennui, that appears even in his\nboyhood. He has the \"methods\" for original work, the \"correct ideas\"\nand the airs of the master at his fingers' ends. A little isolated\nperiod of the past is marked out for sacrifice. He cleverly applies\nhis method, and produces something, or rather, in prouder phrase,\n\"creates\" something. He becomes a \"servant of truth\" and a ruler in\nthe great domain of history. If he was what they call ripe as a boy,\nhe is now over-ripe. You only need shake him and wisdom will rattle\ndown into your lap; but the wisdom is rotten, and every apple has its\nworm. Believe me, if men work in the factory of science and have to\nmake themselves useful before they are really ripe, science is ruined\nas much as the slaves who have been employed too soon. I am sorry to\nuse the common jargon about slave-owners and taskmasters in respect\nof such conditions, that might be thought free from any economic\ntaint: but the words \"factory, labour-market, auction-sale, practical\nuse,\" and all the auxiliaries of egoism, come involuntarily to the\nlips in describing the younger generation of savants. Successful\nmediocrity tends to become still more mediocre, science still more\n\"useful.\" Our modern savants are only wise on one subject, in all the\nrest they are, to say the least, different from those of the old\nstamp. In spite of that they demand honour and profit for themselves,\nas if the state and public opinion were bound to take the new coinage\nfor the same value as the old. The carters have made a trade-compact\namong themselves, and settled that genius is superfluous, for every\ncarrier is being re-stamped as one. And probably a later age will see\nthat their edifices are only carted together and not built. To those\nwho have ever on their lips the modern cry of battle and\nsacrifice--\"Division of labour! fall into line!\" we may say roundly:\n\"If you try to further the progress of science as quickly as\npossible, you will end by destroying it as quickly as possible; just\nas the hen is worn out which you force to lay too many eggs.\" The\nprogress of science has been amazingly rapid in the last decade; but\nconsider the savants, those exhausted hens. They are certainly not\n\"harmonious\" natures: they can merely cackle more than before,\nbecause they lay eggs oftener: but the eggs are always smaller,\nthough their books are bigger. The natural result of it all is the\nfavourite \"popularising\" of science (or rather its feminising and\ninfantising), the villainous habit of cutting the cloth of science to\nfit the figure of the \"general public.\" Goethe saw the abuse in this,\nand demanded that science should only influence the outer world by\nway of _a nobler ideal of action_. The older generation of savants\nhad good reason for thinking this abuse an oppressive burden: the\nmodern savants have an equally good reason for welcoming it, because,\nleaving their little corner of knowledge out of account, they are\npart of the \"general public\" themselves, and its needs are theirs.\nThey only require to take themselves less seriously to be able to\nopen their little kingdom successfully to popular curiosity. This\neasy-going behaviour is called \"the modest condescension of the\nsavant to the people\"; whereas in reality he has only \"descended\" to\nhimself, so far as he is not a savant but a plebeian. Rise to the\nconception of a people, you learned men; you can never have one noble\nor high enough. If you thought much of the people, you would have\ncompassion towards them, and shrink from offering your historical\naquafortis as a refreshing drink. But you really think very little of\nthem, for you dare not take any reasonable pains for their future;\nand you act like practical pessimists, men who feel the coming\ncatastrophe and become indifferent and careless of their own and\nothers' existence. \"If only the earth last for us: and if it do not\nlast, it is no matter.\" Thus they come to live an _ironical_\nexistence.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nIt may seem a paradox, though it is none, that I should attribute a\nkind of \"ironical self-consciousness\" to an age that is generally so\nhonestly, and clamorously, vain of its historical training; and\nshould see a suspicion hovering near it that there is really nothing\nto be proud of, and a fear lest the time for rejoicing at historical\nknowledge may soon have gone by. Goethe has shown a similar riddle in\nman's nature, in his remarkable study of Newton: he finds a \"troubled\nfeeling of his own error\" at the base--or rather on the height--of\nhis being, just as if he was conscious at times of having a deeper\ninsight into things, that vanished the moment after. This gave him a\ncertain ironical view of his own nature. And one finds that the\ngreater and more developed \"historical men\" are conscious of all the\nsuperstition and absurdity in the belief that a people's education\nneed be so extremely historical as it is; the mightiest nations,\nmightiest in action and influence, have lived otherwise, and their\nyouth has been trained otherwise. The knowledge gives a sceptical\nturn to their minds. \"The absurdity and superstition,\" these sceptics\nsay, \"suit men like ourselves, who come as the latest withered shoots\nof a gladder and mightier stock, and fulfil Hesiod's prophecy, that\nmen will one day be born gray-headed, and that Zeus will destroy that\ngeneration as soon as the sign be visible.\" Historical culture is\nreally a kind of inherited grayness, and those who have borne its\nmark from childhood must believe instinctively in _the old age of\nmankind_. To old age belongs the old man's business of looking back\nand casting up his accounts, of seeking consolation in the memories\nof the past,--in historical culture. But the human race is tough and\npersistent, and will not admit that the lapse of a thousand years, or\na hundred thousand, entitles any one to sum up its progress from the\npast to the future; that is, it will not be observed as a whole at\nall by that infinitesimal atom, the individual man. What is there in\na couple of thousand years--the period of thirty-four consecutive\nhuman lives of sixty years each--to make us speak of youth at the\nbeginning, and \"the old age of mankind\" at the end of them? Does not\nthis paralysing belief in a fast-fading humanity cover the\nmisunderstanding of a theological idea, inherited from the Middle\nAges, that the end of the world is approaching and we are waiting\nanxiously for the judgment? Does not the increasing demand for\nhistorical judgment give us that idea in a new dress? as if our time\nwere the latest possible time, and commanded to hold that universal\njudgment of the past, which the Christian never expected from a man,\nbut from \"the Son of Man.\" The _memento mori_, spoken to humanity as\nwell as the individual, was a sting that never ceased to pain, the\ncrown of medi\u00e6val knowledge and consciousness.\n\nThe opposite message of a later time, _memento vivere_, is spoken\nrather timidly, without the full power of the lungs; and there is\nsomething almost dishonest about it. For mankind still keeps to its\n_memento mori_, and shows it by the universal need for history;\nscience may flap its wings as it will, it has never been able to gain\nthe free air. A deep feeling of hopelessness has remained, and taken\nthe historical colouring that has now darkened and depressed all\nhigher education. A religion that, of all the hours of man's life,\nthinks the last the most important, that has prophesied the end of\nearthly life and condemned all creatures to live in the fifth act of\na tragedy, may call forth the subtlest and noblest powers of man, but\nit is an enemy to all new planting, to all bold attempts or free\naspirations. It opposes all flight into the unknown, because it has\nno life or hope there itself. It only lets the new bud press forth on\nsufferance, to blight it in its own good time: \"it might lead life\nastray and give it a false value.\" What the Florentines did under the\ninfluence of Savonarola's exhortations, when they made the famous\nholocaust of pictures, manuscripts, masks and mirrors, Christianity\nwould like to do with every culture that allured to further effort\nand bore that _memento vivere_ on its standard. And if it cannot take\nthe direct way--the way of main force--it gains its end all the same\nby allying itself with historical culture, though generally without\nits connivance; and speaking through its mouth, turns away every\nfresh birth with a shrug of its shoulders, and makes us feel all the\nmore that we are late-comers and Epigoni, that we are, in a word,\nborn with gray hair. The deep and serious contemplation of the\nunworthiness of all past action, of the world ripe for judgment, has\nbeen whittled down to the sceptical consciousness that it is anyhow a\ngood thing to know all that has happened, as it is too late to do\nanything better. The historical sense makes its servants passive and\nretrospective. Only in moments of forgetfulness, when that sense is\ndormant, does the man who is sick of the historical fever ever act;\nthough he only analyses his deed again after it is over (which\nprevents it from having any further consequences), and finally puts\nit on the dissecting table for the purposes of history. In this sense\nwe are still living in the Middle Ages, and history is still a\ndisguised theology; just as the reverence with which the unlearned\nlayman looks on the learned class is inherited through the clergy.\nWhat men gave formerly to the Church they give now, though in smaller\nmeasure, to science. But the fact of giving at all is the work of the\nChurch, not of the modern spirit, which among its other good\nqualities has something of the miser in it, and is a bad hand at the\nexcellent virtue of liberality.\n\nThese words may not be very acceptable, any more than my derivation\nof the excess of history from the medi\u00e6val _memento mori_ and the\nhopelessness that Christianity bears in its heart towards all future\nages of earthly existence. But you should always try to replace my\nhesitating explanations by a better one. For the origin of historical\nculture, and of its absolutely radical antagonism to the spirit of a\nnew time and a \"modern consciousness,\" must itself be known by a\nhistorical process. History must solve the problem of history,\nscience must turn its sting against itself. This threefold \"must\" is\nthe imperative of the \"new spirit,\" if it is really to contain\nsomething new, powerful, vital and original. Or is it true that we\nGermans--to leave the Romance nations out of account--must always be\nmere \"followers\" in all the higher reaches of culture, because that\nis all we _can_ be? The words of Wilhelm Wackernagel are well worth\npondering: \"We Germans are a nation of 'followers,' and with all our\nhigher science and even our faith, are merely the successors of the\nancient world. Even those who are opposed to it are continually\nbreathing the immortal spirit of classical culture with that of\nChristianity: and if any one could separate these two elements from\nthe living air surrounding the soul of man, there would not be much\nremaining for a spiritual life to exist on.\" Even if we would rest\ncontent with our vocation to follow antiquity, even if we decided to\ntake it in an earnest and strenuous spirit and to show our high\nprerogative in our earnestness,--we should yet be compelled to ask\nwhether it were our eternal destiny to be pupils of a fading\nantiquity. We might be allowed at some time to put our aim higher and\nfurther above us. And after congratulating ourselves on having\nbrought that secondary spirit of Alexandrian culture in us to such\nmarvellous productiveness--through our \"universal history\"--we might\ngo on to place before us, as our noblest prize, the still higher task\nof striving beyond and above this Alexandrian world; and bravely find\nour prototypes in the ancient Greek world, where all was great,\nnatural and human. But it is just _there_ that we find the reality of\na true unhistorical culture--and in spite of that, or perhaps because\nof it, an unspeakably rich and vital culture. Were we Germans nothing\nbut followers, we could not be anything greater or prouder than the\nlineal inheritors and followers of such a culture.\n\nThis however must be added. The thought of being Epigoni, that is\noften a torture, can yet create a spring of hope for the future, to\nthe individual as well as the people: so far, that is, as we can\nregard ourselves as the heirs and followers of the marvellous\nclassical power, and see therein both our honour and our spur. But\nnot as the late and bitter fruit of a powerful stock, giving that\nstock a further spell of cold life, as antiquaries and grave-diggers.\nSuch late-comers live truly an ironical existence. Annihilation\nfollows their halting walk on tiptoe through life. They shudder\nbefore it in the midst of their rejoicing over the past. They are\nliving memories, and their own memories have no meaning; for there\nare none to inherit them. And thus they are wrapped in the melancholy\nthought that their life is an injustice, which no future life can set\nright again.\n\nSuppose that these antiquaries, these late arrivals, were to change\ntheir painful ironic modesty for a certain shamelessness. Suppose we\nheard them saying, aloud, \"The race is at its zenith, for it has\nmanifested itself consciously for the first time.\" We should have a\ncomedy, in which the dark meaning of a certain very celebrated\nphilosophy would unroll itself for the benefit of German culture. I\nbelieve there has been no dangerous turning-point in the progress of\nGerman culture in this century that has not been made more dangerous\nby the enormous and still living influence of this Hegelian\nphilosophy. The belief that one is a late-comer in the world is,\nanyhow, harmful and degrading: but it must appear frightful and\ndevastating when it raises our late-comer to godhead, by a neat turn\nof the wheel, as the true meaning and object of all past creation,\nand his conscious misery is set up as the perfection of the world's\nhistory. Such a point of view has accustomed the Germans to talk of a\n\"world-process,\" and justify their own time as its necessary result.\nAnd it has put history in the place of the other spiritual powers,\nart and religion, as the one sovereign; inasmuch as it is the \"Idea\nrealising itself,\" the \"Dialectic of the spirit of the nations,\" and\nthe \"tribunal of the world.\"\n\nHistory understood in this Hegelian way has been contemptuously\ncalled God's sojourn upon earth,--though the God was first created by\nthe history. He, at any rate, became transparent and intelligible\ninside Hegelian skulls, and has risen through all the dialectically\npossible steps in his being up to the manifestation of the Self: so\nthat for Hegel the highest and final stage of the world-process came\ntogether in his own Berlin existence. He ought to have said that\neverything after him was merely to be regarded as the musical coda of\nthe great historical rondo,--or rather, as simply superfluous. He has\nnot said it; and thus he has implanted in a generation leavened\nthroughout by him the worship of the \"power of history,\" that\npractically turns every moment into a sheer gaping at success, into\nan idolatry of the actual: for which we have now discovered the\ncharacteristic phrase \"to adapt ourselves to circumstances.\" But the\nman who has once learnt to crook the knee and bow the head before the\npower of history, nods \"yes\" at last, like a Chinese doll, to every\npower, whether it be a government or a public opinion or a numerical\nmajority; and his limbs move correctly as the power pulls the string.\nIf each success have come by a \"rational necessity,\" and every event\nshow the victory of logic or the \"Idea,\" then--down on your knees\nquickly, and let every step in the ladder of success have its\nreverence! There are no more living mythologies, you say? Religions\nare at their last gasp? Look at the religion of the power of history,\nand the priests of the mythology of Ideas, with their scarred knees!\nDo not all the virtues follow in the train of the new faith? And\nshall we not call it unselfishness, when the historical man lets\nhimself be turned into an \"objective\" mirror of all that is? Is it\nnot magnanimity to renounce all power in heaven and earth in order to\nadore the mere fact of power? Is it not justice, always to hold the\nbalance of forces in your hands and observe which is the stronger and\nheavier? And what a school of politeness is such a contemplation of\nthe past! To take everything objectively, to be angry at nothing, to\nlove nothing, to understand everything--makes one gentle and pliable.\nEven if a man brought up in this school will show himself openly\noffended, one is just as pleased, knowing it is only meant in the\nartistic sense of _ira et studium_, though it is really _sine ira et\nstudio_.\n\nWhat old-fashioned thoughts I have on such a combination of virtue\nand mythology! But they must out, however one may laugh at them. I\nwould even say that history always teaches--\"it was once,\" and\nmorality--\"it ought not to be, or have been.\" So history becomes a\ncompendium of actual immorality. But how wrong would one be to regard\nhistory as the judge of this actual immorality! Morality is offended\nby the fact that a Raphael had to die at thirty-six; such a being\nought not to die. If you came to the help of history, as the\napologists of the actual, you would say: \"he had spoken everything\nthat was in him to speak, a longer life would only have enabled him\nto create a similar beauty, and not a new beauty,\" and so on. Thus\nyou become an _advocatus diaboli_ by setting up the success, the\nfact, as your idol: whereas the fact is always dull, at all times\nmore like calf than a god. Your apologies for history are helped by\nignorance: for it is only because you do not know what a _natura\nnaturans_ like Raphael is, that you are not on fire when you think it\nexisted once and can never exist again. Some one has lately tried to\ntell us that Goethe had out-lived himself with his eighty-two years:\nand yet I would gladly take two of Goethe's \"out-lived\" years in\nexchange for whole cartloads of fresh modern lifetimes, to have\nanother set of such conversations as those with Eckermann, and be\npreserved from all the \"modern\" talk of these esquires of the moment.\nHow few living men have a right to live, as against those mighty\ndead! That the many live and those few live no longer, is simply a\nbrutal truth, that is, a piece of unalterable folly, a blank wall of\n\"it was once so\" against the moral judgment \"it ought not to have\nbeen.\" Yes, against the moral judgment! For you may speak of what\nvirtue you will, of justice, courage, magnanimity, of wisdom and\nhuman compassion,--you will find the virtuous man will always rise\nagainst the blind force of facts, the tyranny of the actual, and\nsubmit himself to laws that are not the fickle laws of history. He\never swims against the waves of history, either by fighting his\npassions, as the nearest brute facts of his existence, or by training\nhimself to honesty amid the glittering nets spun round him by\nfalsehood. Were history nothing more than the \"all-embracing system\nof passion and error,\" man would have to read it as Goethe wished\nWerther to be read;--just as if it called to him, \"Be a man and\nfollow me not!\" But fortunately history also keeps alive for us the\nmemory of the great \"fighters against history,\" that is, against the\nblind power of the actual; it puts itself in the pillory just by\nglorifying the true historical nature in men who troubled themselves\nvery little about the \"thus it is,\" in order that they might follow a\n\"thus it must be\" with greater joy and greater pride. Not to drag\ntheir generation to the grave, but to found a new one--that is the\nmotive that ever drives them onward; and even if they are born late,\nthere is a way of living by which they can forget it--and future\ngenerations will know them only as the first-comers.\n\n\nIX.\n\nIs perhaps our time such a \"first-comer\"? Its historical sense is so\nstrong, and has such universal and boundless expression, that future\ntimes will commend it, if only for this, as a first-comer--if there\nbe any future time, in the sense of future culture. But here comes a\ngrave doubt. Close to the modern man's pride there stands his irony\nabout himself, his consciousness that he must live in a historical,\nor twilit, atmosphere, the fear that he can retain none of his\nyouthful hopes and powers. Here and there one goes further into\ncynicism, and justifies the course of history, nay, the whole\nevolution of the world, as simply leading up to the modern man,\naccording to the cynical canon:--\"what you see now had to come, man\nhad to be thus and not otherwise, no one can stand against this\nnecessity.\" He who cannot rest in a state of irony flies for refuge\nto the cynicism. The last decade makes him a present of one of its\nmost beautiful inventions, a full and well-rounded phrase for this\ncynicism: he calls his way of living thoughtlessly and after the\nfashion of his time, \"the full surrender of his personality to the\nworld-process.\" The personality and the world-process! The\nworld-process and the personality of the earthworm! If only one did\nnot eternally hear the word \"world, world, world,\" that hyperbole of\nall hyperboles; when we should only speak, in a decent manner, of\n\"man, man, man\"! Heirs of the Greeks and Romans, of Christianity? All\nthat seems nothing to the cynics. But \"heirs of the world-process\";\nthe final target of the world-process; the meaning and solution of\nall riddles of the universe, the ripest fruit on the tree of\nknowledge!--that is what I call a right noble thought: by this token\nare the firstlings of every time to be known, although they may have\narrived last. The historical imagination has never flown so far, even\nin a dream; for now the history of man is merely the continuation of\nthat of animals and plants: the universal historian finds traces of\nhimself even in the utter depths of the sea, in the living slime. He\nstands astounded in face of the enormous way that man has run, and\nhis gaze quivers before the mightier wonder, the modern man who can\nsee all this way! He stands proudly on the pyramid of the\nworld-process: and while he lays the final stone of his knowledge, he\nseems to cry aloud to listening Nature: \"We are at the top, we are\nthe top, we are the completion of Nature!\"\n\nO thou too proud European of the nineteenth century, art thou not\nmad? Thy knowledge does not complete Nature, it only kills thine own\nnature! Measure the height of what thou knowest by the depths of thy\npower to _do_. Thou climbest the sunbeams of knowledge up towards\nheaven--but also down to Chaos. Thy manner of going is fatal to thee;\nthe ground slips from under thy feet into the unknown; thy life has\nno other stay, but only spider's webs that every new stroke of thy\nknowledge tears asunder.--But not another serious word about this,\nfor there is a lighter side to it all.\n\nThe moralist, the artist, the saint and the statesman may well be\ntroubled, when they see that all foundations are breaking up in mad\nunconscious ruin, and resolving themselves into the ever flowing\nstream of becoming; that all creation is being tirelessly spun into\nwebs of history by the modern man, the great spider in the mesh of\nthe world-net. We ourselves may be glad for once in a way that we see\nit all in the shining magic mirror of a philosophical parodist, in\nwhose brain the time has come to an ironical consciousness of itself,\nto a point even of wickedness, in Goethe's phrase. Hegel once said,\n\"when the spirit makes a fresh start, we philosophers are at hand.\"\nOur time did make a fresh start--into irony, and lo! Edward von\nHartmann was at hand, with his famous Philosophy of the\nUnconscious--or, more plainly, his philosophy of unconscious irony.\nWe have seldom read a more jovial production, a greater philosophical\njoke than Hartmann's book. Any one whom it does not fully enlighten\nabout \"becoming,\" who is not swept and garnished throughout by it, is\nready to become a monument of the past himself. The beginning and end\nof the world-process, from the first throb of consciousness to its\nfinal leap into nothingness, with the task of our generation settled\nfor it;--all drawn from that clever fount of inspiration, the\nUnconscious, and glittering in Apocalyptic light, imitating an honest\nseriousness to the life, as if it were a serious philosophy and not a\nhuge joke,--such a system shows its creator to be one of the first\nphilosophical parodists of all time. Let us then sacrifice on his\naltar, and offer the inventor of a true universal medicine a lock of\nhair, in Schleiermacher's phrase. For what medicine would be more\nsalutary to combat the excess of historical culture than Hartmann's\nparody of the world's history?\n\nIf we wished to express in the fewest words what Hartmann really has\nto tell us from his mephitic tripod of unconscious irony, it would be\nsomething like this: our time could only remain as it is, if men\nshould become thoroughly sick of this existence. And I fervently\nbelieve he is right. The frightful petrifaction of the time, the\nrestless rattle of the ghostly bones, held na\u00efvely up to us by David\nStrauss as the most beautiful fact of all--is justified by Hartmann\nnot only from the past, _ex causis efficientibus_, but also from the\nfuture, _ex causa finali_. The rogue let light stream over our time\nfrom the last day, and saw that it was very good,--for him, that is,\nwho wishes to feel the indigestibility of life at its full strength,\nand for whom the last day cannot come quickly enough. True, Hartmann\ncalls the old age of life that mankind is approaching the \"old age of\nman\": but that is the blessed state, according to him, where there is\nonly a successful mediocrity; where art is the \"evening's amusement\nof the Berlin financier,\" and \"the time has no more need for\ngeniuses, either because it would be casting pearls before swine, or\nbecause the time has advanced beyond the stage where the geniuses are\nfound, to one more important,\" to that stage of social evolution, in\nfact, in which every worker \"leads a comfortable existence, with\nhours of work that leave him sufficient leisure to cultivate his\nintellect.\" Rogue of rogues, you say well what is the aspiration of\npresent-day mankind: but you know too what a spectre of disgust will\narise at the end of this old age of mankind, as the result of the\nintellectual culture of stolid mediocrity. It is very pitiful to see,\nbut it will be still more pitiful yet. \"Antichrist is visibly\nextending his arms:\" yet it _must be so_, for after all we are on the\nright road--of disgust at all existence. \"Forward then, boldly, with\nthe world-process, as workers in the vineyard of the Lord, for it is\nthe process alone that can lead to redemption!\"\n\nThe vineyard of the Lord! The process! To redemption! Who does not\nsee and hear in this how historical culture, that only knows the word\n\"becoming,\" parodies itself on purpose and says the most\nirresponsible things about itself through its grotesque mask? For\nwhat does the rogue mean by this cry to the workers in the vineyard?\nBy what \"work\" are they to strive boldly forward? Or, to ask another\nquestion:--what further has the historically educated fanatic of the\nworld-process to do,--swimming and drowning as he is in the sea of\nbecoming,--that he may at last gather in that vintage of disgust, the\nprecious grape of the vineyard? He has nothing to do but to live on\nas he has lived, love what he has loved, hate what he has hated, and\nread the newspapers he has always read. The only sin is for him to\nlive otherwise than he has lived. We are told how he has lived, with\nmonumental clearness, by that famous page with its large typed\nsentences, on which the whole rabble of our modern cultured folk have\nthrown themselves in blind ecstasy, because they believe they read\ntheir own justification there, haloed with an Apocalyptic light. For\nthe unconscious parodist has demanded of every one of them, \"the full\nsurrender of his personality to the world-process, for the sake of\nhis end, the redemption of the world\": or still more clearly,--\"the\nassertion of the will to live is proclaimed to be the first step on\nthe right road: for it is only in the full surrender to life and its\nsorrow, and not in the cowardice of personal renunciation and\nretreat, that anything can be done for the world-process.... The\nstriving for the denial of the individual will is as foolish as it is\nuseless, more foolish even than suicide.... The thoughtful reader\nwill understand without further explanation how a practical\nphilosophy can be erected on these principles, and that such a\nphilosophy cannot endure any disunion, but only the fullest\nreconciliation with life.\"\n\nThe thoughtful reader will understand! Then one really could\nmisunderstand Hartmann! And what a splendid joke it is, that he\nshould be misunderstood! Why should the Germans of to-day be\nparticularly subtle? A valiant Englishman looks in vain for \"delicacy\nof perception\" and dares to say that \"in the German mind there does\nseem to be something splay, something blunt-edged, unhandy and\ninfelicitous.\" Could the great German parodist contradict this?\nAccording to him, we are approaching \"that ideal condition in which\nthe human race makes its history with full consciousness\": but we are\nobviously far from the perhaps more ideal condition, in which mankind\ncan read Hartmann's book with full consciousness. If we once reach\nit, the word \"world-process\" will never pass any man's lips again\nwithout a smile. For he will remember the time when people listened\nto the mock gospel of Hartmann, sucked it in, attacked it, reverenced\nit, extended it and canonised it with all the honesty of that \"German\nmind,\" with \"the uncanny seriousness of an owl,\" as Goethe has it.\nBut the world must go forward, the ideal condition cannot be won by\ndreaming, it must be fought and wrestled for, and the way to\nredemption lies only through joyousness, the way to redemption from\nthat dull, owlish seriousness. The time will come when we shall\nwisely keep away from all constructions of the world-process, or even\nof the history of man; a time when we shall no more look at masses\nbut at individuals, who form a sort of bridge over the wan stream of\nbecoming. They may not perhaps continue a process, but they live out\nof time, as contemporaries: and thanks to history that permits such a\ncompany, they live as the Republic of geniuses of which Schopenhauer\nspeaks. One giant calls to the other across the waste spaces of time,\nand the high spirit-talk goes on, undisturbed by the wanton noisy\ndwarfs who creep among them. The task of history is to be the\nmediator between these, and even to give the motive and power to\nproduce the great man. The aim of mankind can lie ultimately only in\nits highest examples.\n\nOur low comedian has his word on this too, with his wonderful\ndialectic, which is just as genuine as its admirers are admirable.\n\"The idea of evolution cannot stand with our giving the world-process\nan endless duration in the past, for thus every conceivable evolution\nmust have taken place, which is not the case (O rogue!); and so we\ncannot allow the process an endless duration in the future. Both\nwould raise the conception of evolution to a mere ideal (And again\nrogue!), and would make the world-process like the sieve of the\nDanaides. The complete victory of the logical over the illogical (O\nthou complete rogue!) must coincide with the last day, the end in\ntime of the world-process.\" No, thou clear, scornful spirit, so long\nas the illogical rules as it does to-day,--so long, for example, as\nthe world-process can be spoken of as thou speakest of it, amid such\ndeep-throated assent,--the last day is yet far off. For it is still\ntoo joyful on this earth, many an illusion still blooms here--like\nthe illusion of thy contemporaries about thee. We are not yet ripe to\nbe hurled into thy nothingness: for we believe that we shall have a\nstill more splendid time, when men once begin to understand thee,\nthou misunderstood, unconscious one! But if, in spite of that,\ndisgust shall come throned in power, as thou hast prophesied to thy\nreaders; if thy portrayal of the present and the future shall prove\nto be right,--and no one has despised them with such loathing as\nthou,--I am ready then to cry with the majority in the form\nprescribed by thee, that next Saturday evening, punctually at twelve\no'clock, thy world shall fall to pieces. And our decree shall\nconclude thus--from to-morrow time shall not exist, and the _Times_\nshall no more be published. Perhaps it will be in vain, and our\ndecree of no avail: at any rate we have still time for a fine\nexperiment. Take a balance and put Hartmann's \"Unconscious\" in one of\nthe scales, and his \"World-process\" in the other. There are some who\nbelieve they weigh equally; for in each scale there is an evil\nword--and a good joke.\n\nWhen they are once understood, no one will take Hartmann's words on\nthe world-process as anything but a joke. It is, as a fact, high time\nto move forward with the whole battalion of satire and malice against\nthe excesses of the \"historical sense,\" the wanton love of the\nworld-process at the expense of life and existence, the blind\nconfusion of all perspective. And it will be to the credit of the\nphilosopher of the Unconscious that he has been the first to see the\nhumour of the world-process, and to succeed in making others see it\nstill more strongly by the extraordinary seriousness of his\npresentation. The existence of the \"world\" and \"humanity\" need not\ntrouble us for some time, except to provide us with a good joke: for\nthe presumption of the small earthworm is the most uproariously comic\nthing on the face of the earth. Ask thyself to what end thou art\nhere, as an individual; and if no one can tell thee, try then to\njustify the meaning of thy existence _a posteriori_, by putting\nbefore thyself a high and noble end. Perish on that rock! I know no\nbetter aim for life than to be broken on something great and\nimpossible, _anim\u00e6 magn\u00e6 prodigus_. But if we have the doctrines of\nthe finality of \"becoming,\" of the flux of all ideas, types, and\nspecies, of the lack of all radical difference between man and beast\n(a true but fatal idea as I think),--if we have these thrust on the\npeople in the usual mad way for another generation, no one need be\nsurprised if that people drown on its little miserable shoals of\negoism, and petrify in its self-seeking. At first it will fall\nasunder and cease to be a people. In its place perhaps individualist\nsystems, secret societies for the extermination of non-members, and\nsimilar utilitarian creations, will appear on the theatre of the\nfuture. Are we to continue to work for these creations and write\nhistory from the standpoint of the _masses_; to look for laws in it,\nto be deduced from the needs of the masses, the laws of motion of the\nlowest loam and clay strata of society? The masses seem to be worth\nnotice in three aspects only: first as the copies of great men,\nprinted on bad paper from worn-out plates, next as a contrast to the\ngreat men, and lastly as their tools: for the rest, let the devil and\nstatistics fly away with them! How could statistics prove that there\nare laws in history? Laws? Yes, they may prove how common and\nabominably uniform the masses are: and should we call the effects of\nleaden folly, imitation, love and hunger--laws? We may admit it: but\nwe are sure of this too--that so far as there are laws in history,\nthe laws are of no value and the history of no value either. And\nleast valuable of all is that kind of history which takes the great\npopular movements as the most important events of the past, and\nregards the great men only as their clearest expression, the visible\nbubbles on the stream. Thus the masses have to produce the great man,\nchaos to bring forth order; and finally all the hymns are naturally\nsung to the teeming chaos. Everything is called \"great\" that has\nmoved the masses for some long time, and becomes, as they say, a\n\"historical power.\" But is not this really an intentional confusion\nof quantity and quality? When the brutish mob have found some idea, a\nreligious idea for example, which satisfies them, when they have\ndefended it through thick and thin for centuries then, and then only,\nwill they discover its inventor to have been a great man. The highest\nand noblest does not affect the masses at all. The historical\nconsequences of Christianity, its \"historical power,\" toughness and\npersistence prove nothing, fortunately, as to its founder's\ngreatness, They would have been a witness against him. For between\nhim and the historical success of Christianity lies a dark heavy\nweight of passion and error, lust of power and honour, and the\ncrushing force of the Roman Empire. From this, Christianity had its\nearthly taste, and its earthly foundations too, that made its\ncontinuance in this world possible. Greatness should not depend on\nsuccess; Demosthenes is great without it. The purest and noblest\nadherents of Christianity have always doubted and hindered, rather\nthan helped, its effect in the world, its so-called \"historical\npower\"; for they were accustomed to stand outside the \"world,\" and\ncared little for the \"process of the Christian Idea.\" Hence they have\ngenerally remained unknown to history, and their very names are lost.\nIn Christian terms the devil is the prince of the world, and the lord\nof progress and consequence: he is the power behind all \"historical\npower,\" and so will it remain, however ill it may sound to-day in\nears that are accustomed to canonise such power and consequence. The\nworld has become skilled at giving new names to things and even\nbaptizing the devil. It is truly an hour of great danger. Men seem to\nbe near the discovery that the egoism of individuals, groups or\nmasses has been at all times the lever of the \"historical movements\":\nand yet they are in no way disturbed by the discovery, but proclaim\nthat \"egoism shall be our god.\" With this new faith in their hearts,\nthey begin quite intentionally to build future history on egoism:\nthough it must be a clever egoism, one that allows of some\nlimitation, that it may stand firmer; one that studies history for\nthe purpose of recognising the foolish kind of egoism. Their study\nhas taught them that the state has a special mission in all future\negoistic systems: it will be the patron of all the clever egoisms, to\nprotect them with all the power of its military and police against\nthe dangerous outbreaks of the other kind. There is the same idea in\nintroducing history--natural as well as human history--among the\nlabouring classes, whose folly makes them dangerous. For men know\nwell that a grain of historical culture is able to break down the\nrough, blind instincts and desires, or to turn them to the service of\na clever egoism. In fact they are beginning to think, with Edward von\nHartmann, of \"fixing themselves with an eye to the future in their\nearthly home, and making themselves comfortable there.\" Hartmann\ncalls this life the \"manhood of humanity\" with an ironical reference\nto what is now called \"manhood\";--as if only our sober models of\nselfishness were embraced by it; just as he prophesies an age of\ngraybeards following on this stage,--obviously another ironical\nglance at our ancient time-servers. For he speaks of the ripe\ndiscretion with which \"they view all the stormy passions of their\npast life and understand the vanity of the ends they seem to have\nstriven for.\" No, a manhood of crafty and historically cultured\negoism corresponds to an old age that hangs to life with no dignity\nbut a horrible tenacity, where the\n\n                           \"last scene of all\n  That ends this strange eventful history,\n  Is second childishness and mere oblivion,\n  Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.\"\n\nWhether the dangers of our life and culture come from these dreary,\ntoothless old men, or from the so-called \"men\" of Hartmann, we have\nthe right to defend our youth with tooth and claw against both of\nthem, and never tire of saving the future from these false prophets.\nBut in this battle we shall discover an unpleasant truth--that men\nintentionally help, and encourage, and use, the worst aberrations of\nthe historical sense from which the present time suffers.\n\nThey use it, however, against youth, in order to transform it into\nthat ripe \"egoism of manhood\" they so long for: they use it to\novercome the natural reluctance of the young by its magical\nsplendour, which unmans while it enlightens them. Yes, we know only\ntoo well the kind of ascendency history can gain; how it can uproot\nthe strongest instincts of youth, passion, courage, unselfishness and\nlove; can cool its feeling for justice, can crush or repress its\ndesire for a slow ripening by the contrary desire to be soon\nproductive, ready and useful; and cast a sick doubt over all honesty\nand downrightness of feeling. It can even cozen youth of its fairest\nprivilege, the power of planting a great thought with the fullest\nconfidence, and letting it grow of itself to a still greater thought.\nAn excess of history can do all that, as we have seen, by no longer\nallowing a man to feel and act _unhistorically_: for history is\ncontinually shifting his horizon and removing the atmosphere\nsurrounding him. From an infinite horizon he withdraws into himself,\nback into the small egoistic circle, where he must become dry and\nwithered: he may possibly attain to cleverness, but never to wisdom.\nHe lets himself be talked over, is always calculating and parleying\nwith facts. He is never enthusiastic, but blinks his eyes, and\nunderstands how to look for his own profit or his party's in the\nprofit or loss of somebody else. He unlearns all his useless modesty,\nand turns little by little into the \"man\" or the \"graybeard\" of\nHartmann. And that is what they _want_ him to be: that is the meaning\nof the present cynical demand for the \"full surrender of the\npersonality to the world-process\"--for the sake of his end, the\nredemption of the world, as the rogue E. von Hartmann tells us.\nThough redemption can scarcely be the conscious aim of these people:\nthe world were better redeemed by being redeemed from these \"men\" and\n\"graybeards.\" For then would come the reign of youth.\n\n\nX.\n\nAnd in this kingdom of youth I can cry Land! Land! Enough, and more\nthan enough, of the wild voyage over dark strange seas, of eternal\nsearch and eternal disappointment! The coast is at last in sight.\nWhatever it be, we must land there, and the worst haven is better\nthan tossing again in the hopeless waves of an infinite scepticism.\nLet us hold fast by the land: we shall find the good harbours later\nand make the voyage easier for those who come after us.\n\nThe voyage was dangerous and exciting. How far are we even now from\nthat quiet state of contemplation with which we first saw our ship\nlaunched! In tracking out the dangers of history, we have found\nourselves especially exposed to them. We carry on us the marks of\nthat sorrow which an excess of history brings in its train to the men\nof the modern time. And this present treatise, as I will not attempt\nto deny, shows the modern note of a weak personality in the\nintemperateness of its criticism, the unripeness of its humanity, in\nthe too frequent transitions from irony to cynicism, from arrogance\nto scepticism. And yet I trust in the inspiring power that directs my\nvessel instead of genius; I trust in _youth_, that has brought me on\nthe right road in forcing from me a protest against the modern\nhistorical education, and a demand that the man must learn to live,\nabove all, and only use history in the service of the life that he\nhas learned to live. He must be young to understand this protest; and\nconsidering the premature grayness of our present youth, he can\nscarcely be young enough if he would understand its reason as well.\nAn example will help me. In Germany, not more than a century ago, a\nnatural instinct for what is called \"poetry\" was awakened in some\nyoung men. Are we to think that the generations who had lived before\nthat time had not spoken of the art, however really strange and\nunnatural it may have been to them? We know the contrary; that they\nhad thought, written, and quarrelled about it with all their\nmight--in \"words, words, words.\" Giving life to such words did not\nprove the death of the word-makers; in a certain sense they are\nliving still. For if, as Gibbon says, nothing but time--though a long\ntime--is needed for a world to perish, so nothing but time--though\nstill more time--is needed for a false idea to be destroyed in\nGermany, the \"Land of Little-by-little.\" In any event, there are\nperhaps a hundred men more now than there were a century ago who know\nwhat poetry is: perhaps in another century there will be a hundred\nmore who have learned in the meantime what culture is, and that the\nGermans have had as yet no culture, however proudly they may talk\nabout it. The general satisfaction of the Germans at their culture\nwill seem as foolish and incredible to such men as the once lauded\nclassicism of Gottsched, or the reputation of Ramler as the German\nPindar, seemed to us. They will perhaps think this \"culture\" to be\nmerely a kind of knowledge about culture, and a false and superficial\nknowledge at that. False and superficial, because the Germans endured\nthe contradiction between life and knowledge, and did not see what\nwas characteristic in the culture of really educated peoples, that it\ncan only rise and bloom from life. But by the Germans it is worn like\na paper flower, or spread over like the icing on a cake; and so must\nremain a useless lie for ever.\n\nThe education of youth in Germany starts from this false and\nunfruitful idea of culture. Its aim, when faced squarely, is not to\nform the liberally educated man, but the professor, the man of\nscience, who wants to be able to make use of his science as soon as\npossible, and stands on one side in order to see life clearly. The\nresult, even from a ruthlessly practical point of view, is the\nhistorically and \u00e6sthetically trained Philistine, the babbler of old\nsaws and new wisdom on Church, State and Art, the sensorium that\nreceives a thousand impressions, the insatiable belly that yet knows\nnot what true hunger and thirst is. An education with such an aim and\nresult is against nature. But only he who is not quite drowned in it\ncan feel that; only youth can feel it, because it still has the\ninstinct of nature, that is the first to be broken by that education.\nBut he who will break through that education in his turn, must come\nto the help of youth when called upon; must let the clear light of\nunderstanding shine on its unconscious striving, and bring it to a\nfull, vocal consciousness. How is he to attain such a strange end?\n\nPrincipally by destroying the superstition that this kind of\neducation is _necessary_. People think nothing but this troublesome\nreality of ours is possible. Look through the literature of higher\neducation in school and college for the last ten years, and you will\nbe astonished--and pained--to find how much alike all the proposals\nof reform have been; in spite of all the hesitations and violent\ncontroversies surrounding them. You will see how blindly they have\nall adopted the old idea of the \"educated man\" (in our sense) being\nthe necessary and reasonable basis of the system. The monotonous\ncanon runs thus: the young man must begin with a knowledge of\nculture, not even with a knowledge of life, still less with life and\nthe living of it. This knowledge of culture is forced into the young\nmind in the form of historical knowledge; which means that his head\nis filled with an enormous mass of ideas, taken second-hand from past\ntimes and peoples, not from immediate contact with life. He desires\nto experience something for himself, and feel a close-knit, living\nsystem of experiences growing within himself. But his desire is\ndrowned and dizzied in the sea of shams, as if it were possible to\nsum up in a few years the highest and notablest experiences of\nancient times, and the greatest times too. It is the same mad method\nthat carries our young artists off to picture-galleries, instead of\nthe studio of a master, and above all the one studio of the only\nmaster, Nature. As if one could discover by a hasty rush through\nhistory the ideas and technique of past times, and their individual\noutlook on life! For life itself is a kind of handicraft that must be\nlearned thoroughly and industriously, and diligently practised, if we\nare not to have mere botchers and babblers as the issue of it all!\n\nPlato thought it necessary for the first generation of his new\nsociety (in the perfect state) to be brought up with the help of a\n\"mighty lie.\" The children were to be taught to believe that they had\nall lain dreaming for a long time under the earth, where they had\nbeen moulded and formed by the master-hand of Nature. It was\nimpossible to go against the past, and work against the work of gods!\nAnd so it had to be an unbreakable law of nature, that he who is born\nto be a philosopher has gold in his body, the fighter has only\nsilver, and the workman iron and bronze. As it is not possible to\nblend these metals, according to Plato, so there could never be any\nconfusion between the classes: the belief in the _\u00e6terna veritas_ of\nthis arrangement was the basis of the new education and the new\nstate. So the modern German believes also in the _\u00e6terna veritas_ of\nhis education, of his kind of culture: and yet this belief will\nfail--as the Platonic state would have failed--if the mighty German\nlie be ever opposed by the truth, that the German has no culture\nbecause he cannot build one on the basis of his education. He wishes\nfor the flower without the root or the stalk; and so he wishes in\nvain. That is the simple truth, a rude and unpleasant truth, but yet\na mighty one.\n\nBut our first generation must be brought up in this \"mighty truth,\"\nand must suffer from it too; for it must educate itself through it,\neven against its own nature, to attain a new nature and manner of\nlife, which shall yet proceed from the old. So it might say to\nitself, in the old Spanish phrase, \"Defienda me Dios de my,\" God keep\nme from myself, from the character, that is, which has been put into\nme. It must taste that truth drop by drop, like a bitter, powerful\nmedicine. And every man in this generation must subdue himself to\npass the judgment on his own nature, which he might pass more easily\non his whole time:--\"We are without instruction, nay, we are too\ncorrupt to live, to see and hear truly and simply, to understand what\nis near and natural to us. We have not yet laid even the foundations\nof culture, for we are not ourselves convinced that we have a sincere\nlife in us.\" We crumble and fall asunder, our whole being is divided,\nhalf mechanically, into an inner and outer side; we are sown with\nideas as with dragon's teeth, and bring forth a new dragon-brood of\nthem; we suffer from the malady of words, and have no trust in any\nfeeling that is not stamped with its special word. And being such a\ndead fabric of words and ideas, that yet has an uncanny movement in\nit, I have still perhaps the right to say _cogito ergo sum_, though\nnot _vivo ergo cogito_. I am permitted the empty _esse_, not the full\ngreen _vivere_. A primary feeling tells me that I am a thinking being\nbut not a living one, that I am no \"animal,\" but at most a \"cogital.\"\n\"Give me life, and I will soon make you a culture out of it\"--will be\nthe cry of every man in this new generation, and they will all know\neach other by this cry. But who will give them this life?\n\nNo god and no man will give it--only their own _youth_. Set this\nfree, and you will set life free as well. For it only lay concealed,\nin a prison; it is not yet withered or dead--ask your own selves!\n\nBut it is sick, this life that is set free, and must be healed. It\nsuffers from many diseases, and not only from the memory of its\nchains. It suffers from the malady which I have spoken of, the\n_malady of history_. Excess of history has attacked the plastic power\nof life, that no more understands how to use the past as a means of\nstrength and nourishment. It is a fearful disease, and yet, if youth\nhad not a natural gift for clear vision, no one would see that it is\na disease, and that a paradise of health has been lost. But the same\nyouth, with that same natural instinct of health, has guessed how the\nparadise can be regained. It knows the magic herbs and simples for\nthe malady of history, and the excess of it. And what are they\ncalled?\n\nIt is no marvel that they bear the names of poisons:--the antidotes\nto history are the \"unhistorical\" and the \"super-historical.\" With\nthese names we return to the beginning of our inquiry and draw near\nto its final close.\n\nBy the word \"unhistorical\" I mean the power, the art of _forgetting_,\nand of drawing a limited horizon round one's self. I call the power\n\"super-historical\" which turns the eyes from the process of becoming\nto that which gives existence an eternal and stable character, to art\nand religion. Science--for it is science that makes us speak of\n\"poisons\"--sees in these powers contrary powers: for it considers\nonly that view of things to be true and right, and therefore\nscientific, which regards something as finished and historical, not\nas continuing and eternal. Thus it lives in a deep antagonism towards\nthe powers that make for eternity--art and religion,--for it hates\nthe forgetfulness that is the death of knowledge, and tries to remove\nall limitation of horizon and cast men into an infinite boundless\nsea, whose waves are bright with the clear knowledge--of becoming!\n\nIf they could only live therein! Just as towns are shaken by an\navalanche and become desolate, and man builds his house there in fear\nand for a season only; so life is broken in sunder and becomes weak\nand spiritless, if the avalanche of ideas started by science take\nfrom man the foundation of his rest and security, the belief in what\nis stable and eternal. Must life dominate knowledge, or knowledge\nlife? Which of the two is the higher, and decisive power? There is no\nroom for doubt: life is the higher, and the dominating power, for the\nknowledge that annihilated life would be itself annihilated too.\nKnowledge presupposes life, and has the same interest in maintaining\nit that every creature has in its own preservation. Science needs\nvery careful watching: there is a hygiene of life near the volumes of\nscience, and one of its sentences runs thus:--The unhistorical and\nthe super-historical are the natural antidotes against the\noverpowering of life by history; they are the cures for the\nhistorical disease. We who are sick of the disease may suffer a\nlittle from the antidote. But this is no proof that the treatment we\nhave chosen is wrong.\n\nAnd here I see the mission of the youth that forms the first\ngeneration of fighters and dragon-slayers: it will bring a more\nbeautiful and blessed humanity and culture, but will have itself no\nmore than a glimpse of the promised land of happiness and wondrous\nbeauty. This youth will suffer both from the malady and its\nantidotes: and yet it believes in strength and health and boasts a\nnature closer to the great Nature than its forebears, the cultured\nmen and graybeards of the present. But its mission is to shake to\ntheir foundations the present conceptions of \"health\" and \"culture,\"\nand erect hatred and scorn in the place of this rococo mass of ideas.\nAnd the clearest sign of its own strength and health is just the fact\nthat it can use no idea, no party-cry from the present-day mint of\nwords and ideas to symbolise its own existence: but only claims\nconviction from the power in it that acts and fights, breaks up and\ndestroys; and from an ever heightened feeling of life when the hour\nstrikes. You may deny this youth any culture--but how would youth\ncount that a reproach? You may speak of its rawness and\nintemperateness--but it is not yet old and wise enough to be\nacquiescent. It need not pretend to a ready-made culture at all; but\nenjoys all the rights--and the consolations--of youth, especially the\nright of brave unthinking honesty and the consolation of an inspiring\nhope.\n\nI know that such hopeful beings understand all these truisms from\nwithin, and can translate them into a doctrine for their own use,\nthrough their personal experience. To the others there will appear,\nin the meantime, nothing but a row of covered dishes, that may\nperhaps seem empty: until they see one day with astonished eyes that\nthe dishes are full, and that all ideas and impulses and passions are\nmassed together in these truisms that cannot lie covered for long. I\nleave those doubting ones to time, that brings all things to light;\nand turn at last to that great company of hope, to tell them the way\nand the course of their salvation, their rescue from the disease of\nhistory, and their own history as well, in a parable; whereby they\nmay again become healthy enough to study history anew, and under the\nguidance of life make use of the past in that threefold\nway--monumental, antiquarian, or critical. At first they will be more\nignorant than the \"educated men\" of the present: for they will have\nunlearnt much and have lost any desire even to discover what those\neducated men especially wish to know: in fact, their chief mark from\nthe educated point of view will be just their want of science; their\nindifference and inaccessibility to all the good and famous things.\nBut at the end of the cure, they are men again and have ceased to be\nmere shadows of humanity. That is something; there is yet hope, and\ndo not ye who hope laugh in your hearts?\n\nHow can we reach that end? you will ask. The Delphian god cries his\noracle to you at the beginning of your wanderings, \"Know thyself.\" It\nis a hard saying: for that god \"tells nothing and conceals nothing\nbut merely points the way,\" as Heraclitus said. But whither does he\npoint?\n\nIn certain epochs the Greeks were in a similar danger of being\noverwhelmed by what was past and foreign, and perishing on the rock\nof \"history.\" They never lived proud and untouched. Their \"culture\"\nwas for a long time a chaos of foreign forms and ideas,--Semitic,\nBabylonian, Lydian and Egyptian,--and their religion a battle of all\nthe gods of the East; just as German culture and religion is at\npresent a death-struggle of all foreign nations and bygone times. And\nyet, Hellenic culture was no mere mechanical unity, thanks to that\nDelphic oracle. The Greeks gradually learned to organise the chaos,\nby taking Apollo's advice and thinking back to themselves, to their\nown true necessities, and letting all the sham necessities go. Thus\nthey again came into possession of themselves, and did not remain\nlong the Epigoni of the whole East, burdened with their inheritance.\nAfter that hard fight, they increased and enriched the treasure they\nhad inherited by their obedience to the oracle, and they became the\nancestors and models for all the cultured nations of the future.\n\nThis is a parable for each one of us: he must organise the chaos in\nhimself by \"thinking himself back\" to his true needs. He will want\nall his honesty, all the sturdiness and sincerity in his character to\nhelp him to revolt against second-hand thought, second-hand learning,\nsecond-hand action. And he will begin then to understand that culture\ncan be something more than a \"decoration of life\"--a concealment and\ndisfiguring of it, in other words; for all adornment hides what is\nadorned. And thus the Greek idea, as against the Roman, will be\ndiscovered in him, the idea of culture as a new and finer nature,\nwithout distinction of inner and outer, without convention or\ndisguise, as a unity of thought and will, life and appearance. He\nwill learn too, from his own experience, that it was by a greater\nforce of moral character that the Greeks were victorious, and that\neverything which makes for sincerity is a further step towards true\nculture, however this sincerity may harm the ideals of education that\nare reverenced at the time, or even have power to shatter a whole\nsystem of merely decorative culture.\n\n\n\n\nSCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.\n\n\nI.\n\nWhen the traveller, who had seen many countries and nations and\ncontinents, was asked what common attribute he had found everywhere\nexisting among men, he answered, \"They have a tendency to sloth.\"\nMany may think that the fuller truth would have been, \"They are all\ntimid.\" They hide themselves behind \"manners\" and \"opinions.\" At\nbottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only\nonce on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a\nmarvellously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever\nbe put together a second time. He knows this, but hides it like an\nevil conscience;--and why? From fear of his neighbour, who looks for\nthe latest conventionalities in him, and is wrapped up in them\nhimself. But what is it that forces the man to fear his neighbour, to\nthink and act with his herd, and not seek his own joy? Shyness\nperhaps, in a few rare cases, but in the majority it is idleness, the\n\"taking things easily,\" in a word the \"tendency to sloth,\" of which\nthe traveller spoke. He was right; men are more slothful than timid,\nand their greatest fear is of the burdens that an uncompromising\nhonesty and nakedness of speech and action would lay on them. It is\nonly the artists who hate this lazy wandering in borrowed manners and\nill-fitting opinions, and discover the secret of the evil conscience,\nthe truth that each human being is a unique marvel. They show us, how\nin every little movement of his muscles the man is an individual\nself, and further--as an analytical deduction from his individuality--\na beautiful and interesting object, a new and incredible phenomenon\n(as is every work of nature), that can never become tedious. If the\ngreat thinker despise mankind, it is for their laziness; they seem\nmere indifferent bits of pottery, not worth any commerce or\nimprovement. The man who will not belong to the general mass, has\nonly to stop \"taking himself easily\"; to follow his conscience, which\ncries out to him, \"Be thyself! all that thou doest and thinkest and\ndesirest, is not--thyself!\"\n\nEvery youthful soul hears this cry day and night, and quivers to hear\nit: for she divines the sum of happiness that has been from eternity\ndestined for her, if she think of her true deliverance; and towards\nthis happiness she can in no wise be helped, so long as she lies in\nthe chains of Opinion and of Fear. And how comfortless and unmeaning\nmay life become without this deliverance! There is no more desolate\nor Ishmaelitish creature in nature than the man who has broken away\nfrom his true genius, and does nothing but peer aimlessly about him.\nThere is no reason to attack such a man at all, for he is a mere husk\nwithout a kernel, a painted cloth, tattered and sagging, a scarecrow\nghost, that can rouse no fear, and certainly no pity. And though one\nbe right in saying of a sluggard that he is \"killing time,\" yet in\nrespect of an age that rests its salvation on public opinion,--that\nis, on private laziness,--one must be quite determined that such a\ntime shall be \"killed,\" once and for all: I mean that it shall be\nblotted from life's true History of Liberty. Later generations will\nbe greatly disgusted, when they come to treat the movements of a\nperiod in which no living men ruled, but shadow-men on the screen of\npublic opinion; and to some far posterity our age may well be the\ndarkest chapter of history, the most unknown because the least human.\nI have walked through the new streets of our cities, and thought how\nof all the dreadful houses that these gentlemen with their public\nopinion have built for themselves, not a stone will remain in a\nhundred years, and that the opinions of these busy masons may well\nhave fallen with them. But how full of hope should they all be who\nfeel that they are no citizens of this age! If they were, they would\nhave to help on the work of \"killing their time,\" and of perishing\nwith it,--when they wish rather to quicken the time to life, and in\nthat life themselves to _live_.\n\nBut even if the future leave us nothing to hope for, the wonderful\nfact of our existing at this present moment of time gives us the\ngreatest encouragement to live after our own rule and measure; so\ninexplicable is it, that we should be living just to-day, though\nthere have been an infinity of time wherein we might have arisen;\nthat we own nothing but a span's length of it, this \"to-day,\" and\nmust show in it wherefore and whereunto we have arisen. We have to\nanswer for our existence to ourselves; and will therefore be our own\ntrue pilots, and not admit that our being resembles a blind fortuity.\nOne must take a rather impudent and reckless way with the riddle;\nespecially as the key is apt to be lost, however things turn out. Why\ncling to your bit of earth, or your little business, or listen to\nwhat your neighbour says? It is so provincial to bind oneself to\nviews which are no longer binding a couple of hundred miles away.\nEast and West are signs that somebody chalks up in front of us to\nfool such cowards as we are. \"I will make the attempt to gain\nfreedom,\" says the youthful soul; and will be hindered, just because\ntwo nations happen to hate each other and go to war, or because there\nis a sea between two parts of the earth, or a religion is taught in\nthe vicinity, which did not exist two thousand years ago. \"And this\nis not--thyself,\" the soul says. \"No one can build thee the bridge,\nover which thou must cross the river of life, save thyself alone.\nThere are paths and bridges and demi-gods without number, that will\ngladly carry thee over, but only at the price of thine own self: thy\nself wouldst thou have to give in pawn, and then lose it. There is in\nthe world one road whereon none may go, except thou: ask not whither\nit lead, but go forward. Who was it that spake that true word--'A man\nhas never risen higher than when he knoweth not whither his road may\nyet lead him'?\"\n\nBut how can we \"find ourselves\" again, and how can man \"know\nhimself\"? He is a thing obscure and veiled: if the hare have seven\nskins, man can cast from him seventy times seven, and yet will not be\nable to say \"Here art thou in very truth; this is outer shell no\nmore.\" Also this digging into one's self, this straight, violent\ndescent into the pit of one's being, is a troublesome and dangerous\nbusiness to start. A man may easily take such hurt, that no physician\ncan heal him. And again, what were the use, since everything bears\nwitness to our essence,--our friendships and enmities, our looks and\ngreetings, our memories and forgetfulnesses, our books and our\nwriting! This is the most effective way:--to let the youthful soul\nlook back on life with the question, \"What hast thou up to now truly\nloved, what has drawn thy soul upward, mastered it and blessed it\ntoo?\" Set up these things that thou hast honoured before thee, and,\nmaybe, they will show thee, in their being and their order, a law\nwhich is the fundamental law of thine own self. Compare these\nobjects, consider how one completes and broadens and transcends and\nexplains another, how they form a ladder on which thou hast all the\ntime been climbing to thy self: for thy true being lies not deeply\nhidden in thee, but an infinite height above thee, or at least above\nthat which thou dost commonly take to be thyself. The true educators\nand moulders reveal to thee the real groundwork and import of thy\nbeing, something that in itself cannot be moulded or educated, but is\nanyhow difficult of approach, bound and crippled: thy educators can\nbe nothing but thy deliverers. And that is the secret of all culture:\nit does not give artificial limbs, wax noses, or spectacles for the\neyes--a thing that could buy such gifts is but the base coin of\neducation. But it is rather a liberation, a removal of all the\nweeds and rubbish and vermin that attack the delicate shoots, the\nstreaming forth of light and warmth, the tender dropping of the night\nrain; it is the following and the adoring of Nature when she is\npitifully-minded as a mother;--her completion, when it bends before\nher fierce and ruthless blasts and turns them to good, and draws\na veil over all expression of her tragic unreason--for she is a\nstep-mother too, sometimes.\n\nThere are other means of \"finding ourselves,\" of coming to ourselves\nout of the confusion wherein we all wander as in a dreary cloud; but\nI know none better than to think on our educators. So I will to-day\ntake as my theme the hard teacher Arthur Schopenhauer, and speak of\nothers later.\n\n\nII.\n\nIn order to describe properly what an event my first look into\nSchopenhauer's writings was for me, I must dwell for a minute on an\nidea, that recurred more constantly in my youth, and touched me more\nnearly, than any other. I wandered then as I pleased in a world of\nwishes, and thought that destiny would relieve me of the dreadful and\nwearisome duty of educating myself: some philosopher would come at\nthe right moment to do it for me,--some true philosopher, who could\nbe obeyed without further question, as he would be trusted more than\none's self. Then I said within me: \"What would be the principles, on\nwhich he might teach thee?\" And I pondered in my mind what he would\nsay to the two maxims of education that hold the field in our time.\nThe first demands that the teacher should find out at once the strong\npoint in his pupil, and then direct all his skill and will, all the\nmoisture and all the sunshine, to bring the fruit of that single\nvirtue to maturity. The second requires him to raise to a higher\npower all the qualities that already exist, cherish them and bring\nthem into a harmonious relation. But, we may ask, should one who has\na decided talent for working in gold be made for that reason to learn\nmusic? And can we admit that Benvenuto Cellini's father was right in\ncontinually forcing him back to the \"dear little horn\"--the \"cursed\npiping,\" as his son called it? We cannot think so in the case of such\na strong and clearly marked talent as his, and it may well be that\nthis maxim of harmonious development applies only to weaker natures,\nin which there is a whole swarm of desires and inclinations, though\nthey may not amount to very much, singly or together. On the other\nhand, where do we find such a blending of harmonious voices--nay, the\nsoul of harmony itself--as we see in natures like Cellini's, where\neverything--knowledge, desire, love and hate--tends towards a single\npoint, the root of all, and a harmonious system, the resultant of the\nvarious forces, is built up through the irresistible domination of\nthis vital centre? And so perhaps the two maxims are not contrary at\nall; the one merely saying that man must have a centre, the other, a\ncircumference as well. The philosophic teacher of my dream would not\nonly discover the central force, but would know how to prevent its\nbeing destructive of the other powers: his task, I thought, would be\nthe welding of the whole man into a solar system with life and\nmovement, and the discovery of its paraphysical laws.\n\nIn the meantime I could not find my philosopher, however I tried; I\nsaw how badly we moderns compare with the Greeks and Romans, even in\nthe serious study of educational problems. You can go through all\nGermany, and especially all the universities, with this need in your\nheart, and will not find what you seek; many humbler wishes than that\nare still unfulfilled there. For example, if a German seriously wish\nto make himself an orator, or to enter a \"school for authors,\" he\nwill find neither master nor school: no one yet seems to have thought\nthat speaking and writing are arts which cannot be learnt without the\nmost careful method and untiring application. But, to their shame,\nnothing shows more clearly the insolent self-satisfaction of our\npeople than the lack of demand for educators; it comes partly from\nmeanness, partly from want of thought. Anything will do as a\nso-called \"family tutor,\" even among our most eminent and cultured\npeople; and what a menagerie of crazy heads and mouldy devices mostly\ngo to make up the belauded Gymnasium! And consider what we are\nsatisfied with in our finishing schools,--our universities. Look at\nour professors and their institutions! And compare the difficulty of\nthe task of educating a man to be a man! Above all, the wonderful way\nin which the German savants fall to their dish of knowledge, shows\nthat they are thinking more of Science than mankind; and they are\ntrained to lead a forlorn hope in her service, in order to encourage\never new generations to the same sacrifice. If their traffic with\nknowledge be not limited and controlled by any more general\nprinciples of education, but allowed to run on indefinitely,--\"the\nmore the better,\"--it is as harmful to learning as the economic\ntheory of _laisser faire_ to common morality. No one recognises now\nthat the education of the professors is an exceedingly difficult\nproblem, if their humanity is not to be sacrificed or shrivelled\nup:--this difficulty can be actually seen in countless examples of\nnatures warped and twisted by their reckless and premature devotion\nto science. There is a still more important testimony to the complete\nabsence of higher education, pointing to a greater and more universal\ndanger. It is clear at once why an orator or writer cannot now be\neducated,--because there are no teachers; and why a savant must be a\ndistorted and perverted thing,--because he will have been trained by\nthe inhuman abstraction, science. This being so, let a man ask\nhimself: \"Where are now the types of moral excellence and fame for\nall our generation--learned and unlearned, high and low--the visible\nabstract of constructive ethics for this age? Where has vanished all\nthe reflection on moral questions that has occupied every great\ndeveloped society at all epochs?\" There is no fame for that now, and\nthere are none to reflect: we are really drawing on the inherited\nmoral capital which our predecessors accumulated for us, and which we\ndo not know how to increase, but only to squander. Such things are\neither not mentioned in our society, or, if at all, with a na\u00efve want\nof personal experience that makes one disgusted. It comes to this,\nthat our schools and professors simply turn aside from any moral\ninstruction or content themselves with formul\u00e6; virtue is a word and\nnothing more, on both sides, an old-fashioned word that they laugh\nat--and it is worse when they do not laugh, for then they are\nhypocrites.\n\nAn explanation of this faint-heartedness and ebbing of all moral\nstrength would be difficult and complex: but whoever is considering\nthe influence of Christianity in its hour of victory on the morality\nof the medi\u00e6val world, must not forget that it reacts also in its\ndefeat, which is apparently its position to-day. By its lofty ideal,\nChristianity has outbidden the ancient Systems of Ethics and their\ninvariable naturalism, with which men came to feel a dull disgust:\nand afterwards when they did reach the knowledge of what was better\nand higher, they found they had no longer the power, for all their\ndesire, to return to its embodiment in the antique virtues. And so\nthe life of the modern man is passed in see-sawing between\nChristianity and Paganism, between a furtive or hypocritical approach\nto Christian morality, and an equally shy and spiritless dallying\nwith the antique: and he does not thrive under it. His inherited fear\nof naturalism, and its more recent attraction for him, his desire to\ncome to rest somewhere, while in the impotence of his intellect he\nswings backwards and forwards between the \"good\" and the \"better\"\ncourse--all this argues an instability in the modern mind that\ncondemns it to be without joy or fruit. Never were moral teachers\nmore necessary and never were they more unlikely to be found:\nphysicians are most in danger themselves in times when they are most\nneeded and many men are sick. For where are our modern physicians who\nare strong and sure-footed enough to hold up another or lead him by\nthe hand? There lies a certain heavy gloom on the best men of our\ntime, an eternal loathing for the battle that is fought in their\nhearts between honesty and lies, a wavering of trust in themselves,\nwhich makes them quite incapable of showing to others the way they\nmust go.\n\nSo I was right in speaking of my \"wandering in a world of wishes\"\nwhen I dreamt of finding a true philosopher who could lift me from\nthe slough of insufficiency, and teach me again simply and honestly\nto be in my thoughts and life, in the deepest sense of the word, \"out\nof season\"; simply and honestly--for men have now become such\ncomplicated machines that they must be dishonest, if they speak at\nall, or wish to act on their words.\n\nWith such needs and desires within me did I come to know\nSchopenhauer.\n\nI belong to those readers of Schopenhauer who know perfectly well,\nafter they have turned the first page, that they will read all the\nothers, and listen to every word that he has spoken. My trust in him\nsprang to life at once, and has been the same for nine years. I\nunderstood him as though he had written for me (this is the most\nintelligible, though a rather foolish and conceited way of expressing\nit). Hence I never found a paradox in him, though occasionally some\nsmall errors: for paradoxes are only assertions that carry no\nconviction, because the author has made them himself without any\nconviction, wishing to appear brilliant, or to mislead, or, above\nall, to pose. Schopenhauer never poses: he writes for himself, and no\none likes to be deceived--least of all a philosopher who has set this\nup as his law: \"deceive nobody, not even thyself,\" neither with the\n\"white lies\" of all social intercourse, which writers almost\nunconsciously imitate, still less with the more conscious deceits of\nthe platform, and the artificial methods of rhetoric. Schopenhauer's\nspeeches are to himself alone; or if you like to imagine an auditor,\nlet it be a son whom the father is instructing. It is a rough,\nhonest, good-humoured talk to one who \"hears and loves.\" Such writers\nare rare. His strength and sanity surround us at the first sound of\nhis voice: it is like entering the heights of the forest, where we\nbreathe deep and are well again. We feel a bracing air everywhere, a\ncertain candour and naturalness of his own, that belongs to men who\nare at home with themselves, and masters of a very rich home indeed:\nhe is quite different from the writers who are surprised at\nthemselves if they have said something intelligent, and whose\npronouncements for that reason have something nervous and unnatural\nabout them. We are just as little reminded in Schopenhauer of the\nprofessor with his stiff joints worse for want of exercise, his\nnarrow chest and scraggy figure, his slinking or strutting gait. And\nagain his rough and rather grim soul leads us not so much to miss as\nto despise the suppleness and courtly grace of the excellent\nFrenchmen; and no one will find in him the gilded imitations of\npseudo-gallicism that our German writers prize so highly. His style\nin places reminds me a little of Goethe, but is not otherwise on any\nGerman model. For he knows how to be profound with simplicity,\nstriking without rhetoric, and severely logical without pedantry: and\nof what German could he have learnt that? He also keeps free from the\nhair-splitting, jerky and (with all respect) rather un-German manner\nof Lessing: no small merit in him, for Lessing is the most tempting\nof all models for prose style. The highest praise I can give his\nmanner of presentation is to apply his own phrase to himself:--\"A\nphilosopher must be very honest to avail himself of no aid from\npoetry or rhetoric.\" That honesty is something, and even a virtue, is\none of those private opinions which are forbidden in this age of\npublic opinion; and so I shall not be praising Schopenhauer, but only\ngiving him a distinguishing mark, when I repeat that he is honest,\neven as a writer; so few of them are, that we are apt to mistrust\nevery one who writes at all. I only know a single author that I can\nrank with Schopenhauer, or even above him, in the matter of honesty;\nand that is Montaigne. The joy of living on this earth is increased\nby the existence of such a man. The effect on myself, at any rate,\nsince my first acquaintance with that strong and masterful spirit,\nhas been, that I can say of him as he of Plutarch--\"As soon as I open\nhim, I seem to grow a pair of wings.\" If I had the task of making\nmyself at home on the earth, I would choose him as my companion.\n\nSchopenhauer has a second characteristic in common with Montaigne,\nbesides honesty; a joy that really makes others joyful. \"Aliis l\u00e6tus,\nsibi sapiens.\" There are two very different kinds of joyfulness. The\ntrue thinker always communicates joy and life, whether he is showing\nhis serious or comic side, his human insight or his godlike\nforbearance: without surly looks or trembling hands or watery eyes,\nbut simply and truly, with fearlessness and strength, a little\ncavalierly perhaps, and sternly, but always as a conqueror: and it is\nthis that brings the deepest and intensest joy, to see the conquering\ngod with all the monsters that he has fought. But the joyfulness one\nfinds here and there in the mediocre writers and limited thinkers\nmakes some of us miserable; I felt this, for example, with the\n\"joyfulness\" of David Strauss. We are generally ashamed of such a\nquality in our contemporaries, because they show the nakedness of our\ntime, and of the men in it, to posterity. Such _fils de joie_ do not\nsee the sufferings and the monsters, that they pretend, as\nphilosophers, to see and fight; and so their joy deceives us, and we\nhate it; it tempts to the false belief that they have gained some\nvictory. At bottom there is only joy where there is victory: and this\napplies to true philosophy as much as to any work of art. The\ncontents may be forbidding and serious, as the problem of existence\nalways is; the work will only prove tiresome and oppressive, if the\nslip-shod thinker and the dilettante have spread the mist of their\ninsufficiency over it: while nothing happier or better can come to\nman's lot than to be near one of those conquering spirits whose\nprofound thought has made them love what is most vital, and whose\nwisdom has found its goal in beauty. They really speak: they are no\nstammerers or babblers; they live and move, and have no part in the\n_danse macabre_ of the rest of humanity. And so in their company one\nfeels a natural man again, and could cry out with Goethe--\"What a\nwondrous and priceless thing is a living creature! How fitted to his\nsurroundings, how true, and real!\"\n\nI have been describing nothing but the first, almost physiological,\nimpression made upon me by Schopenhauer, the magical emanation of\ninner force from one plant of Nature to another, that follows the\nslightest contact. Analysing it, I find that this influence of\nSchopenhauer has three elements, his honesty, his joy, and his\nconsistency. He is honest, as speaking and writing for himself alone;\njoyful, because his thought has conquered the greatest difficulties;\nconsistent, because he cannot help being so. His strength rises like\na flame in the calm air, straight up, without a tremor or deviation.\nHe finds his way, without our noticing that he has been seeking it:\nso surely and cleverly and inevitably does he run his course, as if\nby some law of gravitation. If any one have felt what it means to\nfind, in our present world of Centaurs and Chim\u00e6ras, a single-hearted\nand unaffected child of nature who moves unconstrained on his own\nroad, he will understand my joy and surprise in discovering\nSchopenhauer: I knew in him the educator and philosopher I had so\nlong desired. Only, however, in his writings: which was a great loss.\nAll the more did I exert myself to see behind the book the living man\nwhose testament it was, and who promised his inheritance to such as\ncould, and would, be more than his readers--his pupils and his sons.\n\n\nIII.\n\nI get profit from a philosopher, just so far as he can be an example\nto me. There is no doubt that a man can draw whole nations after him\nby his example; as is shown by Indian history, which is practically\nthe history of Indian philosophy. But this example must exist in his\noutward life, not merely in his books; it must follow the way of the\nGrecian philosophers, whose doctrine was in their dress and bearing\nand general manner of life rather than in their speech or writing. We\nhave nothing yet of this \"breathing testimony\" in German\nphilosophical life; the spirit has, apparently, long completed its\nemancipation, while the flesh has hardly begun; yet it is foolish to\nthink that the spirit can be really free and independent when this\nvictory over limitation--which is ultimately a formative limiting of\none's self--is not embodied anew in every look and movement. Kant\nheld to his university, submitted to its regulations, and belonged,\nas his colleagues and students thought, to a definite religious\nfaith: and naturally his example has produced, above all, University\nprofessors of philosophy. Schopenhauer makes small account of the\nlearned tribe, keeps himself exclusive, and cultivates an\nindependence from state and society as his ideal, to escape the\nchains of circumstance here: that is his value to us. Many steps in\nthe enfranchisement of the philosopher are unknown in Germany; they\ncannot always remain so. Our artists live more bravely and honourably\nthan our philosophers; and Richard Wagner, the best example of all,\nshows how genius need not fear a fight to the death with the\nestablished forms and ordinances, if we wish to bring the higher\ntruth and order, that lives in him, to the light. The \"truth,\"\nhowever, of which we hear so much from our professors, seems to be a\nfar more modest being, and no kind of disturbance is to be feared\nfrom her; she is an easy-going and pleasant creature, who is\ncontinually assuring the powers that be that no one need fear any\ntrouble from her quarter: for man is only \"pure reason.\" And\ntherefore I will say, that philosophy in Germany has more and more to\nlearn not to be \"pure reason\": and it may well take as its model\n\"Schopenhauer the man.\"\n\nIt is no less than a marvel that he should have come to be this human\nkind of example: for he was beset, within and without, by the most\nfrightful dangers, that would have crushed and broken a weaker\nnature. I think there was a strong likelihood of Schopenhauer the man\ngoing under, and leaving at best a residue of \"pure reason\": and only\n\"at best\"--it was more probable that neither man nor reason would\nsurvive.\n\nA modern Englishman sketches the most usual danger to extraordinary\nmen who live in a society that worships the ordinary, in this\nmanner:--\"Such uncommon characters are first cowed, then become sick\nand melancholy, and then die. A Shelley could never have lived in\nEngland: a race of Shelleys would have been impossible.\" Our\nH\u00f6lderlins and Kleists were undone by their unconventionality, and\nwere not strong enough for the climate of the so-called German\nculture; and only iron natures like Beethoven, Goethe, Schopenhauer\nand Wagner could hold out against it. Even in them the effect of this\nweary toiling and moiling is seen in many lines and wrinkles; their\nbreathing is harder and their voice is forced. The old diplomatist\nwho had only just seen and spoken to Goethe, said to a friend--\"Voil\u00e0\nun homme qui a eu de grands chagrins!\" which Goethe translated to\nmean \"That is a man who has taken great pains in his life.\" And he\nadds, \"If the trace of the sorrow and activity we have gone through\ncannot be wiped from our features, it is no wonder that all that\nsurvives of us and our struggles should bear the same impress.\" And\nthis is the Goethe to whom our cultured Philistines point as the\nhappiest of Germans, that they may prove their thesis, that it must\nbe possible to be happy among them--with the unexpressed corollary\nthat no one can be pardoned for feeling unhappy and lonely among\nthem. Hence they push their doctrine, in practice, to its merciless\nconclusion, that there is always a secret guilt in isolation. Poor\nSchopenhauer had this secret guilt too in his heart, the guilt of\ncherishing his philosophy more than his fellow-men; and he was so\nunhappy as to have learnt from Goethe that he must defend his\nphilosophy at all costs from the neglect of his contemporaries, to\nsave its very existence: for there is a kind of Grand Inquisitor's\nCensure in which the Germans, according to Goethe, are great adepts:\nit is called--inviolable silence. This much at least was accomplished\nby it;--the greater part of the first edition of Schopenhauer's\nmasterpiece had to be turned into waste paper. The imminent risk that\nhis great work would be undone, merely by neglect, bred in him a\nstate of unrest--perilous and uncontrollable;--for no single adherent\nof any note presented himself. It is tragic to watch his search for\nany evidence of recognition: and his piercing cry of triumph at last,\nthat he would now really be read (_legor et legar_), touches us with\na thrill of pain. All the traits in which we do not see the great\nphilosopher show us the suffering man, anxious for his noblest\npossessions; he was tortured by the fear of losing his little\nproperty, and perhaps of no longer being able to maintain in its\npurity his truly antique attitude towards philosophy. He often chose\nfalsely in his desire to find real trust and compassion in men, only\nto return with a heavy heart to his faithful dog again. He was\nabsolutely alone, with no single friend of his own kind to comfort\nhim; and between one and none there lies an infinity--as ever between\nsomething and nothing. No one who has true friends knows what real\nloneliness means, though he may have the whole world in antagonism\nround him. Ah, I see well ye do not know what isolation is! Whenever\nthere are great societies with governments and religions and public\nopinions--where there is a tyranny, in short, there will the lonely\nphilosopher be hated: for philosophy offers an asylum to mankind\nwhere no tyranny can penetrate, the inner sanctuary, the centre of\nthe heart's labyrinth: and the tyrants are galled at it. Here do the\nlonely men lie hid: but here too lurks their greatest danger. These\nmen who have saved their inner freedom, must also live and be seen in\nthe outer world: they stand in countless human relations by their\nbirth, position, education and country, their own circumstances and\nthe importunity of others: and so they are presumed to hold an\nimmense number of opinions, simply because these happen to prevail:\nevery look that is not a denial counts as an assent, every motion of\nthe hand that does not destroy is regarded as an aid. These free and\nlonely men know that they perpetually seem other than they are. While\nthey wish for nothing but truth and honesty, they are in a net of\nmisunderstanding; and that ardent desire cannot prevent a mist of\nfalse opinions, of adaptations and wrong conclusions, of partial\nmisapprehension and intentional reticence, from gathering round their\nactions. And there settles a cloud of melancholy on their brows: for\nsuch natures hate the necessity of pretence worse than death: and the\ncontinual bitterness gives them a threatening and volcanic character.\nThey take revenge from time to time for their forced concealment and\nself-restraint: they issue from their dens with lowering looks: their\nwords and deeds are explosive, and may lead to their own destruction.\nSchopenhauer lived amid dangers of this sort. Such lonely men need\nlove, and friends, to whom they can be as open and sincere as to\nthemselves, and in whose presence the deadening silence and hypocrisy\nmay cease. Take their friends away, and there is left an increasing\nperil; Heinrich von Kleist was broken by the lack of love, and the\nmost terrible weapon against unusual men is to drive them into\nthemselves; and then their issuing forth again is a volcanic\neruption. Yet there are always some demi-gods who can bear life under\nthese fearful conditions and can be their conquerors: and if you\nwould hear their lonely chant, listen to the music of Beethoven.\n\nSo the first danger in whose shadow Schopenhauer lived was--\nisolation. The second is called--doubting of the truth. To this every\nthinker is liable who sets out from the philosophy of Kant, provided\nhe be strong and sincere in his sorrows and his desires, and not a\nmere tinkling thought-box or calculating machine. We all know the\nshameful state of things implied by this last reservation, and I\nbelieve it is only a very few men that Kant has so vitally affected\nas to change the current of their blood. To judge from what one\nreads, there must have been a revolution in every domain of thought\nsince the work of this unobtrusive professor: I cannot believe it\nmyself. For I see men, though darkly, as themselves needing to be\nrevolutionised, before any \"domains of thought\" can be so. In fact,\nwe find the first mark of any influence Kant may have had on the\npopular mind, in a corrosive scepticism and relativity. But it is\nonly in noble and active spirits who could never rest in doubt that\nthe shattering despair of truth itself could take the place of doubt.\nThis was, for example, the effect of the Kantian philosophy on\nHeinrich von Kleist. \"It was only a short time ago,\" he writes in his\npoignant way, \"that I became acquainted with the Kantian philosophy;\nand I will tell you my thought, though I cannot fear that it will\nrack you to your inmost soul, as it did me.--We cannot decide,\nwhether what we call truth is really truth, or whether it only seems\nso to us. If the latter, the truth that we amass here does not exist\nafter death, and all our struggle to gain a possession that may\nfollow us even to the grave is in vain. If the blade of this thought\ndo not cut your heart, yet laugh not at another who feels himself\nwounded by it in his Holy of Holies. My one highest aim has vanished,\nand I have no more.\" Yes, when will men feel again deeply as Kleist\ndid, and learn to measure a philosophy by what it means to the \"Holy\nof Holies\"? And yet we must make this estimate of what Schopenhauer\ncan mean to us, after Kant, as the first pioneer to bring us from the\nheights of sceptical disillusionment or \"critical\" renunciation, to\nthe greater height of tragic contemplation, the nocturnal heaven with\nits endless crown of stars. His greatness is that he can stand\nopposite the picture of life, and interpret it to us as a whole:\nwhile all the clever people cannot escape the error of thinking one\ncomes nearer to the interpretation by a laborious analysis of the\ncolours and material of the picture; with the confession, probably,\nthat the texture of the canvas is very complicated, and the chemical\ncomposition of the colours undiscoverable. Schopenhauer knew that one\nmust guess the painter in order to understand the picture. But now\nthe whole learned fraternity is engaged on understanding the colours\nand canvas, and not the picture: and only he who has kept the\nuniversal panorama of life and being firmly before his eyes, will use\nthe individual sciences without harm to himself; for, without this\ngeneral view as a norm, they are threads that lead nowhere and only\nconfuse still more the maze of our existence. Here we see, as I said,\nthe greatness of Schopenhauer, that he follows up every idea, as\nHamlet follows the Ghost, without allowing himself to turn aside for\na learned digression, or be drawn away by the scholastic abstractions\nof a rabid dialectic. The study of the minute philosophers is only\ninteresting for the recognition that they have reached those stages\nin the great edifice of philosophy where learned disquisitions for\nand against, where hair-splitting objections and counter-objections\nare the rule: and for that reason they evade the demand of every\ngreat philosophy to speak _sub specie \u00e6ternitatis_--\"this is the\npicture of the whole of life: learn thence the meaning of thine own\nlife.\" And the converse: \"read thine own life, and understand thence\nthe hieroglyphs of the universal life.\" In this way must\nSchopenhauer's philosophy always be interpreted; as an individualist\nphilosophy, starting from the single man, in his own nature, to gain\nan insight into his personal miseries, and needs, and limitations,\nand find out the remedies that will console them: namely, the\nsacrifice of the ego, and its submission to the nobler ends,\nespecially those of justice and mercy. He teaches us to distinguish\nbetween the true and the apparent furtherance of man's happiness: how\nneither the attainment of riches, nor honour, nor learning, can raise\nthe individual from his deep despair at his unworthiness; and how the\nquest for these good things can only have meaning through a universal\nend that transcends and explains them;--the gaining of power to aid\nour physical nature by them and, as far as may be, correct its folly\nand awkwardness. For one's self only, in the first instance: and\nfinally, through one's self, for all. It is a task that leads to\nscepticism: for there is so much to be made better yet, in one and\nall!\n\nApplying this to Schopenhauer himself, we come to the third and most\nintimate danger in which he lived, and which lay deep in the marrow\nof his being. Every one is apt to discover a limitation in himself,\nin his gifts of intellect as well as his moral will, that fills him\nwith yearning and melancholy; and as he strives after holiness\nthrough a consciousness of sin, so, as an intellectual being, he has\na deep longing after the \"genius\" in himself. This is the root of all\ntrue culture; and if we say this means the aspiration of man to be\n\"born again\" as saint and genius, I know that one need not be a\nBuddhist to understand the myth. We feel a strong loathing when we\nfind talent without such aspiration, in the circle of the learned, or\namong the so-called educated; for we see that such men, with all\ntheir cleverness, are no aid but a hindrance to the beginnings of\nculture, and the blossoming of genius, the aim of all culture. There\nis a rigidity in them, parallel to the cold arrogance of conventional\nvirtue, which also remains at the opposite pole to true holiness.\nSchopenhauer's nature contained an extraordinarily dangerous dualism.\nFew thinkers have felt as he did the complete and unmistakable\ncertainty of genius within them; and his genius made him the highest\nof all promises,--that there could be no deeper furrow than that\nwhich he was ploughing in the ground of the modern world. He knew one\nhalf of his being to be fulfilled according to its strength, with no\nother need; and he followed with greatness and dignity his vocation\nof consolidating his victory. In the other half there was a gnawing\naspiration, which we can understand, when we hear that he turned away\nwith a sad look from the picture of Ranc\u00e9, the founder of the\nTrappists, with the words: \"That is a matter of grace.\" For genius\nevermore yearns after holiness as it sees further and more clearly\nfrom its watch-tower than other men, deep into the reconciliation of\nThought and Being, the kingdom of peace and the denial of the will,\nand up to that other shore, of which the Indians speak. The wonder\nis, that Schopenhauer's nature should have been so inconceivably\nstable and unshakable that it could neither be destroyed nor\npetrified by this yearning. Every one will understand this after the\nmeasure of his own character and greatness: none of us will\nunderstand it in the fulness of its meaning.\n\nThe more one considers these three dangers, the more extraordinary\nwill appear his vigour in opposing them and his safety after the\nbattle. True, he gained many scars and open wounds: and a cast of\nmind that may seem somewhat too bitter and pugnacious. But his single\nideal transcends the highest humanity in him. Schopenhauer stands as\na pattern to men, in spite of all those scars and scratches. We may\neven say, that what was imperfect and \"all too human\" in him, brings\nus nearer to him as a man, for we see a sufferer and a kinsman to\nsuffering, not merely a dweller on the unattainable heights of\ngenius.\n\nThese three constitutional dangers that threatened Schopenhauer,\nthreaten us all. Each one of us bears a creative solitude within\nhimself and his consciousness of it forms an exotic aura of\nstrangeness round him. Most men cannot endure it, because they are\nslothful, as I said, and because their solitude hangs round them a\nchain of troubles and burdens. No doubt, for the man with this heavy\nchain, life loses almost everything that one desires from it in\nyouth--joy, safety, honour: his fellow-men pay him his due\nof--isolation! The wilderness and the cave are about him, wherever he\nmay live. He must look to it that he be not enslaved and oppressed,\nand become melancholy thereby. And let him surround himself with the\npictures of good and brave fighters such as Schopenhauer.\n\nThe second danger, too, is not rare. Here and there we find one\ndowered by nature with a keen vision; his thoughts dance gladly in\nthe witches' Sabbath of dialectic; and if he uncautiously give his\ntalent the rein, it is easy to lose all humanity and live a ghostly\nlife in the realm of \"pure reason\": or through the constant search\nfor the \"pros and cons\" of things, he may go astray from the truth\nand live without courage or confidence, in doubt, denial and\ndiscontent, and the slender hope that waits on disillusion: \"No dog\ncould live long thus!\"\n\nThe third danger is a moral or intellectual hardening: man breaks the\nbond that united him to his ideal: he ceases to be fruitful and\nreproduce himself in this or that province, and becomes an enemy or a\nparasite of culture. The solitude of his being has become an\nindivisible, unrelated atom, an icy stone. And one can perish of this\nsolitude as well as of the fear of it, of one's self as well as one's\nself-sacrifice, of both aspiration and petrifaction: and to live is\never to be in danger.\n\nBeside these dangers to which Schopenhauer would have been\nconstitutionally liable, in whatever century he had lived, there were\nalso some produced by his own time; and it is essential to\ndistinguish between these two kinds, in order to grasp the typical\nand formative elements in his nature. The philosopher casts his eye\nover existence, and wishes to give it a new standard value; for it\nhas been the peculiar task of all great thinkers to be law-givers for\nthe weight and stamp in the mint of reality. And his task will be\nhindered if the men he sees near him be a weakly and worm-eaten\ngrowth. To be correct in his calculation of existence, the\nunworthiness of the present time must be a very small item in the\naddition. The study of ancient or foreign history is valuable, if at\nall, for a correct judgment on the whole destiny of man; which must\nbe drawn not only from an average estimate but from a comparison of\nthe highest destinies that can befall individuals or nations. The\npresent is too much with us; it directs the vision even against the\nphilosopher's will: and it will inevitably be reckoned too high in\nthe final sum. And so he must put a low figure on his own time as\nagainst others, and suppress the present in his picture of life, as\nwell as in himself; must put it into the background or paint it over;\na difficult, and almost impossible task. The judgment of the ancient\nGreek philosophers on the value of existence means so much more than\nour own, because they had the full bloom of life itself before them,\nand their vision was untroubled by any felt dualism between their\nwish for freedom and beauty on the grand scale, and their search\nafter truth, with its single question \"What is the real _worth_ of\nlife?\" Empedocles lived when Greek culture was full to overflowing\nwith the joy of life, and all ages may take profit from his words;\nespecially as no other great philosopher of that great time ventured\nto contradict them. Empedocles is only the clearest voice among\nthem--they all say the same thing, if a man will but open his ears. A\nmodern thinker is always in the throes of an unfulfilled desire; he\nis looking for life,--warm, red life,--that he may pass judgment on\nit: at any rate he will think it necessary to be a living man\nhimself, before he can believe in his power of judging. And this is\nthe title of the modern philosophers to sit among the great aiders of\nLife (or rather of the will to live), and the reason why they can\nlook from their own out-wearied time and aspire to a truer culture,\nand a clearer explanation. Their yearning is, however, their danger;\nthe reformer in them struggles with the critical philosopher. And\nwhichever way the victory incline, it also implies a defeat. How was\nSchopenhauer to escape this danger?\n\nWe like to consider the great man as the noble child of his age, who\nfeels its defects more strongly and intimately than the smaller men:\nand therefore the struggle of the great man _against_ his age is\napparently nothing but a mad fight to the death with himself. Only\napparently, however: he only fights the elements in his time that\nhinder his own greatness, in other words his own freedom and\nsincerity. And so, at bottom, he is only an enemy to that element\nwhich is not truly himself, the irreconcilable antagonism of the\ntemporal and eternal in him. The supposed \"child of his age\" proves\nto be but a step-child. From boyhood Schopenhauer strove with his\ntime, a false and unworthy mother to him, and as soon as he had\nbanished her, he could bring back his being to its native health and\npurity. For this very reason we can use his writings as mirrors of\nhis time; it is no fault of the mirror if everything contemporary\nappear in it stricken by a ravaging disease, pale and thin, with\ntired looks and hollow eyes,--the step-child's sorrow made visible.\nThe yearning for natural strength, for a healthy and simple humanity,\nwas a yearning for himself: and as soon as he had conquered his time\nwithin him, he was face to face with his own genius. The secret of\nnature's being and his own lay open, the step-mother's plot to\nconceal his genius from him was foiled. And now he could turn a\nfearless eye towards the question, \"What is the real worth of life?\"\nwithout having any more to weigh a bloodless and chaotic age of doubt\nand hypocrisy. He knew that there was something higher and purer to\nbe won on this earth than the life of his time, and a man does bitter\nwrong to existence who only knows it and criticises it in this\nhateful form. Genius, itself the highest product of life, is now\nsummoned to justify life, if it can: the noble creative soul must\nanswer the question:--\"Dost thou in thy heart say 'Yea!' unto this\nexistence? Is it enough for thee? Wilt thou be its advocate and its\nredeemer? One true 'Yea!' from thy lips, and the sorely accused life\nshall go free.\" How shall he answer? In the words of Empedocles.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe last hint may well remain obscure for a time: I have something\nmore easy to explain, namely how Schopenhauer can help us to educate\nourselves _in opposition_ to our age, since we have the advantage of\nreally knowing our age, through him;--if it be an advantage! It may\nbe no longer possible in a couple of hundred years. I sometimes amuse\nmyself with the idea that men may soon grow tired of books and their\nauthors, and the savant of to-morrow come to leave directions in his\nwill that his body be burned in the midst of his books, including of\ncourse his own writings. And in the gradual clearing of the forests,\nmight not our libraries be very reasonably used for straw and\nbrushwood? Most books are born from the smoke and vapour of the\nbrain: and to vapour and smoke may they well return. For having no\nfire within themselves, they shall be visited with fire. And possibly\nto a later century our own may count as the \"Dark age,\" because our\nproductions heated the furnace hotter and more continuously than ever\nbefore. We are anyhow happy that we can learn to know our time; and\nif there be any sense in busying ourselves with our time at all, we\nmay as well do it as thoroughly as we can, so that no one may have\nany doubt about it. The possibility of this we owe to Schopenhauer.\n\nOur happiness would of course be infinitely greater, if our inquiry\nshowed that nothing so hopeful and splendid as our present epoch had\never existed. There are simple people in some corner of the earth\nto-day--perhaps in Germany--who are disposed to believe in all\nseriousness that the world was put right two years ago,[1] and that\nall stern and gloomy views of life are now contradicted by \"facts.\"\nThe foundation of the New German Empire is, to them, the decisive\nblow that annihilates all the \"pessimistic\" philosophisers,--no doubt\nof it. To judge the philosopher's significance in our time, as an\neducator, we must oppose a widespread view like this, especially\ncommon in our universities. We must say, it is a shameful thing that\nsuch abominable flattery of the Time-Fetish should be uttered by a\nherd of so-called reflective and honourable men; it is a proof that\nwe no longer see how far the seriousness of philosophy is removed\nfrom that of a newspaper. Such men have lost the last remnant of\nfeeling, not only for philosophy, but also for religion, and have put\nin its place a spirit not so much of optimism as of journalism, the\nevil spirit that broods over the day--and the daily paper. Every\nphilosophy that believes the problem of existence to be shelved, or\neven solved, by a political event, is a sham philosophy. There have\nbeen innumerable states founded since the beginning of the world;\nthat is an old story. How should a political innovation manage once\nand for all to make a contented race of the dwellers on this earth?\nIf any one believe in his heart that this is possible, he should\nreport himself to our authorities: he really deserves to be Professor\nof Philosophy in a German university, like Harms in Berlin, Jurgen\nMeyer in Bonn, and Carri\u00e8re in Munich.\n\n    [1] This was written in 1873.--TR.\n\nWe are feeling the consequences of the doctrine, preached lately from\nall the housetops, that the state is the highest end of man and there\nis no higher duty than to serve it: I regard this not a relapse into\npaganism, but into stupidity. A man who thinks state-service to be\nhis highest duty, very possibly knows no higher one; yet there are\nboth men and duties in a region beyond,--and one of these duties,\nthat seems to me at least of higher value than state-service, is to\ndestroy stupidity in all its forms--and this particular stupidity\namong them. And I have to do with a class of men whose teleological\nconceptions extend further than the well-being of a state, I mean\nwith philosophers--and only with them in their relation to the world\nof culture, which is again almost independent of the \"good of the\nstate.\" Of the many links that make up the twisted chain of humanity,\nsome are of gold and others of pewter.\n\nHow does the philosopher of our time regard culture? Quite\ndifferently, I assure you, from the professors who are so content\nwith their new state. He seems to see the symptoms of an absolute\nuprooting of culture in the increasing rush and hurry of life, and\nthe decay of all reflection and simplicity. The waters of religion\nare ebbing, and leaving swamps or stagnant pools: the nations are\ndrawing away in enmity again, and long to tear each other in pieces.\nThe sciences, blindly driving along, on a _laisser faire_ system,\nwithout a common standard, are splitting up, and losing hold of every\nfirm principle. The educated classes are being swept along in the\ncontemptible struggle for wealth. Never was the world more worldly,\nnever poorer in goodness and love. Men of learning are no longer\nbeacons or sanctuaries in the midst of this turmoil of worldliness;\nthey themselves are daily becoming more restless, thoughtless,\nloveless. Everything bows before the coming barbarism, art and\nscience included. The educated men have degenerated into the greatest\nfoes of education, for they will deny the universal sickness and\nhinder the physician. They become peevish, these poor nerveless\ncreatures, if one speak of their weakness and combat the shameful\nspirit of lies in them. They would gladly make one believe that they\nhave outstripped all the centuries, and they walk with a pretence of\nhappiness which has something pathetic about it, because their\nhappiness is so inconceivable. One would not even ask them, as\nTannh\u00e4user did Biterolf, \"What hast thou, poor wretch, enjoyed!\" For,\nalas! we know far better ourselves, in another way. There is a wintry\nsky over us, and we dwell on a high mountain, in danger and in need.\nShort-lived is all our joy, and the sun's rays strike palely on our\nwhite mountains. Music is heard; an old man grinds an organ, and the\ndancers whirl round, and the heart of the wanderer is shaken within\nhim to see it: everything is so disordered, so drab, so hopeless.\nEven now there is a sound of joy, of clear thoughtless joy! but soon\nthe mist of evening closes round, the note dies away, and the\nwanderer's footsteps are heard on the gravel; as far as his eye can\nreach there is nothing but the grim and desolate face of nature.\n\nIt may be one-sided, to insist only on the blurred lines and the dull\ncolours in the picture of modern life: yet the other side is no more\nencouraging, it is only more disturbing. There is certainly strength\nthere, enormous strength; but it is wild, primitive and merciless.\nOne looks on with a chill expectancy, as though into the caldron of a\nwitch's kitchen; every moment there may arise sparks and vapour, to\nherald some fearful apparition. For a century we have been ready for\na world-shaking convulsion; and though we have lately been trying to\nset the conservative strength of the so-called national state against\nthe great modern tendency to volcanic destructiveness, it will only\nbe, for a long time yet, an aggravation of the universal unrest that\nhangs over us. We need not be deceived by individuals behaving as if\nthey knew nothing of all this anxiety: their own restlessness shows\nhow well they know it. They think more exclusively of themselves than\nmen ever thought before; they plant and build for their little day,\nand the chase for happiness is never greater than when the quarry\nmust be caught to-day or to-morrow: the next day perhaps there is no\nmore hunting. We live in the Atomic Age, or rather in the Atomic\nChaos. The opposing forces were practically held together in medi\u00e6val\ntimes by the Church, and in some measure assimilated by the strong\npressure which she exerted. When the common tie broke and the\npressure relaxed, they rose once more against each other. The\nReformation taught that many things were \"adiaphora\"--departments\nthat needed no guidance from religion: this was the price paid for\nits own existence. Christianity paid a similar one to guard itself\nagainst the far more religious antiquity: and laid the seeds of\ndiscord at once. Everything nowadays is directed by the fools and the\nknaves, the selfishness of the money-makers and the brute forces of\nmilitarism. The state in their hands makes a good show of\nreorganising everything, and of becoming the bond that unites the\nwarring elements; in other words, it wishes for the same idolatry\nfrom mankind as they showed to the Church.\n\nAnd we shall yet feel the consequences. We are even now on the\nice-floes in the stream of the Middle Ages: they are thawing fast,\nand their movement is ominous: the banks are flooded, and giving way.\nThe revolution, the atomistic revolution, is inevitable: but what\n_are_ those smallest indivisible elements of human society?\n\nThere is surely far more danger to mankind in transitional periods\nlike these than in the actual time of revolution and chaos; they are\ntortured by waiting, and snatch greedily at every moment; and this\nbreeds all kinds of cowardice and selfishness in them: whereas the\ntrue feeling of a great and universal need ever inspires men, and\nmakes them better. In the midst of such dangers, who will provide the\nguardians and champions for _Humanity_, for the holy and inviolate\ntreasure that has been laid up in the temples, little by little, by\ncountless generations? Who will set up again the _Image of Man_, when\nmen in their selfishness and terror see nothing but the trail of the\nserpent or the cur in them, and have fallen from their high estate to\nthat of the brute or the automaton?\n\nThere are three Images of Man fashioned by our modern time, which for\na long while yet will urge mortal men to transfigure their own lives;\nthey are the men of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schopenhauer. The first has\nthe greatest fire, and is most calculated to impress the people: the\nsecond is only for the few, for those contemplative natures \"in the\ngrand style\" who are misunderstood by the crowd. The third demands\nthe highest activity in those who will follow it: only such men will\nlook on that image without harm, for it breaks the spirit of that\nmerely contemplative man, and the rabble shudder at it. From the\nfirst has come forth a strength that led and still leads to fearful\nrevolution: for in all socialistic upheavals it is ever Rousseau's\nman who is the Typhoeus under the Etna. Oppressed and half crushed to\ndeath by the pride of caste and the pitilessness of wealth, spoilt by\npriests and bad education, a laughing-stock even to himself, man\ncries in his need on \"holy mother Nature,\" and feels suddenly that\nshe is as far from him as any god of the Epicureans. His prayers do\nnot reach her; so deeply sunk is he in the Chaos of the unnatural. He\ncontemptuously throws aside all the finery that seemed his truest\nhumanity a little while ago--all his arts and sciences, all the\nrefinements of his life,--he beats with his fists against the walls,\nin whose shadow he has degenerated, and goes forth to seek the light\nand the sun, the forest and the crag. And crying out, \"Nature alone\nis good, the natural man alone is human,\" he despises himself and\naspires beyond himself: a state wherein the soul is ready for a\nfearful resolve, but calls the noble and the rare as well from their\nutter depths.\n\nGoethe's man is no such threatening force; in a certain sense he is a\ncorrective and a sedative to those dangerous agitations of which\nRousseau's man is a prey. Goethe himself in his youth followed the\n\"gospel of kindly Nature\" with all the ardour of his soul: his Faust\nwas the highest and boldest picture of Rousseau's man, so far at any\nrate as his hunger for life, his discontent and yearning, his\nintercourse with the demons of the heart could be represented. But\nwhat comes from these congregated storm-clouds? Not a single\nlightning flash! And here begins the new Image of man--the man\naccording to Goethe. One might have thought that Faust would have\nlived a continual life of suffering, as a revolutionary and a\ndeliverer, as the negative force that proceeds from goodness, as the\ngenius of ruin, alike religious and d\u00e6monic, in opposition to his\nutterly und\u00e6monic companion; though of course he could not be free of\nthis companion, and had at once to use and despise his evil and\ndestructive scepticism--which is the tragic destiny of all\nrevolutionary deliverers. One is wrong, however, to expect anything\nof the sort: Goethe's man here parts company with Rousseau's; for he\nhates all violence, all sudden transition--that is, all action: and\nthe universal deliverer becomes merely the universal traveller. All\nthe riches of life and nature, all antiquity--arts, mythologies and\nsciences--pass before his eager eyes, his deepest desires are aroused\nand satisfied, Helen herself can hold him no more--and the moment\nmust come for which his mocking companion is waiting. At a fair spot\non the earth, his flight comes to an end: his pinions drop, and\nMephistopheles is at his side. When the German ceases to be Faust,\nthere is no danger greater than of becoming a Philistine and falling\ninto the hands of the devil--heavenly powers alone can save him.\nGoethe's man is, as I said, the contemplative man in the grand style,\nwho is only kept from dying of ennui by feeding on all the great and\nmemorable things that have ever existed, and by living from desire to\ndesire. He is not the active man; and when he does take a place among\nactive men, as things are, you may be sure that no good will come of\nit (think, for example, of the zeal with which Goethe wrote for the\nstage!); and further, you may be sure that \"things as they are\" will\nsuffer no change. Goethe's man is a conciliatory and conservative\nspirit, though in danger of degenerating into a Philistine, just as\nRousseau's man may easily become a Catiline. All his virtues would be\nthe better by the addition of a little brute force and elemental\npassion. Goethe appears to have seen where the weakness and danger of\nhis creation lay, as is clear from Jarno's word to Wilhelm Meister:\n\"You are bitter and ill-tempered--which is quite an excellent thing:\nif you could once become really angry, it would be still better.\"\n\nTo speak plainly, it is necessary to become really angry in order\nthat things may be better. The picture of Schopenhauer's man can help\nus here. _Schopenhauer's man voluntarily takes upon himself the pain\nof telling the truth:_ this pain serves to quench his individual will\nand make him ready for the complete transformation of his being,\nwhich it is the inner meaning of life to realise. This openness in\nhim appears to other men to be an effect of malice, for they think\nthe preservation of their shifts and pretences to be the first duty\nof humanity, and any one who destroys their playthings to be merely\nmalicious. They are tempted to cry out to such a man, in Faust's\nwords to Mephistopheles:--\n\n  \"So to the active and eternal\n  Creative force, in cold disdain\n  You now oppose the fist infernal\"--\n\nand he who would live according to Schopenhauer would seem to be more\nlike a Mephistopheles than a Faust--that is, to our weak modern eyes,\nwhich always discover signs of malice in any negation. But there is a\nkind of denial and destruction that is the effect of that strong\naspiration after holiness and deliverance, which Schopenhauer was the\nfirst philosopher to teach our profane and worldly generation.\nEverything that can be denied, deserves to be denied; and real\nsincerity means the belief in a state of things which cannot be\ndenied, or in which there is no lie. The sincere man feels that his\nactivity has a metaphysical meaning. It can only be explained by the\nlaws of a different and a higher life; it is in the deepest sense an\naffirmation: even if everything that he does seem utterly opposed to\nthe laws of our present life. It must lead therefore to constant\nsuffering; but he knows, as Meister Eckhard did, that \"the quickest\nbeast that will carry you to perfection is suffering.\" Every one, I\nshould think, who has such an ideal before him, must feel a wider\nsympathy; and he will have a burning desire to become a \"Schopenhauer\nman\";--pure and wonderfully patient, on his intellectual side full of\na devouring fire, and far removed from the cold and contemptuous\n\"neutrality\" of the so-called scientific man; so high above any\nwarped and morose outlook on life as to offer himself as the first\nvictim of the truth he has won, with a deep consciousness of the\nsufferings that must spring from his sincerity. His courage will\ndestroy his happiness on earth, he must be an enemy to the men he\nloves and the institutions in which he grew up, he must spare neither\nperson nor thing, however it may hurt him, he will be misunderstood\nand thought an ally of forces that he abhors, in his search for\nrighteousness he will seem unrighteous by human standards: but he\nmust comfort himself with the words that his teacher Schopenhauer\nonce used: \"A happy life is impossible, the highest thing that man\ncan aspire to is a _heroic_ life; such as a man lives, who is always\nfighting against unequal odds for the good of others; and wins in the\nend without any thanks. After the battle is over, he stands like the\nPrince in the _re corvo_ of Gozzi, with dignity and nobility in his\neyes, but turned to stone. His memory remains, and will be reverenced\nas a hero's; his will, that has been mortified all his life by\ntoiling and struggling, by evil payment and ingratitude, is absorbed\ninto Nirvana.\" Such a heroic life, with its full \"mortification\"--\ncorresponds very little to the paltry ideas of the people who talk\nmost about it, and make festivals in memory of great men, in the\nbelief that a great man is great in the sense that they are small,\neither through exercise of his gifts to please himself or by a blind\nmechanical obedience to this inner force; so that the man who does\nnot possess the gift or feel the compulsion has the same right to be\nsmall as the other to be great. But \"gift\" and \"compulsion\" are\ncontemptible words, mere means of escape from an inner voice, a\nslander on him who has listened to the voice--the great man; he least\nof all will allow himself to be given or compelled to anything: for\nhe knows as well as any smaller man how easily life can be taken and\nhow soft the bed whereon he might lie if he went the pleasant and\nconventional way with himself and his fellow-creatures: all the\nregulations of mankind are turned to the end that the intense feeling\nof life may be lost in continual distractions. Now why will he so\nstrongly choose the opposite, and try to feel life, which is the same\nas to suffer from life? Because he sees that men will tempt him to\nbetray himself, and that there is a kind of agreement to draw him\nfrom his den. He will prick up his ears and gather himself together,\nand say, \"I will remain mine own.\" He gradually comes to understand\nwhat a fearful decision it is. For he must go down into the depths of\nbeing, with a string of curious questions on his lips--\"Why am I\nalive? what lesson have I to learn from life? how have I become what\nI am, and why do I suffer in this existence?\" He is troubled, and\nsees that no one is troubled in the same way; but rather that the\nhands of his fellow-men are passionately stretched out towards the\nfantastic drama of the political theatre, or they themselves are\ntreading the boards under many disguises, youths, men and graybeards,\nfathers, citizens, priests, merchants and officials,--busy with the\ncomedy they are all playing, and never thinking of their own selves.\nTo the question \"To what end dost thou live?\" they would all\nimmediately answer, with pride, \"To _become_ a good citizen or\nprofessor or statesman,\"--and yet they _are_ something which can\nnever be changed: and why are they just--this? Ah, and why nothing\nbetter? The man who only regards his life as a moment in the\nevolution of a race or a state or a science, and will belong merely\nto a history of \"becoming,\" has not understood the lesson of\nexistence, and must learn it over again. This eternal \"becoming\nsomething\" is a lying puppet-show, in which man has forgot himself;\nit is the force that scatters individuality to the four winds, the\neternal childish game that the big baby time is playing in front of\nus--and with us. The heroism of sincerity lies in ceasing to be the\nplaything of time. Everything in the process of \"becoming\" is a\nhollow sham, contemptible and shallow: man can only find the solution\nof his riddle in \"being\" something definite and unchangeable. He\nbegins to test how deep both \"becoming\" and \"being\" are rooted in\nhim--and a fearful task is before his soul; to destroy the first, and\nbring all the falsity of things to the light. He wishes to know\neverything, not to feed a delicate taste, like Goethe's man, to take\ndelight, from a safe place in the multiplicity of existence: but he\nhimself is the first sacrifice that he brings. The heroic man does\nnot think of his happiness or misery, his virtues or his vices, or of\nhis being the measure of things; he has no further hopes of himself\nand will accept the utter consequences of his hopelessness. His\nstrength lies in his self-forgetfulness: if he have a thought for\nhimself, it is only to measure the vast distance between himself and\nhis aim, and to view what he has left behind him as so much dross.\nThe old philosophers sought for happiness and truth, with all their\nstrength: and there is an evil principle in nature that not one shall\nfind that which he cannot help seeking. But the man who looks for a\nlie in everything, and becomes a willing friend to unhappiness, shall\nhave a marvellous disillusioning: there hovers near him something\nunutterable, of which truth and happiness are but idolatrous images\nborn of the night; the earth loses her dragging weight, the events\nand powers of earth become as a dream, and a gradual clearness widens\nround him like a summer evening. It is as though the beholder of\nthese things began to wake, and it had only been the clouds of a\npassing dream that had been weaving about him. They will at some time\ndisappear: and then will it be day.\n\n\nV.\n\nBut I have promised to speak of Schopenhauer, as far as my experience\ngoes, as an _educator_, and it is far from being sufficient to paint\nthe ideal humanity which is the \"Platonic idea\" in Schopenhauer;\nespecially as my representation is an imperfect one. The most\ndifficult task remains;--to say how a new circle of duties may spring\nfrom this ideal, and how one can reconcile such a transcendent aim\nwith ordinary action; to prove, in short, that the ideal is\n_educative_. One might otherwise think it to be merely the blissful\nor intoxicating vision of a few rare moments, that leaves us\nafterwards the prey of a deeper disappointment. It is certain that\nthe ideal begins to affect us in this way when we come suddenly to\ndistinguish light and darkness, bliss and abhorrence; this is an\nexperience that is as old as ideals themselves. But we ought not to\nstand in the doorway for long; we should soon leave the first stages,\nand ask the question, seriously and definitely, \"Is it possible to\nbring that incredibly high aim so near us, that it should educate us,\nor 'lead us out,' as well as lead us upward?\"--in order that the\ngreat words of Goethe be not fulfilled in our case--\"Man is born to a\nstate of limitation: he can understand ends that are simple, present\nand definite, and is accustomed to make use of means that are near to\nhis hand; but as soon as he comes into the open, he knows neither\nwhat he wishes nor what he ought to do, and it is all one whether he\nbe confused by the multitude of objects or set beside himself by\ntheir greatness and importance. It is always his misfortune to be led\nto strive after something which he cannot attain by any ordinary\nactivity of his own.\" The objection can be made with apparent reason\nagainst Schopenhauer's man, that his greatness and dignity can only\nturn our heads, and put us beyond all community with the active men\nof the world: the common round of duties, the noiseless tenor of life\nhas disappeared. One man may possibly get accustomed to living in a\nreluctant dualism, that is, in a contradiction with himself;--\nbecoming unstable, daily weaker and less productive:--while another\nwill renounce all action on principle, and scarcely endure to see\nothers active. The danger is always great when a man is too\nheavy-laden, and cannot really _accomplish_ any duties. Stronger\nnatures may be broken by it; the weaker, which are the majority, sink\ninto a speculative laziness, and at last, from their laziness, lose\neven the power of speculation.\n\nWith regard to such objections, I will admit that our work has hardly\nbegun, and so far as I know, I only see one thing clearly and\ndefinitely--that it is possible for that ideal picture to provide you\nand me with a chain of duties that may be accomplished; and some of\nus already feel its pressure. In order, however, to be able to speak\nin plain language of the formula under which I may gather the new\ncircle of duties, I must begin with the following considerations.\n\nThe deeper minds of all ages have had pity for animals, because they\nsuffer from life and have not the power to turn the sting of the\nsuffering against themselves, and understand their being\nmetaphysically. The sight of blind suffering is the spring of the\ndeepest emotion. And in many quarters of the earth men have supposed\nthat the souls of the guilty have entered into beasts, and that the\nblind suffering which at first sight calls for such pity has a clear\nmeaning and purpose to the divine justice,--of punishment and\natonement: and a heavy punishment it is, to be condemned to live in\nhunger and need, in the shape of a beast, and to reach no\nconsciousness of one's self in this life. I can think of no harder\nlot than the wild beast's; he is driven to the forest by the fierce\npang of hunger, that seldom leaves him at peace; and peace is itself\na torment, the surfeit after horrid food, won, maybe, by a deadly\nfight with other animals. To cling to life, blindly and madly, with\nno other aim, to be ignorant of the reason, or even the fact, of\none's punishment, nay, to thirst after it as if it were a pleasure,\nwith all the perverted desire of a fool--this is what it means to be\nan animal. If universal nature leads up to man, it is to show us that\nhe is necessary to redeem her from the curse of the beast's life, and\nthat in him existence can find a mirror of itself wherein life\nappears, no longer blind, but in its real metaphysical significance.\nBut we should consider where the beast ends and the man begins--the\nman, the one concern of Nature. As long as any one desires life as a\npleasure in itself, he has not raised his eyes above the horizon of\nthe beast; he only desires more consciously what the beast seeks by a\nblind impulse. It is so with us all, for the greater part of our\nlives. We do not shake off the beast, but are beasts ourselves,\nsuffering we know not what.\n\nBut there are moments when we do know; and then the clouds break, and\nwe see how, with the rest of nature, we are straining towards the\nman, as to something that stands high above us. We look round and\nbehind us, and fear the sudden rush of light; the beasts are\ntransfigured, and ourselves with them. The enormous migrations of\nmankind in the wildernesses of the world, the cities they found and\nthe wars they wage, their ceaseless gatherings and dispersions and\nfusions, the doctrines they blindly follow, their mutual frauds and\ndeceits, the cry of distress, the shriek of victory--are all a\ncontinuation of the beast in us: as if the education of man has been\nintentionally set back, and his promise of self-consciousness\nfrustrated; as if, in fact, after yearning for man so long, and at\nlast reaching him by her labour, Nature should now recoil from him\nand wish to return to a state of unconscious instinct. Ah! she has\nneed of knowledge, and shrinks before the very knowledge she needs:\nthe flame flickers unsteadily and fears its own brightness, and takes\nhold of a thousand things before the one thing for which knowledge is\nnecessary. There are moments when we all know that our most elaborate\narrangements are only designed to give us refuge from our real task\nin life; we wish to hide our heads somewhere as if our Argus-eyed\nconscience could not find us out; we are quick to send our hearts on\nstate-service, or money-making, or social duties, or scientific work,\nin order to possess them no longer ourselves; we are more willing and\ninstinctive slaves of the hard day's work than mere living requires,\nbecause it seems to us more necessary not to be in a position to\nthink. The hurry is universal, because every one is fleeing before\nhimself; its concealment is just as universal, as we wish to seem\ncontented and hide our wretchedness from the keener eyes; and so\nthere is a common need for a new carillon of words to hang in the\ntemple of life, and peal for its noisy festival. We all know the\ncurious way in which unpleasant memories suddenly throng on us, and\nhow we do our best by loud talk and violent gestures to put them out\nof our minds; but the gestures and the talk of our ordinary life make\none think we are all in this condition, frightened of any memory or\nany inward gaze. What is it that is always troubling us? what is the\ngnat that will not let us sleep? There are spirits all about us, each\nmoment of life has something to say to us, but we will not listen to\nthe spirit-voices. When we are quiet and alone, we fear that\nsomething will be whispered in our ears, and so we hate the quiet,\nand dull our senses in society.\n\nWe understand this sometimes, as I say, and stand amazed at the whirl\nand the rush and the anxiety and all the dream that we call our life;\nwe seem to fear the awakening, and our dreams too become vivid and\nrestless, as the awakening draws near. But we feel as well that we\nare too weak to endure long those intimate moments, and that we are\nnot the men to whom universal nature looks as her redeemers. It is\nsomething to be able to raise our heads but for a moment and see the\nstream in which we are sunk so deep. We cannot gain even this\ntransitory moment of awakening by our own strength; we must be lifted\nup--and who are they that will uplift us?\n\nThe sincere men who have cast out the beast, the philosophers,\nartists and saints. Nature--_qu\u00e6 nunquam facit saltum_--has made her\none leap in creating them; a leap of joy, as she feels herself for\nthe first time at her goal, where she begins to see that she must\nlearn not to have goals above her, and that she has played the game\nof transition too long. The knowledge transfigures her, and there\nrests on her face the gentle weariness of evening that men call\n\"beauty.\" Her words after this transfiguration are as a great light\nshed over existence: and the highest wish that mortals can reach is\nto listen continually to her voice with ears that hear. If a man\nthink of all that Schopenhauer, for example, must have _heard_ in his\nlife, he may well say to himself--\"The deaf ears, the feeble\nunderstanding and shrunken heart, everything that I call mine,--how I\ndespise them! Not to be able to fly but only to flutter one's wings!\nTo look above one's self and have no power to rise! To know the road\nthat leads to the wide vision of the philosopher, and to reel back\nafter a few steps! Were there but one day when the great wish might\nbe fulfilled, how gladly would we pay for it with the rest of life!\nTo rise as high as any thinker yet into the pure icy air of the\nmountain, where there are no mists and veils, and the inner\nconstitution of things is shown in a stark and piercing clarity! Even\nby thinking of this the soul becomes infinitely alone; but were its\nwish fulfilled, did its glance once fall straight as a ray of light\non the things below, were shame and anxiety and desire gone for\never--one could find no words for its state then, for the mystic and\ntranquil emotion with which, like the soul of Schopenhauer, it would\nlook down on the monstrous hieroglyphics of existence and the\npetrified doctrines of \"becoming\"; not as the brooding night, but as\nthe red and glowing day that streams over the earth. And what a\ndestiny it is only to know enough of the fixity and happiness of the\nphilosopher to feel the complete unfixity and unhappiness of the\nfalse philosopher, 'who without hope lives in desire': to know one's\nself to be the fruit of a tree that is too much in the shade ever to\nripen, and to see a world of sunshine in front, where one may not\ngo!\"\n\nThere were sorrow enough here, if ever, to make such a man envious\nand spiteful: but he will turn aside, that he may not destroy his\nsoul by a vain aspiration; and will discover a new circle of duties.\n\nI can now give an answer to the question whether it be possible to\napproach the great ideal of Schopenhauer's man \"by any ordinary\nactivity of our own.\" In the first place, the new duties are\ncertainly not those of a hermit; they imply rather a vast community,\nheld together not by external forms but by a fundamental idea, namely\nthat of _culture_; though only so far as it can put a single task\nbefore each of us--to bring the philosopher, the artist and the\nsaint, within and without us, to the light, and to strive thereby for\nthe completion of Nature. For Nature needs the artist, as she needs\nthe philosopher, for a metaphysical end, the explanation of herself,\nwhereby she may have a clear and sharp picture of what she only saw\ndimly in the troubled period of transition,--and so may reach\nself-consciousness. Goethe, in an arrogant yet profound phrase,\nshowed how all Nature's attempts only have value in so far as the\nartist interprets her stammering words, meets her half-way, and\nspeaks aloud what she really means. \"I have often said, and will\noften repeat,\" he exclaims in one place, \"the _causa finalis_ of\nnatural and human activity is dramatic poetry. Otherwise the stuff is\nof no use at all.\"\n\nFinally, Nature needs the saint. In him the ego has melted away, and\nthe suffering of his life is, practically, no longer felt as\nindividual, but as the spring of the deepest sympathy and intimacy\nwith all living creatures: he sees the wonderful transformation scene\nthat the comedy of \"becoming\" never reaches, the attainment, at\nlength, of the high state of man after which all nature is striving,\nthat she may be delivered from herself. Without doubt, we all stand\nin close relation to him, as well as to the philosopher and the\nartist: there are moments, sparks from the clear fire of love, in\nwhose light we understand the word \"I\" no longer; there is something\nbeyond our being that comes, for those moments, to the hither side of\nit: and this is why we long in our hearts for a bridge from here to\nthere. In our ordinary state we can do nothing towards the production\nof the new redeemer, and so we hate ourselves in this state with a\nhatred that is the root of the pessimism which Schopenhauer had to\nteach again to our age, though it is as old as the aspiration after\nculture.--Its root, not its flower; the foundation, not the summit;\nthe beginning of the road, not the end: for we have to learn at some\ntime to hate something else, more universal than our own personality\nwith its wretched limitation, its change and its unrest--and this\nwill be when we shall learn to love something else than we can love\nnow. When we are ourselves received into that high order of\nphilosophers, artists and saints, in this life or a reincarnation of\nit, a new object for our love and hate will also rise before us. As\nit is, we have our task and our circle of duties, our hates and our\nloves. For we know that culture requires us to make ready for the\ncoming of the Schopenhauer man;--and this is the \"use\" we are to make\nof him;--we must know what obstacles there are and strike them from\nour path--in fact, wage unceasing war against everything that\nhindered our fulfilment, and prevented us from becoming\nSchopenhauer's men ourselves.\n\n\nVI.\n\nIt is sometimes harder to agree to a thing than to understand it;\nmany will feel this when they consider the proposition--\"Mankind must\ntoil unceasingly to bring forth individual great men: this and\nnothing else is its task.\" One would like to apply to society and its\nends a fact that holds universally in the animal and vegetable world;\nwhere progress depends only on the higher individual types, which are\nrarer, yet more persistent, complex and productive. But traditional\nnotions of what the end of society is, absolutely bar the way. We can\neasily understand how in the natural world, where one species passes\nat some point into a higher one, the aim of their evolution cannot be\nheld to lie in the high level attained by the mass, or in the latest\ntypes developed;--but rather in what seem accidental beings produced\nhere and there by favourable circumstances. It should be just as easy\nto understand that it is the duty of mankind to provide the\ncircumstances favourable to the birth of the new redeemer, simply\nbecause men can have a consciousness of their object. But there is\nalways something to prevent them. They find their ultimate aim in the\nhappiness of all, or the greatest number, or in the expansion of a\ngreat commonwealth. A man will very readily decide to sacrifice his\nlife for the state; he will be much slower to respond if an\nindividual, and not a state, ask for the sacrifice. It seems to be\nout of reason that one man should exist for the sake of another: \"Let\nit be rather for the sake of every other, or, at any rate, of as many\nas possible!\" O upright judge! As if it were more in reason to let\nthe majority decide a question of value and significance! For the\nproblem is--\"In what way may your life, the individual life, retain\nthe highest value and the deepest significance? and how may it least\nbe squandered?\" Only by your living for the good of the rarest and\nmost valuable types, not for that of the majority,--who are the most\nworthless types, taken as individuals. This way of thinking should be\nimplanted and fostered in every young man's mind: he should regard\nhimself both as a failure of Nature's handiwork and a testimony to\nher larger ideas. \"She has succeeded badly,\" he should say; \"but I\nwill do honour to her great idea by being a means to its better\nsuccess.\"\n\nWith these thoughts he will enter the circle of culture, which is the\nchild of every man's self-knowledge and dissatisfaction. He will\napproach and say aloud: \"I see something above me, higher and more\nhuman than I: let all help me to reach it, as I will help all who\nknow and suffer as I do, that the man may arise at last who feels his\nknowledge and love, vision and power, to be complete and boundless,\nwho in his universality is one with nature, the critic and judge of\nexistence.\" It is difficult to give any one this courageous\nself-consciousness, because it is impossible to teach love; from love\nalone the soul gains, not only the clear vision that leads to\nself-contempt, but also the desire to look to a higher self which is\nyet hidden, and strive upward to it with all its strength. And so he\nwho rests his hope on a future great man, receives his first\n\"initiation into culture.\" The sign of this is shame or vexation at\none's self, a hatred of one's own narrowness, a sympathy with the\ngenius that ever raises its head again from our misty wastes, a\nfeeling for all that is struggling into life, the conviction that\nNature must be helped in her hour of need to press forward to the\nman, however ill she seem to prosper, whatever success may attend her\nmarvellous forms and projects: so that the men with whom we live are\nlike the d\u00e9bris of some precious sculptures, which cry out--\"Come and\nhelp us! Put us together, for we long to become complete.\"\n\nI called this inward condition the \"first initiation into culture.\" I\nhave now to describe the effects of the \"second initiation,\" a task\nof greater difficulty. It is the passage from the inner life to the\ncriticism of the outer life. The eye must be turned to find in the\ngreat world of movement the desire for culture that is known from the\nimmediate experience of the individual; who must use his own\nstrivings and aspirations as the alphabet to interpret those of\nhumanity. He cannot rest here either, but must go higher. Culture\ndemands from him not only that inner experience, not only the\ncriticism of the outer world surrounding him, but action too to crown\nthem all, the fight for culture against the influences and\nconventions and institutions where he cannot find his own aim,--the\nproduction of genius.\n\nAny one who can reach the second step, will see how extremely rare\nand imperceptible the knowledge of that end is, though all men busy\nthemselves with culture and expend vast labour in her service. He\nasks himself in amazement--\"Is not such knowledge, after all,\nabsolutely necessary? Can Nature be said to attain her end, if men\nhave a false idea of the aim of their own labour?\" And any one who\nthinks a great deal of Nature's unconscious adaptation of means to\nends, will probably answer at once: \"Yes, men may think and speak\nwhat they like about their ultimate end, their blind instinct will\ntell them the right road.\" It requires some experience of life to be\nable to contradict this: but let a man be convinced of the real aim\nof culture--the production of the true man and nothing else;--let him\nconsider that amid all the pageantry and ostentation of culture at\nthe present time the conditions for his production are nothing but a\ncontinual \"battle of the beasts\": and he will see that there is great\nneed for a conscious will to take the place of that blind instinct.\nThere is another reason also;--to prevent the possibility of turning\nthis obscure impulse to quite different ends, in a direction where\nour highest aim can no longer be attained. For we must beware of a\ncertain kind of misapplied and parasitical culture; the powers at\npresent most active in its propagation have other casts of thought\nthat prevent their relation to culture from being pure and\ndisinterested.\n\nThe first of these is the self-interest of the business men. This\nneeds the help of culture, and helps her in return, though at the\nprice of prescribing her ends and limits. And their favourite sorites\nis: \"We must have as much knowledge and education as possible; this\nimplies as great a need as possible for it, this again as much\nproduction, this again as much material wealth and happiness as\npossible.\"--This is the seductive formula. Its preachers would define\neducation as the insight that makes man through and through a \"child\nof his age\" in his desires and their satisfaction, and gives him\ncommand over the best means of making money. Its aim would be to make\n\"current\" men, in the same sense as one speaks of the \"currency\" in\nmoney; and in their view, the more \"current\" men there are, the\nhappier the people. The object of modern educational systems is\ntherefore to make each man as \"current\" as his nature will allow him,\nand to give him the opportunity for the greatest amount of success\nand happiness that can be got from his particular stock of knowledge.\nHe is required to have just so much idea of his own value (through\nhis liberal education) as to know what he can ask of life; and he is\nassured that a natural and necessary connection between \"intelligence\nand property\" not only exists, but is also a _moral_ necessity. All\neducation is detested that makes for loneliness, and has an aim above\nmoney-making, and requires a long time: men look askance on such\nserious education, as mere \"refined egoism\" or \"immoral\nEpicureanism.\" The converse of course holds, according to the\nordinary morality, that education must be soon over to allow the\npursuit of money to be soon begun, and should be just thorough enough\nto allow of much money being made. The amount of education is\ndetermined by commercial interests. In short, \"man has a necessary\nclaim to worldly happiness; only for that reason is education\nnecessary.\"\n\nThere is, secondly, the self-interest of the state, which requires\nthe greatest possible breadth and universality of culture, and has\nthe most effective weapons to carry out its wishes. If it be firmly\nenough established not only to initiate but control education and\nbear its whole weight, such breadth will merely profit the\ncompetition of the state with other states. A \"highly civilised\nstate\" generally implies, at the present time, the task of setting\nfree the spiritual forces of a generation just so far as they may be\nof use to the existing institutions,--as a mountain stream is split\nup by embankments and channels, and its diminished power made to\ndrive mill-wheels, its full strength being more dangerous than useful\nto the mills. And thus \"setting free\" comes to mean rather \"chaining\nup.\" Compare, for example, what the self-interest of the state has\ndone for Christianity. Christianity is one of the purest\nmanifestations of the impulse towards culture and the production of\nthe saint: but being used in countless ways to turn the mills of the\nstate authorities, it gradually became sick at heart, hypocritical\nand degenerate, and in antagonism with its original aim. Its last\nphase, the German Reformation, would have been nothing but a sudden\nflickering of its dying flame, had it not taken new strength and\nlight from the clash and conflagration of states.\n\nIn the third place, culture will be favoured by all those people who\nknow their own character to be offensive or tiresome, and wish to\ndraw a veil of so-called \"good form\" over them. Words, gestures,\ndress, etiquette, and such external things, are meant to produce a\nfalse impression, the inner side to be judged from the outer. I\nsometimes think that modern men are eternally bored with each other\nand look to the arts to make them interesting. They let their artists\nmake savoury and inviting dishes of them; they steep themselves in\nthe spices of the East and West, and have a very interesting aroma\nafter it all. They are ready to suit all palates: and every one will\nbe served, whether he want something with a good or bad taste,\nsomething sublime or coarse, Greek or Chinese, tragedy or\ngutter-drama. The most celebrated chefs among the moderns who wish to\ninterest and be interested at any price, are the French; the worst\nare the Germans. This is really more comforting for the latter, and\nwe have no reason to mind the French despising us for our want of\ninterest, elegance and politeness, and being reminded of the Indian\nwho longs for a ring through his nose, and then proceeds to tattoo\nhimself.\n\nHere I must digress a little. Many things in Germany have evidently\nbeen altered since the late war with France, and new requirements for\nGerman culture brought over. The war was for many their first venture\ninto the more elegant half of the world: and what an admirable\nsimplicity the conqueror shows in not scorning to learn something of\nculture from the conquered! The applied arts especially will be\nreformed to emulate our more refined neighbours, the German house\nfurnished like the French, a \"sound taste\" applied to the German\nlanguage by means of an Academy on the French model, to shake off the\ndoubtful influence of Goethe--this is the judgment of our new Berlin\nAcademician, Dubois-Raymond. Our theatres have been gradually moving,\nin a dignified way, towards the same goal, even the elegant German\nsavant is now discovered--and we must now expect everything that does\nnot conform to this law of elegance, our music, tragedy and\nphilosophy, to be thrust aside as un-German. But there were no need\nto raise a finger for German culture, did German culture (which the\nGermans have yet to find) mean nothing but the little amenities that\nmake life more decorative--including the arts of the dancing-master\nand the upholsterer;--or were they merely interested in academic\nrules of language and a general atmosphere of politeness. The late\nwar and the self-comparison with the French do not seem to have\naroused any further desires, and I suspect that the German has a\nstrong wish for the moment to be free of the old obligations laid on\nhim by his wonderful gifts of seriousness and profundity. He would\nmuch rather play the buffoon and the monkey, and learn the arts that\nmake life amusing. But the German spirit cannot be more dishonoured\nthan by being treated as wax for any elegant mould.\n\nAnd if, unfortunately, a good many Germans will allow themselves to\nbe thus moulded, one must continually say to them, till at last they\nlisten:--\"The old German way is no longer yours: it was hard, rough,\nand full of resistance; but it is still the most valuable\nmaterial--one which only the greatest modellers can work with, for\nthey alone are worthy to use it. What you have in you now is a soft\npulpy stuff: make what you will out of it,--elegant dolls and\ninteresting idols--Richard Wagner's phrase will still hold good, 'The\nGerman is awkward and ungainly when he wishes to be polite; he is\nhigh above all others, when he begins to take fire.'\" All the elegant\npeople have reason to beware of this German fire; it may one day\ndevour them with all their wax dolls and idols.--The prevailing love\nof \"good form\" in Germany may have a deeper cause in the breathless\nseizing at what the moment can give, the haste that plucks the fruit\ntoo green, the race and the struggle that cut the furrows in men's\nbrows and stamp the same mark on all their actions. As if there were\na poison in them that would not let them breathe, they rush about in\ndisorder, anxious slaves of the \"three m's,\" the moment, the mode and\nthe mob: they see too well their want of dignity and fitness, and\nneed a false elegance to hide their galloping consumption. The\nfashionable desire of \"good form\" is bound up with a loathing of\nman's inner nature: the one is to conceal, the other to be concealed.\nEducation means now the concealment of man's misery and wickedness,\nhis wild-beast quarrels, his eternal greed, his shamelessness in\nfruition. In pointing out the absence of a German culture, I have\noften had the reproach flung at me: \"This absence is quite natural,\nfor the Germans have been too poor and modest up to now. Once rich\nand conscious of themselves, our people will have a culture too.\"\nFaith may often produce happiness, yet _this_ particular faith makes\nme unhappy, for I feel that the culture whose future raises such\nhopes--the culture of riches, politeness, and elegant concealments--\nis the bitterest foe of that German culture in which I believe. Every\none who has to live among Germans suffers from the dreadful grayness\nand apathy of their lives, their formlessness, torpor and clumsiness,\nstill more their envy, secretiveness and impurity: he is troubled by\ntheir innate love of the false and the ignoble, their wretched\nmimicry and translation of a good foreign thing into a bad German\none. But now that the feverish unrest, the quest of gain and success,\nthe intense prizing of the moment, is added to it all, it makes one\nfurious to think that all this sickness can never be cured, but only\npainted over, by such a \"cult of the interesting.\" And this among a\npeople that has produced a Schopenhauer and a Wagner! and will\nproduce others, unless we are blindly deceiving ourselves; for should\nnot their very existence be a guarantee that such forces are even now\npotential in the German spirit? Or will they be exceptions, the last\ninheritors of the qualities that were once called German? I can see\nnothing to help me here, and return to my main argument again, from\nwhich my doubts and anxieties have made me digress. I have not yet\nenumerated all the forces that help culture without recognising its\nend, the production of genius. Three have been named; the\nself-interest of business, of the state, and of those who draw the\ncloak of \"good form\" over them. There is fourthly the self-interest\nof science, and the peculiar nature of her servants--the learned.\n\nScience has the same relation to wisdom as current morality to\nholiness: she is cold and dry, loveless, and ignorant of any deep\nfeeling of dissatisfaction and yearning. She injures her servants in\nhelping herself, for she impresses her own character on them and\ndries up their humanity. As long as we actually mean by culture the\nprogress of science, she will pass by the great suffering man and\nharden her heart, for science only sees the problems of knowledge,\nand suffering is something alien and unintelligible to her\nworld--though no less a problem for that!\n\nIf one accustom himself to put down every experience in a dialectical\nform of question and answer, and translate it into the language of\n\"pure reason,\" he will soon wither up and rattle his bones like a\nskeleton. We all know it: and why is it that the young do not shudder\nat these skeletons of men, but give themselves blindly to science\nwithout motive or measure? It cannot be the so-called \"impulse to\ntruth\": for how could there be an impulse towards a pure, cold and\nobjectless knowledge? The unprejudiced eye can see the real driving\nforces only too plainly. The vivisection of the professor has much to\nrecommend it, as he himself is accustomed to finger and analyse all\nthings--even the worthiest! To speak honestly, the savant is a\ncomplex of very various impulses and attractive forces--he is a base\nmetal throughout.\n\nTake first a strong and increasing desire for intellectual adventure,\nthe attraction of the new and rare as against the old and tedious.\nAdd to that a certain joy in nosing the trail of dialectic, and\nbeating the cover where the old fox, Thought, lies hid; the desire is\nnot so much for truth as the chase of truth, and the chief pleasure\nis in surrounding and artistically killing it. Add thirdly a love of\ncontradiction whereby the personality is able to assert itself\nagainst all others: the battle's the thing, and the personal victory\nits aim,--truth only its pretext. The impulse to discover \"particular\ntruths\" plays a great part in the professor, coming from his\nsubmission to definite ruling persons, classes, opinions, churches,\ngovernments, for he feels it a profit to himself to bring truth to\ntheir side.\n\nThe following characteristics of the savant are less common, but\nstill found.--Firstly, downrightness and a feeling for simplicity,\nvery valuable if more than a mere awkwardness and inability to\ndeceive, deception requiring some mother-wit.--(Actually, we may be\non our guard against too obvious cleverness and resource, and doubt\nthe man's sincerity.)--Otherwise this downrightness is generally of\nlittle value, and rarely of any use to knowledge, as it follows\ntradition and speaks the truth only in \"adiaphora\"; it being lazier\nto speak the truth here than ignore it. Everything new means\nsomething to be unlearnt, and your downright man will respect the\nancient dogmas and accuse the new evangelist of failing in the\n_sensus recti_. There was a similar opposition, with probability and\ncustom on its side, to the theory of Copernicus. The professor's\nfrequent hatred of philosophy is principally a hatred of the long\ntrains of reasoning and artificiality of the proofs. Ultimately the\nsavants of every age have a fixed limit; beyond which ingenuity is\nnot allowed, and everything suspected as a conspirator against\nhonesty.\n\nSecondly, a clear vision of near objects, combined with great\nshortsightedness for the distant and universal. The professor's range\nis generally very small, and his eye must be kept close to the\nobject. To pass from a point already considered to another, he has to\nmove his whole optical apparatus. He cuts a picture into small\nsections, like a man using an opera-glass in the theatre, and sees\nnow a head, now a bit of the dress, but nothing as a whole. The\nsingle sections are never combined for him, he only infers their\nconnection, and consequently has no strong general impression. He\njudges a literary work, for example, by certain paragraphs or\nsentences or errors, as he can do nothing more; he will be driven to\nsee in an oil painting nothing but a mass of daubs.\n\nThirdly, a sober conventionality in his likes and dislikes. Thus he\nespecially delights in history because he can put his own motives\ninto the actions of the past. A mole is most comfortable in a\nmole-hill. He is on his guard against all ingenious and extravagant\nhypotheses; but digs up industriously all the commonplace motives of\nthe past, because he feels in sympathy with them. He is generally\nquite incapable of understanding and valuing the rare or the\nuncommon, the great or the real.\n\nFourthly, a lack of feeling, which makes him capable of vivisection.\nHe knows nothing of the suffering that brings knowledge, and does not\nfear to tread where other men shudder. He is cold and may easily\nappear cruel. He is thought courageous, but he is not,--any more than\nthe mule who does not feel giddiness.\n\nFifthly, diffidence, or a low estimate of himself. Though he live in\na miserable alley of the world, he has no sense of sacrifice or\nsurrender; he appears often to know in his inmost heart that he is\nnot a flying but a crawling creature. And this makes him seem even\npathetic.\n\nSixthly, loyalty to his teachers and leaders. From his heart he\nwishes to help them, and knows he can do it best with the truth. He\nhas a grateful disposition, for he has only gained admittance through\nthem to the high hall of science; he would never have entered by his\nown road. Any man to-day who can throw open a new province where his\nlesser disciples can work to some purpose, is famous at once; so\ngreat is the crowd that presses after him. These grateful pupils are\ncertainly a misfortune to their teacher, as they all imitate him; his\nfaults are exaggerated in their small persons, his virtues\ncorrespondingly diminished.\n\nSeventhly, he will follow the usual road of all the professors, where\na feeling for truth springs from a lack of ideas, and the wheel once\nstarted goes on. Such natures become compilers, commentators, makers\nof indices and herbaria; they rummage about one special department\nbecause they have never thought there are others. Their industry has\nsomething of the monstrous stupidity of gravitation; and so they can\noften bring their labours to an end.\n\nEighthly, a dread of ennui. While the true thinker desires nothing\nmore than leisure, the professor fears it, not knowing how it is to\nbe used. Books are his comfort; he listens to everybody's different\nthoughts and keeps himself amused all day. He especially chooses\nbooks with a personal relation to himself, that make him feel some\nemotion of like or dislike; books that have to do with himself or his\nposition, his political, \u00e6sthetic, or even grammatical doctrines; if\nhe have mastered even one branch of knowledge, the means to flap away\nthe flies of ennui will not fail him.\n\nNinthly, the motive of the bread-winner, the \"cry of the empty\nstomach,\" in fact. Truth is used as a direct means of preferment,\nwhen she can be attained; or as a way to the good graces of the\nfountains of honour--and bread. Only, however, in the sense of the\n\"particular truth\": there is a gulf between the profitable truths\nthat many serve, and the unprofitable truths to which only those few\npeople devote themselves whose motto is not _ingenii largitor\nventer_.\n\nTenthly, a reverence for their fellow-professors and a fear of their\ndispleasure--a higher and rarer motive than the last, though not\nuncommon. All the members of the guild are jealously on guard, that\nthe truth which means so much bread and honour and position may\nreally be baptized in the name of its discoverer. The one pays the\nother reverence for the truth he has found, in order to exact the\ntoll again if he should find one himself. The Untruth, the Error is\nloudly exploded, that the workers may not be too many; here and there\nthe real truth will be exploded to let a few bold and stiff-necked\nerrors be on show for a time; there is never a lack of \"moral\nidiosyncrasies,\"--formerly called rascalities.\n\nEleventhly, the \"savant for vanity,\" now rather rare. He will get a\ndepartment for himself somehow, and investigate curiosities,\nespecially if they demand unusual expenditure, travel, research, or\ncommunication with all parts of the world. He is quite satisfied with\nthe honour of being regarded as a curiosity himself, and never dreams\nof earning a living by his erudite studies.\n\nTwelfthly, the \"savant for amusement.\" He loves to look for knots in\nknowledge and to untie them; not too energetically however, lest he\nlose the spirit of the game. Thus he does not penetrate the depths,\nthough he often observes something that the microscopic eyes of the\nbread-and-butter scientist never see.\n\nIf I speak, lastly, of the \"impulse towards justice\" as a further\nmotive of the savant, I may be answered that this noble impulse,\nbeing metaphysical in its nature, is too indistinguishable from the\nrest, and really incomprehensible to mortal mind; and so I leave the\nthirteenth heading with the pious wish that the impulse may be less\nrare in the professor than it seems. For a spark in his soul from the\nfire of justice is sufficient to irradiate and purify it, so that he\ncan rest no more and is driven for ever from the cold or lukewarm\ncondition in which most of his fellows do their daily work.\n\nAll these elements, or a part of them, must be regarded as fused and\npounded together, to form the Servant of Truth. For the sake of an\nabsolutely inhuman thing--mere purposeless, and therefore motiveless,\nknowledge--a mass of very human little motives have been chemically\ncombined, and as the result we have the professor,--so transfigured\nin the light of that pure unearthly object that the mixing and\npounding which went to form him are all forgotten! It is very\ncurious. Yet there are moments when they must be remembered,--when we\nhave to think of the professor's significance to culture. Any one\nwith observation can see that he is in his essence and by his origin\nunproductive, and has a natural hatred of the productive; and thus\nthere is an endless feud between the genius and the savant in idea\nand practice. The latter wishes to kill Nature by analysing and\ncomprehending it, the former to increase it by a new living Nature.\nThe happy age does not need or know the savant; the sick and sluggish\ntime ranks him as its highest and worthiest.\n\nWho were physician enough to know the health or sickness of our time?\nIt is clear that the professor is valued too highly, with evil\nconsequences for the future genius, for whom he has no compassion,\nmerely a cold, contemptuous criticism, a shrug of the shoulders, as\nif at something strange and perverted for which he has neither time\nnor inclination. And so he too knows nothing of the aim of culture.\n\nIn fact, all these considerations go to prove that the aim of culture\nis most unknown precisely where the interest in it seems liveliest.\nThe state may trumpet as it will its services to culture, it merely\nhelps culture in order to help itself, and does not comprehend an aim\nthat stands higher than its own well-being or even existence. The\nbusiness men in their continual demand for education merely wish\nfor--business. When the pioneers of \"good form\" pretend to be the\nreal helpers of culture, imagining that all art, for example, is\nmerely to serve their own needs, they are clearly affirming\nthemselves in affirming culture. Of the savant enough has already\nbeen said. All four are emulously thinking how they can benefit\n_themselves_ with the help of culture, but have no thoughts at all\nwhen their own interests are not engaged. And so they have done\nnothing to improve the conditions for the birth of genius in modern\ntimes; and the opposition to original men has grown so far that no\nSocrates could ever live among us, and certainly could never reach\nthe age of seventy.\n\nI remember saying in the third chapter that our whole modern world\nwas not so stable that one could prophesy an eternal life to its\nconception of culture. It is likely that the next millennium may\nreach two or three new ideas that might well make the hair of our\npresent generation stand on end. The belief in the metaphysical\nsignificance of culture would not be such a horrifying thing, but its\neffects on educational methods might be so.\n\nIt requires a totally new attitude of mind to be able to look away\nfrom the present educational institutions to the strangely different\nones that will be necessary for the second or third generation. At\npresent the labours of higher education produce merely the savant or\nthe official or the business man or the Philistine or, more commonly,\na mixture of all four; and the future institutions will have a harder\ntask;--not in itself harder; as it is really more natural, and so\neasier; and further, could anything be harder than to make a youth\ninto a savant against nature, as now happens?--But the difficulty\nlies in unlearning what we know and setting up a new aim; it will be\nan endless trouble to change the fundamental idea of our present\neducational system, that has its roots in the Middle Ages and regards\nthe medi\u00e6val savant as the ideal type of culture. It is already time\nto put these objects before us; for some generation must begin the\nbattle, of which a later generation will reap the victory. The\nsolitary man who has understood the new fundamental idea of culture\nis at the parting of the ways; on the one he will be welcomed by his\nage, laurels and rewards will be his, powerful parties will uphold\nhim, he will have as many in sympathy behind him as in front, and\nwhen the leader speaks the word of deliverance, it will echo through\nall the ranks. The first duty is to \"fight in line,\" the second to\ntreat as foes all who will not \"fall in.\" On the other way he will\nfind fewer companions; it is steeper and more tortuous. The\ntravellers on the first road laugh at him, as his way is the more\ntroublesome and dangerous; and they try to entice him over. If the\ntwo ways cross, he is ill-treated, cast aside or left alone. What\nsignificance has any particular form of culture for these several\ntravellers? The enormous throng that press to their end on the first\nroad, understand by it the laws and institutions that enable them to\ngo forward in regular fashion and rule out all the solitary and\nobstinate people who look towards higher and remoter objects. To the\nsmall company on the other road it has quite a different office: they\nwish to guard themselves, by means of a strong organisation, from\nbeing swept away by the throng, to prevent their individual members\nfrom fainting on the way or turning in spirit from their great task.\nThese solitary men must finish their work; that is why they should\nall hold together; and those who have their part in the scheme will\ntake thought to prepare themselves with ever-increasing purity of aim\nfor the birth of the genius, and ensure that the time be ripe for\nhim. Many are destined to help on the labour, even among the\nsecond-rate talents, and it is only in submission to such a destiny\nthat they can feel they are living for a duty, and have a meaning and\nan object in their lives. But at present these talents are being\nturned from the road their instinct has chosen by the seductive tones\nof the \"fashionable culture,\" that plays on their selfish side, their\nvanities and weaknesses; and the time-spirit ever whispers in their\nears its flattering counsel:--\"Follow me and go not thither! There\nyou are only servants and tools, over-shadowed by higher natures with\nno scope for your own, drawn by threads, hung with fetters, slaves\nand automatons. With me you may enjoy your true personality, and be\nmasters, your talents may shine with their own light, and yourselves\nstand in the front ranks with an immense following round you; and the\nacclamation of public opinion will rejoice you more than a wandering\nbreath of approval sent down from the cold ethereal heights of\ngenius.\" Even the best men are snared by such allurements, and the\nultimate difference comes not so much from the rarity and power of\ntheir talent, as the influence of a certain heroic disposition at the\nbase of them, and an inner feeling of kinship with genius. For there\nare men who feel it as their own misery when they see the genius in\npainful toil and struggle, in danger of self-destruction, or\nneglected by the short-sighted selfishness of the state, the\nsuperficiality of the business men, and the cold arrogance of the\nprofessors; and I hope there may be some to understand what I mean by\nmy sketch of Schopenhauer's destiny, and to what end Schopenhauer can\nreally educate.\n\n\nVII.\n\nBut setting aside all thoughts of any educational revolution in the\ndistant future;--what provision is required _now_, that our future\nphilosopher may have the best chance of opening his eyes to a life\nlike Schopenhauer's--hard as it is, yet still livable? What, further,\nmust be discovered that may make his influence on his contemporaries\nmore certain? And what obstacles must be removed before his example\ncan have its full effect and the philosopher train another\nphilosopher? Here we descend to be practical.\n\nNature always desires the greatest utility, but does not understand\nhow to find the best and handiest means to her end; that is her great\nsorrow, and the cause of her melancholy. The impulse towards her own\nredemption shows clearly her wish to give men a significant existence\nby the generation of the philosopher and the artist: but how unclear\nand weak is the effect she generally obtains with her artists and\nphilosophers, and how seldom is there any effect at all! She is\nespecially perplexed in her efforts to make the philosopher useful;\nher methods are casual and tentative, her failures innumerable; most\nof her philosophers never touch the common good of mankind at all.\nHer actions seem those of a spendthrift; but the cause lies in no\nprodigal luxury, but in her inexperience. Were she human, she would\nprobably never cease to be dissatisfied with herself and her\nbungling. Nature shoots the philosopher at mankind like an arrow; she\ndoes not aim, but hopes that the arrow will stick somewhere. She\nmakes countless mistakes that give her pain. She is as extravagant in\nthe sphere of culture as in her planting and sowing. She fulfils her\nends in a large and clumsy fashion, using up far too much of her\nstrength. The artist has the same relation to the connoisseurs and\nlovers of his art as a piece of heavy artillery to a flock of\nsparrows. It is a fool's part to use a great avalanche to sweep away\na little snow, to kill a man in order to strike the fly on his nose.\nThe artist and the philosopher are witnesses against Nature's\nadaptation of her means, however well they may show the wisdom of her\nends. They only reach a few and should reach all--and even these few\nare not struck with the strength they used when they shot. It is sad\nto have to value art so differently as cause and effect; how huge in\nits inception, how faint the echo afterwards! The artist does his\nwork as Nature bids him, for the benefit of other men--no doubt of\nit; but he knows that none of those men will understand and love his\nwork as he understands and loves it himself. That lonely height of\nlove and understanding is necessary, by Nature's clumsy law, to\nproduce a lower type; the great and noble are used as the means to\nthe small and ignoble. Nature is a bad manager; her expenses are far\ngreater than her profits: for all her riches she must one day go\nbankrupt. She would have acted more reasonably to make the rule of\nher household--small expense and hundredfold profit; if there had\nbeen, for example, only a few artists with moderate powers, but an\nimmense number of hearers to appreciate them, stronger and more\npowerful characters than the artists themselves; then the effect of\nthe art-work, in comparison with the cause, might be a hundred-tongued\necho. One might at least expect cause and effect to be of equal power;\nbut Nature lags infinitely behind this consummation. An artist, and\nespecially a philosopher, seems often to have dropped by chance into his\nage, as a wandering hermit or straggler cut off from the main body.\nThink how utterly great Schopenhauer is, and what a small and absurd\neffect he has had! An honest man can feel no greater shame at the\npresent time than at the thought of the casual treatment Schopenhauer\nhas received and the evil powers that have up to now killed his effect\namong men. First there was the want of readers,--to the eternal shame of\nour cultivated age;--then the inadequacy of his first public adherents,\nas soon as he had any; further, I think, the crassness of the modern man\ntowards books, which he will no longer take seriously. As an outcome of\nmany attempts to adapt Schopenhauer to this enervated age, the new\ndanger has gradually arisen of regarding him as an odd kind of pungent\nherb, of taking him in grains, as a sort of metaphysical pepper. In this\nway he has gradually become famous, and I should think more have heard\nhis name than Hegel's; and, for all that, he is still a solitary being,\nwho has failed of his effect.--Though the honour of causing the failure\nbelongs least of all to the barking of his literary antagonists; first\nbecause there are few men with the patience to read them, and secondly,\nbecause any one who does, is sent immediately to Schopenhauer himself;\nfor who will let a donkey-driver prevent him from mounting a fine horse,\nhowever much he praise his donkey?\n\nWhoever has recognised Nature's unreason in our time, will have to\nconsider some means to help her; his task will be to bring the free\nspirits and the sufferers from this age to know Schopenhauer; and\nmake them tributaries to the flood that is to overbear all the clumsy\nuses to which Nature even now is accustomed to put her philosophers.\nSuch men will see that the identical obstacles hinder the effect of a\ngreat philosophy and the production of the great philosopher; and so\nwill direct their aims to prepare the regeneration of Schopenhauer,\nwhich means that of the philosophical genius. The real opposition to\nthe further spread of his doctrine in the past, and the regeneration\nof the philosopher in the future, is the perversity of human nature\nas it is; and all the great men that are to be must spend infinite\npains in freeing themselves from it. The world they enter is\nplastered over with pretence,--including not merely religious dogmas,\nbut such juggling conceptions as \"progress,\" \"universal education,\"\n\"nationalism,\" \"the modern state\"; practically all our general terms\nhave an artificial veneer over them that will bring a clearer-sighted\nposterity to reproach our age bitterly for its warped and stunted\ngrowth, however loudly we may boast of our \"health.\" The beauty of\nthe antique vases, says Schopenhauer, lies in the simplicity with\nwhich they express their meaning and object; it is so with all the\nancient implements; if Nature produced amphor\u00e6, lamps, tables,\nchairs, helmets, shields, breastplates and the like, they would\nresemble these. And, as a corollary, whoever considers how we all\nmanage our art, politics, religion and education--to say nothing of\nour vases!--will find in them a barbaric exaggeration and\narbitrariness of expression. Nothing is more unfavourable to\nthe rise of genius than such monstrosities. They are unseen and\nundiscoverable, the leaden weights on his hand when he will set it to\nthe plough; the weights are only shaken off with violence, and his\nhighest work must to an extent always bear the mark of it.\n\nIn considering the conditions that, at best, keep the born\nphilosopher from being oppressed by the perversity of the age, I am\nsurprised to find they are partly those in which Schopenhauer himself\ngrew up. True, there was no lack of opposing influences; the evil\ntime drew perilously near him in the person of a vain and pretentious\nmother. But the proud republican character of his father rescued him\nfrom her and gave him the first quality of a philosopher--a rude and\nstrong virility. His father was neither an official nor a savant; he\ntravelled much abroad with his son,--a great help to one who must\nknow men rather than books, and worship truth before the state. In\ntime he got accustomed to national peculiarities: he made England,\nFrance and Italy equally his home, and felt no little sympathy with\nthe Spanish character. On the whole, he did not think it an honour to\nbe born in Germany, and I am not sure that the new political\nconditions would have made him change his mind. He held quite openly\nthe opinion that the state's one object was to give protection at\nhome and abroad, and even protection against its \"protectors,\" and to\nattribute any other object to it was to endanger its true end. And\nso, to the consternation of all the so-called liberals, he left his\nproperty to the survivors of the Prussian soldiers who fell in 1848\nin the fight for order. To understand the state and its duties in\nthis single sense may seem more and more henceforth the sign of\nintellectual superiority; for the man with the _furor philosophicus_\nin him will no longer have time for the _furor politicus_, and will\nwisely keep from reading the newspapers or serving a party; though he\nwill not hesitate a moment to take his place in the ranks if his\ncountry be in real need. All states are badly managed, when other men\nthan politicians busy themselves with politics; and they deserve to\nbe ruined by their political amateurs.\n\nSchopenhauer had another great advantage--that he had never been\neducated for a professor, but worked for some time (though against\nhis will) as a merchant's clerk, and through all his early years\nbreathed the freer air of a great commercial house. A savant can\nnever become a philosopher: Kant himself could not, but remained in a\nchrysalis stage to the end, in spite of the innate force of his\ngenius. Any one who thinks I do Kant wrong in saying this does not\nknow what a philosopher is--not only a great thinker, but also a real\nman; and how could a real man have sprung from a savant? He who lets\nconceptions, opinions, events, books come between himself and things,\nand is born for history (in the widest sense), will never see\nanything at once, and never be himself a thing to be \"seen at once\";\nthough both these powers should be in the philosopher, as he must\ntake most of his doctrine from himself and be himself the copy and\ncompendium of the whole world. If a man look at himself through a\nveil of other people's opinions, no wonder he sees nothing but--those\nopinions. And it is thus that the professors see and live. But\nSchopenhauer had the rare happiness of seeing the genius not only in\nhimself, but also outside himself--in Goethe; and this double\nreflection taught him everything about the aims and culture of the\nlearned. He knew by this experience how the free strong man, to whom\nall artistic culture was looking, must come to be born; and could he,\nafter this vision, have much desire to busy himself with the\nso-called \"art,\" in the learned, hypocritical manner of the moderns?\nHe had seen something higher than that--an awful unearthly\njudgment-scene in which all life, even the highest and completest,\nwas weighed and found too light; he had beheld the saint as the judge\nof existence. We cannot tell how early Schopenhauer reached this view\nof life, and came to hold it with such intensity as to make all his\nwritings an attempt to mirror it; we know that the youth had this\ngreat vision, and can well believe it of the child. Everything that\nhe gained later from life and books, from all the realms of\nknowledge, was only a means of colour and expression to him; the\nKantian philosophy itself was to him an extraordinary rhetorical\ninstrument for making the utterance of his vision, as he thought,\nclearer; the Buddhist and Christian mythologies occasionally served\nthe same end. He had one task and a thousand means to execute it; one\nmeaning, and innumerable hieroglyphs to express it.\n\nIt was one of the high conditions of his existence that he really\ncould live for such a task--according to his motto _vitam impendere\nvero_--and none of life's material needs could shake his resolution;\nand we know the splendid return he made his father for this. The\ncontemplative man in Germany usually pursues his scientific studies\nto the detriment of his sincerity, as a \"considerate fool,\" in search\nof place and honour, circumspect and obsequious, and fawning on his\ninfluential superiors. Nothing offended the savants more than\nSchopenhauer's unlikeness to them.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nThese are a few of the conditions under which the philosophical\ngenius can at least come to light in our time, in spite of all\nthwarting influences;--a virility of character, an early knowledge of\nmankind, an absence of learned education and narrow patriotism, of\ncompulsion to earn his livelihood or depend on the state,--freedom in\nfact, and again freedom; the same marvellous and dangerous element in\nwhich the Greek philosophers grew up. The man who will reproach him,\nas Niebuhr did Plato, with being a bad citizen, may do so, and be\nhimself a good one; so he and Plato will be right together! Another\nmay call this great freedom presumption; he is also right, as he\ncould not himself use the freedom properly if he desired it, and\nwould certainly presume too far with it. This freedom is really a\ngrave burden of guilt; and can only be expiated by great actions.\nEvery ordinary son of earth has the right of looking askance on such\nendowments; and may Providence keep him from being so endowed--\nburdened, that is, with such terrible duties! His freedom and his\nloneliness would be his ruin, and ennui would turn him into a fool,\nand a mischievous fool at that.\n\nA father may possibly learn something from this that he may use for\nhis son's private education, though one must not expect fathers to\nhave only philosophers for their sons. It is possible that they will\nalways oppose their sons becoming philosophers, and call it mere\nperversity; Socrates was sacrificed to the fathers' anger, for\n\"corrupting the youth,\" and Plato even thought a new ideal state\nnecessary to prevent the philosophers' growth from being dependent on\nthe fathers' folly. It looks at present as though Plato had really\naccomplished something; for the modern state counts the encouragement\nof philosophy as one of its duties and tries to secure for a number\nof men at a time the sort of freedom that conditions the philosopher.\nBut, historically, Plato has been very unlucky; as soon as a\nstructure has risen corresponding actually to his proposals, it has\nalways turned, on a closer view, into a goblin-child, a monstrous\nchangeling; compare the ecclesiastical state of the Middle Ages with\nthe government of the \"God-born king\" of which Plato dreamed! The\nmodern state is furthest removed from the idea of the Philosopher-king\n(Thank Heaven for that! the Christian will say); but we must\nthink whether it takes that very \"encouragement of philosophy\" in a\nPlatonic sense, I mean as seriously and honestly as if its highest\nobject were to produce more Platos. If the philosopher seem, as\nusual, an accident of his time, does the state make it its conscious\nbusiness to turn the accidental into the necessary and help Nature\nhere also?\n\nExperience teaches us a better way--or a worse: it says that nothing\nso stands in the way of the birth and growth of Nature's philosopher\nas the bad philosophers made \"by order.\" A poor obstacle, isn't it?\nand the same that Schopenhauer pointed out in his famous essay on\nUniversity philosophy. I return to this point, as men must be forced\nto take it seriously, to be driven to activity by it; and I think all\nwriting is useless that does not contain such a stimulus to activity.\nAnd anyhow it is a good thing to apply Schopenhauer's eternal\ntheories once more to our own contemporaries, as some kindly soul\nmight think that everything has changed for the better in Germany\nsince his fierce diatribes. Unfortunately his work is incomplete on\nthis side as well, unimportant as the side may be.\n\nThe \"freedom\" that the state, as I said, bestows on certain men for\nthe sake of philosophy is, properly speaking, no freedom at all, but\nan office that maintains its holder. The \"encouragement of\nphilosophy\" means that there are to-day a number of men whom the\nstate enables to make their living out of philosophy; whereas the old\nsages of Greece were not paid by the state, but at best were\npresented, as Zeno was, with a golden crown and a monument in the\nCeramicus. I cannot say generally whether truth is served by showing\nthe way to live by her, since everything depends on the character of\nthe individual who shows the way. I can imagine a degree of pride in\na man saying to his fellow-men, \"take care of me, as I have something\nbetter to do--namely to take care of you.\" We should not be angry at\nsuch a heightened mode of expression in Plato and Schopenhauer; and\nso they might properly have been University philosophers,--as Plato,\nfor example, was a court philosopher for a while without lowering the\ndignity of philosophy. But in Kant we have the usual submissive\nprofessor, without any nobility in his relations with the state; and\nthus he could not justify the University philosophy when it was once\nassailed. If there be natures like Schopenhauer's and Plato's, which\ncan justify it, I fear they will never have the chance, as the state\nwould never venture to give such men these positions, for the simple\nreason that every state fears them, and will only favour philosophers\nit does not fear. The state obviously has a special fear of\nphilosophy, and will try to attract more philosophers, to create the\nimpression that it has philosophy on its side,--because it has those\nmen on its side who have the title without the power. But if there\nshould come one who really proposes to cut everything to the quick,\nthe state included, with the knife of truth, the state, that affirms\nits own existence above all, is justified in banishing him as an\nenemy, just as it bans a religion that exalts itself to be its judge.\nThe man who consents to be a state philosopher, must also consent to\nbe regarded as renouncing the search for truth in all its secret\nretreats. At any rate, so long as he enjoys his position, he must\nrecognise something higher than truth--the state. And not only the\nstate, but everything required by it for existence--a definite form\nof religion, a social system, a standing army; a _noli me tangere_ is\nwritten above all these things. Can a University philosopher ever\nkeep clearly before him the whole round of these duties and\nlimitations? I do not know. The man who has done so and remains a\nstate-official, is a false friend to truth; if he has not,--I think\nhe is no friend to truth either.\n\nBut general considerations like these are always the weakest in their\ninfluence on mankind. Most people will find it enough to shrug their\nshoulders and say, \"As if anything great and pure has ever been able\nto maintain itself on this earth without some concession to human\nvulgarity! Would you rather the state persecuted philosophers than\npaid them for official services?\" Without answering this last\nquestion, I will merely say that these \"concessions\" of philosophy to\nthe state go rather far at present. In the first place, the state\nchooses its own philosophical servants, as many as its institutions\nrequire; it therefore pretends to be able to distinguish the good and\nthe bad philosophers, and even assumes there must be a sufficient\nsupply of good ones to fill all the chairs. The state is the\nauthority not only for their goodness but their numbers. Secondly, it\nconfines those it has chosen to a definite place and a definite\nactivity among particular men; they must instruct every undergraduate\nwho wants instruction, daily, at stated hours. The question is\nwhether a philosopher can bind himself, with a good conscience, to\nhave something to teach every day, to any one who wishes to listen.\nMust he not appear to know more than he does, and speak, before an\nunknown audience, of things that he could mention without risk only\nto his most intimate friends? And above all, does he not surrender\nthe precious freedom of following his genius when and wherever it\ncall him, by the mere fact of being bound to think at stated times on\na fixed subject? And before young men, too! Is not such thinking in\nits nature emasculate? And suppose he felt some day that he had no\nideas just then--and yet must be in his place and appear to be\nthinking! What then?\n\n\"But,\" one will say, \"he is not a thinker but mainly a depository of\nthought, a man of great learning in all previous philosophies. Of\nthese he can always say something that his scholars do not know.\"\nThis is actually the third, and the most dangerous, concession made\nby philosophy to the state, when it is compelled to appear in the\nform of erudition, as the knowledge (more specifically) of the\nhistory of philosophy. The genius looks purely and lovingly on\nexistence, like a poet, and cannot dive too deep into it;--and\nnothing is more abhorrent to him than to burrow among the innumerable\nstrange and wrong-headed opinions. The learned history of the past\nwas never a true philosopher's business, in India or Greece; and a\nprofessor of philosophy who busies himself with such matters must be,\nat best, content to hear it said of him, \"He is an able scholar,\nantiquary, philologist, historian,\"--but never, \"He is a\nphilosopher.\" I said, \"at best\": for a scholar feels that most of the\nlearned works written by University philosophers are badly done,\nwithout any real scientific power, and generally are dreadfully\ntedious. Who will blow aside, for example, the Lethean vapour with\nwhich the history of Greek philosophy has been enveloped by the dull\nthough not very scientific works of Ritter, Brandis and Zeller? I, at\nany rate, would rather read Diogenes Laertius than Zeller, because at\nleast the spirit of the old philosophers lives in Diogenes, but\nneither that nor any other spirit in Zeller. And, after all, what\ndoes the history of philosophy matter to our young men? Are they to\nbe discouraged by the welter of opinions from having any of their\nown; or taught to join the chorus that approves the vastness of our\nprogress? Are they to learn to hate or perhaps despise philosophy?\nOne might expect the last, knowing the torture the students endure\nfor their philosophical examinations, in having to get into their\nunfortunate heads the maddest efforts of the human mind as well as\nthe greatest and profoundest. The only method of criticising a\nphilosophy that is possible and proves anything at all--namely to see\nwhether one can live by it--has never been taught at the\nuniversities; only the criticism of words, and again words, is taught\nthere. Imagine a young head, without much experience of life, being\nstuffed with fifty systems (in the form of words) and fifty\ncriticisms of them, all mixed up together,--what an overgrown\nwilderness he will come to be, what contempt he will feel for a\nphilosophical education! It is, of course, not an education in\nphilosophy at all, but in the art of passing a philosophical\nexamination: the usual result being the pious ejaculation of the\nwearied examinee, \"Thank God I am no philosopher, but a Christian and\na good citizen!\"\n\nWhat if this cry were the ultimate object of the state, and the\n\"education\" or leading to philosophy were merely a leading _from_\nphilosophy? We may well ask.--But if so, there is one thing to\nfear--that the youth may some day find out to what end philosophy is\nthus mis-handled. \"Is the highest thing of all, the production of the\nphilosophical genius, nothing but a pretext, and the main object\nperhaps to hinder his production? And is Reason turned to\nUnreason?\"--Then woe to the whole machinery of political and\nprofessorial trickery!\n\nWill it soon become notorious? I do not know; but anyhow university\nphilosophy has fallen into a general state of doubting and despair.\nThe cause lies partly in the feebleness of those who hold the chairs\nat present: and if Schopenhauer had to write his treatise on\nuniversity philosophy to-day, he would find the club no longer\nnecessary, but could conquer with a bulrush. They are the heirs and\nsuccessors of those slip-shod thinkers whose crazy heads Schopenhauer\nstruck at: their childish natures and dwarfish frames remind one of\nthe Indian proverb: \"men are born according to their deeds, deaf,\ndumb, misshapen.\" Those fathers deserved such sons, \"according to\ntheir deeds,\" as the proverb says. Hence the students will, no doubt,\nsoon get on without the philosophy taught at their university, just\nas those who are not university men manage to do without it already.\nThis can be tested from one's own experience: in my student-days, for\nexample, I found the university philosophers very ordinary men\nindeed, who had collected together a few conclusions from the other\nsciences, and in their leisure hours read the newspapers and went to\nconcerts; they were treated by their academic colleagues with\npolitely veiled contempt. They had the reputation of knowing very\nlittle, but of never being at a loss for obscure expressions to\nconceal their ignorance. They had a preference for those obscure\nregions where a man could not walk long with clear vision. One said\nof the natural sciences,--\"Not one of them can fully explain to me\nthe origin of matter; then what do I care about them all?\"--Another\nsaid of history, \"It tells nothing new to the man with ideas\": in\nfact, they always found reasons for its being more philosophical to\nknow nothing than to learn anything. If they let themselves be drawn\nto learn, a secret instinct made them fly from the actual sciences\nand found a dim kingdom amid their gaps and uncertainties. They \"led\nthe way\" in the sciences in the sense that the quarry \"leads the way\"\nfor the hunters who are behind him. Recently they have amused\nthemselves with asserting they are merely the watchers on the\nfrontier of the sciences. The Kantian doctrine is of use to them\nhere, and they industriously build up an empty scepticism on it, of\nwhich in a short time nobody will take any more notice. Here and\nthere one will rise to a little metaphysic of his own, with the\ngeneral accompaniment of headaches and giddiness and bleeding at the\nnose. After the usual ill-success of their voyages into the clouds\nand the mist, some hard-headed young student of the real sciences\nwill pluck them down by the skirts, and their faces will assume the\nexpression now habitual to them, of offended dignity at being found\nout. They have lost their happy confidence, and not one of them will\nventure a step further for the sake of his philosophy. Some used to\nbelieve they could find out new religions or reinstate old ones by\ntheir systems. They have given up such pretensions now, and have\nbecome mostly mild, muddled folk, with no Lucretian boldness, but\nmerely some spiteful complaints of the \"dead weight that lies on the\nintellects of mankind\"! No one can even learn logic from them now,\nand their obvious knowledge of their own powers has made them\ndiscontinue the dialectical disputations common in the old days.\nThere is much more care and modesty, logic and inventiveness, in a\nword, more philosophical method in the work of the special sciences\nthan in the so-called \"philosophy,\" and every one will agree with the\ntemperate words of Bagehot[2] on the present system builders:\n\"Unproved abstract principles without number have been eagerly caught\nup by sanguine men, and then carefully spun out into books and\ntheories, which were to explain the whole world. But the world goes\nclear against these abstractions, and it must do so, as they require\nit to go in antagonistic directions. The mass of a system attracts\nthe young and impresses the unwary; but cultivated people are very\ndubious about it. They are ready to receive hints and suggestions,\nand the smallest real truth is ever welcome. But a large book of\ndeductive philosophy is much to be suspected. Who is not almost sure\nbeforehand that the premises will contain a strange mixture of truth\nand error, and therefore that it will not be worth while to spend\nlife in reasoning over their consequences?\" The philosophers,\nespecially in Germany, used to sink into such a state of abstraction\nthat they were in continual danger of running their heads against a\nbeam; but there is a whole herd of Laputan flappers about them to\ngive them in time a gentle stroke on their eyes or anywhere else.\nSometimes the blows are too hard; and then these scorners of earth\nforget themselves and strike back, but the victim always escapes\nthem. \"Fool, you do not see the beam,\" says the flapper; and often\nthe philosopher does see the beam, and calms down. These flappers are\nthe natural sciences and history; little by little they have so\noverawed the German dream-craft which has long taken the place of\nphilosophy, that the dreamer would be only too glad to give up the\nattempt to run alone: but when they unexpectedly fall into the\nothers' arms, or try to put leading-strings on them that they may be\nled themselves, those others flap as terribly as they can, as if they\nwould say, \"This is all that is wanting,--that a philosophaster like\nthis should lay his impure hands on us, the natural sciences and\nhistory! Away with him!\" Then they start back, knowing not where to\nturn or to ask the way. They wanted to have a little physical\nknowledge at their back, possibly in the form of empirical psychology\n(like the Herbartians), or perhaps a little history; and then they\ncould at least make a public show of behaving scientifically,\nalthough in their hearts they may wish all philosophy and all science\nat the devil.\n\n    [2] _Physics and Politics_, chap. v. Nietzsche has altered the\n    order of the sentences without any apparent benefit to his own\n    argument, and to the disadvantage of Bagehot's. I have restored\n    the original order.--TR.\n\nBut granted that this herd of bad philosophers is ridiculous--and who\nwill deny it?--how far are they also harmful? They are harmful just\nbecause they make philosophy ridiculous. As long as this\nimitation-thinking continues to be recognised by the state, the\nlasting effect of a true philosophy will be destroyed, or at any rate\ncircumscribed; nothing does this so well as the curse of ridicule\nthat the representatives of the great cause have drawn on them, for\nit attacks that cause itself. And so I think it will encourage\nculture to deprive philosophy of its political and academic standing,\nand relieve state and university of the task, impossible for them, of\ndeciding between true and false philosophy. Let the philosophers run\nwild, forbid them any thoughts of office or civic position, hold them\nout no more bribes,--nay, rather persecute them and treat them\nill,--you will see a wonderful result. They will flee in terror and\nseek a roof where they can, these poor phantasms; one will become a\nparson, another a schoolmaster, another will creep into an\neditorship, another write school-books for young ladies' colleges,\nthe wisest of them will plough the fields, the vainest go to court.\nEverything will be left suddenly empty, the birds flown: for it is\neasy to get rid of bad philosophers,--one only has to cease paying\nthem. And that is a better plan than the open patronage of any\nphilosophy, whatever it be, for state reasons.\n\nThe state has never any concern with truth, but only with the truth\nuseful to it, or rather, with anything that is useful to it, be it\ntruth, half-truth, or error. A coalition between state and philosophy\nhas only meaning when the latter can promise to be unconditionally\nuseful to the state, to put its well-being higher than truth. It\nwould certainly be a noble thing for the state to have truth as a\npaid servant; but it knows well enough that it is the essence of\ntruth to be paid nothing and serve nothing. So the state's servant\nturns out to be merely \"false truth,\" a masked actor who cannot\nperform the office required from the real truth--the affirmation of\nthe state's worth and sanctity. When a medi\u00e6val prince wished to be\ncrowned by the Pope, but could not get him to consent, he appointed\nan antipope to do the business for him. This may serve up to a\ncertain point; but not when the modern state appoints an\n\"anti-philosophy\" to legitimise it; for it has true philosophy\nagainst it just as much as before, or even more so. I believe in all\nseriousness that it is to the state's advantage to have nothing\nfurther to do with philosophy, to demand nothing from it, and let it\ngo its own way as much as possible. Without this indifferent\nattitude, philosophy may become dangerous and oppressive, and will\nhave to be persecuted.--The only interest the state can have in the\nuniversity lies in the training of obedient and useful citizens; and\nit should hesitate to put this obedience and usefulness in doubt by\ndemanding an examination in philosophy from the young men. To make a\nbogey of philosophy may be an excellent way to frighten the idle and\nincompetent from its study; but this advantage is not enough to\ncounterbalance the danger that this kind of compulsion may arouse\nfrom the side of the more reckless and turbulent spirits. They learn\nto know about forbidden books, begin to criticise their teachers, and\nfinally come to understand the object of university philosophy and\nits examinations; not to speak of the doubts that may be fostered in\nthe minds of young theologians, as a consequence of which they are\nbeginning to be extinct in Germany, like the ibexes in the Tyrol.\n\nI know the objections that the state could bring against all this, as\nlong as the lovely Hegel-corn was yellowing in all the fields; but\nnow that hail has destroyed the crop and all men's hopes of it, now\nthat nothing has been fulfilled and all the barns are empty,--there\nare no more objections to be made, but rather rejections of\nphilosophy itself. The state has now the power of rejection; in\nHegel's time it only wished to have it--and that makes a great\ndifference. The state needs no more the sanction of philosophy, and\nphilosophy has thus become superfluous to it. It will find advantage\nin ceasing to maintain its professors, or (as I think will soon\nhappen) in merely pretending to maintain them; but it is of still\ngreater importance that the university should see the benefit of this\nas well. At least I believe the real sciences must see that their\ninterest lies in freeing themselves from all contact with sham\nscience. And further, the reputation of the universities hangs too\nmuch in the balance for them not to welcome a severance from methods\nthat are thought little of even in academic circles. The outer world\nhas good reason for its widespread contempt of universities; they are\nreproached with being cowardly, the small fearing the great, and the\ngreat fearing public opinion; it is said that they do not lead the\nhigher thought of the age but hobble slowly behind it, and cleave no\nlonger to the fundamental ideas of the recognised sciences. Grammar,\nfor example, is studied more diligently than ever without any one\nseeing the necessity of a rigorous training in speech and writing.\nThe gates of Indian antiquity are being opened, and the scholars have\nno more idea of the most imperishable works of the Indians--their\nphilosophies--than a beast has of playing the harp; though\nSchopenhauer thinks that the acquaintance with Indian philosophy is\none of the greatest advantages possessed by our century. Classical\nantiquity is the favourite playground nowadays, and its effect is no\nlonger classical and formative; as is shown by the students, who are\ncertainly no models for imitation. Where is now the spirit of\nFriedrich August Wolf to be found, of whom Franz Passow could say\nthat he seemed a loyal and humanistic spirit with force enough to set\nhalf the world aflame? Instead of that a journalistic spirit is\narising in the university, often under the name of philosophy; the\nsmooth delivery--the very cosmetics of speech--with Faust and Nathan\nthe Wise for ever on the lips, the accent and the outlook of our\nworst literary magazines and, more recently, much chatter about our\nholy German music, and the demand for lectures on Schiller and\nGoethe,--all this is a sign that the university spirit is beginning\nto be confused with the Spirit of the Age. Thus the establishment of\na higher tribunal, outside the universities, to protect and criticise\nthem with regard to culture, would seem a most valuable thing, and as\nsoon as philosophy can sever itself from the universities and be\npurified from every unworthy motive or hypocrisy, it will be able to\nbecome such a tribunal. It will do its work without state help in\nmoney or honours, free from the spirit of the age as well as from any\nfear of it; being in fact the judge, as Schopenhauer was, of the\nso-called culture surrounding it. And in this way the philosopher can\nalso be useful to the university, by refusing to be a part of it, but\ncriticising it from afar. Distance will lend dignity.\n\nBut, after all, what does the life of a state or the progress of\nuniversities matter in comparison with the life of philosophy on\nearth! For, to say quite frankly what I mean, it is infinitely more\nimportant that a philosopher should arise on the earth than that a\nstate or a university should continue. The dignity of philosophy may\nrise in proportion as the submission to public opinion and the danger\nto liberty increase; it was at its highest during the convulsions\nmarking the fall of the Roman Republic, and in the time of the\nEmpire, when the names of both philosophy and history became _ingrata\nprincipibus nomina_. Brutus shows its dignity better than Plato; his\nwas a time when ethics cease to have commonplaces. Philosophy is not\nmuch regarded now, and we may well ask why no great soldier or\nstatesman has taken it up; and the answer is that a thin phantom has\nmet him under the name of philosophy, the cautious wisdom of the\nlearned professor; and philosophy has soon come to seem ridiculous to\nhim. It ought to have seemed terrible; and men who are called to\nauthority should know the heroic power that has its source there. An\nAmerican may tell them what a centre of mighty forces a great thinker\ncan prove on this earth. \"Beware when the great God lets loose a\nthinker on this planet,\" says Emerson.[3] \"Then all things are at\nrisk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city,\nand no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is not a\npiece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there is not\nany literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame,\nthat may not be revised and condemned.... The things which are dear\nto men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have emerged\non their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of things\nas a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would instantly\nrevolutionise the entire system of human pursuits.\" If such thinkers\nare dangerous, it is clear why our university thinkers are not\ndangerous; for their thoughts bloom as peacefully in the shade of\ntradition \"as ever tree bore its apples.\" They do not frighten; they\ncarry away no gates of Gaza; and to all their little contemplations\none can make the answer of Diogenes when a certain philosopher was\npraised: \"What great result has he to show, who has so long practised\nphilosophy and yet has _hurt_ nobody?\" Yes, the university philosophy\nshould have on its monument, \"It has hurt nobody.\" But this is rather\nthe praise one gives to an old woman than to a goddess of truth; and\nit is not surprising that those who know the goddess only as an old\nwoman are the less men for that, and are naturally neglected by the\nreal men of power.\n\n    [3] Essay on \"Circles.\"\n\nIf this be the case in our time, the dignity of philosophy is trodden\nin the mire; and she seems herself to have become ridiculous or\ninsignificant. All her true friends are bound to bear witness against\nthis transformation, at least to show that it is merely her false\nservants in philosopher's clothing who are so. Or better, they must\nprove by their own deed that the love of truth has itself awe and\npower.\n\nSchopenhauer proved this and will continue to prove it, more and\nmore.","title":"Thoughts Out of Season, Part II","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":55098}